Ebrima

I would like to thank brother KB for his searching questions. I agree with
him entirely that establishing the truth about April 10 and 11 is essential.

There are quite a number of students who recognise security officers that
are responsible for the shootings around the red cross and mobile traffic
area. But because they fear for their lives, they are not prepared to come
before the commission to say so. In between the adjournments of the
commission, you will often hear students claim that given appropriate
circumstances, they can name some people responsible for the killings. For
instance, St Augustine's students, through Mr Sabally, identified one Gorgi
L Mboob as being responsible for the shooting that wounded three of their
colleagues IN THE SCHOOL'S HALL. What more provocation do you need than
this? But being the liars they are, Gorgi Mboob, testifying before the
commission, denied ever setting foot at St Augustine or even knowing the
school even though he lives at Old Lines barracks! Interestingly, Inspector
Omar Darbo, in charge of operation at that time around the school, testified
that Mboob was among his men that went to Saints! Darbo, a paramilitary
inspector was the one who claimed he does not know an AK 47!

Every one knows that student reps held several meetings with the authorities
to address their concerns. Meetings were held with the PS and SOS Education,
SOS Interior, Chief Fire Officer, IG Police and up to the level of the Vice
President(this meeting incidentally did not take place). The students
demands were no given proper consiideration. Infact the Chief Fire Officer
lambasted the students as trying to hold government to ransom and that they
have no right to make demands to government! Is this also not provocative.
Every one in The Gambia knows this as it was always in the news. Also
outcomes of all the meetings were reported to the students. As a last
report, the students applied to the IG for a permit to demonstrate but that
was denied. Later the liars claimed no application was ever made. They
probably might have destroyrd all evidence of the application by now.
Instead a very threatening statement from the IG was read over GRTS a couple
of days before the march as the students have decided to march anyway.

On the day, the students gathered at GTTI with banners and placards, with
messages like "WHO KILLED EBRIMA BARRY". "WHO RAPED OUR SISTER"' "WE WANT
JUSTICE", etc. Everything was ruly until the stupid paramilitary people
charged into the crowd. The students replied with stones, bottles, etc. From
what I know of the events, I can swear that no opposition element incited
the students. It was purely an event organised and staged by the students
themselves. When Jammeh met with student reps, they told him in no uncertain
terms that nobody instigated them and anybody who suggests otherwise is
insulting their intelligence. They also left him in no doubt that if action
is not taken, they would not hesitate to stage another demo.Infact I saw
people like Sidia Jatta on the street trying to calm students. Student
leaders also told SOS Badji to withdraw the paras and they too will calm the
students but Badji said that the order has already been given and it would
not be revoked. The deaths actually took place before police stations were
burnt. On my first outing when I was going to school, the army chief of
staff was around. He calmed the students down and decided to walk with them
to the mobile traffic via dippa kunda, kairaba avenue, post office road and
kanifing. It was on arrival at the mobile traffic that the paras opened
fire. In his testimony before the commission, the chief os staff said he had
to dive and crawl on his belly to the safety of the CBMC building. Surely,
he too could recognise the shooters. If the students meant evil, couldn't
they have harmed the chief of staff? So it is totally untrue that criminal
elements were released to go and kill those who released them. It makes more
sense to kill your tormentor than your saviour.

The university extension was run by St Mary's University, Canada.
Professors, books, etc were sent from canada to teach the courses in The
Gambia. It just made use of the facilities of MDI, GTTI and the College. At
some point there was some sort of rivalry between those institutions and the
university. Thre is no new campus and there are no plans to build one. Since
last January, the government took over and is now called The University of
The Gambia. There are a lot of problems it faces, i.e, no textbooks,
scholarships(up to the timr I left), etc.

Thanks a lot for your questions and welcoming me to the list.

Saul
________________________________________________________________________
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

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