Cameroon President Paul Biya announced the National Dialogue earlier in September when he also called on all the Separatists in the South West and North West English-speaking regions to surrender and be forgiven. Nearly 3 000 people have died since 2017 in regions. This number includes 300 defence and security personnel. The violence has forced more than 500 000 people to flee their homes.

Separatists want international mediation

The National Dialogue being led by Cameroon’s Prime Minister Joseph Dion Ngute extends through Friday in the capital, Yaounde. Prime Minister Ngute asked the more than 1 000 delgates at the Yaounde conference centre Monday if they would want to make history by bringing peace or war.

The Separatists have refused to attend the talks, demanding that the government release their leader Julius Ayuk Tabe, who was sentenced to life imprisonment in August by a military tribunal that found him guilty of crimes including secession and hostilities against the state.

The rebel groups also say they would only agree to such negotiations if they take place in a foreign country with UN mediators and in the presence of world powers such as the United States, Britain, France and Germany.

In his national address at the beginning of September, President Biya denied any marginalisation of English-speaking regions, saying he has always appointed Cabinet ministers from the troubled areas.

English-speaking regions feel marginalised

On Monday, the prime minister said by solving issues of marginalisation, even without the presence of the separatists, many fighters would give up their struggle.

The violence first erupted in 2016 when teachers and lawyers protested against alleged discrimination at the hands of Cameroon’s French-speaking majority. English speakers make up 20 per cent of the country’s 24 million people and have long complained of being marginalised by the French-speaking majority.

The government responded with a crackdown that sparked an armed movement for an independent, English-speaking state called Ambazonia.

Source: Vatican News

Talks convened by President Paul Biya to solve the Anglophone crisis have begun in Yaounde without separatist leader Sisiku Julius Ayuk Tabe. DW’s Fred Muvunyi says the peace dialogue is likely to fail.

Cameroon has kicked off a national dialogue to discuss how to put an end to a crisis that started three years ago in the English-speaking Northwest and Southwest regions. A fifth of the country’s population of 24 million has had no peace for that period of time.

The International Crisis Group estimates that at least 3,000 people have been killed and 530,000 were displaced or forced by the conflict to flee to neighboring Nigeria and Equatorial Guinea. Many villages are completely deserted and countless houses have been set ablaze.

Reacting to international pressure, President Paul Biya — in power since 1982 — finally accepted to call for a dialogue. The president, seen by many Anglophones as the real catalyst of the crisis, charged his Prime Minister Dion Ngute with overseeing the talks.

Yaounde doesn’t seem to be serious about this dialogue. Otherwise, why would it arrogate to itself the right to set the terms of the mediation and lead the process, after inflicting so much pain on the Anglophone population?

This dialogue looks like a farce and is likely to do more harm than good. The entire nation was mobilized to suggest solutions to problems that a majority is not even aware of.

Paul Biya, 86, refused the international mediation offered by the Swiss government. He went for a format that many Anglophone Cameroonians are calling a monologue, because they do not feel represented. The Anglophones’ delegations are led by Northwest and Southwest governors – officials appointed by the Yaounde government.

Biya’s failure to release the separatists’ leaders shows clearly how little he cares for the lives of the minority Cameroonians, who are fighting for their right to be and to self-govern. Let’s not forget that hundreds of pro-independence Cameroonians are languishing in jails and children in the region have not gone to school for three years.

Women run the risk of being sexually abused by armed men when they venture out into the forests where the guerilla is hiding. Those who survive the gun are dying of diseases.

Anglophone Cameroonians are being exterminated in slow motion. Any selfless leader should not allow this to happen, and the world should not look away.

In conversations I often have with English-speaking Cameroonians and after time spent in the region, I can see that these people are serious about their demands.

They are determined to fight for their freedom. No matter the cost. Otherwise they would have given up in spring of 2018 when armed separatists mounted attacks against the military, and Cameroonian troops retaliated, leaving civilians caught in the crossfire. But they kept up their demands nonetheless. 

The Yaoundé forces have not been able to regain full control over rural areas nor prevent repeated separatist attacks in towns. Independence fighters show their muscle by imposing a general strike on Anglophone regions every Monday.

