The downfall of Sudan’s military leader, Omar al-Bashir follows the same trajectory with that of Algeria’s 82-year-old Abdelaziz Bouteflika who was forced to resign, following mass protests against his regime. It was a popular and principled uprising, which shook the Algerian and Sudanese political establishment to their foundations. The denouement also sent a strong message to other African despots who promote the ignominious narrative that government should be at the whims and caprices of selfish and deluded individuals. The era of sit-tight leadership is over. Truly, sit-tightism has lost traction because it adds no value to good governance. Africa has only a few left, tired old men with a messianic complex who believe the nation would end without them. Presidents Obiang Nguema of Equatorial Guinea (in power since 1979); Paul Barthelemy Biya’a bi Mvondo of Cameroon (since 1982), and Yoweri Museveni of Uganda (since 1986) are chronic cases of Africa’s leadership tragedy. Hopefully, these holdout dictators can hear the fire engines and begin charting ways for a smooth change of leadership.

The initial demand of the Algerian protesters was that Bouteflika should not stand for another five-year term after a 20-year rule. His first reaction was to resist this demand. But when the pressure became overwhelming with the army high command speaking in favor of resignation due to poor health, the beleaguered president caved in to the peoples’ demand. For all intents and purposes, this was the height of peoples’ power and a quintessential demonstration of the capacity of the people to have their way in a democracy. After his resignation, the people did not stop there: they specifically called for a purge of the Augean stable by ridding the state of all vestiges of the old brigade, including all those who served with Bouteflika and entrenched corruption.

After Bouteflika, Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir was ousted in a military coup and he became the second African president to fall in the wake of a tsunami of protests. Tens of thousands of Sudanese took to the streets in the center of Khartoum in jubilation, dancing and chanting anti-Bashir slogans.

Currently the wind of change is blowing in Cameroon where an 86-year-old octogenarian; in power for 37 years and counting is facing an armed insurgency in the Anglophone regions where pro-independence Ambazonia fighters have all but rendered the two Anglophone regions ungovernable. The regime seems to have run out of ideas on how to handle the crisis and its resort to a scorched-earth policy of collective punishment and genocide against innocent civilians has further alienated the local population and put the government on the defensive.

Biya thinks he is running down the clock but time is no longer on his side. The grotesque campaign of human savagery and barbarism in which soldiers burn down whole villages and kill innocent civilians like game, has reached the point of no return and the so-called national unity is now held at the barrel of the gun. It is just a matter of time for the situation to explode as the country sits on a keg of gunpowder after the regime arrested and detained Prof. Maurice Kamto, presumed winner of the last presidential election, which the Biya-controlled election machinery declared him winner.

It can only be expected that the wind of time will blow in the direction of sit-tight African leaders who should learn the hard way like Bouteflika and Bashir. Bouteflika had come to power in 1999 when the political fortunes and structures of the country were unstable. He quickly stabilized the situation and embarked on projects, which gave the country the platform for growth and development. But he got bitten by the African disease of self-perpetuation in office. In 2013 he suffered a massive stroke and virtually disappeared from public view because he was wheelchair-bound. In spite of his poor health, he wanted to contest a record fifth term in office and the people said enough is enough!

Bashir, a former paratrooper who seized power in a bloodless coup in 1989, has been a divisive figure, who has managed his way through several internal crises while withstanding attempts by the West to weaken him. Sudan has suffered prolonged periods of isolation since 1993, when the US added Bashir’s government to its list of terrorism sponsors for harboring Islamist militants. Washington followed up with sanctions four years later. Bashir has also been indicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague over genocide in Sudan’s Darfur region during an insurgency that began in 2003.

It is instructive that neither the Algerian nor Sudanese people waited for the ballot box to rid their countries of deluded and self-perpetuating leaders. They knew Bouteflika and Bashir have the power and machinery to manipulate the system by rigging election results. They then decided to prevent that familiar scenario recurring. Thousands of persons from different backgrounds and professions came together in one spirit to put an end to official impunity and corruption by taking to the streets. The spirit of revolution, as demonstrated in Algeria and Sudan, subsumed ethnic or religious differences. The unifying factor, a common denominator in the struggle was resistance to oppression and impunity.

