Gambians and international observers alike held their breath this Wednesday (May 25th) as President Adama Barrow made clear his position on the crimes against humanity carried out by his predecessor, Yahya Jammeh. A country of 1.8 million people on the west coast of Africa and largely surrounded by Senegal, the Gambia is the continent’s smallest mainland country. Named after the river which jettisons it, the Gambia received its full independence from Britain as a constitutional monarchy within the Commonwealth in 1965. Dawda Jawara, a British-educated veterinarian with a strong base of rural support, then won re-election five times. Jawara was ousted by a bloodless military coup in 1994 when Yayha Jammeh took control of the presidency and ruled dictatorially. Jammeh’s rule was marred by violence toward students and journalists, and a muzzling of civil society and political discourse. A feared death squad known as the “Junglers,” alleged to have carried out despicable acts of violence on behalf of the Jammeh regime, have since been linked directly to the dictator himself.

Jammeh initially agreed to relinquishing power only after losing the December 2016 elections, but a turnabout in his position led a West African coalition (ECOWAS) to step in and force his eviction, thereby paving the way for democracy to take its course and for opposition leader Adama Barrow to take the reins of government. On November 25th, 2021, the Truth, Reconciliation, and Reparations Commission (TRRC), which announced in 2017 to investigate human rights violations relating to the Jammeh era, submitted its final report to President Barrow.

Since its inception, the TRRC has taken evidence from victims and witnesses of the Jammeh government’s misdeeds, which include the murder of high-profile journalists like Deyda Hydara and the 2005 massacre of fifty-six West African migrants. Jammeh and his henchmen have been personally implicated in charges of rape, torture, and murder. The “Junglers” have also been associated with a hunt for so-called ‘witches,’ in which hundreds of people were arbitrarily arrested. According to the TRRC, some 250 people in all (Gambians and non-Gambians) were killed by the Jammeh regime. According to Human Rights Watch, Jammeh was even quoted by his former aide-de-camp, Lalo Jaiteh, as telling his then vice president Isatou Njie-Saidy in April 2000 to “take care of the bastards in whatever way” — an order which resulted in the murder of fourteen student protestors in the country’s capital of Banjul. The TRRC have been criticized for not adequately consulting with victims, as has the Barrow government for allegedly sheltering Jammeh-era criminals.

On May 25th, 2022, Barrow’s government acknowledged the TRRC’s findings and said it would prosecute Yahya Jammeh along with all 70 alleged perpetrators named by the commission, including former vice-president Njie-Saidy and several “Junglers.” Although this appears promising, international human rights lawyer Reed Brody (nicknamed the “Dictator Hunter”) reminds us that “laws still have to be enacted, a court has to be established, cases have to be prepared, and Yayha Jammeh has to be brought into custody.” How Barrow deals with the legacy of the past and with remnants of Jammeh’s death squad will be a test, not only of his competence, but of his democratic credentials. The office of the Gambian Presidency has not been limited in the course of the changeover between Jammeh and Barrow, and so the incumbent president still retains the sweeping powers that come with being able to appoint judges and the ‘Independent’ Electoral Commission in a system that is still yet to confirm presidential term limits.

Several avenues remain open to the Gambia to bring the perpetrators of these violent crimes to justice. Having recently re-joined the British Commonwealth (after Jammeh disavowed it in 2013), Barrow may seek out external observers to supervise the legal proceedings. International courts have found recent success in this regard, as Germany, Switzerland, and the United States have all prosecuted former Gambian “Junglers” under ‘universal jurisdiction,’ a concept that allows the most heinous crimes against humanity to be prosecuted in a state other than where they were committed.

A concerted international effort ought to be made to make Yayha Jammeh, currently hiding out in a mansion in Equatorial Guinea, personally accountable for the crimes he and his dictatorial government were responsible for. How former death squad members are dealt with will test the sincerity of Adama Barrow’s government and the integrity of the region’s justice system. Gambians, along with The Organization for World Peace, will closely watch these developments as they unfold.