Again, Mr. Colly, you hit the nail right on the head (without 'laha laha').
Thank you very much for your contributions. I also thank Beran and Abdoulie
for their great contributions. Beran, I'll try to respond to your question
herein. We must always remind everyone that Yaya and his gang of bandits
must be held accountable for the massacre of our children on April 10 and
11. Mr. Colly, your observations about the Foroya piece are dead on track.
If the only purpose of the letter is to determine the location of the
coroner's report, then no one will have a quarrel with it. What I did not
want to see happen was calls for the chief justice to review Ousman Jammeh's
findings and order another inquest. This would just have been another waste
of time. Neither the chief justice nor Ousman Jammeh can punish the
culprits. We want to find the quickest way to take this matter to court
where these people can be punished. I have no doubt in my mind that Mr.
Sallah shares the same sentiments. My problem is with the base government we
have in place. They are so low that they will cling to the genuine efforts
of well meaning Gambians, twist those efforts and use it to deny / delay
justice to the slain children. As the law stands now, it is only a
prosecutor that can bring this matter to court. A real prosecutor that is
interested in finding out the truth. A prosecutor that we will be able to
monitor doggedly. You are right. All these proceedings are bogus. Government
officials go there to tell blatant lies because they are all cowards and
know they can get away with impunity. But we will not sit silent and let
them peddle lies about the death of our children.
I hope both you and Mr. Sallah do not misinterpret the way I discarded the
issue about not Gazetting the terms of reference of the commission. I have
the greatest respect for lawyer Ousman Sillah. Not just as a legal luminary,
but also as a person of immense integrity. I will go on record and say that
he is the greatest lawyer in The Gambia; God fearing, patriotic and
incorruptible. I did not see Mr. Sillah's reasoning regarding the terms of
reference and the Gazetting thereof. When I made my observations on that
subject, I was going by what Mr. Sallah gave us. According to the provisions
he quoted, the government is only required to Gazette the FORMATION of the
commission and not necessarily the terms of reference. Even if they were
required to Gazette the TORs, failure to do so does not render the
commission illegal. But even if the commission is illegal, then what? Does
it put Yaya before a firing squad where he belongs? I was trying to
anticipate where our moves would take us. If it is towards sudden death at
the hands of a cunning queen, then we should not make that move. Let us make
moves that will guarantee us a checkmate. Like you rightly observed, silly
inquests and commissions of inquiry would not cut it. You explained in
graphic detail what happened on that fateful day. But left to the forces of
evil, they would even deny that the children were killed. Government
officials come in and tell lies and there are no follow up questions to pin
them down. In real court cases when you tell lies, you perjure yourself and
a judge can throw you in jail for that. This commission cannot do that. To
show their lack of commitment, the AG chamber got us a toothless commission
to look into the atrocities of April 10 and 11. On the other hand,
commissions were set up to recover (seize) assets from people and those
commissions were empowered to jail people. This one (according to their
press release) is only empowered to 'inquire into the public disturbances of
  10th and 11th April, 2000'. You are right about the lack of clarity of
their mandate. They delibrately did that because they did not want to be
scrutinized. Pap Cheyassin knows that he cannot defend this one. The chief
justice does not want a commission that can punish criminals. Everyone wants
to pass the buck. I do not think they have the power to punish anyone. If
they do, maybe the AG or Tombong, who posted the first press release and
appeared to be in the know, can tell us.
To conclude, we suggest that the opposition should call for the appointment
of an independent prosecutor. We should be prepared to foot the bill and get
an international human rights activist to go to Gambia and take charge of
the prosecution of this case. It will be over our dead bodies that the
criminals go unpunished for this one. Our children died for us. Once again,
I thank everyone that continue to contribute to this debate and remind us
about the massacre of our children in broad daylight by a callous and
lawless regime headed by the devil incarnate.
KB



>From: ebou colly <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: The Gambia and related-issues mailing list
><[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: THE CORONER'S INQUEST AND THE COMMISSION OF INQUIRY
>Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2000 19:32:32 -0700
>
>THE CORONER’S INQUEST AND THE COMMISSION OF INQUIRY.
