The assimilation of Ambazonia (Southern Cameroons) into Cameroun Republic by France has been the strategy all along. The two state federation that the people of the then Southern Cameroons voted for in the plebiscite that brought the two together has never been in consideration. But assimilation has failed, and separation and restoration of an independent Ambazonia state remains the only resolution to the current crisis with Cameroun Republic.

In a <a href=”http://bareta.press/southern-cameroons-struggle-symptoms-cause-cure”> previous piece</a>, I noted that prior to the infamous Foumban Conference of 1961, French authorities, as was revealed through the pen of one Pierre Messmer(Colonial Administrator in Africa: 1952 -1956; Governor General of Cameroun, 1956,French Minister of Armies: 1960–1969, French Minister of State, Minister of Departments and Overseas Territories: 1971–1972, French Prime Minister: 1972–1974),viewed the then Southern Cameroons as a territory ripe for annexation. It is therefore only logical that as night follows day, pro-active and intensive assimilation had to ensue.

Confidential memoranda such as the recently published directive to the French Consul, Mr. Michel Morel, based in Buea and dated August, 1967 evinces the strategy of colonial assimilation. And the native inhabitants and indigenes of Ambazonia are living witnesses to the violence of the brutal tactics of this French directed strategy.

However, after half a century of the employment of relentlessly dehumanizing methods to achieve this goal, Yaoundé, under the colonial tutelage of Paris obviously remains wanting. All of the ‘Grandes Écolesà l’Africaine,’ EMIA, ENAM, IRIC etc., conceived and customized for the tropical periphery in order to mold the loyal and French-fried administrative cadres to serve the Parisian metropolis, have not been able to effectively wipe out that which makes the people of Ambazonia distinct.

Today, these manufactured elites, formatted to deceive, seduce and corrupt are void of any legitimacy in the eyes of those they sought to pacify. The masses have seen them for what they were manufactured and programmed to be: privileged slaves who represent an effete band of self-flagellating empty suits, some of whom have desperately resorted to appeals of base bigotry.

In this enduring crisis, the French traditional instinct on behalf of their Vichy colony, Cameroun Republic, was one of annexation and assimilation while those of the people of the then Southern Cameroons was one of a union with two federated states of equal status. The reasons for failure in co-habitation between these two territories, these two states, these two peoples, are due to the irreconcilable value systems, perspectives of governance and a worldview, which were rooted in, and have rooted distinct traditions. Both peoples being Africans negates not this reality.

Cameroun Republic and Ambazonia have an international boundary not being demarcated today. This boundary makes it clear that they are two separate and distinct countries; it is a matter of genetic geopolitics, which is immutable. It is a similar recognition and pragmatism that has seen the creation of newer states in the European Union in the last generation. Not all peoples are meant to co-habit within the same political and administrative space.

Confronted with unknotting a French mindset that have them tied in colonial bondage, Ambazonians today should not be naïve. But what exactly is this mindset? In Charles Cogan’s study and analysis of the French political tradition and worldview (French Negotiating Behavior: Dealing with La Grande Nation), he quotes Hubert Védrine, a former French Foreign Minister:

“’The ultra-liberal market economy, mistrust of the state, individualism removed from the Republican tradition, the inevitable reinforcement of the universal and ‘indispensable’ role of the United States, common law, the English Language, Anglo-Saxon norms…”

Védrine contrasted this with the French tradition: “Historically, French identity has been defined by and built upon a strong central state, first monarchial, and then republican. It was painstakingly built by jurists and based on the idea that France had a specific political, legal, and cultural role to play in the world” (Emphasis mine).

Cogan called it a “sweeping philippic on globalization.”

Védrine’s philippic reveals the entrenched French mindset and worldview that is at once intensely and instinctively anti Anglo-Saxon and for the hyper-centralization of power and state authority. It is steeped in hundreds if not thousands of years of French authoritarian tradition: “first monarchial, and then republican.”

