For instituting violence, the untold fallouts of the Anglophone crisis.

Violence as defined by the World Health Organisation is "the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person or against a group or community, which either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment, or deprivation"

Violence in many forms is preventable. There is a strong relationship between levels of violence and modifiable factors such as concentrated poverty, income and gender inequality, the harmful use of alcohol and the absence of safe, stable, and nurturing relationships among people(s).

Risk Factors for the Perpetration of violence include,
history of violent victimization,
attention deficits, hyperactivity or learning disorders,
history of early aggressive behavior,
involvement with drugs, alcohol or tobacco,
low IQ,
poor behavioral control as well as
deficits in social cognitive or information-processing abilities.

A violent crime or crime of violence is a crime in which an offender or perpetrator uses or threatens to use force upon a victim. This entails both crimes in which the violent act is the objective, such as murder, torture or rape as well as crimes in which violence is the means to an end.

Quoting the Cameroon Government's Emergency Humanitarian Assistance document, the following are sited as violence observed during the ongoing Anglophone crisis.
-Violation of the right to education.
-Disruption of economic activities
-Attacks against members of the defence and security  forces
-Attacks against administrative and traditional authorities
-Conscription of children into militia groups
-Incitement to violence through social media
-Numerous terrorist abuses against the population.

On the other hand, the population continues to report untold abuses perpetrated by the Cameroon military which to them has caused the death of many citizens and the rising number of internally displaced persons and refugees.

Violence must be discouraged because it constitutes a violation of human rights and includes physical, sexual, psychological, emotional, financial and material abuse, abandonment, neglect and serious loss of dignity and respect.

Nine things we should do to Stop Violence are:
√Settle arguments with words, not fists or weapons. Don't stand around and form an audience.
√Learn safe routes for walking in the neighborhood and know good places to seek help.
√Trust your feelings and if there's a sense of danger, get away fast.
√Report any crimes or suspicious actions to the police and authorities. Be willing to testify if needed.
√If someone tries to abuse you, say no, get away, and tell a trusted adult.
√Don't use alcohol and other drugs and stay away from places and people associated with them.
√Stick with friends who are also against violence and drugs and stay away from known trouble spots.
√Get involved to make your quarter safer and better - having poster contests against violence, holding anti-drug rallies, counseling peers and settling disputes peacefully. If there's no program, help start one!
√Help younger  people to avoid being crime victims. Set a good example and volunteer to help with community efforts to stop violence.

                                          Ambe Macmillian A.

Achievements of Nonviolence civil disobedience. Anglophone crisis Cameroon.

WORSENING ANGLOPHONE CRISIS IMPOSING UNTOLD SUFFERING ON LOCALS OF BOTH REGIONS
Very few were those who believed that what started late 2016 as lawyers and teachers’ strike would degenerate to this extent putting the two Anglophone regions on their knees like never before.

Following the peaceful marches carried out by lawyers and teachers trade unions as well as the local population to request for better treatment of Anglophones in the management of public affairs, government took steps to address the issues raised but for the form of the state. It goes without saying that the peaceful nonviolence civil disobedience demonstrated on the 22 of September 2017 paid off.
Among the gains gotten from the peaceful actions are the creation of the National commission for the promotion of bilingualism and multiculturalism, the common law department at ENAM, the Common law bench at the supreme court (headed by an Anglophone-Chief justice Epuli Mathias), the recruitment of 1000 bilingual teachers for government technical colleges, the creation of a school of engineering at the university of Bamenda in Bambili, the appointment of Anglophones to some key government ministries which was never the case before and availing the English version of the OHADA law to the public. Meanwhile government is gradually making an effort to ensure the fair use of both national languages since then. The Head of state’s decrees are now signed both in English and French.

Unfortunately, government’s stance not to negotiate on the form of the state radicalized separatists into picking up arms and wreak havoc on a peaceful people who wanted nothing but an amelioration of their living conditions, better life, social inclusion and not secession.

Separatists imposed what they called “ghost towns” which still continue till date especially on Mondays in the greater part of Anglophone Cameroon. At least 40 schools alongside other public structures and personal property were razed by the separatists in a move they described as civil disobedience. For two years, schools have been hibernating. Parents have been forced to send their kids to neighbouring regions like the West and the Littoral. Some go even as far as Yaoundé depending on where they have relatives ready to host them.

