Headline News

14, December 2017

Yaounde closes border with Nigeria in the North ⁰

Cameroon has closed its border with Nigeria in the north, after a series of attacks by Boko Haram militants on Cameroonian ranchers. The closure is meant to protect the ranchers’ cattle, but it is hurting the ranchers’ business.

Hundreds of ranchers have brought their cattle and livestock to the Bogo market on Cameroon’s northern border with Nigeria. According to Cameroon’s government, this market is the supply point for most of the cattle sold across the border.

But cattle rancher and seller Ahminou Ngomna says he has not seen his Nigerian customers since September. Business usually booms with the approach of the Christmas and New Year feasts, but that is not the case now.

Only customers from Maroua in northern Cameroon have been buying from the market, and the amount they pay per cattle is not up to what Nigerian buyers pay, Ngomna said. The price per cow, which ranges from $500 to $1,000 depending on size and weight, has fallen to as little as $250.

FILE – A member of a civilian vigilante group carries a bow and arrow while running on patrol with the Cameroonian military in Kerawa, Cameroon, March 16, 2016. Kerawa is on the border with Nigeria and is subject to frequent Boko Haram attacks.

Hamidou Bouba, first deputy mayor of Bogo, says the prices started dropping when Cameroon’s government ordered the closure of parts of the border with Nigeria. The move was made because Boko Haram attacks on farmers and cattle ranchers, which had fallen since January, increased in September with armed men crossing the border for supplies.

“We are suffering very badly about this situation of Boko Haram,” Bouba said. “That is the reason why all the traders cannot go to Nigeria now. We changed their direction, moving their activities to Douala or Yaounde. That is the only solution. I think that we don’t have another solution.”

Bouba says the ranchers are encouraged to transport their cattle some 70 kilometers from the affected zones to the nearest market, because even buyers from the hinterlands of Cameroon are refusing to travel to Bogo.

Cattle ranchers and farmers comprise 80 percent of the population of the border areas. Cameroon reports that more than 100,000 have relocated due to the Boko Haram insurgency; others live in abject poverty.

Louis Paul Motaze, Cameroon’s economy minister, says the government will build new markets in safer areas.

“People here are suffering a lot not only because of the war with Boko Haram, but because of poverty,” Motaze. “This is why we would like to take into consideration another battle, and this battle is the battle for development.”

The Boko Haram insurgency, which began in northeast Nigeria eight years ago, has left at least 25,000 people dead and forced more than 2.6 million others to flee their homes, according to the United Nations.

Source: VOA

13, December 2017

Burundi’s president to extend rule until 2034 ⁰

Burundian President Pierre Nkurunziza has launched a campaign to promote a referendum to change the constitution that could extend his rule over the landlocked East African country until 2034.

Addressing a crowd of thousands of farmers in the central district of Gitega on Tuesday, Nkurunziza threatened those who sought to undermine the referendum slated for early 2018.

“We take this opportunity to warn those who want to sabotage this project, whether by speech or actions,” Nkurunziza said. “It will be a red line.”

“It’s the day you’ve been waiting for,” Nkurunziza said.

Nkurunziza’s administration adopted a plan in October to revise the constitution that, if passed by the referendum, would allow him to serve another two seven-year terms from 2020.

Opposition activists have already denounced the project they say will be the “funeral” of the country’s 2000 peace agreement. The deal ended a 13-year civil war in which more than 300,000 people were killed.

The start of the campaign comes a day after the government launched a fundraising drive for elections in 2020, presented as “voluntary.” The move, however, has been condemned by rights groups as “organized robbery.”

Burundi has faced deadly political turmoil since April 2015, when President Nkurunziza announced plans to seek a disputed third term that he ultimately won.

The violence claimed between 500 and 2,000 lives, according to differing tolls from the UN and civil society groups, while more than 400,000 Burundians have fled the country.

In September, a UN commission of inquiry report said crimes against humanity, including killings and sexual violence, were still being committed in Burundi and it asked the International Criminal Court (ICC) to open an investigation as soon as possible.

According to the report, alleged perpetrators include top officials in Burundi’s National Intelligence Services and police force, military officials and members of the youth league of the ruling party, known as Imbonerakure.

