Adopting a distinctly more cautious line like the Southern Cameroons leader President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe, Vice President Dabney Yerima said during this week’s Interim Government briefing that he was discussing ways to ending the chaos with regard to the infighting in Ground Zero. But he did not say he would move against armed Ambazonia groups combating the French Cameroun army as demanded by a majority of Southern Cameroonians both at home and in Ground Zero.

Vice President Dabney Yerima, who during the presentation late on Thursday was very weary of being perceived as a weak leader by his people, noted that more consultations were needed on ending the confusion that is reigning presently in Ambaland, in the Ambazonia Interim Government and in the Southern Cameroonian mentality . . . including the chaos in using, distributing and storing weapons by Southern Cameroons Restoration Forces.

Comrade Dabney Yerima made his comments in Geneva, Switzerland where he met members of the Southern Cameroons European think tank.  Vice President Yerima shied away from a Cameroon Concord News question seeking to know why some Ambazonia groups turned down offers to join the Southern Cameroons Interim Government even after the disgraced Samuel Ikome Sako and Chris Anu have all been replaced.

Dabney Yerima told an audience in Geneva that the people of Ambazonia and the Interim Government were all committed to reaching a ceasefire with French Cameroun. But he said this was conditional on international guarantees to ensure that French Cameroun withdraws its troops from Southern Cameroons and stop arming pro Yaounde militias in Ambazonia.

There are growing reports that the infighting may mark the beginning of the end to the Southern Cameroons quest for an independent state as many Ambazonians are losing faith in the struggle.

By Asu Isong in London with additional reporting from Chi Prudence Asong

Clashes between separatist groups in Cameroon have killed at least six fighters, with one of the groups allegedly abducting close to 40 rebels of another camp.  Separatist leaders have blamed the clashes on infiltration by Cameroon’s military.  But the military says the clashes are an internal rivalry for power among the separatist groups.

Cameroonian rebel leader Chacha posted a video clip on social media Sunday calling for all separatists to unite under his Southern Cameroon Restoration Forces after clashes between rebel groups.

In the video, Chacha is dressed in a red suit, with a long black cross on the back, and standing with four supporters — all armed with rifles.

He says if anybody attempts to betray their struggle to gain independence, he Chacha will kill such a traitor as he is killing Cameroon soldiers that have been sent by President Biya to eliminate true separatist fighters.

Cameroon’s military says the self-proclaimed general posted the video after he killed several members of competing rebel groups.

Chacha admitted to killing other separatists.  Villagers on Saturday found six bodies in Meluf village, in northwestern Cameroon.

Local media and the Catholic Church in Cameroon report that Chacha has abducted close to 40 rebel fighters who he accused of helping the military.

Tapang Ivo Tanku is the U.S.-based spokesperson of the Anglophone Defense Forces (ADF), another Cameroon rebel group.  Speaking via a messaging app, he said the abducted and killed fighters were ADF.

Tanku said the clashes between rebel groups fighting to separate the English-speaking regions from the rest of French-speaking Cameroon played into the hands of the military.

“Our soldiers who were killed were initially kidnapped by Chacha and Chacha went on to kill them.  So, it is a war crime and it is strictly a crime against humanity and the violation of the Geneva conventions.  And this is exactly what the regime of neighboring Cameroon wants to see in Ambazonia.  It violates the Geneva conventions for the respect of prisoners or war,” he said.

Separatists have been fighting to establish a state they call “Ambazonia” since 2016.  Tanku accused Cameroon’s military of infiltrating rebel groups to instigate the separatists’ infighting.

But the military says the clashes represent a rivalry for power among the separatist groups. Brigadier General Valere Nka is commander of Cameroon’s military forces fighting against the separatists.

“I want to issue a strong warning to the so-called generals, the fake generals, Chacha, Tiger, Field Marshal and all the rest,” he said. “We already know their hideouts, their whereabouts.  We are going to step up military operations and, if they do not lay down their weapons, we are going to strike and crush them.”

