Cameroon’s president, Paul Biya, will address the nation tomorrow at 8pm Cameroon time.

A source at the presidency has hinted that the Yaounde strong man will focus on the Southern Cameroons crisis.

He is expected to announce the formation of a commission to design the modalities for dialogue with Southern Cameroonians.

He will also underscore the importance of dialogue and forgiveness. He is expected to grant clemency to many Southern Cameroonians arrested within the framework of the current crisis and those in the Diaspora.

He will be cajoling the Diaspora by playing up the importance of the country’s vibrant Diaspora which, he thinks, can help with development efforts in the country, our source said.

He is also expected to put an end to the Kamto saga that has left the country with a bloodshot eye.

Mr. Biya, who has refused to listen international calls for dialogue, has finally caved in and wants peace to return to the two English-speaking regions of the country.

It should be recalled that some 3,000 Southern Cameroonians have been brutally murdered by Mr. Biya’s military and despite rumors about a possible reconciliation, the country’s military is still slaughtering innocent civilians in the two English-speaking regions of the country.

For more on this, go to the Cameroon Intelligence Report. Www.cameroonintelligencereport.com.

At least four motorcycle taxi drivers locally called “Okada” were kidnapped by separatists early Monday in Limbe, a seaside resort town in Cameroon’s crisis-hit English-speaking region of Southwest, according to police.

Local sources said the drivers were working when armed separatists stopped them mid-way and drove them towards a bush. Separatists said on social media the drivers were “arrested for disrespecting ghost town”.

For over two years now, separatists have imposed “ghost town” every Monday during which all sorts of activities in the two Anglophone regions of Northwest and Southwest do not function.

An investigation has been launched by the police.

Since November 2017, government forces have been clashing with armed separatist forces who want the two Anglophone regions to secede from the largely French-speaking nation and form a new country they call “Ambazonia”.

Source: Xinhuanet

A senior adviser to the Ambazonia Vice President whose name we are withholding on Sunday indicated that the Southern Cameroons Interim Government would allow every Ambazonian citizen in Ground Zero to keep weapons in line with the policy of resistance against French Cameroun.

Members of the Southern Cameroons Interim Government began discussing a new policy which focuses on educating Ambazonian children while resisting French Cameroun occupation and aggression.

Cameroon Intelligence Report gathered that Vice President Dabney Yerima informed the Southern Cameroons exiled cabinet of his intention to reform the management of Ambazonia state finances and back to school for Southern Cameroons kids and weighed options for moving Ambazonian children to schools in neighboring Nigeria.  

Rival Southern Cameroons groups involved in the Ambazonia struggle for independence long locked in disagreement over the makeup of the Ambazonia Interim Government are now supporting Vice President Dabney Yerima after weeks of backroom deals, as Southern Cameroons’s woes keeps mounting.

The Ambazonia Interim Government was formed under the guidance of President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe to combat French Cameroun. It has been the Southern Cameroons diaspora most successful investment ever since British Southern Cameroonians took up arms against French Cameroun some three years ago.

The Ambazonia Interim Government dominates the political and military landscape of Southern Cameroons and possesses tens of thousands of untrained fighters but it’s extremely lacking in sophisticated armaments.

By Chi Prudence Asong

Cameroon’s main opposition leader, Maurice Kamto, has gone on trial in a military court in Yaoundé, along with 90 of his supporters. Kamto, who was the runner-up in last year’s presidential election, is accused of insurrection and rebellion, and could face the death penalty.

Kamto arrived in court on Friday under tight security. The trial venue was protected by 200 police officers in anti-riot gear, while others patrolled the area in pick-up trucks.

There had been calls from the opposition leader’s followers for a protest rally outside the court.

Kamto, together with several dozen of his political allies and supporters, faces charges of insurrection, hostility to the motherland and rebellion, crimes which, in theory at least, could carry the death penalty.

The head of the opposition Movement for the Rebirth of Cameroon (MRC) was arrested in January after months of peaceful opposition protests denouncing the results of the October 2018 presidential election.

