KB, If there is anything that you can safely rely on from the pen-pushing Mandarins of the FCO, it is their shameless and sanctimonious drivel on policies as ignoble as the resumption of military aid and or assistance to a regime that cold bloodedly murders children as young as 3 and remain unrepentant. Notice the uncanny resemblance of the text in both Sister Sigga's response and that of Brother Kabir's; could it be that the FCO had it coordinated from London: That all questions on this issue should be in similar dodgy fashion? I had shrewdly guessed that such a platitudinous response is all you can squeeze out of the FCO or the British gov't for that matter hence i directed all my energies in lobbying the opposition especially the Liberals. I am supremely confident that Charles Kennedy will expose the shambolic and insensitive decision of the Blair gov't to resume cooperation with an unrepentant murderer like Jammeh. As you wisely observed, the sole purpose in resuming such tacky cooperation with the Gambia gov't is premised on the policy drive of limiting the participation of British soldiers in international peace keeping duties. Since it doesn't sell well to a cynical and ambivalent electorate back home to keep bring home body bags from foreign conflicts, it makes sense to train and arm "third world" citizens where they shrewdly guessed that for the crack-pot dictators hell-bent on perpetuating themselves in power at all cost, life of such peace keepers means nothing and even if it does, there is no one worthy their attention to account to. Most shameful in my view is the absence of Gambians in the UK from this protest. There are well over 20 of them online yet they are as silent as door nails. What shame. When i floated the idea of a petition a month ago to this day, i have yet to see a word or syllable of support from any constituent. Some of them might be calculating that the murder of the school children has nothing to do with them since they have lost no close relatives there, ergo, they don't give a monkey's. I hasten to caution such narcissism. For like the swinging pendulum of a grandfather clock, none in it's is immune from its blow that ensues from such swings. Hamjatta Kanteh _________________________________________________________________________ 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. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------