This week, the House Committee on Foreign Affairs passed a resolution introduced by Congressmember Karen Bass, Chair of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa, condemning ongoing violence and human rights abuses stemming from Cameroon’s Anglophone crisis.

“The ongoing crisis and violence taking place in Cameroon at this very moment is something that deserves the attention of the world,” said Congresswoman Bass. “Since the first introduction of a similar resolution in 2019, the violence and unrest has continued. Both the government and armed groups must be held accountable for their role in the violation of fundamental human rights. This resolution we passed reaffirms that the United States continues to hold the Government of Cameroon responsible for upholding the rights of all citizens and also calls for all parties to immediately exercise restraint and ensure that protests are peaceful. It also urges the Secretary of State to hold individuals accountable for these human rights violations in the Anglophone regions of Cameroon. I urge my colleagues to join me in passing this important resolution when it comes up for a vote on the House Floor.”

“This bipartisan resolution condemns the terrible abuses perpetrated by the Government of Cameroon against the northwestern Anglophone population and simultaneously calls on those Anglophone groups that have responded to this abuse with violence of their own to seek dialogue and a peaceful resolution for their differences,” said Congressman Chris Smith (R-NJ), Ranking Member of the Africa, Global Health and Global Human Rights subcommittee. “Chairwoman Bass and I share a grave concern about the horrific human rights violations in Cameroon. In 2018, I chaired a hearing on the human rights abuses there, and her resolution today similarly brings attention to ongoing atrocities in the country. We will continue to press the government to respect the rights of English-speaking Cameroonians.”

“There’s a deep bond shared not only between the sister cities of La Crosse and Kumbo, but also between the whole of Wisconsin’s Third Congressional District and Cameroon,” said Congressman Ron Kind (R-WI). “The devastation that our Cameroonian friends are experiencing as a result of the ongoing violence is heartbreaking. In recent years, I’ve had the opportunity to visit and speak with officials on the ground, and I’m proud to see the House Committee on Foreign Affairs continue its important work to call for an inclusive dialogue to achieve peace by passing my and Chairwoman Bass’s bipartisan resolution.”

The resolution is calling on the Government of Cameroon and all armed groups to respect the human rights of all Cameroonian citizens, to end all violence, and to pursue a broad-based dialogue without preconditions to resolve the conflict in the Northwest and Southwest regions.

Culled from Bass.house.gov

The Attack on Queen of the Rosary High School (QRHS), Okoyong, Manyu

Fellow Ambazonians,

The Interim Government of Ambazonian is informing Southern Cameroonians that last night, 10thFebruary 2022, unidentified armed men raided Queen of the Rosary High School (QRHS), Okoyong, in Manyu County.

The assailants set fire on dormitories and administrative buildings while students were asleep. Ambazonia Intelligence Services have now confirmed that no student was killed, but some few sustained minor injuries. Our thoughts and prayers go out to the children put through this ordeal.

The Interim Government of Ambazonia condemns this cowardly act firmly and warns that it will take steps to disarm rogue gangs operating with impunity in Ambazonia. Our legitimate fight is against the invading army of La Republique du Cameroun, not against our student population.

Any attack on a school in Southern Cameroons is shameful, distasteful, outrageous, and unacceptable and the perpetrators of these sorts of crimes do not represent our cause and people.

Cooperation between our Ambazonian self-defense forces and local communities in Ground Zero is vital for our success. We must confront the dangerous enemy we all face with unity and purpose. This requires wisdom and self-restraint.

I take this opportunity to reiterate the position of your Interim Government that school campuses are no go areas for any Southern Cameroons group, be they Amba fighters.

Thank you

Dabney Yerima

Vice President

Federal Republic of Ambazonia

As Cameroonian journalist Amadou Vamoulké “celebrates” his 72nd birthday today in so-called “preventive” detention, in which he has now spent more than 2,000 days, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) reiterates its appeal to the UN to do everything possible to obtain his release given his extremely fragile state of health and urgent need of treatment.

As well as spending his birthday like most days, in the main prison in Yaoundé, Cameroon’s capital, Vamoulké is also due to spend part of it at the Special Criminal Court (TCS) for his 99th appearance there since his arrest in July 2016. Because of the imminent threats to his health, RSF has referred the case to the urgent attention of the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to health, nearly two years after an initial urgent appeal that went unanswered.

RSF has asked the Special Rapporteur to intervene as soon as possible in favour of an emergency evacuation for medical reasons, and has provided details of Vamoulké’s extreme vulnerability due to his age, his poor conditions of detention and the serious neurological illness diagnosed in September 2019. And RSF reminds the Special Rapporteur that, despite medical reports attesting that Vamoulké’s condition requires urgent and appropriate care that cannot be provided in Cameroon, he has repeatedly and deliberately been refused such care by the Cameroonian authorities.

