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Ambazonia Restoration Forces won’t allow Biya Beti Ewondo soldiers to perpetrate crimes with impunity

1, August 2021

Ambazonia Restoration Forces won’t allow Biya Beti Ewondo soldiers to perpetrate crimes with impunity 0

The Vice President of the Southern Cameroons Interim Government Dabney Yerima has reacted to the retaliatory attack on a Cameroon government-managed timber exploitation centre in Ossing in Manyu Division, stressing that Ambazonia Restoration Forces will not allow the Biya Francophone regime in French Cameroun to commit crimes with impunity.

“Southern Cameroons Self Defense Forces won’t permit Francophone army soldiers to commit any crimes without retaliation, whether in the Northern zone or in the Southern Zone. Since the 88-year old Biya of French Cameroun in still in a coma, his kinsmen running the political affairs in La Republique du Cameroun have to understand that Ambazonia Restoration Forces can reach their poorly trained and ill equipped soldiers anywhere in the Federal Republic of Ambazonia,” Vice President Dabney Yerima said in an exclusive interview with Cameroon Concord News Group on Sunday.

Dabney Yerima underlined that French Cameroun and its corrupt political leadership were engaged in a campaign doomed to failure against the people of British Southern Cameroons, describing the Biya Francophone army attacks on Southern Cameroons homeland as well as the continued detention of President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe and his top aides as desperate attempts at stifling the Ambazonia uprising.

Yerima went on to say that the balance of power is tipped in favor of the Ambazonia Restoration Forces in Ground Zero.

“Atanga Nji, Ferdinand Ngoh Ngoh and Fame Ndongo must re-calculate their existence or hostilities against Southern Cameroons Restoration Groups, whether in Ground Zero, Ground One or in Western Europe and the USA. All these Ambazonian groups are really willing to counterattack or retaliate against French Cameroun acts of aggression,” Vice President Dabney Yerima noted.

Ambazonia Restoration Forces providing security in the Eyumojock Sub Constituency in Manyu reportedly killed a Cameroon government army soldier deployed to a timber exploitation centre in Ossing village in Manyu Division.

Cameroon Concord News gathered that the soldier was killed early hours of Saturday at the military checkpoint in front of the timber centre habouring trucks. 

A reliable security source told our correspondent that the Amba fighters attacked the location in Ossing with heavy gun fire.

By Isong Asu

London Bureau Chief

Cameroon Concord News Group

Kassav: Musicians worldwide mourn passing of Jacob Desvarieux

1, August 2021

Kassav: Musicians worldwide mourn passing of Jacob Desvarieux 0

Tributes are pouring in for Guadeloupean musician Jacob Desvarieux, co-founder of the band Kassav’ who died at the age of 65 on Friday after catching Covid. He shot to fame in the 1980s with the invention of  ‘zouk’ – bringing the fast, catchy sounds of the Caribbean to the world.

Local media in the French territory of Guadeloupe announced his death late on Friday, prompting an outpouring of grief.

“A giant of zouk music. An unparalleled guitarist. An emblematic voice of the West Indies. Jacob Desvarieux was all of these things at once,” French President Emmanuel Macron tweeted.

In poor health after undergoing a kidney transplant, the singer and guitarist was taken to hospital in Pointe-a-Pitre, Guadeloupe’s largest city, on 12 July after catching Covid-19.

“The West Indies, Africa and music have just lost one of their greatest ambassadors,” tweeted Senegalese music star Youssou N’Dour.

“Jacob, thanks to your art, you brought the West Indies and Africa closer together. Dakar where you once lived mourns you. Farewell friend.”

A successful experiment

Desvarieux told French daily Liberation in 2016 that his band Kassav’ started out in Paris as an experiment.

“We wanted to find a soundtrack that would combine all the previous (Caribbean) traditions and sounds, but that would be exportable everywhere,” he said.

And so zouk was born, rising to global fame, particularly in France and on the African continent where people partied to its festive rhythm.

“We questioned our origins through our music,” Desvarieux told Liberation. “What were we doing here, we who were black and spoke French?”

Kassav’ rose to prominence along with the increasing popularity of world music in the 1980s.

Modern twist

The brainchild of Guadeloupean artists Pierre-Edouard Decimus and Freddy Marshall, the band was founded in 1979 with Desvarieux, who was born in Paris and had been influenced by guitarists Chuck Berry and Jimi Hendrix.

