By CYNTHIA AKUM
With the crisis in the North West and South West regions, which has since escalated in to an armed conflict, raging on, the government has stepped up its manhunt for Anglophone activists and symperthisers of the separatist cause.
In this light, security operatives have been indiscriminately arresting Anglophone activists and suspected activists. Sources say the arrested persons are being detained under deplorable and inhuman conditions. Some have reported died in detention.
This has caused many of them to flee into hiding and the whereabouts of many is not known. Meanwhile, as the gun battles between the military and separatist fighters increase, some villagers in some communities have been forced to escape to safer areas.
One of those whom the defence and security forces have intensified their search for is Ambokia Blanch Enoh, who was an active member of the Southern Cameroons National Council, SCNC, and had suffered marginalisation while she was a student of the University of Buea. It was such open marginalistion that she suffered which pushed Enoh to join the SCNC, pushing for an independent English-speaking country, which has now been christened Ambazonia.
As an SCNC member, Enoh contributed by being in charge of printing and distributing of materials used for protests such as flyers, t-shirts, banners and placards. She also engaged in spreading information on the ideology of the SCNC. She is said to have also taken part in protests that were organised by SCNC every October 1.
Sometime in 2014, security and defence forces raided a premises where SCNC members included Ambokia Blanch Enohwere holding a meeting. They were all whisked off to the police station where they were tortured and detained under horrible conditions. Enoh was, however, later released. She is said to have later left the country.
We gathered that security and defence forces stormed Enoh’s family residence in search of her. Unable to find her, they whisked everybody in the house away. Following persistent persecutions by security operatives, her family relocated to Muea in Buea.
Her mother is also said to have been summoned by the State Counsel, who threatened to charge her for failing to disclose the whereabouts of her daughter. The summoning and questioning continued.
Recently, we gathered, the military again raided Enoh’s residence in Muea. Unable to find Ambokia Blanch Enoh, her father was tortured and shot on his leg. He later succumbed to the bullet wound and died.
As if this was not enough, Enoh’s family home in Muea and her father’s shop were burnt down after the military again came looking for her and couldn’t find her. Enoh’s younger brother, who was physically challenged and could not escape, was burnt to death in the inferno.
If arrested,Ambokia Blanch Enohwill be tried in a military tribunal under the anti-terrorism law, whose maximum punishment is the death penalty. That is if she is not killed outright, like many others who have been victims of extrajudicial killings.
Origin of crisis
It is also worth recalling that the Anglophone crisis, something that pundits say had been brewing for several years, boiled over recently, 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 30,000 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, SisikuAyukTabe, 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. Many other activists such as ManchoBibixy, 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.