Headline News

Yaounde lashes US over ‘abuses’ in Southern Cameroons

24, May 2018

Yaounde lashes US over ‘abuses’ in Southern Cameroons 0

Cameroon’s government has blasted the United States for accusing its forces of abuses, including “targeted killings,” in an English-speaking region of the country wracked by a separatist insurgency.

In a statement received by AFP on Thursday, the foreign ministry said it had expressed its “deep disapproval” of comments made by US ambassador in Yaounde, Peter Barlerin, last week.

His action “violates all diplomatic conventions as well as the rules of civility and law, both in style and substance,” it said.

Barlerin was summoned to the foreign ministry on Tuesday, four days after alleging government forces had carried out “targeted killings” and other abuses against militants demanding independence for two English-speaking regions.

“On the side of the government, there have been targeted killings, detentions without access to legal support, family, or the Red Cross, and burning and looting of villages,” the ambassador said in a statement.

“On the side of the separatists,” he also stressed, “there have been murders of gendarmes, kidnapping of government officials, and burning of schools”.

The statement followed warnings by rights watchdogs over abuses in the conflict. It was issued after Barlerin met Cameroon’s 85-year-old president, Paul Biya.

The foreign ministry statement said such allegations were “totally unfounded.”

“Despite almost daily harassment and heavy losses in terms of lives and equipment, (the security forces) have always kept in mind, with professionalism and rigour, the rules of engagment and international humanitarian law.”

Anglophones account for about a fifth of Cameroon’s population of 22 million.

Most of them live in the Northwest and Southwest regions that in colonial times were administered by Britain, joining francophone Cameroon after it gained independence from France in 1960.

Decades of resentment about perceived marginalisation in education, the judiciary and the economy escalated last year, culminating in the announcement on October 1 of a putative separate state called Ambazonia.

According to the International Crisis Group (ICG) think tank, “at least 120” civilians and “at least 43” security forces have been killed since the end of 2016.

The UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) says around 160,000 people have been internally displaced and 20,000 have sought refuge in neighbouring Nigeria as a result of the violence.

Source:AFP



Amnesty International says Nigeria’s military committed war crimes

24, May 2018

Amnesty International says Nigeria’s military committed war crimes 0

Nigeria’s security forces have been accused of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity during its fight against Islamist insurgency Boko Haram.

A new report released by Amnesty International on Thursday reveals how the crimes were perpetrated for years and have continued despite a presidential inquiry established last August.

In some cases, the abuse appears to be part of a pattern of persecution of anyone perceived to have a connection to Boko Haram.

According to Amnesty’s report, interviewees “said that when the military conducted operations in their villages, they burnt down homes and opened fire at remaining residents indiscriminately.”

“It is absolutely shocking that people who had already suffered so much under Boko Haram have been condemned to further horrendous abuse by the Nigerian military,” said Osai Ojigho, Director of Amnesty International Nigeria.

The human rights watchdog has accused Nigerian security forces of raping thousands of women and girls at the Internally Displaced Persons camps in the country.

“Instead of receiving protection from the authorities, women and girls have been forced to succumb to rape in order to avoid starvation or hunger,” added Ojigho.

Meanwhile, Nigeria’s Defence Headquarters has accused Amnesty International of planning to destabilize the country. The military had announced on Wednesday that it received credible intelligence report of a plan by the human rights body to release what it calls a false report.

“The Defence Headquarters therefore, urge all law abiding citizens to continue to trust and support the military in the ongoing war against Boko Haram and go about their normal lawful business,” read an extract from the military statement.

Nigeria has waged a nine-year war against Boko Haram. Over 2 million people have been displaced and thousands have been killed.

 

Source: Africa News


Trump cancels summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un

24, May 2018

Trump cancels summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un 0

US President Donald Trump has called off his planned summit meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

The unprecedented summit was scheduled to take place on June 12 in Singapore.

Trump made the announcement in a letter released by the White House on Thursday.

“I was very much looking forward to being there with you,” Trump said in the letter. “Sadly, based on the tremendous anger and open hostility displayed in your most recent statement, I feel it is inappropriate, at this time, to have this long-planned meeting.”

On Tuesday, Trump expressed doubts about the meeting taking place as scheduled when he hosted South Korean President Moon Jae-in at the White House.

Moon’s visit to the US was originally arranged as a meeting to fine-tune a joint strategy for dealing with North Korea but instead became more of a crisis session after Pyongyang last week threatened to scrap plans for the summit.

