An upcoming “major national dialogue” in Cameroon has been hailed as a positive step by the country’s only Catholic cardinal.

In a rare speech on Tuesday, President Paul Biya called for “a major national dialogue that will, in line with our Constitution, enable us to seek ways and means of meeting the high aspirations of the people of the North West and South West Regions, but also of all the other components of our Nation.”

The North West and South West Regions of Cameroon are the English-speaking areas of the French-speaking majority population.

The “Anglophone Crisis” began in 2016, when demonstrations broke out in the two regions after there were demands to use French in their common law courts and English-modeled schools. English speakers make up around 20 percent of the country’s population and have long complained about being marginalized by the French-speaking ruling class.

After Cameroon’s security forces’ heavy-handed response – including using live ammunition on demonstrators – rebel movements arose calling for the independence of Anglophone Cameroon, saying the new country would be called Ambazonia.

According to the UN, the ensuing fighting between the separatists and government forces has led to the deaths of at least 2,000 people, and the displacement of a further 500,000.

Biya said he was launching the dialogue at the end of September to rally Cameroonians “to reflect on values that are dear to us, namely: Peace, security, national unity and progress.”

The dialogue will be chaired by Prime Minister Dion Ngute and bring together a wide range of personalities: Politicians, civil society and business leaders, religious authorities, and members of the security forces.

“It will also focus on issues that can address the concerns of the population of the North West and South West Regions, as well as those of the other regions of our country such as bilingualism, cultural diversity and social cohesion, the reconstruction and development of conflict-affected areas, the return of refugees and displaced persons, the education and judicial system, decentralization and local development, the demobilization and reintegration of ex-combatants, the role of the diaspora in the country’s development,” the president said.

The emeritus Archbishop of Douala, Christian Cardinal Tumi, told Crux he was “satisfied” with Biya’s remarks on Tuesday.

“Even before the speech, I was telling someone that if the president does not convene this national dialogue to resolve mainly the Anglophone problem, he would have said nothing. But I am very happy that he spoke at length about the problem,” Tumi said.

The cardinal had been on the forefront of efforts to bring people together to talk about the problem, but his efforts to organize peace talks have been thwarted by the government.

However, Biya’s latest appeal is not unconditional.

“Those who voluntarily lay down their arms and place themselves at the disposal of the Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration (DDR) Centers have nothing to fear,” the president said during his speech.

“Conversely, those who persist in committing criminal acts and violating the laws of the Republic will have to contend with our Defense and Security Forces and will face the full force of those same laws.”

“The same applies to promoters of hate and violence who, comfortably settled in foreign countries with impunity, continue to incite murder and destruction. Let them know that sooner or later they will have to face justice,” he said.

In efforts to resolve the crisis, the government has taken some actions, including the translation of regional corporate law documents into English; the creation of a Common Law Section at the Supreme Court to handle appeals filed against the decisions of lower courts in Common Law matters; the launching of a special recruitment of bilingual teachers in secondary schools; and the establishment of a national Commission for the Promotion of Bilingualism and Multiculturalism.

But these measures have proved unsuccessful in stemming the revolt.

Tumi expressed optimism the upcoming dialogue will lead to a sustainable peace, but told Crux he believes that only a return to a federal system of governance can resolve the Anglophone crisis.

“We are a people called to live with all our differences. In federalism, these differences are respected,” he explained in August.

When the English-ruled part of Cameroon voted to join the new country in 1961, as opposed to a union with neighboring Nigeria, it was as part of a federal government. Federalism was dissolved after a 1972 referendum.

A return to federalism would mean changing the constitutional form of the state – an idea Biya has frequently spoken against. Perhaps, the upcoming national dialogue could be the venue in which he changes his mind.

Crux

The wife of a Bible translator, who was killed by suspected Fulani herdsmen in Cameroon, is in recovery after having her hand cut off, a ministry source told The Christian Post.

Efi Tembon, who operates a humanitarian ministry called Oasis Network for Community Transformation, told CP on Tuesday that Eveline Fung, the wife of slain Bible translator Angus Fung, is in stable condition and is speaking again after an attack on her home village on Aug. 25.

“She is still in the hospital but she’s improving,” Tembon said. “Her hand is gone but she will be OK.”

Fung was said to have received a blood transfusion at a local hospital.

“Emotionally, it is still a very traumatizing situation for her,” he added. “It is very, very traumatizing and she will need trauma healing.”

Tembon reported last week that the Fungs were among those victimized by a Fulani attack believed to have been encouraged by government actors in the town of Wum in Cameroon’s violence-ridden Anglophone region.