Clashes between Cameroon’s rebel groups have intensified in the past two months, with a number of attacks reported in the northwest and southwest.

The Bamenda Center for Conflict Resolution’s Innocent Fomo says the infighting may mark the beginning of the end to the separatist conflict.  He says many people in the two regions are losing faith in the struggle for independence.

“The whole issue now is very confusing,” he said. “They say they are fighting for the Anglophones.  And now, they are fighting themselves and even the Anglophones.  It is terrible.  A lot of people are fleeing from the [English-speaking] regions because of the kidnappings and asking for ransom and there are the Amba[zonian] fighters kidnapping the people.”

Since December, several villages in Cameroon’s Anglophone west have launched assaults on rebel camps over attacks on civilians and looting villages.   The angry villagers say they do not know who to trust, as they say the military commits similar crimes against them.   The separatist conflict has killed about 3,000 people, many of them villagers caught up in the fighting.

Culled from the VOA

Starting in January 2020, the United States began its one-year secretariat of the G7++ Friends of Gulf of Guinea Group, with Gabon serving as co-secretariat.  This group coordinates the support of international partners for the maritime security standards agreed upon by West and Central African heads of state at a summit in Yaoundé in 2013.  The G7++ Friends of Gulf of Guinea Group helps secure the Gulf of Guinea against the threats of piracy, armed robbery, and other illicit maritime activities.  By creating the conditions for improved maritime security, this group fosters prosperity and economic growth for all countries along the Gulf of Guinea.

This is only the latest example of U.S. partnership for the security and stability of Cameroon and the subregion.  The United States has made significant contributions to Cameroon’s maritime security.  In 2016, the United States funded the creation of six maritime operations centers in Limbe, Douala, and Kribi that enable naval operations at sea, and we will continue to provide maintenance and training for these centers this year.  Through 2017, the United States provided several Defender class rigid hull boats to the Cameroonian military for maritime patrols.  One of the Defender boats was used in the August 2019 rescue of over 100 shipwreck victims after a boat coming from Nigeria capsized near Limbe.  In 2020, the Cameroonian Navy plans to purchase two 110-foot American patrol boats to greater extend its ability to patrol Cameroon’s economic exclusion zone.

Over the years, the U.S. has provided significant security assistance to Cameroon to achieve our mutual goals in maritime security in the Gulf of Guinea, countering violent extremism in the North, and supporting regional security initiatives.  Our partnership remains strong.  While we continue to aid Cameroon in its fight against Boko Haram and ISIS-West Africa, our role is changing as the threat from these groups evolves and the coordination and capabilities of Cameroon and regional partners mature.  We are proud to support Cameroon and the Gulf of Guinea region this year in our role leading the G7++ Friends of Gulf of Guinea Group.

Source:hstoday.us

Six people were killed and two others injured in Cameroon, reportedly by Boko Haram rebels who recently led an attack in that country’s Far North region.

Security sources said that three military control posts were destroyed in various attacks over the weekend.

The rebels stormed the locality of Ganse in Kolofata in the Mayo Sava Division on Saturday night and killed six people, injured two and took away with them food, as well as other material equipment.

On Friday night, Boko Haram insurgents set ablaze three military control posts in the locality of Hidoua-Touru in the same region, reports said.

On January 13 an international Christian aid agency, reported that seven Christians were killed as gangs of about 300 Boko Haram militants invaded five Christian villages in Far North, Cameroon.

The agency said that the first attacks began late at night on 6 January, claiming the lives of two men and two children kidnapped as heavily armed militants invaded the village of Hitere, Tourou district. Hitawa village, in the same district, was also raided and looted.

In Moudokou village, Moskota district, the agency reported, three Christians were killed in a raid and a ten-year-old boy was kidnapped. Another Christian man was murdered by the Islamists in an attack on Guitsenad village.

On January 7 a seventh Christian was murdered in a Boko Haram assault on the village of Guedjelé in Koza district.

