Anglophone Crisis:

Franklin Bayen writes to Tapang Ivo Tanku

Franklin Bayen

“Mind your glass house as you play with stones”

Dear Tapang Ivo Tanku,

Listen to me carefully and read over this many times:

1.            Your frequent calls for violence on the families of free citizens whose stance on issues is different from yours may expose your innocent family in Cameroon to retaliation. I’m thinking of your beautiful sisters and your mother. You have just placed fresh calls this morning for the homes of people who hold views contrary to yours to be located. You want their wives and children to be targeted. That’s simply outrageous! That’s a call for extra-judicial mob justice;

2.            It would be a crime against humanity for any institution (especially the government) or groups of individuals to victimize your family because of your political views, but equally:

a)            It would be a common law crime for anyone or group of individuals obeying your HIGH COMMAND ORDERS to target any family because of the democratic choice of their parent or sibling;

b)           If anyone is arrested or killed while executing the HIGH COMMAND ORDERS for violence you are sending out daily with a relish, they are common law criminals, not political victims;

3.            If for nothing else, listen to me for old times’ sake, listen to the one colleague who always stands by you when others have gotten pissed off. Listen to the one who gets scorned by other colleagues because I stick my neck for you, glorifying your salutary professional and academic exploits as if I don’t have mine nor can pursue more (yes many said so when I reported your departure for the Fulbright fellowship on our journalism forum and others said so to me when I recently profiled you and Mark Bareta). You have also stood by me in my hours of distress. So, we have watched each other’s backs as comrades, beyond just colleagues;

4.            Take note, I am not by this urging you to drop your guard in the line you’ve chosen to follow in our noble struggle to redeem our people. We are in the same struggle but are at variance over strategy. Fight on for our people. I am fighting on. I won’t let up, whatever the attacks I face from standers-by clapping for dance styles in a time of war;

5.            It is your democratic right as it is mine to dig our heels in the sand in our different positions. I won’t infringe on yours, but if you believe I ever cared one bit, please hid my call: do not endanger your family by endangering other people’s families;

6.            Those families also have families and loved ones who can retaliate and plunge you and yours into a cycle of violence. I’m not sure you dream for an Ambazonia of death squads; (calls for the blood of “traitors of the divine cause” which muslims call “fatwa”, may be easily pronounced but can never be completely withdrawn. The fatwa called on British Indian  author of “satanic verses” salmondrushdi in the 1980s by Ayatollah Komeni, still stands and any muslim who finds him even today (30 years on) may kill him in the name of Allah though the Ayatollah is long dead);

7.            I also remind you that AgborBalla and NebaFontem who signed to authorize you to speak on their behalf are probably under legal liability for your blood utterances. Their families are also watching;

8.            Brave men like you and I defeat fear of repercussions including death when we engage in battles like this for our people, yet we have no right to expose others – be they our own families or rather, especially our own families – to danger;

9.            Let’s carry our ant-infested faggots on our head but let’s not carry them home so that our families suffer ant bites they did not invite;

10.          I hereby call on comrades of our struggle to bear witness and to share responsibility for their complacency and for encouraging my young friend and colleague down a suicidal road, exposing his family to danger’

11.          I also call our journalism colleagues to witness;

12.          I make this call for no other reason than my outrage at the increasing dangerous rhetoric in Tapang’s utterances against others because their actions on the ground threaten his wishful stimulus response outcome;

13.          I make this call out of concern for a younger friend, colleague and comrade at other fronts;

14.          Now, over to you facebook Lovers of Tapang Ivo. Show him some LOVE! But support him here and provide protection for his family in Cameroon.

May God protect us all

Franklin Bayen