The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) began training Cameroonian security personnel on Monday to respond to any radiological attack during the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON).

“This workshop supports prescription to provide the upcoming AFCON competition with maximum security conditions. Nuclear security is recommended by CAF and FIFA within the respective safety regulations,” said Augustin Simo, director-general of Cameroon’s National Radiation Protection Agency which is organizing the training in partnership with IAEA.

“So our country by implementing nuclear security measures during the AFCON is respectful of the safety regulations. Cameroon uses radioactive sources in medical applications, industrial applications, research activities and so on,” Simo said at the start of the workshop in the capital, Yaounde.

He said there was no specific intelligence pointing to a threat to AFCON and stressed that it was incumbent on the Central African nation “to be ready in case of any mishaps” during the game.

The AFCON will take place in Cameroon from January 9 to February 6 next year. The biennial competition has been moved twice due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Source: Xinhuanet

A Southern Cameroons front line leader in the Federal Republic of Germany says all Ambazonians are duty-bound to oppose the the 1961 union with the French Cameroun regime.

Dr Ngassa Anyangwe made the remarks on Wednesday in a ceremony held in Darmstadt, Germany in loving memory of the primary school pupil killed in Buea by a Francophone gendarme.

The renowned Southern Cameroons physician congratulated “General No Pity” and all Ambazonia Revolutionary Guards and noted that peace will be established in Southern Cameroons and the Federal Republic of Ambazonia will no longer be a French Cameroun colony.

“Biya and the French Cameroun military poses a threat to all Southern Cameroonians worldwide” Dr. Ngassa said, censuring all US based Ambazonian groups oppose to unity.

“Southern Cameroonians must stand against La Republique du Cameroun by any means they can,” Dr. Ngassa added.

He praised Vice President Dabney Yerima for standing firm on the Ambazonian cause despite all the distraction from Maryland and the Cho Ayaba gang.

“Sako and Ayaba represents wrong image of the Southern Cameroons struggle and must be ignored” Dr Ngassa furthered.

He also said both the so-called front line Southern Cameroons leaders depict a wrong image of the noble Southern Cameroons resistance.

By Chi Prudence Asong

A 7-man delegation of Southern Cameroonian explosives experts has finally left Southern Cameroons after a two-week training session which has helped Southern Cameroonian fighters to gain a better understanding of how to assemble and deploy explosives for greater impact.

The delegation, which comprised two Southern Cameroonian engineers from the USA, three Cameroonians who have  studied chemical engineering in China and  two other experts from South Africa, landed in Nigeria three weeks ago and found its way to Manyu Division and then to the North West Region of the country, has left the country and is very satisfied with the outcomes of their mission.

The head of the delegation who lives in the United States told the Cameroon Concord News Group that the days ahead would be the worst for the military if it continued its rampage in the Northwest region.

The delegation head, a graduate of engineering with specialization in the use of explosives from an American university, told the Cameroon Concord News Group’s permanent correspondent in North America on condition of anonymity that the worst was yet to happen in this war as the new training had been designed to maximize casualties on the military’s side.

He advised that explosives had proven to  be more effective in the fight against the country’s military, adding that the new explosives whose reach would be greater, would deliver more results.

He stressed that the purpose of training the fighters was to ensure that more body bags headed to East Cameroon so as to push the population to rise up against a  government that is sending very young people to an early grave.

“For more than four years, the people of Southern Cameroons have proven that they can resist the military’s onslaught without external help. We now have to look for new ways to deliver more rssults and make the Francophone to feel the impact of the war,” he said.

“We have seen videos of people in the South region wailing and burying their young brothers killed by our brave soldiers in Southern Cameroons. They now know that there is no winner in a war and that having armored cars does not imply winning a war, especially a war fought in a jungle,” he pointed out.

“The military thought it would just head to Southern Cameroons and kill innocent people without consequences. Our armed groups are working together and this collaboration has taken the war to the South and Center Regions of the country. We have seen them crying. It is now clear that death is for everybody. We will fight to the last person. We will stop at nothing when it comes to securing the independence of Southern Cameroons. The government thought it would carry out a short expedition but it has been bogged in a quagmire and a nightmare that will not be going away anytime soon,” he said.