As a first step to end the crisis, Biya should release all Anglophone activists, including their leader Ayuk Sisiku Tabe.

Then he should call for an end to hostilities before starting deliberations. All government forces must leave the conflict-torn regions.

It’s time for both sides to make concessions, lose their egos and start an honest dialogue. Once trust and confidence have been built, Cameroonians will discuss a form of state that suits over five million people.

The resolve and determination of the people of Northwest and Southwest regions to choose a leadership that understands and feels their pain will not fade away.

Biya does not have much time left in office. It is high time he started to think about whether he wants to go down in history as a man who brutally murdered the people of his own country, or go to his grave as a man who committed horrible crimes – but redeemed himself by returning to peaceful ways.

Culled from Deutschewelle

The United States of America says it has offered to play a role in identifying an eventual solution to the crisis in Anglophone regions of Cameroon that has left more than 3,000 dead since 2017.

The US embassy in Yaounde said in a statement it would need to be asked by President Paul Biya’s government and Anglophone leaders to take on such a responsibility and asked the parties to engage in dialogue without any preconditions.

A major national dialogue that President Biya hopes will resolve the future of the secession-leaning english-speaking Northwest and Southwest Cameroon started on Monday.

Hopes for a breakthrough were however dashed by the absence of hardline separatist leaders and opposition politicians as moderates called for the talks to be given a chance.

“The US urges all those involved in the conflict in the Northwest and Southwest to abjure further violence and enter into an open-ended dialogue without precondition,” the statement said.

The advisory itself was an attempt at damage control after separatist leaders in the diaspora announced on Monday that US diplomat Herman Jay Cohen had agreed to represent them in the talks.

Source:The East African

Two years ago secessionists earmarked Cameroon’s English-speaking regions for a new African nation, they named Ambazonia. But their pursuit for self-rule has led to death and destruction of civilians in the crosshairs.

October 1 this year will mark the second anniversary since separatists in Cameroon’s northwest and southwest regions proclaimed a so-called independent state “Ambazonia.” It is a symbolic date: on the very same day in 1961, the East, which was then administered by the French, and the West, administered by the British, were united to form Cameroon. Something, the “Ambazonians” want to reverse. This year, the day will be under close watch: Cameroon’s President Paul Biya has announced plans to hold a “national dialogue” with the aim of ending the conflict.

It is a conflict which is scarred by violence and severe human rights violations from both security forces and armed groups, Amnesty International reported. 3,000 people have died and close to half a million have been displaced. Multiple separatists groups have formed in the southwest and northwest of the country.

Who are the ‘Amba-boys’?

Agbor Balla, an Anglophone human rights lawyer, tells DW: ” I think each county or each community is coming up with its own groups. There are about 10 groups, including the Ambazonia Defense Forces, the Tigers, and groups working for the interim government of Ambazonia.” All of these groups serve one purpose: the fight for independence. It is a struggle that has a long history.

The conflict is scarred by violence between seperatists and security forces

In the run-up to their independence, residents of British-administered Southern Cameroon, which included the northwest and southwest regions, held a referendum on 30 September 1961 under the auspices of the United Nation. The question was whether they wanted to belong to the newly Independent Federal Republic of Nigeria or to French-administered Cameroon. Under promises of a federal state and English as the official language, English-speaking Southern Cameroon joined the majority French-speaking East. Despite the agreement, Cameroon became a unitary state in 1972. “Many think that if we had remained faithful to the Federal Republic of Cameroon we would not have had the problems we have now,” Cardinal Christian Tumi tells DW.

Marginalizing Cameroon’s Anglophone regions

In the 1990s, Anglophone parties issued threats of declaring independence unless the old constitution was re-instated. They felt marginalized by the majority francophone government. Joseph Wirba, self-exiled Cameroonian MP, told DW: “We joined a nation that did not want our freedom and they presumed that they had to eliminate our culture gradually, to reduce us to second class citizens. That neglect pushed people gradually over the years to that extreme to say: no, we can not continue to be treated that way.”