>
>I have been following with great enthusiasm, the
>subject of discussion about the report on the
>coroner’s inquest and the ongoing commission of
>inquiry. The letter written by the Foroya was a
>necessary one although in their typical style of
>presenting very important subjects, they had almost
>thrown me out of track on their main point of inquiry.
>If I had read and fully understood Mr. Halifa Sallah’s
>letter of query, it appeared to me that in the final
>analysis the report of the coroner’s inquest is not
>where many people were made to believe it is. This was
>not clear to me until after Mr. Kebba Dampha’s
>critical response to the Foroya letter and the
>subsequent reply made by Halifa Sallah to the
>gentleman. Only then did I realize what the issue was
>all about. I believe they had made attempts to locate
>the where about of the document at the office of the
>Chief Justice but were told that it was not there. If
>this critical point was on the onset made clear to all
>readers, I am sure people like the dynamic Mr. Dampha
>would have responded differently. Anyway as a friend
>of mine once observed about the style of writing of
>the Foroya publishers, he had said, “some times when
>they want to talk about a spot in the moon they would
>first take you on a ride at different spots in the
>surrounding stars until you sometimes end up being
>totally lost in the galaxy.
>In the actual letter sent to the Chief Justice, Mr.
>Halifa Sallah had stated the main issue in these
>words, … “The report is still not made public. What is
>difficult to comprehend is that the report is yet to
>reach your office”. Then the letter continued to
>explain the technicalities involved in conducting a
>coroner’s inquest hitting those stipulated rules
>specified or generalized in the constitution. In
>trying to follow the logic there, I must be frank; I
>certainly lost track of the cardinal point behind the
>whole letter until, as I said, after Mr. Dampha’s
>observations followed by Mr. Sallah’s clarification
>that they were indeed merely pursuing the “top
>secretive” report.
>
>Mr. Dampha couldn’t be blamed for expressing his
>frustration because as most Gambians now understand
>about the nature and process of the whole
>investigation surrounding the student’s massacre,
>everything seems candidly flawed..  Given the raw
>unedited evidence, gathered from the various witnesses
>so far, it is clear that the  APRC government is
>caught butt naked in its own scheme. There is no way
>that the Jammeh followers could make the excuse that
>the enemies of the APRC government fabricated the
>incriminating facts, because it was Yaya himself who
>established the commission.  Moreover, several
>witnesses narrated the same atrocities committed by
>the security forces, especially those teachers,
>students and ordinary by standers found in the middle
>of the butchering. It was the same story all over that
>the PIU in particular did most of the shooting and
>killing in the Banjul area. They were said to have
>used their assault weapons the AK47’s with live
>rounds. Nothing like rubber bullet guns or
>riot-control weapons.
>
>Then came the pathetic testimony of the senior
>commanders and secretary of state for the interior.
>They shamelessly made it clear that they were not
>responsible because they did not know what their
>subordinates were doing during the entire operation.
>Shame on them. Following their testimonies, these so
>called commanders and authorities who by appointment
>and responsibility should have been calling the shots
>on the activity conducted by the Gambian security
>forces that day had the nerve to tell the world that
>they were innocent of the actions of their own men. I
>think all of them said the same thing that they did
>not know how or who started the killing of the
>children. Don’t they know that by service principles
>or regulations that means they are guilty of a court
>martial offence and long term jail sentences for
>hiding behind those blatant lies?  They simply had
>proven to the public that the men under their command
>were not necessarily operating on their instructions
>and that the soldiers could do whatever they wanted
>even shooting and killing innocent unarmed school
>children, some as young as three years old without
>their knowledge or approval.  What kind of commanders
>or authorities are these people?   There is no way for
>that possibility in any security establishment; it was
>all a conspiracy that stank high way to heavens.