The ICC in November decided to launch an investigation into atrocities committed in Burundi, despite the country’s pullout from the international body last month.

Source: Presstv

13, December 2017

Nigerians displaced by Boko Haram get ID cards ⁰

Some 100,000 Nigerians made homeless by Boko Haram received formal identification papers on Wednesday, to help boost security and restore normality in the country’s restive northeast.

The United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHRC) began documenting personal details of the displaced at the Dalori camp, just outside the Borno state capital, Maiduguri.

Dangana Ibrahim, from the agency, told AFP: “We are capturing their data and issuing them with temporary ID pending the production of the ID card in the next week.”

At least 20,000 people have been killed and more than 2.6 million displaced in the eight-year conflict, which has destroyed livelihoods and triggered a humanitarian crisis.

About 1.8 million people live in camps or with relatives in the worst-affected states of Borno, Yobe and Adamawa. Others have fled to Niger, Chad and Cameroon.

According to the UNHCR, 99 percent of vulnerable IDP (internally displaced people) households in Borno state lack legal documentation.

Even before the insurgency began, levels of registration and documentation were low, and were compounded by lack of literacy. When fighting broke out, civilians were at risk.

Ibrahim said a female IDP had been shot as a soldier mistook her for a suicide bomber, as she could not produce any identification.

In May, UNHCR regional representative for West Africa, Liz Ahua, said more than 200,000 Nigerian refugees in Niger, Chad and Cameroon also lacked “adequate documentation”.

The photo, taken on September 10, 2017, shows Mark Lowcock, the UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and Emergency Relief Coordinator, center, saluting a woman at a UN camp for refugees and internally displaced persons (IDP) in NGagam, southeastern Niger, close to the Nigerian border. (Photo by AFP)

That made their “access to protection and rights” more difficult, she added. “The link between issues of statelessness, sustaining peace and security in the region cannot be separated as statelessness can lead to insecurity and instability.

“Stateless persons could easily be used as tools of destruction.” Borno state is being given priority for ID cards because it has been hardest hit by the insurgency but Ibrahim said there were plans to extend the scheme.

The UNHCR is working with Nigeria’s National Identity Card Management Commission, as well as village chiefs of displaced communities, he added.

(Source: AFP)

13, December 2017

ASSEMBLÉE NATIONALE: Secretary General Victor Ossomba dies aged 70 ⁰

The Secretary General of the National Assembly has died in the General Hospital in Yaoundé. News of his demise was made public early today Wednesday, December 13, 2017.

Victor Yene Ossomba, 70, from the Central Region, was a senior civil administrator who served as provincial governor in the Far-North region from 1998 to 2003.

Victor Yene Ossomba was Secretary General of the National Assembly since February 15, 2010. He had a fragile health for almost a year.

By Rita Akana

13, December 2017

Anglophone MPs: “Leave French Cameroun Now” ⁰

The National Assembly Blockade coupled with the singing of anti regime songs including the use of vuvuzelas by the SDF Members of Parliament did not produce any positive outcome. Instead it revealed to Southern Cameroonians and the world that the Republic of Cameroon is indeed a Francophone state. We of the Cameroon Concord News Group have come to the conclusion that events in Yaoundé have now reached the final days of decision and Anglophone MPs should go back to Buea and rally behind the Interim President of the Federal Republic of Amabazonia, His Excellency President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe.

For 56 years, Anglophones have pursued patient and honorable efforts to be part of a United Republic of Cameroon without war. Yaoundé publicly pledged to build a nation to accommodate the Anglo-Saxon and French systems that were laid down by the founding fathers.

Since then, successive Anglophone leaders have engaged in 56 years of tolerance with our Francophone brothers and sisters. Southern Cameroonians have accepted all kinds of funny political arrangements from United Republic to the Republic of Cameroun, from provinces to regions just for the sake of fatherland. West Cameroonians have accepted all types of French Cameroun appointees to run the day-to-today affairs of Southern Cameroonians. Our good faith has now been returned-the killings of hundreds of Southern Cameroonians by the Francophone dominated army and more than 40,000 Southern Cameroonians as refugees in Nigeria.

The Biya Francophone regime has used our good faith and love for country as a ploy to gain time and advance the marginalization and assimilation policies teleguided from Paris against the people of Southern Cameroons. The Francophone political elites have uniformly defied decisions that were reached in Foumban in 1961.

