“Violence Is Not The Right Way To Resolving This Crisis”

Your Excellency, can you let the public know your mission to Buea, capital of the South West Region?
This is the first trip I am making to the South West Region since I came to Cameroon as an Ambassador. I visited the Cameroon Baptist Convention-sponsored Hospital in Mutengene and the laboratories at the hospital, which the US government through the CDC and the USAID has been assisting for many years. I have also met with religious leaders like the Moderator of the Presbyterian Church in Cameroon and also the Imams of Buea and Bamenda. I have seen the Governor of the South West Region and the Mayor of the Buea Council. 
After meeting these personalities, what plans or actions can be expected in the days ahead?
My purpose in coming was not just to meet people and have conversations but to have eyes on the ground. It has been a long time since we had an Ambassador at the US Embassy in Yaounde. It’s been almost a year and a half between when my predecessor left and when I arrived, and this is my opportunity to come into the South West Region and be enlightened on what is going on what’s been going on in the North West and South West Regions for the last five and a half years. I need to get a sense of how people here on the ground are feeling and factor that into our conversations going forward.
What is your first-hand opinion about the Anglophone crisis in Cameroon?
I believe that the violence that has been ongoing in the North West and South West Regions of Cameroon lasting from 2016 and definitely since 2017 has caused unnecessary suffering for the people of the two Regions and whether or not there are legitimate political interests on the part of the various parties, violence is not ever going to be the right way to resolving this crisis.
We understand you were in Cameroon in 1992 and worked at the US Consulate in Douala. How would you compare what you lived at that time in this Country and now that you have come as an Ambassador of the US to Cameroon?
I was in Cameroon from April 1992 until July 1993, which was about 1...