The two church buildings, which the affected communities used, were sabotaged and burnt.

On the same day, a German broadcaster reported that 30 people were killed after a bomb ripped through a crowded market on a bridge connecting the Nigerian town of Gamboru and Cameroon’s Fotokol.

Authorities said more than 35 other people, including Nigerians and Cameroonians, were injured and taken to the local hospital in the wake of the attack, which struck a crowded market on the Nigerian-Cameroonian frontier.

Militant groups have long targeted military and civilian sites in the market town and its surrounding areas.

Source: IOL

After receiving more than a hundred million FCFA of public funds from Territorial Administration Minister, Paul Atanga Nji to lure back some of the Southern Cameroons Restoration Forces defending the Donga Mantung County, the CPDM I Section President Ngala Gerard Ndombang has instead pocketed the money and is now blaming Southern Cameroons Self Defense Forces for the brutal murder of a 7 year old pupil, Blaise Afanyu.

The Southern Cameroons chartered member of the ruling CPDM crime syndicate whose residence is now occupied by elements of the Rapid Intervention Battalion, BIR posted on his Face Book page recently that: “Blaise Afanyu, a young boy of at least 7 years, who began school two weeks ago, has been brutally and mercilessly murdered, and the hand of the mother Belinda Afanyu chopped off by terrorists “Ambazonian” fighters, this Tuesday January 21, 2020 in Mbot village Donga Mantung Division”

The Ambazonia Interim Government has condemned the alleged action by the Donga Mantung agent of the ruling French Cameroun party, terming it “political horse trading carried too far.”  In a show of desperation, the Biya Francophone regime rolled out an enticement package that promised villas to all senior political elites from the Donga Mantung constituency, a Far North West Region to be headquartered in Nkambe and 5 million to any Restoration Force leader who abandons the Southern Cameroons struggle for the One and Indivisible Cameroon. Cameroon Intelligence Report understand that the price tag for staging a peaceful election this coming February in Donga Mantung County is even higher.

The Ambazonia Vice President, Dabney Yerima however, said no amount of inducement would stop the change on the horizon as the long-suffering people of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia were ready and eager to get a divorce absolute from French Cameroun.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai with files from Joseph Kum in Nkambe

Troops loyal to the Biya Francophone regime in Yaoundé say they have rescued 24 school children held hostage by Ambazania Restoration Forces in Meme County.

The so-called Senior Divisional Officer (SDO) for Meme, Ntou Ndong Chamberlain told state media that the children were kidnapped early on Tuesday from their school in the city of Kumba and “taken to the forest where the camp of the separatists is located.

The Meme SDO added that 2 armed separatists were shot dead during the rescue operation and weapons and ammunitions were found.

The children, aged 5-10, have reportedly been reunited with their families, the SDO added. Reacting to the news, a senior aide to the Southern Cameroons Vice President, Dabney Yerima told Cameroon Concord News correspondent in Kumba that “it is all Minister Atanga Nji kind of drama being staged by highly placed French Cameroun government officials to gain appointments and promotion.”

However, abductions have become rampant in Southern Cameroons as the twin poll announced by the 86 year President Paul Biya draw near.

Southern Cameroons Restoration Forces have been clashing with government forces since 2017 in an attempt to establish an independent nation now known as the Fedral Republic of Ambazonia.

By Oke Akombi Ayukepi Akap in the UK with files from Kingsley Betek

The trial of seven Cameroonian soldiers accused of participating in the killing of two women and two children has begun behind closed doors, two judicial sources said on Tuesday, after a video of the incident sparked an international outcry.

The soldiers were arrested after the video surfaced on social media in July 2018. The shaky footage showed two women, one with an infant strapped to her back, being led across a patch of dusty scrubland by uniformed men who accused them of belonging to the Nigerian militant group Boko Haram.

Moments later, two of the men stepped back, leveled their rifles and fired a series of rounds into the victims.

