Politics

13, January 2020

Mvomeka’a Palace: Biya’s final hideout ⁰

French Cameroun dictator Paul Biya is spending more and more secluded time in his palace in Mvomeka’a, his native village in the south of the country. The 86 year old thug calls it his haven of peace, from which locals are kept away. The Mvomeka’s palace has become one of the centers of power and the object of all fantasies in French Cameroun.

To get to the palace, one has to drive through a wide road in the heart of the French Cameroun rainforest. It is a neat floor marking road with perfect layout, potholes non-existent: it looks great. Some political commentators have opined that the road which does not bring anything into the French Cameroun economy remains the first major achievement of President Paul Biya shortly after he came to power in 1982. The road simply links Yaoundé, the capital via Sangmélima, one of the cities of his childhood, and Mvomeka’a, his native village.

For a majority of French Cameroonians – who have never set foot there – Mvomeka’a is a privileged settlement. Among locals, this palace, which they are kept away from, sometimes generates frustration.

Biya feels better in Mvomeka’a. He goes there several times a year. With age telling on him, the average length of his numerous stay has gradually lengthened: whereas he spent only a few days each time a few years ago, he now stays there for several weeks in a row, or even more than a month.

At the entrance to the village, a checkpoint blocks the road. One of three soldiers on guard has the responsibility of checking identification papers of those going into the village. Everyone in the area from 5-year-old kids to 75-year-olds, everyone there is involved in intelligence gathering all in a bid to protect Biya and his family.

A member of the presidential guard recently told Biya that he was on the brink because Ambazonia Restoration Forces have promised to attack him. In Mvomeka’a, the threat is taken very seriously, even when he (Biya) is away.

The dictator who governs the nation like a tribal chief usually travels to Mvomeka’a by road, escorted by two helicopters. It was at Mvomeka’a that he built his first residence, an unpretentious white villa, after his studies in France in the 1960s.

When he became Prime Minister, he built a second villa with support from his late wife, Jeanne-Irene, who died in 1992. The current palace was the idea of the late wife who pushed Biya to buy neighboring lands in order to install his relatives and extend his private presidential site.

Inside the Mvomeka’a palace there are apartments for his aide-de-camp, the director of the civil cabinet, the chief of protocol and his butler. There are also family villas, including those of his late sister and mother, which now look like abandoned property. Today, Mvomeka’a belongs almost exclusively to Biya and his family. But no one other than Biya and his wife Chantal lives in the grounds of Mvomeka’a palace shrouded in mystery.

Perched on the hilly side of the village, the Mvomeka’a palace evokes a romantic oasis for the frail president with an insatiable love for classical music. An endless green grid lined with a gigantic screen of conifers hides the palace from prying eyes. From the top of the palace watchtower, sentry guns in hand are watching for the slightest suspicious gesture. No one is allowed to hang around. From a distance, the most daring can glimpse the family cemetery, where the former first lady, the president’s mother and brother, as well as her stepmother were buried.

Doctors, counselors and general secretaries are regularly summoned to Mvomeka’a with files under their arms to meet Biya in his village where he consults and holds crisis meetings. According to one of Biya’s relatives, these retreats allow Biya to concentrate, away from the harassment of courtiers and other seekers of favors. The Mvomeka’a palace has 260 employees.

By Asu Isong with files from Jeune Afrique

13, January 2020

Queen gathers royals for crisis meeting with Prince Harry ⁰

Queen Elizabeth II and other senior British royals were gathering for a meeting Monday with Prince Harry in an attempt to solve the crisis triggered by his bombshell announcement that he and wife Meghan were stepping back from the royal frontline.

Harry’s father Prince Charles and brother Prince William, with whom he has strained relations, will join the monarch at her private Sandringham estate in eastern England, according to British media.

Charles just flew back from Oman, where he attended a condolence ceremony following the death of Sultan Qaboos.

Meghan is expected to join the meeting via conference call from Canada as they attempt to work out the “next steps” towards a compromise and nip the growing crisis in the bud.

