Heavy fighting between Cameroon’s army and separatist rebels killed at least 10 people, the two sides said on Wednesday, in the deadliest clash since President Paul Biya won a seventh term earlier this week.

The conflict between Anglophone separatists who want to create an independent state called Ambazonia and government forces has killed hundreds since last year and emerged as Biya’s greatest security problem in nearly four decades in power.

Threats by the separatists disrupted voting in Cameroon’s two Anglophone regions during the Oct. 7 election, keeping turnout to 5 percent in the Northwest and 16 percent in the Southwest.

Cameroon government spokesman Issa Tchiroma Bakary told Reuters the army killed about 30 separatists in fighting early on Tuesday morning near the northwestern town of Ndu and freed 16 hostages held by the rebels.

One government soldier was killed in the fighting, he added. Cho Ayaba, head of the Ambazonian Defense Force, one of the main Anglophone secessionist groups, disputed Tchiroma’s death toll. He said seven rebel fighters were killed when the army sacked one of their camps, and three army soldiers also died.

“For the past two months, the regime has attacked our camps,” Ayaba said. “We lost seven and a couple of others were wounded.”

Cameroon’s linguistic divide harks back to the end of World War One, when the League of Nations divided the former German colony of Kamerun between the allied French and British victors.

Separatist militia launched an insurrection last year against the predominantly Francophone central government after authorities violently repressed peaceful protests against perceived marginalization of English speakers.

The army has burned villages and killed unarmed civilians, residents have told Reuters, forcing thousands to flee to French-speaking regions or neighboring Nigeria. Biya won the election with 71 percent of the vote, extending his 36-year-rule, the second-longest of any African leader.

Source: Reuters

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Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said on Wednesday that Saudi Arabia would not have murdered prominent journalist Jamal Khashoggi without American protection, according to the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA).

US President Donald Trump said on Tuesday Saudi authorities staged the “worst cover-up ever” in the killing of Khashoggi in Turkey this month, as Washington vowed to revoke the visas of some of those believed to be responsible.

“No one would imagine that in today’s world and a new century that we would witness such an organised murder and a system would plan out such a heinous murder,” Rouhani said, according to IRNA.

“I don’t think that a country would dare commit such a crime without the protection of America.”

Khashoggi’s death in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2 has triggered global outrage.

Saudi Arabia initially denied knowledge of Khashoggi’s fate before saying on Saturday he was killed in a fight in the consulate, an account met with skepticism from several Western governments.

Iran and Saudi Arabia are regional rivals and have supported opposing sides in the conflicts in Syria and Yemen and different political factions in Iraq and Lebanon.

U.S. protection has allowed Saudi Arabia to carry out bombings against civilians in Yemen’s war, Rouhani said, according to IRNA.

“If there was no American protection, would the people of Yemen still have faced the same brutal bombing?” Rouhani said.

Rouhani also called on Turkey’s government to conduct an impartial investigation into Khashoggi’s “unprecedented” murder.

Separately, Rouhani said that Iran would “defeat” new American sanctions targeting its oil sector, according to the IRIB news agency.

Washington plans to impose the sanctions from November 4 with the aim of stopping Iran’s involvement in conflicts in Syria and Iraq, and bringing Tehran to the negotiating table over its ballistic missile programme.

(REUTERS)

The Interim Government of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia says more than 4000 Southern Cameroons civilians have lost their lives ever since President Biya launched a war purportedly fighting what the Francophone regime in Yaounde painted as “separatist terrorists”.

The Ambazonian Interim Government made the revelation during a meeting with the renowned Prof PLO Lumumba in the USA. Acting President Ikome Sako observed that there were 2450 Southern Cameroonians under the age of 18 among the fatalities in addition to female victims.

French Cameroun helicopter raids in the Lebialem County including Belo, Weh, Batibo and Oku also resulted in the injury of hundreds of civilians, some of whom suffered permanent disabilities. Cameroon government sources, requesting not to be named, told Cameroon Concord News Group reporters on Thursday that the death toll from separate Cameroon military assaults conducted by Beti-Ewondo troops to force Southern Cameroonians to participate in the presidential polls had reached 105.

