The Scramble for Cyberspace: Internet-Based Reporting of Genocide in the Southern Cameroon-Ambazonia Crisis

Abstract

The post-truth politics has been ascendant in Cameroon since the beginning of the Anglophone crisis. Consequently, the country’s political culture has been influenced by appeals to emotion, usually ignoring factual rebuttals. We collected original data using Facebook accounts which are a preserved archive of the way hundreds of millions of Southern Cameroonians and other relate to one another and share genocidal information. The data indicate that the government’s stance on bearing genocidal responsibility changes continuously when internal and external actors pressurize it to investigate crimes committed against humanity as it was the case in the 2020 Ngarbuh massacre and it either remains stagnant or the blames are shifted to the separatists when no serious pressure is exerted on it. The more the truth about crimes against humanity is hidden, the more tension increases, the more trust is destroyed and the more the war will prolong and widen the divide between Ambazonians and La Republique du Cameroon. Martial and cosmetic solutions only help to radicalize the population and instigate them to defy state institutions. Ambazonians’ responses indicate that they did not have to rely on an international community but themselves and it prompted them to take arms and fight the more.