18, August 2020
Federal Republic of Ambazonia: Civilians protest growing barbarism, increasing Violence 0
Hundreds of Cameroonians have braved a heavy military presence and separatists’ threats to protest increasing violence and barbarism in the central African state’s restive English-speaking regions. The protest in the southwestern town of Muyuka was provoked by the killing of civilians and other brutality by the military, which is searching for separatists said to be responsible for a recent wave of attacks and murder of women and aid workers.
About 300 people, most of them women and children marched silently on the streets of Cameroon’s southwestern town of Muyuka Sunday. Twenty-nine-year-old Ernestine Naayah said Cameroon’s Womens Peace Movement, which she represents in Muyuka, and four other organizations organized the protest because they are fed up with growing violence in Cameroon’s English-speaking Northwest and Southwest regions.
“I am out here today to say no to violence, to decry the killings of innocent civilians and especially women. Our cry today is for the leaders of the nation to do something about the crisis in the North and Southwest regions. We all deserve to live in peace in this glorious land God has given us,” she said.
Naayah said the groups organized the anti-violence protest in Muyuka because it is in the southwestern town that the latest gruesome case of murder was reported.
Gruesome killings
On August 11, Comfort Tumasang a 32-year-old mother of two was gruesomely murdered in Muyuka. A video her beheading went viral on social media, provoking widespread condemnation.
Comfort’s mother, 63-year-old Mary Tumasang, said separatists accused her daughter of collaborating with the military as an informant. She said she supports the protest because she wants peace to return to Cameroon. She said she wants her daughter’s killers arrested.
She said when separatists came to her home, her frightened daughter, Comfort, did not hesitate to hand over her telephone as the fighters requested. She said 30 minutes later, she watched helplessly as Comfort was forced out of the house to a neighborhood called Sandsand. She said in Sandsand, the fighters tied Comfort to a tree but residents raised an alarm and the fighters fled, taking her daughter along.
Comfort Tumasang was later found dead in a pool of her own blood. Thirteen other cases of gruesome killing were reported in Cameroon’s two English-speaking regions.
Emmanuel Ledou Engamba, highest administrative officer in Muyuka’s Fako Division said the military has been deployed to restore peace. He said the troops have been instructed to arrest Tumasang’s killers.
“These criminals are going to be prosecuted, and actions have been undertaken to make sure that they are tracked down. I have extended the condolence message of the head of state [Cameroon’s President Paul Bya] to the bereaved family of late Mrs. Tumasang, who was brutally assassinated by criminals [separatist fighters],” he said.
The separatists say the military organizes some of the attacks on civilians to give fighters a bad name.
The military says separatists have resorted to attacking civilians because their fighters’ ability to attack has been greatly reduced by government troops.
The Cameroonian government, rights groups and embassies also blame separatist fighters for the increasing brutality and gruesome killing of civilians and aid workers.
Civilians say the military brutalizes populations as troops search for separatists suspected to have been responsible for the killings.
The military insists that its troops have remained professional.
The United Nations reports that Cameroon’s four-year separatist crisis has killed over 3,000 and displaced at least 500,000 others.
Source: VOA
18, August 2020
Mali: Mutinying soldiers say they have detained President Keita, Prime Minister Cisse 0
A leader of the mutiny said both Malian President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita and Prime Minister Boubou Cisse had been detained by soldiers, sparking fears that a coup was in progress as witnesses said soldiers had surrounded Keita’s private residence.
A leader of the mutiny said both Malian President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita and Prime Minister Boubou Cisse had been detained by soldiers.
“We can tell you that the president and the prime minister are under our control,” the leader, who requested anonymity, told AFP.
Two security sources confirmed to Reuters that Keita had been detained.
Soldiers in Mali took up arms in the garrison town of Kati on Tuesday and detained senior military officers in an apparent mutiny, raising fears of a coup after several months of anti-government demonstrations calling for the president’s resignation.
FRANCE 24 Africa specialist Nicolas Germain said a highly placed source had confirmed the detention of the president and prime minister.
Earlier in the day an officer at Mali’s ministry of internal security, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak to the press, described the chaotic scenes. “Officials are being arrested – it’s total confusion.”
In the nearby capital of Bamako, government workers fled their offices as armed men began detaining officials, including the country’s Finance Minister Abdoulaye Daffe.
President Keita, who was democratically elected, has broad support from former colonial power France and other Western allies.
About 100 of the protesters who have called for Keita’s ouster gathered midday in Bamako in a show of support for the mutinous soldiers.
The African Union said it “forcefully” condemned Keita’s arrest.
French President Emmanuel Macron has been in touch with regional leaders and has called for mediation, the Élysée presidential palace said in a statement.
The United States said it was opposed to any change of government in Mali, where French troops and UN peacekeepers have been working to stabilise the country amid an Islamic insurgency that took hold after a 2012 coup.
“The US is opposed to all unconstitutional changes of government whether in the streets or by security forces,” tweeted J. Peter Pham, the State Department’s special envoy for the Sahel region.
The West African regional bloc ECOWAS, which has been mediating Mali’s current political crisis, urged the soldiers to return immediately to their barracks in Kati, which is only 15 kilometres (less than 10 miles) from the presidential palace in the capital.
Prime Minister Boubou Cisse had earlier called for dialogue with the soldiers. “The government is calling for calm and makes itself available … to engage in fraternal dialogue in order to remove all misunderstandings,” he said in a statement. The prime minister also admitted that the soldiers may have “legitimate frustrations”.
Echoes of the 2012 coup
The unrest erupted Tuesday at the very same military barracks where the country’s 2012 coup originated. The overthrow unleashed years of chaos in Mali when the ensuing power vacuum allowed Islamic extremists to seize control of northern towns. Ultimately a French-led military operation ousted the jihadists but they merely regrouped and then expanded their reach during Keita’s presidency.
The president has faced growing criticism of how his government has handled the relentless Islamic insurgency engulfing the country once praised as a model of democracy in the region. The military faced a wave of particularly deadly attacks in the north last year, prompting the government to close its most vulnerable outposts as part of a reorganisation aimed at stemming the losses.
The fact Mali’s finance minister was among those targeted Tuesday bolsters the theory the mutiny was motivated by salary disputes, said Alexandre Raymakers, senior Africa analyst at Verisk Maplecroft.
“This remains a fast-moving situation, but initial indications point to the mutiny being within the national guard, with significant elements of the army still loyal to [Keita],” he said. “The mutiny is likely driven by a range of factors closely tied to the deteriorating military situation in central and northern Mali, rather than the ongoing political crisis. ”
(FRANCE 24 with AP and AFP)