25, September 2018
Southern Cameroons Crisis: Writer urges Senators and MPs to play their roles 0
Southern Cameroonian writer and peace advocate, Dr. Joachim Arrey, has called on CPDM Anglophone senators and parliamentarians to use their influence to bring about an end to the carnage that is playing out in Southern Cameroons.
In a letter to the senators and parliamentarians, Dr. Arrey urged the people’s representatives to play their roles, adding that belonging to the ruling party did not imply that they could not discuss an issue facing their constituents.
See full letter below
Dear Sir/Madam,
I have been very reluctant to write to you, hoping that somewhere your consciences will kick in to remind you of your political responsibilities towards your constituents.
But for two years now, ever since the crisis started, none of you, not even old and experienced senators like Chief Victor Mukete and Achidi Achu whose time here on earth is almost over, have been able to express regrets for what is happening in the two English-speaking regions of Cameroon.
Many around the world have been wondering if the numerous lives, that are being cut short, right in front of you, do not bring any feelings of regrets. Like you, I am not for a secession, but this does not imply that you cannot use your influence to call the government to order. Are you that too hungry and blind not to see the destruction of human life that is taking place in your constituencies?
How do you then consider yourselves as representatives of this people who are being mowed down indiscriminately by government forces? Does it imply that politics has robbed you of human feelings just because you need to earn a salary?
How heartless can you be when your own grandchildren are being mowed down by army soldiers who have been sent on a special mission to kill young, able-bodied Cameroonians who are your constituents?
The country is currently in campaign mode as the date for presidential elections approaches. As usual, you are expected to go and campaign for your candidate in your constituencies. What messages will you be carrying to these people whose loved ones have been murdered and their houses burnt?
Are you going to tell them that their misfortune is an act of God and that they should accept it without question? I thought as the people’s representatives, you would intercede between them and the government. You are supposed to negotiate when there are conflicts. But for two years, you have been silent and your silence, in this case, has been interpreted as an endorsement of the killing that has left the people of Southern Cameroons in a permanent state of bereavement.
The senate and parliament are supposed to be the ultimate places where political issues are supposed to be debated with a view to seeking long-lasting solutions. While a few opposition members of parliament have sought to table this issue, you of the ruling party have been working hard to scuttle any effort aimed at seeking a peaceful and constitutional solution to an issue that has been around for decades and which is threatening our country’s territorial integrity.
How can you be comfortable in your mansions when your people are dying in their numbers? How can you be so silent when our young soldiers are being killed on a daily basis by angry fighters? Your silence is tantamount to complicity and history will be very harsh on you. You have accepted responsibilities you cannot handle and today you have exposed your constituents to the wolves.
I am writing as a concerned citizen and I accept any consequences that might come as a result of this letter. You have decided to be on the wrong side of history and you should be prepared to face the consequences. You have allowed our country to go down the drain. Your silence over this carnage is testimony to the fact that you were never really voted by this people whose only crime has been complaining about a system that is hurting them.
You had all the time to meet with your constituents when the crisis started in order to defuse the situation, but you decided to barricade yourselves in your ivory towers. You are supposed to be the medium through which the people’s complaints can reach the executive branch of government. But from every indication, you have sold your souls to the devil for miserable pieces of silver. You even celebrate when your own constituents are being gunned down. How inhuman could you be?
How many more people have to die for you to know that you have a role to play in this? In two years, we have lost some 4,000 Cameroonians, including young innocent soldiers who are simply following orders. Did we really have to go through this to keep Cameroon one and indivisible? What happened to the negotiating table that is believed to hold many solutions to any conflict? Why have you not pushed for the inclusive dialogue that the world has been calling for? Why have you failed to learn from the errors of other countries?
Though many lives have been lost, you can still make amends for your errors. The upcoming presidential election is a golden opportunity which you can seize to bring about peace in our troubled country. Your party’s presidential candidate is still seeking your votes. Why don’t you tell him that for those votes to come, the killing must stop? Can angry and grieving constituents actually give you their votes when the blood is still flowing? The answer is yours. You owe your people a duty. You are supposed to protect your people’s interest. Your failure to put their interest above yours will haunt you forever. Use this election to right some of your wrongs.
Yours Sincerely,
Dr. Joachim Arrey
About the Author: The author of this letter has served as a translator, technical writer, journalist and editor for several international organizations and corporations across the globe. He studied communication at the University of Leicester in the United Kingdom and technical writing in George Brown College, Toronto, Canada. He also studied translation at the Advanced School of translators and Interpreters (ASTI) in Buea, as well as Languages and Linguistics at the University of Calabar, Calabar, Nigeria. He holds a Ph.D.
Looking at this flyer attached to this report, one must wonder what French President Emmanuel Macron will do if by some strange happenstance, Biya is not the president of Cameroon after October 7. Must Biya’s picture be included in the flyer? Will Macron still chair this forum with Akere Muna or Joshua Osih as president? Probably, Macron knows Biya will be president because in Cameroon, you cannot organize elections and lose.
27, September 2018
Why video evidence should not be the only thing that forces the Biya regime to investigate human rights violations 0
On July 12, Amnesty International released a detailed analysis in response to the emergence on the internet of a video depicting the execution of two women and very young children by Cameroonian armed forces. One of the children was killed strapped to a woman’s back, each executed by the same deadly hail of bullets.
