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30, January 2019

Francophone Crisis: Two Journalists Detained While Covering Opposition Gathering ⁰

Authorities in Cameroon should immediately release journalists Théodore Tchopa and David Eyengue Nzima, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. The two journalists, from privately owned daily newspaper Le Jour, were arrested yesterday while covering an opposition gathering in Douala, Denis Nkwebo, their deputy editor in chief and the president of the Cameroonian journalists’ trade union, told CPJ. Their arrest was also reported by local outlets and journalists on social media.

The journalists were detained at a house where opposition leader Maurice Kamto, who claims to have won the 2018 presidential election, and opposition activists were also arrested, Nkwebo told CPJ. They were mistaken for activists who were gathered at the house, said Nkwebo, adding that the journalists have since been transferred to the judicial police headquarters in the capital, Yaounde, 230 km (143 miles) away. Kamto and the activists are also still in custody, according to Nkwebo.

“Théodore Tchopa and David Eyengue Nzima are journalists who were arrested for simply covering a newsworthy event, and must be freed immediately without condition,” said Angela Quintal, CPJ’s Africa program coordinator, in New York. “Cameroonian authorities should stop trying to intimidate and censor journalists who have a duty to keep citizens informed about the political and economic situation.”

In a statement sent to CPJ, Charles Ngah Nforgang, the union’s spokesman, said first-hand reporting from the ground remained the main source of information for journalists and their presence at such gatherings could not be considered a crime.

CPJ’s calls and text messages to the offices of Cameroon’s deputy justice minister, Jean De Dieu Momo, and the newly appointed communications minister, René Sadi, went unanswered. The police’s national communications chief, Joyce Ndjem, said she does not give comment over the phone and CPJ should come to her office.

Cameroon was the third worst jailer of journalists in Africa, after Egypt and Eritrea respectively, with at least seven journalists behind bars for their work as of December 1, 2018, according to CPJ’s annual prison census.

Source: CPJ

30, January 2019

French Cameroun Crisis: Opposition Vows to Defy Paul Biya’s Government ⁰

Cameroonians are taking their grievances against the regime of President Paul Biya to the world. Over the weekend, Cameroonians occupied the embassies of their country in Berlin and Paris, to support protests back home.

Protests continued on Monday in the capital, Yaounde, outside a police station, after at least six people – including opposition municipal council member and lawyer Michele Ndoki – were wounded and 117 people were arrested over the weekend in anti-government demonstrations. The government denied allegations that shots had been fired by security forces. But Ndoki and another opposition member, Celestin Djamen, suffered bullet wounds to the leg.

The government has reacted by accusing the opposition led by Maurice Kamto of wanting to destabilize the country. Territorial administration minister Paul Atanga Nji, responsible for licensing political parties, threatened to suspend Maurice Kamto’s Cameroon Renaissance Movement (MRC), for failing to respect Cameroon laws. “The MRC political party and its leadership have been very notorious in the disruption of public order since presidential elections were held in Cameroon,” he said.

The opposition won’t give up

Paul Biya, who has been in power for more than 36 years, won a seventh consecutive term in elections on October 7. But the poll was marred by fraud allegations, low turnout, and violence. Kamto’s party has held sporadic protests since then to dispute the result. The party leader himself, whom the government has refrained from arresting as yet, told his followers: “I am out to fight injustice. I am a son of the country who has decided to fight for and with his people until victory is achieved.”

Biya’s government has banned demonstrations and the security forces have not been shy in using force to disperse protesters. Human rights activist Ateba Bruno of the Cameroon Centre for Democracy says that not allowing peaceful protests is another way used by the government to stifle freedom of expression. “They refer to opposition parties as those who want to tarnish Cameroon’s image to the outside world. But after all that we have seen, I ask if it isn’t the opposition or the government who truly want to tarnish the image of Cameroon. We know exactly what is happening and we should stop such acts which do not honor our country,” he told DW.

