(JollofNews) – When we pray, we must do so expecting that God will answer, and we must open our hearts and be willing to accept the outcome, without preconceived notions.
The Lord is quite efficient. He works things together for the good of all who love Him. He does not expose the beam in our brothers and sisters eye without showing us the beam in our own. The illness is diagnosed – it is brought out into the sunlight – and only then can the healing begin.
Truth and reconciliation should be accompanied by justice, otherwise it will not last. While we all hope for peace it shouldn’t be peace at any cost but peace based on principle, on justice and truth.
Reconciliation can’t be a superficial lip service process. It must fundamentally be inclusive in issues and in stakeholders. The truth must come out and we share why the hate/bitterness and come up with collective peaceful means to find a common ground for real reconciliation and reconstruction of the nation. Those in power and the old guards must also be ready to give up a lot of their privileges or else we all face the wrath of the Gambian people.
When I think about Truth and Reconciliation Commissions, the first examples that pop into my head are Rwanda, South Africa, and Cambodia; developing countries that have been plagued by conflict and need to find a way to air their grievances and start to move the country forward.
Truth and Reconciliation Commissions are often viewed as an alternative to violence. They are a mechanism by which grievances can be aired and perpetrators of crime can take responsibility for their actions through the means of engaging in conversation. It is the idea that through talking with one another we can create a space in which we can begin to move past these grievances and begin to move forward.
Justice can’t be served unless truth is revealed. I know some of the dynamics are different, but there are also many similarities between what has happened in The Gambia, Rwanda and in South Africa. Gross human rights violation, injustice and denial of human dignity.
After the change came in South Africa and Nelson Mandela became president, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission was set up by Archbishop Desmond Tutu in South Africa, and even though it may have had some flaws, I believed it helped a nation “bleed” and helped overt a bloody civil war that could have destroyed South Africa and could have killed tens of thousands.
The wise statesman, Nelson Mandela, as the father of a new South Africa encouraged Tutu to do this. These incredible leaders helped save the nation from horrible destruction in the 1990’s. Victims and families of deceased victims faced their oppressors in very painful meetings, and with the promise of immunity, the oppressors told the truth of the crimes they had committed or conspired to commit.
The nation had to have a time to bleed before it could heal. South Africa still has many problems to overcome today, but I doubt if any person of color would want to go back to those segregationist apartheid days of white oppressors brutally ruling them.
A tremendous opportunity to accept the darkness of our collective history and to proceed, without delay, with reconciliation and rebuilding our relationships, reconcile our difference, heal the nation, then move forward. Let’s not let it slip away. We can have a fair country.
By Alagi Yorro Jallow
The author is founder and former managing editor of The Independent, the Gambia’s only private newspaper before it was banned by the government in 2005. He was a Reagan-Fascell Democracy Fellow at the National Endowment for Democracy, a 2007 Nieman fellow and is the author of Delayed Democracy: How Press Freedom Collapsed in Gambia published in 2013.
Barrow like Trump have a lot of responsibility; Too much maybe ???
Jollof News entertains many diverse opinions; The one’s on show today highlights the concerns from Jola’s and or Ahmadi’s who feel marginalised.
We pray for understanding and constructive dialogue.
This piece from Alagi Yorro Jallow is a giant step in the right direction.
I think the line and direction is the way forward. But I think the amicable reconciliation sougth by some sceptics of Barrow and UDP, will not be achieved. Jammeh’s leftovers and Kandeh sympathisers do wish a quick “move on” so that the atrocities committed would not be rigorously investigated and documented. And culprits punished accordingly. Such a correction would not bring peace. Justice must be served and seen to be served. That is why the dissemination of the court room protocol to the masses is correct. In that right Sarja Barrow (FM) radio is doing a good job. Need to be encouraged not discouraged.
EQUAL PROTECTION AND DUE PROCESS ARE THE FULCRUM ON WHICH SOCIETIES MITIGATE THEIR FAILURE:
This is what Fela Ransom Kuti, the famous Nigerian Musician once observed so eloquently when he said, “Driver don have accident, but Apprentice get Arrested and Punished”. The Jammeh brothers are presumed to have the permission of their brother, former President Yaya Jammeh to sell the sold cows. Under Property law, there is what is called Residuary Clause in Terms of WILLS. If former President Yaya Jammeh has a WILL and there is all reason to believe that he would, such a Clause would Immunize the Jammeh brothers and all other Gambians in similar situations from any Molestation by Law Enforcement Officials including the Minister of Interior and the Minister of Justice. On Condition that the Nation State Operates Within the Confines of Equal Protection and Due Process Under the Law. The Residuary Clause in a WIIL, “Conveys to One or More Beneficiaries, referred to as the Residuary Beneficiaries everything in a Testator’s Estates not Designated to a Specific Beneficiary…” In this scenario, there is no legal Means of Freezing former President Yaya Jammeh’s Kanilai and other Properties unless a Court of law can ascertain that the Property Owner and the Beneficiaries/Recipient Conspired to Unlawfully obtain and secure SAID Property or Properties. There has to be an Eastablishment of “Intent” especially with reference to the Beneficiaries/Recipients. These are Legalese fine points, and that is the point. Subjective Personal feelings, Prejudice, and a Dislike of an Individual or Group not withstanding, if it is Wrong, it is Not Right, if is Ilegal, it is Unlawful. It is Not about Personalities. Where there is a lack of a Real Application of Equal Protection and Due Process, Lawlessness and Instability is sure to follow and take residence within a Nation State and Society. REVENGE AND SELECTIVE PUNISHMENT CANNOT BE SUSTAINED IN A SMALL INTER RELATED NATION STATE OR SOCIETY LIKE THE GAMBIA. Gambia is More than the Sum Total of One Ethnic Group or One Region.