Headline News

13, December 2020

Football: Issa Hayatou to be made Honourable CAF President ⁰

Hayatou spent 29 years running the Confederation of African Football and will be granted the status of honorary president of the Confederation of African Football (Caf) next month at a special ceremony in his home nation Cameroon.

Hayatou is the longest-serving ruler in Caf’s history, having led the African football body from 1988 to 2017.

The 74-year-old was made an honorary vice-president of Fifa after losing the elections three years ago, and now Caf is following suit.

“This distinguished leader presided over Caf for 30 years… and this honour salutes his immense role in the development of African football,” Caf said in a statement.

The decision to make Hayatou an honorary president was a proposal by the Executive Committee (ExCo) which the General Assembly approved yesterday.

The ceremony, which originally would have taken place in early 2020 but was postponed due to coronavirus, will take place in Yaounde on January 15, – a day before the African Nations Championship (Chan) kicks off in Cameroon.

Source: Thisday

13, December 2020

Cameroon mourns death of Justice Ngu Ngwa Augustine ⁰

The death of Justice Ngu Ngwa the current Vice President of the North West Court of Appeal has led to an outpouring of tributes all over the globe, with many describing his impact on the Cameroonian legal system as immeasurable.

Cameroon Concord News Group Chairman Soter Agbaw-Ebai who led the tributes to the 64-year-old said: ‘Justice Ngu Ngwa’s passage is a great loss to the legal profession and the country. But we must thank God for his gift and worthy life. The challenge is for the law family to sustain his legacy.’

The late Justice Ngu was a great mentor and will be remembered for the Government High School Mamfe Parents Teachers Association judgment on corruption.

Many Lawyers were loathe to appear before him as he had a reputation of ensuring that lawyers put in their best into the conduct of their cases … some even wrongly considered him as snobbish when in truth it was simply a mark of his own confidence and his belief that excellence in the profession must be the continuous objective of all involved in its practice.

His judgments … attest not only to his sterling performances as a judge, but more importantly, to his humanity.

Justice Ngu’s professional journey started in Ndian County where he served as State Counsel in Mundemba in 1988. He was later appointed President of the Court of First Instance in Kumbo, the chief town in the Bui County and from there he became the pioneer Magistrate in Nkwen, Bamenda. He was moved to Mamfe and after several spells in both French and Southern Cameroons; he was made pioneer Administrative Judge in the South West Region.

The renowned judge, on Saturday, December 12 died in a Yaoundé hospital following a short battle with cancer after being transported from Big Mbingo. The late judge was born December 10, 1956 and he is survived by 8 children and a granddaughter.

By Fon Lawrence in Bamenda

12, December 2020

CPDM Crime Syndicate: How much influence do traditional chiefs really have? ⁰

A growing number of traditional chiefs are occupying leadership positions in government. During regional elections, 20 such chiefs were elected as traditional rulers. However, in reality, their influence has diminished over time.

On 2 December, Cameroon’s president, Paul Biya, decided to provide “financial support” to traditional chiefs standing for election as regional councillors on 6 December – a handout that was sure to make waves. The government opted to inform the public of their decision by releasing a statement, a method of communication that exempted its author, the minister of territorial administration, from having to mention the country’s law governing such matters.

As it happens, Cameroon does have a campaign finance law, but it contains no legal provisions concerning the practice of financing independent candidates like traditional chiefs.

Seizing the opportunity afforded by this loophole, the head of state, who also leads the Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement (CPDM) – the ruling party expected to sweep the elections and win the majority of regional council seats – is presenting himself as a benefactor for the “guardians of tradition”.

‘Authentic’ versus ‘administrative’ chiefs

If Biya is pulling out all the stops to remain on good terms with traditional chiefs – leaders who exert an outsize influence over their citizens in the moral and spiritual realm – it is because it is in his best interest to do so. He sees it as an investment and expects to get a good return on investment when these rulers, essentially bound to him, become regional council members.

The highly-centralised Yaoundé government held the regional elections with a certain amount of reluctance. The constitution which provides for such elections came into force 24 years ago, but they were never held before in the country’s history – until this past week.

Be that as it may, on 6 December, each of Cameroon’s 10 regions elected 90 regional councillors, broken down into 70 divisional delegates and 20 traditional rulers.

