Headline News

28, May 2018

School heads kidnapped in Southern Cameroons ⁰

The latest round of abduction by alleged separatists in Cameroon’s restive Anglophone region has claimed two school heads in the Southwest region.

The two were reportedly abducted late last week in the capital of the region, Buea. Sources gave their identities as Georgina Enanga Sanga, headmaster of the public high school (GHS) Bolifamba Mile 16-Buea and Eric Ngoumba, head of the Cameroon Baptist Academy Yoke-Muyuka.

According to witnesses quoted by local media, the two officials were in a public transport that was intercepted by four armed assailants. The attackers are said to have fished out Georgiana and Eric despite incessant pleas from other passengers.

State security forces deployed in the area are said to have arrived late thus the inability to track the armed men. The authorities have, however, reassured students and parents about the smooth running of the end-of-year exams.

Most security watchers following the crisis have stressed that it bears the modus operandi of separatists operating under the so-called Ambazonia Republic.

The crisis which started in November 2016 in Cameroons English-speaking areas was in protest against marginalization and demand for more participation in French-dominated Central government.

The separatists have since October 2017 mounted guerilla style attacks that have killed about 45 security forces – police, soldiers and gendarmes. It is estimated that more than 600 civilians have already died as a result of the Anglophone crisis, according to NGOs.

In addition, some 160,000 people have fled their homes as a result of the violence, according to the UN. Thousands of these people are currently seeking asylum in neighbouring Nigeria.
Source: Africa News

28, May 2018

Cameroonian legend Samuel Eto’o not ready to retire ⁰

African legend Samuel Eto’o says he is not yet ready to call time on his illustrious career, but concedes that he does not miss playing in the UEFA Champions League.

It is rare for attacking players to continue playing beyond their 35th birthday, but Eto’o has defied the odds as he continues to strut his stuff on the pitch at the age of 37.

Currently on the books of Turkish Super Lig club Konyaspor, the former Cameroon international has recently been linked with a possible return to Italy, where he reportedly met with Lazio last week.

Without touching on the transfer speculation though, the former Barcelona star has stressed his desire to continue playing at the highest level.

“What drives me is that I am still fit, and my vision is still the same as when I started. I’ve enjoyed myself on the pitch so I just want to keep going,” said Eto’o at the Castle Africa 5’s finals in Lusaka, Zambia over the weekend.

While his desire for competitive football remains, Eto’o has admitted his appetite for arguably the biggest continental club competition in the world has long diminished.

“No,” he responded hastily when asked if he misses the Champions League, before laughing the question off. Asked for his reasons, he simply responded, “Because I’ve won it four times (Ed: three) and this is enough for me.”

Eto’o has won the continental club crown on three occasions – twice with Barca in 2008/09 and 2010/11, before bagging another with Inter Milan in 2011/12.

Source: Kickoff.com

28, May 2018

Cameroonian children with sickle-cell disease face death ⁰

Sitting on a stool outside her wood-plank house in Cameroon, indifferent to the light rain falling, Diane described how she killed her five-year-old “sorcerer” son.

They boy had suffered from episodes of severe pain his whole life, and was weak and thin, she said. As is the custom in the Central African country, she and his father consulted traditional healers known as marabouts about what to do.

“Madam, your child is a sorcerer,” they said. “He came into the world to torture you. He will die one day,” recalled Diane, who asked not to be identified by her real name. The marabouts told her it was useless to seek medical help.

So on a Thursday morning in February last year, at the rooster’s crow, she suffocated her son with an old pillow.

“I kept the pressure on like in movies and he died,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation, with no sign of remorse.

“I killed my child because he was going to die anyway. Before, he was suffering greatly. Now he is at peace.”

What the boy really suffered from was sickle-cell disease, a genetic condition that causes abnormally shaped red blood cells and a variety of complications. It can be treated but not cured.

Diane had learned that she and her partner carried the disease trait during a hospital visit with their first child, who died. But she believed the marabouts over the doctors.

“They told us we couldn’t have more children because we would give them the disease. It was false. The marabouts showed us that sickle-cell children came into the world to torture us and spend all our money,” said the frail 32-year-old.

