The Cameroon government has put its security forces on alert as violence intensifies in the Southern Zone with Ambazonian fighters blocking the main highway linking Fako to Meme County. Over the week end, Southern Cameroons militants were in battles with the Cameroon army. The Cameroon government claimed the armed separatists were staging attacks against government positions in Ekona and Muea.

We gathered that several government troops were killed and another 16 were injured during gun battles at Mbalangi.  Cameroon government troops created a security cordon around the city of Buea on Sunday and moved in on Monday in an apparent attempt to trap Ambazonian Self-Defense Council Restoration Forces operating in the capital city.

Unconfirmed reports from the Akwaya and Ndian areas say Southern Cameroons fighters have seized official buildings and many fear violence will escalate as the government continues its military crackdown. The Ambazonian conflict has been spreading from the rural areas into the urban centers as the Biya Francophone government put its troops in Buea and in Douala on high alert on Monday, citing concerns about the escalating violence and deteriorating security situation in Southern Cameroons.

The move came after Ambazonian militants staged attacks in Muea some few meters away from Buea. There are concerns that Fako could be the next county to fall to Ambazonia Self-Defense forces after Manyu, Lebialem and Ndian.

By Sama Ernest in Muea

Cameroon has accused Amnesty International of disseminating “crude lies” after it said security forces had committed summary killings, arrests and property destruction to try to crush a separatist insurgency.

The report “is stuffed with crude lies, hasty deductions (and) slanderous, unacceptable manoeuvering, which are part of a strategy of harassment and destabilisation of our country in its fight against the terrorist threat,” Communications Minister Issa Tchiroma Bakary said.

The government “rejects this supposed report with the greatest firmness,” he said in a statement received on Friday.

In a 37-page report, Amnesty said it had catalogued “unlawful killings, destruction of private property, arbitrary arrests and torture” by the security forces in two restive regions of the West African country.

The unrest is unfolding in the Northwest and Southwest Regions, home to most of Cameroon’s English-speaking minority, which account for about a fifth of a population of 22 million.

Years of resentment at perceived discrimination at the hands of the country’s French-speaking majority culminated in protests in October and November 2016, which escalated in the face of a government refusal to make concessions.

In late 2017, violence surged after radicals declared an independent state — an entity named Ambazonia that has not been recognised internationally — and launched an armed campaign, which met with a crackdown.

Amnesty said it had conducted interviews with more than 150 victims of, or eyewitnesses to, violence committed either by the security forces or by separatists.

While accusing government forces of abuses, it also said separatists had killed “at least” 44 members of the security forces, and also targeted ordinary people, including traditional chiefs, whom they suspected to be informants.

Source: Timeslive

What started as a joke some eighteen months ago has finally become a hot potato on the government’s hands. For many decades, Southern Cameroonians have been complaining about marginalization with a view to seeking a peaceful resolution of the issues facing them. But the Yaounde government has been ignoring them, holding that the country’s minority could be easily brought under control.

Despite numerous letters to the country’s president, Paul Biya, for more than three decades, the situation has never been the subject of any discussion in Yaounde. Mr. Biya and his government have never considered the Southern Cameroons question as an issue that can threaten national security and integration.

Mr. Biya and his bunch of ministers are used to looking down on their citizens and they hold that paying attention to all the memos on Southern Cameroonians issues will be dignifying a bunch of people who are just second-class citizens.

They simply did not get it right. They failed to understand that those who make peaceful change impossible, only make violent change inevitable and this is what is happening today in Cameroon. The refusal to listen to the plea of the people of Southern Cameroons has finally exposed the government and made the country ungovernable.

The issue that started way back in the late 70s finally got to a head in October 2016 when Southern Cameroonian lawyers and teachers who had thought that they had explored all peaceful means to address the issues raised decide to call for strikes across the region. They thought it was time to use strikes as weapons to bring the government to the negotiating table.

But the Yaounde government was not in the mood to talk peace. Despite the peaceful means used by lawyers and teachers, the Yaounde government resorted to its legendary brutality as a way of striking fear into the minds of a people who were already sick and tired of their situation. Things were compounded by reckless statements by irresponsible government officials such Laurent Esso, Issa Tchiroma and Fame Ndongo.

