A senior member of the Yaoundé Francophone regime has told Cameroon Intelligence Report that the country is no longer under the control of President Biya and his forces.  The French Cameroun political elite who hail from the South region also said the Ambazonian Restoration Forces stand a better chance of taking control of more territory deep inside French Cameroun.

The CPDM MP and Central Committee member who sued for anonymity further pointed out that the mismanagement of the crisis in Southern Cameroons and Biya regime’s excessive use of force against innocent Ambazonian civilian population has made the situation more intractable.

An indefinite dusk to dawn curfew has been imposed on Southern Cameroon’s Northern Zone after the Minister of Territorial administration, Paul Atanga Nji and his gang reportedly staged armed attacks on buses in Bamenda late on Saturday and blamed it on the Ambazonian Restoration Forces.

Cameroon Intelligence Report understands the Francophone Northwest governor Adolphe Lele Lafrique said the curfew between 6pm and 6am from Sunday will remain effective till further notice. The attack on buses is also apparently the reason that the Francophone army retreated from the Southern Cameroons suburbs to the main motorways linking French Cameroun to Southern Cameroons.

Cameroon government sources have also reported that the 85 year-old President Biya has for the 9^th time decided to split the responsibilities of his top military officers, taking away from non Beti Ewondo army generals the sole mandate for dealing with the crisis that has gripped La Republique du Cameroun in the Far North, the East and presently in Southern Cameroons.

The mandate in Buea, the chief city in the Southern Zone was recently passed partly to a Francophone colonel after General Melingui was sacked and ever since he took over control, the colonel has been responsible for military operations and repression including arrest of Southern Cameroons resistance forces. Cameroon Intelligence Report also gathered that President Biya’s relatives in the army and in the gendarmerie are now imposing a blockade on families of the Cameroon political establishment, in order to prevent them from leaving the country.

If these intelligence that were handed over to our senior political correspondent in Yaoundé  are correct, they point to a very heavy pressure on Biya and his French backers, and indicate fear bordering on hysteria as to what is happening in the nation’s capital.

Despite troubling signs of a major crack within the army and the police, the highest ranks of the military billionaires are still loyal to the CPDM regime.  Many junior officers who were recently deployed to Southern Cameroons simply defected and escaped to the Ivory Coast via Nigeria. It is not clear whether the Ivorian government is aware of the presence of many French speaking Cameroonian soldiers on its territory.

Violence continued over the week end as the Ambazonian Interim Government reported that several Southern Cameroons civilians were killed by Cameroon government forces in restive areas on the outskirts of Buea, Bamenda, Manyu and Wum Counties.

The deaths in the Wum and Mamfe areas included 27 teenagers and two women. The African Union and the UN Security Council are not seeking military action to end the bloodshed in Southern Cameroons.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

Cameroon says it has deployed additional troops to Bamenda several hours after armed separatists blocked access into and out of the northwestern English-speaking town, attacking buses and passengers.

At least 20 passenger buses are still lined up at Akum, a village 10 Kilometers from Bamenda, the capital of the Cameroon’s English speaking northwest region.

Some of the buses that were traveling to the French-speaking cities of Yaounde and Douala have been burned and others damaged. The Cameroon military has accompanied some travelers who were chased from the buses to help them identify and collect their luggage.

University student Philip Njie was traveling to Yaounde when at least 100 gunmen ordered passengers out of the buses late Saturday.

“There were so many of them. So many of them holding their hands at the trigger, ready to shoot at anyone who disrespected them so we were very scared,” said Njie.

At least 1,000 people traveling into and out of Bamenda were stopped by the gunmen.

The government troop commander in northwestern Cameroon, General Agha Robinson, calls the gunmen “terrorists.”

“There is an operation to dislodge these terrorists to make sure weapons are seized, and therefore, we go down to the field and then we shut down these areas where these guys produce these weapons. We have been searching some areas where we deem necessary and in our check points too, we have our eyes on the bags which people are carrying,” said the general.

Separatists groups claimed responsibility for the attack on social media. They have warned that no buses would be allowed to travel into or out of the English-speaking northwest and southwest regions of Cameroon after September 16.

The separatists say it is part of their plan to disrupt Cameroon’s October 7 presidential election, which they say can not take place in their territory because they are an independent state called Ambazonia.

Unrest began in Cameroon in November 2016 when teachers and lawyers in the English-speaking northwest and southwest began calling for reforms and greater autonomy.

