Instance of Human Rights Abuse:

UB Students cruelly treated by gendarmes

By Boris Esono in Buea

UB students packed like sardine in
 police ‘black maria’

The recent disturbances in the municipality have revealed deep rooted differences that exist in the country, Cameroon. Last Monday November 28, students of the University of Buea went on an industrial strike action to call on the Vice Chancellor Prof NalovaLyonga to stop what the students called “injustice in UB”. What followed this peaceful demonstration is disturbing and makes one wondered if Francophone and Anglophones are united.

                Images circulating on various social media platforms such as Facebook, WhatsApp, will beg to differ. Police officers mercilessly beaten, others rubbed in mud does not augur well for a country who has been preaching oneness and togetherness for the past 55 years.

                A case in point here is the Tiko gendarmerie in which some of these students were taken to. According to one person who preferred anonymity this reporter spoke to, they were judge as guilty without them even taken before a judge to defend their rights. Most of the documents in which they were signing were all in French, so those who had no knowledge of the French language signed without knowing what the document means. The document as she explained meant that they were the ones who started the violence and were the ones who throw stones at the police. Even though she was not part of the strike or a member of the University of Buea Community as she is from HIBMAT, she had no choice but to sign it as they were compel to do it.

                The situation is also made worst with the way the students were transporter to the various holding cells. Individuals had to stand for close to 30 minutes and were packed in a truck with little breathing space.  Those who arrived in Tiko were later beaten without mercy as they were like thieves and those at the SONARA detention centre were bitterly tortured.

                It is still unclear what will be happen to the officials who committed the heinous crimes of beaten students beyond recognition but it is certainly clear that the way the situation was and is still being handled, no charges will brought against them. It is sad that even the President of the Republic of Cameroon has not commented on the plight of these students but He allows his servants to go on state television blasting the Anglophones. We wait and see what the next stage of this development story will look like.