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Southern Cameroons War: Civilians flee Bali as French Cameroun troops continue assault on Amba fighters

10, October 2019

Southern Cameroons War: Civilians flee Bali as French Cameroun troops continue assault on Amba fighters 0

Cameroon government army soldiers attacked Ambazonia Self-Defense positions in Bali Nyonga on Saturday in a military operation just a day after the so-called Grand National Dialogue announced that the regime in Yaounde was preparing to accord special status to Southern Cameroons in a bid to end the Ambazonia conflict.

Cameroon Concord News gathered that residents fled Bali Nyonga and the Southern Cameroons town of Bali toward Manyu held by Southern Cameroons Restoration Forces.

The Cameroon government onslaught killed at least eleven civilians and six Ambazonia fighters, and wounded scores of civilians, our source said.

Yaounde said the offensive was targeting “separatists fighters” — the Ambazonia separatist group and other armed militias operating on the main highway linking Mamfe to Bamenda.

The Ambazonia Interim Government is yet to comment on the recent assault seen potentially as sending contradicting signals to the people of Southern Cameroons.

By Sama Ernest in Bamenda

Southern Cameroons Crisis: Hon. Wirba finds problematic points in Biya’s Anglophone new deal

9, October 2019

Southern Cameroons Crisis: Hon. Wirba finds problematic points in Biya’s Anglophone new deal 0

Hon. Joseph Wirba has reportedly reacted to the resolutions of the Grand National Dialogue that recently held in La Republique du Cameroun and will be speaking on SCBC TV on Sunday at exactly 2 pm Amba time. The SDF parliamentarian has been quoted as saying that “Southern Cameroons new slave chains are called special status.”

It is hard to escape conclusion that the Special Status for Ambazonians in La Republique du Cameroun is designed to fail.  However, the much respected SDF MP is expected to make public the fundamental points as demanded by Southern Cameroonians from the international community which will include taking British Southern Cameroons out of the union with French Cameroun.

A cream of Southern Cameroons political elites have unanimously opined that the so-called Special Status is really the safeguard that the Federal Republic of Ambazonia needs. Wirba will give point after point the reason the Biya French Cameroun resolution is not acceptable.

By Fon Judith

US: Joe Biden says “Trump betrayed this nation, should be impeached”

9, October 2019

US: Joe Biden says “Trump betrayed this nation, should be impeached” 0

US President Donald Trump has “betrayed” the nation and “should be impeached,” says the top Democratic hopeful for the 2020 presidential election, Joe Biden, whose ties with Ukraine are at the heart of impeachment efforts in the House of Representatives.

“Donald Trump has violated his oath of office, betrayed this nation and committed impeachable acts,” Biden told a crowd of supporters in Rochester, New Hampshire, on Wednesday. “He should be impeached.”

He made the comments as the Trump administration was struggling with how to defend itself in the wake of the president’s call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, in which he tied the US aid to an investigation into Biden and his son, Hunter.

“The Do Nothing Democrats are Con Artists, only looking to hurt the Republican Party and President. Their total focus is 2020, nothing more, and nothing less. The good news is that WE WILL WIN,” Trump said on Twitter.

The House of Representatives has set off a spiraling impeachment inquiry in the wake of a whistleblower complaint into the phone call.

“The so-called Whistleblower, before knowing I was going to release the exact Transcript, stated that my call with the Ukrainian President was “crazy, frightening, and completely lacking in substance related to national security.” This is a very big Lie. Read the Transcript,” Trump alleged.

In an appearance on Fox News Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said that he was going to ask other Senate Republicans to send a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, saying that they “do not believe the transcript of the phone call between the president and the Ukraine is an impeachable offense.”

“They’re about to destroy the nation for no good reason,” Graham said. “And I want Nancy Pelosi to know that Republican senators are not going to impeach this president based on this transcript, so she can stop now before she destroys the country.”

Trump himself stressed the transcript on Twitter, asserting that Democrats should apologize.

“No Pressure at all said Ukraine! Very congenial, a perfect call. The Whistleblower and others spoke BEFORE seeing the Transcript. Now they must apologize to me and stop this ridiculous impeachment,” said the president.

The White House has also announced that it would not cooperate with the impeachment inquiry.

“Given that your inquiry lacks any legitimate constitutional foundation, any pretense of fairness, or even the most elementary due process protections, the executive branch cannot be expected to participate in it,” White House counsel Pat Cipollone wrote in a letter to Pelosi (and the three House committee chairmen leading the impeachment inquiry.

