The Vice President of the Southern Cameroons Interim Government, Dabney Yerima said that the resistance currently going on against French Cameroun occupying forces to free the Federal Republic of Ambazonia, is an obligation and every Southern Cameroonian both at home and abroad should support Restoration Forces in this struggle.

The Ambazonia Vice President’s comments came after that of the jailed leader President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe, wishing Southern Cameroons Muslims a Happy Holy Month of Ramadan.

Comrade Yerima observed that the French Cameroun regime is taking the last kicks of a dying horse as Southern Cameroons self defense forces are uprooting and destroying its military apparatus in Ambazonia.

“We know enablers of La Republique Cameroun both at home and in the diaspora within our revolution. When we get to Buea, shame will fall on the Southern Cameroonians who are supporting the French Cameroun government in its genocidal campaign in Southern Cameroons” the Vice President noted.

By Chi Prudence Asong in London

Amid the UN’s failure on the conflict in Cameroon, now a specific plea about political prisoners in Paul Biya’s jails has been sent to members of the UN Security Council, beyond Secretary General Antonio Guterres who after taking Biya’s golden statue and UN Budget Committee favors colluded in the jailing and killing.

Among the political prisons are those sent back to Yaounde from Nigeria while Guterres’ Deputy Amina J. Mohammed was there. Inner City Press has been submitted written questions about Cameroon and its prisons amid COVID-19 to Guterres, Mohammed and their spokespeople Stephane Dujarric and Melissa Fleming, with no answer at all. The Security Council members must act on this:

“Ambazonian prisoners of conscience face the gravest risks from COVID-19 due to the unprecedented levels of overcrowding, inability to implement social distancing, lack of hygiene, and poor healthcare. Not suprisingly, many of these prisoners have been sickened by a wild outbreak of the pandemic at the two main prisons in Kondengui, Yaounde, capital of La Republique du Cameroun.

“Recent WHO figures place Cameroun’s COVID-19 ratio per million as one of the highest in Africa with 3,500 confirmed cases. Nigeria, seven times more populated, has 6,400 confirmed cases. The now not-so-secret plan of the regime of Mr. Paul Biya in Cameroun is to weaponize COVID-19 as both a death sentence and an execution squad for these Ambazonians. ACT warns: should any harm befall these Ambazonian political prisoners, the following are to blame:

1. French President Emmanuel Macron, who instructs and Mr. Biya obeys. This is how Macron and the European Union secured the release of Prof. Maurice Kamto and his aides. The silence of France and the EU suggests they endorse Biya’s plan to kill Ambazonian prisoners of conscience.

2. The Secretary General of the United Nations Antonio Guteress, who has not called for their release into the protection of the U.N. refugee agency although many of them were registered as refugees in Nigeria before their abduction and rendition to Cameroun.

3. The leaders of Cameroun, Paul Biya, and of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari, for their role in the rendition. In addition (in the case of Buhari), his failure to comply with the ruling of an Abuja High Court calling for the prisoners’ immediate release and transfer back to Nigeria. And (in the case of Biya), the abduction in Ambazonia and deportation to Cameroun of thousands of Ambazonians. These prisoners have been systematically denied medical attention. One of them who was admitted in a military hospital in Yaounde, suffered an attack by soldiers in mufti in the dead of night even as he is locked in a fight for his life agaomst COVID-19. The prison superintendant has prison gangs and other officials targeting and brutalizing Ambazonian prisoners.

Access to these prisons by the International Commission of the Red Cross (ICRC) remains restricted. ACT calls on the U.N. Security Council, President Macron, the United States government, the European Union and the African Union to request the immediate release of all Ambazonian political prisoners and vulnerable people within the prison population in Cameroun and Ambazonia, particularly Barrister Shufai Blaise Berinyuy currently hospitalized. This will not only be an act of goodwill, but it will help curb the spread of the pandemic Time is, indeed, of essence! 

Culled from Inner City Press

Separatist leader Blaise Sevidzem Berinyuy, also known as Shufai, was discharged from the hospital and sent back to a high security prison in Yaoundé on May 21, despite his critical health condition and apparently following pressure by the head of the detention facility on medical staff. Transferring Shufai, who is immunocompromised, to a crowded prison setting where transmission of Covid-19 is more likely seriously enhances the threats to his health and life.

