World

8, August 2018

Revealed: Biya re-engaged Washington lobbying firm Patton Boggs to counter the Interim Government ⁰

As the Cameroon government of 36 year President Paul Biya slaughters civilians in the Anglophone regions as well as in the North, it has re-engaged Washington lobbying firm Patton Boggs, on a retainer of $100,000 per quarters plus expenses, documents show. This means that the July 11 meeting with Cameroonian ministers bragged about by this month’s UN Security Council president, Karen Pierce of the UK, was actually in connection with a lobbying trip stage managed by Patton Boggs.

The Southern Cameroons crisis that has given the country a bad name is gradually getting into a critical phase. The country’s minister of territorial administration is not displaying the maturity leadership imposes on people. He is still talking tough and this is hurting any chances for peace.

If talking tough could address many issues, the Southern Cameroons crisis that has given the country a very bad name, could have been addressed. As the situation deteriorates, it will be wise for both parties to keep it low. Tough language has never really resolved any issue, but people like Atanga Nji are yet to understand that. Words are like bullets. Once they are out of the mouth, they cannot be recalled and they have the potential to ruin any efforts at bringing back peace to a people.

Atanga Nji displayed this primitive tendency a few days ago while receiving some Fako chiefs who had been released by Southern Cameroonian fighters after protracted negotiations. For Atanga Nji, the country’s territorial administration minister, who received the chiefs in Yaounde, he used the occasion to provoke Southern Cameroonian fighters.

He promised tracking down all the fighters who are in the jungle, adding that they and their progeny would be made to pay for their crimes if they did not come out of the jungle that has been serving as a five-star hotel to them and a green jail to all those arrested.

Mr. Atanga Nji who is not a respected minister in Cameroon, failed to understand that if it was easy to arrest the fighters in the thick equatorial jungle of the Southwest region, that would have been done a long time ago. His constant use of unfriendly language has unfortunately led to the killing of many uniformed officers.

Over the last few days, not less than 8 uniformed officers have been killed in Southern Cameroons and this has resulted in renewed violence, with the ordinary civilian suffering for something he knows nothing about.

Mr. Atanga Nji and his Yaounde masters should figure out that there will never be a total military solution to this issue. Southern Cameroonians are determined to stay the course, and only genuine and sincere dialogue will stop tempers from flaring.

Camcordnews Desk with files from Inner Press

7, August 2018

Five police killed in strife-torn Southern Cameroons ⁰

Five police have been killed in fresh violence in western Cameroon, where English-speaking separatists have declared an independent state, security sources and witnesses said on Monday.

Four gendarmes were killed in Esu, a village near the town of Wum in Northwest Region, when their unit came under attack on Sunday, a source close to the regional security services said.

“The attack happened in the morning – they were new recruits who were caught off-guard,” the source said, adding that there also were wounded.

The inhabitants of Esu fled after the attack, one of them said. “Many people were so afraid that they went off into the bush – others are trying to get to Bamenda,” the capital of Northwest Region, the source said.

In neighbouring Southwest Region, a police officer named Ekah Njume was killed on Sunday at his home in Mutengene, near the capital Buea, by unidentified assailants, witnesses and local press reports said on Monday.

The two regions are predominantly home to English-speakers, a minority comprising about a fifth of the 22 million people in Cameroon, a largely French-speaking West African state.

Years of resentment among anglophones at perceived discrimination fuelled demands in 2016 for a return to the country’s federal structure.

President Paul Biya, 85, took a hard line, ruling out any concessions. As the situation polarised, anglophone militants last October 1 made a symbolic declaration of independence that met with a government crackdown.

Since then, the two regions have been hit by almost daily acts of violence and retribution. Scores of police and troops have been killed, as well as more than 100 civilians, according to a government report in July.

According to UN data, the violence has caused more than 21 000 people to flee to neighbouring countries, while 160 000 have been internally displaced, with many reportedly hiding in forests. Cameroon’s large English-speaking minority is a legacy of the colonial period.

The former German colony was divided between Britain and France after World War I. In 1960, the French colony gained independence, becoming Cameroon. The following year, the British-ruled Southern Cameroons were amalgamated into it, giving rise to the Northwest and Southwest regions.

Source: AFP

6, August 2018

Japan marks 73rd anniversary of US nuclear bombing of Hiroshima ⁰

Japan is marking 73 years since the United States dropped a nuclear bomb on Hiroshima, with tens of thousands of people taking part in a solemn and emotional ceremony to honor the victims of the world’s first ever atomic attack.

On August 6, 1945, an American B-29 bomber Enola Gay dropped its atomic payload over the port city at 8:15 a.m. local time, ultimately killing 140,000 people.

The bombing utterly destroyed almost everything within 10 square kilometers in the downtown area.

Many died immediately while others succumbed to their injuries or radiation-related illnesses weeks, months, and years later.

Three days later, a second nuclear attack on Nagasaki killed another 70,000 people. Japan surrendered on August 15, and brought the hostilities of the World War II to an end. It was, however, a beginning to the nuclear age.

On Monday, tens of thousands of people gathered in Hiroshima, located about 700 hundred kilometers west of Tokyo, to mark the occasion, with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in attendance.

The participants – among them survivors and representatives from 80 countries — observed a minute’s silence at 8:15 a.m., the moment the Hiroshima tragedy occurred.

A mushroom cloud over the city of Hiroshima after the atomic bomb

Hiroshima Mayor Kazumi Matsui addressed the crowd at the ceremony, recounting the scene of the tragedy on the day of the bombing. He asked the audience to listen “as if you and your loved ones were there.”

“If the human family forgets history or stops confronting it, we could again commit a terrible error,” Matsui said.

Calling nuclear deterrents and umbrellas “inherently unstable and extremely dangerous,” Matsui urged world leaders to negotiate in good faith to eliminate their atomic weapons.

He also called for the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, saying, “We in civil society fervently hope that the easing of tensions on the Korean Peninsula will proceed through peaceable dialogue.”

Matsui further urged the prime minister to help the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons — also known as the Nuclear Weapon Ban Treaty — take effect.

Doves fly over the Peace Memorial Park at 73rd anniversary of Hiroshima atomic attack, in the city on August 6, 2018. (Photo by Reuters)

Abe also addressed the crowd, repeating the vow to lead efforts for a nuclear-free world.

In order to promote cooperation for having a world free of nuclear arsenal, Abe said, world leaders must understand “the reality of the tragedy of nuclear attacks.”

United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres, who also attended the event, in turn, warned about rising tensions between nuclear-armed states, saying “Nuclear arsenals are being modernized and, in some cases, expanded.”

“What occurred in Hiroshima on 6 August 1945 cannot and must not ever happen again,” he said.

Japan, now a US ally, falls under the protection of America’s nuclear umbrella and has so far refused to sign the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which was adopted in July 2017.

Source: Presstv

4, August 2018

U.S. Prepares to Pullout Troops From Cameroon ⁰

Hundreds of American troops in Africa would be reassigned and the number of Special Operations missions on the continent would be wound down under plans submitted by a top military commander, a response to the Trump administration’s strategy to increasingly focus on threats from China and Russia.

Defense Department officials said they expected most of the troop cuts and scaled-back missions to come from Central and West Africa, where Special Operations missions have focused on training African militaries to combat the growing threat from extremist Islamist militant groups.

The plan by Gen. Thomas D. Waldhauser, the leader of United States Africa Command, follows an ambush in Niger last fall that killed four American soldiers and an attack in southwestern Somalia that killed another in June.

In an interview with The New York Times, General Waldhauser said his plan would help streamline the military’s ability to combat threats around the world — but not retreat from Africa.

“We’re not walking away,” General Waldhauser said at his Germany headquarters last week, adding that the United States would still “reserve the right to unilaterally return” to protect American interests.

Africa has increasingly become an emerging battlefield for the United States in the fight against Islamist militant groups, including the Islamic State, Boko Haram and others across the continent that have sworn loyalty to Al Qaeda.

None of the offshoots of those groups have directly attacked the United States from Africa. But the Pentagon has for years sought to train local forces to deal with Islamist extremists in Africa — in part to distance the United States from any threats brewing on the continent.