“We must continue to fight. We all must continue to bring our little contribution to the table. We must continue to prove to the Yaounde dictatorship that it cannot always have its way. It went to Southern Cameroons for a two-week expedition but it will end up being there for decades and burying thousands of its young and inexperienced soldiers,” he underscored.

“I am assuring you that the boys in the field are determined. They are in high spirits. The succeses of the last four months have transformed our fighters into formidable fighters. They have brought death and destruction to the government. The Diaspora should provide much-needed help to ensure that the boys remain in good spirits,” he concluded.

Meanwhile a group of Southern Cameroonians was in Canada last week to gain a better understanding of the Canadian federal system. The group, which included a lawyer and a political scientist, said it believed that Cameroon could be federally united and indivisible if the government really wanted to solve the issue that has become a hot potato in its mouth.

Before leaving Canada, the group met with some Cameroonians who also hold that the bloodshed in Cameroon can be stopped if the warring factions accept to meet each other halfway.

Members of the group agreed that the Canadian system was ideal for a bilingual country, adding that Québec had all the rights of an autonomous  province which controls its educational system and ensures that the laws that prevail in the province are those the people want.

“Canada is a good example. Our people should take a look at Canada if they really want to address those issues that have triggered the war. It does  not make any sense killing each other when there are many examples to draw on to ensure that we all live in harmony,” a group member said.

“I have been to Ottawa, Montreal and Toronto and I can say that Canada is a great federation that holds the solution to our problem,” the member concluded.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

Yaoundé is crumbling under the weight of garbage 74 days before the so-called Total Energies 2021 Africa Cup of Nations tournament scheduled from January 9 to February 6, 2022.

Garbage collectors in the capital city are on strike and workers of the company Hysacam are demanding three months of salary and better working conditions.

Cameroon Concord News understands the garbage collectors serving with Hysacam have been on strike for several days now and mountains of garbage have formed in the outskirts and popular areas of the city.

The city center is the most affected area with shopkeepers and customers breathing the polluted air and all the pestilential smells that the mountains of garbage give off.

Our Yaoundé city reporter says the nation’s capital is overflowing with garbage and for the past five days, cab drivers including highly placed government officials have been driving in the garbage.

A betting box owner at marché Mokolo revealed that businessmen and women are suffocating under the terrible smell. “It is increasingly painful to work in these conditions as customers do not even come anymore” the young man added.

Traders in the main market opposite the prime minister’s office are obliged to put a disposable handkerchief in front of their noses to breathe amid a crisis that involves at least 4000 tons of abandoned waste.

Hysacam has been in charge of collecting household waste since 1969. The company operates in about 20 cities in Cameroon. It collects more than 4,000 tons of waste per day in all the cities where it is located.

Anger is rising throughout the country a few days before the 33rd edition of the African Cup of Nations soccer tournament that the country will host. The authorities are being accused of laxity.

Last Thursday, Celestine Courtès, Minister of Housing and Urban Development, made it seem as if the problem had been solved.  On Wednesday, Hysacam has still not resumed service. The company is claiming several billion CFA francs of unpaid bills from the Government Delegate to the Yaoundé City Council and the corrupt CPDM regime.

By Rita Akana

Southern Cameroons refugees, who fled brutal French Cameroun military crackdown in their home country of Ambazonia are not only facing deplorable living conditions in neighboring Nigeria but are being targeted by both Nigerian and French Cameroun army soldiers in the Taraba communities, according to Cameroon Intelligence Report sources.

Our correspondent in the Federal Republic of Nigeria in a recent report said Southern Cameroonians have become a target in Taraba where Cameroon government army soldiers have carried out several raids ever since Abuja and Yaoundé agreed to counter both the Biafra and Ambazonia separatist movements.

The exodus of persecuted Southern Cameroonians from their homeland state started in 2016 when the 88-year-old President Biya declared war against English speaking Southern Cameroonians. Since then, thousands relocated to neighboring Nigeria, in a bid to escape persecution, murder, arson and rape by the Francophone military backed by France.

The savagery in Southern Cameroons has been described by the Norwegian Refugee Council as ethnic cleansing. The atrocities against Southern Cameroonians have been widely documented by the renowned Human Rights Watch and the Southern Cameroons Interim Government.

The number of Southern Cameroonians currently living in refugee camps in Nigeria is said to be about 200,000. Opportunities and health care in Cross River and Taraba states in Nigeria for the Southern Cameroons refugees are worse and in many local governments non-existent.

