BY SANDRA LUM
As the crisis rocking the North West and South West regions, which has morphed into an armed conflict, rages on, the government is intensifying its crackdown on all those suspected to be activists or sympathisers to the Anglophone cause.
In this light, security operatives have been indiscriminately arresting Anglophone activists and suspected activists. This has caused many of them to flee into hiding and the whereabouts of many is not known.
Sources say the arrested activists are being tortured and detained under horrendous and inhuman conditions. Some have reportedly died in detention.
It is 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, paralyzing the courts. They were demanding for a return to the federal system of government, redeployment of Civil Law Magistrates back to Civil Law Courts among other grievances. Not long after, teachers in the North West and South West regions also went on strike, demanding the redress of several issues concerning the English sub-system of education.
Things got worse when concerned citizens in the North West and South West regions, who had been fed up with the unfavourable political and especially economic stagnation of Cameroon at large, but more importantly in these regions, joined the strike.
But after negotiations with the teachers and lawyers ended in deadlock, the government banned the Southern Cameroons National Council, SCNC, and the Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium, CACSC. Some of the leaders of the Consortium such as Barrister Felix Agbor Nkongho, president of Fako Lawyers Association, FAKLA, and Dr. Fontem Niba, Secretary General of SYNES UB were immediately arrested while others such as Barrister Bobga Harmony, president of North West Lawyers Association, NOWELA, and Tassang Wilfred, Executive Secretary of Cameroon Teachers Trade Union, CATTU, fled into hiding.
But as the crackdown on the activists escalates, several cases have been reported. A case in point is that of Batuo Allen Akoh, aprominent activist who was arrested on Saturday August 11, 2018 in Buea. Batuo was arrested together with Lyonga Peter Ekema, Ngwa Kelvin, Tombe Sylvanus Takang, Taboh Henry Akum, Mbi Michael Atem, among several others. They were accused of being part of the Ambazonia separatist fighters.
Batuo Allen Akoh and the other arrested persons were tortured and detained under inhumane conditions. However, on Friday August 18, 2018 Batuo was released.
Nonetheless, after his release he is alleged to have continued with his activism for the restoration of the state of Southern Cameroons. The security operatives, we gathered, have thus launched a manhunt for him. If arrested, he will be tried under the anti-terrorism law whose maximum punishment is the death penalty.
It should be recalled that leaders of the Anglophone separatist movements including Sisiku Ayuk Tabe and nine others, who were arrested in Abuja, Nigeria in January 2018 and later extradited to Yaounde, are currently detained at Kondengui maximum security prison.
It is also worth noting that many people, both civilians and security forces, have been killed in the crisis, many more internally displaced and over 30,000 have fled to neighbouring Nigeria where they are living as refugees.
While the Anglophone crisis continues to escalate, international organisations and other western powers have called on the government to address the root cause of the crisis through dialogue.