The Cameroonian authorities must immediately release 36 opposition supporters arbitrarily detained for five years for exercising their right to peaceful assembly and put an end to arbitrary detention in the country, Amnesty International said on the fifth anniversary of their arrest.

On 22 September 2020, over 500 people were arbitrarily arrested for participating in peaceful protests organized by the opposition party ‘Movement for the Renaissance of Cameroon’ (MRC) in several cities across the country. Of the protesters arrested 36 remain in detention, languishing in Kondengui prison in Yaoundé after being sentenced by a military court to between five- and seven-years’ imprisonment.

“The Cameroonian authorities must immediately release these individuals, who have committed no crime other than to express their opinion,” said Marceau Sivieude, Amnesty International’s Regional Director for West and Central Africa.

We are deeply disappointed that the authorities have failed to recognize the arbitrary nature of the ongoing detention of these protesters.

“The authorities must address these concerns and ensure that no person is arbitrarily arrested or detained solely for exercising their rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly. The authorities must also refrain from trying civilians in military courts, as it is incompatible with the right to a fair trial and therefore in violation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights.”

By the end of September, 24 of those imprisoned will have served their five-year sentences. Among them, one has suffered three strokes but has not been released on medical grounds despite their requests, according to the lawyer Hippolyte Meli Tiakouang, coordinator of a collective defending detained opposition supporters.

“Thirty-six appeals have been lodged since 2022 with the Supreme Court of Cameroon, which has not yet ruled on any of them. The delays are unreasonable. One might think that judiciary drag things out so that the sentences handed down will be carried out” said Hippolyte Meli Tiakouang.

On 4 November 2022, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention published an opinion which found that the detention of 15 of the MRC leaders and activists was arbitrary. 

“We are deeply disappointed that the authorities have failed to recognize the arbitrary nature of the ongoing detention of these protesters,” said Marceau Sivieude.

Increasing wrongful arrests and detentions ahead of presidential election

A few weeks ahead of the presidential election in which President Paul Biya runs for an eighth term, restrictions on civic and democratic space are worsening, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights warned on 2 September.

This travesty of justice must end.

On 4 August, at least 54 MRC supporters were arrested next to the Constitutional Council in Yaoundé during pre-election dispute hearings, according to Hippolyte Meli Tiakouang. All of them are now on bail. Twenty-three are facing prosecution for allegedly inciting revolt and disturbing public order, and if convicted face several years in prison.

On 9 August, a man who posted videos calling for demonstrations against the rejection of the candidacy of MRC leader Maurice Kamto was arrested and has been held at New Bell prison in Douala on the orders of the Douala military court. According to his lawyers, he is being prosecuted for ‘publicly condoning the crime of undermining the internal security of the state’.

“These opposition supporters should never have been arrested in the first place. The fact that they were arrested points to the alarming crackdown on freedom of expression and peaceful assembly in Cameroon. The charges against those who are prosecuted for exercising their human rights must be dropped,” said Marceau Sivieude.

“In recent years, anyone who dares criticize the authorities, whether a human rights defender, a journalist, a political activist or a protester, runs the risk of being arbitrarily arrested and detained, tortured or otherwise ill-treated, and tried by military courts. Unfortunately, this trend increases as the presidential election approaches. This travesty of justice must end.”

“The authorities must uphold the country’s international human rights obligations including under the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights to which Cameroon is a state party.”

President Paul Biya, 92, who has been in power in Cameroon for nearly 43 years, will face 11 other candidates in his bid for a new seven-year term on 12 October.

The Cameroon Chamber of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Handicrafts (Ccima) said it is raising awareness among its members about the upcoming Russia-Africa Economic Forum in Moscow. The announcement came in a September 15 letter from Ccima’s secretary general to the head of the Pan-African Association for Excellence, Education, Development and Friendship Between Peoples.

Cameroon sees the forum as a chance to deepen cooperation with Russia, where economic exchanges remain narrow. The relationship is currently limited to Russian wheat exports to Cameroon and Gazprom’s exclusive purchase of Cameroonian natural gas.

“The cooperation between Cameroon and Russia mainly covers military, trade and humanitarian areas. Despite economic and technical agreements signed with the former USSR in the 1960s and 1970s, the economic dimension remains underdeveloped,” Cameroon’s presidency noted in a preparatory document for the 2023 Russia-Africa Summit.

The same document stressed that, as Cameroon faces financing challenges with some traditional partners, cooperation with Russia could help fund major structural projects.

It added that Russia, the world’s eighth-largest economy, holds expertise in wheat production, fertilizer manufacturing and mining. Partnerships should therefore focus on mobilizing development aid, attracting foreign direct investment, strengthening trade capacity, building partnerships and expanding resources through decentralized cooperation.

Source: Business in Cameroon

Cameroon’s military has taken delivery of 172 newly acquired vehicles, including 104 Land Cruiser BJ light tactical vehicles, three Toyota Land Cruiser 300 VX and 29 Toyota Fortuner 4x4s, to boost the operational efficiency of different services of the country’s military.

The delivery, which took place at Air Base 101 in Yaounde on 4 September, according to defence ministry officials, also included 21 six-metre and 10-metre boats meant for maritime rescue operations, as well as 36 of a total of 227 Renault- and Peugeot-brand firefighting trucks and related equipment destined for the national firefighting brigade.

The boats are made from aluminium alloy and powered by Yamaha outboard motors of 50 and 150 horsepower, said Colonel Japhet Sylvain Ondanga, Director in charge of joint military equipment at the defence ministry.

All the vehicles and equipment are supplied by France’s specialised vehicle manufacturer Desautel Group, and discussions for the supply of a second consignment are said to be underway.

The service vehicles were acquired with funds from the Cameroon government estimated at about FCFA 32 billion ($53.5 million), while the firefighting equipment was financed through a loan from the French Treasury of a similar amount.

The Minister Delegate at the Presidency in charge of Defence, Joseph Beti Assomo, who presided at the handover ceremony, underscored the importance of the vehicles, noting that they will substantially contribute to the operational efficiency of the beneficiary personnel and the army as a whole.

Assomo said the acquisition of the new military gear is in line with the desire of the Head of State and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, Paul Biya, to modernise the defence and security forces and keep their operational and logistical capabilities in line with contemporary standards.

“It is part of an overall drive to modernise equipment and reinforce our national defence system. These acquisitions are intended to improve the operational capacity of our soldiers and units in response to ever-increasing security demands,” he stated during the ceremony.

“This significant consignment of equipment was acquired in part thanks to funding granted by BPI France on behalf of the French Treasury, for a total of more than FCFA 32 billion. To date, 172 vehicles have already been delivered,” Assomo said.

“This ceremony also offers us the opportunity to showcase 136 other brand-new vehicles, including 29 official and service vehicles and 104 Land Cruiser BJ light tactical vehicles, selected samples of which are also displayed here today,” he added.

Assomo stated that after the presentation of the vehicles, the distribution process will proceed gradually.

“Priority will be given to replacing outdated vehicles with new ones. Additional acquisitions are already planned, so it is unnecessary to overwhelm the offices of the Chief of Staff or the Minister with repeated requests,” he appealed.

Cameroon has faced serious security challenges in recent years, and the military has been trying to meet the exigencies by strengthening its logistical capacity through the acquisition of vehicles and other vital equipment to boost its operational readiness.

In 2021, the National Gendarmerie received equipment, including DJI Phantom drones, rifles and accessories, 100 bullet-resistant jackets, 50 heavy armour helmets, and six pairs of binoculars, among others, to be used in the fight against terrorism.

Source: Defenseweb

Calls are multiplying from officials of Cameroon’s elections management agency (ELECAM) across the country for registered voters to take possession of their biometric voter cards in a move that has been considered a race against time.

The election agency is now racing to distribute both backlogged old cards and newly printed ones as the country’s presidential election is just a month away. Some of the uncollected cards date back to 2018 and even older, officials say.

Cameroonians are due to elect a new president on October 12 in an election that has incumbent President Paul Biya and 11 other candidates in the race.

According to ELECAM, hundreds of thousands of biometric voter cards remain uncollected at its decentralized offices across the nation, and officials are said to be using door-to-door campaigns, mobile teams, and council area commissions to get these cards to their owners.

Registered voters without voter cards will not be able to cast their ballot on polling day, ELECAM warns.

In the Littoral Region, for example, officials say there are more than 350,000 cards still uncollected, as officials intensify strategies to make sure they meet registered citizens through proximity methods.

In the South Region, the Regional Delegate of ELECAM told state broadcaster, CRTV, recently that they received more than 115,000 voter cards from the Directorate General of ELECAM covering the period 2021-2024, but that just around 50,000 cards have been collected.

Of the total number of cards collected for distribution in the South West Region, just around 48 percent of them have been handed over to their owners, the ELECAM Regional Delegate for that region, Zofoa Njoya Sake, told Biometric Update in a chat.

He said of the 66,515 cards received, about 31,861 of them have been distributed, while more than 34,000 others remain to withdrawn by their owners. Nonetheless, he said they have received logistical support to enable them clear the backlog of uncollected cards.

In the past weeks, ELECAM’s teams say they have been working in collaboration with members of commissions charged with the issuance and distribution of voter cards in all council areas to ramp up collection.

Their efforts are intended to make sure that all registered voters receive their cards before election day on October 12.

Cameroon’s electoral law states that biometric voter cards issued to registered voters shall be permanent, and can only be replaced in the case of loss or damage.

Apart from voter card distribution, ELECAM says it is also currently in the process of deduplicating the biometric voter registry which has around 8.2 million registered voters.

In May, ELECAM announced that it took delivery of new biometric gear to support voter registration for the presidential election. It also trained some of its staff on the effective use of the devices.

Cameroon introduced a biometric voter registration system in 2012 with a first set of 1,200 kits supplied then by German firm Giesecke and Devrient. Other kits were later purchased from GenKey and Veridos, according to ELECAM sources.

Source: Biometricupdate.com

At least nine soldiers were killed in weekend clashes in Cameroon as armed separatists sought to impose a month-long lockdown in the country’s war-torn English-speaking regions of Northwest and Southwest, according to security sources.

Separatist leaders said on social media that the lockdown, which began on Monday, was intended to disrupt the reopening of schools in the regions and the country’s presidential election scheduled for October.

Residents of Bamenda, the capital of the Northwest Region, said the situation in the city is tense.

“There is nobody on the streets. The streets are all deserted. Places are closed and almost all activities are not operational. People are just afraid because of the lockdown,” a resident of the city, who asked not to be named, said.

Additional troops have been deployed to the region where they conduct night and day patrols, a security source said. On Sunday, officials in the regions assured residents of “tight security” and urged them to go about their activities normally.

Separatists have been clashing with government forces since 2017 in a bid to create an independent nation they call “The Federal Republic of Ambazonia.”

Source: Xinhuanet

Two Americans originally from Cameroon have been arrested and charged with organizing and bankrolling a violent separatist campaign in their central African homeland’s troubled English-speaking regions, the US Justice Department said.

Benedict Nwana Kuah, 51, and Pascal Kikishy Wongbi, 52, were taken into custody on Friday in the northern US state of Minnesota.

Both were charged with conspiracy to kill, kidnap, maim, and injure persons abroad; conspiracy to provide material support or resources; and conspiracy to launder monetary instruments.

Kuah was additionally charged with conspiracy to take hostages and conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction outside the United States.

The two men, who are naturalized US citizens, face a maximum of life in prison if convicted. They remain in custody pending detention hearings next week.

Federal prosecutors say Kuah and Wongbi hold leadership positions in the so-called Ambazonia Defense Forces (ADF), which is seeking independence for an unrecognized state they call “Ambazonia.”

A deadly conflict between armed separatists and government forces has blighted Cameroon’s mainly anglophone North West and South West regions since 2016.

The separatists claim that English speakers, who make up about 20 percent of Cameroon’s population, have been marginalized in the predominantly French-speaking nation.

“The defendants are charged with using the United States as a base of operations to finance and direct kidnappings, bombings, and killings in Cameroon,” acting assistant attorney general Matthew Galeotti said in a statement.

“Minnesota is not a launchpad for overseas violence,” said acting federal prosecutor Joseph Thompson.

“Operating from the comfort of their living rooms in Minnesota, these defendants caused violence and suffering half a world away.”

Prosecutors allege that since 2017, Kuah and Wongbi have sent thousands of dollars to accomplices to buy weapons and explosives, and directed deadly attacks, hostage-takings and kidnappings.

Cameroon’s longtime leader Paul Biya has resisted calls for more autonomy in the regions and responded with a crackdown on the separatists.

The violence has claimed more than 6,000 lives and displaced around one million people, according to the International Crisis Group (ICG) think tank.

Source: AFP

A separatist group has claimed responsibility for a roadside bomb attack that detonated in southwestern Cameroon, killing seven soldiers.

The attack happened Friday morning near the town of Malende, according to local media. The Fako Unity Warriors, an English-speaking separatist group, claimed responsibility for the attack late on Friday.

The Cameroon News Agency reported that seven soldiers were killed. Government forces had been on patrol in the area in recent weeks, searching for improvised explosive devices, the agency said.

The Cameroonian military has not officially commented on the attack and did not respond to a request for comment from The Associated Press.

Cameroon’s western regions have been plagued by fighting since English-speaking separatists launched a rebellion in 2017 with the stated goal of breaking away from the French-speaking majority. They aim to establish an independent English-speaking state in the west of the country.

The tensions, which began with peaceful protests organized by lawyers and teachers, turned deadly nearly a decade ago following a government crackdown.

The government has accused separatists of committing atrocities against English-speaking civilians. The conflict has killed more than 6,000 people and displaced over 600,000 others, according to the International Crisis Group.

Though the number of deadly attacks by separatists has decreased in recent years, the conflict shows no signs of resolution. Peace talks with international mediators have stalled, with both sides accusing each other of acting in bad faith.

Friday’s attack came on the same day that federal law enforcement officials in Minnesota indicted two separatist leaders, both naturalized U.S. citizens.

According to the indictment, the two commanders of the Ambazonia Defense Forces had financed and ordered fighters in Cameroon to carry out bombings, executions and kidnappings while living in the United States.

Source: AP