By Kaddy Jawo
The Government of The Gambia, through the Director of Press and Public Relations (DPPR), Amie Bojang-Sissoho, has announced payment of one million dalasis to families of each of the three individuals who lost their lives in the Faraba Banta shooting in June 2018. The payments, according to Bojang-Sissoho, were made to an obscured committee responsible for the report of the commission of inquiry into the Faraba Banta incident. In a statement posted on the Facebook page of the State House, she said the committee accepted the payment of one million dalasis to each of the families of the three villagers who died in the incident.
“The Committee looking into the Faraba Banta Commission’s report has accepted compensation of one million Gambian Dalasis to each of the three families, who lost their loved ones during the unfortunate incident last year,” the statement indicated.
“The Committee is also reviewing the cases of those whose properties were damaged and the injured to determine appropriate compensation. She [Bojang-Sissoho] conveyed the President’s call on all citizens to respect the rule of law in exercising their civil rights and to be aware that any measures taken by his government would be to ensure the security of the public and properties,” the statement concluded.
On 18 June 2018, skirmishes broke out between villagers of Faraba Banta and some men of The Gambia paramilitary forces during which Bakary Kujabi, Ismaila Bah and Amadou Jawo, were fatally shot by the Police Intervention Unit (PIU), dozen others were injured, and many properties were vandalized. The villagers were protesting against sand mining and land grabbing in their community. President Barrow established the Faraba Banta Commission of Inquiry which submitted its report to him in October 2018.
The Commission of Inquiry into the incident recommended the removal of the village Alkalo; prosecution of some members of the PIU; dismissal of some government officials from the Geological Services Department, and the National Environmental Agency; compensation of victims; recommended to the Brikama Area Council to dissolve the Village Development Committee among others. The survivors and families of the demised expected prosecution of those responsible for the killings.
In January of this year, the State House in Banjul issued a statement informing the public that “President Adama Barrow has accepted an appeal from the community of Faraba for the discontinuance of the prosecution of the officers of the Police Intervention Unit as well as the civilians standing trial for their role(s) in the unfortunate Faraba Banta incident in June 2018.”
Few days later, the Attorney General, Abubacarr Tambadou, under public pressure distanced the Department of Justice from the statement of the State House but at the same time characterized the “press release from the Office of the President as an unfortunate choice of words.” He said that the Office of the President was only consulted for its view on the request made by some people from Faraba Banta.
“The Office of the Attorney General reassures the general public that the exercise of prosecutorial discretion is vested exclusively in the Attorney General which he executes mainly through the Office of Director of Public Prosecutions and the Inspector General of Police. This discretion is exercised with due consideration to several factors including the public interest, and the wishes of the victims’ families,” Tambadou stated in the press release.
Since then, there seems to have been no progress or willingness by the Department of Justice to prosecute people who were accused of the crimes and destruction. Frustrating to many citizens is the seeming interference of the Office of the President in the dispensation of justice in the Faraba Banta disturbances.
“This is a very dangerous precedent to set. For a start, the President has no authority over matters of public prosecutions, and it is an indictment on us all that after Jammeh, we still allow a state of affairs to exist where the President rather than an independent DPP decides who is and is not to be prosecuted. This leaves a bitter taste in my mouth,” Pa Louis Sambou a legal and political activist living in the United Kingdom, responded to The Gambia Times in a text message.
“I hope the Attorney General will give us a compelling explanation for this decision. It will be very disappointing if his office chooses not to hold those who killed Gambian citizens to account. If it is indeed true that they have closed the case and choose to compensate the victims, then the AG’s press release in response to the Office of the President of reaching an amicable decision in this case, was merely meant to silence the public outcry,” Pasamba Jow, an outspoken critic of the Barrow Administration and a member of Democratic Union of Gambian Activists (DUGA), stated in a text message responding to inquiries by The Times.
Criticism of the decision to compensate the victims without any prosecution of the perpetrators of the crimes despite the promise made by Tambadou were in no short supply among Gambians.
