BY CYNTHIA BIH
The government, through the defence and security forces, has launched a manhunt for a welder who was accused of supplying iron rods to separatist fighters to fabricate weapons.
As the crisis in the North West and South West Regions, which long escalated into an armed conflict, rages on, defence and security forces have been indiscriminately arresting Anglophone activists and other persons suspected or accused of collaborating with separatist fighters or sympathetic to the separatist cause.
Sources say the arrested persons are being tortured and detained under deplorable and inhumane conditions. Some have reportedly died in detention.
One of those defence and security forces have launched a manhunt for is Elvis Babila Fonda, a welder who was practicing his trade in Bali Nyonga, Mezam Division of the North West Region.
Babila’s ordeal began sometime in early January 2023 when some soldiers visited his shop and accused him of having been supplying iron rods to Ambazonia separatist fighters to use in producing weapons. While Babila declared his innocence, the soldiers instructed him to close his shop and stop practicing his trade.
However, days after, the military stormed the residence in Bali, where Babila was living with his mother, sister and his two children. Babila was not at home when the soldiers came looking for him. His sister was beaten and shot on the leg. When Babila finally arrived home, the soldiers laid hands on him, beat him and were about to take him away. But after pleas from his mother and neighbours they left, warning him not to ever open his workshop.
Nonetheless, about a week later, Babila is said to have opened his shop to deliver the job of a client he had done. Unfortunately for him, the defence and security raided the shop, arrested and whisked him away to the police station. Here, he is said to have been tortured and detained under very poor conditions.
Babila was later released on condition that he should report at the police station one month after. He is reported to have instead escaped to Yaounde.
But Babila’s torments were far from over. One day a mixed control of policemen and gendarmes stopped a taxi in which he was. Upon looking at his identity card, the policemen and gendarmes began beating him and accusing him of being an Ambazonia supporter, who had failed to present himself to the police station in Bali as he was to do. Babila sustained injuries on his leg.
He is said to have been presented a list with his name among wanted suspected Ambazonia separatist accused of using and fabricating explosives and traditional weapons.
Miraculously, the defence and security forces later let Babila go. But for fear of his life, he is said to have gone underground and his whereabouts is not currently known.
If arrested, Elvis Babila Fonda will be tried in a military tribunal, under the 2014 anti-terrorism law, whose maximum punishment is the death sentence. That is if he is not killed outright, like many others who have been victims of extrajudicial killings within the context of the armed conflict in the North West and South West Regions.
Flashback on 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 crisis has left thousands, both civilians and security and defence forces dead, others internally displaced with some living in bushes while over 70,000 have fled to neighbouring Nigeria where they are living as refugees.
Many houses, and even whole villages, have been burnt down in the crisis-hit regions.
The separatist leader of the self-declared Republic of Ambazonia, Sisiku Ayuk Tabe, and eight other close associates of his, who were arrested in Nigeria and extradited to Cameroon, are currently serving life sentences at the Kondengui maximum security prison in Yaounde. They were sentenced by the Yaounde military tribunal on charges of secession, among others.
Many other activists such as Mancho Bibixy, Penn Terrence, Tsi Conrad, among others, are also serving jail terms at the Kondengui prison.
While the Anglophone crisis continues to escalate, international organisations and other western powers have called on the government to address the root cause through genuine and inclusive dialogue.