Under the law, a candidate must be the leader of a first, second or third class chiefdom to be eligible to stand for election: “[…] a first class chiefdom is that chiefdom whose area of jurisdiction covers at least two second class chiefdoms and the territorial boundaries in principle do not exceed those of a division. While a second class chiefdom is that chiefdom whose area of jurisdiction covers that of at least two third class chiefdoms. The boundaries therefore shall, in principle, not exceed those of a sub-division. Meanwhile, a third class chiefdom corresponds to a village or quarter in the rural areas and to a quarter in urban areas”.

Such chiefdom leaders are either monarchs from ancient bloodlines or political dignitaries installed by the administration. Though both categories share the same legal status, the extent of their authority can vary, paving the way for a distinction between “authentic” and “administrative” chiefs.

The shift from a monolithic single-party system to a competitive multi-party system in the 1990s has driven traditional chiefs to flout their duty of neutrality, with most of them choosing to join the ruling party – including the most renowned traditional ruler in the North-West Anglophone region, Fon Angwafo III, whom Biya propelled to first vice president of the CPDM. According to the presidential party’s bylaws, if there is ever a vacancy at the head of the state, the king of Mankon of the Bamenda Grasslands would be sworn into office since, going from second-in-command to top dog, he would become the party’s “default candidate[HE1] ” for the presidential election to be held, as the rules stipulate, within 40 days.

Similarly, if the president of the Senate were to be incapacitated, the election would be carried out under the supervision of the interim president, Aboubakary Abdoulaye. He is the vice president of the upper house of parliament and, as a civilian, the lamido (ruler) of Rey Bouba, the powerful Fula suzerain in the North province of Cameroon.

The Bamum sultan, whose rule extends over more than half of the West region, is a member of the CPDM’s Politbureau and a prominent figure in the Senate, just like the legislative body’s oldest member, Victor Mukete, the supreme leader of the Bafaw people in the South-West Anglophone region.

Carrot-and-stick approach

When they do not hold an elected office, these traditional chiefs turned “auxiliaries of the administration” enjoy other perks from the government. For instance, in accordance with a law enacted in 2013, they receive a monthly allowance from the state of 200,000 CFA francs (first class chiefs), 100,000 CFA francs (second class) and 50,000 CFA francs (third class), or the equivalent of $369, $185 and $92, respectively. This financial assistance costs the government more than 1bn CFA francs each month.

“The regime is trying to rein in traditional rulers and subjugate them. It’s a strategy that helps government leaders retain their grip on power,” says Evariste Fopoussi Fotso, a former national press and communications secretary for the opposition party Social Democratic Front (SDF) and author of the book Faut-il brûler les chefferies traditionnelles ? (published by Editions Sopecam). Faced with the intransigence of opposition leader Maurice Kamto and in an effort to contain his influence, the regime had Max Pokam, the “king” of the Baham people – the community from which Kamto hails – elected.

But the government’s friendly overtures have not wooed every chiefdom, as there are still a few hardliners out there who are keeping Yaoundé’s leaders at a distance. For example, a group of chiefs from the West region published a statement on 19 November that breaks with the regime’s approach to governing. In the text, the authors condemn the ongoing violence in the North-West and South-West Anglophone regions, lambaste the authorities for choosing “the military route” over diplomacy, express concerns about “the widespread loss of trust” alienating politicians from the “people”, call for “the undertaking of electoral reforms” and a constitutional review in order to ensure “stability and the transfer of power at the head of institutions”.

The country’s politicians have little tolerance for traditional chiefs who go against the tide of the political authorities. In December 2019, the government dismissed Paul Marie Biloa Effa, a traditional leader in Yaoundé and special adviser to Kamto. The two regimes that have ruled the country in the time since it was colonised by the German Empire’s Province of Westphalia have taken a carrot-and-stick approach to keeping traditional chiefs at bay.

Colonial legacy

The turbulent relationship between the government and traditional chiefs goes back to the colonial era. The Cameroon of today was a product of the Germano-Douala treaty, an agreement signed on 12 July 1884 by the kings Ndumbé Lobè Bell and Akwa Dika Mpondo, alongside two German representatives, Eduard Schmidt and Johannes Voss. From that moment forward, Germany made a point to make traditional chiefs auxiliaries to the colonial administration, whether by drawing up a treaty or by force.

The colonial leadership planned to subjugate the entire hinterland and impose a system of indirect rule there, in the style of British colonial administrator Lord Frederick Lugard, who had successfully run neighbouring Nigeria in this way. Under such a system, the colonial power could run the conquered country by harnessing the traditional authorities already in place and recognised by the native population.

