News

12, June 2020

Ngarbuh Massacre: Three French Cameroun soldiers charged with murder ⁰

Three soldiers have been charged with murder after a massacre earlier this year in western Cameroon where security forces are fighting Anglophone separatists.

“The three Cameroonian soldiers have been placed in provisional detention in Yaounde military prison,” army spokesman Colonel Cyrille Atonfack Guemo told AFP news agency, adding they had been charged with “murder”.

At least 23 civilians, including 15 children and two pregnant women, were killed on February 14 in the village of Ngarbuh, in what the United Nations, called “a shocking episode in the ongoing crisis that has afflicted the country’s Northwest and Southwest regions for the past three years”.

The military initially denied any role in the killings and said the deaths resulted from an “unfortunate accident” that happened when fuel containers exploded in the crossfire between separatists and troops.

As the international outcry amplified, President Paul Biya ordered an investigation.

The preliminary conclusions, published in mid-April, found three “uncontrolled” soldiers who disobeyed orders killed 10 children and three women with the help of local auxiliaries from the Fulani ethnic group.

The troops then “tried to hide the facts by setting fires” before submitting a bogus report, according to the probe.

“The killings were so outrageous, the abuses so blatant, and evidence so damming,” Ilaria Allegrozzi, senior Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement.

The incident occurred in a remote part of the Northwest region – one of two English-speaking regions gripped by the conflict sparked by demands for independence from majority-Francophone Cameroon.

The Northwest and neighbouring Southwest region were once part of British colonies in West Africa. They joined French-speaking Cameroon after it gained independence from France in 1960.

Conflict between Cameroon’s army and English-speaking fighters seeking to form a breakaway state called Ambazonia began after the government cracked down violently in 2017 on peaceful protesters complaining of being marginalised by the French-speaking majority.

Rights groups have accused both sides of atrocities in the conflict, which has left more than 3,000 dead, closed schools and clinics, and forced 700,000 people to flee their homes.

Source: Aljazeera

11, June 2020

Biyas: First Family Life Crumbling ⁰

A video posted on social media by Brenda Biya, a chartered member of Cameroon’s wealthy young elite shows that things are really falling apart for the Biya family and that the evil that men do live with them.

To be sure, the video reveals that those among President Biya’s inner circle and family have enjoyed comfortable lifestyles while millions of Cameroonian citizens went hungry.

The 87 year old French Cameroun monarch has refused to resign and his tribal Beti Ewondo entourage is foolishly pushing his children to market via social media passionate celebrations heralding a shameful and disgraceful end to his leadership.

Biya over the years has built up a huge personal fortune in France and in Switzerland from looting Cameroon’s oil, gold and diamond reserves.

Today, Biya’s own daughter Brenda Eyenga Biya 22 is renowned for revealing their family luxury life on social media.

Cameroon’s First Lady Chantal Biya has spent millions of US dollars on shopping trips in Europe and the USA on designer labels and her hairstyle is now a legal frame work for Nollywood reference.

Today’s social media outing by Brenda Biya is a frank and thoughtful key to understanding that the Biya’s family is rich and shameless and that the first family have enjoyed immense wealth as Cameroon as a nation battles a struggling economy for more than three decades.

In an interview with Ekinneh Agbaw-Ebai of the Herald newspaper, the late Dr. Siga Asanga described Biya as a very careful civil servant. This explains why it has been extremely difficult to know the worth of the Biya family despite Cameroon being among the poorest countries in the sub Saharan region.

Biya’s family fortune comes from Cameroon’s mineral resources and from the Cameroonian tax payer. His lavish Mvomeka’s palace has more than 50 bedrooms and Biya, his family and his acolytes have homes overseas including in France, Germany, Switzerland and Belgium.

The Biya family is also rumoured to own property in countries in Latin America and Barbados. The Biyas have billion-worth of assets, mostly invested outside Cameroon.

Biya, his first wife the late Jeanne Irene Biya and the current First Lady Chantal Biya have all repeatedly been accused of stealing from Cameroon’s coffers and plundering Cameroons’s immense natural resource wealth for their own benefit.