The MRC alleges that the election was rigged in favour of President Paul Biya, who has been in power for 36 years. Kamto claims that he himself won the election.

Cameroon’s former colonial ruler France, the United States and the European Union have repeatedly called for his release.

“There is no justification for Mr Kamto and his supporters to have been incarcerated for eight months in these conditions,” their French lawyer Antoine Vey told the French news agency, AFP.

“None of them took part in acts of violence, none called for acts of violence or rebellion, there is no reason for their arrest other than a political motive.”

Ready for justice

The crackdown against the opposition has caused outrage among rights groups and many western governments.

In March, the US assistant secretary of state for African Affairs Tibor Nagy, told RFI that Cameroon would be “very wise” to release Kamto because his detention is widely perceived as politically motivated.

A top European Union official criticised the arrests and the military court’s “disproportionate” proceedings against them.

France in May also demanded the release of Kamto and his supporters.

On Monday, just days ahead of their trial, Kamto and his fellow defendants said they were “ready to face justice so the truth would come out,” demanding free public and press access to the courtroom.

“Mr Kamto is full of confidence,” his spokesman Olivier Bibou Nissack told journalists.

Conflict on all fronts

The authorities in Cameroon dismiss claims from the defendants and others that this a political trial designed to “decapitate” the opposition.

Along with the political protests, President Biya is facing a struggle on other fronts.

Since 2017, fighting between the army and English-speaking separatists demanding independence in two western regions has killed hundreds, forced nearly 500,000 people from their homes and filled jails with anglophone activists accused of militancy.

In the north of the country, Boko Haram’s nearly 10-year Islamist insurgency which is based in northeastern Nigeria, has more recently spilled over into Cameroon.

Source: AFP

Six Southern Cameroons Self-Defense Groups have announced the formation of a unique restoration force to curb crimes and abductions in Ambazonia. The groups in the Southern Zone also say the new force is needed to coordinate self-defense action against the invading French Cameroun army soldiers.

Vice President Dabney Yerima who brokered the deal is expected to issue a statement on the outcome of very intensive and productive discussions that were held late yesterday. Cameroon Intelligence Report sources in Ground Zero revealed that the merger would operate as a coalition working within the framework of the Ambazonia Interim Government.

A spokesperson for Comrade Dabney Yerima told this reporter that the merger policy will also be implemented in the Northern Zone in the weeks ahead and the Vice President will call for a new strategy of popular resistance to French Cameroun occupation and colonization and opposition to policies that fuel the weakness of the Interim Government by perpetuating division.

In a recent outing in the Federal Republic of Germany, Vice President Yerima warned that Ambazonians faced liquidation if they could not achieve unity in the face of the intensified French Cameroun attacks. He also emphasized the need to uphold the Interim Government under the leadership of President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe as the legitimate and sole representative of the Ambazonian people.

The participating self-defense groups will remain independent but strive to be a model of Southern Cameroons unity that would get rid of the French Cameroun occupation, win the right to self-determination in a sovereign state with Buea as its capital.

By Asu Isong in London with files from Sama Ernest and Rita Akana

Angry residents of Yaounde express frustration as the trial of Cameroon’s main opposition leader, Maurice Kamto was adjourned on Friday.

Kamto’s trial for insurrection will now take place on October 8.

“While the charges against them were being read, one of them – counselor Christian Penda Ekoka – felt dizzy and I have to tell you what led to this discomfort. This audience was held in a sort of matchbox, forgive my use of the term. The room is very small and poorly ventilated. We were suffocating and I think this is what led to the discomfort that caused suspension of the hearing”, Kamto’s lawyer, Ntchale Michel said.

Residents reiterated their plea for the Anglophone crisis to be resolved.

“I traveled more than 600 kilometres to attend this trial. For me, it’s a historical trial. We are asking the Biya’s government to do two things, solve the Anglophone crisis and release the political prisoners. This will calm tensions”, psychologist and president of an association for the protection of human rights, Germain Ekwala said.

Maurice Kamto claimed to have won last year’s presidential election. He came in second against President Paul Biya in the polls. Kamto was put to trial along with 88 others in a military court for insurrection.