After the Germans left, the French and British colonists maintained the same policy. Once expansive monarchies, the conquered territories were turned into “traditional communities” that fell under the supervision of administrative districts, known as divisions and sub-divisions, created by the political authorities.

Stripped of their aura and sacred status, kings became “auxiliaries” of the administration, were given a distinct legal status and, as such, subject to the “rights and duties” of their office.

After Cameroon gained independence, these efforts continued under Ahmadou Ahidjo and Biya. To add insult to injury, the latter authorised sub-prefects to establish third class chiefdoms. The ranks of traditional rulers have grown so much that the authority and influence of the most powerful chiefdoms is declining. No doubt the government’s real aim is to rein in the country’s traditional chiefs. That makes it easier to wipe them off the map.

Culled from The Africa Report

12, December 2020

French Cameroun needs new political elites ⁰

There is indeed an urgent need for a change of leadership in Yaoundé! Every political commentator including the diplomatic community are wishing for the people of French Cameroun and their military to rid themselves of the burden of President Biya and his ruling CPDM gangs who console them with lies and have successfully trapped them into poverty.

The failed regime in Yaoundé started a war against the people of Southern Cameroons in 2016 on a pack of lies and the war has become unwinnable! It was a strike by teachers and lawyers, in the then English-speaking regions of Cameroon. The professionals, supported by citizens of their areas, protested the unfair use of the French language and unjustified appointments of French speakers in their territories.

However, by 2017, Biya and the French Cameroun army leadership had pushed the situation to spiral out of control and developed into a fully-fledged separatist war. Both French Cameroun forces and Ambazonia Self Defense groups are now bogged down in a conflict, which observers say, can only be resolved through dialogue.

The conflict is slowly but surely becoming the worst fighting in the Gulf of Guinea in decades and it has claimed the lives of thousands of Southern Cameroons civilians including Cameroon government army soldiers.

Nearly four years into the deadly fighting in Southern Cameroons, the 87-year-old Biya and his corrupt Francophone political leaders have blatantly refused to end hostilities.

The global human rights watchdog, Amnesty International recently slammed the Yaoundé government, accusing the Biya regime of arbitrary detentions and military courts which clearly highlight the latest crackdown on opposition members.

The arrests, arbitrary detentions and prosecutions in military courts of opposition members who were peacefully gathering are the latest example of Cameroonian authorities’ crackdown on dissenting voices since late September, the rights watchdog said in its recent report on Cameroon.

According to the report, at least 500 people were arrested on 22 September, the majority of them members of the French Cameroun opposition Movement for the Renaissance of Cameroon (MRC). Of those, 160 remain in detention, 13 have been sentenced to prison by civilian courts, and 14 appeared before a military court.

“The harsh repression of opposition and dissenting voices shows no sign of relenting in recent months. People simply exercising their right to freedom of peaceful assembly and demonstration have paid a high price with prison terms based on trumped-up charges,” said Fabien Offner, Amnesty International West and Central Africa researcher,” the report says.

Biya regime’s ability to attract investors to the country has been diminished by the senseless killings and human rights violations taking place in both French and Southern Cameroons. Rebuilding SONARA is still an uphill climb, as investors have very low appetite for Cameroon’s debt.

The burden of rebuilding the country’s lone refinery is now another heavy load on the fragile and aging shoulders of Mr. Biya, who is currently suffering from a suspected cancer.

Biya and his men are no longer at ease. They have a lot on their plates and with their resources dwindling, it is clear that they might soon be down too! Former regime barons are all jumping ship. International human rights organizations have become very vocal about the regime’s authoritarian nature.

Biya and his French Cameroun political elites have transformed La Republique Du Cameroun into a rogue state and have refused to embrace the idea of an inclusive dialogue, release all political prisoners, including all Southern Cameroonians arrested within the framework of the armed conflict that has left thousands of Cameroonians dead, and grant general amnesty to all Cameroonians living abroad as a means of reducing the pressured that is gradually destroying it.

Because the Biya regime continues to conduct itself as it has done over the last 38 years, we of this group of publication now believe and fervently too that French Cameroun needs new political elites! French speaking Cameroonians should please stand up and be counted!!The ball is in your court!

