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| @Washington Protest, July 2017 |
In the second and last part of Dr Ebenezer Derek Mbongo Akwanga’s interview, he states that Southern
Cameroonians have been talking to themselves thinking that they have been speaking to the Government of the Republic of Cameroon.
“For 56 years one side has been fighting us and have also tied our hands. They have removed all our teeth and we are thinking that
they should remove our nostrils before we start reacting. No, it can’t happen
that way,” he argues.
He
speaks passionately about the struggle and adds that, the duration for SC to attain
its independence, would be determined by how much people invest in the struggle
as individuals and as a people.
The
freedom fighter, who considers himself as “Sango Na Muna” in the struggle, said
he is an extremist for freedom and alleges that President Paul Biya is an extremist
for domination and annexation while Cameroon's Communication Minister, Issa Tchiroma, is
an extremist for lies telling.
To
the human rights activist and author, Southern Cameroonian women and girls
should consider themselves as partners in the struggle and not just supporters. Dr
Akwanga also speaks extensively about his ‘going to the war front’ and contends that the right
of SC to defend themselves selves should not be seen from the perspective of
going to war. Read
on…
We
put our discussion on hold when you said you feel for the younger ones. But of
recent, social media activists ‘attacked’ you for posting the picture of your
own child graduating from school. The same has been said for Cameroonians in
the diaspora who are expected to also keep their children home. Are you
thinking about that?
 |
| Dr Akwanga, talking Passionately about the SC Struggle |
That was an oversight
that can happen in any struggle. The post in question was pulled down from
Facebook and needless to return to it.
We must respect the will of the people. This is to tell you that the
people are sensitive and seriously involved in the struggle for the liberation
of our homeland. Nevertheless, we cannot allow our children to go to school in
an unsafe environment or the courts to function, until we get our freedom.
Shutting
down schools, the courts and then ghost towns, some keep asking, what next?
What next? We have so
many problems and all those problems will not be resolved if only we don’t send
our children to school or our courts are shut down. Those problems can only be
resolved in a free and totally independent Southern Cameroons where we can
practice our way of life which entails our educational and legal and cultural
systems, everything that we have, to put together.
There
has been stalemate for months as we speak. The Cameroon government is referring
to some Southern Cameroonians as ‘extremists’ while the leaders of the liberation
movements are maintaining their position to keep up with the civil disobedience
and ghost towns alive. Are we not moving towards outright violence in one way
or the other?
What do you call
violence? It is a very cheap rhetoric. People keep saying that we don’t want
violence. You don’t want violence? What are some of us doing in the diaspora?
Are we not escaping because of what La Republic is doing violently to us? Those
journalists that have been locked up, more than six of them what did they do? Who
is instituting violence? Let’s say Balikumbat attacks Bafanji and Bafanji keeps
taking the blow. Then when Bafanji needs to retaliate and say, we have taken
enough, we need to defend ourselves and take back our land, you would accuse
the Bafanji people for violence?
That is not violence. You don’t look at war
from the perspective of violence. Do you know why when you kill somebody it is
categorized into first degree and second degree murder, homicide and manslaughter?
It depends on the circumstances. What I am saying is that we are not a violent
people. Our right to defend ourselves should not even be seen from the
perspective of going to war.
The problem is that for 56 years one side has been fighting us and that
side has also tied our hands. They have removed all our teeth and we are
thinking that they should remove our nostrils before we start reacting. No, it can’t happen that way. Most of
us are Christians and our culture does not support suicide. Why do we want a
general suicide for the entire Southern Cameroons when we fold our arms and
somebody is beating us when we know we can untie that rope and fight back to
defend ourselves?
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| Teargas Canisters, Used in Bamenda Dec 8 2016 |
Some
have been asking if you have the means to fight back…
How far do you know if
we have the means if we don’t try? Show me any army in the world that has won a
war against its people. Do you know why they are still fighting in Iraq till
date? You never win a guerrilla war. If we decide to become guerrillas would
also decide when to end it because we can keep going and going even if only one
person is remaining. You prepare and go
to the field .
