Bishops in Cameroon urge peace amid escalating separatist violence

YAOUNDÉ, Cameroon – As separatist conflict continues to escalate in Cameroon’s English-speaking North West and South West regions, Catholic bishops from the two regions have called on the warring parties to down their weapons and engage in dialogue.

In a release at the end of their 76th Ordinary Meeting – taking place August 17-23 – the bishops of the Bamenda Ecclesiastical Province urged God’s people to “work together to restore peace and justice, and to support initiatives that promote safety and stability.”

“Give peace a chance,” the bishops said, and warned that that violence only leads to even more violence.

“Violence begets violence and those who take the sword perish by the sword,” the bishops said, adding “nothing can ever justify the destruction of human life for it is always sacred and inviolable.”

Fighting broke out in Cameroon’s English-speaking regions in 2016 when the government used lethal force against teachers and lawyers in the two English-speaking regions who were protesting against the over-bearing influence of French in Anglo-Saxon schools and courts.

Historical divisions, marginalization, and identity issues are all contributory factors to the ongoing Anglophone Crisis in Cameroon, which has so far killed at least 6,000 people according to the International Crisis Group, and forced more than a million from their homes, with over 70,000 fleeing to Nigeria as refugees.

Historically, Cameroon was divided between British and French administrations, after the Germans – who initially colonized Cameroon – lost World War One.

The British-administered territory, today’s North West and South West, developed distinct legal, educational, and cultural systems. After independence in 1960, the two regions were unified, but tensions persisted due to differing colonial legacies.

Besides these distinct colonial legacies, Anglophones have long felt marginalized by the predominantly French-speaking government. Policies and actions, including the dissolution of the Federal system of government in 1972, increased this sense of discrimination.

All these factors pushed Anglophones to start seeking recognition of their linguistic and cultural rights. The government instead resorted to repression, fueling radicalization.

A cross-section of Anglophones subsequently resorted to the fight for secession, aiming to create a new nation that would be called Ambazonia, and the violence continues.

On August 27, three police officers were killed by suspected separatists in the locality of Bwitingi in the South West region. The same day, a driver in charge of distributing medical supplies for the Special Fund for Health was killed by unidentified gunmen in Bamenda in the North West region.

Victims of the violence often tell harrowing tales of what they’ve been through. Cecilia (not her real name) escaped from separatist captivity, but what she saw still affects her.

“I was kidnapped by separatists in November 2018. They accused me of collaborating with the military,” she told Crux.

“They called me a blackleg, and that had only one outcome: Death,” Cecilia said.

She spent fifteen days in captivity, waiting for the day she would be killed.

“One girl was killed right in front of me. They first raped her in turns, and then slit her neck,” she remembered, tears running down her cheeks.

Between February and December 2020, the United Nations recorded more than 4,300 cases of sexual and gender-based violence in the two regions. Children were victims in approximately 30 percent of these incidents.

One particularly disturbing incident occurred in Ebam, in the South West region, where government soldiers raped 20 women in March 2020. The following year, over 500 cases of rape were documented across both regions.

The bishops said they are “appalled by reports of the torture, extortions, huge losses of life and property, forced displacements, obstruction of the rights to sojourn and movement and other frustrations of the people living in the North West and South West regions.”

The bishops of the Bamenda Ecclesiastical Province – bringing together the dioceses from the two regions – now believe that a viable path to peace can only come through genuine dialogue.

In their August 22 statement signed by the Secretary General of the Province, Father Giles Ngwa Forteh, the bishops called on the faithful “not to allow their hearts to be filled with negative feelings such as hatred and the desire for revenge.”

The bishops also had a word of advice for the perpetrators of violence, calling on them to end violence and “opt for dialogue and justice over passion and to remember the words of Jesus to Saul the persecutor: ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? … I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting’.”

They expressed solidarity with victims of the violence and called for “fervent prayers so that God for whom nothing is impossible, may give peace to his people.”