Ever since the U.S. Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, spoke of visa bans for people working hard to ensure that the war in the two English regions of the country does not get resolved, key political figures in Yaoundé have been wondering whether their names will be among. Many Yaoundé government officials have their children in the United States and any visa ban might affect those children as well as their investments in the United States.

It is also rumored that the United States might work with its European allies to expand the scope of the sanctions. This implies Europeans might also collaborate with the U.S. Administration to impose sanctions on people stalling efforts at solving the Anglophone crisis. 

According to a source close to the U.S. State Department, there is a list and it is just a matter of time for those involved to know their fate. The State Department has already drawn up a long list and it is closely watching any Yaoundé government authorities who are stampeding any efforts at finding a peaceful resolution to the conflict in Southern Cameroons. 

The Source, who elected anonymity, said the list was long and rapidly provided some names to the Cameroon Concord News Group correspondent in Washington. The list is very likely to bring a lot of sorrow to many Cameroon government officials and their families as they own assets in the United States.

The visa ban is just the first step in the right direction, the source said, adding that there would surely be collective and individual economic and financial consequences if the government did not act promptly. 

“Anthony Blinken is serious about the Cameroon situation. He has appointed a collaborator of his to focus on this case and he is monitoring news out of Cameroon. He understands that there are some regime hawks making fast cash from the bloody situation in the Anglophone regions of the country. He also understands that some separatist leaders have been working hard to stall any efforts to resolve the conflict,” the source said.

“Those whose names will make the short list will be hit hard as a means of sending a strong message. Cameroon occupies a strategic position in the Gulf of Guinea and if peace and stability do not return, the entire sub-region might be dragged into a long conflict,” the source added. 

“The days ahead are critical and if the government does not take the resolution of the conflict seriously, the first sanctions will be in place in a couple of weeks. Washington is frustrated by the government’s refusal to hold talks with separatist leaders and this might result in the Yaoundé government dealing with severe political and military sanctions that might affect its ability to even deal with Boko Haram in the North,” the source said.    

Here below is the list under consideration by U.S. State Department Officials as provided by the Cameroon Concord News Group

Mr. Dion Ngute: Prime Minister and Head of Government

Mr. Joseph Beti Assomo: Minister for Defense

General Rene Meka Claude: Joint Chief of Staff

General Nka Valere: Commander of Operations in the North West Region

Mr. Lele l”Afrique Adolphe: Governor of the North West Region

Mr. Issa Chiroma Bakary: Minister of Employment

Prof. Elvis Ngolle Ngolle: Former Minister and current board chairman of L’hopital Central Douala

Governor Okalia Bilai: Governor of the South West Region

Mr. Sadi Rene: Minister of Communications

Mr. Ferdinand Ngoh Ngoh: Minister Secretary General at the Presidency of the Republic

General Elokobi Daniel Njock: Commander of the National Gendarmerie

Prof. Fame Ndongo: Minister of Higher Education and Press Secretary of the CPDM Political Bureau

Commissioner Mbarga Nguele: Delegate General for National Security and Ambassador to Spain

Mr. Paul Atanga Nji: Minister of Territorial Administration and creator of death squads

Mr. Philemon Yang: Former Prime Minister and current Chancellor of the National Order

Mr. Amougou Belinga: CPDM Business tycoon and owner of television channel Vision 4

Mr. Ghislain Samou Nguewo: President Biya’s closest collaborator

Mr. Bonaventure Mvondo Assam: a former CPDM MP

Mr. Paul Elung Che: Deputy Secretary-general of the presidency

Mr. Modeste Mopa Fatoing: Director-general of the tax department

Mr. Robert Nkili: Former Minister of Labour and transport between 2002 and 2015

Mr. Louis-Paul Motaze: Minister of Finance

Mr. Alamine Ousmane Mey: Minister of the Economy

Mr. Samuel Mvondo Ayolo: Director of the head of state’s civil cabinet

Mr. Christian Mataga: The son of a former ambassador and ex-director of Biya’s civil cabinet

Mr. Laurent Esso: Minister of Justice

Dr. Owona Nguni: Lecturer University of Yaoundé

Mr. Mengot Victor: Minister of Special Duties at the Presidency

Paul Tasong: Minister Delegate in charge of planning

Chief George Tabetando: Senator and traditional ruler of Bachuo Ntai

Mr. Peter Mafany Musonge: Senator and head of the Bilingual Commission

Mr. Oum II Joseph: Senior Divisional Officer for Manyu

Mr. Cavayé Yéguié Djibril: Speaker of the National Assembly

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

BARRISTER AMUNGWA TANYI NICODEMUS HAS BEEN RELEASED

On Monday, 31 May 2021, Barrister Amungwa Tanyi Nicodemus, a lead lawyer for our Leaders in detention, was arrested by the French Cameroun Gendarmerie in Yaoundé on dubious charges.

After ten days in detention, the regime in Yaoundé released him this evening on bail after a series of auditions at the military tribunal. Barrister Amungwa was neither charged nor given reasons for his arrest.