The summit’s cancellation is a major blow to what Trump supporters hoped would have been the biggest diplomatic achievement of his presidency.

The White House was caught off-guard when North Korea condemned the latest US-South Korean military drills, suspended North-South talks, and threatened to cancel the Trump-Kim summit.

Washington will “have to undertake careful deliberations about the fate of the planned North Korea-US summit in light of this provocative military” said the North’s official news agency KCNA on Tuesday.

The United States, which has substantial presence in South Korea, was on a war footing with the North over Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile programs. But relations have dramatically improved in the past four months and a half.

Pyongyang has also announced plans to dismantle its Punggye-ri nuclear test site by the end of May, prior to the North Korea-US summit meeting. It has also suspended its missile and nuclear programs but has not publicly committed to abandoning those programs.

 

Source: Presstv


Eto’o holds Lazio talks

24, May 2018

Eto’o holds Lazio talks 0

There are reports Konyaspor striker Samuel Eto’o is in negotiations with Lazio for a return to Serie A after today’s four-hour meeting.

The Cameroon international is now 37 years old and only joined Konyaspor in January with a contract that runs to June 2019.

However, according to the Corriere dello Sport and Rai Sport, Eto’o met with Lazio director Igli Tare for four hours in Rome today.

It would be a return to Italy for the man who won the Treble at Inter in 2010, then had a brief spell at Sampdoria in 2015.

He then moved to Turkey, first for Antalyaspor and now Konyaspor. Eto’o would effectively replace Luis Nani, who struggled to make any impact at Lazio this season.

Nani arrived on loan with option to buy from Valencia, but scored only three goals with four assists in 25 competitive games, most of them off the bench. See the latest Serie A predictions and betting tips with Eurotips.co.uk

 

Source: Football Italia


Francophones might hardly believe it, but it now seems the Southern Cameroons war will end with Ambazonians as victor

24, May 2018

Francophones might hardly believe it, but it now seems the Southern Cameroons war will end with Ambazonians as victor 0

While we’re all waiting for President Trump to start the process of ousting Biya, Cameroon Concord News Group have spotted that the Biya Southern Cameroons war map has substantially and bloodily changed.  The Ambazonia Self-Defense Council Restoration Forces have been steadily advancing on French Cameroun government positions in both the Northern and the Southern Zones.

Two years ago, our senior correspondent Kingsley Betek met with one of the Manyu Odeshi leader, who was commanding a few Southern Cameroons self-defense soldiers in a small suburb of Mamfe.  At the time, he showed Betek his map saying we will get to Buea in less than 5 years.

And then this year, Kingsley Betek met him again in Egbekaw and he said the Ambazonian fighters are going to enter Buea any time before the end of October 2018. Betek reminded him of the presence of Cameroon government forces in all the major towns and villages in Southern Cameroons. That should not bother you, he said. “In the early days of the resistance, we were using the ghost town operations and the Francophone army was executing our women and children. Now we are engaging them to fight in a guerrilla war. The French Cameroun army was trained to kill innocent civilians and protect Biya. Now they are fighting their first real war.”

Indeed they are. The Odeshi commander turned out to be almost dead on target. With the support of the powerful Lebialem Dragons, the Ambazonian Self-Defense Council Restoration Forces are heading towards Buea. Biya regime forces are abandoning the rural areas and what has always been unthinkable in Yaounde is now happening: The forces of the Interim Government of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia look to be winning the war.

The Americans already seem to have gotten the message and have appealed to President Biya to step down. The Americans are also playing up war crimes in Southern Cameroons and condemning Biya’s pointless attacks on Southern Cameroonian towns and villages.

And what about the French? Here is a European and world power which truly counted on Biya crushing Southern Cameroonians in less than a month.  No wonder French President Emmanuel Macron was instrumental in the arrest and extradition of the President of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia, Sisiku Ayuk Julius from Abuja to Yaounde. Following Ambassador Peter Barlerin’s  Biya declaration, the French government is  so agitated and emotional. The French now know that the Interim Government of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia is by extrapolation the United States in Southern Cameroons.

The repeated victories of the Ambazonian Self-Defense Council Restoration Forces mean that the Southern Cameroons resistance army is among the most battle-hardened in Sub Sahara Africa. Biya clearly never imagined that Southern Cameroonians might win, and that a more powerful Southern Cameroons army might also emerge from the rubble of Manyu, Lebialem, Belo and Muyenge.