Issues up for debate include how much money the couple will still receive from Charles’s estate, their royal titles and what commercial deals they can strike, according to the Sunday Times.

The newspaper reported that William believes he and Harry are now “separate entities”, breaking the bonds forged following their mother’s tragic death.

“I’ve put my arm around my brother all our lives and I can’t do that any more; we’re separate entities,” the Times reported he told a friend.

The queen attended church at Sandringham on Sunday where supporters expressed sympathy for her, with some members of the public saying Harry and Meghan should not receive any more taxpayer money if they step back from the royal family.

The 93-year-old monarch on Thursday demanded that staff work with the couple to find urgently a “workable solution” that would take into account their demands for more freedom.

Harry, Meghan and son Archie spent Christmas in Canada, with the American former actress returning there this week.

Several Canadian media reported Meghan had returned to Vancouver Island off the country’s Pacific coast, where the family spent the year-end holidays and where baby Archie had remained with his nanny.

Senior royals were caught off guard by Wednesday’s announcement that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex wanted to seek a “progressive new role” and divide their time between Britain and North America.

– ‘Complicated issues’ –

The queen’s office issued a terse statement the same evening, saying there were “complicated issues that will take time to work through”.

Harry and Meghan said they intended to continue to “fully support” the queen and “collaborate” with senior royals.

They also want to keep their home on the queen’s Windsor Castle estate as their British base, while aiming to become financially independent.

Media reports said Harry and Meghan could conduct a potentially damaging television interview if they are unhappy with the outcome of Sunday’s meeting.

Writing for The Sunday Times, broadcaster Tom Bradby, a friend of Harry and William, said: “I have some idea of what might be aired in a full, no-holds-barred, sit-down interview and I don’t think it would be pretty.”

The younger prince, who has struggled with his role, last year revealed he has been growing apart from his brother, who as second in line to the throne is increasingly pursuing a different path.

Harry has been open about his mental health issues, and he and Meghan last year admitted to struggling with the spotlight following their wedding at Windsor Castle in May 2018 and Archie’s birth a year later.

The couple have also lashed out at negative news coverage — some of which Harry says was racist — in light of Meghan’s biracial heritage.

The British public currently appears to be siding with the family, with a Daily Mail poll showing that a majority believe Harry should give up his right to the throne and be stripped of cash support from the royals or taxpayers.

Source: AFP

11, January 2020

US lawmakers reject Trump’s new claim that Soleimani targeted 4 US embassies in region ⁰

Several US lawmakers and officials have dismissed President Donald Trump’s new claim the US assassinated Iranian Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani because he was planning an attack on four American embassies in the region, including the one in Iraq.

In an interview on Friday with Fox News, Trump said Iran probably had targeted the US embassy in Baghdad and was aiming to attack four US embassies when it killed Soleimani.

“We will tell you probably it was going to be the embassy in Baghdad,” Trump claimed. “I can reveal that I believe it would have been four embassies.”

But two unnamed senior officials, including one in the Defense Department, told The Washington Post that they were aware only of vague intelligence about a plot against the embassy in Baghdad.

Neither official mentioned any threats against other embassies in the region.

A source told the Post that the US embassy in Baghdad was never given a warning “commensurate” with the kind of threat described by Trump, which would have been standard procedure.

US Senator Chris Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut, said nothing about planned attacks on four embassies was revealed to Congress and essentially accused Trump of making up the planned attacks.

US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday called the killing “provocative and disproportionate,” and other members of Congress said they were unconvinced after a closed-door intelligence briefing provided by administration officials.

“President Trump recklessly assassinated Qasem Soleimani,” said US Representative Pramila Jayapal, a Democrat from Washington state.

“He had no evidence of an imminent threat or attack,” she said.

“Let’s be clear — if there was evidence of imminent attacks on four embassies, the Administration would have said so at our Wednesday briefing,” he tweeted. “They didn’t. So either Fox News gets higher level briefings than Congress … or … wait for it… there was no such imminent threat.”

