The Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations Commission (TRRC) should not exonerate the APRC party as an enabler of Jammeh in its final recommendations.

Almamy Taal spokesman of the opposition United Democratic Party (UDP) has said. 

The TRRC, which was set up in 2017 to investigate human rights abuses by the former regime of Yahya Jammeh, has completed its public hearings and will submit its final report to the president in July. 

“A dictatorship cannot dare proceed without associates and enablers and my first point of concern about the TRRC process is that it seems to focus more on the crimes and the misgovernance that was going on and everything seems to lead back to the dictator,” Mr Taal told The Standard newspaper. 

“But there were the military Junglers and an administrative state that enabled dictatorship to strive. What were the factors and the institutions that enabled Jammeh to stay in power and apparently, win election after election for 22 years?

“For me, the TRRC should have interrogated what was the responsibility of the political party that Jammeh has created to aide and abet the dictatorship.”

He added: “Even during the impasse, the same party had a majority in parliament and they were doing things legally and constitutionally to make sure that Jammeh doesn’t go anywhere. These are all issues that I believe the TRRC should have interrogated sufficiently.”

Mr Taal said the UDP is worried that the Barrow administration is flirting with the APRC party over a potential coalition government “even before the TRRC concluded its recommendations”. 

APRC executive members are going to State House to try to negotiate the return of Jammeh”. 

On compensation for victims of the Jammeh regime, Mr Taal said: “We are expecting that not only are the victims going to be properly compensated but the institutions or political parties like the UDP which was prosecuted are given some kind of reparation and cleansing of its records especially those individuals who have been incarcerated and tortured as a result of that.”