I want to thank all the lawyers of the Interim Government of Ambazonia who worked tirelessly to secure his release. Likewise, the people of Ambazonia are grateful to Human Rights Watch for taking his plight to a global audience.

French Cameroun’s unacceptable harassment of members of the Southern Cameroons legal profession must stop.

The people of Ambazonia are facing a brutal enemy with no respect for life, human rights, the rule of law and international norms. But, as a people, we will not be silenced by intimidation and persecution. Our prize is Buea, and we must stay resolute and focused.

Thank You

Vice President Dabney Yerima

Federal Republic of Ambazonia

The Cameroon Bar has obtained the release of human rights lawyer Amungwa Tanyi Nicodemus, a statement has said.

The prosecutor at the Yaoundé Military Tribunal granted bail to Barrister Amungwa Wednesday, June 9, 2021, with three key members of the Bar Council standing as guarantors.

The bail guarantors include Barrister Claire Atangana Bikouna, President of the Bar Council, Barrister Pierre Robert Fojou, representative of the Bar President for the Center, South & East, and Barrister Daniel Ngos, Deputy Secretary of the Bar.

On Monday, June 7, 2021, Human Rights Watch described as “unjust” the jailing of human rights lawyer Amungwa Tanyi Nicodemus on “bogus charges of inciting terrorism.”

“He should be released immediately,” Human Rights Watch said.

According to the human rights organization, Gendarmes arrested Amungwa on May 31 at the Groupement Territorial de la Gendarmerie in Cameroon’s capital, Yaoundé, while he was assisting a client.

“According to Amungwa’s lawyers, after Amungwa complained that Cameroon’s criminal procedure had been breached in his client’s case, the gendarme in charge of the investigation seized Amungwa’s phone without a warrant, claiming Amungwa had taken photographs at the facility,” Human Rights Watch wrote. “While searching for the alleged photographs, the gendarme found other photographs that recorded alleged military abuses in Cameroon’s Anglophone regions and arrested Amungwa, his lawyers said.”

It said Amungwa was transferred to the Service Central des Recherches Judiciaires (SCRJ), at the State Defense Secretariat (Secrétariat d’État à la défense, SED) – a detention facility where Human Rights Watch has previously documented repeated resort to incommunicado detention and torture – where he remains detained.

On June 1, Amungwa’s lawyers and the head of the Cameroon bar association visited him in detention and urged his release. Two days later, the Yaoundé military court prosecutor rejected Amungwa’s lawyers’ request for bail and returned the case to the SCRJ for “relevant checks.”

The release on bail of Barrister Amungwa this Wednesday suggests that the relevant checks were successful.

Amungwa, a member of the Cameroon bar association, is one of the lawyers representing Sisiku Julius Ayuk Tabe, the jailed leader of the Cameroonian separatist group, the Ambazonia Interim Government, and several other people arrested in connection with the Anglophone crisis.

“Amungwa’s arrest is a direct attack on the legal profession,” Ayukotang Ndep Nkongho, one of Amungwa’s lawyers, told Human Rights Watch. “His arbitrary detention reveals a system geared towards stifling and undermining the role and activities of lawyers involved in key human rights cases.”

Cameroon’s state forces have been battling to dislodge armed separatists who pitched their tents in the North West and South West Regions since Anglophone protests transformed into an armed conflict in 2017.

Corporate demands by Common Law Lawyers and Anglophone Teachers led to protests in November 2016. The street demonstrations later morphed into ongoing running gun battles between state forces and armed separatist fighters in the predominantly English-speaking regions, leading to untold destruction of human lives, their habitats, and livelihoods.

Tit-for-tat killings, kidnappings, arsons, maiming, and outright terror have become part of daily lives in some parts of the English-speaking regions.

Source: CIN

Cameroon plans to launch the first biometric passport model starting from July 1, a senior official told the press on Tuesday.

Dominique Baya, Secretary General of the General Delegation of National Security said, the intention was to eradicate fraud or forgery, and avoid delays encountered in the issuance of the travel document.

“The objective is to provide a modern, reliable and highly secured production system capable of fully meeting the requirements of the International Civil Aviation Organization and the Economic and Monetary Community of Central Africa,” Baya told reporters in the capital, Yaounde.

Applications for Cameroonian passport will henceforth be online and passports will be issued 48 hours after enrolment, he added.

Source: Xinhaunet

The Yaoundé government received a double whammy on Monday, June 7, 2021 following the release of a Human Rights Watch report that clearly indicts the government for its inhuman brutality, while the United States announced visa restrictions against those responsible for the perpetuation of violence in Cameroon’s two English-speaking regions which has been the theater of a bloody and senseless violence between armed Anglophone groups and the army.

Since the Biden Administration came to power in January 2021, its Secretary of State, Antony John Blinken, has focused on the conflict in Cameroon, urging the Yaoundé government to seek peaceful means to bring about sustainable peace in the two English-speaking regions. 

On Monday, Blinken stepped up pressure for a peaceful resolution to Cameroon’s conflict between state forces and English-speaking rebels by imposing visa restrictions on individuals believed to be undermining efforts to end the crisis.

