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29, November 2018

29 hurt in a suicide blast in Cameroon’s Far North Region ⁰

At least 29 people were wounded Wednesday when a women bomber blew herself up in a border town in Cameroon’s Far North, a region frequently hit by Boko Haram jihadists, security sources said.

But a second bomber was shot dead by troops deployed in the town before she could detonate her explosives, the source said.

“A suicide bomber blew herself up this morning in Amchide” on the Nigerian border, a regional security source said, speaking on condition of anonymity and giving a toll of 29 wounded.

The attack occurred on market day when the town was filling up with early-morning shoppers, a local civil defence group official said. “There were many people hurt, I saw about 20,” he said. “After the attack, the market emptied.”

A once-bustling trade hub, in 2014 Amchide was thrust into the forefront of a major battle between Cameroonian troops and Boko Haram militants who held the nearby Nigerian town of Banki for several months. The violence forced most residents to flee the town, although some have now begun to return.

After pushing back Boko Haram, the Cameroonian army dug long trenches around Amchide and even inside the town to foil new incursions by the jihadists, with Wednesday’s attack the first in many months.

AFP

29, November 2018

Ambazonian leaders risk death sentence following terrorism charges ⁰

Ten Cameroonian separatist leaders extradited from Nigeria earlier this year will face trial next month on terrorism charges that could lead to the death penalty, one of their lawyers said after a court hearing on Tuesday.

The accused include Julius Ayuk Tabe, the leader of an Anglophone separatist movement in western Cameroon fighting to break away from the Francophone-dominated central government.

Hundreds of people, including civilians, separatist fighters and Cameroonian security agents, have been killed in the past year’s violence, which has emerged as the most serious security threat to President Paul Biya, in power for 36 years.

“Ten charges have been brought against them, including terrorism, advocating terrorism, secession, civil war and revolution,” lawyer Christopher Ndong told Reuters after the charges were read out at the capital Yaounde’s military court.

The trial is scheduled to begin on Dec. 6, Ndong added.

Tabe and his co-defendants were among 47 Anglophone Cameroonians arrested in Nigeria and deported to Cameroon in January. The remaining 37 suspects are still being held by the authorities and have not been charged, said Ndong.

Cameroon’s government spokesman was not immediately available for comment.

A separatist insurgency gained pace in 2017 following a government crackdown on peaceful protests by Anglophones, who complain of being marginalized by the French-speaking majority.

Violence from both sides of the conflict intensified this year, forcing thousands of civilians to seek refuge in Francophone regions.

Biya, re-elected to a seventh term in October, said in his inauguration speech last month the separatists must lay down their arms or face the full force of the law. Cameroon regularly sentences people to death but has not carried out an execution in years.

Reuters

28, November 2018

Southern Cameroons Crisis: Genocide will not address the issues ⁰

The Southern Cameroons crisis that started in October 2016, has entered a critical phase with the Yaounde government destroying anything in its path. Despite condemnation by the international community for the atrocities playing out in the two English-speaking regions of the country, the government has been pushing ahead with its plan to depopulate Southern Cameroons.

Over the last weeks, government troops have been gunning down innocent people in the country’s North-West region. Many of those who have been brought down by the taxpayer’s bullets have nothing to do with the rebellion going on in the country’s two English-speaking regions.

In Bali, government troops used chemical and biological weapons to kill many young Southern Cameroonians who they claim are Ambazonian fighters and to hide their crime, the bodies were burnt. More than 30 bodies were involved in this macabre destruction of human life that does not even seem to catch the international community’s attention.

These soldiers seem to be on the prowl, looking for young men to kill. From every indication, the government’s plan is to depopulate the region by killing the young, hoping that the rebellion will be extinguished once and for all.

On Monday, a young businessman was gunned down by army soldiers in Bambui, North West region. To make matters worse, the same soldiers looted the man’s store and made away with goods estimated at more than CFAF 3 million.

The government’s killing spree has affected many people in the region and even foreigners have not been spared by the bullets of a government that professes peace, but practices violence.

Last week a Kenyan priest was killed in Kembong by army soldiers and the Bishop of Mamfe, Bishop Andrew Nkea, took the government task after the Communication Minister, Issa Tchiroma, told his usual lies that the priest had been killed by Ambazonian fighters.

