It
is normal in our day to doubt the reality of the devil. But if you doubt the
existence of Satan, come to the former British Southern Cameroons(Ambazonia)
and see what the devil, in form of genocide, has recently been capable of.
Satan’s vital victory is when people don’t take him seriously. If they are not
certain you live, people won’t try to halt your activities. We fail to take the
Evil One earnestly. And as a consequence, we are ignorant of his strategies,
his power, his massive military, and his horrible tactics. Most of our
dissatisfactions originate from a silly self-confidence which takes too lightly
our own abilities and underestimates the influence of our supernatural
opponents. On Sunday, 1st October 2017, a swamp of military
men armed to the teeth swooped in on jubilating civilians in the major cities
of the Southern Cameroons, weaponless civilians who were on festive mood
celebrating their Independence Day. By the time their murderous and infernal
mission was concluded, Paul Biya’s Mephistophelian military men had left more
than 100 unprotected civilians butchered, over 500 arrested and arbitrarily
detained, and several more injured in what has come to be the most recent and
most despicable genocide in living memory and what is certainly a reckless
desecration of not only the sacred but also the inviolability of human life.
Quite
a lot of stories are recounted, questions asked and investigations carried out
on this upsetting and disgusting 1st October calamity to bear
repetition here. Numerous perspectives have been given of who orchestrated this
ongoing vicious siege, what led to this heinous crime against humanity and inquiries
are being conducted on the monstrous deed. Whole bishops of the Catholic Church
have described how “Government gave firm instructions…asking people to stay at
home…The majority of the people who stayed at home were quickly visited by the
Forces of Law and Order who intimidated them, arrested them and took some to
where we do not know. I Buea, Kumba, Mamfe, Kumbo and Bamenda, this trend of
activity was rampant. In Bamesing…some young men were caught and shot on the
legs…Some people who were killed were carried away and it is not known where
their bodies were taken to…It is reported that truckloads of people arrested
have been driven down to Yaoundé…citizens of these two regions have been
branded terrorists.” The tears and pangs of pain released on our suffering
people by the reckless massacre still endures, and the people have stomached a
great dose of anger against a despicable plague called government in Yaoundé. If the Ambazonians had no concrete
reason for pulling out from the contemptible union they engaged themselves with
the so-called brothers, the recent genocide unleashed on them is enough reason.
When the Takenbeng mass Protest of 22
September took on such national and international breadth and success, we
should have inquired why people in such great numbers came out seeking a
hearing…but the international bodies in their blindness on things Africa,
allowed Paul Biya to stage out his genocide and go free.The resourceful #GenocideInSouthernCameroons
campaign has electrified a hitherto unsure international community to pay attention
to a conflict that was formerly viewed as a parochial ‘Cameroon problem’. One
gets the feeling that even in Africa people believe that the restoration of the
independence of the Southern Cameroons(Ambazonia) by their beleaguered peoples
is ahistorical or something that could well be checked by the dictatorial and
irresponsible Paul Biya.
Delinquents of Genocide
Power
has mounted the head of Paul Biya and it needs episodic nutriment in blood.
They sat down - Biya, Esso, Sadi, Fame,
Tchiroma, Assomo, Belinga, Meka, Bokam, L’Afrique, Okalia - and cooked up the
witches’ soup of genocide with which they judiciously worked it out and
effectively have poisoned not us but the reputation of their whole country.Their
goof has just been one metaphor for a country in pandemonium. And verily they
can’t help their own self-inflicted chaos – this embarrassingly duplicators’’
recalcitrance. 1st October we witnessed
the Real Presence of Satan in our land in the ‘Beasts of no Nation’ called LRC
militia. Today, a few weeks after, that Devil is still around; it has left land
and has caught us nearly everywhere, even in the Diaspora, in our very hearts, in our very minds, in our
very wills. That Satan is the temptation to fear in areas that never troubled
us before, protracted spells of discouragement, bouts of reservations that seem
to eat us up, enticing appeals to wicked compromise, hostility toward other
comrades, longings to give up on the liberation struggle, the lure to turn away
from the means of God’s grace, apologies made for lack of progress, and
dangerous remarks about other activists.
When we face these evil spirits,
these demons, these trials, with courage, with the determination of true
soldiers of the God of history, Satan the father of lies, the father of thieves
will fly away; and therefore: ‘Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled
around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with
your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In
addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can
extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation
and the sword of the Spirit.’ (Ephesians 6:14-17).