Over the years, Anglophone political elites have been subjected to gross humiliation and have often been threatened by Francophone officials with a sack each time they attempted raising a finger against marginalization. Genuine efforts to resolve the Anglophone problem have failed time without number because we are not dealing with decent men in French Cameroun.

The attitude of President Biya and his gang of Francophone political elites with unflinching support from Champs Elysee leave no doubt that the Yaoundé regime intends to continue with its policy of marginalization and North West/South West Divide.

Successive Francophone regimes in Cameroon have a history of reckless aggression in Southern Cameroons. Francophone political elites have a deep hatred of Southern Cameroonians and the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Yaoundé has always had a good understanding with Northern Cameroonians who voted to join Nigeria under Mallam Abba Habid in 1961 and it has only kept in power Anglophone political elites who have a hostile attitude towards Nigeria including Dr JN Foncha, ST Muna, ET Egbe, SN Tamfu, Chief VE Mukete and recently Peter Agbor Tabi, Chief Dr. Ndion Ngute and Elvis Ngolle Ngolle. This is also true with the border posts in both British Southern Cameroons and British Northern Cameroons. The border posts in Anglophone Cameroon with Nigeria historically have been headed by senior Francophone security bosses while border controls existed only on paper and sign posts in the Far North region bordering Nigeria until the emergence of Boko Haram.

Southern Cameroonians did nothing to deserve or invite this vicious and malicious treatment, but with the Interim Government headed by Sisiku Ayuk Tabe, they will do everything to defeat it. The business as usual attitude by Francophone MPs at the recent parliamentary session amid the SDF blockade is a warning to all Anglophones and a reminder to all West Cameroon political elites in East Cameroun that instead of drifting along toward tragedy, they should follow the course toward safety mapped out by the Interim Government of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia.

In the words of Sisiku Ayuk Tabe is time for our Anglophone MPs to go back to Buea before the day of horror comes and before it is too late to act. The Interim Government has the sovereign authority to use force in assuring the security of the territory. That duty falls to Sisiku Ayuk Tabe as the Interim Head of State who has publicly recognizes the threat to our homeland.

Sisiku Ayuk Tabe is trying to work with the United Nations to address the damage and killings currently going on in Southern Cameroons because he believes the terms of separation could be resolve peacefully. We of Cameroon Concord News are of the opinion that Sisiku Ayuk Tabe needs your support as MPs still militating in East Cameroun.

The Governing Council was founded after the Biya Francophone regime criminalized dialogue by arresting the then Chairman of the Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium, Dr. Felix Agbor Balla. It’s now time for Anglophone Cameroonians to unite and bring an end to this danger from French Cameroun political elites. Today, no Anglophone MP or cabinet minister can possibly claim that they are not aware of the genocide going in Southern Cameroons. The situation will not change so long as Mr. Biya is still in power.

Anger has however made many Southern Cameroonians to develop the resolve to act against this evil to peace in West Cameroon and the Interim Government has created a broad coalition which is gathering momentum to enforce the demands of Ambazonians. The French Cameroun political and military leaders have not lived up to their responsibilities, so Southern Cameroonians are rising to theirs.

A Cameroon Concord News Production

13, December 2017

Biya’s Continued Stay in Power: Yaounde to increase financial aid to private media organisations ⁰

The Minister of Communication and so-called government spokesman has defended the budget of his ministerial department which however recorded a relative decline from 4.74 to 4.39 billion FCFA.

Interestingly, Issa Tchiroma Bakary hinted the Francophone dominated National Assembly that public aid to private newspapers will increase from 400 to 600 million CFA francs in 2018. In 2016, the prize pool amounted to 250 million CFA francs distributed to pro CPDM tabloids.

Since last Saturday, the cabinet members of the Biya Francophone regime have visited alternately the Finance Committee to defend the budget of their respective ministerial departments for 2018 amid a massive opposition protest led by the Social Democratic Front.

Issa Tchiroma mainly focused on the rehabilitation of state radio and television, CRTV and the private press informing the elected representatives that the media will be “very important” in light of future events notably the presidential election and the organisation of the 2019 African Cup of Nations.

