Cameroon’s President Paul Biya declared a day of national morning Wednesday to pay homage to victims of last week’s deadly shooting at a school in Kumba that killed at least seven.

The national flag will be flown at half-mast on Oct. 31 throughout the nation, according to a presidential decree.

At least seven children were killed and several seriously injured after a separatist group attacked the school in the southwest region.

Pope Francis joined the international community Wednesday to condemn the “barbaric” killing of school children.

”May God enlighten hearts, so that similar acts may never be repeated! I send my affection to the families and all Cameroon, and I invoke the comfort that only God can give,” he said.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres also said he was “shocked by a horrific attack.”

Following the massacre, several opinion leaders took to social media with the hashtag, #EndAnglophoneCrisis, to denounce the attacks and urge the government and secessionists to solve the crisis which has affected hundreds of thousands.

The Central African country has been marred by protests and violence since 2016, with residents in English-speaking regions saying they have been marginalized for decades by the central government and the French-speaking majority.

They have demanded independence or a federal state.

Violence in the Anglophone regions in the last three years has claimed an estimated 3,000 lives and caused the displacement of more than 730,000 civilians, according to the Human Rights Watch.

The Norwegian Refugee Council said in June, for a second year running, Cameroon topped the list as the most neglected crisis on the planet in 2019.

Source:  Anadolu Agency

Witnesses say Cameroon police have chased and beaten at least 200 opposition supporters outside the home of opposition leader Maurice Kamto, who has been under de facto house arrest for over a month.  Anti-riot police were deployed to Kamto’s home this week to contain crowds of supporters demanding he be released.  Police blocked Kamto from leaving his house after he organized anti-government protests in September. 

An unknown female supporter of opposition leader Maurice Kamto stripped off her clothes in front of his house Thursday and shouted at the large police presence that his month-long detention was illegal. 

The woman, in her early 50s, screamed that she would not leave until police allowed Kamto out of his house to speak with her. 

She was one of over 200 opposition supporters gathered outside Kamto’s house to mark one month since police surrounded his home, placing him under de facto house arrest. 

Kamto supporter Giselle Malongo says she came from the western town of Bafoussam to ask why Kamto has been stopped from leaving his house since September 22.

She told VOA the police violently brutalized and blocked supporters from meeting Kamto, a man she called “their president.”  Malongo said armed police seized mobile phones from supporters who tried to take photographs (of the clashes).  She said police also prevented them from delivering food donations to Kamto and his family. 

A reporter also witnessed police beating and blocking Kamto’s supporters, some of whom were trying to donate food. 

Christopher Ndong,  secretary general and legal advisor of Kamto’s Cameroon Renaissance Movement party, said police beat 13 supporters so badly that they had to get treated at a hospital.

“Kamto was very furious at this gesture by the military refusing people to come and give him food aid after he had been locked up for a month,” Ndong told VOA.  “There were a lot of hot exchanges.  We decry the attitude of government and its military operatives.  We are saying in fact, this is an infringement to democratic principles and democratic rights.”

Cameroon police gave no official statement on the clashes and would not answer a reporter’s questions. 

Authorities have not officially declared Kamto to be under house arrest, but police have not allowed him to leave his home since he organized nationwide anti-government protests in September.

Cameroon Territorial Administration Minister Paul Atanga Nji said police are watching Kamto because he is being investigated for hostilities against the state. 

“I want to sound a stern warning to unscrupulous politicians that they will face the law.  It must be clear that the discontinuance of legal proceedings does not imply that the charges have been dropped.  Any further act of public disorder will take them back to square one,” Nji said.

The September opposition protests were against Cameroon holding December 6 regional elections. 

The opposition says the electoral laws favor long-ruling President Paul Biya and his Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement party. 

Biya has been in power for 38 years, making him one of Africa’s longest-serving leaders. 

Kamto and about 200 supporters were jailed last year for protesting against the 2018 presidential election results, which named Biya the winner. 

Kamto was released after nine months following international pressure. 

Since then, Cameroon police have closely monitored his activities and all of his political rallies and protests have been declared illegal.