The band’s base style is gwo ka, a kind of Guadeloupean drumming music, topped up with ingredients from all over the Caribbean and a modern twist.

Kassav’s first album was released in 1979, and the band reached its peak popularity at the end of the 1980s.

It signed a contract with the multinational CBS record label, and was praised by jazz legend Miles Davis.

Since then, zouk music’s popularity has waned but Kassav’ continues to attract crowds at its concerts.

Source: RFI

French Cameroun: National Gendarmerie makes biggest seizure of cannabis

1, August 2021

French Cameroun: National Gendarmerie makes biggest seizure of cannabis 0

Cameroon National Gendarmerie has made their biggest seizure of cannabis ever on the night of July 19 in a raid on a store in the country’s Far North region, according to a statement by the gendarmerie on Friday.

The haul, about 3,900 kg, was found in 39 bags inside a store in Kousseri, a town in the region after being transported from the commercial capital of Douala, the gendarmerie said, adding that two suspects were arrested and will likely be prosecuted for drug trafficking.

An investigation has been opened with a view to the complete dismantling of the drug network in the region, the gendarmerie said.

Source: Xinhuanet

Southern Cameroons Crisis: Amba fighters kill one Cameroon gov’t soldier in Ossing

1, August 2021

Southern Cameroons Crisis: Amba fighters kill one Cameroon gov’t soldier in Ossing 0

Ambazonia Restoration Forces providing security in the Eyumojock Sub Constituency in Manyu reportedly killed a Cameroon government army soldier deployed to a timber exploitation centre in Ossing village.

Cameroon Concord News gathered that the soldier was killed early hours of Saturday at the military checkpoint in front of the timber centre habouring trucks.  

A reliable security source told our correspondent that the Amba fighters attacked the location in Ossing with heavy gun fire.

The office of the Senior Divisional Officer for Manyu is yet to confirm the attack. But military sources at the Besongabang regiment of the Cameroon government military have accused the members of the Southern Cameroons Restoration Forces of being behind the attack.

A radio host contacted by our Mamfe town reporter added that Caporal Nchofua Christopher Yende seen here on the photo attached to this report is the soldier killed. Cameroon government army soldiers have ever since the attack been shooting indiscriminately and people in Ossing have been running back into the bushes.

By Ojong Peter in Mamfe

Norbert Zongo  Affair: France clears extradition of Francois Compaore, brother of Burkina Faso’s ex-president

31, July 2021

Norbert Zongo  Affair: France clears extradition of Francois Compaore, brother of Burkina Faso’s ex-president 0

France on Friday cleared the extradition of Francois Compaore, the brother of Burkina Faso’s former president, to his home country where he is wanted in connection with the murder of a prominent journalist.

The Council of State, France’s highest court for cases involving public administrations, rejected an appeal by Compaore’s lawyers against a previous ruling for his extradition, saying there were no constitutional or other grounds to overturn the decision.

Compaore is the younger brother of Blaise Compaore, who was ousted in a popular uprising in 2014 — after 27 years in power that started with a coup d’etat — and went into exile in Ivory Coast.

The murdered journalist was Norbert Zongo, director of the weekly magazine L’Independant and an investigative reporter. His charred body was found on December 13, 1998, along with three killed colleagues in a burnt-out car on a road south of the capital Ouagadougou.

The killings sparked mass protests in Burkina Faso and drew international condemnation.

Initially only one suspect, presidential guard member Marcel Kafando, was charged for the killing and later acquitted.

Zongo had been investigating the death of David Ouedraogo, Francois Compaore’s driver.

Burkina Faso closed the probe after freeing the guard member, but the judiciary reopened the case after Blaise Compaore had been deposed.

An independent investigation ordered by the subsequent government concluded that the assassination was linked to the professional activities of the journalist who had a track record of uncovering irregularities in the Compaore regime.

Six suspects, all members of the presidential guard, were identified by the independent investigators and three were charged.

‘Dignity, honour and responsibility’

The Burkina Faso judiciary suspects that Francois Compaore may have ordered the hit, although he has not so far been charged with any crime.

French police arrested him at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris in October 2017 following an international arrest warrant issued by his country’s government. In 2020, Burkina Faso made a deal with France for his extradition.

Compaore’s lawyers said on Friday that their client was ready to face his country’s judiciary “with dignity, honour and responsibility”.

But they added in a statement sent to AFP that he felt the extradition was politically motivated, and that the Council had failed to take into account the risk of torture, inhumane treatment and of an unfair trial awaiting him.

