CHRDA Launches New Book entitled, In the Eye of the Storm, Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea: The Unheard Voices of the Anglophone War in Cameroon
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The Centre for Human Rights and Democracy in Africa has launched a living book, entitled ‘IN THE EYE OF THE STORM, BETWEEN THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP BLUE SEA :The unheard voices of the Anglophone War in Cameroon’. The book which was launched in Bamenda on 31 March explores the real life situation of the unheard voices of the victims of the ongoing war in the North West and South West Regions of Cameroon. The book captures the the raw, the real and rare stories from the voiceless victims whose plied remains ‘we want justice’. The living memories in the book are far emotional and the written stories are shocking and tears provoking, the images used are real and the paintings by those who cannot write reveal the inner pains, the book describes the conflict as the worst in all direction for victims as the international community is silent.
Below is the summary of the book as publish on the website of the Centre for Human Rights and Democracy in Africa (CHRDA) :NB: The full book is not publish online by the CHRDA but only the summary is publish.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
We must look back into history to understand what is happening in Anglophone Cameroon today. There have been many Cameroons throughout history. Its modern manifestation, however, was invented at the 1884 Berlin Conference on the partition of Africa, which allocated the territory to Germany. Germany ruled with anarchy and cruelty and lost the territory in 1916. On 10 July 1919, Cameroon was divided between Britain and France along the Simon-Milner line. British and French Cameroons were administered separately as League of Nations Mandated Territories and, after the United Nations Organisation (UN) was formed in 1945, as United Nations Trust territories. French-administered Cameroon became independent on 1 January 1960 as La République du Cameroun. British-administered Cameroon, known as Southern Cameroons before independence, achieved independence from Britain on 1 October 1961, by unifying with French Cameroon.
On 1 October 1961, the new country came into existence, an amalgam of the two Cameroons – with the name Federal Republic of Cameroon comprising two federal states: East Cameroon (former French-administered Cameroon) and West Cameroon (former British-administered Southern Cameroons).
History presents a promising economic report of the Southern Cameroons territory before reunification: arable land produced crops for local consumption and export, sea and river and airports, oil plants and timber mills, transformation and manufacturing industries, and extensive social services. In the post-independence period, trade restrictions and economic barriers came about. West Cameroon was required to align itself economically with East Cameroon. It was obliged to leave the Commonwealth of Nations. Its people were underrepresented in federal leadership structures, and some revenue-generating institutions were placed under federal control. There followed a period with suspected acts of economic sabotage. In the end,a once thriving and promising economy, which was on a firm trajectory of growth and success before independence, became dependent on the patronage and patronising benevolence of East Cameroon. All this was exacerbated when President Ahidjo abolished the federal arrangement on 20 May 1972 despite the express constitutional provision proscribing the end of the federation. The act of abolishment followed a hastily-organised referendum, which claimed an incredible 98.2% voter turnout and a 99.99% vote in favour of a unitary state.
Fast forward to 2016.
Frustrated beyond words by a long history of institutionalised linguistic ransacking, teachers and lawyers began peaceful protests on 6 October 2016 against a disproportionate number of less than competent Francophone teachers and magistrates working in Anglophone Cameroon. Their unhappiness was compounded by common poverty, widespread unemployment and rampant corruption. The protesters were visited with violence, which was the last straw that broke the camel’s back. A few people took to the bushes, acquired weapons and began to fight the regular army. The Anglophone Crisis had become the Anglophone War. What does it matter to ask if this could have been prevented? The time for finger-pointing is past. This is the time for solutions.
The government cannot solve the crisis alone. It has tried – through a national dialogue initiative, efforts to undertake reconstruction in Anglophone Cameroon and an abortive attempt to speak directly to separatist leaders, among other actions. The government should pursue similar commendable efforts relentlessly and avoid clamping down on criticism of its war effort or incarcerating people who apparently fall foul of the 2014 anti-terrorism law. The government should not be indifferent to the untold suffering of the vast majority of people who live in Anglophone Cameroon. It must do all it can, permanently, to reach across dividing lines and attempt to end the war through dialogue and negotiation.
