BY Lucy Lima
The government of Cameroon is still finding it difficult to arrest the current impasse rocking the North West and South West regions.
After the Major National Dialogue that took place in Yaounde from September 30, to October 4, 2019 to resolve the Anglophone crisis that has been rocking the North West and South West regions for over five years and counting, things seems to have fallen on deaf ears.
Armed conflicts between the separatist fighters and the defense forces still rage on with multiple deaths are still being recorded on both sides, houses razed to the ground, villages burnt down with impunity and Internal Displaced Persons, IDP’s, on the increase, as the government is sparing no effort in tracking down those its considers agents of destruction.
Despite repeated calls for all belligerents to embrace peace for a better and new Cameroon, the conflict is still ongoing.
Cameroon, which was once internationally praised as one of the most peaceful countries in the world, is now struggling to cope with untold causalities from what many qualify as an unrelenting and insidious conflict.
Reports say more and more businessmen, medical personnel and innocent civilians within the crisis-stricken Anglophone regions of Cameroon have resorted to going underground after surviving arrest, torture, harsh detention conditions from the military for allegedly siding and collaborating with separatist fighters, commonly known as ‘Amba Boys’. The separatist fighters have picked up arms against the State of Cameroon in request for separation and the restoration of the independence of the statehood of former British Southern Cameroons, into a country they have christened Ambazonia.
Apart from businessmen, other Anglophone activists including those of other professions like teaching, medical personnel, journalists, drivers and innocent civilians, because of their status in the society, who are caught in the web of the ongoing crisis, have gone have equally gone underground for fear of military reprisals. The military has launched a fresh pursuit for the arrest of those connected with the armed-conflict in the Anglophone regions.
The case of Agbor Darlinda Mpey is very pathetic. She has been in security searchlight since 2020. Reports say Mpey was doing great as a Cashier in a popular pharmacy in Kumba, Meme Division of the South West Region, a restive zone amidst the ongoing crisis, and unfortunately was caught in the web of the ongoing crisis.
As a Cashier in the pharmacy, THE SUN gathered, the military invaded the pharmacy and conducted a search on grounds that the owner of the pharmacy is siding with separatist fighters. As if this was not enough, when one of the separatist fighters, known as Commander Satan was arrested by elements of the Rapid Intervention Battalion, (BIR) of the military along the Kumba –Mamfe road, he revealed that Mpey’s boss, who is based in the USA, is one of their sponsors who usually supplied them with cartridges and money with Mpey as the middleman.
This revelation traumatise Mpey, who immediately went underground for fear of the unknown. This was because a majority of Anglophones alleged to be siding with separatists have been jailed on charges of terrorism, secession and hostility against the State.
At Press time THE SUN gathered that the military had multiplied impromptu search for Agbor Darlinda Mpey and many others, taking into consideration that they have been declared wanted.
It should be recalled that the crisis started when Common Law Lawyers went on strike in October 2016 to protest government attempts to annihilate the Common Law practice in a constitutionally bilingual and bi-jural Cameroon. Anglophone teachers in the country joined the strike on November 21, 2016 to uphold Anglo-Saxon values under threat in Cameroon’s two English-speaking regions.
Government forces have engaged in extrajudicial killings, random looting, shooting, torture, molestation using disproportionate and discriminating force, abusing and arresting protesters, burning more than 200 villages, over 500 houses, displacing hundreds of thousands of civilians, attacking hospitals, beating and raping women and girls.
According to the international human rights group, Amnesty International, in 2019 about 3,000 people died, at least 500,000 were declared Internally Displaced Persons, IDP’s, and about 40,000 living as refugees in neighbouring Nigeria.
Meanwhile, close to 700,000 children have been deprived of schooling. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported in July 2019 that about 1.3 million people in Anglophone Regions urgently needed humanitarian aid.