Brazilian iron ore miner Vale SA told prosecutors in the state of Minas Gerais that a dam is at risk of rupturing at its Gongo Soco mine, about 40 miles from where its Brumadinho dam collapsed, killing more than 230 people.

According to a document published on Thursday, prosecutors said Vale is predicting the dam in the city of Barao de Cocais may collapse next week if the current rate of movement in the embankment of the mine pit close to the dam is maintained.

The warning underlines ongoing concern about the stability of dams in Brazil’s mining heartland of Minas Gerais in the aftermath of the Brumadinho accident, which itself came less than four years after another deadly dam collapse at a joint venture between Vale and BHP Group.

Vale said in a late afternoon statement it remained unclear whether the slippage in the embankment would actually trigger a collapse of the nearby Sul Superior dam, but said it was raising its level of alert and readiness for such an extreme case.

Earlier this week, Vale had identified movement close to the mine, which has not been active since 2016, the prosecutors said. About 500 people seen at risk from a collapse of the dam have been evacuated from their homes since February under orders from mining regulator ANM.

The dam holds 6 million cubic meters of mining waste, roughly half the amount that was released when the Brumadinho tailings dam burst in late January, burying nearby buildings including a company cafeteria and a bed and breakfast.

“If the movement of the northern embankment of the mine pit continues at the same pace, the rupture may happen between May 19 and May 25, which could cause liquefaction of the south dam,” the prosecutor’s document said.

Liquefaction, in which a dam’s barrier gets weakened as it turns to water, has been pegged as a likely cause of the Brumadinho collapse. Like Brumadinho, the dam at Gongo Soco has an upstream structure, known as the cheapest and least stable type of tailings dam design.

Vale shares fell 3.2% on Thursday, accelerating their drop after the reports on the potential dam burst. Prosecutors ordered Vale to issue urgent warnings about the risks to the local population.

Authorities in Brumadinho are still recovering bodies from the collapse of the Vale tailings dam there.

(Source: Reuters)

UNHCR has called for urgent support for Cameroon’s displaced as violence in the north and south-west regions continues to force thousands to flee.

Violent clashes between Cameroon’s military and armed separatists have displaced some 437,000 within the country’s borders and forced about 35,000 like Agah to seek safety in Nigeria. The displaced, the majority of whom are women and children, are mostly from English-speaking areas. They face great hardship in both countries.

Having fled with very little, their presence in already impoverished host communities is straining food resources and already limited health, education, water and sanitation facilities in these areas.

UNHCR has launched an urgent appeal to increase support for displaced Cameroonians who have survived nearly two years of ongoing violence. But of the US$184 million required for UNHCR’s operations in Cameroon and Nigeria – including US$35.4 million needed urgently for critical life-saving assistance to newly displaced Cameroonians – just four per cent has been raised.

One of three refugee sites hosting Cameroonian refugees has doubled its capacity of 4,000 and currently hosts more than 7,000 refugees. The numbers have further increased as many refugees who previously lived in the host communities have relocated to the settlements since November.

UNHCR is working closely with the Nigerian government to register all new arrivals and provide basic assistance. This includes the harder to reach refugee population living in the host communities in over 47 villages along the border, who make up over 60 per cent of the refugee population.

Source: TVcnews

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres raised concerns Thursday that a concrete dome built last century to contain waste from atomic bomb tests is leaking radioactive material into the Pacific.

Speaking to students in Fiji, Guterres described the structure on Enewetak atoll in the Marshall Islands as “a kind of coffin” and said it was a legacy of Cold War-era nuclear tests in the Pacific

“The Pacific was victimised in the past as we all know,” he said, referring to nuclear explosions carried out by the United States and France in the region.

In the Marshalls, numerous islanders were forcibly evacuated from ancestral lands and resettled, while thousands more were exposed to radioactive fallout.

The island nation was ground zero for 67 American nuclear weapons tests from 1946-58 at Bikini and Enewetak atolls, when it was under US administration.

The tests included the 1954 “Bravo” hydrogen bomb, the most powerful ever detonated by the United States, about 1,000 times bigger than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

Guterres, who is touring the South Pacific to raise awareness of climate change issues, said Pacific islanders still needed help to deal with the fallout of the nuclear testing.

“The consequences of these have been quite dramatic, in relation to health, in relation to the poisoning of waters in some areas,” he said.

“I’ve just been with the President of the Marshall Islands (Hilda Heine), who is very worried because there is a risk of leaking of radioactive materials that are contained in a kind of coffin in the area.”

The “coffin” is a concrete dome, built in the late 1970s on Runit island, part of Enewetak atoll, as a dumping ground for waste from the nuclear tests.

Radioactive soil and ash from the explosions was tipped into a crater and capped with a concrete dome 45 centimetres (18 inches) thick.

However, it was only envisaged as a temporary fix and the bottom of the crater was never lined leading to fears the waste is leaching into the Pacific.

