PAUL BIYA RIDICULES GENOCIDE:
His Criminality shall not have the last Word
Tribute to the Ambazonian Woman on the Second Anniversary of the Takenbeng mass Protest of 22 September 2017
By
Fr. Gerald Jumbam Nyuykongmo
It is becoming normal in our day to cast doubt
upon the reality of the King of Hell. But if you doubt the existence of Satan,
come to Ambazonia (the former British Southern Cameroons) and see what Lucifer
looks like in the form of genocide, and what agents of the Inferno have been
capable of in Ambazonia in recent times. The Evil One’s real victory is when
people take him jestingly. And as a consequence, we are ignorant of his
scheming strategy, his atrocious tactic, his cunning campaign, and his massive
military.
The
Cunning Trick of a President
On the 10th of September 2019 Paul
Biya of the Cameroun republic made what I consider a momentous speech,
momentous because the criminal of a despicable genocide was the first, in an
official speech, to call the word itself: “the ridiculous accusation of
genocide” he said. Evidently he intended this a cunning trick to scheme his way
through the horrendous crime against humanity he is guilty of, so as to
metamorphose himself into an innocent prey in the hands of ‘a rampaging people’.
The trick did not work for the simple reason that the day before his speech,
videos of a mass grave in Yaoundé were paraded in social media, videos of
perhaps Ambazonian people who had been kidnapped and abducted (possibly corpses
picked from various burned villages) by his military men from their homeland to
be disgracefully thrown into huge graves.
Did
Peter Barlerin the United States of America’s ambassador to Cameroon not in May
2018 prosecute Paul Biya’s government to have committed ‘targeted killings’ of
the Southern Cameroonians - a severe and undecorated condemnation? International
and national human right organizations have joined voice and reported that more
than 300 Ambazonian villages have been set to ashes. About 2,000 Southern
Cameroonians have been brutally butchered, especially by the Cameroon military.
The
word genocide has not only come from local media. The English newspaper The Guardian has described in telling
language the phenomenon and The Spectator
had reported on Cameroon in similar terms.
The Swiss MP Sylvain Thevoz, in the wake of Paul Biya’s eviction from
Geneva, during an on-air debate, spoke about the genocide. All these are a result of a war Paul Biya
declared on peaceful protesters and armless freedom fighters of the Southern
Cameroons on which has plunged the territory into a genocide.
Orchestrators of Genocide
The
campaign for the extermination of the Southern Cameroon manhood began in
earnest on Sunday, 1st October 2017,
where 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 that day, over 500 arrested and arbitrarily
detained, and several more injured in what has come to be the most recent and
most despicable holocaust 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 has come up as narratives on this question,
interrogations made and investigations carried out on this upsetting and
disgusting calamity to bear repetition here. Numerous perspectives have been
given of the true orchestrator and author of this ongoing vicious extermination
of peoples, and the answer is leading to one man: Paul Biya, the president of
the Cameroun republic. In the wake of the shameful 1st October
butchery of the Southern Cameroonians, Catholic bishops of the Southern
Cameroons described how his Government gave firm directives, asking people to
stay at home. The majority that 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. In 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
were driven down to Yaoundé…citizens of these two regions were 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.
Ambazonian Lives
Matter!
When the Takenbeng mass Protest of 22 September 2017 took on such
national and international breadth and accomplishment, when Cardinal Christian Tumi
( a federalist of the Cameroun republic) recently put out a questionnaire among
the Southern Cameroonians and his findings in an interview that 69 percent of
Southern Cameroonians want absolute independence, we should have inquired why
people in such great numbers are wanting total liberation and independence…but
international institutions in their carelessness on things Africa, allow Paul
Biya to stage out his genocide and go free. Yet, and with great strides, the resilient
people of the Southern Cameroons in their resourceful
#GenocideInSouthernCameroons campaign has electrified a hitherto unsure
international community to pay attention to a conflict that has been wrongly
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 reckless disgusting Paul Biya.
The Southern Cameroonians may have some few
things to do with the Cameroun republic as a result of the almost fifty
miserable years they have had with them,
but something has occurred several times in their history that has
reignited an unyielding Ambazonian freedom fighting spirit growing beyond the
capacity of the Cameroun republic and the people are inflexibly submitting
their loyalties and wills to their Independence. A 'wild, dangerous beast' has
unleashed its fangs and teeth on them and they are ready to defend their wives
and children and property and land against the plunderer. Paul Biya the Almighty and his military can
kill the people but he and his ill-famed cabal cannot conquered their wills and
hearts.
