Family members in the restive Regions of the North West and South West of Cameroon, have been having sleepless nights since the Anglophone crisis which started in 2016 and metamorphosed into an arm conflict. The government has embarked on pursuit to fish out activists both at home an abroad for persecution and prosecution in dreaded military courts in Cameroon for alleged terrorism-related offences, has life imprisonment as maximum jail sentence. A majority of Southern Cameroon National Council, SCNC, activists, a pressure group clamouring for the total independence of the former British Southern Cameroon and the creation of a new state of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia and Human Rights activists have already been declared wanted by the government who has promised to guillotine them if found around the country.

Mancho Bibixy , Tse Conrad and Penn Terence are examples of activists who were arrested in January 2017, stood trial before the military court and are currently serving a life jail sentence at the kondengui maximum security prison for supposed terrorism charges.

As the war rages on, more and more Human Rights crusaders, SCNC, activists remain the target of the Cameroon government. The government believes they are the ones fanning the armed conflict that is now characterized by extra- judicial killings, burning of villages and houses, molesting, torture and detention in very inhumane conditions of innocent civilians, including arbitrary arrest, living many Anglophones as Internal Displaced Persons, IDP’s both in Cameroon and Nigeria.

This hunt for Human Rights crusaders and activists have caused many of them to go underground. One of those whose where about remains cloudy as a result of this is one SCNC militant and Human Rights activist, Dioni Martin Mokwe from Banga- Bakundu, Meme Division South West Region. The activists who has not been seen or heard from in Cameroon since January 2019 is said to have undergone several, tortured, molestation detention, and placed under harsh inhumane detention conditions. He has been declared wanted terrorism-related offences since his escape and is currently under the military search light.

According to his wife, Dioni spouse Kange Nanyongo Faith, who is in distress over the disappearance of her husband, Mr. Dioni Martin took part in a peaceful march organised by SCNC in 2017 as an SCNC activist, and a volunteer in a Human Rights group in Cameroon. This move, we gathered, landed him in trouble; he was whisked alongside others to the kondengui maximum prison in Yaounde and was released after intervention of the Apostolic Church authorities where he was a preacher and used most of his sermons to preach about the Anglophone crisis.

After his release, family sources hold that Dioni Martin, was assigned to gather statistics on human rights abuses perpetuated on innocent civilians by the military. He was was identified by the military, who arrested him alongside others at a check point along the Tiko- Douala highways. Dioni, was given draconian treatment, and because he was bleeding profusely he was admitted in a local clinic. Reports say while at the clinic, his father made arrangements for him to escape. As we went to Press we gathered that the government has launched relentless efforts for him to be arrested.

Cameroon that used to be an island of peace in the Center Africa Sub Region, is now having sleepless nights with constant sporadic gun shots and cross fire between the military and separatist fighters otherwise known as amba boys who have taken up arms against the state clamouring for Independence of former British Southern Cameroon or the creation of a new state known as Federal Republic of Ambazonia

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Family members in the restive Regions of the North West and South West of Cameroon, have been having the sleepless nights since the Anglophone crisis which started in 2016 and metamorphosed into an arm conflict. The government has embarked on pursuit to fish out activists both at home an abroad for persecution and prosecution in dreaded military courts in Cameroon for alleged terror- ism-related offences, has life imprisonment as maximum jail sentence. A majority of Southern Cameroon National Council, SCNC, activists, a pressure group clamouring for the total independence of the former British Southern Cameroon and the creation of a new state of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia and Human Rights activists have already been declared wanted by the government who has promised to guillotine them if found around the country.

Mancho Bibixy, Tse Conrad and Penn Terence are examples of activists who were arrested in January 2017, stood trial before the military court and are currently serving a life jail sentence at the kondengui maximum security prison for supposed terrorism charges.

As the war rages on, more and more Human Rights crusaders, SCNC, activists remain the target of the Cameroon government. The government believes they are the ones fanning the armed conflict that is now characterized by extra- judicial killings, burning of vil- lages and houses, molesting, torture and detention in very inhumane conditions of innocent civilians, including arbitrary arrest, living many Anglophones as Internal Displaced Persons, IDP’s both in Cameroon and Nigeria.

This hunt for Human Rights – crusaders and activists have caused many of them to go under- ground. One of those whose where about remains cloudy as a result of this is one SCNC militant and Human Rights activist, Dioni Martin Mokwe from Banga- Bakundu, Meme Division South West Region. The activists who has not been seen or heard from in Cameroon since January 2019 is said to have undergone several, tortured, molestation detention, and placed under harsh inhumane detention conditions. He has been declared wanted terrorism-related offences since his escape and is currently under the military search light.