Calling on the world to pay attention

The protests gained a new dimension over the weekend when Cameroonians briefly invaded andoccupied their country’s embassies in Paris and Berlin. In a video published on social platforms online, Daniel Essissima, one of around 50 protesters in the French capital, said that “Cameroonians are fed up with being taken for idiots.” About ten Cameroonians followed suit in Berlin, without inflicting as much damage to their embassy there as was the case in Paris. A large police squad removed the people from the Berlin premises in the early hours of Sunday.

The action taken by Cameroonians in France and Germany is a sign of growing resistance against Biya. The president is fighting on several fronts at once, including a revolt in the Southwest and Northwest Anglophone regions against what they perceive as discrimination by the Francophone majority. Armed separatists have been clashing with the Cameroonian military almost daily in the country’s equatorial forest.

A slew of problems for Biya

Attacks by Nigerian Boko Haram jihadists expanding into neighboring countries is another conflict Yaounde has to contend with. In the east, armed groups from the Central African Republic are an additional source of instability. All of this is putting a severe strain on Cameroon’s economy, further stoking grievances. And the loss, in November, of the right to host this year’s African Cup of Nations as a result of delays and concerns over violence was another serious blow to Cameroon’s prestige.

The ongoing conflicts have caused a drastic increase in the need for humanitarian assistance. United Nations Development & Humanitarian Coordinator Allegra Baiocchi recently said that the organization estimates that some 4.3 million Cameroonians, or one in six of the population, require lifesaving assistance.

Source: DeutschWelle

29, January 2019

Thousands flee Nigerian city into Cameroon fearing Boko Haram attack ⁰

Around 30,000 people fled into Cameroon from the Nigerian city of Rann during the weekend, fearing an attack by Boko Haram militants, the U.N. refugee agency said on Tuesday.

UNHCR spokesman Babar Baloch told a regular U.N. briefing in Geneva that the exodus followed the departure of Cameroonian forces who had moved to secure the city, following an attack by Boko Haram on Rann on Jan. 14.

“Because Cameroon is part of the Multi-National Joint Task Force, their military went in to secure Rann. So it was … peaceful (for a while) but as far as we understand now, that Multi-National Task Force has left,” Baloch said.

Refugees reported that Boko Haram had promised to return to the city, which originally had an estimated population of about 80,000, he said.

“So all the population seems to be panicking and they are on the run as a pre-emptive measure to save their lives,” Baloch said. “This is quite worrying and alarming.”

Immediately after the Jan. 14 attack, 9,000 people fled into Cameroon but they were refused asylum and sent back to Nigeria by Cameroonian authorities.

It was not clear how many people were left in Rann, Baloch said.

REUTERS

29, January 2019

Republic of Cameroon: French-English Divide Can Be Lethal in This African Nation ⁰

Cyprain fled his home when separatist fighters in Cameroon’s Northwest region threatened to kill him after he served government soldiers at his roadside bar. He’s one of a growing number of civilians trapped between the army and roaming gangs of English-speaking insurgents fighting to break away from the majority-Francophone nation.

The conflict has decimated the local economy in the conflict zone, and according to the United Nations, left hundreds of people dead and displaced about 437,000 people. “The military burn houses, destroys, loots property and kills citizens,” Cyprain, 41, said on condition that his surname not be used out fear for his safety during an interview in the port city of Douala, where he now stays with relatives.

“Separatist fighters attack, kidnap and even kill people they suspect are their enemies.” There’s no end in sight to a conflict that started in late 2016 with peaceful protests against the dominance of the French language in schools and courtrooms of the Northwest and Southwest regions, where most people speak English.

President Paul Biya, 85, said on Twitter last week he’ll order the defense forces to “neutralize” all fighters who don’t lay down their weapons, a warning he first gave in his traditional year-end speech. Africa’s second-longest serving head of state, Biya extended his more than three-decade rule in the central African nation by winning disputed presidential elections in October.

Gruesome Images

While the government has blocked journalists from visiting the regions independently, gruesome images appear almost daily on social media. In a recent incident, a photo emerged of the head of a decapitated soldier that was left in the middle of a road in the Northwest’s regional capital, Bamenda, by suspected insurgents.

