Cameroon’s longtime president Paul Biya’s latest “private visit” to his usual retreat at the Intercontinental Hotel in Geneva has sparked more than its usual mix of political controversy and quiet embarrassment.

Over the last decade, Biya, 86, who has been in power since 1982, has made the top floor suites of the five-star luxury hotel into his home away from home spending months at a time even as his country has slowly descended into conflict from Boko Haram Islamic terrorists in the north of the country and an Anglophone-led insurgency in north- and southwest of the country. The knowledge of his presence there has long infuriated various sections of Cameroonians at home, particularly in the opposition, but also in the Cameroonian diaspora in Europe who have been protesting in larger and larger numbers with each Biya visit.

This past weekend Swiss police fired tear gas and water cannons at Cameroonian protesters who clashed with security at the hotel where dozens of Biya’s personal security agents and federal police have stayed on guard in- and outside.

Violent scenes outside Geneva hotel of Cameroon president

And even while Geneva has long been seen as a personal break for Biya, it has now become the venue for possible peace talks between the Anglophone and Francophone sides and mediated by Switzerland. And the arrival last week of Biya and his wife, Chantal, is now seen as problematic.

“Not helpful” is how one source close to the diplomatic process described the arrival of Biya just days before a second meeting between factions from the predominantly Anglophone regions was to take place in Saint Luc—some 200 kilometers to the east of Geneva. The International Crisis Group reports that some 1,850 people have been killed and more than half a million left homeless, as an armed separatist movement evolved in response to political and social tensions.

Switzerland’s foreign affairs ministry, together with the Geneva-based Center for Humanitarian Dialogue, are leading the mediation process aimed at putting an end to the deadly conflict which evolved after peaceful protests by English-speaking professionals to structural discrimination in October 2016. Groups in the two western regions of the country want the creation of an independent state called Ambazonia. President Biya has branded separatists as terrorists. Ebenezer Alwanga, chairman of the African People’s Liberation Movement, one of the main participants at the peace talks said that Biya’s repeated visits to Geneva “complicate” the peace talks, given he spends so much of his time here “rather than running the state he claims to be president of”.

Nfor Hanson Nchanji, a Geneva-based Cameroonian journalist emphasized that parties to the discussion need to communicate with their communities back home for talks to succeed.“The presence of Paul Biya in Switzerland has caused some Ambazonians to reconsider whether Switzerland may be the perfect mediator. But should they refuse the Swiss mediation…they will have nowhere to go.”

The Swiss mediated talks have been supported by United States, the European Union and the United Nations.

Meanwhile some Francophone opponents to Biya’s government, regretted that Maurice Kanto, a rival to Biya in the October 2018 presidential election, who won 14% of votes according to the Constitutional Council, was not included in the talks. The opposition accused the government of having rigged results. Doris Toyou, a Cameroonian lawyer living in Washington, who supports groups behind Saturday’s protest in Geneva, said Switzerland could not be trusted in talks.

It’s been reported Biya had spent at least 1,645 days abroad on private trips since 1982, with Geneva being his top destination. It estimated it costs Intercontinental Hotel around £40,000 ($50,000) a night for the president and his entourage. “How could Switzerland be trust-worthy in mediating the talks after the way the police treated protesters?” said Toyou.

Meanwhile, Jean Philippe Brandt of Geneva’s police explained that as protesters did not respect the agreed terms for protesting, and left an authorized area accorded for the demonstration, “The use of any accessory or armament was related possibly to the aggression by the protesters and to disobey instructions given by the police.”

The confrontation came just days after a Swiss journalist, Adrien Krause, who was covering Biya’s stay from in front of the Geneva hotel, was attacked. “It is very probable that they were security guards” associated to Biya.

 Since then six members of Biya’s security team have been convicted of assault on the journalist.

Culled from Quartz Africa

Declaration of a 24-Hour Unilateral Ceasefire from the Ambazonia Security Council (ASC) starting Midnight 2 July, 2019, to allow the visiting US Congressional Delegation safe and unfettered access to the sites of the crimes of the past 2 years.

