19, August 2019
Southern Cameroons: Trial of Ambazonia leaders fraught with political baggage 0
Yaoundé is still not prepared to launch a campaign that would explain to the world that the trial of the Ambazonia leader, President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe and his senior aides will be held with total transparency as it unfolds. The Francophone regime headed by 86 years old President Paul Biya has not realize how much is at stake and that they have to do things right.
The whole process of abduction and extradition to Yaoundé from Abuja has discredited both Nigeria and French Cameroun democracies and the Biya Francophone regime as well. The President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe and the NERA 9 trial is the most politically explosive in modern French and Bristish Cameroons history.
The Ambazonia-French Cameroun trial also reflect how divisive the so-called one and indivisible Cameroonian nation has become : while the Cameroon government and its ageing leadership insist the trial of the Ambazonia leader is an exemplary demonstration of justice in action, the Ambazonian Interim Government has warned it will prove that French Cameroun’s judiciary is not fit for purpose.
Ten prominent leaders of the Ambazonia Interim Government are in the Yaoundé Military Tribunal and the whole trial process has been shameful, disgusting and disgraceful. They could face the death penalty or a jail sentence of up to 25 years if found guilty of charges of terrorism presented by public Francophone prosecutors predominantly from the Beti-Bulu tribal extraction.
The Vice President of the Southern Cameroons Interim Government Dabney Yerima has warned that the outcome of the trial is a foregone conclusion, because, he claims, the judiciary is controlled by Biya and his French Cameroun political elites who are determined to punish not just an alleged violation of Francophone law but Southern Cameroons nationalism as a whole.
Vice President Dabney Yerima told Cameroon Intelligence Report that the NERA 10 trial is not against a crime, because no crime was committed against French Cameroun. He opined that the Yaoundé Military Tribunal Theater remains a political trial and a prosecution of pro-independence ideology.
Dabney Yerima pointed, for example, to the fact that the NERA 10 have been in Nigeria and French Cameroun custody for more than a year and the Yaounde court keeps changing its trial judges. Another major bone of contention has been the charges themselves particularly that of terrorism, which implies the use of violence, something that President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe has always publicly rejected.
By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai
20, August 2019
Ambazonia-Yaounde Military Tribunal gate: Irrelevant Parody of Justice 0
The politically motivated life sentences slammed on Sisiku Ayuk Tabe and nine Ambazonian leaders by a Court-martial in Cameroun with the complicity of the government of the Federal Republic of Nigeria is one more unfortunate example of the militarization of justice, civil and political rights in African through inter-state terror. The ten victims, who were in Nigeria under the protection of international law, were abducted from a hotel in Abuja Nigeria in a coordinated operation carried out by Nigeria and Cameroun intelligence and paramilitary operatives. A Federal High Court in Abuja, Nigeria has since decided that the abduction and rendition of these victims was illegal and violated the Nigerian constitution and international law and ordered the return to Nigeria of the abductees; a decision, the Nigerian government has so far ignored.
The entire operation leading to this Cameroun staged night judicial terror is a slur on the rule of law credentials and constitutional governance of Nigeria and Cameroun. It provides cattle fodder for the validation of the criticism made by an increasing number of observers that the two countries may be paying lip-service to the supposed fight against Boko Haram in which the international community has deployed extensive resources. Going by the interstate abduction and court-martial of these victims in a night judicial ritual, a method allegedly used by Boko Haram in its operations, could this hydra-headed monster so-called Boko Haram not be but a stealth interstate ruse used to create instability to justify political brigandage and the corrupt externalization of political power relying on international resources and support? Why will supposed sovereign nations prefer interstate terror to the international rule of law in the conduct of international relations?
This irrelevant parody of justice against Sisiku Ayuk Tabe and Southern Cameroons leaders is about ten individuals. It is about the consequences in Nigeria, La Republique du Cameroun and Africa of the legitimization of abduction and state terror as alternatives to the international rule of law. The international community must make a strong statement condemning this travesty and judicial brigandage and seek the unconditional release of these victims. Its indifference may unfortunately be construed as a tacit validation of impunity in an explosive region where violence is not a rare commodity.
No one should be under the illusion, that the impugned court-martial process and its outcome is a victory for French Cameroun or Nigeria that collaborated in it. It is an international symbol of shame for the two countries and a validation of the just claims of the Southern Cameroons to sovereignty and freedom. The ten did not present the case of the independence of the Southern Cameroons by violent means. At their abduction, they were merely articulating the claims which the Southern Cameroons have strenuously presented for the past fifty-seven years, at the United Nations, at home and worldwide. Rather than seek dialogue to resolve the conflict, Cameroun declared war with impunity, hoping to subdue the aggrieved people of the Southern Cameroons through genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. The Nigeria government which Africa and the world relied on to mediate in this and other African disputes, decided to throw its support to the government of French Cameroun in the mistaken belief that the abduction of these victims would end the crisis! By its own miscalculation, Nigeria, lost an opportunity to oversee a peaceful solution to a potentially protracted conflict in its own backyard.
Ambazonia is an albatross on the neck of the Republic of Cameroun which will loosen its grip only when Ambazonia is fully liberated. The life sentences only extend the duration and complexity of the conflict which neither the present leaders of Cameroun or Nigeria will be around to see how it plays out. May be only their progeny, may as fate often does, have the chance to have glimpses of these victims when they will be liberated to partake in the celebration of an independent and free neighbouring Ambazonia. The night justice of shame will not define the cause they stand for. The sustained resistance, self-defense and the unbreakable will and resolve of a people who have craved for justice with peace plants, memoranda to the UN and the international community, their precious blood and the eternal conscience of humanity will determine the outcome of this conflict and not conspiratorial carnage, terror and the arrogance of ephemeral power of a frail failing dictatorship. For this reason, by imposing the so-called life sentences and other coercive conditions of life on Southern Cameroons captives, they might in this occasion, have put their own poisoned portions on their own lips and that of their nation.
By Chief Charles A.Taku