The Trump administration had earlier claimed it carried out the assassination to avert an “imminent attack,” which has also been met with suspicion and skepticism in the US.

The US military carried out an airstrike on the direction of Trump at Baghdad’s international airport last Friday, assassinating Soleimani and the second-in-command of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, as well as eight other companions.

Early on Wednesday, Iran responded to the assassination, striking the American airbase of Ain al-Assad in Anbar province in western Iraq and another in Erbil, the capital of Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan region.

A USA Today/Ipsos poll released Thursday found that Americans, by 55%-24%, said they believe the killing of General Soleimani has made the United States less safe, rejecting a fundamental argument the Trump administration has made that the assassination made the US safer.

Source: Presstv

10, January 2020

Trump ‘reckless’ on Iran: Poll ⁰

The vast majority of Americans say the US assassination of Iranian Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani has made America less safe and shows that President Donald Trump’s behavior with Iran is “reckless,” according to a new poll.

The USA Today/Ipsos poll found that Americans, by 55%-24%, said they believe the killing has made the United States less safe, rejecting a fundamental argument the Trump administration has made.

The poll also found that a majority of those surveyed, by 52%-34%, called Trump’s behavior with Iran “reckless.”

There was overwhelming agreement among those surveyed that Soleimani’s killing made it more likely Iran would attack American interests in the Middle East (69%), that there would be attacks on US soil (63%), and that the United States and Iran would go to war (62%).

By 47%-39%, those surveyed said Trump ordered the killing of Soleimani in an attempt to divert the focus from his impeachment.

US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday that T she does not believe Trump had made America safer by assassinating Soleimani, calling the US attack “provocative” and “disproportionate.”

“What happened, in the view of many of us, is not promoting peace, but an escalation,” Pelosi, the highest ranking Democrat in Congress, said at her weekly news conference.

House passes resolution to restrict Trump’s war powers against Iran

The US House of Representatives passed a resolution on Thursday to stop Trump from further military action against Iran, rebuking the president days after he ordered the strike that killed Soleimani and escalated tensions in the region.

The Democratic-controlled House voted 224-194, mostly along party lines, sending the war powers resolution to the Senate. The fate of the resolution is uncertain in the Senate, where Trump’s fellow Republicans hold 53 of the chamber’s 100 seats,

If passed by the House and Senate, the measure does not need Trump’s signature to go into effect.

The partisan vote reflected the deep divide in Congress over Trump’s Iran policy and how much authority lawmakers should have over the use of the military. Democrats accused Trump of acting recklessly and backed the resolution, while Trump’s fellow Republicans, who rarely vote against the president, opposed it.

Source: Presstv

9, January 2020

Persian Gulf: Trump says Iran ‘standing down’ after missile attack ⁰

US President Donald Trump on Wednesday said Iran appeared to be “standing down” after missile strikes against Iraqi bases that caused no US casualties, indicating there would be no immediate new military response.

In a televised address to the nation from the White House, Trump emphasized that there were “no Americans harmed” in the salvo of missiles aimed at two bases.

While he promised to immediately impose “punishing” new economic sanctions against Iran, Trump welcomed signs that Iran “appears to be standing down” in the tit-for-tat confrontation, signalling that the United States did not plan a new military riposte.

Trump closed his remarks by addressing Iranians directly, saying that he was “ready to embrace peace with all who seek it”.

However, the US president, facing both an impeachment trial in Congress and a tough re-election in November, touted his decision to order the killing of top Iranian general Qassem Soleimani last Friday – the operation that prompted Tehran’s missile strike.

Soleimani, a national hero in Iran, was “the world’s top terrorist” and “should have been terminated long ago”, Trump said.

Although Trump ended his remarks with the call for peace, he opened by stating bluntly that he would never allow Iran to procure a nuclear weapon.

He then urged European allies and other world powers to follow America’s lead in abandoning a teetering international agreement on managing the country’s nuclear ambitions, and negotiate a new one instead.