It took seven months for Diane to agree to tell her story, on the condition that her real name and location not be revealed.

Of the 19 people with sickle-cell disease the Thomson Reuters Foundation interviewed for this story, 16 said they were called “sorcerers” and “devils” as children, abandoned by their fathers and subjected to “demystification” rituals that could have killed them.

Eleven mothers said they believed their children were sorcerers.

“In Cameroon, sickle-cell disease is synonymous with discrimination, the disease of shame, something mystical,” said Fernand Tekoua, president of the national association of people with sickle-cell disease.

“It is ingrained in habits and in society. Even the family thinks you are worthless and just waiting for your day to die,” he said.

LIVING DEAD

Sickle-cell disease is most common in Africa, and affects up to two percent of the population in tropical countries such as Cameroon, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

The main symptoms are pain attacks which can last up to a week, a susceptibility to infections, and anemia, which causes weakness and fatigue. Most children with the most severe form die before the age of five, according to WHO.

Like Diane, other parents interviewed described their children as having been constantly sick since birth.

“Sickle-cell crises are frequent and a week of hospitalization can cost over 200,000 CFA francs ($350). The majority of families don’t even have money to eat,” said Tekoua of the national association.

“The child with sickle-cell disease is thus seen as the one that ruins the family.”

Although there is no evidence that children with sickle-cell disease are regularly murdered in Cameroon, interviews with doctors, patients, and parents suggested that it is possible, and that others die of intentional neglect.

“He’s a monster, he deserves to die,” said one mother in the capital Yaounde of her nine-year-old son. When she found out he had sickle-cell disease two years ago, her partner abandoned her and she never took the boy to the hospital again.

“I wouldn’t shed a tear at the death of this child that separated me from my husband,” she said.

Several people with the disease said their parents would tell them: “Why did I bring you into the world? You shouldn’t be alive. Die and leave us in peace.”

They were referred to as “living dead”, “revenants”, “disciples of the devil” and “guardians of hell”, they said.

Hans Edgar, 24, who is living with the disease, said that his father walked out on the family after refusing to spend a penny on his “sorcerer son”.

His mother then took him to a marabout, who one day put him on a grate over burning coals to rid his body of the bad spirit.

“I was little and I jumped with all the force of desperation to save my skin,” he said. “He wanted to grill me like a chicken.”

PREVENTION

Cameroon’s health ministry estimates that sickle-cell disease is responsible for 16 percent of all deaths of children under five, said Etoundi Mballa, head of the division for diseases and epidemics.

“This is a lot. It’s a really worrying problem,” he said.

In 2014, the first treatment center devoted to the disease was opened in a hospital in Cameroon’s second city Douala. But unlike HIV, tuberculosis and malaria programs, it is not subsidized by the government.

Mballa said the health ministry’s plan for fighting the disease included awareness-raising, free vaccines for certain infections and free iron tablets and antibiotics.

The ministry also recommends that young adults get tested for the trait before marrying and having children, he said.

But people living with the disease said much more must be done to spread correct information and make treatment affordable.

In Douala, those who have survived into adolescence and adulthood meet twice a week to console one another, discuss the future, and share concerns and advice.

To end the disease, they think the government should make blood tests free and mandatory.

“If my parents had done this test, I would not be going around today with this disease that destroyed my life,” said Allan, a 17-year-old student.

“We must give all Cameroonians a chance to save the next generation of children.”

Source: Reuters

28, May 2018

Biya’s election office head under fire from staff ⁰

Cameroon’s election commission on Friday called for the sacking of its own director, accusing him of “opaque and calamitous management” ahead of this year’s presidential and parliamentary votes, in an internal note seen by AFP.

The election commission Elecam said it had withdrawn support for its head, Abdoulaye Babale, and that he should be removed from his position by presidential decree.

In a letter to President Paul Biya last week, Elecam employees accused Babale of embezzling 2.76 billion CFA francs ($4.9 million) from the electoral body.

