Last week, the government of The Gambia shortlisted nine candidates who are to serve as commissioners on the Reparations Commission.
It was the National Assembly that passed a bill referred to as the Victims Reparations Bill in the year 2023. This bill established a separate commission which would be tasked with identifying and paying reparations to the people who became victims to the rights violations of the previous regime.
When the current government came to power in 2017, it set up a Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations Commission (TRRC) to look into the atrocities and human rights violations committed during the twenty-two-year regime of former president Yahya Jammeh. The commission, which held televised sittings, unearthed countless rights violations.
At the end of its work, the commission submitted a comprehensive report along with recommendations for prosecution, reparations and other mechanism meant to prevent the recurrence of what transpired during that regime. The government studied the findings and issued a white paper which promised to map a way forward for the transitional justice process.
Admittedly, the process has been slow and painstaking but the nomination of these commissioners is viewed by many as a huge step in the right direction. Many people feared that with the snail slow pace of the implementation of the recommendations, many of the victims were dying and thus would miss out on the result of the transitional justice process.
Now that the commissioners have been nominated, observers can only urge the authorities to hurry on and complete the work so that the victims to be compensated will receive their compensation sooner rather than later.
This will enable the healing process to pick up pace and run faster and smoother.