You must enter into peace talks with the guerrillas when we would
reach that stage, if that is what they want. You know what happened with the
Barth separatists? They were never defeated though they lost some battles in
certain places. They were still there.
I
am made to understand that Southern Cameroonians are afraid they don’t have the
resources for maybe war, they don’t want war… and do not want to die or for
innocent people to lose their lives…
Fear of what? How do
you know that we don’t have the weapons? You will know whether we have weapons
when we start using them or we don’t use them. Just wait, when we start using
them the next question would be which type of weapon you have. Are they
Chinese, American or Russian? The weak will always find a way to escape from
their responsibilities. What we are trying to do is not to find out whether we
have weapons or not.
What we are trying to do is to pass the baton to the next
generation. Did the guys who got up in the North West and created the largest
catapult the world has ever seen aware that they were going to do that? If you try
and don’t succeed, try, try…try and try again. We have not even tried and we
are asking whether we have resources. It’s La Republic which should be asking
what we have to fight them. We can’t make an announcement.
These
are questions the ordinary Southern Cameroonian in the struggle can be asking
himself or herself…
Who is the ordinary
man? The ordinary man who dies every day without Quinine because the government
and the regime cannot provide anything? Or the ordinary woman who goes to the
hospital pregnant and is forced to give birth on the floor and she dies? Or the
ordinary man who dies along the Tiko-Douala road because the roads are death traps
and graveyards? Is that the ordinary man you are talking about who is afraid to
go to war to defend his homeland?
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| Violence on UB Students Nov 2016 |
Who is the ordinary man? The one who tries to
escape persecution and cross over to Nigeria and is killed or like my junior
Jeff Mokake, who wanted to cross to the USA and died between Costa Rica and
Nicaragua? Or the ordinary woman or girl
who is dying in Kuwait? Are they the people who are afraid to die when they are
dying every day? Are they the ones or those who are in China?
With all the
knowledge you have you cannot work or do anything. You have to at times
beg for crumbs to survive. You tell me how that is different from death. You
are a living corpse so you should not be afraid to stand. Those who are down
there are never afraid to fall.
Are
you going to be at the war front or on your keyboard?
What kind of question
is that? (Laughs…) Wait for the appropriate time…
As the SC Youth League chairman,
what do you make about the debate and the election of an IPM or Chairman of the
Governing Council for Southern Cameroons?
I don’t even see myself
as just the leader of the youth league but as the leader of the struggle. Even
at my age I am one of the oldest who is in this struggle that have never
wavered. I am like that stone they call ‘Sango na Muna’ in the middle of the
sea. That stone that the water comes and goes on it and still leaves it there.
I am not going to anywhere when it comes to this struggle.
I have given you
those dynamics, politics. If people
don’t cast away officialising politics into this struggle and realise that this
is a matter of the very survival of a people nothing is going to change. I
am not a rich man but we have a culture in which our people respect titles and
wealth and the younger generation find it so difficult to disentangle
themselves from that. People at times accumulate fake titles and they start
fighting one another and thinking that God will send someone from heaven to
come and fight for them.
If we want freedom, I told our people, write it down
that Dr Akwanga said give us independence and take up any position that you
want. I am not interested in power. I have been in the struggle from the age of
13. I just want freedom. I can go back home, others can go back home. Those who
want politics can play it, then. The greatest thing Mandela did is to have run
South Africa for one term. If he tried the second term he would have died in
office.
Because if you are really doing your job as a President or PM you would
not want more than two terms since it’s a very heavy job.It does not only make
you grey but it can make you grow mad because of the pressure that is there. We
don’t have a piece of land called our own and so how will it work? I have told
our people that we are a people because we are a nation. We are not a country
yet because we are not yet a state. You are forming a PM or whatever position
to do what? Where do you want to put him?
