Dear Wilfred,
I am the one who should be asking: “Do you
really hate me this much”? My comfort in reading your hate-laden, widely
distributed diatribe against me captioned “Do You Hate Us this Much?” is that
you seem to believe in the same God that I worship. That God, the Creator, is
Omniscient as you remind us that you were taught in Sunday School. In His
Omniscience, He sees and knows that, contrary to what you state in your hateful
ranting against me:
1)
The Government of Cameroon and the Biya regime never contributed AT ALL to the
evolution of my career at the United Nations (UN), that I owe entirely to my
God (who is also your God), from the humble beginnings of a UN Volunteer
through the progressive rise from Professional grades 4 and 5, to Director 1 to
Director 2 to Assistant Secretary-General (ASG) to retirement upon attainment
of the mandatory retirement age.
2)
Since resigning from the University of Yaounde II and the Cameroon civil
service effective September 1994 on political and ideological grounds, I have
never demanded anything from the Biya regime and the Biya regime has never
offered me anything. I owe this regime NOTHING and expect NO FAVOUR from it. It
is deeply regrettable that in Cameroon people like you have been moulded into
believing that a person cannot advocate a cause or take a position on an issue
without doing so because he or she is “paying back or looking for fresh favours
“.
3)
In presenting the keynote address at the AAC in Buea in 1993 and reading the
Bamenda Proclamation at the AAC II in 1994, I brought many in the hall on both
occasions to tears; they were emotional moments; like others in my audience, I
shed emotional tears. Today, I learn from you that I was the only one who “wept
uncontrollably” in Bamenda and did so because of the “possibility of never seeing”
my “masters again”, because I was “violating a sealed agreement with the enemy”
and so that the ‘enemy’ may see that I had been ‘forced to read’ the Bamenda
Proclamation. I applaud you for the fertility of your slanderous imagination.
But I find solace and strength in knowing that what you imagine is not what my
(and your) Omniscient God sees and knows. So, why should I care about what you
maliciously imagine?
4)
Your hatred for me, which you describe yourself as ‘ferocious’, as the pouring
out of your bile to me, even leads you to assign me ridiculous roles such as
being “the one Etoudi used to mobilise Southern Cameroonians to welcome Pharaoh
Biya in Washington DC, at the Obama-African Heads of State Summit”. Again, I
marvel at the degree to which your hatred for me is driving your iniquitous
imaginings and fabrications about me. Apart from the fact that I have NEVER had
any dealings with ‘Etoudi’, why would Etoudi pick on me to mobilize Southern
Cameroonians to welcome President Biya in Washington DC? For the entire
duration of President Obama’s Administration, from 2008 to 2016, I was serving
with the United Nations in Africa with no particular outreach to, or influence
over, the Southern Cameroonians community in the US. On what basis, then, would
Etoudi select me to mobilise that community on its behalf from Africa?
5)
Yes, Wilfred, I happen to believe staunchly that “this failed union can work”
and that we can sit down in a national dialogue and determine how to make it
work. The trouble with your stance on the matter is that it shows that you and
the Etoudi regime, which you present as ‘the enemy’, have two things in common:
first, you are both afraid of dialogue; second, you both presume to know what
the people want without ever organising a forum for discussion in which the
people freely say what they want. The history of decolonisation is replete with
examples of the coloniser dialoguing with the colonised to lift the colonial
yoke on the latter. All that the ADF is advocating is that a national dialogue
on the Anglophone problem or crisis should be held, without prescribing the
outcome of the dialogue. What is wrong with that? Why are you so afraid to
dialogue? While you are exploiting the plight of our compatriots who are in the
jails of ”LRC” which you, by divine providence, avoided, you should know that
as ‘federalists’, as opposed to the ‘separatist’ that you are, both Felix
NkonghoAgborBalla and NebaFontem firmly support the national dialogue
initiative. You would probably daub them ‘traitors’ for doing so.
6)
Again, yes Wilfred, I am conversant with the misleading literature that you and
other separatists have concocted over the years to deceive our people that the
restoration of our independence under the auspices of the United Nations is
possible. No, it is not. The independence of Southern Cameroons, if it is to be
restored, will only be restored by war. You should be decent and honest enough
to put this option squarely before our people and see if that is what they
want, instead of heaping invective and insult on people like me who do not
share your separatist position.
7.
It is a pity that, having been informed that I would be attending the All
Anglophone Convention on 21 and 22 July in Atlanta where all options would be
discussed, you personally did not seize the opportunity of this face-to-face
encounter with me. Yet, in your venomous and injurious piece against me, in
which you say that you wanted your message to get to me “as most passionately
and most violently as possible” you dishonestly state that you haven’t had the
‘privilege’, as you put it (tongue in cheek, of course), to confront me face to
face. I am thrilled that, unlike you, other eminence grise of SCACUF – my
friends Prof Carlson Anyangwe, SCACUF Spokesperson Larry Eyongechaw and Barr
Harmony Bobga – accepted the invitation and will be sharing the platform with
me at the Convention in Atlanta today and tomorrow. I look forward to a
civilized exchange with them on the federalist and separatist options under the
general theme of ‘Unity and Resolve in tackling the Anglophone problem’. On 19
July, the day on which I flew out from Douala for Atlanta, I had a civilized
and substantive discussion via Whatsapp with Sisuku Julius Tabeayuk.
8)
I am a man of dialogue, MrTassang. I have always been, and intend so to remain.
If that earns me hatred from you, then so be it. My God who is your God will be
your judge. You seem to predicate your mission of salvation for the Southern
Cameroons on Anglophone hatred of Francophones. I find any political agenda
that rests on hatred and xenophobia totally indefensible. If Southern Cameroons
must separate from LRC because of Anglophone hatred of Francophones, in the
Republic of Southern Cameroons that you are promising us, hatred-driven activists
will demand the separation of the northern zone from the southern zone. And
within each zone, hatred-driven zealots will demand the separation of ethnic
groups. And so on and so on, until we separate ad infinitum. Call me what you
will, demonise me as you want; this is not the recipe that I would want for my
country.
May
our Good Lord, in whose fear we both live, enter into your heart and continue
to guide and direct you.
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