The North West region most especially does not have industries nor companies that provide jobs. The region’s economy hinges mostly on schools business and petit trade. The proliferation of schools here speaks volumes. But since the outbreak of the Anglophone crisis, most of the schools have shut down. Others who have braved the threats from separatists to continue business say their enrollments have dropped to near zero.  The CEO of Saint Louis University institute of health and biomedical sciences, Dr Nick Ngwanyam said in L’Action that “our enrollment has dropped to barely 35%. We think we all have a responsibility to help bring things back to normal. If we continue to stay home in the name of observing ghost towns, then we are the problem.” Most private schools are just a shadow of themselves now in terms of enrollment. At the National Polytech in Bambui, one barely sees a few students. Some of the hostels around the campus which used to be filled with students are all empty now. Some schools proprietors who have been unable to cope with the chaotic situation simply folded up. While their teachers have resorted to bike riding in other to make ends meet.
In areas like Boyo division which is the epicenter of gun battle between armed separatists and the regular army, teachers of schools there have fled to Bamenda with some enrolling into the Bamenda university for further studies.

Deposits in local banks and microfinance institutions is said to have dropped drastically as a result of ghost towns and curfews which prohibit locals from doing business fulltime like before.

According to Dr Nick Ngwanyam “the crisis has dragged for this long because as a people we are not doing things according to principles. We did not tackle the problem on time and it escalated with the use of force on both sides which of course we condemn. The right medicine to a problem has never been force.” He goes further to call on us all to respect life because every life is important. No one should take away the life of another person.

What ever be the case,  I hold firm to the fact that all demands can be achieved without violence.  Many countries in Africa  succeeded witout violence or taking up arms.  It is necessary for us to rather multiply our numbers on the streets to ask for the reforms we desire. It is not too late for us to address the situation.  Ceasefire on both sides and open up for dialogue will bail us out.  The time is Now!
#PeaceIsPossible.

                                        Ambe Macmillian A.

One more step to the wrong direction, we will all be refugees. Do something Now!

Growing up in my Fatherland (Cameroon), the stories about refugees use to sound like something very far from reach.  Today, we are not only hosting refugees, but we also have brothers and sisters registered as refugees across the world.

 

The UNHCR’s records indicate that 20,000 Cameroonians and counting, have fled the country’s North West and South West Regions due to what has become known as the Anglophone crisis. Other figures put it at 43,000 since a good number of them are not registered.

Anglophone Cameroonians began fleeing violence in October 2017 and continue to pour into Nigeria’s Cross River, Taraba, Benue and Akwa-Ibom States.

In total, over 20,000 refugees have been registered in the area. Women and children account for four-fifths of the population.

More than 8,000 refugees have been registered in the southeastern State of Cross River alone, said Antonio Jose Canhandula, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees’ (UNHCR) representative in Nigeria, at a briefing in Abuja.

Aikaterini Kitidi, UNHCR spokesperson, said during a press briefing on 20 March 2018 at Palais Des Nations in Geneva, and I quote, "Most asylum seekers say they are having to drink water from streams, ponds and other unsafe sources, because of inadequate or dysfunctional drinking water facilities.

Essential relief items, such as clothing, blankets and plastic sheeting, are available to fewer than 25 per cent of them.
Only five in every 100 Cameroonians have proper or independent shelter. The rest have little or no privacy, squatting in rooms hosting on average 10 to 15 people. Protection from the cold is lacking, increasing health concerns due to the imminent start of the rainy season."

Going by Cameroon's Minister of Communication, the State of Cameroon is yet to give any assistance to the refugees. So far, we have had some political parties (SDF and CPP) and civil society organizations (Mothers of the Nation,   Stand Up For Cameroon and Ayah foundation) canvassing for support for these refugees and other internally displaced persons.

This increasing number of refugees in the world is as a result of persons who are forced to leave their countries in order to escape war, persecution, or natural disaster.

In 2017, Cameroon hosted a total population of refugees and asylum seekers of approximately 97,400. Of these, 49,300 were from the Central African Republic (many driven west by war), 41,600 from Chad, and 2,900 from Nigeria. Kidnappings of Cameroonian citizens by Central African bandits have increased since 2005.

Between 2004 and 2013, 92,000 refugees from the Central African Republic fled to Cameroon "to escape rebel groups and bandits in the north of their country."

