I attempt, with humility, to react to University Don Cyril Ntollo’s open letter to the US Ambassador to Cameroon – Peter Henry Berlerin
A first read at Cyril Ntollo’s open letter reveals the following:
1. That he speaks with the voice and demeanor of an insider of the Biya/CPDM regime and his tone, verbiage and analysis are characteristic of this junta;
2. That Cyril Ntollo is well read and versed with the history and politics of the United States. But more importantly, that Ntollo is well researched or that he has the means enough to hire the talent that can not only perform the required research but articulate the said research in just the tone and tenor that Ntollo and his following will want;
3. That Cyril Ntollo’s inspiration or that of his counsel is drawn from the diversionary tactics of leaving the message and focusing on the messenger – and that in this age of Trump, this strategy has gained a lot of currency and equity, especially in Cameroon where freedom of information and depth of analysis is still a luxury. This, Cyril Ntollo, or his counsel are well aware of and have employed to their advantage with some profit; and finally
4. That Cyril Ntollo is definitely touched by the role and pronouncements of Ambassador Berlerin.
Against this back trap, I wish to then clarify an all-important question that is raised and is lurking throughout Cyril Ntollo’s whole letter – that Peter Henry Berlerin, in his official functions and duties as the Ambassador of the United States to Cameroon, is not a person. Rather he represents the Government of the United States. He acts and speaks on behalf of the People of the United State of America, as personified by her President – Donald J. Trump.
I am not insinuating that Cyril Ntollo did not capture this fact. Rather, I am saying that Cyril Ntollo should have understood that Ambassador Berlerin’s “surreptitious” insinuation about President Biya not running for another term in 2018, was directly from the hierarchy and people of the United States and not from him personally.
In fact, if Berlerin had spoken out of place and order, diplomatically, he would have been FIRED by a President who relishes this term and wants to ‘win’ eternally. If Berlerin had misspoken diplomatically he would have been called every name in the book and recalled instantly.
The important question, therefore, at this point of analysis, is when and why the United States, through Berlerin, ‘breached diplomatic’ protocol, “in defiance of the provisions of the Constitution”, according to Cyril Ntollo? Like Ntollo rightly noted, the ‘friendly’ warning was uttered on May 16, 2018 – the fight against Boko Haram in Cameroon was 8 years old and the war declared by President Biya in November 2017, at the Nsimalen Airport, on Restorationists, in the North West and South West Regions, was ongoing.
Common sense will dictate that Berlerin, backed by the knowledge of US intelligence, experience and daily observations from other friendly diplomatic missions had not only seen the clouds gather but had actually seen the storm ravaging through the land. Consequently, backed by Trump and the American People, Berlerin delivered the friendly message subtly reminding the Octogenarian to leave a ‘legacy’ like Mandela and George Washington.
President Biya did not heed to Berlerin’s friendly advice and the results are there for the world to see – more than three thousand deaths, and counting, since the beginning of war between Restorationists forces and the army of President Biya. Only heaven knows how many have died since President Biya defied Ambassador Berlerin. Cyril Ntollo, as the Cameroun Patriot that he claims to be, in his open letter should have been lamenting this fact. Instead Cyril Ntollo choses the constitutionality or lack thereof of Ambassador Berlerin’s friendly reminder.
And that was one thing that was confusing to this commentator. Was Cyril Ntollo referring to the Cameroun Constitution or the American Constitution? Either way, I am sure that the principle of noninterference into the internal affairs of any nation is superseded by the principle of international peace and security and the respect of a Nation’s boundaries at independence. Cyril Ntollo forgets that La Republique du Cameroun had independence on January 1, 1960 with specific land boundaries registered at the United Nations. This Commentator is intentionally drawing the attention of Cyril Ntollo to the appellation of Cameroun as is today and was on January 1, 1960 – LA REPUBLIQUE DU CAMEROUN.
This commentator is, however, struck by two things, from Ambassador Berlerin’s friendly reminder. First, Ambassador Berlerin completely employed the art and tact of diplomacy when he put it the way he did to Mr. Biya. This commentator is sure that, knowing Trump for who the world now knows him to be, Trump would not have been that subtle and diplomatic. Trump would have been saucier, nastier and blunter to one of the dictators of a “shithole country”. The second point is that Ambassador Berlerin was very magnanimous in his comparison of President Biya to Mandela (the Madiba) and George Washington (the father of the American Nation). I am not sure that even Ambassador Berlerin believes the comparison!
The marvel of Cyril Ntollo’s letter lies in the syllogistic analogy between the politics of the United States – internal and international, with that of Cameroun. However, the fallacy of this syllogism lies in the fact that Cyril Ntollo misconstrues a civil war and a restorationist war. Cyril Ntollo also confuses the internal actions, even if they are weaknesses, of a democracy with the aberrations of a dictatorship. The United States is a crystallized democracy that is dealing with the demons of slavery, discrimination, blind capitalism and a strong national interest vis a vis the rest of the world.
