17, December 2018
Freed Ambazonians ask for release of President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe including top aides 0
Barely 24 hours after being released from detention centers, some of the people accused of fighting for the creation of an English-speaking state in Cameroon have called for the movement’s leaders to be released if President Paul Biya wants peace in the country.
The detainees’ release last week came after Biya ordered charges against them dropped. Evelyn Ako, a mother of four, says she spent the night with her husband for the first time in 22 months. She says he was arrested in the English-speaking Southwest town of Mamfe and taken to Yaounde.
“With him besides me, we can work harder,” she said. “He used to give me money to support my children but this year, they are in the house. They have not gone to school because of [his absence]. So this thing has disturbed us a lot. It has disturbed even our family because any money that we gather, we used it to buy foodstuff to go and give him. We use it to buy medicines, dresses.”
Evelyn Ako relocated to Yaounde to help her husband and says they will only return to Mamfe when the crisis is over.
Joseph Cho, the spokesperson for the 120 people released from detention camps, said they are pleading with Biya to free their leaders.
“We have leaders. If these people are released, things will be better,” Cho said. “Like Sissiku … who [was] arrested because of this. We expected this decision long ago. Things would not have been the way it is now.”
Sissiku is the name given to the leader of the Ambazonia separatist movement, Julius Ayuk Tabe. He was arrested in Abuja, Nigeria, with 46 of his collaborators and extradited last January to Cameroon. They face a possible death penalty on charges of secession, terrorism and attempting to destabilize Cameroon.
‘Frank dialogue’ needed
University of Yaounde political analyst Willibroad Ze Ngwa says if Biya frees the Anglophone leaders, peace likely will return to Cameroon.
“The most important should be releasing the leaders and engaging in frank dialogue with these people. I pray the head of state [president] should move us into 2019 with some sort of general amnesty so that Cameroonians should be able to live in total concord and harmony,” Ngwa said.
Governor of the English-speaking Northwest region, Deben Tchoffo, says the government is open for dialogue and the separatists should disarm.
“Use all means at your level to convince your other mates to lay down their guns and to come back to normal civil life,” Tchoffo said. “They will be well taken care of, they will be well treated, trained and even supported to ease their coming back to civil life.”
Separatist insurgency
The separatist insurgency gained pace in 2017 following a government crackdown on peaceful protests by Anglophones, who complain of being marginalized by the French-speaking majority.
Biya was re-elected to a seventh term in October, and since then there has been pressure from the international community to start sincere dialogue with the separatists.
Last Thursday, U.S. Deputy Ambassador Jonathan Cohen told the U.N. Security Council that conditions in Cameroon’s English-speaking Northwest and Southwest regions had highly deteriorated, and the United States wants an immediate end to violence and a speedy start to talks between the government and separatists.
Culled from the VOA
17, December 2018
Biya regime steps up attacks in Southern Cameroons as support for IG rises 0
Scores of Ambazonians have been arrested in a stepped-up Biya regime crackdown in the northern zone and Southern zone of Southern Cameroons amid fears that support for the exiled Ambazonian Interim Government is rising. Francophone civil administrators with the support of pro Yaoundé militia groups are in control of Bamenda, Bali, Wum, Batibo and Ndop but these localities have witnessed the worst clashes between Cameroon government forces and Ambazonia Restoration Fighters over the week.
Recently, Batibo experienced Cameroon government military raids of extraordinary proportions. Our chief intelligence officer in Widikum who contributed to this report revealed that the onslaught on Batibo was done with intelligence gathered from a Southern Cameroons armed group headed by Cho Ayaba. The Francophone army fired and beat demonstrators after innocent civilians raised an Ambazonian flag.
Cameroon Intelligence Report understands that the image of Cho Ayaba has been established in Batibo as the subcontractor of the French Cameroun occupation forces with his criminal gang working in the shadow of French Cameroun troops and disappearing whenever French Cameroun soldiers raid neighbourhoods in Batibo.
Cameroon government troops arrested 35 Southern Cameroonians today at the Hospital Round About in Bamenda, taking the total number of those detained in to more than 165, Cameroon Intelligence Report correspondent in Bamenda Sama Ernest reported.
A dramatic video shows French Cameroun government troops blowing up houses in Belo, Kendem, Batibo and Weh recently. The Ambazonia Communications Secretary, Chris Anu has condemned the French Cameroun government atrocities and also sounded a note of caution to members of an obscure organization headed by Cho Ayaba committing crimes in Southern Cameroons.
By Rita Akana