Federal Republic of Ambazonia: Vice President Dabney Yerima’s National Defense Speech ⁰

Fellow Southern Cameroonians,

On behalf of HE President Julius Ayuk Tabe and the leadership of the Interim Government, accept revolutionary greetings and we want to thank each and every one of you for the enormous sacrifices you are making to bring the struggle for the Decolonization and Restoration of the Independence of our country, the former British Southern Cameroons Trust Territory herein referred to as Ambazonia. Without your commitment and sacrifices, it would have been impossible for us to be where we are today.

My fellow countrymen,November 22, 2017-a date which will live in infamy- war was declared by La Republique du Cameroun on the people of Southern Cameroons.

Our whole nation will always remember and will never forget the character of the onslaught and carnage against us. The Interim Government wants to assure you that no matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated genocide, the people of Southern Cameroons in their righteous might will win and restore their independence.

I believe that President Sisiku Julius Ayuk Tabe and I interpret the will of the Interim Government and of the people when we assert that we will not only defend ourselves to the uttermost but we will make it very certain that this form of genocide and scotched earth ethnic cleansing shall never defeat us.

Death and the stench of decomposing bodies of our people have engulfed our land. There is no blinking at the fact that our people, our territory and our interests are in existential danger, but with the determination of our people and infinite sacrifices of our Restoration Forces-we will gain the inevitable triumph-so help us God.

I say to you our people as our leadership said to the International Community, I have nothing to offer but, “Independence or Resistance Forever.” We have before us many, many months of struggle, of pain and suffering, but I can assure you that we shall overcome.

Southern Cameroonians are asking, what is our policy and plan? I say it is to defend our people either peacefully or by war throughout our national territory. Defend and fight with all our might and with all the strength God has given us, and to continue our economic divestment campaign against a monstrous genocide never surpassed in the dark and lamentable catalogue of human crime. Today I come before you to outline that defense specific policy of the Interim Government. I was appointed to serve in this capacity in May 2019 and amidst the very vexing difficulties we are presently facing, most of which have been self-inflicted, I have tried hard to navigate through these insurmountable difficulties by consulting and listening to our people and other leaders within the Ambazonian revolution for possible solutions to alleviate our present predicament.

I have unfortunately concluded that we took our eyes off the enemy and instead directed our 58 years rage against our enemy towards our own brothers and sisters. We have neglected equipping GZ and rather embarked on empty grandstanding in the social media platforms. We can only win this fight through our collective efforts to equip and defend our defenseless people. I am laying down today a defense policy to you Ambazonians to choose what course of action we must pursuit together. This policy is going to be defined by an answer to this fundamental question. What do we intend to achieve within the next 12 months in this struggle, Continue with our present strategy of self-defense agitation by our untrained Restoration Forces, with occasional feel good moments like boycotting LRC National days or We are going to move aggressively and proactively to sufficiently equip our Restoration Forces to not only defend our people and territory, but to also begin to recapture our territory and drive the enemy out of our land?

I don’t know about you, but I can tell you with all certainty that this Interim Government and myself have chosen the latter. We cannot continue with this policy of defensive agitation while the enemy is ruthlessly bludgeoning our people to oblivion. By this the government is demonstrating that we have clearly determined that we must go on the offensive to win and liberate our people. That is our policy, but what will it take to carry through this policy? I will attempt the answer subsequently.

Some may ask, what is the aim of this policy? I can answer in one word. It is victory. Victory at all costs – Victory in spite of all difficulties and the apathy of the international community – Victory, however long and hard and winding the road may be, for without victory there is no survival and our people and posterity will forever remain in servitude.

OUR RESTORATION FORCES

I want to extend my valiant salute to all our Restoration Forces on GZ and G1 and all the Counties security operations for amazing, meticulous and audacious show of allegiance to our flag and nation on October 1st, 2019. The communal spirit between you and our people rekindled the hope and determination of thousands of our people across the globe and send a ruthless message to the colonizer that you will determine your own destiny and will never wink no matter the number of monologues that will be held across the globe to determine our destiny.

You are our pride from Otu, Bali, Malende, Matoh, Ekona, Ekondo, Bafut, Kumbo and across Southern Cameroons. You are the young men/women who are taking the risk in the jungles and crocodile infested rivers. You are the champions who are helping free a people from bondage. You are the heroes who will help us to victory. Fellow warriors in this struggle, when I look at you, I see men/women who are fighting for life and most of you have left the vivid air signed with your blood and honor. You were young the day you took Dane guns and farm tools to defend our families, some of you were hardly more than boys, with the deepest joys of life before you. Yet you risked and are risking everything in this genocidal war against our people. Why? Why are you doing it? What obliged you to put aside the instinct for self-preservation and risk your lives to defend our communities? The Interim Government look at you, and somehow, we know the answer. It is faith and belief; it is loyalty and love for mother Southern Cameroons, the land of our ancestors.

