Who Took Up Arms, Drew First Blood?
In an indirect response to CPP’s Edith Kah Walla’s insinuation of Ambazonians taking up arms against Soldiers, former Advocate General at the Supreme Court, Barrister Ayah Paul Abine, has argued that those who picked up arms simply did so for self defense after Soldiers retaliated in a peaceful protests, by shooting civilians with Olive branches. Government forces drew the first blood.
His reaction comes barely 24 hours after the National Chairperson of the Cameroon People’s Party, CPP, Edith Kah Walla said that Anglophones who decided to fight the government with arms were wrong to have done so. She further stated that she will never support secession but is for federalism.
Her outing on Sunday precedes that of last week at the George Washington University in which she said Activists in the Diaspora played on the naivety of Southern Cameroonians, telling them that the UN had stationed troops ready to grand them independence.
He outing was not well digested by Ambazonians who expressed their dissatisfaction by taking to social media to pour out their anger.
TAKE UP ARMS-Ayah Paul Abine
It is a celebrated fact that Camerouoon is often the world leader in the negative: corruption; state terrorism (violence); extra-judicial killings; inertia; DISTORTION OF HISTORY; and you name the rest!
And so did it come to pass that events in English Cameroon of only just yesterday are already being narrated today in new-fangled utterances. Naturally, we who didn’t go too far in scholarship can only raise queries for persons of great erudition to direct us. Yet does it seem that the law allows us to express ourselves in ignorance and/or dullness.
Banking on that, we do recollect, however vaguely, that the Anglophones marched on September 22, 2017, with ‘olive’ branches without anyone bearing the most rudimentary weapon but for one or two very elderly women with walking sticks – the third legs for support in the third age. We did watch on television how it all went peacefully all through.
On their way home in the evening, however, were the peaceful marchers attacked unprovoked, with fatalities resulting. We hold a report by the Catholic bishops of the Bamenda Ecclesiastical Province to the effect that some of the said unarmed peaceful marchers were massacred by bullets fired from helicopter gunships.
Within days was Buea under military invasion/occupation in anticipation of the further peaceful marches projected for October 1, 2017. The military did not even wait for the appointed date to start abductions couched in the euphemism ‘mass arrests’. Undeterred, the people still came out on October 1, 2017, but in the same peaceful manner without any weapons. This was now followed by open massacres, including breaking into houses and abducting the occupants or some of them. Shooting to kill on sight became arrogant, aggressive and systematic…
Aggressively and violently pushed against the wall, some persons began to fight back. We would not require anyone to argue for or against the principle of SELF-DEFENCE. All we can and do assert is that violence was consistently from one side up to this point in time: and the belligerent party is absolutely EVIDENT!
Operations on the field were soon transformed into the systematic killing of Anglophones, especially the young, and the burning down of Anglophone villages. One of the first villages in the long line was Kembong about the month of December, 2017, followed by Kwakwa… The situation went from the fry pan to the fire when, on his return from Abidjan, (was it?), the President of the Republic ‘declared war’, reading through some piece of paper right at the airport!
GOD KNOWS IN THE MINUTEST DETAIL WHAT HAS TRANSPIRED SINCE THEN!!!
Therefore are we the dull; we the ignorant; we the half-educated ever at sea when the clever, the erudite and the descendants of King Solomon use the phrase TAKE UP ARMS with reference to the very unarmed peaceful marchers!!!
Who took up arms in the first place? Do ‘olive’ branches – ‘peace plants’ – meet the definition of ARMS? We were taught at our low level of scholarship about SELF-DEFENCE and the proportionality that does ground it.
Could someone explain these things to us in extra-mural terminology; in all honesty, disinterestedly, and in objectivity in order to dispel our doubts, please?
DO YOU KNOW WHAT?
IT HURTS TO ADD SALT TO INJURY!!!
HOME TRAINING!