Source: VOA

Politician and professor Pascal Charlemagne Messanga Nyamding recently floated the claim that his own ruling Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement (CPDM) party is controlled by homosexuals.

He made that charge in the World News Cameroon newspaper despite the fact that the CPDM is the party of the country’s revered longtime president, His Excellency Paul Biya.

Messanga Nyamding, a professor of political science at the Institute for International Relations (IRIC) at the University of Yaoundé II, is known for expressing homophobic views to his students, claiming that homosexuality is an unnatural and even diabolical practice.

This isn’t the first time he has used the issue of homosexuality for political ends.

During the 2018 presidential campaigns, Messanga Nyamding accused Cameroonian opposition leader Professor Maurice Kamto of being a supporter of homosexuality.

He presented no evidence to support that statement, nor has he presented evidence to back up his latest complaint about the CPDM. Yet many Cameroonians still believe him.

His latest homophobic denunciation came on Oct. 8, when he declared about the CPDM that “the queers who run our party” threatened to take him to the party’s disciplinary council if he did not go along with their plans.

Unlike those political opponents, he said, he and his allies are the true supporters of President Paul Biya — “the real biyaists”.

Source: 76crimes.com

Ferdinand Ngoh Ngoh, the all-powerful secretary-general at the presidency of the republic, has a key weapon in his running battle against certain rival ministers and advisors to Paul Biya. Africa intelligence reports that Ngoh Ngoh who now has the authority to sign directives on behalf of President Biya is weaponising presidential directives and targeting his rivals in government.

Gregory Ntemoyok Mewanu is now the new Mayor of Kumba. The pro Yaoundé Southern Cameroons business tycoon was elected today at the Kumba town council hall.

The CPDM Kumba spy master won 64 of the 75 cast votes to unseat incumbent Victor Nkelle Ngoh  in a controversial process that recorded 11 spoiled ballots.

The outgoing mayor Nkelle Ngoh was declared mayor of Kumba on March 3, 2020, following the February 9 twin municipal and parliamentary elections. Nkelle reportedly secured 38 votes as against 31 for Mewanu and 6 for Stephen Ekoko Mwelle.

However, Meme politics took a dramatic u turn and Greg Mewanu petitioned the Francophone South West Administrative Court for the elections to be cancelled. The court in Buea upheld the outcome of the April 9 polling but Mewanu again appeared before the Administrative Bench of the Supreme Court and seek and gotten French Cameroun support.

On Thursday, September 24, 2020, the Supreme Court in Yaoundé annulled the March 3, 2020 and ordered a repeat. The Senior Divisional Officer for Meme, Chamberlain Ntou’ou Ndong was ordered to stage a repeat of the electoral process.

Today’s so-called elections justifies more than 58 years of annoying Southern Cameroonians by the French Cameroun regime in Yaoundé. Nkelle Ngoh was first appointed Government Delegate to the Kumba Urban Council in 2009 to replace Cavern Nnoko Mbelle who had held the office for a decade.

The electoral process was teleguided by a Central Committee delegation of the ruling Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement, CPDM led by Paul TASONG NJUKANG, Minister Delegate in charge of Planning.

Balike Esuka Victorine epse Ebanja and Sako Umana McMillan were respectively elected First Deputy and Second Deputy Mayor.

By Rita Akana

Cameroon on Thursday described as “biased” comments by UN experts claiming the main opposition leader Maurice Kamto was under house arrest, and accusing Yaounde of “excessive force” in recent demonstrations.

Kamto is the chief opponent of President Biya, who has ruled the Central African country for 38 years. His house has been surrounded by police for 24 days.

The opposition politician told AFP on Tuesday by phone that he was still being prevented from leaving and was “sequestered”, without any notification from the authorities.

A court hearing which was to rule on a complaint by Kamto’s lawyers for “administrative assault” has been postponed until October 20, an AFP journalist learned on Thursday.

UN rights experts on Monday called for Kamto’s release from house arrest for calling for peaceful protests against Biya. They also called for the release of dozens of others reportedly arrested during demonstrations on September 22.

