From Regime Loyalist to Freedom Fighter.

My name is Kum Bezeng, I come from a very poor family in which no one has ever worked for the Government of Cameroon or benefited from the system.

Before me, no one in my family had a University Qualification. Infact, I was not the first person to obtain a univeristy qualification because I had to delay my own education to sponsor others mainly from empty pockets and high level motivation and encouragement. To this end, I was a child parent.

YET in 2005 or there about, I launched and funded CPDM South AFRICA and led the party to the official creation of a Section and won highly contested presidential elections for the Party but was not good enough to be its first Section President. I may have to tell this story at another occasion but surfice to say that I have served the CPDM party with distinction and loyalty. I did this for the sake of national integration and nation building. I hosted and gave financial incentives to the Indomitable Lions which spurred them to win the Nation cup in South Africa. I Sponsored 50 Years of Independence celebrations in South Africa and I have never asked what my Country can do for me but what I can do for my Country. My record of CIVIC duty speaks for itself and can not be deminished or challenged. But I come from the wrong side of the Mongo.

I was once invited to the Civil Carbinet of the Presidency of the LRC to present a project I had conceived, but after introducing myself during the presentation, I was asked the question “where do you come from?” And that was the end of the project and any meaningfull engagement thereafter.

The Anglophone problem is not imaginary, it is real.

When H.E President Paul Biya wrote to me in 2010, he asked “Cameroonians in South Africa through me” to support his policies of Grand Ambitions and He thanked me for fostering a peace loving, hard working and friendly Diaspora in South Africa which I did!. That same year in 2010, I wrote an open letter to the CPDM which was widely circulated and published by the Eden Newspaper in Cameroon . In it, I accused the CPDM party hierarchy of failing to support me in my role as an elected President of the Coordinating Committee of CPDM South Africa because I am Anglophone. I made recommendations that could have gone a long way to preventing the current crises.

Fast forward to 2017, I realised that I was being decieved all along by a falsified narrative by the cpdm regime. That since the beginning of the current intensification of the anti-colonial revolt, I have learnt and become fully aware of the true state of affairs regarding the political status of the Southern Caneroons. That is why I resigned from the CPDM in solidarity with my oppressed people particularly those arrested, killed, abducted, missing, raped and tortured and I took practical steps to get the government to release them and account for its actions when I joined 75 others in African Commission on Human and Peoples Rights ACHPR.org Communication 650/17

The questions are:

1. Why the sudden change of heart from someone considered a regime loyalist?
2. Why have I given up an otherwise successful and peaceful lifestyle to becoming a fugitive and enemy of the state of Cameroon?
3. Why have I voluntarily chosen a life in exile?

4. Why would I be accused of organising the storming of the High Commission in Pretoria as shown in their so called intelligence reports?

The answers can be found in my past.

In 1986 I droped out of form one in GHS Wum because of poverty and other extenuating circumstances. However, throughout my journey to where I am today, I have learnt to share my success, to fight for my own rights and the rights of others. I have cultivated a collective sense of identity and I have learned that to fight against injustice is obidience to God. I have learnt that it is impossible for people from poor backgrounds like myself to rise through the ranks of any corporation, political party and the Cameroon society as a whole.

I have learnt that injustice is law in Cameroon. That evil persist when good people do nothing. That despite President Paul Biya’s good intentions to preserve a one and indivisable Cameoon, he will be credited for dividing Country.

That the foundations and institutions of the State of Cameroon are very fragile due to the manipulation of the 1961 constitution coupled with cosmetic and deceitful nation building initiatives. That we live in a country where the majority takes all and dominates the minority where the grand agenda to assimilate and wipe out the identity of the former British Southern Cameroons has failed and that based on these the centre will never hold again, things fall apart.

I have no other wish in life right now but to be FREE and I will do everything in my power to achieve Freedom in my lifetime.

The army can not defeat or extinguish the collective will to be free. The 2 cubes of sugar will never melt. Inadvertantly, the 2 cubes of sugar have glued together like never before

I know of people who started out as Federalists but have become Independetists not by choice but by circumstances.

My story illustrates how hard Anglophones try but can never truly be accepted or integraded into a country and system that is fashioned to exclude and belittle them. The dychotomy is too wide and wounds too deep.

Southern Cameroonians are too trusting a people but their collective suffering and self preservation has given rise to a fighting spirit that can not be extincquished by the power of an atomic bomb.

LOST OPPORTUNITIES

To borrow from a comrade in the struggle:

In November 2016, LRC lost the opportunity to establish a 10 states federation with us like USA model or as contemplated in its 1996 constitution

In January 2017, LRC lost the opportunity to establish a 2 state confederacy with Southern Cameroons like Canada and Quebec.

Now, September 2017, LRC has the opportunity to peacefully allow us go so we can be good neighbours like Nigeria and Cameroon (now) – where our people can move into and out of each others country with ease.

By October 2017, it may take longer but LRC will loose us and the opportunity for us to be good neighbours and we may end up like north and south Korea or India and Pakistan.

The decision in November 2016, January 2017 was theirs. Now in September 2017 it is still theirs on how we separate and live afterwards. But the decision in October 2017, on how we separate and live afterwards shall be ours and not theirs anymore.
The clock is ticking.

I am therefore calling on President Paul Biya to RDD – Release, Demilitarise and Dialogue.

AMANDLA!

Kum Bezeng, MBA UK