This is the immutable mindset of the infantilized governing elite in Yaoundé, vetted and approved by the Cellule Africaine of the Élysée Palace in Paris. This is the mindset that allows for a French-fried African to boldly proclaim to fellow Africans that they are cubes of sugar meant for dissolution.

This is the mindset that allows for a French-fried African to tell a representative of his people, “Qu’est-ce que vous allez faire?” in response to the expression of legitimate grievances.

This is the mindset that enables the “epithet” of “Biafra” when such insanity is challenged. This is mindset that allows for our people to be kidnapped and transported across an international boundary for calling for federation.

For those who continue to preach “federation” with Yaoundé as opposed to restoration in Buea at the footsteps of Mount Fako, they are asking Ambazonians to accept unadulterated assimilation even after all the violence of public beatings, kidnappings, rapes and murder of their fellow citizens.

There exists no federal concept of governance in the French tradition and view of political administration. Asking for a federation with a state under the colonial control of France and its policy of monetary slavery, is, to paraphrase Richard Joseph in Gaullist Africa, to accept the principle of free intercourse between wolves and sheep.

Fellow Ambazonians, “you get from this life what you have the courage to ask for.”

Terrence B. Wakai

La Republique du Cameroun recently approved the trial of the leaders of the Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium at military tribunals in Yaounde. The Consortium including many international organizations have blasted the measure including the rapes, extra judicial killings, the militarization of Southern Cameroons and the shutdown of internet services  as being tantamount to imposition of an undeclared martial law.

With many Southern Cameroonian groups still responding to the civil disobedience campaign orchestrated by the Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium and the complete and total boycott of all academic institutions, we of this publication believe that arrest and trial of the leaders of the Consortium is an indication that the Biya Francophone regime is in “a dire situation” and is unable to “retain” the security and stability in West Cameroon.

What is the difference if you are sentenced to life imprisonment by a military court or a civilian court? What matters here is the fact that the Francophone regime with its 84 year-old leader is desperate, that after only five months of the Anglophone revolution it finds itself forced to take those measures that are repressive and are defined by others as being against the spirit of the civil law.

The Southern Cameroons revolution is indeed the people’s revolution and has continued unabated and it has been peaceful and consistent in its demands. This is why the regime shut down internet services and cracked down on the Anglophone media because it does not want the media to reflect on what is going on in West Cameroon.

The Yaoundé Francophone government is now using Anglophone counterrevolutionary forces and the 2017 GCE situation to make the world to believe that they have defeated the revolution in Southern Cameroons. Only pro Biya regime journalists and human rights organizations are allowed to enter Southern Cameroons in an attempt to keep the news of the revolution away from the mainstream media.

According to our intelligence officers, the Consortium has helped the regime by reducing its very efficient ghost town operation to just one day a week. However, the Francophone regime has not been able to contain the popular Anglophone uprising, which began in 2016, despite all its repressive measures.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

After a sea of press releases from the so-called political elites of the North West and South West regions painting a picture that things have returned to normal in Southern Cameroons including the arrest of hundreds of Anglophone youths, tension is reportedly mounting in West Cameroon as the region is far from emerging from the crisis which has paralyzed economic and social activities for about five months.

The Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium has made Southern Cameroons ungovernable for the Biya Francophone regime in Yaoundé. The Consortium has successfully rocked the 2016/2017 school year and some experts now say that it would take a miracle to avoid a complete and total failure of the academic year.

The 84 year old dictator has decided to send Prime Minister Philemon Yang to the Bamenda province of Southern Cameroons on a special mission for the second time in the space of four months. Cameroon Concord News Group has learnt that Biya has instructed Yang Philemon to tour the seven administrative divisions of the North West.

A government statement announcing the return of the Head of Government to Southern Cameroons revealed that the visit will begin on Monday the 6th to Friday the 10^th of March 2017. Philemon Yang will go to all the seven divisions of his home constituency. His Anglophone tour will begin in Mezam, followed by Menchum, Boyo, Momo, Ngo-Ketunjia, Donga-Mantung and will end with the Department of Bui.

