Editorial Comment: No Selective Human Rights!

Cameroonians must have been wondering over the very vigorous manner with which the Minister of Communication and Government Spokesman Issa Tchiroma Bakary announced the diplomatic victory of Cameroon during last week’s session of the Human Rights Council of the United Nations in Geneva.

A resolution tabled by the African Group by the People’s Democratic of Algeria at the 23rd session of the Council on April 1, 2015 was unanimously adopted, “condemning the aggressions of the Boko Haram terrorist organization against Cameroon as well as other countries affected by the evil deeds of the obscurantist and criminal sect, including Nigeria, its epicentre, Chad and Niger.”

This sounds very much like one of many other UN resolutions; but the significance of this resolution is far-reaching and timely in a Cameroonian context, especially regarding the country’s management of the war imposed on it by Boko Haram.

In effect, a so-called human rights group working with huge financing from very suspicious sources had gone to the extent of “revealing gross human rights abuses on members of the Boko Haram” with a special focus to justify its position on the fact that some captured Boko Haram fighters had died under detention supposedly under difficult detention conditions or sheer torture.

It will take quite a good dose of sadism to celebrate the death of a fellow human being, even if such death saves the lives of many others. We are not yet at that.

But what human rights can we be talking about when the captured people spread terror in the entire region in a senseless spate of killings using the most brutal forms including perforating the stomachs of pregnant women to pull out their unborn babies, beheading able-bodied young males, sometimes before under-aged children and inviting women to take part in the mass killings of their husbands and children.

What is even very strange about the intentions of this Cameroonian Rights group is its selective denunciation of Human Rights abuses. If it preferably targets groups that can quickly make news, then one must also be wondering the fact that it remained completely silent when, last year in the same region, the entire household of a sitting Vice Prime Minister was attacked, ransacked and nearly all its members brutally slain.

In the face of all the brutality exhibited by Boko Haram, the Cameroonian armed forces have remained very professional and have never returned these excesses with what could have been considered as appropriate reciprocity by going out for wide-scale killings of suspects.

Rather, Cameroon has remained faithful to its international engagements by respecting to the letter, every international convention it has signed in matters of respect for Human Rights! A Cameroonian proverb informs that when you go out for peace, you never count the dead; otherwise peace will be difficult to be accepted.

If Cameroonians were to count the number of its citizens slain by the ignominious sect, no one can imagine the fact that there are over 1000 Boko Haram prisoners in Cameroonian prisons! It would be a very good idea for the Rights groups to carry out special investigations in these detention centres so that they can acknowledge the fact that Cameroon respects all international instruments.

Furthermore, it stands to reason that Cameroonians are doing more than just respecting the lives of these hoodlums because their daily feeding is taxed on the Cameroonian taxpayer with money that could have otherwise be used for other vital developmental tasks.

How can Cameroon be blamed for taking the burden of a war imposed on it? Because of the foregoing, the accusations about human right abuses are certainly unfair and the resolution taken at the 23rd special session of the United Nations Human Rights Council last April 1, 2015 in Geneva creditably vindicates our nation.

In fact, human rights must be seen to be all-embracing and inclusive, rather than be perceived selective because before our creator we are all equal.