In Friday’s missive, Elecam accuses the commission chief of “opaque and calamitous management of human resources, materials and finances” as well as frequent absences, adding that his behaviour was affecting staff morale ahead of the elections due to take place before the end of the year.

The European Union and other international partners are helping to finance the polls. Last year graft watchdog Transparency International placed Cameroon 153rd out of 180 countries on its corruption index.

28, May 2018

Menka-Pinyin Massacre: Barrister Agbor Balla declines to say whether Biya regime killed Ambazonians ⁰

More than two dozen people have been killed in one of Cameroon’s Anglophone regions, local sources said on Saturday, although the exact circumstances of their deaths were not immediately clear.

The incident in the town of Menka in Cameroon’s Northwest Region is one of the deadliest since armed secessionists from the English-speaking minority launched an insurrection last year against the predominantly Francophone central government.

Agbor Balla Nkongho, a local human rights lawyer and activist, told Reuters that at least 34 bodies were found on Friday in Menka. He declined to say who had killed them.

Another local source who visited Menka on Saturday and asked not to be named said she saw a total of 29 bodies, including three outside a school, riddled with gunshot wounds. Some were women and others boys as young as 13, she said.

The bodies “are rotting already and reek,” she said.

Army spokesperson confirms battle with separatists

Army spokesman Colonel Didier Badjeck said in a statement to local media that government troops surrounded a hotel in Menka on Friday morning after they were tipped off to the presence of separatist rebels.

A long firefight ensued and “several terrorists were neutralised”, Badjeck said, without providing further details.

A representative for the separatists did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Armed conflict erupted last year in Cameroon’s Anglophone Northwest and Southwest Regions after the government violently repressed peaceful protests that begun in 2016 against perceived marginalisation of English speakers.

Behind Cameroon’s linguistic divide

Cameroon’s linguistic divide harks back to the end of World War One, when the League of Nations divided the former German colony of Kamerun between the allied French and British victors.

Dozens of people have been killed since late last year – including more than 20 soldiers and police ambushed by the separatists – and tens of thousands of refugees have fled to neighbouring Nigeria.

The United States and rights groups have accused the Yaounde government of burning down villages and carrying out targeted killings in the Anglophone regions, charges the government has angrily denied.

The latest violence comes just months ahead of an election in which President Paul Biya, who has ruled the Central African oil producer for the last 35 years, is expected to stand for a fresh term.

REUTERS

28, May 2018

Italy in turmoil as president vetoes anti-EU minister, PM stops bid to form govt. ⁰

Italy has plunged into political uncertainty after the president refused to endorse the eurosceptic pick for the post of finance minister, prompting the premier-designate to drop the mandate to form a government and pushing the country to the verge of fresh elections.

President Sergio Mattarella refused on Sunday to accept the nomination for finance minister of Paolo Savona, who had formerly said that the country’s entry into the European Union’s single currency, euro, was a “historic mistake.”

This prompted prime minister-designate Giuseppe Conte to give up his mandate to form a government, said an official from the presidential palace following talks between Mattarella and Conte.

“The uncertainty over our position has alarmed investors and savers both in Italy and abroad,” the president said in a televised speech. “Membership of the euro is a fundamental choice. If we want to discuss it, then we should do so in a serious fashion.”

Under the country’s law, the president is authorized to reject the appointment of a cabinet member.

Mattarella said he will appoint a technocratic, or non-political, prime minister. His office later said the president has invited Carlo Cottarelli, a former senior director at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), for talks on Monday.

Italian President Sergio Mattarella speaks to media at the Quirinal Palace in Rome, May 27, 2018. (Photo by Reuters)

Cottarelli, 64, is widely known at home as “Mr. Scissors” for making cuts to public spending. To become prime minister, he is required to gain the approval of parliament with Five Star and the League holding a majority in both houses.

Italy – a founding member of the European Union — has been without a government since elections on 4 March and is now expected to go to the polls again later this year.

Two populist parties— far-right League and anti-establishment 5-Star Movement – which were trying for form a coalition government, responded with fury to the president’s veto of their choice and accused him of abusing his constitutional powers.

