Nation in shock as video of soldiers torturing Longue Longue emerges.

This follows the popping up of a video showing vocal musician, Longkana Ango Simon, popularly known as Longue Longue, being tortured by 10 men in mufti, who he hasconfirmed as soldiers of the Military Security, known by the French acronym, SEMIL. 

The vocal artiste confirmed the authenticity of the fear-provoking torture video Wednesday, through a video he released, which has also gone viral on social media.

The four minutes 37 seconds torture video, is making the rounds on almost all social platforms. 

It has left the entire nation and the international community in shock and disbelief, as well as provoked outrage that is further dragging the country’s already dampened human rights records in mud. 

The video is believed to have been filmed with a mobile phone, five years back, when Longue Longue was arrested in Douala by security officers in April 2019.

It was filmed as he was apparently being forced to confess to his crime, or to humiliate and punish him. The video shows the artiste, stripped naked with just his underwear and panties, pressed on the floor by able-bodied men and his hands cuffed behind. His legs are stretched in between a dining table chair and smashed by other soldiers while he is administered a snake-like beating by another soldier with the use of a machete, on his bare feet. 

After being administered severe beatings, the artiste, as seen in the video, was forced to jump around the torture room. 

In the video, the artiste is seen and overheard pleading for help and even apologising.

Notwithstanding, he is seen being administered more torture and questioned at torture point to disclose who paid him to compose a critical song against the Head of State, President Paul Biya. 

“I am going to die. Please Commandant. I am sorry Papa Paul Biya,” the artiste is overheard crying out. 

In the same video, the voice of one of the men in the room is overheard asking the artiste: “Who sent you? We know who sent you. Beat him more…”. 

Longue Longue, in agony, kept denying that he was not sent by anyone. “Nobody sent me,” he told the torturers, who apparently got annoyed and meted more beating with a machete on the sole of his feet. 

The voice is also heard asking the artiste about the motivation of his last social media video and who asked him to do it.

Enter Longue Longue 

In an outing yesterday to authenticate the viral torture video, Longue Longue recalled to his followers that he had always told them he was almost killed. 

“In 2019, the Military Security, a group of military men, a group of idiots arrested me barbarically at Sawa Hotel,Douala,” he recounted. 

He added that the soldiers “took me to the military security service and tortured me. Their aim was to kill me the way they killed Martinez Zogo. But when you are a child of God, God always performs miracles. God removed me from the hands of these fellows”. 

Longue Longue said five years after the traumatising incident, “God sent me the video of my torturing. Who could have believed? You people will see live, how a human being was tortured like an animal”. 

The vocal artiste further detailed that: “Ten muscular military men, with machetes, tortured me on the sole of my legs as I cried profusely. This was while their boss was present, well dressed and recording without telling me why they were torturing me just because of my freethinking”. 

The regime critic said the soldiers “are heartless. They don’t have a heart. They were beating me as if I was an animal. No matter how loud I cried, it was not their problem because they were trained to kill”.  

He went further to rhetorically question the number of Cameroonians who have been killed in similar ways or disappeared without public knowledge. 

Longue Longue said he has decided to “file a complaint in Cameroon and in France,” due to what he said is his “very bad experience in Canada” where he “lost everything”.

“People had given me advances for their businesses, but I was forced to reimburse them so that they would not file complaints against me. For long, I have been turning around. I have never had my passport and my Canadian visa,” he recounted. 

Longue Longue called on “rights lawyers, politicians, businessmen and everyone who wants change,” to front for his protection.

“… (This is) because I think I now need to be protected by everyone who wants change, because you need protection to be able to face these criminals,” he stated. 

Flashback on Longue Longue’s arrest 

The artiste, it should be recalled, was arrested for reportedly criticising the regime for arresting vocal opposition politician and National President of Cameroon Renaissance Movement, MRC, Prof Maurice Kamto.

He had in the outing, recognised the MRC leader as winner of the October 7, 2018, presidential election and called for his immediate release. 

Longue Longue had also composed a song loosely translated in English saying: “Papa you are tired, go and rest”. He sang same song on several Facebook live sessions.

On March 29, 2019, had he posted a video headlined: “A bunch of old men”, in which he named some government positions occupied by the old guard.

This article was first published in The Guardian Post Edition No:3269 of Thursday October 24, 2024