Armed conflict in NW, SW conflict: Don’t arrest, kidnap parents of suspected separatists, soldiers.

The crisis, no doubt, has smeared the image of the country with some of the most primeval and primitive atrocities.

As this daily reported yesterday, for over a week, more than 50 men and women have been arrested, kidnapped and held incommunicado by both the military and separatists in Bamali village in Ndop, Ngoketunjia Division of the North West Region.

According to the inhabitants, soldiers stormed the village on Thursday July 25 and whisked away two women.

One of the women is said to be the mother of an alleged Amba fighter, while the other is reported to be his wife. The military is quoted as saying they would only be released if the Amba fighter in question surrenders. 

The strategy, considered as a violation of the human rights of the two, has however backfired as in retaliation, a group of Amba fighters reportedly launched an attack on the families whose children are members of defence and security forces.

Witnesses said the fighters moved from one house to the other on Friday July 26, kidnapping parents, mostly mothers and wives of defence and security forces, who hail from Bamali village. 

They warned that they shall only free those they kidnapped after the defence and security forces must have released the mother and wife of their colleague.

Several sources in the village have revealed that they are unable to communicate with either those arrested or kidnapped, since they were whisked away.

"All of their phones have been switched off. We haven't received any calls, even from those who kidnapped them. We don't know what they want. The whole family is worried because we don't even know if they are safe or not," a family member of one of the concerns, who did not want to be named, said.

There have been multifarious identical incidents in the past. On Tuesday April 24, 2018, Agbor Ruth Ayuk, the mother of Anglophone activist, Mark Bareta, based in Belgium, was arrested by police in Buea.

Police reportedly asked Agbor Ruth Ayuk to produce her son, Mark Bareta, whom the government had placed on a wanted list. 

She was also accused of sponsoring the rise of the Anglophone crisis with money sent by Mark Bareta.

On August 2, 2019, the 80-year-old mother and sister of Chris Anu, President of one of the factions of the pipe-dreamed Interim Government of the putative Ambazonia Republic, were arrested and detained at the Secretariat of State for Defence, SED, before being transferred to the Yaounde Kondengui maximum security prison. They were freed after a trial at the Mfoundi High Court.

Again, in October 2021, the pregnant former girlfriend of one of the late separatist self-styled General No Pity was arrested in Buea.

She was later freed after serving 18 months in prison where she gave birth. She was left off the hook by the Buea Military Tribunal on February 15 last year.

There are numerous news reports of similar cases where parents and even family members have been arrested for not calling their children in the bushes and caves to order.

The Guardian Post which advocates non-violence in resolving disputes supports the idea of fighters laying down their arms and the Regions demilitarised.  

Many parents have no control over their grouchy boys in the bushes or in the diaspora committing the heinous crimes in the Regions.

When Mark Bareta's mother was arrested, for instance, he took to the media, saying: “She has numerous times over the years requested that I slow down but came to the conclusion that I am responsible for my own actions”.

Chris Anu in reaction to the arrest of his mother and sister, said "…now we know who has been kidnapped in the name of Amba Boys".

Such arrests of parents and detentions of family members of the separatist warlords have instead been a boomerang, attracting vitriolic criticisms as a violation of human rights.

While The Guardian Post is critical of the CPDM government for the arrest of parents or family members of notorious separatist fighters, in the same vein we are diametrically opposed to the kidnapping of family members whose children are serving in the defence and security forces.

Such tit-for-tat policies make innocent civilians in the two Regions live in fear, or flee to become internally displaced or are languishing in refugee camps, which the government should discouraged.

This story was first Published in The Guardian Post issue N0:3192 of Wednesday August 07, 2024