Three United States (U.S.) members of Congress – Ilhan Omar, Karen Bass and Sara Jacobs – have raised an alarm over alleged ongoing campaign of state-sponsored violence and rights violation by Cameroonian security forces in the country’s Anglophone region.

In an oversight letter to U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin, the three lawmakers were particularly concerned about whether U.S. security assistance to Cameroonian security agencies might have been used to commit “serious human rights abuses” in the East African country.

In the letter made available to The Nation by diplomatic sources, the lawmakers expressed concerns over U.S. support for the Cameroon’s Rapid Intervention Battalion (BIR) – some elements of which have been accused by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, among others, as having been directly implicated in atrocities in the Anglophone region.

The American lawmakers’ alarm is coming few hours after Community Parliament of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) also expressed concern over reported genocide in Southern Cameroon by President Paul Biya’s security forces.

Reacting to a document titled, “Genocide Alert in Ambazonia, Southern Cameroon”, from a group, “United Support for Peace”, Speaker of ECOWAS Parliament, Sidie Mohamed Tunis, said the letter made him deeply concerned about conflicts and the human rights situation in Cameroon’s minority Anglophone region.

But, the American lawmakers’ oversight letter reads: “As you are aware, the State Department has reprogrammed some security assistance since 2019, but our understanding is that other assistance – including to the BIR – continues.

“We also have serious questions about the efficacy of existing laws in preventing U.S. security assistance from reaching human rights violators. In 2020, the State Department Inspector General found that nearly 80% of Leahy vetting requests submitted by Embassy Yaoundé between late 2018 and late 2019 ‘were submitted to Washington too late to allow for sufficient processing time’ and that ‘as a result, Washington had an average of four days to process the requests, instead of the 10 working days stipulated in the Department’s 2017 Leahy Vetting Guide’.”

The lawmakers stated that they shared the President Joe Biden’s administration’s desire to put human rights at the centre of the country’s foreign policy. The lawmakers noted that they also recognised the need for a comprehensive, whole-of-government approach to combating transnational terrorist threats that includes a security component.

“Our concern in Cameroon and elsewhere is with the potential diversion of U.S. security assistance and, more broadly, that support for security forces that commit human rights violations — apart from being incompatible with American values and illegal under U.S. law — is counterproductive to the very aims of counterterrorism,” the oversight letter stated.

The lawmakers quoted a United Nations Development Programme, which found in a 2017 report that 71% people who joined extremist groups in Africa, including Boko Haram, were triggered to join by state violence and human rights violations.

Source: The Nation

Archbishop Samuel Kleda of Douala claims Cameroon is being “stripped” of its natural resources by corrupt officials.

“Our country is being badly beaten, stripped of its wealth, its dignity, its honor, its human and natural resources, and is in agony, because of the bad governance organized by its own sons and daughters,” the cleric said in a March 2 pastoral letter.

“At the source of most of the ills that are plaguing Cameroon today, is bad governance with the normalization, legalization and even institutionalization of corruption in the management of the country,” the archbishop said.

The prelate said “Irresponsible, selfish, corrupt and unpatriotic kleptocrats parading as leaders” have removed the people and the public welfare from the center of their concerns.

Rather he said, the emphasis is “on the individual, the group, the clan, the ethnic group, the lobby, which sacrifices the majority of the population, thus pushing it inexorably towards impoverishment and misery.”

“Bad governance disrupts political life and hinders the social, economic and even religious growth of our country. It destroys the achievements, compromises the legitimate aspirations of the citizens, and jeopardizes the trust between the people and the rulers,” Kleda said.

“Corruption not only leads to the plundering and wasting of public resources, but also paralyzes the functioning of the state, creates injustice and inequality among the population and plunges the whole society into despair in the face of an uncertain and mortgaged, even bleak, future,” the archbishop continued.

Kleda’s comments come in the wake of a stream of reports that funds meant for the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic had been stolen.

Church groups, human rights organizations, and opposition political parties have been pressuring the government to publish its findings after reports that most of the $335 million borrowed from the International Monetary Fund to deal with the pandemic was siphoned off by officials and their cronies.

