News

27, September 2017

Senior Southern Cameroons environmentalist arrested in Mundemba County ⁰

Francophone security agents have arrested Nasako Besingi, the chairman of an NGO charged with protecting the environment. He was arrested on Monday in his office and CCN understands police officers reportedly ransacked the building in search of documents.

The arrest of the head of the NGO “Struggle to Economize the Future Environment” (Sefe) took place on Monday (September 25th) in Mudemba, capital of the Ndian County. There are several unofficial versions of the reasons for his arrest.

Initial information revealed that the environmentalist had distributed propaganda leaflets for the release of Esonno Wakemba, a demonstrator who has been detained since the Southern Cameroons uprising started 11 months ago.

Another hypothesis links the arrest of Nasako Bensigi to his positions on the activities of Herakles Farm, an agricultural firm that is weighed down by allegations of land grabbing and illegal logging.

In this context, Nasako Besingi was sentenced in January 2016 and November 2015 to heavy fines, and some say he has been defaulting payments associated to his prison sentences, for organizing rallies with local inhabitants deemed illegal.

By Rita Akana with files from Cameroon Info.Net

26, September 2017

Southern Cameroons Crisis: U.S. issues travel alert ⁰

The United States has issued a travel advisory to citizens in respect to Cameroon’s predominantly anglophone regions. The “Security Message” titled “Unrest in the Northwest and Southwest regions,” said there was the possibility of protests – some which could turn violent.

The statement read in part: “The U.S. Embassy in Yaounde informs U.S. citizens that demonstrations, some violent, occurred in Bamenda, Buea, Limbe, and elsewhere in the Northwest and Southwest regions on September 22, 2017.
The U.S. Embassy in Yaounde informs U.S. citizens that demonstrations, some violent, occurred in Bamenda, Buea, Limbe, and elsewhere in the Northwest and Southwest regions on September 22, 2017. “Further demonstrations are likely over the next two weeks. The U.S. Embassy has deferred all non-essential travel for U.S. Embassy personnel to these regions until October 3.”

The Embassy said citizens were advised to adjust travel plans accordingly and continually review their security settings. Thousands of demonstrators from the English-speaking regions late last week took to the streets chanting songs of independence and requesting the unconditional release of activists.
Long-standing complaints of political and economic discrimination spilled over the last year when lawyers and teachers called for reforms. In many parts of the English Speaking regions, protesters took down the national flag of Cameroon hoisting another referred to as the Ambazonia flag.

The protests were the largest and most widespread in months and came the day after a bomb suspected to have been planted by separatists wounded three policemen in Bamenda, capital of the Northwest region.
Cameroon’s current difficulties stem back to its pre-independence history when it was formed by combining a region that was colonized by the British with the larger region run by the French. Mean while Cameroonian authorities insist the unity of the State remains a fundamental and non-negotiable value enshrined in the constitution.

Source: Africanews

25, September 2017

Southern Cameroons Crisis: Kupe Muanenguba Chiefs to sign decree banishing Prof. Elvis Ngolle Ngole ⁰

Traditional rulers from the Great Kupe Muanenguba in Southern Cameroons are deliberating on whether to banish former Minister Elvis Ngolle Ngolle from his native constituency, Cameroon Concord News has learned from a well-placed source within the Bakossi Chiefs Conference. Our informant revealed that the university don has become an embarrassment to the people of Kupe Muanenguba.

One of the traditional rulers who spoke to our Meme correspondent but sued for anonymity said the chiefs were divided on the issue but have been under pressure from the Bakossi Diaspora community to take action against the Biya acolyte who has consistently demonstrated a frightful and unloving attitude towards the suffering peoples of Southern Cameroons.

The Bakossi monarchs in the state of Southern Cameroons have been agents of peace, progress, and prosperity in their respective domain and can no longer tolerate the uterrances of Prof. Elvis Ngolle Ngolle, former Minister of the Environment and Forest who is now being use by the Biya Francophone regime as a tool of disunity and destabilization.
The Chiefs are also expected to make public a warning to all prominent Kupe Muanenguba elites that anyone who fails to show genuine understanding of the current Southern Cameroons crisis stands the risk of having his title withdrawn.

One of the Bakossi rulers from the Tombel County was heard saying that, “Today, history is being made in Southern Cameroons and that light has come and darkness would not comprehend at all. The truth has surfaced and the right people have finally become leaders of Anglophone Cameroon not those who are TB Joshua’s tenants.”

