BY EVELYN KUBU
The government of Cameroon is still finding it difficult to end 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 2019 to resolve the Anglophone crisis that has been rocking the English-speaking regions for over five years and counting, things seem to have fallen on deaf ears.
Gun battles between the separatist fighters and the defence and security forces still rage on with multiple deaths still recorded on both sides. House are being 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 at tracking down those it considers agents of destruction.
Despite repeated calls for all belligerents to embrace peace for a better and new Cameroon, the country, 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 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’, who have pick 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 termed Ambazonia. Majority of innocent Anglophones are caught in the web of both the separatist and the military with many of them paying huge amount as ransom when they are either kidnapped or their goods are seized by the separatists.
Apart from businessmen, other alleged Anglophone activists including those of other professions like teaching, medical personnel, journalists, drivers and technicians have equally gone underground for fear of military reprisals and separatists’ threats.
Reports from Kumba, chief town of Meme Division, South West Region, say the whereabouts of 38-year-old popular contractor and accountant, Angwi Afunda Katie, still remains cloudy after she went underground in September 2021. This was due to threats on her life from the separatist fighters and maltreatment by the military.
Family sources hinted THE SUN that Angwi is in the bad booksof both the military and separatists within the South West Region. Her first encounter with the separatist fighters amidst the armed conflict was in June 2021. Angwi, we learnt, won a government contract to construct some bridges in Dikome Balue, Ndian Division, South West Region, but saw her building materials and equipment intercepted on their way to the construction sites, by the faction of separatist fighters of the self-styled ‘General Bitta Kola”.
For her to recover her materials, she paid a ransom of FCFA 3million in order for the equipment not to be destroyed. As if this wasn’t enough, Angwi received strict instructions from the separatist fighters never to involve the military, else they will kill her.
As a victim of circumstances amidst the armed conflict, Angwi Afunda Katie was later on arbitrarily arrested by the military in her Kumba residence on September 2021. She was molested in a cruel and inhumane degrading manner and whisked to their base in Mambanda-Kumba where she was tortured for two days and later dumped in a hospital following her deteriorating condition.
Family sources say Angwi, in the face of all these maltreatment by the military, lost her four months pregnancy. The same sources also say despite the fact that Angwi’s whereabouts still remains cloudy after she went underground, the military and separatist fighters keep making impromptu checks around their neighbourhood in search her.
At press time Angwi Afunda Katie and many more alleged Anglophone activists in the likes of Alemawung Nkafu, Maccolins Ewonkap Sylvie Keafo-on and Nyugha Melvis Nahbum, had been declared wanted by the military.
It should be recalled that 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. The strike lasted for over a year. 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. The Common Law lawyers and Anglophone teachers strike finally escalated to the Anglophone crisis which later metamorphosed into an armed conflict.
Government forces have engaged in extrajudicial killings, random looting, shooting, torture, molestation using disproportionate and discriminating force, abusing and arresting protesters.
The war still rages on and many more killings by the military are still being documented by rights organisations. The government has launched a manhunt for those alleged to be fanning the crisis both at home and abroad. Terrorism charges hang over them if arrested as they have been declared wanted.