Northern Cameroon has for decades been a hub for ammunition, small arms and light weapons trafficking in the Sahel. The problem has fuelled regional insecurity since 1980. In response, states of the Lake Chad Basin Commission created the Multinational Joint Task Force in 1994.

But arms trafficking has worsened since Boko Haram’s emergence and expansion into Cameroon in 2013. In the past decade, Cameroon’s defence forces have seized and destroyed over 3 000 weapons and items of military equipment.

Northern Cameroon covers the Far North, North and Adamawa regions, which form part of the Sahelian belt. This part of Cameroon shares borders with Nigeria, Chad and the Central African Republic (CAR), and experiences a lot of smuggling and trafficking.

Due to various insurrections, Nigeria has become fertile ground for the manufacture of homemade weapons. In Chad, numerous conflicts since the 1970s – including rebellions and reversals of political power – have led to a proliferation of small arms.

Coupled with various forms of violent extremism, the rebellion of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of the Sahara, which developed during the 1990s in Niger’s Diffa and Agadez regions, bordering Chad, also increased the circulation of weapons. And Chad’s proximity to Libya, which has been afflicted by civil war over several decades, has exacerbated the problem.

The CAR, for its part, is experiencing a long cycle of socio-political instability. Between 2004 and 2014, the groups involved in the country’s three bloody civil wars engaged in intense arms trafficking. But despite a 2013 United Nations Security Council arms embargo, weapons continue circulating.

Institute for Security Studies research shows that weapons pass through corridors used for illicit trade, migratory flows and transhumance. To reach Boko Haram in Nigeria, guns from Chad pass through the country’s capital N’Djamena, and are then smuggled through Kousseri and Fotokol in Cameroon. Or they pass through Cameroon’s Mora and surrounding areas.

Weapons are also leaving Boko Haram strongholds to fuel insecurity in Northern Cameroon. Their route follows an axis between Gwoza in Nigeria, and Mayo-Tsanaga and Mayo-Louti or Bénoué in Cameroon.

Weapons from Chad and CAR, used for kidnappings for ransom in Cameroon’s Northern and Adamaoua regions, pass through Touboro and Garoua-Boulaï. Traffickers bringing in arms from Niger and Sudan use the cross-border transhumance routes, many converging towards Cameroon’s north.

Traffickers use various means to transport weapons. Some pose as traders, hiding guns in goods, especially cereal bags. Others disguise themselves as transporters of goods and people, hiding weapons in their vehicles. Many nomads moving in and between the countries mentioned above are also arms smugglers.

These weapons add to the region’s insecurity. They contribute to existing community conflicts – particularly disputes between farmers and breeders, indigenous and non-native populations, inheritance conflicts and religious antagonisms.

Urgent measures are needed to curb the problem. A 2016 Cameroonian law imposes three months to two years’ imprisonment for arms trafficking. In 2018, Cameroon hosted the conference of the Central African states party to the Kinshasa Convention for the control of small arms and light weapons. Cameroon and Nigeria also met in September 2022 to discuss collaborating to combat the problem.

On the ground, defence and security forces have managed to seize weapons during their operations. However, faced with the growing scale of the problem, this is not enough. Cameroon’s 2016 law should be amended to enable harsher penalties for arms trafficking. And greater political commitment is needed to translate recommendations from conferences into action.

Concrete steps must be taken at national, regional and interregional levels. At the national level, Cameroon and its neighbouring countries must strengthen their policies against arms trafficking by imposing tougher measures. In addition to raising the alarm in the event of a security threat, local community committees must help collect information about the circulation of weapons.

At the regional level, the gendarmes, police, military, ecoguards and customs officers from Cameroon, Nigeria, Chad and CAR need a significant boost in logistical capacity. They also need a collaborative mechanism that allows rapid response and coordination of joint actions to stop arms trafficking.

Finally, at the interregional level, the ad hoc committees in charge of the issue, such as the Multinational Joint Task Force or the Brazzaville Convention, must share lessons on what works.

