First Lady

 

 

 

A Call For Compassion: An Open Letter To Mrs. Chantal Biya

Madam Chantal Biya
The First Lady of the Republic of Cameroon
The Unity Palace
Yaoundé, Cameroon
Central Africa
November13, 2018

A Call For Compassion: An Open Letter To Mrs. Chantal Biya

It is with greatest concern and respect for the future of women, children and people of Southern Cameroons (Ambazonia) that I greet you in this unusual correspondence. It is my hope and certainly my trust that this letter finds you in the best of health.
I still recall the excitement andjoyous day on April 23rd, 1994, when as a young woman you got married and became the First Lady of the Republic of Cameroon. I celebrated that day for two reasons; that the country had as First Lady a younger woman and with the establishment of the Chantal Biya Foundation that same year, you demonstrated your desire to attend to the sufferings of the vulnerable,underprivileged, the sick and weak in Cameroon. I knew that as a woman and a mother, the sanctity of life and the burning desire to protect it was very close to your heart and this has been demonstrated through your philanthropic and humanitarian efforts through the years.With your humanitarian credentials, there was no doubt in my mind that you would protect the best interest of the people of Cameroon as their First Lady.

However, I write to you today, forced into exile and no longer in Cameroon, nearly twenty-four years later with a heavy heart. I hold a heavy heart because of the desperate and horrific situation in Southern Cameroons.

The conflict in the Southern Cameroons has taken a terrible toll on the vulnerable community and the stench of death and desolation has engulfed the villages,towns and cities. The depravity and senseless disregard of human life by the security forces of the government of Cameroon is alarming. We are seeing scenes reminiscent of the Ethiopian civil war in the 80s with dead bodies abandoned on the side of our roads, charred bodies of our elderly and vulnerable, burnt alive in their homes and entire villages incinerated from the face of the earth.

The security forces are carrying out extra-judicial killings of the population, the lives of our active young men are no longer assured today than it is tomorrow, and our young women are raped with reckless brutality by the security forces of the government of Cameroon. The trauma and scars of death on the desolate eyes of our children seeing their parents savagely bludgeoned by the security forces is leaving a painful impact characterized by nightmares in these young minds. Most of the indigenous population has been forced into the open forest and exposed to the elements. Nursing mothers and women under their period are left with no options, but to use dead vegetation for their basic hygienic needs. It is a terrible sight to behold.

Cash crops like cocoa, coffee, palm kernels have been abandoned to waste in the farms because the farmers have either been forced to flee or are too afraid to even hold their artisanal tools like cutlasses to go to the farms because that is in itself a death sentence from the security forces. Almost 300,000 IDP and about 100,000 refugees living in squalid conditions in neighboring Nigeria, thousands killed, and some buried in mass graves and thousands arrested, abducted and whisked to dangerous dungeons in Cameroon. The economy of Southern Cameroons that have been systematically abandoned for the last 57 years has been completely eviscerated and devastated by the conflict, punitive curfews and road closures that make movement and commerce between villages and towns perniciously impossible and frustrating.

My hearts bleeds for the children and women rendered orphans and widows, my heart bleeds upon the dark clouds circling above Southern Cameroons, My heart bleeds for the painful and horrific burning of elderly men and women in their homes, the pain, the anger, the complete obliteration of entire communities and cultures. I weep for the mothers and wives of the young soldiers whose lives are also being wasted in this senseless war.

It was permissible in the beginning of this crisis that you stayed silent, it was permissible that you remained indifferent, but it is no longer permissible in light of what we know now. It is no longer permissible as a mother of the nation who understands the pain of childbirth to remain indifferent to the plight of the people of Southern Cameroons. It is a travesty that the pain and suffering of mothers and young women who looked up to you, who sang, praised and celebrated you have been abandoned and treated with this level of disdain. How do you sleep at night as a mother knowing that young children have been deprived of education because of the security situation for the past two years, how do you wake up each morning not knowing what may happened to your loved ones in Southern Cameroons and how can you stay mute for this long with the unravelling refugee crisis in Southern Cameroons. What has happened to the humanity in you? Cry My Beloved Country!

As the wife of Sissiku Julius Ayuk-Tabe (leader of Southern Cameroons), I understand the political implication of this crisis. However, there are times when humanity and government come together for a common goal. In this case, the goal is the protection of humanity; the innocent and helpless men, women and children in Southern Cameroons. They are unable to speak or defend themselves. They live in terror because they never know when they hear the sound of guns in their village, if it is their turn to be killed or taken away in the darkness of the early morning. Imagine the terror that overcomes them when they hear the deafening screams of a sister, aunt, cousin, a playmate or a mother being brutally raped. They know then that they are next. It is compared to an execution queue where men are waiting to be taken away for execution, and they hear the deadly sound of the firing squad as they queue in and wait their turn. The torture, taunts and torments are unimaginable, and you could hear grown men crying.

I realize that I may come under criticisms and accusations for writing this letter to you. I have no other motive to write this letter, other than for you to rally the mothers of Cameroon and bring pressure to bear on your husband and the government of Cameroon for an inclusive dialogue and a negotiated solution to this crisis and the immediate release of our leaders including my husband. The deafening silence from you is no longer acceptable. The lives of 8 million Southern Cameroonians and the fate of their leaders in jail is in your hands. Madam First Lady set the example for other women to follow.

It is not too late for you to send the message; that the mothers of Cameroon will no longer tolerate thiswar. The Southern Cameroons women will applaud you and women around the world will celebrate you. The Lives of Southern Cameroons children, mothers and fathers also Matter and the continuing silence in the face of these killings is collusion. I look forward to collaborating with you to look for an inclusive and negotiated solutions to this crisis.

