The Post (Buea)
NEWS
October 3, 2006
Posted to the web October 3, 2006
By Chris Mbunwe, Peterkins Manyong & Pegue Manga
In Buea, police pulled down a flag that was hoisted at the government practising primary school Molyko flagpole. The headmaster of the school, Chief Elongo Kombe, is said to have called the police who lowered the flag, but no arrests were made as the activists reportedly went unnoticed. SCNC activists also succeeded in hoisting flags at Atuakom and Mulang Quarters in Bamenda. The flag in Mulang was mounted near the office of the fire brigade. The largest flag, The Post learnt, was hoisted at St. John's Church where John Ngu Foncha was buried. According to SCNC supporters, the flag was hosted in honour of the late statesman.
Out of Bamenda, The Post gathered, two flags were hoisted in Tubah: Bambui and Bambili, where suspects were reportedly arrested, and one in Bamendankwe. In Bamendankwe, it is said the Mezam County Chairman, Emmanuel Muma, read the SCNC National Chairman's Independence Day address after the singing of the Southern Cameroons National anthem.
Six flags were reportedly also hoisted in Bafut. In Bui, The Post was told, a flag was hoisted near the SDO's residence early in the morning. It was brought down by security forces at 2.35 pm. There, it was said, a hunt for SCNC activists was underway. In Nkambe, a demonstration followed the hoisting of flags. Before October 1, it is alleged that four people were arrested reportedly on instructions of the DO, Simon Achu.
In Bamenda, security forces took positions in various private radio houses and keenly followed and recorded broadcasts. A contingent of police also took positions at the Bamenda Food Market where an SCNC flag was hoisted last year, but there was no repeat performance. Unlike what transpired last year, soldiers in trucks were also on patrol.
Meanwhile, at 10 a.m, police arrested Kingsley Njoka, the Bamenda Bureau Chief of the Catholic tabloid, L'Effort Camerounais. He was later released at 3 p.m on the same day. According to Njoka, he saw a police van parked at Mile 2, Nkwen, with three men sitting inside. "I thought they were arrested SCNC activists. I pulled out my camera and shot the first picture. Then a police officer pounced on me, asking why I had snapped his picture. He seized the camera and other gadgets and they frogmarched me to the Bamenda Central Police Station where I was detained briefly and released at 3 p.m and all my gadgets were given back."
At the Central Police Station, the Provincial Chief for National Security for the Northwest, Commissioner Joachim Mbida, told the press that Njoka did not behave like a responsible pressman. He said the journalist had no right to shoot photographs of the police. He described the situation in Bamenda as calm, because there was no confrontation with the activists.
Searching For Activists
On the search conducted in the homes of suspected activists, the Commissioner said the Mezam State Counsel instructed them. "At the home of Nfor Nfor and Thomas Nwanchan, who is another faction leader, we collected incriminating materials but arrested nobody. My elements and I have succeeded in maintaining peace, thanks to their collaboration," Mbida said. He regretted that the SCNC Northern Zone Chairman, Hitler Mbinglo, escaped from his house several days ago, abandoning his car on the road.
"He heard of our coming and escaped thinking we were coming to arrest him. No, we were only assigned to conduct a search, and wherever we went we presented search warrants signed by the State Counsel for Mezam." Mbida made a mockery of Mbinglo saying he is chicken hearted. "He escaped and his militants were now confused as to what to do. I congratulate somebody like Nwancham who surrendered himself to us and after we searched his office and collected what we were looking for. He followed us to our office and volunteered a statement and left," Mbida said.
Activists In Hiding
Apart from Nfor Nfor, who is reported to have left Cameroon for Geneva a week ago, other local leaders have disappeared for fear of arrest and torture.Four days to October 1, armed policemen and gendarmes ransacked the home of Nfor Nfor at Ntabesi quarters in Nkwen, and that of Francis Tatah, an artist who used to print SCNC T-shirts. Before security men stormed Tatah's workshop at Rendezvous Quarters, he had got wind and escaped. Meanwhile, six fierce-looking policemen have been keeping vigil at the residence of Mbinglo, SCNC Northern Zone Chairman, at Mile 2, Nkwen, with a pick-up van stationed at the entrance. Mbinglo told The Post by phone on Friday, September 29, that he would not return home. "My car is parked there and I know they are waiting to arrest and keep me in prison alongside others before October 1. Nobody knows where I am now," he said. The octogenarian Chief Ayamba Ette Otun, SCNC National Chairman, wrote his anniversary speech from a hideout. At the residence of Nfor Nfor, The Post learnt that the forces of law and order carted away a computer, other electronic gadgets and SCNC literature. Three weeks ago, five SCNC officials, including the Assistant National Organising Secretary, Fidelis Chinwko ,and the Financial Secretary, Emmanuel Emi, amongst others, were arrested, tortured and later transferred from the Gendarmerie Legion at Up-station to the Bamenda Central Prison.
As of September 30, troops had been deplored at strategic points in Bamenda and other major towns in the Northwest Province on instructions from SDOs.
SCNC National Chairman's Message
Chief Ayamba, in a four-page message on the 45th anniversary, appealed to Southern Cameroonians to remain steadfast and committed, despite intimidation, arrests and torture inflicted on them. He said the Southern Cameroons legitimate struggle for the restoration of the statehood and national sovereignty is a struggle for democracy and human excellence.
"It is a struggle for the triumph of justice over injustice, human equality over inequality, goodness over evil, light over darkness, progress over backwardness and stagnation and human dignity over human bondage. It is the struggle for better humanity for which this generation of Southern Cameroons should be proud of their contribution to human freedom and global peace and justice."
By courageously embarking on this struggle, Chief Ayamba says they are determined to guarantee to their descendants their inalienable rights to legitimate inheritance of the Southern Cameroons land. He says Southern Cameroonians must be masters of their own destiny and architects of their history. "We must not be footstool of other people. We must not live in the backyard of other people," Ayamba declared.Still, according to Ayamba, "no people or nation surrenders to extinction and foreign domination. To surrender to this evil, he continued, is to betray humanity and disobey the will of God to man."
"The Southern Cameroons is the only piece of land on this planet which God in His infinite wisdom, gave to Southern Cameroonians," he said.He held that their cause will see the light of day. "Many a great nation has sacrificed to dispossess foreign aggressors, to be masters of their land and destiny." In courage and sweat, he added that such countries "emerged from being the footstool of foreign occupiers of their lands and became the respectable masters of their lands and destiny."
Chief Ayamba stated that the SCNC struggle for independence is progressing nationally and internationally. This year, he said, the SCNC made remarkable progress both at home and abroad.
Aggressive Diplomatic Offensives
The anniversary message said SCNC representatives have continued to participate in international fora within which intensive lobbying have been taking place. "As was the case last year... Southern Cameroons is present at the reformed and upgraded UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. At this session as will be during the 3rd session in November, we will continue to lobby and press for preventive diplomacy to save West Africa, which is still bleeding due to woes of war from another bloodbath," the message read.He said SCNC leaders will aggressively ensure Southern Cameroons voice is heard everywhere, internationally, especially as the Eighth General Assembly will soon meet in Taiwan.
The struggle to put Southern Cameroons back on the map of Africa, according to Ayamba, is three-fold, namely: aggressive diplomatic offensive, litigation at the African Commission in Banjul and international football competitions. While waiting for the ruling on the merit, he said, "Southern Cameroons National Team, SC13, is up for aggressive political soccer to tell the world that Southern Cameroons is here to stay as an equal to other sovereign nations."
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