STATEMENT BY THE SECRETARIAT OF THE DIRECTORIAL COMMITTEE WHEN MAY 20th RHYMES WITH POWER VACANCY

Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the government cancelled the May 20th ceremonies this year.

year. In actuality, although there is a certain excitement in the drinking establishments, the

Kamerunian people do not have the spirit to celebrate and for several reasons. We are only looking here at the NOSO crisis and the Covid-19 pandemic.

Civil War Continues in the North-West-South-West

For the past four years the country has been plunged into civil war in the North-West and South-West, with over a million displaced people internally and refugees in Nigeria, thousands of deaths. More than 130 villages plundered to the ground, schools closed. The situation of extreme violence continues with its share of of abuses in which civilians continue to die in ever-increasing numbers.

On 14 February 2020, in Ngarbuh in Donga Mantung department in the north-west, the army

massacred 23 civilians, including 3 women and 10 children, under the cover of the struggle against a secessionist hotbed.

In order to cover up its exactions, it burned down the houses. In the face of popular pressure, those of the civil society, human rights defenders, representatives of different faiths, religious forces, civil society and the media, the government was forced to set up a commission of inquiry whose findings clearly establish the responsibility of the military.

To this must be added the detention behind bars of many political prisoners, some

of them being recognized by the people of NOSO as political leaders spearheading their demands; therefore men and women who should not be in prison if there was a willingness of the ruling power to engage dialogue, a dialogue which represents for UPC-MANIDEM the sole and only way to put an end to the tragedy that our country has been going through for almost four years. Let us repeat: the solution to the war in the NOSO is not militaristic, it is political!

Finally, economical activities in this part of the country are completely shattered.

Faced with this terrible reality, Paul Biya could only chose the masquerade of the great national dialogue of which we see the inanity on the ground.

The tragedy of Ngarbuh that we have just mentioned adds to the list of places where the army (whose role first is to protect populations) has committed abuses and is systematically covered by the government. For we always remember the two women who were summarily executed in the far north, one with her baby on her back, the other with her child in her hand. Faced with images of this execution, the Yaoundé authorities had claimed that it was taking place in Mali until that serious investigations will set the record straight for all to see: yes, it was in Paul Biya's Kamerun that innocent children and their not less innocent mothers were murdered this way.

We are dealing with a State that is constantly in denial of its inadequacies and its

crimes; or who finds that the slightest interpellation is an external or internal conspiracy, and launches either the Minister of the Interior or the Minister of Communication in showcases of deplorable communication exercises.

UPC-MANIDEM demands with all forces of good will:

• The release of all political prisoners and obviously those in the English-speaking area

• The return home of refugees

• Ceasefire, or even localized ceasefires...

• Peacemaking in NOSO as part of a True National Dialogue

• A plan for reconstruction, development and economic recovery with the support of the State

• The implementation of a genuine decentralisation program creating the conditions for a real takeover of NOSO's human and material potential

The fight against COVID-19

COVID-19 is the magnifying glass that shows the vacuity of the Biya system in general.

Heads of State from all over the world have addressed their people to provide national and international updates on the pandemic, to indicate the main orientations and to present plans to fight it. Cameroon is the only country where not once has the Head of State spoken to the people in these extremely difficult times. The State through its Prime Minister has been perfectly fine with copying and pasting measures taken elsewhere, without being able to distinguish where it gets stuck, nor add what is required in the Cameroonian context. Without vigorous campaigns to explain the situation to the population, without proposing accompanying measures, the government has failed to take the necessary steps to ensure that the measures are implemented. towards a number of socio-economic actors, mainly those in the informal sector, leaving them in a resignation that does not favour the respect of basic instructions in the fight against Covid-19. And the government is adding more to the unbearable: as soon as it decided to reopen the drinking establishments in inadequate hours, contrary to what was prescribed at the beginning of the pandemic, it was as if it was telling the population that there were no longer any risks, and the population having lowered its guard, the consequences will soon be devastating.