Mission Impossible

The Yang Philemon trip will be another form of wasting tax payer’s money.  Philemon Yang is not known in Southern Cameroons and does not have friends there. The Prime Minister spent more than 20 years on a CPDM imposed exile as ambassador to Canada. Ever since his return to Cameroon, Yang has operated only in Yaoundé. Consequently, the reckless and tactless Atanga Nji Paul succeeded in creating too much political space for himself which led to the wrong decision of arresting the leaders of the Consortium.

At each stage of his mission to the North West, Yang will find himself struggling to make political friends than engaging with teachers’ unions, school leaders, parents, religious leaders, local authorities and other vital forces. Biya intends to deceive international public opinion that his Francophone Beti Ewondo government was in a new and broader form of dialogue.

The Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium is in charge of Southern Cameroons and like previous consultations held at the beginning of the year in Bamenda which did not produce the expected results, Philemon Yang will come back to Yaoundé with nothing.

An empty Yang

By accepting to travel to the North West, Philemon Yang has confirmed that he is indeed not a skillful politician and by extrapolation, not fit to govern. A Prime Minister and Head of Government should at least carry something to Southern Cameroons. For instance:

-We have released the leaders of the Consortium

-We have released more than half of the hundreds of youths arrested

-We have reinstated internet connections in Southern Cameroons

-We shall be meeting the Roman Catholic Bishops and the Moderator of the PCC

The Biya emissary is not going to West Cameroon with any of the listed items in his bag. Who is fooling who here?

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

For three activists from western Cameroon who joined a call for the recognition of their linguistic preferences, last week didn’t bring any good news. The lawyer, teacher and journalist have been locked up since mid-January, and their case before a military tribunal was again suspended on 13 February, to 23 March. Cameroonian jails are notorious for not being easy on their inmates.

The arrests of Agbor Balla, Fontem Neba and Mancho Bibissi came amid a crackdown against Cameroonians from the Anglophone regions who participated in anti-government protests these past few weeks. The three, who are among at least 100 people arrested, are charged with sabotage, terrorism and inciting secessionism and civil war – charges that could carry the death penalty.

Meanwhile, the Internet in northwest and southwest Cameroon, the two affected Anglophone regions of the country (out of a total of 10), has been cut off completely for over a month. This decision is estimated to be costing the country US$1.39 million. The organisation Access Now has appealed to the Internet service providers to ignore a directive by the government in Yaoundé and to re-establish the connections.

The Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium, a well-known rights group, has also been banned since civil society groups and students took to the streets in mid-November last year; and local independent media have been shut down. The protest action was marked by violent clashes between stone-throwing youths and the police, as well as stay-aways and boycotts.

The main gripe of these groups is that the bilingual principle enshrined in the constitution is not respected. Instead, English-speakers feel they are forced to assimilate and accept what the predominantly Francophone majority dictates.

The crisis has historical roots. Cameroon went from being a German colony, to two separate colonial territories ruled by France and Britain after World War I up until independence in 1960. Following a plebiscite in 1961, the British part was reunited with the French Cameroon. The Francophone authorities that have ruled the country since then have pursued a centralised system of government after a brief period of federalism that officially ended in 1972, following a referendum.

Teachers and students say that the central government should send Anglophone rather than French-speaking teachers to schools in the two regions where English dominates. Lawyers also complain that the British Common Law, used in British Cameroon during colonial times, should be maintained in the region. The use of French in the administration limits access and discriminates against those who speak English, they argue.

Some analysts also emphasise that the revolt in the northwest is symptomatic of a larger problem of governance and a state characterised by corruption and inertia. Between 2000 and 2009, northerners – predominantly Muslims – also complained of marginalisation and the absence of the state.

In 2008, protests against soaring food prices rocked the country, as it did periodically since the 1990s. This also led to a violent crackdown by the government. ‘There have been many missed opportunities by the government to handle this issue adequately,’ says Fonteh Akum, a senior researcher at the Institute for Security Studies, who has previously written on the Anglophone zones in Cameroon.