On May 16, Shufai, one of the leaders of the separatist group “Ambazonia Interim Government,” was transferred from the prison to the hospital for non-Covid-19-related illness. His family and lawyers said he was unconscious, and his health had deteriorated significantly over the previous 10 days. They reported that on May 19, Shufai was handcuffed to his hospital bed for the night, despite being barely able to move.

Shufai’s family members and lawyers said that the head of the prison visited Shufai twice at the military hospital and pressed medical staff to discharge him, although his condition continues to be alarming. This is despite concerns over the spread of Covid-19 across Cameroon’s overcrowded prisons.

Shufai and nine other leaders of the “Ambazonia Interim Government” were arrested in January 2018 in Nigeria’s capital, Abuja, and forcibly returned to Cameroon. Their extrajudicial transfer was denounced by the United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, as violating the fundamental principle of non-refoulement. The forced return of the 10 leaders was also declared illegal by a Nigerian court in March 2019. The 10 leaders were later held incommunicado at Cameroon’s State Defense Secretariat prison for six months before being taken to the Yaoundé high security prison. They were charged with terrorism, rebellion, and secession, and sentenced to life before a military court on August 20, 2019, following a deeply flawed trial.

Cameroon has a fundamental obligation to treat all prisoners with humanity and respect, and as the authorities grapple with the Covid-19 pandemic, they should ensure that all prisoners can take measures such as regular handwashing and have proper access to medical care. They should also ensure sick prisoners receive the medical treatment they need and that their health or lives are not further jeopardized by increasing their risk of Covid-19 infection.

Source: Human Rights Watch

Following an Amnesty International report about coronavirus cases in Cameroon’s Kondengui prison, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has asked the UN special rapporteur on the right to health to urgently seek the release of Amadou Vamoulké, a journalist held in this prison who is very vulnerable because he is 70 and in poor health.

RSF’s appeal to the special rapporteur comes just days before Amadou Vamoulké is due to appear before Cameroon’s Special Criminal Tribunal on 26 May for the 30th hearing in his drawn-out trial on a charge of misusing public funds for the benefit of the state-owned radio and TV broadcaster he used to run.

According to an Amnesty International report published earlier this month, at least one detainee has tested positive to Covid-19 in Kondengui prison, located in the capital, Yaoundé, and several other suspected cases have been identified. The report also said that two prisoners died shortly after being released in circumstances suggesting they were infected, and one was buried in his family’s absence.

Amnesty International also reported that the number of detainees in Kondengui prison currently stands at 432% of the inmate population for which it is designed, despite releases ordered by President Paul Biya on 15 April to reduce overcrowding in the country’s prisons. Valmoulké was not one of the detainees to benefit from the presidential measure although he has been held for nearly four years for an alleged economic crime for which the state has yet to find the evidence on which to convict him.

“The Cameroonian authorities cannot continue to expose one of their leading journalists to the possible of dying in prison,” said Arnaud Froger, the head of RSF’s Africa desk. “During a visit to Yaoundé in November, we drew the justice ministry’s attention to the fact that Amadou Vamoulké is not getting appropriate medical care although two medical reports say he needs medevacking. Since then, he has spent his 70th birthday behind bars and at least one case of coronavirus has been identified in his prison, which makes him especially vulnerable. This case’s humanitarian dimension and his right to health should prevail over every other consideration.”

President Biya was one the ten African leaders to whom RSF and 80 other human rights and press freedom organizations wrote on 6 April asking them to immediately release the arbitrarily detained journalists in their prisons because they are routinely denied proper medical care and because medical isolation is not possible.

A week later, RSF addressed a formal written request to the UN special rapporteur on the right to health, the Lithuanian Dainius Pūras, and the UN special rapporteur on the right to freedom of opinion and expression, the American David Kaye, asking them to condemn governments that have violated the right to information in connection with the coronavirus epidemic.

Cameroon is ranked 134th out of 180 countries and territories in RSF’s 2020 World Press Freedom Index, three places lower than in 2019.

Culled from Reporters Without Borders

From the greatest high to the greatest low at the Cameroon Radio and Television (CRTV), the detention without trial for nearly four years of Amadou Vamoulké the former general manager of the Cameroon public broadcaster has again regenerated a massive under-the-table talk in the nation’s capital Yaoundé and the detained senior French Cameroun political elite has reiterated his claim of being a victim of a Beti Ewondo conspiracy.

