By Noela EBOB BISONG
The second National Vice President of the Social Democratic Front SDF party, Louis-Marie Kakdeu, has said that as a result of impunity, Cameroon has become a dangerous country to live in, as those who are to protect citizens rather represent a threat to them.
In a piece titled, Cameroon: The criminalization of the state is attested, which has made rounds on social media, the SDF official’s reaction is possibly provoked by the torture of Cameroon music icon, Longue Longue, seen in a footage which went viral few days ago.
“The State of Cameroon has become criminal: it is those who are supposed to protect you who represent a threat to your life”, Kakdeu states.
According to the official, there exist within the country a multitude of private militias or security agents, “who can grant personal security, attack political opponents, supplement the police or destabilize the state.”
“Cameroon has become a dangerous country. And the danger is embodied by the State itself. The irony is that there is currently no positive perspective on the horizon. Day and night, impunity evolves at exponential speed and few citizens still agree to play the collective card”, Kakdeu states.
Following the footage depicting torture on artist Longue Longue, the Minister Delegate at the Presidency in charge of Defence, in a Press Release signed by the Chief of Communication, Captain Atonfack Guemo Cyrille Serge, last October 24, the defence hierarchy said it has opened investigation into the incident and that perpetrators will be brought to book in accordance with the law. The perpetrators of the violence on Longue Longue are said to be elements of the Defence and Security Force in the Littoral Region.
The incident on Longue Longue, which is presumed to have occurred a few years ago, has harvested widespread condemnation by Cameroonians of all walks of life and fingers are crossed to observe what becomes of the investigation announced by Defence hierarchy.
However, Kakdeu x-rays Cameroon’s weaknesses in denouncing impunity. “On the politico-administrative level, the public authority is increasingly taking formal acts to ask to kill, neutralize, crush or deport an individual. This is anything but the meaning of the Republic.”
He says “We have the case of a sub-prefect who has asked without consequence to date ‘to shoot down an individual in the middle of the Republic in the name of the maintenance of order. This is also the case of the Mfoundi prefect who even threatened without consequence of forfeiture of residence or deportation of opponents outside the capital Yaoundé, however supposed to be a political capital.”
The politician furthers that, “On the security level, the trivialization of body crime was recurrent. The Martinez Zogo affair came to expose the situation of a soiled country where the lawsuits supposed to fight against crime are used rather to commit crimes. We discovered in broad daylight the situation of a country where torture, sodomy, forced submission, humiliation, etc., are at the heart of the practices of power. This only case has exposed the mechanisms of evil financing by state institutions.”
Kakdeu concludes that the fight against state impunity must be fought by all and that the time is now.