Of the 20,000 tests donated to our country for dedicated centres, a good amount disappeared. Certainly not for everyone because they have to go to boyfriends who have clinics where these tests received free of charge become paid for. For lack of tests, some patients are referred to scanner images which are unaffordable for the vast majority, so they go back home with the disease.

In the absence of effective protective measures, health workers who are at the forefront of the fight against Covid-19 are plagued by discomfort, which sometimes turns to fear. This is indicated by the increase in absenteeism in the community. This requires minimal measures for these personnel: that they be provided with effective protective equipment, and that they be given flexible working hours and psychological support, so that they can manage the inevitable stress of contact with patients, some of whom are carriers of the virus.

There is a great deal of disorder in the care of patients. This means that in every large city at least one common platform for patient orientation and it is sometimes done in improvisation by health personnel, or thanks to doctors' relationships alone.

Financial management is also imprecise. As we have just said, it happens that even the test isn't free. Finally, there is also no automatic support for the parents of a person who has tested positive and who has lived in promiscuity with the patient. These family members manage it themselves at the best they can for those of them who can afford it, the others go home quietly as if nothing had happened.

Instead of taking action, the government is banning organizations that are responding to the pandemic by preventing the organization from collecting and distributing materials. What does this system want? Not only it isn't doing anything, but it cannot stand the fact that others are mobilizing. Do people have to die for it to be satisfied?

From the beginning of the pandemic, UPC-MANIDEM is in the framework of Stand Up For Cameroon and, with other forces, agreed to take its part in the fight against Covid19 : indeed, our party is part of the Covid19 Unity Platform of civil society organisations chaired by Monsignor Samuel Kléda, Metropolitan Archbishop of Douala. There is a gigantic task of information, supervision and care of the populations; there is also the task of getting information from the different actors (national and local authorities, medical personnel, aid donors, etc.) and questioning them from time to time.

All of this must be pursued with a clear awareness of the inability of this regime to resolve any national problem. Hence the need and urgency for the process of change, through Political Transition with the forces that have at heart the future of our country.

Dear compatriot,

Mr Ahidjo's Unitary Republic of Cameroon in 1972 which ended the Federal Republic of Cameroon, later transformed into the Republic of Cameroon by Mr. Biya, shows the inconsistency of all that is done on paper without being able to establish fundamental and carrying acts. In this 20th May of 2020, never has the country been so divided, never has this day been so badly named the day of national unity.

• In addition to the NOSO crisis, the far north, a totally ostracized region, is also suffering from the exactions of BOKO HARAM.

• State tribalism has been erected as a mode of governance, now allowing some localities to become no-go areas for non-natives of the region.

It is urgent to create this dynamic of real change, of rupture, to demonstrate that an OTHER KAMERUN IS POSSIBLE with another political and economic system at the service of the people where EVERYONE HAS A PLACE.

It is necessary to leave the Biya system cleanly and definitively. And we have no right to botch this exit, or the country will be back to rubbish for another half-century.

UPC-MANIDEM says that after so many years of deadlock, inconsistencies and mismanagement, it is necessary to rebuild the foundations of a New Republic. This cannot be done by simply changing the President of the Republic: unlike the federal, then unitary, then republics, which were imposed on the people of Kamerun without asking them to participate in the elaboration of the content, we say that the New Republic must take its place within the framework of a large mobilization of the populations presided over by the True National Dialogue. Within this framework, we will all together lay the new foundations of the new republic. This is what we call the Political Transition, which is a moment of popular and democratic elaboration that allows us to avoid going out of anything to go back into anything.

Let's go forward with the Political Transition!

Long live the UPC-MANIDEM!

Long live Kamerun!

May 20th, 2020

For the Secretariat of UPC-MANIDEM

Vice President for External and Pan-African Relations Bayémi André

President Moutoudou Albert

Treasurer Leukam Ghislain

Secretary General Chumchoua Penda