It’s
a government in exile…and in waiting…
No. You just want to
create more chaos. Let me ask you. If others create a government I come here as
Dr Akwanga and many know and trust me and get Dr Success to be the Secretary of
State for Defense. I get you as Head of Communication. I create my own
government. Who is going to stop me?
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| Dr Akwanga, and H.E. Sisiku AyukTabe (to his left) |
Finally
everybody can create his own government…
Good. Let me tell you.
If we have our land and put up a flag and create a government and others create
their own. Whose government would be
respected? That is what we said to the people. Let us do the right thing that
is done in such a struggle. When we have a piece of land the rest will follow..
We must be ready to go get the piece of land.
Don’t
you think trying to go get a piece of land could plunge the country into a long
war like in South Sudan?
No it can’t be a long
war. The people of South Sudan fought for a very long time. People of East
Timor were not even as sophisticated as us. All will depend on the commitment
of those who want freedom.
Aren’t
you afraid of being killed in the process? Again are you serious that you will
be at the war front or behind the key board as some people are insinuating?
Are you sure that I am
still alive to be afraid of death?
You
are alive and talking to me…
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| University of Bamenda Student, Julius Akum, Shot Dead |
No I am a living corpse
that is what you are and all of us Southern Cameroonians are, until we take
back our land. We are all pretending to ourselves. For 56 years we have been talking to ourselves thinking that we have
been talking to LRC.I don’t want to use a very raw analogy. Look, we are
all going to die. Death is part of human transition. I don’t know how I am
going to die. But I don’t want to die on my knees. I want to die standing.
Let me die for something that would uplift
the human spirit than to die for something that would downgrade it. We are not
perfect persons, which is why we continue to seek the face of God. We have to
decide whether we want to die for something that is upright and righteous or
something degrading. I can give you a list of people who have betrayed the
struggle and are dead. I went to prison and went through all kinds of torture.
God knows why he kept me alive.
I wish to find out at what level you are with your
case against the Cameroonian government. (The UN Human Rights Committee had asked the Cameroon
government to pay the sum of 1.5 Billion frs cfa to Dr Akwanga as reparations including compensation
for torture and imprisonment since 2011.)
Well I have won the
case. The UN has asked them to pay compensation
but it looks as if the state is scared that if they paid me I will use it to
buy AK47s and come after them. But I
have said that it is already in the books. Whether I die today and my son or
daughters are no longer there my grandchildren will collect that money.
Whatever system exists there, would pay that compensation.
 |
| Police Molesting lawyer Muea, Buea (2016) |
Would
you want to recall your detention conditions?
I have already
explained how I was being fed with human excrement and urine for two weeks,
solitary confinement for two years on the ‘balancoire.’ I was sexually molested
by female gendarmes and beaten on the soles of my feet and given all types of treatment.
I don’t like talking about myself. But
if every true Southern Cameroonian who has suffered and decides that I am
taking revenge on La Republic du Cameroun, how many people would be fighting?
You will find at least 7.5 million Southern Cameroonians fighting against La
Republique. There are different types of war. There is a war to conquer people
like what Adolf Hitler and Mussolini did. There is also what is called a war of
liberation like what happened in Kosovo where the US sent troops to help the
Kosovites. That is not a war of dominating people but a war to save humanity.
We don’t want to conquer LRC. Our goal
is simple. Take back our homeland. Stay where you are we can come together as
neighbours. I see LRC citizens and their system as enemies to us.
Of
late there has been much talk about a possible genocide in Southern Cameroons,
your take on that?
It has been going on
already for a very long time. Are you saying that when we start defending
ourselves that is when it would become genocide? People are afraid to do their
jobs. How many have we seen in the USA
dying without touching the gun? How many
have died on the Tiko- Douala or Douala- Bamenda Road. People are not afraid to die but are afraid
to take responsibility. The torture and the abuses going on is part of the
genocide.
People
are saying the struggle is in the hands of the Cameroonian youths. In your
view, are they organised to face this challenge?