Statements by these officials only served as fuel for an already burning house. The anger of the people of Southern Cameroons had flared up and it reached its apex when videos of Buea University students being tortured by soldiers and dragged through raw sewage went viral on social media.

Since the conflict started, the Yaounde government has made one mistake after another. In January 2017, it arrested and jailed Southern Cameroonian leaders who had called for a federal system that would guarantee that the people take ownership of their own development projects.

Barrister Felix Nkongho Agbor-Balla, Dr. Fontem Neba and Mr. Mancho Bibixy were captured and hastily taken to Yaounde in the belief that the population’s anger would be doused. This only inflamed Southern Cameroonians, and things actually took a turn for the worse.

To ensure that its atrocities in the region were not captured on video, the government cut off Internet and other communication systems. In the process, many businesses were killed and the unemployment rate in the region reached alarming rates. Silicon Mountain, a hub for many start-ups in the South West regional headquarters of Buea, was put out of business. The disconnection of the Internet created many Internet refugees and ever since, Silicon Mountain has become a thing of the past.

Rather than seek to appease a people who have been hurting for decades, the Yaounde government proceeded to employing tricks in the hope that it will come out of the conflict victorious. After more than six months in jail for no crime committed, Barrister Felix Nkongho Agbor-Balla, Dr. Fontem Neba and others were released, while Mr. Mancho Bibixy was left in jail. He was later convicted of many flimsy crimes, including terrorism.

Once the leaders were released in 2017, the ruling party’s propaganda immediately kicked in. It portrayed the releases as an act of magnanimity on the president’s part. But the tricks of the past could no longer work the miracles they had produced in the past. The people were sick and tired of the government’s manipulation and trickery. Southern Cameroonians no longer want to have anything to do with their unfortunate past. The calls for federalism had developed into independence and secession.

On September 22, 2017, Southern Cameroonians surprised the entire world by staging a show of force. Thousands of Southern Cameroonians took to the streets with peace plants, calling for the total liberation of their land. The world was taken aback and the Southern Cameroonian crisis finally made its way into the global arena.

On October 1, 2017, Southern Cameroonians came out en masse to declare their independence and this met stiff resistance from the Yaounde government. Many innocent Southern Cameroonians were sent to an early grave and this changed the dynamics. Southern Cameroonians were full of rage and revenge was in the air. That was how the killing of soldiers started. Arms were purchased and shipped to Southern Cameroons without the Yaounde government noticing anything, as its ministers were busy embezzling whatever little money was still in the state’s coffers.

Instead of seeking to address the issues, the government hastily brought out its 1996 constitution and brandished it to the international community, advising that the decentralization policy would be rushed so as to address many of the issues raised by Southern Cameroonians.

But for many, the government was once more trying to close the barn when the horse had already bolted. The country’s decentralization policy was supposed to have been operational since 1996, but the government decided to shelve it for decades. To many people, the 1996 constitution clearly belongs to the past.

Southern Cameroonians have moved on. To them, an independent Southern Cameroons wherein the people must play a critical role in the management of state affairs is their focus. But the Yaounde government felt such a scheme would not work out in its territory.

In January 2018, Mr. Biya declared war on Southern Cameroonians, calling them terrorists. He followed this up by arresting Southern Cameroonian leaders in Nigeria and shipping them to Yaounde where they have been held incommunicado for months in total defiance of international law.

With the Southern Cameroonian president, Julius Ayuk Tabe, in jail, the government felt it had cut the “snake’s head.” But it was mistaken. The Southern Cameroons crisis is a hydra. It develops a new head each time the old one is cut off.  With this new mentality, the floodgates for the killings on both sides had been thrown wide open.  

From January 2018 to June 2018, more than one thousand civilians have been killed, 75 villages burnt, and more than four hundred soldiers killed by Southern Cameroonian fighters who claim they are defending themselves against a government that is incapable of protecting its own people.

The fighting is currently going on and the killing is still ongoing. Cameroon, once an oasis of peace in a desert of chaos, has finally become a massive killing field. The two English-speaking regions are awash with arms. The Southern Cameroonian Diaspora is living up to its word. It had promised to destabilize Cameroon and the country has been caught up in a downward spiral.