“I was perplexed by the announcement, especially given the government’s promise to prosecute the perpetrators. The Gambian people deserve to know the full facts of this case and how they arrived at this decision to compensate the victims,” Jow told The Times.
“In the absence of prosecution, I am saddened that we have not done away with the culture of impunity. One would have assumed that in this new Gambia, that state agents who acted outside the gambits of the law, especially those who commit capital offenses, will be prosecuted,” Jow argued.
Even more controversial to the public, is the lack of transparency in involving the key stakeholders and victims in the process of determining the compensation package or on the matrix used to compensate the families of victims who lost their lives.
In an interview with The Gambia Times, Sainey Badjie, a friend to Bakary Kujabi, who was shot and killed by the paramilitary officers on that fateful day at Faraba Banta said money cannot do anything for Kujabi’s family because it cannot bring him back to life or ease the pain of his parents.
He said even if the government were to compensate the family of the victims D10 million it is still not enough because their lives are worth more than that amount.
When asked whether the families of the victims and people of Faraba are aware of the monetary compensation Badjie responded that the community of Faraba Banta is not aware of that news.
“We only saw the news on Facebook and apart from that we didn’t know anything about the compensation,” Badjie said.
Noha Kujabi, brother to the late Bakary Kujabi, said he is just hearing the news for the first time and his family have not heard anything from either the government or the committee that is responsible for the compensation.
He said he didn’t even believe the news because they (the families) feel like they have been left out of the whole process because the government has not involved them at any stage.
“We didn’t know anything about that committee that was set up to look into the Faraba incident much more to know about the outcome of its report”.
Kujabi added that many months have past, and they are still waiting for answers their sons and brothers where shot and killed like chickens as nothing came out of the cold-blooded murders.
“We feel betrayed and disappointed by the very people who were supposed to protect us and our properties,” Kujabi said in an angry tone.
Responding to questions from The Gambia Times, Lamin F M Conta, members of the National Assembly for Kombo East constituency, said he just heard the compensations over the news.
“I was not informed about it and no official communication was given to me neither from the victims nor the government/committee responsible for that compensation.”
Some people have also criticized the payment which appear arbitrary and provided equal compensation without individualizing the need of the lost to each family.
“The right way to go about valuing the losses should have involved a thorough assessment in order to appropriately and justly reach a fair compensatory figure. This was an opportunity for the government to commission a study with a view to designing a formula (such as the JSB guidelines which is used in England & Wales) for the purposes of assessing compensation for personal injury (including unlawful homicides), something which could subsequently be used to assess compensation for Jammeh’s victims and then be adopted by the civil courts in all Tort claims and cases. This is how a reformist administration must operate. Unfortunately, what we have right before us is by design, display and operation, a continuity administration which is quite a very lamentable thing considering how far we have come,” Sambou argued.
Tambadou came under vigorous criticisms on the way he runs the Department of Justice. When he took over as Barrow’s Minister of Justice, he outsourced the prosecution of state agents who were accused in the murder of Solo Sandeng. He is also criticized for championing the creation many commissions which cost money and did not produce outcomes that other law enforcement methods or traditional investigations would not have produced. TRRC, his brainchild, is facing an existential threat posed by Yankuba Touray’s refusal to testify before the commission claiming immunity under the constitution. Speaking to the GRTS last week, Tambadou said the Department of Justice will vehemently prosecute Touray to set example of him for other potential witnesses who may want to undermine the work of the TRRC by refusing to testify before the commissioners.
“Respectable professions (of which law is one) have ethics at their heart; the ability to exercise moral courage is an integral aspect of the aforesaid. If the President did prevent prosecutions to go ahead then this is a very serious matter and, one which renders the positions of both the AG and the DPP untenable. Unless, of course, it was a mutually agreed interference which perhaps explains why both are still in post. Either way, it is supine conduct which I would have thought was overcome after Jammeh’s ousting,” Sambou told The Times reflecting on the final legacy of Tambadou as the Attorney General and Minister of Justice.
The Gambia Times contacted the State House with a questionnaire for reaction to the claims of the families of victims. At the times of this filing, the State House did not respond to the request.