Yaounde – April 23, 2020
Opposition leader Maurice Kamto has penned down 6 unanswered questions about the Ngarbuh massacre and called on an independent international investigation on the February 14 killings
The questions are contained in an elaborate press release published below :
Professor Maurice Kamto writes
The indifference of Mr. Paul BIYA and the pitiful admission of his regime.
The “audience” granted, on April 16, 2020, to the French Ambassador to Cameroon by the President of the Republic in office, was supposed to mark the return of Mr. Paul BIYA to the public arena. This hearing took place the day after the filing on the Office of the National Assembly of our request to trigger the procedure leading to the establishment of the presidential vacuum by the Constitutional Council.
The news served us, this April 21, a press release, signed by the Minister of State, Secretary General of the Presidency, on the massacres perpetrated in Ngarbuh, on February 14, 2020.
Following this tragic event, it must be remembered, the President did not think to speak, when many voices were raised in our country and around the world to express their deep indignation.
Whereas the publication of the results of the national inquiry, which he ordered himself, obviously to evade international pressure gave him the opportunity to make his voice heard on these horrors, Mr Paul BIYA preferred from the top of his sufficiency and his usual contempt for the Cameroonians and their suffering, to unload on his Secretary General to indulge in the pitiful confession of the responsibility of the regime in these Massacres.
The regime therefore finally admits, always under external pressure: it is the agents of the Cameroonian defense forces who massacred cameroonian populations, in this case harmless civilians, including babies and pregnant women. All sources of good faith had already established this responsibility.
The essential questions that remain after the press release of April 21, 2020
Despite this forced admission, this release contains many gray areas.
1- How many people in total were massacred on February 14, 2020 ?
2- How many houses have been burnt down?
3- Who are those who, in the army, in state institutions, in administration, in civil society, ordered, supervised, covered and / or attempted to manipulate national and international opinion ?
4- What has become of all the people arbitrarily arrested and tortured by the services on the fallacious grounds that they have collaborated with the Human rights organizations that exposed the crimes and the implication of the army ? (For example, the person who had been arrested, tortured and accused of having sent the images of the massacres to Human Rights Watch)?
5- Who finances and maintains the militiamen and auxiliaries recruited by the Commando of Ngarbuh?
6- The Ngarbuh massacres have given birth to serious religious and tribal tensions between the Fulani populations and other communities in the area. Who used the Fulani community and for what purposes? what is being put in place for the reconciliation of the Fulani and the other communities concerned?
What about other cases of killings or massacres of civilians in the English-speaking regions?
Beyond these essential questions carefully avoided in the April 21 statement, the confession wrested from the regime on the responsibility of the army and the regime in the Ngarbuh massacres brings back to light other cases of massacred civiliansin the armed conflict that has ravaged the English-speaking regions of our country for almost four years among these cases we can cite those of:
1- Ofen- Tben (Batibo);
2- Menka-Pnyin (Santa);
3- Bakweri Town (Buea);
4- Buea Town, (Buea);
5- Martha (Muyuka);
6- Ekona;
7- Munyend;
8- Kwa-Kwa;
9- Sam Soya (Bello);
10- Weh;
11- Esu;
12- Wum.
IV- The Communique of April 21, 2020: A maneuver to hide the identity of the real military and political leaders of the Ngarbuh massacres
with all the gray areas that persist over the Ngarbuh massacres and taking into account the regime’s numerous efforts to cover up the truth, including the use of intimidation and terror, it emerges only the conclusions which allowed the writing of the press release of April 21, 2020 are truncated.
The regime, no doubt ill-advised, chose to serve the world a half-truth in the hope of relieving pressure and continuing its dirty war.
Under these conditions, the CRM reiterates its request of February 26, 2020, for the opening of an international investigation into the massacres of Ngarbuh and all the other massacres of civilians, both in the ongoing armed conflict in the two English speaking regions and in the Far North Region, where the army is fighting the extremist Boko Haram sect.
Yaounde on April 23, 2020.
Professor Maurice KAMTO
Read More »Ngarbuh Massacre: 6 Unsettled Questions Biya Must Respond To – Kamto