Real
Presence of Satan!
Power has mounted the head of Paul Biya and it
needs episodic nutriment in blood. They sat down and cooked up the
witches’ soup of genocide with which they have judiciously worked it out and
effectively have poisoned not the Southern Cameroons but the standing of their
Cameroun republic. The blunder has just been one metaphor for a country in
chaos. And they can’t help their own self-inflicted confusion. These years
of the Ambazonian holocaust its citizens have witnessed the Real Presence of Satan
in their land. Today, that Monster 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.
History
Never Forgets
When we face these political witches and wizards
with courage, with the determination of true soldiers of the God of destiny, the
Prince of Darkness and Father of Falsehood 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
Massacre Mafia’s Dialogue of Demons
We shall not take part in an Exterminator’s
dialogue, for how do we sit on table without a third party, with a killer, a
crook, a brute who has raped my daughter, killed my brother, knocked to
near-death the head of my grand mum, put my great-grand-mother to ashes in the
house, 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 genocide, 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 of justice and self-defence. Let Paul Biya and his massacre 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 in our Independence, because self-defense is an
absolute right. 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!
I call on all Ambazonians to work on your own
consciences. Don’t follow anyone but your hearts. Follow your judgment. Don’t
allow yourselves to be bullied by anyone.
Investigators on Genocide
A crime against humanity has been committed in
that State called the Southern Cameroons. The Cameroun republic
seems to be a morally enfeebling countries, for like Sudan they seem not to
have signed the Rome Treaties that recognize the International Criminal Court
(ICC)! Reason why the leadership has no value for human beings as they do
comedy on the sanctity of life - so they can afford to waste Ambazonian lives.
An International Commission of Inquiry into the Genocide in Cameroon (CEIGAC),
must begin and take deep root for time is running out. It is the duty of the global community, the UNO.
Still,
no country has the competence the United States of America has in doing
investigations to genocide. They have
already opened an office of Genocide and therefore can use their good office to
help the world know the truth about what is happening in Ambazonia and to do
justice to injured humanity in our homeland. Congressman Donald Payne under the
auspices of Barack Obama is reputed to have done so much work to bring in
legislation especially during the days of the Sudan genocide. The errors of the
Clinton admiration on Rwanda were thus corrected and today in the Southern
Cameroons we plead on the USA and the international community to come to our
aid and bring the Cameroun republic to book and facilitate matters, so that
this case in good time be taken to the UN Security Council, and the ICC. We count on this great experience of the
United States.
Why
we must not Blink
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 oil, pomp and power.
It is as scary as it is intimidating and the pogrom visited on Southern
Cameroonians recently, pictures a horrific harvest they stand to gain from the
families of the victims. History never forgets, it only delays and when the
time comes, they will face International and Divine Justice.
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 has been worsened by
Biya’s inflexible narrow-mindedness and, deplorably, compounded by old
age. A thoughtless gerontocrat and inflexibly narrow-minded decides
to bastardize the promising lives of innocent peoples in an attempt to carve us
into his banana republique that
stands stupidly tall as metaphor for the wretchedness and misery of my people.
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. It
is our job to counter the narrative of the Paul Biyas who think they have a
divine right to mess up our lives.
We
Must Unite
The problem-du-jour in the Southern Cameroon’s
leadership is fairly obvious: the case of the hundreds of lives slaughtered by
Cameroun republic’s military, the thousands of our strong men in bushes and
forests, and the huge numbers kidnapped to unknown detention camps. Little
wonder that most young people today now beat the drums of war at ear-tearing
decibel. Many howl for blood. The social media has burst at its seams with campaigns
of freedom fighter warfare. Facebook, twitter and whatsapp are teeming with all
types of terrific 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 combat.
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 it is no
more mere feeling that we are already in war. These are real concrete
sentiments especially when we consider what bullies from the Cameroun republic have
wrought on innocent souls in homeland. Our people are justified in their fire
and anger.
The fact is, regardless of whatever provokes the
fighters, warriors would still come to the debate table one day. Even in the
nastiest of combats, people must still bump into each other at some point to negotiate.