“He would certainly be exposed to such risks if he were handed over to Burkina Faso,” they said.

Compaore has appealed to the European Court of Human Rights in the hope of stopping the extradition, they said.

Source: AFP

Covid-19: WHO sounds alarm on Delta as China outbreak spreads

31, July 2021

Covid-19: WHO sounds alarm on Delta as China outbreak spreads 0

Mushrooming outbreaks of the highly contagious Delta variant prompted China and Australia to impose stricter Covid-19 restrictions on Saturday as the WHO urged the world to quickly contain the mutation before it turns into something deadlier and draws out the pandemic.

China’s most serious surge of coronavirus infections in months spread to two more areas Saturday — Fujian province and the sprawling megacity of Chongqing.

More than 200 cases have been linked to a Delta cluster in Nanjing city where nine cleaners at an international airport tested positive, with the outbreak spanning Beijing, Chongqing and five provinces as of Saturday.

The nation where the disease first emerged has rushed to prevent the highly transmissible strain from taking root by putting more than one million people under lockdown and reinstituting mass testing campaigns.

Worldwide, coronavirus infections are once again on the upswing, with the World Health Organization announcing an 80 percent average increase over the past four weeks in five of the health agency’s six regions, a jump largely fuelled by the Delta variant.

“Delta is a warning: it’s a warning that the virus is evolving but it is also a call to action that we need to move now before more dangerous variants emerge,” the WHO’s emergencies director Michael Ryan told a press conference.

He stressed that the “game plan” still works, namely physical distancing, wearing masks, hand hygiene and vaccination.

But both high- and low-income countries are struggling to gain the upper hand against Delta, with the vastly unequal sprint for shots leaving plenty of room for variants to wreak havoc and further evolve.

In Australia, where only about 14 percent of the population is jabbed, the third-largest city of Brisbane and other parts of Queensland state were to enter a snap Covid-19 lockdown Saturday as a cluster of the Delta variant bubbled into six new cases.

“The only way to beat the Delta strain is to move quickly, to be fast and to be strong,” Queensland’s Deputy Premier Steven Miles said while informing millions they will be under three days of strict stay-at-home orders.

‘The war has changed’

The race for vaccines to triumph over variants appeared to suffer a blow as the US Centers for Disease Control released an analysis that found fully immunised people with so-called breakthrough infections of the Delta variant can spread the disease as easily as unvaccinated people.

While the jabs remain effective against severe disease and death, the US government agency said in a leaked internal CDC document “the war has changed” as a result of Delta.

An analysis of a superspreading event in the northeastern state of Massachusetts found three-quarters of the people sickened were vaccinated, according to a report the CDC published Friday.

The outbreak related to July 4 festivities, with the latest number of people infected swelling to 900, according to local reports. The findings were used to justify a return to masks for vaccinated people in high-risk areas.

“As a vaccinated person, if you have one of these breakthrough infections, you may have mild symptoms, you may have no symptoms, but based on what we’re seeing here you could be contagious to other people,” Celine Gounder, an infectious diseases physician and professor at New York University, told AFP.

According to the leaked CDC document, a review of findings from other countries showed that while the original SARS-CoV-2 was as contagious as the common cold, each person with Delta infects on average eight others, making it as transmissible as chickenpox but still less than measles.

Reports from Canada, Scotland and Singapore suggest Delta infections may also be more severe, resulting in more hospitalisations.

Asked if Americans should expect new recommendations from health authorities or new restrictive measures, US President Joe Biden responded, “in all probability,” before leaving the White House by helicopter for the weekend.

He did not specify what steps could be taken.

Source: AFP

Catholic Women Association of Cameroon: Committed to serving the Church

31, July 2021

Catholic Women Association of Cameroon: Committed to serving the Church 0

The Catholic Women Association of Cameroon held its 9th National Congress from 23 to 25 July 2021 under the theme: “Catholic Women called to holiness for the sanctification and holistic development of the world.”

The national event, which brought together more than 500 Catholic women from different parts of Cameroon, was held in the Diocese of Ngaoundéré, north-central Cameroon, Adamawa Plateau.

During the closing Mass of Sunday, 25 July, at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Apostles in Ngaoundéré, the Catholic women pledged to plant a new seed of mutual love that would inspire other members, especially a new generation of members. They will also double up on accomplishing works of mercy within communities.

