Religion

14, March 2018

Cardinal Christian Tumi accuses military of abuses in fight against Anglophone separatists ⁰

Cardinal Christian Tumi, the Archbishop emeritus of Douala, has accused the Cameroon military of excessive use of force against unarmed civilians in Cameroon’s North West and South West regions. The two English-speaking regions, that constitute 20 percent of Cameroon’s over 24 million people, have been in turmoil for over a year now over perceived marginalization and an assimilation drive by the predominantly French-speaking administration of long-serving President Paul Biya.

The current “Anglophone crisis” began in late 2016, when disgruntled lawyers and teachers began protesting the use of French in courts using the Anglo-Saxon common law tradition (practiced in the English parts of the country) and in Anglophone schools. The demonstrations soon spread to the general public, and the calls for outright secession started growing.

In a strongly-worded statement released on October 6, 2017, the Anglophone bishops condemned “the barbarism and the irresponsible use of firearms against unarmed civilians by the Forces of Law and Order” and called on Biya to stop “the bloodbath and genocide that has skillfully been initiated in the North West and South West Regions.”

In the absence of a dialogue initiative from the government, many English-speakers are now calling for secession, and the formation of a new state called Ambazonia.

The country’s president has promised to “eliminate the secessionists.” Biya has deployed the military to the two regions, but their actions on the ground have met with severe criticism by Tumi.

During a visit to the country’s North West Region, the cardinal gathered harrowing tales of torture, destruction and killings. “I was in Mbim village on 28 February and the military had visited the same village a day earlier,” Tumi told Crux.

“I saw and listened to people in their depression…I saw houses that had been reduced to ruins, to dust and ashes. I saw the house of a man who had fled with his wife and six children, reduced to dust and ashes,” the cardinal said.

Tumi described various signs of destruction in the village, including a destroyed water project, and a vandalized cooperative union. He also said the military harassed the population and committed crimes against the people.

“I saw the house of an old man ramshackled and I was told that the army had made away with two generators of the family. I saw a man looking completely depressed from whom the military had made away with $1500,” the cardinal said. “I saw the bar of a young man running a small business from where hundreds of bottles of beer had been taken away by the army, and what could not be taken was broken to bits and pieces.”

He said security forces also burned the villagers’ crops, destroying the year’s harvest. Tumi told Crux he was struck by the question an old man in Mbim asked him: “Cardinal, just what crime have we committed, that the army should be sent to treat us this way, as if we were foreigners who had come to ransack the village?”

Tumi said the lives of the “simple, innocent people” had been shattered by the actions of the military.

“If they are looking for a criminal, let them look for the criminal in all patience. They should not draw the conclusion that since the criminal was in this village, everybody in the village becomes a criminal. It’s not a logical conclusion,” the cardinal said.

Similar scenes of destruction are visible in many parts of Cameroon’s South West Region, where “Ambazonian” fighters have been engaged in hit-and-run attacks on security forces.

The attacks in both regions have so far left at least 24 members of the security forces dead. It is difficult to estimate civilian deaths, but UN human rights chief Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein has noted that “allegations of summary executions of civilians by members of the security forces have been reported, and are generating widespread resentment.”

The military action has been hard and decisive, with entire villages being burned to the ground, and several people being killed extrajudicially.

“An old woman who couldn’t flee was burnt to death in the South West,” Tumi said.

Bishop Andrew Nkea Fuanya of Mamfe – in the South West Region – said the destruction in Kembong village, where four soldiers had been killed by secessionists, looked like “a horror movie.”

“I saw more than 20 houses burnt down by soldiers and one dead body still lying there, being fed on by dogs and chicken,” said Nkea.

“Of the village’s 5,000 or so residents, only 30 remained, all huddled in the house of the area’s priest because they had nowhere else to go,” he said.

Tumi also claimed that the crisis could be serving to enrich some top-ranking people in the military.

“We are told that some high-ranking military people use the crisis to enrich themselves, because the state spends on these military operations, and the account on how the money is spent is not given,” he told Crux.

The cardinal blamed Biya for choosing a military solution for a purely political problem.

“The presence of the army is no solution. With a human being, you reason: You don’t use violence as if you are treating a beast. That is why the world is calling for dialogue. Nothing can be done without our meeting to talk about the problems. Many have called for what is called inclusive dialogue. The government should dialogue with everybody,” Tumi said.