The gory happening unlocks a new vista of
examination and investigation into the dynamics responsible for the near-total
extinction of an internationally recognized people, the Southern Cameroons. The
recent Southern Cameroons massacre underscores the calamity writ large on a
government that has traded human rights to the swamp of political bestiality
and momentary economic trappings. It has advertised the intoxicating dangers
staring the two Cameroons for exchanging basic human values for political gains
and injudicious consolidation of power. It illustrates a frightening portrait
of the alarming dangers that we face for the simple reason that we have
downgraded the importance of human life in preference for money, pomp and power.
It is as scary as it is intimidating and the pogrom visited on Southern
Cameroonians recently, pictures a disgusting harvest we stand to gain from the
families of the victims from this state of anomie. History never forgets, it
only delays and when their time of reckoning comes, they would be tried by
global law for crimes against humanity.
In
the best of times, catastrophe is unavoidable for any regime on the verge of a
high cliff of self-infliction. But under Paul Biya, the decimating conflict
started since 1984. It began with the failed coup d’état where
Tchiroma obtained his banchelors degree in state terrorism, and the consequent
warning that a kleptocracy had sold the nation nd changed the name overnight to
the so-called La republique that stands stupidly tall as metaphor for the
wretchedness and misery of my people. It has been worsened by Biya’s inflexible
narrow-mindedness and, deplorably, compounded by old age. A thoughtless gerontocrat who doesn’t know the
difference between the apple phone and an apple fruit decides to make a
thieving promise of Chinese computers to famished youth , a pipe-promise that
would take millennia to come.
What is more, the rise of brutality and mayhem among Paul Biya’s political surrogates
is connected to another disease: that of impunity. By impunity I mean the
failure of national and international bodies to prosecute powerful individuals
guilty of crimes against humanity. Here I am talking not only about the
Tchiromas Bakary’s or the Belai. This involves those SDOs and Commissioners of
police and army colonels who engage in vicious political and military action –
beatings, kidnappings, lynchings – in the name of the State, and go scot-free. It
is our job to counter the narrative of the Tchiromas who think they have a
divine right to mess up our lives.
The Mission of the Governing
Council
The problem-du-jour in the Southern
Cameroon’s leadership is fairly obvious: the case of the hundreds of lives slaughtered
by the Cameroon military, the thousands of our strong men in bushes and
forests, and the other hundreds kidnapped to unknown detention camps. Little
wonder that some people are now beating the drums of war at ear-tearing
decibel. Many howl for blood. The social media has burst at its seams with
invectives against one another. Facebook, twitter and whatsapp are teeming with
all types of wicked propaganda. Each person believes he has the truth, and
half-truths and entire lies are winning the day. All this boorishness makes the
blood boil and the emotions threaten to jump out of the body for war. I have seen individuals come out and daringly
proclaim their willingness to die for the cause they so passionately promote.
It is so terrifying; and there is this feeling we are already in war. These are
normal feelings especially when we consider what bullies from LRC have wrought
on innocent souls back home. Our people are justified in their fire and anger.
It is very easy to jump to open
warfare. But when vision abandons us and the first bomb explodes, and military cruelty takes over,
and vulnerable civilians - the old, the weak and the helpless - begin to
perish, the highway to solution begins zigzagging; and enormously expensive.
Remember the destruction that accompanies wars. Remember the humanitarian
disaster that visits war zones. Remember the lukewarm attitude of the so called super powers and those who
supply arms to us - remember their coldness when things grow awry. Remember
those innocent people who would perish out of no fault of theirs. Remember the
pillaging of property and landscape. Do arithmetic with this, and ask yourself
if war is worth the sword.
There should be no room for anxiety
since we are on the right side of history. The independent State of the
Southern Cameroons Ambazonia would not die. It would never be defeated. LRC
apparently won the battle of exterminating unarmed civilians, but has not won
the fight. The fight is of God and victory is God’s. This God has taken sides
with the oppressed and no matter what the oppressor does, the tyrant’s ending
will be Goliath’s.
Absolutely, the evil day is on us but
we are not cynics. God the Almighty is our armor! We were prepared for moments
like these. Stand steady in the evil day. Stand up for freedom. And therefore,
Paul Biya’s criminality shall not have the last word. My rendition of this faith
wells up from unshakeable convictions.
The time for true Ambazonian
leadership and statesmanship has therefore arrived. In such volatile times,
experience has taught that tanks do not necessarily bring peace. When outright
war breaks, only innocent civilians on the ground agonize, and foot soldiers
and internet stars come out scot free. And therefore Sisiku Ayuk Tabe, we know
with your sagacity and smartness, with your humility and large-heartedness, with
your fear of the Lord, you and your creative crew would know what to do to
teach Yaoundé the lesson of their life. Culprit-Yaoundé
must pay for it; yet we do it in a way that casualties are reduced. Among the
things I propose - and I do it with
modesty – is that dialogue should still be prioritized even as we are fighting.