Government and army officials initially dismissed the video as “fake news” meant to tarnish the government’s image, but later announced arrests in the case.

The sources said the trial began on Monday in a court in Yaounde, capital of the West African country.

Six of the soldiers admitted to having participated in the killings but said their commander had given the order to open fire, said the two sources, who were not authorized to speak publicly about the case.

The commander has denied giving the order, the sources said.

It was not clear how long the trial would last.

Cameroon has been battling Boko Haram for years in the country’s far north, as the jihadist group fights to carve out an Islamic caliphate based across the border in Nigeria.

Rights activists, including Amnesty International, have accused government soldiers of repeatedly engaging in torture and extra-judicial killings in the far north. The government denies that there are systematic abuses.

The conflict with Boko Haram in the Lake Chad Basin has cost more than 30,000 lives and displaced millions more over the past decade, frequently spilling over into Cameroon, Niger and Chad.

Source: Reuters

“Human Rights Watch, HRW, has released its 2020 report on the human rights barometer on Cameroon, in which it has indicted Cameroon Government forces for killings, destruction of property, burning of villages, torture, alongside other human rights violations.”

The report also indicted Separatist fighters in the Anglophone Regions for kidnappings, torture, and occupation of schools.

Citing examples from documented cases, the HRW report on the situation in Cameroon, dwelling on the happenings of 2019, noted in its opening statement that: “Armed groups and Government forces committed widespread human rights abuses across Cameroon throughout 2019.”

The report, though largely concerned with the atrocities in the Northwest and Southwest Regions of the country, also documented attacks by the Boko Haram sect in Cameroon’s northern regions. It points out that the sect carried out over 100 attacks, killing over 100 civilians in 2019.

On the situation in Anglophone Cameroon, the report noted: “In Anglophone Regions, violence intensified as Government forces conducted large-scale security operations and armed Separatists carried out increasingly sophisticated attacks.

Over 3,000 civilians and hundreds of security forces personnel have been killed in the Anglophone Regions since 2016 when the crisis started. The unrest in these regions led to the displacement of over half-a-million people.”

Killings, destruction of Property, Torture by Government Forces Narrowing its report to groups, and pointing out their abuses, HRW accused Cameroon Government forces of destroying property, killings, torture, among others.

“Responding to increasing attacks by armed Separatist groups, security forces killed scores of people, burned hundreds of homes and other property in villages and cities across the Northwest and Southwest Regions, and tortured suspected Separatists in detention,” the report states.

The report cited the February 6 storming of the Bole Bakundu Market by State security officers, leading to the death of 10 men; the April 4 assault on Meluf village in the Northwest Region, which led to the killing five civilian males, including one with a mental disability, and wounding one woman.

Eighty homes were broken into, looted and some burnt; the May 15 incident in Mankon, Bamenda was cited, where Air Force and BIR soldiers killed three men, and burnt over 70 houses; the September 24 attack on the Bafut Royal Palace, a UNESCO World Heritage site – where soldiers wounded a man and looted the palace museum, taking several precious artefacts; the incommunicado detentions of several people at the State Defense Secretariat, popularly known by its French acronym, SED, where Gendarmes and other security operatives used torture, including severe beatings and near-drowning, as well as other ill-treatment to force suspects to confess crimes or to humiliate and punish them.

The report also stated that: “While the Government maintained it did not tolerate crimes committed by security forces, it failed to demonstrate progress in investigating and punishing them.”

Kidnappings, Torture, Occupation of Schools By armed Separatists HRW’s report also indicted separatist fighters, stating that: “Armed Separatist groups have killed, tortured, assaulted, and kidnapped dozens of people, including students, teachers, clergy, and administrative and traditional authorities.”

Citing particular cases, HRW pointed out the February 16 abduction of 170 students, mostly girls under 18, a teacher, and two guards from a boarding school in Kumbo, who were released a day after; the mid-May torture of a man in an abandoned school in Bali village, Northwest Region; the June 18 incident where over 40 people were beaten and robbed in Bafut; the June 28 abduction of SDF’s Chairman, John Fru Ndi, as well as the abduction of the Bamenda Archbishop, Cornelius Fontem Esua.

