Five years after he was granted political asylum by the U.S. government, Richard
Sitcha was deported last month to his homeland of Cameroon, leaving his friends anxious about his safety.
Sitcha had fled Cameroon, where government abuses are well documented, in 2001 and settled in the Hartford area. Sitcha, who worked in the court system in Cameroon, said he feared for his safety after working to help the families of a group of young men, known as the Bepanada Nine, who in 2001 had been killed by government security forces there after being arrested for allegedly stealing cooking oil.
Sitcha was granted political asylum in early 2003, only to have it stripped later that year after a court deemed his application was no longer credible.
While Sitcha was never charged with a crime, he was immediately arrested and sent to prison to face possible deportation. He remained behind bars, bounced from prison to prison, until last month, when his final request for a stay of deportation was denied. (See "Losing Hope," Jan. 10, 2008, www.valleyadvocate.com.)
Sitcha's friends and supporters, including fellow parishioners at the Hartford church he attended and Greenfield-area activists who met him while he was imprisoned at the Franklin County jail, got the news Jan. 23 that he was being sent back to Cameroon that evening. According to Suzanne Carlson, a Greenfield activist who helped found the Sitcha Defense Committee, Sitcha was roused at 5 a.m. by immigration officials, shackled and sent in prison garb to New York's JFK airport. He was allowed to make a phone call to Lorena Dutelle, a church friend from Hartford whom Sitcha had regarded as a surrogate mother in the U.S., before being put on the plane. Supporters say he never received all the personal documents, such as family birth certificates, that had been taken from him when he was arrested.
In an interview with the Advocate in 2004, Sitcha described being tortured by police in Cameroon before he fled to the U.S. and expressed fear that he could be killed if he were ever returned there. Fearful for his safety, his supporters declined to offer specifics about where he is right now; according to Carlson: "Richard was protected by loved ones upon entry into Cameroon, but remains 'underground' as he reunites with his two sons, mother, and other loved ones."
Meanwhile, his friends in the U.S. remain committed to his cause. Carlson says the Sitcha Defense Committee "will be challenging the various people who failed to protect Richard's life and rights during his stay in this country" and will provide updates about his experience in Cameroon. "We continue to pray for Richard on his journey to freedom," Carlson wrote in an email to the Advocate.
(The Sitcha Defense Committee can be contacted at suzannec@crocker.com or by writing to P.O. Box 1263, Greenfield, Mass. 01302.)?
mturner@valleyadvocate.com
