Latest reports from the commission are not encouraging, to say the least. Up today, we have not seen anyone coming forward to point to a single soldier or police as someone that fired a fatal bullet on April 10 and 11. We call upon anyone who has information otherwise to enlighten us. People come here to narrate how they arrived after the fact and how they heard of the destruction of property etc. Even the chief justice recognizes that they are conducting a fruitless exercise. According to today's Observer newspaper, the chief justice expressed frustration by rhetorically asking: "Did the shooters come from the moon? The pathologists attributed the students' deaths to gunshot wounds". It is obvious that if they want to get to the bottom of this thing, these are not the silly questions to ask. To establish who shot those fatal shots, they should first of all ask about the people that were armed. Ask them to account for their ammunitions. Anyone who is short, will be presumed to have fired a shot. Then trace those bullets to the mortuary. This is not Monday morning quarterbacking. I raised the same questions as soon as a coroner's inquest was commenced. The more we prolong this thing with silly proceedings before toothless commissions and inquests, the more we compromise the integrity of the evidence. A case in point is the reported statement of one lieutenant that appeared before the commission. He said, "We had live ammunition but my men never shot at anyone. After returning to the camp, I checked and confirmed that all our arms and ammunition were intact". And I think there were reported deaths from bullet wounds at the same place where his men operated. This is what you get from bogus commissions. It enables culprits to perfect the doctoring of their evidence. At the end of the day, the evidence that will be gathered from this forum would worth very little to a prosecutor. In the meantime, evidence is being destroyed, potential witnesses can be tampered with and the culprits can abscond. If a self respecting prosecutor was in charge of this investigation, he/she will be asking pertinent questions that can be used as evidence in court. He/she would have taken control of all the arms that were used on April 10 and 11. He/she would have interrogated all the armed men on duty at locations where casualties were reported. He/she would have interrogated all commanding officers to get to the bottom of the orders that were given to the armed men that opened fire on the children. He/she, instead of jailing the students, would have treated them as potential witnesses and ask them to account for what happened. In my humble opinion, this is how criminal cases are investigated and prosecuted daily in civilized societies where the authorities are interested in the pursuit of justice. Commissions of inquiry are notorious for being a ploy by lawless governments to delay the dispensation of justice. If we are not careful, no one will be convicted for the crimes perpetrated on April 10 and 11. A commission of inquiry or/and an inquest certainly cannot convict and punish someone. The evidence gathering function of these bodies are also lacking. Why go through point C if you want to get from A to B? 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 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------