More than 120 countries elected British lawyer Karim Khan on Friday as the next prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, one of the toughest jobs in international law because the tribunal seeks justice for the world’s worst atrocities — war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.

His election on the second secret ballot by the 123 parties to the Rome Statute that established the court ends a drawn-out and divisive process to replace Fatou Bensouda when her 9-year term expires in June.

Khan, who has specialized in international criminal law and international human rights law, was widely seen as the favourite to get the job. But neither he nor any of the other candidates garnered enough support to be appointed by consensus, prompting Friday’s election in the U.N. General Assembly Hall.

When Michal Mlynár, vice-president of the court’s Assembly of State Parties, announced that Khan had won, a smattering of applause broke out in the hall, where masked diplomats had voted one by one, putting ballots into spaced out boxes because of COVID-19 restrictions.

Khan received 72 votes, far more than the majority needed, Fergal Gaynor of Ireland was second with 42 votes followed by Spain’s Carlos Castresana Fernandez with 5 votes and Francesco Lo Voi of Italy with 3 votes. One member did not vote.

Khan currently leads a U.N. team set up to investigate allegations of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes committed by the Islamic State group in Iraq and has the rank of a U.N. assistant secretary-general. He has worked as a prosecutor at the tribunal prosecuting war crimes in former Yugoslavia and crimes against humanity and genocide in Rwanda.

Khan is no stranger to the International Criminal Court, known as the ICC, having acted as a defence lawyer for Kenyan Deputy President William Ruto and persuading judges to throw out prosecution charges against his client. Gaynor acted as a legal representative for victims in the Ruto case, which focused on post-election violence.

Khan also served as counsel for Seif al-Islam Gadhafi, the son of the late Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi, who is still being sought by the ICC on charges of crimes against humanity.

“Karim Khan’s election as prosecutor is occurring at a time when the ICC is needed more than ever but has faced significant challenges and pressure on its role,” said Richard Dicker, international justice director at Human Rights Watch. “We will be looking to Mr. Khan to address shortcomings in the court’s performance, while demonstrating firm independence in seeking to hold even the most powerful rights abusers to account.”

The Rome Statute which established the court was adopted on July 17, 1998 and it entered into force on July 1, 2002, with a mandate to prosecute war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide — but it only steps in when domestic courts fail to initiate their own investigations and prosecutions. Its 123 state parties are bound by its provisions, which include arresting all those sought by the court.

While the Security Council has used its power under the Rome Statute to refer conflicts in Sudan’s western Darfur region and in Libya to the ICC, calls for the U.N.’s most powerful body to refer Syria, and more recently Myanmar, to the tribunal have failed.

Dicker said in an interview that “the court in 18 years has established itself as the permanent address for accountability for the most egregious crimes.”

In the last several years, Bensouda has sought to broaden its reach beyond its early all-African focus including Afghanistan, Palestine, which is a party to the Rome Statute, and Georgia.

The ICC is needed more than ever, he said, “because of the proliferation of these horrific crimes,” but the court has faced “an existential threat” from former U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration.

It slapped sanctions on Bensouda and one of her top aides last year for continuing to investigate war crimes allegations against Americans, although the court was often criticized in the past for its focus on African crimes.

Last week, ICC judges angered Israel by saying the court’s jurisdiction extends to territories occupied by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war, potentially clearing the way for the prosecutor to open an investigation into Israeli military actions and the country’s construction of settlements in the occupied West Bank and annexed east Jerusalem.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the decision a “perversion of justice.”

Dicker said the ICC’s challenges include addressing some poor judicial decision-making and having a docket too large for its current staffing.”

The selection process for the prosecutor and the alleged failure by the ICC’s Assembly of States Parties to conduct stringent background checks on the candidates to ensure they met the requirement of “high moral character” has drawn criticism from civil society groups that work with the court.

A diplomat who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss details of closed meetings said the fact that many of the meetings to discuss possible successors to Bensouda took place virtually made it difficult for member nations to discuss concerns during informal “corridor” meetings.

Source: Canadian Press

The Vice President of the Southern Cameroons Interim Government, Comrade Dabney Yerima has warned against putting trust in the so-called Southern Cameroons CPDM elites in Yaoundé saying they only care about their own interests in the two Cameroons, not those of the people of British Southern Cameroon.