There have also been news reports of corruption and embezzlement during the construction of the Olembe stadium that hosted some of the matches of the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) tournament earlier this year.

“Do we have the right to remain silent? Will our citizen and Christian conscience not place us before the court of history for having been accomplices, direct or indirect, passive or active supporters of a plot that has contributed to the destruction of Cameroon and mortgaged the future of millions of people, especially the youth, of this Africa in miniature?” Kleda said. “In the present day of our history, can we stand before the Creator and affirm that we are managing this country so rich with so many resources that He has entrusted to us and that we have inherited from our ancestors?”

The prelate said it was time every Cameroonian rediscovered the fundamental values on which any society that respects itself should be based, namely respect for the dignity of every life, truth, justice, honesty, responsibility, freedom, love, equity, and loyalty.

“Above all, let each one have the courage to renounce the sin that makes him complicit in the drift of our country. Let each one of us contribute to the fight against the ‘structures of sin’, which paralyze and destroy Cameroon, its development, its growth and the well-being of its people,” Kleda said.

He said it was not a utopian idea for Cameroon to be able to build a society rooted in good governance, and insisted the way forward is simply to stand up to bad governance. He said it was indeed possible to “build a strong, prosperous, stable country, a true haven of peace where it is good to live as brothers.”

Cameroonians “must overcome the appetite for possession and illicit enrichment which are at the origin of these evils that undermine our country and operate a change of mentality and a radical and profound conversion,” the archbishop said.

“Let every Cameroonian, wherever he or she is and according to his or her activity, commit himself or herself in an honest and responsible way to the transformation of our country according to the values of the Gospel,” he explained.

The prelate also called for prayer and penance, noting that they are “the weapons that will enable those who lead us to govern our country well, and all of us to strive to eradicate these scourges that, like a fearsome demon, threaten our country dangerously.”

Source: Crux

Cameroon has deployed troops to a village in the west of the country after clashes between two ethnic groups, the Esu and the Mbororo. Authorities say members of the Esu burned scores of homes and buildings after armed Mbororo killed the Esu’s traditional ruler Wednesday for failing to stop Esu youth from joining anglophone separatists.

The Cameroon government says armed men on Wednesday night attacked and killed Kum Achou Albert, the traditional ruler of the Esu. Esu is a village in Menchum, in the English-speaking North West region on the border with Nigeria.

The government said Achou was returning from Wum, capital of the Menchum division, where he had been since March 5.

The government said while in Wum, Achou asked civilians to reconcile for peace and return to the western regions, where separatists have waged a battle against the government since 2017.

Abdullahi Aliou, the highest government official in Menchum, said armed men shot indiscriminately in the air, forcing the traditional ruler’s car to stop, then opened fire on the car’s occupants.

Ndzo Augustine Kum, the president of the Esu Cultural and Development Association, said the traditional ruler, known as the fon, was killed alongside his wife.

“As his royal highness the Fon of Esu was returning to his fondom he was waylaid and some yet to be identified gunmen bullet his car, thereby killing our fon and the wife. Others inside the car were wounded,” said Kum. “Honestly, Esu is in sorrow.”

Kum said Achou’s second wife sustained life threatening injuries from gunshots and was rushed to a hospital in Wum.

Cameroon’s military on Thursday said the armed men are suspected Mbororo youths who accuse the Esu traditional ruler of doing too little to stop his people from joining separatists and attacking the Mbororo.

Penn Elvis, a local humanitarian worker, said after the murders, Esu youths torched dozens of homes, farms and property belonging to Mbororos.

“At night the villagers stormed at the houses of the Mbororo and even the mosque was set ablaze because of the anger that came as a result of the death of their fon,” said Penn. “The security forces, that is the military, had to visit the place very early this morning to carry out investigations to maintain peace and serenity.”

Six people were injured in the attacks. The military said it deployed troops to Esu and surrounding villages but did not say how many troops were deployed.

Civilians say many Mbororo and non-Mbororo youths have been arrested.