“As Amadou Vamoulké spends another birthday in prison, we urge the UN to press the Cameroonian authorities to release him before it is too late,” said Arnaud Froger, the head of RSF’s Africa desk. “The authorities continue to ignore repeated calls for this journalist’s release despite the extreme fragility of his state of health, his age and his imprisonment during a global pandemic. The rapid spread of Covid-19 in Cameroon’s overcrowded prisons and his status as a vulnerable person with regard to this virus expose him to the possibility of irreparable damage to his health and constitute grounds for his immediate release.”

Vamoulké has spent more than five and a half years in “provisional” detention since his arrest on 29 July 2016 on the basis of claims that he misspent government funds as director-general of the state radio and TV broadcaster CRTV. Despite nearly 100 hearings, all adjourned, prosecutors have been unable to produce any evidence or testimony to support these allegations.

RSF has taken many initiatives with both Cameroonian and international authorities with the aim of obtaining this journalist’s release. Following an RSF referral, his detention was deemed to be arbitrary by the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention in June 2020. In this decision, the Working Group also said he had been deliberately denied medical care and announced that it was submitting the case to the Special Rapporteur on the right to health because of the urgency of his medical situation. RSF had already contacted this Special Rapporteur in May 2020. However, despite these requests and the urgency of the situation, no response has so far been provided by the Special Rapporteur. Cameroon is ranked 135th out of 180 countries in RSF’s 2021 World Press Freedom Index.

Culled from RSF

It is no longer news to highlight that Cameroonian leaders are oppressive, and they rule not to bring prosperity and happiness to their people but to line their pockets and oppress their people.

The Southern Cameroons crisis, which has played out for more than five years and has consumed thousands of lives, is unquestionably the outcome of government policies and decisions designed to marginalize a section of the country’s population. 

Much infrastructure has been ruined during the fighting and confidence in the government is at its lowest.

Millions of Southern Cameroonians have lost faith in the government, and it is incumbent upon the government to rebuild that confidence, especially by reviewing the current political dispensation which leaves much to be desired.

It is the government’s responsibility to ensure that the conflict, which has killed thousands and ruined the economy of the two English-speaking regions of the country, is addressed. Its silence over the last five years seems to be deliberate and it is unfortunately not golden.

However, the government alone cannot bring about peace in Cameroon. It needs responsible and honesty parties for it to play its role. The Southern Cameroons revolution which started with a protest by lawyers and teachers seems to be bereft of honest and well-intentioned leaders.  

Over the last three years, those who lay claim to the leadership of a revolution which started in 2017, have clearly demonstrated their greed.

The unquestionable honesty and leadership demonstrated by people like Dr. Fontem Neba, Barrister Felix Nkongho Agbor-Balla and Sisiku Julius Ayuk Tabe when the revolution was in its embryonic phase, has slowly but surely given way to incredible dishonesty. 

Today, the revolution is being considered as a milking cow by the leaders who spend most of their time fighting each other because they want to be in control of the resources placed at their disposal by the Southern Cameroonian Diaspora. 

But more dangerous is the ignorance that is playing out on Ground Zero. The rogues who pass off as fighters have shot the revolution in its leg.

Many Southern Cameroonians have carefully jumped ship because of the ignorance many of those who claim they are fighting to liberate the population are displaying. 

The rogues now kill for money. Kidnapping has become a lucrative business and this is sometimes fostered by the leaders leaving in the safety and comfort of the United States and other Western countries.

When a revolution is designed and implemented by illiterate criminals, it is doomed to failure.

These illiterate criminals are destroying anything in their path. Schools, hospitals, and government offices are all being burnt by people who do not even understand how development plays out. Who destroys his own infrastructure because he is angry with the government?

Today, the Queen of the Rosary Secondary School (QRC), Okoyong, Manyu, Division, one of Cameroon’s best girls’ schools, has been torched by these miscreants who clearly belong to a different epoch.

Their excuse is that the students were practicing to participate in Youth Day celebrations. If these so-called fighters were worth their salt, why could they not go to the grandstand to disrupt Youth Day activities? 

The Cameroon Concord News Group strongly condemns this irresponsibility, and it is urging QRC past students across the globe to organize a massive fundraising campaign which will make it possible to replace what has been destroyed by those “sons of Satan”.

The Cameroon Concord News Group pledges its support to OPSANs whenever they launch this fundraiser to rebuild the school. QRC has produced some of the brightest minds in Cameroon and it deserves our support. 

By Joachim Arrey in Canada and Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai in the United Kingdom

Cameroonian authorities subjected dozens of asylum seekers deported by the United States to serious human rights violations between 2019 and 2021, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today.

The 149-page report, “‘How Can You Throw Us Back?’: Asylum Seekers Abused in the US and Deported to Harm in Cameroon,” traces what happened to the estimated 80 to 90 Cameroonians deported from the United States on two flights in October and November 2020, and others deported in 2021 and 2019. People returned to Cameroon faced arbitrary arrest and detention; enforced disappearances; torture, rape, and other violence; extortion; unfair prosecutions; confiscation of their national IDs; harassment; and abuses against their relatives. Many also reported experiencing excessive force, medical neglect, and other mistreatment in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody in the US.

“The US government utterly failed Cameroonians with credible asylum claims by sending them back to harm in the country they fled, as well as mistreating already traumatized people before and during deportation,” said Lauren Seibert, refugee and migrant rights researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The Cameroon and US governments need to remedy these abuses, and US authorities should provide opportunities for wrongly deported Cameroonians to return and reapply for asylum.”

By returning Cameroonians to face persecution, torture, and other serious harm, the US violated the principle of nonrefoulement, a cornerstone of international refugee and human rights law.

Between December 2020 and January 2022, Human Rights Watch interviewed 41 deported Cameroonian asylum seekers, 4 asylum seekers in the US, and 54 other people in the US and Cameroon, including relatives and friends of those deported, witnesses to abuses, lawyers, immigrant rights activists, and experts. Human Rights Watch collected and analyzed US asylum and immigration documents of deported people, as well as photographs, videos, recordings, and medical and legal documents corroborating accounts of mistreatment in Cameroon.

Cameroon has faced humanitarian crises in several regions in recent years. Respect for human rights has deteriorated and the government has increasingly cracked down on opposition and dissent. Violence since late 2016 by government forces and armed separatist groups in Cameroon’s two Anglophone regions has caused mass displacement, as have intercommunal violence and ongoing conflict with Boko Haram in the Far North region.

“We put all our hope in the USA when we went to seek refuge,” said a 37-year-old man who was deported to Cameroon in October 2020. “We did not imagine the US would return us like that.” He spent nearly three years in US immigration detention and was arbitrarily detained in Cameroon after his return. He remains in hiding.

The people interviewed were deported during the Trump administration, which was characterized by hardline immigration policies, narrowed access to asylum, and racist, anti-migrant rhetoric. Though conditions in Cameroon had not improved, the grant rate for asylum or other protection for Cameroonians by US immigration courts dropped by 24 percent between fiscal years 2019 and 2020. The US deported over 100 Cameroonians in 2020.

The Biden administration took the positive step of cancelling a February 2021 deportation flight to Cameroon. However, it deported several Cameroonians in October 2021 and has failed to designate Temporary Protected Status for Cameroon, despite conditions making return unsafe.

Nearly all of the deported people interviewed had fled Cameroon between 2017 and 2020 for reasons linked to the crisis in the Anglophone regions. Human Rights Watch research indicates that many had credible asylum claims, but due process concerns, fact-finding inaccuracies, and other issues contributed to unfair asylum decisions. Lack of impartiality by US immigration judges – who are part of the executive branch, not the independent judiciary – appeared to play a role. Nearly all of the deported Cameroonians interviewed – 35 of 41 – were assigned to judges with asylum denial rates 10 to 30 percentage points higher than the national average.

ICE also failed to protect confidential asylum documents during deportations, leading to document confiscation and apparent retribution by Cameroonian authorities.

Between 2019 and 2021, Cameroonian police, gendarmes, military personnel, and other officials detained or imprisoned at least 39 people deported from the US. Authorities detained many without due process or in inhumane conditions, for periods ranging from days to months. Some were held incommunicado.

Human Rights Watch documented 14 cases of physical abuse or assault of 13 deported people, 13 by Cameroonian authorities – including 9 in detention – and 1 by armed separatists. State agents raped three women in custody, subjected a man to forced labor, and severely beat returnees, often during interrogations. Several of these cases amount to torture.

A woman deported in October 2020 said she was tortured and raped by gendarmes or military men during six weeks in detention in Bamenda, North-West region: “Every two days … they were using ropes, [rubber] tubes, their boots, military belts … They hit me all over my body. They said that I’ve destroyed the image of Cameroon … so I had to pay for it.”

State agents harmed or targeted the family members of at least seven deported people. While looking for returnees, government forces allegedly shot and killed a woman’s sister, abducted a man’s 11-year-old son, and severely beat a man’s mother. Others were arbitrarily detained, extorted, and harassed.

