From Jomo Kenyatta's "The Gentlemen of the Jungle" ".....Then the man decided that he must adopt an effective method of protection, since Commissions of Enquiry did not seem to be of any use to him. He sat down and said, 'Ng'enda thi ndagaga motegi,' which literally means 'there is nothing that treads on earth that cannot be trapped,' ........" The seating of the commission of inquiry in Gambia reminded me of the elephant in Kenyatta'a story. He was at once the aggressor (Killer Yahya against the students) to appear before the commission for questioning, (will killer Yahya be questioned) as well as the high minister in the jungle kingdom tasked with appointing the commissioners. With the scales of justice rigged as they are, justice, ultimately, will have to rest in the hands of the people. Of course, the man took action and his problem was taken care of. Action will be taken. Soffie -----Original Message----- From: Dampha Kebba [mailto:[log in to unmask]] Sent: Thursday, June 08, 2000 11:40 AM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Commission of Inquiry As we follow the events unfolding in that silly commission of inquiry, we feel nothing but utter disgust about what is going on. The results of a sample polling by Gambian newspapers show that an overwhelming majority of those spoken to, are either dissatisfied with the composition of the commission, the questions being asked at the commission, the responses being given or all of the above. Some also saw this commission as a total waste of time. The commission is not interested in getting to the bottom of the matter: who in particular did the shooting and who ordered them to carry live bullets in their weapons? If the sole purpose of the commission is to solicit facts that would enable the authorities to avoid another massacre, they should just counsel the government to employ security experts to teach them about crowd control. The people who lost their children are not interested in that. Any self respecting government should know how to engage school children in dialogue. We do not need a commission of inquiry manned by traitors to tell a government how to protect its innocent citizens. This case belongs in the regular courts where convicted criminals are put in jail or shot before a firing squad. It is almost comical that the chief justice will be so outraged to the extent of threatening witnesses with contempt of court citations because they are making him wait in court. Well, we got news for the chief justice. There are Gambian families waiting endlessly for the murderers of their children be brought to court. We wished we had the power to put all of you in jail for prolonging the ordeal of those families. All this commission will succeed in doing, is provide the murderers involved in this massacre an opportunity to rehearse their lies before facing a real prosecutor. But they should know that that court house will be burnt down and all the books and silly wigs thrown in the sea if someone does not pay for the heinous crimes committed on April 10 and 11. The doctrine of collective responsibility should be applied to the maximum. It is not enough for Ousman Badgie to come to the commission and try and pretend that the IGP can overrule him and Yaya and order the shooting, nor would it be enough for the IGP to come and say that junior officers took the law into their hands. We realize that the government is still trying to peddle that ridiculous lie that their armory was broken into. We would not buy that either. Colly already put that to rest. We think that the commission is a waste of time and should be terminated forthwith. Their inclusion of a single female member does not change anything. It would not help get to the bottom of this. The chief justice (who I hope is a seasoned lawyer) was sitting there when arrogant government officials refused to answer legitimate questions by invoking some nonexistent privileges (cabinet discussions should not be made public). I wonder why the chief justice did not cite the official for contempt of court and force him to answer the question. Are we going to allow these people to hide the discussions that went on between Yaya (in Cuba) and his cohorts (in Gambia) because they were in a 'cabinet' meeting? Give us a break. Are these the signs of people who want to get to the bottom of the matter? The judiciary should show goodwill by ensuring the termination of this bogus commission and also throwing out of court that frivolous appeal from the AG aimed at putting back our children to jail. As we said before, the judge did not err in law. This was only a factual matter and the facts do not support the AG's position. The events of April 10 and 11 should teach us that denying people natural justice only leads to anarchy. If the courts do not enforce the laws fairly, people will take the laws into their own hands. Simple as that. That is another lesson we can learn without the aid of a commission. Had the people that killed Ebrima Barry been brought to court and justice done on that matter, we would not be in this predicament today. KB ________________________________________________________________________ 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 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html ----------------------------------------------------------------------------