Interim Government:  Statement  on Four Ambazonians Detained in SED Yaoundé

Today, Ambazonia Intelligence Services (AIS) brought to the attention of the Interim Government of Ambazonia that four citizens of Southern Cameroons are currently being detained at Secretariat of Defence (SED) Yaoundé.  These men were abducted from different locations and have been detained incommunicado for longer than it is lawfully permissible by the penal code of French Cameroun.

The AIS gathered that the four Ambazonians have not been formerly charged by the French Cameroun regime; therefore their incommunicado detention by the regime in Yaoundé is unlawful. The four Ambazonians are;

• FORSHI VITALIS.
• WOYO MARIUS.
• TABASSANG AUGUSTINE.
• LOUIS BONKIYUNG .

Last week, following unrelenting pressure from the Interim Government of Ambazonia, the Government of French Cameroun granted our legal representatives access to Kingsley Njoka, a Southern Cameroons journalist, currently being incarcerated at the same detention facility.

Earlier, I instructed our legal representatives in Southern Cameroons to make an appearance at SED, Yaounde, on Monday, 15 June 2020, to establish the circumstances surrounding the aforementioned Ambazonians.

Never in the history of democracy has a nation been so insensitive and reckless in its application of the law. Never has a regime displayed exceptional disdain for the lives and human rights of fellow humans.

I am today informing the regime in Yaoundé that the Interim Government of Ambazonia would notify through the appropriate channels all its international partners and organisations of these continuous violations of the human rights of our people.

Thank You

Dabney Yerima,

Vice President, Federal Republic of Ambazonia

Many political commentators familiar with the Rwandan genocide are now shaken by the scale of killings as Cameroon government army guns seek out Southern Cameroons civilian targets in Mezam, Bui, Lebialem and Manyu County.

Exiled Southern Cameroons Vice President Dabney Yerima told AIT television network that many Ambazonian civilians including women and children have been killed by Cameroon government army soldiers after being lured to return to their villages.

“The Federal Republic of Ambazonia has massacres on a daily basis,” Vice President Yerima told AIT Live, during an interview with the Nigerian media organization.

Dabney Yerima revealed that Biya regime forces have destroyed schools and health centers and are now targeting innocent civilians using French made AK47s.

Yerima noted that the Ambazonia Interim Government has been trying to make life livable in the rural areas of Southern Cameroons in dangerous of circumstances.

The Ambazonia VP hinted AIT that the French Cameroun regime never respected the ceasefire that was announced following the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic by the UN Secretary General and has reportedly carried out more that 97 raids in Mezam, Menchum, Manyu, Kupe Muanenguba and Ndian.

“Maybe Southern Cameroons was excluded from the international partial ceasefire” Yerima said.

By Isong Asu in London

Interim Government of Ambazonia Statement on the Massacre

In Mbokam, BUI COUNTY

Last night, the regime in Yaoundé ordered its forces to disconnect internet services and power supplies from Bui County. Earlier today, 12 June 2020, French Cameroun’s military entered the village of Mbokam, Bui County, Southern Cameroons, through Koutaba and Jakiri.

The Interim Government of Ambazonia Intelligence Services have now confirmed that our people were randomly arrested and shot at in the market square. In an act of utter barbarism, eleven civilians were massacred in cold blood. Amongst the slaughtered, are three children and a pregnant woman. Our thoughts and prayers are with their close friends and families.

In a replica of the massacre in Ngarbuh, Dunga Muntung, on the 14 February 2020, the French Cameroun military burned down homes and properties to cover their heinous crimes. Eyewitnesses report that people were burned alive inside their homes. Ambazonia Intelligence Services have now obtained photographic evidences of these crimes.

The action this morning not only constitutes a flagrant violation of Cameroon’s own law and international human rights laws, but contradicts the assurances of good faith that French Cameroun officials have given the international community after the publication of the report to the massacre in Ngarbuh, Dunga Mantung on the 14 April 2020. 

