Cat calls have greeted the recent US military donations to La Republique du Cameroun. The Southern Cameroons political leadership has refused to comment on the combat aircrafts donation from the Trump administration to the butchers in Yaoundé.  However, many of the Ambazonian political elites contacted by Cameroon Intelligence Report opined that the United States was appearing like an intransigent rogue state pursuing only its own interests at the expense of human rights and freedom and has blatantly refused to push the Paul Biya Francophone regime to curb attacks in Southern Cameroons.

To be sure, the US won’t deploy carrots or sticks to even stop the genocide currently going in Southern Cameroons and it won’t scold the French Cameroun political leadership for crackdowns against innocent Southern Cameroons civilian population. Interestingly, US President Donald Trump just this week cancelled the historic nuclear deal with Iran and reiterated that it was a bad deal. But to hand over two aircrafts to the regime in Yaoundé with the potential to scan and detect enemy hideouts is completely unacceptable to the people of Southern Cameroons.

The Biya regime does not have the cash to pay for such sophisticated aircraft so the argument that US weapon donation to French Cameroun is largely about relations with France is legitimate. But the truth is that, US behaviour too is about more than just money. The US actually has a soft spot for countries that buck the international system, oppress and murder their citizens, and threaten regional stability. A good example is the Biya Francophone Beti Ewondo regime that has been in power for 36 years and has contributed in destabilizing the Central African Republic and creating many Cameroonian military billionaires.  This recent US military gesture to the 86 year-old French Cameroun dictator is an indication that the US in the end, needs rogues.

For decades the US backed the Mobutu Sesekou regime in Congo-Kinshasa which killed more than two-thirds of the country’s political elites.  The US continues to support President Denis Sassou Ngessou of Congo-Brazzaville and today it’s the turn of the French Cameroun thug, President Biya who is killing Southern Cameroonians in a monstrous ideological genocide.

Towns and villages have been burned by Francophone army soldiers deployed to Southern Cameroons.  Teachers, lawyers, businessmen including women and children are being murdered to make French Cameroonians the only owners of the Ambazonian ancestral land a reality all with the backing of the USA. Southern Cameroons schools and hospitals have been closed, as well as Southern Cameroons banks including service companies. Some 40,000 Southern Cameroonians have fled the conflict into neighboring Nigeria.

Over the last two years, the Francophone dominated government in Yaoundé has overworked and is starving the Southern Cameroons population, at the same time exterminating selected groups who they believe are enemies of the French Cameroun state or have the potential to undermine the French Cameroun political leaders. People who the French Cameroun armies perceive as Ambazonian leaders or even those who disagree with the military campaign have also been killed.

A sea of Southern Cameroonian women and children were killed in Kembong, Kwa Kwa, Belo, Kendem, Batibo, Ndian, Nguti, Muyenge for attempting to escape from the French Cameroun military onslaught. A majority of those caught in the Manyu and Lebialem Counties were taken quietly off to a distant forest between Numba and Kendem and were killed.  The fiercest extermination campaign is taken place in Calabar and Ikom in the Federal Republic of Nigeria with the complete and total support of the Buhari administration. Southern Cameroonian civilians have suffered the biggest death toll (over 1,500) have been killed so far with the UN registering some 21,291 as refugees in Nigeria.

Family relationships including those residing in the USA can no longer send money back home to loved ones and family members are being arrested and jailed for communicating with those in the Diaspora. The US embassy in Yaoundé noted that the aircrafts were to fight the Nigerian Islamic sect, Boko Haram. However, the Francophone Minister for Defense, Joseph Beti Assomo pointed out that the war machines will also be used to fight other related crisis.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

My fellow Ambazonians and people of the world, in mid-March 2018, Acting President Samuel Sako of our Interim Government in Exile (IG) convened in the United States of American with self-defense groups throughout our territory, consulting with their leaders to adopt a statement and action plan that established an independent self-defense wing of our liberation war—the Ambazonia Self-Defence Council (ASC). Under the new framework, all self-defence activities across the territory of Ambazonia are conducted under the general name Ambazonia Self-Defence Council’s Restoration Forces (ASC/RF).

Tonight, I want to address three categories of audiences that are stakeholders in the Ambazonia Liberation War. Specifically, I want to speak with our freedom fighters on ground zero, the people of Ambazonia on ground zero and worldwide, and the international community in the context of self-defence toward achieving Ambazonia statehood.

