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Southern Cameroons Crisis: 2 gendarmes shot and Killed, CPDM militant injured as Amba Fighters ambush gov’t soldiers

19, November 2020

Southern Cameroons Crisis: 2 gendarmes shot and Killed, CPDM militant injured as Amba Fighters ambush gov’t soldiers 0

Two French Cameroun gendarmes were killed on Wednesday when their so-called mixed patrol was ambushed by Ambazonia Restoration Forces in Kissem a locality within Mbiame, in Bui County in the Northern Zone of Ambazonia.

A Cameroon government security source hinted our correspondent that a civilian loyal to the ruling CPDM crime syndicate was also shot in the chest. The regime in Yaoundé has dispatched defense minister Beti Assomo to Bamenda.

Cameroon Intelligence Report gathered that the mixed patrol was composed of soldiers from the 51st Mechanized Infantry Brigade in Bamenda and police officers.

 At least 600 soldiers and police officers have already lost their lives in the Southern Cameroons conflict.

According to the UN, 3000 people have been killed since the beginning of the armed conflict. The UN also estimates that some 700,000 people have been displaced by the crisis.

Hundreds of NGOs and humanitarian associations including the Cameroon Concord News Group have documented crimes, kidnappings, abductions, beheadings, mutilations, rapes, massacres of civilians by soldiers loyal to the Biya Francophone regime in Yaoundé.

On October 24, seven children, including one boy and six girls aged 9 to 13, were killed in a school in Kumba reportedly by armed men sponsored by Terrirorial Administration Minister Paul Atanga Nji.

The government attributed the massacre to armed separatists who clashed with the Defense and Security Forces and opposed the resumption of schooling in Southern Cameroons.

By Fon Lawrence in Bmenda

Ethiopia Crisis: Gov’t troops advancing toward capital of rebel-held region

19, November 2020

Ethiopia Crisis: Gov’t troops advancing toward capital of rebel-held region 0

Ethiopian government forces have reportedly liberated two towns in the rebel-held northern region of Tigray and are further advancing to retake the regional capital, Mekelle, as violence continues to rage in the East African country for a second week.

Redwan Hussein, a spokesperson for the state of emergency task force, told CNN on Wednesday that the government forces had retaken the towns of Shire and Alamata and “are closing in [on Mekelle] but it will take about 100-200 km from several directions.”

The embattled leader of Ethiopia’s Tigray region has confirmed the losses, which he called a “temporary setback,” vowing to defeat the government.

Debretsion Gebremichael, leader of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), said his forces were inflicting “heavy defeats on all fronts” against Ethiopian forces, calling on all Tigrayans to mobilize and join the “struggle.”

Ethiopian officials have accused the TPLF of destroying four bridges on the road to Mekelle in an effort to stop government forces from advancing. The group has denied the claim.

Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has vowed the mission would “save the country and the region from spiraling into instability.”

Abiy said on Tuesday that a three-day deadline given to rebel forces in Tigray to lay down their arms had ended, warning of a final push to retake Mekelle.

Source: Presstv

Southern Cameroons: The world’s most neglected crisis

19, November 2020

Southern Cameroons: The world’s most neglected crisis 0

The peaceful protests that started in 2016 in Cameroon’s English-speaking Northwest and Southwest regions, over institutional marginalisation and underinvestment, mutated into violence and have now turned bloodier with no end in sight.

This year has been the bloodiest of the conflict. On 24 October, unknown attackers wielding guns and machetes stormed the Mother Francisca International Bilingual Academy in Kumba, in the troubled Southwest Region, and slaughtered seven schoolchildren under the age of 14. The brazen attack left several other students injured, with blood splattered all over the school’s campus. Cameroon’s government has blamed Anglophone separatists for the attack even though no group has claimed credit for it.

The killing attracted widespread international condemnation, with Pope Francis saying, “I feel great bewilderment at such a cruel and senseless act, which tore the young innocents from life while they were attending lessons in school.”

Cameroon President Paul Biya addressed the attack only two days later, condemning the act while announcing that he has “instructed that appropriate measures be taken diligently to ensure that the perpetrators of these despicable acts are apprehended by our defence and security forces and brought to justice”.

