Last June-July circulated on social networks, the unsustainable executions of two women and, horror of horrors, of their very young children, including a baby that his mother was carrying in her back , in pure tradition of our African moms. The first female victim of the firing squad, which can be seen in red on the pictures, was ZOUMTEGUI NDOMOKO. The second was called KELOU MANATSAD. The two women were killed by Cameroonian soldiers in April 2014. They were buried with their babies at the base of a mountain called “Vizi Kolor Vegabi”.
After the release of the first images of these unspeakable acts of a few soldiers engaged in the fight against Bioko Haram in the Far North of our country, the Minister of Communication and Spokesperson of the Government, made a release of a frightening coldness to overwhelm human rights organizations, the hiding ‘plotters’ and ‘destabilizers’ and determined to tarnish the image of “His Excellency the President of the Republic, Paul BIYA”, of the valuable Defense Forces and of Cameroon. As usual, in a grandiloquent style, Mr. ISSA TCHIROMA BAKARY has despised the memory of the poor and innocent victims of military violence, insulted the courageous work of human rights organizations and shouted at political conspiracy. More seriously, the Minister of Propaganda has implicated the Army of a friendly country of Cameroon. By wanting to conceal the crimes of a few soldiers, he will have clumsily and unjustly tarnished the reputation of the Cameroonian Army that has made enormous sacrifices and is still making them to defend our country against the extremists of Boko Haram.
The legion of “experts” serving the regime and their media relays were even more precise, accusing the Cameroon Renaissance Movement (CRM) of being behind what they described as manipulation. With a rough science, they dissected the video in question to prove to the public that it was a montage made by amateurs radio-controlled by the CRM.
Lies never go far, under the strong pressure of social networks, human rights organizations and the international community, the truth is imposed on the Cameroonian Government, and, hopefully, also on the legion of ” Experts ” gravediggers of the Nation, whose “expertise” is summed up in the obvious denigration of the CRM and its national President, my humble self.
For once, less reckless than usual, the spokesman of the Government admitted the terrible reality by a simple statement, certainly fearing to have to answer to the cameras of the national and international press, to embarrassing questions in his favourite exercise, the press conference.
The CRM is asking the Government not to stop at the reality that it was forced to admit, but to promptly open an investigation into other alleged cases of abuses by the Defense and Security Forces, including the one currently circulating on social networks showing soldiers executing unarmed civilians in a village, probably Achigachia in the Far North. The scenes of crime that we see in this other case, once again, are frightening. Cameroonians now want explanations and clarifications on the command of their Army. Why have politicians and senior army officials covered such barbaric practices? The time of lies and half-truths is gone!
We must draw all the political and military consequences of this terrible affair: the Heads of the Armed Forces, Head of State, the Minister of Defense, the Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces, the advisers of the President of the Republic involved in this issue, the leaders of the BIR must answer the questions that the Cameroonian populations, deeply shocked cruelty, ask themselves about the ethics and the respect of the human life in their Army. To cleanse the honour of our Army in the face of these unspeakable acts therefore imperatively requires the clarification of political, military and technical-diplomatic responsibilities in these repeated abuses and abuses.
Without explanation from the Head of the Armed Forces, Mr. Paul BIYA, the Minister Delegate for Defense, the Army Chief of Staff and officials of the BIR, the CRM will call for the setting up of an independent investigation commission to shed light on this barbarism that severely tarnishes the image of our country. It urges Cameroonians to preserve the memory of the baby shot in the back of his mother and of herself, as well as other innocent victims killed in unsustainable barbarity with weapons bought by their taxes, voting out, on next 7 October, the Biya regime which has demonstrated on several occasions its lack of humanity, and which more than ever has lost all honour by maintaining a state lie on an affair that deeply upsets the human conscience.
The National President of the MRC
Maurice Kamto
Yaounde, 13 August 2018