Respectfully,
Lilian Ayuk-Tabe

10 comments
  1. Good write up Mrs AYuk , this a good initiative but will she be allowed access to this letter?. This regime is known for an ever increasing desire to hide the truth and uphold the wrong

  2. We Ambazonians have decided to liberate our country. Owning a country and governing it is no child’s play. This is what the International Community knows and it is how it operates. Therefore in as much as I respect Mrs. Tabe for expressing her right to freedom of expression, I vehemently condemn her stating that, The lives of 8 million Southern Cameroonians and the fate of their leaders in jail is in Chantal Biya’s hands. If the International community has responded to this crisis with such laxity, it is because they are watching the situation (as they often say) to see if we are capable of owning and governing a country like the one whose Independence restoration we declared on October 1, 2017. They want to see whether what Britain gave as reasons for attaching us to some other country for Independence was true. Today, we know that Britain lied that we were not Economically viable. We also know that they lied by saying that we were not strong enough to defend ourselves against any aggression. For this last point many want to take this current war to judge whether we are capable to defend ourselves which by some large measure we have proven capable. So for Mrs Tabe to make such statements as the one mentioned in this post, is to rubish our cause and present us as helpless. THE FATE OF THE AMBAZONIAN PEOPLE IS IN THE HANDS OF AMBAZONIANS, PERIOD.

  3. Chantal Biya can’t do anything about the problems we are facing in Ambazonia because her husband wouldn’t let her.

    What we need to do is to completely eradicate the presence of all military in southern Cameroon to gain total control of the land.
    If we are currently waiting for the international community like the UN to come to our rescue, we are waisting our time because I don’t know if there is any country that has done Demonstrations both home and in the Diaspora to send a clear message to the UN but they still give a deaf ear. I think the United Nation is Gradually turning into the TOOTHLESS BULL DOG which the League of Nations was called after WW1.

    Mrs Ayuk, to conclude, we need to possession of our land by power and by Force.

    1. “….what we need to do is to completely eradicate the presence of all military in southern Cameroon to gain total control of the land.” You are right on the money. The amount of resources are worth the fight and we will be one of the richest countries on this earth.

  4. If I recall rightly, this is the second public statement from Ambazonia interim first lady Lilian Tabe after her relocation to the United States following the Nera Hotel Kidnap and deportation of H.E. Ayuk Tabe. Prior to that there were muffled criticism of your silence given that in a similar role when Mandela was incarcerated, Winnie took on the mantle of an outspoken critic against White South Africa in the ANC’s odyssey for liberation from apartheid.

    That said, I am lauding your open letter of concern about the sufferings of Ambazonians at the hands of LRC invaders but also herein expressing my disagreement with you in directing these concerns to the wife of a dictator who is principally responsible for the untold carnage done to our people. Madam Lilian, how on earth do you expect the wife of a man who is prosecuting your husband’s government who he has in his dungeons in Yaounde for what he calls terrorists, secessionists and criminals to even lend a listening ear to her pleadings if at all she has any care for Southern Cameroonians? Chantal Biya is the wrong person to address your pleas to. If Biya calls us terrorists and secessionists, what do you think Chantal will call us? Saints? Decent human beings who deserve respect and dignity? Fat chance. That’s why, in my opinion, your letter ought to be directed instead to world bodies (the lesser of two evils) rather than Chantal Biya even though so far the same world bodies have feigned blindness and/or proffered lame and clearly unacceptable solutions.

    Our fight for independence MUST NOT RELENT. It is the language that East Timor, South Sudan, Eritrea and many others used which the oppressors eventually will come to understand and be forced to capitulate. Short live the struggle, long live our beautiful nation Ambazonia.

  5. I vehemently believe that Mrs. Ayuk has made a very grievous error by believing that a bended tree can be straighten. Is this to imply that the wife of this unrepentant murderer can even have an ounce of apathy, realism and reasonableness?

  6. Great job but don’t forget that Chantal is also part of the war that the husband declared. Contrary to that she might also be executed by Biya if she dares to sympathize with Ambazonians. Think on what happened to Jeanne Irene Biya.

  7. biya’s killer soldiers in Ambazonia

    biya’s killer soldiers are glad and proud to tell the world that they killed 30 Ambazonian today. Asked why they killed Ambazonians when they did nothing to hurt them, they are dumbfounded and have no defense because biya sat on his high chair and recklessly called Ambazonians terrorists for peacefully going on the streets to ask for a redress of their issues. I’ve said this over and over that the day is coming, not long from now when the pile of dead bodies biya is killing in Ambazonia will be piled in etudi and his back yard in vomeka. He will enjoy the stench of his evil atrocities in yaounde. Biya will turn on his killer soldiers who will give him the same snake beatings Ambazonians have suffered from his hands this while… what goes around, comes around. biya will never have a nights restful sleep untill his very soldiers get rid of him. Evil has a way of blotting out evil!!!
    Our gratitude goes to our FEARLESS Amba boys who have taken on biya with such courage and resolve as never seen before. Our prayers go with you, OUR AMBA BOYS. You have exposed biya as incompetent, brutal, and Africa’s worst senile despot.

  8. OMG!In 1884, we walked BUTT NAKED with our BIG DICKS dangling between our legs and women covering their Tutus (private parts with leaf patches. WHERE THE FUCK WAS AMBAZONIA?WHat do you guys not getttttt????The white man civilized you barbarians and baboons after you had sold off your kith and kin into slavery. Today instead of making life better for your Sub-Human ilks you are declaring a republic that will never be RECOGNIZED until JESUS comes back. You guys should go eat shit you LOONIES!THE BLACK MAN is nothing BUT a WHINER and KAFFIR and PIECE of SHIT.OMG-THE HEART OF DARKNESS!Long Live Joseph CONRAD!

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