Fellow Ambazonians,

Over the last three weeks, the barbarisms of the French Cameroun Army and the regime in Yaoundé have been laid bare and the world is witnessing again the unpleasant side of the Yaoundé neo-colonial regime. The past few weeks are a clear sign of its utter desperation in the full realization that our people have decisively rejected annexation and colonial bondage for good. I come to you today on the 34th anniversary of the Lake Nyos disaster to speak of the tragic loss and devastation the Southern Cameroons (Ambazonia) has faced over the last three weeks.

On Monday 2 August 2020, Mr Tangem Thomas, a Southern Cameroonian Prisoner of Conscience was tortured again by being shackled to his sick bed until he died on 5 August 2020.  The Interim Government can confirm explicitly that he died from torture related injuries and trauma. He was abducted in 2017 and detained incommunicado at the torture chamber of SED Yaoundé where he was repeatedly tortured. He was never charged for any crime and died for being an Ambazonian.

On 7 August 2020, a staff of COMINSUD, an implementing partner for several United Nations agencies, was kidnapped from his home and later killed by unidentified armed individuals. On 11 August 2020, an unacceptable and despicable video circulated on social media of the slaughter of a woman in Muyuka. Upon close scrutiny, Ambazonia Intelligence Services identified that the perpetrators spoke with French Cameroun accents.

On Wednesday, 12 August 2020, three Southern Cameroonian minors were murdered in their gardens as they hunted for snails by French Cameroun prowling forces.  A lawyer commissioned to ascertain the facts surrounding their murder was unlawfully arrested, harassed, detained for two nights. French Cameroun lawless forces continued their genocidal campaign by invading the village of Mautu, in Fako County on 13 August 2020, slaughtered over 30 civilians and recorded themselves dragging the lifeless body of a young man along the streets.

Paul Biya and his minions have committed every crime under the sun. Over the last three weeks, we have been reminded of Paul Biya’s atrocities by the hideous execution of a woman in Muyuka, the murder of three children in Tiko, the abduction and brutal execution of four men in Bafut, the massacre in Mautu, the burning of villages in Ikata, the murders in Ndop and the dragging of the body of a slayed young man on the road. These genocidal crimes were committed by Biya’s tribal army and their proxies. Our gallant freedom fighters cannot possibly commit such atrocious crimes and film them for the world to witness.

Over the last three weeks, Interim Government lawyers have made contact with many young men of Southern Cameroons descent who have been randomly abducted and detained incommunicado in torture chambers. Fellow Ambazonians, be under no illusions; we are facing an extermination campaign by the French Cameroun terrorist state. The regime in Yaoundé has one agenda; to wipe-out the Southern Cameroons!Over two weeks ago, French Cameroun’s so called colonial ‘governor’, OkalaBilia, planned to meet with the authorities in Cross River State, Nigeria to send our people back to a war zone in the Southern Cameroons. With the intensity of slayings over the last few weeks by the French Cameroun’s lawless military and its militias, an act of this nature is a violation of the rights of our refugees.

We call on the International Community to put continuous pressure on the neo-colonial regime in Yaoundé to create an atmosphere conducive for pre-talks and eventual end to the conflict between our two nations. The Interim Government of Ambazonia believes that the following confidence-building measures would create an atmosphere for productive engagement:

• A UN humanitarian intervention in the Southern Cameroons. This necessary action will secure the safety of the people of the Southern Cameroons and humanitarian workers.
• The release of all Southern Cameroons political prisoners being held by La Republique du Cameroun in various prisons and torture facilities.
• An international fact-finding mission to investigate the crimes perpetrated in Ambazonia from 1 September 2016 by the regime in Yaoundé.

The Interim Government of Ambazonia considers the adoption of these measures as critical for lasting peace and security between our two nations.

Our people are pressed on every side by an army and a regime sponsored by the might of France but our determination for justice and independence will see us through. Thisstruggle is protracted, fierce and bloody but despite the challenges of the last three weeks, we shall overcome. As a nation, we will never give up.