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

12, December 2020

France debates human rights at home while still selling weapons to oppressive regimes ⁰

As the French President Emmanuel Macron faces accusations that he is moving to curtail the civic rights in his country and reduce transparency, the recent state visit of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi underscored France’s longstanding willingness to turn a blind eye to systemic oppression in the countries it sells weapons to.

When Sisi came to France for a state visit this week, less than a month after prominent human rights workers in Egypt were arrested and slapped with terrorism-related charges following a meeting with French and other European diplomats, Human Rights Watch called for arms sales to Egypt to stop and activists were looking to French President Emmanuel Macron to make a strong statement.

They had, perhaps, reason to be hopeful. After the November arrests, the French Foreign Ministry issued a statement expressing its “deep concern” about developments in the Arab nation. “France maintains a frank, exacting dialogue with Egypt on human rights issues, including individual cases,” the statement said.

In the end, not only were activists disappointed by Macron’s reception of Sisi, they were outraged by it. Far from taking a firm line on abuses and demanding that Egypt do better if it hoped to continue receiving military aid, Macron went out of his way to disassociate the purchase of arms with the respect of human rights.

“I will not condition matters of defence and economic cooperation on these disagreements [over human rights],” Macron said in a press conference. “It is more effective to have a policy of demanding dialogue than a boycott that would only reduce the effectiveness of one of our partners in the fight against terrorism.”

“The whole way he framed the human rights debate in the press conference was horrific,” said Timothy Kaldas, Nonresident fellow at the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy. “Arresting human rights workers and oppressing Egyptians is not fighting terrorism. Quite the contrary.”

A double standard

Macron’s stance was particularly salient given that his own government has been under fire over a proposed security law that critics charge would limit civic liberties in France. At the same time that he has defended France’s commitment to freedom of speech in the wake of the killing of a teacher who showed his class caricatures of the prophet Mohammed. Macron called the teacher, Samuel Paty, a “quiet hero” dedicated to preserving French values.

Macron’s position with Sisi this week was notably softer than the one he took in January 2019, when he told his Egyptian counterpart that security could not be considered separately from human rights, noting that oppression jeopardises stability rather than enhance it.

“It’s a double standard,” said Rim-Sarah Alouane, a Researcher in Public Law, University Toulouse Capitole. “We are in the middle of this hypocrisy about how we are supposed to be the country of the enlightenment, of human rights – we are supposed to have basically created human rights – and yet we have no problem making deals with the devil and closing our eyes to what should be the most important thing: the protection of the human.”

Kaldas agreed: “[Macron] will be adamant about how much France cherishes its values in one context and then be completely unwilling to prioritise those values in his relations with authoritarians.”

Marcon has shown himself similarly willing to ignore abuses in other parts of the region as well. When several European countries, including Germany, called for the suspension of arms sales to Saudi Arabia after the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, Macron dismissed those concerns as “demagoguery”, saying the weapons had nothing to do with the murder. “I understand the connection with what’s happening in Yemen, but there is no link with Mister Khashoggi,” he said.

Saudi Arabia leads a coalition that has been engaged in a war in Yemen that has had devastating effects on the humanitarian situation there. “The only reason [Macron] cites Yemen is to dismiss the other argument, but then he continues to provide the arms that fuel the war in Yemen,” Kaldas said.

Key to sovereignty

France has a vested interest in batting away the issue of rights abuses. Arms sales are big business for the country, which is third in global military exports, coming behind the United States and Russia. The defence sector in France employs 200,000 people, roughly 13 percent of the total industrial workforce, according to a report by the country’s parliament.

France is one of the few countries in the world capable of independently producing advanced military systems, and arms sales are key to the survival of the defence sector.

“It’s important for France to maintain its own arms industry,” both to be a significant player on the world stage and to be self-sufficient, said Pieter D. Wezeman, Senior Researcher in the Arms and Military Expenditure Programme at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. “To be able to do that, you need to have export clients, because otherwise you won’t be able to afford it.”

As Minister of the Armed Forces Florence Parly put it in 2018: “Arms exports are the business model of our sovereignty.”

And the industry is growing. Arms sales can vary widely from year to year, so researchers look at extended periods of time. Comparing the years 2015-2019 with 2010-2014, French arms exports grew 72 percent, representing 7.9 percent of the global arms market. Over the past decade, the Middle East has accounted for roughly 48 percent of French exports, said Guy Anderson, Associate Director of the Industry and Markets division at Jane’s, publisher of Jane’s Defence Weekly.