The drama is yet unfolding in Cameroon. After 37 years, Biya; aka the “Sphinx” the ailing octogenarian is frail, weak and tottering on the borders of senile decay, but insists on leading Cameroon to his grave. At this juncture, it is therefore relevant to ask: Where has courage, conscience and character gone? Why have long-suffering Cameroonians, especially Francophones not shown sufficient anger to rise up in protest and topple the vampire regime?

Doubtless, the Algerian model has shown that when governance fails, the people react. Some dictators often react to protests with violent clampdown, arresting leaders and killing citizens. One of the legacies of Bouteflika is that he never ordered his security forces to mow down innocent protesters though some were injured and a few killed. Behold, the people are crucial and central in any democracy. Elected leaders in Cameroon invariably treat the people with great contempt. They seem to think the citizens are mere tools to be discarded after rigging and winning elections.

The truth is that democratic ideals are not alien to the people of Cameroon, nay Africa. Cameroonians must understand that docility is antithetical to the tenets and development of democracy. Apathy is worse. It allows mediocrity to thrive. If Cameroonians decide to remain aloof and believe that the fortunes of the country will change, then they are not ready for change. Finally, Bouteflika and Bashir are at long last, out of power. Like Biya, both men started well and indeed meant well for their people. But like Biya, they became victims of self-perpetuation. If they had taken a bow and quit the stage when the ovation was loudest, they would not have become victims of the anger and power of the people. This is the object lesson for all leaders, elected and appointed.

At 86, it leaves much to the imagination, what Biya still desires, by his tenacious hold on power. Biya belongs in the class of self-serving leaders who changed their countries’ constitution to remove term limits mostly against the will of helpless citizens. By their action or inaction, leaders like Biya are under-developing Africa and their countries in particular. It is an ugly trend, and the African Union has a duty to arrest the rape on democracy in member states in order to lift the continent’s image.

Biya should walk the path of honor and make way for a younger generation to take on the reins of power. He should think Cameroon; not himself. The country will outlive him. He should not sow seeds that will create permanent instability as the experience in Zaire has shown. Biya must reassess his obsession with power and stop the mockery of democracy and embarrassment to the country. His advanced age and sit-tight disposition is a constraint for fresh impetus for Cameroon’s progress.

Personalizing government has been detrimental to the growth of Africa. We should build institutions that can survive the test of time and stimulate economic prosperity. Even in the advanced nations that have stable institutions there are presidential term limits. This is basic common sense. Institutional governance should not be centered on one person: It should center on the rule of law and respect for the constitution. So, Cameroonians should wake up, freeze their complacency and take back their country from the rubble of the years of locusts that Biya has nurtured. At 86 years, Biya is officially sub-Saharan Africa’s oldest leader and has joined the league of sit-tight leaders who in spite of age and infirmity continues to cling to power. This indeed, is a scandalous development that diminishes Cameroon’s prestige in the comity of nations.

In perspective, Biya is an anachronism, an ugly image from the ugly past of Africa that people would rather forget. History, it has been said, first comes as a teacher; when it comes again it is in form of a rebuke. No dictator who saw himself as indispensable has lived to tell a good story. Biya is therefore advised to take urgent steps to avert the ignominy which befell characters like the Mobutus, the Mugabes, and the Bouteflikas and Bashirs in recent African history.

By Valerian Ekinneh Agbaw-Ebai

Switzerland has agreed to mediate talks between the government of Cameroon and separatist leaders aimed at faciliating a peaceful resolution to a three-year conflict. This is welcome news, says Nkongho Felix Agbor Balla.

The conflict in Cameroon has engulfed the country’s English-speaking northwest and southwest regions since late 2016. It is one of the world’s most neglected crises, despite a magnitude of violence, inflicted by both military and armed separatist groups, causing unimaginable suffering. The military has committed crimes against humanity against civilians in the English-speaking regions, as documented in a report co-authored by the Cameroon-based Centre for Human Rights and Democracy in Africa (CHRDA) and the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights (RWCHR) in Canada.