The Diaspora is still pouring weapons into the country and this is giving the pool of willing fighters on the ground, a reason to fight to a bitter end. The Diaspora has the capacity to reduce Cameroon to a small unstable nation. Many Southern Cameroonians are living abroad because of the marginalization that the government had orchestrated against them and, today, the government is being hoist in its own petards. The pouring of weapons in the region has reduced the country’s army into a boys scout team. The pressure of the fighters is being felt even in Yaounde. The Diaspora is finally punishing the Yaounde government.  

Their decision to ridicule the Yaounde government is a sort of punishment to the irresponsible Yaounde government for having put Southern Cameroonians through tough emotional, economic and financial times. And the punishment is actually producing the desired results. The Yaounde regime is losing sleep. Its language is gradually changing.

The once banned federalism is now being considered by government insiders such as Fame Ndongo as a way out of the crisis that has put Cameroon in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons. Fame Ndongo has discovered that the “two cubes of sugar” will not be melting anytime soon. He is already eating his own words. But he seems to be talking to a wall. Southern Cameroonians are not listening. Their minds are somewhere else.

Southern Cameroonians are no longer looking at federalism. They have already crossed the threshold of independence and they will not be staging any possible return to their former demands. A lot of blood has flowed. Beti soldiers have killed innocent Southern Cameroonians. Since they are a no-match for the tough and determined Southern Cameroonian fighters, they always vent their frustration on a population that is already facing tough economic times.

Lot of homes have been destroyed and there is revenge in the air. This is going to make any dialogue challenging. Southern Cameroonians want dialogue too. But they want dialogue that will only enable them to discuss divorce issues.

To step up the pressure on the government, the kidnappings have been stepped up. Many Yaounde government collaborators are being kidnapped on a daily basis by Southern Cameroonian fighters and this is spreading fear among the country’s French-speaking population. Southern Cameroonians have invented green jails. Senior police and administrative officers have been taken to these jails.

The police commissioner of Muea, a small town located some three kilometers from Buea, is currently trying out the effectiveness of the new green jails. He has been critical of the freedom fighters and this will surely complicate matters for him. The government is permanently on edge.

Gun fire is a constant presence in many towns in the English-speaking regions and many residents of the area have migrated to the bushes to avoid government brutality that comes each time a soldier is killed. Despite government actions, the population is with the fighters and it is not yet tired of running.

The people of Southern Cameroons have become real athletes. Running now comes very easily to many Southern Cameroonians. Even the old and sick have learned how to run and live in the tough conditions that the forests are offering.

But despite the protection the forests do offer, many vulnerable people have lost their lives in the bushes due to illnesses and lack of proper medication. This is only fuelling the anger in the region and this will work against any efforts to bring peace to the region. Federalism is an idea whose time has passed. Southern Cameroonians are no longer looking in the same direction like their East Cameroonian counterparts.

But the rebellion is also consuming its own people. There have been some summary executions by the Southern Cameroonian fighters which are gradually becoming a cause for concern. Last week, Ayuk Marshall, a Mamfe Council Worker, was gunned down point blank in front of his home in Ndekwai, a small village located some two kilometers from the city of Ossing.

It was alleged that he was collaborating with Yaounde government agents. But many people at home and abroad are questioning the wisdom behind the killing of fellow Southern Cameroonians when East Cameroonians are being kidnapped and released on a daily basis.  

Many argue that the fighters may start losing support if they do not exercise restraint in their punishment of perceived traitors. Many Southern Cameroonians in the Diaspora are calling on the fighters to provide evidence that makes some of those killed guilty as charged. Southern Cameroons is not and will never be a territory where the power of the gun will prevail.

Some of those killed could have simply been taken to the green jails where they should be given a fair trial. That is how justice should work. Killing fellow Southern Cameroonians may ruin the unity of purpose that has kept Southern Cameroonians together ever since the revolution started.

In the city of Ossing, a few citizens were promptly rounded up and given a public flogging for helping the Yaounde government. Ossing has been quiet ever since the struggle started and this has been thanks to the city’s chief, General James Tataw Tabe-Orock, who is a retired military general.

The flogging of Ossing citizens is creating a lot of controversy and even city officials disapprove of such acts. They have decided to take this up with the interim government and they are calling on Dr. Samuel Sako and his cabinet to provide a formal explanation for such acts which might ruin the people’s collective effort.