“France has been very prolific in providing weapons to a wide range of people,” Wezeman said.

France has been known to ignore arms embargos as well. In his autobiography “No Room for Small Dreams,” the late Israeli politician Shimon Perez said that France secretly sold weapons to Israel back in the 1950s, when few nations would. And it was the French who gave Israel its nuclear capacities, Perez wrote.

The illicit arms sales have continued. The French found ways to supply weapons to the apartheid regime in South Africa despite restrictions on such exports and press reports said that military material found in Libya in 2019 indicated that France had violated the arms embargo there.

“France is one of the least scrupulous arms sellers on earth,” said Kaldas. “Even the US is a little more restrictive about their arms sales.”

Culled from France 24

11, December 2020

French winner hits 200-million-euro lottery jackpot ⁰

A record jackpot of 200 million euros ($242 million) was won Friday in France by a ticket holder who has 120 days to claim the prize, the EuroMillions lottery said.

The win is the biggest ever scooped by a player of the EuroMillions lottery with the previous record standing at 190 million euros, won a number of times, most recently in October 2019.

Friday’s staggering prize went up for grabs after the jackpot rolled over twice last week.

Players in France have picked up 110 out of 499 Euromillions jackpots — nearly a quarter — since it began in 2004, followed by Britain which has had 108 winners and Spain with 105.

Apart from France, EuroMillions tickets can be bought in in Austria, Belgium, Britain, Ireland, Luxembourg, Portugal, Spain and Switzerland.

Source: AFP

11, December 2020

US: First in five executions in Trump’s final days goes ahead despite outcry ⁰

The Trump administration on Thursday carried out its ninth federal execution of the year and the first during a presidential lame-duck period in 130 years, putting to death a Texas street-gang member despite calls for clemency and Covid-19 outbreaks behind bars.

Brandon Bernard, a 40-year-old African-American inmate, was put to death at a prison in Terre Haute, Indiana, for his role in a 1999 double murder in Texas committed when he was 18 years old.

Four more federal executions, including one Friday, are planned in the weeks before Joe Biden’s inauguration in January.

More than 500,000 people had signed petitions urging President Donald Trump to commute Bernard’s sentence to life in prison, citing his age at the time of the crime and his good behaviour as an inmate.

With witnesses looking on from behind a glass barrier separating them from a pale-green death chamber, the 40-year-old Bernard was pronounced dead at 9:27pm ET.

‘I’m sorry’

He directed his last words to the family of the couple he played a role in killing, speaking with striking calm for someone who knew he was about to die.

“I’m sorry,” he said, lifting his head and looking at witness-room windows. “That’s the only words that I can say that completely capture how I feel now and how I felt that day.”

As he spoke, he showed no outward signs of fear or distress, speaking lucidly and naturally. He spoke for more than three minutes, saying he had been waiting for this chance to say he was sorry – not only to the victims’ family, but also for the pain he caused his own family.

Referring to his part in the killing, he said: “I wish I could take it all back, but I can’t.”

Bernard was 18 when he and four other teenagers abducted and robbed Todd and Stacie Bagley on their way from a Sunday service in Killeen, Texas, during which Bernard doused their car with lighter fluid and set it on fire with their bodies in the back trunk.

Federal executions were resumed by Trump in July after a 17-year hiatus despite Covid-19 outbreaks in US prisons.

Todd Bagley’s mother, Georgia, spoke to reporters within 30 minutes of the execution, saying she wanted to thank Trump, Attorney General William Barr and others at the Justice Department.

“Without this process,” she said, reading from a statement, “my family would not have the closure needed to move on in life.” She called the killings a “senseless act of unnecessary evil.”

But she stopped reading from the prepared text and became emotional when she spoke about the apologies from Bernard before he died Friday and from an accomplice, Christopher Vialva, the ringleader of the group who shot the Bagleys in the head before the car was burned. He was executed in September.

“The apology and remorse … helped very much heal my heart,” she said, beginning to cry and then recomposing herself. “I can very much say: I forgive them.”

Final moments of a death by lethal injection

Earlier inside the death chamber, Bernard lay on a cross-shaped gurney with IV lines running into both arms. He looked back when a US marshal picked up a phone and asked if there were any reasons not to proceed. Bernard reacted calmly as the marshall put down the phone and said the execution could proceed.

