Absjorn,

I cannot tell you if the employment of foreign guards by our President is
legal or not under Gambian law, but perhaps someone else on this forum can
address that.
Of course you are right in saying that unless it can be proven in a court of
law that the Present regime has broken the law, there is nothing that can be
done by Gambian as well as the international community. You are so right when
you refer to the Jawara era when infact, The Gambia was being lauded as the
bastion of democracy. At any rate, I think that the April massacre certainly
is a good example of the breaking of Gambian laws in that we are supposed to
be a democratic counr=try where the citizenry can let theior voice be heard
if they are dissatisfied with anything, and these students were trying to
exercise just this right. The response was fatal shots fired at them, and to
date, no one has owned up to even issuing the order to shoot, and the
international community nor Gambians have seen any of the people who fired
these shots under detention.
Additionally, there are many allegations of human rights abuses such as the
abduction of Mr Nyassi which they denied but later produced him, allegations
by some who say they were witnesses to mass murder and know where bodies are
buried, allegations of diversion of state funds etc  that have been made, and
there are many video cassettes of the evidence of brutal torture inflicted by
this regime.The fact that journalists are and have been persecuted can also
be testified to by the victims.

The problem we have now is that as long as these people are in power and can
manipulate and hide evidence, then we will never have the opportunity to
bring these allegations to the courts, local or internattional, and those in
Gambia who can provide the needed information to back up these allegations
are not free to speak for fear of persecution, although there are Gambians
outside who have told what they know and have experienced.

It is easy to see that there are a lot of people in our country who will come
forward to say what they know and assist in making sure that any crimes and
violations are brought to the forefront when the people are free to speak
without fear of retribution. This can only happen when Jammeh and his gang
are no longer in power.  Until then, any effort to bring them to task in a
court of law is virtually impossible, but we live for the day that justice
will finally be done.

Jabou

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