In 2014, Cameroon had an estimated 44,000 refugees from Nigeria. Internal Cameroonian refugees also began to leave areas bordering Nigeria to escape Boko Haram violence, especially following the December 2014 clashes.

As we commemorate this day (20 June),  ask yourself what you have/can contribute to better their situation.

                                          Ambe Macmillian A.

The role of reporters in mitigating and transforming conflicts.

Conflict is not Negative (The way we handle it can either be positive or negative)

Journalists of the Northwest and West regions of Cameroon under the umbrella of Cameroon Community Media Network (CCMN) in partnership with the PCC Peace Office have undergone a 4 day training on "Conflict sensitive reporting" at the Church Center in Bamenda.

The over 50 men and women of the press were and are being drilled on how to report during conflict  periods. The facilitator, Wolfram Metzig-Eisner coordinator of the PCC Peace Office and Ntui Oben, drilled the journalists on
√ Conflict and Violence
√ Conflict Analysis
√ Peace and reporting in times of conflict.
√ Hate speech
√ Communication and mediation.

At the end of this workshop,  journalists are expected to better understand the things to consider when covering conflicts which include
1.  Understanding of a conflict before reporting
2. Understand its underlying causes
3. Understanding the full effects on the people.
4. Consider where you get your "facts".
5. Consider whether your stories are contributing to escalate the conflict.
6. Question self on how to report so as to de-escalate a conflict.

With the above in mind, we will accept the fact that media reports/coverages often contribute in escalating  conflicts.  Sometimes this is desirable, constructive escalation is sometimes the best way for lower-power groups to gain power to effectively advocate for themselves.  But it's proven that often,  escalation gets out of control, and leads to increasing polarization, violence and cost to all the sides.
With such trainings,  journalists are empowered on ways to use their reports to de-escalate conflicts and make them more constructive.

If editors and reporters make choices of what stories to report and how to report them,  that will create opportunities for the society at large to consider and value non-violence responses to conflict.

The first part of this training was from the 11 to the 14 of June. The last part which started on the 18 will be rounding up on the 21st of June 2018.

If the practice of this profession should be Peace/conflict oriented,  then we must use the insights of conflict analysis and transformation to update the concepts of balance, fairness and accuracy in reporting.  Provide a new road map tracing the connections between journalists,  our sources, the stories we cover and take into account the consequences of journalistic intervention.  Build an awareness of non-violence into the practical job of everyday editing and reporting.
#PeaceIsPossible
#NoToViolence

                                           Ambe Macmillian A.

Before you do it, why not think of your Mother, Sister or Daughter?

Last month i identified a victim of domestic violence in the Southwest region of Cameroon.
Harriet died on Saturday May 19, 2018 at the Limbe District hospital. She died with a bald head, after her husband Henry popularly known as Sapeur had pulled off every strand of her hair.

Harriet Zohme Atanga was the sixth child in a family of  seven, from a very DECENT and MODERATE family. She was a mother of five kids. with the youngest 3 years old, and the eldest about 18 years old. From my findings, it was not the first time her husband got her beaten.

 Domestic
violence in particular continues to be frighteningly common in majority if not all homes in Cameroon.

… Two of the most common forms of violence
against women are abuse by intimate male partners and coerced sex, whether it takes place in childhood, adolescence, or adulthood. Intimate partner abuse known as domestic
violence , wife beating, and battering is now the order of the day.

… Violence against women includes rape,
domestic violence, torture, mutilation, murder, and sexual abuse. The impact on health should place the issues prominently in the public health context and should be seen as an obstacle to economic and social development.

Poor women with children who are the victims of domestic violence may rely on public assistance programs, social welfare and the judicial system as a safety net from homelessness and hunger when fleeing violent partners.

This volume on violence against women in Cameroon is directed to policymakers and focuses on primary prevention, legal reform, health care interventions, victim recovery programs and reeducation programs for perpetrators. The success of any program will be dependent on the impact and attention we attach to it.

Violence against women is a universal phenomenon that persists in all countries of the
world, and the perpetrators of that violence are often well known to their victims.

If development means the expansion of human capabilities, then freedom from domestic
violence should be an integral part of any exercise for evaluating developmental progress.

My dear brothers, if you don't love or want a lady again, kindly and quietly pack her out of your house. How do u turn a home which is suppose to be a safe haven for the family into a battle field? Do you ever imagine the trauma you put your children through?  I also call on all the victims not to keep quiet. Denounce it by reporting him when ever it happens.