Yerima made the remarks in a meeting grouping donors of the Interim Government on Thursday saying men like Elvis Ngolle, Paul Tasong, Paul Atanga Nji and Peter Mafany Musonge have consistently ignored U.S. Congress Resolution 684 which is critical of their actions in the conflict in Southern Cameroons and that their continued support of the Biya French Cameroun regime in Yaoundé is for the sake of their own benefits, thus they can never be trusted.

“Our 59 year history with La Republique du Cameroun has shown that it is wrong to trust the ruling CPDM Southern Cameroons elites because they do not…feel concerned about the people of Southern Cameroons, Ambazonia IDPs and our refugees in Nigeria,” he added, noting that their presence occasionally in Ground Zero only disrupts Southern Cameroons security.

Elsewhere in his remarks, the exiled Southern Cameroons leader said “What Ambazonians want…is the unity and solidarity of all Southern Cameroons Restoration groups. Any differences and divisions among Ambazonian factions are harmful and pave the way for the presence of these CPDM Southern Cameroons elites, French Cameroun army soldiers and enemies in Ground Zero.”

Vice President Dabney Yerima also said the Southern Cameroons diaspora would never forget the sacrifices being made by the Southern Cameroons Self Defense Forces in Ground Zero.

By Chi Prudence Asong in London

A prominent Southern Cameroons academic, Professor Carlson Anyangwe says La Republique du Cameroun and its supporters in Paris, France continue their genocide in the Federal Republic of Ambazonia without a word of protest from the European Union or the so-called human rights defenders.       

Addressing a Southern Cameroons Interim Government open session on Thursday, Prof Anyangwe said the French Cameroun criminal syndicate in Yaoundé launched its war on the Ambazonian people at a time when the Southern Cameroons Interim Government was trying to get the Federal Republic of Ambazonia out of an economic crisis caused by fifty-eight years of excruciating life under genocide, terror, economic terrorism, and all forms of international criminality imaginable.

The much respected Southern Cameroon elite said, “La Republique du Cameroun and other French vassal states in the so-called CEMAC region harboring France’s proxy army of occupation have been trying to carve up, exploit, and pauperize Southern Cameroons and its people for 59 years,” adding that both the late French Cameroun dictator Ahmadou Ahidjo and President Paul Biya have dutifully followed the French policy of assimilation programs until the people of Southern Cameroons now say they have gotten enough.

During the Thursday zoom meeting in the presence of the Ambazonia exiled leader, Dabney Yerima, Prof Carlson Anyangwe censured Europe’s double standards on human rights but did not say if the EU is complicit in crimes and atrocities perpetrated by the Biya French Cameroun regime against the people of British Southern Cameroons.

At the heart of the crisis, which started in 2016, was a strike by teachers and lawyers, in the English-speaking regions of Cameroon. The professionals, supported by citizens of their areas, protested the unfair use of the French language and unjustified appointments of French speakers in their territories. Cameroon is a bilingual country. By 2017, the situation had spiralled out of control and developed into a fully-fledged separatist war. Both government forces and separatists are now bogged down in a conflict that observers say, can only be resolved through dialogue.

On 8 September 2020, the Foreign Affairs Committee, of the United States Congress introduced Resolution 684 on the crisis in the Cameroonian regions of the North-West and South-West which was adopted on 1 January 2021.

The US Congress (Senate and House of Representatives) did call on “the government of Cameroon and the separatist armed groups in the English-speaking regions of the North-West and South-West to put an end to all violence, to respect the human rights of all Cameroonians, and to pursue a truly inclusive dialogue with a view to resolving the ongoing civil conflict in English-speaking Cameroon”.

Resolution 684 condemned the abuses committed by state security forces and armed groups in the northwest and southwest regions of Cameroon, and affirms that the United States continues to hold the Government of Cameroon accountable for safeguarding the security and constitutional rights of all its citizens, regardless of region, religion, or political opinion. In addition, it urges all parties to the conflict in Cameroon, the Government of Cameroon, U.S. foreign relations entities, and members of the international community to take specific steps to resolve the ongoing civil conflict in Cameroon.