Felix Agbor Nkongho, a human rights lawyer and president of the Centre for Human Rights and Democracy in Africa (CHRDA), was quoted as saying, “This incident is another episode to add to the countless horrific and gross violations of human rights and international law in our war-affected region.” The CHRDA has been documenting the atrocities committed by government forces as well as separatist fighters who are seeking to create a breakaway state from Cameroon called Ambazonia.

According to the CHRDA, more than 4 000 people have been killed and close to half a million displaced since Cameroon’s Anglophone crisis started in 2016. Most of the clashes and killings they documented happened this year.

The spark of the separatist war was lit in November 2016 when English-speaking Cameroonians protested against French-majority rule in their regions. The Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium, an organisation that consisted of lawyer and teacher trade unions, went on strike in protest against French-speaking judges being appointed in the Anglophone region. The government has mainly responded with violence.

A bloody year 

On 14 February, while the rest of the world was celebrating Valentine’s Day, a mass killing took place in Ngarbuh, a village in Northwest Region. Soldiers were searching for separatist fighters and in the course of the operation killed at least 21 people, including 13 children and a pregnant woman. The government did not immediately admit that its soldiers had carried out the attack.

It dismissed the claims from eyewitnesses and Human Rights Watch as “terrorist propaganda”. The state only admitted that its soldiers carried out the massacre in April 2020, when it published a finding saying it had identified three soldiers and they would be punished.

Despite this, the country’s military killed four unarmed young men in Buea, the regional capital of Southwest, on 28 May. Their crime was smoking cannabis in an “uncompleted building”. Buea, once the governmental seat of the defunct West Cameroon (English Cameroon in the Federal Republic of Cameroon, 1961-1972), has been under heavy military surveillance since the crisis broke out in 2016.

25 October 2020: A puddle of blood in an empty classroom after the Kumba school shooting

In that same month, a 44-year-old farmer in the small Southwest village of Manyemen was caught in the crossfire. Anglophone rebels pulled him and other passengers out of their car and beat them up for wearing face masks, saying they were spreading Covid-19 in the rebels’ area of command. While they were on the ground, begging the fighters to let them continue their journey to the farm, government defence forces arrived and started shooting from a distance. The rebels ran into the bush while the farmer, who struggled to find a shield, was shot in the legs and waist.

Then the bloodiest month of 2020 came. In August, seven unarmed civilians were killed in a military raid; a teacher was murdered for not respecting separatist-imposed ghost towns, where no one is allowed to work; an aid worker was slain for publicly denouncing separatist activities; and 35-year-old Comfort Tumassang, a mother of four, was beheaded and her body left on the street in Muyuka, Southwest. Tumassang’s beheading was captured on video.

“It flies in the face of humanity for us to accept these abuses as the new normal. There must be accountability,” Nkongho told Human Rights Watch.

Why so much violence?

Dibussi Tande, a Cameroonian political scientist and leading source of news and analysis about the country who is now based in the United States, said disbanding the Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium in 2017 gave power to Anglophone extremists.

“If the government had not followed that path, where they basically sidelined the moderates and left the field open for hardliners to step in, we wouldn’t be where we are today,” he said.

“What is happening in Cameroon is not different from any classic rebellion that we’ve seen around the world, whether it’s in Central America, Asia or Africa,” added Tande, who recently co-edited Bearing Witness: Poems From a Land in Turmoil, a volume of poetry that captures the sufferings of Anglophone Cameroonians in the war.

11 May 2019: A man points to what is left of his house near Buea after Cameroonian military forces burnt it down in January 2019. 

“In 2017, for example, those forces, those initial Ambazonia forces, were people who were within a structure. What has happened [now] is that you have local groups that have sprung up. They don’t deal with anybody but about their local environment. And there are so many groups that have spread all over, that there is no command and control structure. So people are reacting to local events.”

Separatist leader Sisiku Ayuk Tabe was arrested in 2018 in Nigeria before being returned to Cameroon, where he has been in custody since then. “There’s a lack of control. I can assure you that more than half of the people called Ambazonians are really criminal gangs doing their stuff. If you ask them who is Ayuk Tabe, they would probably look at you, like, Ayuk who? These are gangs fighting for territory, fighting for control,” Tande said.

Cameroonians creating awareness online 

Before the Kumba school massacre, Cameroonians had started using the hashtag #EndAnglophoneCrisis on Twitter to inform the world of the separatist war that is affecting three million of the country’s 27 million people.

African tech entrepreneur Rebecca Enonchong, who comes from the Anglophone part of Cameroon, has been lending her voice to the call to end the crisis.

4 October 2018: Grace Nah near the house in Yaounde where she has taken refuge. The 70-year-old fled the violence in the northwestern division of Momo. 

“I have done a number of threads in the past on the historical reasons for the conflict, but people are more receptive now. Many are hurting and they sincerely want to understand and do what they can to help end the conflict,” she said.

French football star Kylian Mbappé, whose father is Cameroonian, also tweeted about the crisis. The aim of the hashtag is to inform the international community of the gravity of the conflict, hoping that it will move beyond simply condemning the violence. But Tande, who has written many essays on Cameroon’s political life, said institutions outside the country can’t do much.

“In international relations, countries don’t have friends, they have interests. What, concretely, can the United States do other than what it’s doing now, condemning, putting diplomatic pressure, cutting off symbolic military aid and stuff like that? This is not Nigeria. Even in Nigeria, they haven’t done much. This is not Israel. This is not some major country. Cameroon happens to be that kind of middle-of-the-road country where it is there, but it is not really noticeable. There is very little significance of the Anglophone crisis on world geopolitics,” Tande explained.

Culled from New Frame

Cameroon’s unwinnable war: Biya continues to rely on a small set of Francophone generals and military advisors

18, November 2020

Cameroon’s unwinnable war: Biya continues to rely on a small set of Francophone generals and military advisors 0

As the Cameroonian army struggles to find a way out of the crisis that has gripped the country for the past three year the so-called commander-in-chief continues to rely on a small set of Francophone army generals and military advisors.

The securocrats are indeed guiding Biya’s decisions on the crisis in Southern Cameroons, reports Africa Intelligence.

At the heart of the crisis, which started in 2016, was a strike by teachers and lawyers, in the English-speaking regions of Cameroon.

The professionals, supported by citizens of their areas, protested the unfair use of the French language and unjustified appointments of French speakers in their territories.

Cameroon is a bilingual country. By 2017, the situation had spiralled out of control and developed into a fully-fledged separatist war. Both government forces and separatists are now bogged down in a conflict, that observers say, can only be resolved through dialogue.

By Asu Vera Eyere in the UK

US Congressmember Introduces Resolution Urging Halt Of Cameroonian Deportations

18, November 2020

US Congressmember Introduces Resolution Urging Halt Of Cameroonian Deportations 0

Congressmember Karen Bass (D-CA), Chair of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa, along with 52 other Members of Congress, introduced a resolution urging for the halt of deportations to Cameroon.

“The United States must uphold its commitments under international treaties related to refugees and asylum-seekers and halt deportations of Cameroonian citizens,” said Congressmember Bass. “Many of the individuals who were deported last week were allegedly improperly coerced to sign voluntary deportation orders. Upon their arrival in Cameroon, many will be at imminent risk of death. To do this while we are transitioning between administrations is outrageous and unacceptable. I urge my colleagues to support this resolution.”

On November 10, Congressmember Karen Bass (D-CA), Chair of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa, along with Congressman Bennie Thompson (D-MS), Congresswoman Shelia Jackson-Lee (D-TX), Congresswoman Judy Chu (D-CA), Congressman Joaquin Castro (D-TX), and Congressman Jamie Raskin (D-MD) issued the following joint statement:

“Our offices have been alerted that African asylum-seekers from Cameroon and other African countries, many of whom were allegedly improperly coerced by ICE to sign voluntary deportation orders, will be deported as early as tomorrow morning. Upon their arrival to their designated countries, many will be at imminent risk of death. Their deportation should be put on hold until the new administration is sworn in and able to carefully review these claims. Anything otherwise is outrageous and unacceptable. We plan to introduce a measure this week to condemn this deportation should it take place. The United States should uphold its commitment under international treaties related to refugees and asylum-seekers and halt this unjust deportation.”

Source: The Street Journal

Biya regime tightens security in Yaounde following repeated blasts

18, November 2020

Biya regime tightens security in Yaounde following repeated blasts 0

Security forces are stepping up security precautions in Cameroon’s capital Yaoundé following recurrent blasts in the city, a government official said on Monday.

“For some time now, we have been living with the phenomenon of explosive devices in the city of Yaoundé. We have not had this kind of thing before. We have taken more adequate measures to fight the phenomenon,” Naseri Paul Bea, governor of the Centre Region told reporters in Yaounde.

“All bags will be systematically checked in the city because we have realised that the explosive devices are carried in bags. All bags are banned in drinking spot. We have asked everyone to always have their ID cards on them,” he added.

He also directed community leaders to create community defense forces, or vigilante groups that can collaborate with security forces to fish out the criminals.

“The participation of the population in the security measures is very important. We cannot have a police officer behind every Cameroonian, so the population has to be vigilant and collaborate with security forces,” Bea said.

According to security reports, there have been over 10 attacks from improvised explosive devices in the capital since the start of the year. No deaths have been reported so far.

Source: Xinhuanet

Biya Francophone regime targets birth registrations of 500,000 children in conflict zones

18, November 2020

Biya Francophone regime targets birth registrations of 500,000 children in conflict zones 0

Cameroon has launched a drive to help parents register their children’s births in conflict-stricken regions, so the government can better plan health, education and other public services, the country’s Minister of Decentralization and Local Development, Georges Elanga Obam said on Monday.

“We are trying to modernize the legislation and the reglementation governing the civil status. We want by the end of next year to register something like 500,000 kids without birth certificates,” Obam told reporters in the capital Yaounde during a plenary session of the National Assembly dedicated to deliberate on birth registrations in the country.

According to officials, only four out of 10 children possess a birth certificate in the Far North region where thousands have been displaced by Boko Haram attacks and in the Anglophone regions of Northwest and Southwest ravaged by close four-year armed separatist conflict.

Members of parliament expressed concerns that the country has one of the lowest rates of birth registration in Central Africa with just about 66 per cent of children owning a birth certificate.

Most parents in rural areas of Cameroon do not register their children because of the long distances to registry offices, cumbersome process and high cost, officials said.

Child’s rights campaigners say ensuring every child’s birth is registered is key to safeguarding basic rights and access to healthcare, education and justice.

Source: Xinhuanet

African countries not progressing in good governance

17, November 2020

African countries not progressing in good governance 0

Governance progress slowed across Africa for the first time in a decade, even before the coronavirus pandemic hit, with commitment to democracy and civil rights faltering, a major report said Monday.

The Mo Ibrahim Index of African Governance, published every two years, gives each country’s government a score according to criteria including anti-corruption measures, protection of civil liberties and caring for the environment.

More than 60 percent of Africans live in countries that made progress in good governance over the period 2010 to 2019, this year’s report said.

But progress has slowed in the last five years and this year, for the first time in the last 10 years, the combined score for all the countries fell year-on-year, the Mo Ibrahim Foundation added.

The foundation, set up in 2006 to focus on the need for good political leadership and public governance in Africa, cited growing curbs on people’s ability to exercise their democratic rights and take part in civil society.

The results use data from last year and do not therefore include the impact of coronavirus.

Since the pandemic began, some elections have been postponed while “the continent had been going through a deterioration of civil society space, participation and rights long before Covid-19,” the report said.

There is “an increasingly precarious environment for human rights and civic participation” as well as a “deteriorating security situation,” it added.

– ‘Worrying declines’ –

Also this year, the incumbent presidents of Guinea and Ivory Coast succeeded in pushing through constitutional changes allowing them to stand for a third term, sparking deadly unrest while adding their names to a long list of leaders with similar playbooks.

Post-election clashes have claimed scores of lives in Ivory Coast and at least 21 in Guinea, where several opposition figures are in police custody over the violence.

In Nigeria, largely peaceful youth-led protests against a hated police unit spilled over into looting and violence.

The UN last week called for urgent measures to protect civilians in Mozambique’s northeastern Cabo Delgado province, where jihadists are wreaking havoc, warning that the population was “desperate”.

Since 2015, countries’ scores for security and rule of law and participation have slowly worsened while scores for rights and inclusion have fallen more sharply, the report said.

Only one country, Ethiopia, has made progress across all areas measured over a decade, the report said — but the continent’s second most populous country is now embroiled in a military conflict pitting the federal government against the dissident northern region of Tigray.

Across Africa, progress in some areas such as economic opportunity has come alongside “worrying declines in participation, rights, inclusion, rule of law and security,” the report said.

– Covid inequality –

Coronavirus threatens gains in economic opportunity, “worsening an already alarming situation,” it added.

For the first time, the report looked at new areas such as digital rights and inclusiveness as well as environmental sustainability.

South Africa, ranked sixth, has declined over the decade, falling more steeply since 2015, and is on a “concerning trajectory,” the report found.

The country’s former president, Jacob Zuma, was forced out by the ruling African National Congress (ANC) over a slew of corruption scandals.

ANC secretary general Ace Magashule was charged last Friday with multiple counts of fraud, corruption and money laundering allegedly committed under Zuma.

Source: Africa News

French radio station RFI announces Paul Biya’s death

17, November 2020

French radio station RFI announces Paul Biya’s death 0

On Monday, November 16, 2020, the French media announced the death of several public figures on its website before removing them, claiming that it was a bug.

French Radio RFI surprised its listeners on Monday, November 16, 2020, by publishing in advance on its website, the obituaries of several public personalities yet still alive. All in all, about a hundred people of established fame were treated to articles announcing and describing the circumstances of their death. They included Alain Delon, Sophia Loren, Clint Eastwood, Pele, Sir Alex Ferguson, Yoko Ono and the President of the Republic of Cameroon, Paul Biya.

 Alerted by the outcry caused by these articles, the public media quickly withdrew them and apologized on the social networks, indicating that a bug was at the origin of this situation.

“A technical problem led to the publication of numerous obituaries on our site. We are mobilized to rectify this major bug and apologize to those concerned as well as to you who follow us and trust us,” reads the RFI twitter account on Monday, November 16, 2020.

However, unless official information from the government of the Republic of Cameroon proves otherwise, it is important to remember that Paul Biya is alive and well! We saw him last November 12, at the funeral of his elder sister, Régine Ngonda, who died on October 31, 2020 in Yaoundé.

By Rita Akana with files

UN General Assembly president reprimands Security Council for ‘failing to do its job’

17, November 2020

UN General Assembly president reprimands Security Council for ‘failing to do its job’ 0

UN General Assembly president Volkan Bozkir on Monday criticised the Security Council, saying it was failing to respond to the world’s biggest challenges due to “competing interests.”

“The council has, on many occasions, failed to carry out its responsibility to maintain international peace and security,” Bozkir, a Turkish diplomat, said at a debate on reforming the body.

“Competing interests among its members and frequent use of the veto have limited the Security Council’s effectiveness. Even in some of the most urgent humanitarian crises, the council could not provide a timely and adequate response.”

There has been growing criticism of the body, which has not been reformed in decades, with France’s President Emmanuel Macron saying in a recent interview with Le Grand Continent that it “no longer produces useful solutions.”

Bozkir said reform of the Security Council was “an unavoidable imperative — both challenging and essential.”

Since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, the Security Council has held few meetings devoted to the virus.

It took more than three months to overcome friction between the United States and China to pass a resolution on July 1 calling for more international cooperation and to support a call by the secretary-general for a ceasefire in war-torn countries to help fight the disease.

During the debate on reform, the 193 UN members discussed the right to veto, the privilege of the five permanent members of the Security Council (United States, China, Russia, France and United Kingdom), enlarging the forum and its regional balance.

Modest expansion of council?

Russia, which has used its veto 15 times since 2011 on the Syrian dossier alone, and the US do not wish to see that power reduced.

“The United States remains open, in principle, to a modest expansion of the Security Council,” said American diplomat Ngoyi Ngoyi. But “this must be pursued in a way that will not diminish the Security Council’s effectiveness, or its efficiency, and will not alter or expand the veto.”

Deputy Russian ambassador Anna Evstigneeva argued that “ideas leading to the erosion of the prerogatives of the permanent members of the Security Council, including the right to veto, are unacceptable.”

Using the veto, or even the threat of using it, “have repeatedly prevented the United Nations from becoming associated with dubious companies,” she added.

Later, Chinese ambassador Zhang Jun criticised an “over-representation of developed countries” and called for a larger presence of small and medium nations, particularly African ones.

The Security Council, which can decide on international sanctions and the use of force, has 15 members. In addition to the five permanent nations, it has 10 non-permanent members elected for two-year terms.

Germany is a candidate for another permanent seat on the Council, along with Brazil, Japan and India. Africa is seeking two spots but has yet to identify potential future beneficiaries.

Source: AFP

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