Source: Presstv

Ambazonians know how to resist in difficult times-Vice President Yerima

9, October 2019

Ambazonians know how to resist in difficult times-Vice President Yerima 0

Vice President Dabney Yerima says British Southern Cameroonians have a track record on how to resist colonial forces. The Ambazonian exiled leader said on Tuesday during a telephone conversation with our correspondent in Germany that the massive deployment of Nigerian troops in front of the Eastern Regional Assembly at Enugu in 1953 should remind Yaoundé that Southern Cameroonians would not allow French Cameroun government soldiers to stifle the resistance.

Comrade Dabney Yerima observed that “Whosoever is going by that name La Republique du Cameroun should be aware that the Federal Republic of Ambazonia have a history of resistance and not allowing colonial forces to usurp the rights of the Ambazonian nation and continue to exploit and marginalize its citizens.” Mr. Yerima added that the founding fathers of the British Southern Cameroons state handed over a legacy to resist during difficult conditions.

The Vice President said Ambazonian women and children have become accustomed to a cycle of deadly attacks by French Cameroun soldiers that repeat itself daily throughout Southern Cameroons territory.   Dabney Yerima also pointed out that the Ambazonia Interim Government will hold talks with Southern Cameroonians in the diaspora to discuss the Amba Bond Project which he believes will manage to offset those deadly military blows from French Cameroun through a better use of Ambazonian money donated by its citizens in Europe, the USA, South African, Canada, Asia including the Scandinavians.

Vice President Dabney Yerima said equipping Ambazonia Restoration Forces remains top on the Interim Government’s agenda despite the IG’s continued efforts to contain the humanitarian situation in Nigeria, IDPS in French Cameroun and the thousands living in the bushes.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

6 Ambazonia Self-Defense Forces killed in Bali Nyonga

9, October 2019

6 Ambazonia Self-Defense Forces killed in Bali Nyonga 0

At least six Ambazonia Self-Defense Forces were killed as a clash between French Cameroun government soldiers and the restoration guards erupted in Bali Nyonga late Saturday, a locality in Cameroon’s English-speaking region of Northwest, security sources said on Sunday.

The clash broke out after the army stormed the area which is mostly occupied by Ambazonia Restoration Forces, triggering a gun battle which lasted for several hours, according to the sources.

“Six corpses have been identified as separatists, but we are yet to know the identities of the other people who died in the battle. Several Ambazonia Restoration Forces escaped with wounds,” a source added.

Locals hinted that more French Cameroun soldiers have been deployed to the area, prompting the locals to escape to the bushes.

The attack came barely a day after a government-initiated national dialogue recommended that a special status should be given to the troubled Anglophone regions in a bid to end the Southern Cameroons war.

More than 530,000 people have been displaced internally since the armed conflict started in 2017 according to the United Nations.

Southern Cameroonians want the Anglophone regions of Northwest and Southwest to secede from largely French-speaking Cameroon and create an independent nation they call Federal Republic of Ambazonia.

Source: Xinhuanet with additional editing from Camcordnews

Yaounde begins training teachers to guide internally displaced Ambazonia students

9, October 2019

Yaounde begins training teachers to guide internally displaced Ambazonia students 0

Cameroon’s Ministry of Secondary Education on Tuesday began training teachers on how to counsel and guide internally displaced school children.

According to Cameroon’s Minister of Secondary Education, Pauline Nalova Lyonga, the training came as a result of growing internal displacement of people in the country caused by an armed conflict in the country’s English-speaking regions.

“Our country is facing a lot of challenges and the teacher is right at the center of this because we have to teach and transmit the right attitudes to the next generation.” Lyonga told reporters at the start of the training in the capital, Yaounde.

She said, the teachers after the three-day training will be able to teach the children to “remain responsible and focus”.

According to Lyonga, it is teachers’ job to make sure that students from separatism-hit regions can feel like at home in the Francophone part of Cameroon.

“If the teacher must give that value (of unity) to the children, he himself must have the value,” she added.

A UNICEF report released in August estimates that insecurity spreading across the regions has left more than 4,400 schools forcibly closed, affecting more than 600,000 children.

According to UN estimations in July, the conflict in Cameroon’s Anglophone regions has resulted in about 530,000 internally displaced persons (IDP) among them, many children and teenagers struggling to resume schooling with very limited resources.