Cracks have also developed in the concrete after decades of exposure and there are concerns it could break apart if hit by a tropical cyclone.

Guterres did not directly address what should be done with the dome but said the Pacific’s nuclear history still needed to be addressed.

“A lot needs to be done in relation to the explosions that took place in French Polynesia and the Marshall Islands,” he said.

“This is in relation to the health consequences, the impact on communities and other aspects.

“Of course there are questions of compensation and mechanisms to allow these impacts to be minimised.”

AFP

According to the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) Cameroon has objected to another UN Security Council meeting on the worsening humanitarian crisis in the country.

The meeting is supposed to take critical decisions that are expected to change the course of events in the two English-speaking regions of the country.

The government’s objection is retarding the deployment of UN humanitarian staff in the country’s two English-speaking regions where a simple protest has turned into a full blown insurgency that has resulted in the death of thousands of Southern Cameroonians.

It should be pointed out that the Yaounde government has been frustrating the UN and has even barred human rights organizations from entering the country.

Last year, the International Crisis Group was banned from the country while staff of Human Rights Watch were turned back at the Douala International Airport.

The government has been indicted by human rights groups for gross human rights violations, especially as it has resorted to a scorch earth policy that has created huge hordes of refugees who are seeking safety in Nigeria, Equitorial Guinea and Gabon and over half a million internally displaced persons.

Over the last two years, army soldiers have been killing innocent citizens, raping women and burning down villages and towns in the firm belief that Southern Cameroonians can be intimidated into submission.

The current rebellion has significantly affected the country, with state-owned corporations such as CDC, PAMOL and others being put out of business.

The country’s lone oil refinery, located in the southwest region, is under threat as separatist fighters threaten to disrupt oil product in the region.

The economy of the two English-speaking regions has been brought to its knees and kidnappings, mostly carried out by government sponsored militia, have become a lucrative business in the regions.

Meanwhile, the country’s Prime Minister, Dion Ngute, has been visiting the two English-speaking regions to sell a peace plan designed by the government with the objective of ending a rebellion that has had the full support of the Southern Cameroons Diaspora.

With over 4 million Southern Cameroonians living a broad, the Yaounde government has been given a run for its money and the Diaspora is determined to break up the country so as to end the exploitation of the two English-speaking regions by the Yaounde government.

The government’s peace plan does not seem to attract any recognition and sympathy. Southern Cameroonians are determined to fight to the last person standing and the government’s exclusion of separatists from any dialogue on the crisis is a death sentence on the peace plan Mr. Dion Ngute is selling.

Southern Cameroonians are aware of the product the Prime Minister is selling, but they are not buying it, as it is tainted with trickery, deception and dishonesty.

The Prime Minister’s visit was made to coincide with the UN Security Council meeting held on May 13, 2019 in New York to demonstrate that the government was doing its best to restore peace in the country.

While the Prime Minister is seeking to mobilize the population to support his peace plan, soldiers and government militia are still killing women, children and youths, making it hard for peace to return to the troubled regions.

However, if the Dion Peace Plan has to gain traction, the Prime Minister must seek to reach out to the Southern Cameroonian Diaspora that is using its vast resources to create a violent nightmare for the government.

The Yaounde government stands to gain if it works with the Southern Southern Cameroonian Diapora in a win-win partnership.

The Diaspora constitutes a fundamental component of the country’s population. Ignoring it or seeking to exclude it from any dialogue will be the government’s greatest undoing.

The Dion Peace Plan is doomed to failure as Southern Cameroonians do not trust the Yaounde government that is known to speak from both sides of its mouth.

The world has to step in to ensure Cameroon does not implode. A chaotic Cameroon is bad news to its neighbors, as pointed out by Equatorial Guinea on Monday during the UN Security Council session that urged the government to embrace the notion of inclusive dialogue that holds more hope than war.

By Linda Embi, Kingley Betek and Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai.

Kuwait has urged all parties in Cameroon to abide by international humanitarian law and international human rights law, to deal with any obstacles through dialogue, to exercise a sense of responsibility and constructive cooperation and to show goodwill in order to avoid any future repercussions affecting the security and stability of the region.

This came in a speech by Kuwait’s second secretary, Abdullah Ahmad Al-Sharah, at the Security Council session in the Arria formula on the humanitarian situation in Cameroon.

“The convening of this meeting in light of the escalating challenges facing the international arena, which threatens international peace and security, has become more complex than in the past, which requires the United Nations to use all its instruments to deal with crisis especially in its initial stages through dialogue and peaceful process,” he added.

He regretted emergence of humanitarian situation in the Central African region as a result of the high numbers of people in need of urgent humanitarian assistance, the increase in the number of refugees and the spread of epidemics such as cholera, Ebola and other diseases.

“The humanitarian situation in Cameroon is extremely difficult as nearly 4.3 million people are in need for humanitarian assistance, which represents an increase of 30 percent compared to last year, as well as the displacement of nearly 800,000 displaced people,” he said.