The Mbororo ethnic group has always complained that it is the biggest casualty of Cameroons separatist crisis. Group members say separatist fighters have stolen and either slaughtered or sold thousands of cattle belonging to Mbororos. They say hundreds of Mbororos fled their ranches and are living in deplorable conditions in Cameroon’s French-speaking areas.

Mbororos say they are victims of fighter attacks because they have never supported separatists struggling to carve out an independent English-speaking state from French-majority Cameroon.

Jaji Manu Guidado, honorary president of a Mbororo cultural and development association, said Mbororos are disgruntled but added investigations should be carried out to ascertain if the traditional ruler of Esu and his wife were killed by Mbororo youths.

Source: VOA

The leadership of the Southern Cameroons Interim Government has condemned the recent visit paid by the Francophone governor of the South West Okala Bilai to Ndian Division that comes amid intensified Ambazonia attacks on pro Yaoundé administrators.           

Vice President Dabney Yerima on Wednesday slammed the local CPDM elites and traditional rulers in Ekondo Titi for receiving Governor Okala Bilai in Ndian, saying the move is deemed as betrayal of Southern Cameroons.

“The visit is an insult to the people of Southern Cameroons”  Yerima added.

The exiled leader also expressed concern over statements made by the French Cameroun civil administrator during the visit.

The Ambazonia Interim Government expressed its regret over such visits, calling the so-called federalists in Southern Cameroons to stop providing the French Cameroun regime the opportunity to penetrate the Ambazonia homeland and to tamper with the interests of its counties.

“The IG reiterated its rejection of all forms of interaction with an enemy that violates Southern Cameroons sanctities and continues its aggression on the people of Southern Cameroons, continues to detain thousands of Southern Cameroons prisoners, kills Southern Cameroons children and destroys our homes, and displaces our people” the Yerima statement said.

Governor Okala Bilai travelled to Ekondo Titi a day after a roadside bomb killed both the Divisional Officer and mayor of Ekondo Titi.

By Isong Asu

In Cameroon, thousands of women protested on International Women’s Day Tuesday demanding more political power and government jobs. Women make up more than half of Cameroon’s population, but there is not a single female among the country’s 10 regional governors or council presidents.

Thousands of women turned out at the 20 Boulevard in Cameroon’s capital singing that they do not want to be treated as inferior to men any longer.

The Cameroon government said it expected between ten thousand and fifteen thousand women for International Women’s Day celebrations on Tuesday. But Cameroon’s Ministry of Women’s Empowerment said more than 20,000 came out in Yaounde to protest.

Similar protests took place in towns and villages across Cameroon, in both French- and English-speaking areas.

Nicoline Nwenushi Wazeh, founder of the NGO Pathways for Women’s Empowerment and Development, PaWED, says Cameroon’s government is not doing much for women to gain more political power or reach representation goals set by the United Nations and African Union.

“All four ministers of state are men. Out of the 39 ministers we only have six women. All ten governors of the regions are men. Of the 58 divisional officers we have only two women. The lack of political will has made it that Cameroon government neither respects the universal quota of 30% nor the African Union quota of 50-50,” she said.

Nwenushi said there are only 61 women in the 180-member the lower house of parliament and the Senate has 26 women against 74 men.

Mumah Bih Yvonne of the Cameroon Women’s Peace Movement’s says both President Paul Biya and Cameroon’s electoral laws make it difficult for women to climb to leadership positions.

“The electoral code does not clearly spell out what quota is reserved for women. It just mentions that gender should be taken into consideration. Women need to be pushed by political will so I think this government can do better by appointing women who are very apt in different positions,” Bih said.

Marie-Therese Abena Ondou is Cameroon’s Minister of Women’s Empowerment and the Family. She says the ministry she leads has been educating men to consider women as equals. She says she also educates women to contest for elected positions and not to be scared of intimidating men.

“Many men feel threatened when we talk about equality and we want to reassure them (men) that it is not that they [men] will be pushed aside, it is working together. Men and women are born equal and we should try to remember that both have the same potential if given the same opportunities,” Ondou said.

The U.N. marks International Women’s Day on March 8 to bring attention to women’s contributions to development and stop inequities. This year’s theme was “Gender Equality today for a sustainable tomorrow.

Source: VOA