Cameroon: Government accuse of crimes against humanity

One of Cameroon’s outspoken Member of Parliament (MP), Hon. Ayah Paul Abine, has accused government for seeking a pretext to wipe out his people - the Olitis of Akwaya, a boarder town with the republic of Nigeria. “If today again I have felt the strong urge to put on paper the heinous crimes against my people, the sole purpose is to let it be known beforehand the crude indirect way the government of Cameroon is seeking a pretext to wipe out the Olitis. The justification is that we may not in our time-tested system of cover-up pretend to set up formality commissions of enquiry tomorrow”,

By Yemti Harry Ndienla

Reason Hon. Ayah, who is on record as the only MP from the ruling Cameroon Peoples Democratic Movement (CPDM) party who stood against amending the country’s constitution for an unlimited presidential term early this year, told the PM, he was writing “not on the collective punishment on my people who have gone for ten months today without shelter, food and water because I have dared to object to the unconscionable”.

The CPDM Member of Parliament, who is a supper scale magistrate in the country’s judiciary system, faulted the gendarmes for being part of the problem. “From all the information you have certainly received from those veiled in untested security apparel, you surely are not without knowledge of the atrocities the gendarmes are committing in Akwaya town on a daily basis”, he told the PM. Adding, “In your position and exposure to the international scene, you of course know better than I do that these are crimes against humanity. You are equally aware of the consequences of the official connivance, the fact that those crimes are aimed at realising some political objective notwithstanding”.

For the purpose of documentation, the MP enlisted a number of crimes committed against his own people by government security agents.

Hear him “I have the honour to list here just a few more of those crimes in order to forestall our notorious fantasy about absence of information in time. You surely are already aware of the horrible case of my cousin, Anthony Obendi, who was locked up and tortured for about a week. He was denied food, treatment and even water for that long; and he has since been castrated because his reproductive organs were sadistically mistreated

In the war against “Ayah’s men” that disregards all international norms of warfare, even women are not spared. The security in their peremptory duty to report have no doubt reported to you by now that the Brigade Commander came upon the daughter of late Chief Shadrack Agbor, one Laurencia Azenda, who was frying fish by their door. In this war where the end justifies the means, he kicked the fry pan against the lady, and the poor girl got badly scalded. Are even innocent women struggling for survival marked with the sign of perdition as “Ayah’s men”?

On 12 September 2008, a group of persons were passing in front of the gendarmerie brigade. They were ordered to come over to the brigade. After identification, all the Assumbo men among the group were told to leave. The four Olitis in the group from the village of Enya-Echa, including Ayah William and Akwo Eyenge Ferdinand, were locked up and tortured for days. They too, as usual, were denied all fares including water.

Two days later, the gendarmes attacked the weekly market of Akwaya Town. In the stampede, foodstuffs were destroyed and people lost the little money they had. For three weeks running, the market could not hold for fear of further attacks. This at a time that children had to go back to school in an area where schooling was severely disrupted most of last academic year, with the result that in Ballin, for instance, only four pupils passed the First School Leaving Certificate Examination out of over four hundred! That was a market where the Olitis sold in order to get some money to assist Oliti refugees condemned to debilitating death by their own government.

The case of one Awayul Simon was most pathetic. He was picked up during the attack and tortured in the brigade until he bled from the nose, mouth and ears. Even in that condition, he was still locked up for two days without food, water or any treatment at all.

That the Oliti man is most peaceful and outstandingly honest is a fact most notorious! Who wants to argue to the contrary? An Oliti man is sentenced to a prison term rightly or wrongly. When he gets to a river in floods as he is being escorted to the Mamfe prison on foot, he takes the guard’s gun across to the opposite bank of the river. He then comes over and mounts on his back across the river the guard escorting him to the prison. Without passing judgment, I can proudly say that such high level of respect for the law and honesty is exclusive conduct in the world of today. But should that be the reason for subjecting them, with absolute impunity, to such inhuman treatment with official connivance and/or even encouragement?

Mr. Prime Minister,

There is no one society the world over without radicals. That’s a cause for concern! Except to the extent that these tortures are officially organised so that your government may have cause to conduct genocide against my people, you may wish to ignore no more this horrible situation in order to forestall the manifestation of radicalism, please. Are we not talking here about human beings with inalienable rights, Sir?” Ayah wrote in his petition to the prime minister of the republic of Cameroon.