Their choice to deploy the military at dawn after the disconnection of power and internet services is a clear indication of the mayhem and atrocities they intended to commit.

This act makes entirely clear that the Cameroon regime has deliberately sought to deceive the international community by false statements that they hope for a peaceful resolution of the conflict. World leaders must renew their commitment to stop the persistent and wholesale violations of fundamental human rights that our people have been subjected to for the past four years.

This week, Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), stated that our crisis would worsen throughout 2020. The agency stated that for a second year running our crisis topped the list as the most neglected crises on the planet in 2019. This is extremely worrying and challenging for the people of Southern Cameroons.

Today, communicated Cameroon’s unwavering commitment to violence as the sole medium of resolving this conflict.  Ambazonians are opposed to war. We chose the universal symbol of peace, the dove with the olive branch, for our national flag. No matter how long it may take us to end the occupation, the Ambazonian people in their boundless determination will prevail.

Acting therefore to free our people from subjugation, domination, genocide, and in accordance with the International law of self-determination,

• I’m calling on the African Union, European Commission, United States, Germany and the United Nations Security Council to pass a resolution mandating a UN Fact-Finding Mission to investigate the alleged abuses during the Ambazonia–French Cameroun Conflict. The French Cameroun regime cannot be trusted to investigate itself. A UN-mandated Fact Finding Mission has the authority to challenge the culture of impunity that the French Cameroun regime currently operates within, and such responsibility is a prerequisite for achieving a just peace. I believe that a UN-mandated Fact-Finding Mission will have the immediate effect of quelling violence, saving lives, and halting the destruction of our peoples’ lives and livelihood.

This is a treacherous and difficult journey we have embarked on. We have seen hundreds of our villages burned to the ground, thousands of our men, women and children shot dead for no other reason than belonging to our community.

No one can say for sure how much more suffering we will be subjected to by this regime. The price of freedom is always high. This time, we want real freedom and real peace.

Thank You,

DabneyYerima

Vice President, Federal Republic of Ambazonia

The United Nations

USA State Department

The African Union

The EU Commission

The Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, Switzerland

Ministry of Foreign Affairs Norway

Ministry of Foreign Affairs Sweden

Ministry for Foreign Affairs Finland

Norwegian Centre for Conflict Resolution

Three soldiers have been charged with murder after a massacre earlier this year in western Cameroon where security forces are fighting Anglophone separatists.

“The three Cameroonian soldiers have been placed in provisional detention in Yaounde military prison,” army spokesman Colonel Cyrille Atonfack Guemo told AFP news agency, adding they had been charged with “murder”.

At least 23 civilians, including 15 children and two pregnant women, were killed on February 14 in the village of Ngarbuh, in what the United Nations, called “a shocking episode in the ongoing crisis that has afflicted the country’s Northwest and Southwest regions for the past three years”.

The military initially denied any role in the killings and said the deaths resulted from an “unfortunate accident” that happened when fuel containers exploded in the crossfire between separatists and troops.

As the international outcry amplified, President Paul Biya ordered an investigation.

The preliminary conclusions, published in mid-April, found three “uncontrolled” soldiers who disobeyed orders killed 10 children and three women with the help of local auxiliaries from the Fulani ethnic group.

The troops then “tried to hide the facts by setting fires” before submitting a bogus report, according to the probe.

“The killings were so outrageous, the abuses so blatant, and evidence so damming,” Ilaria Allegrozzi, senior Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement.

The incident occurred in a remote part of the Northwest region – one of two English-speaking regions gripped by the conflict sparked by demands for independence from majority-Francophone Cameroon.

The Northwest and neighbouring Southwest region were once part of British colonies in West Africa. They joined French-speaking Cameroon after it gained independence from France in 1960.

Conflict between Cameroon’s army and English-speaking fighters seeking to form a breakaway state called Ambazonia began after the government cracked down violently in 2017 on peaceful protesters complaining of being marginalised by the French-speaking majority.

