Breaking News

30, January 2017

SDF NEC meeting takes a tough stance against Biya and the ruling CPDM ³

Members of the National Executive Committee, NEC of the Social Democratic Front Party, SDF have empowered their National Chairman NI John FRU NDI to handle the current crisis in the two English Speaking regions which seems to be going out of proportion.

In a meeting held last Saturday and Sunday January 28-29, 2017 NEC members unanimously noted that the Biya regime has done nothing to calm the situation but has instead aggravated with rampant arrests.

The SDF also called on the immediate liberation of all Anglophones arrested during and after the strike action.

Complete Resolutions:

Enjoins the Biya regime to immediately and unconditionally release all those abducted or kidnapped and who are presently held in prisons of Yaoundé or at least send them back to their respective places of origin where purported offenses were committed for trial by the competent court in these regions in order to guarantee a free fair and credible trial
Reiterates our call on the government to bring to book all the perpetrators of human rights abuses by the forces of law and order and the administration most of which is abundantly documented
Enjoin Mr biya to immediately bring to an end the De facto state of emergency and militarization of the 2 English speaking regions.
Calls on stake holders and all those adversely affected to take this issue of collective punishment which constitutes human rights abuse through selective internet deprivation to the appropriate international courts for the government indemnify all affected subscribers by internationally acceptable amounts
Invites the Council of Peace and Security of the UN and the AU to enjoin Biya regime to immediately stop the exaction perpetrated on its own citizens.
Reiterates that all successful Nations exercise devolution of powers most of which through federalism which is not a threat to national unity but a viable factor of unity in diversity and equitable development
That those apologists and sycophants of the current status quo who are opposed to any constitutional reforms are the minority beneficiaries from the regime of the current situation
Reiterate our support to the teachers and lawyers in their struggle for a better Cameroon
Affirms that the Biya regime is responsible for the present crisis putting our national unity in jeopardy.
Warns that if Biya regime remains intransigent and does not respond to the demands heretofore formulated, the SDF will take its responsibilities.

They equally reiterated to Cameroonians that the convening of a Constitutional Conference to redefine the Cameroonians Sate is the only way out of the present imbroglio.

It hereby empowers the National Chairman to seek ways and means in collaboration with Religious and Political leaders as well as Opinion Leaders to get our Country out of the present Impasse.

Culled from Cameroun Info.Net

30, January 2017

Hon. Wirba addresses Southern Cameroonians, says we are winners for all times ²

Our people have proven to the colonial masters that our iron will is tougher than all their guns. The week by week shut down of West Cameroon is sure proof. We will keep our children home and shut down everything till we build a better future for those children. We will do it for as long as it takes. This is the best option for us for we are a peaceful people and we will win by all peaceful means.

The reason our courageous leaders are in jail and others are being hunted down like animals is because this government believes that it has a colony in West Cameroon! In colonial policy, the master never sits to debate anything with the natives who own the land. The colonial rules are simple, beat them, maim them, jail them, shoot them and kill them heady native, who challenge your injustices, until the rest submit to your colonial will! After 55 years, our people have simply outgrown fear and submission. They are now holding their heads higher and higher and simply saying “Since you have more value for our land than for our people, kill us all before you take the land.” This is our peaceful resistance “War” cry.

We must now let the world know that we will resist them to the last man, woman and child. It is the cheapest “war” against our oppressors. With our bare hands and our hearts full of determination to live in dignity in our own country, we must collectively stand up and face our oppressors until we win! Even if our children stay home for two years, it will be better for us and those children because we will use this peaceful means to build a better and a free Cameroon for them. Peaceful resistance and civil disobedience are very legitimate ways of fighting oppression!

My people, by shutting down the internet all over West Cameroon, this government has proven that if it had its means, it could shut off even the air we breathe, so that we, the people of West Cameroon, could collectively chock to death! If they could, they could, they will shut down both sun and rain so we could all starve to death. This government is a grave source of danger to us as a people!