The victims of the public flogging are already making up their bags to quit the city as they consider the flogging a foretaste of what might soon happen to them if care is not taken. Their family members are already accusing the fighters of running an Islamic state where public floggings are an essential part of such a state.

The southern Cameroons crisis is gradually taking a turn for the worst. The Yaounde government needs to come out boldly to acknowledge its mistakes in this drama that has already consumed thousands of people. No trick will solve the crisis. An apology to Southern Cameroonians and amnesty to all Southern Cameroonians living abroad might de-escalate the situation and create the right climate for any inclusive dialogue.

Without dialogue, there will never be elections in that part of the country. Southern Cameroonians have clearly manifested their anger. No bullying or trickery will distract them from their objective. They know what they want and they will stop at nothing when it comes to achieving that goal.

Today, Southern Cameroons is ruled by the Interim Government from the United States and not the incompetent Yaounde government that has proven that brutality is the only language it understands. It is never too late. The government must step up to the plate to provide the right leadership that this situation requires. Its confusing responses will never address the matter.

Cameroon will never be the same again. That is a message the Yaounde government is yet to understand, but it must understand it if it wants peace to return to that region of the continent. Southern Cameroonians have crossed the Rubicon and they are not ready to make any giant steps backwards. The government must shake off its confusion and accept the reality on the ground. It will never win this war. The Diaspora is a huge factor and it will continue to play its role until the Yaounde government collapses.

By Kingsley Betek in Manyu

This item is still developing and Kingsley Betek is en route to Ossing and Ndekwai to investigate

A soldier was killed in an attack in Cameroon’s restive English-speaking Northwest Region on Saturday, local sources said.

The soldier was “ambushed” while on patrol with another service member, who was not harmed, near the town of Furu-Awa in the Menchum department, a regional source told AFP.

Violence occurs almost daily in the Northwest and Southwest Regions between government forces and English-speaking separatists, who are fighting for greater autonomy.

For years, resentment built among anglophones, who make up about a fifth of Cameroon’s population of 22 million, fostered by perceived marginalisation at the hands of the French-speaking majority.

The crisis escalated last October after the declaration of the self-described “Republic of Ambazonia” in the Northwest and Southwest Regions, causing scores of deaths and prompting tens of thousands to flee their homes.

According to the International Crisis Group (ICG) think tank, at least 120 civilians and 43 security forces have been killed since the end of 2016.

The UN says 160,000 people have been internally displaced and 20,000 sought refuge in neighbouring Nigeria.

Source: AFP

Another emergency alert

If you live in Mamfe, Ndian, Lebialem, and Kupe Manenguba counties, this emergency alert is particularly directed at you. The IG has received intelligence from French Cameroon military sources that their military vehicles transporting troops and bombs have been dispatched to your communities with a mission to hunt and to kill.

They travelled by night after asking that electricity be shutdown to give them secret passage to the destinations. Again, this is for Ndian, Mamfe, Lebialem and Kupe Manenguba. The bombs they are carrying are to be fired into the bush/forest areas they cannot access or penetrate.

As I make this announcement, the troops should already be in these areas. Those living in the bushes should take particular note and make sure that where they are is totally inaccessible.  Amba restoration boys are particularly warned to be on the alert as they are the prime target of the bombs.

Chris Anu
IG’s Secretary of Communication

The regime in Yaoundé has recruited a cream of Southern Cameroonians serving with the private sector in French Cameroon to help destroy the credibility of the exiled Ambazonian Interim Government (IG) in the USA. Cameroon Intelligence Report has gotten intelligence that independent Southern Cameroonians holding top positions in multinationals in Douala and Yaoundé have been hired and ordered to travel to the US pretending to seek genuine dialogue with the IG.

The Biya think tank took the move amid fears that the ruling CPDM crime syndicate moderates were becoming virtually extinct ever since the Southern Cameroons revolution started. Today, Biya is pursuing a doggy radical shrinkage of the unitary government and he has requested his media gurus to sell it to the world as a project that has come to overthrow the old CPDM style of governance. But the real goal of this Biya Francophone project is to meet with the leaders of the Interim Government on camera and later on get Cho Ayaba and Boh Herbert to come up with stories that the Interim Government has received hush hush money from the Biya regime.