The Ambazonia Security Council (ASC), and representatives of other ally Ambazonia community self defence groups fighting to end the occupation of our land by the French Neo-colonial regime in Cameroun, after consultation with our community leaders in an extraordinary meeting, do sign this declaration to commit to a 24-Hour Unilateral Ceasefire to go into effect on midnight today 2 July 2019.

We take this step as a good-faith response to the fact-finding tour of the ongoing conflict between our self-defence forces and the forces of the Cameroun regime which has been undertaken by United States Congresswoman Karen Bass, the Chair and leader of the Foreign Affairs and National Security Task Force of the Congressional Black Caucus, and her team. This decision is to ensure unfettered access to Rep. Bass’s team as they gather the facts on the ground to pave the way for a fast end to the killings and eventual resolution of the roots of the conflict.

We acknowledge the personal efforts of Rep. Bass to get the US Congress to pay attention to this war; stating with her H.Res.1111 of the 115th Congress, and now H.Res. 358 of the 116th Congress.

It is our fervent belief that the Congressional Black Caucus can live up to its credo of the “Conscience of the Congress,” as we saw it do in the battle against Apartheid in South Africa.

In taking this action, we also call others to action: 1. We call on the Cameroun authorities to do the same and declare a 24-hour unilateral ceasefire as a sign of their interest in finding a peaceful resolution to this conflict.

1. We call on the Cameroun government to allow humanitarian groups unlimited access to our territory as requested by the US, Sweden and other representatives to the UN Security Council at the past two briefings.
2. We call on Rep. Bass and her team to visit the sites where some of the most horrendous international crimes the world has seen in decades have taken place, including:

• The site in Bambui where Cameroun forces assassinated US Missionary Charles Wesco;

• Menka- Pinyin, were 29 youths were summarily executed in broad daylight at a hotel by Cameroun soldiers and to this day the regime is still to provide an explanation to the mourning families;

• Kwakwa, where Mami Appih Sarah, 96 years old, was burnt alive in her bed when Cameroun soldiers burnt down the village;

• Belo, where Cameroun soldiers murdered and beheaded Chiaba Samuel alias Sam Soya and photographed themselves doing the beheading and put it on social media;

• Mamfe, were Kenyan Missionary Cosmas Omboto Ondari was summarily executed in front of his congregation by Cameroun soldiers;

• Bali, where Cameroon soldiers summarily executed 20 students and burned their bodies on one occasion, and in another the teacher of CPC Bali College Ndeh Blaise was shot and killed in cold blood while his colleagues who tried to help him where shot and severely injured without cause;

• Batibo, where a family of 10 were all summarily executed by Cameroun soldiers;

• Mile 8 Mankon, Bamenda, where 126 homes were burnt to the ground by Cameroun soldiers;

• Kumba, where the General Hospital was burnt to the ground by Cameroon soldiers;

• Mbengwi were medical workers Nancy Azah and Njong Paddisco were summarily executed on their way from their farm by Cameroun soldiers at a barricade, sparking a general protest by medical workers in the North zone;

• Muyuka were 5 months old baby Martha Ngum, was shot point blank ten times on the head while asleep in her parents’ bedroom by Cameroun forces;

• Yaounde Central and Principal Prisons- Kondegui where 236 civilians are being held incommunicado without access to lawyers or families, under the pretense that they are being handled through the military court, which is a violation of international law by Cameroun and the list continues.

1. We call on Rep. Bass and her team to support US Senators Durbin, Cardin, Van Hollen and Kaine’s NDAA Amendment To Halt Security Assistance To Cameroun, and to initiate a similar amendment to related House bills in order to pressure the Cameroon regime with the imminent removal of aid.
2. We call on Rep. Bass and her team to give voice to and strongly decry the malicious targeting of our civilian population, which is pushing hundreds of thousands into a state of homelessness and exile. We are painfully aware of the suffering of our people, and know that shining the light on this situation is a necessary step to putting us on a path to a peaceful end of the occupation.

We also take this opportunity to highlight that we are ready and open to engage in honest peaceful negotiation with Cameroun facilitated by independent impartial non-participant third parties — which most definitely excludes France and the other neo-colonial French regimes that are using the French neo-colonial currency formerly known as the Colonies Françaises d’Afrique (CFA) Franc.