On 12 October 2016, lawyers and teachers started demonstrating peacefully. Schools were closed and the ‘ghost town’ strikes started – for several days each week, shops and institutions closed their doors. The government responded by shutting down the internet, arresting and intimidating protestors.

Independence of ‘Ambazonia’

On 1 October 2017, separatists declared an independent state, which they named Ambazonia. The government sent in forces, and large-scale fighting broke out. Bullets and tear gas were unleashed onto civilian population the cross-hairs. According to Amnesty International, 17 people were killed and hundreds more were wounded.

The southwest has been torn by two years of clashes

Reverend Thomas Mokoko Mbue, from the Presbyterian Church in Cameroon, says in a DW interview: “It was the beginning of a radical movement towards armed struggle. The argument was that the government had attacked their people who were unarmed and that they needed to defend them, so armed groups were formed.”

No chain of command

Freedom fighters, radicals, or Amba-boys – nowadays, the separatists have many names. Mark Bareta, a Cameroonian activist in the diaspora fighting for Ambazonia, explains: “At the moment we have different groups, different structures: Those who decided to pick up arms and are fighting the republic, those doing diplomacy and those providing support to those in the bushes.”

The groups don’t have a chain of command. “You cannot really identify how they operate,” Balla says. People like Sisiku Ayuk Tabe, one of the imprisoned Cameroon Anglophone separatist leaders, would not be controlling the movement. Tabe and nine of his followers were convicted of charges including terrorism and secession. However, “the ones acting on behalf of Sisiku are very important, some take orders from them,” Balla says. “Some leaders of the groups are in contact, they make joint statements.”

The lines between good and evil

Some of the armed groups are led and funded by Cameroonians living in the diaspora, Balla says. “The diaspora, these are Cameroonians. Some want to see things changed, some of them want to have an independent state, some of them might have had their issues with the government. Some of them might have been blacklisted and they cannot come back to the country. So some hope to come back to an independent state.” However, most groups survive through kidnappings and ransom.

Many separatist leaders and followers have been imprisoned

The fights have become increasingly brutal, schools, hospitals and whole villages are burned down, people murdered and intimidated. “At the beginning, abuses were mostly and largely committed by government forces. Now the line between the bad and the good is really blurred and we see these separatist groups attacking and targeting civilians,” explains Ilaria Allegrozzi from Human Rights Watch. “Civilians are really being caught in the middle of this crisis and paying the highest price.”

A lost generation

Another worrying phenomenon stresses the severity of the conflict. “Armed robbers have re-branded themselves, calling themselves Amba-Groups,” Mbue says. They recruit young men and profit out of the situation: “Kidnappings, ransom taking, breaking into homes. They loot whatever they want to loot.”

Mbue is worried: If the conflict continues, the young generation of “Ambazonia” will be lost. “There are kids of eight years who have never seen a school. Young men dropped out of secondary school and have become barbarians of their community, they lost their basic sense of civilization and only see the option of carrying guns. A whole generation is going down.” Some of the fighters are as young as 15 years, Mbue says. “It is heartbreaking to see those who are to build our community dying because of a senseless war.”

Culled from Deutschwelle

As the major national dialogue known by many Southern Cameroonians as “national badluck” wraps up its second day of deliberations, many non-government participants are already cutting and running, as government-appointed chairs of the various committees are working hard to frustrate efforts by Southern Cameroonians to have the form of the state and constitution changed.

Prominent lawyer, Akere Muna, and opposition leader, Jean Jacques Ekindi, have already quit, calling the dialogue a charade designed to deceive the international community.

Barrister Akere Muna left yesterday while Jean Jacques Ekindi left today for his native Douala.

It is being reported that prominent human rights lawyer, Barrister Felix Nkongho Agbor Balla, is also thinking of leaving as government agents are ramping decentralization down the throats of those who are hoping to obtain at least federalism out of this charade.

Renowned historian and author, Prof. Victor Julius Ngoh reporting on the disagreements in the decentralization commission wrote that:

“It is hot in the Decentralization Committee. The chair of the Commission has been trying to restrict on discussion of decentralization. It got to a point where some Anglophones especially Agbor Balla threatened to walk out and Minister Garga met me outside and we talked to him and we came back and zeroed in on federalism. Several members are on federalism and dont want the Chair to derail the point”.

