Dr. Badara Loum
Chairperson
Reparations Commission
Logix Building, Kotu, OIC Highway
KMC, The Gambia
29/1/2026
Dear Dr. Loum,
I write this open letter in response to the statement made by the Reparations Commission on Coffee Time with Peter Gomez concerning my petition over my exclusion from the reparations process.
First, let me place it firmly on record that I did ‘not’ receive the Commission’s letter dated 15 January 2026. I combed through both my inbox and spam folder with care and found nothing. I only became aware of that response on 27 January 2026, after I personally telephoned the Commission and spoke with your Deputy Executive Secretary, Ms. Ngenarr Yassin Jeng, who graciously resent the letter to me. Had that response reached me in time, there would have been no open petition and no public debate.
Second, I must observe that the Commission’s Press Release of 12 January 2026 was misleading by omission. It announced that reparations had commenced for “victims of human rights violations committed between July 1994 and January 2017” and appealed to the public to assist victims to “complete their registration and verification process.” Nowhere in that statement did the Commission indicate that reparations were restricted exclusively to victims identified by the TRRC. That crucial qualification appeared only in your response to me. This silence reasonably led many victims, myself included, to believe that all victims stood to benefit.
Third, your response left my most serious concern untouched, transparency.
If the list of TRRC-identified victims is treated as confidential and shielded from public scrutiny, then the Commission is, in effect, asking Gambians to place blind faith in a process financed by public funds. Such secrecy breeds arbitrariness and invites abuse. Reparations must not only be lawful but must be visibly just. A system that refuses to disclose who is being compensated, and on what grounds, erodes public confidence and fuels suspicion.
Fourth, I remain seriously disturbed by the possibility that ‘Balo Kanteh’, a mercenary who participated in the brutal killing of six Gambia National Army soldiers in 1996, may now be enjoying reparations as a so-called “victim” merely because he was listed by the TRRC, despite the Government White Paper clearly identifying him as a perpetrator who ought to face justice.
A system that crowns killers with the title of victims while excluding genuine political detainees such as myself is both morally perverse and legally incoherent.
I do not dispute the Commission’s statutory mandate to prioritize victims identified by the TRRC. However, legality must never be mistaken for justice. The TRRC denied me the right to testify as a victim, a fact publicly confirmed by its former Secretary General, yet relied on untested allegations to stain my name in its final report, findings that were later rejected by the Government for want of due process.
I have now been advised on the procedure for registering as a new victim, and I intend to comply with that process. Nevertheless, I reserve my right, as both a citizen and a victim, to question a reparations framework that sacrifices transparency and moral logic on the altar of administrative convenience.
Reparations are meant to heal wounds, restore dignity, and rebuild trust. They must never become a system that rewards perpetrators in silence while excluding victims in secrecy.
Yours sincerely,
Lt. Colonel Samsudeen Sarr (Rtd.)
Kotu, KMC
