13, August 2019
Southern Cameroons Crisis: Shooting the revolution in the foot 0
Nobody could have thought that the Southern Cameroons crisis that started like a joke would last for many years. Even the Yaounde government known for its iron fist thought it would mob it up in a few weeks, but the unity displayed by Southern Cameroonians at home and abroad has given the Biya regime real food for thought.
Southern Cameroonians have not only proven that the size of a country’s military does not really matter when it comes to addressing the legitimate needs and demands of a population, they have also demonstrated that the will of the minority can bring about significant changes in a society.
Although the government is still reluctant to head to the negotiating table, there are promising signs that Cameroon will never be the same again. The Swiss government is working with the Canadian and American governments to get all stakeholders to the negotiating table.
The Swiss, who are adept at negotiations and who understand that most wars are not won in the battlefield, have been talking with all the parties involved, encouraging them to come to the negotiating table without pre-conditions.
Separation, restoration, federalism and decentralization will all be on the agenda. Though there are many shades of opinions, it is clear that no faction will be left out of the negotiation. For many months, the international community has been calling for the talks, but the Biya regime has been adamant in its refusal to sit and talk with the people who have successfully demystified the Yaounde dictatorship.
But that refusal will soon be in the past. The pressure on the fragile regime is simply overwhelming. The aging leader of the Yaounde crime syndicate is gradually giving in. Mr. Biya has refused meeting with eminent and prominent African leaders like Thabo Mbeki and Olusegun Obasanjo who have been mandated by the African Union to take up the issue of Southern Cameroons with the arrogant and disoriented Yaounde government.
Southern Cameroons has triggered something commendable in Cameroon. The courage displayed by its people has earned it lots of commendation. Its young fighters have demystified the country’s Special Forces (BIR). Their use of hunting rifles to kill thousands of BIR soldiers is one thing the Yaounde government will never forget.
The population’s resilience is one thing that also deserves to be commended. Despite the hardship that war brings to a people, the population of Southern Cameroons has stood firmly behinds its leaders and fighters. Hunger and frustration are yet to demoralize the people. While the days ahead look very bleak, the people of Southern Cameroons are still very prepared to make significant sacrifices if only those sacrifices will bring a better life to future generations.
While the people still have faith in the revolution, they want to be certain that the future is not entirely compromised. They want to take on the government and its troops, but they also want to prepare a brighter future for their children.
They know how to chew gum and walk. That is why they strongly hold that their kids must return to the classrooms to acquire the knowledge which will come in handy in the future. A good and promising future requires sound education.
Robbing a child of his education is like robbing a nation of its future. If Southern Cameroonians really want a state of theirs, a state that will stand the test of time, then they must lay a solid educational foundation for future generations.
While the fighters will continue to do what the know how to do best, the children should be allowed to be in class to learn those things that will give them the arms to face the future with confidence and certainty.
Some Southern Cameroonian activists have been arguing that the environment is not safe for education as soldiers have been using the population for target practice. This is not totally true. The government and its soldiers are to blame for most of the atrocities that have occurred in the two English-speaking regions of the country and those crimes have shocked the world.
But Southern Cameroonian fighters are no saints and popes. The situation has been made all the more complicated by the criminal elements financed by the government and some rogues who have become a threat to the local population.
These rogues must be rooted out of our midst. They must be made to pay for their crimes. They are giving the revolution a bad name and this must be addressed forthwith. The people of Southern Cameroons should at no time be associated with the crimes being committed in our territory.
If the government’s stock in trade is killing, we should let it accomplish its mission, after all the more people it kills, the more likely is the independence of Southern Cameroons. Let us give the international community more evidence of the government’s irresponsibility and wickedness.
If activists living in faraway Maryland are calling on those rogue elements who have been marauding our villages and towns to commit crimes in our names, we must know that will be losing the sympathy of the international community that is breathing down the government’s throat.
The government says it wants our kids to go to school. Let us test its seriousness by sending our children to school. Let us stop issuing threat that will discourage most parents from sending their children to school. Let us stop providing the government with the weapons it will use against us, Southern Cameroonians.
By issuing threats and discouraging parents from sending their children to school, we are shooting the revolution in the foot. We are killing the same revolution that was designed to bring happiness to all of us.
We are destroying the future out of blind anger. Children belong to the classroom and not in the bushes. Let the government prove to us that it can provide the security it has been promising. This is the time to prove it. Let us not rob ourselves of the opportunity to provide more evidence of the government’s failure to the international community.
By Kingsley Betek in Yaounde
13, August 2019
Ambazonia Interim Gov’t Updates After The Patriotic Prison Protests And Hunger Strike 0
There are more than four thousand Southern Cameroonians (Ambazonians) illegally detained in concentration camps around French Cameroun. Ambazonia President, Sisiku Ayuk Tabe and his leadership team currently being detained illegally in Kondengui Prison Principal, Cameroun, engaged on a hunger strike to highlight the plight of their fellow detainees from the 31st of July 2019. This eleven-day action brought pressure on the French Cameroun regime and they are taking some minimal provisional decisions to appease the international community.
Of the measures being implemented, on the 2nd of August 2019, five Southern Cameroonian (Ambazonian) detainees were released by the military court in Yaoundé. Their names are Abantelle Victor, Njufack Flavio, Otu Princely, Eban Felix, Akum Aloysius. As a nation, Ambazonia is happy for the release of the above mentioned comrades but we reiterate our position that they and all others still in Colonial French Cameroon’s concentration camps shouldn’t have been incarcerated in the first place.
