Since October 2016, courts in Southern Cameroons have not been functioning. The lawyers announced a boycott of the courts after certain demands were not met by the Francophone regime in Yaoundé. With the support of the teachers, the Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium was born and the Anglophone regions plunged into crisis.

The Biya Francophone government has maintained a kind of deliberate silence and some Francophone magistrates have been hearing cases without the presence of counsels and have been delivering funny judgments. Cameroon Concord News gathered that most of the hearings are being postponed. Some of the French speaking judges were quoted as saying that in the absence of lawyers, their work lacks serenity and the hearing are painful.

Last week Laurent Esso, the Minister of Justice and a gang of other Francophone cabinet ministers held a press conference to present to the media the measures taken so far by the Head of State who has reportedly gone missing ever since his state visit to Italy.

Esso and his Francophone colleagues in response to the demands of English-speaking lawyers revealed that Mr. Biya has ordered a new assessment on the mastery of the Common Law by Magistrates serving in the North West and South West Courts of Appeal.  Laurent Esso who earlier made a mockery of Southern Cameroonians that there was an emergence of a Chinese Cameroon community also noted that the 84 year old dictator has agreed to a redeployment of Magistrates in Southern Cameroons taking into account their mastery of the English language.

The Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium has said it will no longer react to statements and decrees signed by the Biya Francophone government as they are not relevant to Southern Cameroonians.

By Sama Ernest

Southern Cameroonians in the Diaspora have unanimously agreed that all splinter groupings only go a long way to weaken efforts in the struggle. In a bid to combat the tactic of divide and rule that President Biya and his Francophone dominated government has been yearning for since the advent of multi party politics in Cameroon, Southern Cameroonians met in Brussels, Belgium over the week end and designed a new strategy on how to successfully hypnotized the Yaoundé regime.

Details of what was discussed in the meeting have not been made public. However, Cameroon Intelligence Report gathered that participants who traveled to the Belgian capital from all over Europe, the US and Canada accepted that there is strength in unity.

The various representatives noted that there was an urgent need to have a leader. It was also revealed the leader will have a better hand in negotiating bilateral deals with the UN, AU and the rest of the world.

The Brussels Conference of Southern Cameroonians resolved that the leaders of the various movements should come up with a united front at the April meeting in Nigeria, to give more impetus to the drive to achieve recognition for a Southern Cameroons state from the International community.

Culled from CIR

Southern Cameroon activists have stormed the residence of Tameh Valentine, the so-called president of the Teachers Association of Cameroon (TAC) in Bamenda and burnt down his car. The corrupt Tameh Valentine was one of the leaders of the English-speaking teachers’ unions who announced a suspension of the Southern Cameroons strike action recently and was granted presidential protection.

Cameroon Concord News gathered that the attack took place on the night of Wednesday at about 2 am in Bamenda. Fortunately, no loss of human life was recorded.  The attackers also set fire on another car belonging to Tameh’s beautiful wife.

Southern Cameroons has been the scene of many fires since the beginning of the uprising in schools, homes, shops and other public places. These acts by unknown individuals are usually staged around 11 pm. Tameh Valentine reportedly had security protection ever since he betrayed the Consortium.

By Sama Ernest

The man who was until March 13 Senior Divisional Officer for the Department of Wouri has now taken the reins of the Center region. Paul Naseri Bea has replaced the late Joseph Wilson Otto as governor of the Center region headquartered in Yaounde, the nation’s capital.  The Central Region was born from the break-up of the former Central-South Province, following a presidential decree of 22 August 1983 and it covers an area of 69 000 km2.

Its population is estimated to a little more than 3 million inhabitants. Administratively, the region of the Center has ten departments and 70 districts. This is the highest number in the administrative division in Cameroon. Yaoundé, Mbalmayo, Monatélé, Bafia, Nanga-Eboko and Akonolinga are the main urban centers in the Region. Although the available statistics indicate that the majority of the urban population is located in the department of Mfoundi.

The Center is an agricultural-dominated region that draws most of its resources from farming. Like the other Regions of Cameroon, Naseri Paul Bea is now faces a number of problems such as the unavoidable problem of the urban disorder facing the different municipalities, and especially the city of Yaounde which has the delicate task of housing the main institutions of the country and diplomatic representations accredited in Cameroon.

Urban agglomerations in the Region are also facing rising levels of crime and other forms of delinquency, which the new Governor will certainly tackle. Naseri Paul Bea carries with him a long experience of territorial command which should probably allow him to draw the best from the game at the head of this region so special to the Biya Francophone Beti Ewondo regime.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

STATEMENT ON THE SITUATION OF THE SOUTHERN CAMEROONS

REVOLT IGNITED BY COMMON LAWYERS’ STRIKE.