>
>I am inclined to think that, patriotic Gambians like
>Mr. Ousman Sillah the lawyer.came up with the Gazette
>issue because of the unquestionable fraudulence in the
>whole scheme of events. When the coroner’s inquest was
>established, dead lines were given to the members of
>the board. The 15th of May was the day for the final
>submissions of the board’s findings. That day, as we
>all know, happened to pass without any declaration of
>the state of the report until there was a public
>outcry for an explanation for the unwarranted silence
>or delay; then they said the report was with the
>justice department.  I guess that was why foroya had
>to take the trouble of inquiring the where about of
>document and the steps taken by government on its
>findings. Perhaps Mr. Ousman Sillah had gone through
>digging and shoveling the facts just to realize that
>the whole thing was after all a big sham. Then he
>perhaps turned around and noticed that the newly
>established commission of inquiry was more or less
>taking a similar or worst pattern.with no mandate in
>place to guide their activities. Even guidelines as
>simple as a deadline for the submission of the final
>findings were nonexistent. this time.  Therefore as a
>person with conscience and integrity it was a very
>reasonable observation under the prevailing conditions
>of the Jammeh-homocidal regime.
>
>Any way while Yaya thought that he could in this case
>use the same ungodly tricks of creating
>pseudo-commissions of inquiry that in the past nearly
>helped him in destroying all the evidence in the Koro
>Ceesay murder case, he perhaps failed to realized that
>this one was going to be the final straw. These were
>children of god he had butchered; angels for that
>matter, whose spirits are still lingering around
>waiting for final justice in their untimely deaths. As
>a result, the government’s lies in the wake of the
>witnesses’ testimonies are in every seating exposing
>their calculated evil actions .It has come to a point
>where every thing is now clear to the Gambian public.
>
>Having said all that, I must once again remind all
>Gambians that the APRC government knows no logic
>particularly their killer leader Yaya. In Yaya’s
>world, the only reasonable thing is force, force and
>absolute stupidity. The man does not have blood
>running in his veins. Yet his followers appear to be
>hypnotized into endorsing everything he does, right or
>wrong. I have said this before, I am saying it now and
>I believe I will be saying it again sooner or later
>that he and nobody else ordered the killing of the
>children..
>
>Yaya actually gave the orders to shoot and kill the
>children and that monsters like Ousman Badjie, and
>Raspotin Baboucarr Jatta executed the orders by
>telling the soldiers to fire at the kids. Yaya they
>said put it in these exact words, “shoot the
>bastards”. That’s the final answer to all the
>questions being asked about the massacre. The
>commission of inquiry, like the coroner’s inquest is
>all meant to waste or buy time and nothing else. The
>order to kill came from the top. Yaya, Isatou Njie
>Saidy, Raspotin Baboucarr Jatta, Ousman Badjie etc all
>know it that way that. Naturally therefore if all
>these devils decide to play the innocent, it should be
>normal for the little ones to follow suit by
>testifying that they didn’t know how the shooting
>occurred despite the fact that they were the very ones
>who pulled the triggers.
>
>The Gambian people should have long ago started the
>process of getting Yaya’s government thrown out of
>office. That’s the only reasonable action necessary at
>this time. A government that ruthlessly killed its own
>young children has no right whatsoever to stay in
>power for a day after such a crime is committed. If it
>is still thought that the best way to get these devils
>out is by peaceful means i.e. through general
>elections then the time is far overdue for the APRC
>government to resign so that early elections could be
>conducted. . Any other additional day spent by Yaya in
>office as president of the Gambia would make the
>senseless killing more disgusting in the civilized
>world.  It also tends confirm to mankind that the
>Gambian people are nothing but a bunch of losers led
>by an ultra lunatic.The facts are glaring; the
>murderer is Yaya; the nation is hurting; the children
>are rotting in their graves; yet we are still playing
>by the devil’s foolish game. The coroner’s inquest and
>commission of inquiry are all baloney.
>The Gambian people must rise while it is still
>necessary and justifiable because their nation has
>been hijacked by a gang of bandits and murderers, who
>wouldn’t yield to anything other than what they
>understand best, force, force and total stupidity.
>Let’s be clear about that.
>
>
>Ebou Colly
>
>
>__________________________________________________
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