Once again fire has destroyed shops on Tuesday (December 11) evening in Cameroon’s Bamenda. Last time, during the end of November, massive fire destroyed a big portion of a food market in the same location. This time only five shops destroyed in a period of just two weeks, whereas last time 200 stalls got devastated by the tremendous fire.

The cause of the fire is still unknown. This is the fourth time in less than two years that the market in Bamenda is affected by fire. The government blamed a fire at the market last year on separatists demanding independence for the English-speaking regions in Cameroon.

The separatists say English-speaking Cameroonians face discrimination and are fed up of being part of a country ruled for more than 35 years by French-speaking President Paul Biya.

Devdiscourse

The President of a Bamileke group in Belgium says the Biya regime and its Beti Bulu Francophone soldiers are too weak to wage a new war with the Bamilekes of the West. The French Cameroonian who spoke to our Brussels correspondent and sued for anonymity because of his chain of businesses in Douala and Yaoundé made the remarks late yesterday during a meeting to rally support for Prof Maurice Kamto, the leader of the MRC party widely believed to have won the October 7 elections.

The business tycoon added that Ambazonians are no longer scared of a potential war with the Beti Bulu dominated Cameroon army. “No one in Yaoundé can threaten Anglophones with war and no one again can scare them by war… Ambazonians are not scared or worried about war and they are ready for it and the creation of the so-called disarmament commission signals fear of Anglophones being victorious.”

The French Cameroun citizen warned Biya and his tribal military junta against starting a new war in La Republique du Cameroun and vowed that the Bamilekes will use every available means to bring the Biya regime to its end.

The Southern Cameroons resistance today without possession of sophisticated weapons and equipment and capabilities and members and cadres and ability and expertise and experience has faith and determination and courage and will and is stronger ever since the formation of the Interim Government and proclamation of independence by President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe.

By Chi Prudence Asong

The Southern Cameroons Restoration Forces under the direct supervision of the Ambazonia Self-Defense Council have issued a serious warning to troops loyal to the Biya regime in Yaoundé, saying that the regime will regret invading Southern Cameroons. In a statement which was released on Monday, the Ambazonia restoration fighters noted that various strategic locations in French Cameroun will be targeted soonest.

The document that was sent to our regional office in Buea further stated that there will be a response to every French Cameroun attack in Southern Cameroons. Earlier this week, the 85 year old President Biya appointed members to the so-called disarmament commission arguing them to facilitate an end to the crisis in Southern Cameroons.

The Ambazonia Self-Defense Council was formed following President Biya’s declaration of war and subsequent invasion of Southern Cameroons and the inter-state use of terror, abduction and rendition of His Excellency Sisiku Ayuk Tabe and members of the Ambazonian Interim Government to French Cameroun.

Since then, the movement has helped the Southern Cameroons Interim Government retake control of some Southern Cameroons counties from the Yaoundé regime and it is thwarting numerous French Cameroun acts of aggression.

Ever since the war started in Southern Cameroons, Francophone soldiers have not been able to distinguish between Amba fighters and the Southern Cameroons civilian population. Cameroon government troops are hitting Southern Cameroons and destroying its infrastructure.

By Sessekou Asu Isong with files from Sama Ernest

A Southern Cameroons commander in Lebialem has said that the Biya dream of restoring French Cameroun lost power in the Federal Republic of Ambazonia in cooperation with Nigeria’s ailing Buhari will never come true. “The Biya Francophone regime, in cooperation with the corrupt Buhari administration in Nigeria, is trying to restore its power in Southern Cameroons,” the Red Dragons commander in Menji told Cameroon Intelligence Report.

The Red Dragons senior military figure whose name we are withholding further referred to the Nigerian President Buhari’s role in the crisis, saying Buhari is forcefully repatriating Southern Cameroonians to be slaughtered on the pretext that they serve Nigeria’s strategic interests and stability in the Gulf of Guinea.

The Red Dragons chief says the Biya and the French Cameroun army have failed in all the plots they hatched to advance their own agenda in Southern Cameroons. The war between Southern Cameroons and French Cameroun began last year with the French Cameroun army launching onslaught against Southern Cameroons towns and villages as well as the positions of the Ambazonia Restoration Forces. The war has resulted in the burning down of some one hundred villages and the deaths of over 4,000 Southern Cameroons civilians.

Some 1400 Cameroon government army soldiers have also been killed during the fighting. Yaounde has not realized that it cannot bully Southern Cameroons into submission and has rejected calls for inclusive and genuine dialogue with the Ambazonian Interim Government.

The recent French Cameroun military aggression against the Red Dragons of Lebialem saw several French Cameroun soldiers killed and several others injured. The UN, the EU and the AU have all undermined regional stability by taking a hard line in favour of the Biya Francophone regime and against Ambazonians.

By Chi Prudence Asong

Cameroon says it has created a committee to disarm and reintegrate hundreds of separatist fighters and Boko Haram terrorists who put down their weapons. But analysts say the committee has a long road ahead in English-speaking regions, where fighting between the government and separatists has intensified.