Soldiers routinely torch entire villages to the ground — this has become an established and systematic military tactic. They indiscriminately shoot at civilians, at times leaving bodies piled in the streets. Astonishingly, more than 200 villages have been set ablaze, with a continuously increasing pace of attacks. As a result, many people are burned alive in their homes, such as a 70-year-old man who did not hear his neighbors’ warnings due to a hearing disability.

Civilians, including journalists covering the crisis, have been rounded up, arbitrarily detained and tortured, without charge or access to lawyers. Sexual and gender-based violence has also become rampant, often targeting girls below the age of 18. Cameroon now has the sixth-largest forcibly displaced population in the world, with approximately half a million people — one tenth of the region’s population — living in the bush without sufficient food, water or protection from exploitation. There are more than 1.3 million Cameroonians in urgent need of humanitarian aid in the English-speaking regions alone.

Nkongho Felix Agbor Balla While the crisis is rooted in a complex colonial history that birthed the current bijural and bilingual country, it is important to consider how the crisis spiralled from its peaceful origins into the catastrophe it is today.

How the crisis began In late 2016, Anglophone lawyers and educators peacefully demonstrated for basic civil and political rights after years of marginalization in the majority French-speaking country. In particular, Anglophone lawyers and educators were protesting the imposition of French-speaking judges and teachers in English-speaking courts and schools. What started as a simple request for the recognition of rights based on legitimate grievances morphed into a conflict enveloping nearly the entire English-speaking region.

Moderate voices were swiftly drowned out by radicalized forces calling for the creation of a separate country. Hate speech surfaced in both media and government discourse in a disturbing trend that, as history warns, can quickly translate into mass atrocity and even genocide. It is, therefore, encouraging that Switzerland has agreed to mediate a dialogue in the pursuit of peace and reconciliation.

However, the conflict’s underlying causes will only be addressed and redressed by an all-inclusive dialogue that represents the various shades of opinion in Anglophone Cameroon. The Swiss mediators should ensure that they invite a variety of Anglophone voices, certainly not just those who have taken up arms. Switzerland should also invite other bodies to participate as mediators, particularly the African Union which recently mediated a power-sharing agreement between military and civilian leaders in Sudan. Canada is also an ideal candidate to lead the process, given its bijural, bilingual character and long-standing bilateral relations with Cameroon.

Role for the UN and AU The dire situation on the ground, however, demands coordinated international attention and action, even if a political solution to the underlying conflict is not imminent. First, the UN Security Council should add Cameroon to its agenda as a regular stand-alone item, as nine different human rights organizations have recommended in an open letter. Second, the African Union should establish a panel of independent international experts to investigate evidence of crimes against humanity in Cameroon, as the Organization of American States did regarding atrocities in Venezuela. Third, states should increase funding for the UN’s Cameroon Humanitarian Response Plan. As it stands, the Response Plan is severely underfunded. Key frontline humanitarian organizations will be forced to withdraw if additional funding does not reach them soon, according to the UN’s Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator.

Finally, individuals and collectives must continue to shine a protective spotlight on the victims of the Cameroon crisis, whose pain and plight can no longer go unheard, unnoticed or unaddressed. The children of Cameroon at the mercy of this raging violence, including the more than 600,000 currently prevented from going to school, deserve no less.

Nkongho Felix Agbor Balla is the founder and director of CHRDA. Culled from DeutcheWelle

Deacon Tassang Wilfred one of Southern Cameroons detained leaders has again released a letter from the Kondengui High Security prison. The former head of SCACUF observed in “As Though We Were Dead” that Southern Cameroonians should consider the NERA 10 as nonexistent.

Deacon Tassang Wilfred is a very brilliant Southern Cameroons trade unionist. He helped shape the character of the Ambazonian revolution and started seeing himself as the leader when he was elected to head SCACUF. He even at one point contradicted Tapang Ivo and Mark Barata during their days at the top and like the Prince of Peace; he observed that “Southern Cameroonians should forgive Tapang Ivo and Mark”.  All these constituted a bargain at a discounted price that was surprisingly available for the renowned Deacon Tassang Wilfred, one of Southern Cameroons revolutionary bells.