In a statement received on Thursday by AFP, the government called the UN experts’ comments “subjective and biased” and accused them of having relaying and amplifying “untruths”.

It alleged that Kamto and his associates had defied laws and regulations by “violating the ban on public demonstration”.

“Faced with such threats to public order, it was naturally incumbent on the public authorities to take the necessary measures to deal with the situation, which has been done,” the statement said, without elaborating.

Of 294 arrested supporters of the Movement for the Rebirth of Cameroon (MRC) led by Kamto, it added that 176 had been released.

“Nine people… formally identified as being leaders, planners or organiser of insurrectional marches are currently in the hands of justice,” the statement said.

Some 109 people were also brought before courts in the economic capital Douala and western Bafoussam.

Kamto officially lost to Biya in 2018’s presidential election, and was arrested in January last year following a march protesting the vote. Biya ordered him freed nine months later under international pressure.

On September 18 of this year he called for mass protests to demand electoral reforms as well as a ceasefire in the country’s insurgency-hit English-speaking areas.

Four days later, police crushed a demonstration in the country’s economic capital Douala, detaining 93 protesters of whom 58 were still in custody as of Tuesday, according to their lawyers. They were among more than 500 people arrested across the country.

Source: AFP

Cameroonian opposition leader Maurice Kamto said Tuesday he remained “sequestered” at his home despite a call by UN rights experts for his release from house arrest for calling for peaceful protests against longtime ruler Paul Biya.

The rights experts issued a statement on Monday calling for Kamto’s release and that of dozens of others reportedly arrested during demonstrations on September 22.

Kamto is the chief opponent of President Biya, who has ruled the Central African country for 38 years.

“The (police) unit outside my house is still in place, and I have received no notification whatsoever,” Kamto told AFP, adding that a police car was blocking his driveway.

“Kamto’s house arrest could amount to a deprivation of liberty, in violation of his rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association, as well as liberty and security of person,” the UN statement said.

A team of around a dozen independent experts conducted a mission under the Special Procedures system on behalf of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).

Cameroonian authorities declined several requests for comment by AFP.

Kamto’s lawyers said in a statement they were suing the state over his house arrest and that the trial would begin on Thursday.

“We are extremely worried about mass arrests of peaceful protesters and political activists who express dissent,” the UN experts’ statement said, calling on the authorities to “stop intimidating political activists”.

They added that they were concerned over the “excessive use of force against peaceful demonstrators”.

Kamto officially lost to Biya in 2018’s presidential election, and was arrested in January last year following a march protesting the vote. Biya ordered him freed nine months later under international pressure.

On September 18 of this year he called for mass protests to demand electoral reforms as well as a ceasefire in the country’s insurgency-hit English-speaking areas.

Four days later, police crushed a demonstration in the country’s economic capital Douala, detaining 93 protesters of whom 58 were still in custody as of Tuesday, according to their lawyers. They were among more than 500 people arrested across the country.

Source: AFP

The international human rights community has demanded that Cameroon releases some 200 opposition activists held in custody since protests held more than three weeks ago.

They could face terrorism and national security charges and trial in a military court for their demands for national dialogue, electoral system reforms and the return of peace to English-speaking regions of the country.

Demonstrators turned out in response to an appeal by opposition party Movement for the Renaissance of Cameroon (MRC).

More than 500 people reportedly were initially arrested.

The government’s response is the latest crackdown by the administration of President Paul Biya on opposition activists.

“We are extremely worried about mass arrests of peaceful protesters and political activists who express dissent,” United Nations experts jointly stated.

They expressed concern at excessive use of force against peaceful demonstrators by the Cameroonian security forces.

“The violence against protesters was indiscriminate, with tear gas and water cannon used to violently disperse them,” the experts stated.

The experts also expressed alarm at reports of torture of protesters and journalists in detention. “This is truly unacceptable.”

Maurice Kamto, the MRC president, is the most high profile figure detained.

Security forces have reportedly prevented him from communicating with party members and lawyers.

Cameroon has been in crisis in recent years following opposition to alleged misrule by Biya’s government.

