19, January 2023
Archbishop Nkea says Anglophones are weary of war 0
After more than six years of war pitting his country’s English-speaking minority against its French-speaking majority, Andrew Nkea Fuanya of Bamenda in Cameroon says the Anglophones are weary of the conflict.
“Our people are tired of the war, and our people need peace,” Nkea said January 14.
“In the northwest and southwest regions of our country, we have seen Cameroonians exhibit wickedness against fellow Cameroonians: Homes burned, schools shut down, the destruction of goods and obstruction of the circulation of people and goods…we have seen Cameroonians torture other Cameroonians,” he said.
Nkea was speaking in the St. Anne and Joachim Cathedral in Abang, Ebolowa, in Cameroon’s southern region, during a closing Mass of the 46th annual seminar of Cameroon Catholic Bishops.
In the presence of some thirty bishops from all five ecclesiastical provinces in Cameroon, as well as representatives of bishops from neighboring Equatorial Guinea, Gabon and the Democratic Republic of Congo, along with several government Ministers, Nkea spoke at length about the conflict that has so far left at least 6,000 people dead.
Over a million others have been forced to flee from their homes, and more than 70,000 others have sought refuge in Nigeria, according to the International Crisis Group.
Conflict erupted in 2016 when English-speaking teachers and lawyers took to the streets to protest, amid perceptions that the educational and legal systems in the two Anglophone regions were being overwhelmed by French-speakers with scant knowledge of local realities.
The government took a hard line, and what was initially a peaceful protest mutated into a political crisis. A separatist movement developed and took up arms demanding independence for Cameroon’s English speakers, and the formation of a new state to be called “Ambazonia.”
According to many analysts, the current conflict is a consequence of Cameroon’s colonial legacy. Initially colonized by Germany following the Berlin Conference of 1884, the country would be divided between Britain and France following World War 1.
France claimed four-fifths of the country in the post-war settlement, while Britain was given one-fifth which it administered as part of Nigeria. The two colonial powers would administer the two parts of the country, first as a League of Nations Mandate and then as an United Nations Trust Territory.
In 1960, the French part of Cameroon got its independence to become “La Republique du Cameroun.” The English-speaking part of Cameroon, otherwise known as the British Cameroons, got theirs in 1961, but both sides decided to reunite following a February 11, 1961, plebiscite.
The political elites of the two territories agreed on the formation of a federal State, with considerable autonomy for the English-speaking regions.
In 1972, however, then-President Ahmadou Ahidjo organized a controversial referendum, dissolving the federal structure of the state and replacing it with a united republic. In 1984, President Paul Biya removed the word “united” from the name of the state and Cameroon became known simply as “The Republic of Cameroon,” the name the French-speaking part of the country had adopted at independence.
Cameroon’s English-speakers saw this as an act of assimilation, and the 2016 uprising was therefore the culmination of decades of pent-up frustrations.
While the country’s Catholic bishops, especially from Cameroon’s English-speaking regions, have long called for a revision of what they see as these historical injustices, Nkea believes that everything should be done for peace to return.
“We are inspired by what we have seen in the last six years in some regions of our country,” Nkea said.
“One of the greatest negative effects of war among us is that we lose the fear of the Lord and respect for authority,” the cleric said. He said once people don’t have the fear of the Most High in them, “it is difficult to live in peace.”
The archbishop said the country’s bishops will never rest until hostilities are brought to an end.
“As we leave Ebolowa, we are determined, as individuals and as a conference, to continue working for peace, reconciliation and justice, convinced that these will bring sustainable harmony to our country.”
He then warned against efforts at political manipulation of the church.
“The Catholic Church isn’t a political party where anyone can militate according to its political manifesto,” the cleric said.
“The Catholic Church is the mystical body of Christ,” he noted and explained that both clergy and laity “must make Christ present in our world and in different societies.”
It is only when Christ is present in the different communities and in each individual, the archbishop argued, that there can be peace in the world.
“We have prayed for peace in our entire country, hoping that all the problems we are having will be resolved, and our people will once again live in peace.”
Source: Crux
30, January 2023
Douala: Archbishop Kleda links journalist Zogo’s death to 2017 slaying of the Bishop of Bafia 0
Catholic leaders in Cameroon have condemned the Jan. 22 murder of a local journalist, comparing the slaying to the 2017 assassination of Bishop Jean-Marie Benoît Balla of Bafia.
The lifeless body of Martinez Zogo, 51, was found along the road to Soa, nine miles from the capital city. His remains were in an advanced state of decomposition, but preliminary investigations reportedly showed signs the journalist, who was also the director general of the urban radio station Amplitude FM, had been tortured, sodomized, and mutilated.
Zogo went missing on January 17. Reports say that he was running toward a local police station to evade a threat when he was grabbed by unidentified men and carted off in a black, unmarked car.
His death has generated national and global condemnation.
“The assassination of this journalist has shocked everyone,” said the Archbishop of Douala, Samuel Kleda, in a Jan. 26 statement.
“A journalist isn’t a thief,” Kleda said. “A journalist who is only doing his job is kidnapped. He is tortured, and he is killed and then dumped in the bush near a village, as if he were a highway robber.”
“It shouldn’t be so in a country worth its salt, in a country of laws where human rights are respected,” he said. “We strongly condemn the assassination of this journalist.”
Kleda then drew parallels between the assassination of Martinez Zogo and that Balla six years ago.
“It’s almost the same scenario. When I look at the way this journalist was killed, I think about the disappearance and the assassination of the Bishop of Bafia, Jean-Marie Benoit Balla.”
“He too, like Martinez Zogo went missing [and] was tortured before being killed,” Kleda said.
Balla disappeared on the night of May 30-31, 2017, and his corpse was discovered floating on the Nyong River on June 2. The country’s bishops indicated that he had undergone significant torture before being murdered.
“Who is killing Cameroonians?”, Kleda asked.
“They tell us that investigations will be conducted, but the results of such investigations are never made public,” he said.
Kleda said he was at a loss to understand why a journalist who ran for safety to a police station could be taken away and the security personnel wouldn’t pursue the kidnappers.
“It’s horrible! It’s inadmissible! There is a serious problem if a citizen can’t be protected by Gendarmes,” he said.
“Why did the police not seek to find the journalist after learning about his disappearance? The police and the gendarmerie could have done everything possible to find the journalist alive. They didn’t do that,” Kleda charged.
He said it was incomprehensible that nobody has been suspected or arrested in connection with the murder.
“It’s curious,” Kleda said. “There is a need to find the killers of this journalist. Those who committed this odious act must be found and punished in accordance with the law.”
He said he couldn’t understand why the President of the Republic, Paul Biya, won’t make at least a statement concerning the assassination the of the journalist, and wondered if the lives of Cameroonians really matter to him.
“When Bishop Balla was brutally assassinated, I said it was one more death too many. I have to make the same statement today after the brutal assassination of the journalist. Cameroonians aren’t protected. Cameroonians don’t feel secure. We can’t understand why the President of the Republic has remained silent in the face of such a grave issue,” Kleda said.
The National Union of Journalists of Cameroon said they were dismayed by the “heinous assassination” of their colleague.
The International Press Institute, a Vienna-based press freedom organization, has urged Cameroonian authorities to “promptly investigate the horrific murder of journalist Martinez Zogo and ensure that those responsible are brought to justice.”
Jean-Michel Nintcheu, a lawmaker from the opposition Social Democratic Front, said in a press statement that it was “a crime’ that should never go unpunished.
The Director-General of UNESCO, Audrey Azoulay ,has also condemned the killing and called on the government “ not to let this crime go unpunished. Journalists play an essential part in nurturing and upholding democratic governance. They deserve every necessary protection.”
The head of Reporters Without Borders’ Sub Saharan Africa Desk, Sadibou Marong, said there are “many gray areas regarding the circumstances of his brutal abduction.”
“The authorities must launch a rigorous, thorough and independent investigation to establish the full chain of responsibility and the circumstances that led to this sad event,” he said.
Cameroonian novelist Calixthe Beyala said she was “dejected, saddened. I knew he was dead as soon as it was announced he had been kidnapped. One can ask the question: Whose turn it is? Each of us can find ourselves in this situation for something that we might have said.”
Zogo’s brutal murder casts a long shadow on freedom of the press in Cameroon, and adds to the growing number of attacks on journalists in Cameroon.
In August 2019, journalist Samuel Wazizi was arrested by security forces in Buea in Cameroon’s South West region. After ten months without access to his lawyers or family, authorities finally announced he had died in detention. An investigation carried out by the military police has never been made public.
According to statistics from the Committee to Protect Journalists,17 journalists have either been killed or imprisoned in Cameroon over the last ten years. The largest number of journalists being jailed took place in 2020 when 9 journalists were imprisoned.
Some local observers believe Zogo might have been murdered for investigating and reporting on corruption scandals, some involving senior figures in the country’s political life.
Culled from Crux