Attempts at implementing a federal system where Anglophones would have their own courts with effective administrative decentralisation have been undermined by ‘irresponsibility and corruption,’ he says. A decentralisation framework already exists, but has been selectively implemented.

‘The government initially argued that this was a non–issue and that these are secessionists. They refused to acknowledge that Anglophones have legitimate claims,’ Cameroonian scholar Achille Mbembe points out that the claims by Anglophones started as linguistic and cultural, but have become far more political. ‘They don’t feel there is a place for them in this centralised state,’ Mbembe, a professor at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa, told ISS Today.

Anglophones are treated like second-class citizens who don’t benefit from the oil revenues that are situated in their region. Very few important government positions are occupied by Anglophones. ‘There has never been an Anglophone minister of defence or finance. People complain that the administration doesn’t speak their language’.

However, Mbembe says the calls for secession by civil society groups and on social media is ‘very dangerous’. These started in the mid-1990s, with the first call for secession by the Southern Cameroon National Council. ‘The cost of secession is just too great,’ says Mbembe, who believes that Africa should move towards greater pan-Africanism instead of dividing in small ‘micro-states’.

He says the regime of President Paul Biya, who has been in power for 35 years, is characterised by ‘inertia, indifference and abandonment’.

Opinions differ as to how much support there is for the Anglophone cause in the rest of Cameroon. Some say that in the initial stages of the protests, Francophone Cameroonians supported the calls by trade unions and students. These were seen as legitimate. However this sympathy has waned due to some radical views – expressed on social media – that a ‘genocide’ is being planned against western Cameroonians. The majority Francophone inhabitants also reject the secessionist claims.

Yet there have also been expressions of solidarity with the Anglophone cause countrywide. Following the African Cup of Nations victory by the Cameroonian Lions last month, goalkeeper Fabrice Ondoa, who is Francophone from Yaoundé, dedicated the African Cup to ‘our brothers from Bamenda’ [the capital of northwestern Cameroon]. ‘We need a united Cameroon,’ he said in a message widely circulated on social media. ‘I am from Bamenda, for you,’ he concluded in English.

Thus far, there has been little reaction from the international community. The African Union (AU), apart from one statement expressing concern over the situation, hasn’t been involved in any efforts to calm the situation in western Cameroon. It is likely that the AU is adopting a wait-and-see attitude, and will only act if the situation worsens.

What matters most to the international community is that Cameroon remains stable and continues to be part of the global fight against terrorism. (The government has joined forces with Nigeria, Chad and Niger to root out Boko Haram.)

For now, the instability, characterised by various waves of contestation, is up to Cameroonians to handle. Biya (84) is set to stand for re-election next year – and the expectation is that he will win another mandate, despite the growing popular displeasure with his rule.

Culled from Defenceweb

Open Letter to West Cameroonians

Dear West Cameroonians,

Let me use this opportunity to congratulate you on your achievements over the last 25 years. While many will be critical of your current efforts, be rest assured that they are aware that without you, your country will not be where it is today. Thanks to you, there is freedom of expression and multiparty politics in your country. Without you, there would not have been an “Office du Baccalaureat” and a GCE Board. The creation of these two bodies came after your parents paid a huge price. New generations of West Cameroonians may not be aware of what happened in the early 90s. Many of them have just been lucky to grow up to see Anglo-Saxon universities in Buea and Bamenda. For those who are fifty years old and up, the thought of attending an Anglo-Saxon university in Cameroon never crossed their minds. Theirs was a one-university state where West Cameroonians were robbed of their confidence. If they did not have the resources to go out to school in Nigeria, Canada, the UK or United States, then theirs was the Kingdom of hard life.

Getting an Anglo-Saxon university just like calling for multiparty politics was an uphill climb. Blood was spilled and many have been scarred for life. Go to Bamenda and you will see the victims of the struggle for multiparty politics in Cameroon. Many were amputated and others defaced. The journey to where you are today has been long and the road on which your parents have traveled has been tarred with the blood of those who have not been lucky to see the achievement of some of these feats. Those achievements should advise that there is strength in unity and that there is power in numbers. No individual, regardless of their position, could have posted such results without the collaboration of others who were also determined to make life better for posterity. Though there is significant progress, it must be underscored that the road ahead is still long and challenging.

