This Statement is informed, on the one hand, by the wishes of encouragement flowing from family, friends, well-wishers and sympathizers as well as their desire, on the other hand, to know how I am doing or holding up, in detention.
I was abducted on the afternoon of August 11, 2022, at Ntamulung by the Gendarmerie of La Republique du Cameroun. I was taken to Groupement and then later to Compagnie. I was held in communicado, without permission and space to pray and without food for four days.
The conditions of my abduction are illegal and unjustified. The conditions of detention are unspeakably deplorable. My lawyers have an idea and can indulge you. My focus in this statement is to commune with you.
To my family and well wishers I want you to know that I am firmly planted and standing on your faith, good will towards me and your prayers for me. To everybody else I want you to know that God, in his divine providence, has put me here in Southern Cameroons at this time and place for a specific reason – to serve his people and his purpose.
That purpose is found in his will. His will is to seek truth and justice. Justice in this time and space in Southern Cameroons lies in bringing all parties and stakeholders together, on a dialogue table without pre-conditions, where the root cause of the raging crisis can be identified and sustainable solutions sought for culminating in the peaceful evolution, actualization and realization of the suffering people of Southern Cameroons.
This is my life’s mission and purpose. The advocacy of the inalienable right of every Southern Cameroonian to self-realization. This life mission is divinely ordained. I accept and assume it with all humility. I will live with it. I will live for it. I will suffer for it. I will be in prison for it. I am in jail for it. I will undergo torture for it. I will die for it if need be and if it came to it.
I am now undergoing psychological and physical torture for it. Even so, I do not intend to switch positions with anybody. Every passing second, minute and day I feel the pangs on my flesh and body. Even so, I must tell you that my soul and spirit are strong. The feel the fuel that powers this fortitude coming from all Southern Cameroonians, my well-wishers and the almighty God.
In this faith, and with this faith I will stand strong like the rock of my faith and the inspiration of the forebears of every resistance and struggle.
With this faith, I ask all people of good faith to help me in this journey of truth seeking and peace building. With this faith. I promise to keep up the good fight and to continue putting my family, friends and well-wishers in ‘good trouble’.
This is our appointment with destiny. This is our commitment to posterity. This is the task of the present and the hope of the future.
With this hope, I will keep standing in this contaminated water in my cell or laying down on the bug infested plank of my interrogation cell until the doors of the room open, wherein the round dialogue table stands in the middle, waiting for all stakeholders to come, sit around and seek the truth.
But before you pause to ponder about my inhumane condition, I want you to pause first and ponder the death of all the heroes of Southern Cameroons. I want you to pause and ponder the death of all the young people who are losing their lives everyday in a war that was totally avoidable and still is stoppable, even as I sit in this cell.
I want you to pause and ponder the inhumanity that has been heaped on our brothers and sisters who are languishing in the prisons if LRC simply for articulating an opinion as to their preference of a Homeland where they can self-realize and self-actualize.
When you consider all those who have paid the ultimate prize of freedom, those who are serving undeserved life sentences, those who are sitting in jails like mine uncharged, untried and not knowing what will happen to them on a daily basis, those who are scared stiff of the unpredictability and impunity of the system and those who are on their knees every minute praying for a miracle to end the war in Southern Cameroons, then you can decide for yourself what your own individual sacrifice will be.
To my wife, kids and family I beg that you keep the faith. I know and trust that you will keep trusting in what Allah has in store for us and all our People.
To my compatriots and fellow countrymen, I employ you to hold hands, tighten our ranks, keep our focus on the enemy, never losing focus of the ever tempting, corruptive, disorganizing and disruptive nature of the enemy and remember always and forever that our rendez- vous is at the foot of Mount Fako, in Buea.
To my well-wishers and the international community, I exhort you to bear with us. Please redouble your efforts in holding up the mirror to our friends and relevant stakeholders – a mirror in which the errors of history beginning with colonial greed, through UN Charter miscarriages, to unfulfilled promises and flagrant breaches of constitutional and other international legal instruments, culminating into the acknowledged, albeit failed, attempts to assimilate a people who have lost almost all sense of national and individual worth but who have now risen and now sworn never to be enslaved again in a status quo that denies them their fundamental humanity and dignity. Hold up this mirror so that there is individual national accountability to foster a sense of collective responsibility for the plight of Southern Cameroons whose claim to a UN forgotten prodigal son status cannot be denied, underestimated or ignored any longer.
Hold this mirror of history and let it reflect an international resolve and concrete efforts in pushing the parties – the Government of Cameroun and the diversified tentacles of the Southern Cameroons’ octopus, to the inevitable table of dialogue, mediation and conciliation, reassured by the hope and promise of truth, justice and peace.
I am not asking that you, the international community, do all our heavy lifting for us. The burden and the lifting rests with us. This is our duty. We, Southern Cameroonians, know it, assume it and accept it.
All we ask is that you create an enabling environment for us to stand on, pivot and do the lifting that not only you expect from us but a lifting which history and our posterity requires and expects from us – on ground Zero and everywhere in the Diaspora.
In all I pray and ask for the intercession of the Almighty God who is all knowing, all planning and all merciful. Thank you and stay blessed.
Abdul Karim Ali
Detained at the Gendarmerie Compagnie at Upstation in Bamenda
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