Our signature to this unilateral ceasefire declaration only commits us to non-offensive action during this 24-hour period, but we will hold to our positions and remain alert, aware Cameroon forces might try to exploit the ceasefire posture to ambush on our positions.

We hope this unilateral ceasefire is seen for what it could be: the first step on our path to end this conflict and build a new sub region based on the rule of international law.

Yours truly,
Dabney Yerima

Vice President

Federal Republic of Ambazonia

The United Nations Security Council, after more than two years of neglect, is finally giving some attention to Cameroon’s deteriorating human rights situation. The three African members of the global body – Côte d’Ivoire, South Africa and Equatorial Guinea – shouldn’t miss the chance to add Cameroon’s worsening crisis to the Council’s agenda.

Over the past three years, Cameroon has been embroiled in a cycle of civil protest, followed by government repression, and violence that threatens to escalate into an all-out human rights catastrophe. A wider conflict could destabilize an already volatile region – Cameroon, which has been waging a war against Boko Haram insurgents in its Far North region, borders the Central African Republic, Republic of Congo, Chad, Nigeria, Gabon and Equatorial Guinea.

Cameroon’s separatist crisis began in October 2016, when students, teachers and lawyers from the minority English-speaking regions took to the streets to demand greater recognition of their cultural and political rights. The ruthless response of the security forces, who killed and arbitrarily arrested peaceful protesters, as well as of the government, which banned civil society groups and shut down the internet, escalated the crisis.

Since then, numerous separatist groups have emerged and taken up arms calling for the independence of the Anglophone regions, which they call “Ambazonia.” These groups have killed, kidnapped, and tortured perceived opponents, while enforcing a boycott of education, which has kept children and their teachers out of school for over two years in the Northwest and Southwest regions.

The government has responded with violence, burning hundreds of homes, killing civilians, and detaining and torturing alleged separatists in a gendarme-run prison in the capital, Yaoundé. The crisis has displaced half a million Cameroonians, many of whom desperately need protection and humanitarian assistance.

As Cameroon has spiraled into violence, the African Union, the continent-wide body that aspires to promote “African Solutions to African Problems,” has refused to confront or acknowledge the problem.

The UN Security Council hasn’t done much better, failing to issue any statement about the serious human rights abuses by both the government forces and the armed separatists, or to warn both sides about the consequences.

There are signs, however, that the UN might take more robust action. Last month, the United States, with the support of Germany, the Dominican Republic and the United Kingdom, organized an informal session of the Security Council to help put the situation in Cameroon on its members’ radar.

This was a worthy effort, but the event was an informal side event and only focused on the humanitarian situation. Fierce resistance from the Council’s African members, wary of Western-led interventions on the continent, almost derailed the effort. The African Union’s permanent representative to the Security Council didn’t even attend the session.

Non-Western states uncomfortable about Western countries taking the lead on an African crisis should join forces to get Cameroon on the Council’s agenda. There is no better way to mobilize the fractious Security Council to address the crisis in Cameroon than for its African members to demonstrate leadership and demand vigorous action.

Equatorial Guinea is unlikely to rise to the challenge. As a country knee-deep in human rights violations, it has ample reason to defend the self-serving idea that what happens inside the border of a state, no matter how egregious for rights or threatening to security, is its own business.

South Africa’s long struggle against apartheid was helped by international solidarity, including the active support of the UN Security Council. In recent years, however, successive South African presidents have pushed back against international pressure seeking to address serious and widespread human rights abuses in countries such as Zimbabwe, Sudan, and, until recently, Myanmar. The newly elected president, Cyril Ramaphosa, has promised to promote, “democracy, justice, human rights, and good governance” at the UN, and the Cameroon crisis would be a good place to start.

The best hope, though, may be Côte d’Ivoire, whose brutal 2010-11 post-election crisis was resolved with AU and Security Council support. President Alassane Ouattara, when campaigning in 2016 for his country to join the UN Security Council, said that it, “must be the principal organ in which courageous decisions are taken, to save people and states from conflicts and wars, with the suffering and distress that they bring.”

Côte d’Ivoire finishes its term on the UN Security Council at the end of 2019. Although its voting record is far from perfect, President Ouattara’s government has shown some leadership on human rights issues. Côte d’Ivoire broke with other African states to initiate an arms embargo on South Sudan, although on May 30 it abstained on a resolution reauthorizing the ban.