The U.S. Congress was also critical of France’s action in the conflict and Resolution 684 stated that   “…France maintains considerable interests in Cameroon, including significant economic and security cooperation, but has not sufficiently used its influence to stem atrocities committed in English-speaking regions or to support stronger international action to seek a resolution to the conflict.”

Prof Carlson Anyangwe noted that the French Cameroun aggressors have killed tens of thousands of Southern Cameroonians and committed brutal crimes with help from France and French speaking African countries in the Sub Saharan region.

France is the main supplier of weapons in La Republique du Cameroun’s aggression against Southern Cameroons.

According to independent estimates, the Biya French Cameroun war has claimed more than 5,000 lives.

The UN says more than two million English speaking Cameroonians are in dire need of humanitarian aid, including some 67, 000 thousand suffering from extreme levels of hunger in the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

The Biya French Cameroun war has also taken a heavy toll on the British Southern Cameroons’s infrastructure, destroying hospitals, schools, and businesses.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

OPERATION BIG RUBBERGUN…THE LAUNCH

Fellow Southern Cameroonians,

Let me start by asking all of us to maintain a minute of silence for the souls of our fallen heroes for they remain in our prayers.

Today marks the sixtieth anniversary of the attempted decolonization of the Southern Cameroons by the United Nations and the United Kingdom. Today marks 1133 days since our leader, Sisiku Ayuk Tabe, and nine members of his leadership team were abducted at the NERA hotel in Abuja, Nigeria. It is seven days today since Human Rights Watch published a report stating clearly that the French Cameroun army executed 10 men, women, and children in Mautu, Fako County on 10 January 2021. I stand here after 550 of our villages have been burned down. Since 2016, we have witnessed the execution of over 20,000 of our people, amongst them a four-month-old baby and a 96-years old great grandmother. Today we have over one million internally displaced persons, 120,000 refugees in Nigeria, Ghana, and the Mexican border.

 I come to remind you of our dark past, dangerous present, and to elaborate on our goal to take back control of our destiny. So, I speak today of grave national sadness and danger but also a moment of national opportunity. Our efforts to defend our people began on 30 November 2017, when Paul Biya of French Cameroun declared war upon our people. Today, we announce a project that offers new hope for our young nation. We are persuaded that the project before you is essential, responsible, and deserving of your support.

The Responsibility to Protect populations from genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and ethnic cleansing has emerged as an important global principle since its unanimous adoption at the UN World Summit in 2005. We are rolling out a plan to ruthlessly adhere to our Responsibility to Protect (R2P) Ambazonia. We must recognize that our security is based on being prepared to meet the threat posed by our enemy. We cannot afford to engage in the luxury of believing that French Cameroun will cease to be an aggressor.

We recognize and applaud our Restoration Forces for their bravery in the face of the brutal force and sophisticated equipment of the French Cameroun military. We recognize and applaud the contributions of humanitarian NGOs and CSOs to our revolution. We recognize and applaud all positive contributions from different organizations like DAC and other frontline movements that have taken us this far. Today, I intend to outline the Interim Government’s plan for 2021 and beyond. WE MUST BE BOLD, and with this project, WE ARE BOLD. OPERATION BIG RUBBERGUN IS HERE.

Today is NOT about social media noise. In the last few weeks, you have been bombarded with noise by people who lack knowledge about this project. Those voices are loud but they are not in the majority.

We will deter our enemy from making attacks only if our retaliatory power is so strong that our enemy knows she faces severe consequences for their actions.  Our strongest hope is a peaceful solution to the conflict by the establishment of a United Nations Internationally Mandated Fact-Finding Mission to our territory. Although we are determined to keep negotiations high on our agenda, we must see our struggle through the lenses of Realists.

We must employ new tactics to fight for the safety of our people and the freedom of our nation. With each passing day, the crisis facing us is magnifying as the enemy advances without fear to spread their hostility, murder, and genocide upon our people. Our defence establishment has evaluated and instructed, and The Interim Government has concluded that OPERATION BIG RUBBERGUN is necessary.

OPERATION BIG RUBBERGUN will:

Recruit, train, and support Restoration Forces in their attempt to capture and hold territory. The project will also provide sophisticated hardware procurement and logistic support to our Restoration Forces. More details on the project will be in the presentation that follows this evening.