Cameroonian authorities threatened and abused returnees not only for reasons linked to why they initially fled, but also for seeking asylum in the US, and for actual or imputed opposition to the government. “[Officials] said … ‘You people left here, you ran … to the US, telling lies about the government,’” said a woman deported in October 2020.

Nearly everyone interviewed also cited mistreatment during US immigration detention, transfers, or ICE flights. ICE detained all but one of the 41 asylum seekers interviewed for prolonged and unnecessary periods, an average of 1.5 years. Human Rights Watch documented 24 cases of alleged excessive force, cruel or inhuman treatment, or other physical abuse by ICE officers, other officials, or ICE contractors against 18 Cameroonians subsequently deported.

Deported Cameroonians have yet to receive a remedy for harms experienced. As of January, many remained in grave danger in Cameroon or struggled to survive after fleeing again. Human Rights Watch and members of the Cameroon Advocacy Network (CAN), a coalition of immigrant rights groups and Cameroonian immigrants in the US, urged the US government to grant Cameroonians deported between 2020 and 2021 humanitarian parole to return to the US for “urgent humanitarian reasons.”

“The suffering that Cameroonians deported by the US have been through is heartbreaking and makes it crystal clear that Cameroon is not safe for return,” said Daniel Tse, CAN coordinator. “If the Biden administration hopes to make the US immigration system more humane, it should rectify the wrongs done to Cameroonian asylum seekers and halt deportations to Cameroon.”

Quotes from the report

All of those quoted are identified with pseudonyms for their safety.

On post-deportation abuses in Cameroon

“Paul,” deported in October 2020: In January 2021, military personnel assaulted Paul, deported in October 2020, at his mother’s home in the South-West region. “Four military guys broke the door and came inside…. They started beating me…. They said, ‘You were deported from America?… You are the ones sponsoring the Amba [separatist] fighters.’”

“Marie,” deported in October 2020: In January 2021, men in black uniforms assaulted Marie at a checkpoint en route to Bamenda. “They started beating me… They said, ‘Here’s the Ambazonian … destroying the name of the country.’… They used some whip … on my neck and back… They slapped me … I fell on the ground. They … kicked me … the pain was too much.”

“Richard,” deported in October 2020, said at New Bell prison in Douala, from October to November 2020: “I was kept in a dark room, only given two slices of bread for the whole day … [Officers] beat me … [with] batons … and a military belt … and their cutlasses … I was tortured for 14 days, every day, three times a day… They were making me feel that’s the end of my life.”

“George,” deported in October 2020: Military men severely beat his 60-year-old mother in the South-West region in December 2020. “Since they could not find me … five of them were beating her … with a military belt… She fell down crying, so then they kicked her… They were hitting her with sticks… They left her to lie there… People in village came and took her to the hospital.”

On ICE failure to protect confidential asylum documents

“Maxwell,” deported October 2020: “When we were leaving … I was shouting and screaming that I need to take some documents out of my bags, but [ICE] never gave me any attention. In Cameroon, when we arrived … [police] asked, ‘Did you ask for asylum in America?’ I said no… [T]hey said I should shut up, that I was lying, because they found every piece of paperwork in my bag … proving that I asked for asylum.”

On abuses during US immigration detention and deportations

“Thierry,” deported October 2020: “I went to the US to seek asylum for the persecution I experienced in my country. I was just so sad, because I did 2 years 10 months [in detention], and I am not a criminal.”

“Christian,” deported October 2020, said at a US immigration detention center: “They put me face down on the ground. One ICE officer put his knee on my neck, pushing with so much pressure … I was crying. I said, ‘Please, please, I can’t breathe.’… They forced me inside the game room …, forced my head onto the ping-pong table … Some were hitting me. One twisted my arm … like he was going to break it…. They took my fingerprint by force.”

“Robert,” deported November 2020: “[ICE] put me in a ‘Wrap’ [or similar full-body restraint] because I was refusing to get in the plane… [T]hey tie your legs and your hands, each is connected to each and you can’t sit up straight. It’s a form of punishment…. I told them God will judge them. The ICE officers told me I should go to hell, that whatever complaint I do, the case will go nowhere.”

On unfair US asylum denials

“Richard,” deported October 2020: “When you’re trying to give an explanation of what happened, [the asylum officer] wouldn’t give you an opportunity. He would just say, ‘OK, OK’… Sometimes he would speak so fast that I didn’t understand, and he would threaten, ‘This is the last time I’m repeating myself,’ and if I don’t give him answers … he will not interview me anymore. I was so tense.”

“Michael,” deported November 2020: “I wasn’t understanding the [immigration] judge or government lawyer sometimes, and sometimes they didn’t understand me… They would say ‘speak louder,’ and if I said I didn’t understand …, they thought maybe I wanted to escape from the question.”

Culled from Human Rights Watch