Supporting action on Cameroon, by formally placing the Anglophone crisis on the Council’s agenda and addressing the serious human rights abuses, would strengthen Côte d’Ivoire’s legacy as a supporter of human rights defenders and conflict resolution. It would also demonstrate that African governments can have the courage and conviction to address pressing crises on the continent.

Source: Human Rights Watch

Switzerland has agreed to mediate talks between Cameroonian authorities and separatists in a bid to end escalating violence in the country’s Anglophone regions, the Swiss government said on Thursday.

A secessionist movement turned violent in 2017 after the government cracked down on peaceful protests by teachers and lawyers in the English-speaking northwest and southwest, which complain of being marginalised by the Francophone majority.

Cameroon, an oil, cocoa and timber-producing nation, has since experienced near-daily clashes between mostly French-speaking government forces and armed separatist groups.

“The aim of the meeting was to prepare the future peace negotiations.”

The FDFA declined to elaborate on which parties it had met and on the timeline for future talks.

The Cameroonian government was not immediately available for comment.

Ivo Tapang, spokesman for 13 armed groups called the Contender Forces of Ambazonia, told Reuters they would not speak to the government unless a cessation of hostilities was observed. “When the time is ripe for talks, we will invite Cameroon and not the other way round,” he said.

President Paul Biya is reported to be on holiday in Switzerland this week.

The United Nations estimates that about 1,800 people have been killed and more than 530,000 displaced within the West African country since 2017, with 1.3 million in need in the region.

Source: Reuters

Cameroon’s English-speaking region of Northwest on Friday removed an overnight travel ban on persons and property, according to a statement signed by the region’s governor Adolph Lele Lafrique.

Lafrique did not give any reason why the ban was cancelled in the region that is ravaged by armed separatism. The ban was imposed in November last year restricting movement from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. local time in the region in a bid to limit persistent separatists’ attacks at night.

Fighting is still ongoing in the two Anglophone regions of Northwest and Southwest where armed separatists want to create an independent nation they call “Ambazonia.”

Source: Xinhuanet

Facing a growing pro-democracy movement, Cameroon is resorting to an old formula – namely unleashing government power in the form of threats, arrests and excessive force.

Hundreds of supporters of Maurice Kamto, leader of the opposition Cameroon Resistance Movement, have been filling the streets, demanding his release from detention but were detained themselves by security forces on June 8, 2019. According to his lawyer, Kamto could be charged with: insurrection, hostility against the homeland, criminal association, threats to public order, rebellion, group rebellion, and inciting insurrection.

A respected professor of international law, former dean of the faculty of Juridical and Political Sciences at University of Yaoundé II, and former chairman and special rapporteur of the UN International Law Commission from 1999 to 2016, Kamto has been locked up since January 28 after he challenged the sweeping electoral victory of President Paul Biya. His offenses could result in the death penalty.

He and his other jailed supporters are reported to have begun a hunger strike.

Ida Sawyer, deputy Africa director at the New York-based Human Rights Watch, commented: “The Cameroonian government’s crackdown shows that it is unwilling to accept a role for opposition parties, sending a chilling message to those who would dare challenge the status quo.”

She added: “The latest crackdown was consistent with the methods of a government whose security forces have committed grave abuses against civilians and dissenting voices in recent years.”

Local activists condemned authorities for denying lawful permits to protest – a violation of the Constitution. “We are exercising our constitutional rights,” said Christopher Ndong of the Cameroon Resistance Movement, “because we have a right to march and protest when things are going wrong.”

Human rights activist Jean Pierre Bengono also criticized the government of Paul Biya for deploying the security forces in riot gear to disperse crowds in Yaounde, Douala and Mbouda. Organized democracies need the opposition to check political excesses and discuss the well-being of its people, he maintained.

Kamto challenged the vote totals in the presidential election of October 7, 2018, and accused President Paul Biya, who has led the country for 36 years, of stealing his victory.

Beyond Cameroon’s borders, calls for his release have come from the UN Secretary-General, Amnesty International, and Board of The Hague Academy of International Law, in which Kamto serves, among others.

