.HI, THIS IS FROM THE INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPER. As people still await April 10 commission report General public express disappointment The report of the commission of inquiry looking into the events of the April 10-11 disturbances is yet to be made public but the fact that the chairman of the commission, chief Justice Felix Lartey, in handing over the report, said that both the security forces and the students are culpable has met with strong reaction from the general public. Taking to The Independent, Omar Sosseh, who received a gunshot wound on his leg during the demonstration said the statement was not satisfactory at all. 'I believe the security forces are to blame because they used live bullets on us.The commission should have looked into the matter as to who is on the wrong and who started all this mayhem in the first place,' Omar said. Another student who suffered the same fate, Omar Jagana emphasised that if both parties are wrong, then the security forces are more on the wrong 'because they entered our school and shot at us. Even though the demonstration was unauthorised, they should have found a more civilized way of quelling the demonstration rather than shooting at us.' Another student, Fatou Touray, blamed the security forces for what happened. 'The students demonstrated because of the Barry case and the 13-year girl who was raped. They should not have shot at the students because they had a right to demonstrate,' she remarked. Landing Kassama, an ex-student, said the government has no respect for human rights and that was why they did not hesitate to use live bullets to quell the student demonstration. Also talking to this reporter, some youths also shifted the blame squarely on the shoulders of the security forces. 'The security forces were wrong. We have seen students in other countries demonstrate and they do not use live bullets on them. We have also recently seen supporters of the KMC Chairman demonstrate for his re-instatment. Why were they not shot at? How can they blame both parties for what happened? This is ridiculous,' one of them said. The youths also blamed President Jammeh for 'wasting a lot of time in Cuba while live bullets were being used on the students. What we want to know is, who ordered the shooting,' they stressed. Femi Peters, a parent also said one cannot understand how both the security forces and the students can be blamed for what happened. 'One important question which the commission failed to address itself is who gave the order to shoot the unarmed students. It is an absolute fact that not even the Chief of Staff and Commander of the Gambia National Army (GNA), the Inspector General of Police, the Secretary of State the Interior and any other person in the security services have the right to order the shooting. This itself has left so many questions unanswered,' Mr. Peters stressed. Another parent, Louie Gomez said the students have been deprived of their rights. ' If this had not been the case, then we would not have witnessed such a bloody carnage,' he said. Yassin Njie, another parent, said the students have a right to demonstrate and the question of who ordered the shooting is still unanswered. Mr. Ousman Sabally, a teacher at Saint Augustines said it is possible to have two people at fault but in this case the forces are more at fault. 'Lives were lost former but the damage properties can be repaired. They should have found another way of controlling the students rather than use live bullets. They have no right to do what they did in our school and they will pay the price for that,' he said. The secretary to the commission, Mr. Abdou Cole, could not be reached for comments as he was at a meeting with the SOS for Tourism. A commission member, James M.B Abraham, refused to comment until the report is made public. However, a female police officer, who begged anonymity said,' the students are to blamed because they were the cause of everything.' _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com. Share information about yourself, create your own public profile at http://profiles.msn.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 You may also send subscription requests to [log in to unmask] if you have problems accessing the web interface and remember to write your full name and e-mail address. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------