Open letter to separatist leaders, Amba fighters.

My dear brothers & sisters,

I write to you on bended knees, not as a politician or as someone blind to the pain that has befallen our people, since the outbreak of the crisis in the North West and South West Regions, in October 2016, but as one who also wears your shoe. 

Our genuine concerns carried moral weight and got the attention everywhere. 

But nine years on, I appeal to your consciences; pause and review what has become of our people and communities.

Our people have become poorer, hungrier, more traumatised and lost. The same people you set out to fight for are today refugees and Internally Displaced Persons, IDPs, many of whom can barely survive. 

Is this how they lived before the crisis erupted in 2016, and morphed into an armed conflict in 2017? Certainly not. 

Milking the people, maiming and killing them in the name of fighting for freedom has only taken us into the abyss. We seem to be committing more errors than the ones we set out to correct.

The balance sheet of “the struggle” shows we are on the losing end educationally, economically and socially. Among other indices, we are by far worse off than we were before 2016. 

It is unimaginable that we, the once proud, respected and civilised Anglophones, are the ones destroying ourselves, in the name of "struggle for independence".

Make no mistake! Anglophones are paying a huge price for a course they were made to believe would better their situation. 

It is time to stop the bloodbath and indiscriminate destruction. Consider the past, present and reimagine the future. It is not too late to stop the violence.

My dear brothers & sisters,

We have lost an entire generation through school boycotts. We have crippled our businesses and other things that made us who we are supposed to be. Anglophones, in broad daylight, have been robbed of education, which was their mainstay and pride. 

Renowned schools like Sacred Heart College, Our Lady of Lourdes, Saker Baptist College, CPC Bali, Sasse College, CCAS Kumba, CCAST Bambili, Bishop Rogan College, St. Augustine College, Progressive, Nacho and Longla Comprehensive Colleges...have become a shadow of themselves.

In addition, some of the best teachers these schools boasted of, have fled the armed conflict to Francophone Regions, where their services are better remunerated.

Anglophones were not meant to be living like slaves or fugitives in their land. Let us allow our people to breathe and thrive again.

Is killing ourselves, traumatising or turning our people into instruments of cruelty, the ultimate price for their independence? Certainly not.

Let us look at the mirror, and ask ourselves if, honestly, this is the freedom, they were promised at the start of the crisis.

How has the kidnapping or killing of teachers, pupils, students, medics, parents, priests, traders, uniformed officers and children, improved the situation of Anglophones? 

We have sunk into untold suffering and despondency. 

Again, why will it not be so, when for more than nine years, we have imposed on our people Monday ghost towns and lockdowns that have no bearing on the "struggle for Anglophone independence".

My dear brothers & sisters,

We kidnap and slaughter our own brothers and sisters at the slightest delay of ransom payment; yet, to bury their remains, the concerned families must pay a "funeral tax" to the fighters!

I am afraid given what Anglophones have lived in the hands of Amba fighters, 99.9% of them would vote to stay in a one and indivisible Cameroon, if a referendum were to be organised today.

Will history smile at us all for the toll of this conflict? Let us opt to right the wrongs now and escape living in regrets, by embracing the path of peace.

If you truly love Anglophones and are fighting to better their situation, prove it by abandoning anti-people strategies.

Let us engage peaceful methods to overcome oppression, instead of perpetuating harm. 

I rest my appeal with this quote of renowned Indian lawyer and ethicist, Mahatma Gandhi: "I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent”.

Yours sincerely,

Kristian Ngah Christian

Publisher/Editor-in-Chief,

The Guardian Post