BARRISTER AMUNGWA TANYI NICODEMUS HAS BEEN RELEASED

On Monday, 31 May 2021, Barrister Amungwa Tanyi Nicodemus, a lead lawyer for our Leaders in detention, was arrested by the French Cameroun Gendarmerie in Yaoundé on dubious charges.

After ten days in detention, the regime in Yaoundé released him this evening on bail after a series of auditions at the military tribunal. Barrister Amungwa was neither charged nor given reasons for his arrest.

I want to thank all the lawyers of the Interim Government of Ambazonia who worked tirelessly to secure his release. Likewise, the people of Ambazonia are grateful to Human Rights Watch for taking his plight to a global audience.

French Cameroun’s unacceptable harassment of members of the Southern Cameroons legal profession must stop.

The people of Ambazonia are facing a brutal enemy with no respect for life, human rights, the rule of law and international norms. But, as a people, we will not be silenced by intimidation and persecution. Our prize is Buea, and we must stay resolute and focused.

Thank You

Vice President Dabney Yerima

Federal Republic of Ambazonia

The Cameroon Bar has obtained the release of human rights lawyer Amungwa Tanyi Nicodemus, a statement has said.

The prosecutor at the Yaoundé Military Tribunal granted bail to Barrister Amungwa Wednesday, June 9, 2021, with three key members of the Bar Council standing as guarantors.

The bail guarantors include Barrister Claire Atangana Bikouna, President of the Bar Council, Barrister Pierre Robert Fojou, representative of the Bar President for the Center, South & East, and Barrister Daniel Ngos, Deputy Secretary of the Bar.

On Monday, June 7, 2021, Human Rights Watch described as “unjust” the jailing of human rights lawyer Amungwa Tanyi Nicodemus on “bogus charges of inciting terrorism.”

“He should be released immediately,” Human Rights Watch said.

According to the human rights organization, Gendarmes arrested Amungwa on May 31 at the Groupement Territorial de la Gendarmerie in Cameroon’s capital, Yaoundé, while he was assisting a client.

“According to Amungwa’s lawyers, after Amungwa complained that Cameroon’s criminal procedure had been breached in his client’s case, the gendarme in charge of the investigation seized Amungwa’s phone without a warrant, claiming Amungwa had taken photographs at the facility,” Human Rights Watch wrote. “While searching for the alleged photographs, the gendarme found other photographs that recorded alleged military abuses in Cameroon’s Anglophone regions and arrested Amungwa, his lawyers said.”

It said Amungwa was transferred to the Service Central des Recherches Judiciaires (SCRJ), at the State Defense Secretariat (Secrétariat d’État à la défense, SED) – a detention facility where Human Rights Watch has previously documented repeated resort to incommunicado detention and torture – where he remains detained.

On June 1, Amungwa’s lawyers and the head of the Cameroon bar association visited him in detention and urged his release. Two days later, the Yaoundé military court prosecutor rejected Amungwa’s lawyers’ request for bail and returned the case to the SCRJ for “relevant checks.”

The release on bail of Barrister Amungwa this Wednesday suggests that the relevant checks were successful.

Amungwa, a member of the Cameroon bar association, is one of the lawyers representing Sisiku Julius Ayuk Tabe, the jailed leader of the Cameroonian separatist group, the Ambazonia Interim Government, and several other people arrested in connection with the Anglophone crisis.

“Amungwa’s arrest is a direct attack on the legal profession,” Ayukotang Ndep Nkongho, one of Amungwa’s lawyers, told Human Rights Watch. “His arbitrary detention reveals a system geared towards stifling and undermining the role and activities of lawyers involved in key human rights cases.”

Cameroon’s state forces have been battling to dislodge armed separatists who pitched their tents in the North West and South West Regions since Anglophone protests transformed into an armed conflict in 2017.

Corporate demands by Common Law Lawyers and Anglophone Teachers led to protests in November 2016. The street demonstrations later morphed into ongoing running gun battles between state forces and armed separatist fighters in the predominantly English-speaking regions, leading to untold destruction of human lives, their habitats, and livelihoods.

Tit-for-tat killings, kidnappings, arsons, maiming, and outright terror have become part of daily lives in some parts of the English-speaking regions.

Source: CIN

Cameroon plans to launch the first biometric passport model starting from July 1, a senior official told the press on Tuesday.

Dominique Baya, Secretary General of the General Delegation of National Security said, the intention was to eradicate fraud or forgery, and avoid delays encountered in the issuance of the travel document.

“The objective is to provide a modern, reliable and highly secured production system capable of fully meeting the requirements of the International Civil Aviation Organization and the Economic and Monetary Community of Central Africa,” Baya told reporters in the capital, Yaounde.

Applications for Cameroonian passport will henceforth be online and passports will be issued 48 hours after enrolment, he added.

Source: Xinhaunet

The Yaoundé government received a double whammy on Monday, June 7, 2021 following the release of a Human Rights Watch report that clearly indicts the government for its inhuman brutality, while the United States announced visa restrictions against those responsible for the perpetuation of violence in Cameroon’s two English-speaking regions which has been the theater of a bloody and senseless violence between armed Anglophone groups and the army.

Since the Biden Administration came to power in January 2021, its Secretary of State, Antony John Blinken, has focused on the conflict in Cameroon, urging the Yaoundé government to seek peaceful means to bring about sustainable peace in the two English-speaking regions. 

On Monday, Blinken stepped up pressure for a peaceful resolution to Cameroon’s conflict between state forces and English-speaking rebels by imposing visa restrictions on individuals believed to be undermining efforts to end the crisis.

Mr. Blinken said in a statement that “this decision reflects our commitment to advance a dialogue to peacefully resolve the Anglophone crisis and support respect for human rights.” 

The sanctions are aimed at “those who undermine the peaceful resolution of the crisis,” the U.S. State Department said in a statement, without naming those targeted by the ban. 

However, many people across know some of those in government who have been seeking to perpetuate the fighting as it gives them leverage and wealth. Paul Atanga Nji, the territorial administration minister; Joseph Beti Assoumo, the defense minister; Fame Ndongo, the higher education minister and Laurent Esso, the justice minister and their family members are those who are really targeted by the U.S. sanction, a source at the State Department has hinted the Cameroon Concord News Group.

The country’s two English-speaking regions have been gripped by fighting since 2017 as the rebels try to break away from the predominantly Francophone government. Some 7,000 people have died and more than 700,000 have been displaced as a result of the violence.

Announcing the visa sanctions, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the United States was deeply concerned by the continued insecurity and called for both sides to negotiate for peace.

“We condemn those who undermine the peace by provoking or inciting violence, human rights violations and threats to peacekeepers and humanitarian workers,” the U.S. diplomat added.

“Washington is deeply concerned about the continuing violence and continues to call on the Cameroonian government and armed separatist groups to end the violence and engage in dialogue without preconditions to peacefully resolve the crisis,” the statement further said.

The English-speaking minority in Cameroon’s northwest and southwest regions blame the French-speaking majority for marginalizing them, instead of looking at how to address the issues, the Yaounde government resorted to terrible crack-down that has resulted in a bitter civil war that will not be ending anytime soon if external pressure is not mounted the government which holds that only military violence can deter Southern Cameroonians from walking away from hastily patched union between English speakers and French speakers.

It should be recalled that the Administration had also taken some measures aimed at bringing the government to the negotiating table, but the French-backed government has been very arrogant and indifferent to human rights abuses and the killing of civilians.

Former President Donald Trump had said Cameroon had failed to address concerns regarding government forces’ persistent human rights violations, including extrajudicial killings, arbitrary and unlawful detention and torture. The violations have persisted in recent years as English-speaking communities demand independence from Cameroon, alleging marginalization by the government of President Paul Biya.

President Trump said he would ax Cameroon from a trade program that allowed African countries to sell goods to the United States on a duty-free basis, citing “persistent human rights violations” in a letter to Congress.

The decision came as U.S. officials accused the Central African nation of extrajudicial killings and unlawful detentions amid conflicts that had displaced more than a half-million people over the past two years. 

Despite intensive engagement between the United States and the Government of Cameroon, Cameroon had failed to address concerns regarding persistent human rights violations being committed by Cameroonian security forces. 

The announcement came several months after the US scaled back security assistance as a result of Cameroon’s Francophone military committing multiple human rights abuses against Anglophone civilians. 

While the U.S. was threatening a targeted visa ban, the human rights watchdog, Human Rights Watch (HRW) made things more complicated for the government by releasing a report on the situation in Cameroon wherein he put the blame squarely on the Yaounde government, indicting it of curtailing human rights and limiting free speech.

“Violence has been rife in Cameroon’s North-West and South-West regions since late 2016, as armed separatists seek independence for the country’s minority Anglophone regions. Separatists’ targeted civilians, including aid workers, students, and teachers, while continuing to enforce a boycott on children’s education. Security forces have also committed a litany of abuses including the killing of civilians, arson, sexual violence, and torture of suspected collaborators with separatist groups. Boko Haram attacks are a persistent threat in the Far North region. The Cameroonian government has also taken steps to limit freedom of expression and association, including through the arrests of hundreds of opposition party members and supporters in September 2020 following peaceful demonstrations,” says the HRW report

The report chronicled abuses by government security forces, highlighting a military operation in Bali, North-West region, in retaliation for separatist attacks on polling centers, destroying over 50 homes and killing several civilians, including two men with intellectual disabilities.

It also highlighted actions by government forces on February 14, where government forces and armed ethnic Fulani killed 21 civilians, including 13 children and 1 pregnant woman, in Ngarbuh in North-West region. 

The report pointed out that residents told Human Rights Watch the attack was to punish civilians suspected of harboring separatist fighters. The government initially denied soldiers were involved in the attack, but in March, following international pressure, President Biya established a commission of inquiry into the killings which resulted in the government admitting to the fact that its security forces bear some responsibility for the killings.

Government violence knows no limits. On June 10, 2020 a grenade was fired into the courtyard of the district hospital in Bali, North-West region, following clashes between government soldiers and separatists, leading to the death of one cardiac patient. At least four others were injured as a result.  Security forces also damaged a health facility in the North-West region on June 30, 2020 and arbitrarily arrested seven people.

However, the report also indicts separatist fighters who have also been committing serious atrocities. However, on the whole, the government that is supposed to engineer peace in the country is to blame for the escalation of the conflict and the enormous abuses that have taken place since 2016.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

Today marks one week since prominent Cameroonian human rights lawyer, Amungwa Tanyi Nicodemus, was thrown behind bars on bogus charges of inciting terrorism. He should be released immediately.

Gendarmes arrested Amungwa on May 31 at the Groupement Territorial de la Gendarmerie in Cameroon’s capital, Yaoundé, while he was assisting a client. According to Amungwa’s lawyers, after Amungwa complained that Cameroon’s criminal procedure had been breached in his client’s case, the gendarme in charge of the investigation seized Amungwa’s phone without a warrant, claiming Amungwa had taken photographs at the facility. While searching for the alleged photographs, the gendarme found other photographs that recorded alleged military abuses in Cameroon’s Anglophone regions and arrested Amungwa, his lawyers said.

Amungwa was transferred to the Service Central des Recherches Judiciaires (SCRJ), at the State Defense Secretariat (Secrétariat d’État à la défense, SED) – a detention facility where Human Rights Watch has previously documented repeated resort to incommunicado detention and torture – where he remains detained.

On June 1, Amungwa’s lawyers and the head of the Cameroon bar association visited him in detention and urged his release. Two days later, the Yaoundé military court prosecutor rejected Amungwa’s lawyers’ request for bail and returned the case to the SCRJ for “relevant checks.”

Amungwa, a member of the Cameroon bar association, is one of the lawyers representing Sisiku Julius Ayuk Tabe, the jailed leader of the Cameroonian separatist group, the Ambazonia Interim Government, and several other people arrested in connection with the Anglophone crisis.

“Amungwa’s arrest is a direct attack on the legal profession,” Ayukotang Ndep Nkongho, one of Amungwa’s lawyers, told me. “His arbitrary detention reveals a system geared towards stifling and undermining the role and activities of lawyers involved in key human rights cases.”

Amungwa’s detention takes place amidst a broader crackdown in Cameroon on opposition and dissent. He is one of dozens of government critics, human rights defenders, and journalists arrested in recent years.

Possessing photographs that provide evidence of abuses in the English-speaking regions is not a crime, far less an act to incite terrorism. Cameroonian authorities should immediately release Amungwa and ensure both his due process rights and his role and privileges as a lawyer are respected.

Source: Human Rights Watch

U.S. Senator Jim Risch (R-Idaho), ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, applauded Secretary Blinken’s announcement today that the United States will impose visa restrictions on individuals who are believed to be responsible for, or complicit in, undermining the peaceful resolution of the crisis in the Anglophone regions of Cameroon.

“For nearly four years, the English-speaking Northwest and Southwest regions of Cameroon have experienced one of most neglected human tragedies on the African continent. Countless atrocities and grave human suffering continue without much notice or intervention from the rest of the world,” said Ranking Member Risch. “I’m glad the United States is taking more definitive action against those undermining a peaceful resolution to the armed conflict in Anglophone Cameroon, and is acting on the Senate’s call for targeted sanctions in a bipartisan resolution that I introduced. Today’s action is a good first step to increasing accountability for those undermining peace in Cameroon.”

On January 1, 2021, the Senate agreed, by unanimous consent, to a bipartisan resolution introduced by Ranking Member Risch regarding the Anglophone crisis (S.Res.684). A key provision in the resolution urged the United States government to consider imposing targeted sanctions on individual government and separatist leaders responsible for extrajudicial killings, torture, or other gross violations of internationally recognized human rights.

The Vice President of the Southern Cameroons Interim Government, Dabney Yerima says the people of Ambazonia are now stronger than ever as the resistance sails through its fourth year.

“Several French Cameroun cabinet ministers said that Biya and French Cameroun have won the war against our nation. I tell you my people, I do not know of any resistance that has been predicted as much as the Southern Cameroons to collapse,” Yerima said on Thursday during a cabinet meeting.

“Biya, Mukete, Achidi, Fru Ndi, Ngolle Ngolle, Mengot, Fame Ndongo, Issa Tchiroma, Philemon Yang from the very beginning of the struggle said that the Southern Cameroons-Ambazonia uprising would not last for a month.”

“Recently, a certain Paul Atanga Nji said the same thing claiming that French Cameroun head of state Paul Biya has won the war against Ambazonia Restoration Forces. But by the Grace of the Almighty God our struggle and your Ambazonia Interim Government not only have not collapse but have become stronger” Yerima said.

Vice President Yerima told members of the war cabinet that President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe and the Ambazonia Interim Government will not surrender but rather continue the trip to Buea by overcoming all France and French Cameroun obstacles.

The War in Ambazonia has already claimed at least 40 000 lives, almost all of them civilian children, men and women, murdered by Cameroun troops in a series of targeted killings, organized massacres, and killings by fire in over 400 villages burnt down to ashes across Ambazonia. Over half a million people have been forcibly displaced as refugees living in various countries and especially in refugee camps in Nigeria.Over another half a million people have become IDPs hiding in forests, caves and hills due to forced displacement. Additionally, over 1.5 million people are facing a humanitarian disaster.

Republique du Cameroun uses not only arson and the destruction of food, livestock, and crops in the fields as weapons of war. It also uses rape. Rape of Ambazonian women and girls by Cameroun troops is systematic and widespread. This agonizing situation is compounded by the fact that a high percentage of Cameroun troops are HIV positive and also has other STDs. When they rape they infect the women and girls. This appears to be part of the genocide agenda of Cameroun. Reports are now emerging of scores of school girls raped, impregnated and infected by Republique du Cameroun’s troops. This poses a nightmare not only of the HIV and STD infections but also of rampant teenage pregnancies. Cameroun troops have burnt down health facilities and killed health workers in rural and semi-urban areas. Accessing health facilities or health practitioners is a huge challenge for rural and semi-urban folks.

By Isong Asu in London

A leading Southern Cameroons academic has opined that Ambazonia Restoration Forces and the popular Interim Government are winning the French Cameroun war currently going on in Southern Cameroons.

Professor Carlson Anyangwe in a conversation with Cameroon Concord News Group stressed that soon and very soon, La Republique du Cameroun and its ruling CPDM losers will be running to speak to the jailed leaders in Yaoundé.

The Southern Cameroons veteran and front line leader analyzed the situation in Ground Zero, where French Cameroun army soldiers have killed at least 40 000 lives, almost all of them civilian, children, men and women, murdered in a series of targeted killings, organized massacres, and killings by fire in over 400 villages burnt down to ashes across Ambazonia.

Carlson Anyangwe noted that the Southern Cameroons was one of the territories set for decolonization in the context of the UN decolonization agenda. “Britain’s devious handling of it and the British wheeling and dealing at the UN in 1959 and 1960 caused a great historical injustice to the people of the Southern Cameroons. That injustice continues to cry out for redress” Anyangwe added.

Professor Anyangwe pointed out that the corrupt French Cameroun leader launched the offensive against the people of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia on the assumption that it would bring an easy victory to him and guarantee his continued stay in power in La Republique du Cameroun.

“I think the Southern Cameroons war has become a public relations debacle, as the French Cameroun ruling CPDM crime syndicate is not only publicly brutalizing a desperate and impoverished people but also demonstrating that with support, the French Cameroun military is still incapable of defeating an ill-equip Ambazonia Restoration Force despite millions of Euros and French military hardware.”

On a lighter note, the renowned academic furthered that “Building Churches in French Cameroun with blood money and covid-19 funds does not guarantee any true Southern Cameroonian a place in Heaven.”

By Asu Vera Eyere

THE UNLAWFUL ARREST OF BARRISTER AMUNGWA TANYI NICODEMUS

On Monday, 31 May 2021, Barrister Amungwa Tanyi Nicodemus, a lead lawyer for our Leaders in Detention, was arrested while supporting a client in Yaoundé. He is a devoted Human Rights Lawyer whose courage, professionalism and expertise have made life difficult for the regime in Yaoundé.

Barrister Amungwa’s detention on phoney charges is unlawful and violates basic norms expected of any legitimate government. He is being detained at the Service Central des RecherchesJudiciaires (SCRJ) in Yaoundé, despite a request from the head of French Cameroun’s Bar Association, Mrs Atangana Bikouna Claire, for his speedy release. Accordingly, the Interim Government of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia condemns his detention robustly and calls on the government of La Republique to Cameroun to release him without delay.

French Cameroun’s unacceptable harassment of members of the legal profession and media must stop. This week marks the first anniversary of the brutal murder of journalist Samuel Wazizi in French Cameroun military custody. We maintain that the regime in Yaoundé has a fierce desire to restrain journalists and lawyers. The detention of Barrister Amungwa validates that claim.

The Interim Government of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia is today notifying international media organizations and the diplomatic community about the unlawful detention of Barrister Amungwa and the continuous harassment of legal practitioners by the French Cameroun regime in Yaoundé. We appeal to all diplomatic missions in French Cameroun to denounce the detention of Barrister Amungwa and call for his immediate release.  

The life of every Ambazonian matters, and the safety and security of our people is our foremost concern. The people of Ambazonia face a brutal enemy with no respect for life, human rights, the rule of law and international norms. The Interim Government of Ambazonia will regularly make updates on this critical issue public.

Dabney Yerima

Vice President

Southern Cameroons Interim Government

Prime Minister Dion Ngute’s chief of staff, Balungeli Confiance Ebune is expected to appear before the Special Criminal Court in Yaoundé next week.

The Balungeli Confiance Ebune hearing comes after those of many other collaborators of Chief Dr Joseph Dion Ngute, the so-called Anglophone Prime Minister and Head of Government.

Cameroon Intelligence Report gathered that Balungeli Confiance Ebune instructed the Minister of Public Health to award a juicy contract for the supply of three million rapid tests equipment to the company Mediline Medical Cameroon SA.

He will be interrogated along with Cameroon government ministers cited in a report on the fight against covid-19.

In an explosive revelation now known in Cameroon as Covidgate, the audit chamber of the Supreme Court recently identified 30 cases of fraud.

The report also exposed numerous dysfunctions and embezzlements in the management of anti-Covid 19 funds, involving cabinet ministers and other senior officials of the Biya regime.  

For instance, the Ministry of Research and Innovation announced that it had the capacity to produce 5 million chloroquine tablets and 5 million Azythromycin tablets locally. But the report from the Chamber of Accounts at the Supreme Court revealed that these drugs cost the state more than 4 billion CFA francs and their production was in fact carried out by an Indian manufacturer.

The Indian made drugs were simply packaged upon arrival in Cameroon. The CPDM crime manoeuvre is seen as a strategy that led to the embezzlement of more than 5 billion CFA francs from the state coffers.  

The audit chamber of the Supreme Court also reported that the acquisition of personal protective equipment was budgeted at nearly 3 billion CFA francs but the deal was done at more than 23 billion CFA francs-an overrun of 20 billion CFA francs.

The purchase of anti-Covid 19 tests at astronomical prices made the state lose some 15 billion FCFA.

The publication of the report has caused indignation and excitement in the country. In reaction, René Emmanuel Sadi, the Minister of Communication and government spokesperson, acknowledged that investigations are underway, but called for respect for the presumption of innocence.

By Fon Lawrence