14, February 2024
International Crisis Group calls on the AU to put Southern Cameroons war on its 2024 agenda 0
The Anglophone conflict in Cameroon is entering its eighth year with no resolution in sight. Insurgents in the North West and South West – the country’s two Anglophone regions – are still attacking government soldiers but increasingly one another as well. Civilians bear the brunt of the fighting. Killings, abductions and sexual violence are almost an everyday occurrence, while almost half the area’s schools have stopped functioning. Pro-government militias have sprung up in the Anglophone regions, spreading more chaos. Meanwhile, in the capital Yaoundé, observers worry about the country’s future. President Paul Biya, who turns 91 in February, appears to have left daily affairs to a handful of loyalists in government. As Cameroonians turn their attention to the post-Biya era, many fear a power vacuum amid the jostling over the presidential succession. The AU should put the Anglophone crisis on its peace and security agenda, throwing its weight behind efforts to reach a settlement, before political intrigue in Yaoundé makes negotiations even more difficult.
The Anglophone crisis is rooted in longstanding grievances about the dominance of Cameroon’s mostly Francophone governing apparatus. The conflict was set off by protests by lawyers, teachers and students in 2016, who pushed back against the encroachment of the Francophone legal and educational systems on their regions. On 1 October 2017, secessionists proclaimed an independent Federal Republic of Ambazonia, as they called the North West and South West regions, which had been known during the colonial era as the British Southern Cameroons. Yaoundé responded with a heavy-handed crackdown, arresting hundreds of protesters and others suspected of sympathising with the secessionists.
These events motivated Anglophone activists to form militias. Today, a loose network of armed groups operates in the area, forcing locals to comply with school boycotts and lockdowns via the barrel of a gun. Yaoundé is trying to quell the insurgency by military means, but the army has proven unable to stop the attacks. Hundreds of thousands have fled the violence, with many crammed into makeshift housing in Francophone Cameroon.
As infighting among militias worsens, Anglophone groups are seeking outside allies. In November 2023, one such militia, the Ambazonia Governing Council, signed an agreement with a separatist group in eastern Nigeria, the Independent People’s Organisation of Biafra. Signed in Finland, the alliance could see the two movements sharing safe havens in parts of eastern and south-western Cameroon under their control, threatening regional stability.
The Cameroonian government’s attempts to mollify separatist Anglophone groups have thus far struggled to gain traction. In 2018, Yaoundé launched a disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration program to coax militants away from the insurgency, but to date this initiative has had little success.58 In 2019, the government granted the two regions special status under Cameroon’s decentralisation law, devolving some powers to regional authorities.59 Though this measure could be a good starting point for broader political talks, separatists say the reforms do not sufficiently address their concerns.60Mediation has largely stalled, meanwhile. Most efforts to orchestrate talks between the government and armed Anglophone groups, including a Swiss initiative, quickly petered out. A more recent effort led by Canada showed promise when Yaoundé committed to engaging in late 2022. Yet the government withdrew after months of secret pre-talks, saying it did not want foreigners facilitating dialogue about what it considers a domestic problem.
While AU-led efforts might be productive, particularly in urging a reinvigoration of stalled diplomacy, Yaoundé does not want the AU’s involvement and has managed to fend it off for years. Its attitude does not sit well with many AU Commission officials and member state representatives. Some see the PSC’s inattention to the Anglophone conflict as misguided, given the council’s peace and security mandate. Indeed, Crisis Group has previously recommended that the PSC table Cameroon as part of a strategy of public pressure aimed at pushing the parties toward talks.
The 2024 summit will bring another chance for the AU to pay serious attention to Cameroon, with a very measured first step. As it does every year, the Political Affairs, Peace and Security Department will offer the AU Assembly an update about the state of peace and security throughout Africa. Cameroon’s Anglophone crisis is likely to be included in the report, as has been the case in prior years. The department routinely stresses the urgent need to address the crisis, as well as the importance of stability in Cameroon for Central Africa.63 This time around, the Assembly should not gloss over this part of the report, but rather use it to frame a meaningful discussion of Cameroon’s Anglophone conflict, and include the results in the summit outcome documents so that they can be used as a springboard for further diplomacy.64
The AU PSC should keep focus on the crisis, with the objective of creating new momentum for a diplomatic initiative. One way forward would be to table the Anglophone conflict as an agenda item for periodic PSC discussion. It should anticipate efforts by Yaoundé to discourage this debate, but PSC diplomats should not veer away from their mandated role of ensuring peace and security on the continent. Additionally, thematic PSC discussions about women, peace and security or the proliferation of small arms, which regularly come up on its agenda, present useful opportunities to address the situation in Cameroon.
In its expanded discussions, and in consultation with Cameroonian authorities, the PSC could explore avenues for starting an effective dialogue about the Anglophone regions. The Canada-led initiative, which showed significant promise in its early stages, but seems to have stalled, is at present the most viable diplomatic track. The PSC should urge Yaoundé to resume these talks. It could also consider the option of asking the AU Commission chairperson to name an envoy for Cameroon to facilitate the process. It should ask for regular updates from the Commission chairperson about the situation, thereby sending a useful signal to Commission staff to put time and resources into monitoring the conflict. Unless and until the situation changes, all these efforts should be undertaken with the overarching goal of rekindling talks that could improve the country’s image abroad and end a conflict that has gone on far too long.