A few weeks ago, an American missionary was also killed by army soldiers in the Northwest region and this has strained relations between the Cameroon government and the Trump Administration that is asking for answers.

In many parts of the region, army soldiers have been burning homes and ruining people’s lives and not a single soldier has been arraigned for such inhuman and irresponsible behaviour. This has prompted many people in the region to actually ask if the government really wants to solve the issue.

To gain a better understanding of the situation, Cameroon Concord News Group sent its reporters to the Northwest region to investigate the killings.

Speaking to a senior official of the ruling party who elected anonymity, the reporters gathered that the Defense Minister, Joseph Beti Assomo, and Territorial Administration Minister, Paul Atanga Nji, had set up a scheme to kill all the young men in the region. In their thinking, they will prove to their boss, Mr. Paul Biya, that they are winning the war.

The official who is so disappointed with the Biya regime also revealed that despite the killing of young innocent men in the region, the government is not winning the war. He added that those who are being killed are actually not the fighters, but young men who just want to live their lives.

He also stressed that the killing of young men in the region is not addressing the matter, as many more young people are simply being radicalized by the government’s irresponsible behaviour.

He pointed out that with just den guns, the determined fighters, who have been using hit-and-run tactics, have inflicted a lot of pain on the country’s military, adding that some 3,000 soldiers have been victims of the war.

He added that the government was hiding the number of casualties in order not to shock the Francophone population that is gradually asking questions about the fighting in the two English-speaking regions of the country.

“The fighting is consuming many of our soldiers. Thousands have already been buried and many have been maimed. This is a war that will be around for a long time and its impact will stalk those who ordered it for a long time. The blood of those who have been killed will be one reason why many young fighters and our soldiers will not be having a good night’s sleep, even after the war would have been over,” he said.

“The government might be saying that Cameroon is one and indivisible, but it understands that Southern Cameroonians do no longer want to belong to the fake union that the United Nations concocted. They have been marginalized for 56 years and now the government is killing them with impunity and it still holds that the country is united? It has to face reality. It will be hard for this issue to be addressed, especially through the means the government is using. The government seems to be sending a message to Southern Cameroonians, but that message is clearly the wrong one” he said.

Southern Cameroonians will surely not be listening to those stories from a government that is mowing down their brothers and sisters as if they are animals just because of their resources. The South West region, in particular, is a receptacle of God’s blessings for the country.

The country’s oilfields are located in Ndian Division and there are huge gold deposits in Mbonge. Manyu Division has huge expanse of forest that is the envy of the world and it is alleged that this division, noted for its learned people, is sitting on huge oil deposits. There was some exploratory work in the region before the conflict broke out. This will surely continue when the guns stop spreading death.

The region’s waters are also home to large fish stocks. Its forest is home to unimaginable fauna and flora and it is not in error that the world also knows the country because of the Korup National Park which straddles Manyu and Indian Divisions. The South West region is also known for its fertile volcanic soil and this explains why agriculture is one of the many activities that have been yielding huge foreign earnings to the country. Many of the country’s neighbours have their food supply from the south west region.

Unfortunately, this region is one of the poorest in the country. Its people are still living in abject poverty and what passes for medical, school and road infrastructure clearly belongs to another epoch. The South West deserves better, but years of marginalization have left the region in dehumanizing poverty.

While the country has been raking in millions of dollars from the region’s oil, the residents of the region have been tied up in degrading poverty. The country’s lone refinery (SONARA) is located in Southern Cameroon, precisely in the Southwest port city of Limbe formerly known as Victoria, but the natives of the region have been reduced to sorry spectators of events in their own region.

The Southern Cameroons crisis is also born of this injustice. More than 90% of the refinery staff are Francophones and to add insults to injury, staff of the refinery have their own neighbourhoods that are well designed and very clean. Besides, petroleum products are more expensive in the South West region than in any other region of the country.

This economic apartheid that has been around since 1977 when oil was discovered in Ndian Division is one of the many reasons why Southern Cameroonians hold that a clear break with East Cameroon will be the ideal solution and they are willing to sacrifice their lives so that future generations will not have to deal with the same issues.

They want to walk away from this ‘political marriage’ that has brought them more pain than gain. Though it will take time to achieve such an outcome, Southern Cameroonians back home, now known as Ground Zero, hold that it better to die trying than to sit and watch other people enjoy their God-given wealth.