Unfortunately for them, God has a different plan for his people of West Cameroon! A plan of complete victory of good over evil! Actions speak louder than words! Their actions have shown the whole world how much they despise us! We can now see them for who they really are: a heartless government that treats us as subhuman! Were it not, how can a government treat our people with such gross disrespect, spite and arrogance? When a government lacks respect for its people, that government has no place in the people’s life. Let us all stand up in West Cameroon and prove to them that they have no place in our lives!

THE STUGGLE CONTINUES.

Your humble servant,

Hon Wirba.

30, January 2017

Former Governor Oben Peter Ashu passes on ²

The man who is widely credited with setting up a neo-Nazist rule in the South West Province and who was relieved of his duty in a shameful manner has died in Limbe. Former Governor Oben Peter Ashu had express contrition for his crimes against humanity in a Catholic Church in Fako.

This story is developing

28, January 2017

Dozens of Anglophones arrested in Yaounde ⁵

Cameroon Concord News has learnt that the Francophone dominated secret service has arrested many Southern Cameroonians and taken them to an unknown destination. Some of the West Cameroonians were returning from the South West and North West regions but were intercepted at the outskirts of Yaounde, the nation’s capital.

We gathered that a younger brother to the late veteran sports journalist, Ben Njovens is among the hundreds arrested. We also got intelligence that Anglophone citizens are stopped and mobile device searched and those bearing messages from the Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium are immediately arrested.

This story is developing

By Rita Akana in Yaounde

27, January 2017

Southern Cameroons Internet affair: Nigerian diplomat says Francophone action is against the 1963 Vienna Convention ³

The Consul General of Nigeria to the South West and North West regions, Dan Wari Nwazim has strongly criticized internet disconnection in the two regions for over a week now.

In an interview with Buea based Newspaper The Rambler, the Nigerian Diplomat said the act by the Government is against the 1963 Vienna Convention on diplomatic and Consular relations which stipulates that “Communication of Diplomatic and Consular missions are invaluable and the host Government should do nothing to tamper with them.”

Dan Wari Nwazim told The Rambler that for over a week Communication between his office and head Office in Abuja in particular and the world in General has been grounded, yet nobody has cared to explain to them why they should suffer such fate.

The Consul General said the only thing he has come across in Newspapers as reason for such action by Government is that, they disconnected internet in the South West and North West Regions of the country because of ‘irresponsible use of Cyber space by some individuals’.

Dan Wari noted that it will be of the interest of Cameroon Government to restore internet in the Consulate, “We are telling the Government of Cameroon to restore our internet. We are not part of irresponsible internet users.”

Cameroun Info.Net

27, January 2017

Anglophone Problem: Operation Ghost Town to continue on Monday ¹

The leadership of the Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium has announced that ghost town operations will continue on Monday the 30^th and Tuesday the 31^st of January 2017. The Consortium has called on all its operation managers within and out of Southern Cameroons to resist the Francophone oppressors with more intense ferocity.

Cameroon Concord News gathered that Southern Cameroonians guided by the Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium have resolved to continue their civil disobedience campaign against the current Biya Francophone Beti Ewondo regime. This comes after more than a 1000 desperate attempts at bribing some teachers in the Consortium to call off the strikes.

Last night on al jazeera news channel, the ruling CPDM crime syndicate got Prof. Elvis Ngolle Ngolle, former cabinet minister who presently has no constituent base in his native Kupe Muanenguba and who’s only power comes because of his friendship with some local Francophone political elites at the International Relations Institute, IRIC to try to sell the outrageous decision to shut down internet services in Anglophone Cameroon.

A majority of the Francophone political elites are overwhelmed by the sheer number of Southern Cameroonians who are now demanding an independent Southern Cameroons state. The mass civil disobedience campaign is expected to last for a month. However, the interim leaders of the Consortium are considering an indefinite extension of the ghost town activity.

The Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium has gotten the backing of all Southern Cameroon groups for the total and complete boycott of the so-called 11^th of February celebrations. Inside sources say the Consortium is also planning a massive boycott of the Guinness Mount Cameroon Race. Southern Cameroonians have been told to make sure that parents, students, lawyers, okada riders, teachers and the business community all adhere to the leadership of the Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium.

The strike actions including the ghost town have been successful on all counts and day-by-day; the Biya Francophone administrative authority is not only being suspended throughout West Cameroon but also eroded. On Monday the 30^th of January 2017, Southern Cameroonians will continue their civil disobedience campaign and all academic institutions will remain closed.

