The Secretary of State of the Holy See paid a six-day diplomatic visit to Cameroon, a country ravaged by civil war, in which the Catholic Church plays a key role in resolving the conflict.

Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Secretary of State for the Holy See arrived in Cameroon on January 28, 2021 for a six-day visit, at the end of which he gave the pallium to Msgr. Andrew Neka, metropolitan of Bamenda, in the northwestern part of the country. The archdiocese was not chosen at random: in fact, it is at the heart of the Anglophone conflict which has plagued the political and social life of Cameroon for nearly five years now.

The world cannot be totally wrong. The Pope has called for peace. He has spoken to Mr. Biya about the need to engage Southern Cameroonians in a frank and fruitful dialogue but Mr. Biya has remained adamant.

The Pope, like many heads of state has sent special envoys to talk Mr. Biya out of the madness and cruelty he has brought to a once prosperous nation, but his inhuman indifference to wise counsel has only made his soldiers to think that they have carte blanche to kill and maim whoever they meet in their path.

This mentality is not addressing any issues. At best, it is counterproductive. The chaos the war is spreading in Cameroon should have advised the government to rethink its ways. The number of civilian and military deaths is rising and there is no end in sight.

The government might have superior military power, but the determination of eight million Southern Cameroonians will surely keep the military in the jungles of Southern Cameroons for a very long time.

Many soldiers have been killed and thousands have been maimed by determined Southern Cameroonian fighters and this has struck fear in the minds of these young soldiers, many of whom have only been trained for six months and rushed to the killing fields of Southern Cameroons where they are made to see death first hand.

The Genesis of the Current Conflict

To reconstruct part of the context of the current crisis, one must return to 1961: West Cameroon—a former British colony—is made up of Northern Cameroon and Southern Cameroon. Through a referendum organized by the United Nations, the populations of Southern Cameroon chose to join as a federated state to Eastern Cameroon—a former French colony—while the people of Northern Cameroon opted for an attachment to Nigeria.

But, in 1972, a constitutional reform completely shook up the situation, transforming federal Cameroon into a unitary republic, depriving the English-speaking region of its autonomy. Another twist in 2016: a movement to strike by teachers and lawyers demanding more recognition from the central state. Demonstrations quickly led to an uprising in the English-speaking regions of the northwest and southwest.

The conflict then degenerated into a murderous crisis with clashes between separatist troops and the regular army: the Catholic Church quickly found itself on the front line in an attempt to mediate, in order to find concerted solutions. A delicate position that earned it reprisals, sometimes bloody, from the separatists and sharp reproaches from the executive.

Since its outbreak, this civil war that lives up to its name has claimed more than 2,000 dead and 650,000 displaced. In addition, more than 800,000 children have been out of school.

A Diplomatic Visit for Peace

The day after his arrival, the Secretary of State of the Holy See spoke with the Cameroonian Head of State, Paul Biya: “we discussed the various points concerning the conflicts, in particular the situation in the north and the southwest of the country. What we are impatiently waiting for is reconciliation and peace, especially in the current situation where there are many other crises starting with COVID-19,” declared Cardinal Parolin, at the conclusion of the presidential interview.

“Cordial exchange…with his eminence Cardinal Pietro Parolin, bearer of a message of peace,” the Head of State soberly declared on his Twitter account.

The US Maryland gang had called for a boycott of the Mass celebrated in Bamenda on January 31 in order to denounce what is considered to be the partisan the attitude of the Catholic Church in the conflict. But the legitimate Southern Cameroons Interim Government headed by Vice President Dabney Yerima threw its weight behind the visit.  A partially followed appeal: despite the suspension of activities in town and deserted roads, the faithful came by the thousands to attend the giving of the pallium to their archbishop.

“We are sure,” Archbishop Nkea said, “that your arrival in Bamenda will be like rain, which never falls without watering the land,” said the Bamenda ordinary. “This visit by Cardinal Parolin is a light in our tunnel. It is read as a sign that peace will soon return,” the Cameroonian prelate believes. Let us hope so for this war-torn country.

By Chi Prudence Asong with files from the Vatican

I long for a Cameroon where anglophone children no longer mimic the sound of gunfire, and Mondays are no longer “stay-at-home” days decreed by armed men.

