Using the most condescending and undiplomatic language imaginable, US President Donald Trump has reportedly asked why “people from shithole countries come to” the United States.

Trump made the contemptuous comments about immigrants from El Salvador, Haiti and African countries during a White House meeting on Thursday with lawmakers who were reportedly startled and charged that the Republican president is racist, according to multiple people briefed on the meeting.

“Why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here?” Trump said, according to The Washington Post.

“Why do we need more Haitians?” he added, according to the report. “Take them out.”

Trump reportedly suggested America should accept more immigrants from European countries such as Norway, whose Prime Minister Erna Solberg met with Trump on Wednesday in the White House.

Later on, The New York Times also reported the same comment, citing unnamed sources with direct knowledge of the extraordinary Oval Office conversation.

Trump’s comments surprised Republican Senators Lindsey Graham and Tom Cotton, Democratic Senator Dick Durbin and Republican Representative Bob Goodlatte, who attended the meeting, according to the Post.

The White House did not deny Trump’s despicable description of an entire continent but said the president supports an immigration policy that welcomes “those who can contribute to our society.”

“Certain Washington politicians choose to fight for foreign countries, but President Trump will always fight for the American people,” White House spokesman Raj Shah said while commenting on Trump’s racist slur.

“The president will only accept an immigration deal that adequately addresses the visa lottery system and chain migration — two programs that hurt our economy and allow terrorists into our country,” the spokesman said.

“Like other nations that have merit-based immigration, President Trump is fighting for permanent solutions that make our country stronger by welcoming those who can contribute to our society, grow our economy and assimilate into our great nation. He will always reject temporary, weak and dangerous stopgap measures that threaten the lives of hardworking Americans and undercut immigrants who seek a better life in the United States through a legal pathway.”

‘Trump’s comments go beyond the pale’

Commenting on Trump’s remarks, American political analyst and academic Dennis Etler said, “The president of the United States can no longer be considered by anyone of conscience as a paragon of ‘democratic values,’ as if he ever could. Not that any recent president has been, but Trump’s comments have gone beyond the pale.”

“The Statue of Liberty has emblazoned on its base the immortal words of Emma Lazarus, ‘Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!’” Etler, who has a decades-long interest in international affairs, told Press TV on Friday morning.

“It doesn’t say, ‘Go home you tired, you poor Aids infected filthy masses yearning to rape and murder. We don’t want the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed back to their shithole countries. I extinguish my lamp and slam shut the golden door!’” the scholar stated.

Source: Presstv

A human-rights lawyer representing English-speaking Cameroonian separatists said Thursday the group had been arrested by Nigeria’s secret service and were being held “illegally”, calling on the government to probe their disappearance. Femi Falana Femi Falana said Sisiku Ayuk Tabe, the president of the anglophone separatist movement in Cameroon, and nine others were detained at a hotel in Abuja last weekend. “Armed operatives of the State Security Service (Nigeria’s secret service) invaded the venue, abducted our clients and took them away to an undisclosed place,” he said. The intelligence agency has denied any arrests but rumours have swirled about the men’s possible whereabouts.

Nigeria’s foreign minister, Geoffrey Onyeama, on Wednesday told reporters he had met the security agencies and said questions remained about the identity of those detained. “I don’t know whether to call it an arrest or it could be people just called in for questioning or whatever. The investigations are ongoing,” he said after a cabinet meeting. Falana, however, called for his clients to be either released from “illegal custody” or charged within 48 hours, threatening court action “to secure the enforcement of their fundamental rights to personal liberty”. The leaders have not been in contact with their families or legal team, he said, adding he had “confirmed” the government in Yaoundé had asked Abuja to repatriate the men. “Our clients are not illegal immigrants in Nigeria as some of them have been granted political asylum by the federal government while others have valid permanent resident status in Nigeria,” said Falana.

On October 1, the breakaway Anglophone movement issued a symbolic declaration of independence for “Ambazonia”, claiming autonomy over English-speaking regions in the country. Cameroon’s President Paul Biya fiercely opposes secession and has met the agitation with a crackdown, including curfews, raids and restrictions on travel. Thousands of refugees have flooded the border into Nigeria to escape the violence. International monitors say at least 20 and possibly 40 people have been killed in clashes since late September, though the Biya government fiercely disputes the death toll. The Anglophone minority dates to the emergence of Cameroon in 1960-61, as France and Britain wound down their colonies in west Africa.

www.vanguardngr.com

Source: Reuters

The formation of the Interim Government prompted the Biya regime and its think tank to convene an important meeting that held in Mvomeka’a. President Biya wanted to know the General XX including some of the members of the Interim Government of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia. A senior Anglophone political elite approached Biya during the deliberations and suggested that Sisiku Ayuk Tabe, the Interim Head of State of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia be eliminated. The suggestion, coming from a Southern Cameroonian surprised even some CPDM hardliners. (See http://www.cameroonintelligencereport.com/nigeria-to-expel-the-interim-president-of-the-federal-republic-of-ambazonia/)

Yaoundé decided to put the Nigerian ambassador Lawan Abba Gashagar under pressure. To be sure, the Nigerian High Commissioner to Cameroon was either responding to questions coming from the Minister-Secretary General at the Presidency or meeting the Minister for External Relations over the activities of the Interim Government in Nigeria. Etoudi at some point requested that the Nigerian Immigration Service, NIS, should arrest and repatriate President Ayuk Tabe from Nigeria to Cameroon to stand trial. In a correspondence to President Buhari via Minister Rene Sadi, President Biya politely accused the Buhari administration of aiding the Interim Government of the Federal Republic of Amabzonia.

Biya maintained that a Nigerian interest group was assisting the Ambazonian leader to travel out of the country to Europe and America extensively. President Buhari sent a letter to Biya stating that the Federal Republic of Nigeria has no intention of supporting Southern Cameroonians. The Nigerian ambassador handed over the Buhari letter and issued a statement to that effect in Yaoundé.

Yaoundé has never trusted Abuja and so it secretly staged a military operation deep inside Nigerian territory that attracted wide condemnation from the outspoken governor of the Cross River State of Nigeria.  The Biya regime denied the cross border raids and stepped up the pressure on Ambassador Lawan Abba. The Mvomeka’a meeting had an inner caucus that resolved to assassinate President Ayuk Tabe including at least four Ambazonia cabinet ministers. Anglophone Secret Service officers were dispatched to join the thousands of Ambazonian refugees in Nigeria and 10 of them who are originally from the Manyu County deceived the Interim Government that they had actually defected from the Cameroon army.

President Ayuk Tabe gave standing instructions that the 10 so-called former soldiers of La Republique be properly auditioned before any integration into the secretariat for defense. This instruction was never followed. 4 among the ten knew that if Sisiku Ayuk Tabe was eliminated, a Manyu son will be appointed Prime Minister and Head of Government. Little did they know that from the very first day they introduced themselves as soldiers who had defected, the Nigerian Secret Service kept them under severe surveillance.

The 4 moved to other parts of Nigeria and had access to intelligence information on the activities of the Interim Government. They could afford 4 and 5 star hotels in Lagos and Abuja and had planned to kill the Interim President and members of the Governing Council in Abuja. The 4 reportedly entered Abuja and disappeared from the Nigerian security radar. Our sources in Nigeria say, the Nigerian Secret Service, the DSS were in that area where the Nera Hotels is located but were not on their normal ongoing show of force. Immediately Sisiku Ayuk Tabe and his top aides entered the hotel, the DSS drove in and staged the arrest. Further efforts to establish contact with the Ambazonia leaders have remained unsuccessful. As it stands now, we can confirm that the leadership of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia is in protective custody.  The DSS Buhari-led operation was principally targeted at securing the president and his cabinet.