By Sama Ernest

13, December 2017

Democrat Jones wins Alabama vote after sex assault claims against Moore ⁰

Republican Roy Moore, an accused child molester running for the US Senate from the deeply conservative state of Alabama, has lost to his Democratic contender Doug Jones.

With 92 percent of precincts reporting, Jones secured 49.5 percent of the vote compared to Moore’s 48.8 percent, according to CNN and other news outlets.

The vote was the most high-stakes election of 2017 and the upset victory by Jones will trim the Republican Senate majority to just 51 seats in the 100-member chamber.

Jones, a former prosecutor, became the first Democrat to win a Senate seat in the state since 1992.

The result also delivered a personal blow to President Donald Trump, who has officially endorsed Moore amid the national debate about sexual misconduct.

However, the Jones win may provide some resemblance of relief to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and other Republicans, who turned against Moore following allegations that he pursued teenage girls decades ago.

Source: Presstv

13, December 2017

The Federal Republic of Ambazonia: The Way Forward ⁰

Many people have asked me as German with an Ambazonian heart: “Mr. Messner, where do you see the key to the success for an independent Ambazonia?” and I answered: “Well, it’s true that we seem divided and unarmed and much weaker than our occupier and annexor “Republique” du Cameroun, but since Mancho Bibixi started the coffin revolution and millions of Ambalanders marched and sang the Ambazonian anthem holding the own flag proudly, it is clear that we will win, because the clocks can never been turned back after that and Biya’s clock has run out.

He is making more and more mistakes on a sinking ship and we will be soon surfing on a global wave of support, because all arguments and legal facts speak for us and against an outdated, rotten corruption exploitation-system like France-afrique. The Europeans are understanding the fact that France-afrique is producing more and more refugees better and better and they will whistle France back and support Ambazonia, because Ambazonia has hundreds of millions of Africans behind it who can be promising business partners if they are self-governing well.

But both Europeans and Africans need to learn still what good self-governance and true federalism in it means. It does not mean what centralist governments in Paris or Yaoundé say: “We have decentralization.” No, the French model uses “decentralization” or “federalism” only as figleaf for a basically centralist, Unitarian type of politics. But true federalism means that sub-national entities like regions, districts, provinces are allowed to truly self-govern even in some existential fields like own taxation, own army, own trade laws, own politicians, which have to have their residence in that sub-national entity.

But since French Cameroun is not able and willing to run true federalism it is better and necessary for Ambazonia to be its own sovereign state and nation, which decides for itself, how much federalism it allows in itself. But in order to convince French Cameroun and the whole world that an independent Ambazonia will not lead to a permanent instability in Central Africa Ambazonia needs to just say that it plans to have a CONFEDERACY with French Cameroun later IF Biya has gone and French Cameroun has reformed its government and constitution.

Many now in Ambazonia will say: “No! We don’t want to have anything to do with French Cameroun anymore!” That is very understandable, but the point is: in a Confederacy Ambazonia does not need to have anything to do with French Cameroun other than not attacking it militarily and having mutual treaties of not attacking the other’s nationalities on the own turf. Ambazonia would have zero French Camerounese politicians or military on own territory and the other way round. In a CONfederacy Ambazonia would have own government, constitution, economy, military, federalism, and French Cameroun would have own government, constitution, economy, military, federalism. Ambazonia and “Sanagia” won’t federalize with each other, but just confederalize on military non-attack-treaty and by that put all powers in the world at ease that this Central African region will keep stability and not produce refugees.

So our tactics on international political stage should not be: “We want all (independence) or nothing!” but we rather say “CONfederacy after restoring our elevated autonomy.”, because this is the bait which France and UK can swallow, and then we can easily make an independence out of our recognized elevated autonomy. In all this we Ambazonians shall never negotiate from a weak position, but always say: “We will never accept illegal foreign troops on our territory or corporations stealing our resources. But if you foreigners don’t want to die all, you better agree with our goodwill offer of a CONfederacy after Biya has gone and French Cameroun has elected a new government as much as Ambazonia will also have elected its own government!” So the word “CONfederacy” is just the tactical, nice looking wrapping around the gift “Ambazonian solution to France-afrique’s crisis” to the French, British, AU and EU, which makes them think about dropping Biya, and whistle his troops out of Ambazonia. And maybe someday, when the Biya nightmare is long over and French Cameroun has reformed it’s Constitution and government and may have found a new, young, progressive, modern leader, he and the Ambazonian leader will work out a Confederacy between the two sovereign nations which will be the biggest peace- and prosperity-bringer for all sides as never imagined.

