Hello Saiks,
thank you for information. I have never doubted that life bullets were used.
But what I fear for is that the weapons are not confiscated, kept by
"neutral" police-investigators , that other facts will not be protected, so
they can document the whole incident back to the death of Ebrima Barry and
hour after hour from that moment of.
When the police are under trial here in Denmark we have a special corps
which will make the investigations. The same if it´s  the military  under
trial. Is that the same in The Gambia ? Has the paramilitary persons
involved on the 10.-11. april  - like the students-been held isolated until
they were questioned on the incident ? And by whom ?

Now I will surely look forward to get the names of the  elected commission
of enquiry. Hopefully they are capable people, because they are up against
something very BIG, and the entire Gambia and gambian communities all over
will study every question asked, every answer given, every stone turned, and
we will see which stones they "forget" to turn. I hope they will not tremble
with fear for what it will ends up with. But no matter what such a
commission of enquiry comes up with, I think that the families of the
deceased should still ensure their rights to take the cases to a civil
court. Even how neutral the commission will be, it can not substitute a
legal process, my opinion.

Let me say that I´m not expecting that it will end up making the President
responsible for the actions. I don´t belive there is  a directly chain of
responsibilities or orders from him (the president) to the man who for some
reason pulled the trigger that day. If so I´ll  be very surprised.

But indirectly the standard of moral sat, the orders, regulations given,
will at the end of a long line leads back to the standards, rules, laws and
regulations sat by the President, the Parliament, the politicians, the
establishment. Those standards which in many situations have lead to
terror,  harassment,  torture, the  control of the people by NIA and their
helpers, and which climaxed in the massacre on civilians 10.-11. april.  On
"the day of judgement" (hopefully election day) justice will take those
directly or indirectly responsible for the situation in The Gambia has gone
so out of human and democratic order. Time is running fast and I´m not sure
if they can avoid their "destiny", maybe only by "miracles". That is why I´m
also very interested in watching if those in power like other places in the
world will try to postpone election - "judgements day".
Or they have now learned a lesson and from tomorrow start to do things much
better for the benefit of the people they have the privilege to serve.
(I´m not too optimistic when I learned from information on Gambia-L that the
parliament some months back for several days could not make decisions, there
was no quorum. Then I thought: " how embarrassing - is this respect for the
democratic system ?  are they turning The Gambia into a banana-republic ?")

Like I´m interested in knowing if the alternative is better ? Or will the
standard sat just be followed by the next team in office ? How has the
alternative team started to prepare for "judgements day" and the first hour
after. As an outsider I can sit on the sideline and watch.

Still I´m  so filled with anger. It´s so unfair that children and students
should give up lives just because "someone" didn´t think students should be
allowed to demonstrate. It was not an uprising , a demonstration to
overthrow the state, the president, the government, but just that  they
wanted justice in two cases to be found. They expressed what many gambians
felt, that justice was trampled underfoot, the legal system  not well
functioning. Who misjudged the situation ? Or is it like that in The Gambia
by now, that all demonstrations must be cancelled, postponed, or people
terrorfied so much that they don´t dare to express their dissatisfaction.

Comments from Asbjørn Nordam
 


on 28/04/00 16:05, saiks samateh at [log in to unmask] wrote:

> Asbj?rn Nordam ,
> In the radio talk show programme that followed after the incident,people were
> asking almost the same questions .I can tell you that by accident I have seen
> people picking up bullets that have been fired and as you can read also from
> the reports Drs have produced bullets that have been found in the bodies of
> the students.The lies that life bullets were not use by the military,is now a
> rotten story,they have now change tactics in their story telling.But people
> are not expecting any kankaro parades here,it is to the best of our dear
> country that this problem be solved.That the Jammeh regime must go should not
> in anyway be compromised,now enough is enough.
> 
> For freedom
> saiks
> 
> 
>

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L
Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html

----------------------------------------------------------------------------