Hundreds of villagers have deserted a village in Cameroon’s English-speaking Southwest region after rebels attacked, killed their chief and torched his palace Friday evening. The fleeing civilians are asking for help in neighboring towns. The incident took place a day after another English-speaking chief was abducted. His whereabouts are still unknown.

Palm oil merchant Isaac Njoh, 52, says he fled from Liwu La-Malale in Cameroon’s English-speaking Southwest region after heavily armed rebels attacked the village and set the chief’s residence on fire.

 He says villagers were attending a meeting with their traditional ruler when heavily armed men attacked and started shooting in the air. He says the armed men set the palace buildings on fire, but the villagers were able to escape safely. He says many villagers who escaped to the neighboring town of Buea have nowhere to stay?

Malomba Esembe, who represents the area in Cameroon’s National Assembly, says the rebels butchered Molinga Francis Nangoh, village chief of Liwu La-Malale. 

“This is another affront to the sacredness of human life, to the solemnity of traditional institutions and to the sorrow of a people who are still mourning their children who were wickedly slain in Kumba on October 24. I am disturbed by this news and hereby convey my deepest sympathy to the people of Liwu La-Malale. I condemn in the strongest terms this act of wickedness for one other life lost is one too many,” he said.

Cameroon’s government has confirmed the killing and blamed separatist fighters. No one has claimed responsibility.

Bernard Okalia Bilai, governor of the Southwest region called for calm and said the military has been deployed to secure the area and find the killers. He asked the fleeing civilians to return.

In September, Cameroon territorial administration minister Paul Atanga Nji held a series of meetings and asked chiefs who fled separatist conflicts to return to their palaces.

Atem Ebako, chief of the English-speaking southwestern village of Talangaye says the attack on a chief and the burning of his palace will scare traditional rulers from returning to their villages to participate in the December 6 regional election as requested by the government.

“The minister made it abundantly clear to us that it would not be properly seen that the regional council elections that are coming for which the real actors are chiefs, that such an event is taking place and the chiefs are outside. That the government is going to put up a package to accompany the chiefs back to their palaces and we are still expecting that to happen,” he said.

 Chiefs suspected of collaborating with the central government in Yaoundé to fight the rebels have been victims of attacks from suspected rebels since the conflict worsened in 2017.

At least 11 village chiefs have been killed and 17 abducted and released since then. Hundreds escaped to safer localities and began returning to their palaces in September when the government assured them of their safety.

 Last month, some of the chiefs started creating armed militias for protection against separatists for the first time.

The government asked militias created by chiefs to collaborate with government troops by informing the military of any strange movements or visitors in their villages, but separatist groups on social media promised to kill chiefs who create militias. The separatists said any chief who collaborates with the central government in Yaoundé will not find peace should they return home.

On November 5, Sehm Mbinglo, traditional ruler of the Nso people who was returning to his palace after two years of absence was abducted. Catholic cardinal Tumi, who was accompanying Mbinglo, was also abducted but later released. Mbinglo’s whereabouts are unknown. 

The rebels have been fighting to create an independent, English-speaking state in Cameroon’s western regions since 2017.   At least 3,000 people have been killed and 550,000 displaced, according to the United Nations.

Source: VOA

Southern Cameroons Vice President Dabney Yerima says the Biya French Cameroun policy of targeting Ambazonia women and children including the clergies in order to force British Southern Cameroonians into submission has failed along with all the Atanga Nji charlatans behind it while the Ambazonian resistance still stands tall.

Vice President Dabney Yerima made the remarks in a Sunday telephone conversation with Cameroon Concord News London Bureau Chief in response to a provocative visit to Buea by French Cameroun Minister for Defense, Beti Assomo in which he insulted the Ambazonia people by describing the numerous atrocities committed against Southern Cameroons women and children as “inconsequential” and claiming that Southern Cameroonians are suffering as a result of their “stupidity”.

Reacting to Minister Beti Assomo’s insulting remarks, Comrade Dabney Yerima said the Biya French Cameroun war in Southern Cameroons has failed along with the gang of CPDM criminals behind it. Yerima added that the reason behind Beti Assomo’s anger was understandable; because he is furious the war is almost entering its fifth year signaling an embarrassing failure on the part of the Biya Francophone Beti Ewondo regime.

By Chi Prudence Asong

Paul Biya is now 38 years as president of Cameroon, maintaining his position as Africa’s second longest-ruling leader.