Rights groups have accused both sides of atrocities in the conflict, which has left more than 3,000 dead, closed schools and clinics, and forced 700,000 people to flee their homes.

Source: Aljazeera

A video posted on social media by Brenda Biya, a chartered member of Cameroon’s wealthy young elite shows that things are really falling apart for the Biya family and that the evil that men do live with them.

To be sure, the video reveals that those among President Biya’s inner circle and family have enjoyed comfortable lifestyles while millions of Cameroonian citizens went hungry.

The 87 year old French Cameroun monarch has refused to resign and his tribal Beti Ewondo entourage is foolishly pushing his children to market via social media passionate celebrations heralding a shameful and disgraceful end to his leadership.

Biya over the years has built up a huge personal fortune in France and in Switzerland from looting Cameroon’s oil, gold and diamond reserves.

Today, Biya’s own daughter Brenda Eyenga Biya 22 is renowned for revealing their family luxury life on social media.

Cameroon’s First Lady Chantal Biya has spent millions of US dollars on shopping trips in Europe and the USA on designer labels and her hairstyle is now a legal frame work for Nollywood reference.

Today’s social media outing by Brenda Biya is a frank and thoughtful key to understanding that the Biya’s family is rich and shameless and that the first family have enjoyed immense wealth as Cameroon as a nation battles a struggling economy for more than three decades.

In an interview with Ekinneh Agbaw-Ebai of the Herald newspaper, the late Dr. Siga Asanga described Biya as a very careful civil servant. This explains why it has been extremely difficult to know the worth of the Biya family despite Cameroon being among the poorest countries in the sub Saharan region.

Biya’s family fortune comes from Cameroon’s mineral resources and from the Cameroonian tax payer. His lavish Mvomeka’s palace has more than 50 bedrooms and Biya, his family and his acolytes have homes overseas including in France, Germany, Switzerland and Belgium.

The Biya family is also rumoured to own property in countries in Latin America and Barbados. The Biyas have billion-worth of assets, mostly invested outside Cameroon.

Biya, his first wife the late Jeanne Irene Biya and the current First Lady Chantal Biya have all repeatedly been accused of stealing from Cameroon’s coffers and plundering Cameroons’s immense natural resource wealth for their own benefit.

The Biya family are also said to own several properties in Yaoundé and Douala and his first son Franck Biya has been involved in several dodgy deals in the Cameroon timber sector. However ,it’s Brenda Biya who travelled to the USA to study who have attracted the most criticism for her lavish lifestyles.

In this recent video, Brenda Biya has revealed her hidden privileged lifestyle, even going so far as stating on social media that is it is indeed vanity.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

In August 2019, Journalist Samuel Wazizi was arrested by the Cameroonian government and held without charge. More than 10 months after the arrest, the military confirmed Wazizi had died in their custody. Amid attacks, arrests and kidnappings of journalists, lawyers for the late Wazizi applied for the government to release his body. On 9 June, the High Court dismissed the application as colleagues and allies protested across the country.

When broadcast journalist Samuel Ajiekah Abuwe was arrested in August 2020, the circumstances surrounding his captivity remained a mystery to his family and colleagues. The Pidgin reporter, popularly known as Samuel Wazizi, had been reporting on the conflict in the country’s Northwest and Southwestern regions. While at the time of his arrest Wazizi was held without charge, Cameroon Association of English-Speaking Journalists (CAMASEJ) recently learned that, along with announcing Wazizi’s death, the government decided on a terrorism charge. This was 10 months after the initial arrest.

For many months after the arrest of Wazizi, president of the journalists’ association, Jude Viban, tried to acquire information on his colleague’s arrest and place of detention, to no avail.

“The government has not been transparent in the way the government has handled the issue about the arrest, detention, and death of our colleague,” Viban told Daily Maverick.

“All offices I went to remained mute – they kept sealed lips. Nobody told me exactly where and why our colleague was arrested.”