The Biya family are also said to own several properties in Yaoundé and Douala and his first son Franck Biya has been involved in several dodgy deals in the Cameroon timber sector. However ,it’s Brenda Biya who travelled to the USA to study who have attracted the most criticism for her lavish lifestyles.

In this recent video, Brenda Biya has revealed her hidden privileged lifestyle, even going so far as stating on social media that is it is indeed vanity.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

11, June 2020

Nigeria: Armed gangs kill dozens in string of attacks ⁰

Armed gangs killed 57 people in a string of attacks on villages in northwest Nigeria, residents said on Wednesday, as security forces struggle to curb violence in the region.

Roughly 150 gunmen on motorcycles opened fire on residents before looting shops and stealing cattle in a series of assaults on Tuesday in six remote communities in Katsina state, the sources said.

“We lost a total of 57 people in the attacks across the six villages,” a local leader told AFP on condition of anonymity as he feared for his safety.

In the worst-hit village of Kadisau the assailants – dubbed “bandits” by locals – shot and killed 33 people, local resident Mohammed Salisu said.

Salisu said he escaped by abandoning his motorcycle and hiding in a ditch before crawling into a nearby house where he hid among dirty laundry for the five hours the attack and looting lasted.

“They looted every shop in the village and took away over 200 cattle,” said Salisu, who lost seven cows to the attackers.

The attackers opened fire on a football pitch where young men were watching a local match, said Sada Audi, a resident of nearby village said.

Residents said 24 more people were later killed across the villages of Hayin Kabalawa, Garke, Makera, Kwakwere and Maiganguna.

The assailants left two dozen people with bullet wounds, inhabitants said.

Nigeria’s northwest has been wracked by years of violence, involving clashes between rival communities over land, attacks by heavily armed criminal gangs and retaliation strikes from vigilante groups.

The unrest, which experts say has been spurred by overpopulation and climate change, has seen an estimated 8,000 people killed since 2011 and 200,000 flee their homes.

Nigeria’s military last month said it had launched air raids to halt a spike of attacks in President Muhammadu Buhari’s home state of Katsina.

Authorities have carried out several security operations and local peace negotiations in the region but have failed to end the bloodshed.

Source: AFP

11, June 2020

Journalist Wazizi’s death in custody shines light on Cameroon’s war on media ⁰

In August 2019, Journalist Samuel Wazizi was arrested by the Cameroonian government and held without charge. More than 10 months after the arrest, the military confirmed Wazizi had died in their custody. Amid attacks, arrests and kidnappings of journalists, lawyers for the late Wazizi applied for the government to release his body. On 9 June, the High Court dismissed the application as colleagues and allies protested across the country.

When broadcast journalist Samuel Ajiekah Abuwe was arrested in August 2020, the circumstances surrounding his captivity remained a mystery to his family and colleagues. The Pidgin reporter, popularly known as Samuel Wazizi, had been reporting on the conflict in the country’s Northwest and Southwestern regions. While at the time of his arrest Wazizi was held without charge, Cameroon Association of English-Speaking Journalists (CAMASEJ) recently learned that, along with announcing Wazizi’s death, the government decided on a terrorism charge. This was 10 months after the initial arrest.

For many months after the arrest of Wazizi, president of the journalists’ association, Jude Viban, tried to acquire information on his colleague’s arrest and place of detention, to no avail.

“The government has not been transparent in the way the government has handled the issue about the arrest, detention, and death of our colleague,” Viban told Daily Maverick.

“All offices I went to remained mute – they kept sealed lips. Nobody told me exactly where and why our colleague was arrested.”

According to Viban, the lawyers for Wazizi presented in court on numerous occasions since August 2019 asking for the government to produce Wazizi to them – “alive or dead”.

After mounting pressure from local journalists, unions and international allies, the country’s Defence Ministry, on 5 June, finally revealed that Wazizi had died in their custody. While the announcement of the broadcast reporter’s death came just two months shy of a year after his arrest, reports reveal that he died just two weeks after the government took him into custody.

The Cameroon Journalists Trade Union (SNJC) has echoed the sentiment that the government has been evasive since the arrest of Wazizi and, to date, has kept details of his detention and death sparse.

Denis Nkwebo, president of the trade union, said the government was at no point transparent on the matter.