Culled from The International Crisis Group
17, February 2024
Donald Trump hit where it hurts most in New York fraud ruling 0
Donald Trump’s latest legal loss hits him where it hurts most because it takes aim at his very identity.
For decades, he has marketed himself as a genius business mogul who made it big in one of the world’s most cut-throat cities.
That image – forever tied to New York deal-making and reinforced by relentless self-promotion – catapulted him to international fame, allowing him to reinvent himself first as a reality TV star and then ultimately president of the United States.
But Judge Arthur Engoron’s ruling in a civil fraud case – related to the inflation of property values and lying on financial statements to obtain better loan terms – undermines Mr Trump’s entire narrative. It instead paints him as a fraud and inflicts a massive blow to his business empire and wealth.
Donald Trump once remarked that the mind can overcome any obstacle. But what an obstacle this is.
The verdict significantly curtails the Trump Organization’s ability to do business in New York. He has personally been banned from holding any directorships for three years and his company cannot secure loans with financial institutions registered with the city during that time either.
He has been hit with an enormous financial penalty of $355m (£282m; €329m) – which jumps to more than $450m once interest is included – that far exceeds how much cash he has to hand. His business will continue to be be watched by an independent monitor, with a separate independent director of compliance also signing off on major business decisions.
In perhaps the only bright spot for the former president and Republican frontrunner, the Trump empire was spared from the equivalent of the corporate death penalty – the cancellation of its business licences.
Mr Trump has for decades seemed to rally and recover from scandals and legal challenges that could irreparably damage others, so much so that he has been referred to as Teflon Don, because nothing sticks.
The nickname previously belonged to the mob boss John Gotti after he won a series of high-profile acquittals in the 1980s. But today’s verdict signals that Donald Trump’s luck, like Gotti’s, may be running out.
Judge Engoron noted Mr Trump and the other defendants’ lack of remorse and history of repeated and persistent fraud. In this case, he said the examples of fraud over more than a decade at the company “leap off the page and shock the conscience”.
Yet the defendants were incapable of admitting the error of their ways, he said, writing: “Their complete lack of contrition and remorse borders on pathological.”
Unsurprisingly, Mr Trump sees things very differently. He says he built a “perfect company” and rejects that he should be punished for fraud because banks were paid back in full. He continues to repeat claims, without evidence, that his legal challenges are just a plot by elite Democrats to keep him out of the White House.
According to Mr Trump’s estranged niece Mary Trump, the judge’s ruling amounts to the end of the Trump family legacy. “Today is an emotional day, but one thing is for certain: the Engoron decision is absolutely devastating for Donald,” she wrote on social media.
As the son of a real estate developer whose projects included middle-class apartment buildings in the outer boroughs of Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island, Mr Trump always dreamed of making a name for himself among the skyscrapers of Manhattan.
A seven-year spree of construction from 1976-1983, including the eponymous Trump Tower, solidified his reputation as a real estate giant in New York. ”Not many sons have been able to escape their fathers,” he told the New York Times in 1983 – the implication being that at 37, he already had.
And it’s true that the 1980s era of greed and excess was a prosperous time for a young developer with his ambition.
Trump Tower, with its prime location on 5th Avenue, put Donald Trump on the map. Once his reputation was established, he subsequently put his name on every project he did.
By the early 1990’s though, Donald Trump filed for several corporate bankruptcies and nearly lost it all.
It was during this time that Rich Herschlag, the chief engineer in the Manhattan Borough President’s office, worked with Mr Trump and his organization on the Riverside South project, a redevelopment in a former rail yard on the Upper West Side.
He says it meant “everything or darn close to everything” for Donald Trump to be seen as a successful real estate developer – and in particular build an empire from his father’s legacy.
“To watch it [potentially] gutted and decimated, I can’t image that’s anything less than an emotional horror,” he told the BBC.
It is not yet clear how Mr Trump will pay the nearly half a billion dollars that he is liable for and if that will involve selling any assets or businesses to raise the cash. His sprawling real estate empire in New York is valued by Forbes at $490m but there are many other properties around the country, including hotels, golf courses, condominiums and even a winery.
He will appeal against the penalty, which would put the decision on hold until a higher court reviews the case.
But if he wants to avoid paying the fine or having his personal assets seized while the appeal process plays out, he still has to deposit the full amount within 30 days or secure a costly bond.
Selling any of his prime Manhattan real estate would be an indignity for the former president – and a decision he would not take lightly.
Whether or not Donald Trump is able to recover from this financial shock, the outcome looks sure to significantly dent his fortune.
The ruling in the city where he rose to the top – while always remaining something of an outsider – is undoubtedly a big loss. And for more than six decades in New York real estate, there’s no figure Mr Trump has derided more than the “loser”.
Source: BBC