According to Viban, the lawyers for Wazizi presented in court on numerous occasions since August 2019 asking for the government to produce Wazizi to them – “alive or dead”.

After mounting pressure from local journalists, unions and international allies, the country’s Defence Ministry, on 5 June, finally revealed that Wazizi had died in their custody. While the announcement of the broadcast reporter’s death came just two months shy of a year after his arrest, reports reveal that he died just two weeks after the government took him into custody.

The Cameroon Journalists Trade Union (SNJC) has echoed the sentiment that the government has been evasive since the arrest of Wazizi and, to date, has kept details of his detention and death sparse.

Denis Nkwebo, president of the trade union, said the government was at no point transparent on the matter.

“No information ever filtered on the place and condition of detention. It has been opacity over 10 months just to be told Wazizi had died. When, where and how? Nobody knows.”

“[Samuel Wazizi] died as a result of severe sepsis,” said Ministry of Defence Colonel Cyrille Atonfack in a statement issued on 5 June. Atonfack also claimed that Wazizi’s family had been in constant communication with the reporter while he was held in military detention. This claim has been refuted by Wazizi’s lawyers and in a joint statement by the SNJC and the journalists’ association.

“I have been in contact with four of the family members and what they told me is that the government never contacted them,” said the journalists’ association’s Viban.

The news of Wazizi’s death comes amid a growing war against journalists in the West African nation.

Recently, BBC Pidgin reported that the seven Cameroonian journalists were held in governmental custody 2019 – a notable increase from just one journalist in 2015.

“The war in the two English-speaking regions of Cameroon has been a very difficult moment for journalists – and it is, as I speak to you,” said Vidan.

“Journalists are habitually arrested and detained incommunicado. But we also have cases of journalists who have been beaten up, journalists who have been threatened [and] journalists who have had their work tools taken away,” he added.

As the Cameroon Association of English-Speaking Journalists keeps up with its members in the country, Vidan said he knew of at least four journalists who are currently in detention for reporting on the conflict in Anglophone Cameroon.

In a subsequent article, BBC Pidgin reported on the arrest of freelance journalist, Njoka Kinglsey. Twenty-three days after his mysterious disappearance, Njoka’s family and colleagues finally came to know of his whereabouts.

According to BBC Pidgin, Njoka’s lawyers said he appeared frail and seemed traumatised when they saw him at the Defence Forces Headquarters where he is being held in the Capital, Yaounde.

A number of civil organisations have come out against the Cameroonian’s government’s war on journalism after the announcement of Wazizi’s death.

In South Africa, the South African National Editors’ Forum (SANEF) issued a statement condemning the death in detention of Wazizi. “SANEF calls on the President of Cameroon, Paul Biya, as well as the African Union to launch an independent investigation into the death of Wazizi and the subsequent cover-up by the army,” the statement reads.

Wazizi’s lawyers said they will be contesting the High Court’s decision to dismiss their appeal to independently confirm Wazizi’s death.

“On the totality of the foregoing, we have instituted an appeal against the decision. And giving the contradictory facts surrounding the death of Samuel Wazizi, we shall be taking steps to request for an inquiry into the cause of death,” wrote Nkea Emmanuel and Edward Lying Ewule in a media statement on 9 June.

Wazizi’s death has joined a list of growing social media calls for justice as his colleagues raise awareness using the hashtag #JusticeForWazizi. DM

Source: Daily Maverick

Africa is home to nine of ten of the world’s most neglected crises and for a second year running Cameroon topped the list as the most neglected on the planet in 2019. Three separate emergencies faced the corrupt African nation: an exacerbation of Boko Haram attacks in the north, a violent conflict in the English-speaking west, and a Central African refugee crisis.

 Ineffective conflict resolution, global news silence and a massive aid funding shortfall all contributed to Cameroon topping this year’s list according to the Norwegian Refugee Council.

Cameroon was followed by DR Congo, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Venezuela, Mali, South Sudan, Nigeria, Central African Republic and Niger.