Tembon, who has done ministry work in Wum in the past, said youth from the Fulani herding community are being armed and ordered to attack farming villagers that support separatist rebels.

The separatist rebels are fighting for freedom as those in the English-speaking region feel underrepresented in the majority French-speaking central government.

Angus Fung, who was in his 60s, was a leader in the community and played a vital role in the New Testament translation into the Aghem language, a project completed in 2016. Tembon said Fung was hacked to death by a man wielding a machete.

“[H]e was a huge part of the literacy work because their language had never been written before,” Tembon said. “So he was the one coordinating it and teaching the language. So many people now can read and write the language as a result of Angus’ work.”

In addition to Fung, Tembon said that a couple who had fled their home after military attacks on their village and were being sheltered in the Fung home in Wum were also killed in the Aug. 25 attack. While Tembon initially reported that seven were killed in the Wum attack, he told CP that the death toll in the Wum attack is six.

“They went into houses and pulled out the people,” he said last week. “They attacked in the night and nobody was expecting. They just went into the home, pulled them out and slaughtered them.”

Tembon explained that he doesn’t think that Eveline Fung, who has five children ranging in age from 3 to 22, will be able to return to the home because of the trauma she suffered.

His organization, he noted, sent money to help pay for medical costs and food. Additionally, Tembon is trying to organize support so Fung can flee the country, possibly to Nigeria.

“It will be very traumatizing for her to go back to her home where she was butchered and her husband was killed along with all those people,” he said. “We are thinking about what to do.”

Since last year, according to Tembon, at least 23 people in Wum have been killed in Fulani attacks.

Since the civil conflict began in 2016, estimates suggest that at least 2,000 people have been killed, though Tembon predicts that the number could likely be closer to 7,000.

Oasis for Community Transformation has also helped others escape the violence in Cameroon, including the wife of Pastor Keloh Elijah, who was killed earlier this year by the military in the Mfumte area.

“Not only in Wum but in many other areas, the attacks continue and they continue to kill people,” he said. “Attacks take place every day. There is not a day that goes by without at least five people being killed. Sometimes when the local fighters attack the military, there is a shootout. And sometimes, [innocent] people get killed.”

“Some have been picked up by the military and shot. And others have been killed by bullets during a shootout.”

Since the Aug. 25 attack in Wum, Tembon said he has heard of violence occurring in towns like Kumba,  and Bamenda and Santa.

Since the beginning of the conflict, tens of thousands have fled Cameroon into neighboring countries like Nigeria and Ghana while hundreds of thousands have been internally displaced.

Tembon, a Cameroon native who can no longer go back to the country after speaking to U.S. Congress in 2018 about the military’s violence against citizens, is now based in the U.S. He has engaged in advocacy efforts, speaking to the U.S. State Department and Congress to raise awareness of the situation.

He has also advocated in Canada and the United Kingdom to pressure the international community to be proactive in mediating the conflict in Cameroon.

Tembon said he is arranging a meeting between representatives from the separatist groups and staff from the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee that will take place in mid-September on Capitol Hill. He is still waiting to hear if any members of the Senate will be present for the meeting.

Tembon is also organizing a meeting between the separatist representatives and the State Department.

“There is an initiative that started in Switzerland,” he said. “Switzerland offered to do mediation but they are not very well trusted. So some of the leaders wanted to have a United Nations mandate to [allow Switzerland] to mediate the conflict so that it will be transparent.”

“Without mediation, the war will continue and people will continue to die and be in pain. Because the U.S. is a key stakeholder, the U.S. can use its influence to ask that a U.N. mandate be given to Switzerland to be a mediator.”

In July, Democrat Sen. Ben Cardin of Maryland led a bipartisan group of senators in introducing a resolution calling on the Cameroon government and armed separatist groups to “respect the human rights of all Cameroonian citizens, to end all violence, and to pursue an inclusive dialogue to resolve the conflict in the Northwest and Southwest regions.”

“We have an obligation to call out instances of human rights violations wherever they happen,” Cardin said in a statement.

“The situation in Cameroon is untenable. Our resolution encourages all parties to the conflict to uphold the rule of law and prioritize respect for human rights for all Cameroonians — including political, religious, independent media and civil society leaders — over his desire to hold onto power by any means necessary.”

Tembon would like to see “addressing the root causes of the conflict” added to the Senate resolution.  “If the root causes are not resolved, then the conflict will continue,” he warned. “Any mediation should address the root causes of the conflict.”

Sourc: The Christian Post

A prominent Catholic bishop in Cameroon was released late Saturday after being kidnapped in the country’s volatile English-speaking Northwest region, according to church officials.