To our freedom fighters

We should have but one desire today: the desire to fight so that Ambazonia may live free—the willingness to face a martyr’s death, so that the path to freedom may be paved with martyrs’ blood. Friends! my comrades in the War of Liberation! Today I demand of you one thing, above all. I demand of your loyalty and self-discipline.  The blood of our heroes cannot go in vain. Their blood has paid the price of our freedom. Therefore, we cannot give up, we have to fight, fight, and fight till we reach BUEA. We must live Free or Die.

We, the citizens of Ambazonia, are now joined in a great national effort to defend our people, and our property, and to protect our interests against the illegal occupation, administration, and exploitation by President Paul Biya’s regime of La Republique du Cameroun (LRC), a neigbouring country, since 1961. Our ultimate goal is to take full control of our territory as defined and recognized under international treaties and to restore Ambazonia’s promise of sovereignty and freedom to all of our people.

Together, we will achieve our unconditional sovereignty, determine the future of Ambazonia, and join the international community of nations.

To the people of Ambazonia

Whether you are in the homeland, residing abroad, or homeless in some country seeking refuge—rest assured we will soon celebrate our freedom and independence in Buea. But freedom does not come free. We must fight for our freedom with everything we have, even our own lives, and win it from those who would take it from us or deny us our right to live. We must defend our God-given right of existence. God is with us and freedom is ours if we stand with each other. Together in this fight for freedom, no power can stop us—not the helicopter gunships, nor the state-sponsored terrorists of Paul Biya.  Together we shall beat down any mountain that stands in the way of our freedom.

By now, you must know at least one village person who has been brutally killed, beheaded, executed, abducted, burnt alive, tortured for ransom, maimed, or otherwise suffered human rights violation by La Republique du Cameroun’s government forces. The message is clear, and the meaning is simple: Act now and act fast. You must associate yourself with your village or community groups and support self-defence. Not taking action is not an option. President Biya and his government have made this clear—he has declared war on us, deployed troops to our territory, and killed our people. They will kill all of us. Therefore, we must defend ourselves until such a time when the international community takes concrete action to hold President Biya and his government accountable for all crimes against the people of Ambazonia.

We need you—we need everyone. Support in any form takes us closer to victory. Take heart, look up to God and have faith. There is no second thought, my country people: the time is now. If you do not support the self-defence, armed soldiers and paramilitary forces of LRC will mercilessly kill your loved ones and family members at home or burn your house or loot your property. Here is a mantra, a short one that I give you. You may imprint it on your hearts and let every breath of yours give expression to it. The mantra is: ‘Do or Die’. We shall either free Ambazonia or die in the attempt; we shall not live to see the perpetuation of our slavery. Every true Ambazonian man or woman will join the struggle with an unbreakable determination not to remain alive to see the country in bondage and slavery. Let that be your pledge.

To the international community

Thank you to the Governments of the United States, the United Kingdom, and France for condemning the barbaric offenses of President Paul Biya’s regime against our people since our decades long peaceful protest heightened in late 2016. Thank you to the secretariats of the African Union, United Nations, European Union, and Commonwealth for urging the Biya regime to negotiate a political settlement with the Ambazonian people. Your leadership and actions are highly appreciated. Why is it that, for half a century, we have never heard voices from the international community speaking out against the suppression and tyranny of La Republique du Cameroun authorities? Why is it that we have not witnessed international condemnation of the systematic disregard for our basic rights and values, and forced assimilation into a union between two countries and two peoples with distinct cultures, ways of life, and irreconcilable differences?

We can no longer remain on our knees with our hands clasped together, begging for basic freedoms and opportunities in a God-given land and internationally-recognized territory to survive, when all that we get in return is killing, maiming, abduction by armed soldiers and security forces of La Republique du Cameroun. We can no longer bury our youths in vain, we can no longer watch our girls and mothers raped before us, we can no longer watch our grandparents burnt alive in their homes, we can no longer continue to exist as refugees in foreign countries without a place to call home because of a union forced upon our ancestors. We have therefore decided to stand up for our rights, fight for our freedom, and guard our homeland.

On November 30, 2017, President Paul Biya of neighboring LRC declared war against the territory of Ambazonia, a clear confirmation that Ambazonia and the LRC are two different countries and two distinct people. The silence and inaction of the citizens of LRC is further testimony that they are different from us and that we are two different people in different territories. Since that day, LRC’s elite forces continue to use war equipment to carry out mass killings, executions on the spot, beheadings, and burning of communities—all of which have created huge humanitarian consequences in neighboring countries like Nigeria. We have therefore come to the conclusion that no one can defend us except us. And we will defend our land till the last man falls down.

Looking forward, this is the position of the Ambazonia Self-Defence Council. The only competent authority to call for a cease fire across the Ambazonia territory is the Interim Government of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia. A peaceful exit strategy out of the ongoing Biya-declared war will come from the voice of either the United Nations Security Council or of a member state coming before it and demanding a referendum for the people of Ambazonia on our side to exercise our freedom of sovereignty.

In conclusion, the American people have shown the world that democracy and individual liberty provide the conditions in which knowledge progresses, science discovers, innovation occurs, enterprise thrives and, ultimately, people advance. This is the kind of democracy and values we envision, and for which we are fighting, for Ambazonia.

In due course, as the spokesperson of ASC, I or the deputy will issue regular statements and brief the media as need arises on the status of the self-defence activities and significant developments in our war of liberation.

By Nsoh Foncha

President Trump has nominated a career diplomat with extensive experience in Africa to lead the State Department bureau focused on the sub-Saharan region.

Mr Trump also on Thursday formally submitted to the US Senate his choice of Kyle McCarter as the next US ambassador to Kenya.

YAMAMOTO

Tibor Nagy, a former US envoy to Ethiopia and Guinea, will take over as assistant secretary of state for Africa if the US Senate clears his nomination in the coming weeks. Donald Yamamoto has been holding that position on an interim basis since last September.

Mr Nagy, who also worked in US embassies in Zambia, Seychelles, Togo, Cameroon and Nigeria, is unlikely to encounter significant opposition, having compiled a long record of service under both Democratic and Republican presidents.

His nomination, along with that of Mr McCarter, was welcomed by a Democratic senator, Chris Coons, who pays close attention to African issues.

At the same time, however, Senator Coons called attention to the Trump administration’s seeming political indifference toward Africa and its delay in naming nominees to key Africa positions in the US government.

“Simply put, the United States and the Trump administration must do a better job of engaging on this critical continent, and I’m hopeful that these two nominees will prove that they are the right people for that important task,” Senator Coons said.

Mr Trump had reportedly been leaning toward a different Africa specialist, J Peter Pham, as his first choice for the State Department job once held by former ambassador to Kenya Johnnie Carson.

GODEC

Prof Pham, a scholar at a Washington think tank, had his nomination blocked behind the scenes by a powerful Republican senator, partly due to a dispute over US policy toward Moroccan-controlled Western Sahara.

That same Senator, James Inhofe, on Thursday hailed the choice of Mr Nagy.

“I am confident that Ambassador Nagy, with Secretary of State Pompeo and President Trump, will be highly successful advancing an ‘America First’ policy of mutual respect, trade and cooperation. I look forward to his swift confirmation in the Senate,” Inhofe said.

Mr McCarter, a Republican member of the Illinois state legislature, would succeed Robert Godec in the Nairobi post if confirmed by the Senate. Mr McCarter has long been involved in charitable causes in Kenya and is a fluent Swahili speaker.

Source: Daily Nation

British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson voices regret for US President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal.

Johnson made the comment in a tweet on Tuesday, also expressing London’s firm commitment to the landmark agreement, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

“Deeply regret US decision to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal. UK remains strongly committed to the JCPOA, and will work with E3 partners and the other parties to the deal to maintain it. Await more detail on US plan,” he tweeted.

The British foreign secretary, who has just returned from a trip to Washington, had earlier called on US President Donald not to scuttle the Iran nuclear deal and that “it would be a mistake to walk away” from the international accord.

He argued that “only Iran would gain” if the United States withdraws from the international nuclear agreement between Iran and six world powers in 2015, which lifted nuclear-related sanctions on Tehran in exchange for curbs on its nuclear program.

Jonson’s tweet on Tuesday came shortly after Trump announced his decision to withdraw the United States from Iran’s nuclear deal with the world powers and re-impose sanctions against the Islamic Republic.

The announcement came despite massive efforts by the European allies of the US to convince Trump to stay in the 2015 deal, reached between Iran and the P5+1, five permanent members of the UN Security Council – the US, France, Britain, Russia and China – plus Germany.

France, Germany and Britain also released a joint statement in which they announced their commitment to the deal despite Trump’s decision to pull out and his threat of sanctions.

French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and British Prime Minister Theresa May expressed “regret and concern” over the decision and called on Iran to “show restraint” in response to Trump’s announcement.

Russia and China, as the other signatories to the JCPOA, have warned against efforts to scrap the landmark accord and pledged to continue to honor their commitments under the deal.

The International Atomic Energy Agency has been monitoring Iran’s compliance with its commitments under the JCPOA and has consistently verified the Islamic Republic’s compliance.

The Islamic Republic has always insisted that its atomic program is merely for peaceful purposes and that the West is using the nuclear case as a pretext to put pressure on Tehran.

Source: Presstv

Former US President Barack Obama says Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal is “misguided.”

After Trump announced his decision on Tuesday,  Obama asserted that it is “so misguided.”

“Walking away from the JCPOA turns our back on America’s closest allies, and an agreement that our country’s leading diplomats, scientists, and intelligence professionals negotiated. In a democracy, there will always be changes in policies and priorities from one Administration to the next. But the consistent flouting of agreements that our country is a party to risks eroding America’s credibility, and puts us at odds with the world’s major powers.”

The democratic president, who was in office when the deal was inked in 2015, further suggested that Trump’s decision would undermine efforts to negotiate with North Korea.

“At a time when we are all rooting for diplomacy with North Korea to succeed, walking away from the JCPOA risks losing a deal that accomplishes – with Iran – the very outcome that we are pursuing with the North Koreans,” Obama claimed. Iran has on numerous occasions asserted that its nuclear program is merely peaceful and not meant to make nukes.

Source: Presstv

French Cameroun and Southern Cameroons are moving slowly but surely closer to a full-scale war, with fighting and belligerent rhetoric coming from Francophone political elites in Yaoundé and the Interim Government of Southern Cameroons/Ambazonia.

The Southern Cameroons crisis has already crippled the fragile economies in both Cameroons, and it has created new burdens on neighboring Nigeria precisely in the Cross River State and Benue regions.

In a recent audio message, Southern Cameroons Communications Secretary, Chris Anu said that French Cameroun soldiers have killed hundreds of civilians in Lebialem and Belo and were developing plans to bomb Ambazonian settlements.

Southern Cameroons Acting President Dr. Samuel Ikome Sako, speaking on the Southern Cameroons Television, said the French Cameroun attacks deep inside Ambazonia amounted to crimes against humanity. Dr. Sako has also rejected any peace talks with the Biya Francophone Beti Ewondo government, saying Francophone leaders only understood the language of the gun.

There has not been any strong condemnation of the atrocities committed by French Cameroun soldiers in Southern Cameroons from the international community. The Southern Cameroons government has stated that it will not agree to any negotiations until the President of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia, HE Sisiku Ayuk Julius Tabe and every Ambazonian arrested as a result of the resistance is release from detention.

President Biya has been addressing his troops via his kinsman Joseph Beti Assomo the Minister for Defense and praising them for the genocide currently going on in Southern Cameroons. The escalating tensions have been ongoing for over two years after Southern Cameroons declared its independence on October 1 two years ago to end decades of marginalization and economic apartheid.

The leadership of the Interim Government of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia pointed out that a lot of the issues were neglected and left unresolved in the 1961 Foumban Conference. Those critical issues include the maintaining of the Anglo-Saxon heritage and its system of education including the Common Law in British Southern Cameroons, a federal system of governance and sharing of the nation’s revenues.

An EU diplomat was heard murmuring privately in Yaoundé that President Biya is doing things that defy rationality.  A senior adviser to the Acting President of Southern Cameroons/Ambazonia told Cameroon Intelligence Report that the two Cameroons will always need each other, but right now Biya has made things look like two people with their hands locked around each others’ throats.

French Cameroun military has employed massive firepower in strategic border points in Otu, Eyumojock, Tinta, Dadi and Ekok in the Manyu County. Social media images also shows heavy damage inflicted by troops loyal to the Yaoundé regime on Southern Cameroons villages and towns.

French Cameroun under Biya stand to suffer as the crisis unfolds. The government treasury is nearly depleted and food and fuel are likely to be in short supply. More fighting could precipitate a humanitarian crisis. The Roman Catholic Bishops of Cameroon recently observed that if the conflict goes on there will be a lot of people killed.

The fighting has already displaced refugees to neighboring Nigeria-a nation that is ill-equipped to help them. The Francophone government agents such as governors and SDOs including DOs have also made it difficult and dangerous for aid organizations to provide help for internally displaced Ambazonians.