Our nation has gone through some dark moments over the last few weeks but with the courage and determination of our restoration forces, we shall emerge stronger. The marauding French Cameroun army and the neo-colonial regime in Yaoundé have lost the argument for their continuous annexation of our land. Their goal is to destroy the people of the Southern Cameroons and extinguish as a polity our Homeland, a former trust territory, the independence vote of which was endorsed by the UN. We now have a responsibility to inform Mr Biya and his unruly tribal militias that there are bitter and poisonous weeds in Ambazonia. There are certainly a great many more since their execution and massacre of the last three weeks.

I pay tribute to these young men defending our land and fighting for our freedom. They deserve our gratitude. Let me use this occasion to express the sympathy of the Interim Government to all who have suffered bereavement or who are still anxious that the enemy will attack them again soon. Let me state that our self-defence forces are exceptionally more determined. They are prepared to fashion our independence. We have a duty to buy our AmbaBonds to fund them.

As the nights lengthen for our people in Ground Zero and the destruction of our communities grow, I have come today to tell the regime in Yaoundé that for this savagery and genocide, we will have no ceasefire with them devoid of genuine independence. There is a false assumption that is being made. It is that there is a credible and legitimate government in the French vassal state of Cameroun with which to conduct good faith negotiation leading to an outcome binding on that country.

The outfit that passes for a government exists simply because nature abhors a vacuum. Otherwise, the indications are that there is presently no credible and legitimate government in that despotic state. There is rather a repellent tribal coterie that thrives on deception, terror, torture and murder. That regime is highly contested and suffers from severe fissures that have generated antagonistic factions, each plotting to assume control of the atrocious dictatorship. There is complete opacity as to who is really in charge in that melancholic country tormented by deep endemic corruption, a beleaguered and crumbling economy, and a resurgence of antagonistic atavistic tribal identities that has split that failed state along several fault lines.

French Cameroun and its puppeteer, France, promote the fiction of the existence of many Southern Cameroons (Ambazonia) ‘groups’ as an obstacle to engaging in negotiation. This is a red herring. The people of the Southern Cameroons will not go to negotiate as ‘groups’.

French Cameroun will not be heard to say it will come to the negotiation table to talk with ‘groups’ within its territory. Any such idea is misconceived and stillborn.  There are two parties, and only two parties, to the would-be inclusive dialogue to deal with the root causes of the territorial and human rights dispute that has led to a war of independence imposed on the Southern Cameroons (Ambazonia) by the French-controlled Cameroun state. On the one side there is the Southern Cameroons (Ambazonia) with its team of negotiators; on the other side is Cameroun Republic with its team of negotiators. How each side organizes itself and approaches the negotiation is a purely internal matter for each.

I have full confidence that if we all do our duties, we shall prove ourselves able to fashion the freedom and independence we so seek and deserve. That is the resolve of our leaders in detention. That is the resolve of our refugees and IDPs as they showed in refusing Okala Bilia from visiting them. That is my resolve. That is the resolve of the Interim Government of Ambazonia.

At the funeral of Pah Tangem Thomas, a statement from President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe delivered by Barrister Pekum Emmanuel, read “By his passing he has liberated so many of us and has paid the ultimate price for the nation that we are forging. Like him, several of ours have been brutally massacred by the occupational forces of la Republic du Cameroon and have gone without seeing our promise land. The worse thing that can happen to us, God forbid, is that knowing all that we have gone through and clearly seeing the barbarism of our Eastern neighbour, we failed on this one-way journey. We must individually and collectively promise Brother Tom and those that have gone before us that we will continue the fight from where they ended till the last person standing, until we arrive Buea”.

Fellow Comrades, We must never give up. We shall ride out the storm of genocide and tyranny that has been unleashed upon us.  We must never give up.

Prepare my fellow comrades for the road ahead is dreary. We shall never turn from our purpose, however dismal and challenging it gets, however grievous the cost, because we know that out of this time of trial and tribulation will be born a new freedom and glory for the people of Ambazonia. We must never give up. Never give up! We shall never surrender and would carry on the struggle, until, in God’s good time and with all His power and blessing, Ambazonia shall be a reality.

Thank You, God Bless Ambazonia, God Bless You All