Letter from Gambia: After 22-year regime, ‘We need the truth’
In the bright, sterile lobby of a former hotel, I sat with a group of widows, journalists, and other Gambians. Ahead of us two men – one in military camouflage, the other in a grand, silver boubou robe – stared at each other across a makeshift courtroom.
“You used to eat at his house?” lead counsel Essa Faal asked, referring to a man named Haruna Jammeh, who disappeared in July 2005.
“Yes, counsel,” replied Sgt. Omar Jallow in his characteristic deadpan.
“You were friends with him?”
“Yes, counsel.”
“He helped you?”
“Yes, counsel.”
“You executed him in cold blood?”
“Yes, counsel.”
It was a scene I could hardly have imagined the first time I came to Gambia, in 2014, when then-President Yahya Jammeh’s face