If they succeed to walk away, then Cameroon will be losing about 60% of its wealth. Southern Cameroons is blessed with enormous wealth and the Yaounde government holds that it is by terrorizing the people that it will succeed to keep them in the dark of what is happening to their resources.

For almost 50 years, the Rio Del Rey estuary in the South West region has been the source of more than 90% and at times 100% of all the country’s hydrocarbons, specifically oil. Since 2014, Cameroon has exported more than US$5.88 billion worth of products, of which more than US$2.65 billion, about CFAF 1,650 billion, has been from crude oil alone. This is a significant amount of money and the Yaounde government cannot afford to lose such revenues.

The government is not only frustrated, it is scared, as the possibility of a secession is there. All its efforts to lay the matter to rest have been futile. Its divide-and-rule strategy has simply fallen apart as North westerners and South westerners clearly understand that they are united for a cause that will bring them happiness and prosperity. Not even the government’s military violence has succeeded to take the wind out the fighters’ sail. The more the government kills, the more determined the fighters become.

The government had underestimated the will of the people of Southern Cameroons to right the wrongs of the past. For many of them, their fate is worse than death and they have very little time to be around this planet. They want to establish their own country and even ensure that future generations do not deal with such time-consuming and energy-sapping challenges.

And they are receiving huge support from the Diaspora that has transformed this issue into an opportunity for its strength and influence to be felt. With some 4 million Southern Cameroonians out of the country, it is likely that more money will be flowing to Cameroon to feed the war that has rushed many young men and soldiers to an early grave.

While many parts of the world are working hard to avoid wars, Cameroon seems to be working in the opposite direction. Many people across the world are still surprised at the turn the conflict in the two English-speaking regions of the country has taken.

They had thought that with age, Mr. Biya who is clearly on his way out of this world, would opt for peace. They argue that wisdom comes with age and that age should be one reason why Mr. Biya should leave the country on calm shores.

The greatest disappointment comes from the international community, especially the United Nations and the African Union which have entered into a conspiracy of silence. The African Union is supposed to be working towards conflict prevention, but it has proven in the case of Cameroon that it does not care and that the genocide is permitted on the continent even after the world had sworn in the 1990s that it would no longer allow another group to commit the type of killings that had been witnessed in Rwanda and strangely, the African Union Chairperson is Paul Kagame, the Rwandan President. What an irony of sorts.

However, the world must understand one thing. The genocide in Southern Cameroons will not address the issues raised by Southern Cameroonians. On the contrary, it will only continue to galvanize other young men and women who want to take their revenge. Cameroon is on slippery slope and if the world does not wake up from its slumber, it will only discover that another Rwanda has happened in Cameroon. Regardless of the excuses it will provide, Southern Cameroons will be a scar on its conscience for a long time.

By Kingsley Betek in Yaounde

28, November 2018

French Cameroun is putting Ambazonia leaders on trial ⁰

The leaders of Africa’s newest nation, the Federal Republic of Ambazonia extradited from Nigeria earlier in 2018 will face trial next month on terrorism charges, according to one of their lawyers. The ten members of the Southern Cameroons Interim Government including President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe were reportedly charged by judges in the Yaounde Military Tribunal in French Cameroun.

“Ten charges have been brought against them, including terrorism, advocating terrorism, secession, civil war and revolution,” lawyer Christopher Ndong told Reuters after the charges were read out at the Yaounde’s military tribunal on Tuesday. The trial is scheduled to begin on Dec. 6, Ndong added.

For more than two years, Southern Cameroonians have engaged the government in a tough battle that has resulted in the killing of some 4,000 Cameroonians, including over 1,300 soldiers.

Following a demonstration by teachers and lawyers in 2016, the two English-speaking regions have become ungovernable. The government’s military actions have caused some 200,000 Southern Cameroonians to flee to Nigeria while millions are hiding in the bushes to avoid the government’s indiscriminate killings.

Many children are today seeking refuge in those bushes and many babies have been delivered in the process. The numbers of teenage mothers have increased and this spells another serious problem in the future. The government has not taken any efforts to convince the people for them to return to their homes.

On the contrary, soldiers have been torching many homes and killing any young Southern Cameroonians found in the territory in the hope that they could eliminate any threat Southern Cameroonians pose to the government.

Schools have been closed now for two years in the region and many of the students have simply been co-opted into the armed groups that have emerged. As the government turns down any appeals for inclusive dialogue, so too does the situation deteriorate. Even after solutions to the conflict would have been sought, security issues will linger for a long time. Many young men, who have lost hope in life, will continue to use their weapons as a means of eking out a living.

By Sama Ernest and Kingsley Betek

28, November 2018

Mild Fatigue vs Serious illness: Gabon’s Bongo to recuperate and meet presidency officials in Morocco ⁰

Gabon’s President Ali Bongo is expected to leave Saudi Arabia, where he was hospitalised last month after suffering a stroke, for Morocco on Wednesday, according to his wife.

Bongo has not been seen in public since being admitted to hospital during a conference on Oct. 24. Gabon’s top court ruled earlier this month that the vice president would chair the cabinet in Bongo’s absence.

In a post on her Facebook page, Sylvia Bongo wrote that her husband’s health had improved significantly and that he would travel to Rabat on Wednesday.

“To pursue his recuperation, the president, in concertation with his close family, has decided to accept the proposal of his brother, His Majesty the King of Morocco, Mohammed VI,” she said.

Bongo has asked advisers from the presidency to join him in Rabat to consult on affairs of state, his wife added.

The Bongo family has ruled the oil-producing country for nearly half a century. Bongo has been president since succeeding his father, Omar, who died in 2009.

His re-election in 2016 was marred by claims of fraud and violent protest.

Africa News

28, November 2018

Brexit deal to make Scotland ‘poorer’ ⁰

Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has denounced as “unacceptable” the UK government’s draft Brexit deal, warning that divorce from the European Union will make Scotland “poorer.”

During a news conference in Edinburgh on Tuesday, the Scottish leader outlined her government’s opposition to the Brexit deal negotiated by British Prime Minister Theresa May and said no Scottish government could possibly accept a deal which left the country poorer.

Referring to a new report from the Scottish government, Sturgeon warned that the draft deal to leave the 28-member bloc could result in “loss equivalent to £1,610 per person in Scotland compared to EU membership by 2030.”

Investment in Scotland could be 7.7 percent lower by that date compared to if the UK stayed in the EU, according to the report.

“The analysis shows why the deal agreed by the Prime Minister is unacceptable to the Scottish Government and damaging to the people of Scotland,” Sturgeon said.

“No government of Scotland with the interests of this and future generations at heart could possibly accept it,” she added.

The Scottish leader also said the “special deal” being put in place to prevent the return to a hard border in Ireland would leave Scotland at a “serious competitive disadvantage” to Northern Ireland, and that, “In short, it will make us poorer.”

Sturgeon added that the Scottish government would support a second Brexit referendum with the option of remaining in the EU when the time is “right for the people of Scotland.”

Scots supporting independence from Britain failed to emerge victorious from a referendum in 2014 in which some 55 percent of the voters voted for the region to remain in the UK. However, they launched a fresh call for secession after a Brexit referendum in June 2016 in which Britons voted 52 to 48 to leave the EU.

The pro-independence camp in Scotland defies London’s assertion that the region, which is one of the UK’s four nations, should abide by the results of the Brexit referendum. They insist that some 62 of the voters in Scotland voted for continued EU membership.

May ‘governing by threat’ on Brexit deal

Meanwhile, Sturgeon criticized the British premier and said May is “governing by threat,” as she has been seeking to impose the Brexit deal on Scotland.

“The Prime Minister has made it clear at every turn that she is not interested in compromise; in fact she seems to have given up any attempt at governing by consensus and is now governing by threat,” the Scottish leader said.

Sturgeon stressed that the draft agreement was “a bad deal,” which Westminster was “seeking to impose on the people of Scotland regardless of the damage it will cause.”

The First Minister said, “It will not end uncertainty. It will extend it. We are being asked to accept a blindfold Brexit with all the difficult decisions kicked down the road.”

The draft agreement was signed with the EU on Sunday and will need to be approved by UK lawmakers next month.

May faces a daunting task of gaining the approval of the parliament for her Brexit deal as many from both the opposition and her own Conservative Party have vowed to reject it on December 12, when the House convenes to vote on the agreement.

The Brexit deal, comprised of two separate agreements on departure and future relations, has sparked widespread concerns in Britain.

The pro-EU camp believes the deal will deprive the UK of normal privileges of membership while offering almost nothing in return. The anti-EU camp says it will make Britain a colony of the EU and London would have no right to challenge the EU’s decisions, including those affecting its province of Northern Ireland, for many years to come.

There is a high chance that Britain would be forced to leave the EU on March 29, 2019, without an agreement if the parliament rejects May’s Brexit deal.

Source: Presstv

28, November 2018

Statement on worsening situation in Cameroon two years on – Mo Ibrahim Foundation ⁰

For the past two years, the Mo Ibrahim Foundation has continued to monitor and follow the governance challenges being faced by the Government of Cameroon. This renewed focus was due to the November 2016 peaceful strike of lawyers, teachers and other professionals that escalated into violence, drawing out ethnic and religious tensions, and impacting on the stability and peace that the country had enjoyed for some decades.

Today, the confrontation between Cameroon’s Government and separatists continues to escalate resulting in casualties of civilians and state security officers. The scenes we see today of this continuing confrontation bear no resemblance to the peaceful strike that began two years ago.

A peaceful Cameroon is vital not only for the region but for the wider continent. Often described as ‘Africa in miniature’, Cameroon reflects the cultural, ethnic and geographic diversity of the continent. This young nation also follows the wider trends of Africa’s growing youth demographic, with 15-34-year olds constituting over 77% of the population in the country.

The 2018 Ibrahim Index of African Governance, published a few weeks ago, highlights the ongoing Governance challenges in Cameroon and captures worrisome deteriorating trends. The Overall Governance measure continue to show decline particularly in the last five years. This decline is manifested notably in the category of Safety & Rule of Law as measured mainly by the unsatisfactory performance relating to the Absence of Government Involvement in Armed Conflict, Absence of Government Violence against Civilians, National Security, Absence of Domestic Armed Conflict or Risk of Conflict and the Reliability of Police Services.

Performance in the category of Participation & Human Rights has shown no noted improvement and has been negatively impacted by the recent Presidential elections where voter turnout in Anglophone regions was reportedly very low.

The Foundation continues to be gravely concerned over this ongoing crisis in Cameroon and urges all parties to come together to promote ethnic and religious understanding and engage in meaningful dialogue to find a nonviolent solution. We encourage the country’s leadership to connect more with its young population and intensify efforts to increase safety and bring peace and opportunity to all its citizens.

Source: Mareeg.com

27, November 2018

Who Should Be Cameroon Concord News Person Of The Year 2018? ⁰

Voting on Cameroon Concord News Man of the Year 2018 is now officially open. Since 1999, Cameroon Concord News Group has provided our readers the opportunity of chosen a “Man of the Year.” It is simply a choice of a person who has had the most influence over the news in the last 12 months.

Samuel Eto’o, Bishop Emeritus Francis Teke Lisinge and former Nigerian Head of State, Goodluck Jonathan have all won the award. In 2017, the Cameroon Concord News Person of the Year award was accorded to the Southern Cameroons and all its citizens individually and collectively. The collective nature of this choice was justified.

Fifty-six years ago, the Southern Cameroons a United Nations Trust territory under British administration, was betrayed and sold off to France through its vassal state of French Cameroun. Great Britain and France were among the key actors on whom humanity relied to create the United Nations on the 26 of June 1945 in San Francisco. This underscored a firm determination of the civilized world “to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small’. In consequence therefore, the United Nations Organization went operational on 24 October 1945 with among other goals to fulfill a critical determination to meet its charter obligation under article 76 (b) “to promote the political, economic, social, and educational advancement of the inhabitants of the trust territories, and their progressive development towards self-government or independence as may be appropriate to the particular circumstances of each territory and its peoples and the freely expressed wishes of the peoples concerned, and as may be provided by the terms of each trusteeship agreement”.