“The army hasn’t been able to take back control of rural areas, and there’s an increasing rivalry between separatist militia that fight each other over leadership and territory,” said Hans De Marie Heungoup, an analyst at the Brussels-based International Crisis Group. “The roads are either controlled by separatists or by defense forces. The population is suffering harassment from both sides.”

That’s isolated the area from the rest of oil-dependent Cameroon, which is a key regional hub, with roads and ports that are vital for landlocked neighbours including Chad and Central African Republic.

Agricultural Crisis

Cameroon’s top state-owned agribusiness said this week it has lost 35 billion CFA francs ($61 million) as a result of the crisis and more than half of its 22,000 employees are unable to work. The Cameroon Development Corp.’s three main crops — palm oil, rubber and bananas — have dropped significantly and large swathes of its farmland in the two Anglophone regions have been completely destroyed, General Manager Franklin Njie said.

The roots of the crisis date to the decision by the colonial powers to split the nation after World War I into a French-run zone and a smaller, British-controlled area. Since they were unified in 1961, the English-speaking minority, about a fifth of the population, has complained they don’t have equal job and educational opportunities as the French speaking majority.

Cameroon’s military has been accused of abuses including summary executions and raiding villages by advocacy groups such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. Separatists have killed more than 160 police and military officials, according to the government, and have filmed themselves on mobile phones torturing village chiefs they accuse of collaborating with the authorities.

Army Abuses

The head of communication of the defense ministry, Didier Badjeck, rejected allegations from residents that the army was responsible for abuses and has dismissed reports that the military has set houses ablaze in the two restive regions as untrue.

“There is a lot of fake news on social media on this crisis,” he said by phone.

While Biya initially ignored the crisis, he has pledged to create a committee to disarm and reintegrate fighters. The decision triggered a spike in violence in the two regions, fueling clashes between separatists and defense forces.

“The government in Yaounde has taken a few measures but it hasn’t fundamentally addressed the root causes of the crisis and remains opposed to an inclusive dialog,” Heungoup said. The unrest also risks spilling further into Cameroon’s eight French-speaking regions.

About 300 armed men swarmed into the town of Bangourain on Dec. 23 and set houses ablaze in what was the biggest attack in French-speaking territory since the conflict began.

The incident triggered such angry reactions on social media from Cameroonians that the Center for Human Rights and Democracy in Africa issued a statement urging Francophones and Anglophones to “exercise restraint and refrain from hate speech and retaliation against one another.”

Among the thousands of people who’ve recently fled to French-speaking areas is Killian, a 41-year-old carpenter who asked not to be identified by his surname for fear of reprisals. He said he escaped as the military burned down his home and dozens of others in the town of Kumbo in the Northwest.

“I barely escaped with my dear life,” he said. “I hope my wife and my two children are alive.”

Source: Bloomberg

29, January 2019

Francophone Crisis: MRC Party Condemns Arrest of Leaders ⁰

The Movement for the Renaissance of Cameroon (MRC) has denounced the arrest of its leaders including the National Chairman, Prof Maurice Kamto. The man widely believed to have won the October 7 presidential election was arrested on Monday in Douala with some of the members of the National Executive Committee of his party.

Cameroon Concord News understands the President-elect was presiding over a political bureau meeting with members of his executive council including Christian Penda Ekoka, Albert Dzongang and Alain Fogué Tedom.

Prof Maurice Kamto’s arrest follows that of his campaign manager Paul Eric Kingue and Cameroonian musician turned activist Gaston Serval ABE popularly known as (Valsero) that was carried out two days ago. Local media sources have also reported that several other activists have been arrested.

Prof Kamto and his top aides are currently being held in custody at the Yaoundé judicial police post in connection with the vandalism in the Cameroon embassies in France and Germany. Barrister Akere Muna who was one of the presidential candidates of the 7 October 2018 polls has condemned the arrest and demanded their immediate release.

By Rita Akana

29, January 2019

Art, Drama Help Children Who Survived Boko Haram Attacks ⁰

Growing mental health services for children who have survived Nigeria’s Islamist insurgency can help prevent future violence, aid agencies said Monday, although huge needs remain unmet.

