Editorial: NGARBUH Final- Facts That Beat Yaoundé’s Arguments
It is common criminal behavior that when caught pants down, culprits instinctively make desperate but unreasonable excuses in a bit to escape responsibility for the crime. That was the case of the Cameroon Ministry of Defense when the army almost wiped out the small village of Ngarbuh on Valentine’s Day, February 14, 2020. Governor Lele L’Afrique and his chain of commanders who okayed the attack had planned for the village to be wiped out unnoticed.
The raiding forces and armed Fulani marauders swept through every house in Ngarbuh 2 and 1, robbing the natives of cellphones, money and other valuables. Without their cellphones, there was going to be no means for the people to document and report the massacre. This was thought possible because of the remote nature of Ngarbuh 1. The charred corpses, in Yaoundé’s naïve thinking, were going to be buried incognito, and the case classified while they still lived. However, they were embarrassed when images of the gruesome massacre started trending social media platforms within hours of the attack. The Yaoundé cabal was so embarrassed that it took them several days to react. Sadly, their reactions were babbled. They were simply caught pants down.
CNA has been investigating the facts of the massacre and proving the uncoordinated statements made by the desperate regime of President Paul Biya. Today, our investigators bring to scrutiny their argument that there were armed groups dressed in Cameroon military fatigues to confused people and tarnish the image of its army. We will marshal two witnesses inherent in this army’s unprofessional strategy to dismiss this argument and to put the responsibility right on the shoulders of government forces.
Communication Minister used a statement “Moreover, it should be noted that in their criminal operations against the populations who don’t support their cause, and against our Defence and Security Forces, armed gangs use cover-up techniques aimed at creating confusion among 7 these populations and the general public, by wearing military uniforms, so as to impersonate the Cameroonian Armies”
The first fact is the unusual comradery, assumed in this lame argument, that existed for this attack between the Separatist fighters also known as the “Amba Boys” and the Fulani militia. A common truth reported by all objective investigators of the Ngarbuh massacre is that the attackers were armed men dressed in Cameroon military fatigues and several Fulani men armed with machetes and knives including former Amba Boys. There are several antecedent incidences in which the Cameroon government forces armed militia to kill the people of the North West and southwest regions and raze their villages. They would loot together, including almost all the cattle that native cattle farmers used to have. The necessary contributing factors have not yet been met to create precedence where Amba Boys would dress in Cameroon military uniforms, and equip Fulani militia to go and attack Amba Boys. This makes no sense at all. The men in uniform were none other than the so-called professional army of Cameroon.
A second witness to the fact that the men in military uniform were Cameroon government forces, is the military briefings which they gave to the local populations after the carnage. While the armed men in military uniform were killing from house to house at Ngarbuh, two other squads of the same composition were unleashing terror on the people of Ngarbuh 2 and 1. When the killers joined their comrades up at Ngarbuh 2, and after having their fill of the looting and torturing of the people, they brought the population together and addressed them.
They started by identifying themselves as elements of the Rapid Intervention Unit of the Cameroon army, BIR. A victim testified that the military identified themselves as BIR. They advised the population of Ngarbuh 2 to ask their boys to lay down their arms and come out from the bushes within three days. They warned that in the event of failure, they should evacuate Ngarbuh within the same period or face extermination. It was then that they alluded to what they had just done at Ngarbuh, calling it a pinch of their power to kill. Indeed, for those who still doubt the fact that the Cameroon military killed at Ngarbuh, this particular military told the people during this briefing that they have killed some women and children “down there”, in the words of a witness. They promised to do worse if the population does not cooperate with them. They also asked the local population to form a vigilante group that will report to them (military) the presence and movements of Amba Boys in their part of the village.
They held similar meetings with the population of Ngarbuh 1 and Ntumbaw. We want to give attention to the meeting at Ntumbaw for its particular significance. This was the last meeting the men in uniform and armed Fulani militia held with the population. When they arrived back at Ntumbaw, they gathered the population at the old market square. It was about 11 am. A former Amba Boy, Mr. Nfor Marcel, alias Bullet, addressed the population on behalf of the military. He was clad in Cameroon military (BIR) fatigues. The particular significance of this meeting was that Marcel revealed his identity to his Ntumbaw folks. He unmasked himself before addressing them. “At that time”, said one of the audiences, “We had not yet heard about what they had done at Ngarbuh”. Marcel said he has been coming to Ntumbaw masked, but he was now going to address them without a mask. Standing in the middle of the crowd, and surrounded by BIR with their fingers on the triggers and militia masked and armed with machetes, he addressed the people who all knew him: ”It was not difficult to know that those with masks and machetes were Fulani”, said a witness. They are slim built and light and skin betrayed them.
Marcel told them about how he used to fight as an Amba Boy and explained to the people the stupidity of the anglophone struggle. “He gave us three days to bring the Amba boys from the bushes to lay down their arms”, said another eyewitness. “He also threatened”, said another witness, that if anybody attempts to retaliate by attacking his family, (his wife and parents are in Ntumbaw) they will come back and do to the whole village worse than they have done at Ngarbuh. He and the other soldiers, after the address, got into the military vehicle and left for Ndu, while the Gendarmes who had come to Ntumbaw several days before the attack, went back to their place at the Baptist Parish in Ntumbaw where they have been staying by force from when they came to this village.
In the light of these witnesses, what can we make of Yaoundé’s claim that there were armed groups wearing Cameroon military fatigues intended to cause confusion and tarnish the image of the military? What sense does it make, in the light of these meetings with the population, to suggest that the men in Cameroon military fatigues were nonstate armed groups? When have the restoration forces of Ambazonia begun asking Amba Boys to lay down their arms and come out from the bushes, else they will be killed? What logic is there in Amba Boys gathering populations and asking them to form vigilante groups in order to report the movements and activities of Amba Boys to them? How on earth will the elements of the Gendarmerie stationed at Ntumbaw, who killed whoever is suspected of being an Amba Boy, accompany nonstate armed groups in a military operation? They are not comrade in arms. They are the strangest bedmates one could ever imagine. Do we also suppose that the Cameroon government has started providing Amba Boys with military vehicles? How could they have entered a military vehicle and drove off to Ndu firing gunshots into the air? Or, has the Yengo Commission leased Mr. Nfor Marcel to operate in Cameroon military attire for Amba Boys, under the protection of the military?
These questions show the extent to which the despairing Yaoundé cabal is confused. More than that, the questions give us a glimpse of the extent to which the Biya regime is stupefying itself before the national and international community. To advance the argument that nonstate groups clad in military fatigues may perhaps be true in some rare cases. Amba Boys kill and take away military fatigues from fallen soldiers. Interestingly, they look awkward when they put such attire on. This notwithstanding, it is impossible, in the case of Ngarbuh, that these men were Amba Boys. It blows our minds when a beggarly politician of the failed political party, the Social Democratic Front, tries to make political capital of this argument. It makes him, and those like him, just as foolish as their would-be benefactors in Yaoundé whose desperation to conceal genocide robs them of all rationality.
Yaoundé was simply caught pants down. They uncomfortably ignored it for several days after the massacre, hoping that Ngarbuh was going to die a Pinyin death. By the way, Pinyin will never die. The blood of every Anglophone will be investigated sooner than later. Suddenly, the political junta in Yaoundé broke its silence, and prattled several times in a few days, when they noticed that the world was not going to stop talking about the massacre. Strangely, their several, quick successive rantings made worse of them than the silence which they had tried to maintain in the first place. Ngarbuh bears the tomb print of the Cameroon military. Its trademark is killing babies in their diapers; roasting the old in their sleep; shooting and killing pregnant women, nursing mothers, and their babies, and harmless citizenship carrying peace plants and chanting: “No Violence”. Each time they are caught in a crime, and their crimes are countless, their Yaoundé commanders fight to protect them. They need this primitive and inhumane military to perpetuate their corrupt regime. Once more, this military has been caught pants down. All arguments to avoid responsibility, including the nursery school type argument that there were nonstate armed groups in Cameroon military fatigues, crumble like a wall of sand.
We raised the first alert on the Ngarbuh massacre and we know what we are talking about.
Cameroon News Agency
