Senator Iroegbu
14 December 2008
Lagos — "Please! Please! Please!! Am innocent, I am from Nigeria; I mean we were en route to Europe via this boat. Please, I beg you don't kill us, one of the victims, who were among the 10 Nigerians, 55 Ghanaians and scores of other West African travelers pleaded in agonising pain. But it was as if the plea fell on deaf ear as the Gambian Security forces hacked them to death and till date no step has been taken by the Nigerian government and other concerned bodies to recover the dead bodies neither buried in a shallow grave in the Gambia nor called the government to order."
This is an amplified account of Amnesty International Report of chronic
Human Rights violations in the Gambia. There are no doubt that globally, countries that adopt participatory democracy as a system of choosing their government are highly placed in human rights records. This is because the beauty of any democratic government is based on its ability to respect the wishes of the people and willingness to uphold their freedom.
Unfortunately, most African countries that claim to be democracies are guilty of gross human rights violation with most of the government tramping on the people's rights with great impunity. One of the countries that have awful records of human rights violation is the Republic of Gambia, a tiny West African country of about 1.5 million.
It is sad to note that Gambia, which lies on the West Coast of Africa, has a constitution which provides for a participatory democracy, the separation of powers and a National Assembly.
The chapter IV of its Constitution provides for the protection of fundamental rights and freedoms including: the right to life, privacy and personal liberty; protection from slavery and forced labour; protection from torture and inhuman treatment; protection from deprivation of property; protection of the law and a fair trial; freedom of speech, conscience, assembly, association and movement; and protection from discrimination.
Recently, Amnesty International in collaboration with other human rights groups x-rayed the extent of this violation by the Gambian Government and wondered why a country that have human rights enshrined in its constitution and have ratified most major international human rights treaties, should inflict pains and fears on its citizens through brazen rape of their rights for freedom of speech, association and fair hearing.
With a detailed report titled 'Gambia: Fear rules', which documents human rights violations by the army, the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) and the Police which the government has used to stifle dissent, particularly following the March 2006 coup attempt; the organisation was able to highlight the governments disrespect for the rule of law and the judiciary, making the fight against impunity an uphill task in Gambia.
A dramatic deterioration in the human rights violations including unlawful arrests, unlawful detentions, torture while in detention, enforced disappearance, extrajudicial executions and unfair trials followed series of alleged coup attempts which has characterised the regime of President Yahya Jammeh. The report noted that for 14 years Jammeh has been in power, there have been six foiled coup attempts in November 1994, January 1995, November 1996, July 1997, January, 2000 and the most recent one being in March, 2006.
Three days after that coup attempt, the President declared on national radio and television that "any attempt to unconstitutionally overthrow the government would be crushed without mercy" and that he would "set an example that would put an end to the treachery and sabotage. Following this statement, about 63 people; civilians and military including six members of the Parliament from the President's party and at least four relatives of Ndure Cham, the former Chief of Defence Staff accused of masterminding the coup plot, including his wife, were arrested. Those thought to be opponents of the government including two lawyers and six journalists, some of whom were prisoners of conscience.
According to the report, the NIA, the army and police arrested people in their homes, at their work and in the streets and have been unlawfully detained and held in communicado or in solitary confinement for weeks at a time, despite the requirement under the Gambian law that required that they should be brought to court within 72 hours of their arrest.
In this brazen act of impunity, the authorities denied their victims' access to a lawyer, with some of them allegedly to have been tortured and ill-treated while in detention and a number of them disappeared or reportedly killed. Meanwhile, Special Cases of Human Rights Violation define the culture of impunity over the respect of human rights by the Gambian government were well captured in the report.
One of those cases includes that of Chief Ebrima Manneh, who has been a victim of enforced disappearance since July, 2006. A reporter at the government owned Daily Observer, Manneh was arrested on July 11, 2006 by the NIA at the newspaper's office, believed to be in connection with his trying to print a BBC article that was critical of the Gambian government.
After pressures from several quarters, government published a press release on February 21, 2007 denying any involvement in the arrest and subsequent disappearance, and claimed to have no knowledge of his where about. "However, in July, 2007 he was seen in hospital in the custody of Gambian Police, apparently receiving treatment for high blood pressure," the report revealed.
In a similar case, Demba Dem, a former Member of Parliament who was arrested and tried for treason was denied access to lawyers, tortured in detention and was forced to sign a written statement. "You cannot call these trials fair . I was there for over a year and half and because I was so badly beaten I left the cell often for treatment due to my poor health condition from torture. Through out my detention, I was electrocuted and constantly beaten. They always brought me to the NIA headquarters when they wanted to electrocute me," Dem testified.
Still in a similar scenario, Musa Saidykhan, the editor-in-chief of The Independent Newspaper was "unlawfully arrested on March 27, 2006, detained and tortured." This is in addition to a journalist, Yahya Dampha who went into hiding after being unlawfully detained for several days and released under the monitoring of the government security outfits. Dampha has been granted asylum by the Swedish government in order to escape several kidnapping attempts by the government.
On the Killing of over 50 migrants: 44 Ghanaians and 10 Nigerians, the report has it that more than 50 foreigners, including 44 Ghanaians and about 10 Nigerians were intercepted by the Gambian Security forces in the waters off Gambia on July 23, 2005 while on their way to Europe. These men were brutally murdered afterwards on the pretence that they were coup plotters planning to overthrow the government of President Yahya Jammeh. The government alleged that they were suspected of being on their way to Gambia to overthrow the government during Gambia's Independence Day celebrations.
According to a Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI) report, the men were taken to Naval Headquarters in Banjul, divided into groups of eight and taken to a site in the farms of Siffoe in Gambia's Western Division. "When they were at the fields, members of security forces reportedly killed the detainees using machetes, axes, knives and other sharp objects. The bodies were then indiscriminately dumped at various locations, among them the village of Brufu, near Siffore," the report stated.
Unfortunately, efforts to initiate an investigation have been slow and mired in problems. Ms Nana Oye Lithur of CHRI said while efforts to bring the Ghanaian Government to respond yielded little result, while that of Nigerian government was a total silence. "I am surprised by the attitude and total silence of the Nigerian Government.
"We sent letters to the former President Olusegun Obasanjo Administration on two occasions but there was no acknowledgement. Initially, Ghanaian government did not want to respond, but eventually opened up after we made so much noise about it. They said that they sent investigators but have to stop when there was no cooperation from the Gambian government. .
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