Tassang’s style is sometimes colourful sometimes chatty, and in many occasions consistently inconsistent. It is as if the election of Sisiku Ayuk Tabe to head the Interim Government did not go well with him. He writings including his most recent “As Though We Were Dead” indicates that the much respected Ambazonian like some of the fake leaders in the Diaspora is more interested in creating a political space for himself.

His writings have always carried a mixture of analysis blowing hot and cold of failures in the Southern Cameroons quest for independence and accompanied by some uncomfortable moralizing.  Tassang’s approach has always been thematic and not chronological. You need a pretty good knowledge of the Southern Cameroons leadership crisis to make sense of it sometimes and the teacher has a capacity for self-diversion.

But as his most recent letter “As Though We Were Dead” immodestly reveals, Deacon Tassang Wilfred no longer has the remarkable influence on the Southern Cameroons war of independence and politics both domestically and internationally.

Where Tassang can now be challenged is the assertion that Southern Cameroonians should “Consider the Nera10 as dead. Negotiate as though you were seeking retribution for the more than 30,000 wasted Amba souls. Go for La Republique’s balls (excuse my French). We all (Nera10) put together, are not any more deserving of Ambazonia than angel Martha, most brutally butchered in babyhood by the evil from Yaounde.”   The Tassang approach begs the question of who is actually the face of the Ambazonia revolution and who will be on the Southern Cameroons negotiating table?

Tassang seems to argue against a rules-based system of international relations which provides for any revolution or struggle to have a symbolic personality at the head.  To be sure, Tassang’s letter writing policy will be both his legacy and epitaph in his relations with the Ambazonian people and the NERA 10.

So much has been written about the relationship between the Ambazonia leader Sisiku Ayuk Tabe and Deacon Tassang Wilfred. Both men have respectively displayed their particular talents – President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe has his natural guile and persuasiveness and Tassang his intellectual firepower. If the relationship is one of marriage then no court in Southern Cameroons will deny Sisiku Ayuk Tabe and Deacon Tassang Wilfred divorce or dissolution.

Tassang cannot be blowing hot and cold at same time. Saying the Ambazonia leadership should not rule from prison but gives directives and funny instructions now and then from the same prison paints a picture of a man who is either committing the same errors or falling into spectacular new ones.

Now Tassangs says the NERA 10 should be assumed dead or nonexistent by the so-called free leadership …so where does he belong? When he was Chief Executive of SCACUF there was no issue but as soon as Sisiku Julius Ayuk Tabe took over his attitude has been anything but collaborative!!

The battlelines between his supporters and the Southern Cameroons Interim Government currently under the stewardship of Vice President Dabney Yerima are firmly drawn. But he was and remains a consistently inconsistent phenomenon.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

TRIBUTE TO THE FAMILY, IN HONOUR OF JUSTICE FREDERICK A. EBONG

It is with broken and bleeding hearts that we come to you during these times of deflating pain and grief. Though everyone would have found it okay if we had complied to the desires of our captors by staying indifferent and mute, the importance of this man we mourn could not be minimized. In fact,  we had no other option but to dare to think different, because we would not even be here without the concrete foundation this fallen hero laid for us as a people to emulate. We thought, and rightly so that in moments like this, when we are left with very little but these words of love and comfort, we must share with each and everyone of you.

In fact, just as we shared those moments of comfort and joy, in like manner in your pain we are able to determine the depths of ours. Therefore, right from the depriving, and dehumanizing cells of Kondengui, where our fallen hero once was, we cannot hold back but raise our voices to hail this man who took the very first step to show us that as a people our survival depended on concrete physical action, and not mere words, conjectures and platitudes. We cannot succumb to the inhibiting and physically draining effects of the jingles of the chains and shackles of imprisonment to which we wake every day. And not even the morbid and morriborn yells and commands of unkind and unfriendly prison warders can hold us down enough to prevent us reaching out to you people.