Pursuant to this multilateral treaty obligation, the United Nations oversaw the grant of independence to French Cameroun on 1 January 1960 although; it remains a vassal state of France. When the time came for the realization of the UN multilateral treaty obligation towards the Southern Cameroons on 1 October 1961, Great Britain handed the articles of sovereignty over the territory to French vassal state of French Cameroun and France’s proxy army of occupation in the night of 30 September 1961. Ever since, the genocidal onslaught and ferocious intensity with which it is executed qualifies the Southern Cameroons as a cancer on the conscience of the international community. The genocide that was carefully weaved into the slave deal apart, the racism that underpinned the callousness of the impunity with which Southern Cameroons was sacrificed to satisfy or fulfill the imperial economic interests of Britain and France, more than anything establishes that these superpowers perceived the United Nations as an institution they may rely on to legitimize imperial domination over supposed independent African nations. The selling off the Southern Cameroons into slavery at its threshold to independence explains this eloquently.

This is further explained by the complicit silence or inaction of the UN to the consequences in terms of Southern Cameroonian lives lost, legal and cultural identity destroyed, economy raped and culture of terror, and international criminality imposed on the Southern Cameroons on the watch of the UN and its ancillary institutions. Judging from the timid and complicit statements of the France-Afrique neocolonial UN Secretary-General Representative for Central Africa, François Louncény Fall of Guinea an avowed paid agent of French Cameroun aimed at whitewashing the genocide of Southern Cameroons by attempting to make victims out of French Cameroun criminal genocide executioners, it is safe under these circumstances to conclude that the infiltration of the international system over the years rather than dissuade, encouraged impunity and

Despite these obstacles and the seemingly insurmountable odds against the Southern Cameroons, after fifty-six years of excruciating life under genocide, terror, economic terrorism, and all forms of international criminality imaginable, the people rose as one on the 22 September 2017, and ultimately on 1 October 2017 to reclaim their freedom and independence. Many of 2017’s biggest headlines were a reflection of the year that preceded it.

In 2018, a warning from the Cameroon Intelligence Report to the leadership of the Ambazonian Interim Government that Nigeria was planning to betray them was not taken seriously but it however escalated into a major crisis. Another major news item of 2018 is the emergence of Barrister Agbor Balla into the Cameroon political story and an election in French Cameroun that placed President Biya and Prof. Maurice Kamto at daggers-drawn positions. Outside the two Cameroons, France’s Emmanuel Macron was in Nigeria, Ali Bongo of Gabon suffered a massive stroke and the political factions in Kenya reconciled.

The Ambazonian Communications Secretary, Chris Anu, the 85 year old President Paul Biya, Prof Maurice Kamto and Barrister Agbor Balla have indeed had the most influence over the news in the last 12 months. It is now our duty as Cameroon Concord News People to decide who should be the person of the year.

Voting can be done using the comment link or via email

cameroonconcordnews@gmail.com

By Seseskou Asu Isong

27, November 2018

Ambazonians don’t be distracted: It’s all about the money for Cho Ayaba and General Ivo ⁰

Which were you thinking about today? a) Anything but Cho Ayaba and General Ivo? b) All the actions of the Ambazonian Interim Government? c) None of the above? It’s the most important question in the Southern Cameroons revolution right now.

The Southern Cameroons political conversation is at a troubling and unusual tipping point. The exiled Interim Government wants to sell only its positive plans and the other obscure groups wants to talk only about the Interim Government’s negative record. Instead of rallying behind a government that has many experienced actors and actresses and that has the support of the Ambazonian people, the disgraced Cho Ayaba and the consistently inconsistent General Ivo are both thinking that right now the struggle is about which Interim Government negative plan is most debated.

Recently, every French Cameroun military atrocity has been blamed on the Interim Government by these inconsequential actors. As the Southern Cameroons war intensifies, it is evidently clear that the wins will be decided by what the leaders choose to do in the media.

This can play out in one of two ways. If Ambazonians decide to ignore the other opportunistic so-called leaders such as Cho Ayaba and General Ivo, we’ll be talking about anything but division and much of the discussions will be dominated by a combination of diplomatic push and resistance tactics. After the massacre in Nkambe and Bali, we of the Cameroon Concord News Group think that where we stand right now, that feels increasingly likely.

There’s another possibility; the small groups earlier created by Akwanga and Ayaba on Ground Zero that are now committing horrible crimes could remain the centre of the discussion. The leaderships of these funny groups keep posting videos of themselves on social media with the aim of fabricating a contest between the Southern Cameroons Interim Government and their unpopular one-man-show style of resistance. Though there is plenty at stake there. In fact, this tactical struggle for the agenda of social media coverage of the Ambazonian revolution has really affected the resistance greatly and caused the lives of hundreds of innocent Southern Cameroons civilians.