The Fulani dominated government in Nigeria headed by the frail President Buhari has issued detailed instructions for deportation of prominent Southern Cameroons activists, provoking an unprecedented cross-border crackdown against the Southern Cameroons communities in Calabar and Taraba states.

Cameroon Intelligence Report gathered that Southern Cameroons refugee communities are being targeted by both Nigerian and Cameroon government army soldiers. Camps harboring Southern Cameroons refugees have been set to fire, refugees beaten and many restrictions have been placed on the mediocre lives they live in Nigeria.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai with files

The Southern Cameroons Interim Government (IG) has called upon the International Criminal Court  to hold President Biya accountable for the incessant crimes and human rights violations against the people of Southern Cameroons, emphasizing that tough ICC action would prevent the French Cameroun regime from committing more war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Vice President Dabney Yerima said in a statement on Monday that the people of Southern Cameroons-Ambazonia have long been victims of gross, systematic, and rampant violations of human rights by the Francophone regime backed by France.

Dabney Yerima pointed to the excessive use of live ammunition against Southern Cameroons civilians as an example of crimes against humanity, denouncing the unwavering support of the French government headed by Emmanuel Macron for the French Cameroun regime’s heinous acts over the past five years.

The Biya dictatorial regime also violates freedom of expression by intimidating, arresting and incarcerating Southern Cameroons journalists covering human rights abuses of Ambazonians, Yerima furthered.

Yerima noted that troops loyal to the French Cameroun regime in Yaounde are preventing Southern Cameroons businessmen and women from trading and marketing most basic and essential needs, and the Francophone soldiers have also created a major obstacle that medical officials in Southern Cameroons have had to face in their COVID-19 response.

The exiled Southern Cameroons leader stated that the International Criminal Court must hold Biya accountable for his never-ending horrific crimes, stressing that such a strong measure would possibly stop the Yaounde regime from perpetrating more war crimes and crimes against humanity.

By Isong Asu in London

The U.N.’s World Food Program says thousands of destitute people in Cameroon’s crisis-prone western regions are going hungry and their situations may become worse if the separatist crisis there continues. Chris Nikoi, WFP regional director for west and central Africa is visiting hungry community members – most of them farmers chased from their farms by Cameroon’s separatist conflicts who are pleading to be spared from fighting between the military and separatists.

Hundreds of civilians in the town of Bamenda Thursday welcomed Nikoi in their English-speaking town in Cameroon’s restive North-West region.

Among those who came out was 59-year-old farmer Clifford Tayong. Tayong said he asked Nikoi to thank the WFP for the assistance the U.N. body has been giving people suffering as a result of the separatist crisis in Cameroon’s western regions.

Tayong said besides rice and vegetable oil, the WFP gave him and his three children $60 in August. He said his family again received $80 from the WFP in September. Tayong said he used the money to buy school supplies for his children. He said he also bought two roosters and eight hens to start a poultry farm that will enable him to earn money and take care of his family.

Tayong said he lost all his beans and corn when his one-hectare farm was burned down in the English-speaking Bafut Subdivision near Bamenda. He said the military accused him of giving food to separatist fighters and torched his farm.

Tayong and many others who fled the separatist crisis recounted their suffering to Nikoi. They pleaded to be spared from the fighting and said they wanted to return to their villages.

Nikoi said thousands of Cameroonians chased from their towns and villages by the separatist crisis are now very poor and hungry.

“I can’t help thinking about the women and the men and the stories about their farms being torched and to the point where the little dignity that they are able to retain in their lives is because of the monthly little assistance that they are having from the World Food Program, so I am living here proud of what we are doing to sustain people’s lives,” he said.

Nikoi said famine looms should the separatist crisis persist and force farmers to stay away from their fields. He said the WFP is assisting 280,000 civilians in the English-speaking North-West region.

Most of those receiving WFP assistance are displaced persons living with disabilities, pregnant women or people whose houses have been burned.

Farmers say their farms, houses and plantations have been destroyed by both government troops and separatist fighters. They say separatist fighters torch houses and farms of people suspected of collaborating with government troops, while government troops destroy the properties of people suspected of supporting the rebels.

Both the Cameroon military and separatists have always denied that their troops target civilians, their farms, plantations or houses.