Our sources said attacks that targeted villages in Manyu, Menchum, Boyo,  Kupe Muanenguba and Mezam on Election Day left at least 40 civilians, including women and children, dead and many more wounded.

12 civilians including a Roman Catholic Seminarian were also killed and tens of others injured when the Francophone dominated army pounded on Roman Catholic medical establishments in the Northern Zone of Ambazonia. Separately, at least 9 civilians were killed and many more wounded in Besongabang, Nchang and Eyumojock Sub constituency in Manyu.

Cameroon government forces have been conducting raids against Southern Cameroons civilians in Tombel and Bangem and also in Bafut. The United Nations and the International Crisis Group have repeatedly accused the Biya Francophone regime of targeting and killing civilians. Yaounde has also been largely incapable of achieving its declared goal of destroying the Southern Cameroons resistance and quest for independence.

By Chi Prudence Asong with files from Asu Vera Eyere and Sama Ernest

A French Cameroun judge whose name we are withholding on Friday last week had a secret meeting with President Paul Biya at the Unity Palace in Yaounde. The meeting took place after that of the members of the so-called Constitutional Council who left the State House with huge envelopes.

The outcome of the meeting is still unknown as there was no communication between the judge and our Unity Palace source. The judge was in the Presidential Villa to take instructions on how to manage the trial of the Interim President of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia, Sisiku Julius Ayuk Tabe.

Biya had requested a delay to enable the staging of the presidential polls by ELECAM. This was not the first time the same judge would hold such a private meeting with President Biya in Etoudi. The duo met during the trial of Inoni Ephraim, Prof. Titus Edzoa and the release of Lord Justice Ayah Paul.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says Ottawa is ready to halt a $13 billion arms deal with Riyadh if it concludes the weapons have been misused.

“We strongly demand and expect that Canadian exports are used in a way that fully respects human rights,” Trudeau said in the Parliament on Monday.

“We have frozen export permits before when we had concerns about their potential misuse and we will not hesitate to do so again,” he added.

Canada has been exporting arms to Saudi Arabia based on a 2014 contract, which is worth up to $13 billion. The contact, won by the Canadian unit of US weapons maker General Dynamics Corp, allows Canada to supply Saudis with light-armored vehicles.

Trudeau’s comments on halting the huge arms deal came amid increasing pressure to punish Riyadh for the killing of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.

The Canadian PM condemned the journalist’s death and said Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland had been talking to allies to discuss the next steps.

Back on Saturday, Freeland had noted that the Saudi explanations on the death of Khashoggi at its consulate in Istanbul lacked credibility and consistency.

“There are very important questions about the entire relationship with Saudi Arabia that need to be asked,” she told reporters on Monday.

The Khashoggi case has fanned the flames of a dispute between Saudi Arabia and Canada, which escalated to new levels after Riyadh abruptly cut ties with Ottawa over its criticism of the Saudi crackdown on dissent.

The dispute broke out in August after the Canadian Embassy in Riyadh tweeted that it was “gravely concerned” over a spike in the arrests of human rights campaigners in the kingdom, including gender rights activist Samar Badawi, and called on “Saudi authorities to immediately release them and all other peaceful #humanrights activists.”

Following the move, Saudi Arabia expelled the Canadian ambassador and recalled its envoy after severing business ties with Ottawa over claims of interference in its internal affairs.

Culled from Presstv

The Republic of Cameroon has a brand new Head of State. He is the 85 year old President Paul Biya who has ruled the country for 36 years.

There are scenes of celebration across French Cameroun and many Francophones are happy to have the ailing Chief Executive as their new Head of State.

It should be recalled that the President-Elect did not campaign but has won a landslide. On behalf of the Cameroon Concord News and the Cameroon Intelligence Report, we of the Cameroon Concord News Group wish him well and may he continue to guide his country towards the disaster that the people admire.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

Preparations are on the way in Yaoundé to declare 85 years old dictator Paul Biya as the winner of the October 7^th election that took place in La Republique du Cameroun. Even by his own high standards of election rigging, this year’s poll was the most dramatic and by far his most effective election mugging. Today the 22nd of October 2018, there’ll be a theatrical public ceremony in Yaoundé by the Constitutional Council to proclaim his triumph. Cameroon Concord News Group can confirm without any fear of ambiguity that the canopies and other bits and pieces that would be used during this state formality have been ordered and preparations are almost complete. On Friday, the regiment responsible for getting all the ingredients ready for the ritual confiscated the phones of all those working in Etoudi palace.

‘All the legal representations that were made by the opposition parties over the last week challenging the legitimacy of the results of the election were applauded by the old despot’. He welcomed these representations so the world could see that there is a proper free and fair electoral system in the country. Behind the scenes, we were reliably informed that he remained in constant conversation with the main players in the Constitutional Council giving the so-called judges standing instructions on what to do. Our source confirmed that members of the Constitutional Council paid regular visits to the elderly autocrat to receive directives.

Our correspondent in Yaoundé who is also very experience in intelligence gathering hinted that the frail dictator has received absolute assurance from the military that he has their loyalty. Over the last few weeks, Yaounde recorded some under-the-table talk that the military will step in and take power in a coup d’état. These tensions, were real but after many meetings and hush-hush deals it was called off. We gathered from a senior military official that the army had contemplated taking over last week and Biya was genuinely apprehensive but the internal squabbling among the many tribes represented in the army made it impossible for them to agree a deal. ‘The old canny fox stepped in with bags of dollars and bought their loyalty’ our source added.

Whilst infrastructures, institutions and public services in the country continue to dilapidate, Paul Biya who has ruled the nation with an iron fist for thirty-six years is prepared to be sworn in to start another seven year term at the top. Cameroon is one of the poorest nations in the world and Biya has presided over public corruption and embezzlement at a scale never seen since Mobutu Seseko of Zaire. With Boka Haram destabilising the north of the country, the Anglophone zones have declared independence from French Cameroun and created the Federal Republic of Ambazonia. The world is watching curiously what solutions the 85 year old will offer to bring his poor and crisis-filled country under control.

By Asu Vera Eyere

Cameroon’s two major cities were tense on Sunday and riot police were on the streets as security forces try to prevent protests before the results of the country’s controversial presidential election are released.

Dozens of riot police, some armed with machine guns, surrounded the activist and politician Kah Walla’s house on Sunday afternoon, preventing her from leaving to attend a peaceful demonstration planned in the centre of Douala, the economic capital.

The election results are due to be released on Monday morning, and are widely expected to show a resounding victory for Paul Biya, the country’s octogenarian president who put himself forward for a seventh term. The protest was billed as a march “to say goodbye to Biya” who, in his 36th year as president, spends a significant amount of his time on holiday in Geneva.

The opposition has said there was widespread fraud and voter intimidation in the 7 October election, and rejected the results early on despite the fact that they had not yet been released. Legal attempts to have the election rerun have failed.

Walla told the German public broadcaster Deutsche Welle last week that she was “bent on ousting the Biya regime”, and that the ballot box had been proven not to be a solution.

Anglophone rebels, who have been fighting for secession from the francophone majority in a spiralling conflict, boycotted the election and many English-speakers were unable to vote. Others who had fled to French-speaking regions faced raids and intimidation from the authorities.

Riot police were also posted to major streets and roundabouts in Douala and the capital, Yaoundé, on Sunday afternoon. Many internet users complained that they were unable to access Facebook and WhatsApp because they had been blocked.

A Reuters journalist, Josiane Kouagheu, was arrested while trying to cover the protests, according to Angela Quintal from the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Culled from The Guardian

A new UN report says armed men from opposition forces in South Sudan abducted women and girls, as young as 12 years, for commanders to take them as “wives”.

The report said those who were chosen – most of them still being held captive – were repeatedly being raped and abused by other military figures.

The report, the latest by the UN and others that have described civilians being raped, shot, hung, tortured and burned, estimated that 900 people were kidnapped and 24,000 displaced between April and August.

South Sudan, the youngest country in Africa, has been gripped by a bloody civil war since December 2013, when President Salva Kiir accused his former deputy Riek Machar and current rebel leader of plotting a coup.

The latest report, which is conducted based on victim and witness accounts, provides new details on abduction of women and girls by opposition forces.

It explains that women and girls were paraded and lined up for commanders to choose as “wives.”

The report has documented attacks on at least 28 villages, a settlement of internally displaced people and a refugee camp, during which the militants carried out serious abuses of international human rights and humanitarian law.

The head of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said most of the abducted civilians are still being held captive. Michelle Bachelet called on the armed opposition Sudan People’s Liberation Army in-Opposition (SPLA-IO) to “immediately release them, first and foremost the children.”

“As part of the revitalized peace process, it is also essential that the Government of South Sudan acts to hold the perpetrators of the abuses and violations detailed in this report to account,” she added.

They also abducted young men and boys, forcing them to be fighters, according to the report.

The surge in violence and abuses, according to the report, occurred despite the latest UN peace deal that returned Machar once again to his post as deputy to the president.

The human rights division of the UN peacekeeping mission in the country has identified three opposition commanders “who allegedly had effective command and control of the forces committing these abuses, which may amount to war crimes,” it said.

South Sudan is also the world’s most dangerous country for aid workers. A researcher in the Africa division of Human Rights Watch, Nyagoah Pur, described the abuses to the Associated Press as “horrendous.”

Pur said that the abuses reported by the UN “stress the devastating impact that the continued impunity by forces has had on civilians, especially women and girls.”

She also called for the speedy establishment of a long-promised hybrid court in the country to prosecute abuses.

South Sudan plunged into civil war two years after it gained independence from Sudan in July 2011. The brutal conflict has left nearly 400,000 people dead and millions of others displaced, a report said last month.

Source: Presstv

Rumors of a coup d’etat are rife among military personnel in Yaounde after the Constitutional Council completed its job and it is obvious that Mr. Biya will be declared the winner of the October 7 presidential poll. A source close to the military headquarters has indicated that a group of Beti officers and politicians are coming up with a plan B just in case Cameroonians kick Mr. Biya out of power.

The source hinted that some four Beti army generals and some politicians, including the Minister of Higher Education, Jacques Fame Ndongo and Edgard Alain Mebe Ngo’o had been meeting secretly to plan a coup in the event that Mr. Biya yielded to the demands of the people. Their objective is to ensure that power does not leave their region, especially as Mr. Biya is showing signs of fragility and is capable of yielding to international pressure.

Our source who elected anonymity said if the coup succeeded, power would be handed to former Defense Minister Edgard Alain Mebe Ngo’o for him to protect all those who had served under Mr. Biya. Our source added that Mr. Fame Ndongo and his group have already imported arms, using a parallel means to ensure other Cameroonians are kept in the dark.

It is also rumored that the arms found in Foumban and Bangante were part of the Fame Ndongo plot. The source stressed that some Betis wanted to see the country sink into chaos as this would prove that after Biya, there could only be chaos which they want to exploit to hang on to power.

The October 7 presidential poll seems to be bad news to the country. Ever since Prof. Kamto declared that he had won the election, the country has been on edge. Things came to a head when the Constitutional Council on Friday rejected all claims by the opposition that the election had been rigged in favor of the incumbent.  From every indication, Mr. Biya will be announced on Monday as the winner of the poll and that will extend his stay in power by seven years.

It should be recalled that Mr. Biya has been in power for 36 years after taking over power in 1982. While arrangements for his swearing-in are ongoing, the opposition, for its part, is mobilizing the population to ensure the people’s vote is protected.

It is gradually emerging that the hearings at the constitutional Council were simply part of scheme designed by the ruling crime syndicate do deceive the population and the international community. Even before the hearings wound up, an agenda for the proclamation of results had been designed and guests invited for the event had received their invitations about three days ago.

It should be recalled that all the submissions and pleas of the opposition had been rejected and from there, it was clear that the Constitutional Council was determined to declare Paul Biya the winner of the election, though he had not campaigned and so many irregularities had been pointed out by lawyers and eyewitnesses.

Cameroon seems to be heading for tough times. After 36 years in power, Mr. Biya might leave his country in total chaos as the population seeks ways of unseating the sit-tight dictator. The international news must take a second look at Cameroon which is the economic engine of the region. Any chaos in the country might throw the entire sub-region into a tailspin.

By Kingsley Betek