But cutting and running will only help the corrupt and dishonest government of Mr. Biya to manufacture resolutions and recommendations that they will present to the international community.

The Biya regime is cash-strapped and any hopes of it getting loans and grants from bilateral and multilateral donors depend on proof that it did actually organize the much- talked about inclusive dialogue and that all parties were represented.

The Southern Cameroons crises that has brought about the dialogue is being upstaged by insignificant themes like multiculturalism, bilingualism, living together and decentralization.

The atmosphere at the conference center is tense as some members of the Southern Cameroonian Diaspora are willing to demonstrate and even cause chaos if the real issues are not discussed.

The Southern Cameroons crisis has put the country in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons and the country’s economy has taken many blows to the liver.

Major state corporations such as CDC, PAMOL and SONARA have been ruined as a result of the crisis.

Many kids in rural Southern Cameroons have been out of school for three years and their fate rides on a successful dialogue that should bring the government and all the warring factions to the negotiating table with a neutral third party facilitating the discussions.

A Swiss initiative backed by Canada and the USA has been rejected by the Yaounde government which has decided to organize a charade.

Many observers say the government has already manufactured the recommendations and will, at the right time, release a document which will point out that many Cameroonians are in support of decentralization that has generated much corruption in the country and left the country’s economy on its knees.

Some analysts argue that a Canadian-style federal system will be ideal for Cameroon; a country of 256 tribes and two major linguistic blocs.

Many observers fear that if the dialogue is not properly managed, it could result in renewed hostilities in the two English-speaking regions of the country where some 3,000 civilians and soldiers have lost their lives.

By Dr Joachim Arrey

Fellow Ambazonians,

The cabinet of the Interim Government of Ambazonia has followed a Tweet earlier today by retired US Ambassador & Diplomat, Herman J Cohen on the struggle in The Southern Cameroons. Ambassador Cohen has a wealth of expertise in diplomacy and African affairs having served as US Assistant Secretary of State for African affairs.

As the government of the people committed to responsible, credible and accountable leadership, we have assigned a team to get in contact with Ambassador Cohen and establish the facts as they are.

We promise to address Ambazonians within 72 hours on this important issue.

We urge all our people and Comrades to exercise restraint and stay calm as we celebrate our independence day.

God Bless Ambazonia
Happy Independence Day

DCIT

October 1 marks the second anniversary of the declaration of the “Republic of Ambazonia” for Cameroon’s English-speaking minority.

This year’s anniversary comes one day after a national dialogue to try and end the separatist conflict opened in the capital Yaounde.

the dialogue called by president Paul Biya, who has been in power for 37 years, has been boycotted by key leaders of the separatist movement.

In this article, we trace the roots of the Anglophone conflict in Cameroon, that has now escalated to near-daily clashes between security forces and anglophone separatists.

World War I split

Germany was stripped of its African colony of Kamerun after its 1918 World War I defeat when the League of Nations, the forerunner to the UN, split the territory between victors Britain and France.

Four-fifths went to France, becoming independent Cameroon in 1960.

The British portion, along the border with Nigeria, became independent in 1961. A northern Muslim-majority section chose to join Nigeria while the remaining southern area was unified with Cameroon in a federation.

English-speaking minority

The federal structure was scrapped in 1972 and the anglophone portion was annexed.

Largely francophone Cameroon has 10 regions, two of which are mainly English-speaking: Northwest Region, whose capital is Bamenda, and Southwest Region with Buea as its capital.

They are home to around 14 percent of Cameroon’s population of 23 million.

The two regions are permitted some self-governance and language rights, including bilingual schools. But many complain of francophone-favoured discrimination in education, the justice system and the economy.

Deadly protests

Calls for a breakaway English-speaking state mounted in the 1990s with demands for a referendum on independence accompanied by low-level unrest.