Continue to keep the faith that what you are fighting for is right, faith that you are fighting for all Southern Cameroonians; faith that a just God would grant you mercy at the foot of Mt Fako and the jungles of Manyu through the plains of Bafut. It is this deep knowledge — and I pray God you will not lose it — that there is a profound moral difference between the use of force for liberation and the use of force through genocide for subjugation and colonization. You are in this existential fight to liberate, not to conquer or colonize like the enemy, and so you and those of your comrades who have been martyred did not doubt our cause. And you are right not to doubt.You are the umbilical cord which binds together the entire fabric of our national structure of defense. From your ranks have come the great generals even without training who hold the destiny of our nation in their hands.You are no war mongers like the junta in Yaounde, but always remember the ominous words of Plato, that wisest of all philosophers: Only the dead have seen the end of war.”

It is very hard not to understand your pain and disappointment on us your Interim Government and the general Southern Cameroons diaspora for failing to supply you with the necessary tools to defend our communities, but I am today extending this covenant with you that this is going to be my utmost priority. As long as I will be in this position, I will not tolerate the continuous humiliation we see every day that you continue to defend yourselves with your bare hands, Dane guns and farm tools. It is a national embarrassment and an affront to the soul of the nation. It is time to consider sufficiently providing equipment, training, uniforms, medical kits and how about a stipend to assist your young families left behind? This is what a government should do if you are going to call yourself a representative of the people and this is what this Interim Government is going to embark on in the next 12 months. Remain Steadfast!

SOUTHERN CAMEROONS DIASPORA

Fellow Southern Cameroonians, it is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the leadership in charge could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the midst of it, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the work and what is right; who knows the great devotions; who spends himself/herself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he/she fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his/her place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

I have, myself, full confidence that if all of us do our duty, if nothing is neglected, and if the best arrangements are made, as they are being made now, we shall prove ourselves once again able to defend our ancestral land, to ride out the storm of this war, and to outlive the menace of perpetual servitude in the Republique du Cameroun, if necessary for years and if necessary doing it alone. At any rate, that is what we are going to try to do. That is the resolve of HE Julius Ayuk Tabe and this Interim Government. That is the will of the Interim Government and the people. The 13 Counties, linked together in this cause and in their need for liberation, will defend to the death their ancestral lands, aiding each other like good comrades to the utmost of their strength. Even though large tracts of our land are under the grip of the odious security apparatus of the Yaounde junta, we shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in Buea, we shall fight in the jungles and valleys, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in equipment, we shall defend our land, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender. For surrender amounts to perpetual slavery and an affront to the souls of our martyrs

Fellow Diasporas, many and the international community are crying “Peace! Peace!” __but there is no peace and our people are being slaughtered. The war is actually here in our backyards! I do not know what course you may take; but as for me, give me independence, or resistance forever!

We do not wish to make the war against us seem smaller, nor make its solution seem easy or make light of the fears of our people. But whether we are fearful or not, we shall never, because we are a Christian people, be able to avoid the moral issue of our conscience.

AMBA BOND HOLDERS

Today, our communities are gripped with the devastating impact of the war with mounting casualties and devastation.Rising insecurity from the savages of the Yaounde junta, kidnappings, ransom takings, blackmail and intimidation are now the norm even from some of our rogue elements and fake Amba boys from Atanga Nji and cohorts. This is no time to talk of division or question the commitment of any groups or individuals.

What the Interim government did when this struggle started was permissible. It was permissible to be indifferent to minor insecurity in our communities. But it is no longer permissible to be indifferent to the plight of our people. In the light of what we know now, the rapes, abductions, arrests, killing and the ransom takings. It is no longer permissible for us to be indifferent to the destruction of family life and the plight of our refugees in foreign lands, some in the forests, some drowning in crocodiles infested waters, when we know that our in actions are helping to destroy it. This is a call to your conscience and as you stand in front of the mirror please ask yourself what I can do to stop or end this situation.

Our President feels your pain. These pains do not discriminate whether you stood for Federation in the past or have been a steadfast advocate for the complete Decolonisation and Restoration of our Independence. These inhumanities should grieve us enough to rise as ONE MAN and respond to the President’s call to become an AMBA BOND HOLDER.

The Interim government will be issuing ten (10) million AMBAZONIA FREEDOM BONDS to the public to raise money to prosecute this revolution with top priorities on Ground Zero Defense and Reconstitution of our famous Mobile Police (law and order). AMBA BOND HOLDERS will be owning a piece of Ambazonia. Basically, Ambazonians will be loaning money to the Interim Government when they purchase the government Amba Freedom Bonds at competitive interest rates.

The Interim government cannot continue to sit and do nothing while the Republique du Cameroun is procuring loans worth millions of dollars to prosecute this war against our people. These debts that they are incurring now will be part of their liabilities in any negotiation on the terms of separation. We must also incur debts to prosecute this revolution and this will also be part of any negotiations. The huge difference between what they are doing and what we are trying to do is that we are raising this money from our people who will own a piece of our National heritage while they are selling that heritage to the Chinese and the French.

The entire proceeds will be used to subsidize and support all our Restoration Forces, Counties operations and others. As directed by the Interim Government, The AMBAZONIA FREEDOM BONDS will be issued and managed by an all-inclusive independent BANK OF AMBAZONIA (The people’s Financial House). Details will be provided by a select committee and the department of Economy and Finance on the composition and functions of the People’s Bank.

Through you, the valiant people of Ambazonia, I am today announcing the official launch of the Ambazonia Freedom Bonds. Please make this project your own for the sake of our suffering people. Be on the lookout for this project in the coming days with all the necessary details.

Long Live the People of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia

Vice President Dabney Yerima