Ngoran Nora read the names of 30 people whose homes were set on fire before she escaped Thursday from the northwest town of Kumbo. She told her community members in Yaounde that the military killed at least 15 people in the villages of Meluf, Kikaikom, Mbveh and Tooy over two days after gunmen engaged them in battle.

She said soldiers might have targeted people they suspect collaborate with separatists, or did not inform them about the fighters’ presence in the villages.

​The violence comes less than a week after President Paul Biya created a national committee for the disarmament, demobilization and reintegration of former Boko Haram fighters in the far north and former separatist fighters in northwest and southwest regions.

The government said the committee was created to assist hundreds of former fighters who heeded Biya’s call to drop their guns and be pardoned, or killed by the military.

Joseph Motaze, political analyst with the Cameroon-based Center for the Rehabilitation of Former Fighters, said the committee is a good first step. But he suggested that Biya should reduce the military’s presence in the northwest and southwest regions to show he is ready to make peace.

He said it is imperative for the government to start negotiating with armed groups in the restive English-speaking regions and immediately drop the idea of using war as a solution to the crisis.

He added that the fighters are becoming violent to a point where they are kidnapping and killing people who do not share their views, and taking administrators hostage to make the area totally ungovernable.

The armed groups want to form an independent English-speaking state. The majority of Cameroon’s population speaks French.

Francis Fai Yengo, a retired civil administrator appointed to head the disarmament committee, said he will need the support of everyone to be able to succeed.

He said he has to set to work immediately because the task ahead of him is enormous.

He called on all Cameroonians to propose ideas and contribute to the peace initiative so that all of the youths who have taken up weapons can make wise decisions to emerge from the bushes and live like peaceful citizens in their own country — Cameroon.

The separatist war has killed more than 1,200 people, according to the government.

Source: VOA

Unknown gunmen have reportedly attacked Senator Buh Sule Tegha en route to Wum, Menchum County today in Bambui. We gathered from a reliable source deep within the Ambazonia Defense Council that Senator Buh Sule was accompanied by his wife and driver when he came under attack.

The Senator’s wife sustained life threatening wounds and she is currently on intensive care at the Bamenda Regional Hospital. As at the time of filing this report, the police are also yet to confirm the incident. The senator is safe but the vehicle arrear screen was shattered.

The Senator’s driver was quoted as saying that they heard gunshots, sporadic shooting aimed at Senator Buh Sule’s car. The shooting lasted for about 15 minutes, his driver said.

Camcordnews desk

A separatist leader from the anglophone west of Cameroon went on trial Thursday on charges of”terrorism” and “secession” over unrest that has claimedhundreds of lives.

Julius Sisiku Ayuk Tabe, president of the self-declared “Republic of Ambazonia”, was arrested in neighbouring Nigeria and extradited to Cameroon in January this year along with 46 others.

The military court in the capital Yaounde is trying Ayuk Tabe and nine co-defendants on charges of “condoning and financing terrorism” as well as insurrection and “hostility against the motherland”.

Cameroon’s 22 million people are mainly French-speakers, but around a fifth are English-speaking, concentrated in the Northwest and neighbouring Southwest regions of the West African country.

Resentment at perceived discrimination against anglophones in education, the judiciary and the economy fanned demands for autonomy in 2016.

Then last year, as longtime President Paul Biya refused any concessions, radicals declared the independent state of Ambazonia and took up arms.

Attacks by the secessionists and a crackdown by the authorities have led to the death of at least 500 civilians as well as more than 200 members of the security forces, according to the International Crisis Group (ICG).

More than 300,000 people have fled the violence, many of them living hand-to-mouth in the forests, and some across the border into Nigeria. Clashes persist on a near-daily basis. Ayuk Tabe and most of his co-defendants make up the political wing of the separatist movement, advocating negotiation with Yaounde.

The court rejected a demand for Ayuk Tabe’s release from detention in mid-November. The trial was adjourned Thursday to January 10 to allow the defence – comprising more than 80 lawyers – to study the charges. The prosecution plans to call 70 witnesses, according to a list seen by AFP.

Source AFP

Journalists and the general public are barred from witnessing Ambazonian Acting President, Sisiku Julius Ayuk Tabe and nine others facing charges of terrorism and treasonable felony in the Yaoundé Military Tribunal.

The trial of the detained Southern Cameroons leader finally commenced today, with the Yaounde Military Tribunal providing shields obstructing journalists and the public from getting a glimpse of witnesses, counsel and even the trial judges.

The members of the military tribunal team are all from the Bulu tribe making it a Bulu traditional court. We understand that witnesses in the matter would be shielded from the public.

By Sama Ernest in Yaounde

A court in Douala has struck out charges against an opposition leader and 52 of his supporters who had been protesting against the re-election of 85-year old president Paul Biya.

Source:AIT