The Cameroon government senseless actions across West Cameroon have been the sole cause of youth radicalization. If the youth have resolved to pick up arms today, it is as a direct result of what this barbaric regime has been doing.

Even a United Nations report has now confirmed that state action is the primary factor pushing individuals into violent extremism and radicalization.

In a recent study by the United Nations, 71% of those interviewed pointed to “government action”, including “killing of a family member or friend” or “arrest of a family member or friend” as the incident that prompted them to join an armed group.

In the UN study, it is revealed that “State security-actor conduct is a prominent accelerator of recruitment, rather than the reverse.” When you set houses ablaze, burning family members in them, shooting at innocent teenage girls and killing some, you can’t expect family members to stand by and watch such carnage.

You assaulted, humiliated, arrested and jailed the lawyers when they stood up to complain, intimidated and threatened teachers when they wanted dialogue, beat up students and raped the girls, maimed and killed motorbike riders for sympathizing with their lawyers and teachers, seized their bikes and burned them, chased them into the bushes and shot them, razed entire communities to the ground rendering thousands of families homeless, forcing thousands to seek refuge in the forest and neighboring countries, then when the same youth pick up arms to fight back the barbaric and brutal military, you start wondering and questioning why. No one has the monopoly of using firepower when faced with an existential threat. The Americans will refer to it as the second amendment right.

You refused dialogue and preferred the use of force, thinking it was going to be business as usual, helas the tides are turning and tuning very fast. I fear for what this country will look like in the years ahead. Things will never be the same again.

Source: Eric Acha