26, March 2018
Southern Cameroons Conflict Halts Cameroon-Nigeria Business 0
Separatist violence in the English-speaking regions of Cameroon along the border with Nigeria have completely stalled trade between the two countries. Buses no longer ply the Bamenda-Enugu road corridor as attacks and kidnappings continue.
About 70 men and women have assembled at Kandem, a village in southwestern Cameroon on the border with Nigeria to discuss what to do with their farm produce and how to get supplies from neighboring Nigeria. Five months ago, Kandem was a bustling market town along the $423-million African Development Bank-funded road linking Bamenda, Cameroon, with Enugu, Nigeria.
Pierre Atemengue, who came from central Cameroon, opened a plantation in Kandem. He says constant conflict between Cameroon government troops and armed separatists fighting for the independence of the English speaking from the French speaking regions of Cameroon have paralyzed business. He says 90 percent of the local farm produce has not been sold for the past five months.
He says he has asked all men to store cocoa in their community warehouse, while the women make sure that perishable farm produce like plantains, fresh maize and vegetables are harvested only when buyers come to their villages. He says women have been asked to work in groups to be able to meet supply deadlines whenever demand will be high.
Atemengue says goods imported from Nigeria are now difficult to come by, and when found are very expensive.
VOA mounted a commercial motorcycle to visit abandoned businesses in the village.
Rider Lionnel Mbung says the fighting has scared off the busloads of Nigerians that used to flood the village to buy farm produce and supply basic commodities, and that 80 percent of the youths in the village have fled the conflict.
Lionnel says he braved the crisis and stayed, but is now out of business after the government of Cameroon banned motorcycles because armed separatists were using the bikes to attack the military and kidnap government workers.
“Since the situation in Cameroon started, the bike business has dropped down, there is no way for us, things are not moving. They have passed orders that they do not want to see bikes, so we hide our bikes here, then we go to look for passengers because when we go there with our bikes, the police will catch [arrest] us.”
Access to most villages along the border with Nigeria is by motorcycle. The ban on their use has also helped to paralyze business.
Paul Atanga Nji, Cameroon minister of territorial administration who ordered the ban says the government will only reconsider its decision when peace returns and when an identification of the riders he has asked for is complete.
“The population has complained time and again because most of them kidnap, kill, destroy. So we are asking them to put order in this profession,” said Atanga Niji.
Cameroon, with a population of about 23 million, depends on Nigeria for most basic commodities, and Nigeria’s 160 million people count on Cameroon for rice, maize, tubers, plantain, cocoa and other farm produce.
The unrest in Cameroon began in November, when English-speaking teachers and lawyers in the Northwest and Southwest regions, frustrated with having to work in French, took to the streets calling for reforms and greater autonomy.
Over the past year, armed separatist groups have emerged demanding all-out independence for the two English-speaking regions. The government says at least 30 soldiers and police have been killed in recent clashes.
Culled from the VOA
28, March 2018
Atanga Nji in Southern Cameroons: But is anyone actually listening to him? 0
The government of Cameroon will accept dialogue as part of measures to end the Anglophone crisis, Interior Minister Paul Atanga Nji is reported to have said.
He however stresses that the sole condition to the dialogue being that it will be held with persons who are advancing the unity of Cameroon as a nation.
His view effectively means that the Central African country is not going to engage armed separatists whose activities continue to threaten members of the security forces and disrupt life in the Northwest and Southwest of the country – the Anglophone regions.
“We can still solve the problem without burning, looting, raping, destroying. The government is ready to dialogue with those who seek the oneness of Cameroon,” the Minister said in a visit to Buea, capital of the Southwest region on Tuesday.
Atanga is one of two Anglophones who were handed positions in the government following a cabinet reshuffle carried out by long-serving leader, Paul Biya.
What has become known as the Anglophone crisis, has riled the country’s two English-speaking regions. A previous cry against discrimination and marginalization from French-majority Cameroon has now taken a violent turn.
Secessionists under the so-called Ambazonia Republic continue to push for a breakaway from Cameroon – a move the government has flatly rejected. After a crackdown on protests in October last year during a planned symbolic independence declaration, the secessionists turned to arms.
They have since attacked and killed over twenty members of government forces – police, soldiers and gendarmes. They have also kidnapped two government officials. A soldier after burning his vehicle and a government official who appeared in a video begging to be rescued.
The call for dialogue has continually been made by several countries and groups but has yet to be seriously pursued. A number of the separatists leaders have been arrested and deported from Nigeria since January but they have yet to appear in court.
The humanitarian crisis arising from the situation has also led to Cameroonians fleeing the Anglophone regions in their thousands. The United Nations refugee agency has openly tasked parties to use dialogue to avoid further escalation of the crisis.
Source: Africa News