A full-scale war between the Cameroons would pose serious problems for the Federal Republic of Nigeria and the Francophone countries in the CEMAC region. It’s time for intensifying crisis diplomacy but the two countries with the most influence in the Sub Sahara region France and the Federal Republic of Nigeria are maintaining a kind of deliberate silence.

France has invested heavily in Cameroon’s oil industry, but without a proper end to this conflict between the Cameroons, that oil will soon stop flowing. France is also a longtime ally of French Cameroun’s Biya but has never worked to develop ties with Southern Cameroons leaders. There is indeed no military solution to the crisis in Southern Cameroons.

source:www.cameroonintelligencereport.com

John McCain, the seasoned senator of Arizona, says he regrets choosing former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate during the country’s 2008 presidential race, and instead he should have chosen Joe Lieberman, a Democrat-turned-independent politician.

The New York Times reported on Saturday that McCain, while still defending Palin’s performance, said in his upcoming book, “The Restless Wave: Good Times, Just Causes, Great Fights, and other Appreciations,” that although his advisers had warned him that picking a vice-presidential candidate who caucused with Democrats and supported abortion rights would divide Republicans and doom his chances, he should still have proceeded and chosen Lieberman as is his vice-presidential nominee.

“It was sound advice that I could reason for myself,” he writes. “But my gut told me to ignore it and I wish I had.”

Many in McCain’s own party believe that, by selecting Sarah Palin as his running mate in 2008, he bears at least a small measure of blame for unleashing the forces of grievance politics and nativism within the Republican Party.

In addition to the book, the senator has also participated in a nearly two-hour HBO documentary, both of which are set to be released this month. In the HBO documentary McCain strikingly expresses sorrow for not choosing Lieberman calling it “another mistake that I made.”

Lieberman later said he did not know McCain felt that regret until he watched the film. “It touched me greatly,” he said.

The Times reported that Lieberman recently visited McCain, 81, at his ranch in Arizona where the senator is recovering from his brain cancer treatment and surgery for an infection.

New memoir

In excerpts of his book, The Restless Wave that will be published by Simon & Schuster on May 22, the senior senator from the state of Arizona says his battle with brain cancer has given him a sense of liberation to freely speak his mind.

“I’m freer than colleagues who will face the voters again. I can speak my mind without fearing the consequences much. And I can vote my conscience without worry.”

“I don’t think I’m free to disregard my constituents’ wishes, far from it. I don’t feel excused from keeping pledges I made. Nor do I wish to harm my party’s prospects. But I do feel a pressing responsibility to give Americans my best judgment,” McCain says in the excerpts released Monday by Apple News.

McCain, a Vietnam War prisoner, says he is bothered by the “scarcity of humility” in the current political climate in America.

Criticism of Trump

McCain openly criticizes US President Donald Trump in the book saying he seems to care more about “the appearance of toughness” than so-called American values.

“The appearance of toughness, or a reality show facsimile of toughness, seems to matter more than any of our values,” he says in the memoir referring to Trump.

“He has declined to distinguish the actions of our government from the crimes of despotic ones,” McCain writes in the book of Trump.

Source: Presstv

US President Donald Trump said Friday that he is willing to be interviewed by Special Counsel Robert Mueller in the Russia meddling probe, but only if he gets fair treatment.

“I would love to speak, but I have to find that we’re going to be treated fairly,” Trump told reporters.

“I would love to speak because we’ve done nothing wrong,” he said.

Trump said Mueller’s team of veteran investigators were Democrats, suggesting he could not get a fair shake in the probe into whether his election campaign colluded with Russia in the 2016 election, and whether he had illegally tried to obstruct the Mueller investigation.

“The problem we have is that you have 13 people that are all Democrats and they’re real Democrats. They’re angry Democrats. And that’s not a fair situation,” Trump said as he left the White House for a trip to Texas.

“I have to find that we’re going to be treated fairly. Because everybody sees it now and it’s a pure witch hunt.”

“There was no collusion with the Russians, there was nothing, there was no obstruction,” he added.

Trump also brushed off revelations by his newly recruited attorney, former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, that he was aware of and approved reimbursements to his personal lawyer Michael Cohen for a $130,000 payment to porn star Stormy Daniels.

Cohen made the payment just before the 2016 election to prevent her from going public with claims of an affair with Trump.