The interim leaders say the Consortium will stop at nothing to make sure that all Anglophone demands are met. “The longer the Yaoundé regime ignores us and the more arrest and extra judicial killings in our territory, the more means we will use to get what we deserve.”

By Chi Prudence Asong

27, January 2017

New Gambian president returns home ⁰

The Gambia’s newly-elected President Adama Barrow has returned to the nation after his predecessor finally agreed to cede power under international pressure and went into exile. On Thursday, Barrow arrived in Banjul from Senegal, where he had sought refuge in mid-January after his predecessor, Yahya Jammeh, refused to concede defeat in the presidential election and stand down.

Barrow won in the national election late last year, but Jammah’s clinging to power threw The Gambia’s political scene into turmoil. Upon arrival, the new head of state was welcomed by military officials and senior members of his coalition government.

Barrow’s supporters had gathered along the capital’s streets to welcome the president home. “We also hope that if he (Barrow) comes as a president, there will be some changes,” said a supporter. Barrow was inaugurated as president in neighboring Senegal on January 19.

Over two decades of Jammeh’s rule came to an end last week after he fled to Equatorial Guinea as thousands of soldiers from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) were deployed to the country to force him out of office.

A United Nations official announced earlier in the day that Barrow had asked the 7,000-strong ECOWAS military contingent to remain in the country for six months. Barrow requested the forces sent by ECOWAS to remain in Gambia for six months, said Mohammed Ibn Chambas, the United Nations’ most senior official in West Africa. In the meantime, the ECOWAS contingent in Gambia is carrying out a sweep operation to neutralize possible security threats against the new head of state.

Presstv

26, January 2017

Anglophone Problem: International Federation of Journalists calls for an end to threats against the media ¹

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has denounced all forms of intimidation by the National Council of Communication towards the Cameroonian media. The international union grouping media gurus has called on the so-called Cameroonian media watchdog to respect international norms. The National Communication Council body headed by one Mr. Peter Esoka has threatened to shut down any media organization that host members of the Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium.

In a statement released Thursday, January 26, 2017, IFJ President Philippe Leruth called on the Cameroonian authorities to put an end to threats against the media and journalists in order to engage in dialogue with the media and have a better understanding of the role of the media and journalists in the current situation in the country.

By Rita Akana

26, January 2017

Southern Cameroons Crisis and the Consortium: Know Where You Stand ⁴

The Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium is about protecting Southern Cameroons and improving the lives of its people. It is thanks to the careful management of the Consortium that we now have a beaming Head of State signing an empty decree to promote bilingualism. The leaders of the Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium have been arrested for demanding a return to the 1961 two state federal structure.

Southern Cameroons covers a huge area on Cameroun’s west coast and billions of dollars of profit is being made from West Cameroon oil and agro-industrial plants but the people have been excluded from every economic benefit the nation can offer. Instead their well established economic institutions inherited from the British, the German and the Dutch which had sustained livelihoods have all been devastated by the Francophone political elites. The West Cameroon Shipping Company, the West Cameroon Ports Authority, the Tiko International Airport, the West Cameroon Power Authority, the West Cameroon Bank, the National Produce Marketing Board, the PAMOL Plantations, the CDC etc

The Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium is simply calling for a more humane environment to live in and a measure of political autonomy for Anglophone Cameroonians to manage their own affairs. The 83 year-old Paul Biya and his Francophone army generals, Governors, SDOs and DOs are saying that asking for federalism is sacrilege. To the Francophone political elites, giving West Cameroon a share of their own wealth means reducing the profits that goes into their private pockets. Giving Southern Cameroons any form of federalism means questioning the exploitative colonial, political and economic structures bequeathed by the French. Such demands have to be brutally repressed.

The Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium has deeply crafted what we can now call the Southern Cameroons Bill of Rights to Resistance and it has captured the economic, cultural and political aspirations of every West Cameroonian. To be sure, the Consortium has put an end to the North West/South West divide and provided a road map for a Southern Cameroons nation where people will have the right to control their own resources and political life. The leaders of the Consortium believe firmly that Southern Cameroons and its resources belong to the Cameroonian people, not the Francophone political elites.

