Reconciliation Cannot Be Selective: Omar Camara Must Learn the Full History Before Preaching Morality

Young Omar Camara’s emotional outburst against any engagement with supporters of former President Yahya Jammeh exposes the dangerous hypocrisy and selective memory that continue to poison Gambian politics. It is unfortunate when young people speak with such certainty about democracy, justice, and morality while deliberately ignoring the political history of their own families and the roles they played during the darkest years of the APRC regime.

Omar Camara cannot stand on a moral high horse while pretending that his own father, Malang Saibo Camara, was a neutral observer during the Jammeh era. Gambians know the history. Malang Saibo Camara was not merely an ordinary supporter. He was part of the APRC political machinery and associated with APRC youth structures in the Central River Region that intimidated, harassed, and targeted perceived opponents of Yahya Jammeh. Many civil servants, opposition sympathizers, and ordinary villagers suffered victimization, dismissals, threats, and political persecution at the hands of local APRC operatives and militant green youths.

If today the son of a man deeply involved in the APRC system is allowed to publicly preach democracy, reconciliation, and human rights without being condemned for his father’s political past, then by what logic should other former APRC supporters be denied the constitutional right to join political parties, participate in coalitions, or rebuild their political lives?

That is the contradiction Omar and sections of the UDP refuse to confront.

Democracy is not built on permanent exclusion. It is built on transformation, forgiveness, dialogue, and national reconciliation. A country cannot heal if political participation is reserved only for those who claim moral purity while others are permanently stigmatized. If every Gambian associated with the APRC is to be politically quarantined forever, then where exactly does reconciliation begin?

The same people condemning others today were themselves part of the same political environment yesterday. Many individuals who now speak loudly about dictatorship once served in the APRC government, defended its policies, enjoyed its privileges, or remained silent while abuses occurred. Some were ministers, regional mobilizers, youth activists, local chiefs, or administrators under the regime. History cannot be rewritten simply because political convenience now demands selective amnesia.

What is even more astonishing is the UDP’s open inconsistency on the APRC question. One day, a senior UDP figure declares there will never be any association with Yahya Jammeh or the APRC. The next day, another prominent official publicly invites APRC factions for coalition discussions. One moment they condemn the NPP for engaging APRC supporters; the next moment they quietly pursue the very same political arithmetic behind closed doors.

That is not principle. That is political opportunism.

The reality is that reconciliation in The Gambia was never intended to be revenge disguised as justice. The Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations process itself acknowledged that the nation must move forward through accountability, institutional reform, forgiveness, and coexistence. No serious democratic society can survive by permanently criminalizing political affiliation.

Yes, atrocities occurred under Jammeh’s rule. Nobody disputes that. Gambians from all political backgrounds suffered imprisonment, torture, exile, disappearances, and intimidation. But responsibility for those crimes cannot automatically be transferred to every individual who ever wore green, attended an APRC rally, or supported the government at the time. Justice must be individualized, not collectivized.

Omar Camara must therefore understand a simple democratic truth: reconciliation means accepting that former political enemies can coexist, cooperate, and even work together in the national interest. Nelson Mandela reconciled with architects of apartheid not because he forgot the past, but because he understood that nations cannot survive on endless vengeance.

What The Gambia needs today is maturity, not emotional political grandstanding from young commentators who ignore the complexities of history while pretending to own the monopoly over victimhood and patriotism.

If Omar Camara’s own father’s political background does not disqualify him from speaking today, then neither should former APRC supporters be denied their democratic rights as citizens of this country.

Gambia belongs to all Gambians — not only to those who suddenly discovered democracy after benefiting from the APRC system.