By Sama Ernest, CCN

25, September 2017

Russian general killed in Syria ⁰

A Russian general has been killed by Daesh terrorists close to Syria’s eastern Dayr al-Zawr province.

According to a statement released by the Russian Defense Ministry on Sunday, Lieutenant-General Valery Asapov was killed after coming under Daesh mortar fire.

The statement added that Asapov, a senior military advisor in the country, was stationed at a Syrian command outpost aiding in the liberation of Dayr al-Zawr when he was killed.

“As a result of a sudden mortar shelling by Daesh militants, Lieutenant-General Valery Asapov was fatally wounded by an exploding shell,” read the statement.

In early September, the ministry announced the death of two more Russian servicemen in Daesh shelling in Syria. Together with Asapov, that brings the overall death toll of Russian troops in Syria to 37.

Last week, Moscow announced that the Syrian military had liberated more than 85 percent of the strategic eastern city of Dayr al-Zawr from Daesh terrorists.

The Syrian army’s liberation operation in Dayr al-Zawr is facing strong resistance and massive fire from areas where militant groups and US-backed forces are stationed.

Daesh overran large parts of Dayr al-Zawr province, including its oilfields, in mid-2014 as it seized swathes of land in Syria and neighboring Iraq.

By early 2015, the Takfiri terrorists were in control of some parts of Dayr al-Zawr and besieged the remaining parts, which were under government control.

The blockade was lifted in early September by Syrian government forces, which brought relief to tens of thousands of people trapped in the city. It is estimated that 100,000 people remain in the government-held parts of the city.

Source: Presstv

24, September 2017

Germany: Merkel wins 4th term in office ⁰

Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel has clinched a fourth term in office through general elections, while the hard-right AfD party has also won its first seats in parliament.

According to latest results from Sunday general elections, Merkel has won around 33 percent of the vote with her conservative Christian Union (CDU/CSU) bloc, AFP reported.

Merkel was followed by the Social Democrats and their candidate, Martin Schulz, who ended second by scoring about 20-21 percent of the vote. Schulz announced after elections that his party will serve as the opposition following Sunday’s general elections.

Exit polls also showed that in a surprising turn of events the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) has captured around 13 percent of the vote, which made it the country’s third biggest political party and enabled it to enter Germany’s parliament for the first time.

Martin Schulz, the leader of Germany’s Social Democratic (SPD) Party and candidate for chancellor, gives a speech during an electoral meeting on the eve of general elections, in Aachen, western Germany, on September 23, 2017. (Photo by AFP)

A recent poll, conducted by the INSA institute for the local Bild daily, showed sliding support for CDU by two percentage points to 34 percent, and the SPD, down by one point to 21 percent. The hard-right AfD rose by two percentage points to 13 percent.

The 63-year-old Merkel saw a decline in her approval ratings over the past two years, mainly due to a decision at the beginning of 2015 to allow hundreds of thousands of refugees into Germany. However, her success in controlling the refugee inflow and her message that the German economy needs to be rendered fit for the future by investing in digital technologies seem to have won hearts in the run-up to the parliamentary elections.

The AfD, a nationalist, anti-Islam party, has hugely capitalized on Merkel’s fall in several states.

24, September 2017

Explosion in Mali kills 3 UN soldiers from Bangladesh ⁰

Three United Nations soldiers from Bangladesh were killed by an explosive device that detonated as they were escorting a convoy in northern Mali on Sunday, the West African country’s peacekeeping mission and Bangladesh’s military said.

Attacks on peacekeepers in Mali, where extremist groups continue to operate in the vast desert in the north of the country, have made the UN mission there, MINUSMA, the organization’s deadliest.

Another five UN troops were seriously wounded in Sunday’s explosion, which occurred at around 7 a.m. (0700 GMT) on the main road between the towns of Anefis and Gao, MINUSMA said in a statement.

“Our thoughts go firstly to the families and loved ones. We pledge our complete support to them during this painful ordeal,” the head of MINUSMA, Koen Davidse, said. “The mission will use all means to ensure that justice is rendered.”

The UN did not immediately release the nationalities of the soldiers. But the Bangladesh military’s media department confirmed that three of its soldiers had died by an improvised explosive device during an encounter with militants, adding that four other Bangladeshi peacekeepers were injured in the attack.