I have not changed from my stance of non-violent combat. Combat in diplomacy
and combat with the pen. In such ways, violence doesn’t. Dialogue does. Open
talk does. Negotiation does.
But how do we talk of dialogue at
this hour, how do we talk about dialoguing with a known crook, dialoguing with
a person who has raped my daughter, killed my brother, knocked to near-death
the head of my grand mum, kidnapped my parents and banished me from my own
homeland. In the dialoguing table, whose case will this man of a housefly
sponsor if not that of the leg damaged with wounds. In our justified misery we
would ask these questions! Yet, we must eternally remember that even though
laden with blood-cuddling challenges, and despite the gory 1st October, our
people’s hearts still beat for peace.
Am I here proposing ethical passivity
in the face of blatant evil? Far be it from me. Like the Catholic Church I am
not a pacifist who rules out the gun completely. Let the Yaoundé
genocide-plotting mafia be brought to justice because the lives of our brethren
lost in that carnage would not go in vain. They will pay for their wickedness
because self-defense is an absolute right. Even the Church endorses
self-defense. If you break into my house, kill my son, rape my wife, and you
are coming for me and I have a knife or gun I am going to gun you down; and go
to Heaven with a clean conscience. If you shoot my weaponless father who is
marching with a peace-plant and shouting
‘no-violence’, and you are after my own life, and I catch you, you are not
going to go back home alive! The story is that simple.
Dear Governing Council, take your
time, take it slow and steady. Work on your own consciences. Don’t follow
anyone but your hearts. Follow your judgment. Don’t allow yourselves to be
bullied by anyone, even us who write these things.
There is need for the Governing
Council to be reorganized. For those who fear the word reorganization, let it
be clear that it doesn’t imply destabilizing this body that has served us so
faithfully within so short a time. Neither does it imply that we are going back
to the status quo ante of
pre-SCACUF. That is implausible. Let no
one deceive you – the diplomatic offensive Sisiku Tabe and Atam Millan
undertook recently in Europe and the USA are among the finest activities this
struggle accomplished. They, in their beautiful elegant appearance demolished
the nonsensical Tchiroma Bakary classification of us as terrorists and made
Paul Biya and his conmen look like political rascals. Just their(Sisiku and
Millan) statesmanlike presentation of
themselves to the world and to their people won a great diplomatic point and
whether we like it or not, the world looks at appearance before it looks at the
reality. I was personally present at their Maryland USA visit and I felt as I
have never felt the birth of a new nation, I felt for the first time that I had
a president and it was the feeling of the thousands of people present at that
come-together. So to me, Sisiku Ayuk Tabe has won the hearts of our people and
we know that in sports we do not change the winning team. But his Governing Council should be
reorganized, and take on the look of a country and a nation. Reorganization is
not a silver bullet. It won’t take care of our difficulties, but trying to solve
our national crises without reorganizing the Governing Council effectively will
amount to putting the cart before the horse. The bottom line is that if we are
truly working for our people who day by day are killed and kidnapped and
disappearing, we must stop this rivalry and power mongering and give way for
reason and good sense to reign.
Deh
Go Kill we Taya
You call us troublemakers and terrorists. The
Southern Cameroons armed with a tradition of troublemaking, have scarcely spilt
a drop of blood; LRC and their thugs have shed it in torrents. You call us
terrorists; we don’t like the magidas up North own guns and knives. And so the
Southern Cameroonians are left duly locked up by Ahidjo, Biya , because,
unfortunately, one grain of LRC’s logic outweighs – to their own eyes – more
than a cartload of Southern Cameroons’ testimony. Evidence is not their staple.