Militants in English-speaking regions are also agitating for independence citing alleged marginalization by government.

Ambazoniagate

The UN double-standards was in full display in La Republique du Cameroun. Prof Kamto is the French Cameroun opposition leader who competed with Mr Paul Biya in the last presidential election in 2018. At the end of which he claimed that he won.

He called for a massive demonstration against the French Cameroun political system in January 2019. He and many of his supporters were arrested and detained for nine months.

Prof Maurice Kamto including senior officials were detained at the Yaoundé Principal prison where President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe and the Nera10 are currently being held.

 After the so-called Major National Dialogue (MND) on the Ambazonian crisis, Prof Kamto and his team were released in October 2019. There was no mention of the release of the Ambazonian leader President Sisiku AyukTabe and his top aides, in spite of the fact that the MND was meant to address the crisis in the British Southern Cameroons.

Prof Kamto’s party, the CRM, boycotted the elections in 2020. He called for another demonstration on the 22nd Sep 2020. He has even since been placed into a kind of house arrest at his residence in Yaoundé. The UN is now calling for his immediate release while the same world body is maintaining a deliberate silence on the plight of the Ambazonian leaders in French Cameroun detention centers.

Reporter by CAJ News and Camcordnews

A group of UN human rights experts has called on the Cameroon government to release detained opposition leader, Maurice Kamto, as well as hundreds of his supporters who were arrested following nationwide protests on 22 September.

Mr Kamto has been held under house arrest for three weeks now.

The military surrounded his home after he called for countrywide protests to force President Paul Biya, in power now for 38 years, to resign.

About 500 of Mr Kamto’s supporters were also arrested, and more than 200 of them are still in custody.

The 14 independent UN experts have also called for an impartial investigation into alleged human rights violations by the Cameroon government.

The police declined the BBC’s request for comment.

The government’s spokesman, Emmanuel Sadi, and his colleague of Territorial Administration, Paul Atanga Nji, had earlier threatened to ban Mr Kamto’s party, Cameroon Renaissance Movement, as well as take up legal action against the opposition leader.

Source: BBC

27 occultists from the Federal Republic of Nigeria and the Republic of Benin were reportedly hired by Cameroon government officials to help them get appointed or maintain their cabinet positions, Cameroon Intelligence Report has gathered from a well placed source in the nation’s capital Yaoundé.

Twelve of the marabouts were identified as they boarded a train on Saturday, September 10, 2020 to Ngaoundéré from Yaoundé.  Before boarding, they spent almost 2 hours in two restaurants adjacent to the main train station in Yaoundé. For 2 hours, the 12 expressed their anger against President Paul Biya who blocked them in Yaoundé for 3 months by refusing to appoint a new cabinet.   

 The 27 great marabouts from the north of Nigeria and Benin were in Yaoundé to work for or against any presidential decree appointing a new government”. “They came to Yaoundé to work for certain personalities to enter the government. But more so that Paul Biya should not even sign the decree” our source hinted.

The imported workers housed in different hotels in the capital city came to Yaoundé equipped with sound robots with the voice of President Paul Biya and a large stock of mystical products. According to Moussa, one of the great marabouts, “It was necessary to tire the President so that he would even forget the presidential decree… We passed his photos over a salty fire and hit the President especially on his arms which he had to raise to take his pen to sign the decree… Before all this, we launched a 10 minutes of mystical prayer against the new government as a result the President has been to Etoudi several times and did not even talk about the new government.”

As for those who want to enter the government, he furthered “We prayed against some cabinet ministers, we burnt their photos at 2 o’clock in the morning and went and threw the ashes at the entrance of their ministries, we have an oil from Benin that we gave to people who want to enter the government to go and greet the ministers they want to replace … the oil is very effective you greet him, he leaves the government.”

As for their financial gains, they native doctors are more discreet. Moussa said it depends on who brought you to Yaoundé and what you had to do: “We had a lot of money, millions! Working against a decree that appoints or dismisses a minister is not easy! I got 5 million per day, my colleagues from Benin got a lot more”.

By Rita Akana with additional reporting from Cameroon Info.Net