Doubt, lack of confidence, disillusion, political apathy and cynicism is hampering the smooth running of the Ambazonian Interim Government. Interest in Southern Cameroons political philosophy and ideology, is very low now amongst our people in Europe, South Africa and the USA including Canada. There is far greater involvement by those on Ground Zero than Ambazonians in the Diaspora.

The more complex truth is that the Southern Cameroons Diaspora political elite are materialistic and transactional about the politics of liberation – but this isn’t the same thing as being cynical or selfish.

Of course, if the people of Southern Cameroons really want to win this war of liberation, it requires for all Ambazonians to rally behind the Interim Government now to reproduce the discipline that was put in place by Interim President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe and to see through the politics of distractions, to what matters: progress in resistance and protection to our wounded and refugees in Nigeria and those living in the bushes. But for Cho Ayaba, Akwanga and Ivo, its simply about the money.

To this I put my name

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

27, November 2018

Ex-Trump aide Manafort ‘lied to FBI’ in Russia probe, broke plea deal ⁰

Special counsel Robert Mueller is accusing former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort of lying to federal investigators in the Russia probe in breach of his plea agreement. The extraordinary allegation could expose Manafort to a lengthier prison sentence and potentially more criminal charges.

The torpedoing of Manafort’s plea deal, disclosed in a court filing Monday, also results in special counsel Robert Mueller’s team losing a cooperating witness from the top of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign who was present for several key episodes under investigation. That includes a Trump Tower meeting involving Donald Trump Jr. and a Russian lawyer he was told had derogatory information on Democrat Hillary Clinton.

The move signals a return to the acrimonious relationship Manafort has had with the special counsel’s office since his indictment last year. Before his plea agreement, Manafort aggressively challenged the special counsel’s legitimacy in court, went through a bitter trial and landed himself in jail after prosecutors discovered he had attempted to tamper with witnesses in his case.

In the latest filing, Mueller’s team said Manafort “committed federal crimes” by lying about “a variety of subject matters” even after he agreed to truthfully cooperate with the investigation. Prosecutors said they will detail the “nature of the defendant’s crimes and lies” in writing at a later date to the judge.

Through his attorneys, Manafort denied lying, saying he “believes he provided truthful information” during a series of sessions with Mueller’s investigators. He also disagreed that he breached his plea agreement. Still, both sides now agree they can’t resolve the conflict, and U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson should set a date to sentence him.

Manafort, who remains jailed, had been meeting with the special counsel’s office since he pleaded guilty in September to conspiracy against the United States and conspiracy to obstruct justice. He cut that deal to head off a second trial after being convicted last summer of eight felony counts related to millions of dollars he hid from the IRS in offshore accounts.

Both cases stemmed from his Ukrainian political work and undisclosed lobbying work he admitted to carrying out in the U.S. in violation of federal law.

As part of his plea agreement, Manafort pledged to “cooperate fully, truthfully, completely, and forthrightly” with the government “in any and all matters” prosecutors deemed necessary. That included his work on the Trump campaign as well as his Ukrainian political work, which remains under investigation by the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York.

Prosecutors there are looking into the conduct of longtime Democratic lobbyist Tony Podesta, former Obama White House counsel Greg Craig and former Republican congressman and lobbyist Vin Weber to determine whether they violated federal law by failing to register as foreign agents with the Justice Department. None of the men has been charged with any crimes.

As part of his plea deal, Manafort also forfeited many of his rights as well as his ability to withdraw the plea if he broke any of the terms. In return, prosecutors agreed to not bring additional charges against him and to ask a judge for a reduction of his sentence if he provided “substantial assistance.”

But with prosecutors saying he breached the agreement, Manafort now faces serious repercussions such as the possibility of prosecution on additional charges including the 10 felony counts prosecutors dropped when he made the deal.

Manafort already faces up to five years in prison on the two charges in his plea agreement. In his separate Virginia case, Manafort’s potential sentencing under federal guidelines has not yet been calculated, but prosecutors have previously said he could face as much as 10 years in prison on those charges.

He is scheduled to be sentenced in that case in February. His co-defendant Rick Gates, who spent a longer time on the campaign and worked on the Trump inaugural committee, has not had a sentencing date set yet. He continues to cooperate with Mueller.

(AP)