What has happened to Chief V.E.Mukete?

That’s the question every Southern Cameroonian in the Meme County is asking, amid all kinds of rumors following the Bafaw paramount leader’s uncharacteristic Friday absence from the opening of the House of Senate in Yaoundé.

Nfon V.E.Mukete was last seen alongside his young wife during a Eucharistic celebration at the Bastos Presbyterian Church in Yaoundé, and several social media outlets are speculating that the 104-year-old may be ill.

The rumors intensified today with information that his children Abel, Mbe, Diko, Ekale, Ebako, Ekoko are all involved in a bitter war for the throne. Social media reported that Ekoko Mukete has already been presented to the Bafaw royals as the new king.

Ekoko Mukete

Cameroon state radio and television (CRTV) broadcasted images of Chief V.E.Mukete’s empty chair at the House of Senate, the country’s Upper House; the first His Majesty V.E.Mukete has missed since coming to the senate.

Such rumors have been fueled by reports that there is infighting deep inside the Bafaw royal family.

Cameroon Intelligence Report sources gathered that the paramount leader of the Bafaws was rushed to hospital after news of the passing away of his younger sister Princess Hannah Bokeng Sone was revealed to him.

Late Princess Hannah Bokeng

CIR is keeping a watchful eye on the developments in the Bafaw royal family and will keep our readers posted as we get it!!

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

Cameroon’s military says it has killed 24 separatists who vowed to disrupt Sunday’s election rerun in the country’s English-speaking regions. The anglophone rebels say the casualties were on the military’s side, but witnesses say a number of those killed were civilians caught up in the fighting.

Military commander Brigadier General Valere Nka says 350 troops destroyed 10 rebel camps this week, as well as seizing rebel vehicles and weapons and killing a number of their fighters, including a commander. 

“The so-called general was neutralized, and you had about 20 killed or neutralized, many who are wounded [are] on the run. We are satisfied.  Let’s continue so that peace comes back to the west, northwest and southwest regions,” Nka said. 

The separatists on social media acknowledged the military destroyed their camps but said most of the casualties were among the military. Nka, however, said all of his troops are alive, though a few suffered minor injuries. 

Witnesses say the military also killed civilians during the raids.   

Metombi Nchari, a 44-year-old nurse, says troops shot dead at least six civilians, including his daughter.   

“Do you want to tell me that my daughter, my 17-year-old daughter who was going to the farm, was carrying a weapon, meanwhile she was carrying just a hoe to go and work?” he said. “Or do you want to tell me that my daughter who is 17 years is a terrorist fighter? That is not possible.” 

Official’s response

Cameroon territorial administration minister Paul Atanga Nji rejected the possibility the military killed any civilians.  

He says President Paul Biya ordered the raids to stop a spike in rebel attacks on candidates and voters ahead of Sunday’s elections for the National Assembly. 

“The head of state gave instructions that the administrative authorities and the forces of law and order reinforce the mechanisms for the rerun,” Nji said. “We can tell you that the security situation in the northwest region is under control.” 

Local reaction

But locals, and even ruling Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement party officials, say fighting is common.   

An official of the ruling CPDM party in the village of Mbiame, Ben Collins Nyuyberiwo, says rebels are always attacking in the area. 

“Either they cut off your fingers or they cut off your hands completely,” he said. “Those who are not able to pay ransom are being killed. Ten houses belonging to my colleagues have been burned.  Even this morning we received calls that they are coming to burn our houses if we take part in the rerun this Sunday. They have fabricated explosives and it causes a lot of havoc.” 

Nyuyberiwo says they are pleading with the rebels to call off their attacks and with Cameroon’s military to offer protection.   

The rebels, who are seeking an independent English-speaking state within French-speaking-majority Cameroon, have vowed to stop the elections. 

Cameroon’s Constitutional Council ordered a re-do of the vote in parts of the western regions over widespread irregularities and fraud. 

The court said Biya’s CPDM party, which was declared the winner, was guilty of violations ranging from ballot stuffing to chasing opposition voters from polling stations.   

The party and government denied any wrongdoing. 

Voter turnout was barely 5 percent in some English-speaking areas. Authorities have vowed to secure the area for a better turnout this Sunday.

Source: VOA  
 

French Cameroun billionaire, Fotso Victor who also moonlights as the Mayor of Bandjoun is no more! The business tycoon turned politician died today Friday, March 20, 2020 in Paris aged 94. He was elected mayor of his home town whose town hall he built with his own money. He also constructed and donated to the Cameroon government the University of Technology in Bandjoun, thus offering French Cameroonians and the CPDM government one of its first institute of technology.

A celebrated polygamist and father of several children, Fotso Victor successfully raised a son – Yves Michel Fotso – imprisoned for corruption by the Special Criminal Court over his handling of the Cameroon Airlines Company, Camair-Co. Yves Michel Fotso was recently evacuated to Morocco for health reasons. Also renowned among his sea of children is a daughter who is a lawyer.

In 1994, in collaboration with Jean-Pierre Guyomard, he wrote an autobiographical work entitled Le Chemin de Hiala. The book is the story of his journey: from his childhood in Bandjoun (at the time, a small village in western Cameroon) to his success as a businessman. The book also provides a description of the political, economic and cultural context of Cameroon from the late 1920s to the early 1990s as perceived by the author.

 Fotso Victor was also a father-in-law of Geremi Njitap Fotso, a former Cameroonian international footballer.

By Oke Akombi Ayukepi Akap in Glasgow

The government of Cameroon had vowed that it must roll back the fighters who had challenged its authority and were seeking to establish an independent Southern Cameroons, but the times have changed and a new invisible boss is in control.

The Coronavirus has dictated a ceasefire which both sides are respecting without any questions.

Around the world, the virus is spreading like wildfire and it has sent thousands to an early grave. This has struck fear in the minds of the soldiers and fighters who have been at each other’s throat for almost four years.

The new rule is social distancing and neither the soldiers nor the fighters are in the mood to disrespect this rule which if disrespected could lead to death.

The soldiers and the fighters who were displaying how cruel they could be just a few weeks ago, are today avoiding each other like a plague.

Soldiers cannot even shake the hands of their friends and it will be hard for them to stand together to prosecute a war that was erroneously declared because of a misrepresentation of facts.

The whole world had said the war was unjustifiable, but ruled by ego, the country’s authorities refused to listen to any advice. Today, they are listening to a virus they cannot even see.

The ceasefire is effective and even soldiers are respecting it. They are no longer worried about Amba boys. It is their hope that the dangerous Coronavirus will take care of them before it disappears.

Amba fighters, for their part, are still walking the jungles of the two English-speaking regions of the country, hoping that the virus will not extend its reach to them, but they are also respecting the ceasefire against their wish.

Schools have been shut down and the entire country is on lockdown. No more ghost towns. The Coronavirus has instituted its own lockdown which is “ghost country.”

It is hoped after the Coronavirus leaves town, both parties will see the need for peace. For now, they must respect nature’s ceasefire, if not they will be swept away by the wave of death blowing across the world.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai with additonal reporting and editing from Dr Joachim Arrey

Yaounde Appeal Court judges have postponed today’s opening of the trial of the Southern Cameroons leader, President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe and his senior aides due to the coronavirus.

The trial is set to be first in the Yaounde Appeal Court ever since the popular Ambazonia chief executive and his cabinet were given a life sentence.

The Biya Francophone regime judges will now decide on further steps following a decision by the CPDM government to lockdown the country.

President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe is challenging crimes allegedly committed by Cameroon government forces but labeled on him.

We understand the Yaounde regime cautioned the judges that no court room should host more than 10 persons. The Appeal Court hearing again has been delayed.

By Oke Akombi Ayukepi Akap in Glasgow with files from Rita Akana in Yaounde

Humanitarian organisations are struggling to keep pace with the increasing needs of civilians as conflict between the government and pro-independence groups escalates in Cameroon’s anglophone regions.

Limited access to those driven from their homes, low levels of donor funding, and what aid workers have described as government “obstruction” means the majority of the 1.3 million people affected by the violence cannot be reached.

Since November 2019, there has been a surge in violence in the Northwest and Southwest regions – referred to collectively by pro-independence fighters as the Southern Cameroons or the Republic of Ambazonia. 

Growing humanitarian needs

Nearly 900,000 people have been made homeless, and an additional 60,000 have fled into neighbouring Nigeria. The four-year conflict, triggered by the perceived marginalisation of the region from majority French-speaking Cameroon, has left at least 3,000 dead.

Needs include food, shelter, and psychosocial support as the government forces and pro-independence fighters routinely torch homes and, increasingly, entire villages, forcing people into the bush.

Residents of Bali waited for shelter kits from the UN after their homes were torched.

Over 600,000 children have been unable to regularly attend school following an education boycott ordered by the separatists to protest the creeping use of French in class and attacks on schools, teachers, and students to enforce the ban. As a result, just 19 percent of primary and secondary schools remain open in the conflict region. 

The UN’s children’s agency, UNICEF, estimates that only 34 percent of health facilities are operating, causing a dip in life-saving immunisation and nutrition services.

Despite the humanitarian needs, the UN and its local partners were able to reach only 40 percent of affected civilians in 2019, Mobido Traore, head of the UN’s aid coordination body, OCHA, told The New Humanitarian.

Deepening insecurity 

The insecurity, particularly in the Northwest – the centre of much of the violence – has had a significant impact on humanitarian operations.

In January, seven aid workers from two local NGOs – COMINSUD and the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Foundation – were kidnapped by pro-independence fighters. Although all staff were later released, the abductions resulted in several organisations restricting their area of operations.

Government security forces have also failed to respect humanitarian space. On 21 February, soldiers entered the St. Mary Soledad Hospital campus, a health facility supported by the medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières in the town of Bamenda, and shot and killed a civilian driver in his vehicle. 

Stray bullets also hit an ambulance call centre, endangering the lives of patients and hospital staff, MSF said in a statement provided to TNH.

Aid agencies have increasingly relied on community and religious leaders to draw displaced civilians from their hiding places in the bush and to assemble them in “safe zones”, such as religious centres and former schools, where they can receive assistance. 

But the military has raided “safe zones” and killed and arrested the displaced, and those who assisted in organising the aid distributions, according to internal incident reports by local aid NGOs seen by TNH, press statements, and interviews with several eyewitnesses and victims. 

Government clamp down

The government has also clamped down more systematically on humanitarian access, imposing increasingly restrictive tracking and vetting procedures, aid workers say.

In June, it established Humanitarian Coordinating Centres in Bamenda and Buea – the capitals of the Northwest and Southwest regions – to assess incoming aid, provide guidance on distribution, and ensure traceability, government officials told local news media at the time. 

All local and international aid organisations – including the UN – are required to apply to the coordinating centres for permission to carry out needs assessments and aid deliveries. Food and non-food aid must be hand inspected at the centres before delivery to beneficiaries.

“The process for vetting humanitarian assistance in Bamenda and Buea has been in place just to place more burden on humanitarian actors,” Traore said.

Local aid workers who asked to remain anonymous over safety concerns described the time-consuming procedures as a “crackdown on humanitarian organisations”.

Last week, the government moved the vetting process from the coordinating centres to the governor’s office in Bamenda. 

It’s a step that not only politicises aid work, but will result in a “significant delay in aid reaching beneficiaries,” Traore said. 

The governor’s office did not respond to requests from TNH to comment on the most recent developments. 

Aid agencies accused of ‘collusion’

Government officials have also renewed their accusations that human rights and aid groups are colluding with the pro-independence groups, supplying them with weapons, and spreading false information that implicate the security forces in atrocities.

“Many NGOs have clearly revealed themselves as enemies of our country.”

In a televised press conference, the head of Cameroon’s Ministry of Territorial Administration (MINAT), Paul Atanga Nji, charged Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the think tank International Crisis Group, and OCHA – among other organisations – of working to “destabilise state institutions”.

“Many NGOs have clearly revealed themselves as enemies of our country,” Nji said. They have “become laboratories of fake reports with the sole objective to tarnish the image of the country’s defence and security forces.”  

The government was particularly incensed by the reports of a massacre in the village of Ngarbuh on 14 February, in which the security forces and allied militia were accused of killing at least 21 civilians. The UN demanded an impartial inquiry into the incident.

Rights groups and aid organisations have all denied Nji’s accusations. 

“The statement is just a new chapter of the government smear campaign against [Human Rights Watch], other human rights organisations, human rights activists, and journalists,” Lewis Mudge, Central Africa Director for HRW, told TNH.

“The government is trying to jeopardise our work and tarnish our image,” Traore said. “They don’t want external eyes there to see what is happening.” 

Funding woes

A persistent lack of funding has also hamstrung the humanitarian response. Donors have provided just over 40 percent of Cameroon’s aid appeal, but in the Northwest and Southwest regions, the figure is far lower – just 18 percent of the budget has been financed. 

As a consequence, the UN has only “limited capacity to respond timely to increasing needs,” said Traore.

A high staff turnover also means the UN has struggled to build trust with communities and representatives of both sides of the conflict, noted an OCHA official, who asked to remain anonymous. 

Another UN staff member was more critical. “This situation is unique because [this UN operation] is not very functional”, the person said, referring to the UN’s inability to provide assistance to the majority of those in need. “The UN’s reputation is plummeting. There is a failure to deliver.”

As the conflict widens in 2020, the UN predicts its funding needs will rise. Local and international aid groups are working to build capacity, especially in the troubled Northwest region, but it is an uphill struggle, they say.

“It is not a good situation,” one local aid worker told TNH. “It is not looking good for us.”

Culled from The New Humanitarian