The French still support Biya, but neither the US nor UK nor Germany nor Buhari of Nigeria has any interest in supporting Biya’s continued stay in power.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai


US ambassador’s comment: A rift within the army and the CPDM?

24, May 2018

US ambassador’s comment: A rift within the army and the CPDM? 0

The pronouncement of the US Ambassador, Henry Barlerin, after his meeting with President Biya of LRC has shaken the top leadership of Cameroon to the very roots of their being. In his declarations, the Ambassador clearly called out the regime on its use of excessive force in the killing of Ambazonians, the burning of villages, the creation of thousands of refugees as well as the need for Paul Biya to step down from power. Its diplomats and academics have been working overtime in a bid to save face and protect their hegemony, as the fallouts of the meeting have hit the global press in general and the Cameroonian populace in particular. Some of them have been very crass and expletive in their characterization of the Ambassador, as they condemn his statements. The real question is how much of their reaction can actually change the stance the Ambassador took? Are we seeing a change in global response to the plight of Ambaland?

The fact is that even some Ambazonians have criticized the Ambassador for not going far enough to term the actions of the LRC military as the genocide that it really is. However, a position has been taken by the Trump Administration and the question is whether LRC has a choice in following suit. Mbela Mbela, the Cameroonian Foreign Minister, has summoned Barlerin to talk about the message he delivered openly to the press, saying that by their very nature these messages are not meant to be publicized. He further argues that the sovereignty of Cameroon allows only Cameroonians to determine who leads their country. According to Mbela Mbela, Cameroon will handle its internal crisis in its own way and foreigners should not intervene. The totality of reactions from Cameroons leadership is one of complete anger towards Barlerin in particular and America in general. So how do these play out on the ground as the days unfold?

It serves no purpose here to mention the strangle hold of France over Biya himself, through the rigging of elections, nor does it help to talk about American as the global leader in diplomacy. So, within the context of diplomacy, Barlerin has pronounced the stance of the USA. That is a very important position. Note that the scope of diplomacy spans from total silence to all-out war. His statements could not but have been made with the benefit of full intelligence as to what has been happening on the ground as well as the educated position of the United States towards the unfolding crisis. The outbursts from the Cameroonian ruling classes cannot but be seen as the rantings of a hurt ego. If Cameroon really wants to show its anger in can call back its Ambassador to the United States. It can also ask the US Ambassador to leave Cameroon. Such a move is enough to convey the message. They can then sit back and wait for America to respond. So far they have not done so. While it is still early they still have the time to do so and even threaten any other action that they see fit. What exactly is in their arsenal to use as a threat to the most powerful country in the history of the human race?

Turning the tables, what can America do to enforce its pronouncement? A few days ago, Ambazonians were agog with the “donation” of two fighter planes by the same Ambassador, to Biya and his team.  A flurry of communication between Ambazonians in the US especially, followed and thereafter the meeting was held to congratulate Biya on the occasion of the National Day of 20th May…and look what came out. Ambazonian Americans have been complaining to their Senators here in the US about the flagrant violation of the terms of support to Boko Haram as Biya has turned the BIR against the people of Ambaland. One can safely say that for Biya, the tables are turning and his chickens are beginning to come home to roost.

So what can the Americans do you ask? In strict diplomatic terms, the piece of geography on which the US embassy sits in Yaoundé is actually America abroad. Even Paul Biya himself cannot walk into that land without the express permission of Washington. One can make the same claim about the Cameroonian Embassy in America and on the face of it one will be correct. However, it was President Reagan who marched into Panama, captured Noriega, the sitting president and brought him to be tried in the US. It was also Reagan who swooped into Tripoli and bombed the hell out of Gadhafi, killing his daughter and destroying the Libyan presidential palace. So while we can claim that diplomacy is diplomacy, we say in Bamenda that “njangi money na for table”. We have not even mentioned the fact that Trump is more of a “bad boy” than Reagan. So, the hoopla from Yaoundé is going to die down eventually, and they will come to their senses. Many of them have rightly quoted examples of how America went into Zaire and kicked Mobutu out, the case of Syria, Somalia, Sudan, etc. We can even add Iraq, Vietnam, and Afghanistan etc. Has that stopped the Americans? We can only wait and see. For us Ambazonians, the important question is, where does this leave our struggle?

The expletives coming out of Yaoundé are beginning to take the typical Zimbabwean tone under Robert Mugabe. Look what happened to him. While the ire against LRC may not directly translate to support for Ambazonia, it will help to make the case of the caliber of people we have been dealing with all these years. It is not a mere coincidence that within the past week or so, we have suddenly received a flurry of encouraging words from different nations – at least condemning the actions of LRC. A good number of them have mentioned the need for the International Court of Justice to take a look at their excesses.