The miscarriage of justice and disregard for life and international law by the Cameroun regime is stunning and shameless. Last week, in the so-called trial of the abducted Ambazonian leaders, a certain Barrister Julius Achu representing the French Cameroun regime was heard shouting in court that the Cameroun regime doesn’t care about international norms and conventions. He is correct. On the 22nd of July 2019, Ambazonian Prisoners of Conscience organised a peaceful protest in their detention center in Kondengui to highlight their awful living conditions, continuous detention without charge and the actions needed to be taken for school resumption in September 2019. They were met with a vicious clampdown by the French Cameroun regime. Many were brutally tortured and moved to SED which Human Rights Watch described in a May 6, 2019, report as a major site for torture, incommunicado detention, and enforced disappearances.
Forty-three Ambazonian detainees were identified on the 6th of August 2019 at the Yaoundé Kangaroo Court of First Instance in Ekounou. They are charged with Collective Resistance, Attempted Escape and Destruction. The forty-three comrades are:
Ambazonian Political Prisoners undergoing manufactured charges:
1.Wirdzienyuy Leonard
2.Yongo Colins
3. Yuven Cyril
4. Ziengeh Hilary Chia
5. Salah Edmond
6. Kum Nestor
7. Ntanji Isidore AKO
8. BUH Mbi Roger
9. Kanouo Gildas
10. Ambantele Victor
11. Ambah Rahul
12. Newu Isaac
13. Abanda Louis Enowntai
14. Achesit Hamlet
15. Achu Divine
16. Achu Joseph
17. Adonis Martin
18. Agbor Taku Joseph
19. Aghen Norbert
20. Akembom Divine NFOR
21. Akom Alloysius Akom
22. Akwo Platini Anga
23. Alobwede Van Kingsley
24. Amadou Assad
25. Ambesse Divine
26. Amei Benjamen
27. Amos Bitar
28. Anifata Kiven
29. Anyam Jin Austin
30. Aselatcha Martin
31. Bame Emmanuel
32. Benjamin Tembang TANTOH
33. Bundi Nsah Godgive
34. Chi Emmanuel
35. Tse Noel Wangang
36. Chu Ettia Frank
37. Eban Felix38. Edwin Dubela
39. Effia Gideon Nji
40. Elvis Fonyuy
41. Embason Newton
42. EWANE Olivier
43. Fonkam Pierre
From the list above, Akwo Platini, has lost two teeth after being attacked by a French Camerounian detainee. We have reliable intelligence that French Cameroun detainees have been instructed by the prison authorities to assault Ambazonians. Also, Chu Ettia Frank has a broken leg and passes urine with blood from the torture he endured at SED. Benjamin Tembang TANTOH currently has a blood clot on the left eye resulting from his beatings. Amei Benjamen has a spinal problem and can’t stand for long. This is sad, sickening and unacceptable. These comrades need immediate medical attention which we are currently liaising with our teams on the ground to provide them the assistance required.
From our perspective as government, our legal team has counselled that the Ambazonian political detainees were severely tortured and are threatened by the prison authorities and other French Cameroun inmates. Therefore, filing a cross penal action is a suitable option. We have instructed them to go ahead with this course of action.
It’s worrying that four comrades; Apang Ronny Donald, Che Gilbert, Effru Francis, Efut Armstrong didn’t appear in court last week as expected. Our legal teams are still working hard to trace their whereabouts and the reasons for non-attendance. All detainee mattresses have been confiscated by the prison officers in order to make life unbearable for our comrades. Ambazonian political detainees have gone through anguish and are subjected to the worst forms of cruelty. The big positive is their resolve and belief in the struggle is profound.
Two comrades, Harris Boseme and Engang Joel, appeared in court unclothed. This was somehow acceptable to a judge in the twenty-first century in a country which is signatory to multiple international conventions. Our legal team used this opportunity to draw the attention of the Judge to the cruelties they endured at SED and at the Kondengui Central Prison. Our legal team asked the Court to take a recess to enable lawyers to get them respectable clothes. The judge surprisingly granted the request. The matters are adjourned to today the 13th of August 2019.
In Buea, the legal process has been slow and challenging. Our team of lawyers continues to face harassment from the Cameroon regime. During the peaceful prison protests of 23rd July 2019, the doors of the prison were opened by the authorities for the military to enter and kill. Upon entering the prison, they shot at political prisoners killing four and wounding over seventy-five. Despite the challenging conditions, our lawyers will continue their fight to see that the wounded political detainees and the corpses of our three massacred comrades Njie Gerald, Amougou Franck Joel and Eny Effiong are identified as three of the four killed in the prison in Buea.The body of Njie Gerald, a man over sixty years of age, is lying at the Buea regional hospital mortuary while the corpses of three others have not been seen.
Our thoughts and prayers are with all our comrades going through inhumane and degrading treatment in dungeons in French Cameroun. We take strength from their courage and fortitude. The days of being intimidated are over. Despite all this brutality, we shall continue to fight with bravery and determination. We will never give up. The more savagery we face, the more determined we become. The freedom of homeland Ambazonia is non-negotiable. It is Total Independence or Resistance Forever.
Short Live The Revolution
Long Live the Federal Republic of Ambazonia.
Sincerely,
Milton Taka
Secretary of State
Department of Communication & Information Technology
Interim Government Spokesperson