Carter F. Ham, a retired Army general who once led Africa Command, said he agreed “in principle” with paying more attention to Russia and China — the notion at the heart of a national defense strategy unveiled in January by Defense Secretary Jim Mattis.

But, Mr. Ham said, “my concern in Africa is that with an already very modest presence and level of engagement, reducing that will lessen the likelihood for good outcomes across the continent.” Africa receives a small portion of Pentagon investment compared with Germany, South Korea and Japan, for instance.

General Waldhauser said Africa Command was the first to be asked to submit a drawdown plan, as The Times initially reported in June. But he said he expected other American combatant commands around the world to do the same under the defense strategy to better position the United States military against threats from Russia, China, Iran and North Korea.

The strategy represented a shift from fighting terrorism to countering state threats. When he announced it in January, Mr. Mattis declared that “we will continue to prosecute the campaign against terrorists, but great power competition — not terrorism — is now the primary focus of U.S. national security.”

The drawdown in Africa, General Waldhauser said, will include the departure of hundreds of Special Operations troops and their support forces. It will begin in places like Cameroon, where American war planners believe their efforts to train that country’s special operations forces have been largely successful. The United States currently has about 300 troops in Cameroon.

General Waldhauser said Cameroon’s security forces have improved to the point where they no longer need Americans to accompany them on missions.

“They can do it on their own,” he said. “That would be an example of a country where we have worked ourselves out of a job.”

A Defense Department official said that Nigerien forces are also considered to be improving to the point where they may soon not need American help.

Source: NYT

4, August 2018

Southern Cameroons refugees turn to low paid labour in Nigeria ⁰

Stella Obi wakes every morning in search of odd jobs in Agbokim Waterfalls village in southern Nigeria’s Cross River state.

With a hoe and a machete, the 34-year-old asks locals if they have any work for her on their farms.

She weeds or breaks cocoa pods.

“I get paid between 500 to 1000 naira ($2 to $4) a day,” she tells Al Jazeera as she works the soil in a small vegetable field. “I never tasted this kind of suffering when I was in my village in Cameroon.”

Obi, a mother of six, is among over 180, 000 Cameroonians who fled their homes following a violent crackdown by the Cameroonian government on Anglophone separatists who declared independence from the French-speaking majority on October 1.

More than 21,000 people have crossed the border to Nigeria, according to NGOs, though local emergency officials say the number could be higher, at up to 50,000.

Tensions rose in late 2016 with a strike by barristers and then teachers, both of whom were protesting against the use of French in schools and courts in Cameroon’s English-speaking northwest and southwest regions.

More protests followed in major cities in the regions, with local residents joining rallies.

Stella Obi earns a few dollars a day to weed a small vegetable farm to raise money to feed her six children [Linus Unah/Al Jazeera]

As calls for either integration or autonomy grew louder, the government stepped in with heavy-handed tactics.

Security forces were deployed to the regions; protests were met with violence, arrests and killings. Hundreds of homes were razed.

The Ambazonia Defence Forces and other rebel groups sprang up and fought back, and armed separatists kidnapped civil servants, torched government buildings, and killed soldiers.

We left everything behind and fled to the forest. My husband tried to go back and gather some things and he was killed.

Most Cameronian refugees settled in Cross River state, which has a border with southwest Cameroon.

In Agbokim Waterfalls village, Obi and thousands of refugees have little or no access to food, medicine, education, clothing, drinking water and sanitation facilities.

“We left everything behind and fled to the forest,” Obi says, beads of sweat gleaming on her forehead. “My husband [a cocoa buyer] tried to go back and gather some things and he was killed.”

The asylum seekers are mostly staying with host families. Some households raised money for rent after doing odd jobs.

The UNHCR has been supporting the refugees, but it is now struggling with a lack of funds.

“I am becoming frustrated here,” says Obi, who is now joined by two of her children at the farm. “We have only received [support] two times, and sometimes it does not get to all of us, [especially] the sick, old and blind.”

Turning twigs into teeth-cleaning sticks

Across the road, another asylum seeker, 43-year-old Janet Obi, clears shrubs growing beneath large maize stalks, working with so much force that she stops regularly to catch her breath.