After repeatedly denying knowledge of the payment, Trump tweeted on Thursday following the revelations by Giuliani that Cohen had undertaken the payout separately from the campaign “to stop the false and extortionist accusations made by her about an affair.”

Trump referred to the payments story as “that kind of crap” and said Giuliani was still getting up to speed on his legal position.

“Rudy’s great, but Rudy had just started and he wasn’t totally familiar with everything,” Trump said.

(Source: AFP)

US President Donald Trump is dialing up efforts to avoid impeachment, GOP sources as the 2018 midterms approach, giving Democrats the chance to win the majority in the US House of Representatives.

If democrats take control of the chamber, they could initiate an impeachment debate and congressional investigation.

“It is super important to the White House, and really the whole White House is very focused on it,” a source told The Hill. “The president is expected to dial up efforts in this regard during and after the August recess.”

According to Maxine Waters, Democratic representative from California, 70 percent of Democrats want to impeach the president, an idea strongly supported within the party’s liberal base.

Such comments have made the president understand the significance of protecting his party’s majority, particularly in the House.

 

“We have to keep the House because if we listen to Maxine Waters, she’s going around saying ‘We will impeach him,’” Trump told a rally of supporters in Michigan on Saturday.

The Republican National Committee (RNC) announced recently that protecting the House rather than the Senate is its top priority.

“Our No. 1 priority is keeping the House. We have to win the House,” RNC political director Juston Johnson told The Associated Press.

The president has also ordered the RNC to prioritize the House.

“It’s clear the message has been, ‘We don’t want to want to have to fool with impeachment proceedings with the final two years of his first term, you better do something,’” a party strategist was quoted as saying.

Source: Presstv

For almost two years, Southern Cameroons has been reduced to an abattoir with government troops killing innocent citizens as if they are not nationals of Cameroon. In many parts of Southern Cameroons, young men, many of whom are innocent and have nothing to do with the ugly fighting that is playing out over there, have been arrested and taken to unknown destinations. Many have been buried alive, while others have been used by the country’s sex-starved and alcohol-inflamed soldiers as shooting targets. The rule of law that is supposed to be upheld by the government is gradually becoming the rule of weapons where those with weapons dictate the rule and the country’s government is doing its best to encourage this form of lawlessness that is breeding hatred and feeding the circle of violence that is claiming many lives in Southern Cameroons.

A crisis that started as simple protests by lawyers, teachers and students in Buea and Bamenda has been allowed to metamorphose into a full blown armed conflict due to the government’s firm belief in tough and violent means to address issues. The government’s decision to slaughter hundreds of Southern Cameroonians on October 1, 2017, has turned out to be an unfortunate error of judgment. Many people around the world who have been watching Cameroon descend into chaos thought the country’s government would actually embrace peace. Many have been waiting for the government to lay the ground work for the much-touted inclusive dialogue that the country’s president, Paul Biya, has been talking about.

But time, a key factor in life, has revealed that Mr. Biya, who had declared at the United Nations in 2017 that “we all are hankering after peace”, has, all through, been paying lip-service to the notion of inclusive and sincere dialogue. Mr. Biya and his government see governance as a do or die affair and any dialogue that might minimize their power will never be their cup of tea.  They have opted for self-destruction. They seem to be admiring the killings in their own country. Cameroon’s leaders are unfortunately encouraging a bloodbath in their own country.

To them, the atrocities being committed by government troops are simply war games worthy of their admiration.  They seem to be deflecting public opinion from the fact that Southern Cameroonians, who have been victims of the government’s marginalization, simply want to be heard. They want years of injustice and disrespect to be addressed. But wont to violence and dictatorial ways of doing business, the government is unrelentingly pursuing its legendary policy of violence which has transformed an entire region into a massive killing field.

After October 1, 2017, a date many Southern Cameroonians consider as their independence day, the country has been pushed into an unprecedented spiral of violence. Government troops seem to be on a killing spree that is drawing a lot of admiration among government officials of Beti extraction. Mr. Joseph Beti Assomo, the country’s defense minister, is alleged to have boasted that by the time the conflict ends, there will be no Southern Cameroonians in the English-speaking regions. This testifies to the many claims of a government-sponsored genocide that are on social media.

