Cameroon says its police shot and wounded seven people and arrested 117 in several towns where protests of what organizers call an “electoral hold up” were organized on Saturday. The demonstrations were led by Maurice Kamto, the man who claims he won the October 7 presidential poll in Cameroon.

Sixty people, a majority of them youths, shout as they march through the streets of Cameroon political capital Yaounde, banging spoons and dishes and calling for the unconditional release of everyone arrested during Saturday’s demonstrations.

Cameroon’s minister of communication and government spokesperson Rene Emmanuel Sadi says the economic capital Douala, the capital Yaounde, and the western town of Mbounda were the scene of protests organized by Maurice Kamto and his Cameroon Renaissance Movement party.

“The CRM intended as usual to push our compatriots at home and abroad to defy the republican order with slogans of rebellion and insurgency against legal and legitimate institutions,” he said. “The government strongly condemns this unacceptable maneuver to destabilize Cameroon under the false pretext of an alleged electoral hold up.”

Incumbent President Paul Biya was declared the winner of the October 7 presidential election by Cameroon’s constitutional council after the results giving him a landslide victory were challenged by Kamto. Kamto then announced what he called a national resistance program until Biya steps down. The first protests organized by the CRM in late October were put down by police and the party said 42 people, including some of its officials, had been arrested and detained. They were later freed.

Michele Ndoki, a lawyer who defended Kamto at the constitutional council, where they alleged massive fraud and ballot-stuffing in favor of Biya’s ruling Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement (CPDM), was one of those arrested during the October 27 and 28 protests. In this Saturday’s demonstration Ndoki was shot in the leg, one of seven wounded, including Celestin Djamen another CRM official. Ndoki says police used live bullets against the protesters.

Cameroon minister of territorial administration Paul Atanga Nji says riot police did their jobs professionally after they were provoked by the demonstrators. He says Kamto defied a ban on the protest because he wants to destabilize Cameroon.

“The forces of law and order did not use any firearms to maintain peace and order. Any contrary information is fake news,” he said. “The CRM political party and their leaders should not take the leniency of the government as a sign of weakness. As from now henceforth, they will taste the bitterness of our laws which will be applied scrupulously.”

Atanga Nji said similar protests took place in Cameroon embassies abroad.

In a telephone interview with VOA, Sylvester Onana, spokesperson for the Cameroon Embassy in Paris, says they had to call in the police after the protest went violent.

He says they are still evaluating the damage, but everything in the embassy was completely ransacked by a group of about a hundred Cameroonians singing anti-Cameroon government slogans. He says the French police had to intervene to stop the youths from further destruction.

Maurice Kamto says he will continue with the demonstrations against what he says is election fraud, as well as against the government’s failure to resolve the separatist crisis in the Northwest and Southwest regions of the country until Biya leaves office and a solution is found.

Biya has been in power for 36 years and is now the second-oldest president in sub-Saharan Africa after his neighbor Theodoro Obiang Nguema of Equatorial Guinea. When his new term is finished, he will be 93 years old.

VOA

Five students and two lawyers were abducted early Friday in the two war-torn Cameroon English-speaking regions of Northwest and Southwest, according to local authorities.

The students were kidnapped from a private secondary school in Bamenda of Northwest. The two lawyers were abducted in Buea of Southwest, according to local authorities.

“The students were on their way to school when they were kidnapped and the lawyers were abducted at the Mile 16 neighbourhood in Buea by heavily armed men.”

It is still unclear who kidnapped the students and the lawyers. A “thorough” search by police and army for the abductees is in progress in the two regions according to the source.

An armed conflict is ongoing in Cameroon’s Anglophone regions where separatists claim that they want to create a new nation called “Ambazonia.”

Cases of kidnapping have become rampant in the regions since the conflict started in 2017. Cameroon government has blamed armed separatists for the abductions, but the separatists claim that the government is staging the kidnappings to tarnish their image internationally.

Source: Xinhuanet

Cameroon is finding it difficult to meet its financial commitments as the battle against armed separatists and corruption depletes the country’s resources.

In addition to corruption and the battle against separatists fighting to create an English-speaking state, there is also the war against Boko Haram on Cameroon’s northern border with Nigeria and the spillover of the crisis in the Central African Republic (CAR). All of these combined are draining the state of its resources.

Employees of a company constructing the Paul Biya Stadium in Olembe, on the outskirts of Yaounde, protested against difficult working conditions and non-payment of their salaries. Their spokesperson Dieudonne Nguidjol demanded that they be given a normal contract. “We are supposed to work from 7:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. [and] 4:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. is supposed to be extra time. Our salaries are not good,” said Nguidjol.

He added that people who come to work as engineers earn a salary of about 80,000 CFA francs (about €120, $138), which is not in line with Cameroon’s labor code. “We have salaries of four, five and six months that have not been paid; this is the immediate cause of this strike,” Nguidjol said. Cameroon’s Minister of Finance Louis-Paul Motaze said the stadium is just one project that has been affected by the conflicts affecting the country. He said the treasury is stretched with requests for funds for development projects and money to fund the conflicts. “The people want roads. They want security. They want energy. They want agricultural products. We have to realize them with revenues. That means that we have to look for internal revenues. Those internal revenues are taxes. But we have to consider the expenses,” Motaze said.

Cameroon will no longer host the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON)

Financial scandal

The 2019 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) project was one of the largest projects recently rocked by a financial scandal in Cameroon. The country was stripped of its hosting right in favor of Egypt due to massive delays in the preparations. Whistleblowers claim that an estimated 1.8 billion euros of Cameroonian public money has been swallowed in contracts shrouded in controversy. A video of a Cameroonian official allegedly defending why a bag of cement costs 15,000 CFA francs  for the AFCON project, instead of the normal 4,500 CFA francs, went viral on social media.

Ako John Ako, a university lecturer and civil society activist in Cameroon, said that the prices of the 2019 AFCON infrastructure were ten times more than is usual for the same kind of infrastructure in other African nations. “Findings indicated that public contracts suffered one of the highest hits,” Ako said. “Within Cameroon, those who implement decisions or grant the order for contracts always have a percentage reserved in their name.”

Corruption kills infrastructure

Government ministers, heads of parapublic and public as well as giant private enterprises are increasingly being brought down as Cameroon’s anti-corruption organ intensifies its efforts. According to the National Anti-Corruption Commission’s (CONAC) most recent report, the country saw 375 billion CFA francs  returned to its coffers.

Doula is Cameroon’s biggest city and its economic capital Despite these efforts, civil society actors like Ako think that CONAC, other anti-corruption agencies and poor governance remain key factors in holding back Cameroon’s development.

“CONAC and many other agencies that have been created by the state simply come to confirm that Cameroon will solve problems with commissions, but then more often than not most of the commissions created are still a problem and center for corruption within Cameroon,” he told DW. Ako went on to say that the Cameroonian government could say that the fight against corruption has been succeeding, because Cameroon does not appear among the first five most corrupt nations in the world. “But corruption still continues to be the venom that is eating and killing the infrastructure and implementation or execution of state activities,” he said.

Threat of famine

The situation in the English-speaking regions, where suspected separatists have been carrying out attacks and kidnappings, is dire. Dominic Asah, one of the supervisors of government development projects, said that up to 20 percent of planned projects could not be implemented due to insecurity and shortage of liquidity. “The socio-political climate in the field is actually what is hampering the execution process in these localities. The northwest region received a total of 490 operations. Only 52 have been executed, 69 are ongoing and 311 are still to take off the ground,” Asah said. At least 10,000 workers have quit their jobs in rubber plantations in the English-speaking town of Buea. According to director general Frankline Njie, they require at least 54 million dollars. “None of our rubber estates is operating normally. Some are shut down completely, the workers are threatened,” Njie lamented.

He said it was difficult for him to understand and accept why all this pain was being inflicted. “The banana sector has been hit. One of our pack houses, where bananas are processed for export was attacked and set ablaze.” President Paul Biya has openly called on all fighters to drop their guns  and has created a national disarmament commission to socially reintegrate fighters who surrender.

Source: DW.Com  

Cameroon’s Minister of Territorial Administration Paul Atanga Nji said Tuesday that the government has assisted more than 60,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the two troubled English-speaking regions of Northwest and Southwest.

“As of today, there are 60,345 Cameroonians who have already received humanitarian assistance in the two regions. There are also 1,200 families that have returned home,” Nji told reporters in the capital city of Yaounde while meeting with seven other ministers to assess the humanitarian situation in the restive regions.

He stressed that other humanitarian organizations wishing to assist the IDPs must obtain permission from the government.

“On no account can you go to the field and start doing your activities without the formal approval of the government because if things are not properly organized there is the risk of having assistance falling into the hands of the terrorists,” Nji said.

He said, rehabilitation centers have already been set up to accommodate armed separatists who will drop their weapons.

“When you lay down your weapons, you will be taken to the centers, where you are provided health, psychological and training facilities,” Nji said.

Armed separatists have been clashing with government forces in the two English-speaking regions since November 2017. Separatists want to secede from Francophone-majority Cameroon and create a new nation called “Ambazonia”.

The United Nations estimates that over 430,000 people have been displaced internally by the conflict.

During his end-of-year speech to the nation, Cameroon President Paul Biya said he was ready to continue dialogue with “people of goodwill” in the troubled regions but warned that armed separatists unwilling to drop their arms will be “neutralized”.

Source: Xinhua