Armed separatist movements in Cameroon have dismissed the approval of a spacial status to Anglophone regions by the country’s parliament, insisting that only independence would satisfy them.

Parliament on Friday granted special status to the North West and South West English-speaking regions to try to calm a separatist insurgency that has killed 2,000 people.

The law, passed in a special session of parliament, says the Anglophone regions “benefit from a special status founded on their linguistic particularity and historic heritage”.

We want independence and nothing else.

It mentioned schools and the judiciary system as part of the special status — a delayed response to protests in 2016 by teachers and lawyers.

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

The insurgency has forced half a million people to flee and presented President Paul Biya with his biggest threat in nearly 40 years of rule.

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“This is a law unique in the world,” said senator Samuel Obam Assam, from the ruling Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement, the majority group in the Senate. “It is an answer to our fellow countrymen’s concerns.”

But Jean-Michel Nintcheu, a parliamentarian from the main opposition party, said he did not believe the law would solve the crisis.

“The Anglophones, even the moderate ones, want a federal state. This law is not the result of a dialogue.. we were against it,” he said.

The reforms were recommended at the end of national talks organised by Biya in October to chart a way out of the conflict.

But separatists boycotted that dialogue, saying they would negotiate only if the government released all political prisoners and withdrew the military from the Northwest and Southwest.

“We want independence and nothing else,” said Ivo Tapang, a spokesman for 13 armed groups called the Contender Forces of Ambazonia.

He said the special status made no difference as no law passed in the Cameroonian parliament should be imposed in Ambazonia.

The roots of Cameroonian English speakers’ grievances go back a century to the League of Nations’ decision to split the former German colony of Kamerun between the allied French and British victors at the end of World War One.

Source: REUTERS

The regime is Yaoundé has revealed that a total of 272 Mbororos in the Northern Zone have been killed by the Ambazonia Restoration Forces because of their opposition to the armed struggle waged by the people of Southern Cameroons against French Cameroun colonial rule.

The Biya regime says the deaths in three years of conflict for the North West Mbororos community alone are disturbing. The Fulani subgroup mainly composed of shepherds including a large number of Muslims, herders and traders.

Yaoundé further pointed out that the death toll was reported by the Mbororo Association of Ntambang, Bamenda III region of the North West Cameroon and specified that 189 Mbororo women have also been raped by Ambazonia Forces.

A senior aide to the Ambazonia Vice President Dabney Yerima reacting to the report observed that the Mbororos have always lived in harmony with the people of Southern Cameroons and that they too are victims of the French Cameroun genocidal campaign currently going on in the Southern Cameroons-Ambazonia.

Kum Peter indicated that Yaoundé was simply attempting to attract free money from Saudi Arabia to finance its military and its senseless war against the people of Southern Cameroons. He added that the Mbororo leadership had earlier rejected a French Cameroun demand that its peace loving people should help the Cameroon government army in intelligence gathering.

By Sama Ernest in Bamenda

Two mayors and 19 municipal councillors of Cameroon’s main opposition party, the Social Democratic Front (SDF), who were abducted last week in Northwest, one of the two troubled Anglophone regions of the country, had been released, party officials confirmed on Wednesday.

The elected officials were reported to have been kidnapped by armed separatists who warned them against running for general elections scheduled for next year in the country.

Officials said ransom was paid for their release. No further details about the release of the officials were provided by the party.

Cameroon will hold municipal and parliamentary elections on Feb. 9, 2020, but separatists have vowed to disrupt the elections in the Anglophone regions of Northwest and Southwest.

Source: Xinhuanet

A military court sitting in the Cameroonian capital Yaoundé will begin hearing a case involving seven soldiers who killed two women and their children in 2018.

Hearing is scheduled to start in January 20. Authorities have disclosed that the hearing will not be open to the public.

A video of the killing was released and subsequently went viral on social media forcing the government to constitute a probe after having initially rejecting it as “fake news.”

The BBC Africa Eye’s in an investigative piece that dissected the gruesome killing of two women and their babies by security forces deployed in the fight against Boko Haram insurgents.

The piece employed technology – satellite imagery, available news footage and matched it with the video of the shooting that drew widespread condemnation when it surfaced on social media.

The BBC work tracked when it possibly happened – dating as far back as 2015 and identified two of the soldiers involved.

The other gruesome killing was also shot in the same region and involved soldiers opening fire on a dozen young men who were lying prostrate.

A lawyer defending the seven soldiers, Sylvestre Mbeng, said he believes the trial has been made private because the authorities fear there could be damaging revelations.

Human Rights group Amnesty International has called for justice for the women and their children. The United States government openly slammed the incident and asked that a through probe be held.

Source: Africa News

Experts from central Africa met in Cameroon’s commercial capital Douala on Monday to work out a regional plan to combat poaching.

“Illegal wildlife crime continues to pose serious threats to wildlife populations. The forest elephant is especially in danger in Central Africa,” Cameroon’s Minister of Forestry and Wildlife Jules Doret Ndongo told reporters. “We want to fight against the growing trend of poaching, especially trans-boundary poaching and insecurity in protected areas.”

Ndongo said the meeting will review progress made in anti-poaching in the 10 member countries of the Central African Forest Commission.

The regional bloc is intensifying measures to enforce field wildlife crime units and set policies at the national and regional levels.

Central Africa owns the Congo Basin, the world’s second largest rainforest with almost 2 million square kilometers of humid forest.

