Prof. Maurice Kamto speaking during press conference
By Etienne Mainimo Mengnjo
The President of the Cameroon Renaissance Movement, CRM party, Prof. Maurice Kamto, has said the party is not looking for a fight, but if the fight decides to look for them, they will not run away from it.
Prof. Maurice Kamto made the statement in a press conference on December 3 in Yaounde. This came a day after government put him under house arrest in a bid to frustrate his book launch in Douala.
“…Don’t continue with the provocations. When we say our slogan is change through peace and not violence is not because we are afraid… I repeated this in Douala and I am saying it here that we are not looking for a fight but if the fight is looking for us, be rest assured that we will not run away from the fight,” Kamto said.
While insisting that there was neither any threat no risk in Douala, the CRM Chair described the event in Douala as a usual act and drama from the regime aimed at giving a dog a bad name just to hang it.
“Since 2012, we have been going through this,” he said.
Narrating what transpired in Douala, Prof. Kamto said: “The journey to Douala came after a resounding trip to Bafoussam to visit our political friends who are in prison. We had made sure we obtained legal permission and everything went on well.”
“Arriving Douala to visit political prisoners at New Bell Prison, everything went on well but I had cautioned my party authorities not to announce my coming just like in Bafoussam. After visitation at the New Bell Prison where I urged them to be peaceful and have hope, on coming back to the headquarters, I was surprised to see militants waiting for me,” he went on.
Prof. Kamto added, “Seeing them, I could not go without a word. I told them that our slogan of taking change through peace and not violence has not changed. To achieve this peaceful transformation, we must use the resources around us, which are registering in the electoral registers, having our cards, voting on the day of elections and most importantly defending your vote. That is the change. If someone comes and give you the change, note that it is not your change.”
Since his trip was also an opportunity to launch his book, Prof. Kamto remarked that the book launch might have been banned after his address to the militants – whom he had avoided right from the entrance of Douala by changing his car. “The reason given to me was that, I wanted to transform the book launch into a political meeting meanwhile the launch in Yaounde went well.”
“Stop praying for me and pray hard for yourselves and Cameroon. When you are praying for me, it is as if it’s my issue. No! It is not my issue alone. I am doing my possible best to do what I can do but it’s our collective issue. The best way to pray for me is to do what you are supposed to do; Register in the electoral registers, have your cards, go and vote on the day of the elections and defend your votes. Be ready to fight if they impose a fight on you. That is all,” Prof. Kamto reiterated.
Concerning the international community, the CRM scribe expressed his disappointment to the fact that they have failed to respect their engagements. He questioned what the international community has done, despite all the happenings as well as much talk about the crisis in Cameroon.
“Know that for any member of the international community present in Cameroon is there for their interest and not for Cameroonians. Forget about the international community because since 2012 that we have been singing about the revision of the Electoral Code, what have they done in the past ten years? They keep inviting us to the embassies and nothing happens. Your change will not come from anywhere but from you,” Kamto said.
To him, “Don’t be surprise that the ‘gri-gri’ transfer of power in Cameroon will be done in complexity with the international committee… this generation is a generation of corrupters and our different sectors in the society are sick right to churches.”
“Because we have said, stop the bloody war in the Northwest and Southwest Regions, because we have said, revise the electoral code and because we were among the first to ask government to account for AFCON Infrastructures, our militants have been brutalize, tortured and locked up. Lawyers who are militants of our party have also suffered. We have a right to say what is not going on,” Kamto said.