“No information ever filtered on the place and condition of detention. It has been opacity over 10 months just to be told Wazizi had died. When, where and how? Nobody knows.”

“[Samuel Wazizi] died as a result of severe sepsis,” said Ministry of Defence Colonel Cyrille Atonfack in a statement issued on 5 June. Atonfack also claimed that Wazizi’s family had been in constant communication with the reporter while he was held in military detention. This claim has been refuted by Wazizi’s lawyers and in a joint statement by the SNJC and the journalists’ association.

“I have been in contact with four of the family members and what they told me is that the government never contacted them,” said the journalists’ association’s Viban.

The news of Wazizi’s death comes amid a growing war against journalists in the West African nation.

Recently, BBC Pidgin reported that the seven Cameroonian journalists were held in governmental custody 2019 – a notable increase from just one journalist in 2015.

“The war in the two English-speaking regions of Cameroon has been a very difficult moment for journalists – and it is, as I speak to you,” said Vidan.

“Journalists are habitually arrested and detained incommunicado. But we also have cases of journalists who have been beaten up, journalists who have been threatened [and] journalists who have had their work tools taken away,” he added.

As the Cameroon Association of English-Speaking Journalists keeps up with its members in the country, Vidan said he knew of at least four journalists who are currently in detention for reporting on the conflict in Anglophone Cameroon.

In a subsequent article, BBC Pidgin reported on the arrest of freelance journalist, Njoka Kinglsey. Twenty-three days after his mysterious disappearance, Njoka’s family and colleagues finally came to know of his whereabouts.

According to BBC Pidgin, Njoka’s lawyers said he appeared frail and seemed traumatised when they saw him at the Defence Forces Headquarters where he is being held in the Capital, Yaounde.

A number of civil organisations have come out against the Cameroonian’s government’s war on journalism after the announcement of Wazizi’s death.

In South Africa, the South African National Editors’ Forum (SANEF) issued a statement condemning the death in detention of Wazizi. “SANEF calls on the President of Cameroon, Paul Biya, as well as the African Union to launch an independent investigation into the death of Wazizi and the subsequent cover-up by the army,” the statement reads.

Wazizi’s lawyers said they will be contesting the High Court’s decision to dismiss their appeal to independently confirm Wazizi’s death.

“On the totality of the foregoing, we have instituted an appeal against the decision. And giving the contradictory facts surrounding the death of Samuel Wazizi, we shall be taking steps to request for an inquiry into the cause of death,” wrote Nkea Emmanuel and Edward Lying Ewule in a media statement on 9 June.

Wazizi’s death has joined a list of growing social media calls for justice as his colleagues raise awareness using the hashtag #JusticeForWazizi. DM

Source: Daily Maverick

10, June 2020

For many African Americans, nothing has changed since civil rights movement ⁰

For three generations, black Americans have learned the same cautionary tale about the police. And many, speaking on the fringes of George Floyd’s memorial ceremonies, say that nothing has changed in the US since the mid-20th century struggle for civil rights.

“Some things have changed, but not enough has changed,” Norman Mitchell told AFP during a memorial service for Floyd at his former school, Jack Yates High, in Houston’s predominantly black Third Ward neighborhood.

He acknowledged political advances made for the African American community, such as the election of Barack Obama as the first black president in the history of the US, but at the same time recounted the discrimination he and his children continue to face because of the color of their skin.

“It took an individual kneeling on someone’s neck for eight minutes, 46 seconds for the world to see the issue that we’ve been fighting for the last 100 years,” said the 55-year-old.

“When I was a young man, my father used to tell me to be very careful when I went out because there was a possibility that I could be stopped by the police,” Mitchell added.

He said he “had this exact same conversation with” his sons, whose ages range from 17 to 32.

Floyd’s agony as a white police officer knelt on his neck in a Minneapolis street hit Mitchell’s youngest son particularly hard. He “did not think it was real until May 25, and he knew the stories we had been sharing for years,” Mitchell said, whose own brother was killed by a Houston police officer in 1991.

At 63 years old, Laura Allen was a child when marches and protests against police brutality started in the Texan city’s streets.

“I was three or four years old with my family down (in) the streets, and we’re having to march for the same civil rights that we did years ago,” she said.

“Not much has changed at all.”

The former Yates student — class of 1975 — slammed the inequality and “double standard” of police policies in Houston, where “almost every black male I know have been profiled.”

– Scared of cops –

Like many others, Allen has countless stories of arbitrary arrests and intimidation. In 1980, she was detained by park police “for carrying a glass.”

This year, she was pulled over during a trip to Alabama with her husband and daughter.

“As soon as we crossed the Alabama border, we were instantly stopped. They ask, ‘Is this your car?'” recalled the small, gray-haired woman.

Just as her father brought her to protests, so Allen accompanied her daughter, Leah, last week to a massive rally in Houston, where 70,000 people demanded justice for Floyd.

At 28, Leah Allen has the same distrust of police officers as her mother, since “you never know what could happen.”

“I’m very scared of cops,” she said, recounting how police officers have followed her or leered sexually at her.

Tragedy can strike at any moment. Syreeta Polley, 38, points to the death in 2016 of black motorist Philando Castile, who was shot by a police officer during a traffic stop near Saint Paul, Minnesota.

As with Floyd, his shocking final moments were caught on video.

Polley has taught her teenage daughter, Nia Madison, to “respect authority figures” and be “cautious.”

The 17-year-old has started driving, and the lesson is clear: “Make sure you’re prepared if you’re being pulled over,” said Polley.

“It’s 2020 and it’s a big step back, it pushes us back to the 50s and 60s and the stories my 92-year-old grandmother would tell,” Polley added.

Even the Houston police chief, Art Acevedo, admitted that “there is a lot of work to do” to change the police force’s mindset.

Houston-based rapper William James Dennis — or “Willie D” — hopes that Floyd’s death will serve as a catalyst.

The black community “can use (the death of George Floyd) as a short window of opportunity to move America forward,” the artist and activist told AFP on Tuesday, during Floyd’s funeral.

Source: AFP

10, June 2020

US: New York lawmakers vote to scrap police discipline secrecy law ⁰

New York lawmakers voted on Tuesday to repeal a decades-old law that shields police officers’ disciplinary records from the public. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has said he will sign the bill into law amid nationwide protests against police brutality.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo tweeted that he will sign the bill into law this week amid nationwide protests against police brutality.

The bill is part of a package of police reform measures advanced by the Democratic-controlled Assembly and Senate in Albany this week as protests gripped the nation following the death of George Floyd, a black man, as a white Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck.

On Monday, the legislature voted to ban the use by police of chokeholds. The practice had come under intense condemnation when an African-American man, Eric Garner, died after a white New York City police officer used a chokehold on him during a 2014 arrest.

Advocates for police accountability have long been pushing for the repeal of the contentious section of New York’s Civil Rights Law, 50-a, that prevented disclosure to the public of disciplinary records of police officers.

“The legislation that will be passed over the coming days will help stop bad actors and send a clear message that brutality, racism, and unjustified killings will not be tolerated,” New York Senate majority leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins said in a statement.

New York police unions have called the legislation an attack on police.

“The message has been sent very clearly to police officers by our elected officials: We don’t like you,” Richard Wells, president of the statewide union the Police Conference of New York, told reporters. “We don’t respect you. We will not support you. We want you to go away.”

He said the repeal of 50-a would enable criminal defense attorneys to cite old complaints against an officer in court to undermine the officer’s testimony.

The New York City Council was also considering a bill to criminalize the use of chokeholds, which has widespread support among lawmakers but is opposed in its current form by the mayor.

Source: REUTERS

10, June 2020

Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea Agree to Demarcate Border after Skirmishes ⁰

Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea have agreed to jointly map out a disputed border area after skirmishes between their troops left several wounded and property destroyed. Officials from the two countries are asking hundreds of traders and farmers who relocated because of the clashes to return to the disputed area but, some are reluctant.

Officials from Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea agreed to work on defining their disputed border after a crisis meeting Monday night.

Cameroon’s South Region Governor Felix Nguele Nguele said in the past two weeks there have been several skirmishes along the border with Equatorial Guinea’s military.

Nguele said while nobody was killed, several troops were wounded, and goods were destroyed on both sides of the border.

After the meeting Monday, he said Cameroon instructed local officials and traditional rulers to meet with their Equatorial Guinean peers to map out a proposed border.

Nguele said after local officials agree on a proposed new border, the central governments in Malabo and Yaoundé will be able to decide if there will be a new demarcation or not. But for the time being, he said, people should go about their daily activities peacefully.

Farmers and traders last week fled the border town of Kye-Ossi after tensions with troops on both sides.

Justo Javier Ndong Engon is governor of Equatorial Guinea’s Kie Ntem Province on the border with Cameroon.

He said at the meeting the two sides agreed to return troops to their barracks while waiting for the governments to find a lasting solution to the border dispute.

Engon said the crisis meeting resolved that border authorities ask community leaders and chiefs to urge farmers to return to their farms and traders to their shops. He said both sides ordered an end to the destruction of goods and asked that farm produce like maize, cassava, tomatoes and vegetables – which were stuck at the border – be given access into Equatorial Guinea.

Engon did not say how many Equatorial Guineans were affected by the conflict.

Cameroon said on its side about 350 farmers and traders had fled the border in the last few weeks but that many were returning.

Cameroonian vegetable seller Derric Sama said despite the assurances that troops have pulled back, he will not return to Kye-Ossi.

He spoke via a messaging application from the town of Ebolowa, where he relocated.

“It is not the first time the military from Equatorial Guinea cross over to destroy our goods or seize vegetables and fruits from us. Cameroon government tell us every time that they will solve the problem, but no solution seems to be coming,” said Sama.

It’s not the first time tensions have erupted along the two countries’ border.

In August, Equatorial Guinea began to erect a wall along the 183-kilometer border, sparking condemnation from Cameroon.

Cameroon said Equatorial Guinea constructed markers on its territory and instructed the military not to tolerate any unlawful intrusion.

Equatorial Guinea has also often sealed its border with Cameroon, complaining of security threats posed by illegal immigration.

In December 2017, Equatorial Guinea said it had arrested 30 foreign armed men from Chad, the Central African Republic and Sudan on the border who planned to destabilize the government.

Cameroon said at the time it also arrested 40 additional heavily armed men but gave no details.

Source: VOA

10, June 2020

Cameroon tops list of world’s most neglected displacement crises ⁰

Africa is home to nine of ten of the world’s most neglected crises and for a second year running Cameroon topped the list as the most neglected on the planet in 2019. Three separate emergencies faced the corrupt African nation: an exacerbation of Boko Haram attacks in the north, a violent conflict in the English-speaking west, and a Central African refugee crisis.

Ineffective conflict resolution, global news silence and a massive aid funding shortfall all contributed to Cameroon topping this year’s list according to the Norwegian Refugee Council.

Cameroon was followed by DR Congo, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Venezuela, Mali, South Sudan, Nigeria, Central African Republic and Niger.

Humanitarian crises in these countries are expected to worsen throughout 2020, compounded by the global coronavirus pandemic that is adding further hardship to millions according to Jan Egeland, Secretary General of the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC).

“Covid-19 is spreading across Africa, and many of the most neglected communities are already devastated by the economic shocks of the pandemic. We need solidarity with these conflict-stricken communities now more than ever, so the virus does not add more unbearable disaster to the myriad of crises they already face,” said Egeland.

The Sahel region of Africa was prominent in this year’s list, with Burkina Faso, Mali, Nigeria and Niger all embroiled in the extreme violence that engulfed the region, yet with massively underfunded aid appeals. Niger and Burkina Faso appeared on the list for the first time.

The neglected crisis list is based on review of over 40 displacement crises based on three criteria: lack of funding, lack of media attention, and political and diplomatic neglect. Cameroon scored high on all three, followed closely by DR Congo and Burkina Faso, two other crises where a lack of public attention contributed to a lack of funding to run aid operations.

The ten most neglected displacement crises

Cameroon

The Democratic Republic of the Congo

Burkina Faso

Burundi

Venezuela

Mali

South Sudan

Nigeria

Central African Republic

Niger

Every year, NRC presents a list of displacement crises the world has neglected.

Culled from Reliefweb.int with additional editing from Camcordnews

9, June 2020

At George Floyd’s funeral: Joe Biden calls for racial justice ⁰

George Floyd’s funeral took place on Tuesday in Houston, two weeks after his death while being held by police in a Minneapolis street, as more anti-racism rallies inspired by his treatment were set to take place in the United States and Europe.

George Floyd, whose death has sparked a global protest movement, is to be buried beside his mother in a cemetery in Houston.

“When there is justice for George Floyd, we will truly be on our way to racial justice in America,” said Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden in a video address at George Floyd’s funeral in Houston.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for a global fight against racism and discrimination.

The mayor of Houston announced a ban on chokeholds by police.

Houston police will increase their audit of taser and body camera usage.

Pastor Steve Wells told mourners at George Floyd’s funeral that they have “awakened the conscience of a nation”.

Delivering the eulogy, the Reverend Al Sharpton reserved his sharpest criticism for President Donald Trump. “You take rubber bullets and tear gas to clear out peaceful protesters, and then take a Bible and walk in front of a church, and use a church as a prop. Wickedness in high places,” Sharpton said.

Source: France 24

9, June 2020

Call for independent probe into Samuel Wazizi’s death ⁰

International press freedom lobby groups have called for an independent investigation into the death of Cameroonian journalist Samuel Ajiekah Abuwe alias Samuel Wazizi, who died while in military custody 10 months ago.

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and Reporters Without Borders (RSF) questioned his detention, the cause of his death and why it took long for his death to be made public.

Police arrested the journalist on August 3, 2019 in a suburb in the conflict-ridden Southwest region of the country, according to a statement by the Ministry of Defence.

He was transferred to military custody on August 7, then ferried to the capital Yaoundé six days later, Cameroon military spokesperson, Col Colonel Cyrille Serge Atonfack Guemo, explained.

The military said he arrived in Yaoundé feeling feverish and died on August 17 due to an infection. “As a matter of fact, he [Wazizi] died as a result of a severe sepsis and not from any acts of torture or physical abuse,” the statement added.

CPJ said the Cameroonian government’s “cruel treatment” of the journalist “is truly shocking” and it is unbelievable that authorities covered up his death in custody for 10 months despite repeated inquiries from press freedom advocates and his family, colleagues, friends, and lawyers.

“An independent autopsy should be conducted immediately, and Cameroon must also launch an independent commission of inquiry so that those responsible for Wazizi’s death are held accountable,” said Angela Quintal, CPJ’s Africa programme coordinator.

RSF condemned the “bogus account” of the TV presenter’s death provided by Cameroonian authorities and called for an “impartial and independent investigation” into the circumstances leading to his death.

The defense ministry’s statement said the journalist had been in contact with his family while in custody but the press freedom lobby groups say the statement fell short of providing a credible explanation of how Wazizi died two weeks after his arrest.

CPJ said Wazizi’s sister-in-law, Metete Joan Njang, told them that their family had not been able to contact him after his arrest, and they were not made aware of his death but only saw it in a news report on June 3, 2020.

According to RSF, Wazizi’s brother also denied claims the journalist was in contact with the family while in detention. The unnamed brother told the advocacy group that neither Wazizi’s lawyers nor any relative had any contact with him after soldiers took him.

The Defense Ministry further added that the journalist was not arrested for his work but because he had links with terrorists.

“After thorough investigations, elements of the security forces had established that the latter [Wazizi], claiming to be a presenter on a local television station, was in fact a logistician for various terrorist groups,” the statement said.

His lawyer Lyonga Edward Ewule had earlier told the CPJ that Wazizi was accused of “collaborating with separatists” and “spreading separatist information,” but had not been formally charged. He said a court case against the journalist was adjourned several times.

On social media, journalists, politicians and activists have been using the hashtag #JusticeForWazizi to express their outrage over his death. Wazizi presented the popular pidgin language news programme, “Halla Ya Matta.”

Cameroon has a history of detaining journalists incommunicado, according to CPJ and RSF. At least seven other journalists are currently being held in pretrial detention in the country according to data by the Cameroon Association of English Speaking Journalists (CAMASEJ).

Cameroon’s press freedom ranking worsened this year. The central African country is ranked 134th out of 180 countries where one is the freest, according to RSF’s 2020 World Press Freedom Index. The score is three places lower than its 2019 position of 131.

Source: The East African