“Bishop George Nkuo of Kumbo Diocese has been released by his captors. He is back in the parish and in good health,” the officials said in a statement.

Armed separatists claimed responsibility for kidnapping the bishop, claiming that they “wanted him to pray and bless us.”

The abduction came barely a week after two Catholic priests were kidnapped in the region.

Kidnapping of priests has become widespread in the region since an armed conflict started in 2017.

Cameroon’s Northwest and Southwest regions are English-speaking, while the rest of about 80 percent of the country is French-speaking. Separatists in the two English-speaking regions have been fighting government forces in an effort to establish a separate state.

About 530,000 people have been displaced internally and hundreds killed by the conflict, according to the United Nations.

Source: Xinhuanet

Last week unidentified gunmen seized two Catholic priests in the village of Ibal in the restive Anglophone region of Cameroon. Church officials said they were “kidnapped late at night” and appealed to their abductors to release them unharmed. Local police claimed that the kidnappers were separatists seeking to break away from Francophone Cameroon and found an independent Anglophone state. But separatist leaders denied that they had taken the priests.

The abduction is just the latest in a series of troubling incidents involving churchmen in the West African country. In May 2017, the body of Bishop Jean-Marie Benoît Balla was discovered in the Sanaga River. The authorities ruled that it was suicide, but local Church officials insist he was murdered. In November 2018, a missionary priest from Kenya was shot dead outside a church in Kembong, in the Anglophone region. Reports suggested that he was killed in crossfire between the Cameroon army and separatists.

The recent surge in violence has undermined Cameroon’s reputation as one of Africa’s more stable nations. President Paul Biya has ruled the country since 1982. Last year the 86-year-old won a seventh term with a remarkable (some say suspicious) 71 per cent of the votes. But many Western observers blame his refusal to compromise for the worsening conflict in the Anglophone region.

The crisis is rooted in the country’s colonial history. During the First World War, Britain and France combined forces to take over German Kamerun. The Treaty of Versailles gave most of the territory to France. It awarded Britain two small regions next to Nigeria, known as Northern Cameroons and Southern Cameroons. In a 1961 referendum, Northern Cameroons opted to join Nigeria, while Southern Cameroons voted for union with Cameroon, with the assurance that it would have substantial autonomy, including its own prime minister. But in 1972, after another referendum, Cameroon adopted a new constitution which swept away the federal system, replacing it with a unitary state. Southern Cameroons lost its autonomous powers and was divided into two administrative areas, the Northwest Region and the Southwest Region.

President Biya has resisted all appeals to restore autonomy to the Anglophone region. Separatists, in turn, have become ever more vociferous. In September 2017, they declared independence, renaming the Anglophone territories Amazonia and clashing with government forces.

The Catholic Church has a unique role to play amid this conflict, which verges on civil war. The Church is one of the few institutions that truly integrates both French- and English-speakers. Catholics account for 38 per cent of Cameroon’s 20.4 million inhabitants, with Protestants comprising 26 per cent and Muslims 21 per cent, according to the US State Department’s International Religious Freedom Report.

The Church has called consistently for negotiations between the government and separatists. It has suggested that some decentralisation of powers could help to end the unrest. It has also denounced the violence in the Anglophone region. For that, it has paid a price.

In May 2018, shots were fired at the residence of Archbishop Samuel Kleda, president of Cameroon’s bishops’ conference. A local news agency described the incident as an “attempted assassination”. A month earlier, Archbishop Kleda had given a television interview in which he called on the government to make concessions and for both sides to stop the killing. “Since we’re all in the same country and all brothers, our message is to stop the violence immediately at all costs, without vengeance, and accept others who don’t think like us,” he said.

But the fear is that the separatists and the government have moved beyond the point where they can “accept others who don’t think like us” and are engaged in a fight to the death. If this is so, there is little the local Church can do. It will not be able to ensure the safety of clergy in the blood-soaked Anglophone region.

Perhaps it is therefore time for the Vatican to intervene. Biya evidently has a certain respect for the Church. His father was a catechist who hoped his son would become a priest. It was not to be: Biya attended a minor seminary but ultimately left Cameroon to study law in Paris. In 2013, his government signed an agreement with the Holy See outlining the Church’s legal status. If Pope Francis were to invite Biya to Rome perhaps he might be able to persuade him to budge. It seems that no one else can.

Source: Catholic Herald

Officials of Catholic Church in Cameroon said on Friday unknown gunmen have kidnapped two Catholic priests at Ibal village in the troubled Anglophone region of Northwest.

