7, October 2017
Southern Cameroons Crisis created ‘warlike atmosphere’: Anglophone Bishops 0
Church leaders in Cameroon’s Anglophone region have spoken on the current crisis which has led to deaths, injuries and arrests after security forces clashed with protesters. The Bamenda Provincial Episcopal Conference (BAPEC) in a statement issued on Wednesday October 4, said the clashes created a ‘warlike atmosphere’ during the period spanning September 29 to October 2.
“The sighs of those who have lost property through looting or arson, the pain of anxiety inflicted on families and friends of those abducted or missing, the trauma caused on the young and the old by the fright from the warlike atmosphere of last weekend in particular have left another heap of painful memories in our minds and hearts.
“We want, in the first place, to express our profound grief and sympathies to those families who in the recent crisis have lost their dear ones. We pray for the repose of the souls of those who have died,” they said in the 26-point statement.
The release signed by six Bishops gave a detailed account of what happened in the region as they saw it and reiterated past efforts they had undertaken to avert the crisis. They also declared October 14 a day of mourning for those killed in the clashes.
Significant portions focused on the highhanded nature of the security response to what they said were very peaceful processions. Point 8 read as follows: “On Sunday, 1st October 2017, some Priests and some members of Christ’s Lay Faithful were prevented by the heavy military presence on their streets from going to church and so they failed to exercise their constitutional right of freedom of worship. In some areas, we noted with disgust that some Christians were teargassed as they came out of Mass!
“This move, by whosoever instructed, created a lot of confusion and chaos, especially as the faithful believed that the Archbishop’s letter, calling for prayers for peace and tranquillity and which had been endorsed by the Governor of the North West Region, was sufficient authorization for Sunday worship to go on as normal, despite the political tension.
“We, the Bishops of the Bamenda Provincial Episcopal Conference, are sad and disturbed, having learned that some of our Christians were pursued into their houses – some arrested, some maimed and some (including defenceless teenagers and elderly persons) were simply shot to death, some from helicopters.
“Elsewhere in the world, the Forces of Law and Order protect demonstrating citizens. In our country, peaceful demonstrations, except perhaps those organized by the ruling party, seem to be an opportune moment for our Armed Forces to demonstrate their shooting prowess both from the ground and from the air on unarmed and helpless civilians.”
Condemnation of the deadly clashes have been coming in thick and fast. President Paul Biya, the United States, the United Kingdom, the United Nations chief among others have all called for restraint and dialogue to resolve the tensions.
Cameroon’s English – speaking regions that have long protested marginalization from French Cameroon are now fighting for independence under the Ambazonia republic name. Yaounde, however, insists that the unity of the Central African country is non-negotiable.
Source: Africa News
14, October 2017
Southern Cameroons: Externalising the souls of our heroes 0
The Cameroon Concord News Group applauds the decision by the Catholic Church in the Southern Cameroons to set aside today as a day of prayers for the repose of the soul of the fallen heroes of the Southern Cameroons struggle for freedom. A similar move by the Presbyterian Church and the Baptist Mission are equally applauded. By taking these moves, our Christian Church leaders have fulfilled a divine mandate ordained or commander by Jesus Christ himself, the body of the Church and supreme Guarantor of our Christian faith. As we pray for the soul of the departed and meditate about the cause for which their lives were cut short, let us not forget that with them, part of every Southern Cameroonian’s life was cut short. They died exercising a fundamental search for justice; justice to be recognised and treated as human beings created in the image of God in their ancestral homelands and justice for our individual and collective existence in dignity, peace and progress.
Like most Southern Cameroonians, they were waving peace plants in the mistaken believe that, that symbol of peace was going to be accorded its deserved recognition. Not with the angel of death that colonized Southern Cameroons baying on the blood of its citizens and the rape of its natural resources for self and neo-colonial gratification. Lest French Cameroun and its genocidal leaders rejoice yet. They will know no peace until the blood of these armless Southern Cameroonians is accounted for. They will know no peace by pursuing a scourge earth policy of genocide and systemic criminality intended to subdue the living soul of freedom and liberty of the Southern Cameroons. For French Cameroun to know peace, it must vacate the territory of the Southern Cameroons which deserves to be free and independent pursuant to United Nations Charter, the UN General Assembly Resolutions, the independence on October 1, 1961. French Cameroun was put on notice by the Buea Declaration (1993) and the Bamenda Proclamation (1994) more than twenty years ago, that the Southern Cameroons intended to reassert its independence and sovereignty over its territory and to terminate all forms of colonial rule as such. The patriotic march by the martyrs whose senseless slaughter we celebrate in these religious ceremonies therefore a legitimate forensic justification. We therefore salute their courage, their priceless supreme sacrifice that cements and eternalizes our freedom, forever and ever. Amen.
An ongoing outpouring of administrative, Ministerial and cross-Ministerial Communiques for the prosecution of the ongoing preplanned genocide in which these heroes were slaughtered on the account of their Southern Cameroons cultural and national identity cogently established different layers of criminal responsibility for these crimes. It is significant to note that each of the genocidal communiques states that its source of authority was the Head of State of French Cameroun Paul Biya. The lack of governmental cohesion and discipline is obvious from the fact that Biya is quoted in the communiques as giving orders directly to certain Ministers and Administrators on whom he is relying to prosecute and execute the preplanned genocide of the Southern Cameroons.
This perceptible indiscipline should not obfuscate the fact that the genocide was carefully planned and the structures of its execution put in place long ago. This plan included, the co-opting of genocidal media organs such as television 4, genocide apologists and propagandists such as Eric Owona Nguini, one Obama and Isa Tchiroma among others to popularize, justify and rally support for the genocide. He also directed Laurent Esso his Minister of Justice and a principal ideologue of the genocide, Fame Ndongo, Atanga Nji and his Senior Military Commanders, essentially of Beti origin, local governors and divisional administrators of French Cameroun origin to execute the genocide. To succeed in their plans, they required and obtained the support of Southern Cameroonian Iscariots like Achidi Achu, Julius Achu, Tabetando, Mafany Musonge, Patrick Esunge and a host of others to help to identify targets for the slaughter and others to be abducted, tortured and detained.
Paul Biya bypassed the exercise of constitutional power and ministerial/administrative hierarchy because that might have alerted and triggered universal genocide alarm mechanisms that might have intervened in time to slow his diabolic actions. He therefore provided direct superintendence of the extermination of Southern Cameroons armless civilians by these his selected field executors. To facilitate the expeditious execution of the plan of genocide in a scale that will have Southern Cameroonians subdued in humiliating and capitulating blood bath, Paul Biya breached all norms of International Law by ordering his administrative governors to close international borders to allow deployed military units to rape, loot, torture, abduct, exterminate, and torch human settlements and property of Southern Cameroonians.
Considering the reign of terror and bestiality that is ongoing even in Churches and places of worship which are protected by International law. The Christian Church services that have been organized today, have finally confirmed our Church leaders that they can on occasion stand for the cross of justice, human dignity, and freedom. The French Cameroun clergy have elected their camp with Iscariot sagacity. That is their choice. But Iscariot thought humanity that money may meet temporal human needs but will never ever control the soul of humanity which our Lord Jesus Christ purchased with His precious blood.
By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai, CCN/CIR