Mr. Sillah, Thank you for joining the ongoing debate about the freedom of the press during the past 7 years as compared to yester-years. I for one will never deny that there had been problems between the present government and the "private" media. My emphasis during this debate will be mainly on the "Private" media as the public media during the first republic was virtually non-existent and therefore not worth comparing and contrasting with what prevails as of now. Having said that, I would like to tell you why I believe that the private media enjoys more freedom now than ever before. However before going into that, I would like to ask you whether you are telling me that the government printer is prohibited from printing for the private media. I am very much interested in knowing about that as well as from when it had been prohibited from printing for the private press. Mr. Sillah, the fact that people like you are risking your security and reporting the news as you see fit, despite all the alleged harassment, is clear testimony to the development of the private media during the past seven years. Unless you are in denial, you will agree with me that some of the articles being published today would have landed many a journalist in jail for duriing the PPP era. Secondly, Mr. Sillah, do not mis-construe my stance about what ensues as condoning whatever may have been wrongly done to some of you. All I am saying is that what generally goes around comes around. You will not tell me that those who took you to the NIA or interogated you are not Gambians or were they non-Gambians? Fact of the matter is, it takes two to tango. It is very easy to blame the government and conveniently forget that some of us are inherently wicked and are capable of anything and at the same time there are others who want to insist on their way as the only way. That brings about unnecessary confrontation. Another thing is that decree 70/71 that some of you so much detest has never dettered any of you and thus has so far not been used against any media house at least punitively to my knowledge or am I wrong in that assertion? As for the heavy taxes, all I can say is that our economy has been and is still tax based and as such heavy taxation is a part of our life at least for now. As to how it has specifically affected the private media, my guess is that it has not significantly affected the circulation of the print media nor the viability of the audio media or has it? Please tell us more about this heavy taxation to enable me comment on it. I know for a fact that certain items and businesses are equally if not more heavily taxed and these businesses are not media related. Therefore taxation cannot be used as proof of harassment of the private media. Thirdly, Mr. Sillah, I am someone who happens to believe that when paradigms shift everything goees to zero. I have also learnt, long ago, that possitive engagement has a better chance of solving problems or mis-understandings than confrontation. You see; what some of you fail to realise is that none of the things that some of you proclaim to want to see in The Gambia cannot come to fruition unless there is stability and law and order. You gave some statistics of the number arrests of journalists during the 32 year PPP reign and the seven year AFPRC/APRC reign but failed to give us certain important factors such as the number of media houses during the respective periods, the awareness of the public as well as the population. Whereas you gave us some idea of who the victims of these arrests during the past seven years are and the number of times most were arrested, you failed to do the same for those 15 arrests during the 32 year year PPP regime. You told us that about 13 of you accounted for the 35 arrests during the past seven years; can you enlighten us as to who accounted for the 15 arrests during the past PPP regime? Do you remember the late Femi Jeng who died in police custody during the PPP regime simply because he happened to be on duty during Kukoi's failed coupe attempt and was used by the rebels? Finally, Mr. Sillah, all that I am saying is that we all have different priorities. As far as I am concerned the abject poverty, ill health and ignorance in our midst is more of a priority than the utopian state that some of you believe we can attain while we are this poor. I do not also usually want to comment on individual cases especially when the individuals concerned are not at liberty or are unavailable to respond to how I percieve their cases. As such, I don't want to comment on the citizen FM case or the attempted arson of Radio One FM unless you are at liberty to tell me more about them. Have a good day, Gassa. _________________________________________________________________ Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com <<//\\>>//\\<<//\\>>//\\<<//\\>>//\\<<//\\>>//\\<<//\\>> To view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html To contact the List Management, please send an e-mail to: [log in to unmask] <<//\\>>//\\<<//\\>>//\\<<//\\>>//\\<<//\\>>//\\<<//\\>>