Therefore, empowered by this spirit to act, that Justice Ebong taught us, even the prison walls of Kondengui cannot stop our endearing wishes, intents, and profound concerns to reach out to and mourn with all of you assembled here today. Assembled not to say goodbye, as the thought of him shall remain a permanent cluster in our memory. Bear with us that we are assembled here today to reaffirm our individual, as well as our collective commitment to prosecute the struggle Justice Ebong initiated on the 24th of December 1994, when he sounded the very first note of the melody for Sovereignty we are all dancing today. It was on this blessed day that the mustard seed of the courage that has become a dominant part of our identity and or DNA, was planted in our midst.

It is with this courage that our Amba boys and girls are standing tall to make that dream which Justice Ebong nursed and sowed to come true. Have no doubt because our arrival in Buea, is no longer a matter of “IF”, but “WHEN”.Be rest assured that our yearnings and actions are focused on nothing but to make Bueaa reality.

However succulent and juicy it is, the freedom we seek, is wrapped up in folds of suffering and pain we must endure. Indeed the pain is grave, the deprivation overwhelming, yet undying hope and the example Justice Ebong set for us are real, cogent, empowering, and inspiring. And on the fortifying belief that His spirit would follow to guide and protect us every step of the way on this tedious journey to total and unconditional Independence, permit us reiterate to everyone here present, our uncompromising resolve to seek no rest or respite till as a people we make it to the foot of the mountain. It is only there and then that meaningful and befitting, monuments shall be erected as everlasting homage we shall pay to all the likes of Justice Ebong, who nurtured and enshrined in us the hunger and thirst for freedom. Accept our heartfelt condolences as we wait our turns when we shall meet to part no more.

Justice Frederick A. Ebong was the 4th Chairman of the Southern Cameroons National Council (SCNC). Elected in his absence, while in underground detention in Yaoundé, for declaring the independence of Southern Cameroons, this made him the leader of the people in the hands of a foreign aggressor and expansionist Yaoundé regime. Detained with eight others, they were released, without having been charged and tried in any court of law, after fourteen months of incommunicado detention. Their release was thanks to internationalization of the campaign which drew worldwide condemnation and worldwide appeals for their release.

The news of the passing away of Justice Frederick A. Ebong came to us in Prison Principale, Kondengui, Yaoundé as a big blow. Being where he had been some nineteen years ago for declaring the independence of our fatherland, Southern Cameroons (Ambazonia), we were like children trying to fit into the shoes of their fathers. For this, we looked forward in great hope to the day, when we would sit with him to share our experiences, and tapping from his wisdom and with him, lay a solid foundation for the New Dawn for Ambazonia.

Believing fervently that we live not in days but in deeds, while we mourn his departure to meet our ancestors, we praise the Lord Almighty for the hope he gave the young that with courage and selfless determination we shall overcome annexation and colonial occupation by La Republique du Cameroun. By courageously declaring our independence over Radio Buea on the 30th of  December 1999, Justice Ebong assured us that Southern Cameroons belongs to the indigenes and not the aggressor and expansionist La Republique du Cameroun. He assured us that if we don’t make it, no one will come from celestial space and chase La Republique du Cameroun out and hand our Homeland to us on a platter of gold.

Our Amba Boys, inspired by his courageous will and thanks to the political education they received over the years from the SCNC leadership, are fired up and say “Enough is Enough!” to annexationist La Republique du Cameroun. They are determined to assert themselves and be masters of their destiny. Our right to a sovereign Homeland, offering great opportunities to its citizens is non-negotiable. Annexation is a global monster that threatens peace and justice everywhere on planet earth.

As we bid “Fair Well” to our fallen, we know he is not joining our ancestors empty handed. Hehas joined Dr Endeley, Chief Stephen Nyenti, J. N. Foncha, Ambassador Epie, S. T. Muna, Dr Martin N. Luma and Chief Ayamba, among others as a hero who fired the first cannon to flush out annexationist La Republique du Cameroun, so that our people will live in freedom, peace, justice and prosperity.

Be reassured you that we will stop at nothing until we see the backs of the occupation forces of La Republique du Cameroun beyond the Mungo and Matazen.