Revenge ‘another issue’

Iran’s overnight missile strikes targeted the sprawling Ain al-Asad airbase in western Iraq and a base in Arbil, both housing American and other foreign troops deployed in a US-led coalition fighting the remnants of the Islamic State (IS) group.

Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, called the missiles a “slap in the face” for the United States and indicated that more was to come.

“An important incident has happened. The question of revenge is another issue,” Khamenei said in a speech broadcast live on state television.

The office of Iraq’s premier said it had received advance warning from Iran that a missile attack on US forces was imminent.

“Iraq rejects any violation of its sovereignty and attacks on its territory,” the statement said, without specifically condemning the missile strikes.

Iraqi President Barham Saleh denounced the missile attack, warning against attempts to turn Iraq into a “battlefield for warring sides”.

‘Proportionate measures’

The brazenness of the strike was highly unusual for Iran, which has tended to disguise attacks on US interests or troops through its use of proxy Shiite forces.

“Ballistic missiles openly launched from Iran onto American targets is a new phase,” said Phillip Smyth, an expert on Shiite militias.

But as the dust settled, it appeared that Iran’s strike – coming soon after the burial of Soleimani at a funeral in front of vast crowds – might have been more symbolic than anything.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps warned any US counter-attack would be met with an even “more crushing response” and threatened to strike Israel and America’s “allied governments”.

However, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif seemed to indicate that Iran was satisfied for now.

“Iran took and concluded proportionate measures in self-defence,” Zarif said on Twitter.

Sadr calls for restraint

The strikes sparked worldwide condemnation, including from NATO, Germany, France and the UK.

France said its forces deployed in Iraq sustained no casualties while the UK was concerned about “reports” of victims as British troops are stationed there. The Norwegian military said coalition troops were warned of the attack in advance through intelligence channels.

The apparent de-escalation did not remove pressure from approximately 5,200 US troops stationed across Iraq, where Iran has close links to powerful armed Shiite militias.

And Iranian allies in the country said they still intend to take revenge for Friday’s US attack in which top Iraqi paramilitary commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis was killed alongside Soleimani.

Paramilitary chief Qais al-Khazali – blacklisted as a “terrorist” by the US – said his side’s response to the United States ” will be no less than the size of the Iranian response.”

Influential Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr said the crisis Iraq was experiencing was “over” following de-escalation rhetoric from both Iran and the US, calling on militia groups not to carry out attacks.

“I call on the Iraqi factions to be deliberate, patient, and not to start military actions, and to shut down the extremist voices of some rogue elements until all political, parliamentary and international methods have been exhausted,” he said.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)

8, January 2020

Yaounde deploys troops to Southern Cameroons ahead of counterfeit polls ⁰

Cameroon has deployed troops to the restive English speaking regions to ensure security before, during and after next month’s general election.

A contingent of 350 security forces arrived in Buea, headquarters of the Southwest region, Tuesday and were due to be re-deployed to all the six administrative divisions of the region.

Colonel Henry Nchinda, National Gendarmerie Legion Commander for the Southwest, said the forces will be sent to “all parts of the region to ensure the vote takes place hitch-free.”

“We want everybody to go out and vote knowing that the forces are there to protect them,” Col Nchinda told reporters.

Cameroonians will go to the polls on February 9 to elect parliamentarians and municipal councillors amidst threat from armed separatists that the vote will not take place in the English speaking regions that have been rocked by a bloody conflict since 2017.

Separatist leaders have announced a one-week lockdown on the regions beginning February 7 intended to stop the vote from taking place.

Armed separatist fighters have also kidnapped over 30 candidates for the twin elections in the regions in another bid to frustrate the process, promising to release them after the poll.

The latest kidnap was that of the Mayor of the Babessi municipal council in the Northwest region on January 5.

Mayor Issa Chou and four councillors who are seeking re-election were kidnapped and taken to unknown destination according to Mr Momoh Dero, a journalist in the area.

“He was kidnapped in his refugee abode, and despite the sympathy demonstrated by inhabitants of Mambim, he and others are still in captivity,” Mr Momoh told The East African.

The conflict in the English speaking South West and North West regions of the country has since 2017 been a threat to stability in the country. The bloody conflict has left 3,000 people dead, over half a million others internally displaced and 40,000 have been forced into exile in Nigeria, according to relief organisations. The government, however, claims the figures have been inflated.

In his New Year address to the nation, President Paul Biya admitted the security situation in the two English speaking regions remains a major concern.

He maintained the February 9 elections will go on countrywide, including in the troubled areas.

“Security measures have been taken to ensure that all our fellow citizens countrywide exercise their voting rights. Where necessary, such measures will be ramped up. Therefore, I urge all Cameroonians who are registered on the electoral roll to go and vote,” President Biya said in his address.

Culled from The East African

7, January 2020

Ivory Coast: President Ouattara wants to amend constitution ⁰

Ivory Coast’s president Alassane Ouattara on Monday said he would propose “modifications” to the country’s constitution, even as he rubbished claims by the opposition that he plans to sideline opponents from this year’s presidential elections.

In ceremonies to mark the New Year, Ouattara said, “In the first quarter of the year, I will put to parliament proposals for modifications to the constitution.”

The aim is to make the constitution “more coherent… to further consolidate the state of law and bring institutions closer to our fellow citizens,” he said.

I have just turned 78 and I’m not thinking about excluding anyone, myself included.

‘Nobody will be excluded’

Ouattara gave no details but addressed opposition warnings about introducing age restrictions that would bar former presidents Laurent Gbagbo, 74, and Henri Konan Bedie, 85, from running for office in October.

Such a move would also exclude Ouattara himself.

“I would like to reassure one and all that this is not about ‘stalling’ anyone. As I have said, anyone can be a candidate,” Ouattara said.

“I have just turned 78 and I’m not thinking about excluding anyone, myself included.”

Ouattara came to power in 2011 after a prolonged crisis that ended with the ouster of then-president Laurent Gbagbo following bloodshed that claimed 3,000 lives.

He has kept the country guessing as to whether he will run again.

He maintains he has the right to bid for a new term under a change of the constitution in 2016, which the opposition denies.

Municipal and regional elections in 2018 were marked by violence and fraud allegations.

AFP

6, January 2020

French Cameroun: Elections with no campaign caravans in town ⁰

French Cameroun residents will go to the ballot next month for the parliamentary polls. The elections will see citizens elect their next Members of Parliament as well as mayors.

With only a few weeks to the February 9 polls, the usual election fever that grips any nation in the world is not evident in French Cameroun with no campaign caravans in town.

The presidential election is held separately with the parliamentary elections. Interestingly, it’s the president who decides when the parliamentary polls will be held.

Paul Biya, the current president will celebrate his 87th birthday on February 13 and has been in power since taking over in 1982 following the resignation of his predecessor Ahmadou Ahidjo. La Republique du Cameroun has had only two presidents, Ahidjo and Biya, since gaining independence in 1960.

By Oke Akombi Ayukepi Akap

5, January 2020

Iraq could ‘pay price’ for US strike on Iran commander ⁰

The killings of Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani and a top Iraqi paramilitary chief in a US strike on Baghdad Friday threaten to drag Iraq into the abyss of regional conflict, analysts warned.

The US strike on Baghdad international airport targeted a convoy carrying Soleimani and his top Baghdad-based adviser Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the deputy head of Iraq’s powerful Hashed al-Shaabi force.

The raid has confirmed the worst fears of many Iraqis: that their homeland will become the main battlefield in a looming conflict between Iran and the United States.

“Iran’s strongest cards are in Iraq, and I think that Iraq will pay the price for this,” said Fanar Haddad of Singapore University’s Middle East Institute.

Tensions between the United States and Iran have been rising for months, as the Washington accused Tehran-backed factions of firing rockets on their troops across Iraq and on their embassy in Baghdad.