In 2001 secessionists defied a ban on rallies to protest the 40th anniversary of unification with Cameroon and were confronted by security forces. Several people were killed and secessionist leaders arrested.

The separatist Southern Cameroons National Council (SCNC) set up a “government” in Britain and leaders moved into exile.

There was a new outbreak of violence in 2016 after lawyers went on strike to demand the right to use Anglo-Saxon common law. Teachers followed, protesting at the appointment of francophones in the region.

While some protesters want only a return to federalism, a minority is pushing for the creation of an independent state called Ambazonia.

Armed revolt

In January 2017 senior secessionist activists were arrested and charged with terrorism and rebellion. President Paul Biya halted their trials in August, apparently trying to calm the situation.

In October 2017 separatist leaders issued a symbolic declaration of independence. At least 17 people were killed in clashes on the sidelines.

Radical separatists took up arms in late 2017, attacking security forces and torching symbols of the administration, such as schools. They also kidnapped police officers, civil servants and businessmen, sometimes foreigners.

‘Civil war’

In April 2018 the main opposition Social Democratic Front (SDF), which defies the separatists, described the violence as “civil war”.

Separatists torched the Northwest Region home of SDF leader Ni John Fru Ndi in October and also kidnapped his sister, who was later released. Fru Ndi was briefly kidnapped twice in 2019.

A US missionary was killed in the unrest in October 2018 and the following month 79 schoolboys were kidnapped in Bamenda but freed two days later.

In December 2018 Biya ordered the release of 289 people arrested in connection with the crisis.

However in August 2019, separatist leader Julius Ayuk Tabe and nine others were sentenced to life in prison for charges including “terrorism and secession”.

More than 2,000 people have been killed in violence between separatists and security forces in the anglophone regions since October 2017, Human Rights Watch says. Around 530,000 have fled their homes, according to the UN.

AFP

Government-led talks to end a two-year-old separatist insurgency in Cameroon faltered before they began on Monday as separatists and opposition politicians boycotted the event.

President Paul Biya initiated the week-long national dialogue in an effort to calm violence between militias and the army that has killed more than 1,800 people and displaced more than 500,000, according to United Nations estimates.

But Anglophone separatists, who are trying to form a breakaway state called Ambazonia in the country’s minority English-speaking regions, immediately dismissed the idea because their conditions for dialogue have not yet been met, they said.

“No Ambazonian will take part in Biya’s charade,” said Cho Ayaba, a leading member of the Ambazonian Governing Council.

The council has called for a withdrawal of the army from the English-speaking Southwest and Northwest regions, for international arbitration over the crisis and for the release of all arrested separatists.

Cameroon’s main opposition party is also refusing to attend until the government releases its leader and former presidential candidate Maurice Kamto, who was arrested in January and could face the death penalty for leading protests against an election last year that he denounced as fraudulent.

Biya, 86, won re-election in that vote, extending his nearly four decades in power.

The Anglophone conflict began after the government cracked down on peaceful protests in 2016 in the English-speaking regions by teachers and lawyers complaining that they were being marginalized by the French-speaking majority.

Demonstrators were shot dead and the movement became radicalized. Now at least a dozen groups have taken up arms and have carried out deadly attacks on army posts and the police. The army has responded by burning villages and shooting dead civilians in the English-speaking areas.

Tens of thousands have fled to Nigeria or sought refuge in French-speaking Cameroon.

Opposition parties, civil society groups and representatives of the Catholic Church were present in the main conference center in the capital Yaounde on Monday.

Prime Minister Joseph Dion, an Anglophone appointed early this year in part to jump-start negotiations, was also present.

Dion said the talks were held to end acts of violence and to enable the Northwest and Southwest regions to regain the “necessary serenity”, adding that “all men and women who love peace” had been invited.

Cameroon’s linguistic divide goes back a century to the League of Nations’ decision to split the former German colony of Kamerun between the allied French and British victors at the end of World War One.

For 10 years after the French- and English-speaking regions joined together in 1961, the country was a federation in which the Anglophone regions had their own police, government and judicial system. Biya’s centralization push since he came to power in 1982 quickly eroded any remaining Anglophone autonomy.

