Latest reports from the commission are not encouraging, to say the least. Up
today, we have not seen anyone coming forward to point to a single soldier
or police as someone that fired a fatal bullet on April 10 and 11. We call
upon anyone who has information otherwise to enlighten us. People come here
to narrate how they arrived after the fact and how they heard of the
destruction of property etc. Even the chief justice recognizes that they are
conducting a fruitless exercise. According to today's Observer newspaper,
the chief justice expressed frustration by rhetorically asking:
"Did the shooters come from the moon? The pathologists attributed the
students' deaths to gunshot wounds".
It is obvious that if they want to get to the bottom of this thing, these
are not the silly questions to ask. To establish who shot those fatal shots,
they should first of all ask about the people that were armed. Ask them to
account for their ammunitions. Anyone who is short, will be presumed to have
fired a shot. Then trace those bullets to the mortuary. This is not Monday
morning quarterbacking. I raised the same questions as soon as a coroner's
inquest was commenced. The more we prolong this thing with silly proceedings
before toothless commissions and inquests, the more we compromise the
integrity of the evidence. A case in point is the reported statement of one
lieutenant that appeared before the commission. He said, "We had live
ammunition but my men never shot at anyone. After returning to the camp, I
checked and confirmed that all our arms and ammunition were intact". And I
think there were reported deaths from bullet wounds at the same place where
his men operated. This is what you get from bogus commissions. It enables
culprits to perfect the doctoring of their evidence. At the end of the day,
the evidence that will be gathered from this forum would worth very little
to a prosecutor. In the meantime, evidence is being destroyed, potential
witnesses can be tampered with and the culprits can abscond. If a self
respecting prosecutor was in charge of this investigation, he/she will be
asking pertinent questions that can be used as evidence in court. He/she
would have taken control of all the arms that were used on April 10 and 11.
He/she would have interrogated all the armed men on duty at locations where
casualties were reported. He/she would have interrogated all commanding
officers to get to the bottom of the orders that were given to the armed men
that opened fire on the children. He/she, instead of jailing the students,
would have treated them as potential witnesses and ask them to account for
what happened. In my humble opinion, this is how criminal cases are
investigated and prosecuted daily in civilized societies where the
authorities are interested in the pursuit of justice. Commissions of inquiry
are notorious for being a ploy by lawless governments to delay the
dispensation of justice. If we are not careful, no one will be convicted for
the crimes perpetrated on April 10 and 11. A commission of inquiry or/and an
inquest certainly cannot convict and punish someone. The evidence gathering
function of these bodies are also lacking. Why go through point C if you
want to get from A to B?
KB
________________________________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L
Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
