Having keen interest in human rights issues, I want to express my concern to the erosion of human rights in our beloved nation.It's a fact that the coming of Yaya Jammeh into power was the beginning of the erosion of human rights records in our country. Most of these crimes are with impunity. From the incident of April student demonstration, the unconstitutional arrest and detention of Comrade Dumo Sarho et al, censorship of the press with dragonian and undemocractic decree 70 and 71, destruction of the beach bars, the Basse incident, one can imagine that we are now in the time of the butcher bird. Our country which is refered to as the smiling coast, is now turn to the crying coast of West Africa. The recent revelation of the commission on the April incident have betrayed the masses.The term of reference of the commission was manipulated. The million dollar question of who ordered the killings of innocent children cannot be answered by the authorities. Time and again many critical minded people blame the Government of Yaya Jammen for having blood in their hands as fact's remain undercover. At many a time, in international conferences our government camouflage that there is rule of law and democracy in the Gambia but any sober minded person knows that's far from reality. Since July 1994, the people of these country are living in the state fear which have serious implication to our long history of democracy.Hardly days goes by without reports of detension and arrest of people for expressing their views. The Government should know that the essence of democracy is to allow opponents to express their views. With the present trend of globilisation, it is a fact that no nation-state is an island. The development cooperation between developed and developing countries is base on 3-D-solution and that is debt, development and democracy. It is about time for APRC to shape a good image in our pathway to sustainable human development. Today our country is engulfed with numerous developmental crisis such as youth unemployment, poverty, high population growth, environmental degeneration etc, meeting the challenges of which requires democractic ethnics as international conditionality. BY:-Abdou Karim Sanneh ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------