The Southern Cameroons resistance is not against Biya and his CPDM crime syndicate. It is not against the so-called Anglophone political elites in Yaoundé! It is a call to action to the people of West Cameroon to reject the French imposition of a colonial structure such as the appointments of Governors, SDOs, DOs and District Heads. It is a call for Southern Cameroonians to seek political autonomy and to be represented in all Cameroonian institutions as English Speaking Cameroonians rather than in two regions dominated by the Francophone political elites.

This bold demand is not a direct threat to ELF as the Francophone political elites want the French to understand. The call for self determination is only growing due to the delay and bad faith manifested by the regime in Yaoundé. The French government has the power to stop these arrest and extra judicial killings going on in Southern Cameroons. They can stop it at any time if they want to; the French have that kind of power in Yaounde. But from every indication, the French embassy in Yaoundé is basically encouraging state violence against the people of Southern Cameroons.

The Southern Cameroons National Council, SCNC and numerous Anglophone groups fighting for the independence of British Southern Cameroons should know that history often raises certain people over others, but the leaders of the Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium have all been equal in this struggle and West Cameroonians have shown that they are a formidable force.

The repression in Southern Cameroons has not stop with the arrest of the leaders of the Consortium-the resistance too will not stop. The Francophone government has set up a fierce crack team of police officers and soldiers with the single duty of uprooting dissent. Military checkpoints have been erected all over Southern Cameroons and anyone suspected of being a member of the Consortium or SCNC is arrested and detained. Many of those arrested in 2016 have never been seen again. Women are being raped and properties looted. Those who can find their way out of Southern Cameroons are going into exile.

Southern Cameroons is the most deprived region in Cameroon. Schools in Ndian, Akwaya, Menchum, Bui and Fontem areas look like they belong in the 18th century. The roads are bad and medical care almost non-existent. The general hospitals in the divisional capitals can hardly be called a hospital. To have a minor medical procedure in places like Mamfe, Wum, Bali, Kumbo, Ndop Kumba, Ekok, Akwaya, Eyumojock, Njakiri people must provide their own power generator.

The government of La Republique and its French ally, ELF are thinking that if they killed the leaders of the Consortium and other Anglophone activists, the struggle would be over. It is not true as their blood will water the seeds of the revolution. The Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium is teaching us to KNOW WHERE YOU STAND; how to take on the devil without losing your moral belief in the tools of nonviolence, the power of resistance and the power of people.

This is the plan of the Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium:

1. We continue keeping our children home to ensure that no school resume.
2. We continue observing Ghost towns on Mondays and Tuesdays
3. We prepare for the final destruction of 11th February by ensuring that on that day, it is very ghostly

All these actions are meant to ensure that the school year becomes blank which will soon happen, then the dynamics will change. It will also frustrate Government to call for a genuine dialogue as well as releasing our leaders unconditionally. Additionally, the Diaspora continues its pressure in foreign embassies.

The consortium is also putting and gathering a diplomatic push to some quarters as well as investing in media relationship especially foreign. The twitter strategy is also getting more foreign media involve in our case. Let us continue ensuring that schools remain closed, Ghost towns continue respectively, tweeting and preparing for 11th February boycott while diplomatic push continues in the background.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

Editor-in-Chief

Cameroon Concord News Group

26, January 2017

Vice Chancellor of the University of Buea threatens students and lecturers ¹

The Vice Chancellor of the University of Buea, Dr Nalova Lyonga is reportedly threatening students and lecturers against staying away from the university saying that they are doing so at their own risk. In a release signed on January 24, 2017 the Vice Chancellor said students must come to school because studies are going on as planned in the congregation meeting of January 13, 2017. She added that staff and students who fail to come to school would have themselves to blame.

The Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium which has legitimate authority over all of Southern Cameroons territory including its citizens have decreed that all academic establishments in West Cameroon should remain closed and ghost town operations will be observed every Mondays and Tuesdays until all Anglophone demands are met including the release of all political detainees.

Consortium sources say whosoever is going by that title Vice Chancellor should respect constituted authority in West Cameroons.