Now, moderates who have long called for a return to some form of federal system to ease tensions say their voices have been drowned out by secessionists on one hand and Biya on the other.

“It is farcical to not have a commission to discuss federalism, which is at the core of all this,” said Akere Muna, an opposition politician and former presidential candidate who is participating in the talks. “Now the federalists are a minority and the separatists are the majority.”

By Besong Eunice Nchong

Cameroon will start a “national dialogue” on Monday in a bid to end the separatist conflict in the country’s Anglophone provinces, but key rebel leaders have already refused to participate.

Nearly 3,000 people have died and half a million fled their homes since fighting broke out in 2017 between the army and armed fighters who want independence for Cameroon’s two English-speaking provinces.

The talks, led by Prime Minister Joseph Dion Ngute, are scheduled to take place from September 30 to October 4 at the Congressional palace in the capital Yaounde.

President Paul Biya, who has been in power for 37 years, hopes the talks will end a crisis that is also hurting the economy of the coffee and cocoa-producing Central African country.

October 1 marks the second anniversary of the spiral towards conflict – the declaration of the self-described “Republic of Ambazonia” for Cameroon’s English-speaking minority.

Even before it began, the national dialogue ran into trouble with many activists arrested and experts voicing scepticism that it would yield tangible results.

English-speakers account for about a fifth of Cameroon’s population of 24 million, who are majority French-speaking.

Anglophones are mainly concentrated in two western areas, the Northwest Region and the Southwest Region that were incorporated into the French-speaking state after the colonial era in Africa wound down 60 years ago. Many locals there complain of discrimination and marginalisation.

In a report published last week, the International Crisis Group (ICG) estimated that around 3,000 people have been killed by separatist violence and the military crackdown.

The ICG said the talks do not include separatists or Anglophone leaders who support more federalist solutions.

“It thus risks further frustrating Anglophones widening the gulf between the two sides and empowering hardliners,” the group said.

“The government should make greater space for Anglophones, particularly federalists who are willing to attend. It should also seek a neutral facilitator.”

Biya’s government has rejected both a return to more federalism and any proposed separation.

But Anglophone supporters are also divided between those two options for their regions.

The government’s dialogue spokesman, George Ewane, said Cameroonian authorities had held preliminary discussions with some separatists, adding that even hardliners were welcome to join the talks.

‘Smokescreen’

Mark Bareta, a separatist leader who is very active on social media, was the one most open to dialogue and it was through him that invitations to the others were sent, Ewane said.

But on Friday, Bareta announced that he was pulling out, saying that “the only way to have real negotiations is to hold them on neutral territory”.

Of the 16 separatist leaders invited, those heading armed groups such as Ebenezer Akwanga and Cho Ayaba are also snubbing the talks.

Akwanga told AFP that the event was a “smokescreen for the international community rather than an attempt to secure a complete and lasting solution … to the annexation of our country, Southern Cameroons.”

Most of the leaders have expressed willingness to hold talks with the government but in the presence of an international mediator and in a foreign country with the terms for secession the main item on the agenda, according to the ICG.

However, more moderate Anglophones like Cardinal Christian Tumi, the influential archbishop of Cameroon’s commercial capital Douala, have welcomed the initiative and urged the separatists to participate.

‘We can’t talk to ghosts’

An official from the Southwest Region said traditional chiefs had asked armed groups to attend the talks but they had spurned the offer.

The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, however asked the groups to “emerge from the woodwork”, adding that “measures have been taken to ensure the security of those who attend.”

“We cannot talk with ghosts,” the official said.

Locals are meanwhile divided about the outcome of the talks.

“No good can come of this. It’s a game,” said a hardcore secessionist who identified himself as Agbor.

“If we must go for talks, it would be to discuss the terms of separation and not anything else,” he said.

But Jeannette Benga, a prominent figure of civil society in Buea, the capital of the Southwest region, voiced hope that “the two come to an agreement.”

Blaise Chamango, the head of an NGO said the five-day talks were not enough to “debate the anglophone crisis and the other major problems in Cameroon.”

SOURCE: AFP NEWS AGENCY