Cameroon’s bilingual and bi-cultural status derived from its colonial heritage. Initially administered as a German Protectorate in 1884, Cameroon would later be shared with France and Britain as League of Nations Mandates after Germany was defeated in the First World War.

The end of the Second World War and the establishment of the United Nations saw the two parts of Cameroon transition from mandated territories to UN Trust Territories.

In 1960, the northern part of Cameroon administered by France gained its independence. The southern part administered by Britain as part of Nigeria was in 1961 subject to a plebiscite in which they were offered independence by reuniting with their francophone Cameroonian “brothers” or by remaining part of Nigeria.

The results showed an overwhelming desire by English-speaking Cameroonians to reunite with the French-speaking part of Cameroon.

The “marriage” was guaranteed by a Federal Constitution that was meant to preserve and protect the minority Anglophones and their colonial heritage. But in 1972 then-President Ahmadou Ahidjo organized a referendum that dissolved the federation in favor of a united republic, thereby removing the protections Anglophones enjoyed.

As the current crisis worsens, several Anglophones have fled to Nigeria, causing a refugee crisis in Cameroon’s neighbor. The United Nations has expressed “great concern” over Nigeria returning dozens of asylum seekers to Cameroon.

“We also urge the Government of Cameroon to ensure that the group is treated in accordance with human rights law and standards,” the UN refugee agency said in a statement.

Culled from Cruxnow.com

2, March 2018

Cameroonian arrested in connection with murder of African priest in Berlin ⁰

A 26-year-old man from Cameroon has been arrested in connection with the crime

Archbishop Heiner Koch of Berlin paid tribute to Fr Alain-Florent Gandoulou, the head of the archdiocese’s French-speaking ministry, who was murdered in his office.

Archbishop Koch said Fr Gandoulou, born in the Republic of Congo, “applied himself with great engagement to his community, whose members come from every French-speaking country in the world.”

“His musical talent that he brought to Masses and presentations deeply affected the community,” said Archbishop Koch. “Fr Gandoulou was like a father to believers (and he) was also approachable in social matters.”

The archbishop said Fr Gandoulou was a dynamic catechist who promoted teaching and faith-building for people of all ages. In addition to his parish duties, since 2011, he worked as a counsellor at Berlin’s Sacred Heart Parish.

The archbishop said he would celebrate a special Mass on March 2 to pray for the priest and for his murderer. Afterwards, Fr Gandoulou’s remains will be returned to his hometown in the Archdiocese of Brazzaville, Republic of Congo, for burial.

Late on February 22, police responded to a call from witnesses reporting a loud argument. Police say Fr Gandoulou sustained fatal injuries from being beaten with objects and was stabbed in the head with an umbrella tip, according to Bild newspaper.

A 26-year-old man from Cameroon was arrested in connection with the crime. The suspect has since been detained in a psychiatric ward. Police have not released the suspect’s name, and no motive has been established.

Source: Catholic Herald

1, March 2018

Cardinal Sarah: High-ranking prelates are trying to change Christian morality ⁰

Cardinal Sarah has pointed out that high-ranking prelates are trying to change Christian morality. The cardinal also said the West was ‘committing suicide’ by losing its Christian faith

Senior churchmen are undermining Church teaching on life, marriage and the family, Cardinal Robert Sarah has said.

In a speech in Belgium, the cardinal accused high-ranking prelates from “opulent nations” of trying to modify Christian morality, and attacked pressure groups that “with powerful financial means and ties to the media, attack the natural purpose of marriage and commit themselves to destroying the family unit.”

Cardinal Sarah made the remarks – reported in La Nuova Bussola Quotidiana and translated by Giuseppe Pellegrino – in front of several senior Belgian churchmen, including Cardinal Josef De Kesel, the apostolic nuncio and Abbot Philippe Mawet.

Abbot Mawet had criticised Cardinal Sarah just days earlier in an article for Libre Belgique.

The cardinal said:

Some high-ranking prelates, above all those coming from opulent nations, are working to cause modifications to Christian morality with regard to the absolute respect for life from conception until natural death, the question of the divorced and civilly remarried, and other problematic family situations. These ‘guardians of the faith’ however ought not to lose sight of the fact that the problem posed by the fragmentation of the ends of marriage is a problem of natural morality.