Government minister Paul Atanga Nji responded to the growing chorus of condemnation with a warning. “We can no longer tolerate those who undermine the laws of the republic. He [Kamto] has a hidden agenda to destabilize Cameroon. We will not give him the opportunity,” he said.

Source [IDN-InDepthNews

Cameroon’s House Speaker of National Assembly Cavaye Yeguie Djibril on Monday denounced foreign interference in the country’s internal affairs which he referred to as “conspiracy.”

“Cameroon has become an object of conspiracy intended to destabilize the country. To justify their interference in internal affairs, the conspirators pretend to denounce it. According to them, the political system in Cameroon is against all dialogue, upholds violence, and refuses to promote human rights,” Djibril said in the capital Yaounde at the opening of the June session of the National Assembly.

“These allegations are unfounded. The National Assembly condemns and denounces this with every ounce of energy,” Djibril said. “We welcome their support but not their interference.”

Foreign powers in Europe and North America have repeatedly blamed Cameroon government for “lacking the will” to solve the conflict in the English-speaking regions of the country where armed separatists want to create an independent nation.

According to Djibril, the government was “working very hard” to restore “durable peace” and security in the two Anglophone regions.

“There is a proper framework for this kind of relationship and that is what the speaker has been saying today and extending an invitation to the European Parliament for an information and study visit to Cameroon,” Joseph Owona, a senior member of parliament told reporters.

Source: Xinhuanet

A hundred members of the opposition Movement for the Rebirth of Cameroon (MRC) were freed Thursday following their arrest during demonstrations last week, the party told AFP.

However MRC vice president Mamadou Mota, who was also detained on June 1, remains in detention, the same opposition party source said. “Today 100 of our members, arrested on Saturday… have been freed,” said lawyer Christopher Ndong, secretary general of the MRC.

In all, 351 MRC supporters were arrested during protests which took place in several towns throughout the country, including Nkongsamba, in the west, and Yaounde, according to the party’s figures.

“There are still 251 people incarcerated in prison cells,” said Ndong.

At least 30 of those arrested, including Mota, have been transferred to Yaounde’s main prison.

The prison also houses MRC head Maurice Kamto, the country’s main opposition figure who has been detained since January.

The MRC has been organising demonstrations since the October 2018 presidential election. According to official results, Kamto came second but the MRC says the vote was rigged in favour of President Paul Biya, who has been in power for 36 years.

Saturday’s protests called for the release of Kamto and other party supporters who were arrested after another protest in January.

Such protest marches are banned by Cameroon.

Video footage posted on social media sites Thursday show MRC militants claiming, after their release, that they were tortured while in detention.

The use of torture in police station is a frequent occurrence according to many sources.

In February Kamto and other opposition supporters appeared before a military tribunal in Yaounde accused of “insurrection, hostility to the homeland (and) rebellion”, offences which carry a possible death penalty.

Their lawyers have appealed to the UN working group on arbitrary detention over the arrests.

Source: AFP

Prospects for talks between authorities and separatist movements to end escalating violence in Cameroon’s English-speaking region are slim, a senior human rights official said on Friday (Jun 7), dismissing assertions by both sides to be open to dialogue.

A separatist insurgency broke out in 2017 following a government crackdown on peaceful protests in the English-speaking Northwest and Southwest, which complain of being marginalised by the French-speaking majority.

Prime Minister Joseph Ngute has said the government would be willing to talk to the rebels, but would not consider their demand for secession – a position hardline separatists have said they will never accept. Eleven movements representing Anglophone Cameroon, including the main armed factions, last month said they were willing to enter mediated discussions with the state. But almost daily violence from both sides has intensified, forcing thousands of civilians to seek refuge in Cameroon’s French-speaking regions and neighbouring countries. “There is no desire for dialogue … The abuses are coming from both sides and the civilians are finding themselves in the middle,” Ilaria Allegrozzi, Senior Central Africa Researcher at Human Rights Watch, told reporters in Paris. “The position of the government is an almost complete denial … and there is total impunity for the violence.”

The oil, cocoa and timber-producing nation was among western Africa’s most settled until a few years ago. But the United Nations estimates that, since 2017, about 1,800 people have been killed and more than 530,000 displaced with 1.3 million in need. Authorities have promised to act over accusations of rights violations by security personnel.