Do not beat my mum
Do not beat my sister
Do not beat my daughter.
#NoToDomesticViolence
                                       
                                          Ambe Macmillian A.

The Desperation's of our Hero

Imagine for once the state of despair, typically one which results in rash or extreme behaviour staged by a desperate parent before his/her child during an attack in this Cameroon Anglophone crisis. Children often look up to their parents as imaginary or better still mythical being of human form but superhuman in size.
  I share with the pain and frustration of anglophoe parents who because of the crisis are living with the feeling of being upset or annoyed as a result of being unable to change or achieve protection for their children. (Dr. Seuss, writer and a cartoonist quote)
"To the world you may be one person; but to one person you may be the world"
Who should a child really turn to when the chips are down?
As children compare themselves with their peers, they who are proud of their parents see that there is something honourable about how their parents behave and what they have done for them. Their parents have taught them through their actions, reactions, responses, and attitudes towards others and situations.
What then do you expect when you torture a parent before his/her child?
 How will you react or feel if you see your parents (your hero) frightened and desperate, not knowing whether to run left or right in a situation like this?
When a parent appears before his/her child with such a despair, then the child is bound to pay little or no respect to state values. Children who lack self-respect simply don't care about themselves or anyone else. They're less likely to do harmful things, they make good choices known to them, and they tend to act in ways that are in their own best interests.
  The peace the society enjoys, starts from the home governed by parents. #Cameroon should pay meaningful attention to these class of governors who are today in the bushes. #Notoviolence #Peaceispossible

