t is unconscionable, more dispiriting for the regime’s justice minister attempt to rewrite their despicable human rights abuses — which in fact continues on an alarming scale of unprecedented levels of serious violations and to this day, continues to send hundreds of thousands of Gambians fleeing their homeland. It’s hard to imagine the regime that confessed to murdering a man simply calling for electoral reform, calls women “Onions”, use rape as a tool, jailed baby Aisha -one-month old nursing infant, sentenced tortured women to 3 years in jail and now is expressing disingenuous calumnious deceptive statements about human rights for all Gambians. The same brutal regime that few months ago laudably pushed back on Banki Moon of UN calls for investigations to “get to hell” and refuses to listen to the voices of civil societies by thumping out their chest against respecting human rights. More significantly, they made good on their promise by backing their rhetoric with arrogance, hostility, and a steady stream of arrests of numerous political opponents just the last couple weeks.
Nevertheless, grave concerns remain because It’s difficult to fathom that, the same regime which openly campaigned against the EU 17 points human rights issues by holding steady propaganda demonstrations, parliamentary sessions to vote it down, can hardly contribute anything useful to Gambia except murder and mayhem. They have grown more intolerant and surprisingly, they are spewing propaganda by wearing a much friendlier face to fool the international community as if they have arrived at their destination. And yet, it is sad that those same international communities, UNDP — are not paying attention to circumstances inside the now “Islamic Republic of Gambia” self-declared by Yaya Jammeh himself, and might be lulled by the regimes bogus statements into more wishful thinking that human right reform is just around the corner. Gambians cannot be fool by APRC Regime attempts to mask the ongoing Human Rights abuses with empty sentiments, when so many innocent Gambians are languishing in jails and the largest opposition party executives are serving 3 years’ jail sentencing for requested their dead colleagues body handed to them, just to avoid targeted sanctions from the EU Parliament.
Indeed, the bully tactic of the regime even in talking about human rights certainly seems to indicate a lack of contrition because their misdeeds are punitive, and essentially re-abusing their victims by just watching them otter the word “Human Rights”. The ferocity of this regime is further validated — when confronted with their own record. They will dispatch ego-fueled heart harden people who do not make only outrageous comments, but peddle inaccuracies, self-aggrandizing nonsense, irrelevant talk, and revisiting details of already determine facts. The abuse of political prisoners is no secret and must end. Several eyewitnesses have made consistent revelations of inmates or people perceived as threats to the regime — gradually eliminated through deliberate poisoning, secret executions, torture, and rape.
We the Gambians hope — that gathering will highlight all the array of concrete examples of the APRC regime human rights violations and make an end to the very poisonous ideology that apparently rewards those who torture with confiscated homes and meat to feast on. This meeting is in fact a waste of time over revisiting details of already determine facts in which the recommendations made will not be implemented. The regime does not even have one eye opened to recognize their human rights abuses, let alone lend UNDP their deaf ear to hear anything. Similar initiatives by the UN rapporteurs in 2014 failed last time. Lastly, it is common knowledge and it is worth noting that the disregard of human life by the regime, also drives them in paying top dollars to criminals in helping them to eliminate diasporian whom they perceived as enemies abroad. What a shame!
By Habib ( A Concerned Gambian)