Apart from the situation in Anglophone Cameroon, HRW also documented the crackdown on opposition protests, as well as the detention of peaceful protesters. It also recorded the crackdown on sexual relations between persons of the same sex.

The report also cited the lack of transparency in the trial of security personnel accused of carrying out human rights violations. It stated that: “The visible lack of accountability appears to have fuelled abuses, including killings, destruction of property and torture.”

The report mentioned the US’s decision to scale back military support to Cameroon, due to the country’s alarming human rights abuses. It also mentioned Germany’s decision to end its military cooperation with Cameroon, alongside the stance of other international actors, who generally take exception to the many human rights cases of abuse by the Cameroon Government, especially in Anglophone Regions.

Culled from Cameroon Info.Net

There have been mixed reactions in Cameroon to the meeting between the top U.S. diplomat to Africa, Tibor Nagy, and opposition leader Maurice Kamto, who says he was the rightful winner of the Cameroon’s October 2018 presidential election.

Nagy also gave an interview in which he said Cameroonian officials are not doing enough to solve the separatist crisis that has killed more than 3,000 people in the country’s English-speaking regions. While some see Nagy as someone proposing solutions, others say he does not know the true situation and should hold back his opinions.  

Before beginning a five-nation tour of Africa last Wednesday, Nagy, the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, spoke to Radio France Internationale. In the interview, he said his mind bleeds because the separatist crisis in Cameroon has persisted and there seems to be no solution in sight. Nagy said Cameroonians in the volatile north- and southwest regions love their country, but are not happy with the system of government.

“What the people in the southwest and the northwest want more than anything else is decentralization. They would like to have control over their own lives, their own historical heritage,” Nagy said.

Armed groups in the two English-speaking regions want to separate from the rest of Cameroon, alleging discrimination from the country’s French-speaking majority.  

Ernest Ateba, spokesperson of the ruling Cameroon Peoples Democratic Movement, said Nagy does not have the mandate to speak to Cameroon.

He said America should respect Cameroon’s sovereignty and understand that Cameroon organized a successful national dialogue that unanimously created a special status for the English-speaking regions, which is gradually being put in place with the expected local council and parliamentary elections and an eventual election of representatives to regional assemblies and assemblies of chiefs.

Separatists have also criticized Nagy on social media for saying that Cameroonians are unified. They say they are fighting for an independent state they call Ambazonia.

Before leaving for Africa, Nagy met in Washington with Cameroon’s opposition leader Maurice Kamto. Kamto maintains that he won the October 2018 presidential election and his victory was stolen by Cameroon’s longtime leader, Paul Biya.

Roger Justin Noah, a spokesman for Kamto’s Cameroon Renaissance Movement party, says Nagy and Kamto discussed the political situation in Cameroon and the crisis in the English-speaking regions.

He said Tibor Nagy, just like their leader Maurice Kamto, shares the view that Biya never respects his promises and that the solution to the crisis in the English-speaking regions is the convening of a true national dialogue in the presence of all English-speaking leaders, including those who were arrested and sent to prison, and their colleagues in the diaspora who have been declared wanted by Cameroon. He said during the dialogue, people should be allowed to speak freely and should not be arrested for having contrary views to those of Biya.

Minister of Communication Rene Emmanuel Sadi said calls by Kamto for another dialogue are to distract people.

“We do not foresee a more inclusive dialogue than the historical one from the 30th of September to the 4th of October 2019. The absence of an extremist minority which did not want to take part although invited, could not put asunder the great success of this historic gathering of worthy sons and daughters of the Cameroonian nation,” Sadi said.

Cameroon is not on Nagy’s itinerary, which includes stops in the Central African Republic, Kenya, Ethiopia, Sudan, and South Sudan.

Source: VOA