So they go to prejudice, blackmail, brute force, to win their ends. They have
flung falsehoods and fallacies on us. We have lived in a system that has
repeatedly told us we are fools, bad, troublemakers, we are this and that. The
thing is impressed in our minds so that we think we are fools, bad,
troublesome, since they tell us so. They have flung this dirt on us. The
proverb is true: ‘fling dirt enough and some will stick’. Some has stuck on us
and it is therefore the duty of a writer to reinvent, to remodel what we are
and to point the touch of who we truly are. You see that we are not dogs or
rats or goats but men and women. Good men, bad men; weak men, but still men and
women. Our job is to use evidence to strip off their fables about us, because
we have been victims of their slander, calumny and obloquy. Our written culture
is in our literature, in Sankie Maimo, Sanda Eba, Bate Besong, Bernard Fonlon,
Albert Mukong, Bole Butake, Linus Asong. But new refined blood has been
injected into the literary fray. And to this is the praiseworthy dexterity and
grace of Mark Barah, Pauline Akoson, Chris Anu, Dr. Sly, Tapang Ivo, etc. With their wit and literary flair, we
have taken back our mental and psychological possession and denied to be spat
upon, all this with irresistible arguments. They have used not only argument
but also fiction to strip off the fables of Tchiroma and his LRC media surrogates
about us. But I tell LRC this: If you continue to hold us on, you will neither
rest by day or sleep by night; because the ghosts of our martyrs will keep you
awake.
That Cameroon is one and indivisible is their
first principle. They think non but an idiot can doubt it. None but an
Ambazonian can deny it. They think it axiomatic. I should never shrink from any
controversy, having the experience of 30 years, that the more we get close to
these ‘brothers’ the more distinct it is clear that unity is a farce. The Southern
Cameroons (Ambazonia) is more than a geographical location; it is a traditional
entity. We have beliefs and practices which are peculiar only to us. Our
culture may not be shouting but it is there – a mighty one. Like the rapids of
a river, it is silent; but when it meets the rock the river of our culture
speaks. It is our people’s habit of opinion, of feeling. These things are
unwritten, unseen but like air, they are there. Only us truly feel it, sense it
and especially when interrupted brutality by a vile regime, experience it.
Their truth lives in the hearts and tongues of the Ambaland people. To tell us
to surrender our land and live their lie is to tell a China-man to abandon his
chopsticks and take on fork. We know
they are but feeble and fallible creatures.
Disgrace
For some time now, we have observed as criminal money has overran
the peoples’ culture. Because money has become the standard measuring rod in this
country, the society has sold out its cherished ethical values. It is shameful
that chiefs ad fons who were custodians of these things are the first culprits.
Ways of gaining money have been eased up such that no questions are asked of
how one gets the money he displays unto society. This deeply contrasts with
what obtained in the Southern Cameroons of our forebears where profound checks
were carried out on any riches any member of the society flaunted. The noble
court judgments were a ready weapon the Southern Cameroons society used to
curtail the acquisition of ill-wealth. Then, it was unheard of that any Southern
Cameroonian should espouse unlawful means to obtain capital. But LRC’s crooked
habits have invaded the Southern Cameroons and negatively transformed the moral
landscape as the adoration of cash and illegitimate affluence has swept our
decent values away. The image of the brain drained chief in town with loads of coins to spend has
collapsed the entire society into the grips of the illicitly LRC political
kleptocrats. Because with these illegal riches, one takes imposing control of
all aspects of the community, it is all too evident that no one takes that long
and honest road to success but cuts corners to make money and claim a top spot
in the society. This we have seen in people leaving prisons conditionally to
engage in such practices. This cancer has virtually permeated not only
political and business lines, it has recently invaded religious and traditional
palaces of the Southern Cameroon society. It has afflicted these zones and
ensured that the Southern Cameroons reaps a basketful of anomies that threaten
not only the foundation of the Ambazonian State but the complete edifice of our
leadership.
The
Southern Cameroon genocide should serve as a wakeup call for our people that
there is fire on the mountain. It is a reminder that our homeland is in dire
need of its own government, parliament and the judiciary. It is a reminder that
our people are in dire need of freedom, which can only come from returning to
the ancient values that prize integrity, honesty, tolerance and justice. The
Southern Cameroons massacre kindles a take-action-or-perish determination all Southern
Cameroonians must follow or be ready for
an expansion of such blood-spattered dramas all over our beloved land.
I am not a mouse; and no hole entraps me. I am
a person with a kingly state; it is unchallenged. ‘Why take it on
yourself to write on such dangerous things when you can be relaxed in
comfortable priestly calm enjoying the goodies clerical ease can afford in a
world so troubled with want and misery?
Who are you to take a stance unlikely to wed with the Established order
as you have done some time ago?’ I respond to myself that my deep-seated
temperament when faced with optimal moral questions is incorrigible
non-conformism.
I will not – even if a thousand church ministers do – sell out
to the oppressor-bully. Once on the right side of history, I don’t care the
damn! If I can be a linchpin to the struggle for the liberation of an
afflicted, beleaguered and oppressed people, AMEN!
Fr. Gerald Jumbam