He continued:

The great derivations became manifest when some prelates or Catholic intellectuals began to say or write ‘a green light for abortion,’ ‘a green light for euthanasia.’ Now, from the moment that Catholics abandon the teaching of Jesus and the Magisterium of the Church, they contribute to the destruction of the natural institution of marriage as well as the family and it is now the entire human family which finds itself fractured by this new betrayal on the part of priests.

During his visit to Belgium, Cardinal Sarah also gave an interview with Catholic media outlet Cathobel in which he repeated his criticism of fellow clergy.

“Faith has become lacking, not only on the level of the people of God but also among those responsible for the Church,” he said. “Sometimes we can ask ourselves if we really have faith.”

This lack of faith is also affecting the wider culture, he added:

“Not only is the West losing its soul, but it is committing suicide, because a tree without roots is condemned to death. I think that the West cannot renounce its roots, which created its culture and its values.”

The cardinal said “chilling things” were happening in the West, and Western nations were exporting those things to the developing world.

“I think that a parliament which authorizes the death of an innocent baby, without defence, is committing a grave act of violence against the human person.

“When abortion is imposed, especially on nations in the developing world, saying that if they do not accept it they will no longer receive aid, it is an act of violence. And it is no surprise.

“When God is abandoned, man is also abandoned; there is no longer a clear vision of who man is. This is a great anthropological crisis in the West. And it leads to people being treated like objects.”

Culled from the Catholic Herald

14, February 2018

Nigeria’s Islamic Movement holds rally to demand justice for slain members ⁰

Supporters of the Islamic Movement (IMN) in Nigeria have staged yet another peaceful protest, demanding justice for a slain Muslim cleric and their leader Sheikh Ibrahim Zakzaky, Press TV reports.

On Tuesday, hundreds of members of the Islamic Movement poured onto the streets of the capital Abuja to demand justice for the slain cleric Sheikh Qassim Umar. They said the perpetrators of the crime must be brought to justice.

Umar recently died of wounds he sustained during an earlier protest in January.

The procession further pressed for the immediate and unconditional release of their leader Sheikh Zakzaky, who has been held in custody for more than two years in Nigeria.

The top Shia cleric lost his left eyesight in a raid which was carried out by the Nigerian army on his residence in the northern town of Zaria in December 2015.

This photo taken on August 11, 2016 shows protesters from the Islamic Movement in Nigeria (IMN) holding a banner with a photograph of detained leader Sheikh Ibrahim Zakzaky to press for his release, in the northern Nigerian city of Kano. (Photo by AFP)

During the raid, Zakzaky’s wife sustained serious wounds too and more than 300 of his followers and three of his sons were killed. Zakzaky, his wife, and a large number of the cleric’s followers have since been in custody.

The raid occurred a day after Nigerian soldiers attacked a group of Shia Muslims attending a ceremony at a religious center in the city of Zaria, accusing them of blocking the convoy of the army’s chief of staff and attempting to “assassinate” him, which the Shia Muslims strongly denied.

Despite the ruling of a Federal High Court, which ordered his unconditional release in 2016, the Nigerian government has refused to set him free.

Last month, a UK-based NGO known as the Islamic Human Rights Commission, voiced concern over the health condition of the detained Muslim cleric. The commission in a statement also called on Nigerian authorities to immediately release Shiekh Zakzaky over his deteriorating health condition.

“In view of his deteriorating health, it is now more urgent than ever to allow Sheikh Zakzaky to be allowed access to immediate medical attention in order to assess the extent of his injuries caused by the stroke and access the necessary medical treatment,” read the statement.

Nigeria allowed Zakzaky to make a rare public appearance last month to counter rumors that he had died.

IMN’s followers have been subjected to a heavy-handed crackdown since two years ago when the army attacked a religious ceremony in their stronghold of Zaria.

Source: Presstv

25, January 2018

Southern Cameroons Crisis: Cardinal Tumi criticizes military violence ⁰

Cardinal Tumi has spoken out against the recent use of military violence in the Southwest Region against Anglophone separatists, saying local forces need to respect human life.

“You don’t bring peace by violence and violence begets violence,” said Cardinal Christian Tumi, Archbishop Emeritus of Douala, in a recent video.