Since 2017, armed separatists have been clashing with government forces in the regions in a bid to create an independent nation they call “Ambazonia”.

A national dialogue to end the separatist conflict held in the country last week and recommended that greater autonomy should be given to the English-speaking regions of Northwest and Southwest.

Source: Xinhuanet

U.N. may not have enough money to pay staff next month

9, October 2019

U.N. may not have enough money to pay staff next month 0

The United Nations may not have enough money for staff salaries next month if member states don’t pay what they owe, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned on Tuesday.

He told the 193-member U.N. General Assembly’s budget committee that if he had not worked since January to cut spending then “we would not have had the liquidity to support” the annual gathering of world leaders last month.

“This month, we will reach the deepest deficit of the decade. We risk … entering November without enough cash to cover payrolls,” said Guterres. “Our work and our reforms are at risk.”

The United States is the largest contributor – responsible for 22 percent of the more than $3.3 billion regular budget for 2019, which pays for work including political, humanitarian, disarmament, economic and social affairs and communications.

Washington owes some $381 million for prior regular budgets and $674 million for the 2019 regular budget. The U.S. mission to the United Nations confirmed the figures.

An official from the U.S. mission said the United States “will be providing the vast majority of what we owe to the regular budget this fall, as we have in past years.”

“Overall the United States, as the largest contributor to the U.N., contributes roughly $10 billion annually in assessed and voluntary contributions across the United Nations system,” the official said.

U.S. President Donald Trump has said Washington is shouldering an unfair burden of the cost of the United Nations and has pushed for reforms of the world body. Guterres has been working to improve U.N. operations and cut costs.

U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said 129 countries had paid their dues for 2019 so far, which amounted to almost $2 billion.

Guterres said he introduced extraordinary measures last month to cope with the shortfall – vacant posts cannot be filled, only essential travel is allowed, and some meetings may have to be canceled or deferred. U.N. operations in New York, Geneva, Vienna and Nairobi and at regional commissions will be affected.

U.N. peacekeeping missions are funded by a separate budget, which was $6.7 billion for the year to June 30, 2019, and $6.51 billion for the year to June 30, 2020.

The United States is responsible for nearly 28 percent of the peacekeeping budget but has pledged to pay only 25 percent – as required by U.S. law. Washington currently owes some $2.4 billion for peacekeeping missions.

The top contributing countries are Ethiopia, India, Bangladesh, Nepal and Rwanda. They pay their troops according to their national salary scales and are reimbursed by the United Nations. As of July 2019, the United Nations paid $1,428 a month per soldier.

The United Nations says its peacekeeping operations cost less than half of 1 percent of world military expenditures.

Source: Reuters

French Cameroun: Maurice Kamto vows to intensify fight against injustice

9, October 2019

French Cameroun: Maurice Kamto vows to intensify fight against injustice 0

A Cameroonian opposition leader who was released from jail on Saturday following a presidential amnesty has vowed to intensify his fight against electoral fraud and injustice in the country.

Prof Maurice Kamto, president of Cameroon Renaissance Movement (MRC) and more than a hundred militants of the political outfit were freed when President Paul Biya asked military tribunals in the country to halt their prosecution.

Addressing supporters at his Yaounde residence shortly after his release, the fearless opposition leader promised that “the real battle is yet to start.”

“A new chapter of our battle has just opened. If some people think that the release is the end of the battle, then they have not understood anything because we have not achieved anything from what we are demanding,” Kamto said.

On Friday, the Minister of State, Secretary General at the Cameroon Presidency, Ferdinand Ngoh Ngoh said in a statement that president Biya had ordered their release as part of his “constant resolve to promote an atmosphere of peace, fraternity and concord.”

Friday’s decision followed a similar act a day before, discontinuing proceedings against some 333 detainees arrested in connection to the crisis that has engulfed the country’s two English speaking regions for over two years now.

Source: The East African

French Cameroun Conflict: Biya seeks to douse crises with surprise concessions

9, October 2019

French Cameroun Conflict: Biya seeks to douse crises with surprise concessions 0

Cameroonian ruler Paul Biya’s surprise decision to free hundreds of detained opponents after a stinging crackdown on separatists is seen by some experts as a way to ease tensions but short of a major policy shift.

Main opposition leader Maurice Kamto walked free from jail Saturday after a military court ordered his release at the behest of Biya, who has firmly ruled the west African country for nearly 37 years.