Bernard didn’t exhibit the laboured breathing and constant twitching of others executed previously had. A minute after the lethal injection, his eyes slowly closed and he barely moved again.

About 20 minutes later, faint white blotches appeared on his skin and someone entered from a chamber door, listened to his heart, felt for a pulse, then walked out. Seconds later, an official said Bernard was dead.

Alfred Bourgeois, a 56-year-old Louisiana truck driver, is set to die Friday for killing his 2-year-old daughter. His lawyers alleged he was intellectually disabled and therefore ineligible for the death penalty, but several courts said evidence didn’t support that claim.

‘Hardest call I’ve ever had,’ says Kim Kardashian West

Several high-profile figures, including reality TV star Kim Kardashian West, had appealed to Trump to commute Bernard’s sentence to life in prison.

Before Bernard’s execution, Kardashian West tweeted that she’d spoken to him earlier: “Hardest call I’ve ever had. Brandon, selfless as always, was focused on his family and making sure they are ok. He told me not to cry because our fight isn’t over.”

Just before the execution was scheduled, Bernard’s lawyers filed papers with the Supreme Court seeking to halt the execution, but the high court denied the request, clearing the way for the execution to proceed.

Bernard had been crocheting in prison and even launched a death-row crocheting group in which inmates have shared patterns for making sweaters, blankets and hats, said Ashley Kincaid Eve, an anti-death penalty activist.

Federal executions during a presidential transfer of power also are rare, especially during a transition from a death-penalty proponent to a president-elect like Biden opposed to capital punishment. The last time executions occurred in a lame-duck period was in the 1890s. during the presidency of Grover Cleveland in the 1890s.

(FRANCE 24 with AP and AFP)

11, December 2020

Southern Cameroons Interim Gov’t pledges continued resistance against French Cameroun ⁰

Southern Cameroons Vice President Dabney Yerima has reacted to remarks made in a recent briefing by François Louncény Fall, Special Representative and Head of the United Nations Regional Office for Central Africa (UNOCA), during the Security Council Open VTC on the United Nations Regional Office saying the people of Ambazonia will continue to resist against the occupying Biya French Cameroun regime until the full liberation of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia.

In an address to the Southern Cameroons war cabinet on Wednesday, Comrade Dabney said the Ambazonia nation and its people will continue the struggle until their homeland is fully liberated from French Cameroun colonialism.

Vice President Dabney Yerima stressed the Ambazonia nation’s adherence to their British Southern Cameroons Common Law identity and territory, and their complete and total rejection of anything French Cameroun in all its forms including their so-called regional elections.

Yerima told members of cabinet of the Southern Cameroons Interim Government that the people of Southern Cameroons in Ground One, Ground Zero, and the Diaspora including the jailed leaders have made huge sacrifices on the path to independence, liberation and have unanimously sent clear messages to the international community that there will never be a compromise on their right to self-determination.

Vice President Dabney Yerima pointed out that for over four years now, Biya and the French Cameroun military apparatus have tried in vain to bring the Federal Republic of Ambazonia to its knees and undermine its steadfastness, but failed in the face of the Southern Cameroon Interim Government and the Southern Cameroons resistance.

By Chi Prudence Asong

11, December 2020

Amnesty International and Other Rights Groups Slam the Yaoundé CPDM Crime Syndicate ⁰

The global human rights watchdog, Amnesty International, has slammed the Yaoundé government, accusing of Arbitrary detentions and military courts which clearly highlight the latest crackdown on opposition members.

According to the report, at least 500 people were arrested on 22 September, the majority of them members of the opposition Movement for the Renaissance of Cameroon (MRC). Of those, 160 remain in detention, 13 have been sentenced to prison by civilian courts, and 14 appeared before a military court.

“The authorities must immediately put an end to the mass arbitrary arrests and detentions and immediately release prisoners of conscience,” the rights watchdog urged.

Protests were scheduled on 22 September by the MRC in several towns, but they were banned by the authorities which waged a campaign of arrests and arbitrary detentions of MRC supporters.

According to the lawyers, at least 160 arrested people remain in detention as of 25 November, in the towns of Douala, Yaoundé, Bafoussam and Nkongsamba. The lawyers have filed applications for their release 45 times but were rejected each time.

Eight people have been sentenced to two years in prison on 17 November by the court of first instance of the town of Mfou (Center) which found them guilty for « gathering, assembly and public demonstrations, and rebellion in group”.

