The Secretary General of the National Assembly has died in the General Hospital in Yaoundé. News of his demise was made public early today Wednesday, December 13, 2017.

Victor Yene Ossomba, 70, from the Central Region, was a senior civil administrator who served as provincial governor in the Far-North region from 1998 to 2003.

Victor Yene Ossomba was Secretary General of the National Assembly since February 15, 2010. He had a fragile health for almost a year.

By Rita Akana

The Minister of Communication and so-called government spokesman has defended the budget of his ministerial department which however recorded a relative decline from 4.74 to 4.39 billion FCFA.

Interestingly, Issa Tchiroma Bakary hinted the Francophone dominated National Assembly that public aid to private newspapers will increase from 400 to 600 million CFA francs in 2018. In 2016, the prize pool amounted to 250 million CFA francs distributed to pro CPDM tabloids.

Since last Saturday, the cabinet members of the Biya Francophone regime have visited alternately the Finance Committee to defend the budget of their respective ministerial departments for 2018 amid a massive opposition protest led by the Social Democratic Front.

Issa Tchiroma mainly focused on the rehabilitation of state radio and television, CRTV and the private press informing the elected representatives that the media will be “very important” in light of future events notably the presidential election and the organisation of the 2019 African Cup of Nations.

By Sama Ernest

Two Southern Cameroonians were arrested on Monday near the Bombe-Bakundu weighing station, in possession of weapons of war and ammunition, Cameroon Concord News has learnt from security sources in Meme Division. The young men aged 22 years old were reportedly stopped by a patrol of security forces.

Family sources revealed the young men had gone for hunting with their dads and were returning home with den guns when they were picked up by security forces. However, according to the National Gendarmerie, the two young men confessed that they were preparing an attack on the Bombe-Bakundu gendarmerie station.

By Fru James

The Nigerian Islamic sect, Boko Haram staged a suicide bombing today in Kerawa, Mayo Sava Division in the Far North region. Cameroon security sources say the attack resulted in a death s of three people. We gathered that the young suicide bomber infiltrated Muslim faithful who were leaving the mosque after the dawn prayer.

“The toll would be heavier if the suicide bomber was inside the mosque where Muslims gathered for prayers” said one of the witnesses.  The blast actually collapsed a section of the Kerawa Mosque.

The Far North, affected by the violence at the peak of the insurgency in 2014-2015, had seen in recent weeks a gradual and fragile return to calm. But jihadist attacks have resumed in this border region of Nigeria and near the Mandara Mountains, where Boko Haram has several camps.  Military sources in the region reported that a truck driver was kidnapped today December 11, 2017 in the locality of Dabanga.

By Sonne Peter

At least 3 people were killed in armed clashes between Ambazonian militants and Cameroon defense forces, according to community and security sources in Kumba.

Armed men claiming to represent the Southern Cameroons National Council (SCNC), a movement classified as a terrorist organization by Yaoundé, attacked a gendarmerie post.

The clashes took place on the night on Saturday in Kumba the chief city in Meme Division.  3 attackers were killed and 5 soldiers were seriously injured.

Southern Cameroons is witnessing many scenes of clashes between defense forces and armed bands claiming secession. These secessionists are considered “terrorists” by Yaoundé.

By Rita Akana

Cameroon Special Forces loyal to the regime in Yaoundé say they have arrested the main agent recruiting soldiers for the Southern Cameroons Defense Force. Our source within the military leadership hinted that AYUK NKEN Franklin was arrested in Bachuo Akaegbe village some 12 kilometers from Mamfe the chief town in Mamyu.

The Francophone dominated army also revealed that he was arrested in possession of three weapons of war and ammunition. The army added that his mission was to enlist and train young people in combat.

We understand that on the night of 7 to 8 December 2017, five Ambazonian militants were shot dead by the Cameroon Defense Forces, who responded to an attack by nearly 200 freedom fighters on the Mamfe gendarmerie post.

Three of the Southern Cameroonians killed were named as Tako Prosper Arrey, Anyong Patrick Abong and Disengi Kendry. Constable KELLY Hervé on duty at the Mamfe Gendarmerie Territorial Brigade was killed during the attack and ten members of the defense forces were wounded.

By Sama Ernest

The Biya francophone regime has announced that 10 suspected Southern Cameroons terrorists were shot dead by the Cameroonian army in fighting in Mamfe, Manyu Division.  The Yaounde government stated that the “terrorists –secessionists” entered the country from Nigerian on board a speed boat.

The government statement also hinted of some arrests that were made at the Bombe-Bakundu weighing station with firearms and ammunition. According to military officials, the secessionists fired the first salvo killing a gendarme and wounding several others.  The Cameroonian forces fought back fiercely. The provisional balance sheet records from the regime revealed that at least 10 assailants were killed and several others neutralized and injured.

There are conflicting reports on last night incident in Mamfe with CIR sources saying that the bodies made public by troops loyal to the Biya regime where those of detainees who attempted to escape from the Mamfe Central prison when the shootings were going on.

The images of the so-called “terrorists-secessionists” were aired on state television without the ammunition they were carrying during the raids on the Mamfe gendarme station.  The attack occurred as a tribute ceremony to honour recently killed soldiers was underway in Buea.