Cameroon Agriculture and Rural Development Minister Gabriel Mbairobe said farmers who return to their farms will be given seed and fertilizers at reduced prices. He said the military will protect displaced people who return to places where there is relative peace.

The WFP reports that as part of its crisis response operations, it distributed 1,608 metric tons of food to 199,000 beneficiaries in Cameroon’s North-West and South-West regions. The U.N. also reports that as part of its malnutrition prevention program the WFP provided 48 metric tons of specialized nutritious foods to 8,100 children aged 6 to 59 months and to 5,500 girls and pregnant women.

According to the U.N., 4.4 million of the 25 million Cameroonians need humanitarian assistance, and more than 1.9 million were food-insecure between June and August.

The separatist crisis has forced more than 750,000 people to flee their homes since the conflict erupted in late 2017, according to the U.N. Ongoing armed clashes, civilian casualties and the burning of houses, hospitals and other infrastructure are causing further displacement, suffering and hunger.

Source: VOA

Amamzalla John Danladi Joseph, the Chairman of Kurmi Local Government Area of Taraba State, has decried the presence of Cameroonian soldiers in some villages of his council.

The foreign soldiers, he said, have been going about harassing and intimidating the villagers with the pretext of searching for their citizens who had fled to the area.

The country, it would be recalled, had in the past years been facing a civil war following the quest for self independence by some sections of the country.

The upheaval has forced some of its citizens to flee to some parts of Taraba as refugees.

Joseph claimed the soldiers were in Mairogo and Tosso.

“The residents of Mairogo and Tosso villages were repeatedly intimidated by the Cameroonian soldiers who claimed they were searching for Ambazonian agitators who fled Cameroon at the heat of their clash recently and took refuge in some communities in the area.”

The chairman, who also said he and the Commanding Officer in charge of the Nigerian Army 93 Battalion in Takum council of the state, in company of no fewer than 60 soldiers, visited the villages at the instance of the state governor, Arc. Darius Dickson Ishaku, said he was displeased with the acts of the foreign soldiers.

He however reassured the people of the affected villages of the commitment of the state government towards protecting their lives and property from external aggression.

Urging the people to remain calm and cease from acts capable of truncating the peace of the areas, the government, according to him, will not only work round the clock to ensure their safety but will also bring to an end the invasion and intimidation being perpetrated by the foreign soldiers.

About five out of the 16 local government councils of the state, play host to persons who fled the country following the breakdown of law and order that have led to wanton destruction of lives and properties.

Source: Dailypost.ng

A military tribunal in Cameroon has sentenced four people to death, in a trial marked by procedural irregularities, for an attack on a school in Kumba, the South-West region, one year ago. The attack killed seven children and injured at least 13 others.

The 12 defendants, on trial before the Buea military court since December 2020, included the school owner, principal, and four teachers. The court found four guilty of terrorism, secession, hostility against the fatherland, murder, possession of illegal arms and ammunition, and insurrection. It sentenced four other defendants to five months in jail and a fine of 50,000 CFA (US $89) for allegedly failing to report receipt of a threat from separatist fighters. The court acquitted four others. In addition to the use of a military tribunal to try civilians, the trial was marred by serious procedural irregularities such as violating the rights of the accused to challenge the evidence against them and to present evidence in their own defense. Two teachers were acquitted.

“Victims of the Kumba massacre have a right to expect an effective investigation, and for those responsible to be brought to justice in a fair trial,” said Ilaria Allegrozzi, senior Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Instead, Cameroonian authorities seem to have railroaded people into a sham trial before a military tribunal, with a predetermined outcome, capped with the imposition of the death penalty which is unlawful under international human rights law.”

On October 24, 2020, gunmen stormed Mother Francisca Bilingual Academy, a private school in Kumba’s Fiango neighborhood. No one claimed responsibility for the killings, but the government blamed armed separatists who have called for a boycott of education in the Anglophone regions since 2017.

Defense lawyers described to Human Rights Watch the multiple procedural irregularities at the trial, including the inherent lack of independence and fairness of the process that civilians face before a military tribunal. The defense was not allowed to cross examine witnesses; the proceedings were not translated from English or French into the pidgin English spoken by most of the defendants; the accused were arbitrarily detained; and the use of the death sentence is of concern.