I want to go back to a time – not so long ago – when education was a religion in every household, and schools were places children were eager to attend, promising a brighter future.

These days, we have school massacres, boycotts, kidnappings.

We have more than 80 percent of schools closed, and over 1.1 million children out of class.

We have teachers and students stripped naked, terrified, jeered at by gunmen, and those images posted to social media.

We have stay-at-home days – ordered by separatist fighters to demonstrate anglophone solidarity – that merely impoverish us all.

There has been four years of war, but all that suffering seems to be largely ignored by the rest of the world. That’s why, as an investigative human rights journalist, I feel compelled to write this.

Schools become a target

“Ambazonia” secessionists took up arms in 2017 to protest the marginalisation of the anglophone Northwest and Southwest regions by the majority French-speaking Cameroon – an issue keenly felt in those zones at the time.

Much of the killing and violence in this conflict has been by the government security forces – their abuses well documented by rights groups. The counter-insurgency campaign fuels the cycle of violence, and the alleged impersonation of separatist fighters adds confusion to the tragedy.

But lately, trust in the separatist fighters has also begun to fade.

They have enforced an unpopular school boycott since 2016 to protest what they see as the dismantling of the region’s separate education system, and its assimilation within French-speaking Cameroon.

The turning point for public sympathy came in October 2020, when armed men stormed a school in Kumba in the Southwest region and killed seven children and wounded 13 others. Nobody has claimed responsibility for the attack, although the government blamed the separatists.

The Kumba killing became just one in a series. In November, gunmen attacked Kulu Memorial College in the Southwest, and to punish the teachers and students for attending school, stripped them naked and beat them.

Barely 24 hours later, 11 teachers were kidnapped by armed men from a mission school in Kumbo, in the Northwest region. They were released after two days, following pressure from civil society groups and the Presbyterian church.

Intimidated, the local population sits on the fence for fear of being tagged as sympathisers by either side. Others are packing up and leaving the conflict zones.

Evolution of the crisis

Like nearly all the children from these regions, I now know the choking effect of tear gas and the sounds of live bullets.

At the start of the crisis in 2016, I was an eager journalism and mass communication student at the University of Buea – Cameroon’s most prestigious English-speaking university – in the capital of the Southwest region.

It was a time of high tension. Student protests against alleged corruption by the vice chancellor turned into much more serious anti-government demonstrations – and the security forces responded with beatings and violence.

The iconic image of those days is shaky cellphone footage from the Buea campus of the security forces deliberately humiliating female students, forcing them to roll in the mud.

There has been four years of war, but all that suffering seems to be largely ignored by the rest of the world.

As students, we were unsure whether it was worth the risk to continue with our studies. But the idea of missing our final exams after three tough years was an even more painful thought.

That was then: Things now are far worse.

Women and girls have been hardest hit by the school closures and lockdowns imposed by the separatists – with a spike in teenage pregnancy, rape, and transactional sex.

In Kumbo, a hotbed of the crisis in the Northwest region, a government health survey of girls aged between 15 and 19 found that the majority were out of school and almost half had become teen mothers.

Yaoundé and major cities like Douala and Bafoussam have seen a huge influx of displaced people. The streets are full of young anglophone children hawking goods. In private homes, young girls are employed as domestic workers, earning as little as $35 a month.

And then came COVID-19 last year. It shut down the world but not the war, and has made the struggles of already poor and vulnerable households so much worse.

Even if parents wanted to send their children to school, the fees are a burden that many can no longer afford.

Change of heart?

I sometimes wonder what would have become of me if I hadn’t mustered the courage to ignore the unrest and complete my studies at the University of Buea.

I have opportunities now – working in Yaoundé – that so many children from the conflict zone will never have; children who these days can barely count to 10, let alone read.

That is leading to some rethinking among separatist leaders in the diaspora – where nearly all are based – over the continuation of the school boycott. After championing the ban for the past four years, activists like Mark Bareta and Eric Tataw, for example, have pressed for armed fighters to allow children to go back to school.

That is good news. But how does the damage of four lost years get repaired?

There was a time when schools in the anglophone region were famous throughout the country as bastions of quality education. This war was supposedly waged to liberate and raise up our children. Poverty and illiteracy seem the only winners.

Source: The Humanitarian