Adieu Comrade Justice Frederick A. Ebong (rtd)

For,and on behalf of AMBAZONIA LEADERSHIP IN DETENTION

SISIKU JULIUS AYUKTABE

PRESIDENT

Widespread killings, burning villages, French Cameroun army soldier rapes and looming starvation have become normal in Southern Cameroons-Ambazonia.  This is what the African Union, the EU and the United Nations have turned a blind eye after several trips by their respective agents to Southern Cameroons.

Ever since the 86 year old French Cameroun dictator Paul Biya declared war against the people of Southern Cameroons, as many as 3,000 people have been killed. More than half a million Ambazonians have been forced to flee their homes. Approximately 2.3 million people are currently at risk of going hungry, and 80 percent of schools in Southern Cameroons have been closed due to the fighting.

The Biya Francophone regime is applying guerilla tactics using fake armed groups in executing the war. So what is the conflict actually about? Who is fighting whom, and why? And does any world power have any realistic way of stopping the carnage going on in Southern Cameroons?

Bloodshed is nothing new for Southern Cameroons.  For 57 years, a brutal marginalization policy raged in Anglophone Cameroon orchestrated by the Francophone dominated government in the predominantly French speaking Central African country.

Finally, some three years ago, protest by teachers and lawyers culminated into an armed conflict that has rocked the entire Southern Cameroons. The fighting in Southern Cameroons has become more intractable due to political tensions in Yaoundé over who to succeed President Biya.

To be sure, only the United States has been particularly active in finding a peace process. Southern Cameroons Diaspora groups in the US and Europe have also been championing the Ambazonia cause, seeing the Southern Cameroons struggle against the Biya Francophone Beti Ewondo government as a fundamental struggle against the French Cameroun oppression of Southern Cameroonians.

The French government of President Macron with the support of French speaking African diplomats has blocked any action for a referendum on whether Cameroon should be split in two, with Southern Cameroons becoming a separate country. The French government understanding is that any vote will pass overwhelmingly.

The leader of the Southern Cameroons Interim Government, President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe noted in a public address to the people of Ambazonia that all who cherish the rights of all people to govern themselves in liberty and law should and must rally behind the Federal Republic of Ambazonia and its institutions.

The final push for Ambazonia independence has been hampered by tensions among the more than 10 different groups. Some corrupt leaders such as Dr Samuel Ikome Sako, Chris Anu and Elvis Kometa including Dr Akwanga Ebenezar and Cho Ayaba have blatantly refused to overlook or ignore or downplay lesser conflicts in order to achieve what has been seen as a far more important goal: independence from La Republique du Cameroun.

The underlying tensions as fabricated by the North West/South West Divide have never actually gone away. And once the bigger fight for independence actually started three years ago, and it came time to actually get down to the business of fighting for a brand new country-the Federal Republic of Ambazonia the Anglophone Divide has come bubbling right back again. The liberation curse took hold when some Ambazonians like Boh Herbert felt entitled to power.

The Ambazonia president Sisiku Ayuk Tabe proclaimed the independence of Southern Cameroons and called for tolerance, unity and love for one another not parochialism and conflict. By appointing Dabney Yerima to the second-highest political office in the Southern Cameroons Interim Government, President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe has essentially built a unity government in which all rival groups are now willing to participate in the struggle.

Also, in the middle of the entire crisis in Southern Cameroons, President Paul Biya decided to basically pick a fight with yet another political group, the Bamilekes by arresting Prof Maurice Kamto, the man widely believed to have won the presidential elections in French Cameroun.  There have been attacks by Cameroon government troops on Bamilekes, and some are now taking up arms and promising vengeance on the Beti Ewondo crime syndicate in Yaoundé.

Southern Cameroonians now have a new element of hatred and conflict, adding to what had been going on during the AAC1 and AACII.  And that has added to the worry from the Trump administration and the US State Department who fear seeing the entire Ambazonia descending into a hotbed of ethnic genocidal acts on all sides. The violence probably won’t stop anytime soon.