According to World Wide Fund for Nature, Central Africa has experienced a 62-percent decline in the number of forest elephants between 2002 and 2011 due to commercial poaching, and it has been deteriorating over the years with cumulative losses of up to 90 percent in some landscapes in the region between 2011 and 2015.

Source: Xinhuanet

Separatist fighters in western Cameroon have abducted at least 40 candidates for parliament and local councils, in an effort to derail elections set for February. The government is promising to free the hostages and protect candidates and election officials for what it says must be successful polls.

In an audio shared by separatist fighters, Samuel Nforba, a candidate for the February 9, 2020 local council election, says he is being punished by separatists for defying their warning that no one should vote or be a candidate in the joint local council and parliamentary elections.

Among those listening to the audio is 51-year-old teacher Wilson Bate. He says the separatists should free innocent Cameroonians who simply want to carry out their civic duties.

“It’s embarrassing. I feel very bad that politicians should be kidnapped for simply wanting to perform their fundamental rights,” he said. “Government should do all what it can to make sure that there is a safe ground for all political events, make sure that they provide the necessary security for these upcoming elections.”

Separatists have been fighting since 2017 to detach English-speaking Northwest and Southwest Cameroon from the rest of the country and its French-speaking majority.

Cameroon’s government declared the regions were peaceful enough to hold the elections; but, last week, nearly 40 people running for council seats were abducted in the Northwest town of Jakiri.

Another three were kidnapped in the Northwest town of Bamenda for being in possession of voter cards.

Prince Ngwese Ekosso, chairman of the opposition United Socialist Democratic Party, says conditions are not peaceful enough to hold the ballot.

“There is need for the resolution of the conflict before we can be able to venture into elections in Cameroon,” he said. “The country is going through one of the worst crises and the separatists have made their point the tension is going to continue.”

Paul Atanga Nji, Cameroon’s minister of territorial administration, says the government is making efforts to free the hostages — and maintains the elections must take place as planned.

“In the Northwest and Southwest, the head of state [President Paul Biya] has given firm instructions to the minister of territorial administration, to the minister in charge of defense, that we have to do everything that it takes for this elections to hold properly. It is just but normal that we will uplift the security network in those two regions before, during and after the process,” he said.

The abductions come at a time when Cameroon’s parliament is meeting to debate the so-called special status President Paul Biya ordered as a solution to the separatist crisis.

Some lawmakers say only the creation of federal states, one in the English-speaking regions and the other in the French-speaking areas, can stop the separatist war that has killed more than 3,000 people.

The separatists have rejected the proposed special status, saying they want nothing but an independent state.

Source: VOA

Beginning a new week of violence, 21 Southern Cameroonians were killed in both the northern and southern zones of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia by French Cameroun troops loyal to the regime in Yaoundé.

The Cameroon government soldiers stationed at the border town of Ekok in the Eyumojock sub constituency and those in Batibo and Widikum fled the areas, outgunned by Ambazonia Restoration Forces and reportedly opened fire at innocent Southern Cameroons civilians eye witnesses said.

Additionally, a bomb exploded at the Batibo residence of the renowned SDF MP, Hon Joseph Mbah Ndam which was home to a regiment of the Rapid Intervention Battalion (BIR) – the French Cameroun elite force carrying out the genocidal campaign in Southern Cameroons.

The explosion at the Mbah Ndam residence set roofs ablaze as Francophone soldiers who had been deployed to Batibo and Widikum to help the Social Democratic Front stage public rallies rolled into Batibo and Widikum shooting and setting fire on the entire Batibo, sparing nothing.

Our chief correspondent in Mamfe reported that houses, shops and even government buildings along the Bamenda-Mamfe highway were razed down completely by the French speaking soldiers. Southern Cameroonians have been devastated beyond what one can describe.” he added.

The Batibo and Widikum destruction comes after shootouts on Saturday evening in Fotabe and Tinto that killed 14 people. Four Francophone soldiers are also believed to be missing.

By Sama Ernest and Rita Akana

Southern Cameroons Restoration Forces have burnt down a house belonging to one of the pro Yaoundé members of parliament from the Manyu County, Enow Tanjong.

The residence, said to be located in Fotabe (Tinto) the chief settlement in the Upper Banyang sub constituency, was reportedly set ablaze on Saturday night over what the angry Southern Cameroonians called bad representation and lack of benefits of dividends of democracy in the union between French and British Southern Cameroons.

The Ambazonia Restoration Forces claimed in an audio message aired in the Kenyang language that they had earlier warned the former governor and now MP to leave French Cameroun and return home.

The veteran politician who was brought back into active politics via a diabolic harsh ploy against Hon. Rose Abunaw engineered by Minister Mengot was said to have arrived in the area accompanied by trucks loaded with Francophone gendarmes to discuss the February 2020 parliamentary elections.

Unconfirmed reports say the attack on the Tanjong’s residence resulted in a shooting with several injured. The French Cameroun gendarmerie station in Tinto is yet to confirm the incident.

Meanwhile, a source also told Cameroon Concord News that another cause of the incident was the ban on French Cameroun elections throughout Southern Cameroons by the Ambazonia Interim Government.

The Manyu County is very tense as people in the rural areas are staying indoors and might not likely partake in the municipal and parliamentary polls for fear of being arrested by the Southern Cameroons Restoration Forces.

By Rita Akana