Human rights groups have denounced the jurisdiction of the military court to try the case.

Source: AFP

Villagers near Meiganga, a town in northern Cameroon, are protesting against Chinese gold miners for allegedly ruining their land. The villagers say they are poorer than before the Chinese arrived, with their farms and forests now destroyed.  

Area cattle ranchers and farmers say that if nothing is done to save them from Chinese miners, famine may strike their locality soon. 

Their spokesman, rancher Mamoudu Poro, 54, says the miners destroy farms and do not bother to cover holes and trenches they dig on roads and ranches before leaving. He says they want the Chinese to build the roads they destroyed and fill the trenches they dug, give them electricity and at least a school and a market before leaving. 

Until 2014, Meiganga and surrounding villages cultivated maize, beans and groundnuts and produced cattle for markets in Cameroon, Nigeria and the Central African Republic. 
 
Then, 300 new mining sites producing gold, zinc, nickel and other materials were discovered in the region.  Among the explorers were Chinese companies. 
 
More than a hundred of the companies’ miners work in and around Meiganga. They use tractors and equipment that clean stones and sift soil, allowing them to detect gold faster than locals who use manual tools.  Locals are paid about $2 per day to work at the Chinese mining sites. 
 
Cameroon’s minister of mines, Gabriel Dodo Ndoke, says the complaints of the villagers are legitimate. He says he has asked the companies to respect the terms of their contract with the government.  

Ndoke says the population suffers as a result of environmental degradation and does not benefit as expected because their mineral resources are exploited in a disorganized manner. He says he has given instructions to all exploitation companies to make sure they respect environmental laws and stop destroying farms and cattle ranches, which for now are the only sources of earnings for the people of the area. 
 
Officials with the China Mining Company in Meiganga declined to be interviewed about the allegations.  However, company official Hu Long said the firm has assisted communities by providing aid to hospitals and building or refurbishing schools when solicited.  He says the company also employs about 100 youths.  

This is not the first time Cameroonian villagers have protested against alleged exploitation by the Chinese.  In 2016, residents of eastern Cameroon had conflicts with small-scale Chinese gold miners who had been there for six years. The local miners said the Chinese had taken away their livelihoods and were not living up to promises to develop the area. 
 
Cameroon has not officially announced how much it gains from the mining business but says it contributes a significant amount to the country’s gross domestic product. 

Source: VOA

Paul Biya’s 37-year rule in Cameroon is fast approaching its end, a highly placed French Cameroun political elite hinted Cameroon Concord News Group late on Thursday as several Cameroon government army soldiers launched a fierce resistance against being deployed to Southern Cameroons.

“Everyone in the nation’s capital Yaoundé is seeing a regime crumbling. The sooner Biya realizes there is no way he can win the Southern Cameroons war, the better for everyone in this country” our source who sued for anonymity noted.

 It is evidently clear that the capabilities of the regime have all been eroded by the fighting in Southern Cameroons. “Clearly we’re into the last stage of the CPDM regime – the writing is on the wall” he observed.

“We’re seeing Divisional and Sub Divisional delegates  including principals of colleges packing their bags from the rural areas in Southern Cameroons and Yaoundé-controlled territory in Southern Cameroons is shrinking before our eyes” he added.

The Ambazonia Interim Government and other Southern Cameroons resistance groups are tracking what’s happening in Ground Zero and in French Cameroun.  The regime’s major ATM machines in Southern Cameroons including SONARA, CDC and PAMOL have all vanished in thin air and this is leaving government officials awake all night. The disappearance of these streams of revenue has really destabilized the French Cameroun government which is yet to find new sources of revenue.

Life has become unbearable for millions of French Cameroonians residing in the cities of Douala and Yaounde who, for many decades, have only been scrapping a living.

Paul Biya, who has been in power since 1982, vowed he would not step down and boasted that the nation remains one and indivisible even as Ambazonia Restoration Forces have made Southern Cameroons ungovernable.

Information filtered this week that Cameroon government resources are running dry, after a recent troop’s deployment to the Far North region.

By Chi Prudence Asong