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