Humanitarian crises in these countries are expected to worsen throughout 2020, compounded by the global coronavirus pandemic that is adding further hardship to millions according to Jan Egeland, Secretary General of the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC).

“Covid-19 is spreading across Africa, and many of the most neglected communities are already devastated by the economic shocks of the pandemic. We need solidarity with these conflict-stricken communities now more than ever, so the virus does not add more unbearable disaster to the myriad of crises they already face,” said Egeland.

The Sahel region of Africa was prominent in this year’s list, with Burkina Faso, Mali, Nigeria and Niger all embroiled in the extreme violence that engulfed the region, yet with massively underfunded aid appeals. Niger and Burkina Faso appeared on the list for the first time.

The neglected crisis list is based on review of over 40 displacement crises based on three criteria: lack of funding, lack of media attention, and political and diplomatic neglect. Cameroon scored high on all three, followed closely by DR Congo and Burkina Faso, two other crises where a lack of public attention contributed to a lack of funding to run aid operations.

The ten most neglected displacement crises

Cameroon

The Democratic Republic of the Congo

Burkina Faso

Burundi

Venezuela

Mali

South Sudan

Nigeria

Central African Republic

Niger

Every year, NRC presents a list of displacement crises the world has neglected.

Culled from Reliefweb.int with additional editing from Camcordnews

International press freedom lobby groups have called for an independent investigation into the death of Cameroonian journalist Samuel Ajiekah Abuwe alias Samuel Wazizi, who died while in military custody 10 months ago.

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and Reporters Without Borders (RSF) questioned his detention, the cause of his death and why it took long for his death to be made public.

Police arrested the journalist on August 3, 2019 in a suburb in the conflict-ridden Southwest region of the country, according to a statement by the Ministry of Defence.

He was transferred to military custody on August 7, then ferried to the capital Yaoundé six days later, Cameroon military spokesperson, Col Colonel Cyrille Serge Atonfack Guemo, explained.

The military said he arrived in Yaoundé feeling feverish and died on August 17 due to an infection. “As a matter of fact, he [Wazizi] died as a result of a severe sepsis and not from any acts of torture or physical abuse,” the statement added.

CPJ said the Cameroonian government’s “cruel treatment” of the journalist “is truly shocking” and it is unbelievable that authorities covered up his death in custody for 10 months despite repeated inquiries from press freedom advocates and his family, colleagues, friends, and lawyers.

“An independent autopsy should be conducted immediately, and Cameroon must also launch an independent commission of inquiry so that those responsible for Wazizi’s death are held accountable,” said Angela Quintal, CPJ’s Africa programme coordinator.

RSF condemned the “bogus account” of the TV presenter’s death provided by Cameroonian authorities and called for an “impartial and independent investigation” into the circumstances leading to his death.

The defense ministry’s statement said the journalist had been in contact with his family while in custody but the press freedom lobby groups say the statement fell short of providing a credible explanation of how Wazizi died two weeks after his arrest.

CPJ said Wazizi’s sister-in-law, Metete Joan Njang, told them that their family had not been able to contact him after his arrest, and they were not made aware of his death but only saw it in a news report on June 3, 2020.

According to RSF, Wazizi’s brother also denied claims the journalist was in contact with the family while in detention. The unnamed brother told the advocacy group that neither Wazizi’s lawyers nor any relative had any contact with him after soldiers took him.

The Defense Ministry further added that the journalist was not arrested for his work but because he had links with terrorists.

“After thorough investigations, elements of the security forces had established that the latter [Wazizi], claiming to be a presenter on a local television station, was in fact a logistician for various terrorist groups,” the statement said.

His lawyer Lyonga Edward Ewule had earlier told the CPJ that Wazizi was accused of “collaborating with separatists” and “spreading separatist information,” but had not been formally charged. He said a court case against the journalist was adjourned several times.

