PRESS STATEMENT
APRIL 10TH 2000
Students world-wide have been torch bearers for change. In The Gambia as
else where they have the right to disseminate the benefits of high
education to the citizens, who are their parents and those who pay for the
cost of government, as a right. The staggering death of 12 and more
students confounds the usually silent population and it could not be laid
to rest. The FM(1) public debate on Tuesday, aftermath of the blood bath,
showed as much that we have a national crisis as the incomprehension of the
security forces and the gravity of their actions.
It would be a tragedy if us the other citizens allow the students to be
isolated and victimised, one by one. They have shown of being a promise,
by standing by heir female colleague and by Ebrima Barry, the unfortunate
and innocent youngman. The brutality with which the security forces
tortured him and his untimely death and the insensitivity of the teacher
and that made the police officers intrude the sanctify of academic freedom,
create doubts in our minds about quality in our academic life and the
competence of the academic staff.
With combine single voice across the nation, the students spoke and acted
as one man. The question that needs to be asked, is who gave orders to use
life-bullets against defenseless and innocent students? What were the
rules of engagement of these orders? These questions, students as well as
all Gambians want an answer to. The immediate cause of the violence must
be put squarely on the doorsteps of the government and its leaders. They
have innocent blood on their hands. The pathetic engagement of unequal
forces, dawns a dangerous precedence that cannot go unpunished.
The death of innocent students in the hands of their own fellow nationals,
concerned citizens, cannot but allow the behaviors of the law enforcement
officers only be descried as nothing less than an act of barbarism. The
Gambian students are not alone in these questions of fundamental rights.
Well beyond our great country they are not alone in this struggling times.
Throughout the continent, students have shown, in most cases, their
responsibility and commitment, to issues of national concern, whether this
is in Burkina-Faso or in South Africa. This spirit of political dynamism
has proved to the students that the state is an ass and that they must be
heard.
And the population would not stand by and let them down. They are no
bandits or irresponsible idlers but seeds of the future who were answering
to the call of their historical responsibility.
WE must without doubt be able to question who is responsible for their
murder, who gave he command to the rank and file of the soldiers, to commit
such heinous crime, such an answer will lay the grounds for a new political
situation in this country.
Leadership requires the ability to articulate the voices of people as one
combined by circumstances. The purpose of this responsibility is to raise
higher the quality of democratic ideals. It is a matter of principles,
conviction and fraternity to roundly condemn violent death in cold blood.
The fascist murder of Journalist and Red Cross volunteer Omar Barrow will
go sown in the annals of history as cowardly and a violation of
international justice. It is a transgression of the Geneva rules of
neutrality and conscience.
When the apparatus seems to become unpredictable in its co-ordination,
democratic principles that constitutions theoretically contend, become
stretched between the effects of elections and election systems as with the
political rights that can be asserted by others not sharing the position of
he status quo. Conflict can break into the open. Negotiations need to be
brokered by those who will have their bearings. A judiciary inquiry should
be setup as well as a corona's inquest. These start with the status quo
setting no limits on expression of freedom. There cannot be any
qualification of this truth.
It is the first and final rule of student politics that student demands for
their rights provide the prism for any reactions to their actions. The
chronicle of pursue and destroy which we see in the action of the security
forces is as the heart of the misconception of authority that power is
sancrosant and a monopoly. Army Chief of - Staff Jatta and Interior
Secretary Badjie had every opportunity to satisfy themselves to the
independence of actions of 10th April.
It is time to break the silence.
To the press; open letter to the Gambia people.
JUNKUNDA DAFFEH
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