Published as received, By The Independentist News editorial desk
A HEARTFELT APPEAL TO THE AMBA FIGHTERS: our people shouldn’t be the victims
My brothers, I appeal to your conscience and humanity. Mbumland is our home. Ndu, Nkambe, and the entire Donga-Mantung Division belong to all of us. The ordinary villagers you are taking hostage are not your enemies. They are our fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, children, farmers, and traditional leaders.
What freedom are we fighting for when our own people cannot sleep peacefully in their homes, travel freely, cultivate their farms, attend to their businesses, or celebrate their traditions?
Our villages are not battlefields. Our mothers should not live in fear. Our children should not grow up watching their parents being humiliated, abducted, or threatened. If the struggle is for the liberation of our people, then our people must never become its victims. I appeal to you:
Stop taking innocent villagers hostage especially teachers, Stop threatening traditional rulers and community leaders. Allow farmers to go to their farms without fear. Respect the elderly, women, children, and other vulnerable members of our communities. Release all innocent people currently being held. Allow our communities to live, work, and pursue peace.
You may have your grievances against the government, but ordinary villagers should not pay the price for those grievances. History will remember not only what people fought for but also how they treated their own people along the way. Mbumland deserves peace. Donga-Mantung deserves dignity. Our people deserve to live. Let us not destroy the very communities we claim to be fighting for.
I am appealing to you as a son of this land: Put down the hostility against our own people. Let our villages breathe again.
ENOUGH OF THE SUFFERING OF INNOCENT MBUM PEOPLE!
Prince Lesly Nformi
Parliamentary aspirant
Rebbutal/Response from Kemita Ashu
An Open Reply to Prince Lesly Nformi
Prince Lesly Nformi, your letter is not a heartfelt appeal. It is a betrayal dressed up as concern.
You write to the Amba Fighters as if they are the problem in Mbumland. You dare to lecture the very men who left their farms, their schools, their families and their futures to pick up arms to defend our motherland, while you prepare yourself to sit in the parliament of La République du Cameroun — the same regime that declared war on us.
Let us remind you of the truth you deliberately chose to forget.
It was not the fighters who declared this war. In 2017, Paul Biya flew in from Abidjan and declared war on Southern Cameroonians at the airport. Since that day, it is the soldiers of French Cameroun who have invaded our territory to cause havoc. They are the ones who burn our villages, kidnap, torture, intimidate and mutilate bodies as they did in Ngarbuh. They are the ones who break into homes and businesses, extort the population, rape our girls and women, and force our people to flee to neighbouring countries in fear.
Our fighters did not start this. They rose up because our people had no one else to protect them.
These are not criminals. These are patriot combatants. They are noble men of valour who stand on the frontline every day so that you can still have a village to call home, so that you can still dream of becoming a parliamentary aspirant.
Yes, in every war there are rogue elements. That happens in every war situation in the world. But you take the actions of a few and use them to smear the whole liberation struggle, while you say nothing — absolutely nothing — about the daily atrocities committed by the invading forces you want to serve.
Where was your heartfelt appeal when Ngarbuh was massacred? Where was your appeal when our villages were burnt to ashes? Where was your appeal when our mothers were raped and our children could no longer go to school because of fear? You were silent then. Now you find your voice only to blame the defenders and to polish your image for elections in Yaounde.
Do not pretend you are speaking for Mbumland. Mbumland knows who its defenders are. Donga-Mantung knows who bleeds for it. Our people know the difference between those who fight for liberation and those who collaborate for personal political ambition.
If you truly loved Mbumland, you would stand with those defending it, not attack them to please your masters in LRC. You would condemn the occupier, not the protector. You would refuse to take part in elections organized by the very regime killing our people.
You call yourself a son of this land, but a true son does not side with the invader against his own brothers. A true son does not seek power in the parliament of the enemy while his people are being slaughtered.
The fighters are not the enemy of Mbumland. The traitor is the man who wants to represent the occupier while blaming the liberators.
History will indeed remember how people treated their own people. And history will remember you as the man who chose Yaounde over Mbumland, who chose a parliamentary seat over the dignity of his people, and who chose to blame patriots instead of confronting the real aggressors.
Our fighters are defending our motherland. You are betraying it.
Shame on you!
Kemita Ashu
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