This brings me to the current situation that is playing out in Cameroon. The call for federalism has met with ferocious brutality, with many getting arrested and taken to unknown places, while some have lost their lives in a cause they believe will help future generations to live a life that will bring positive experiences to their lives. Today, many kids in West Cameroon are not going to school. Many businesses are not operating because of the disconnection of the Internet. Many journalists have been thrown into jail for telling the truth and the leaders of the consortium are still languishing in jail for peacefully asking for a system they believe will make their country a better place than they met it. This is surely the price to pay for a better life for all. Nobody gets an omelet without breaking eggs. These unfortunate situations speak to the intolerance of the State that is clearly seeking to crush any opposition or contrary view. Faced with such a situation, West Cameroonians must understand that if they have to post any results, they must make common cause and must avoid focusing on the small picture.

In recent times, some cracks have appeared on the Consortium’s wall. These cracks should not dampen your determination to right the wrongs of the past. Disagreement is as old as man. When people disagree, it is not always because they hate each other. In some cases, it is because all those involved simply want things to be done in a new and innovative way.

Of course, there is nothing wrong with disagreeing, but be advised that when you disagree you must not be disagreeable as such an attitude might ruin a golden idea that is expected to lead an entire people to the land of promise. It is therefore important for the Consortium which, in many minds, is an idea and a spirit, to continue operating as it has over the last three months. It will be appropriate for you, West Cameroonians, to focus on the big picture – the achievement of your goal or whatever that may be – rather than focus on your differences. Let the spotlight or fame not be the reason why you will lay to rest an effort that will transform lives and include your name in your country’s history as one of those who used peaceful civil disobedience to post outstanding results.

Allow me to also point out something that has been disturbing to many observers. In recent times, it has been reported that some West Cameroonians have been destroying state property as a means to demonstrate their frustration with the current state of affairs in the country. Be rest assured that your pain is known world-wide and you must also understand that the property you are destroying is your property too. Regardless of the outcome of your effort, you will need this infrastructure to serve your people and children. In Mamfe, the delegation of education was burned down a few weeks ago. The Mayor’s cars were also destroyed in a similar display of anger. In Akwaya, similar destruction has taken place as the inhabitants of this region seek to let the government understand how angry and frustrated they are following the arrest of Barrister Agbor Nkongho Balla and Judge Paul Ayah, both of whom are illustrious sons of Manyu Division.

In Mile 17 near the city of Buea, several stores were destroyed early this month because the shop-owners failed to respect the call for ghost towns. Yesterday, some angry young men attacked a police station in Mutengene following allegations that a police officer had shot and killed a young man. It was later reported that the police building was not destroyed but police equipment was brought out and burned by the angry mob. While it is easy to understand your anger, it is also disturbing to see young men developing the bad habit of taking the law into their hands. It should be understood that when the dust settles, West Cameroonians will still need the police. No matter how irresponsible some policemen may be, West Cameroonians should never consider these men in uniform as their enemies. Some of them just want to do their job, unfortunately, they have to work with some overzealous colleagues.

The people of West Cameroon should be exemplary. They must listen to the recommendations and principles of the Consortium which clearly believes in peaceful civil disobedience as a means to an end. Resorting to violence only gives criminals an opportunity to have a field day. No anger can justify any destruction of your own property. Do not create a lawless environment out of your struggle as you will be the first victim of such lawlessness.

Accept differences of opinion. Not everybody will be part of your struggle, but never consider such people as your enemies. In every issue, you will always have some people on the fence. They prefer to be onlookers instead of actors. They may share your pain, but might simply not be in agreement with your strategy and approach. You have the burden of persuading them that your approach is as justified as your frustration. Shun violence as it will overshadow your legitimate frustrations. Be a victim of injustice instead of a criminal. Always bear in mind that the road ahead will be long. Manage your expectations, if not, you will be more frustrated and your frustration could easily spill over when the expected results take long to come. Be hopeful. Tomorrow could be a better day. Mine is just a piece of advice. It is your duty to make your dream come true through peaceful means.

Sincerely,

Joachim Arrey

About the Author: The author of this piece has served as a translator, technical writer, journalist and editor for several international organizations and corporations across the globe. He studied communication at the University of Leicester in the United Kingdom and technical writing in George Brown College in Toronto, Canada. He is also a trained translator and holds a Ph.D

The French -inspired Biya kleptocracy, and its English -speaking flunkies claim that students should return to school. That “politicians” are sacrificing the future of children by impeding their education. Yet, this very regime cuts off, the internet, which is the quintessential medium for free education.

Regime zealots, using the military to force the reopening of schools, fail to see the hypocrisy and the paradox, of advocating for education, and in the same breath, cutting off the internet-the source of universal education for every child.

Biya, and his Zoetele tribal cabal, fail to realize that it is the education that Southern Cameroonians have acquired that has made his tribal kleptocracy- a government of thieves, by thieves, and for thieves- unacceptable.

Teachers, lawyers and those in the Diaspora know the type of country an educated population deserves. They do not deserve a potentate who is instilling terror on the people, with the intention of imposing his son, Frank Emmanuel Biya, as his successor.

Naysayers dismiss this claim as mere speculation, until they see what Western imperialist forces helped other “loyal servants” like Eyadema of Togo, Bongo Ondimba of Gabon, and Laurent Kabila of Congo, do to perpetuate their totalitarian regimes on the people, by handing over to their sons, with the help of the military-multinational complex.

Southern Cameroonians will continue to resist this dolorous outcome…until final victory.

By Larry Eyong

President Paul Biya declared war against the terrorist organization Boko Haram from Paris in France was an act which carried symbolic weight. For those in doubt, that act conveyed in unmistakable terms the message that Cameroun was not fully independent and that for all purposes and intents it remained a French colony; call it a vassal state if you may. There can be no gainsaying that, the declaration of war from Cameroon’s neo-colonial power, France conveyed along the message that although the war was to be fought in Cameroon, it was being fought not for the interest of Cameroonians and the peoples of African descent but for the wider interest of France. It was being for the wider interest of France in that it was to cushion the effect of French Military aggression in the African Sahel which claimed the life of President Moamar Kaddafi of Libya and reinforced France’s neo-colonial   grip on the resources of its African vassal states.

The war against Boko Haram is a complex war involving equally complex distinct interests. The participants in the war against Boko Haram are an unusual association, of “reversed Robin Hoods”, “Alibabas”, bloodletting dictators and genuine crime fighters. This makes the forces allied in combating the criminal terrorist group to love and hate it in equal measure.  Some of the leaders involved in this war, rode on the exploits of Boko Haram to power, others see the war as an opportunity to eternalize power in their vassal states and yet others see the war as an opportunity to fine-tune and legitimize the methods and acts of terror against enemy populations whom they accuse of threatening their political and economic power and those of their slave masters. The Government of Cameroon (GOC) falls in almost all of these categories. The ongoing genocide and crimes against humanity in the Southern Cameroons justifies this categorical statement.

It cannot be reasonably disputed that the GOC has paid significant ransom to Boko Haram with which it has sustained its criminal terrorist onslaught against armless civilians in the affected areas of Northern Cameroon, Nigeria and Chad. With the exception of one case involving the wife and the family of the Vice Prime Minister Ahmadou Ali, all the cases in which ransom has been paid have been those of foreigners. The fact that negotiations occurred between the GOC and the criminal terrorist gang is enough evidence that the GOC knows so well Boko Haram and the forces driving the terrorist activities of this criminal gang. It can therefore not be reasonably disputed that apart from paying ransom the GOC offers political, strategic, logistics and tactical patronage to this criminal gang.  The widely stated but never denied allegation by the Chadian Government that about forty-seven percent of the arms used by Boko Haram are of French origin supports the possibility that the well-publicized  payment of ransom might well have included the delivery of arms, money, political patronage, logistical and tactical support.