The United States recently pushed for a UN Security Council briefing on Cameroon to try to limit the atrocities being committed by French Cameroun army soldiers.  However, the US has not been able to get enough support at the UN Security Council to make peace happen.

The problem is that each of the countries in the CEMAC region including mighty Nigeria — have their own vested interests in the crisis and by extrapolation, the Gulf of Guinea and they can’t seem to agree on what to do to stop the fighting in Ambazonia. Correspondingly,  in the African Union diplomats are divided.

This massive escalation in fighting in Southern Cameroons is also happening at the worst possible time, as it comes right at the end of Biya’s presidency.   Every day that goes by is another day in which the people of Ambazonia will see their brand-new country torn apart by truly horrific violence.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe and his top aides have been notified with a decision of the President of the Court of Appeal in the Centre Region of French Cameroun dismissing the NERA 10 Recusal against Magistrate Lt Colonel Misse Njone Jacques Baudouin. Interestingly, the French Cameroun court also ordered the Southern Cameroons leaders to pay Colonel Misse Njone a symbolic franc as damages for Moral Prejudice suffered.

Cameroon Intelligence Report chief political correspondent covering the trial noted that when the Ambazonian leaders filed this Recusal which is a very serious application challenging a Magistrate for being bias, they had a very serious problem notifying the concerned Respondent by Bailiff because all the Bailiffs contacted declined service for security reasons. Our intelligence services in Yaoundé hinted that all French Cameroun Bailiffs have been threatened with either detention or being messed up by undercover security operatives. Some were economically victimized by Magistrates refusing to endorse their bills for payment.

As if this was not enough impediment to justice and fundamental right to fair hearing protected by both international legal instruments like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and even the Preamble of the French Cameroun Constitution as read with Article 65; … The Applicants/Petitioners were never notified with the Statement of Defense of the Respondent Magistrate nor even given opportunity to attend court or given a hearing as would be the practice in any regular or normal Anglo-Saxon judicial system. The Petitioners were only notified with a decision or judgment of the Court of Appeals which in Cameroun sits in first and last resort in matters of Recusals. This should be the more reason why the court ought to have notified the Petitioners with the statement of Defense of the Respondent so that they may have opportunity to bring further evidence arguments to backup their allegations against the Magistrate.

“Nowhere in the world is known to us where someone brings an action to court of this magnitude or importance and it is heard without him seeing the defense challenging his allegations” an adviser to the Ambazonia Vice President Dabney Yerima noted.  “One would expect pleadings and further pleadings to be exchanged and oral arguments of the parties taken before the court decides … especially in a situation like this one where the court sits in first and last resort meaning that there is no appeal against its decisions” the Yerima aide further pointed out.

This tells the story of the nature of the judiciary in French Cameroun and justifies why Ambazonians think they must go back home, restore their autonomy and enforce the truly adversarial judicial system Southern Cameroonians had known before the ill-fated & illegal unification of 1961.

Correspondingly, it was premature for any Ambazonian organization or grouping to go into any form of discussion or dialogue with any Swiss mediator without certain preliminary issues and conditions being settled. It is evidently clear that the so-called Swiss mediator is the mediator of the adversary.

It is shameful and disgraceful for Southern Cameroons groups to go for any form of negotiation while the war ensues and their people are still being killed, villages torched and many more arrested and incarcerated.

To be sure any talks whatsoever must be preceded by a Declaration of Ceasefire by the party who declared the war, release of all detainees Incarcerated as a result of the war and a demilitarization of the Ambazonia territory.

These are confidence building measures which ought to be agreed upon and the process of implementation of all decision clearly put in place with the Ambazonia Interim Government and with the consent of Vice President Dabney Yerima.

Given the severe breach of trust between the parties to the conflict, we of the Cameroon Concord News Group would have expected the so called Ambazonian negotiators in Switzerland to insist on the presence of a strong intermediary nation like the USA who has the capability to ensure the implementation of all decisions brokered by the talks.

In the absence of the above, we of Cameroon Concord News Group see clearly that the Swiss are merely helping French Cameroun to use its numerical and political strength against Ambazonia thereby taking us back to where we began in 1961.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai