For almost 10 years, the North West and South West of Cameroon have been trapped in a so-called “crisis”, that the world politely monitors while people bleed. Ceasefires are announced. Dialogues are promised. Committees are formed. Yet villages burn, schools close, children flee, and graves multiply.
So when the UN says it needs “security guarantees” to monitor a ceasefire in DR Congo, I hear the same script that failed Cameroon.
Let’s be honest.
In Cameroon, there were:
- “Special status” without real justice
- Dialogues without equal voices
- Peace talks without accountability
- Monitoring without consequences
And what did we get?
👉 A frozen war, not peace.
👉 A generation growing up knowing guns better than classrooms.
👉 Displacement normalized. Trauma ignored.
From Cameroon to Congo, the pattern is African lives managed, not protected.
As Africans, we must ask uncomfortable questions:
- Who guarantees security for civilians, not just monitors?
- Why are ceasefires protected more than schools and farms?
- Why does the international community wait for “guarantees” while people die daily?
- Why are African crises only urgent when they threaten borders or minerals?
Pan-African truth:
Peace is not the absence of shooting — it is the presence of justice, dignity, and political courage.
Cameroon teaches us this painful lesson:
You cannot silence a conflict without addressing its roots.
You cannot militarize a political problem and call it stability.
You cannot monitor peace where trust has already been buried.
To DR Congo, I say: learn from Cameroon.
To the UN, I say: monitoring without enforcement is theatre.
To African leaders, I say: history will not forgive delay disguised as diplomacy.
From Bamenda to Buea, from Goma to Bukavu, African blood carries the same weight — even when the world pretends otherwise.
Enough managed suffering.
Africa deserves real peace, not supervised pain.
Africa Must Change | African Youth, Politics & Social Change 
Leave a comment