The 70 year old Vamoulké was appointed General Manager of CRTV in January 2005 and was sacked in June 2016 after spending 11 years as head of the Cameroon Radio and Television Cooperation. A month later, in July 2016, he was placed under a provisional detention order at Yaoundé-Kondengui Central Prison.

Amadou Vamoulké like many others held in the same facility is suspected of embezzling several billion of CFA francs when he was head of CRTV. The Biya Francophone Beti Ewondo regime in Yaoundé has maintained a kind of deliberate silence despite receiving signals incessantly flashed out by renowned international media organizations including Reporters Without Borders for his release.

Vamoulké, who has been very discreet throughout this difficult time has made his first public outing on social media entitled “The Truth of Revenge“, which he painted himself as a Cameroonian more sinned against than sinning. He considers himself an innocent man whose human rights are being violated by men and women who wanted the job of GM at CRTV.

Cameroon Intelligence Report sources have revealed that Vamoulké may die in detention. He has been deprived of medical examination and treatment appropriate to his recently diagnosed severe neuropathy and he is running the risk of losing his lower limbs.

In his posting on social media he repeatedly observed that “I am well aware that openly exposing today the hostage-taking of my country’s justice system is not likely to move the incriminated actors who still believe themselves to be unshakeable”.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai with intelligence files from Asu Isong and Rita Akana

Sources close to Colonel Etoudi Marius family have hinted that the senior officer of the Cameroonian army has been carried away by the Coronavirus, the dreaded pandemic that is wreaking havoc throughout the world.

The native of Konabeng, a village in Okala district, Lekié Division in the Central region was a chartered member in President Biya’s private medical team.

Cameroon Intelligence Report gathered that he died early this morning in Yaoundé.

By Rita Akana

Cameroon is marking its national day Wednesday under coronavirus restrictions and amid ongoing clashes between the military and anglophone separatists.  President Paul Biya has spoken publicly for the first time about the pandemic.

Cameroon’s president, Paul Biya, broke his silence on the coronavirus pandemic Tuesday night in a televised address to mark the country’s national day.

Biya’s two-month absence and lack of commenting in public on the pandemic had raised speculation about his health.

The 87-year-old, who has ruled Cameroon since 1982, is known for his frequent travels overseas that spark criticism.

In a live broadcast on state television, he said there would be no festive events or military parades to celebrate this year as the number of COVID-19 victims continues to rise.

“Most of you have understood that it is necessary to put aside political squabbles and adopt a common front in the face of the insidious danger posed by COVID-19,” he said.

Instead of public gatherings to mark their independence, Biya called on Cameroonians to follow social distancing guidelines and promote national unity.

A member of medical staff wearing protective equipment, prepares to take care of patients amid the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), at an hospital in Douala, Cameroon, April 27, 2020.

A member of medical staff wearing protective equipment, prepares to take care of patients amid the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), at an hospital in Douala, Cameroon, April 27, 2020.

He made no mention of the ongoing separatist conflict in western Cameroon that the U.N. says has cost more than 3,200 lives and displaced more than half-a-million people.

Cameroon’s military raised flags on public buildings Wednesday to mark the anniversary of a 1972 referendum for a unified state instead of the federal system agreed to when the country first gained independence.

Cameroon’s anglophone rebels refuse to honor national day, saying the referendum was unjust because it allowed the French-speaking majority to rule over them.

Ruling party supporter Enow Tanjong voted on the referendum and said the rebels should stop fighting and work for peace in the English-speaking regions.

“They should lay down their arms and come and be integrated in the economic progress of the country. Those who think that we should go and found another country are completely wrong. The world is looking forward to having countries come together and that should be what should guide us,” said Tanjong.

Ongoing clashes

Cameroon’s military said clashes with rebels this week killed at least six people, where separatists had called for a lockdown and vowed that national day would not be observed.

The rebels claimed on social media to have abducted at least nine people they said were watching national day TV programs.  Their claim could not be independently confirmed.

Dorothy Njeuma is a Biya supporter but said the over-centralization of power by the central government in Yaoundé was provoking the separatists.

