To build a democratic future, Gambia teaches its autocratic past

At first, the students sat in shocked silence, struggling to process what they’d just heard. Then, one by one, they began to fire questions at their teacher.

Did the former president’s soldiers really kill people, even children? Why did some people support him? And how did this all happen for so long? 

“Is it true that this is what the security did to people? Is it true that they beat people? Is it true?” Sheriffo Ceesay, a teacher at Bakoteh Proper Lower Primary School, recalls his sixth graders asking him. “You [could] tell from the children’s faces that this is something that is unimaginable.”

It’s been just over a year since Gambia’s Truth, Reconciliation, and Reparations Commission (TRRC) delivered its landmark final report, after two years of publicly broadcast hearings and testimony. The report laid bare the murders, tortures, and rights abuses that had been carried out under the regime of Yahya Jammeh, who seized power in a bloodless coup in 1994. 

The commission’s 17-volume report, which includes details of the murders of at least 240 people by state agents, is an invaluable collection of testimonies from victims and perpetrators alike. But it’s also full of complex legal terms and moments too explicit to teach to children. 

For many rights campaigners, who have rallied under the cry of “never again,” it’s also an opportunity. They see the report as a springboard for teaching future generations about what happened under Mr. Jammeh, an imperative to securing their country’s democratic future. 

For a generation of Gambians, dictatorship under Mr. Jammeh was all they knew. After seizing power in the 1994 coup, he swapped military fatigues for white gowns and a scepter, and ruled Africa’s smallest mainland nation through a mixture of mysticism, generosity, and political hit squads. 

While European tourists poured into Africa’s “Smiling Coast” each winter, Mr. Jammeh ruled over one of Africa’s few genuine police states. His face adorned everything from billboards to bars of soap. Each year he became increasingly erratic, striking at real and perceived political opponents. During one anti-government protest, at least 14 people were killed; another time, an opposition leader was jailed for using a microphone without official permission.

For the next 22 years, Mr. Jammeh held sway through a mix of state brutality and development – shoring up bare-bones infrastructure while unleashing secret police at his will. In 2016, Mr. Jammeh suffered a shock election loss and now lives in exile. 

For Muhammed Sandeng, an activist at the nonprofit Fantanka – meaning “self-protection” in the Mandinka language – a crucial step in preventing past atrocities is making sure everyone can read the report. He presented a self-styled “child-friendly report” at the Bakoteh Proper Lower Primary School last fall. It spells out Jammeh-era atrocities using simple language and illustrations. 

“If we are talking about the future of the Gambia, or the future of the world, children cannot be sidelined – they have to know what is going on from the get-go,” says Mariama Jobarteh, a report co-author and CEO of Fantanka, a civil society organization dedicated to preventing sexual violence. 

“That includes young people and children, because in Gambian society, children are always silent. Children don’t have rights; they basically always get information of what is happening last.”

Being informed is more important now than ever, as Gambia’s transition toward democracy faces serious setbacks. 

The current president, Adama Barrow, promised a three-year transitional rule after his unexpected win in 2016. Instead, Mr. Barrow served out a full term, and in 2021 ran and won again after forming a political alliance with Mr. Jammeh’s old party.

Prosecutors can’t charge alleged perpetrators from the Jammeh era with torture, because there’s no law against it. A new constitution was scuttled in 2020, meaning Mr. Barrow is ruling under the same constitution amended to account for a dictator’s whims.

But cautious optimism isn’t out of the question. A tranche of compensation has been paid to victims identified by the TRRC. Another compensation bill is moving its way through the National Assembly to account for other victims. A bill criminalizing torture is also on the way, says Kimbeng Tah, deputy director of civil litigation and international law at the Gambian Ministry of Justice. The most closely watched development will be that of a special court system designed to try those deemed fit for prosecution by the TRRC – including Mr. Jammeh himself.

Meanwhile, civil society groups have pushed forward education initiatives, something they have more direct control over than government policy.

“We are working with the next generation to make sure we identify some of the lapses and breakdowns that happened to cause the violations,” says Sirra Ndow of the Gambia chapter at the African Network Against Extrajudicial Killings and Enforced Disappearances. “To make sure we don’t relax back into dictatorship.”

Ms. Ndow is also the manager at Memory House, a museum dedicated to Jammeh-era victims, which hosts field trips and delivers presentations to local schools. The museum has started using Fantanka’s report in its education materials. 

While the report is designed for children, it doesn’t mince words either. Explaining routine forced disappearances, it reads: “This is when government forces like the police or the army arrest people and then they are never seen ever again after that. ... Their families cannot be sure whether their loved ones are dead or not. That causes them a lot of mental stress and sadness.” The child-friendly report also tackles issues like transitional justice and human rights. 

The report has been presented in 10 schools so far, with Fantanka’s ultimate goal being to integrate it into curricula and libraries. The Ministry of Justice has said it is willing to distribute copies in schools across the country. 

Post-conflict and post-dictatorship prosecutions have a mixed record in Africa. In Liberia, a war crimes court called for by the country’s postwar truth commission simply never materialized. In some cases, successful trials have taken place in European or special courts, including for Gambians who served in Mr. Jammeh’s regime. The promised trials on Gambian soil for Mr. Jammeh and his allies would take serious funding, reforms, and commitments from the government.

For Zainab Lowe Baldeh, whose brother was forcibly disappeared by the Jammeh regime, the teaching of the child-friendly report is a small victory. 

“We never thought it would get this far,” she says. At the same time, both she and Ms. Ndow, whose uncle was disappeared by the Jammeh regime, say that education can’t replace government reform and prosecutions.

“It is not a substitute for justice,” Ms. Ndow says. “But it is the foundation for justice.”

Amie, Awa, and Adama were some of the sixth graders struck silent by the initial presentation at Bakoteh Proper Lower Primary School. A few months later, though, they’re eager to chat about it. 

“It was very new to me,” says Amie. She learned the truth about crimes of which she’d only been vaguely aware, including the murder of Ousmane Koro, a finance minister who was killed in 1995. Members of the ruling junta “took him into the forest in his own car, and put him in the car and burned the car,” she recalls.

Awa felt it was important to learn about such things “so that it will not happen again in the future.” 

“That’s why they say, ‘Never again,’” chimes in Adama.