HAVING successfully negotiated complicated public hearings into the human rights violations during the regime of former President Yahya Jammeh, The Gambia is not letting the momentum die on the issue of transitional justice and sustainable peace.
Two recent events have highlighted this: first was the establishment of the Centre for Transitional Justice and Sustainable Peace at the University of The Gambia; and then the launch of the Never Again Network’s ‘Right to Know’ campaign.
The country’s Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations Commission (TRRC), which was launched in October 2018 has gained international acclaim and recognition as an exemplary model for transitional justice.
Following the submission of the TRRC’s final report in 2021, the government published a White Paper seeking to strengthen the transitional justice and sustainable peace process.
In this light, the University of The Gambia has established the Centre of Excellence in Transitional Justice and Sustainable Peace.
It aims to work with the government and other stakeholders to ‘contribute to the human and institutional capacity development and the formulation of policies and strategies to support the process, which is seen as a principal pillar for political stability and social cohesion’.
The Centre will offer courses on the subject with the aim of becoming a ‘regional thought leadership centre for transitional justice and sustainable peace that will attract students, scholars and practitioners from The Gambia and around the world’.
It will also conduct research to generate knowledge and offer policy and strategic advice to countries across Africa.
The Centre is one of four Centres of Excellence established by the UTG’s Governing Council.
The others are on Sustainable Development and Policy Studies; Food Science and Nutrition; and the International Training Centre for Authorities and Leaders in partnership with the UN Institute for Training and Research.
Meanwhile, the Never Again Network (NAN) launched its Right to Know campaign last week through an engagement with student leaders at a school in Farato.
Organisers says that it marks the first of several engagements NAN plans to have with various schools and other sectors of Gambian society in the coming weeks and months.
‘The Right to Know campaign is inspired by an urgent need to help the Gambian people, especially young people, know some of the things they need to know in order to feel empowered enough to hold their government accountable and make informed choices when they participate in their country’s democracy,’ NAN said in a statement.
‘The campaign is premised on the provisions of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and in particular those articles that emphasise the inherent equality of human beings; the right to freedom from cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment; the right to equality before the law; the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; the right to freedom of expression and association, and to receive and impart information; and the right to effectively participate in one’s government through lawful and genuine elections and to have their will be the basis of government authority.
‘The Right to Know campaign also incorporates lessons on the rights and responsibilities of citizens, as well as on the obligations and desired modes of behaviour of human beings towards another,’ the NAN statement added.