Our senior correspondent in Yaoundé revealed that the scheme has been code-named “The Overthrow of the IG.” The essence of the vicious plan is familiar with what took place in Abuja, Nigeria that eventually led to the abduction and extradition to French Cameroun of the Acting President of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia, His Excellency Sisiku Ayuk Tabe including top aides of his government.  In addition, the Biya regime’s diabolic harsh ploy aims to fan the flames of division between the IG and the other smaller groups in the Ambazonian struggle.

Unlike conventional policies already being implemented in Southern Cameroons to achieve the goals of a one and indivisible nation, the new malicious project also aims to create and obtain permanent control over all Southern Cameroons organizations that are hostile towards the Interim Government. That goal is already being pursued with an increasingly aggressive and norm-violating form of hardball politics only rarely seen in recent times in Yaoundé.

Whether the Biya Francophone CPDM scheme is a thought-out strategy or a skillful use of Southern Cameroonians in the private sector to implement its far-right ideology will have to be determined by the leadership prowess of Dr. Ikome Samuel Sako.  Understanding the various genocidal activities currently going on in Southern Cameroons as a Biya Francophone project makes it easier to see the unstated purposes of these calls for dialogue involving legendary footballer, Samuel Eto’o and the Southern Cameroons big names in the French Cameroonian private sector in Douala and Yaoundé and how they are connected.

The Right Royal President has never attacked his ruling Francophone Beti Ewondo CPDM establishment. He has always supported its pattern of management and its goals. In fact, Biya has always said he will never negotiate with Southern Cameroonians and that’s the goal too of the Southern Cameroonians who will be travelling to the US anytime soonest.

Like every French Cameroun political elite, this so-called Southern Cameroons success stories in Douala and Yaoundé will be eager to make life yet more difficult for Ambazonia’s economically and otherwise vulnerable citizens just to be in the good books of the a regime that is taking the last kicks of a dying horse.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

Suspected Anglophone secessionists have abducted a policeman in Cameroon and released his picture on the social media with his legs chained.

Police inspector Diguengue Patrice from Mayo-Danay was abducted by gunmen between Njikom and Belo localities in the Northwest region where activists have been waging a war against security forces.

They are agitating for the independence of English-speaking parts of Cameroon in the Northwest and Southwest regions, citing marginalization from the administration of President Paul Biya.

Cameroonian newspaper, L’Oeil du Sahel, said Patrice had been deployed to Fundong police station where he was abducted by gunmen on Tuesday.

The armed secessionists have gunned down many security forces, burned down schools and government institutions and kidnapped several prominent people.

They have accused security forces of killing many activists in their bid to quell pro-independence protests and of arresting and torturing many activist leaders who have remained in detention without trial.

President Paul Biya had said there would not be dialogue in an atmosphere of war, especially when “crimals” take up arms against the state.

Source: Today News Africa

The death toll from a firefight in an English-speaking region of Cameroon shaken by an armed separatist campaign stands at 32, including five “hostages,” the government said.

The clash erupted at a motel last Friday in Menka, in the Northwest Region — one of two regions gripped by fighting over the last eight months.

“Twenty-seven terrorists (were) neutralised” by a 30-member special unit of police and troops, government spokesman Tchiroma Bakary, who is also communications minister, said late Monday.

The group, which were attacked at a hotel, was an “armed gang” that for months had been “sowing terror and desolation” in the region, killing gendarmes and carrying out kidnappings, rape and extortion, he charged.

Out of “15 hostages” taken by the group, five died, all of them at the hands of the attackers, he said.

About a fifth of French-speaking Cameroon’s population of 22 million is anglophone.

For years, resentment built among anglophones, fostered by perceived marginalisation in education, the judiciary and the economy at the hands of the French-speaking majority.

Demands for greater autonomy were rejected by 85-year-old President Paul Biya, in power for more than 35 years.

The crisis escalated last October after the declaration of the self-described “Republic of Ambazonia” in the Northwest and Southwest Regions, causing scores of deaths and prompting tens of thousands to flee their homes.

Human-rights watchdogs point to a range of abuses, including abductions and targeted killings.

Security forces found five pump-action shotguns, of a type only used by special forces, as well as 17 combat guns and 10 hunting rifles, about 30 military uniforms as well as five berets “which belonged to police and gendarmes who were shot dead in cold blood by the same terrorists,” Tchiroma said.