Allegrozzi, who was refused entry to the country in May over her research, said it was also clear that rebels were too divided to form a platform to negotiate, an element the government was using to its advantage. She estimated the total number of separatists fighters at about 3,000 and there was evidence that they were acquiring more sophisticated weaponry.

The crisis has tended to slip beneath the international radar given President Paul Biya’s close cooperation with Western states in the fight against Islamist militant group Boko Haram in West and central Africa. But the United States has become increasingly critical of the government and the separatist crisis was discussed for the first time at the U.N. Security Council last month.

Allegrozzi said the Anglophone population was increasingly in tune with idea of independence. “There is a growing feeling of support towards the separatists and secession,” she said.

Source: Reuters/nh

As Cameroon tops a list of the most neglected crises, the world must help those in need and demand an end to attacks on civilians

Mary hands me two tattered photos. In the first, family members stand proudly outside their modest home in Buea, South-West Cameroon. In the second, an empty plot remains, their wooden hut burned to the ground.

Mary and the 14 family members who lived in the house fled to the bush last December. They are still waiting for help to rebuild their home and their lives.

Conflict has uprooted half a million people in South-West and North-West Cameroon. Hundreds of villages like Mary’s have been razed. Hospitals have been attacked. Health workers fear being abducted or killed. Over 780,000 children are out of school, and their teachers are attacked and abused if they try to restart classes.

When brutal fighting displaces hundreds of thousands of civilians, it usually sets international alarm bells ringing. But Cameroon’s fast-deteriorating crisis has resulted in no mediation efforts, no large relief programme, little media interest and too little pressure on the parties to stop attacking civilians.

The silence is chilling.

This is why Cameroon tops this year’s global list of the most neglected displacement crises, according to NRC’s annual tracking system.

Cameroon’s crisis has roots in the country’s troubled colonial history. After World War One, the former German colony was split between a French and British mandate. When the French part became independent in 1960, people in the English speaking regions had to merge with either Nigeria- or French-speaking Cameroon. What was then known as Southern Cameroons ended up with the latter, creating a country with French and English as official languages. However, communities in the English-speaking part of the country have felt increasingly marginalized since.

In 2016, people took to the streets in peaceful demonstrations. A heavy crackdown by security forces ensued, leading to widespread violence and the formation of armed opposition groups.

A year later, non-state armed groups in the region officially declared a symbolic independence from Cameroon, followed by clashes between the national army and secessionist groups. Both sides have been accused of horrific human rights violations. The UN human rights chief, Michelle Bachelet, described the situation as spiraling completely out of control, after visiting in May.

Unbiased information is scarce. Social media is swamped by photos of apparent atrocities. But independent journalists are absent or restricted, and the crisis rarely makes international headlines.

The lack of public attention to the crisis is followed closely by a lack of financial support. Despite being one of the smallest UN’s aid appeals, Cameroon is among the least funded. The consequences of this can been seen immediately.

When I visited Cameroon in April, only a splattering of poorly-resourced international relief organisations were visible on the ground. Too few reach beyond the provincial capitals, so many families receive no assistance, even though it is possible to negotiate access with the parties on the ground. Communities ration and share the little assistance they receive, often travelling long distances themselves to deliver aid to those still hiding in the bush.

The women I spoke with in Buea said they feel abandoned by the international community. They asked me, ‘where is the international solidarity? Where is Europe?’

Europe is dragging its heels. Cameroon’s colonial history should be an argument for positive engagement today, and not disengagement. Furthermore, Cameroon is seen as an important ally for many countries in the fight against Boko Haram in the country’s north. The attention to problems there is no excuse for political inaction.

Countries with influence in the region must demand conflict parties stop attacks on civilians and allow schools to reopen.

When I addressed an informal session of the United Nations Security Council in May, my message on Cameroon was clear. More aid is needed, but it is only a temporary solution. Coherent conflict resolution efforts towards a political solution are the only thing that will end the violence and the suffering. Regional and international bodies, like the African Union, the European Union and the UN Security Council can and should play a more important role.

There is still time to avert a full-blown war.

Source: Reuters