More than half the crimes committed by Cameroon government army soldiers in Southern Cameroons deliberately go unreported, and the Francophone administrative officers in Ambazonia towns and villages including the main cities of Limbe, Bamenda and Kumba have blatantly refused to document hundreds of complaints of rape and sexual harassment.

A sea of Roman Catholic clergies in both the Northern and Southern Zones of Ambazonia have all opined that rapes carried out by Francophone soldiers was the second most common crime ever since the ailing French Cameroun dictator declared war on the people of Southern Cameroons, but most Cameroon government officials have turned a blind eye.

Human rights groups operating in Southern Cameroons have also revealed that it has been extremely difficult for Southern Cameroonians to report crimes committed by the Cameroon government military due to stonewalls erected by Francophone dominated administrative officers.

It is almost impossible to know the true extent of how much crime against the Southern Cameroons civilian population is not reported due to French Cameroun government refusal to register the complaints. However, the Biya Francophone regime in Yaoundé is always quick to draw the attention of the international community to retaliatory measures carried out on Francophone troops by Ambazonia Self Defense Forces.

Journalists covering the war in Southern Cameroons have jointly and severally pointed to a significant proportion of unaddressed and unresolved crimes mostly committed by French Cameroun servicemen. The Communications Secretary for the Ambazonia Interim Government, Milton Taka recently observed that the crimes against Southern Cameroonians is indeed  signaling worrying levels of insecurity among the Ambazonia public, particularly women and children.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

Cameroonian journalists who choose to remain in the Anglophone regions increasingly prefer to report on non-controversial issues such as health, education and infrastructure and avoid discussing the ongoing conflict.

Separatists and government troops alike will not hesitate to harass authors of reports that are not in their interest. Raymond Ndingana is one of many journalists who have been harassed by government troops.

“The last time I fell into the hands of the military, they almost destroyed my working tools simply because they asked me a question in French and I responded in English,” Ndigana told DW. “They got angry and called me all sorts of names.”

Caught between the fronts

Constant armed confrontations between the regular army and separatist fighters prevent journalists from going out into the field to cover events and file reports. But that is not the only difficulty the reporters face. Fon Quinta, a journalist for Vision 4 television, has been covering the Anglophone crisis for over two years. Quinta says that her duty as a journalist is to report on events in a fair and balanced way. But this is becomig impossible. “The government will call and say: ‘You’re working hand in glove with the separatists’,” she said. The separatists have also called her, accusing her of standing in the way of independence.

Anglophone journalists fear government troops and separatists

Fongoh Primus from Rainbow Radio Mbengwi agrees that journalists are faced with an impossible task. “How can I feel safe, when every day I see trigger-happy government soldiers armed to the teeth, pointing their guns at civilians and ready to kill, sometimes just for fun?” he told DW. “How can I feel safe when every day I come across drugged separatist fighters with fetish objects on their bodies carrying sophisticated weapons and ready to shoot to death any suspects?”

Self-censorship is the new normal

According to Maikem Emmanuella, radio station manager at NVEFCAM, self-censorship is now common in many newsrooms. “You do not know what to say or write,” she said. Emmanuella does her job every day in a state of fear. “When writing a story, you have to be careful, especially when it concerns the crisis,” she explained. “We get stories of people shot by the military, but you can’t report on these cases and stories saying it was the military.” With many journalists now scared of reporting, there are fears that the most critical stories in Anglophone regions will go unreported.

English-speaking communities chafe at what they see as discrimination from the French-speaking majority. The government rejects demands for autonomy and has dispatched thousands of troops in a crackdown. There are currently no open channels for a dialogue between the government and the rebels. According to Human Rights Watch (HRW). Cameroonian authorities have regularly tortured and held incommunicado detainees arrested in the government’s crackdown on the armed separatist movement.

In October 2017, radical separatists declared the creation of the “Republic of Ambazonia,” covering the two English-speaking regions incorporated into Francophone Cameroon in 1961. The declaration went largely unnoticed outside Cameroon, and “Ambazonia” — named after a bay at the mouth of the Douala River — has not been officially recognized by the international community.

Source: DeutscheWelle

Hundreds of people marched in Cameroon’s capital, demanding to know the whereabouts of imprisoned relatives who were moved to unknown locations last week after a riot inside a large Yaounde jail.

“We simply want the government to let us know where they are,” said Julius Berka, 32, who demonstrated Monday. “We do not have any bad intentions. It is our right to know where they are.”