The two parties also slammed the president’s decision as “meddling” by Germany, ratings agencies and financial lobbies.

Some lawmakers within the coalition have even called on the parliament to impeach Mattarella.

League chief Matteo Salvini also threatened mass protests unless early elections were called.

Supporters of Italy’s Five Star Movement (M5S) party wait for their leader Luigi Di Maio to arrive at a meeting in Acerra on March 6, 2018. (Photo by AFP)

“In a democracy, if we are still in democracy, there’s only one thing to do, let the Italians have their say,” Salvini said.

He also wrote in a Facebook post that “it won’t be an election, it will be a referendum between Italy and those on the outside who want us to be a servile, enslaved nation on our knees.”

Under article 90 of the Constitution, the parliament can demand that the president step down based on a simple majority vote.

If that majority is secured, the constitutional court should then make the final decision on whether to impeach the president.

If it manages to form a government, the coalition would be the first eurosceptic alliance to head a founding member state in EU history.

Five Star Movement and the League have vowed to battle the European Union over its financial and immigration policies. The two have formerly been open to the possibility of Italy holding a referendum on euro.

According to recent polls, the League, which won 17 percent of the vote in March, would surge in any early ballot, while support for 5-Star remained strong on around 35 percent.

Center-left and center-right parties, however, are said to be losing further ground in the face of high unemployment, the sluggish economy and rising poverty.

The center-right Forza Italia Party and the center-left Democratic Party (PD) both censured calls for impeachment, with former PD leader Matteo Renzi saying his party would organize street demonstrations to defend the country’s institutions.

“Today, we need people to say ‘no’ to those who want to break us apart, who make excuses rather than assuming their responsibilities, who are playing on the anxieties of others,” Renzi wrote on Facebook.

The prospect of a eurosceptic government in Rome has concerned European Union leaders such as French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who are pushing for further political and economic integration.

Source: Presstv

28, May 2018

Julius Malema says eSwatini king should leave politics and focus on marrying ⁰

South African politician Julius Malema says the King Mswati of eSwatini (formerly Swaziland) should leave politicians in the country to thrive.

According to Malema, who leads the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), South Africa’s third-force party, Mswati could go ahead to marry as many women as possible but his inteferance in the freedoms of citizens was unacceptable.

Whiles speaking at an EFF event to mark the African Day 2018 in the city of Tshwane, Malema praised Mswati for opting to remove the colonial name Swaziland and to replace same with eSwatini.

… release the political prisoners in Swaziland. We want total freedom in Swaziland. We don’t want the king to interfere with the freedoms of the people of Swaziland.

“Here at home, eSwatini, King Mswati, please leave politics to politicians and continue marrying as you want to marry many women, it’s fine.

“It’s your own problem but release the political prisoners in Swaziland. We want total freedom in Swaziland. We don’t want the king to interfere with the freedoms of the people of Swaziland.

“So we are saying to the king, please allow the people of eSwatini – what a beautiful name. This monarch (dictator) of Swaziland, he thinks better than the ANC people, he has changed the colonial name Swaziland to eSwatini,” Malema said to applause.

The King who took over the reins over three decades ago has over a dozen wives. He usually picks a wive after the annual reed dance ceremony.

The change of name was made during the double celebration in the southern African country. The first landmark was his 50th birthday and the country’s 50 years of independence. eSwatini is known to be one of the world’s last remaining absolute monarchies.

Mswati III took over at the age 18, he rules by decree and has over the years been at the crossroad between ruling as a traditional monarch or modernising his kingdom through multi-party democracy.

Rights groups like Amnesty International, Freedom House, Human Rights Watch and Reporters Without Borders have accused him of policies that trample human rights and democracy.

Source: Africa News

28, May 2018

Southern Cameroons Crisis: Time is running out! ⁰

The situation in Cameroon’s two English-speaking regions has continued to deteriorate following the slaughtering of some 20 young men and women in Menka-Pinyin last Thursday following a violent attack by government forces that have been seeking to prove that they are actually rolling back the Southern Cameroonian fighters who have won hearts and minds in the entire Southern Cameroons.