On social media, journalists, politicians and activists have been using the hashtag #JusticeForWazizi to express their outrage over his death. Wazizi presented the popular pidgin language news programme, “Halla Ya Matta.”

Cameroon has a history of detaining journalists incommunicado, according to CPJ and RSF.  At least seven other journalists are currently being held in pretrial detention in the country according to data by the Cameroon Association of English Speaking Journalists (CAMASEJ).

Cameroon’s press freedom ranking worsened this year. The central African country is ranked 134th out of 180 countries where one is the freest, according to RSF’s 2020 World Press Freedom Index. The score is three places lower than its 2019 position of 131.

Source: The East African

The Vice President of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia, Dabney Yerima has in a message offered the Interim Government’s condolences over the demise of the veteran Mola Njoh Litumbe.

In this week’s war cabinet meeting that examined the situation of Southern Cameroons media gurus targeted by the French Cameroun regime, the exiled Ambazonia leader also invoked the legacy of Njoh Litumbe and observed that “I extend my condolences on the passing away of Mola Njoh Litumbe to the people of Ambazonia and all fighters whose hearts are with the Southern Cameroons issue, especially the Ambazonia Restoration Forces and also the family of this blessed departed soul,” Yerima said.

Vice President Dabney Yerima added that “the Federal Republic of Ambazonia lost a very important figure and I hope that with the guidance and help of our ancestors and the Almighty God, Southern Cameroonians will get to Buea and honour Litumbe.”

The late Mola Njoh Litumbe helped to establish a strong and enduring Southern Cameroons governing authority and catapulted the Ambazonian cause to the international arena.  He successfully took the Southern Cameroons case to all corners of the globe and dared the colonizer and its criminal network in Southern Cameroons territory on his own terms and left them defeated and humiliated.

By Chi Prudence Asong in London

It’s being called the ‘worst crime’ against a Cameroonian journalist in the past decade by rights groups.

The death of Cameroonian journalist Samuel Wazizi in military custody last Friday is being called “the worst crime against a journalist in the past 10 years in Cameroon” by media rights group Reporters Without Borders (RSF).

It was confirmed on Friday that Wazizi, a broadcast journalist who worked for CMTV covering the country’s separatist movement, was arrested on August 2, 2019 for openly criticizing the government’s response to the movement. He was said to have been tortured and abused during his detainment.

While the news was confirmed by the Cameroonian Ministry of Defense just last week, reports reveal that Wazizi actually died on August 17, 2019—the same month of his arrest. According to a report from the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), the military claimed that Wazizi was not tortured while in custody, but that he had died “as a result of severe sepsis” and had been in touch with his family. However, his sister-in-law Metete Joan Njang informed CPJ that the family had not been able to reach Wazizi since his arrest, and had only learned the news of his death on June 3.

“The Cameroonian government’s cruel treatment of journalist Samuel Wazizi is truly shocking,” said Angela Quintal, CPJ’s Africa program coordinator in a statement. “It is unbelievable that authorities covered up his death in custody for 10 months despite repeated inquiries from press freedom advocates and his family, colleagues, friends, and lawyers. An independent autopsy should be conducted immediately, and Cameroon must also launch an independent commission of inquiry so that those responsible for Wazizi’s death are held accountable.”

RSF shared a similar statement and has called on the government to end their silence against the mistreatment of journalists, send Wazizi’s body to his family and launch an independent investigation in order to “establish the chain of responsibility and circumstances leading to this tragedy.”

The Cameroonian government has come under fire from journalist and human rights groups, for its censorship and abuse of citizens and reporters, since the beginning of the separatist movement occurring amongst members of the country’s Anglophone population in Northwest and Southwest. The country ranks 134th out of 180 countries and territories in RSF’s 2020 World Press Freedom Index. On several occasions, the government has taken further actions to quell dissent by shutting down the internet.

Several journalists and fellow Cameroonians are calling for #JusticeForWazizi online and are demanding increased freedom of the press.

Source: OkayAfrica