West Africa’s arid Sahel region has in recent years become a breeding ground for militant groups — some linked to al-Qaeda and Daesh — that European countries, particularly France, fear could threaten Europe if left unchecked.

Militants of the CMFPR2 (La Coordination des mouvements et Front patriotique de resistance) take position to prevent the interim authorities to convene at the Regional Assembly in Gao on February 28, 2017. (Photo by AFP)

Despite a 2013 French-led military operation that drove back militants who had seized control of Mali’s north, the area remains home to groups that have staged assaults on high-profile targets in the capital Bamako, Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast.

MINUSMA, established in the wake of the French intervention, has struggled to quell the unrest.

The UN Security Council established a sanctions regime this month that allows the body to blacklist anyone who violates or obstructs a fragile 2015 peace deal signed by Mali’s government and separatist groups.

Anyone who attacks peacekeepers, hinders the delivery of aid, commits human rights abuses or recruits child soldiers could also face sanctions, including a global travel ban or asset freeze.

(Source: Reuters)

24, September 2017

Germany: General elections begin, Merkel’s party poised to win ⁰

People in Germany have started heading to the polls in national elections that are likely to see Angela Merkel winning a fourth term as chancellor and a right-wing party entering parliament for the first time in 60 years.

Polling stations opened across the European country at 08:00 local time (06:00 GMT) on Sunday and will be open until 18:00, with some 61.5 million people eligible to vote.

The German chancellor is seeking a fourth term and tries to retain her Christian Democratic (CDU) Party’s status as the largest group in the German national parliament, the Bundestag.

Merkel is pitted against Martin Schulz, who is the leader of the center-left Social Democrats (SPD) and a former president of the European Parliament.

Among other competing parties, the far-right and anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) appears set to win seats in the national parliament for the first time in 60 years and may even emerge as the country’s third-largest party.

The AfD, a nationalist, anti-Islam party, has hugely capitalized on Merkel’s fall in several states.

Source: Presstv

23, September 2017

Mass Arrests Happening in Mamfe County ⁰

French Cameroun police have arrested dozens of people in the Mamfe County late today. The Chairman of the Southern Cameroons Governing Council has signed off on these arrests and he isn’t playing around. Rumors indicate that the Francophone governor of the Buea Province gave the Manyu SDO permission to rough up those who were protesting.

23, September 2017

Buea: Francophone Governor says Southern Cameroonians are dogs ⁰

The Francophone governor of the Buea Province has described Southern Cameroons protesters as “dogs”. Bernard Okalia Bilai made the declaration on the microphone of the Cameroon Radio and Television,CRTV-radio yesterday September the 22nd. The Biya appointee also accused Southern Cameroons peaceful demonstrators of having attacked La Republique’s forces of law and order.

In a report broadcast Friday, September 22, 2017 at 5 pm on the National Post of the CRTV, Bernard Okalia Bilai opined that “Very early in the morning there were groups of people walking on the streets, going to public buildings to attack them, the offices of DOs, SDOs, the gendarmerie and police stations all came under attack. They tore up the flags of the Republic to hoist pieces of cloth that they brandished as flags of what!! I do not know. The security forces intervened and suffered a lot of violence, a lot of attacks by these assailants. ”

The so-called governor of the South West region warned elites and community leaders. “We will not continue to tolerate huge protest. If the dogs continue to go to the streets to bite, that is destroy, they will meet the security forces.”

By Eyong Johnson, CCN

23, September 2017

Dramatic moment Mayor Ekema force back angry Southern Cameroons protesters ⁰

The residence of CPDM Mayor Ekema Patrick came under attack from angry Southern Cameroons protesters yesterday Friday the 22nd of September 2017. The Southern Cameroonians vandalised his convoy of cars including his beautiful villa and the mayor caught here on camera with a rifle, reportedly shot and killed one of the demonstrators.

There are conflicting reports on the incident with some claiming Mayor Ekema Patrick opened fire only after his home was attacked. The Francophone Senior Divisional Officer for the Manyu County and the DO of Buea also killed two Southern Cameroonians in Mamfe and Buea counties.

After he was recently exposed as an academic fraud by an investigative commission led by Barrister Tambe Tiku, the Buea County mayor’s wealth has also come under Southern Cameroons scrutiny. Many are now questioning the source of the money he used in constructing the many villas he now owns and the fleet of expensive cars parked in his home mindful of the fact that he earns a net salary of 150,000fcfa a month.