Given such an attitude and the way many English-speaking Cameroonians have been rushed to an early grave by army soldiers, Southern Cameroonians hold that it behooves them to protect themselves as the government has decided to mow them down like unwanted ragweed. The government’s approach is creating more animosity and radicalizing even the most moderate, as Southern Cameroonians see their brothers being shot point blank by soldiers who are supposed to protect them.

Today, the radicalization has given birth to many armed groups in the two English-speaking regions of the country. The government too has stepped up its killing spree to prove that it is in control of the territory. Over the last four months, many innocent civilians have met their death as the government pursues its policy of collective punishment. Many civilians have seen their homes burnt down by government forces which have opted for a “scorch-earth” policy that is hurting many vulnerable people who have nothing to do with the conflict.

Schools and courts have remained closed in many parts of Southern Cameroons, though ghost town operations organized by angry English-speaking Cameroonians with the objective of bringing the government to the negotiating table are gradually fizzling out. The sticking point has been the government’s refusal to discuss the form of the state and this is causing the conflict to drag on and, in the process, it is taking forms that are too complicated even for the government to handle. The daily killings are resulting in moderate English-speaking Cameroonians seeing secession as the ultimate answer.

Today, the extrajudicial killings have become a daily affair and ordinary citizens are also killing and maiming soldiers in retaliation for the killing of many civilians. The arrest of secessionist leaders in Nigeria on January 5, 2018, and their illegal extradition to Yaoundé in late January have not helped matters. These leaders have been held incommunicado for almost two months and this is a concern to rights groups which hold that they deserve a fair trial and access to lawyers.

The abuses are ongoing and getting serious by the day. The international community is concerned about the government’s refusal to call for genuine and inclusive dialogue. And its approach to the resolution of this conflict has been criticized by the International Crisis Group (ICG), a rights group that has representatives on the ground who are collecting information and evidence of abuses. Though the ICG has been critical of the government, it still holds that dialogue is the ultimate answer to a crisis that is jeopardizing the country’s development prospects.

It should be recalled that dialogue is medication that soothes even the most violent mind. It sows peace and guarantees security for many generations. It is an effective political tool that has kept internal strife at bay in many countries such as Canada, Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland and Norway. If Canada, in particular, is today a huge attraction, it is because the country’s political leaders have embraced this philosophy and they sincerely think that the people’s wellbeing should be at the center of every political action and policy discourse. Cameroon stands to gain if it takes a long and an objective look at how the Canadian system functions.

It is a bilingual system that has stood the test of time. The country’s efforts are geared toward sustaining its bilingual and bi-jural system. While some issues linger, the federal and provincial governments are permanently locked in talks on how to keep the union going. This is how to deal with cultural differences and this is, without a doubt, the way forward for a country like Cameroon that currently has a huge crisis on its hands, as Southern Cameroonians pick up arms to rid themselves of a Francophone majority that has been indifferent to the injustice and centralization that have made life a living hell for many Cameroonians.

Southern Cameroonians are sick and tired of the referendum that was negotiated by John Ngu Foncha and his self-centered followers who were simply blinded by their own parochial interests. Southern Cameroonians have clearly demonstrated their disgust and frustration with a union that has robbed them of their dignity and happiness. They claim the government has been very indifferent to their plight. Years of marginalization have sent more than three million Southern Cameroonians abroad where they are today making the government to feel their ire. The Southern Cameroonian Diaspora is hell-bent on destabilizing the country if the government does not introduce meaningful reforms, especially those that border on federalism as a system of governance that has spread wealth and prosperity in other parts of the world.

The Southern Cameroons crisis is clearly an outcome of the pent-up anger and frustration that have been ignored by the country’s government. Southern Cameroonians have a genuine problem. Their marginalization is not a myth. It is a reality that has been noticed by the international community and even the government can no longer deny it. The scars of marginalization are all over the place. The country’s English-speaking minority has been frustrated for decades and the current armed conflict only speaks to the pain Southern Cameroonians have endured for years.

Most of these fighters are simply calling for the world to listen to them. They want a righting of the wrongs of the past. The lawyers who started the demonstrations never talked about secession or independence. But the government’s high-handedness and its determination to play the ostrich have pushed the country to the brink of a bloody civil war. Southern Cameroonians have, over time, migrated from redress to federalism and as government officials like Fame Ndongo, Issa Tchiroma and Laurent Esso insist that there is no Anglophone problem in Cameroon, many Southern Cameroonians have simply felt that it is time to look at other options – those which will extricate them from the burden of over-centralization.

