By LUSY LIMA
Despite the successfully Major National Dialogue that took place in Yaounde from September 30, 2019 to October 5,2019 aimed at handling the current Anglophone crisis that has been rocking the restive regions of the North West and South West for about three years on with a call on all the protagonists to embrace peace for a better and new Cameroon, things seem to have fallen on deaf ears as the armed conflicts between the separatist fighters and the defence forces rages on with multiple death recorded on both sides and houses razed to the ground, villages burnt down and Internally Displaced Persons, IDP’s keep increasing, government is sparing no effort in tracking down those its considers as the agents of the destruction of Cameroon with secessionist tendencies.
The government is still considering them as terrorists and numerous trumped up charges against them such as propagation of false information, rebellion, revolution, secession, insurrection and non -possession of National Identity card have been proffered against them.
Many cases abound. Since December 2019 a popular shop owner who sells food items is under military and security forces searchlight. Reports hold that Njibili Demosis Baliki’s first encounter with the military was in November 2019. He was suspected of being the main supplier of food items to the separatist fighters. With this trumped up charges, he will be arrested, molested and detained at the Kumba-Mambanda military barracks and subjected to inhumane treatment.
Though released after, he took an oath never to repeat the same act of food supplies. The military will later come to his shop in search of his father, saying is a tradi-practitioner and responsible for the preparation of “charms” for the Amba Boys to help fight the state.
In an attempt to escape, Njibili Demosis was arrested and manhandled by the military. Reports hold that on the eve of his being executed by the military, a soldier who aroused sympathy for him showed him an escape road and that is how Njibili Demosis Baliki found himself on the run and his whereabouts, according to family sources, still remains cloudy as the military keeps on making impromptu checks on their residence and placing family relatives and neighbours under duress to disclose his whereabouts.
As the tension persists in the two restive regions, the government has re-visited the files of two other alleged activists whose whereabouts, according to family sources, is not known.
According to reports, there are military searchlights on Thaddeus Fon Mokom Tamufor and Amimba Esupe Isidore for their alleged involvement in the current impasse. Reports say before the disappearance of Thaddeus Fon shortly after he escaped from the military camp on June 29, 2018 having spent horribly days, the business magnate and transporter had been a victim of circumstances both in the hands of the separatist fighters and the military. He had, according to sources, been incarcerated on several occasions by the military for being the supplier of food to the separatist fighters. His warehouse is reported to have been razed to the ground, causing significant material and financial damages. Only a ‘good Samaritan” uniformed officer eased the escape of Thaddeus Fon Mokom as the authorities of the military base were waiting for instructions from Yaounde authorities to whisk him to the dreaded Kondengui maximum prison in Yaoundé.
Another pathetic story is that of Amimba Esupe Isidore, a driver and mechanic in Kumba. Before his unknown destination in May 2019, reports say he has been very active in the cry against the marginalisation of the people of Southern Cameroons. On several occasions he has been brutalised. His first experience, we gathered, was during a peace demonstration organised by teachers of Anglophone Cameroon in 2016 to protest against the Yaounde regime.
As a driver in one of the secondary schools in Kumba, he had the duty to transport teachers to the protesting scene but was beaten by the police. He subsequently joined the Southern Cameroons National Council, SCNC, and in October 2018 joined other SCNC members to celebrate the independence of Southern Cameroons. They were arrested and released after about 15 days. Amimba was framed up by a car owner who came to his garage to repair his car. The police paid a surprised visit to his garage and while searching the car he was repairing, they saw SCNC cards and immediately arrested him. While en route to the Buea central prison from the Fiango police station in December 2018 the police van had an accident. This is how Amimba Esupe Isidore escaped into the bushes. By press time the search for these alleged activists and many others have increased.
A survey report disclosed by a group of Human Rights Organisations in Cameroon indicates that the lives of activists of Anglophone extraction are now in danger.
Recent statistics by civil society organisations reflect the extent of the damage with horrific numbers. The death toll is on a perpetual rise while there are claims that about 200 villages have been burnt down in the two regions, and some 430,000 people remain internally displaced with a majority of English-speaking Cameroonians that have assumed the status of refugees in Nigeria.