Source: Defenseweb

Cameroonian authorities must disclose which journalists, in addition to murdered journalist Martinez Zogo, have been targeted for surveillance by the country’s counterintelligence service and ensure that spying on members of the media is immediately discontinued, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Friday.

The existence of a surveillance operation that allegedly spied on Zogo since at least 2015 was disclosed in a 20-page referral to trial document reviewed by CPJ. The document was part of a judicial investigation into the January 2023 kidnapping, torture, and murder of the popular radio host, which was finalized on February 29, 2024.

Seventeen suspects are expected to stand trial, on a date yet to be set, in a military court in the capital, Yaoundé, on charges including murder, complicity and conspiracy to murder, complicity and conspiracy to torture, complicity to kidnap, and violation of instructions, according to the document and news reports.

The suspects include:

Léopold Maxime Eko Eko, former head of the counterintelligence agency General Directorate for External Research (DGRE)

Justin Danwe, former DGRE director of operations

Jean-Pierre Amougou Belinga, an influential businessman and head of the privately owned media group L’Anecdote

Bruno François Bidjang, L’Anecdote managing director and news presenter for privately owned television station Vision 4

“The revelation that a surveillance operation targeted popular radio host Martinez Zogo since at least 2015 raises concerns about which other journalists have been surveilled by Cameroon’s counterintelligence agency,” said Angela Quintal, head of CPJ’s Africa program in New York. “Cameroonian authorities must make a full disclosure and ensure the end to all surveillance, physical or electronically, of journalists. The unfettered practice is not only a violation of journalists’ right to privacy but has serious consequences for source protection.”

Zogo was found dead on January 22, 2023, after going missing five days earlier.  A week before his abduction, Zogo publicly accused Belinga of widespread corruption involving funds from the Cameroonian treasury during his radio show Embouteillage (Gridlock).

The court document reviewed by CPJ was prepared by lead investigating judge, Lieutenant-Colonel Pierrot Narcisse Nzié, the third investigating judge in the case who was appointed in December after the previous judge ordered the controversial release of Belinga and Eko Eko. The pair remained in detention after authorities claimed that the release order was fake.

The document describes how DGRE agents led by Danwe, under the influence of Belinga, allegedly carried out the kidnapping and torture of Zogo in Ebogo, a district of the capital Yaoundé, on January 17, 2023. Part of this team returned to the scene an hour later for a second operation that “resulted in Zogo’s death” by “strangulation and torture.”

The court document said Eko Eko denied involvement, saying Zogo was never a threat to him and the operation against the journalist was Danwe’s personal initiative; however, Nzié said Eko Eko could not claim this, as he had ordered the DGRE to surveil the journalist since 2015 as part of the “Presse” dossier.  The court documents did not elaborate further but said the surveillance operation ordered by Eko Eko was confirmed by another witness,  Emmanuella Moudie, the chief of the DRGE’s electronic surveillance division.

Zogo’s surveillance was also corroborated by Yves Saïwang, another suspect facing trial and an officer in the DGRE’s electronic surveillance division, who “bluntly” declared during questioning that Zogo was the target of the DGRE’s surveillance, according to the court document. Saïwang also said that since 2017, he was responsible for monitoring Zoga. Eko Eko had never taken any measures to prevent this and could not escape responsibility, Nzié said in the court document.

Saïwang also said he sent Danwe geolocation information about Zogo via WhatsApp and then received 20,000 francs (US $33), according to the document. Heudji Guy Serge, another DGRE officer who is also a suspect in the trial, said he, too, provided technical information to Danwe about Zogo and received 15,000 francs (US $25).

Denis Omgba Bomba, director of the media observatory at Cameroon’s Ministry of Communication, told CPJ that there was no surveillance “program” dedicated to journalists but that as Zogo was a public figure, the surveillance was a normal intelligence operation. Bomba added that the protection of journalists’ sources is not absolute and that the state can ignore this for security reasons.

Authorities charged Bidjang with conspiracy to torture, conspiracy to arrest, and kidnapping in relation to Zogo’s murder, according to the court document. He is detained in Yaoundé’s Principal Prison on separate charges of revolt, incitement to insurrection, rebellion, and spreading false news, his lawyer, Charles Tchoungang, told CPJ.

Source: CPJ

The Yaoundé military court in Cameroon on Friday closed their judicial investigation into the murder of journalist and former director of radio amplitude FM, Martinez Zogo who died just over a year ago.

The trial will now open in the coming weeks according to the counter-espionage service. The twenty or so accused have all been referred to the court on various charges.

In Cameroon, the end of this judicial investigation comes just five days after five of the detainees had their charges reclassified. Three members of the DGRE, Cameroon’s counter-espionage service, will be prosecuted for “assassination”.

The businessman and the head of the Direction générale de la recherche extérieure (DGRE) are accused of having played a role in the death of the director of radio Amplitude FM, whose tortured body was discovered on the outskirts of Yaoundé in January. Zogo had not been missing for five days before his remains were located January 22 near Soa, a suburb of Yaoundé.

Léopold Maxime Eko Eko is suspected of “having provoked in any way whatsoever the torture of Martinez Zogo or given instructions to commit it”, in the words of the examining magistrate. In the course of the investigation, the intelligence chief was questioned several times on the substance of the case. In particular, he was confronted by his sole accuser, Justin Danwe, as well as several agents working within the DGRE at the time of the events.

Among the incriminating elements that interested the investigators: the holding of a meeting during which Léopold Maxime Eko Eko, Justin Danwe and several DGRE technicians allegedly listened to an audio tape attributed to Martinez Zogo, in which he allegedly made defamatory remarks about the head of the intelligence services.

In the minutes of the release order, quoted by jeune Afrique, the magistrates noted that Eko Eko, Danwe and the witnesses cited had assured them “that a meeting had never been held at the situation center with the journalist Martinez Zogo as the subject”.

Outrage over Zogo’s murder

The murder of Salomon Mbani Zogo better known as Martinez Zogo left many shocked in Cameroon as NGOs continued to call out violations of press freedom and freedom of speech.

The man in his fifties was the host of popular daily radio show, Embouteillage or Gridlock in English. On the air, he regularly tackled cases of corruption and alleged embezzlement, not hesitating to question important personalities by name. Amougou Belinga was one of them. The businessman is reputedly a friend of several ministers.

Fellow journalists paid their respects to Zogo and called for an investigation which Cameroonian President Paul Biya ordered on Thursday, February 2. The probe into the abduction and subsequent brutal killing of the journalist led to the arrests of Jean-Pierre Amougou Belinga and Léopold Maxime Eko Eko.

Reporters without Borders alleged that “the outcome of the investigations [remained] very uncertain as the affair’s ramifications reach up to the highest level of the state while the political environment [was] described by several local sources as verging on insurrection.”

Source: Africa News

An improvised explosive device (IED) detonated during a Cameroonian military patrol in the turbulent Far North region killed at least five soldiers, the army said Wednesday.

The attack took place Tuesday in Gossi, a locality in the Mayo Tsanaga division of the region when an IED planted on the side of a road by the terror group Boko Haram was triggered by a passing military vehicle.

The powerful blast destroyed the vehicle and killed four soldiers on the spot and another soldier who was badly injured died early Wednesday, the army said.

A security source said that all those killed in the attack were members of the Rapid Intervention Battalion, the Cameroonian elite force.

Cameroon has intensified military patrols in the region following frequent attacks from Boko Haram, which has been active in the region since 2014, according to security reports by local police.

Source: Xinhuanet

Cameroon’s President Paul Biya signed two decrees yesterday approving the increase in both family allowances and the salaries of public sector employees. The fist decree concerns family allowances provided by the National Social Insurance Fund and the Ministry of Finance, which the President raised to CFA4500 monthly per dependent child. This adjustment represents a more than 60% increase from the previous rate of CFA2800 FCFA, reflecting a substantial boost in support for workers’ families.

The second decree issued by President Biya enhances the basic monthly salary of both civilian and military personnel by 5%. This latest raise, coming just a year after a 5.2% increase in 2023, took effect from February 1, 2024, according to an official statement signed by Magloire Séraphin Fouda, the Secretary-General of the Prime Minister’s office.

This salary adjustment was part of a series of measures aimed at preserving purchasing power in response to a 15% hike in fuel prices in February. As a reminder, the cost per liter of super and diesel climbed to CFA840 and CFA828, respectively.

Although useful, these increases in salaries and allowances may have a limited impact on people’s purchasing power. According to a report on inflation trends in 2023 and outlooks for 2024, released on February 13, 2024, by the National Institute of Statistics (INS), fuel price increases are expected to directly or indirectly affect other prices, including transportation, foodstuffs, and manufactured goods. The national statistician predicts that the inflation rate will stabilize around 7% in 2024, while the government aims to reduce this rate to 4%, down from 7.4% in 2023.

Furthermore, these raises are expected to increase state personnel expenses. According to the 2024 Finance Law, these expenses are projected to reach CFA1,698 billion, marking an 8.1% increase over the previous year. The budget includes projected salaries of CFA1,357 billion, pensions of CFA269.7 billion, and other personnel expenses amounting to CFA71.3 billion.

Source: Business in Cameroon

There is no option left for the people of Southern Cameroons but armed Amba fighters to fight off the genocide campaign the French Cameroun regime in Yaoundé is exercising in the Ambazonia homeland, says Vice President Dabney Yerima.

“The Southern Cameroons struggle has its roots in strong historic facts and faith and Southern Cameroons young men and women are now willing to make sacrifices for the complete liberation of their homeland.  The struggle will emerge triumphant,” Dabney Yerima said on Monday during a zoom meeting with some Ground Zero commanders.

The exiled Southern Cameroons leader said British Southern Cameroons will be independent through sacrifices and that soon and very soon, the world will eventually witness an independent Federal Republic of Ambazonia with the French Cameroun regime wiped off its face.

The Ambazonia Interim Government official said the recent surprise Amba operation in Buea exposed the frailty and weakness of the Biya French Cameroun regime, and drove it closer to downfall.

“After more than six years, the people of Southern Cameroons are still steadfast and fighting to inflict painful losses upon the French Cameroun enemy’s ranks,” Dabney Yerima stated.

By Chi Prudence Asong

At least eight separatist fighters have been killed in a military offensive in Cameroon’s war-torn English-speaking region of Southwest, security and local sources said on Sunday.

The raids were carried out from Friday to Saturday in the Ayukaba locality of the region.

The fighters had arrived at the locality and were preparing to set up a base there when the information reached the army, a military official in the region said.

“Our brave soldiers immediately entered the area and succeeded in driving them out for two days. Eight (separatist fighters) were killed, and several of their weapons and ammunition were seized,” said the official, who asked not to be named.

Officials said on Saturday that troops were succeeding in most operations in the region thanks to the cooperation of the local population.

Fighting between government forces and separatist fighters has persisted in Cameroon’s two English-speaking regions of Northwest and Southwest since 2017 when separatists attempted to establish an independent nation in these regions.

Source: Xinhuanet

The Anglophone conflict in Cameroon is entering its eighth year with no resolution in sight. Insurgents in the North West and South West – the country’s two Anglophone regions – are still attacking government soldiers but increasingly one another as well. Civilians bear the brunt of the fighting. Killings, abductions and sexual violence are almost an everyday occurrence, while almost half the area’s schools have stopped functioning. Pro-government militias have sprung up in the Anglophone regions, spreading more chaos. Meanwhile, in the capital Yaoundé, observers worry about the country’s future. President Paul Biya, who turns 91 in February, appears to have left daily affairs to a handful of loyalists in government. As Cameroonians turn their attention to the post-Biya era, many fear a power vacuum amid the jostling over the presidential succession. The AU should put the Anglophone crisis on its peace and security agenda, throwing its weight behind efforts to reach a settlement, before political intrigue in Yaoundé makes negotiations even more difficult.

The Anglophone crisis is rooted in longstanding grievances about the dominance of Cameroon’s mostly Francophone governing apparatus. The conflict was set off by protests by lawyers, teachers and students in 2016, who pushed back against the encroachment of the Francophone legal and educational systems on their regions. On 1 October 2017, secessionists proclaimed an independent Federal Republic of Ambazonia, as they called the North West and South West regions, which had been known during the colonial era as the British Southern Cameroons. Yaoundé responded with a heavy-handed crackdown, arresting hundreds of protesters and others suspected of sympathising with the secessionists.

These events motivated Anglophone activists to form militias. Today, a loose network of armed groups operates in the area, forcing locals to comply with school boycotts and lockdowns via the barrel of a gun. Yaoundé is trying to quell the insurgency by military means, but the army has proven unable to stop the attacks. Hundreds of thousands have fled the violence, with many crammed into makeshift housing in Francophone Cameroon.

As infighting among militias worsens, Anglophone groups are seeking outside allies. In November 2023, one such militia, the Ambazonia Governing Council, signed an agreement with a separatist group in eastern Nigeria, the Independent People’s Organisation of Biafra. Signed in Finland, the alliance could see the two movements sharing safe havens in parts of eastern and south-western Cameroon under their control, threatening regional stability.

The Cameroonian government’s attempts to mollify separatist Anglophone groups have thus far struggled to gain traction. In 2018, Yaoundé launched a disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration program to coax militants away from the insurgency, but to date this initiative has had little success.58 In 2019, the government granted the two regions special status under Cameroon’s decentralisation law, devolving some powers to regional authorities.59 Though this measure could be a good starting point for broader political talks, separatists say the reforms do not sufficiently address their concerns.60Mediation has largely stalled, meanwhile. Most efforts to orchestrate talks between the government and armed Anglophone groups, including a Swiss initiative, quickly petered out. A more recent effort led by Canada showed promise when Yaoundé committed to engaging in late 2022. Yet the government withdrew after months of secret pre-talks, saying it did not want foreigners facilitating dialogue about what it considers a domestic problem.

While AU-led efforts might be productive, particularly in urging a reinvigoration of stalled diplomacy, Yaoundé does not want the AU’s involvement and has managed to fend it off for years. Its attitude does not sit well with many AU Commission officials and member state representatives. Some see the PSC’s inattention to the Anglophone conflict as misguided, given the council’s peace and security mandate. Indeed, Crisis Group has previously recommended that the PSC table Cameroon as part of a strategy of public pressure aimed at pushing the parties toward talks.

The 2024 summit will bring another chance for the AU to pay serious attention to Cameroon, with a very measured first step. As it does every year, the Political Affairs, Peace and Security Department will offer the AU Assembly an update about the state of peace and security throughout Africa. Cameroon’s Anglophone crisis is likely to be included in the report, as has been the case in prior years. The department routinely stresses the urgent need to address the crisis, as well as the importance of stability in Cameroon for Central Africa.63 This time around, the Assembly should not gloss over this part of the report, but rather use it to frame a meaningful discussion of Cameroon’s Anglophone conflict, and include the results in the summit outcome documents so that they can be used as a springboard for further diplomacy.64

The AU PSC should keep focus on the crisis, with the objective of creating new momentum for a diplomatic initiative. One way forward would be to table the Anglophone conflict as an agenda item for periodic PSC discussion. It should anticipate efforts by Yaoundé to discourage this debate, but PSC diplomats should not veer away from their mandated role of ensuring peace and security on the continent. Additionally, thematic PSC discussions about women, peace and security or the proliferation of small arms, which regularly come up on its agenda, present useful opportunities to address the situation in Cameroon.

In its expanded discussions, and in consultation with Cameroonian authorities, the PSC could explore avenues for starting an effective dialogue about the Anglophone regions. The Canada-led initiative, which showed significant promise in its early stages, but seems to have stalled, is at present the most viable diplomatic track. The PSC should urge Yaoundé to resume these talks. It could also consider the option of asking the AU Commission chairperson to name an envoy for Cameroon to facilitate the process. It should ask for regular updates from the Commission chairperson about the situation, thereby sending a useful signal to Commission staff to put time and resources into monitoring the conflict. Unless and until the situation changes, all these efforts should be undertaken with the overarching goal of rekindling talks that could improve the country’s image abroad and end a conflict that has gone on far too long.

Culled from The International Crisis Group