The horror depicted in the recordings hit the international headlines, and the government immediately replied, dismissing the video as “fake” and designed to “tarnish the image of Cameroon’s defense forces.” Eventually, the government promised to look into the video and reported later on having arrested seven soldiers in connection with the event.
Less than a month later, another video came to the attention of Amnesty researchers, this one depicting a “kamikaze” reprisal mission, as jokingly described in the recording by one of the soldiers. The video documents the movement of soldiers on foot and vehicles through a village. Midway through the recording, with structures burning in the background, we witness the execution of a dozen people, sitting and laying against an exterior wall.
Then too, Amnesty released a statement condemning the executions carried out by Cameroonian armed forces. This time, rather than immediately dismissing the newly emerged video as fake, the Minister of Communications said the government would open an investigation, though at the same time claiming the government was facing a “campaign of denigration.”
As human rights investigators increasingly handle video and photographic evidence in the course of their work, the methods used to authenticate the “who, what, where, and when” of these materials have become more and more sophisticated. This authentication work is crucial as it is not uncommon for video or other material to be “fake” — staged, manipulated, edited or — quite frequently — from somewhere else.
Sometimes, it is material misattributed from another place or time. Or it may be a piece of content may show something, but whether it is evidence of a human rights abuse is ambiguous. Like other types of evidence, video and photographic material whose origin or history is unclear is treated with the rightful skepticism by investigators, precisely because misinformation is increasingly manifesting in visual form.
How we authenticated
In the case of the two recent Cameroon videos, the “what” is undeniable — the unambiguous executions of unarmed men, women, and children.
As to who the perpetrators are in the videos. Amnesty International investigators visually identified uniforms, weapons, other equipment, and military ranks, and were all known to be associated with, or belong to, Cameroonian security forces. In one of the videos, identification of the Zastava M21, an automatic rifle that is rare in Africa but used by a small section of the Cameroonian army, was an important clue. Analysis of the audio dialogue — accents and local languages spoken — was consistent with visual findings, and there can be little doubt that in both videos, the Cameroonian security forces were direct participants in the crimes recorded.
As to when and where the videos were taken, it is more generally difficult to conclude either with certainty without some knowledge of the other. In the case of the most recently released video, investigators identified possible locations through verbal cues in the recording and review by local contacts. Importantly for corroboration, the person recording the video walked for some distance while filming. This allowed analysts to identify many visual cues in the video — road intersections, oddly shaped buildings, trees, among others — as well as their spatial relation to each other.
Analysts at Bellingcat — a collective of online investigators using open source and social media — also working to locate the video — identified a possible location: the village of Achigachia. To independently verify the location, Amnesty investigators took the visual cues taken from the video and plotted against satellite imagery of Achigachia to determine if there was a perfect overlap. There was, including at the exact coordinates in the village where at least 12 people were executed against a wall by a barrage of automatic gunfire. In a longer version of the same video, which surfaced later, the soldiers themselves named the village where the events occurred.
With the confirmation of where the executions took place, the question became whether we could narrow the time in which the crime occurred. With no references to the date, season, or even the year in the video or audio, investigators again relied on satellite imagery. Since the “kamikaze” mission documented in the video included the burning of buildings, an Amnesty satellite imagery expert scanned imagery archives of the town to determine whether burning was evident at those precise points. With luck, two images taken close in time to each other in January 2015 captured the town before fires, and after.
Thus, through careful and detailed analysis, we concluded that the second video was taken in Achigaya between 10 and 26 January 2015 and depicts extrajudicial executions at the hands of Cameroonian security forces.
Why the videos should not have mattered more than previous violations
In today’s media-saturated world, one of the most notable characteristics about these recordings — aside from the uniquely horrifying events they document — is when they were captured. These videos did not capture breaking events. They are both years old.
In response to the video of the execution of the women and children, the UN’s High Commissioner for Human Rights stated:
Indeed, they are not isolated cases, and in most respects, the videos do not reveal an unknown pattern. In September 2015 and again in July 2016, Amnesty issued extensive reports documenting widespread abuses by Cameroon’s security forces in the course of their fight against Boko Haram: arbitrary detention, torture, disappearances, and the killing of civilians.
Over the last 2 years, Amnesty has continued documenting abuses amounting to war crimes by the Cameroonian security forces operating in the Far North and elsewhere. Just as the crimes depicted in the videos are unambiguous, so too are the crimes documented by Amnesty and others over the intervening years since they were first recorded.
While it is not uncommon for additional evidence to emerge after a report publication, this instance is notable because of the attention received in news media, likely a result of the abject cruelty the videos depict. While the government has made initial statements at least paying lip-service to accountability, it should not come only in response to the emergence of video, 3 years after the fact.
While video evidence can be a powerful tool for human rights defenders, and digital connectivity is empowering ever-larger segments of humanity to document the struggles they face, there is a risk. Video documentation cannot become the minimum evidentiary standard that compels governments and authorities to act in the face of abuses by police or security forces.
The absence of a meaningful response by authorities to these horrific acts is part of a larger pattern of unwillingness or inability to hold the perpetrators to account in Cameroon’s fight against Boko Haram. Such an atmosphere of impunity causes the horrific acts witnessed on the videos and documented in extensive reporting. And it leads to equally horrific acts that are not captured in video and will never similarly capture the attention of news media and the broader public.
Scott Edwards is a Senior Crisis Adviser at Amnesty International based in Washington DC.