So why not spare ourselves the pains this time and rekindle the fire of our
non-violent fight which in the 21st century is more compelling than gun and
bomb. Grief-stricken by the pictures of the innocent blood that has flown as a
result of military bestiality and therefore the thousands of lives lost in this
genocide, we can be tempted to passivity or complaisance.
The
Battle is God’s
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. The Cameroun republic
apparently won the fight of exterminating unarmed civilians, but has not won
the battle. The battle is of God and victory is God’s. This God has taken sides
with the oppressed and the poor masses 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, for Paul Biya’s
criminality shall not have the last word. My rendering of this confidence wells
up from unshakeable convictions.
The time for true Ambazonian leadership and
statesmanship has therefore arrived. We would know what to do to teach Paul
Biya and his surrogates the lesson of their life.
Concerted
Leadership a Must
There is need for the Ambazonian to reorganize
himself. Let no one deceive you, the resoluteness of our people is among the
finest in freedom fighting. We have demolished the nonsensical narratives of
the Tchiroma Bakarys and the Atanga Njis as Paul Biya and his conmen look more like
rascals and political scalawags. We have with unearthly resilience won a great
diplomatic point and whether they like it or not, the world must follow our own
narrative and reality. The hard fact 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-monger-leadership and
give way for freedom fighting to reign.
We can point to poor direction, bad management of
finances and the need for attitudinal change, but these are symptoms of a much
treacherous disease – lack of concerted united leadership. The Bible warns us
that “Any kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and a house divided
against itself will fall.” (Luke, 15:17). Our leadership is betraying us and
shouting out disunity for the enemy to hear. Management together with financial
maneuvering is the greatest malady. But the Bible also admonishes us to look
outside and see and try to be inclusive for “Whoever is not with me is against
me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.” (Luke, 15:23). We would lead
nowhere if we do not step aside and rearrange or reorder things. Ambazonian
leadership, “don’t agonize, organize”!!!
Mental
Independence Achieved
You give us the bad name ‘terrorists’ in other to
hang your dogs. You declared war on armless poor people who have risen up like
one man with their ‘sticks’ and ‘groundnuts’, have tenaciously fought and are
defeating Paul Biya and thugs. 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. The proverb is true: ‘fling dirt enough and some will
stick’. Some has stuck on us and it is our duty to regenerate and remodel ourselves
and to point the touch of who we truly are. Our job is to use evidence to strip
off their fairytales about us, because we have been victims of their slander,
calumny and obloquy. With the crop of our writers churned out by destiny, we are
taking back our mental and psychological possession and denying to be spat
upon, all this with irresistible urgings. And I tell the Cameroun republic 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 forever haunt your steps.
Independence
is Unstoppable!
Did they inflict genocide on the Southern
Cameroons through the war declared by their president on the innocent civilians
of that West African country called Ambazonia? We need not get into the prickly
thicket of diagnosing the reasons for their government’s attempts to fool the
world about a certain indivisible Cameroon that is the figment of their warped
imagination. Ambazonian Independence is unstoppable! - the only desire of the
Ambazonian heart. That is why all intentions, all our intellectual insights,
all confidence and fearlessness is engaged to give fresh perspective. That
Cameroon is one and indivisible is their first principle. 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.
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 genocide 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.
Courage
Brother, do not Stumble!
When we say these things we are not afraid of
stale and cracked voices whose goal is to strike fear into the unwary and to
frighten those who give themselves to fear. And they in their myopia claim that every religious leader should be
neutral in these things. Neutrality is a good word - but the word is used to
expect mediocrity from ministers of God. And what does neutrality really mean
to them? To sit on the fence and say I love both the good and the bad? to sit
on the fence and say I love both oppression and liberation? to sit on the fence
and say I love both the truth and lies? Such neutrality is of the cowardly
Pontius Pilate. Real religious leaders have never been borderline
personalities. They take sides, because they don’t’ blow hot and cold over
massacred lives of innocent civilian. I have taken sides with the good, the
truth, the oppressed, the downtrodden in this struggle. I am not ready to
compromise. I stand in that position because if Christ came back on earth he
would be where I am. Since the Holy Spirit continues to dance, and to inspire
from among us freedom fighters, ethically-minded combatants, and justice
crusaders, 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!