She is angered by the government’s use of force on protests.

“My [nephew] was playing outside our home when he was shot by a soldier,” she recalls. “He was innocent, he did nothing wrong. Our people are being shot like animals; we are armless civilians.

“I came to this village with my two children and 21 relatives last year. I used to be a businesswoman dealing in cocoa and fashion wears. Now I am doing anything to survive.”

Janet emphasises the word anything.

Janet Obi, a businesswoman before the conflict started, now works on farms to feed her family [Linus Unah/Al Jazeera]

Some women and children work on building sites, carrying bricks and other materials to make enough money for food.

Others use their income to buy tree branches to make chew sticks – which are used in some parts of Africa to clean teeth – to sell.

Across Agbokim Waterfalls, it is common to see refugees chopping tree branches into twigs.

Most Cameroonian refugees in Agbokim make chew sticks to survive [Linus Unah/Al Jazeera]

At an unfinished apartment building in the village centre, Mary Obong and a group of nine children are loading piles of twigs into a 100kg sack.

“I have to make chew sticks to feed my seven children and two of my grandchildren who are staying with me,” Obong says, imploring the children to hurry.

Families hosting refugees give Obong the branches and pay her anything from 1,500 to 3,000 naira ($5 to $10) to fill up a bag. The process could last a week or a little less.

Mary Obong is one of thousands of refugees from Cameroon who have fled violence [Linus Unah/Al Jazeera]

After Francophone Cameroon secured independence in 1960, the UN facilitated a referendum that allowed regions under British mandate to either join Nigeria or the larger French-speaking Cameroon.

Southern Cameroon – the present-day northwest and southwest regions – joined the Republic of Cameroon, but a national referendum in 1972 changed Cameroon into a unitary state.

Current President Paul Biya, who came into office in 1982, changed the country’s name in 1984 to the Republic of Cameroon, the initial Francophone territory name.

A second yellow star on the green stripe of the flag was removed, with the government touting the move as a symbol of unity.

However, a group of five elderly Cameroonian refugees who spoke to Al Jazeera say the second star represented the Anglophone regions, and its removal showed that Cameroon was not “one” or “united”.

The bulk of Cameroon’s industrial output, including its only refinery, is in the [Anglophone] Southwest Region, a fact which may partly explain the central government’s urgency in moving to quell secessionist elements.

CHETA NWANZE, RESEARCHER AT SBM INTELLIGENCE

Cameroon has a population of nearly 24 million people. An estimated 20 percent live in the Anglophone regions.

Eight out of the country’s 10 administrative provinces are Francophone.

Many in the Anglophone community feel marginalised by the French-speaking government in Yaounde, citing a lack of political representation, job opportunities and resources and the imposition of French in schools, official documents and courts.

More than half of Cameroon’s gross domestic product (GDP) comes from the Anglophone regions, according to estimates.

“The bulk of Cameroon’s industrial output, including its only refinery, is in the [Anglophone] Southwest Region, a fact which may partly explain the central government’s urgency in moving to quell secessionist elements,” says Cheta Nwanze, head of research at Lagos-based geopolitical risk consultancy firm, SBM Intelligence.

“What it unintentionally accomplished, however, was to inflame the feeling of discontent and disillusionment among large sections of English-speaking Cameroonians, which has seen the ranks of the separatist fighters increase.”

Ntui Patrick Obi, a former Cameroonian policeman, says many refugees would not go back to live under Paul Biya’s rule again [Linus Unah/Al Jazeera]

Discontent is common among the refugees.

“Many resources [such as] crude oil, cocoa, palm oil, timber, rubber, and banana come from our side, but after taking them away they forget us and face the Francophone areas,” former Cameroonian policeman Ntui Patrick Obi, 78, tells Al Jazeera.

“Our children will finish school with all their knowledge and the books they know but there is no work,” says Helen Agbor, an 80-year-old refugee.

“Why would Paul Biya want us to remain in Cameroon? He couldn’t even give our children a broom to sweep the road to get money to eat. Some of them are becoming thieves because of no work. We will resist him until the end.”