We have also heard rumors about secret meetings in Senegal with the facilitation of Kofi Anan. We can comfortably say that the tides are turning in our favor. Even if some of these rumors are simply that – rumors – global sentiment has definitely taken a tangent. What do we say in Bamenda – “Cow whe e no get tail…”

By John Tuma

USA


Nigeria: Cholera outbreak kills 12

24, May 2018

Nigeria: Cholera outbreak kills 12 0

Twelve people have died of cholera in northeast Nigeria’s Adamawa state, the health commissioner said on Wednesday, in the latest outbreak of the disease in the region.

The outbreak has infected 142 people in Mubi district since Sunday, Ahmad Sajo told AFP.

“We have recorded 12 deaths from (a) cholera outbreak in Mubi north and Mubi south local government areas in the past four days,” he said.

“A total of 142 people were infected and medical teams have been dispatched to the affected communities to contain the rapid spread of the disease,” Sajo said.

He said the medical teams were yet to find out the cause of the outbreak.

Cholera is caused by a bacterium transmitted through contaminated food or drinking water. It causes acute diarrhoea, with children particularly at risk.

Water-borne diseases are a constant threat because of a lack of adequate sanitation as well as stagnant groundwater during the rainy season in Nigeria.

Last month 13 people were killed in a similar outbreak in nearby Yobe state, which the authorities blamed on contaminated water.

(Source: AFP)


Cameroon’s Civil War Intensifies, Casualties Mount

23, May 2018

Cameroon’s Civil War Intensifies, Casualties Mount 0

The war that Cameroon’s government declared on armed separatists fighting for the independence of the English-speaking regions from the bilingual English/Francophone country is leaving many casualties among both the military and the insurgents. Hundreds have died in the fighting that is now in its sixth month — and hundreds more are missing.

A military ambulance rushes to the Yaounde military hospital on Tuesday with four people wounded in a flare-up of fighting in the English-speaking southwestern towns of Bangem and Mamfe.

Among the medical staff on duty is Doctor Kaldadak Koufagued. He says they got word that a military helicopter was bringing three Cameroon army soldiers and a notorious suspected armed separatist who sustained fractures in a heavy gun battle.

He says all staff in the military hospital are mobilized to receive patients as soon as they receive signs of casualties from the war front. He says that in treating the wounded, they do not distinguish between Cameroon soldiers or armed separatists, but once treated, the military takes suspected terrorists and armed separatists into custody so they can face charges in the military tribunal.

Koufagued says three of the wounded Tuesday have gone into hypovolemic shock, a life-threatening condition that occurs when persons lose more than 20 percent of their blood. Another of the wounded fighters is suffering from psychological trauma.

There are about 60 wounded persons in the hospital. VOA is only authorized to interview soldiers who are now recovering. Sergeant Achilles Nomo Atouba says he woke up in the hospital two weeks ago after he lost consciousness when his military convoy was attacked.

He says the convoy was ambushed by armed separatists as it escorted government officials to the southwestern town of Akwaya. He says he does not know how he got to the hospital and remembers only there was heavy shooting.

Quartermaster Second-class Abaicho Abba has had parts of his legs amputated. He says he is sure the terrorists he was sent to infiltrate as an informant discovered his true identity.

He says he got three gunshots to his legs when he fought back after three heavily armed men on motorcycles attacked him. He says he was dispatched to serve as an informant for Cameroon military.

Aside from the hospital in Yaounde, 20 wounded persons are being treated at the military hospital in Cameroon’s economic capital, Douala. Others are receiving treatment at hospitals in towns considered safer in the English-speaking northwest and southwest regions. The government says only complicated cases are referred to specialized military hospitals.

FILE - Soldiers patrol in Bafut, in the northwest English-speaking region of Cameroon, Nov. 15, 2017.
FILE – Soldiers patrol in Bafut, in the northwest English-speaking region of Cameroon, Nov. 15, 2017.

Violence broke out in the English-speaking northwest and southwest in November 2016 when a strike by English-speaking lawyers and teachers against what they said was marginalization by Cameroon’s French-speaking majority degenerated into calls for secession. Suspected separatists torched schools and public buildings and the government responded with a crackdown. A year later, president Paul Biya declared war on the separatists, whom he labelled terrorists.