The arrest is yielding the desired result to the liberation struggle as it has attracted the US, the French and the British governments. The Nigerian DSS has launched a manhunt for the 4 Cameroon government security agents.

The world now knows that the Biya administration has practically abandoned its call for dialogue with Southern Cameroonians in search of a brute route to eliminate the Ambazonian leader.  The situation is very tense at the moment in Southern Cameroons as death threats are being issued to Nigerian citizens. None of the so-called Anglophone political elites have demanded the withdrawal of troops from the territory as their presence is raising the level of tension that already exists in the country.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

Voter registration is underway in Cameroon ahead of nationwide elections later this year, however the electoral body is encountering both voter apathy and challenges due to insecurity in some parts of the country.

The staff of Cameroon elections management body ELECAM move from shop to shop at the busy Mfoundi market in Yaounde convincing potential voters to have their names registered on electoral lists.

A man registers for the elections in Bafoussam, Cameroon, Jan. 5, 2018.

Business lady Winifred Bwei, 34, decides not to sign up.

“Last election year [2013], I went to vote,” she explained. “I saw that somebody had already voted. I saw my name that somebody had already voted [as me] and I was not the one and political parties are complaining that elections are always rigged by the ruling government so I don’t think my voting would change anything.”

Cameroon plans to hold local council, parliamentary and presidential elections starting in September. If held separately, the polls could continue into October.

Few see much suspense as President Paul Biya seeks re-election. He is one of Africa’s longest ruling heads of state. The ruling party has controlled parliament and most local councils for decades.

ELECAM officials, who are appointed by the president, have dismissed allegations of rigging as unfounded.

Besides the voter apathy, election workers are struggling with insecurity in several parts of the country.

Cameroon is currently experiencing tensions in its two English-speaking regions where separatists have declared independence for a new state they call Ambazonia. The yearlong crisis has led to bouts of violent unrest.

FILE – Demonstrators carry banners as they take part in a march voicing their opposition to independence or more autonomy for the anglophone regions, in Douala, Cameroon, Oct. 1, 2017.

Voter registration has been suspended in some places like Manyu Division in southwestern Cameroon where there have been regular clashes between the military and armed separatists.

Meanwhile, the central African state also continues to battle Boko Haram in its Far North region. The suicide bombings that re-intensified in mid-2017 have abated, but many people are yet to return home.

As of November 30, the U.N. Refugee Agency reports a total of 240,000 internally displaced people in Cameroon, nearly all of them in the Far North.

FILE- Cameroonian internally displaced queue at a camp in Kolofata, in the extreme north of Cameroon, for a food distribution provided by the International Red Cross Committee (ICR) on Feb. 22, 2017.

Paulin Djorwe, official of the opposition political party the Movement for the Defense of the Republic, says the Boko Haram conflict has left people unable to register to vote.

He says many potential voters are unable to acquire national identity cards because police identification stations in some border zones were closed due to Boko Haram terrorism. He says if the elections management body ELECAM and the government want many more people of voting age to register, they should reopen the identification offices.

ELECAM says it can only move into conflict zones in the north and some villages and towns in the anglophone regions to begin voter registration once the military declares those areas safe.

FILE – This photo taken June 17, 2014 shows Cameroonian soldiers standing next to pick up trucks with mounted heavy artillery in Mora, northern Cameroon.

The electoral body aims to register 10 million from the estimated 12 million people in the country aged 20 and above and eligible to vote. So far, 6.5 million voters have registered.

Abdoulaye Babale, head of ELECAM, says they will intensity their efforts.

“We are developing a new strategy,” he said. “In rural areas, generally people take their time. We are going to have caravans informing them long in advance and then we implicate the traditional rulers and the civil society to help us because time is against us. In major cities, we also have our caravans and [we will] multiply our stations in order to catch as many voters as possible.”

No date, or dates, for the polls have been set. Voter registration is scheduled to end the day President Paul Biya makes that announcement. The president can postpone the elections if calm does not return to hotspots.

Source: VOA