The Southern Cameroons Liberation Council (SCLC) condemns, in the strongest terms, the reported kidnapping of an unknown number of civilians in the Republic of Ambazonia, formerly the North West and South West Regions of Cameroon.

The victims include a former Bar Association president and former presidential candidate, Barrister Akere Muna, and an unknown number of people who were traveling in his convoy in the Northern Zone of Ambazonia.

The SCLC calls for the immediate and unconditional release of all those kidnapped and points an accusing finger at the regime of President Paul Biya for orchestrating the crime.

Ambazonian Restoration Forces operating in the Northern Zone, including the commander in charge of Ambazonian self-defense forces in the area, have denied involvement. One General issued an audio press release Tuesday, denying responsibility for the crime. In the audio, the commander prays that no harm be done to the victims if they are in the keeping of any Ambazonian forces; that no ransom be accepted and that victims be released if their safety cannot be guaranteed.

The SCLC also accuses thousands of pro-regime militia operating in Ambazonia who have specialized in hostage taking for ransom. Regime armed and security forces have also carried out abductions, kidnappings, deportations to jails outside Ambazonia, and raids on UN-managed refugee camps.

Massacres, targeted killings, extrajudicial executions are among a long line of desperate crimes by regime forces aimed at convincing the international community that the pro-independence campaign is a terrorist organization.

In October, November and December 2018 and in March 2019, masked gunmen, who were later revealed to be soldiers of the regime, kidnapped students in Bafut and Bamenda, in the Northern Zone, and in Kumba and Buea, in the Southern Zone.

In the November 2018 kidnapping of 81 students and their teachers in Bamenda, the regime appeared to have been seeking to generate the global outrage which followed the kidnappings, in April 2014 by Boko Haram, of 276 Chibok Girls in Nigeria’s Borno State. The lead kidnapper in that case was later positively identified as Armel Rostand Mveng, an officer in the Cameroonian army.

The SCLC reiterates that the only terrorists in the Cameroons are Biya’s colonial forces. After declaring war on Ambazonia on 30 November 2017, the regime issued radio announcements, promising to commit war crime. It ordered civilians to vacate villages suspected of hosting Ambazonian fighters, known to the regime as “rats”, “dogs”, “terrorists” and “secessionists”.

More than 10,000 civilians have been killed so far. Over a million Ambazonians now live in the forests, fleeing the colonial forces which have looted and razed nearly 200 villages.

The Francophone dominated army deployed to Southern Cameroons have reportedly arrested scores of Ambazonian civilians in Mutengene in the Fako County. Cameroon Concord News understands that the arrests were made on Monday.

The Yaounde regime ordered the Rapid Intervention Battalion stationed at the police school in Mutengene to storm the locality in a bid to counter ghost town operations decreed by the Southern Cameroons Interim Government.  

Our correspondent in Victoria who contributed to this report observed that a handful of those arrested were later on released while several others were ferried to Buea in military trucks. Troops loyal to the Francophone Beti Ewondo regime in Yaounde have carried out numerous raids in Mutengene ever since the beginning of the crisis in Southern Cameroons.

By Sama Ernest

Separatists in restive Northwest Cameroon have, in a rare move, freed a former government minister unharmed after two weeks in captivity. Emmanuel Ngafeson Bantar, a top Ministry of Justice official, was the first advisor to President Paul Biya to be abducted in the Northwest.

Bantar says his stay with the separatists convinced him that an end to the three-year-conflict with the separatists is possible if the government pursues sincere dialogue.

Family and friends sang and danced at Bantar’s Bamenda residence after he was released on Saturday.

Bantar, a former secretary of state in the Ministry of Justice in charge of prison administration, was abducted by armed men in mid-March.

But, while most Cameroon officials kidnapped by suspected separatists end up dead, Bantar says that his captors treated him well.

“Would you imagine that they will come and tell me what is available and ask me what I would want to eat?,” he said. “Would you imagine that they supplied me with mineral water?”

Bantar’s treatment by separatists fighting for an independent English-speaking state in Cameroon is rare.

Cameroon’s government says at least 15 government officials and five traditional rulers have been abducted over the past two years. Nine were later found dead while the whereabouts of eight others are unknown. Others were freed only after large ransoms were paid.

Bantar would not say if he paid a ransom for his release.

Human rights activist Frankline Ndi says Bantar’s release may show that separatists are tiring of the fighting, which has killed at least a thousand people in Cameroon, displaced half a million and brought economic life in rebel areas to a halt.

“War cannot go without an end. We cannot continue fighting when we do not know how the fight will end,” said Ndi. “We have lost many already. We have lost properties. I do believe it is a time for any rightful thinking son of the Northwest and Southwest to put on that thinking cap and reflections on peace.”

Cameroon’s Territorial Administration Minister Paul Atanga Nji says if the rebels are serious about peace, they should drop their guns and be pardoned as President Paul Biya asked.

“Some of the terrorists in certain localities have willfully handed over their weapons to the forces of law and order,” said Nji. “They were realistic because they know that you cannot fight a state. We have pockets of resistance but how long will they last?”

Cameroon’s separatists complain the country’s English-speakers are treated as second-class citizens in the Francophone central Africa country, and want to create an independent state. The international community has condemned violence from both the rebels and security forces and called for a negotiated end to the conflict.

VOA