FILE - A still image taken from a video shot on Oct. 1, 2017, shows protesters waving Ambazonian flags as they move forward towards barricades and police amid tear gas in the English-speaking city of Bamenda, Cameroon.
FILE – A still image taken from a video shot on Oct. 1, 2017, shows protesters waving Ambazonian flags as they move forward towards barricades and police amid tear gas in the English-speaking city of Bamenda, Cameroon.

Julius Ayuk Tabe, president of the self-declared breakaway English-speaking state of Ambazonia that is made up of the Anglophone regions, was arrested in Nigeria with 47 collaborators in January and extradited to Cameroon. They have not been seen since then.

The armed separatists have vowed to continue fighting until they are released and are granted independence.

More than 70 villages have been torched and the United Nations reports hundreds of thousands have fled to the forests and towns in the French speaking-regions. At least 20,000 have crossed into Nigeria. Two hundred have died and hundreds are missing.

 

Culled from VOA


Southern Cameroons Crisis: Yaounde summons US ambassador over anti-government remarks

23, May 2018

Southern Cameroons Crisis: Yaounde summons US ambassador over anti-government remarks 0

Cameroonian authorities have summoned the United States’ ambassador to the Foreign Ministry to have him explain his earlier anti-government comments.

US Ambassador Peter Barlerin was called in to the Cameroonian Foreign Ministry on Wednesday.

Earlier, on May 18, Barlerin had accused government forces of the “targeted killing” of separatists in the autonomy-seeking English-speaking regions of the country.

“On the side of the government, there have been targeted killings, detentions without access to legal support, family, or the Red Cross, and burning and looting of villages,” he had alleged in a statement. He had also accused the separatists of “murders of gendarmes, kidnapping of government officials, and burning of schools.”

In related news on Tuesday, the United Nation’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said around 160,000 people had been internally displaced by the fighting between government forces and separatists in Cameroon. Some 20,000 have sought refuge in neighboring Nigeria, according to OCHA.

Soldiers of the 21st Motorized Infantry Brigade patrol in the streets of Buea, Southwest Region of Cameroon, April 26, 2018. (Photo by AFP)

 

In 2016, separatists from the Anglophone community in the country stepped up a campaign for greater autonomy.

The minority accounts for about a fifth of the country’s population of 22 million.

Cameroon’s President Paul Biya has rejected the Anglophones’ autonomy demands, prompting radicals to issue a full-blown but symbolic declaration of independence last October.

Armed clashes then ensued between government forces and the separatists.

Many Anglophones in the northwest and southwest regions of Cameroon complain of marginalization in education, the judiciary, and the economy.

Since the end of 2016, at least 120 civilians and at least 43 security forces have been killed in the fighting, according to the International Crisis Group (ICG) think tank.

 

Source: Presstv


War Without End: Why Cameroon Can Never Be One and Indivisible

23, May 2018

War Without End: Why Cameroon Can Never Be One and Indivisible 0

The United Nations, the EU and the African Union have demonstrated a kind of “fake restraint” in responding to the atrocities being committed by Cameroon army soldiers in Southern Cameroons.  Even the US Congress reportedly told the Interim Government of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia that the Southern Cameroons exiled government could only get a Congressional Subcommittee on African Affairs hearing.  But the Ambazonia Self-Defense Council Restoration Forces have been so efficient even without international support to a point where President Biya’s men are now predicting disaster if the 85 year old fails to dialogue with Sisiku Ayuk Tabe and the Interim Government.

There are strong suggestions that the French and the American governments are struggling to extricate the Francophone dominated military from a war that never should have happened. However, the end product now being sought for by the French which is the so-called “one and indivisible” Cameroon simply isn’t in the cards.

If keeping a nation together were just about the army and the Rapid Intervention Battalion, BIR then Biya’s approach of declaring a war against Southern Cameroonians may have worked.  But there’s a lot more to governance than appointing your kinsmen to key positions in government and in the command structure of the military and the Secret Service. For many Southern Cameroonians, French Cameroun political elites are extremely lacking in political and management finesse and those factors that could have kept Anglophones and Francophones together remain as unattainable today as they were under the late President Ahmadou Ahidjo.  The simple truth is that this war has revealed a lot of Francophone bad faith and contempt for Southern Cameroonians. Consequently, Cameroon can never be a one and indivisible nation again and thus any international maneuvers to shore up Biya’s faltering regime are likely to fail.  Here are some of the reasons why the concept of a one and indivisible Cameroon is not feasible.

