Six Southern Cameroons Self-Defense Groups have announced the formation of a unique restoration force to curb crimes and abductions in Ambazonia. The groups in the Southern Zone also say the new force is needed to coordinate self-defense action against the invading French Cameroun army soldiers.

Vice President Dabney Yerima who brokered the deal is expected to issue a statement on the outcome of very intensive and productive discussions that were held late yesterday. Cameroon Intelligence Report sources in Ground Zero revealed that the merger would operate as a coalition working within the framework of the Ambazonia Interim Government.

A spokesperson for Comrade Dabney Yerima told this reporter that the merger policy will also be implemented in the Northern Zone in the weeks ahead and the Vice President will call for a new strategy of popular resistance to French Cameroun occupation and colonization and opposition to policies that fuel the weakness of the Interim Government by perpetuating division.

In a recent outing in the Federal Republic of Germany, Vice President Yerima warned that Ambazonians faced liquidation if they could not achieve unity in the face of the intensified French Cameroun attacks. He also emphasized the need to uphold the Interim Government under the leadership of President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe as the legitimate and sole representative of the Ambazonian people.

The participating self-defense groups will remain independent but strive to be a model of Southern Cameroons unity that would get rid of the French Cameroun occupation, win the right to self-determination in a sovereign state with Buea as its capital.

By Asu Isong in London with files from Sama Ernest and Rita Akana

Angry residents of Yaounde express frustration as the trial of Cameroon’s main opposition leader, Maurice Kamto was adjourned on Friday.

Kamto’s trial for insurrection will now take place on October 8.

“While the charges against them were being read, one of them – counselor Christian Penda Ekoka – felt dizzy and I have to tell you what led to this discomfort. This audience was held in a sort of matchbox, forgive my use of the term. The room is very small and poorly ventilated. We were suffocating and I think this is what led to the discomfort that caused suspension of the hearing”, Kamto’s lawyer, Ntchale Michel said.

Residents reiterated their plea for the Anglophone crisis to be resolved.

“I traveled more than 600 kilometres to attend this trial. For me, it’s a historical trial. We are asking the Biya’s government to do two things, solve the Anglophone crisis and release the political prisoners. This will calm tensions”, psychologist and president of an association for the protection of human rights, Germain Ekwala said.

Maurice Kamto claimed to have won last year’s presidential election. He came in second against President Paul Biya in the polls. Kamto was put to trial along with 88 others in a military court for insurrection.

Human rights groups have denounced the jurisdiction of the military court to try the case.

Source: AFP

Villagers near Meiganga, a town in northern Cameroon, are protesting against Chinese gold miners for allegedly ruining their land. The villagers say they are poorer than before the Chinese arrived, with their farms and forests now destroyed.  

Area cattle ranchers and farmers say that if nothing is done to save them from Chinese miners, famine may strike their locality soon. 

Their spokesman, rancher Mamoudu Poro, 54, says the miners destroy farms and do not bother to cover holes and trenches they dig on roads and ranches before leaving. He says they want the Chinese to build the roads they destroyed and fill the trenches they dug, give them electricity and at least a school and a market before leaving. 

Until 2014, Meiganga and surrounding villages cultivated maize, beans and groundnuts and produced cattle for markets in Cameroon, Nigeria and the Central African Republic. 
 
Then, 300 new mining sites producing gold, zinc, nickel and other materials were discovered in the region.  Among the explorers were Chinese companies. 
 
More than a hundred of the companies’ miners work in and around Meiganga. They use tractors and equipment that clean stones and sift soil, allowing them to detect gold faster than locals who use manual tools.  Locals are paid about $2 per day to work at the Chinese mining sites. 
 
Cameroon’s minister of mines, Gabriel Dodo Ndoke, says the complaints of the villagers are legitimate. He says he has asked the companies to respect the terms of their contract with the government.  

Ndoke says the population suffers as a result of environmental degradation and does not benefit as expected because their mineral resources are exploited in a disorganized manner. He says he has given instructions to all exploitation companies to make sure they respect environmental laws and stop destroying farms and cattle ranches, which for now are the only sources of earnings for the people of the area. 
 
Officials with the China Mining Company in Meiganga declined to be interviewed about the allegations.  However, company official Hu Long said the firm has assisted communities by providing aid to hospitals and building or refurbishing schools when solicited.  He says the company also employs about 100 youths.  

This is not the first time Cameroonian villagers have protested against alleged exploitation by the Chinese.  In 2016, residents of eastern Cameroon had conflicts with small-scale Chinese gold miners who had been there for six years. The local miners said the Chinese had taken away their livelihoods and were not living up to promises to develop the area. 
 
Cameroon has not officially announced how much it gains from the mining business but says it contributes a significant amount to the country’s gross domestic product. 

Source: VOA

Paul Biya’s 37-year rule in Cameroon is fast approaching its end, a highly placed French Cameroun political elite hinted Cameroon Concord News Group late on Thursday as several Cameroon government army soldiers launched a fierce resistance against being deployed to Southern Cameroons.

“Everyone in the nation’s capital Yaoundé is seeing a regime crumbling. The sooner Biya realizes there is no way he can win the Southern Cameroons war, the better for everyone in this country” our source who sued for anonymity noted.

 It is evidently clear that the capabilities of the regime have all been eroded by the fighting in Southern Cameroons. “Clearly we’re into the last stage of the CPDM regime – the writing is on the wall” he observed.

“We’re seeing Divisional and Sub Divisional delegates  including principals of colleges packing their bags from the rural areas in Southern Cameroons and Yaoundé-controlled territory in Southern Cameroons is shrinking before our eyes” he added.

The Ambazonia Interim Government and other Southern Cameroons resistance groups are tracking what’s happening in Ground Zero and in French Cameroun.  The regime’s major ATM machines in Southern Cameroons including SONARA, CDC and PAMOL have all vanished in thin air and this is leaving government officials awake all night. The disappearance of these streams of revenue has really destabilized the French Cameroun government which is yet to find new sources of revenue.

Life has become unbearable for millions of French Cameroonians residing in the cities of Douala and Yaounde who, for many decades, have only been scrapping a living.

Paul Biya, who has been in power since 1982, vowed he would not step down and boasted that the nation remains one and indivisible even as Ambazonia Restoration Forces have made Southern Cameroons ungovernable.

Information filtered this week that Cameroon government resources are running dry, after a recent troop’s deployment to the Far North region.

By Chi Prudence Asong

A prominent Limbe-based lawyer, Barrister Helen Ebai, has died aged 76. The circumstances surrounding her death were sketchy at press time. However some sources said that the late barrister was preparing to travel to the United Kingdom for her regular health checks when she suddenly developed a certain medical challenge in her residence in Limbe.

Incorruptible and fearless career legal practitioner, Barrister Helen Ebai was among the few Southern Cameroons women to read law in England. She was married to the late Barrister Edward Ebai and was blessed with six children.

Tributes from all over the world have been pouring in ever since information of her sudden departure was made public. Reacting to the news, Chief Charles A Taku of the International Criminal Court observed that:

“The passing into the eternal glory of the Lord of the great legal luminary Barrister Helen Ebai has deprived us of a commanding voice at the service of justice and the truth. I did my first case as a lawyer before her at the Victoria Magistrate Court with the distinguished legal luminary Fon Gorgi Dinka in the case of C. J Woleta v Imoh. Several years later, she briefed me as counsel in the Besongabang Chieftaincy cases against Barrister Enonchong.

She was a passionate tireless and fearless crusader for justice, and a ferocious outspoken defender of the oppressed, the poor and the weak.”

Her last public appearance was during a town hall meeting with Prime Minister Dion Ngute. A QRC and Queens College product, she qualified as a lawyer in the UK. Went back home into ENAM and onto the magistracy profession . Helen Ebai later resigned and joined her husband in the family legal practice. She was subsequently appointed liquidator of the National Produce Marketing Board.

A devoted Catholic and an exemplary leader. She leaves behind 6 children, 8 grand children and family to mourn her.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

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