By

Harmony BobgaMbuton (Esq.)

It is now almost 5 months since the Common-Law Lawyers of Cameroon ignited a peaceful strike action that quickly gained the acceptance and instant participation of virtually all Southern Cameroonians, both within the homeland and in the diaspora. The ensuing revolution has settled on one clear goal: the speedy RESTORATION OF THE INDEPENDENCEOF SOUTHERN CAMEROONS.

It must be recalled that the strike action of Common Law Lawyers that took off on October 6, 2016, did not only focus on the restoration of the Common Law juridico-cultural system, it included a demand for proof of whether or not there has ever been an ACT OF UNION between Southern Cameroons and La République du Cameroun. This second arm of the raison d’etre for the strike action provided the legal window for ending the colonization of Southern Cameroons.

It has been a colonization that has entailed the destruction of our economy, government, and now is ferociously devouring our cultural identity and remaining values. In short the people of Southern Cameroons, have born the burden of threat of extinction from our colonizers, more like African tribal societies suffered from 19^th century European colonizers.

The revolution has continued to be fueled by the defiance of Southern Cameroonians within the homeland and the committed support of Compatriots in the Diaspora.

The Cameroon Common Law Bar Association was created on November 8, 2016 in Bamenda, in defiance of the occupier government of La République du Cameroun. This was done with the maximum of courage in spite of the counter posture of the brutal forces of La République du Cameroun.It was the brutality of the Police and Gendarmerie Para-military forces that transformed our peaceful demonstration into a popular revolution.

The Cameroon Common Law Bar Association thus born, held its first Bar Conference in Kumba on January 13, 2017. At this Conference, we recommitted ourselves,as initiators of the ongoing revolution,to continue providing leadership to the revolution.

Following the arrest and incarceration of one of us, Barrister Nkongho Felix AgborBalla,along with Dr. Fontem Neba,a Buea University Lecturer, both of whom I had been collaborating with,in directing the revolution, I fled from Cameroon. By this flight, I did not just take myself out of harm’s way,I also took along with me the leadership of the revolution as President of the Common-Law Bar, now christened the Southern Cameroons Bar Association. This move follows in the foot-steps of Oliver Tambo of the African National Congress (ANC) who left South Africa and continued his organization’s revolution from the diaspora.

I therefore carry with me the leadership and commitment of the Southern Cameroons Bar Association within the homeland and across the world.This will allow us to deliver on our promise to the people of Southern Cameroons. We will restore their rights to the dignity of their human persons and guarantee that restoration with an independent Southern Cameroons. This is a strict project to deliver justice to a people re-colonized by France, employing the mask of La République du Cameroun for over 55 years now.

This masking was accomplished under the aegis of an obnoxious “accorde de cooperation” that was forced on La Republique du Cameroun as a precondition that left intact her continued colonization while falsely dressed up as an independent nation on January 1, 1960.

Let me reassure the members of the Southern Cameroons Bar Association within the homeland, that the masked French State terrorism will never stop us. I hereby equally enjoin all Southern Cameroonian Lawyers, and other Professionals in the Diaspora,to partner with us in providing the much needed professional and organizational leadership required for the delivery of independence to the entrapped people of Southern Cameroons. By doing this we shall be tapping from the successful experiences of the ANC and the PLO.

To the people of Southern Cameroons in general, I am reassuring you that your men and women in wigs and black robes are poised,stronger than ever, to deliver on their promise to you all as declared at the beginning of our revolution.

God Bless Southern Cameroons.

Justice Minister, Laurent Esso seen here with a sea of Francophone cabinet members of government announced on Thursday some measures taken by President Biya, for a definitive exit from the socio-political crisis in Southern Cameroons.

Known for his anti-Anglophone stance, Laurent Esso made public the creation of a section of Common Law at ENAM, the National School of Administration and Judiciary and the Supreme Court. Esso and his Beti Ewondo gang also announced a massive recruitment of Southern Cameroonians into the magistracy and vowed to respect the bilingual nature of the country in the appointment of magistrates into courts in British Southern Cameroons.

It is evidently clear that Southern Cameroonians are winning as the Biya Francophone Beti Ewondo government is retreating. The government had declared that there was no “Anglophone problem” in Cameroon. The Biya regime is taking the last kicks of a dying horse. In order to make up for the time lost by schools since November 2016, in the English-speaking part of the country, the Francophone government decided to cancel the holidays of the second quarter of the school year 2016/2017.

Students in high schools and colleges in the North West and South West regions will not have the second trimester holidays, which run from March 31 to April 17, 2017. The Francophone authorities intend to recover the hours lost during the strike period which is still on-going. According to Biya and his CPDM acolytes, Southern Cameroon students will now have 17 hours of additional classes.

The Arithmetic is that from March 6 to May 31, students will receive two additional hours of teaching on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. The students will also have classes on Wednesday three o’clock and Saturday, 6 o’clock. It is vital to state in this report that the Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society has made it abundantly clear that only the detained leaders have legitimate authority to dialogue with the Biya regime.

By Besong Esther Agbor

Fire has consumed seven shops at the Limbe New market early Thursday, razing all its contents to ashes. According to some Motor Bike riders who were the first to arrive the scene, the fire started around 4am. They recounted how they saw chunks of smoke in the air accompanied by sudden light that pierced the darkness sending an unusual signal that all was not well.

The people of Church Street Limbe accompanied by many bikers struggled to put off the fire three hours after. They did so with local means due to the absence of fire fighters. Cameroun Info.Net reported that the Fire fighters from the Limbe City Council and SONARA did not show up despite incessant calls.

Roofs of some of the shops got burst and the fire found its way out of the shops, several goods especially palm oil, clothes were consumed by the flames. The Divisional Officer for Limbe One, Epalle Seraphine together with some Francophone Gendarmes visited the site but refused to talk to the press saying on the Senior Divisional Officer, Zang III was in best place to issue a public statement. The cause of the tragic incident has not been established yet but traders are suspecting a criminal act.

Cameroun Info.Net

These are horrible times for Bamenda inhabitants. Arbitrary Arrests, Torture and Extortions are plentiful in their daily menu served by gendarmes, police and soldiers. Ask those who have been arrested in recent weeks and taken to the gendarmerie premises Up Station. Many (whose names are being withheld for fear of further victimization) have recounted horrendous stories of beatings and degrading treatments, to

Their crimes! Well, simply possessing a mobile phone with text messages, pictures or videos relating to the current Southern Cameroons resistance is synonymous to terrorism. And for this they could be blind folded and shipped off to the capital Yaoundé. First you would pass through the torture room. To say that that they are arrested is to put it nicely. Otherwise, these are citizens who are simply abducted and extradited to French speaking Yaoundé where they are detained for long periods before being arraigned in a military court.

Physical violence

As it has turned out for many, it is even a big surprise that beatings and physical torture are virtually absent in the infamous National Gendarmerie head quarter, SED as is the case in Bamenda. “I was surprised that I was not beaten at SED when we arrived there. Whereas I had expected that they would cripple us with the baton. It’s terrible what they did to us in Bamenda” said 45-year-old man recently ferried from Bamenda.

At Up Station Bamenda, “those arrested are beaten so badly they can’t walk with swollen feet and limbs. Gendarmes take turns flogging them with batons and smashing them with boots and gun butts”. The other day, gendarmes at Mile 4 Nkwen pounded a driver with gun butts in full view of the population before dragging him into their office. The victim’s face was terribly swollen, with his bloody eyes almost falling off from their sockets. Cry and wail as you may, the baton will keep rising and falling on you until your torturer gets exhausted or hands over to his partner.

“I witnessed how they tortured a young, deaf and dumb fellow. They beat him repeatedly asking him to admit that he was encouraging the strike”, said a former detainee just released from the judicial police in Bamenda. He almost came to tears as he recounted he described the beatings in detention facilities.

Ask the City Council officials of the Bamenda Food Market what happened to them last week – a day after the marketplace went up in flames. To cut things short, they were picked up and taken to GMI police station where a barge of terror was unleashed on them. They were so badly thrashed that they were unable to walk within a short time of administering the corporal punishment.

Imagine a young man jugging on the streets towards Up Station Bamenda early in the morning. Gendarmes stop him and demand his ID and phone. Then they whisk him off to their station just because they found text messages relating to the Anglophone struggle. Then as darkness falls, he is bundled into a van and sped driven to Yaoundé. He is then charged for terrorism and secession. Life imprisonment is now hanging over him should the French speaking military court find him guilty. But that is the same story of dozens of Anglophones arrested from parts of the North West and Southwest regions.

Night Raids

Bamenda has for several months now been militarized. And in what appears like a State of emergency scores of “young people are being arrested in day and night time raids. We are now living in fear and moving without valid identification is now taboo” said a Metta Quarter resident. Anxiety is growing amongst the population as no one knows when his/her turn to be arrested will arrive.

“Imagine troops cordoning off a neighborhood, allowing no one out and no one in. Imagine you are deep asleep with your family. And then, soldiers come pounding on your door; ordering you to open. They force their way into your bed room, turn it upside down, inside out”. The raids popularly called Kale Kale are an old practice in French speaking East Cameroun but dreaded by English speakers. Francophone administrators and gendarmes introduced the practice into Anglophone Cameroon decades ago. Kale Kales are currently taking place in different neighborhoods in Bamenda, Ndop and other towns in the northwest region. Residents of Metta Quarter are still in shock following a recent raid.

“They just popped into my home with guns. I could not question if they had any search warrant because they could feel I am rude and bundle me to Yaoundé”, said a resident. “I don’t know what they were looking for. They went into my bed room scattering everything. They also searched my kitchen. Then they wrote OK on the door and left”.

Another inhabitant told CAMCORDNEWS that “they kept asking for receipts for every gadget in the house: TV, blending machine, decoder etc. We are not safe in this city anymore. You stay in your house and they follow you into your bed room”.

Cameroon Concord News gathered that dozens of young people were arrested during the raids for possessing leaflets promoting the Operation Ghost Town or civil disobedience campaign taking place every Monday in the English speaking northwest and southwest regions. The said campaigns have stopped schools from reopening for three straight months. Young people were taken away and risk being whisked off to the capital Yaoundé, simply for having text messages or videos about the Anglophone protests on their hand sets.

The police department in Bamenda would not comment on the reasons behind the raids despite repeated requests by journalists. But the regional governor, Lele L’Afrique, has now prescribed that civilian vigilante groups be set up in the different villages and towns. The governor is alarmed by the number of arson on schools’ infrastructure and markets, which the authorities believe are the handiwork of those enforcing the civil disobedience campaign.

Extortions

Money speaks! “Oh yes, eight of you could be arrested for one of those imaginary crimes. Then two of you agree to cough up a hundred bucks or more each. No receipts are issued. But guess what, the two of you will be freed” a bitter ex detainee said. Such money no doubt ends up in the private pockets of your oppressors. And the deal can sometimes run into hundreds of thousands. We have even heard of millions of CFA being asked from relatives of detained suspects. As the people of Bamenda say in local parlance, “something di spoil, fix another one”. Loosely, this means the sufferings of some people is good tidings for others. So many of the uniformed men wielding batons are somehow making brisk business. The more people they arrest, the more opportunities they create for extortions.

Randy Joe Sa’ah Azeng

Some 25 innocent Southern Cameroonian citizens accused of hostility against the Biya Francophone Beti Ewondo regime were made to appear last week at the Yaounde Military Tribunal alongside the leaders of the Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium.

The 25 Southern Cameroon youths were arrested in connection with the demonstrations linked to the Anglophone crisis and have been charged with hostility against the homeland, degradation of public property, looting, terrorism and financing of terrorism.

The second trial of Barrister Agbor Balla, Dr. Neba Fontem and BBC Mancho ended up in fiasco as the chief clerk of the Yaounde Military Tribunal decided to listen to the 25 new accused cases simultaneously with that of the detained Consortium leaders

The Francophone Judge of the tribunal, who identified the 25 new suspects, wanted the trial of the three Anglophone leaders and the latter to become a single case. The Attorney-General’s Office had indeed stated that there was some connectivity between the acts of the first three and the 25.

By Rita Akana in Yaounde

It has emerged many Judges believe the arrest and detention of an Advocate General of the Supreme Court of Cameroon is an insult, but do not dare to make their opinion public. Lord Justice Paul Ayah Abine, advocate general at the Supreme Court was arrested in his home as part of a government crackdown on the Anglophone community.

A Francophone Judge last week blatantly refused to release him from detention as demanded by his lawyers who stated that his arrest violated Cameroon’s criminal proceedings.  According to article 629 of the Code of Criminal Procedure: when a magistrate of the judicial order is liable to be charged with an offense, the competent public prosecutor submits an application to the president of the Supreme Court who appoints a magistrate to examine the case and three others, at least at the same level as the accused, with a view to the possible trial of the case in the first instance.

The deliberate silence maintained by the Judges of the Supreme Court of Cameroon on the detention of Lord Justice Paul Ayah Abine is worrying. The magistrates have been saying privately that they are very unhappy about what is happening. But are subject to a certain law of silence and therefore, cannot express themselves publicly about their discontent.  Local media reports say there is an urgent need for the establishment of a magistrates ‘union, as is the case in the Republic of Chad.

One of the magistrates who spoke to us and sued for anonymity observed that “In a system such as ours where the Head of State appoints the magistrates and he can sanction them, transfer them as he pleases and where everyone is trying to preserve his advantages or his post. They cannot complain publicly. But it is rather striking that the magistrates remained absolutely silent before the cavalier arrest of one of their own.”

The silence of Cameroonian Magistrates and Judges is surprising when one considers that Lord Justice Ayah Paul is a very high magistrate who has been the subject of an arrest and lengthy police custody.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai