plaint against the police which was undertaken by the Surrey Constabulary and supervised by the Police Complaints Authority - the family have been refused access to the completed report.
Like the Lawrences before her, Sukhdev Reel is still seeking the truth of what happened to her son, so that she can mourn properly.
Clearly, the police feel they need to be seen to be doing something - it is good to see that they feel under pressure for once.
There is still a lot of work to do though, both to find out and publicise the truth and to stop deaths at the hands of racist thugs inside and outside the police. Wayne Rogers THE BODIES of two children from Guinea were found frozen to death in the landing gear bay of an Airbus330-300 that landed in Brussels on 2 August. It appears that their bodies had been in the undercarriage for around 10 days, making daily trips between Belgium and Conakry, the capital of Guinea.
The bodies of 14 year old Yaquine Koita and his 15 year old friend Fode Tourkana were sent home in Zinc lined coffins following a ceremony attended by the Guinean ambassador and representatives of the Belgium government. Many people have commented that had they arrived alive, they would simply have been deported with no such ceremony.
The death of these two friends would not have even reached public attention were it not for the fact that a letter was found on the body of one of them that addressed "Excellencies, sirs, members and officials of Europe...we have the honourable pleasure an great confidence to write you this letter to tell you the objective of our voyage and of our suffering, we, the children of Africa.
"We appeal to your kindness and solidarity to come to the rescue of Africa.' the letter goes on 'Help us, we are suffering enormously... we have war, disease, not enough to eat. There are schools, but a great lack of education, of teaching...
The letter ends up "If you see that we have sacrificed ourselves and lost our lives it is because we suffer too much in Africa and need your help to struggle against poverty and war....Please excuse us very much for daring to write this letter."
Embarrassed
The fact that these two children were prepared to die to deliver this message has embarrassed Belgium government officials into promising more aid for Africa and to circulate the letter to other European governments.
The Belgian government has no intention, however of loosening the racist immigration controls that mean that people do feel forced to risk their lives trying to enter Europe illegally.
The appeal of these two African children may seem naive, but at the root of poverty and war throughout Africa lies a legacy of failed European colonial adventures and of continued imperialist intervention that is bleeding the continent dry. The meagre aid with strings attached that is sent to Africa and elsewhere throughout the third world pales into insignificance compared to the vast wealth that is taken out in debt repayment or as the profits of multinational companies.
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