They were “kidnapped late at night on Thursday along Ibal — Jikejem road on their way to the town of Oku in the Northwest region,” said a statement by the Catholic Church in Northwest, calling on the abductors to release the clerics unharmed.

Local police said operatives were already combing the village with the view to rescue the priests and arrest the kidnappers who police claimed are members of separatists fighting for the independence of Cameroon’s two English-speaking regions of Northwest and Southwest.

The separatists have denied kidnapping the priests.

Kidnapping of priests has become widespread in the two regions since an armed conflict that has so far led to hundreds of deaths since 2017.

In 2018, a Kenyan priest was shot dead in front of the church of the Parish of St. Martin of Tours in Kembong, a locality in Cameroon’s Southwest region.

Source: Xinhuanet

I send my warmest greetings to all Muslims celebrating Eid al-Adha.

Eid al-Adha honours Abraham’s obedience to God’s command in agreeing to sacrifice his only son. Seeing Abraham’s remarkable demonstration of faith, God stopped Abraham from sacrificing his son and gave him a lamb to sacrifice instead. In like manner, an animal is sacrificed ritually, and the meat is shared with the poor, relatives, friends and neighbours during Eid al-Adha.

During these three days of Eid al-Adha, we join the community thanks in the spirit of shared thankfulness for the blessings we have been given, and reflect on our duties towards one another during these very challenging times for our country.

In the spirit of Eid al-Adha, may we all resolve to be more giving towards one another, especially towards those who have been hardest hit by the ongoing war.
Happy celebrations to Ambazonia’s Muslim community and goodwill to Muslims worldwide.

Respectfully,
Dabney Yerima

Vice President, Interim Government (IG) Federal Republic of Ambazonia

Cameroon Muslims are looking for alternatives for the sacrifice as recommended by prophet Muhammad on the day of the Eid al-Adha feast. Sheep, traditionally slaughtered, have become very scarce as a result of the Boko Haram conflict and separatist war in the country’s main production areas. 

Hundreds of Muslims are buying food stuffs from the popular market called “Marche Huitieme” in Cameroon’s capital Yaounde in preparation for the feast of sacrifice.

In Cameroon, large numbers of sacrificial animals, especially sheep, are slaughtered and their meat distributed to the poor as a religious tradition in Islam.

41-year old Abdoul Aziz says for the first time in 20 years, he will not have a sheep to sacrifice.

He says with the scarcity of sheep, he has decided to buy either a she or he goat. He says he does not want to miss a religious rite just because prices of the few sheep he has seen have increased drastically.  He says the prices of goats are also increasing.

Aziz said because of the scarcity, some families are buying chickens, leading to arguments on whether the substitution is religiously correct.

Mohaman Aboubakar, assistant Imam of Yaounde’s central Mosque says Islam allows people to adjust with the changing times.

Imam Aboubakar says their religion finds nothing wrong if Cameroon Muslims who can not find the sheep they traditionally bought to slaughter in honor of Abraham’s willingness to slay his son Ishmael at Allah’s request, turn to goats and fowls today. He says the scarcity that started so many years ago with camels is now affecting cows and sheep.

Most of the sheep sold in Cameroon towns comes from the area around the central African state’s northern border with Nigeria that has been suffering Boko Haram atrocities, or from the English speaking Northwest and Southwest regions where separatists have been fighting to create an English speaking state, or neighboring Chad.

Issa Tchiroma, Cameroon minister of employment and vocational training, and a Muslim, says the crises the country is facing has had negative impacts on livestock production.

He says many people have escaped from ranches in the far north region of Cameroon due to Boko Haram terrorism, and from the English speaking north west region because of the war against separatist groups. He says on Cameroon’s border with Nigeria alone, close to five five thousand cattle and an unknown number of sheep have been stolen by Boko Haram terrorists.

In 2016, the World Bank approved a $100 million fund to help Cameroon improve the productivity and competitiveness of livestock production over six years. It said besides replenishing what had been lost as a result of the Boko Haram conflict, the program would help build resilience to climate change and improve the nutrition status of vulnerable populations.

Last July, Cameroon began distributing 60,000 goats and sheep to young people in villages along the border with Nigeria to provide livestock for a basic income, and replenish what has been lost in order to stop the Islamist militant group from recruiting the youths.

More than a thousand Mbororos, who are indigenous people in Cameroon have also fled their cattle ranches following repeated attacks and seizure of their cattle by separatists fighting for the creation of an English speaking state. The Mbororos say they are victimized and killed because they refuse to join the fight.

Source: VOA