Southern Cameroonians and the people of French Cameroun have never had a shared sense of nationhood.  The country was fashioned for Southern Cameroons to serve as a colony of French Cameroon and the pattern of administration by the French Cameroun political elites have never corresponded with the loyalties of the English speaking community. The territory was split and renamed South West with a native Bantu and Semi Bantu population and the North West harboring the Tikars. The so-called South Westerners were teleguided to think that they share a lot in common with the French speaking tribes in the Littoral region of French Cameroun while the North Westerners were pushed towards the Bamilekes who occupy present day West region in French Cameroun. Both the Ahidjo and Biya regimes instituted anarchy plus fanaticism with little or no nationalism.

French Cameroun’s history of oppression.  Given the United Republic of Cameroon’s lack of an organic identity, Francophone political leaders have frequently resorted to force to hold the country together.  Ahmadou Ahidjo, a Muslim leader with the support of the French government brutally repressed a UPC uprising immediately after the UN Secretary General Dag Hamarskjold declared French Cameroun independent using indiscriminate means that killed thousands of Bassa and Bamileke natives and Biya has now raised the level of French Cameroun violence used in suppressing uprisings to genocidal intensity. If the two Cameroons are to remain together, then the international community will spend years after Biya on quelling sectarian violence as the enmity between Southern Cameroonians and French Cameroonians is deep-rooted and probably beyond remedy.

Many actors are getting involved.  To the east, the Central African Republic is run by a group of political elites trained in Yaoundé and supported by the Beti-Ewondo Fang and Bulu security apparatus with international cover from France. This group has repeatedly resorted to terrorism and subversion as a way of getting hold of the diamond and gold reserves in that country. It is vital to point out that the UN presence in Bangui is all French whitewash. Those participating in the diamond trade in Central Africa have created a safe haven in the East region of Cameroon for armed militants known as Anti Balaka. The nation is also bordered by Nigeria to the west with a decisive presidential elections coming up in 2019, Chad to the northeast with growing opposition to President Idris Deby’s rule and Equatorial Guinea, Gabon and the Republic of the Congo to the south all having disturbing political issues to address. Furthermore, Cameroon’s coastline lies on the Bight of Biafra, part of the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean. So with many Southern Cameroonians now carrying guns, the one and indivisible Cameroon is likely to remain a sectarian war zone. Biya is corrupt, incompetent and a bit paranoid when it comes to Southern Cameroons matters and he’s the crux of what’s wrong in Cameroon.

Christianity is no more an all-embracing force in Cameroon.  Southern Cameroonians no longer trust French Cameroun Roman Catholic Bishops. The Cameroon Episcopal dog under the stewardship of Archbishop Samuel Kleda of the Douala Arch Diocese has refused to bark ever since the killings started in Southern Cameroons. Southern Cameroon’s once thriving Christian community has long since fled to Nigeria and some to the bushes. The ruling CPDM crime syndicate has successfully infiltrated the Roman Catholic and the Presbyterian Churches and it is hard to say whether key values such as the separation of church and state exist again in Cameroon.

Anglophones are two cubes of sugar.  One aspect of inequality that typically gets excluded from conventional assessments of Cameroon’s political culture is the inferior status of Anglophone political and administrative leaders.  If you have followed recent developments in French Cameroun, you may have noticed that the Francophone governors and Senior Divisional Officers do not respect Southern Cameroons traditional and religious leaders. While Francophones barons of the regime such Vice Prime Minister Amadou Ali, Justice Minister Laurent Esso, Bello Bouba Maigari, Issa Tchiroma Bakary and Fame Ndongo are always kept in government and in strategic positions of command, Southern Cameroonian political elites such as Achidi Achu, Dorothy Njeuma, Itoe Benjamin are regularly being dismissed from government for lame and ridiculous reasons and are most of the time appointed to head departments that are not of Francophone interest. Most French Cameroun political elites including Biya see the need for their kids to study in English schools and universities, but accepting that English should be equal to French is another matter as this will not go well with the French government.  Since both sides in Cameroon claims to adhere to different precepts, equality will be hard to sell and at the moment history seems to be pedaling furiously in the opposite direction.  Getting rid of Biya won’t change the basic character of French Cameroon political elites, and therefore won’t materially improve the prospects for maintaining a one and indivisible Cameroon.  The only way the French and French Cameroonians can fashion a government in Cameroon that even vaguely resembles a government of national unity is to have a Southern Cameroonian as head of state.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai


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