The long-drawn crisis in Southern Cameroons has taken a
dangerous turn with bomb explosions targeting local security officials, and as
protests become increasingly widespread and vociferous.
Renewed
protests broke out early morning on Friday 22 September in major towns and
villages across the North West and South West thousands of aggrieved
populations taking to the streets with tree branches, placards, whistles and
flags of Ambazonia; a country they plan to create when they secede from the
Republic of Cameroon.
Security
forces responded with bullets and teargas, injuring some protesters in Santa,
Kumbo and Bamenda in the North West and Mamfe, Ekona, Buea, Muyuka and Buea in
the South West.
The
security reprisals did not deter the protesters as they moved towards public
places, hoisting blue-white flags and seeking to meet with administrative and
traditional authorities.
The
protesters poured out on the streets hours before the President of the
Republic, Paul Biya was scheduled to address the United Nations General
Assembly.
Anglophone
protesters put up a similar show at the precincts of the UN headquarters in New
York, we can confirm.
The
call for peaceful protests was from the Ambazonia Governing Council SCACUF and
was amplified on social media by Southern Cameroons independentists in the
diaspora.
The
widespread protest are said to be a foretaste of a planned declaration and
celebration of Southern Cameroons (Ambazonia’s) independence on 1st October.
The
Anglophone crisis is escalating and decaying despite a discriminate amnesty
granted some jailed Anglophone activists by President Biya.
Many
said the continued detention of Mancho Bibixy (leader of the Coffin Revolution)
and some about 30 others has provoked the mass protests, which have taken a
radical and/or terrorist turn with bomb explosions.
The
latest of the bombing explosions was on Wednesday morning Sept. 21, when an IED
controlled from a mobile phone was activated at Hospital Roundabout in Bamenda.
Three police officers were reportedly injured.
Another
bomb explosion was recorded Thursday at a petroleum depot in the economic
capital city Douala.
Earlier
on September 11, an improvised explosive device targeting security agents on
patrol was activated at Mobil Nkwen in the city of Bamenda. Five days later,
another IED damaged a dormitory at Sacred Heart College Mankon, still in
Bamenda, but no human losses were recorded.
Though
it is yet to be established whether the bomb blasts are connected to the
Anglophone crisis, the Ambazonia Defense Forces, the armed faction of the
secessionist group SCACUF, has claimed responsibility for some of the attacks.
The
latest incidents have been described as “acts of terrorism” by the Cameroon
government spokesperson, Issa Tchiroma.
Cameroon’s current difficulties extend back to
its pre-independence history when it was formed by joining the former Southern
Cameroons that was colonized by Britain to the larger and already independent
French-colonized former East Cameroon. The resulting amalgam formed a country
whose government, education, and legal systems are dominated by the larger
French-speaking region.
In
recent years tensions have mounted as people from the Anglophone regions have
complained about being marginalized by the Francophone-led establishment. The
Anglophone regions account for just about 20% of the n’s 23 million population.
The
International Crisis Group had in August 2016 alerted the Yaounde regime of a
looming uprising in Anglophone Cameroon if something was not done and urgently
too. But the government seemed not to have seen the danger coming.
Fire-brand
SDF MP for Jakiri, Joseph Wirba stunned the entire nation in December last
year, when he mounted the rostrum of Parliament and said truth to power. Hon.
Wirba told the world to expect an escalating crisis in Anglophone Cameroon if
government did not handle the Anglophone grievances with tact.
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