Five other people have been sentenced on 6 November to four months in prison in the town of Nkongsamba (West) for attempt of public demonstration.

The rights watchdog chided the Yaounde government for misusing military courts just to hurt its opponents. Fourteen people arrested on 22 September were prosecuted by the military court in Bafoussam (West) between 24 and 25 November, for “attempted insurgency and unauthorized public demonstration and gathering “.

One of the defendants was also prosecuted for “contempt to the President of the Republic” and for holding “two signs calling for the departure of President Biya’’.

At least 45 other MRC members also arrested on 22 September were convicted of “attempted revolt”, “rebellion”, “aggravated assembly” and “lack of national identity card’’ by the Yaoundé military court, which placed them in pre-trial detention. Those imprisoned include Olivier Bibou Nissack, Maurice Kamto’s spokesman, and Alain Fogue Tedom, national treasurer of the MRC.

In Yaoundé, Awasum Mispa Fri, president of MRC women’s group was arrested on 21 November and charged by a military court with “complicity in revolution and rebellion” after demanding the end of Maurice Kamto’s house arrest along with dozens of other women. She was put in pre-trial detention. Kamto’s house arrest took effect on 22 September and was lifted on 8 December.

In a separate incident, four members of the movement, Stand Up for Cameroon, very active in the anglophone regions, were arrested on 18 September by the gendarmerie in Douala after attending a meeting at the headquarters of the opposition Cameroon People’s Party. They are still in pre-trial detention after being brought before the Douala Bonanjo military court, which charged them with “attempted conspiracy, revolution and insurrection”.

“Military courts should in no way be competent to try civilians as reminded in the guidelines and principles on the right to a fair trial of the African Commission on Human and People’s’ rights,” said Fabien Offner.

Amnesty International also called out the government in its handling of the Southern Cameroons crisis. It stressed that the Killing of eight schoolchildren in Kumba was a new low in the devastating Anglophone crisis, urging the corrupt regime to protect ordinary people.

“The killing of eight schoolchildren inside their classroom is an atrocity that underscores the urgency of protecting ordinary people from the ongoing violence in Cameroon’s Anglophone regions. This horrific attack shows how badly the situation is deteriorating and we call on Cameroon’s authorities to immediately take all possible measures to protect the population,” it urged.

“At least 12 other schoolchildren were injured in the attack. Over the past year there has been a surge in attacks in the Anglophone region, with many people killed, abducted or injured. The Cameroonian authorities must send out a strong and clear signal that such appalling crimes will not be tolerated, by immediately investigating these killings. The perpetrators must be identified, arrested, prosecuted and tried in a fair trial. We also call on authorities to guarantee at all times and in all places the free exercise of the right to education, which is under threat,” the report said.

The rights organization also called for transparency and accountability in the investigation of the death of a Cameroonian journalist killed by the government while in custody. It urged the government to ensure that the investigation into a journalist’s enforced disappearance and death in military custody was independent, effective, thorough, and impartial.

The police arrested Wazizi, 36, an English-speaking journalist at the privately owned broadcaster, Chillen Muzik and TV (CMTV), on August 2, 2019 in Buea, South-West region, and transferred him to a military-run facility in the same city on August 7. On June 2, 3, and 4 Cameroonian and international media, as well as Reporters Without Borders and the Cameroon Trade Union of Journalists reported that they had learned Wazizi had died in custody following torture, on an undetermined date.

“We are still shocked that authorities disappeared Wazizi and then covered up his death for 10 months, but we welcome the opening of an investigation and call on Cameroon’s government to make its findings public and ensure that all those responsible are brought to justice,” Mr Felix Agbor Nkongho, also known as Agbor-Balla, President of the Centre for Human Rights and Democracy in Africa (CHRDA) and a human rights lawyer said.

Wazizi’s transfer to the military facility on August 7 was the last time any of his family, friends, colleagues, or lawyers saw him, or learned anything of his fate from the authorities, making his continued detention an enforced disappearance. He was accused of “collaborating with separatists,” but his lawyers say he had not been charged with any offense before his disappearance.

The French Ambassador to Cameroon told the media on June 5 that President Paul Biya had assured him that an investigation would be opened into Mr. Wazizi’s death. The declaration was made the same day that the military spokesman, Colonel Serge Cyrille Atonfack, announced that Wazizi had died of severe sepsis on August 17, 2019 at the military hospital in Yaoundé, Cameroon’s capital. No autopsy was performed, and it is not clear on what basis Atonfack made the statement.