Cameroonian refugees in Agbokim Waterfall village wait in the sweltering heat outside a centre to receive assistance [Linus Unah/Al Jazeera]

If President Biya, 85, extends his 35-year rule in upcoming elections, the crisis is expected to deepen, according to analysts.

“Cameroon sits at the crossroads of West and Central Africa, a strategically important position from a geopolitical standpoint,” says Nwanze, the researcher at SBM Intelligence.

“On all of its international boundaries – Boko Haram in Nigeria, ethnic militias in Chad and sectarian fighters in the Central African Republic – instability abounds. A further escalation of the violence into more open and defined conflict will have repercussions that extend beyond its borders.”

Back in Agbokim Waterfalls village, hundreds of refugees pour into an aid centre. More than 1,000 people wait outside, plastic bowls and cups in their hands.

They gather like this whenever food and other items come in from the Anglophone diaspora, or local people and churches.

Inside the centre, there are grains, vegetable oil, salt and tins of tomatoes.

Quarrels simmer over how to ration out the supply.

It is in moments such as this that Stella Obi, the widowed mother of six who works the vegetable fields, remembers home.

“Soldiers burned our homes, clothes, property, bags of cocoa – just everything, so what is the point of returning?” she asks.

“My children ask me ‘where is our father?’ every day.”

Cameroonian refugees gather at an aid centre in Agbokim Waterfalls village to collect food and other items [Linus Unah/Al Jazeera]

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA NEWS

4, August 2018

UN shocked over Nigerian asylum-seeker deaths in Cameroon ⁰

UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, is shocked to learn of the tragic death of six Nigerian asylum-seekers, among them three children, who were killed in a blast in the far north of Cameroon.

UNHCR has learnt that on 29 July, 12 asylum-seekers were being forcibly returned to Banki, Nigeria, in a Cameroonian army truck which drove over an improvised explosive device that exploded. Six Cameroonian soldiers and six other asylum-seekers were also injured in the incident, which took place in Homaka, Mayo Sava Division.

“This tragic incident is a disappointing testament of continuing forced returns (refoulements) of refugees and asylum-seekers from Cameroon, despite numerous appeals by UNHCR to the Government of Cameroon to respect its obligations,” said Valentin Tapsoba, Director of UNHCR’s Regional Bureau for Africa. “The forced return of refugees and asylum-seekers is in violation of the principle of non-refoulement which constitutes the cornerstone of international refugee law to which the Cameroonian State is party.”

Over 800 Nigerian refugees and asylum-seekers in Cameroon have been forcibly returned to Nigeria since the beginning of 2018. UNHCR once again calls upon the government of Cameroon to refrain from carrying out further forced returns of Nigerian refugees and asylum-seekers. It also reminds Cameroon of its obligations under international law relating to the protection of refugees and asylum-seekers and the commitments it made by signing the Tripartite Agreement for the voluntary repatriation of Nigerian refugees from Cameroon in March 2017. UNHCR reiterates its appeal to authorities to provide Nigerian refugees with unhindered access to asylum and stands ready to support Cameroon to ensure all individuals seeking safety have access to efficient screening, registration and documentation procedures.

Some 96,000 Nigerian refugees have sought safety in the Far North region of the country, with more than 8,000 new refugees registered since the beginning of 2018. Cameroon currently hosts more than 367,000 refugees and asylum- seekers.

Source: The UN

3, August 2018

Southern Cameroons War: IG condemns Biya-Ekema Patrick-led carnage ⁰

The Southern Cameroons Interim Government has strongly condemned recent killings by the Francophone army in Buea, Mamfe, Ekona, Ndop and Muea. A Cameroon government military attack ordered by defense minister Beti Assomo killed scores of people throughout Southern Cameroons. The Ambazonian Secretary of Communications, Hon. Chris Anu described the killings by French Cameroun troops as a continuation of French Cameroun’s horrifying genocide against the people of Southern Cameroons.