Government action over the last 18 months has come under intense criticism both at home and abroad, as Yaounde authorities continue to behave like gangsters instead of disciplined officials who should, at any moment, seek to work out things through dialogue.

The Yaounde government, led by Paul Biya, has never taken time to investigate any killings. All it has always done is to resort to collective punishment wherein the houses of innocent civilians are razed, and innocent youths are gunned down point blank. The actions of the country’s armed forces have created more fighters over the last six months, as ordinary civilians – both boys and girls – now believe they have to defend themselves against a military that is using their tax money to murder the people they are supposed to protect.

Southern Cameroonians have been calling for international assistance. They now want the world to protect them against their supposed protectors. The government’s mass murdering tactics and collective punishment have drawn a lot of flak in recent times and even the Trump Administration has been disappointed by the methods the dictatorial government in Yaounde is using to restore order in the two restive English-speaking regions of the country.

Thursday’s murders came on the heels of a scathing criticism of the reckless Yaounde regime by the U.S. Ambassador, Peter Barlerin, who used his audience with the country’s president, Paul Biya, to call for an end to the senseless and targeted killings in the two English-speaking regions.

Mr. Barlerin also used the occasion to call on Mr. Biya to think of his legacy, a coded way of telling the Yaounde dictator not to run in the upcoming presidential election. It should be recalled that the Americans have a way of advising their erstwhile friends to quit power. Mr. Barlerin is simply walking in the steps of other American ambassadors who hold that governments must be accountable to their people.

In the early 90s, the American Ambassador to Zaire, Bill Richardson, had advised Mubutu to quit power and that if he did not act accordingly, he would be humiliated and this actually came to pass. A few months after that friendly advice, Zaire unravelled and the “Leopard of Zaire”, another name for Mr. Mubutu, was chased out of power by a ragtag military that had the support and blessing of Western countries.

The American ambassador’s advice has not been taken lightly and kindly by supporters of the beleaguered government. Government surrogates have been all over the country and on TV channels to belittle the ambassador whose advice should be taken seriously. Americans are not only friends when they give Cameroon their money and arms for them to fight Boko Haram. Good friends should also call their friends to reason and that is what Ambassador Barlerin is doing.

The pressure on the government and its supporters is mounting and it is clear that the Biya regime is running out of time and patience, especially as the deadline given by the Southern Cameroons Interim Government will be expiring in four days. The tough guy appearance that government official had at the beginning of the Southern Cameroons crisis seems to be melting. Government officials who caused the crisis to escalate are today staying away from the spotlight. Fame Ndongo, Laurent Esso and Issa Tchiroma are all keeping a very low profile as they know they are to blame for the gory genocide that is playing out in Southern Cameroons.

Amnesty International and the International Crisis Group have also been very vocal against the Yaounde government’s irresponsible actions. For the past six months, the government of Cameroon has been working hard to wipe off villages from its own map through a scorch-earth policy that many in the international community have frowned upon. Amnesty International and the International Crisis Group have all called the government’s action against Southern Cameroonians into questions. The world has been taken aback by the government’s commitment of such human rights abuses.

Kwakwa, Mbonge, Etoko and Kembong in the South West region have been rolled back into the 10^th Century by the government. Its plan was to intimidate the people into submission, but the strategy has so far been counter-productive. In Kwakwa, many old people were burnt alive by government forces as a move to punish the entire population for the killing of an army soldier by some unknown and unidentified gunmen.

Other villages have also experienced the government’s wrath and frustration with a rebellion it felt it could put out in one single military action. Mbonge, Bali and Batibo have all been victims of the Yaounde government’s malicious policy designed to stamp out any opposition.

Terrorism has become the buzzword in Cameroon and anybody who holds a view that is contrary to the government’s is considered a terrorist. This is a new tool it is using to stamp out opposition, but times have changed, and the people of Southern Cameroons are clearly resisting a government they believe is corrupt to the marrow and inefficient.

