The Biya regime freed a French businessman whose 17-year imprisonment on corruption charges became a source of tension between the two countries and drew appeals from the then French President François Hollande and the UN human rights agency.

Michel Thierry Atangana was released from jail in the capital, Yaoundé and his family, lawyers and many political observers have maintained that his arrest and imprisonment were purely political.

Today, Michel Thierry Atangana, the so-called French businessman of Cameroonian origin who spent 17 years behind bars in Cameroon, is battling Yaoundé to extract 57bn CFA francs (€86m) in compensation over a decades-old financing mechanism.

Cameroon Intelligence Report understands Atangana had been working in Cameroon on a motorway development project when he was accused of embezzling 1.1 billion CFA francs (90 million euros) of public money alongside former health minister Titus Edzoa.

Before their imprisonment, Edzoa, a former adviser to President Paul Biya, resigned from his cabinet position and announced he would challenge Biya in the 1997 election. Atangana was his campaign manager and at this juncture nothing was mentioned of him being a French citizen in a country where dual nationality is not accepted.

Minister Edzoa Titus and Thierry Atangana were due to complete their initial prison terms in 2012 but new charges were brought against them and both were found guilty and sentenced to 20 years imprisonment in October 2013. The decision prompted an outcry from France, the UN rights commission and international rights groups who denounced the trial as unfair and politically motivated.

Atangana and Edzoa have always denied the allegations against them.

The release of the two came after the French government forced Biya to sign a special decree to pardon a category of prisoners – those sentenced for more than ten years on charges of embezzling public funds – as part of celebrations to mark the 50th anniversary of the reunification of British Southern Cameroons and French Cameroun.

In January 2013, French President François Hollande described Atangana’s detention as “unacceptable” and urged Biya to “push for a solution”.

Reported by Soter Agbaw-Ebai with files from Africa Intelligence and France 24

Four young people were killed when Cameroon government army soldiers opened fire at Meta Quarters, a key site in Bamenda, witnesses said, as the Biya Francophone government sought to end the crisis in Southern Cameroons.

Several witnesses, gathered along the main road in the neighborhood, said that pickup trucks arrived shortly after 2:00 pm on Saturday, January 23, 2021 and soldiers began to fire tear gas and then bullets. It wasn’t immediately clear how many people had been killed, but each of the witnesses said they saw four bodies on the road.

Cameroon Intelligence Report gathered that three of the four victims, Ngalim Alucious, Ntakah Nelly Mbah, and Sale Sadam reportedly came from Old Town to visit family relations while the fourth, Brian, was a Meta Quarters resident.

We understand the army revealed in a statement that soldiers found the teenagers smoking weed in an uncompleted building.

“The government in Yaoundé has sent the army to come and kill us and our children and grand children,” said an 86-year-old woman.

The North West governor’s office referred questions about the killings to the police commissioner in Bamenda, who couldn’t be immediately reached for comment.

The constant killing of civilians in Southern Cameroons and the decision to use military force to quell the Ambazonia uprising has moved politics in the two Cameroons into an uncertain phase.

On Thursday, May 28, 2020, the Cameroon government military conducted an offensive raid around the neighborhood of Upper Bunduma, Buea, which led to the killing of four unarmed young men, according to the Centre for Human Rights and Democracy in Africa, CHRDA.

The people of Bakweri Town, Sandpit area in Buea, on Monday, July 30, 2018, experienced one of their greatest horrors when masked elements of the Rapid Intervention Battalion (BIR) moved into Bakweri Town and massacred youths, took some away several teenagers and executed them in neighboring Muea.

On September 27, 2018, Cameroon government soldiers arrested six young men around Babouti quarters in Buea Town in the early hours of the morning before shooting them dead. A stray bullet caught a seventh person, an elderly man who gave up the ghost.

By Fon Lawrence with files

In the early hours of Friday 22nd and Saturday 23rd January, about 21 gunmen from the Atanga Nji Militia stormed PSS Mankon boarding school. The attackers attempted to lock the dormitories and later on set it on fire.

Yaoundé has already blamed the incident on Southern Cameroons Self Defense Forces but people in the know in Bamenda are saying the attacks were carried out in an area protected by government troops.

Some 60 girls and 73 boys were rushed out of the dormitories. Our correspondent in Bamenda revealed at the time of filing this report that three female students sustained life threatening injuries.

A source at the North West governor’s office that spoke to Cameroon Concord News but sued for anonymity said elements of the Cameroon government Army Rescue were in PSS Mankon on Saturday night at the time of the action and came under attack from Ambazonia Restoration Forces.

There are conflicting reports as to which side should be held responsible for Saturday’s attacks with the pro Biya Moderator of the Presbyterian Church in Cameroon, Rt. Rev. Fonki Samuel Forba saying “the source of the fire is yet to be ascertained”.

The office of the Southern Cameroons Vice President is maintaining a kind of deliberate silence on the matter and no Ambazonia group has claimed responsibility.

In a statement the Moderator noted that “Two separate fire incidences at the campus of PSS Mankon on Friday, 22nd and Saturday 23rd January 2021 affected three dormitories and the property of some students.  The students in the affected dormitories have been relocated and the Proprietor, in collaboration with the Education Secretary and the administration of the school, is doing everything possible to ensure that affected students are well catered for.”

A beaming Senior Divisional Officer for Mezam, Simon Emile Mooh has ordered the Mayor of Bamenda II to begin reconstruction of the boys ‘dormitory while the Mayor of Bafut is to focus on the girls’.

By Fon Lawrence in Bamenda

A 25-year-old man from Cameroon who is serving a prison sentence in Malta has been re-arrested on the strength of a European arrest warrant issued by Germany.

The man is wanted in Germany for armed robbery and organised crime.

He is currently serving a prison sentence at the Corradino Correctional Facility after the court found him guilty of crimes relating to counterfeit passports, last September.

The man was taken to court earlier and accepted to be extradited back to Germany.

He remains in custody at the Corradino Correctional Facility.

The prosecution was led by Inspector Mark Galea from the Department of International Relations.

Source: Maltatoday

The family of the former general manager of the Cameroon Radio and Television, Gervais Mendo Ze has declined to say what his ailment is as the one time cabinet minister was again taken to a Yaoundé hospital late Tuesday.

A family source recently revealed that the severity of Mendo Ze’s illness had been shrouded in secrecy by the Biya Beti Ewondo regime.

The former chartered member of the ruling CPDM crime syndicate had always suffered some kind of sickness ever since he was arrested and detained at the Kondengui High Security Prison on allegations of embezzlement and fraud.

Cameroon Intelligence Report gathered that Mendo Ze had kidney problems and the latest bout of his illness is related to a heart condition.

There has been so many local media reports that Gervais Mendo Ze was on the mend but we will never really know the true extent of the illness troubling the man who now weighs barely 45 kilograms.

The French Cameroun political elite can no longer stand up, sit down on his own or lift his elbow to take a sip of water. He spends his days lying down, with a barely audible voice.

Some concerned barons of the so-called essingan clan have written to his blood relation-President Paul Biya and one of those letters carried the title “Mr. President of the Republic, remember Professor Gervais Mendo Ze”.

By Rita Akana in Yaounde

Hundreds of Southern Cameroonians are feared missing after elements of the Rapid Intervention Battalion raided Tiko, Mutengene and Limbe late on Thursday in a move to protect visiting football teams participating in the African Nations Championship.

The BIR soldiers arrived Fako County on military trucks and started shooting into the air, causing people to flee and arresting dozens, witnesses said.

The Francophone dominated army targeted popular neighborhoods including residential areas in Tiko, Likomba, Mutengene and Limbe and in the outskirts of Buea – where more than a thousand Buea University students are said to reside.

Territorial Administration minister, Paul Atanga Nji said on Tuesday that the Biya Francophone government will take tough measures against Southern Cameroons Self Defense Forces who killed security forces.

The Minister of Defense Joseph Beti Assomo also said there was credible intelligence that Ambazonia Restoration Forces were planning to sabotage critical telecoms infrastructure to sabotage and disrupt the Total African Nations Championship (CHAN) 2020 football tournament in Limbe.

Meanwhile, the Vice President of the exiled Southern Cameroons Interim Government, Dabney Yerima condemned the so-called French Cameroun “callez callez” and has reportedly ordered the Ambazonia Intelligence Service to carry out a full audit of the Biya regime recent action in the Fako County.

Residents living in the Likomba area told Cameroon Concord News that they heard gunfire late on Thursday, and that the Cameroon government military operation lasted for more than five hours.

By Rita Akana in Buea

Cameroonian authorities say they are on high alert following threats by separatists to sabotage telecommunications infrastructure and disrupt the Total African Nations Championship (CHAN) 2020 football tournament in Limbe in the restive English-speaking part of the country, ITWeb reported, citing a memo sent to military chiefs in the region.

Minister of Defence Joseph Beti Assomo said there was credible intelligence that “separatist terrorists” were planning to sabotage critical telecoms infrastructure.

Source: Telecompaper

Cameroon’s Minister of Territorial Administration, Paul Atanga Nji said on Tuesday the government will take tough measures against separatist rebels who killed security forces in the country’s volatile English-speaking region of Northwest.

“These people who killed security forces and innocent civilians will be tracked down in their latest hideouts. In their own interest, they should surrender to the police and gendarmerie before we come for them. There will be no escape,” Nji told reporters while visiting a military checkpoint in Matazem that was attacked by armed separatists.

At least, 12 members of Cameroonian security guards have died in attacks by separatists since the start of January, according to security reports. The number of civilian casualties is not known.

“The good news is that some of the assailants and accomplices of the attacks have been arrested. What is going on now is the last of the resistance because the terrorists have lost strength and speed,” Nji added who regularly refers to separatists as “terrorists.”

Armed separatists have freshly intensified attacks in the region that was relatively calm in December, according to security sources.

Armed separatists and government forces have been embroiled in an over three-year-old bloody conflict in Cameroon’s two English-speaking regions of Northwest and Southwest where separatists want to establish an independent nation they call “Ambazonia.”

Source: Xinhuanet