As TRRC kick-off
By Kebba Ansu Manneh
Dr. Lamin J Sise, the chairperson, of the Truth, Reconciliation and Reparation Commission (TRRC) said it is time to find the truth and justice by healing the nation and then move forward as one people.
“As we start our hearings today the 7th day of January, 2019, we want to register our full understanding that the TRRC therefore is not about the commissioners or about the secretariat of the institution.
It is about the victims of violations of human rights and abuses that took place over 22 years. In addition to that it is about the Gambian people who are still grappling with the legacies of the dictatorship and authoritarian rule,” Dr Sise said during the opening of TRRC on Monday.
He explained that in December 2017, the National Assembly passed an Act to establish the Truth, Reconciliation and Reparation Commission.
According to him, the National Assembly mandated the commission to investigate and establish an impartial record of the nature, causes and the extent of violations and abuses of human rights committed during the period from July 1994 to January 2017.
The commission is to promote healing and reconciliation; respond to the needs of victims; address impunity and prevent repetition of the violations and abuses suffered by victims making recommendations for the establishment of appropriate preventive mechanisms including institutional and legal reform; and to make known the fact or whereabouts of disappeared victims; provide victims an appropriate opportunity to relate their own accounts of the violations and abuses suffered and finally grant reparations to victims in appropriate cases.
The TRRC comprises eleven commissioners who are drawn from all sectors of the Gambian society.
He said that the Gambia needs the TRRC in order to heal and reconcile Gambians as one people and one nation.