Cameroonian authorities had not made any official statement about the death of Wazizi, nor had they responded to multiple request for information filed by his lawyers, international media groups such as Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and other journalists from Radio France International until June 5.

“It took the government 10 months after Wazizi was forcibly disappeared to acknowledge he died in custody, and authorities did so only following significant national and international pressure,” Cyrille Bechon of the Cameroonian rights organization, Nouveaux Droits de l’Homme, also said.

“Cameroonian authorities were responsible for his life and safety while in detention and must provide a full accounting as to the circumstances of his detention and death,” he stressed.

Atonfack said that Wazizi’s family had been informed about his death, but family members refute that, saying they were never told and had been seeking information on his whereabouts since his arrest.

On August 13, 2019 Wazizi’s lawyers filed a habeas corpus application before the president of the high court of the Fako division, Buea, South-West region. The application was dismissed on technical grounds. Another habeas corpus was filed on November 13, but even then, the government did not disclose that he was dead.

When he announced the death, Atonfack also alleged that Wazizi was active in one of the several separatist groups operating in the South-West region. His lawyers said that no evidence had ever been produced to support the accusations.

“If a person is arrested under the anti-terror law, due process should be followed, and evidence brought to court,” said Emmanuel Nkea, a defense lawyer. “But this has never been the case and the government is trying to cover up the facts.”

The circumstances of Wazizi’s death underscore the dangers faced by Cameroonian journalists, particularly those who report on and investigate the crisis in the Anglophone regions of the country. The organizations have repeatedly documented the vulnerability of reporters in Cameroon to harassment, intimidation, threats, torture, arbitrary arrest, and detention by Cameroonian security forces and authorities.

Under national and international human rights law, Cameroon’s authorities have an obligation to account for every death in custody and should conduct an effective, thorough, and independent investigation into Wazizi’s enforced disappearance and death.

The investigation should be capable of establishing the facts surrounding Wazizi’s disappearance and death, including whether he died following torture or other ill-treatment in custody, and identifying all those responsible with a view to bringing them to justice. Failure to investigate and prosecute those responsible would violate Cameroon’s obligations to protect people from arbitrary detention and deprivation of life and to provide an effective remedy, the groups said.

By Isong Asu in London

11, December 2020

Southern Cameroons Crisis: Yerima urges US President and Vice President-elect to support the IG ⁰

The Vice President of the Southern Cameroons Interim Government, Dabney Yerima has urged US President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris to help the suffering peoples of Southern Cameroons in the face of a deliberate international neglect.

Speaking exclusively to Cameroon Concord News Group, Yerima congratulated Biden and Kamala on their victory in the race against incumbent President Donald Trump.

“The people of Southern Cameroons are looking forward to working with the president-elect and his Vice President Kamala Harris who clearly understands the pain the people of Ambazonia are going through for over 59 years now and to strengthen the Southern Cameroons Interim Government-US relations and to achieve freedom, justice and dignity for humanity” Yerima said.

Southern Cameroonians reportedly celebrated Trump’s defeat on the streets in Bamenda, Buea, Wum, Kumbo, Limbe, Mamfe, Kumba and Muyuka.

During the last lap of his administration, Trump signed an executive order removing La Republique du Cameroun from a trade pact over alleged ‘persistent’ human rights violations.

President Donald Trump said the West African nation failed to address concerns over its “persistent gross violations of internationally recognized human rights” allegedly committed by Cameroon’s security forces.

The US also cut more than $17 million in security aid and support to Cameroon in February over concerns about its human rights record.

In a letter addressed to Congress, Trump cited accusations of torture and extrajudicial killings of citizens by the country’s military as reasons for removing Cameroon from the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA).

AGOA helps sub-Saharan countries improve trade ties with the US. Eligible countries must meet criteria including a good human rights record to benefit from the trade. But the regime in French Cameroun made a mockery of the White House and the US Congress and continued with its genocidal campaign in Southern Cameroons.

Correspondingly,the outgoing US president instead increased funding to the French Cameroun military on lame and ridiculous reasons that the regime in Yaoundé was combating the Nigerian Islamic sect, Boko Haram despite enough evidence that President Biya and his criminal CPDM gang have been diverting foreign military aid to sponsor the war in Southern Cameroons.

By Rita Akana