In Niger’s Diffa region, about 250,000 people have fled fighting around Lake Chad where Islamist group Boko Haram has been waging attacks since 2009, according to the United Nations.

Two-thirds are children, many of whom have witnessed extreme violence and have no way to process their anger and trauma, said medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF).

“We have many children who tell us, ‘When I grow up I’m going to revenge myself,'” said Yacouba Harouna, MSF’s supervisor of mental health activities in Diffa.

“This is why we say, better to act early than late.”

Boko Haram has targeted schools and abducted more than 1,000 children since 2013, according to the U.N. children’s agency, including, most notably, the abduction of 276 schoolgirls from the town of Chibok in 2014.

FILE - One of the 21 Chibok school girls recently released by Boko Haram carries her baby during their visit to meet President Muhammadu Buhari In Abuja, Nigeria, Oct. 19, 2016. — FILE – One of the 21 Chibok school girls recently released by Boko Haram carries her baby during their visit to meet President Muhammadu Buhari In Abuja, Nigeria, Oct. 19, 2016.

MSF works primarily with Nigerian refugees between the ages of 7 and 14 in Diffa, some of whom were kidnapped, said Harouna. Art and drama help them release their emotions, he said.

Many draw pictures of people being slaughtered or in combat.

The aid group expanded its work with children last year, carrying out 700 consultations between March and June. Children now make up 35 percent of its mental health patients in Diffa, but it is the only agency providing these services in the area and is nowhere near reaching everyone in need, Harouna said.

“Child protection and children’s support in conflict zones is already underfunded … and psychosocial support even less,” said Natalie Turgut, a policy and advocacy adviser for War Child, a U.K.-based charity for children affected by war.

The area is neglected because it requires more specific skills and training than other types of aid, but is just as important, she said.

“If this isn’t prioritized, it means that conflicts will continue,” Turgut said.

Reuters

29, January 2019

Congo-Kinshasa: 4 dead in student protests ⁰

Three students and a police officer have died in the southeastern of the Democratic Republic of the Congo during weekend clashes at a protest over water and power outages, according to an updated death toll by the presidency.

The violence was sparked after a large area, including Lubumbashi university, was left without water and electricity for three days because of damage caused to vital cables and pipes by torrential rains.

The students were also demonstrating over higher fees.

Clashes broke out on Sunday after police used tear gas and warning shots to try to disperse crowds of students returning from the governor’s residence in Upper Katanga.

“The provisional figures established by officials report four deaths, including three students and a policeman,” said Vital Kamerhe, chief of staff of new president Felix Tshisekedi, in a statement.

Tshisekedi was sworn in last Thursday, marking DR Congo’s first peaceful handover of power but only after chaotic and bitterly disputed elections.

Runner-up Martin Fayulu has dismissed the result as a stitch-up between Tshisekedi and outgoing president Joseph Kabila, who ruled DR Congo for 18 years.

The police officer who “ordered to shoot the peaceful students without warning” will be brought before a military court “to face the rigor of the law,” the statement said.

It added that increases to academic fees paid by the university’s 10,000 students had been “suspended.”

Water and electricity supplies have been restored to the university campus, according to students.

Earlier police reports had said one student was shot dead and a police officer died after being hit by an anti-riot vehicle.

(Source: AFP)

29, January 2019

Corruption seen rising in Trump’s US ⁰

The United States last year slid down the rankings of a global corruption index as America’s system of checks and balances faced growing threats on Donald Trump’s watch, Transparency International said Tuesday.

The US lost four points to score 71 out of 100 on the watchdog’s 2018 Corruption Perceptions Index, sending the country tumbling out of the top 20 for the first time since 2011.

“The low score comes at a time when the US is experiencing threats to its system of checks and balances as well as an erosion of ethical norms at the highest levels of power,” TI said in its annual report.

The second year of Trump’s presidency was a turbulent one, ranging from damaging revelations in an investigation probing links between Trump’s 2016 campaign team and Russia, to his controversial backing for a Supreme Court nominee accused of sexual assault.

The US leader, who frequently rails against the media for writing “fake news”, was also dogged by accusations of nepotism and conflicts of interest. Last month, Trump agreed to close his personal charity after the New York attorney general said it had acted “as little more than a checkbook to serve Mr. Trump’s business and political interests”.

Transparency International’s closely-watched index ranks 180 nations according to their perceived level of public sector corruption, where a score of zero means very corrupt and 100 signifies very clean.

“The Trump presidency has illuminated the cracks in the US system for ensuring a government that is accountable to the public interest,” TI’s Zoe Reiter, acting representative to the US, told AFP.

“But President Trump is a symptom rather than a cause; the issues were there before he took office. For example, the Office of Government Ethics simply doesn’t have the teeth to control for conflicts of interest at the highest levels,” she said.

– Rise of autocrats –

As in previous years, New Zealand and Nordic countries were among the best in class with Denmark narrowly beating New Zealand to the top spot at 88 and 87 points respectively.

Strife-torn Somalia was once again the worst performer, below Yemen, South Sudan and Syria which all scored in the low teens.

The Berlin-based watchdog also singled out Turkey and Hungary for falling down the rankings, blaming “the deterioration of rule of law and democratic institutions, as well as a rapidly shrinking space for civil society and independent media”.

“With many democratic institutions under threat across the globe ?- often by leaders with authoritarian or populist tendencies -? we need to do more to strengthen checks and balances and protect citizens’ rights,” TI’s managing director Patricia Moreira said.

As part of its recommendations, the group urged governments to stand up for a free press and support civil society organisations that encourage public oversight over government spending.

The index is compiled based on data from 12 international organisations including the World Bank, African Development Bank and the World Economic Forum.

AFP

29, January 2019

Cameroon: Political crisis deepens as Prof. Kamto gets arrested ⁰

Cameroon’s political crisis has taken a turn for the worse as government forces have arrested the winner of last year’s presidential election, Professor Maurice Kamto, a prominent law professor who has vowed that the people’s victory must be returned, or the country will be made ungovernable.

Arrested along with Prof. Kamto was Mr. Albert Dzongang who was with Mr. Kamto at the time the police arrived. Mr. Kamto was at Mr. Dzongang’s home where they were strategizing on the next move in their bid to reclaim their stolen victory.

But the arrest of the learned lawyer was not that easy. As the police arrived Mr. Dzongang’s home, the population came out to ensure their leaders were not arrested. With the crowd increasing, the security forces decided that it was better to negotiate, but when the population was adamant, the forces decided to use tear gas and fired at the crowd, wounding several supporters of Maurice Kamto. Mr. Kamto and several of his supporters have been taken to Yaounde where they will be charged with all the crimes and sins in the world.

In a related story, another senior opposition politician, Celestin Djamen, was picked up from his hospital bed and taken to an unknown destination. Mr. Djamen had been shot on Saturday, January 26, 2019, within the framework of the demonstrations organized by Mr. Kamto and his MRC party. Mr. Djamen was whisked off to an unknown destination with five other persons who had been shot by the police on Saturday.

Prof. Kamto’s arrest only deepens the country’s political crisis that has brought its economy to its knees. Under Mr. Paul Biya, the country’s president, Cameroon has witnessed serious and several political and economic crises and this has fragilized the entire sub-region.

Mr. Biya’s rulership which is predicated upon corruption and nepotism has created huge divisions within the country, with many Cameroonians holding that merit has no place in the country. With Mr. Kamto’s arrest, the government has opened another front in its struggle to stay in power. Cameroon has been dealing with many military challenges in recent times. In the north, it is facing a tough Boko Haram insurgency that has resulted in the deaths of thousands of civilians.

In a bid to turn tables on Boko Haram, government forces have been committing violent crimes in the north, making it hard to win hearts and minds in the region. On many occasions, government troops have been caught on video in flagrant acts of human rights violation. The shooting of a woman and her daughter as well as the killing of some young unarmed boys in a village in the north were the incidents that shocked the world the most.

To hide its crimes, the government alleged that the heartless killing of a lady and her children occurred in Mali, a situation that prompted Amnesty International and the International Crisis Group to investigate and the investigations revealed that the incidents actually occurred in the northern part of Cameroon.

In the East, armed groups from the Central African Republic (CAR) remain a dangerous menace to the local population and the military. The armed groups have been carrying out incursions on towns and villages in Cameroon’s eastern region.

But it is the Southern Cameroons crisis that has become a millstone around the government’s neck. A crisis that started as a simple strike by teachers and lawyers in October 2016 is gradually making the independence of the two English-speaking regions of Cameroon a certainty, especially as there are targeted killings and huge refugee movements in and out of the country.

Ever since the crisis started, the country’s president also known as the “monarch”, has refused to listen to many respectable people across the world. The Pope has had an opportunity to talk to Mr. Biya. Leaders of Western Countries have advised him to pursue dialogue as a sure means out of the impasse. But all the advice has fallen on deaf ears.

Cameroon, a once peaceful nation, has been gripped by the ‘dictator’s disease’; a disease that attacks African countries that have been ruled by sit-tight dictators. The Democratic Republic of Congo, the Central African Republic and Somalia are some of the African countries that have been victims of this devastating disease.

Many African dictators always bequeath civil wars and political chaos to future generations when they leave power. In many cases, they leave power forcefully or through a civil war. Cameroon is on its way to joining this unfortunate club as Mr. Biya and his collaborators hold that the best way to address political issues is to unleash a reign of terror on the people they are supposed to govern and protect.

The Southern Cameroons crisis which could have been addressed through an inclusive dialogue has today become a civil war wherein government soldiers are shooting and killing many innocent civilians, as they cannot fully engage the Southern Cameroons fighters who are lurking in the jungles. The fighters, for their part, are using rudimentary weapons to protect themselves and this is adding to the chaos that has made life unbearable in the English-speaking regions.

The fighting is unfortunately consuming many young soldiers who have been pushed by the government to go and kill Southern Cameroonians whose initial objective was to put their grievances to the government. The government’s violent response caused the demands of Southern Cameroonians to mutate and, today, almost all Southern Cameroonians, even those in government, are in support of secession.

In many towns and villages in the two English-speaking regions, corpses of young innocent civilians are being discovered at roadsides and the government seems to be padding itself on the back for accomplishing such a feat. It is a really tough to know that government officials of Beti extraction are really celebrating when their fellow compatriots are being shot down point blank. It is even more baffling to know that the same authorities have kept on talking about one and indivisible Cameroon when their brutality is slowly dividing the country.

To defend themselves, many young Southern Cameroonians have taken to the jungle and many are now using whatever means that are available to them to fight a government they believe is intent on killing all the young men in the region. The fighting clearly indicates that Cameroon will never be the same again. Holding a country together clearly goes beyond political sloganeering and brinkmanship.

From every indication, the crisis has entered a very critical stage with the government holding that the more people it kills, the greater its chances of keeping the country one and indivisible. The government is gradually losing Southern Cameroons. Its high-handedness is dividing the country. In a bid to keep the country one and indivisible through force, it is only succeeding to tear it apart.

Time is gradually running out. It is time to make necessary changes. The government has to abandon its legendary high-handedness if it wants to keep Cameroon one and indivisible. Terrorizing its people and intimidating political opponents will not keep Cameroon one and indivisible. The government must seek to meet Southern Cameroonians halfway if it really wants to keep the country united. The ball is in its court. The world is watching. The country’s president has refused all useful advice and this will surely turn out to be his Achilles heels. Arresting Prof. Kamto might be that mistake the government might regret for a long time.

By Chi Prudence Asong on special assignment in Yaounde

28, January 2019

Prof Maurice Kamto, Others arrested in Douala ⁰

Cameroon senior opposition figure Prof Maurice Kamto has been arrested in Douala, the economic metropolis as concerns rose over a government crackdown after last disputed presidential election. Cameroon Concord News Douala city reporter said more details would be released later.

The leader of the MRC party, who was a minister in an uneasy coalition with the Biya Francophone government, is now Cameroon’s leading member of the strongest opposition movement for democratic change in the country, which denounced the election victory of the 85 year old President Paul Biya as fraudulent and had vowed to challenge it everywhere in the globe.

This item is developing