The prisoners were moved after a riot in the Kondengui Central Prison on July 22. Detained separatists from Cameroon’s English-speaking regions and jailed opposition members took possession of the prison yard to denounce overcrowding, deplorable conditions and lengthy trial delays.

The prison, built for 750 inmates, was holding more than 6,000.  

The government says that after the riot, about 250 prisoners were moved. Separatists on social media gave the government five days as of last Wednesday to disclose where the detainees were or face the consequences.  

On Monday, they said they had been informed that 88 of the English-speaking inmates were in a cell in Yaounde. The location of the others was not disclosed.

Government spokesperson Rene Emmanuel Sadi says the inmates were taken out of the Kondengui prison because of the role they played in the riot, in which part of the facility was torched and many inmates injured.

“The inmates identified as being the leaders on this insurgency, 177 people on the day of the event and 67 thereafter for a total of 244 insurgents, have been handed over to the police and gendarmerie services for questioning,” Sadi said.

He added that some of the inmates were in more secured detention facilities in Yaounde while others were moved elsewhere to make the prison less congested. 

Denis Nkemlemo, spokesperson for the main opposition political party, the Social Democratic Front, says by keeping the prisoners beyond the reach of family members and friends, the government is aggravating the crisis in the English-speaking regions.

Armed groups in the two regions have fought to separate them from majority French-speaking Cameroon since 2017. 

Rights group Amnesty International has called on authorities to improve the grim prison conditions, release anyone detained only for peaceful protest, and ensure that every person held past the legal period of pretrial detention goes before a judge immediately or is released.

VOA

The Accused Persons in the case The People Vs Sisiku Julius AYUK TABE & 9 others were brought to court at about 12.00 midday. By the time they arrived The courtyard which is in the heart of a military command center was heavily militarized and servicemen and women in mufty brought to fill the seats of the court hall so that family and friends of the Accused Persons and other Ambazonians can be sent away or denied entry into the yard on lame and ridiculous reason that the court hall is full.

 Correspondingly, several family members were denied access even into the yard to stand outside the court and follow the proceedings.  Some of French Cameroun soldiers sat directly behind the Accused Persons and constantly threw abusive slangs on them expressing the desire to see the court deal with these Ambazonia terrorists accordingly.

The court session however didn’t begin till about 1.00pm when the panel of Judges presided over by Lt Col. MISSE MISSE Jacques Baudouine entered the military court hall and declared the session open. As soon as the Registrar in Chief who was Chief court clerk summoned the Accused Persons to the dock at instance of Presiding  Judge and read out the statement of 12 offences alleged to have been committed by the Accused with 11 of them carrying the Death Sentence, Prof Awasum Augustine sought leave of court and presented the deteriorating health situation of the Accused Persons especially Dr NDE CHE Fidelis, TASSANG Wilfred and also Barrister EYAMBE Elias EBAI who had even paid sum of 200000 frs but was still to be attended to by the ophthalmologist two weeks after.

He catalogued this situation aggravated by the Hunger Strike they were compelled by circumstances to engage and pleaded with the court for an adjournment of the case for them to get medical attention and come back to court healthy! The court took note the situation but insisted that trial should go on especially as to him the detainees are sick because they voluntarily engaged in the Hunger Strike. He then called on the Military State Counsel better known by the French appellation Commissaire du Gouvernement CG to open the case for the prosecution.

Batonier emeritus Barrister ETA BESONG Jr who led the defense team of more than 60 lawyers present in court took the floor and eloquently objected to the court going on with the proceedings because of a pending Interlocutory Appeal in the car which is pending before the Supreme Court and so by law proceedings in the main suit before all lower jurisdictions ought to be adjourned sine die (without date) pending the decision of the Supreme Court!

 Barristers SUH FUH Benjamin and Paddy YONG also spoke objecting to court proceedings on account of poor health situation of their clients, the Accused Persons. Rather than adjourn the case for these reasons, the court proceeded to explain how the pending appeals were baseless which infuriated the defense Counsel and they argued strenuously that the court cannot usurp the role of the Court of Appeals or Supreme Court and make any pronouncements whatsoever. The court session became very stormy to extent that after close to 3 hrs of arguments that involved the CG and Counsel for the Civil Party, counsel for defense all stormed out of court in protest against intransigence of the judges and their insensitivity to the plight of their clients.

