On Thursday 11th April, 2019, the UTGSU in collaboration with the TRRC and other relevant partners converged at Gambia Tourism and Hospitality Institute remembering the student victims of April 10th and 11th of year 2000 who were merely demanding justice in the exercise of their fundamental rights. The remembrance took a form of symposium on the theme: JUSTICE, RECONCILIATION, AND NON-RECURRENCE.
In his remarks, President Dampha, thanked the TRRC and other partners, (UTGSU included) for such a grand style remembrance of our fallen souls. He said the day was meant for all students in The Gambia to meditate and reflect on the brutal circumstances in which our fellow students were succumbed in cold blood. Mr. Dampha believed that such cruel, brutal, and inhumane atrocities meted out to our fellows should be probed for swift dispensation of justice with a view to end impunity and extra-judicial killings.
“For far too long, we have been calling for justice for the victims; precisely, nineteen years today, but all attempts fall on deaf ears,” he lamented. However, Dampha assured the gathering that they, the students of this country, will never relent until justice is dispensed for the victims of April incidents. He loudly denounced and condemned any form of human infliction against students in this great country; Never Again for such bestiality.
UTGSU President, called on the government to use the TRRC, including other national and international bodies as an instrument to bring the callous perpetrators of these incidents to book, to repeal the indemnity bill legally protecting the murderers from facing justice, to name important places in The Gambia after the victims, and most importantly to look after the wellbeing and educational needs of the survivors of April 10th and 11th happenings as a token of reparation and consolation.
He concluded by re-emphasising the need for the state to expedite the process of serving justice to student victims and their families, and as well devise mechanisms or instruments to thwart the recurrence of such barbaric and murderous imposition on students or any kind of degrading human treatment.
Ministry of Information and Communications
UTGSU