He is only beaten by Teodoro Obiang Nguema of Equatorial Guinea, who has been in power for nearly 41 years.

87-year-old Biya first rose to Cameroon’s top seat on November 6, 1982 when a large number of the country’s 26.5 million citizens were not yet born. He inherited a country of 9.2 million people from Ahmadou Ahidjo, the first president.

The anniversary of Biya’s ascension to power is usually marked with colourful celebrations. Crowds of the octogenarian leader’s supporters, including members of government and militants of his ruling Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement (CPDM), clothed in fabrics with the veteran leader’s smiling face printed on them, gather at anniversary rallies across the country.

They will chant ego-massaging melodies to the one they consider their champion, then take a “support walk” across a distance that the mostly elderly supporters can cover on foot. They will then end with the reading of a motion of support in which they pledge their “unflinching” support to the president or “ask him to accept the call to be their candidate at the upcoming election”.

Biya himself is usually only present at such rallies through an imposing effigy taken when the ailing leader was still strong. This image is usually placed in front of the high table and carried by relatively young militants during support parades, but top government and party officials at such events usually promise to channel their messages of support to the leader in Yaounde.

The 38th anniversary of Biya’s ascension to the helm coincides with the second anniversary of his seventh mandate following his re-election in a disputed poll in October 2018, and swearing-in for a seventh seven-year term on November 6 the same year.

Many challenges

The current mandate ends in 2025, at which point Biya will be 92-years-old, a year younger than former Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe when he was ousted from power.

This year would have been a double anniversary with double “eating and drinking” for supporters of Mr Biya, but for the fact that the celebration is coming at a very challenging time for the leader and the country.

Biya, who adopted the name Lion Man after the 1990 World Cup during which his country’s soccer team, the Indomitable Lions, became the first African country to reach the quarter finals, has been able to weather many storms.

This time, however, Central Africa’s economic giant is beset with several challenges threatening peace and the president’s grip on power.

Biya apathetically accepted the introduction of multiparty politics in the country in the 90s and in 1992, the country organised its first multi-candidate presidential election which he won and has since remained a serial election winner despite rarely making campaign outings.

However, a tough challenge to his rule has no doubt been post-2018 presidential elections.

Prof Maurice Kamto, his former ally and now opposition leader and harshest critic, has openly called for “gigantic protests” to oust Biya.

Kamto, who now heads the opposition Cameroon Renaissance Movement (MRC), says he won the 2018 vote but that his victory was stolen by Biya.

The latest of Kamto’s popular protests on September 22, however, met with heavy force as government troops clamped down on his supporters. The government said they would be tried for attempting to destabilise the country.

45 of the arrestees were recently transferred to the Kondengui Maximum Security Prison in Yaounde while Mr Kamto has been under house arrest since September 21.

Separatists

Another challenge for Mr Biya is a separatist movement in the country’s two English-speaking regions that is threatening to tear the country apart. Separatist violence erupted when fighters declared the independence of the Anglophone Northwest and Southwest regions from the majority French-speaking country.

They also declared the creation of an independent English speaking state called Ambazonia.

This declaration of independence in October 2017 was met with a heavy military crackdown that has now escalated into armed conflict with over 3,000 people killed according to early 2020 statistics from the UN.

Schools and other government institutions have been targeted by armed men in the four-year-long conflict. At the time of this report, an official burial for seven school children killed by gunmen in their school was going on in Kumba in the Southwest region in the presence of the country’s Prime Minister, Dr Joseph Dion Ngute who was representing Mr Biya.

The leader had described the killing of the students of Mother Francisca International Bilingual Academy as “horrific murder” and later decreed a day of national mourning in their honour.

Culled from The Street Journal

Activists continue to demand the release of hundreds of Cameroonian asylum seekers in ICE custody. Sylvie Bello, founder of the Cameroonian American Council, spoke to Democracy Now ahead of her “Freedom Friday” campaign, a weekly day of action in solidarity with Cameroonians held in ICE prisons.

Sylvie Bello: “Freedom Friday was inspired by 40 Cameroonian hunger strikers who protested anti-Blackness, anti-Africanness and racism in Louisiana. Today, some of those Pine Prairie hunger strikers are set for deportation on Tuesday. Please join us in calling the Congressional Black Caucus to push for the release of these Cameroonians, for Cameroon TPS, and to lift Black immigrants, within the detention and outside of detention.”