“I have heard about those destructions and killings…and I think that has to be condemned. So my opinion is simple, we as Cameroonians should respect lives and the life of everybody,” he continued.

Military forces have been burning down villages in Cameroon’s Southwest Region, seeking separatist forces. Most recently, the town of Kwa Kwa, Matoh and the surrounding area was set on fire, which destroyed homes and the rectory of the local Catholic church.

The attacks also claimed the life of a 96-year old woman who died in one of the buildings set on fire by military forces. In addition to causing deaths, the political crisis within Cameroon has also pushed thousands of refugees into neighboring Nigeria.

The crisis is rooted in conflict between the English- and French-speaking areas of Cameroon. The area was a German colony in the late 19th century, but the territory was divided into British and French mandates after the German Empire’s defeat in World War I. The mandates were united in an independent Cameroon in 1961.

There is now a separatist movement in the Southwest and Northwest Regions, which were formerly the British Southern Cameroons.

Unrest in Cameroon has been ongoing since 2016, when the country’s Anglophone community began protests to demand the return of federalism. These protests have gone so care as to call for secession from the current government, run by President Paul Biya.

Secessionist militants in the English-speaking region of Cameroon have also sought violence against government forces and began attacking military troops in November 2017.

Biya, who is likely to seek re-election after 35 years in office, is not expected to seek negotiations with the secessionists since 2018 is an election year, which could prolong the political tensions within the country.

However, Cardinal Tumi suggested that Biya is unware of the most recent attacks against southwest locals.

“I am sure that if the President of the Republic knows what is happening, he will condemn it, but on the country, he congratulated the army to bring peace,” Tumi said.

The cardinal was born in what is now Northwest Cameroon, but has served as a bishop, since 1979, in Francophone regions of the country.

According to reports, President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo of Equatorial Guinea told reporters that the Cameroon crisis could only be resolved through dialogue.

“Cameroon is a big nation whose crisis requires concern of all forces. There is no nation without its own crisis,” President Nguema said, according to Xinhua Net.

“What is required is to seek solution through dialogue and use it to find a common axis. Those seeking refuge in other lands need to sit down together and find solution through dialogue. It is only through that, they can find solution to the crisis.”

Source: Catholic News Agency

Top US cardinal questions Pope’s remarks in Chile

21, January 2018

Pope Francis says world one accident away from nuclear war ⁰

Pope Francis said Monday that the world stood on the “edge” of nuclear war and admitted the situation terrified him.

The Argentine was speaking aboard the papal plane on his way to Chile and Peru, the day after a false missile alert sparked panic in the US state of Hawaii, already on edge over fears of a North Korean attack.

Asked about the threat of nuclear war in the wake of a flurry of nuclear and missile tests since last year in North Korea, the pope said: “I think we are at the very edge.

“I am really afraid of this. One accident is enough to precipitate things,” he told journalists.

The 81-year old, who has often spoken of the dangers of nuclear weapons, presented the press pack aboard his plane with a harrowing photograph taken in 1945 that shows a young Japanese boy carrying his dead brother.

The child, carried on the boy’s back, was killed when the United States dropped a nuclear bomb on Nagasaki.

Francis had written on the back of the image just four words: “The fruit of war”.

“I wanted to reprint and distribute it because an image like this can be more moving than a thousand words. That is why I wanted to share it with you,” he said.

(Source: AFP)

11, January 2018

Ambazonia Crisis: Roman Catholic Bishops Fail to See Eye to Eye ⁰

“It was like I was watching a horror movie” is how the bishop of Mamfe diocese in Cameroon’s South West Region described the scene he saw in the village of Kembong village.

Mgr Andrew Nkea had visited the village in the wake of the deaths of four soldiers late December, killed by unknown assailants (although the government claimed they were secessionists). In a retaliatory move, Cameroonian soldiers had incinerated the whole village.

“I saw more than 20 houses burnt down by soldiers and one dead body still lying there, being fed on by dogs and chicken,” said Nkea. Of the village’s 5,000 or so residents, only 30 remained, all huddled in the house of the area’s priest because “they had nowhere else to go.”

The December attack is the latest in an ongoing crisis – pitting Cameroon’s English speakers (who make up 20 percent of Cameroon’s estimated 24 million people) against the Francophone-dominated government – that now risks exploding into a full-scale civil war.