“Over the years, people have had second thoughts about whether it is the best arrangement to have an over-centralized system, but I am not sure that the way that some people have gone about it is the best.  I would go more for an effectively decentralized system,” she said.

The conflict started in 2016 when protests by English-speaking teachers and lawyers against the dominance of French-speaking Cameroonians led some to take up arms.

Cameroon’s military declared war on the rebels, who have been fighting since 2017 to create an independent, English-speaking state.

Source: VOA

Cameroon’s president on Tuesday called on all citizens to get involved in the fight against COVID-19 pandemic that has killed 140 people in the Central African country.

“I strongly urge all political, religious and opinion leaders, all officials of associations, all traditional rulers and all dignitaries to fully participate in the fight against COVID-19,” Paul Biya said.

“I, therefore, call on each and every one of you to get involved,” Biya said in a televised speech ahead of the country’s national day celebrated on May 20 each year.

He said that it was important to observe coronavirus preventive measures such as wearing face masks, social distancing, and frequent hand washing.

“Under these circumstances, it was not possible to maintain the festivities marking the celebration of our national day due to the gatherings it entails,” he said.

“This is crucial for the health of everyone,” he emphasized.

“I also wish to hail the courage of the Cameroonian health professionals and those assisting them,” Biya said. “With the resources available to us, they are doing the utmost best to treat those infected with the virus.”

The Central African country has so far confirmed 3,529 coronavirus cases, with 140 death and 1,567 recoveries, according to data from the US-based John Hopkins University.

Due to the coronavirus pandemic and the need to respect social distancing measures, the president of the republic has decided to cancel the public celebrations of the 2020 edition of the national day, Victor Tchatchouwo, Cameroon’s ambassador to Turkey, said in a statement on Tuesday.

The ambassador also wished “a pleasant national day to all the members of the Cameroon community in Turkey.”

Source: AA.com

OFFICE OF THE CHAIRMAN OF THE MEDIA AND COMMUNICATION COMMITTEE FOR THE DEFENSE  TEAM OF SISIKU AYUK TABE & THE REST OF SOUTHERN CAMEROONIANS  IN DETENTION

PRESS RELEASE

 We are reaching out  this May 20th 2020,  to the entire  defense   team of  Sisiku Ayuk Tabe  and  the rest of southern Cameroonian detainees consequential to the ongoing struggle for the restoration of the statehood of the former British Trust Territory  now   popularly  (the Anglophone Struggle) , National  and International Press,  Foreign Embassies and International Organizations accredited to Yaoundé, local and International  Human Rights organizations, Minister of State Minister of Justice and keeper of the seals, Secretary of State in the Ministry of Justice in charge of Penitentiary Administration.

 That on the night of May 19th, 2020, the superintendent of Prison Principale Kondengui Yaoundé ordered four prison guards to chain the two hands of our client and colleague Shu Fai Blaise Esq to his sick bed at Yaoundé Military Hospital throughout the night. We received a late night distress call about the brutal act from one of his family members who was chased   out shabbily amid dramatic commotion and warned not to approach the ward as they overpowered the patient to chain his two hands to his sick bed with a drip on one of them.

At about 08:30 this May 20th, 2020 some counsel visited Shu Fai Esq to gauge the veracity of the news and effectively we met Shu Fai Esq in a gloomy state as he narrates that he had one the longest painful nights in his lifetime because he slept in chains. That  he struggled not to be chained until the drip was dripping  out of  his veins but the prison guards went ahead to subdue him in chains.

Shu Fai Blaise  Esqwas critically sick for ten days in prison and was deprived of adequate medical attention until  when he collapsed under the watchful eyes of the superintendent of prison Principale Kondengui  Yaoundé before being rushed to the Military Hospital in the early hours of May, 16th, 2020.

The superintendent has visited him twice  at the Military Hospital and  disturbingly, during his visits,  he  has been pressing hard that Shu Fai Blaise  Esq  should be  discharged  back to prison whereas  the results  of  the  clinical tests done on him  at the Military  Hospital are pending in  laboratories. After the prison guards threw out his family members last evening, the superintendent issued firm instructions that his lawyers should not be allowed access to him. At the time we arrived the Military Hospital today, the chains were removed.

Done in Buea

This May 20th, 2020 Communication and Media Chairman

For the defense team