Cameroun is an expansionist French protected dictatorship that has grown senile in its overreach in corruption, nepotism and a complete lack of vision for its own national interest where the people are answerable to its First Human being – First Magistrate, First Doctor, First Athlete, First Soldier and most of all, Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of Cameroun.
Cyril Ntollo’s open letter would have been more on point on the issue of strife had he compared the Restorationist war in Cameroon to the Revolutionary war of Independence in the United States. The common denominator would have been that a foreign colonizer was being petitioned, albeit forcefully, to recognize the statehood and sovereignty of a people. Just as the American War of Independence was fought to liberate the thirteen colonies from the ‘taxation without representation” expansionist British Empire, the Restorationist war in Cameroun is being fought to restore the Statehood of Southern Cameroons, on the one hand and to subjugate and continue the unipolar exploitation of Southern Cameroons by the army of La Republique du Cameroun, on the other hand. Both wars are wars of self-defense, self-determination and self-realization. This is the fundamental fact that Cyril Ntollo’s letter misses.
Comparing the current restorationist war to the Civil War in the United States is misleading because the Civil War was not an attempt by the Confederate states to restore a hitherto existing Nation but a genuine attempt by different factions of two capitalist factions to determine how American capitalism was going to be maintained and continued within the context of slavery. Lincoln and the federal army stood for the abolition and freedom of African slaves while the Confederates of the Southern States wanted to maintain the status quo and the wealth that emanated from the slave industry.
The war in the North West and South West regions are a self-defensive attempt to restore the Statehood of Southern Cameroons after it had been mangled and negligently managed by the United Nations, through its failure to implement its own Trusteeship agenda, to accepting a faulty and hasty report by the UK purporting that Southern Cameroons was not economically viable to self-sustain (as if this was a condition sine qua non for colonization and occupation – in fact, we now know that the main purpose of colonization was economic gain, how suddenly could Southern Cameroons be economically useless?) and ultimately forcing an unprepared trusteeship territory to choose between two independent countries (Nigeria and Cameroun) – against the very principles of the United Nations.
From October 1961, with a false promised Federal Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), through a botched referendum in 1972, to the unilateral secession of La Republic du Cameroun from the Union, in 1984 – whether federal or unitary, Southern Cameroons was recognized, in fact and in law, as a geographical entity in the World.
After the secession of La Republique du Cameroun, from the pretend Union, it took Southern Cameroons from 1984 to November 2017 (when President Biya declared war) to know that the time had come to RESTORE THEIR INDEPENDENCE. It took this length of time for Southern Cameroons and her sympathizers to realize that there was actually no UNION TREATY between Southern Cameroons and La Republique du Cameroun. Ambassador Berlerin and the United States happen to be one of these sympathizers and keen analysts of history and the law within the context of the United Nations, having been a founding member of the UN. It was this history and legality that Ambassador Berlerin understood and gave a friendly reminder for which he, and his Government, are being castigated, by the likes of Cyril Ntollo.
I now turn my attention to the Cyril Ntollo’s capitalization on some bleak and dismal statistics in the United States. As a Cameroonian, especially, and a black African, I want to be categorical that Cyril Ntollo is correct with his stats. But more importantly, I wish to state that these stats about blacks in the United States and the deeply rooted prejudice that the Police systematically harbor and exercise against blacks is disgusting, deplorable and incomprehensible.
Nonetheless, and most importantly, as a Cameroonian, in the face of Cyril Ntollo’s unconscionable denial of the reality in Cameroun, I must however stand up and make this very qualified analysis of the American situation vis a vis the degenerating and worsening humanitarian crisis in the North West and South West. In this light, I will reiterate three issues.
The first is that Cyril Ntollo has the luxury, ability and capability to access, quote and discuss American statistics with the ease with which he has done in his open letter. As a follow up, then, may I ask Cyril Ntollo where he can point anybody – journalist, policy maker, politician and especially an American to get the statistics of the rate of police violence on civilians in Cameroun? Specifically, can Cyril Ntollo point to a publicly available database in Cameroun where statistics are available for analysis by any stake holder? There are gazillions of organizations in the United States where these statistics can be accessed. Can Cyril Ntollo say the same thing about his “old civilization” which comes from “time immemorial”? America is only four hundred years and counting. Instead of people ‘leaving’ the United States, (as they have from Ntollo’s Bantu Cameroun) they are flocking to the United States. In fact, can Cyril Ntollo point to a public Cameroun data base that has the number of law enforcement personnel who have lost their lives since the restorationist war started?
The second point is that the Justice system in the United States provides for victims of wrongful deaths to bring civil rights violations suits in State and federal courts even when the white perpetrating police officers are acquitted by prejudiced white Judges and Jurors. Can Cyril Ntollo say the same thing? For beating Rodney King, thereby violating King’s civil rights, two police officers were found guilty, sentenced to long prison terms and the city of Los Angeles awarded Rodney King, $3.5 million US Dollars (about 2 billion francs). Can Cyril Ntollo please say something, to counter this about his homeland, Cameroun?