But they have soared over the past week.

On December 27, a rocket attack killed a US contractor working in northern Iraq, prompting retaliatory US strikes that killed 25 fighters from Kataeb Hezbollah, a hardline Hashed faction.

Angry Hashed supporters laid siege to the US embassy as Washington announced hundreds of new US troops were en route to the region.

– Path to war? –

But Washington delivered its most decisive blow yet early Friday when a volley of strikes hit near Baghdad international airport, leaving two cars torched on the access highway.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards confirmed Soleimani was killed in the strike while the Hashed announced Muhandis’s death.

With the two dead, the Quds Force — the foreign operations arm of Iran’s Guards Corps — has been left decapitated and the Hashed lost its de facto chief, too.

Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei vowed “severe revenge” for the raid and its top security council was meeting to discuss options.

Analysts said the outbreak of a wider conflict was looking increasingly likely.

“If Iran does need to respond and make a performance out of this, the fear is that there will be something more than just loading rockets at embassies,” said Haddad.

“It could set Iraq along the path of internal conflict and that’s something Iran can very easily instigate,” he said.

The nature of the strike is unpredecented because of the seniority of those targeted — making its repercussions hard to picture, said Ramzy Mardini, a researcher at the US Institute of Peace.

“The problem with judging what happens next is a problem of imagination. Nobody thought this was in the realm of possibility,” he told AFP.

“It’s likely that all actors on all sides will be playing things by ear in the short term, which is a recipe for miscalculation,” said Mardini.

– ‘Heads will roll’ –

Friday’s strike had shown that Iran could no longer use its allies in Iraq to carry out attacks against US interests “without risking an American conventional retaliation on Iran,” Mardini told AFP.

“Plausible deniability has gone out the window.”

The US had expressed increasing frustration with the escalating rocket attacks on its 5,200 troops in Iraq and on its embassy in Baghdad over the past two months.

US forces led the 2003 invasion against then-dictator Saddam Hussein and Washington has worked closely with Iraqi officials and commanders since then.

But its influence has waned compared with that of Iran, which carefully crafted personal ties with Iraqi politicians and armed factions, even during Saddam’s reign.

Soleimani was the prime example, sweeping into Baghdad regularly to hold meeting with top Iraqi officials during times of turmoil.

Ranj Alaaldin, a fellow at the Brookings Institution in Doha, said that would leave Iran with a range of questions for its Iraqi partners.

“How did the US know of Soleimani’s arrival in Baghdad? Who leaked the intel?” Alaaldin tweeted.

“Watch the Iraqi political space. Heads will roll.”

Source: AFP

5, January 2020

Southern Cameroons Crisis: Paul Biya cannot expect to win through war ⁰

The violent conflict in Cameroon, still rarely discussed in Washington, is becoming increasingly dire. Both President Paul Biya’s Francophone regime in Yaounde and the Anglophone separatists in the southwest region are accused of brutal human rights abuses, including the burning of villages, attacks on schools, and the killing of men, women, and children. Despite mediation attempts by the Swiss government and sanctions by the Trump administration, there are no signs of any progress towards a negotiated settlement.

In 1991, I mediated an end to a different African conflict with some striking similarities: the Eritrean war of independence, which raged for nearly three decades. Lessons from that precedent offer clues to a potential endgame in Cameroon.

Colonial-style takeovers

Both Eritrea and Cameroon’s Anglophone regions were engaged in governing federations with more powerful nations, then lost autonomy when their counterpart took over after deciding the relationship no longer suited them.

The Federation of Ethiopia and Eritrea was inaugurated in 1952, with two separate governments having their own legislatures, internal controls, and flags, while sharing foreign policy, defense, and currency. Ten years later, the Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie I unilaterally dissolved that arrangement and annexed Eritrea, sparking the long and bloody war.