Last week, in trying to sway national and international opinion, the military on Friday rushed its spokesperson to deliver an unconvincing explanation for such acts of brutality by a military that has reduced itself to the level of a ragtag army. A flimsy explanation by the country’s military spokesperson, Colonel Didier Badjeck, has left many in the international community with the feeling that Mr. Biya and his government do not want a peaceful resolution of the conflict.

Colonel Didier Badjeck has, on many occasions, been caught lying and his explanation has been ripped apart by experts who have demonstrated that the government has run out of options to check the revolution. Many pointed to the lack of evidence and the inconsistencies in Colonel Didier Badjeck’s explanations. The government is yet to show any arms the suspects had used or any evidence that they were plotting anything sinister. Killing innocent young men has been its modus operandi and this is eroding its credibility in the eyes of some members of the international community who are already questioning why the UN is not intervening to end the bloodbath.

As the blood continues to flow, it is alleged that recent massacres are being masterminded by the country’s territorial administration minister, Paul Atanga Nji, himself a Southern Cameroonian, who wants to prove to his Yaounde masters that he is up to the task. This week has actually been a bloody one. It is like the hunting season has been opened and the blood has been flowing like a stream.

Both parties have been mourning. On Sunday, May 27, 2018, the government shipped 67 military corpses to many towns in the country. The 67 corpses are those of servicemen brought down by tough Southern Cameroonian fighters. The government has been reluctant to publicly acknowledge that its servicemen have been killed by the bullets of Southern Cameroonian fighters.

The government is gradually recognizing that keeping those deaths under wraps will not tell its story and pain in the most succinct manner. The intense global condemnation of the last week is gradually becoming a call for a change in strategy. In a bit to play the victim, the government is admitting that some servicemen had been killed in combat in the jungles and mountains of Southern Cameroons. But this new strategy could be counter-productive. The Francophone majority might start asking questions which could bring more trouble to the already beleaguered country.

Southern Cameroonian fighters seem to be making very bold statements that are making the government to be ill at ease. This may be why the government had to make a statement of intent on Thursday to tell the fighters that the government will match fire for fire. Many Southern Cameroonians hold that the Menka-Pinyin massacre is Mr. Atanga Nji’s handiwork. It is alleged that he planned and ordered government forces to use conventional explosives on innocent civilians. This has been decried by a senior Roman Catholic clergy who is concerned about the road the country has taken over the last two years. It should be mentioned that the Catholic church on Thursday, May 24, organized a protest march against the killing of innocent people in the country’s English-speaking regions.

Some members of the international community have also started talking albeit in private. According to a United Nations official who spoke to Cameroon Concord News Group on condition of anonymity, the Biya era is quietly coming to an end and actions by the government are simply making it hard for any reasonable person to have any respect for the 85-year-old Biya who erroneously thinks the country belongs to him.

“A country cannot belong to anybody. Mr. Biya is making the same mistakes Mr. Mubutu of Zaire made; mistakes that let to his destruction. Mr. Biya should be looking into the mirror of history in order to avoid such dumb mistakes. At 85, he should know that his days are numbered and it is in his interest to think about living Cameroon a better place than he met it,” he said.

“Mr. Biya should be listening to his conscience. He has lost credibility. Within international circles, many people have nothing but disrespect for him. He has failed and he is a disgrace to a country like Cameroon that has lots of intellectuals. He should understand that he has had more than his fair share of power even when he has never won any election. There is no way he is going to win this war. The actions of his military are simply fueling violence. Southern Cameroonians will surely resort to more kidnappings as a way of venting their anger. They will also be killing innocent soldiers and policemen who are even against the war. It is really unfortunate that many young soldiers are losing their lives for a man who is just a few meters away from his grave,” the international civil servant said.

But it is the order of the Southern Cameroons Interim Government that is keep many people awake, including the government which has no plan to protect French-speaking Cameroonians living in Southern Cameroons. The situation is critical and many people are living in fear. Some families have already moved leaving behind all their personal belongings and assets. So far, the government has not made any statement to reassure the population.