French Cameroun soldiers are slaughtering on a daily basis dozens of innocent Southern Cameroons citizens including several members of Igbo extraction from Nigeria who are part of the business community in Southern Cameroons by attacking civilian targets to make up for Yaoundé frustration and defeats on the battleground. Chief Barrister Charles Taku of the International Criminal Court says the killings in Southern Cameroons orchestrated by the Biya regime is a serious war crime.

The leadership of the Christian churches including the Holy Roman Catholic Church is maintaining a kind of silence of the lamb. However, the continuation of the atrocities of the Francophone army in the face of the silence of the international community has worryingly aggravated the situation in Southern Cameroonians.

The Francophone dominated army has been attacking Southern Cameroons towns and villages since 2017. The Southern Cameroons war has killed more than a thousand, and placed the country on the edge of outright civil war.

By Chi Prudence Asong

3, August 2018

Women and Children main victims of French Cameroun’s war on Southern Cameroons ⁰

A fact-finding mission under the direct supervision of Acting President Samuel Sako has revealed that French Cameroun’s ongoing military aggression against the people of Southern Cameroons has put hundreds of Ambazonian women and children at risk of death, starvation and disease both in the Cross River State in Nigeria and on ground zero.

The mission that recently concluded its work in both the Southern and Northern zones including the Federal Republic of Nigeria submitted a 54-page document to President Sako on Thursday the 2^nd of August 2018 stating that around 12,000 Southern Cameroonians – half of them women and children — are leaving the war-ravaged Southern Cameroons territory every day, bringing the total number of internally displaced Ambazonians to more than 187, 000.

The President Sako Commission also observed that the Southern Cameroons economy is in tatters and has greatly affected health and sanitation facilities throughout the Federal Republic of Ambazonia. The Interim Government (IG) is reportedly doing what they can to keep Southern Cameroonians alive but ultimately; their efforts are just a sticking plaster on a gaping wound.

85 year-old President Biya and several of French Cameroun allies, including the French government, launched a brutal war against the English speaking people of Southern Cameroons in an attempt to continue with the French Cameroun vicious policy of marginalization and exploitation of the Southern Cameroons territory and crush the popular Southern Cameroons revolution.

The Southern Cameroons territory has been under aerial and maritime siege by the Francophone dominated army. The blockade is preventing medicines and other critical commodities from reaching thousands of Ambazonians currently living in the bushes and in some rural areas.

The French Cameroun imposed war on Southern Cameroons has killed and injured thousands of Ambazonians. At least 36 were killed after a French Cameroun military helicopter hit a hospital inside the Nguti sub constituency. A round of fresh French Cameroun army onslaught left several Southern Cameroonians dead and many others injured in Batibo, Kumba, Belo, Mamfe, Wum, Bamenda, Muyuka, Bekora, Alou, Ndop and Azi.

The governor of Cross River State in Nigeria warned in a recent statement that his state no longer have the means to accommodate the huge influx of Southern Cameroonians and many of the Ambazonian refugees were struggling to find food, water and medicine.

A Roman Catholic priest was quoted as saying that President Biya and his French Cameroun political elites were waging a war of genocide against Southern Cameroons women and children as very few places are now safe for a Southern Cameroons child.

A UN delegation was refused access to the territory by the Biya Francophone regime. Elsewhere, the International Crisis Group was told to leave Cameroon or face severe consequences. The Ambazonian Interim Government has also warned of the risks that the war has posed against pregnant Southern Cameroons women and those living with HIV.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

3, August 2018

The Crocodile wins Zimbabwe presidential polls by 50.8% ⁰

Incumbent president Emmerson Mnangagwa has been announced as winner of Zimbabwe’s July 30 presidential elections. The septuagenarian polled 50.8% of votes as against 44.3% by his closest challenger Nelson Chamisa.

Final results

Chamisa: 2,147,437 – 44.3%
Mnangagwa: 2,460,463 – 50.8%

Key update:

With one Province left to be declared to have a final figure on the presidential race there is clearly a very close contest between the two front runners – President Emmerson Mnangagwa and Nelson Chamisa, the main opposition leader.

Nelson Chamisa’s overall tally stands at 1,921,714 whiles Mnangagwa has garnered 2,147,628 votes. Will the vote be entering a runoff?

The Mugabe factor: incidentally, Mashonaland West the outstanding province has a Mugabe factor – it is the former leader’s ancestral home. Could that play a factor in how this race ends?

So far, presidential results from 9 out of 10 provinces have been announced. Only 1 province outstanding. ZEC to announce Mashonaland West Province in an hour. The president will be declared later tonight.

Manicaland Province

Nelson Chamisa MDC Alliance = 296, 429
Emmerson Mnangagwa Zanu PF = 292, 938

Midlands Province

Nelson Chamisa MDC Alliance = 255, 059
Emmerson Mnangagwa Zanu PF = 350, 754

Mashonaland Central Province

Nelson Chamisa MDC Alliance = 97, 097
Emmerson Mnangagwa Zanu PF = 366, 785

Matabeleland North Province

Nelson Chamisa MDC Alliance = 137, 611
Emmerson Mnangagwa Zanu PF = 111, 452

Bulawayo Province

Nelson Chamisa MDC Alliance = 144, 107
Emmerson Mnangagwa Zanu PF = 60, 168

Matabeland South Province

Nelson Chamisa MDC Alliance = 90, 292
Emmerson Mnangagwa Zanu PF = 107, 008

Mashonaland East Province

Nelson Chamisa = 189, 024
Emmerson Mnangagwa = 334, 617

Masvingo Province

Nelson Chamisa = 171, 196 votes
Emmerson Mnangagwa = 319, 073 votes

Harare Metropolitan Province

Nelson Chamisa = 548, 889 votes
Emmerson Mnangagwa = 202, 710 votes

Zimbabwe elections chief, Priscilla Chigumba is set to release final results for the 2018 harmonized elections. She took the seat to announce the presidential polls but before the national anthem was sang.

Chigumba then asked all commissioners to make announcements that were outstanding before. A number of them took turns to announce National Assembly and local-level polls. The chairperson herself announced the list of chiefs elected as senators.

Announcements shall span across the ten provinces of the country. She notes that one region is outstanding. She starts with Harare Metropolitan Province where she is the officer in charge.

The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) finally started announcing presidential results on Thursday evening – within the five days constitutional period it had to declare results.

Mnangagwa run on the ticket of the Zanu-PF party and is now entitled to serve a constitutional term of five years with the option to seek re-election, if he wins.

The MDC Alliance led by 40-year-old lawyer Nelson Chamisa had severally insisted that it had won the presidential polls but that ZEC was holding on to the results because of a rigging agenda backed by government.

Opposition protests broke out on Wednesday afternoon after police failed to control protesters leading to an army intervention. Three people were reported to have died same day even though the figure has been revised to six as at Thursday.

The elections dubbed ‘harmonized elections’ were to elect the first post-Mugabe president, a new legislature and concillors. Zanu PF got an overwhelming parliamentary majority sweeping over 160 of the available 210 seats.

The use of violence by the army has roundly been condemned by observer groups and by international partners. Some western countries issued travel advisories for their citizens especially in the capital, Harare.

Source: African News

1, August 2018

UK diplomat says UN Security Council taking interest in the Southern Cameroons Crisis ⁰

The United Nations Security Council is keeping an eye and taking strong interest in the ongoing crisis in Southern Cameroons, according to the United Kingdom Ambassador and permanent representative, Karen Pierce.

According to the United Nations, the crisis has led to over 160 thousand persons internally displaced and over thirty thousand who have crossed to Nigeria as a result of the conflict have been officially registered as refugees.

The African Union like the United Nations has been criticised for not stepping in to solve the crisis but the British Ambassador to the UN says that could soon change.

“I spoke to a delegation of Cameroon Ministers at the UN on July 11. I made clear we were watching the situation closely,” Karen Pierce tweeted.

“We wanted to see more dialogue, less violence and no disproportionate military action. Although the issue has not yet come to the UNSC, there is lots of interest in New York,” she said.

The Government of Cameroon has since moved to announce a dubious so-called Emergency Humanitarian Assistance Plan to assist persons affected by the crisis especially the internally displaced. However, the fate of the refugees in Nigeria is still not clear.

Reported by Journal du Cameroun