 Barrister ACHU Julius one of the lawyers for the State of Cameroun, had urged the court not to give any attention to international law and diplomacy, to ignore the presence of the foreigners (2 Americans) sitting in the court hall and deliver a Camerounians  Justice

With the embarrassment of lawyers storming out of court, the court rose for a short break of 15 minutes at 4.10pm. When the court session resumed at 4.55pm, Dr NDE CHE Fidelis had developed a malaise and was being attended to by some unidentified staff from the military hospital. The presiding judges sat silent on the dais in open court for more than 30 minutes while the said nurses attended to Dr Nde Che. They took his blood pressure, made other checks and even questioned him for lying on a bench in court.

 One Colonel. Abeng said to be a medical doctor who was already in the dock as first prosecution witness PW1, against the Accused Persons, tried to consult the patient in open court before gaze and view of the entire public and Dr NDE CHE refused not only because the consultation was public but most especially because Colonel Abeng had come to testify and give false evidence that the Accused Persons including him should be executed. He observed that the same individual cannot be the one to consult him and even send for medication for him.

 From information provided to court by Prof Awasum himself a medic and an internationally renowned Professor of Surgery from Ahmadou Bello University, Zaria, Dr NDE CHE Fidelis is a Renal patient with series of complications per his medical records which are known to the prosecution as he’s been attended to both by the medical doctors of the Gendarmerie Hospital when they were detained incommunicado at SED for 11 months and subsequently by the doctors of the Yaounde prison hospital all under control of the CG. A senior nurse from the military hospital was summoned by the Col Dr Abeng in the dock and ordered to sit by Dr NDE CHE lying on the bench and probably take care of any eventuality.

Shockingly enough, instead of adjourning the case because of the health situation of the Accused Persons before the court and especially the absence of their counsel who had stormed out, Lt Col MISSE MISSE sought the opinion of the CG and Counsel for the State party, the Civil Claimant and when they indicated their readiness to do their case, he ordered Col Dr Abeng, the PW1 to give his testimony.

Sisiku Julius AYUK TABE, Shufai Blaise SEVIDZEM BERINYUY, EYAMBE Elias EBAI and Dr Cornelius NJIKIMBI KWANGA each took turns to plead with the court to adjourn the case on account of the their poor health and to also give them the opportunity to talk with their lawyers to understand why they stormed out of court or brief new counsel in vain. They even asked the court how they could be prosecuting patients with one of them being attended to in open court and lying there flat on the bench. They told the judges to their face that they were clearly biased and were doing Injustice and that it’s a shame for la Republique du Cameroun judiciary. They also questioned how and why Colonel Dr Abeng a Bulu man brought to justify their execution could be expected to consult them and whether the Accused Persons no longer had no right medical doctor of choice.

Lt Col MISSE MISSE Jacques and his panel that included Magistrate EDOU MEWOUTOU Fidele Armand and NGOUONGUE TIANI Sandrine didn’t budge and insisted on continuing with prosecution case claiming that the examination of Dr NDE CHE by the military nurses brought by them revealed that he could take his case and more especially he had denied to be attended to by the qualified Medical doctor in court, PW1.

The Accused Persons all stood up and started rioting in court shouting to make sure that the proceedings do not continue. Even the special microphones and huge speakers that had been brought to court could not help! The CG on instructions of the court tried more than 4 times to lead the witness give evidence in vain as the Accused Persons shouted even louder each time asking the court to order them to be taken back to prison and then the court could continue with its charade or parody of a trial.

 There was total disorder and the court was forced to take another break at about 7.00pm with Dr NDE CHE Fidelis still lying helpless on the bench. The court resumed hearing at 7.59pm and shamelessly announced that they’ve now considered the request of the Accused Persons for adjournment due to poor health and is adjourning the case to August 19 for continuation of Prosecution case.

A Cameroon Intelligence Report Production

President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe has condemned the rise in kidnappings in Southern Cameroons, calling for discipline and unity in the Federal Republic of Ambazonia. The head of the Southern Cameroons Interim Government, in letters sent to local and international media houses demanded Southern Cameroonians to remain united and focus on the struggle to free their homeland and hinted that the hunger strike will continue until all Southern Cameroons detainees are identified.

Sisiku Ayuk Tabe expressed hope that members of the pro French Cameroun armed groups operating deep inside Ambazonia would rescind the dubious and dangerous task assigned them by French Cameroun Minister Paul Atanga Nji and join the revolutionary forces.

The Ambazonian Interim Government sees kidnappings as inconsistent with Southern Cameroon’s official, historic and principled Anglo-Saxon tradition.

The leader stressed that kidnappings would not serve the fraternal relations between the Ambazonia Restoration Forces and the local population and would only further complicate the lives of Southern Cameroonians.

By Sama Ernest in Yaounde