So don’t see the word. Confederacy negative right now but be against federalism between “Anglophones and Francophones” with all your might. Speak always about the “Ambazonian solution to the French Camerounese malgovernance problem”. And say: “Let the Anglophones federalize their way (by restoration of independence) and let the Francophones federalize their way (by reformation of their system). Only this will bring lasting peace in Cameroon.”

By Christoph Messner

12, December 2017

UNICEF says 400,000 children in Congo-Kinshasa could starve to death within months ⁰

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has warned that at least 400,000 children could starve to death in the conflict-wracked Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) within months without emergency intervention.

The UN agency raised the alarm in a statement published on Tuesday, warning that all these children, who are “under five,… are suffering from severe acute malnutrition and could die in 2018 if they are not urgently reached with life-saving health and nutrition interventions.”

The appalling crisis, which is the latest to hit the central African country, was deepening in the vast region of Kasai, the fund said, adding that an 18-month-long mixture of violence, mass displacement and faltering agricultural output were having a crushing impact on the very young.

“This nutrition crisis and food insecurity in the Kasai region follows the displacement of thousands of families who have been living for months in very harsh conditions,” said Tajudeen Oyewale, UNICEF’s acting representative in the DRC.

Back in 2016, fierce fighting erupted between local groups and government troops in the wake of the murder of a tribal chieftain who had rebelled against unpopular President Joseph Kabila’s regime in the capital Kinshasa. The bloody clashes led to the death of several thousand people and the displacement of around 1.4 million others, who fled their homes, leaving fields untended.

According to the UN reports, the catalogue of alleged violence included extrajudicial killings, rapes, torture and the employment of child soldiers, plus torching of villages and the systematic destruction of schools, public buildings and medical centers.

The UN agency further said in its statement that although security and stability had partially been restored in some parts of Kasai, the persisting lack of food still haunted the region right up until next June since the planting seasons for this year had been lost.

“Families have little harvest from their own land and nothing to sell at the markets,” it further said.

UNICEF, which has been intervening in the Kasai crisis since early this year, added that the volatile region’s health infrastructure had been destroyed.

“Approximately 220 health centers were destroyed, looted or damaged, leading to a weakening of the health delivery system, reduced access to healthcare and an increased risk in the spread of communicable diseases like measles,” the statement read.

In October, the UN refugee agency reported that some 3.9 million people had been displaced in the DRC due to the widespread violence, declaring that the crisis was a “level three” emergency, the highest on the scale.

On December 7, suspected members of the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) rebel group attacked the Company Operating Base, run by the MONUSCO (the UN Stabilization Mission in the DRC), at Semuliki in Beni territory, and engaged in a three-hour-long fierce gun battle with the peacekeepers at the base, killing at least 14 blue helmets and wounding more than 50 others, a number of them critically.

Most of the slain peacekeepers were from Tanzania while at least five of them were Congolese.

The African country had one of the most brutal colonial rules before undergoing decades of corrupt dictatorship and back-to-back civil wars that left the diamond-rich country poor and politically unstable.

In 2006, the UN mission helped carry out Congo’s first free and fair elections in 46 years, paving the way for President Kabila to be elected for a five-year term. Kabila, however, refused to step down after his second elected term officially expired on December 20, 2016, prompting deadly wave of violence across the African state.

Source: Presstv

12, December 2017

2 Southern Cameroonians arrested near Bombe-Bakundu ⁰

Two Southern Cameroonians were arrested on Monday near the Bombe-Bakundu weighing station, in possession of weapons of war and ammunition, Cameroon Concord News has learnt from security sources in Meme Division. The young men aged 22 years old were reportedly stopped by a patrol of security forces.

Family sources revealed the young men had gone for hunting with their dads and were returning home with den guns when they were picked up by security forces. However, according to the National Gendarmerie, the two young men confessed that they were preparing an attack on the Bombe-Bakundu gendarmerie station.

By Fru James