Interview : “Everything Is Being Taken Care Of By DDR”

How did it come about to have a dreaded fighter like Grand Pa of Santa to drop his weapon?
We have focal points in all the seven Divisions and these focal points work with military, administrative, traditional and religious authorities as well as community leaders to access young people. At times you talk to them for about eight months before they finally heed to the call. This is what happened in Santa because Grand Pa was sensitised on the DDR Centre and assured of his safety before he and his boys decided to drop their weapons and join the Centre. Cameroon is the only country in the world where the DDR process is built on blanket amnesty. That is, no matter the crimes you must have committed, the moment you lay down your arms and come to the DDR Centre, you are a free person.
What is the situation of the Centre?
As of now, the Bamenda DDR Centre has about 332 ex-fighters and they are well taken care of. They have three square meals a day. Everything right down to their pants is being taken care of by the DDR. We are preparing them for social reintegration and that is why we have come up with programmes to train them in some basic trades. We start first with psychological re-education. You know they were the bush, they were singing a different anthem, taking drugs and thinking differently. So we need to de-radicalise them. While laying emphasis on that we also train them in skills like hair dressing, poultry farming, livestock breeding, agriculture, carpentry of them have acquired and so on. A good number of them have acquired these skills and are already practicing it. Every ex-fighter who comes to the DDR centre is sure of the future.
And what about the women and children?
Some of the ex-fighters are married and with children but we said for psychological stability, it is important to have their wives and children in the Centre. There are quite a good number of them. We have even had birt...