Hospitals are attacked or destroyed, and health personnel are threatened or killed by the army and separatist fighters alike. Each one accuses these institutions and professionals of providing medical attention to the other. Health infrastructure has collapsed, with OCHA estimating that 79% of health districts in the North-West Region were wholly or partially non-functional in 2019. As a result, access to essential healthcare services has fallen dramatically. This includes reproductive and infant care, which has birthed severe acute malnutrition and the increased risk of outbreaks of illnesses like cholera. Schools, teachers, and students are threatened by destruction, death, and injury. This has led to a dramatic drop in enrolment and academic performance. With collapsed health and education sectors, already scarce employment prospects are foundering, spelling disaster for the future.
There are alarming parallels with what has happened in other parts of Africa in recent history: the army and the warlords are often accused of committing similar violations of the laws of war as in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Somalia, to name only a few. The warlords, with the same kind of names as their counterparts elsewhere, have rendered large parts of Anglophone Cameroon ungovernable. They live on bloody terms, killing, maiming, and raping with ruthless abandon. Now and again, they will inflict some damage on military installations and subjects. They often terrify and terrorise the local population. They kidnap for ransom. They also maim and kill hostages when their families cannot pay the ransom. Local inhabitants are often forced to provide fresh produce, and shopkeepers provide processed food. These armed groups confiscate cattle and cars and keep young girls as sex slaves. While all claim to be fighting a war of liberation, it is clear that selfish interests have long permeated and possibly replaced the noble struggle for freedom from what some describe as authoritarian rule, cultural derision and economic asphyxiation. Their actions are a litany of suffering inflicted on the local population. Those who can flee to safer climes have done so. Those who remain simply have no choice but to stay put. They live one day at a time, unsure when the next awful event will occur.
The regular army has blood on its hands too. They are sometimes vicious in their interaction with local populations, who they accuse of harbouring separatist fighters. They, too, are guilty of rape and murder. There are persistent, unsubstantiated rumours of senior officers skimming off the top of the budget for salaries and supplies. Some parts of Anglophone Cameroon are no longer under effective government control. Parts of Lebialem Division, for example, are under the control of the Red Dragons militia of the late Oliver Lekeaka aka Field Marshall.
We must all retain our humanity. Otherwise, the country will slide even further into the horrors of war. This can happen if we encourage both sides to preserve and protect their humanity by recognising the humanity in the other, because when you reduce or remove humanity from a person or people, it is easier to hurt and harm them, including through the taking of life. Greed, avarice and sheer narcissism have become the order of the day. This happens daily in Anglophone Cameroon: bloody fighting, rape, kidnapping, torture, summary executions, arbitrary arrests, random and revenge killings, general insecurity and possible cannibalism. Many of the ills that come with civil war in Africa are present. This is the new normal. Many people have lost their sensitivity as human beings and become indifferent to the horrors around them. Many others are severely traumatised. We have sunk to depths of depravity and despair. We have hit rock bottom.
Who are these protagonists? Who are the men and women who claim to be fighting for the freedom of Anglophone Cameroon, but are contemporaneously raping, maiming and killing them and their children? Where did they come from? Who are the men who appear in the WhatsApp video tying up a woman like a goat and slaughtering her for the cameras? Who are the soldiers who insist on stripping the bodies of dead fighters naked and decapitating them for the camera? Who are these people? Where did they come from? Where were they – or who were they – seven years ago, just before the Anglophone War started? And who are these men, women and children strewn across Cameroon with a label around their neck that reads ‘Internally Displaced Person’? What is their story? What have they seen? What have they done?
Between the covers of this book are the sounds of the voices we do not hear often enough, or even at all. This is the plain, unpolished reality on the ground. A plethora of voices – angry and afraid, hopeful and hopeless, positive and negative. Some people are broken and calm in their brokenness. Others are livid, vicious, and unforgiving. No one speaks publicly about the crisis because spies are everywhere, and human life is cheap. The labels blackleg and sell-out are bandied about, which are effective death sentences. For many, there is no room for reason anymore, only extremism. Whether we like the sound of their voices or not, the truth is that we must listen to them if we are to appreciate the scale of the horror that is unfolding. Suppose we genuinely want to end this senseless Anglophone War, for peace to reign again. In that case, we must listen to the sound of their voices because then and only then will the average citizen of Cameroon rise in solidarity to demand accounts and action from the warring parties.
Berinyuy Cajetan is the founder and publisher of Human Rights and Legal Research Centre (HRLRC) since 2017. He has intensive experience in strategic communications for Civil Society Organizations, campaign and advocacy, and social issues. He has an intensive experiencing in human rights monitoring, documentation and reporting.
