Two years after the January 2018 military raids in Kwakwa, a village in Cameroon’s South-West Region, Barrister Nkongho Felix Agbor Balla, President of the Centre for Human Rights and Democracy in Africa suggests the State Forces may have committed war crimes.

Cameroon’s military subjected local civilians in Kwakwa to “collective punishment” through ground attacks, detentions that led to torture or extrajudicial executions, and the razing of the entire village, according to the head of the Buea-based rights group.

Barrister Agbor Nkongho, himself a victim of the ongoing socio-political unrest in Cameroon’s North-West and South-West Regions says over two years on, he has found that clashes between the military and armed groups in the two regions reignited in the wake of the military atrocities in Kwakwa worsened significantly from January 2018 to June 2020. Hundreds of Anglophone civilians have been killed in the fighting and more than a million people have been displaced.

“The world’s attention may have moved away from Cameroon’s Anglophone regions since the 2018 burnings and killings in Kwakwa, but civilians continue to pay a high price. The military’s ongoing assault on civilians in the North-West and South-West regions has been widespread and systematic, likely amounting to crimes against humanity,” Agbor Nkongho, President/Founder of the Centre for Human Rights and Democracy in Africa, told The SUN.

“Alarm bells should be ringing: the ongoing killing, looting and burning bear all the hallmarks of the military’s signature tactic of collective punishment, which it has repeatedly used against Anglophone minorities across the country.”

Over two years on, eyewitnesses described the attacks on locations where “only civilians appear to have been present” as extremely traumatic, leaving many unable to sleep or unwilling to return to their homes out of fear that they would be targeted again.

It all started with the killing of the 3rd class Chief of Ngongo village, HRH Chief Ekebe Johannes, in Mbonge Sub-Division in the wee hours of Friday, January 12, 2018 during the funeral of Chief Tukwa Manfred of Kwakwa. The SUN gathered that the killing was carried out by separatist fighters active in Kwakwa and its environs. Following the killing, 30 military trucks and pick-ups with armed-to-the-teeth soldiers stormed Kwakwa the next day.

Kwa Kwa village razed to the ground

A 96 –year –old woman, Mami Appih Paulina, was consumed by the fire in her house as she was unable to flee like others; the same fate befell an alleged mentally deranged, Tebeck Felix.

The Assistant Parish Priest of St Paul Catholic Church of Kwa Kwa, Rev. Father Ndode Emmanuel equally escaped death as the entire presbytery was equally set ablaze by elements of the Cameroon military. Reports hold that the priest was in Kumba for Cathedral duties. Veteran Journalist and one of Cameroon Association of English Speaking Journalist, CAMASEJ’s founding fathers, Dat William Diony said four of his permanent buildings had gone up in flames. Property and money belonging to the inhabitants, most of whom are farmers was allegedly consumed by the fire.

The family home of Belgium-based Tanyi Emmanuel Enoh was also touched. The 44-year-old is said to be an ardent sympathizer of the Anglophone struggle against marginalization. He is known to have attended several anti-government rallies in Europe to protest against 87-year-old Paul Biya who has ruled Cameroon since 1982.

Relatives of Tanyi Emmanuel Enoh are among many Anglophones currently taking up refuge in the heart of the forest for fear of being killed by state forces in their collective punishment pursuit and scorth earth policy. Today, Kwa-Kwa remains deserted and it remains unclear how soon a return to normalcy could be envisaged.

Military raids have multiplied against secessionists and their sympathizers and the battle will sure be long.

Extrajudicial executions, looting and burning

Barrister Agbor Nkongho told The SUN that the military regularly carries out arbitrary detentions of civilians based on their being Anglophones or because of their suspected support of anti-government and secessionist groups. Some detainees “have been tortured, forcibly disappeared or extrajudicially executed,” Agbor said.

The human rights lawyer specifically pointed to an incident that drew international condemnation in Ngarbuh, a locality in Cameroon’s North-west Region on 14 February 2020, when the military killed at least 21 civilians including 3 children and two pregnant women and buried their bodies in mass graves. Houses were also burnt.

While the there is a warrant of arrest for the likes of Tanyi Emmanuel Enoh, Kale Dante, Mark Bareta, Tapang Ivo Tanku, Capo Daniel and many more, the victims of displacement are forced to shelter in “dire conditions,” while aid workers are obstructed by the military from providing them access to much-needed food and health care.

“Donors and humanitarian organizations must significantly scale up aid to civilians in Cameroon’s North-West Region, and the military must halt all restrictions on aid delivery,” said Agbor Balla.

“The military’s ongoing crimes against civilians reflect decades-long patterns of abuse and flagrant impunity. The international community — including the A.U. and U.N. member states — must tackle this festering crisis now. The U.N. Security Council must impose a comprehensive arms embargo on Cameroon and refer the situation to the International Criminal Court.”

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As the crisis that has been rocking the North West and South West regions rages on, the government has stepped up its crackdown on those identified to be linked to the Ambazonia movement.

Security operatives have been apprehending and incarcerating activists identified to be involved with what has come to be referred to as the Anglophone struggle. The arrested activists, we learnt, are tortured and detained under very horrendous conditions. Some have reportedly died in detention. It is for this reason that many have fled for fear of being arrested or fear of the unknown as extra-judicial killings have also become the order of the day.

It would be recalled that the Anglophone crisis, something that pundits say had been brewing for several years, boiled over in November 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 for 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.

After what has now been termed the Coffin Revolution in Bamenda, when a certain Mancho Bibixy appeared in the street with a coffin denouncing the bad state of roads in Bamenda, the population came out en mass, marched along the streets. When the police and gendarmes tried to disperse the crowd, there was an exchange with the security operatives, leading to several people shot dead and many others injured. Many more were arrested.

When the government later arrested and jailed some the leaders of the Anglophone struggle, the crisis took a new twist when it spiraled into an armed conflict as Anglophones declared what they call Federal Republic of Ambazonia.

One of the activists who have fled and for whom government has launched a manhunt is Suum Emmanuel Ndone, a businessman who was resident in Ekona, Fako division of the South West region.

We learnt that while in Europe, Suum took part in protest marches in Sweden, France, Belgium and United Kingdom to support the Ambazonia secessionist movement. He is said to have always been one of the front-liners during the demonstrations.

When Suum Emmanuel Ndone returned to Cameroon, he was arrested on February 12, 2018 in Ekona and accused of supporting the secessionist group known as Ambazonia Defence Force, ADF. After his arrest, Suum’s phone, computer, camera among others were seized by the police, who forced him to release to them the password of his phone and computer. Upon going through the phone and computer, the security men are said to have realised that Suum was truly a supporter of ADF. His financial support to the group while he was in Sweden was also confirmed.

Suum Emmanuel Ndone was manhandled, and whisked off to the Buea central prison where he was detained for eight days without access to his family and lawyers and tortured frequently.

However, on February 20, 2018 Suum gained freedom after his family is said to have intervened and bribed one of the security officers who released him. Suum Emmanuel Ndone is reported to have then fled the country and his whereabouts is not known. If rearrested he will be tried under the anti-terrorism law whose maximum penalty is the death sentence.

Meanwhile, Mancho Bibixy and other Anglophone activists, currently detained at the Kondengui prison in Yaounde, are facing trial at the Yaounde military tribunal.

The international community, including the United States of America, UN, Francophonie, African Union, among others, have called for dialogue to resolve the crisis.

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