Of recent, truthful testimonies have been so scarce at the TRRC that when a self-confessed mass murderer gave a candid testimony of his atrocities, he is praised as a national hero for the truth he told and not vilified for the atrocities he confessed to have committed.

The last two days of 24th and 25th April 2019, the Gambian populace was captivated by the live broadcasts of the testimonies of the notorious former Vice President of The AFPRC military junta of the Gambia, Capt. Sana Bairo Sabally, the man who will be remembered for committing the first mass murder in the country on 11 November 1994.

And the man who would confirm to the glare of the nation that his deviance to the general order of society succeeded in the disruption of the country’s three decade long democratic rule on 22 July 1994 and ushered in a 22 years of undemocratic rule by Yahya Jammeh.

Sana’s testimony, despite its high ratings for candour, is not without its flaws and contradictions, which I will attempt to expound on further in this posting. Nonetheless, the testimony exposed the impulsiveness of Mr Sabally, which led to his unforgettable crimes against his many innocent victims and earned him the nomenclature of ‘Rude Boy In Town’! Even after much untold sufferings of many families, Sana Sabally, still attempts to justify their 22 July 1994 military coup in The Gambia, as a strive to uphold the constitution extant at the time.

However, the first thing Sabally and his AFPRC colleagues did, after succeeding in their overthrow, was to abrogate that very constitution he wanted to convince us that they aimed to uphold.

Secondly, despite his innumerate expressions of remorse and pleadings for forgiveness, Sana Sabally still believes he is right when it came to his mass murder of the November 11 coupists, who he hitherto had no kind adjectives to describe.

In his perverted justifications for his actions against the alleged coupists, Sana is quick to label his victims as ‘enemies’, who aimed to kill him and men under him, hence they had to be killed. He even had the audacity to lecture on combat rules and treatment of prisoners of war.

In fact, what was shocking from his revelations about his beliefs of a coup in the making and the aspirations of the coupists on November 11, was the evidence Mr Sabally claimed to have relied on, which is a hand written note claimed to have been found in Barrow’s possession. Even Baboucarr Jatta did not buy that theory at the time that Barrow and others planned to kill them, including Jatta himself.

According to Babucarr his name was written with a blue pen, whilst the names of the council members were written in black – unfortunately this was a point missed, which was not put to Mr Sabally to clarify.

Nonetheless, that was not the first time, Sana had relied on clumsy evidence to persecute his perceived enemies. He arrested and detained Ebrima Chongan and others, because he was told by an unknown woman that they were planning a coup. He then subjected them to torture, because he was told that they were talking to outsiders.

In fact, the evidence from those victims before the TRRC rebutted such illusions of Sabally. Yet despite such flawed intelligence, Sabally is still adamant that the November 11 coupists had planned to kill them, if they had succeeded. Unfortunately Barrow and others were not afforded the opportunity to be heard in a free and fair forum to defend, explain or deny Sabally’s allegations.

If anything on that subject, Sana is still unrepentant of his crimes and even less willing to forgive his victims for their alleged attempts on his life. That begs me to question: how could he expect the rest of the country to forgive him and reconcile, as a nation, if witnesses like him are not willing to accept that what they did was wrong and grotesque to the disgust of every decent human being?

Contrary to his testimony, Sana Sabally knew very well from his limited trainings, as a junior officer of The Gambia National Army, at the time, that his treatment of his victims on November 11, was illegal. Not only did he learn it from his basic military trainings, he was also reminded of the same by the Camp Commander of 1 Battalion at Yundum at the time, Capt. Momodou Marong and Babucarr Jatta that it was illegal.

He just didn’t care at the time about the laws, he was taught in his military trainings on the treatment of enemy combatants. His testimony on that difficult subject had been nothing more than defensive, dismissive and misleading.

What his testimony further confirmed is that, Sabally – in his true nature of deviancy – deviated from the normal norms of human behaviour, on the date, and subscribed to his worst instincts and showed no regards to the normal rules of military law, national law, human rights laws, etc. In his dictatorial mindset, he saw himself as the law or above the law, but not a subject under any laws of the land.

In fact, in Sabally’s world, he is The Gambia and his wishes, dislikes and nemesis are not just that of his, but that of The Gambia. This was quite conspicuous in his testimony throughout. To justify the July 22 military coup, Sabally reasoned that because the system was not going for him at the time, he had to rebel to change it, not just for himself but for all of us, even though we never requested that from him.

Whilst in power when the international community wanted to impose travel ban on The Gambia, he responded by ordering for the expulsion of all westerners in The Gambia, regardless of its consequences on all of us. Talk of capriciousness, Sana Sabally, beats many to the highest rank.

Despite his best efforts to present a different picture of who he was and is, his testimony proved that Sanna Sabally was and is a deviant, a man too full of himself. He even wished to take credit for his discreet efforts in ending the rule of Yahya Jammeh’s dictatorship. The dictatorship he helped in giving birth to.

No Gambia! Sana Sabally is not a hero, but a villain, he wants us to forgive him for his sins – yes we should forgive – but let him accept being our country’s first mass murderer and cease his denial of the same.

In fact, hindsight ought to prove to him that what Barrow and co-coupists attempted on November 11 was not, as evil as he has perceived. Quite simply, if they had succeeded, it would have averted the torment he later endured under Jammeh.

Furthermore, he admitted to following the footsteps of Barrow and Co against the very government he helped into power. He said since his release, he had been trying to remove Jammeh from power, the very endeavour he had murdered Barrow and others for darning to do.

Thus Sanna has not done anything extraordinarily in his testimony to the TRRC, he merely did what is expected of him, which was to tell the truth and nothing but the truth. That is what witnesses testify to every day in the courts across The Gambia.

Sana, like, Kanyi, Alagie Martin and many others to come, should be prosecuted after the TRRC, though they should benefit from certain concessions to their prison sentences, if convicted. They should not however be eschewed from prosecution for simply telling the truth, their crimes were not victimless crimes.

Let justice guide our actions, is embedded in our national anthem and only justice can secure our peace and prosperity.

By Yankuba Darboe