“The entire trial was predicated upon circumstantial evidence as opposed to real evidence, and throughout the trial, the prosecution brought no witness we could ask questions,” Atoh Walter Chemi, the leading defense counsel, told Human Rights Watch.

Defense lawyers said that the prosecution presented all its evidence in written statements without calling any witnesses to be questioned on their statements. Section 336 of Cameroon’s criminal procedural code allows written testimony if a witness cannot appear in court. Such exceptions should be rare and limited to occasions in which it is not possible to produce the witness. Such evidence should also require corroboration. To base a conviction solely or predominantly on the untested hearsay testimony of absent witnesses violates fair trial standards.

Among the defendants were four teachers of the Mother Francisca Academy, the principal of the school, and the owner of the school and her husband. On the day of the attack, Chamberlin Ntou’ou Ndong, the government’s senior divisional officer for the Meme division, an administrative area that includes Kumba, ordered the police to detain the owner of the school, her husband and two teachers at the Kumba police station to “ensure their safety,” citing potential risks of reprisals by the community. But victims’ family members and Kumba residents told Human Rights Watch that it was unlikely that anyone would want to harm them. “These teachers should have been brought into the trial as witnesses, not as accused persons,” said Ikose Daniel Etongwe, a defense lawyer.

Four days after the massacre, Cameroon’s communications minister said that security forces had killed a separatist fighter who was allegedly among those responsible. In February, local media reported that the army spokesperson had announced that elements of the Rapid Intervention Battalion (Battallion d’intervention rapide, BIR), an elite army unit, killed another separatist fighter known as “Above the law,” who was also allegedly involved in the Kumba school killings.

Defense lawyers said the prosecution didn’t inform them about these killing, nor was this evidence mentioned in the preliminary investigations. During the trial no reference was made to these military operations, no connection was established between the alleged fighters killed and the defendants, and the defense did not have an opportunity to raise any questions about those killed. Defense lawyers said that one of the four people sentenced to death admitted that he was a former separatist fighter.

Defense lawyers also said that the 12 accused were initially held without charge for more than 30 days at the police station and the gendarmerie brigade in Buea which violates both international law and the Cameroonian criminal procedure code.

On September 14, defense lawyers notified the court of their intention to appeal but were required to pay 200,000 CFA (USD 352), the amount of the fines also levied by the military court on the four defendants, before their appeal would be accepted. On October 4, the secretary of the Buea military court informed the defense lawyers about the conditions of appeal, which include an additional payment of 420,000 CFA (USD 739), a clear barrier to appeal in a death penalty procedure.

The trial, which received no media attention before the verdict was pronounced on September 7, started in December 2020. Defense lawyers said all 12 defendants had to present their cases in one day during a “marathon hearing” in July 2021.

The use of military courts to try civilians violates international law. Military court proceedings typically do not protect basic due process rights or satisfy requirements for independence and impartiality, Human Rights Watch said. Human rights groups, including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, have previously documented military trial proceedings in Cameroon marred by serious substantive and procedural defects in which the presumption of innocence, the right to an adequate defense, and the independence of proceedings are all seriously undermined.

Courts in Cameroon continue to impose the death penalty, although the country’s last reported execution was in 1997. Cameroon has not ratified the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights on the abolition of the death penalty. The African Commission on Human and People’s Rights has long called on African governments to abolish the death penalty and has adopted a resolution on its abolition. The UN Human Rights Committee in its general comment on the right to life, reiterated that where the death penalty has not been abolished, it can only be imposed in the most limited of circumstances for the most serious cases and when fair trial standards have been observed to the highest standards, so that the person’s criminal responsibility is proved beyond a reasonable doubt.

The committee has noted that trials in which the accused has been unable to question relevant witnesses or where there is lack of an effective right of appeal, among other violations, are not fair trials and make any imposition of the death sentence arbitrary and a violation. The committee also emphasized that imposition of the death penalty by a military court on civilians violates the right to life. Human Rights Watch opposes the death penalty in all cases without exception regardless of the nature or circumstances of the crime.

“The military court should never have handled this case involving civilians, and it seems to have made little effort to ensure basic respect for human rights standards,” Allegrozzi said. “If the authorities intend to deliver justice for this heinous crime against children, they need to bring a credible case before civilian courts and hold those responsible to account according to international fair trial standards.”

Culled from Human Rights Watch