Can Cameroon withstand the era of permanent global insecurity?

Can Cameroon withstand the era of permanent global insecurity?

Armed violence is no longer a distant headline. It has become a daily reality across continents, and Cameroon sits at the crossroads of several converging threats. In a recent editorial, Atonfack Guemo, communications director at the Ministry of Defence, used the programme Honneur et fidélité to raise a pressing question: how long can any nation remain stable when insecurity has gone global? His answer was blunt — only constant vigilance and genuine patriotism can keep the country standing.

The worldwide spread of armed violence

Frozen conflicts are thawing again. Active wars drag on without resolution. Security crises stretch out for years. Almost everywhere, weapons speak louder and more often — whether in clashes between regular armies, in so-called asymmetric operations, or in the low-intensity but highly lethal gun violence that kills more than 200,000 people every year worldwide.

This globalisation of armed violence feeds a palpable sense of permanent insecurity. That feeling can quickly slide into psychosis, especially in countries targeted by an international terrorist network whose capacity to cause harm keeps growing, despite unanimous condemnations and sanctions.

Attacks, blockades and hostage-taking on the rise

Bombings, raids, attempted blockades and hostage-taking are multiplying. All of this is made possible by the ease with which terrorists acquire the means to act on land, in the air, at sea and in cyberspace. There is little point asking who enables them or why. As the editorial puts it, our enemies are kept alive by our friends, supposedly for our own good.

At the same time, other forms of insecurity are spreading into new areas of human activity. Industry is a target for espionage. Wildlife, plant and mineral resources are looted. Communication routes are sabotaged, destroyed or diverted. Politics, education and long-standing cultural customs are distorted in every possible way. These are attacks on people, institutions and the environment. And at the current pace, no country seems powerful enough to be immune.

Cameroon on the front line of multiple threats

Cameroonians know this reality all too well. The country has become a convergence point for multiple aggressions, and its people fight hard just to survive them. The nation devotes an enormous share of its economic, material and human potential to containing instability on its eastern borders and to smothering transnational extremist projects in the north. On top of that, it is working to drain another abscess: the secessionist ambitions in its western regions.

In this dangerous global environment, Cameroon does its best to prevent, contain and, when necessary, reduce the frequency and severity of the attacks aimed at it. So far, the results are rather satisfactory, although outbreaks of violence are still recorded in some parts of the national territory. In this struggle, the support of citizens for the professional defenders of the nation is invaluable.

Vigilance at every moment, in every corner

The core message remains clear: vigilance must be exercised at all times, at every point of the national territory and in every field, to thwart the manoeuvres of an adversary from whom no respite or mercy should be expected.

Stay patriotic. Stay vigilant. And learn to love Cameroon definitively.

By Marguerite Ndongo — Political and Security Analyst