Do not seek power and prestige

The local Ordinary, Bishop Emmanuel Abbo, addressed the women association and encouraged them to commit and dedicate themselves even more to the different apostolates in their dioceses. Bishop Abbo, nonetheless, admonished the ladies against the temptation of seeking power, prestige and honour at the expense of their calling as lay Catholics. He warned against unhealthy tendencies that undermine others.

Growing a new generation of young Catholic women

National Chaplain of the Catholic Women in Cameroon, Father Giles Ngwa Forteh, for his part, expressed the wish to see a new generation of Catholic Women grow, one whose language and life would be anchored on the law of love.

“Rediscovering the love of God and sharing must be our goal. Indeed, the hatred we see around us clearly indicates that the human heart has become seriously hardened. Only the Word of God can soften that heart and make people take actions that can transform the world. God renews us every time we approach him,” he said.

Source: Vatican News

Biya regime says Boko Haram attacks military, seduces civilians

31, July 2021

Biya regime says Boko Haram attacks military, seduces civilians 0

Officials in Cameroon say Boko Haram militants appear to be changing their tactics and attacking only military and government targets in an effort to try to attract more recruits.

This week, Cameroonian Defense Minister Joseph Beti Assomo a military hospital in Maroua about 80 kilometers from Nigeria’s Borno state, where 14 government troops and four civilians are recovering after Boko Haram attacks over five days on the northern border with Nigeria.

Assomo said Cameroonians and President Paul Biya share the grief of family members of 14 soldiers killed by the jihadists.

Among the wounded soldiers is 37-year-old Lieutenant Innocent Beti who was shot in his abdomen when Boko Haram attacked the village of Sagme. He said if he recovers and is given another chance, he will not hesitate to fight the terrorists.

Cameroon’s military said it has recorded at least seven Boko Haram incursions on its territory during July. The Boko Haram forces targeted military positions and public buildings in the border towns of Mozogo, Fotokol, Amchide and Achigachia.

Assomo said the deadliest attacks were in the villages of Sagme and Zigi.

The defense minister says unlike previous years, the terrorist group has avoided attacks on civilians, markets, religious institutions and schools.

He said the military should immediately examine and adequately respond to the new wave of threats posed by Boko Haram.

Assomo said more troops have been deployed to the border area, but did not say how many. He asked civilians to help the military by reporting strangers in their towns and villages, and by creating their own militias.

Saibou Issa, a conflict resolution specialist at the University of Maroua, believes Boko Haram is trying to gain the trust of civilians.

He said the new wave of attacks indicates Boko Haram fighters now share the ideology of the jihadist splinter Islamic State West Africa Province, which appears to be gaining control over Nigeria, Cameroon and Chad border localities. Issa said that group attacks military positions and government officials to gain sympathy and recruit civilians.

Issa also said poverty in the Lake Chad Basin is pushing many young men to join the terror group, where they expect to be paid for killing government troops. He said it’s possible that former fighters who were unhappy that Boko Haram attacked civilians may now rejoin the group.

Cameroon is pleading with its citizens not to join the jihadist group, which the government says only brings pain and sufferings. Boko Haram violence that started 12 years ago has cost the lives of 30,000 people and displaced about 2 million in Nigeria, Cameroon, Niger and Chad, according to the United Nations.

Source: VOA

Southern Cameroons Crisis: Accused of hiding figures on military deaths, Defense Minister summons General Nka Valere to Yaoundé

31, July 2021

Southern Cameroons Crisis: Accused of hiding figures on military deaths, Defense Minister summons General Nka Valere to Yaoundé 0

Several Cameroon government army soldiers have been killed recently in Southern Cameroons and the sad reality is reportedly creating tension within the military hierarchy in Yaoundé.

Senior intelligence officers of the Cameroon government army have accused General Valere Nka the head of the military operations in Southern Cameroons of systematically manipulating operational intelligence reports following directives from some politicians who are benefitting from the war.

Cameroon Intelligence Report gathered that the situation in Southern Cameroons is deteriorating at catastrophic rapidity and all the more serious because several army officers are now saying that the number of soldiers who died ever since the 88-year-old President Biya declared war against British Southern Cameroonians is much higher than those published officially. A source deep within the Francophone dominated army was quoted as saying that the practice of manipulating the military death toll was adopted by the ruling CPDM crime syndicate in order not to demoralize the troops.