The United Nations reports 300 people, including 130 policemen and the military, have been killed and hundreds of thousands have fled, including 20,000 who crossed into Nigeria.

Reported by VOA

Turkey has called on world nations to form a united front against the US which has imposed sanctions on Ankara, a close ally of Washington in the Middle East.

Turkish Treasury and Finance Minister Berat Albayrak said US President Donald Trump is using sanctions and tariffs to sabotage the economy of other countries.

“It is clearly in the interest of most countries to cooperate in resisting unilateral economic decisions by powerful actors that are motivated by narrowly defined national interests,” he wrote in an article published on the Foreign Policy magazine.

“By acting together with Turkey now, other countries can also help it create a common strategy to avoid artificial crises in the future,” read the article titled America Can’t Be Trusted to Run the Global Economy.

The US has imposed sanctions on two Turkish ministers and doubled steel and aluminum tariffs, which have led to a sharp decline in Turkey’s currency.

Washington took the punitive measures in protest at Ankara’s detention of American Pastor Andrew Brunson, who has been accused of having links with terror organizations in Turkey.

The lira has fallen more than 40 percent against the dollar this year, driving up the cost of food and fuel and sending inflation soaring to 18 percent, its highest in a decade and a half.

To put a floor under the lire, the government ordered exporters last week to convert 80 percent of their foreign exchange revenue into lira. Turkey’s exports totaled $157 billion last year, according to official data.

In his article, Albayrak said the chaos which has afflicted financial markets has nothing to do with economic fundamentals, adding the turmoil has been driven by Washington.

Last week, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan lashed out at the US for behaving like “wild wolves,” saying Ankara would pursue non-dollar transactions in trade with Russia, Iran and other countries.

Governor of the Central Bank of Iran said on Saturday the Islamic Republic, Russia, and Turkey had agreed on a number of economic measures like removing the US dollar from their mutual transactions.

The agreement was made on the sidelines of a key trilateral summit on Syria held in Tehran on Friday and attended by Iranian, Russian and Turkish presidents.

Last month, Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said Moscow was stepping up efforts to abandon the US currency in its transactions with other countries.

“The time has come when we need to go from words to actions and get rid of the dollar as a means of mutual settlements and look for other alternatives,” Ryabkov said.

Like Iran and Turkey, Russia has been slapped with sanctions by the United States, prompting retaliatory measures by Moscow.

Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei told President Vladimir Putin on Friday that US sanctions against Russia, Iran and Turkey create a strong common ground for expanding cooperation, including trade without using the US dollar.

The Russian president said the Americans are making a “major strategic error” by restricting financial transactions for short-term political gains as this will eventually diminish trust in the dollar and weaken the currency.

Source: Presstv

Hundreds of women gathered for an angry protest in Cameroon on Friday against abuses committed in months of fighting between the government and Anglophone separatists.

With some singing, weeping, crying out or praying, the women described the rapes of their daughters and killings of family members as civilians are caught in the crossfire. Nearly 200,000 people have fled.

The women who gathered in a stadium in Bamenda city in the heart of the conflict called for an urgent dialogue on peace. They say they want to leave their homes and go without fear to the market and fields as before. They say they cannot remain silent and want to denounce what they call a dirty war.

The unrest in the southwest and northwest is a major issue as largely French-speaking Cameroon faces elections in October, with 85-year-old President Paul Biya, in power since 1982, running again.

The unrest that began in 2016 with teachers and lawyers demanding respect for the regions’ English education and justice systems led to a government crackdown and the emergence of armed separatists seeking an English-speaking state.

Tensions rose further in Bamenda on Thursday when a headmaster and three teachers were kidnapped by armed men.

“We are calling on the powers that be that women want peace,” said a protest organizer, Adah Mbah. “We do not have any hidden agenda anywhere. We are tired. For more than two years, we cannot be quiet.”

Many women at the protests carried leafy branches of so-called peace plants. Others clutched rosaries or dressed in black. They sat on the ground.

“The women are the ones mourning. The women are the ones managing their homes … they are struggling in all ways to survive,” said another organizer, Akouoh Aline. “We want our leaders to see our pain.”

In July, then-United Nations human rights chief Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein said he was deeply alarmed by reports of abuses in the southwest and northwest. Human rights groups have accused both the government and separatists of abuses including torture and the burning of homes.

The government has condemned separatist attacks and defended its security forces, saying all alleged atrocities are investigated.

AP

A steady flow of relatives, friends and well-wishers have been visiting Martina Afanwi at her home this week in Bamenda, an English-speaking town in Cameroon’s northwest.

They are encouraging the 40-year-old to have faith that her 11-year-old son, who was abducted Monday from the Presbyterian School of Science and Technology, will be found safe.

But Afanwi is worried because Cameroon authorities have yet to inform her of what they are doing to find her son.

“I feel horrible. My heart is bleeding. It’s not normal. Its horrible,” she says. “The government needs to take measures. I think they have been sleeping. Nothing is being done.”

Afanwi’s son is one of six students missing after gunmen attacked the school on September 3, the first day of Cameroon’s school year. The students are presumed kidnapped as they never returned home and no bodies were found.

The school principal was discovered unconscious with machete wounds and lapsed into a coma after being rushed to the hospital.

Cameroon authorities say a head teacher was murdered the same day in the northwestern village of Bamali.

The commander of government troops in the northwest, General Agha Robinson, blames armed separatists, who are seeking an independent, English-speaking state.

“About 837 weapons have been seized. The principal was shot with one of these weapons,” he tells VOA. “We have deployed our soldiers for patrols, we are securing schools, we have also reinforced security in our borders, where ammunition is being imported.”

In social media posts, the separatists denied responsibility for this week’s attacks and alleged kidnappings, instead blaming unspecified government-created armed groups.

“Let it be said loudly and clearly that our forces did not commit any act and they only arrived at the schools after the crimes were committed,” read one separatist posting. “Our forces were instead there to bring order and chase occupational troops from Cameroon.”

Activists like Yah Gladys Viban are calling on both sides to end the conflict.

“We are not name calling, we are not blaming, we are just saying that if we want to build this nation and if we want peace and prosperity for the generations ahead of us, we need to put all the guns down, sit on the table and talk about it. Nothing else will work,” she says.

Most schools in Cameroon’s restive northwest and southwest have been closed since 2016 because of attacks from the separatists.

In August, separatists said they would allow the schools to re-open but without a security guarantee and at a date of their choosing.

Culled from the VOA

Prosecutors in Sicily on Friday confirmed a probe into far-right Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini for illegal confinement after he refused to allow more than 100 rescued migrants off of a coastguard ship for 10 days.

The public prosecutor’s office in Palermo notified Salvini in a letter that the minister opened and read in a video broadcast live on his Facebook page.

“An organ of the state is probing another organ of the state. With the small difference that you (the voters) elected this organ of the state,” Salvini said in the video.

“The others have not been elected by anyone and are not answerable (for their actions) to anyone.

“It is you who asked this minister to control the borders, to control the ports, to limit arrivals, to limit the departure of illegal migrants,” he added.

The migrants on the Diciotti coastguard ship had been stranded at a port in Sicily before Salvini finally allowed them to disembark on August 26 after Ireland, Albania and the Italian Catholic church agreed to take most of them in.

The 10-day blocking of the Diciotti migrants followed a number of similar standoffs in which Italy turned away ships with migrants rescued at sea in a campaign to make EU countries take their share.

The government has also threatened to stop billions of euros of EU funding over the issue, accusing Europe of turning its back as Italy grapples with seemingly endless migrant arrivals.

– Hard line on migrants –

Salvini, who is also deputy prime minister and the leader of the far-right League party, said on Wednesday that 50 of the 144 Diciotti migrants had since disappeared without trace from reception centres.

These migrants “were so in need of protection, a roof and a blanket that they decided to leave and disappear,” he said on Facebook.

“This is the umpteenth confirmation that those who arrive in Italy are not skeletons fleeing war and famine,” he added.

Since Salvini’s League formed a government with the anti-establishment Five Star Movement (M5S) on June 1, the minister has implemented his party’s hard line on migrants.

Within days of becoming interior minister, he delivered on a campaign promise to close Italian ports to immigrants and asylum-seekers, starting with 600 plucked from the Mediterranean by NGO boat Aquarius, which was instead forced to take them to Valencia in Spain.

That crisis was only resolved after a meeting between Conte and his French President Emmanuel Macron.

Most of those aboard the Diciotti were Eritreans, along with a small number of Somalians, Syrians, Sudanese and Comorans.

Since the start of the year, 3,000 migrants from the former Italian colony of Eritrea have arrived in Italy but less than a thousand have applied for asylum, according to interior ministry figures.

Many Eritreans prefer to continue by land to Germany, Sweden or Britain, despite the heavy controls encountered at the French, Swiss and Austrian borders as well as the EU’s Dublin regulation under which a migrant can only make an asylum claim in the first European country the reach.

 AFP