According to his wife, Dioni spouse Kange Nanyongo Faith,

who is in distress over the disap- pearance of her husband, Mr. Dioni Martin took part in a peaceful march organised by SCNC in 2017 as an SCNC activist, and a volunteer in a Human Rights group in Cameroon. This move, we gathered, landed him in trouble; he was whisked alongside others to the kondengui maximum prison in Yaounde and was released after intervention of the Apostolic Church authorities

where he was a preacher and used most of his sermons to preach about the Anglophone crisis.

After his release, farmily sources hold that Dioni Martin, was assigned to gather statistics on human rights abuses perpetuated on innocent civilians by the military. He was was identified by the military, who arrested him alongside others at a check point along the Tiko- Douala highways. Dioni, was given draconian treat- ment, and because he was bleeding profusely he was admitted in a local clinic. Reports say while at the clinic, his father made arrangements for him to escape. As we went to Press we gathered that the government has launched relent- less efforts for him to be arrested.

Cameroon that used to be an island of peace in the Center Africa Sub Region, is now having sleepless nights with constant sporadic gun shots and cross fire between the military and separatist fighters otherwise known as amba boys who have taken up arms against the state clamouring for Independence of former British Southern Cameroon or the creation of a new state known as Federal Republic of Ambazonia.

The post Arm conflict in NW, SW: Families in distress over fate of SCNC, Human Rights crusaders appeared first on THE SUN NEWSPAPER CAMEROON.

Teachers and other civilians of various walks of life such as nurses, business persons and lawyers are bearing the brunt as the Anglophone crisis, which has escalated into an armed conflict in the North West and South West regions, rages on.

Many teachers, who have been accused of being among those organising strike actions carried out by teachers, are being arrested. The separatists have also imposed a school boycott all over the North West and South West regions. Teachers who violate this ban and go to school to teacher, are being abducted by separatist fighters, and are either killed or are only set free after the payment of huge amounts of money as ransom.

Meanwhile, teachers who respect the school boycott and do not go to school to teach, are being accused by the government of being terrorists and siding with the separatists or are sympathizers of the separatists’ cause and struggle for the independence of a country they have christened Ambazonia.

Sources say the arrested persons are being tortured and detained under inhumane conditions. Some are reported to have died in detention.

For fear of their lives, many have fled and their whereabouts is not known. One case is that of Martin Neba Ngwator, who was a teacher in Cameroon College of Commerce (CCC) Kumba, Meme Division of the South West Region. Neba is said to have, in January 2017, been involved in the nationwide teachers strike.

However, his ordeal became worse when he respected the school boycott imposed by separatists. Nonetheless, after about six months, the principal of his school is said to have threatened him, forcing Neba to return to school in May 2017 to teach.

But Neba’s decision to go to school and teach did not auger will with separatist fighters, who tagged him a “blackleg” and marked him for death.

Nonetheless, due to mounting insecurity and frequent crossfires between the military and separatist fighters, Neba later abandoned teaching.

It is believed that the principal of the school where Neba taught, after mounting pressure on him to return to teaching to no avail, forwarded Neba’s name to the authorities as one of the teachers siding with the separatists by respecting school boycott.

Neba is said to have fled from Kumba, after which his family’s house was burnt down in August 2018, and a neighbour burnt to death. His brothers, sisters and other relatives are said to have also fled into the bush and their whereabouts is not known till date.

But sometime in early September 2018 when Neba paid a visit to Kumba, he was arrested by a group of gendarmes and soldiers of the Rapid Intervention Battalion, BIR, of the military. He was tortured severely and detained at the gendarmerie brigade. Neba was later released under conditions which remain unclear.

After mass protests in North West and South West Regions for a boycott of the October 7, 2018 presidential election, in November 2018, news is said to have circulated that a warrant of arrest had been issued for Neba. He is said to have, for fear of his life, fled. Since then, his whereabouts is not known.

If the separatist fighters lay hands on him, Martin Neba will certainly be killed, like many others who have suffered from atrocities committed by separatist fighters.

Meanwhile, if arrested by the defence and security forces, Martin Neba Ngwator will be tried in a military tribunal, under the anti-terrorism law, whose maximum punishment if the death penalty. That is if he is not killed outright, like many others who have been victims of extra-judicial 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, some 400,000 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, Sisiku Ayuk Tabe, and eight other close associates of his, who were arrested in Nigeria and extradited to Cameroon, are currently at the Kondengui maximum security prison in Yaounde, from where they have been attending trial at the Yaounde military tribunal.

Many other activists such as Mancho Bibixy, Penn Terrence, Tsi Conrad, among others, are 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.

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