By Adama Makasuba
Professor Abdoulie Saine has double downed on the country to strengthen the culture of human rights laws after Jammeh 22-year repressive rule.
He was speaking at a two-day interface between the top elites of the military and journalists and some civilians on ways to improve relationships.
He said “we need to strengthen this culture of human rights and really respecting those covenants to be Gambians or Gambia has been a signatory. These are not just laws that are in place, these are important and need to be observed as well.”
He noted “we began to see that under military rule in our country things didn’t go as well as we had expected. In fact, there were horrendous violations of human rights and the expectation that the economic would improve also was one that began to really be questioned.”
However, he added that really after the military has been castigated for destroying economics and violating human rights, people now see a new turn, “we now see an important shift since the advent of democracy or re-democratisation in our country. It’s heartening to say that this would not have been possible a few years ago. And this to me represents a paradigm shift that civilians as well as military officers coming together alongside the media to dialogue on ways to improve relationship.”
“I think this really a monumental improvement and one that we should encourage and nurture because at the end of the day building trust amongst us as Gambians and pushing the agenda further to deepen and strengthen our institutions will take this country further,” he expressed.