Telling the African Story from an African Perspective

He created an African film industry, Out of nothing! The Senegalese filmmaker Ousmane Sembene (1923–2007). In 1963, with a used 16mm camera and leftover film stock gifts from Europe, Borom Sarret  was born(The Wagon Driver), This is the first African movie made by a black African. Until the independence of French West Africa in 1960, French colonial authorities had made it illegal for Africans to make films of their own, so countries like Senegal had no film equipment, no professional actors, and no funding; Sembene ever the innovative one  used friends and family to put the film together..
In 1966, Sembene made La Noire de … (Black Girl), the first feature film ever released by a sub-Saharan African director; it was awarded France’s prestigious Prix Jean Vigo and put him on the map, to me it is not about the award, its more about  someone had the foresight to think  out of  the box, Film not  only novel,it was a novelty then. He also championed women empowerment, anti corruption !Yet,the award made him a mainstay on the festival circuit. From there, his profile rose. With the politically charged epics Xala (1975), Ceddo (1977), and Camp de Thiaroye(1987), he created some of the most beautiful films of all time, courtingand inviting both controversy and acclaim and ensuring that African cinema had a place on the world stage. Ceddo was so inflammatory it was banned in some African countries for its depiction of strife between Muslims and Christians. Thiaroye, about a colonial-era massacre of African troops by the French, was banned in France but won six awards at the 1987 Venice Film Festival. Sembene’s devastating final film, Moolade, about female genital mutilation, won the Un Certain Regard award at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival.
Sembene! It’s a documentary about the filmmaker’s eventful life — he grew up in a family of fishermen on the shores of the Casamance River in rural Senegal, living a life of what he termed “daily vagrancy.” Kicked out of school for insubordination, uninterested in fishing and wanting to see the world, he stowed away to France. While hustling as a dockworker in Marseilles in the 1950s , he wrote his first novel, out of a desire to see the Africa that he knew depicted in literature. When he turned to cinema in the 1960s, it became a vital link for him between the oral cultures of his youth and the timely political issues of his day.
About his style, his films often start off in simple, fablelike ways, but they proceed to ask complex, troubling  questions about identity and tribal, spiritual, and political allegiance. These are serious films about serious subjects, call it act house or what you will, but thanks to Sembene's poetic style of storytelling,Oh yea , he never wrote poetry, but his films were poetry in motion, they hover between realism, ritual, and myth. They are, all of them, utterly intoxicating.
But,Sembene is not only an icon because of the fact that he made great arts, Sembene’s Casamanse resembles our Anglophone wahala, there are people who are also fighting for the independence of The Casamance. Therefore, Sembene experience some of the things we are experiencing right now in Cameroon or going through for 52 years. The significance is huge, it calls on us once more to re-examine our identity. Are we Africans first or Anglophone or Francophone first, Is our problem with Francophone or Anglophone or is it about the human condition,Is it  the  system , will it have been better if the Anglophones have the majority and francophones the minority or self actualization the best option. Just like the people in Casamance will be asking themselves too. To me, the power to engage us to reflect about who we are is urgent, the struggle of the African woman, the fight against illicit bias and corruption, this is what the film Sembene offers.
 I was introduced to Sembene by a priest curiously a French priest. He said Young man, what you have written smells cinematically of Sembene, I can feel his aroma all over the words you have written. The crust of my little story was, Let Africans be at the fore front of effecting Change in Africa. This put me at logger heads with my superiors(it still does today,Far from me thinking we can liberate ourselves alone ,but really  this is my fight not yours, you can help me with weapons( like friends helped Sembene with 16mm Camera and that was his weapon), but don’t take part in my war, albeit my war is nonviolent.)So, this priest gifted me XALA, Sembene’s political Satire. However, what got me emphatically into PanAfricanism- I happened upon a novel: God’s Bits of Wood  by Sembene, this was what crystallized my believe in creating a new Africa.The  impact on me was overwhelmingly Strong. The fictional account of a 1947 railroad strike, the book “was the first fiction we read in which Africans were portrayed in a positive light, in which Africans had agency,”  I could feel it. It was as if the call Sembene had made at the beginning of his career — to tell stories of the Africa he knew, to other Africans — had found its ideal response in me. So, Long before Black Panther shattered box office records or Hidden Figures was making waves, the was an  African who had definitely portrayed us in the good. This book had characters like me and like the people  my granny grew up with. It spoke to me directly. It changed my life.This   account for  my stance on Education   Entertainment.
 I want to continue in his foot step but  I don’t want to be him. I just want to follow in his footsteps, in the footsteps of Cameroonian filmmakers like Jean Pierre Bekolo ,whose films have been banned here in Cameroon, yet he is Francophone!. Not only that, Sembene was a militant, a progressive thinker, someone in the trenches — not pontificating in the universities.This is why I strongly think, he is the filmmaker of the’ Street’, for the common man. We can’t have effective decolonization of the arts, when Eurocentric traditions of creating arts are like scientific truth.
 ‘I’m not here to cater to American academics or follow their traditions. If you want to struggle for Africa, the struggle is here.’” This is one of Sembene’s last words, so for me, if we really want to change Africa, it is here not there. Subtly, to really push forward we have to go backwards to gather momentum. Learn from the best we have got right here.
 La Liberte Arts Group gladly welcomes the opportunity to be part of the celebration of this great World class film maker from Senegal in Africa.By learning his style and philosophy, we will continue to bring about effective change in aesthetics and genre of film making that can tell the African Story from an African perspective.
Join us on the 9 of  June at 11 am at The Bamenda City Council Library hall. On the menu:The projection of the film SEMBENE, followed by discussions, Ok, Let me  break it down, the one and only LEONETE will be our guest singer. You don’t want to miss this voice queen , Mottani  the Spoken word artist will be in the building and many more. Time enough for is to start celebrating our own. What brand do u give your own?
                                      Ambe Macmillian A.

Nonviolent civil disobedience, Fridays in Black With SUFC

Members and sympathizers of Stand Up  for Cameroon all over Cameroon staged a powerful show last 02/06/2018.

The first session of intensification of Friday in Black recorded a great success with more than 100

people in black. 85 people took photos in black in six towns in #Cameroon.
 -Maga in the Far North
 -Bafia and Yaoundé at the Center
 -Bamenda North West
 -Buea in the South West
 -Douala in the Littoral

Friday In Black  was the subject of the country. The main reason for this massive participation was to show solidarity to victims in the Northwest and Southwest regions. The Anglophone crisis has forced thousands to the bushes. Those killed(Military and civilians) and internally displaced are also in their numbers. A good number of children (of school going ages) no longer atend school. Women dying as a result of struggling to give birth in the bush.
Stand Up For Cameroon maintains that all we need for this country to gain her stability is Political Transition.

 The coordinators of the movement continue to call on people of goodwill/sympathizers to join them Wear Black Every Friday, which they say is one of the most productive Nonviolent methods to show your disapproval to a repressive regime.

We Needd Political Transition

Yes we can achieve it all without violence. Citizens or Military, we are all human beings suffering from the excesses of One man. All we need now is #PoliticalTransition. #NoViolence. #StandUpForCameroon