What made the “New Deal” Regime proud and quite acceptable in the world for the past three decades undoubtedly lay on its myth of ‘Peace’; a hoax that bore the seeds of its own decay. Now the psychosis ensuing from its crumbling is the alibi for macabre political calculations of oligarchs and illusion mongers.
Peace is not the absence of war. I like to say it: peace is the speedy resolution of small conflicts, which can also be called “misunderstandings”. Doesn’t history teach us enough about the “misunderstandings” that have led to the worst tragedies humanity has ever known? From the Inquisition, through the two world wars, the Rwandan genocide, not to mention the Arab Spring etc., to the Anglophone crisis in Cameroon; all these started with misunderstandings. Who can cross a river on foot, at the height of its flood?
The beginnings of the Anglophone crisis by no means foreshadowed the sporadic executions of Anglophones now tending towards genocide. Were it not for the smart phones and the Internet, these senseless deaths would have passed incognito, like those of the thousands of Bamileke and Bassa, killed with napalm during the dark days of the Maquis, by the French State and the then Cameroonian Regime. The violence with which the totalitarian regimes of neo-colonial French-speaking states, jealous of their bloodthirsty power, repress simple PEACEFUL demonstrations, though guaranteed by their Constitutions, is staggering. Can’t politics be done in Africa without having hands stained with blood? These politicos at the twilight of their lives all have one thing in common: they are suddenly more ambitious and ingenious than they were in their youth. Virility generally decreases with age. It is an immutable law of nature!
What harm did Lawyers, Teachers and especially Anglophone Students do to be humiliated, arrested and tortured? Cameroon Democracy is a facade. Today, many Francophones, in their hypocrisy, are surprised by their radicalization. As if a soldier killed in retaliation were worth more than hundreds of Anglophone civilians executed.
For your information, no human life is worth more than another, and let us not forget so quickly the origin of this “war” or its causality. Know that all minorities have this in common: either they let themselves be subjugated by the majority, or they RESIST. Anglophones (less than 20%), may have, in spite of themselves, chosen to resist the totalitarianism, the concussion, the poor-governance by Francophones (more than 80%), fanned by the Biya Regime: it’s all about their honor and I thank them. Because “ANGLOPHONE WAY OF LIFE !!! “
What would you do if the forces of “order,” in deliberate violation of constitutional law, beat you while dragging you through filthy mire just for peacefully demonstrating? What would you do if you learned that several “representatives of the law”, raped your innocent daughter, and your beloved wife? What would you do if in your village intruders summarily executed your children and your elderly and took away their remains in order to hide the traces; abducted your husbands and arbitrarily imprisoned them? What would you do if your goods were looted and your houses burned by those who were supposed to ensure your safety and that of your property? What would you do if you were treated like beasts of burden and put in the category of terrorists? Faced with this criminal regime, the separatist response has a name: LEGITIMATE DEFENSE!
All these war crimes are being committed by your lawless forces with impunity; you know it. I appeal to your humanity: civil disobedience without delay is the last resort of true patriots, to save the house. An army engaged in acts of cruelty, whatever the cause it defends, deserves the contempt and disapproval of all. How do you manage to corrupt your own conscience? How do you manage to call evil good? How do you stay unperturbed in your comfort, when some of our people are dying before your eyes? In the early days of their demands, the English-speaking vision was not the separatism that is attributed to them today. It became a necessary tactic only when Biya unjustly and clumsily unleashed violence against them.
The unprecedented violence against Anglophones in the Southwest and North-West purported to ward off secessionists and safeguard the hypothetical “peace” of an oligarchic clan has only exacerbated their latent feelings of vengeance justified by their social exclusion, in addition to the Francophonisation of the Biya Administration. His “mistake” is crude and undeniable, but the Biya Government is refusing DIALOGUE for one reason: he is ashamed to lose face in this election year that will seal the fate of Cameroon. And since his defeat in the English-speaking regions is a foregone conclusion, he’d rather maintain the terror so he wouldn’t have to organize elections in this part of the country while playing the instability card. What an infamy! The stupidity insists, persists and resists … stupidity because, by means of weapons and other repressive tools, a Government may, at a certain moment, instill fear and some form of submission, but never PAX VERITAS (true peace) so cherished.
To you then, Francophones making plans for an impending civil war in the English-speaking regions instead of making amends to defuse it; to you the most “senior officers” and the youngest “GIs” who take part in the killing, rape and looting of Anglophones; To those who give orders from their fortresses in Yaounde, to those who execute them in the various theaters of hell let loose in these regions! Remember this: the day after the ousting of the New Deal elite and their offspring, (which will happen sooner than later) you, its adulators and bootlickers, all risk being hanged high and short until death takes you; just like the beasts of Nazism. History always repeats itself!
Transgress the reality, and while you’re there, wash your crimes with holy water: but everyone will be held personally accountable for his actions. And history will exonerate none of you for the crimes committed in the English-speaking area in order to maintain a moribund Swiss in power.
You do not have to be a military strategist to see that the army will not prevail over the Anglophone people, go-getters that they are. The better! Fidel Castro and Che Guevara were no military strategists or war specialists either, but they humiliated the all-powerful American army at home in Cuba, because the True people supported them. The English speaking area will be for you a new “Bay of Pigs”.
On the strength of this observation, (although comparison doesn’t make right), and especially with the growing clamor of Cameroonians from all walks of life, I bet that the warlords of Mvomeka’a will fail miserably on the Northwest and Southwest fronts if they do not stop their evil and undertake the following:
First, constitutional reforms that will limit the presidential mandate to five years renewable once; introduce a two-rounds electoral system; institute a federal system of government; circumscribe Executive Power by doing away with its primacy over the Judiciary and the Legislative; make English the ONLY official language
Secondly, social and intercultural reforms, which will give pride of place to women, the weak and minorities, a guarantee of national reconciliation.
Thirdly, the reconstitution of social capital that will make cultural plurality its guiding principle, penalizing de facto tribalism, nepotism … These are, in my opinion, prerequisites for a future Cameroon; modern, powerful and prosperous.
If not, let us prepare for the paroxysm of this “dirty war” that could be generalized, and continue now on equal terms, and no longer knife against AK47, as is still the case.