While Cameroon government officials are still trying to embezzle what ever little money is still in the government’s coffers, Southern Cameroonian fighters, for their part, are busy fine-tuning their strategies to root out all illegal aliens from the new republic. The fighters know that their actions will finally attract the attention of the international community that has been less enthusiastic about what is happening in the Central African country.

In a reaction to the Interim Government’s order, a young Red Dragon fighter who has been in the jungles of Lebialem for more than six months said that “Francophones have an interest to comply with what the Interim Government has said. We are running out of patience and will surely be staging a show that will shock the world once the deadline expires.”

He added that “Let nobody think this is an empty threat. We have seen our brothers and sisters being killed by government forces and we are ready to revenge. There will be a bloodbath after the expiry of the Interim Government’s order. We have faith in our Interim Government and we will do all what it takes to ensure that the laws of the land are respected. If the Yaounde government thinks this is a joke, then it has not yet understood that it has a huge crisis on its hands. We are prepared to die. We have been enslaved for decades and now is the time to liberate our land. We have never thought that independence will come easy. We know it is never delivered on a platter of gold. We are aware of what happened to Eritrea, South Sudan and even in faraway Timor Leste. We are well read. We are also university graduates, but the government’s decision to declare a war on us will turn out to be its greatest undoing. If the world is still on the sidelines, then it really wants to play spectator to a Rwanda-style genocide at the end of the month. We will be staging a massive show that will shock everybody. We never asked for this war. It was imposed on us and we will do all in our power to end the oppression that has been ours for decades.”

The situation is concerning. It is just a quarter of a century since the world witnessed a huge genocide in Rwanda and it had vowed not to let that happen again. But its indifference to what is playing out in Cameroon could lead to a repeat of what happened in Rwanda in the early 90s.

The government knows it has a huge crisis on its hands. It has seen many soldiers who have been killed by Southern Cameroonian fighters and it knows that even with the less sophisticated weapons used by Southern Cameroonians fighters, they are still capable of wreaking havoc.

While senior government officials are still trying to put on a brave face, many in the corridors of power are already very concerned. Southern Cameroonians have put up a good show beyond everybody’s wildest imagination and their determination is being admired by many French-speaking Cameroonians. But their recent move to chase French-speaking Cameroonians out of their land spells a huge disaster for the government.

For months, the government has been indifferent to calls for an inclusive dialogue. Ever since the crisis started, the country’s president, Paul Biya, also known as the owner of the country, has refused to listen to many respectable voices across the world. The Pope has had an opportunity to talk to Mr. Biya. Leaders of Western Countries have advised him to pursue dialogue as a sure means out of the impasse. The African Union has once offered to mediate.

But he has remained tone deaf to these calls and his refusal is costing many lives. He too is putting a brave face, but American pressure seems to be paying off. Behind the scenes, the pennies seem to be dropping. The government wants to talk, but it has not got an interlocutor. It had arrested and delegitimized federalists in 2017. In 2018, Southern Cameroonian leaders were kidnapped in Nigeria and brought to Yaounde where they are being held incommunicado. Those are the people the government should be talking to if it has developed the right mind that can bring peace to the country.

Time is running out. The situation is spiraling out of control. Mr. Biya is losing support even within his own party. The Southern Cameroons crisis is surely that explosive that will expose the fragile unity in the ruling party. The dissenting voices are increasing and the pressure on Mr. Biya is mounting. Some ruling party members hold that if Mr. Biya steps down, there could be a possibility for a negotiated settlement. Many ruling party members do not like the country to be split, but the manner in which Mr. Biya and his cohorts have handled the Southern Cameroons crisis leaves many of his supporters with no other option but to ask him to leave power.

There is still time for all the parties to head to the negotiating table. The government cannot continue to behave as if it is not affected by the crisis. Its economy has been hurt. Its credibility has been eroded. Many soldiers have been killed and many young and innocent Southern Cameroonians are losing their lives due to a crisis that could have been averted.

The government must play its role. It must work hard to foster dialogue and promote transparency in the management of state affairs. The current crisis is the outcome of many years of frustration on the part of Southern Cameroonians who have been marginalized for 56 years.

