Politicization of Military Justice: La Republique Du Cameroun’s Court-Martial Adjourns Again ⁰

The Military Tribunal of La Republique du Cameroun May 24, 2017, adjourned the case against Southern Cameroons Consortium leaders and twenty-five Southern Cameroons hostages among hundreds or thousands held in Detention and Concentration Camps in unspecified militarized locations in La Republique du Cameroun to June 7, 2017. The reason provided for the adjournment is to enable the Court-martial to deliver a decision on the motions for bail submitted by the defense.

It is significant to recall that the cases brought by La Republique du Cameroun through its proxies against Southern Cameroons Christian Church leaders in Bamenda and Buea were adjourned June 5, 2017. Similarly, the Higher Judicial Council called ostensibly to provide cosmetic palliatives to the grievances presented by Southern Cameroons lawyers will be held on June 7, 2017.

 Maxwell Oben a Southern Cameroonian SCNC activists has remained in jail for over two years above the maximum allowed by the Penal Code was he tried and found guilty for the offence he was charged. Four other Southern Cameroonians, Mr Numnvi, Mr Kongso, Mr Clovis and one other were invited to appear before another Court-martial in Bamenda on June 5, 2017 to answer alleged charges of terrorism.

The cases against the clergy and the main Christian Churches is pending before the Courts of First Instance in Bamenda and Buea. They were adjourned to the June 5, 2017 the same date as the Bamenda Court-martial.  The dates to which these cases were adjourned or fixed for hearing in June 2017 provide evidence of a pre-co-ordination rather than co-incidental scheduling by supposed independent judicial actors.  The June 7, 2017 date of adjournment at the Yaoundé Court-martial intended to deliver a bail application decision and the Higher Judicial Council meeting scheduled for the same date are not independent decisions taken without prior co-ordination.  It is now obvious that none of the cases will be heard on the merit on the adjournment dates. This confirms our opinion that the cases are nothing more but political swords of Damocles held over Southern Cameroons to harass, intimidate and complement other high handed acts of terror, torture and criminality relied upon by La Republique du Cameroun to subdue and control the Southern Cameroons.

The co-coordinating authorities of La Republique through the close scheduling of these matters in different jurisdictions intend to disorient Southern Cameroonians, deprive them an opportunity to mobilize to protest judicial terror against Southern Cameroons civilians, civilian leaders and religious leaders.  The adjournment of the bail decision to June 7, the very day the Judicial Council is meeting is scheduled is intended to serve calculated political and propaganda goals. La Republique knows that the Court-martial may play a balancing act by granting bail under very stringent conditions to the Consortium leaders while keeping Mancho Bibixy and the more than 25 Southern civilians in their dungeon. Similarly, its prized hostage Hon Chief Paul Ayah will remain detained under inhuman military and paramilitary detention although his uncertain professional fate will be determined on June 7, 2017 Higher Judicial Council meeting.

Mr Kongso and others who are in military detention in Bamenda are without lawyers, their lawyers Barrister Bobga and Shufai Blaise Berenyuy haven been forced into exile.  Mr Maxwell Oben remains in Buea Prison haven been charged at the Military Tribunal, then charged again at the Magistrate Court in Buea since Paul Biya’s supposed anniversary celebration of the occupation of the Southern Cameroon more than four years ago.  Several thousands of other Southern Cameroonians are in unspecified concentration Camps in La Republique du Cameroun.

The scheduling of some of these cases in proximate or the same dates in June 2017, will provide its genocide apologist-in-chief Isa Tchiroma the ammunition to tell the world that the judicial system in La Republique works after all. Together with the potential Judicial Council decision lightening the pressure of La Republique’s Francophone judicial imperialism through posting some of their judges back to their territory, it is hoped that La Republique will attempt to persuade the free world that at long last, it had embarked on a mission to resolve some of the grievances underpinning the revolt of Ambazonia.

La Republique hopes that this smokescreen will provide a fig leaf of manipulation for gullible traditional rulers, CPDM gas bags, corrupt journalists Iscariots and academic merchants to send motions of support thanking President Paul Biya for taking critical steps towards resolving the Southern Cameroons problem and then calling for a resumption of schools and courts in the Southern Cameroons.  This reaction will be inimical to the overwhelming interest of Southern Cameroonians.

The fear and pain in the eyes of raped and violated University of Buea female students in military trucks and the lifeless bodies of young Southern Cameroonians cut short by arms procured with money from the rape of the natural resources in their ancestral lands, are good reasons for all Southern Cameroons traditional rulers, political leaders, all and sundry to rally to the battle cry against La Republique’s vampire predators.   The crimes perpetrated by La Republique in the Southern Cameroons have violated the permitted limits of the sacred bonds of spiritual and temporal powers of our Kings and guarantors of our culture and traditions.

Any traditional ruler, political leader or community leader whose conscience did not revolt against the bestiality inflicted on the Southern Cameroons’ civilian population, the militarization of the territory and the collective punishment inflicted on women, men and children in the privacy of their homes and in public places and has instead chosen to side with the criminal occupier has chosen a date with the culture of shame and humiliation. These victims could indeed have been their own children. Indeed, as custodians of our traditions, these victims are their children.  If sending motions supporting the oppression of their own people, is what makes them truly great, then the timeless God of Justice will grant them their wish of eternally sending motions of support until the ends of time, even when the tyrant god they are worshiping and supporting will no longer be there to feed them with the blood of innocent victims.

The plans and plots of the oppressor, La Republique du Cameroun described above will not dampen the liberating spirit of the freedom seeking Southern Cameroonians. That spirit of freedom is loosed and unstoppable. The events of June and thence on, will escalate and not dampen this spirit of freedom.  The free world and Southern Cameroonians know so well that since the beginning of the Southern Cameroons conflict, La Republique has been using outdated models to confront a problem that is no longer entirely within its control, that of the victims of political military justice and that of any single Southern Cameroons leader no matter whosoever. The suffering peoples of the   Southern Cameroons under colonial occupation have finally rediscovered their power and their destiny.  They have finally realized that no weapon, no matter how lethal can kill a liberation ideology. They are indeed unstoppable in their resolve to reclaim their freedom.  Nothing, not even political military justice will stifle the will of the people to be free.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

Editor-in-Chief

Cameroon Concord News Group