Separatist Fight Afflicts Cameroon
DAKAR, Senegal — It has a flag stamped with a dove and a national anthem that speaks of “the heroes who bore the land with their blood.”
“Glory to the father for making you a nation, a joy forevermore,” the lyrics say. “Ambazonia, land of freedom.”
The nation of Ambazonia doesn’t officially exist. But a violent battle over attempts to create it in English-speaking areas of largely French-speaking Cameroon is escalating. Schools, homes and villages have been burned to the ground. Travel between some towns has been blocked.
For a year and a half, the Cameroonian military has been accused of beating and arresting people suspected of being separatists, torching homes and killing protesters.
For their part, separatists have taken up arms. They have been accused of burning markets, beheading soldiers and kidnapping people they suspect as traitors.
Videos purporting to show abuses on both sides have circulated on social media, worsening tensions. Propaganda and lies proliferate. The military calls the separatists “terrorists,” while the separatists — many part of the Cameroonian diaspora — have accused the military of “genocide.”
“We see the situation degenerating from a crisis to a conflict,” said Gaby Ambo, executive director of the Finders Group Initiative, a human rights group in Cameroon. “And if nothing is done soon, it will turn into a civil war with grave consequences.”
Anglophone separatists have been fighting for recognition of Ambazonia for decades. But calls for secession have amplified in recent months.
Cameroon’s government has re- fused to engage in dialogue with separatists, largely because it rejects losing territory.
“It is not possible to sit around the table with groups who would like to take the nation and cleave the nation,” said Issa Tchiroma Bakary, Cameroon’s information minister.
But Cho Ayaba, commander in chief of Ambazonian Defense Forces, who delivers orders from his home abroad, is convinced the United Nations Charter gives Ambazonia status as its own nation.
English-speaking citizens of Cameroon make up about a fifth of the population in two of the nation’s 10 regions. Many Anglophones have long felt ignored by the French- speaking government, and many English speakers contend they have been marginalized.
Analysts attribute the problems to the fact that Paul Biya, one of the continent’s so- called presidents for life, has been in office since the 1980s. His grip on power has made it difficult for anyone not in his orbit to climb the Civil Service or political ranks.
In late 2016, police fired on a group of Anglophone protestors. At least 20 were killed, according to Amnesty International. Several months ago, separatists in the Ambazonia Defense Forces took up arms.
A report from Amnesty International says armed separatists have killed 44 members of the security forces since September and have attacked teachers and students not participating in a boycott of schools.
The report says Cameroon’s security forces have arrested hundreds of activists and journalists, torturing nearly two dozen minors to extract confessions.
Colonel Didier Badjeck, a Cameroonian defense spokesman, said that the armed forces respected human rights. The military has peacefully arrested separatists who put down their weapons, he said. But if not, Colonel Badjeck said: “We are military. We are going to shoot them. It is a war. You can’t go into a sovereign country and have weapons and shoot police and military.”
Observers at rights organizations have decried the use of the word genocide, saying that while it appears the military has carried out abuses it is not engaged in so- called ethnic cleansing. They have accused separatists of putting lives of innocents at risk. But Mr. Ayaba said attacks on security forces were legitimate.
Tens of thousands of people have fled, some arriving across the border in Nigeria. Others still residing in Anglophone areas are living in fear. One of them, Peter Tafu, said his six children had not been to school in more than a year and a half.
“If my children go to school,” Mr. Tafu said, “I’m not sure they’ll come back home alive.”