He denied “allegations that the Cameroonian army carried out a massacre on the civilian population”.

Tchiroma said images of the dead at Menka have been widely distributed on social media, prompting human-rights watchdogs and opposition politicians to voice outrage.

Nji Tumasang, an MP with the English-speaking opposition Social Democratic Front (SDF), speaking after a party delegation visited Menka on Saturday, said 22 people had been killed.

Their identity was unclear, but villagers said they were criminals, not “terrorists” as the army had said, Tumasang said.

Cameroon’s linguistic division dates back to the colonial period. It was once a German colony and was divided between Britain and France after World War I.

In 1960, the French part gained independence, becoming Cameroon, and the following year, the British-ruled Southern Cameroons was amalgamated into it, becoming the Northwest and Southwest Regions.

According to the International Crisis Group (ICG) think tank, “at least 120” civilians and “at least 43” security forces have been killed since the end of 2016.

The UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) says around 160,000 people have been internally displaced and 20,000 have sought refuge in neighbouring Nigeria as a result of the violence.

Source: AFP

It has been two years since the outbreak of the Southern Cameroons conflict.  The senseless war fought between Cameroon government forces and the Ambazonia Self-Defense Council Restoration Forces has already driven more than two hundred thousand Southern Cameroonians out of their homes and approximately some 1600 have died in it. Southern Cameroonians civilians do not suffer in Kondengui Central prison or the famous New Bell prison in Douala only: Cameroon Intelligence Report correspondents have uncovered the Biya government’s campaign of extrajudicial executions at detention facilities in Buea and Mbouda.

Ever since the beginning of the crisis, every week and often twice a week, groups of up to 40 Southern Cameroonians were executed. In two years, as many as 1600 people, most of them civilians believed to be opposed to the Biya regime in Yaoundé, have been killed in secret at Mbouda and Buea. The Ambazonian detainees suffer in inhuman conditions: repeated torture and the systematic deprivation of food, water, medicine and medical care.  We also gathered that the Interim Government of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia have acquired documentation depicting how these extermination policies have killed massive numbers of Southern Cameroons detainees.  Our chief reporter in Northern Zone, Sama Ernest who contributed to this report said there are strong reasons to believe that this routine is still ongoing today.

The Yaoundé government, led by Paul Biya, has never taken time to investigate any killings. All it has always done is to resort to collective punishment wherein the houses of innocent civilians are razed, and innocent youths are gunned down point blank. The actions of the country’s armed forces have created more fighters over the last six months, as ordinary civilians – both boys and girls – now believe they have to defend themselves against a military that is using their tax money to murder the people they are supposed to protect.

Southern Cameroonians have been calling for international assistance. They now want the world to protect them against their supposed protectors. The government’s mass murdering tactics and collective punishment have drawn a lot of flak in recent times and even the Trump Administration has been disappointed by the methods the dictatorial government in Yaoundé is using to restore order in the two restive English-speaking regions of the country.

Amnesty International and the International Crisis Group have also been very vocal against the Yaoundé government’s irresponsible actions. For the past six months, the government of Cameroon has been working hard to wipe off villages from its own map through a scorch-earth policy that many in the international community have frowned upon. Amnesty International and the International Crisis Group have all called the government’s action against Southern Cameroonians into questions. The world has been taken aback by the government’s commitment of such human rights abuses.

Kwakwa, Mbonge, Etoko and Kembong in the South West region have been rolled back into the 10th Century by the government. Its plan was to intimidate the people into submission, but the strategy has so far been counter-productive. In Kwakwa, many old people were burnt alive by government forces as a move to punish the entire population for the killing of an army soldier by some unknown and unidentified gunmen.

Other villages have also experienced the government’s wrath and frustration with a rebellion it felt it could put out in one single military action. Mbonge, Bali and Batibo have all been victims of the Yaounde government’s malicious policy designed to stamp out any opposition.

Terrorism has become the buzzword in Cameroon and anybody who holds a view that is contrary to the government’s is considered a terrorist. This is a new tool it is using to stamp out opposition, but times have changed, and the people of Southern Cameroons are clearly resisting a government they believe is corrupt to the marrow and inefficient.

source: www.cameroonintelligencereport.com