In 1961, Cameroon’s Anglophone region voted in a UN-sponsored referendum to join Francophone Cameroon in a very similar federal arrangement. Eleven years later, then-President Ahmadou Ahidjo defied the UN to hold his own referendum on whether to effectively annex the Anglophone areas by unifying the two regions, while conveniently providing Ahidjo with expanded powers. Officially, the vote tally was 99.99 percent to dissolve the federation, with 98.2 percent turnout.

A crackdown by the Francophone authorities immediately ensued. Widespread discrimination against Anglophones was compounded by a takeover of the education and judicial systems to abolish the English language. Like the Eritreans subjected to sudden Ethiopian subjugation, this move to consolidate power understandably upset Cameroon’s minority Anglophone population.

What do these parallels tell us about the crisis in Cameroon?

Paul Biya cannot expect to win through war

Unlike in Eritrea, tensions grew slowly in Cameroon over decades, before boiling over into the open violent conflict of the last several years. But the twenty-nine-year length of the Eritrean war indicates that bloodshed is likely to persist as long as Anglophone Cameroonians feel their culture and autonomy is being stolen by the Yaounde regime (and as long as they have friendly neighbors on their side of the border.) Prolonging this conflict will not lead to a resolution.

A mediated negotiation is the only realistic solution, and the United States can lead it

The Ethiopia-Eritrea war ended rapidly after the U.S. became the official mediator. In Cameroon, the lack of progress in Swiss mediation does not simply mean the conflict is unsolvable for now. The responsibility to engage in serious negotiations must be made clear to both sides. They will feel comfortable in offering concessions to an influential mediator like the United States that they would not offer each other.

Despite the Trump administration’s supposed neglect of Africa, it has in fact been heavily invested in conflict resolution there: currently it is working to end saber-rattling between Egypt and Ethiopia over the latter’s move to dam the Nile river. President Trump has appointed a highly capable U.S.-Africa diplomat, Tibor Nagy, to the assistant secretary position I once held. Ambassador Nagy is an excellent choice to oversee this process.

There are additional incentives for President Trump to pursue peace in Cameroon. The administration’s efforts to resolve the Israel-Palestine conflict are likely to be met with failure. By contrast, ending the Cameroon conflict, while difficult, is within this administration’s grasp, and it would do far more to improve U.S. standing in Africa than John Bolton’s aggressive anti-China, anti-Russia campaign there.

The longer the conflict lasts, the less likely that Cameroon will remain a single nation

Eritreans refused to accept any federation with Ethiopia after three decades of war. There was simply too much bitterness. Even after the independence accords, a two-year border war in 1998 killed hundreds of thousands; it did not officially end until Ethiopia’s new premier Abiy Ahmed made an unexpected, unilateral peace overture last year.

It may not be too late to return to the UN-approved federation between Anglophone and Francophone Cameroon that existed prior to 1972. That arrangement would provide Anglophones with the autonomy they deserve. But time is running out.

Genuine democracy is a requirement for post-conflict stability

For decades, Ethiopia’s domestic politics relied on a coalition of ethnic parties, the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), which originally fought the military dictatorship of the 1970s and 1980s. Consternation over the dominance of one small ethnic group, the Tigrayans, eventually led to deadly protests and the ouster of Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn last year. In November, Prime Minister Abiy moved to merge the EPRDF parties into a single unit, but this was met with protests by the Tigray constituency, and may ultimately lead to further destabilization just as ethnic tensions in the country are especially inflamed.

The weakness of Cameroon’s democratic institutions is aggravated by the monopoly of Paul Biya’s ethnic group, the Beti, over political and economic power. Many of the non-Beti French speakers feel just as marginalized as Anglophones. Ethnic domination within a putative democracy is inherently unsustainable. And after thirty-seven years of autocratic rule and fraudulent elections under Biya, Cameroon’s problems may not end with any resolution of the Anglophone crisis.

Written by Herman J. Cohen the former assistant secretary of state for African affairs (1989–1993), the former U.S. ambassador to the Gambia and Senegal (1977–80), and was a member of the U.S. Foreign Service for thirty-eight years.

Culled from Council on foreign relations