With Anglophone Cameroonians having long complained that they are being marginalised, resentment burst into the open a year ago with teachers and lawyers in the English-speaking part of Cameroon taking to the streets to protest against the use of French in their schools and courts.

What started as a teachers’ and lawyers’ strike has escalated into a full-blown political crisis, with many in the English-speaking regions now calling for secession.

In fact, on October 1, 2016, secessionist leaders in the English-speaking part of the country announced a nominal declaration of independence, provoking a muscular reaction from Cameroon’s security forces, with the ensuing clashes leaving at least 17 people dead according to the government (although opposition leaders claimed at least 100 died).

Rift between Anglophone and Francophone bishops

The crisis has drawn sharp lines between Catholic bishops from the English-speaking and French-speaking parts of the country.

Anglophone bishops described the killings as “a growing genocide” and published a long and detailed statement on Oct. 4 in which they decried a “warlike atmosphere” of killings, looting and arson carried out by “young people” and acts of “brutality, torture, inhuman and unjustified treatment meted out” by the “forces of law and order”.

But the characterisation of the crisis as genocide was not shared by the bishops from the other regions of the country.

Archbishop Samuel Kleda of Douala, Cameroon’s largest city, who is president of the country’s Episcopal Conference issued a statement condemning the violence, but refusing to use the inflammatory language of his Anglophone colleagues.

“In the name of our common citizenship, brotherhood and humanity, the defence of legitimate interests must go hand in hand with social harmony, which is what is being sought … Violence, regardless of its source, does not build, it destroys,” said Kleda.

The archbishop pointed out that all regions of Cameroon face problems which, he said, can be resolved through dialogue, arguing that decentralisation would resolve many regional problems in Cameroon, including the Anglophone problem.

That drew sharp criticism from the clergy in Anglophone Cameroon who have always seen the ‘Anglophone Problem’ as one that is unique.

Father Gerald Jumbam said that by lumping the ‘Anglophone Problem’ with all other problems in the country, Kleda was ignoring a key historical fact: that English and French-speaking Cameroons were two countries that had decided to come together and that that they had come together under agreed terms which have been jettisoned to the disadvantage of Anglophones.

In a lengthy missive to Kleda, Jumbam wrote that by virtue of their history, Anglophone Cameroonians “cannot be loyal subjects to the despicable and tyrannous Yaoundé government. Archbishop, you speak of decentralisation and you offer us it as the best gift you think fitting for the resolution of this crisis? We are determined to decline a gift so laden with spurious promises and deceitful propensities.”

Church leaders in Anglophone Cameroon have also accused the president of the National Episcopal Conference of failing to as much as acknowledge the ‘Anglophone Problem’, let alone condemn the arrests and detention of Anglophone leaders and the “grotesque campaign of human savagery and barbarism perpetrated on the people of Southern Cameroons by the government.” Instead, they said, the Prelate seems to be toeing the government line by reducing the ‘Anglophone Problem’ to just another Cameroonian problem.

Cardinal Christian Tumi, one of Cameroon’s most revered clerics who comes from the English-speaking part of Cameroon, says that such corrosive representation of the problem must be discontinued. “I would say that the others should keep quiet when the bishops of [English-speaking] Bamenda Ecclesiastical Province write because they know better what is happening.”

Genesis of a crisis

French-speaking Cameroon obtained independence from France in 1960, with British Cameroons obtaining independence in 1961. Both sides agreed to reunite following an 11 February 1961 plebiscite, but they did so under a federal system of governance that guaranteed the survival of the political, cultural, educational and judiciary legacies of both sides inherited from the colonial masters.

Just three years after that reunification, English speakers began feeling they were being marginalised.

In a confidential letter to Cameroon’s first President, Ahmadou Ahidjo, Professor Bernard Fonlon, a senior official of the ruling KNDP party in the then Southern Cameroons (now the English-speaking part of Cameroon) summed up this feeling: “Since we came together, the KNDP has hardly done more than stand by and look on. For, talking sincerely, can we name one single policy in any field – economics, education, external affairs – that has been worked out jointly by the two parties? Can we point a finger at one idea that took birth in the KNDP and was welcomed and implemented by this government?

“There is disillusionment; discontent and frustration are sinking and spreading. There is nothing so calculated as to wring and crush the human spirit, before a lofty enterprise, as to know what should be done and yet to have to stand by impotent and see the opposite taking place. This desperation has become explosive.”

Even then, a controversial referendum scrapping the federal system in 1972 meant that whatever protections the federal constitution gave English speakers were simply destroyed.

Anglophone Cameroonians believe that the agenda has always been that of annihilating their identity as a people, which is why their simmering discontent exploded in late 2017.

www.indepthnews.net

5, January 2018

Bishop Andrew Nkea says “Kembong people are not running away from attackers, but from the military which is supposed to be protecting them,” ⁰

The Bishop of Mamfe Diocese, Mgr. Andrew Fuanya Nkea, has reacted to a recent incident in Kembong village, Eyumojock Sub-Division, Mamfe, in which the military wreaked havoc in the village following the killing of four (4) security officers by unknown assailants. The Bishop visited the victims in Kembong recently and told L’Effort Camerounais what he heard and saw and proposes a way out of the current socio-political impasse. Excerpts:

My Lord, you were in kembong recently. People are running away from Kembong but you instead went there. May we know what actually took you to Kembong?

The Christians and parish priest in Kembong were calling me about the difficult situation they were facing. They reported to me about the shootings, killings and burning of houses that was going on there. This concerns my Christians, so I decided to go there despite the danger to see exactly what the situation was for myself. With what is being reported on social media, you can never be too sure what the truth is, so I decided to go to Kembong to be a witness to these happenings.

And what exactly is the situation on the ground in Kembong?

The situation I found as of December 21 was very delicate and disturbing. Kembong is actually the largest village in Central Ejagam with a population of about 5.000 people. It is a place that is normally booming with life, but when I went there all the streets were empty and it was virtually a ghost village and looking like a place after a war. I went straight to the parish and the presbytery was full with men, women, the young and old. There were about 30 people sitting on the veranda and parlour looking very destitute and I asked them what they were doing there. They told me the military had burned their houses and they had nowhere else to go and that is why they rushed to the mission for protection. I decided to go round and I was with the local superior of the Mill Hill Fathers because we have Mill Hill priests in Kembong. The people who were in the mission took me and showed me their houses that had been destroyed and burnt down. They did not even take anything out of their homes. A man told me he only had a loin round his waist and that was the only thing he took out of his house. The trouser and shirt he was wearing at the time he was talking to me was given to him by a priest. This is a reflection of the situation in the village. Four soldiers had been killed on Monday and when soldiers got there a few hours later they started burning houses, beating people up and sending them away from the village. Many people just ran away and we have many in the parish house now living under very difficult conditions. We do not know how many are hiding in the bush and how many have run away to Nigeria. So, Kembong is actually an abandoned village now.

You have actually mentioned the killing of four soldiers and the government claims Kembong is actually paying the price for killing soldiers. What is your reaction to this claim?

The people of Kembong, Christians and my priests did not kill gendarmes. Some assailants and unidentified people came into the village and attacked and killed the gendarmes and left. They do not stay in Kembong. According to the report I received this is what they have been doing. It was not the boys of Mamfe who killed the gendarmes. When they attacked gendarmes in Otu and Agborkem, it was not the people of these villages who did it. The fact that those gendarmes were stationed and were attacked in Kembong does not make the people of Kembong accomplices in the crimes of those attackers. The government should track down and punish those attackers for their crimes. So, why take it out on the population? This is why I am very angry.

So you mean that any military operation should have been preceded by a thorough investigation?

Absolutely! The government should find out who these assailants are, where they are from, track down and punish them according to the law. Soldiers have been killed in Mamfe, so should my house be burned down because I live in Mamfe? No, this is unacceptable.

How have recent military operations in Kembong affected the activities of the Church which you head?

There is no Church activity there. The Church is the people of God. There is nobody in Kembong, so there can be no Church. The parish priest and his assistant are both living with me in the Bishop’s House in Mamfe because Kembong is too dangerous for them and for everybody. The refugees are living under difficult conditions in the Parish Hall in Mamfe. Everybody in Kembong has left as the place has become far too dangerous for anybody to live there.

What actually are you doing to help the destitute people who have taken up refuge at the mission?

I must confess that the people of Mamfe have been super generous and collaborative. Since these people arrived on December 23 when I moved them from Kembong the community is supporting them and making sure that they have food. We have provided them with some matrasses on which they are sleeping. However, the most difficult part is to get these people go over the trauma and shock that they are going through. Other people who have heard what is going on are sending their support and the people are happy with what they have received so far. A woman actually told me on December 26 that it was the first day she had slept and eaten in a week because she could not cope with what had happened to them.

When part of the Church is suffering, it is the whole Church that is suffering. What message do you have for people who may want to be of assistance for people in Kembong?

The focus is on Kembong because I visited the village but this disturbing situation is not limited to Kembong. The parish priest of Kajifu in Mamfe Overside is also in the Bishop’s House in Mamfe as he fled the village because of the violence going on there. All the Christians of the Booki area have escaped and are presently refugees in Nigeria. A cross section of the population of Manyu Division, who are under attack, have fled. I keep insisting that these assailants should be tracked down, arrested and punished. The fact that they passed through a certain village, does not make the people of that village an accomplice and the village should not be persecuted by the military. The people are not running away from the attackers, but from the military which is supposed to be protecting them. And this is the most difficult part of the ongoing military operation. There are too many displaced people. Akwaya is in the same situation as the parish priest called and told me that the town is virtually empty. I visited Kembong just because it is near and the situation was urgent.

You issued a letter following the incident in Kembong. What exactly was the content of your letter?

When I saw the situation I said only God can help us. We must turn to God and pray, especially as we are celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ the Prince of Peace. So, I wrote a letter asking all parishes to expose the Blessed Sacrament 30 minutes before every morning Mass to pray for peace. Secondly, I asked that on Thursday every week there should be Perpetual Adoration from after morning Mass to 5pm for peace to reign in our diocese, country and the world. I also gave instructions because of the situation for all vigil Masses in Mamfe Diocese for Christmas to be said at 4pm because it was too dangerous to carry out any activity at night. So, that letter was a desperate call for peace to reign in our land.

This is a spiritual way out of the present crisis, but it also needs a political solution. What do you think can be done from a political standpoint to put an end to this problem that has been dragging on for more than a year now in the English-speaking Regions?

We have said it over and over in the Bishops’ Conference of the Bamenda Ecclesiastical Province and in the National Episcopal Conference that we do not see any other solution to this conflict other than dialogue. Dialogue is the only way forward. We need to find out what people want and why the Anglophones are behaving the way they are behaving and look for a way forward. Running away from the problem or pretending that it does not exist cannot help anybody. We all love and want peace in this country. The only way to maintain this peace is not by fighting but through dialogue. I am also making the situation back here known to the powers that be so that they can take action. I am letting stakeholders know the exact situation on the ground. We need to pray as there is too much talking and very little prayer. We should turn to God and beg Him to intervene miraculously and bring peace to this country.

Culled from L’Effort Camerounaise

5, January 2018

Yaounde: Suspected killers of Pastor Ewala Jeremiah ‘watched him bleed’ ⁰

A two-man crime spree on December the 19^th 2017 in Yaoundé ended in the murder of Revered Ewala Jeremiah of the Presbyterian Church at Nkolbison, according to information released by the police. .

Officials on Thursday the 4^th of January 2018 announced murder charges against two men—in the killing of Pastor Jeremiah Ewala on the sanctuary of the Nkolbison Church. The main culprit, a 16 year old had faced related burglary charges.

The Nkolbison district prosecutor’s office made public the charges, hours after police announced the arrest of the two young men. Some religious leaders in the nation’s capital have expressed extreme relief by the news of the arrest and hoped “that Jesus would give the pastor’s family and the church a heart of forgiveness.

Our Yaoundé informant who had strong ties with the late Pastor Jeremiah Ewala said “Though everything inside of me wants to hate, be angry, and slip into despair I choose the route of forgiveness, grace and hope.”

Police in Yaoundé had identified the body found behind the Presbyterian Church at Nkolbison as that of Revered Ewala Jeremiah who served as Parish Pastor in the Nkolbison congregation. Police also hinted that the death was deemed suspicious. The late Pastor Ewala Jeremiah went missing since Tuesday the 19th of December 2017.

By Rita Akana