But the government has proven that it is not going to let its game plan be changed by external actors. In January 2017, it promptly arrested Barrister Felix Nkongho Agbor-Balla, Dr. Fontem Neba and Mancho Bibixy and sent them to Yaoundé where they were kept in jail for more than seven months. Out of jail, Barrister Felix Nkongho Agbor-Balla felt the population was still on the federalist train that had been stalled for more than seven months. He did not notice that the passengers on the train had all jumped onto the secessionist train while he was in jail. The arrest and detention of Southern Cameroonian leaders did not only change the trajectory of the struggle, it also changed the rhetoric and this has transformed the country into a fireball whose explosion might turn the entire sub-region into an inferno.

Today, as the country slides into one of the continent’s genocides, Barrister Felix Nkongho Agbor-Balla has decided to use his knowledge of legal justice and politics to address human rights issues across the country. He has used many of such occasions to call for dialogue and the granting of amnesty to all those who have been arrested within the framework of the Southern Cameroons crisis. But the government is not listening to him. He seems to be walking a lonely path. His appears to be a voice in the wilderness, as many Southern Cameroonians are still on board the secessionist train.

This government’s decision to walk away from any inclusive dialogue initiative spells doom for a country that is already in the throes of a severe economic crisis. For some time now, the government has decided not to make any statements regarding the violent conflict in Southern Cameroons. This has been interpreted by many as a refusal by the country’s leaders to embrace dialogue that could spare the country lots of lives and money. Instead of providing real solutions to the issues that have been stalking Southern Cameroonians like stubborn shadows, the government is, as usual, proposing some Band-Aid solutions.

It has recently organized cosmetic senatorial elections in the country and many municipal councilors from the South West region were airlifted to other parts of the country for them to cast their votes. This is costly and proof that security, a sine qua non for sustainable development, is not available in that part of the country. Even the senators appointed by the government are people who have been rejected by the population. Another proof that the government is not willing to smoke the pipe of peace.

The government is unfortunately skirting around the issues. Instead of being realistic and taking the bull by the horn, it has decided to let the country bleed to death. Cameroon is suffering. Its leaders are failing the people. Their inefficiency and arrogance are killing Cameroonians. Instead of thinking that time will solve the problem; the country’s leaders must take the bull by the horn. The government’s old tactics will not yield the desired fruits. The problems are real and the solutions must be real and sustainable.

Despite the blood that has been shed, there is still room for dialogue. Dialogue is, undoubtedly, the road to that paradise all Cameroonians want. Southern Cameroonians simply need a new dispensation that will breed efficiency, confidence and peace.  The unitary system has only succeeded to spread pain and suffering among the population. Even the much promised decentralization that has been put on hold for twenty-two years holds out no hope for a country wherein the laws are never very clear. It is time the government noticed that a return to the status quo ante is not possible.

Nobody will come out of this mess victorious. Times have changed and Southern Cameroonians have understood that they must get something out of this war that has been imposed on them. With support from the Southern Cameroonian Diaspora, the pool of willing fighters in the region is giving the government a run for its money. But the beauty is not in who kills the other. The noble thing will be who lays the groundwork for that dialogue that will pull Cameroon from the mess it has pushed itself into. It takes courage and wisdom to reach such a decision. It could sometimes be hard due to arrogance. But why are some people called leaders? They should be leaders because they have what others don’t have. The courage, humility and wisdom that can bring peace and prosperity to a people. Those are things that make great leaders. Cameroonian leaders should therefore be seeking these qualities so that their country can become a beacon of peace in the region.

It should be recalled that the victor in all of this will be a strong, united and federal Cameroon. Dialogue is an idea whose time has come. Let Cameroonians embrace it as other people in other parts of the world have; an action that has made their countries great and attractive. With dialogue, Cameroonians can conveniently retire their differences and live in a better Cameroon. It should also be recalled that no conflict has ended without sincere dialogue. Even the second world war that consumed many lives only ended with a series of conferences and meetings. Yalta and Potsdam are popular today because those where the locations for the peace talks that helped to put an end to the destructive Second World War that left Europe a poorer continent. It is time for the government of Cameroon to learn. If it looks into the mirror of history, it will find out that history is replete with stories of dialogue as a way out of conflicts. It stands to gain if it learns from the mistakes of other people. There is always room for inclusive and sincere dialogue. Let history be the teacher!

 By Kingsley Betek and Ebot Etchi 

Cameroon Concord News Group 

Yaounde