This award was for a brutal beating not a police killing. I want to be very clear that this commentator does not condone the beating or the payment but the rule of law that ends with restitution for the victim or his family does not hurt.
Furthermore, Cyril Ntollo ‘surreptitiously’ insinuates that Ambassador Berlerin should kidnap and traffic the Restorationists in the United States back to Cameroun in the manner of Nigeria and the Nera Ten. This insinuation and invitation is despicably shameful and unacademic. Can the Don of a University, whom Cyril Ntollo is, imagine the shameful legal quagmire in which the United States, as the precursor of international law and a leading member of the Security Council could find herself in should she stoop so low as to heed to these kinds of illegalities?
The World can say all they want about Trump but the “most stable genius” in his “ultimate wisdom” will not stoop that low – not today, not when he becomes “King Trump”, not ever. Not in the United States of America. This is one of the values that pushed Americans to rebel against the Crown of England.
Thirdly, Cyril Ntollo rails about American foreign policy because of the extrajudicial killings of Osama bin Laden, Al-Baghdadi and others, as well as renditions culminating in prisons as Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. I cannot pretend to be an apologist for American foreign policy but as a student of history and sociology I am well aware of the strategic national interests of the United States as well as the ramifications of these same on the wellbeing and welfare of the American citizenry.
In other words, the US is in the Middle East and most analysts will say because of oil. Let’s assume that this argument is the only reason why the US is in the Middle East, I will dare to state that it is not a vain and aggressive policy because it gives the United States the cheap prices of petroleum products that the American citizenry enjoys. The war in Southern Cameroons is waged against defenseless citizens who are rudimentarily defending themselves with guerilla tactics and primitive weapons, primarily meant for their farming needs. The wars, for the United States is for the benefit, wellbeing and welfare of American citizenry. The war in Southern Cameroons kills defenseless children, women, old, vulnerable, youth and the populations of the Southern Cameroons – there is no comparison.
Even so, I cannot resist the temptation to remind Cyril Ntollo and his compatriots, who hold the same views that they have forgotten, so easily, that the United States lost THREE THOUSAND AMERICANS on September 11, 2001. There is conclusive proof that Osama bin Laden plotted this mayhem on a course that went through a certain African country (Sudan) and ended up in Afghanistan. This, to me, is enough reason to keep the threat in the Middle East before it reaches American soil again.
I am very quick again to say that I am not an apologizing proponent of extrajudicial killings – even so, I dare to say that there is the extrajudicial killing of Osama bin Laden and Al-Baghdadi and there is the extrajudicial killing of a two year baby roasted in a boiling oil by war crime worthy soldiers of Cameroun, in Batibo and the shooting of a baby in Muyuka. There is the detention of Jihadists in Guantanamo and there is the illegal abduction, kidnap and trafficking of Sisiku Ayuk Tabe and nine others from Nigeria to SED and ultimately to Kondengui. There is the arrest and detention of Paul Manafort and Michael Cohen for interrogation for stated charges and there is the kidnap and detention of Abdul Karim, on his way out of meeting the Swiss Ambassador.
As a reality check, therefore, I can categorically tell Cyril Ntollo that American strategic national interests, both on the national and international planes, is directly proportionate to the standard of life, health, welfare, wellbeing and life expectancy of an American Citizen. That is why the US is arguably one of the best places to self-realize and self-actualize in the world – the proof is that Cyril Ntollo will agree with me that even in his beloved and “old” Cameroun, there is a dangerous level of youth and brain drain to America. That even as I am writing this piece droves of Camerounians are lining up to ‘play’ the American Lottery – even when they do not speak English and more importantly when Donald Trump does not mince words to remind them of where they are coming from and what he thinks of them and other intending immigrants. Even when there are horrid images of Camerounians perishing under unimaginable conditions on the perilous journey to the United States.
This commentator is sure as there will be tomorrow that Ambassador Berlerin and his Government are more concerned about the larger question of the overboard abuse of human rights by the Cameroun Government and the ramifications that this will have in the sub region, region and continent of Africa that he is not focusing on the Trump-like attacks of Cyril Ntollo. Rather the Ambassador and his Government are moving full steam ahead with measures that include the removal of Cameroun from the preferential AGOA trade list and all other tools in the American foreign policy tool box.
As I end, I remind Cyril Ntollo that there are no PERMANENT friends in international politics but only PERMANENT INTERESTS. The Permanent interest of the US is deeply rooted in the respect of human rights which directly affect the peace and security in the world. This is the legacy of Ambassador Peter Henry Berlerin. This is the legacy of the United States.
Ancestral Mbomwei
In Buea.