A careful observation and analysis of the methods deployed by the GOC against peaceful, armless Southern Cameroonians that has led to widespread and systemic crimes against humanity, genocide and egregious human rights violations mirrors the acts of terror and criminality deployed by Boko Haram against the civilian populations in the Lake Chad Basin, the wider areas of the African Sahel, Northern Cameroon and Northern Nigeria.  We will examine some of them here.

The main target of Boko Haram attacks are armless civilians. The main focus of the attacks by military, para-military, administrative, political and police deployed by the GOC to the Southern Cameroons is the civilian population. Boko Haram abducts civilians and deports them from their homes and natural environments to distant areas and submits them to alien justice bordering on judicial murder. The abduction of thousands of school girls, women and men who were abducted by Boko Haram and some deported from their homes to Sambisa Forest, many who have never been seen, shocked the conscience of humanity.

Boko Haram also takes hostages to extort ransom and other resources to sustain its war efforts.  The Spokesman of the GOC Isa Tchiroma who reports on these criminal actions of Boko Haram has lately issued press statements on the activities of the GOC in the Southern Cameroons. An anxious reading and analysis of his press statements and the number of hostages and abductees he admitted, the court-martial of civilian leaders of Anglophones Consortium of Civil Societies Organization, the assault on the judicial power through the abduction of a Supreme Court Judge of Southern Cameroon’s nationality Hon Paul Ayah, and other acts of criminality mirror on the crimes he in the past reported and condemned against Boko Haram. The GOC has gone a step ahead of Boko Haram by joining the club of most oppressive governments worldwide which has used the suspension of internet facilities to conceal their elaborate criminal activities. The suspension of internet facilities in the Southern Cameroons with the complicity of foreign business operators in the country is a stain on the economic activities of those foreign firms. However, the suspension of the internet, a critical tool of learning in the technological age while imposing a return to schools the courts in the territory to parody the bastardized system of education and justice system imposed on the citizenry of the territory is a serious affront to human decency and commonsense.  Furthermore, its forces deployed to the territory like Boko Haram are using rape as a state policy intended to humiliate and suppress Southern Cameroonians to submission.

Officials of the GOC, that included Ministers, and apologists of genocide and crimes against humanity, have made widely publicized statements justifying these crimes. One individual, a ruling CPDM party Senator publicly stated that he and another senior member of ruling CPDM party and Senator from the victim territory of the Southern Cameroons appealed to the GOC to place the internet ban in their own territory to collectively punish all Southern Cameroonians as  well as conceal the crimes perpetrated against them from world attention. This act of impunity, and the glorification of the crimes perpetrated against the Southern Cameroons mirror the media antics of Abubakar Shakua the leader of the terrorist gang whose glorification of the crimes of Boko Haram are a fixture of deep pain on our collective consciences.

In spite of the provocations and the elaborate crimes committed against the people of the Southern Cameroons, the people have remained peaceful in their defiance and resistance. The Ghost town operations, the boycott of schools and the public symbols of oppression and colonial rule over the Southern Cameroons have dealt a humiliating blow to the forces of oppression of the GOC. The people of the Southern Cameroons have said No to emasculation! No to annexation! No to humiliation! No to exploitation! Yes to freedom. Yes to freedom now.

The world must take note that the GOC which is a supposed ally in the war against Boko Haram finds the need to talk to Boko Haram and pay ransom when its suits its needs and that of its imperial slave master France. When it comes to the case of the Southern Cameroons, it has opted to criminalize dialogue; even when organized by it. It is on record that the GOC took Barrister Felix Agbor Nkongho and Dr Neba Fontem hostage and charged them before a court-martial on the basis of the matters that were tabled before a supposed dialogue organized by it for which there was no agreement. The court-martial of leaders who believed in dialogue and id participate in it to find a solution to our problems is one very powerful reason why La Republique du Cameroun should never ever be trusted. With their destiny in their hands the people of the Southern Cameroons must know that freedom can never ever be negotiated.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

Cameroon Concord News Group