In addition to this developing scandal, there is also the matter of choice of army soldiers deployed to Southern Cameroons.  The Francophone Beti Ewondo military hierarchy is accused of protecting their blood relations preventing them from being sent to Southern Cameroons while other ethnic minorities within the Cameroon government army are deployed regularly with some having spent two years on the Ambazonian front line.

In order to calm the tension on the ground, General Nka Valere has been urgently summoned to the Ministry of Defense to explain himself to Defense Minister Beti Assomo.

Hundreds of Cameroon government soldiers are defecting

The fighting in recent weeks has caused huge casualties on both sides and the losses in the ranks of the Cameroon government army are beginning to have a negative impact on the troops with hundreds of defections now being recorded.

 A video posted on social media by a group of Cameroon government soldiers deployed to Southern Cameroons gave the world an insight into the difficult situation confronting the troops. The soldiers were heard denouncing their comrades who have deserted the army and even opening accusing senior officers of corruption.

By Fon Lawrence

Angola: Isabel dos Santos ordered to return $500 million in energy shares

30, July 2021

Angola: Isabel dos Santos ordered to return $500 million in energy shares 0

Isabel dos Santos, daughter of Angola’s former president and Africa’s onetime richest woman, must return to Angola her shares in Portugal’s Galp energy firm worth 422 million euros ($500 million), an international arbitration court has ruled.

Dos Santos is accused of diverting billions of dollars from state companies during her father Jose Eduardo dos Santos’s nearly 40-year rule of the oil-rich southern African nation.

The embattled ex-first daughter, whose business assets have been frozen since 2019, was ordered by a Dutch court this week to return shares worth $500 million to Angola’s national Sonangol energy group, which she chaired until Lourenco took power.

The transaction under which Dos Santos acquired her stake in the oil and gas company Galp is “null and void”, according to a copy of the ruling seen by AFP on Friday by the Netherlands Arbitration Institute (NAI), which is part of the International Court of Arbitration.

After paying a 15 percent deposit from the bank account of another company in the British Virgin Islands, dos Santos allegedly paid the rest of the amount in Angola’s local currency, worth little outside the country, rather than in euros as agreed on the sales contract, according to the NAI.

Santos’s six-percent stake in Galp is part of a myriad of investments in Angola and former colonial ruler Portugal, worth about $3 billion according to Forbes magazine, that have been under scrutiny.

The court’s decision — dated July 23 and first reported by Dutch media late Thursday — said that the 2006 purchase of the shares, acquired through a company owned by dos Santos’ late husband Exem Energy, was illegal.

Dos Santos had consistently denied any wrongdoing and denounced all accusations as a politically motivated witch hunt.

Exem’s lawyers intend to appeal the decision “with the competent court”.

“In this arbitral award the political narrative clearly overrides the legal analysis,” the company said in a statement emailed to AFP on Friday.

One of Sonangol’s lawyers, Yas Banifatemi, told Dutch media there was “nothing political” in the court’s decision.

“The arbitration court has judged that Isabel dos Santos enriched herself with money stolen from Angolan people,” said Banifatemi, cited in Dutch daily newspaper Het Financieele Dagblad.

‘The princess’

President Joao Lourenco has vowed to crack down on corruption since dos Santos retired in 2017, removing his predecessor’s cronies from key positions and probing the former regime for alleged graft.

He has targeted several members of the dos Santos family, including Isabel and her younger brother Jose Filomeno dos Santos, sentenced to five years in prison for diverting oil revenues last year.

Isabel is the eldest daughter of Angola’s ex-president, accused of ruling the country with an iron fist, leaving a legacy of poverty and nepotism.

The British-educated billionaire businesswoman has faced several allegations of plundering the public purse and funnelling the money abroad.

In a trove of 715,000 files released in January 2020 by the award-winning New York-based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) and dubbed the “Luanda Leaks,” dos Santos was accused of syphoning state funds from the oil-rich, but impoverished country into offshore assets.

Nicknamed “the princess” in Angola, she was accused of amassing her vast fortune thanks to the backing of her authoritarian father.

In Portugal, in addition to Galp, she has major bank stakes and has a controlling share of a Portuguese cable TV and telecom firm.

In December 2019, Angola’s prosecutors froze the bank accounts and assets owned by her and her Congolese husband Sindika Dokolo, who died last year, a move she described as a groundless political vendetta.

Dos Santos became Africa’s richest woman after Forbes magazine named her the continent’s first female billionaire in 2013. She lost that title when her assets were frozen.

Source: AFP

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