IF WE CAN'T DIALOGUE, WE WILL NEED PEACE TALKS

On Saturday 17th March 2018, Professor Ivo Leke Tambo, Board Chair of the Cameroon GCE Board and former Secretary General of the Ministry of Secondary Education was abducted by unknown masked and armed men. The Professor was put through a humiliation ritual as he was stripped naked and a video of the scene circulated on social media.

I watched the video with great sadness as it shows not only that things are not getting better on the ground but also that morality and public decency are rapidly evaporating.

Evidence from what followed the capture of Sub-divisional Officer of Batibo and the Regional delegate for Social Affairs for the North West Region is that government's response will be increased violence.

Prof Leke Tambo is the highest profile personality captured so far and it seems that if the opportunity is presented, the dissidents will either seek to capture more or will start performing acts of violence on those captured.

On government's part, the recent reorganization of the government did not augur much promise as the two most high profile anglophones appointed to portfolio positions are not in the best of grace in the books of the anglophone community. Besides, the anglophone problem, I have always insisted, is not about positions in government but real and substantive solutions to what is referred to as “root causes”.

My idea at this point is that both sides will become increasingly extreme in their postures. The majority of the population will find itself entrapped by violent dissidents and a violent government. The postures of the dissidents and of the government will become more hardlined and much further away from each other that the middle ground will get wider.

The middle ground is what objective analysts and moderates need/seek to fill in alongside other platforms that recognise the root causes of the anglophone problem yet believe that dialogue is the way forward.

If it is left for belligerents to agree voluntarily to dialogue, unfortunately, it will take a long time for that to happen. In fact, I wrote in an article titled: THE URGENCY AND COMPLEXITY OF DIALOGUE IN THE ANGLOPHONE PROBLEM ( http://harryacha.blogspot.com/2017/11/the-urgency-and-complexity-of-dialogue.html?m=1) that "DIALOGUE WILL START WHEN BOTH SIDES DECIDE THAT IT IS TIME TO CUT THEIR LOSSES".

I added that "the urge for each side to achieve their agenda without making concessions is blinding them from any objective analysis of reality and pushing them into senseless acts of desperation"

The idea here is that for as long as each side hopes to achieve its objectives through violence (without concessions and without giving anything away) they will try to do so. And as they do, violence will continue and more lives will be lost.

Government will take some part of the blame. The dissidents will as well. And I will reserve some part of the blame to all who do not define themselves as ‘government’ or as ‘dissident’ but either do nothing about the escalating tensions or spend too much time thinking, planning and debating on TV.

I come with a background of public action and activism where the right time to swing into action is determined by the urgency of the circumstances and not the readiness of actors. The readiness of actors is, itself, a state of mind, a façon d’etre … an outlook on the world and local environment that spontaneously responds to stimulus.

It is a readiness that does not wait for the designation of ‘leaders’ because leaders emerge in the course of real action and are recognised by their ability to mobilise, to ensure the permanence of dialogue, to take calculated/measured risks and to show restraint.

It is a readiness that does not require months to prepare a strategy. Things move very fast in the real world and the best strategy may become irrelevant on the very day of the start of its implementation. In such a case, it is state of mind that takes over and adjusts to the new circumstances in order to give a new orientation to the model of engagement with parties involved.

READINESS… STATE OF MIND!!!

I understand that many have different backgrounds and experiences and that all hands are needed on deck TO CAUSE DIALOGUE TO TAKE PLACE.

I have used the expression “to cause dialogue to take place”. To me, this expression is fundamental to the role and continued relevance of individual moderates each currently alone… for two reasons:
1. If dialogue ever takes place (or when it does) no-one will invite you to the process just because you stand for dialogue. Everyone around the table will have to carve out a place for themselves. Of course, that does not happen by endless social media ranting around cycles of violence that they have no control over.
2. Dialogue is something that happens in peacetime. However,  the recent events witnessed in Nguti, Kwakwa, Lebialem, Batibo do not qualify as peace. The violence both in action and rhetoric is so real and so sustained that I have a feeling that ceasefire and peace talks RATHER THAN DIALOGUE may have become appropriate.

The questions the haunt me are:
A. When/Where will dialogue take place. Who will organise, host or mediate the dialogue? What concrete solo or collective actions have moderates taken that would make both dissidents and government ponder before making their next move. What positioning have they fashioned for themselves that can cause any of both sides to answer to their call or to consider them as a significant player in case talks started?

B. If the absence of dialogue has led to the current levels of violence that may require something more than the kind of dialogue that would have been relevant in early 2017, wouldn't it be right to say that occupiers of the middle ground are partly responsible through inaction?

Of course, some may argue that the anglophone cause lacks leadership and that the lack of strategic thinking and planning is what has brought us to the present situation. Such arguments may have their place. However, remember that in trying to plan a pathway to dialogue, we may also too carefully plan our way into irrelevance.