I respectfully urge the rest of the Opposition not to read too much into the decision by certain APRC rubber stamps in parliament to abstain from voting for the Indemnity Decree. I think it is a mistake to credit these opportunists by saying that their abstention was a show of independence from Yaya. These parliamentarians are firmly in Yaya's grip. Is it not the same parliamentarians that refused to investigate Yaya for his involvement in the 'Crude Oil' scandal? Is it not the same parliamentarians that refused to pass legislation so that Local Government elections can be held? We should look into these parliamentarians' real motives before we give them credit they do not deserve. Are they really opposed to the Decree? What did they contribute to the debate in parliament? Did they openly denounce the passing of this repugnant law? Is there condemnation of this Decree consistent with other things they did in the past? If someone opposes this Decree and does not call for justice against the perpetrators of the April Massacre, then that person is a hypocrite. If you do not want to condone impunity, you should be consistent with the application of the rule of law. How can we trust these people and give them credit when they will not allow Yaya to be investigated in the 'Crude Oil' scandal, but would now stand up and pretend that they are all for the rule of law? They are all phonies. What is more likely is that APRC wants to have its cake and eat it. They know this is a repugnant and unpopular law. What did they do? They asked enough MPs to vote for the passing of the Decree and tell vulnerable MPs (come January 2002) to abstain. Think about it. Why should vulnerable MPs vote for a repugnant law that can cost them their seats when they already have enough votes to carry the day? The passing of this Decree should be looked at as an APRC thing. We should not compartmentalize the APRC MPs that voted for it from those that abstained. They are all guilty and none deserve to be sent back to parliament. The PARTY is the culprit here; not individual MPs. They deserve no praise from us. We will be helping them in their end game if we distinguish them because of this vote (non-vote) alone. That is what they want. Have their cake and eat it at the same time. They have the law they wanted and their vulnerable MPs are heralded as heroes for abstaining from the voting. Not so fast. As far as I am concerned, they are all on the same boat. The abstention of those opportunistic MPs did not defeat the Bill. Why did those MPs not convince the rest of the party machinery to abandon the legislation and not even present it in parliament? This is a bogus and a sinister ploy from the APRC. We must not fall for it. None of these APRC MPs is independent from Yaya. You think a party will willingly nominate a child murderer as their presidential candidate? What has Yaya got to offer to the party? The mental midget did not even finish school in Gambia. He has no ideas. He is the most corrupt person in the country. Yet these people still see him as their leader. I will only commend these vermin if they see sense and get rid of Yaya as their leader. Short of that, they have nothing but my contempt. This gimmick of abstaining while other cohorts pass the Bill into law does not deserve our commendation. KB _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.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. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------