Mr. Blinken said in a statement that “this decision reflects our commitment to advance a dialogue to peacefully resolve the Anglophone crisis and support respect for human rights.” 

The sanctions are aimed at “those who undermine the peaceful resolution of the crisis,” the U.S. State Department said in a statement, without naming those targeted by the ban. 

However, many people across know some of those in government who have been seeking to perpetuate the fighting as it gives them leverage and wealth. Paul Atanga Nji, the territorial administration minister; Joseph Beti Assoumo, the defense minister; Fame Ndongo, the higher education minister and Laurent Esso, the justice minister and their family members are those who are really targeted by the U.S. sanction, a source at the State Department has hinted the Cameroon Concord News Group.

The country’s two English-speaking regions have been gripped by fighting since 2017 as the rebels try to break away from the predominantly Francophone government. Some 7,000 people have died and more than 700,000 have been displaced as a result of the violence.

Announcing the visa sanctions, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the United States was deeply concerned by the continued insecurity and called for both sides to negotiate for peace.

“We condemn those who undermine the peace by provoking or inciting violence, human rights violations and threats to peacekeepers and humanitarian workers,” the U.S. diplomat added.

“Washington is deeply concerned about the continuing violence and continues to call on the Cameroonian government and armed separatist groups to end the violence and engage in dialogue without preconditions to peacefully resolve the crisis,” the statement further said.

The English-speaking minority in Cameroon’s northwest and southwest regions blame the French-speaking majority for marginalizing them, instead of looking at how to address the issues, the Yaounde government resorted to terrible crack-down that has resulted in a bitter civil war that will not be ending anytime soon if external pressure is not mounted the government which holds that only military violence can deter Southern Cameroonians from walking away from hastily patched union between English speakers and French speakers.

It should be recalled that the Administration had also taken some measures aimed at bringing the government to the negotiating table, but the French-backed government has been very arrogant and indifferent to human rights abuses and the killing of civilians.

Former President Donald Trump had said Cameroon had failed to address concerns regarding government forces’ persistent human rights violations, including extrajudicial killings, arbitrary and unlawful detention and torture. The violations have persisted in recent years as English-speaking communities demand independence from Cameroon, alleging marginalization by the government of President Paul Biya.

President Trump said he would ax Cameroon from a trade program that allowed African countries to sell goods to the United States on a duty-free basis, citing “persistent human rights violations” in a letter to Congress.

The decision came as U.S. officials accused the Central African nation of extrajudicial killings and unlawful detentions amid conflicts that had displaced more than a half-million people over the past two years. 

Despite intensive engagement between the United States and the Government of Cameroon, Cameroon had failed to address concerns regarding persistent human rights violations being committed by Cameroonian security forces. 

The announcement came several months after the US scaled back security assistance as a result of Cameroon’s Francophone military committing multiple human rights abuses against Anglophone civilians. 

While the U.S. was threatening a targeted visa ban, the human rights watchdog, Human Rights Watch (HRW) made things more complicated for the government by releasing a report on the situation in Cameroon wherein he put the blame squarely on the Yaounde government, indicting it of curtailing human rights and limiting free speech.

“Violence has been rife in Cameroon’s North-West and South-West regions since late 2016, as armed separatists seek independence for the country’s minority Anglophone regions. Separatists’ targeted civilians, including aid workers, students, and teachers, while continuing to enforce a boycott on children’s education. Security forces have also committed a litany of abuses including the killing of civilians, arson, sexual violence, and torture of suspected collaborators with separatist groups. Boko Haram attacks are a persistent threat in the Far North region. The Cameroonian government has also taken steps to limit freedom of expression and association, including through the arrests of hundreds of opposition party members and supporters in September 2020 following peaceful demonstrations,” says the HRW report

The report chronicled abuses by government security forces, highlighting a military operation in Bali, North-West region, in retaliation for separatist attacks on polling centers, destroying over 50 homes and killing several civilians, including two men with intellectual disabilities.

It also highlighted actions by government forces on February 14, where government forces and armed ethnic Fulani killed 21 civilians, including 13 children and 1 pregnant woman, in Ngarbuh in North-West region. 

The report pointed out that residents told Human Rights Watch the attack was to punish civilians suspected of harboring separatist fighters. The government initially denied soldiers were involved in the attack, but in March, following international pressure, President Biya established a commission of inquiry into the killings which resulted in the government admitting to the fact that its security forces bear some responsibility for the killings.

Government violence knows no limits. On June 10, 2020 a grenade was fired into the courtyard of the district hospital in Bali, North-West region, following clashes between government soldiers and separatists, leading to the death of one cardiac patient. At least four others were injured as a result.  Security forces also damaged a health facility in the North-West region on June 30, 2020 and arbitrarily arrested seven people.

However, the report also indicts separatist fighters who have also been committing serious atrocities. However, on the whole, the government that is supposed to engineer peace in the country is to blame for the escalation of the conflict and the enormous abuses that have taken place since 2016.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai