Armed separatist movements in Cameroon have dismissed the approval of a spacial status to Anglophone regions by the country’s parliament, insisting that only independence would satisfy them.

Parliament on Friday granted special status to the North West and South West English-speaking regions to try to calm a separatist insurgency that has killed 2,000 people.

The law, passed in a special session of parliament, says the Anglophone regions “benefit from a special status founded on their linguistic particularity and historic heritage”.

We want independence and nothing else.

It mentioned schools and the judiciary system as part of the special status — a delayed response to protests in 2016 by teachers and lawyers.

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

The insurgency has forced half a million people to flee and presented President Paul Biya with his biggest threat in nearly 40 years of rule.

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“This is a law unique in the world,” said senator Samuel Obam Assam, from the ruling Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement, the majority group in the Senate. “It is an answer to our fellow countrymen’s concerns.”

But Jean-Michel Nintcheu, a parliamentarian from the main opposition party, said he did not believe the law would solve the crisis.

“The Anglophones, even the moderate ones, want a federal state. This law is not the result of a dialogue.. we were against it,” he said.

The reforms were recommended at the end of national talks organised by Biya in October to chart a way out of the conflict.

But separatists boycotted that dialogue, saying they would negotiate only if the government released all political prisoners and withdrew the military from the Northwest and Southwest.

“We want independence and nothing else,” said Ivo Tapang, a spokesman for 13 armed groups called the Contender Forces of Ambazonia.

He said the special status made no difference as no law passed in the Cameroonian parliament should be imposed in Ambazonia.

The roots of Cameroonian English speakers’ grievances go back a century to the League of Nations’ decision to split the former German colony of Kamerun between the allied French and British victors at the end of World War One.

Source: REUTERS

The regime is Yaoundé has revealed that a total of 272 Mbororos in the Northern Zone have been killed by the Ambazonia Restoration Forces because of their opposition to the armed struggle waged by the people of Southern Cameroons against French Cameroun colonial rule.

The Biya regime says the deaths in three years of conflict for the North West Mbororos community alone are disturbing. The Fulani subgroup mainly composed of shepherds including a large number of Muslims, herders and traders.

Yaoundé further pointed out that the death toll was reported by the Mbororo Association of Ntambang, Bamenda III region of the North West Cameroon and specified that 189 Mbororo women have also been raped by Ambazonia Forces.

A senior aide to the Ambazonia Vice President Dabney Yerima reacting to the report observed that the Mbororos have always lived in harmony with the people of Southern Cameroons and that they too are victims of the French Cameroun genocidal campaign currently going on in the Southern Cameroons-Ambazonia.

Kum Peter indicated that Yaoundé was simply attempting to attract free money from Saudi Arabia to finance its military and its senseless war against the people of Southern Cameroons. He added that the Mbororo leadership had earlier rejected a French Cameroun demand that its peace loving people should help the Cameroon government army in intelligence gathering.

By Sama Ernest in Bamenda

Two mayors and 19 municipal councillors of Cameroon’s main opposition party, the Social Democratic Front (SDF), who were abducted last week in Northwest, one of the two troubled Anglophone regions of the country, had been released, party officials confirmed on Wednesday.

The elected officials were reported to have been kidnapped by armed separatists who warned them against running for general elections scheduled for next year in the country.

Officials said ransom was paid for their release. No further details about the release of the officials were provided by the party.

Cameroon will hold municipal and parliamentary elections on Feb. 9, 2020, but separatists have vowed to disrupt the elections in the Anglophone regions of Northwest and Southwest.

Source: Xinhuanet

A military court sitting in the Cameroonian capital Yaoundé will begin hearing a case involving seven soldiers who killed two women and their children in 2018.

Hearing is scheduled to start in January 20. Authorities have disclosed that the hearing will not be open to the public.

A video of the killing was released and subsequently went viral on social media forcing the government to constitute a probe after having initially rejecting it as “fake news.”

The BBC Africa Eye’s in an investigative piece that dissected the gruesome killing of two women and their babies by security forces deployed in the fight against Boko Haram insurgents.

The piece employed technology – satellite imagery, available news footage and matched it with the video of the shooting that drew widespread condemnation when it surfaced on social media.

The BBC work tracked when it possibly happened – dating as far back as 2015 and identified two of the soldiers involved.

The other gruesome killing was also shot in the same region and involved soldiers opening fire on a dozen young men who were lying prostrate.

A lawyer defending the seven soldiers, Sylvestre Mbeng, said he believes the trial has been made private because the authorities fear there could be damaging revelations.

Human Rights group Amnesty International has called for justice for the women and their children. The United States government openly slammed the incident and asked that a through probe be held.

Source: Africa News