Open letter to Mr. Peter Henry Berlerin Ambassador of the United States in America to Cameroon:
“Think of the legacy you will leave to your successors when you leave Cameroon” Cyril Ntollo
Finally the devil drops the mask! Ambassador Peter Henry Barlerin, at the end of a hearing that President Paul Biya granted you on May 16, 2018, you asked him to “think of his legacy and do like Nelson Mandela and George Washington”.
Surreptitiously, you suggested that he should not run in the presidential election of October 2018, in defiance of the provisions of the constitution. It was your right to give this “friendly” advice to our President.
But let me also, quite amicably, give you the same advice; think of the legacy you will leave to your successors when you leave Cameroon. Because of you, the Cameroonian people will undoubtedly keep the saddest, most deadly memory that will have left an American ambassador since July 1957, date of the opening of your first diplomatic representation in our country.
On the 31 October 2019, your President sent a letter to the Congress, stating its intention to exclude Cameroon from AGOA, “for non-respect of human rights by the defense and security forces,” accused, among other things, of executing extrajudicial executions. It’s your right. But our duty is also to tell you that when such facts are known, the state sanctions the guilty.
This is the rule of law. But as you said in your press release yesterday, which is both cynical and ironic, “in 2018, Cameroon exported approximately $ 220 million … $ 63 million of these exports were AGOA, more than 90% of which is in the form of crude oil “.
In short the US will not buy our oil, despite diversified and robust trade relations.
The human rights mentioned by your President, let’s talk about it, Ambassador. In your country, blacks about 11% of the population, are a discriminated minority. A black man is five times more likely to get killed by your police than a white man.
Every year, one in every 1,000 black people is arbitrarily killed by your police. These are extrajudicial executions, Mr. Ambassador. In addition, tell me what jurisdiction trialed bin Laden and Al Baghdadi before both men were killed by your soldiers? Once again, Mr. Ambassador, these are summary executions and extrajudicial executions.
In 2001, your country invaded Afghanistan to fight Islamic terrorism and in March 2003 it was Iraq’s turn.
During these two wars did your soldiers respect the rights of the Taliban and other Iraqi insurgents?
You will no doubt tell us that the infamous prisons of Abu Ghraib in Iraq and Guantanamo in Cuba were human rights palaces.
Ambassador Peter Henry Barlerin, think of the legacy you will leave to your successors when you leave Cameroon. You were stationed in our country since December 20, 2017. And since November of the same year, Cameroon is plagued by hordes of terrorist-secessionists who sow misery and desolation in the north-west and south regions -Where is. The principals are well known.
They are mostly settled in your country and many are American citizens. They raised $2 million in an operation called “My trip to Buea”. US law punishes any US citizen or anyone on US soil who sponsors or participates in terrorist activities. But Ambassador Peter Henry Barlerin what did you do? NOTHING, on the contrary, your country assures the moral magisterium of these groups which violate, slaughter, depose and even bury alive women in Cameroon.
On February 2019, your country stopped part of the military programs we share. It was good to weaken our army. Today, if you exclude us from AGOA, it is to weaken our economy. What a beautiful friendship!
Moreover, in your press release, which I have allowed myself to do the exegesis, I find it curious that the term “friendship” so common in diplomatic phraseology does not appear there. You only mention the commercial links. Yes, Mr Barlerin, we know that Cameroon and the United States are no longer friends, and your actions show that. Your superiors and yourselves have, on several occasions, given injunctions to our President to negotiate unconditionally with the terrorists!
Yet under similar conditions and to defend a noble ideal, between April 1861 and April 1865 your country experienced a disastrous Civil War that left more than 620,000 dead. The 13th amendment proclaimed in December 1865 by President Abraham Lincoln abolished slavery.
That’s the greatness of America, America of yesterday. This America, the one that defends universal values, we love and respect. It inspires us even in the building of our young nations.
Ambassador Peter Henry Barlerin, Cameroon has many friends, yes a lot. Our true friends are with us in our nation’s fight against Boko Haram in the north, against Central African hostage takers in the Adamawa and against secessionist terrorists in the north-west and south-west. You have probably bet on the collapse of our army, the disintegration of our economy and the collapse of the Cameroonian nation. NO. Cameroon will not collapse. She is resilient. We are an old people, an old civilization. Cameroon is the homeland of the Bantu. Our country has generated 450 million people scattered in 23 African countries. Yes, Ambassador, all of them left Cameroon.
The civilization of which we are heirs produced iron 5000 years ago! More than 2,000 years ago our ancestors ate with iron spoons. We were neither savages yet less barbarous. We embody great ancient civilizations like the sao civilization from which stem the great empires of Kanem and Bornou.
In the past, our ancestors stabilized Sahara Africa in Cape Town! We are an old people who from time immemorial has forged their destiny and changed the course of African history. Cameroon is eternally big.
We therefore demand that we be treated just like our country with respect. Because when you speak in Cameroon, all of Africa listens to you.