There is no Cameroonian
youth. Cameroon has died in the youths called LRC. They are chicken. But there
are Southern Cameroonian youths. The Southern Cameroonian youth are an integral
part to this struggle. They play a
pivotal role for the struggle for freedom because it is their struggle. What we
are trying to build is not just for them. It is for the children that they are
going to reproduce and also for their great, great grandchildren.
 |
| (On Phone) with other SC Rights Activists |
Our days are
running out that is why they become an integral part of the struggle. It is in
the same light that I see our women and girls and keep telling them that they
should not just see themselves as supporters of the men in this struggle. They
should see themselves as partners, different from supporters. The Southern
Cameroonian youths are therefore an integral part of the struggle. For in
reality the struggle is to build a better future for them and the next
generation and so they must not give up.
We
have witnessed killings when the protests started and now we are witnessing
destruction of property. Who do you think is responsible?
That should not even be
an issue. Those markets and schools cannot be compared to one single Divine
Sumbela who was shot dead and those killed in Southern Cameroons. Those markets
and institutions that are being burnt down cannot measure to a Julius Ngundi,
an Ekang Zacharia, a Philip Tete, or
Richard Fomuso. They are nothing. You can replace those things but you can’t
replace any of these men who have been killed. So let our people talk about
those who have been killed than talk about things that are replaceable.
You
are author of more than one book, could we share your inspiration?
I wrote Smiling
through Hardship which I am trying to update. There is also Heads
Without Hearts written by my cousin Professor Samuel Kale Ewusi. I am
expecting that others would be able to write about me. That is what is to
happen. Let them not wait for me to die. Those who are brave can write about
me.
I
was told people are even afraid to meet you. What do you think accounts for
this?
I know people are
afraid of me and even to take pictures with me. I know I am even worse than the
OsamBen Laden who is dead. That is not even a problem. People were scared of
associating themselves with Albert Mukong at one time in the Southern
Cameroons.
You don’t talk about him. If any child who mentioned that name
someone would say that man is very dangerous. Don’t call that name. At the end
of the day he became the one everybody wanted to go closer to. People were
afraid of Ernest Oundie, Oum Nyobe, Felix Moumie and others. People were scared
of talking about Nelson Mandela. That is how the world is.
Now everybody wants
to say like Mandela. They forget that Mandela planted bombs. He encouraged even
the sabotage at that time because it was needed. I am not worried about that. I
know what people would write as epitaph on my grave. But the people will
conclude. They are going to say there once lived a very small man, very
physically few, but who carries the heart of billions of people.
How
soon are we going to have the independence of the Southern Cameroons which
majority of SC seem to want restored?
The duration for us to
have independence would depend on how much we have invested in the struggle as
individuals and as a people. I cannot be precise to say in 3 days or 4 days. If
I make that kind of calendar for independence it means I am mad. We can know
when to begin if we have the means. You have heard about burnings here and
there. Do you know what is going on and where it is coming from?
Activists
are accusing the regime and the regime is saying it is the handy work of extremists?
 |
| Making a point to Bar Shey Blaise |
The annexationist
regime is accusing the pacifist people of Southern Cameroons as extremist on
what bases? Have you not heard that the greatest extremist was Jesus Christ?
Have you ever head somebody asking you to love your enemy? Do well to those who
despise you.
I am an extremist for
freedom. It means I will do whatever it takes even until death to ensure that
my people are free. Paul Biya is an extremist for domination and annexation. He
is prepared to kill our people, take away our electricity and our water as he
took our internet. He is ready to go to anyway to make sure that we know that
he calls the shots and that we are his slaves.
Issa Tchiroma is an extremist
for lies telling. That is the absolute negative part of extremism. Every one of
us has character traits of extremism it depends how you exhibit it. You can
have extremism for the better good of the people or for negative things. I
always tell our people not to bother on what they would be called but on what
they think about themselves. So we should not go and defend our homeland
because someone would say they are extremists or terrorists? Another man’s
terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.
END
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