The conciliatory gesture comes as the president faces a number of domestic crises, including a two-year secession drive by anglophone separatists which has claimed some 3,000 lives, and international criticism over political freedoms.

He also ordered talks last week on the crisis in the Francophone country’s two English-speaking regions which ended with a proposal to give them more autonomy.

The announcements “surprised everybody”, said political analyst Stephane Akoa, adding: “Why now… when for three years Mr Biya has been toeing a hard line?”

Even up until August, the government cracked the whip, sentencing separatist leader Julius Ayuk Tabe to life in a high security prison in the capital Yaounde.

But on September 10, the government announced a five-day “national dialogue” aimed at ending the anglophone crisis.

Held last week, it was shunned by the majority of separatist leaders but ended with a proposal for more autonomy for the two regions — home to most of the country’s anglophones, who account for about a fifth of the country’s 24 million population that is overwhelmingly French-speaking.

“In terms of public relations, the dialogue was a success for the government which gave the impression of completely changing its strategy,” said Akoa.

“However, it’s not clear if it’s going to settle many things. It’s hardly likely that these measures will reassure those who have taken up arms against Yaounde.”

The anglophones complain of discrimination and marginalisation, especially in education, the judiciary and economic opportunities.

“This doesn’t correspond to the expectations of the majority of anglophones who want federalism at the least,” said Cindy Morillas from the French research centre Les Afriques dans le monde (Africa In the World).

– International pressure –

Morillas said that Biya reacted to international pressure “as well as from domestic civil society and he just had to move.”

Since the start of the year, the US, European Union and even France had been pressuring Biya to assume a softer approach in dealing with separatists and calling for Kamto’s release.

Kamto, 65, was arrested in late January after months of peaceful opposition protests over the results of an October 2018 presidential election in which he came in second.

More than 100 people in detention are also now set for release “if they have not been detained for anything else”, the military court said.

The move drew immediate applause.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said in a statement that he “encourages the Cameroonian authorities to continue to adopt further confidence-building and reconciliation measures”.

The United States called it a constructive step towards easing political tensions, while Amnesty International hailed it as “a welcome step towards ending the long repression of dissenting voices in Cameroon”.

But the organisation also called on authorities to “go further by releasing all other individuals arbitrarily detained for having exercised their right to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly”.

Morillas said the measures were slightly “grandiloquent” but underscored that they “were a small step forward.”

Cameroonian newspapers were divided on Monday on what it spelt for the future.

The pro-government Cameroon Insider daily spoke of “The entire Nation in Peace Mode” while the Mutations newspaper tempered the titled with the question “Resolutions… and then?”

Source: AFP

Genocide in Southern Cameroons: SOS justice for peace crusader starved out of life

9, October 2019

Genocide in Southern Cameroons: SOS justice for peace crusader starved out of life 0

Abdul Karim Ali, The Southern Cameroons (Ambazonia) Justice for Peace crusader and Islamic scholar of international repute who was abducted by a mixed contingent of the uniformed and non-uniformed gendarmes on the 25th September 2019 is being starved to death! Abdul Karim was abducted in front of the Swiss Embassy in Yaounde as he stepped out after a conversation with the Swiss Ambassador, about the recently held mediation conference in Geneva at the behest of Humanitarian Centre for Dialogue (HD).

Abdulkarim was whisked off to the Gendarmerie Headquarters better known by it’s French acronym SED where he is being incarcerated without food or water. The commander on duty at the Service Central Des Recherches Judiciaire (SCRJ), where he is confined, denied him access to family and lawyers until Monday the 30th September. When they eventually allowed only the lawyer to see him! He denied drinking any water and eating any food offered by the gendarmes and insisted that he would only drink water and eat food brought by his lawyers or family members. The Gendarmerie as of today Tuesday 8th October 2019 denied him all food and water brought by family on the frivolous excuse that hierarchy has not authorized it. Even the palette of water brought by his lawyers since Friday has not been given to him. He is reportedly very frail and worn out as of today 08/10/2019. He has now stayed without food and water for almost two full weeks!!!

Abdulkarim has neither been interrogated nor charged to court for any known offence. His lawyers Barr AYUKOTANG Ndep Nkongho and Barr FONKA TOMNYUY have filed an Application of Habeas Corpus praying the court to order his immediate production before the High Court of Mfoundi Yaounde for the court to assess the validity of his abduction and continuous incarceration and order his release and compensation.

Berinyuy Bihkong

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