The issues may be challenging and thorny, but they could be addressed if the good will is there. Mr. Biya still has a little time to salvage whatever little credibility he has if he comes out boldly to announce an inclusive dialogue that will lead to a peaceful resolution of all the grievances that Southern Cameroonians have expressed. The ball is in the government’s court!

By Kingsley Betek

27, May 2018

Ireland overwhelmingly votes to end abortion ban ⁰

Ireland has voted overwhelmingly to end the abortion ban after a historic referendum, in yet another example of how the country is moving away from its traditional Catholic values.

Irish people voted 66.4 percent to 33.6 percent on Friday to repeal the Eight Amendment of the country’s Constitution, which has been in place since 1983, effectively banning abortion.

Abortion is currently allowed if a woman’s life is at risk, but not in cases of rape, incest or fatal foetal abnormality.

However, now the government in Dublin will be able to introduce abortion in Ireland’s health service up to 12 weeks into pregnancy.

“What we have seen today really is a culmination of a quiet revolution that’s been taking place in Ireland for the past 10 or 20 years,” Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said at a counting center in Dublin before the results of Friday’s vote were released, giving an early indication of the final outcome.

Prime Minister Leo Varadkar (Center) (Photo by AFP)

“This has been a great exercise in democracy,” Varadkar said, “and the people have spoken and the people have said: We want a modern constitution for a modern country, and that we trust women and that we respect them to make the right decisions and the right choices about their own health care.”

The outcome, which marks a dramatic defeat for the Catholic church’s one-time domination of the Republic, sparked harsh criticism.

“This is devastating for the Roman Catholic hierarchy,” said Gail McElroy, professor of politics at Trinity College Dublin. “It is the final nail in the coffin for them. They’re no longer the pillar of society, and their hopes of re-establishing themselves are gone.”

“Today is a sad day for Ireland and for people who believe in genuine human rights,” the deputy chairwoman of one of Ireland’s biggest anti-abortion groups, Cora Sherlock, said in a Twitter message. “The struggle to defend the most vulnerable has not ended today, it’s just changed.”

Access to abortion is restricted across the border in Northern Ireland, which is part of United Kingdom.

Source: Presstv

27, May 2018

Revealed: More than two dozen killed in Southern Cameroons’s Menka ⁰

More than two dozen people have been killed in one of Cameroon’s restive Anglophone regions, in what appears to have been an operation by government forces against alleged separatists.

One witness said anonymously on Saturday that she had seen 29 bodies — including those of women and young boys — in the town of Menka, in Cameroon’s Anglophone Northwest Region, where armed secessionists have been fighting against the predominantly Francophone central government since last year.

She said at least three bodies were lying outside a school.

The bodies “are rotting already and reek,” she said.

Another source told Reuters that 34 bodies had been discovered on Friday.

The exact circumstances of the deaths were unknown.

A spokesman for the Cameroonian army said in a statement that government forces had been tipped off to the presence of separatists in a hotel in Menka, had been deployed there, and had engaged in a long firefight with elements inside the hotel.

“Several terrorists were neutralized,” the spokesman, Colonel Didier Badjeck, said, without providing further details.

“The people in the village confirmed that there was an exchange of fire, and some bodies were found in the hotel rooms,” said Nji Tumasang, a member of the English-speaking opposition Social Democratic Front (SDF).

Tumasang said that John Fru Ndi, the SDF’s leader who led a delegation to Menka, said local “people do not think they (the deceased) were separatists, but rather criminals.”

Demands for independence by the English-speaking minority in the Anglophone Southwest and Northwest regions of Cameroon have been rejected by the country’s long-time leader, 85-year-old President Paul Biya.

Cameroonian police patrol along a street in the administrative quarter of Buea, some 60 km west of Douala, Cameroon, October 1, 2017. (Photo by AFP)

Separatists advocating for the secession of Southwest Region from the Republic of Cameroon declared the establishment of the self-proclaimed “Republic of Ambazonia” in October last year.

Cameroon’s Anglophones make up about a fifth of the country’s population of 22 million. Both English and French are official languages in Cameroon.

Source: Presstv