Listen to the sorrow of the Kamerunian’s people that you want to divide.
Manidem listened as the rest of the national community the « cry of distress » sent out by the National Episcopal Conference of Cameroon (NECC) in their declaration of May 16, 2018 calling for the end of the violence in the North West and South West.
The Manidem welcomes the constant concern of these God men to bring back peace that is essential to OUR LIVING TOGETHER.
However, the Manidem wishes to draw the attention of the national community about some facts:
1-The promotion of peace does not exempt the kamerunians bishops from taking a position against the secession of Kamerun. It is a patriotic obligation for all Kamerunians!
2-The National Episcopal Conference of Cameroon cannot ignore that the Catholic Church is heir to the fundamental actors at the origin of the Anglophone crisis. Nobody has indeed forgotten that the first act of exclusion of the UPC, leader party of the true Reunification of Kamerun, was pronounced during Easter 1955 well before the decree of France, the colonial master. The Catholic hierarchy thus took part against the patriots and the Kamerun, unfairly, and gave its blessing to a repression that caused hundreds of thousands of deaths. It is advisable not to repeat the same mistakes.
3-It is notable that the bishops called for « mediation » in order to avoid « unnecessary and baseless civil war ». Any citizen concerned with the common welfare can only rejoice. We add, however, that once we recognize that the armed conflict has no basis, we are obliged to conclude that it is up to those who took up arms to lay them down.
The position of the Catholic hierarchy is ponce Pilatism. And ponce pilatism does not solve problems. He makes them worse.
To all our compatriots, traditionalists, Catholics, Protestants, Muslims, etc. let us quote Ezekiel, chapter 33, verse 11: “[…] What I desire is not that the wicked die, it is that he changes his behavior and that he lives … “
THE SECESSIONISTS SHOULD RETURN TO THE HOUSE KAMERUN.
As we have already said in our statement of last Tuesday, May 15, NOTHING CAN JUSTIFIES THE RECPURSE TO ARMS AGAINST KAMERUN. So we say again that the Manidem calls :
-to a ceasefire without any conditions, by secessionist armed bands or not;
-to contrast the strength of the historical and political arguments that have dedicated the rightness of the choice of unity to any argumentation tending to justify secessionist crime;
-to oppose a legitimate but measured force to any act favorable to secession;
the definitive renunciation of the recourse to arms to divide the country;
– to a solemn and sincere expression of a request for pardon of the secessionists to the Kamerun Nation that they have seriously offended;
-to a consensus of all (citizens, government, armed forces, civil society associations, traditional and religious organizations, political parties, etc.) on the inviolability of Kamerun’s unity;
It is this minimal consensus that will impose on the Yaounde regime the necessary changes to the construction of Kamerun, which the true fathers of the Nation, among whom Ruben Um Nyobe dreamed of: united and free, prosperous and pacified.
Douala, May 17th, 2018
For the Manidem Reorganization Committee
Sébastien NGONTHEU
BEDIMO KOUO
