Southern Cameroons Vice President Dabney Yerima has called on the international community to assume its responsibilities and take an appropriate action aimed at putting an end to the French Cameroun regime’s continued acts of aggression against Ambazonians.

Comrade Dabney Yerima told a cream of Western journalists earlier today in Den Hague, Holland that the so-called national dialogue is already being micro-managed by French Cameroun’s president, Paul Biya, and that it is time for the international community to uphold its responsibilities to bring an end to this Biya’s aggression and arrogance in Southern Cameroons.

He observed that despite all that Ambazonians have suffered in the last three years, Southern Cameroonians still hold on to the hope of achieving their freedom and independence, like all other nations of the world.

The Southern Cameroons Vice President then denounced the continues militarization of  the Federal Republic of Ambazonia and the recent attack on the Bafut Palace underlining that the Southern Cameroons Interim Government will take action that will be felt in Yaoundé.

Dabney Yerima also slammed the arrest of popular Muslim scholar Adul Karim noting that the French Cameroun administration has destroyed any possibility of peace and has jeopardized the so-called Grand National Dialogue. Vice President Yerima pointed out that the Biya dialogue will not succeed.

The Ambazonia leader stressed that he will not accept any meeting with the French Cameroun regime without American and European mediation due to Yaounde’s biased policies and genocidal campaign currently going on in Southern Cameroons.

By Ewang Miriam Metchane

The grand national conference ordered and micro-managed by the Cameroon’s president, Paul Biya, has gotten off to a bumpy start as many delegates have not been issued badges.

Most of those without badges are members of the opposition and, from every indication, they might not be allowed into the conference center.

There is already a lot of apprehension and doubts about the government’s intention. Many of those without badges have their invitations, but the security forces at the gate are simply not buying their story.

Meanwhile, many of the participants are still in doubt about their security, especially those who have been very critical of the government.

Many fear they could be arrested as the Yaounde government is naturally averse to criticism. Last week it arrested a popular journalist and cleric because he expressed his views about the conference. He is currently in SED where he is being questioned.

However, there are many groups that are prepared to share their perspectives and are ready to even call for a discussion of separation as this has been the matter that has put the country in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons.

Barrister Felix Nkongho Agbor Balla is currently at the conference grounds and he is prepared to push for a federal structure that will give the two English-speaking regions of the country the autonomy they need to run their own affairs.

It should be recalled that after meeting with the prime minister Dion Ngute, Barrister Felix Nkongho Agbor Balla called for extensive decentralization which is the equivalent of federalism; an idea that has made many narrow-minded people to think that he is supporting the government’s version of decentralization.

More will be yours in the hours ahead.

Thousands of people affected by the separatist war that has killed at least 2,000 people in Cameroon’s English-speaking regions have been on the streets calling on the government to be sincere about the dialogue for peace that is to begin September 30, so they can go back to their homes. A thousand people have been in front of public buildings for three days.

Most of the 3,000 victims whom the government says have been in front of public buildings within the past four days have either lost loved ones or seen their property torched. Others who were wounded in the war say they have not had access to health care.

vegetable retailer Petra Bannin, 27,  who fled from the north western village of Nkar, said her business was ruined after her husband was killed and her two sons abducted several times by separatist fighters.

“I am a debtor in Bamenda and I do not know where to get money. I paid a ransom and they are still threatening to take my son. My son can not go back to school, so I am praying that our president Paul Biya should make a way to solve this problem,” she said.

Esther Njomo, coordinator of the Northwest, Southwest Women Task Force For Peace, said they are asking Biya to release arrested English speaking leaders as a sign he is serious about the dialogue.

“We the women are saying that he [Biya] can grant clemency or pardon to those arrested within the context of the Anglophone crisis and allow them to take part in the national dialogue so that we all as one forge ahead looking into the possible solutions for life to go back to normalcy in the two regions,” she said.

Njomo was referring to separatist leader Ayuk Tabe Julius and 10 of his collaborators who were given life jail sentences by a military tribunal in Yaounde that said it had found them guilty of charges including secession and terrorism.

When Biya called for the dialogue, he said he would allow justice to take its course concerning the arrested leaders, but that U.S.- and Europe-based separatist leaders were invited to take part. They turned down the invitation unless the dialogue is held outside Cameroon with non-Cameroonians as mediators because they are wanted for the same crimes for which their peers in Cameroon were given life sentences.

George Ewane, spokesperson of the national dialogue, said people should be assured the government is sincere about the dialogue and will do everything it can for peace to return.

“The major national dialogue will address squarely the reconstruction of affected areas, the return to civil life and the reintegration of ex demobilized combatants. Every conscious and peace loving Cameroonian who wants children to go back to school, who hates bloodshed, maiming, kidnapping, rape must do everything to see us back again with love and fraternity,” he said.

The U.N. office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs reports that the separatist war has forced more than 530,000 people to flee their homes since the conflict erupted in late 2017.

VOA

The whereabouts of a Southern Cameroons Muslims scholar remains unknown days after he went on television to rubbish the so-called National Dialogue announced by French Cameroun head of state Paul Biya and which starts on Monday September 30.

Abdul Karim, a strong critic of the regime has not been seen since Wednesday after appearing on Equinoxe Television in Douala, family sources say.

The Muslim scholar reportedly was on a mission to French Cameroun’s capital of Yaoundé where he was arrested and taken to an unknown destination by members of the French Cameroun secret service.

 Journal du Cameroun reported that Abdul Karim was arrested after a meeting at the Swiss Embassy on lame and ridiculous reason that he was suspected by security forces of trafficking arms. No official source has made any statement on the matter.

The arrest of Abdul Karim has further dampened any hopes of seeing members of the Ambazonia Diaspora travelling to Cameroon to attend the Biya National Dialogue as Yaoundé continues to declare itself unsafe for any peace initiative.

Source: Journal du Cameroun with additional editing by Asu Isong in London