We gathered that the Biya regime has blamed the attacks on the interim government of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia headed by Sisuku Ayuk Tabe. For his part, President Ayuk Tabe told CIR that he has instructed the defense secretary to carry out an assessment of the happenings in Manyu. The Ambazonian leader reassured the Southern Cameroonian people that all options were on the table against the Biya French Cameroun regime.

By Sama Ernest

Cameroon’s military has taken over two villages held hostage by separatists whom the government called terrorists. The separatists had been collecting taxes, rendering justice in their courts and imposing prison sentences on people who refused to collaborate with them.

The separatists have killed at least eight soldiers and policemen over the past month in their campaign to break from francophone Cameroon and form a separate anglophone state called Ambazonia. They also aim to loosen President Paul Biya’s long grip on power.

In the southwestern village of Bafia, one of those retaken, hundreds of people have returned, nearly two months after they fled. Resident Enow Basile, 31, said he and about 100 villagers were arrested by the armed groups and detained at a local government school, where a man calling himself General Amstrong, leader of the group, had installed his headquarters.

“When you come, they tie your eye, they beat you up,” he said. “If you don’t have from 100 thousand francs ($180) and above, they promise to take your life, so people were paying.” More than 100 people complied, he said.

“And they always attacked trucks that were transporting cocoa to Douala,” Basile added. “They attack them, each pay 50 thousand francs ($90) to pay a pass, but if you don’t pay, you will not pass. You don’t take cocoa to Douala.”

Muyenge, 10 kilometers from Bafia, was the other occupied village. Resident Ayuk Lucas said the invaders were sanctioning anyone who did not respect them.

“They even create a court. Everything. A whole government where they send to come and collect somebody and ask you to pay some money to them,” he said.

Last week, Cameroon’s military arrested 20 members of the armed group. But the U.N. Committee Against Torture expressed concern Wednesday, demanding an investigation into the deaths of at least 17 people killed in October 1 clashes between the security forces and those seeking a separate state. It said more than 500 people had been arrested, some of them from the hospital in the wake of the unrest, and it criticized Yaounde for not responding to several demands seeking information on those still being held.

Muyenge resident Ebune Francis said the armed separatists were expressing anger about what he described as the Cameroon government’s neglect of English-speaking regions. He said he did not support secessionists but did support demands made by teachers and lawyers when they began a strike more than a year ago that later degenerated.

“We had been supporting the government, supporting the government. Nothing is coming, so we all are annoyed,” Francis said. “We are abandoned by the government. We don’t have water, sometimes we don’t have electricity. You want us to be happy with the government? No.”

The government has assured the population of the English-speaking regions that it will assure their safety.

Schools have been closed in most of the English-speaking northwest and southwest since November last year, when the lawyers and teachers called for a strike to stop what they said was the overuse of the French language.

Source: VOA

Cameroonian author Patrice Nganang was arrested at the airport as he tried to fly to Zimbabwe a day after publishing an opinion piece sharply critical of Cameroon’s president, a source said Thursday. Nganang, who teaches literature at New York University, “was taken into custody yesterday (Wednesday) at Douala (airport),” a source close to the police disclosed. “He drew attention to himself in recent days with several acts of provocation,” the source said, also mentioning Nganang’s Facebook posts.

Agents were waiting for him at the airport in Douala, Cameroon’s economic capital, and he has since been taken to the capital Yaoundé for detention. The writer had been en route to Harare after wrapping up a stay in mainly French-speaking Cameroon, during which he visited the restive Anglophone regions that have been hit by an anti-secession government crackdown.

On Tuesday, Nganang published a French opinion piece on the Jeune Afrique news site that was critical of Cameroonian President Paul Biya’s handling of the Anglophone crisis. “It will probably take another political regime to make the state understand that the machine gun cannot stem a movement,” wrote Nganang. “Only change at the head of the state can settle the Anglophone conflict in Cameroon,” he said.

Calls for greater autonomy in Cameroon’s two English-speaking areas, the Northwest and Southwest Regions, have been rejected by Biya whose government has led a crackdown on the separatist drive. Anglophones make up about a fifth of the country’s 22 million people, and often say they suffer from economic inequality and discrimination, especially in education and the legal system.

AFP

A prominent member of the Central Committee of the ruling CPDM party has said that President Biya runs the risk of being at the International Criminal Court. Prof. Charlemagne Mesange Nyamding in an interview with a sister publication, Cameroon Info.Net also noted that the Francophone soldiers killed in Southern Cameroons were a consequence of a misguided policy that incited nervousness.

Mesange Nyamding who also moonlights as a senior lecturer at the International Relations Institute, IRIC condemned bluntly the Biya regime’s decision to send troops to quell the activities of Southern Cameroons protesters.

“We must avoid what I call a military escalation. We cannot solve a social problem with a military solution. If the army continues to fire on the populations, Paul Biya, the head of the state and commander-in-chief of the armed forces runs the risk of being at the International Criminal Court. We can do nothing but dialogue; this is the only way that the President of the Republic should follow. Look at how he handled the Bakassi case, for example. President Paul Biya is a man of dialogue.”

The University Don who was shortlisted for the Cameroon Concord News Man of the Year award  condemned the killing of men in uniform in Southern Cameroons, but invited the head of state to continue with inclusive dialogue to find solutions to the crisis.

Prof. Nyamding also pointed out that the President of the Republic must continue the dialogue and quickly implement decentralization.

By Sonne Peter with files from CIN