As the crisis rocking the North West and South West regions, which has morphed into an armed conflict, continues to escalate, the government has stepped up its manhunt for Anglophone activists, separatists and suspected sympertisers of the Anglophone cause.
In this light, security operatives have been indiscriminately arresting activists and suspected activists as well as people considered to be sympertisers to the move by separatists who are fighting for the independence of what they have christened Republic of Ambazonia. The government’s crackdown has caused some of them to flee into hiding and the whereabouts of many is not known.
Sources say the arrested activists, separatists and sympertisers are being tortured and detained under horrendous and inhuman conditions. Some have reportedly died in detention.
One of those the security and defence forces are said to be on the lookout for is Rhodesse. Her ordeal with the defence and security forces started when in 2018 teachers staged a strike action in Buea, Fako Division of the South West Region. Her boyfriend, Mbu Joseph, was the person who led the teachers’ strike.
Thereafter, police officers are said to have broken into her boyfriend’s house one day in the night. After Mbu was whisked away by some of the police, others stayed behind and gang-raped Rhodesse until she went unconscious. It was the next day that her neighbour rushed her to the hospital.
After having been discharged from the hospital days after, Rhodesse got bad news that her boyfriend, Mbu Joseph, had been detained.
Meanwhile, after spending a year in detention, Mbu was released sometime in 2019. Rhodesse and Mbu, then relocated to Bamenda in the North West Region, where Mbu joined Ambazonia separatist fighters.
But unfortunately for them, one day, defence and security forces stormed their residence. That day news had been circulating that Rhodesse’s boyfriend, Mbu Joseph, was a suspect in the killing of a soldier.
When the defence and security forces stormed the residents, Mbu is said to have escaped through a window and ran into a nearby bush. The forces searched the house and tortured Rhodesse for her to provide information about the separatist activities of her boyfriend. She was handcuffed and taken to the police station.
While, in detention, Rhodesse is said to have fallen seriously ill because of the horrible detention conditions. This occurred in the early months of 2020.
Nonetheless, her family finally bailed her out and she left Bamenda for Limbe. However, when it emerged that Rhodesse had been listed as wanted by the defence and security forces.
Fearing for her life, Rhodesse is said to have fled the country. If rearrested, she will be tried in a military tribunal under the anti-terrorism law whose maximum punishment if the death sentence. That is if she is not killed outright like many others who have been victims of extrajudicial killings.
Origin Of Crisis
It is also worth recalling that the Anglophone crisis, something that pundits say had been brewing for several years, boiled over in 2016, when Common Law Lawyers in the North West and South West regions went on strike. They were demanding for the return of the federal system of government, redeployment of Civil Law Magistrates back to Civil Law Courts in French Cameroon, among other grievances. Not long after, teachers in the North West and South West regions also went on strike, demanding for the redress of several issues concerning the English system of education.
Things, however, got worst when Anglophones in both regions, who had been fed up with the unfavourable political and economic situation of the country, the use of French as the dominant and official language, and the marginalisation of the Anglophones, joined the strike.
The armed conflict has caused the deaths of thousands, both civilians, soldiers nd separatist fighters. Thousands more are internally displaced with some living in bushes while several other thousands have fled to neighbouring Nigeria, where they are living as refugees.
Separatist leader, Sissiku Ayuk Tabe, and nine others who were arrested in Nigeria and later extradited to Cameroon are currently in Kondengui maximum security prison in Yaounde, where they serving life sentences.
Meanwhile, other Anglophone activists including Mancho Bibixy, Penn Terence, Tsi Conrad, among others, are also at the Kondengui, serving sentences.
In May 2018 they were sentenced by the military tribunal for “terrorism”, “secession”, “rebellion”, “inciting civil war”, and “spreading false information through social media”.
While the Anglophone crisis continues to escalate, international organisations and other western powers have called on the government to address the root cause through dialogue.
Curled From Eden Newspaper