He pointed to the presence of many refugees from neighboring countries, which amounted to 380,000 refugees according to the UN reports, an increase of 82% compared to last year, given the challenges facing the region in general and Cameroon in particular, especially from the security challenge that warns of a humanitarian disaster unless it is dealt with urgently and develop solutions to address them.

Al-Sharah expressed Kuwait’s belief in preventive diplomacy, dialogue and mediation as important tools to avoid conflicts and to reduce human suffering and to avoid many losses, material and human damages.

“We share the Secretary-General’s deep concern over the deterioration of the security and humanitarian situation in the north-western and south-western regions of Cameroon and call on the Cameroonian government, in cooperation with regional and international organizations, to do more to address and improve the humanitarian situation in the interests of the Cameroonian people,” he said.

Source: menafn.com

Fellow Ambazonians, Comrades, and soldiers of the Revolution,

I stand before you today humbled and honored for the privilege to serve the Ambazonian People in my capacity as the Vice President. This privilege is not the property of a select elitist few. It is open to every Ambazonian willing to make the ultimate sacrifice that would lead to the Restoration of our Independence. So long as we stand for the truth, and have the firm conviction that God is on our side in our pursuit of this noble venture, no force under the heavens shall be strong enough to stop our collective efforts and joint sacrifices to get to Buea, and from the mountaintops echo the song :WE ARE FREE AT LAST!. WE ARE FREE ATLAST!

Fellow Ambazonians and esteemed comrades, this is not a time for long sweet-sounding speeches. BUT,…….

When we see the gory images and the lifeless bodies of our young men dumped on the streets and bushes,

When we hear the heartbreaking testimonies from our mothers and sisters who have been the victims of rape,

When we see hungry innocent children sleeping alongside their parents in forests and deprived from the joys of growing up naturally as we did, and deprived of an education,

When we hear about the reckless burning of villages and the destruction of our communities,

When we learn about the increasing number of our people who have fled their homes, and forced to live as Internally Displaced Persons and Refugees in foreign lands,

When we hear about these and other acts of barbaric inhumanity visited upon our people by the soldiers of La Republique du Cameroun,

We can’t just sit in the comfort of our homes, far away from all these sufferings and do nothing about it.

We must rally our human and material resources together as one great community toaddress this emergency. If we do not set aside our differences and take urgent measures to counter the evil that has befallen us, then we are doomed. This is not a time for speeches. This is a time for action.The future of our children and that of generations to come depends on the actions we must take moving forward. Today more than ever our very existence is under serious threats.

Despite our differences, we all agree that the urgency for us to act now grows bigger with each passing day.And we must take advantage of the opportunities now available to counter the one big problem facing us as a people. This is the time for each one of us to prove by our actions that we are Putting Ambazonia First.

Let me take this moment to address our young brothers and sisters and children of school going age. From the bottom of my heart, I want you to know that I am personally saddened by the acts of terrorism and all the horrors that you have been subjected to and are witnesses of on a daily basis. You have watched helplessly as the licensed thugs from the French Cameroun Military set fire on your homes, killed your loved ones, maimed others and looted your communities. You live in constant fear because of the insecurity now reigning in your neighborhoods. The mere presence of these men and women in uniform scares you to the extent that you no longer feel safe to go to your churches and to the hospitals. Even your Education, which is the key necessary to prepare you for a place in the society has been negatively affected by this senseless war that Mr. Biya imposed upon us.

Let me make this very clear to you and the international community: We are not fighting for a Free but uneducated Ambazonia. We want our children to go to school. We want our displaced citizens to return home to their communities. We want our future leaders to get the tools today that they will use to build a Prosperous, Egalitarian Ambazonia where there is Justice and the Rule of Law. We want to build a society where hard work is rewarded and where there is transparency in the managing of public offices. We want to provide you with schools and the resources that will orient every student towards a specific career path and produce the best results for the future of our nation. We want you to go to school, there is no doubt about that.

I understand the frustrations you feel because your parents have chosen to keep you home and alive instead of sending you to into the deathtraps called classrooms.

Trust me, this has been a very difficult decision for your parents to make. We want our children back in the Classrooms where they belong. We understand the great feelings of loss you experience everyday you spend out of school, seeking safety in the forests with your parents.

Yes, we want you back in school. But it is sad to note that the same schools which used to be safe havens for you to study at eight hours a day have now been transformed into military barracks by the Cameroun Military. It is the same classrooms that the Cameroun Military is using as its staging grounds to train and unleash terror into our communities.

I want to pay a special tribute to our Restoration Forces and Patriots who have continued to resist the destructive French Cameroun Military and defend our neighborhoods from their rapacious activities. Because of your valiant actions we have come this far in our Restoration quest, and you have renewed our hope that with just a little support, you shall soon push out the enemy and liberate our homeland. To our fallen heroes, I want to assure your families that you shall be well remembered for your sacrifices. May you rest in glory in our memories. We shall continue the fight from where you stopped and free the land for which you sacrificed your lives for.

I salute you all for your selfless service especially as none of us can ever measure or repay the sacrifices you are making for the homeland. No one is paying you for the job you have volunteered to do at the risk of your lives. I want to assure you that with effect from today, my number one commitment shall be to enable you get access to the best resources available to defend our communities responsibly. You must always remember that the communities you protect are your first line of defense against the enemy. Therefore, you have a great responsibility and the honorable duty to protect them. The Ambazonian Restoration Forces shall not descend into the same gutters of thuggery like the Cameroun military has done. I enjoin you to treat every civilian with honor and respect. Remember that you and the Civilian populations are all victims of the French Cameroun Military Genocide Machinery.

Till date, over there are over 4.5 million of our people who have been severely affected as a result of this crisis. Your homes and entire villages in over 250 locations have been razed to the ground by the French Cameroun Army. Evidence of your sufferings can be seen in places like Lipenja-Barombi, KwaKwa, Bafut, Mbot,  Muyenge, Azih,  Ashong, Meluf, Njikwa, Tombel, Djottin, Tadu, Wum. This military has only one mission: Kill our people and chase away the survivors from our ancestral lands.

My dear brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers and all of those in the bushes. It pains our hearts to accept the reality that just yesterday you were all Free to go about your business and families in total peace. But today you have abandoned everything and become refugees not by your own choice but as a result of this terror that Mr. Biya and his government have unleashed across our towns and villages.

My thoughts go out to all of you in the different refugee camps in refugee camps inAkwa-Ibom, Cross River, Benue and Taraba state, the Ogoga Refugee Campand other locations all over in Nigeria. I want to assure you that we shall do everything to coordinate with our partners to resolve the food crisis you are facing. We shall not relent our efforts to get you the help you need.

I want to commend the courage of our leaders in jail for your true demonstration of patriotism and love for Ambazonia.  I extend warmest greetings of encouragement to the thousands of Prisoners of Conscience who are being illegally detained in unknown jails. Stay strong. We shall not abandon.

My Fellow Southern Cameroons,

In the backdrop of the scenario painted above, I want us to remember that I am stepping up to my new responsibility at a very critical juncture of our Revolution. I am taking up leadershipat a time when our boat is sailing through rocky waters, very high tides and unfriendly waves. With the indiscriminate killings of our people, the divisions amongst us, the scandals and dishonesty plaguing the Revolution, we must agree we are going through very tough times indeed.

While I do not intend to make any excuses of these previous shortcomings, I summon the courage in all of us. Together we shall weather this storm by eradicating that virus of dishonesty from our midst.

Dishonesty has no respect for the sacrifices our people have made to ensure that we have a place called home. At this critical time of our separation from our captors, we part ways with habits picked up from Colonial Cameroun. We promised our people a change for the better, not change of dishonest players. Dishonesty threatens the very foundational idea of the vision of Ambazonia where hard work is rewarded, merit is appreciated, and transparency is embraced. Dishonesty from leadership threatens trust from the people and reduces productivity.

If leadership is not honest and accountable, we shall never have a flourishing Ambazonia when we get to Buea. In fulfilling this promise to our people, we must demonstrate honesty in all our actions.

Following the events of the last 12 months, you have made requests and demands of things you want to see a change in. From the hundreds of messages and phone calls we have listened to all your requests, keep them coming. Here are some of the things we will start working on right away.

We will ensure we create stronger institutions that are independent, with checks and balances putting the people and Ambazonia first:

We will ensure that accountability is a watchword starting with leadership. To get the best out of your leaders they must report regularly to our institutions of government and must be held accountable to get the very best revolutionary service out of them at all times:

You requested a process in leadership, we shall start by putting the constitution for review in the public domain so that the final constitution becomes a product of your dreams and aspirations:

It is our hope that together we will build strong democratic institutions that no one man is above it.  President Sisiku often says, no one man is bigger than this revolution. Some of you may say “We are in a revolution and who cares about stronger institutions?”, to me, that is a false narrative we must not entertain.  We must put Ambazonia first.

One other major task before us is the case involving the alleged mismanagement of your meagre resources:  My team and I shall follow up on what went wrong and how can we correct it. We shall getback what we can into the Revolutionary mill. However, we shall try not to be distracted by this from our main goals.

The finance department is a key pillar stone in our struggle, and we cannot stay aloof while our people suffer in want.We must be honest with the struggle and then with ourselves. It is a new dawn and its Ambazonia first.

I understand the enormity of the task and understand that we cannot achieve all of this in a day, a week or a month. This is all work in progress, and we must begin from somewhere. At this stage, it is collective work and we all must play our part in getting it right this time for our people.

Dear people, we must plan and have goals. Failing to plan is planning to fail, it does not matter the circumstances we face.

To this effect, I will be consulting with various comrades in the next few days to fine-tune the strategy that would lead us into the next phase of the revolution. I believe that collectively we can win this fight and achieve the one common goal that we all share. I cannot promise you a timeline by which we would arrive Buea but I can tell you this with 100 percent certainty :  If we put our differences aside and set our eyes on the prize we would get there sooner than you can imagine.

We must set our differences aside and focus our strengths because together we are stronger. It does not matter the group you belong to. What matters is if you believe in our creed, the creed that “We the Ambazonians pledge our loyalty, the belief that one day we shall all live in plenty meeting our needs and our children shall be like the stars above”.

Fellow, Ambalanders, the time has come to cut the umbilical cord of disunity and work as countrymen and women whose ONLY allegiance is to the white and blue stripes enshrined by the 13 golden stars. That time is now, and I want you all to join me and make it real.

If there is one area, we need to make more efforts in that should be DIPLOMACY. Diplomacy is a tool in our toolbox that has not been used to our advantage. It works hand in hand self-defense. A major part of our diplomacy has ended on social media. This sort of ignorance sets us thousands of steps back. Henceforth, we shall no longer neglect the place of Diplomacy in our Revolution. We shall engage our diplomatic machinery and ensure that it is on a need to know basis.

We are always ready to dialogue and negotiations as we have always done. The other party French Cameroun isn’t ready for dialogue. French Cameroun thinks they have engaged dialogue by sending their Prime Minister with Peace Plants into our towns and cities. Brandishing a peace plant is not a condition for dialogue, it is sheer demonstration of their hypocrisy and an insult to our suffering people.

We saw PM Dion Ngute walking through our streets with the same peace plants that our people held on the 22nd of September 2017 and were massacred from helicopter gunships.

How can MrNgute be talking of peace in Bamenda while his soldiers are burning homes in the village of Mah and killing civilians in surrounding towns.?

This is my message to PM Dion Ngute: If you want us to take you seriously, thenlet your Government withdraw its troops from our towns and villages,  Let your government apologizing for the crimes it has committed against our citizens and let your government  release our Leaders and every prisoners of conscience now in your jails.

Moving forward, I call upon our communications team and online activists to go out there, get to work and challenge the dangers of a single story.

A single story about who we are and what we are has been erroneously sold to the international community by the enemy. We must take advantage of the technology at our disposal and start telling the world our TRUE STORY. The online activist must not measure their results by Facebook likes or views but by the response they get from the international community as a result of their proactive and informative activism.

On matters of self-defense, there is no one who doubts the urgency to step up the game. I want to commend the efforts of those who have been engaged in this area. Your efforts are well noted and commendable, but there is an urgent need to step it up.

To get something you never had one must be prepared do something they have never done. We must cross new frontiers and face the storm because our very existence depends on it. That is why in the coming days, I would be reaching out to all the different actors in the domain of self-defense, so that we can sit down and talk about putting Ambazonia first as one people, with one vision.

We must put an end to the second-class citizenship they stamped upon our faces like the mark of the wild beat:

Within 6 decades of subjugation, and relentless oppression,

They called us Biafrans:

They called us Anglo fools:

They called us enemies in the house:

They call us dogs:

They called us cockroaches:

They call us the 2 cubes of sugar in a basin of water:

These insults also have got to STOP. And only we can put an end to them.

Yesterday the United Nations Security Council had its first meeting on the Humanitarian Crisis connected to our struggle for the restoration of our independence.

My team and I followed the whole meeting and we noticed that none of the other countries there present called us any derogatory names.

However, I was dismayedthat the La Republique ambassador to the UN continued to address us as terrorists and all sorts of names forgetting that we are now fighting a war which the French neo-colonial regime in la Republique du Cameroun declared on us.

The lessons learnt are not new: We need to do more to bring to light the seriousness of our problems. We need to speak for ourselves at the center stage. It would be disastrous to let others speak for us. It must not be me; it could be someone from the SCNC, AGC, or SCYL. No matter who does the speaking, We must put Ambazonia First.

We are where we are today becausea new generation of activists led by Teachers, lawyers, Farmers and bike riders have taken our problem to a new level.

They were joint by Students, apprentices young and old at home who came together as one man and said: enough is enough. They went out with peace plants and chants of peaceful protest.

We owe deep gratitude to those who laid the foundation for all of this to happen the way we see it today. I am thinking of our veteran movements of the AAC 1, AAC 2, CAM, SCARM, SCNC, SCYL, SCAPO, and most recently the Consortium.

I equally acknowledge the work done by individuals and the newly formed pressure groups. Your work is as equally as important, and it is time for us all to help tie the same bundle together for our people. This is about the people in our communities and we must make sure it remains about them and their aspirations to express their rights to self-determination as enshrined in international law.

And while we have lost thousands of innocent souls at the mercy of the occupying forces of the Cameroon republic, we know that those innocent souls are looking up to us to vindicate their memories. We owe it to them, to their families hiding in the forests, living in the streets in different communities as IDPs, our sisters and brothers who are refugees and our diaspora community on exile.

My fellow comrades,

There is no one who is ignorant about what is before us. The international community now understands that we are determined to reach the mountain top.  We know those amongst us who have fabricated their own truth to believe, in but do not despair, we shall overcome someday.

Some still hope that we shall be part of French Cameroun one day. The time shall come for us to negotiate our terms of separation. But those negotiations shall only happen in the presence of international third-party mediators and in the presence of all our leaders from jail and on neutral territory.

We shall never sit down to negotiate when we still have our comrades in the jail cells of la Republique du Cameroun or with their military roaming our communities making it impossible for our people’s lives to return to normalcy.

Dear comrades, my team and I, submit ourselves to be your servants and ask you to uphold your revolutionary responsibilities that require you to help us reach our destination.

Above all you have demanded results and we shall do our best to deliver. The struggle is all about you and less about me, we are all in this together. We are putting Ambazonia First. It is total Independence or Resistance forever.

Short Live the Struggle,

God bless you,

God bless Southern Cameroons, Ambazonia

As the UN Security Council holds a belated session about Cameroon, albeit an informal one with no expected outcome and notably not co-sponsored by veto holding colonial power France, hypocrisy and cover up of the UN’s failure are evident.

The head of the UN, Antonio Guterres, took a golden statue from Paul Biya in his last interaction, and cut a deal of silence for Biya’s support in the UN Budget Committee which Biya’s Ambassador Tommo Monthe chaired.

The UK’s Liam Fox bragged about UK-based New Age’s hydro carbons deal with Biya, just as another example. Sycophant media which ignored than dismissed the killings now mechanically mis-report this “Arria formula” meeting, essentially to rehabilitate the remaining credibility of the UN and themselves, like Human Rights Watch which told Inner City Press Cameroon was not a top 90 problem to be included in HRW’s 2018 World Report.

Don’t believe the hype. In 2009, for example, after the UNSC belatedly held such sessions on Sri Lanka, the lack of outcome emboldened the Rajapaksas to go ahead and “finish off” the Tamils in what’s called the Bloodbath on the Beach. The UN system has not held anyone accountable; Guterres representative Singer was smiling with Mahinda Rajapaka this year. The only thing missing was a golden statute.

Will what Guterres accepted from Biya be seen, or even mentioned, in the May 13 meeting that Inner City Press for reporting on it cannot even enter to cover in person, banned from entering the UN for the 313th day by Guterres, with similar inaction by the UNSC members?

After Paul Biya who has ruled Cameroon for 36 years on January 28 had his opponent Maurice Kamto arrested, Inner City Press again asked UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres and his spokesmen for their comment and action, if any. This came after Guterres had Inner City Press roughed up on 3 July 2018 after it interviewed Biya’s Ambassador about the two men’s Budget Committee deals and banned from the UN since – Guterres even tried to get Inner City Press banned from the Park East Synagogue, here, which was denied / dodged by his spokesman Stephane Dujarric, who put up then took down a podcast in which he brags about his “mutually assured destruction” relationship with journalists, here.

Nor has Inner City Press’ September 2018 Freedom of Information Act request, here, been responded to. From the request: “On behalf of Inner City Press and in my personal capacity as its United Nations bureau chief, Matthew Russell Lee, this is a request pursuant to the federal Freedom of Information Act, 5 U.S.C. § 552 for the following information: 1) most pressingly, for the report on human rights abuse by the Cameroon military and of the US’ knowledge thereof, on information and belief headed by Brig. Gen. Timothy McAteer and concluded in November 2017; 2) any and all other records in your possession concerning abuses by the Cameroon security forces, including but not limited to in the North-West and South-West regions, from January 1, 2017 to the date of your response to this request.  This request, particularly (1) above which can and should be treated separately, should be afforded expedited treatment. Inner City Press is reporting on abuses in Cameroon, including with the knowledge of the US – and why there has been no UN Security Council meeting on Cameroon. The US is for this month the president of the US Security Council and this request should be fully responded to in that time frame, including any necessary appeal.”  Not a single document yet.We will have more on this.

Culled from Inner Press

The United Nations Security Council has called for an inclusive dialogue as a means of ending the conflict that has been raging in Cameroon for three years.

Speaker after speaker at the UN headquarters in New York called for a regional and international response that will help end the hostilities that have been playing out in the two English speaking regions of the country.

Security council members hold that sub-regional and regional organizations should be empowered to help Cameroon overcome this challenge that is really threatening the continent and creating refugees that are mounting pressure on neighboring countries. Even Equatorial Guinea urged Cameroon to look at the root cause of the conflict, adding that the issue could be properly addressed through inclusive dialogue and negotiations.

While all the other countries that got represented on the Security Council said the situation in Cameroon was worrisome and could pose a real threat to the sub-region and continent, the Cameroon ambassador to the UN argued that the government was in control of things and was capable of addressing the issues with the support of its partners . He added that the country was dealing with terrorists and secessionists, adding that the government understood the country more than anybody else. He produced a litany of complaints, adding that some Security Council members had come to the session with a hidden agenda of destabilizing the country.

He added that some countries also had plans to obtain contracts for their NGOs, stressing that the government had delivered assistance to refugees and internally displaced persons in various parts of the two English-speaking regions. The ambassador’s body language and argument spoke to the desperation of the Yaounde government that is under enormous international pressure.

He argued that dialogue was going on in the country, pointing to the Prime Minister’s visit to the North West region and his planned visit to the South West region as evidence of government efforts at fostering dialogue. He also said that the Prime Minister had visited the leader of the opposition in Cameroon, John Fru Ndi, who shared a meal with the Prime Minister during the latter’s visit to the North West region. From every indication, the Prime Minister’s visit was planned to coincide with the Security Council’s session on Cameroon for the world to see that the government was bending over backwards to seeking a lasting solution to the conflict.

A political power couple – mayor and deputy mayor of a wealthy town west of Paris – go on trial Monday on suspicion of hiding more than 13 million euros of ill-gotten assets, including two luxury villas, from the French state.

A Paris court will spend six weeks wading into the financial morass – shell companies in Panama and the Seychelles, bank accounts in Lichtenstein and Singapore, and Swiss trustees and loyal front men – that investigators say the couple used to hide over 13 million euros in assets.

The investigation into Patrick and Isabelle Balkany Les Républicains mayor and deputy mayor of Levallois-Perret, a wealthy town west of Paris began in 2013 after another corruption investigation into a former political ally turned up evidence of the couple’s financial manoeuvres

Two luxury properties are central to the investigation. 

The first, the Pamplemousse villa on the Caribbean island of Saint Martin, was acquired by a Swiss trust in 1997. The couple initially denied owning the property, but Isabelle Balkany, 71, has now acknowledged that she bought it with an undeclared inheritance.

The second property, the Dar Gyucy Villa in Marrakech, is held by a Moroccan trust operated by Panamean company Hayridge, which is in the name of the couple’s right-hand man, Jean-Pierre Aubry.

The Balkanys denied that they are the real owners despite their regular visits. But they were found to be the “sole beneficiaries” of the home, where investigators found bathrobes embroidered with their initials.

The deception hid more than just a 2.75 million euro asset. Investigators found that the villa was paid for by Moroccan businessman Mohamed Al Jaber while he was negotiating a real-estate development deal in Levallois.

In another incident of corruption, a Panamean shell company paid 2.5 million euros to a Singaporean account. Investigators say the money is a commission paid to Patrick Balkany by a Belgian industrialist George Forrest for his help securing a mining contract in Namibia. Balkany denies the charges.

‘A network of offshore shell companies’

The Balkanys’ political lives have spanned four decades in their fiefdom in the Hauts-de-Seine, west of Paris.

Friends and foes have described Patrick and Isabelle, 70 and 71, as two parts of a whole. He is “the actor on stage”, and she is “the director”; He is the “marketer”, and she is “the back office”; He “the legs” and she “the head”.

Born one year apart after the war, they married in 1976. He, the son of Hungarian Jewish immigrants gave theatre a go before joining the family textile business. She, born Isabelle Smadja, grew up in a family that made its fortune in rubber.

Together they launched a campaign for councilor-at-large in the Hauts-de-Seine and later for mayor of Levallois, which had been until their victory a communist enclave. He was elected at the same time Nicolas Sarkozy was elected mayor of neighboring Neuilly. Isabelle is godmother to Sarkozy’s son.

Patrick Balkany went on to serve simultaneously as a Les Républicains MP in the National Assembly.

But prosecutors say their criminal careers may be as long as their political ones.

While the trial will focus on the period from 2007 to 2014, investigators cooperated with European authorities to look much further back in the couple’s affairs, tracing bank accounts that migrated from Switzerland to Lichtenstein, Malta, and Singapore.

They were unable to trace all the assets, but judges say that Patrick Balkany was “the head of a network of offshore shell companies” put in place at the end of the 1980s (around the time he was first elected to the National Assembly).

Patrick Balkany admitted in 2016 that he had undeclared assets in Switzerland. He claims they are part of an inheritance.

They investigation also revealed that the couple spent significant sums of cash, including 87,000 euros paid to a travel agency.

The couple is accused jointly of fiscal fraud and “aggravated and habitual money laundering” and Patrick Balkany of “passive corruption” and “illegal taking of interest”.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)

The United Nations Security Council’s decision to hold an informal meeting on Cameroon on May 13, 2019 gives momentum to international efforts to address the human rights crisis in the country’s Anglophone regions.

“Security Council members should call on the government of Cameroon and leaders of armed separatist groups to end abuses against civilians in the Anglophone regions and hold those responsible for abuse accountable,” said Lewis Mudge, Central Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “This meeting is an opportunity to remind abusers that the world is watching.”

Since late 2016, deadly violence has gripped the Anglophone regions of Cameroon, claiming the lives of 1,800 people and forcing half a million to flee their homes. Among the most at-risk groups are people with disabilities and older people who have faced violent attacks, abandonment, forced displacement, and problems getting humanitarian assistance.

Government forces have killed scores of civilians, torched hundreds of homes, and used torture and incommunicado detention with near total impunity. Armed separatists have assaulted and kidnapped dozens of people, including students and teachers, amid increasing attacks and growing calls for secession of the North-West and South-West regions.

Since late April, Human Rights Watch has documented more abuses, including killings and burning of homes.

On April 19, a stray bullet fired by soldiers killed a 72-year-old woman in her house in Mamfe, South-West region. Her son told Human Rights Watch that soldiers raided the neighborhood and started shooting indiscriminately: “Everyone fled, but my mother was too old to run. As she was near the window, a bullet went through and hit her on the right side of the chest. She died on the way to the hospital.”

On April 23, armed separatists killed Adam Assana, a gendarme, in Muyuka, South-West region. His body was found decapitated and dismembered the following day along the Muyuka-Kumba road. A local resident told Human Rights Watch: “He was not on duty. His car was stopped an ‘Amba’ [separatist] checkpoint. When he was identified as a gendarme, he was kidnapped and killed. The separatists had pierced his mouth with a wooden stick.”

On April 25, violence erupted in Bamenda, North-West region, after armed separatists dropped a human head, allegedly belonging to a soldier, at the Hospital Roundabout. Security forces responded by shooting along Commercial Avenue, forcing people to flee. A social worker from Bamenda told Human Rights Watch: “We heard gunshots by the soldiers from all angles. We had to lie on the floor for hours.” Accounts from a dozen residents and videos show that soldiers broke into deserted shops.

On April 27, soldiers from the Rapid Intervention Battalion stormed a health center in Wum, North-West region, looking for wounded separatists and beat some of the medical staff. A female nurse who was hit on her head and jaw said: “As they didn’t find any boys [separatists] they started beating us. I was hit so bad that I could not eat or swallow.” The health center remained closed until May 9.

On April 28, armed separatists kidnapped a 42-year-old man in Sabongari, North-West region. Witnesses and residents told Human Rights Watch that the man had gone to the separatists’ camp l4 kilometers from Sabongari to negotiate the release of a traditional chief who had been abducted. “He went there and was taken hostage instead, while the chief was released,” a resident said. The man managed to escape on May 8.

On April 30, soldiers killed a 16-year-old boy in Kikaikelaki village, North-West region. Three witnesses said that the security forces entered the village with military vehicles, including at least three armored cars, and started to shoot indiscriminately, causing people to run away.

Three witnesses and two family members told Human Rights Watch that soldiers shot him in the leg as he tried to flee, then executed him at a nearby roundabout. “They first shot him in the leg and then carried him to their vehicle,” one resident said. “They dropped him at the Tsenla roundabout and killed him with a bullet in the head. We buried him the same day at the Presbyterian church.”

Security forces also burned down and looted 11 homes in Kikaikelaki. A man whose home was torched told Human Rights Watch: “When the military came, I hid for safety. I watched them steal gallons of fuel from a store and set my entire compound on fire. All I had is gone.”

The recent violence is part of an increase in attacks on civilians since the beginning of 2019. Further human rights violations are likely if the government does not rein in its forces and armed separatist leaders do not give clear instructions to their fighters to stop abuse, Human Rights Watch said.

The informal Security Council meeting comes after months of international condemnation of the violence unfolding in the Anglophone regions, including by the UN high commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet.

In the follow-up to this meeting, the UN Security Council should make Cameroon a formal item on its agenda and press authorities to investigate members of the security forces alleged to have carried out killings and destruction of property and prosecute those responsible. It should also publicly announce to armed separatist groups that their leaders will be held responsible for serious crimes committed by their fighters.

The council should consider imposing targeted sanctions against high-level people from both sides who bear responsibility for serious abuses.

The Cameroon government denied a Human Rights Watch researcher entry to the country on April 12, two days after Human Rights Watch published a short report on a deadly attack by soldiers, gendarmes, and members of the Rapid Intervention Battalion on a village in the North-West region. Bachelet visited Cameroon last week and raised the lack of access for both international and national human rights activists and humanitarian agencies.

“Cameroon’s move to block a human rights researcher and observers shows its determination to conceal its brutality,” Mudge said. “The UN Security Council should encourage the country to allow access to international human rights organizations and cooperate with them.”

Source: Human Rights Watch