Tonight, let me underscore that it is not a delight for any leader to come before his people to burden them financially. But in our judgment, this is a burden worth undertaking. Investment in OPERATION CAPHOT aka THE BIG RUBBERGUN is an obligation that we believe will deliver us significant gains.

We cannot merely state our opposition to the genocide without paying the price for freedom. From your investments in OPERATION BIG RUBBERGUN, we shall undertake a reorganization and modernization of our self-defence structure, to increase its firepower, tactical mobility, and flexibility to meet any direct or indirect threat from the enemy. I am asking you today to search your consciences and invade your resources for us to procure the necessary equipment and materials needed by our brave self-defence heroes who intend to capture, hold territory, and protect our people.

The management of the funds raised by OPERATION BIG RUBBERGUN will be by a Loan Administrator and a Government Financial Officer, both working under the Bank of Ambazonia. All genuine self-defence forces stand to benefit from the resources of this national project.

Fellow Ambazonians, Operation BIG RUBBERGUN is here but our problems are critical and 2021 will not be easy. There will be setbacks before the unfavourable tide is turned. But we have no choice but to persist. The hopes of our nation rest upon us, especially those of us in the diaspora. The problems in achieving our goal of a free, independent, and prosperous Ambazonia are towering and unprecedented but we shall prevail. I believe Ambazonia possesses all the resources and talents necessary for victory, but the facts of the matter are that we have never made the collective decision to assemble the resources required for such victory.

I believe French Cameroun has an opportunity here and now to avert human disaster by releasing our leader, HE President Sisiku AyukTabe, and his top aides including all Southern Cameroons detainees to pave the way for constructive dialogue and good neighborliness.

I believe for us to get to Buea, we cannot afford to waste time squabbling and amplifying our differences.

Fellow Ambazonians, our success in this struggle for freedom and independence depends on the strength of our investment and success in OPERATION BIG RUBBERGUN. We would be badly mistaken to think otherwise. This is our great opportunity if we grasp it to enhance the ability of our self-defence forces in our march to Buea.

Let us use OPERATION BIG RUBBERGUN to affirm that it is Independence or Resistance Forever.

We will not be afraid, we will not be intimidated, and we must be bold

Thank You and God Bless You

Dabney Yerima

Vice President

Federal Republic of Ambazonia

The Vice President of the British Southern Cameroons Interim Government will be addressing the Ambazonian people today in a speech to be aired by the Southern Cameroons Broadcasting Corporation, SCBC.

Comrade Dabney Yerima will hail the self defense and unchanging position of Ambazonia Restoration Forces on supporting the independence cause against French Cameroun’s 59 years occupation.

In his message to the Southern Cameroons people, Vice President Dabney Yerima will say “I come to remind you of our dark past, dangerous present, and to elaborate on our goal to take back control of our destiny. So, I speak today of grave national sadness and danger but also a moment of national opportunity. Our efforts to defend our people began on 30 November 2017, when Paul Biya of French Cameroun declared war upon our people. Today, we announce a project that offers new hope for our young nation. We are persuaded that the project before you is essential, responsible, and deserving of your support.”

Yerima will also express the Ambazonia Interim Government’s deep appreciation to Southern Cameroonians in Ground Zero saying “The Responsibility to protect populations from genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and ethnic cleansing has emerged as an important global principle since its unanimous adoption at the UN World Summit in 2005. We are rolling out a plan to ruthlessly adhere to our Responsibility to Protect (R2P) Ambazonia. We must recognize that our security is based on being prepared to meet the threat posed by our enemy. We cannot afford to engage in the luxury of believing that French Cameroun will cease to be an aggressor.”

Vice President Yerima will add that “Our defense establishment has evaluated and instructed, and the Interim Government has concluded that OPERATION BIG RUBBERGUN is necessary. OPERATION BIG RUBBERGUN will: recruit, train, and support Restoration Forces in their attempt to capture and hold territory. The project will also provide sophisticated hardware procurement and logistic support to our Restoration Forces.”

 Stay with Cameroon Concord News Group and be the first to know!!Wherever you get your news, we’ve got the Southern Cameroons news that matter to you. Watch SCBC today 7 pm Amba time

By Isong Asu