Politics

7, January 2017

Revealed: President Putin helped Donald Trump win the presidential election ⁰

US intelligence agencies claim that Russian President Vladimir Putin personally ordered his government to help Republican Donald Trump win the presidential election. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the National Security Agency (NSA) released a report on Friday which shows Russia “sought to help” Trump by running a smear campaign against Hillary Clinton, his Democratic rival.

“We assess Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US presidential election. Russia’s goals were to undermine public faith in the US democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency. We further assess Putin and the Russian Government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump. We have high confidence in these judgments,” the report read.

“When it appeared to Moscow that Secretary Clinton was likely to win the election, the Russian influence campaign began to focus more on undermining her future presidency,” it added. Heavily favored to win the election, Clinton led Trump in most polls throughout the campaign but lost the ultimate face-off to him on November 8. The run-up to the November vote saw the two candidates attacking each other over a series of confidential emails that belonged to the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and Clinton’s top aide John Podesta.

Trump said that the emails showed Clinton’s corruption, proving that she was unfit to lead the country. Clinton, however, blamed the leaks on Moscow and accused Trump of getting help from the Kremlin. President Barack Obama’s administration has been blaming the hacks on Russia, but the Kremlin has categorically denied the claim.

The Friday report by the American intelligence agencies claimed that Russia’s behavior since early November had increased the credibility of their assessment. Trump and Moscow have been on seemingly good terms since the vote. Putin has even written a letter to the incoming US president, calling for better ties with the US.

The report said Russia chose WikiLeaks as an outlet for the hacked documents because of the anti-secrecy website’s “self-proclaimed reputation for authenticity.” “Russia collected on some Republican-affiliated targets but did not conduct a comparable disclosure campaign,” the report continued. The three agencies concluded that Russia would use the learnings of the “Putin-ordered” campaign to carry out future operations worldwide.

Presstv

7, January 2017

US President-elect calls on all US ambassadors to resign before January 20th ⁰

US President-elect Donald Trump has called on all US ambassadors to hand in their resignations before he is sworn in on January 20, according to some diplomats. The envoys were notified of the incoming president’s decision through an abrupt State Department cable, which was issued on December 23 and called on all US missions in over 180 countries to return “without exception,” according to diplomats who saw it in person.

Trump’s move marked an unprecedented break from the tradition of extending the ambassadors’ stay for some time, giving them enough time to make the required arrangements. Previous administrations of both parties have usually given envoys enough time until at least the end of their children’s school year. Calling back all of President Barack Obama’s appointed envoys abroad risks leaving the US without proper representation in key countries like Britain, Germany and Canada for months.

Within two weeks of his inauguration, Trump has only named Zionist hardliner David Friedman as ambassador to Israel and Iowa Governor Terry Branstad as his ambassador to China. Some of the envoys are reportedly planning to appeal the decision with Trump’s designated Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. They think it is unfair that their personal lives have been disrupted while First-Lady-in-waiting Melania Trump is allowed to remain at Trump Tower until her son’s school is over.

The move is in line with Trump’s other unorthodox steps in destroying Obama’s legacy, specially his foreign policy. However, a senior member of the New York businessman’s transition team told the New York Times that there was no “ill will” in the decision. According to the American Foreign Service Association, a union representing diplomats, there are 188 US ambassadors worldwide.

Many of America’s key ambassadorships go to political appointees, i.e. senior members of the president’s party or the people who supported his campaign through major donations. In Obama’s case, such sinecures were granted to Jane Hartley, a Democratic fundraiser who served as ambassador to France, and former President John F. Kennedy’s daughter Caroline Kennedy, to Japan. For Israel, the outgoing president chose former Democratic congressional aide and adviser Daniel Shapiro.

Presstv

6, January 2017

Governors, SDO’s and DO’s are running around West Cameroon: Too little, too late ¹

The people of West Cameroon have no reason before God and man to resume schools following the continuous brutal repression and oppression that has always resulted in the killing, rape, torture, and imprisonment of our innocent children by the same government that now suddenly pretends to care.

At this time in our history, we as a people, must stand up and face our oppressors. If this government were interested in our plight, our children’s’ schools and classrooms would not be filled by theirs and their teachers who forcefully un-teach them in a language they do not understand. When a system like ours wants to subjugate and enslave us, it comes for our children. They have gone too far. We must stop them now. The schools are ours! The children are ours! We are determined! They will stay home!

Bravo to our Teachers’ Unions and our Common Law Lawyers for standing up firm against these and other injustices against our people. We must now stand by them from Ndian in the South to Donga –Mantung in the North, and ensure that by sacrificing a school year, we will collectively cease back our freedom and dignity that have been trampled upon for over 55 years.

THE TIME IS NOW! WE MUST MAKE IT HAPPEN!

THIS IS THE CORE OF OUR RESISTANCE TO BLATANT, DECEITFUL, PROVOCATIVE AND INHUMANE OPPRESSION.

Has this government ever really cared about the fate of our children? Can a government that cares for its children send soldiers to rape, torture and kill them? Our people of West Cameroon, when did the union between TWO EQUAL PARTNERS become that between master and slave?

The Governors, the SDO’s and the DO’s are running around West Cameroon in circles. WHY THE PANIC? Is the master just frustrated that the slave has risen? Is the government just frightened that for 55 years, “the few cubes of sugar” have stubbornly refused to melt?

DIGNIFIED PEOPLE OF WEST CAMEROON, THE RESISTANCE HAS COME TO STAY…UNTIL… WE gain our Independence.

2, January 2017

Southern Cameroons is on an Indefinite Strike against Colonial “La Republique” until Self-Rule is Restored ⁰

Most presidential speeches are unpredictable. Not so with speeches by Paul Biya, the President of “La Republique du Cameroun”. Last Saturday was the president’s 35th end-of-year address and it proved, anew, that Mr. Biya’s newest problem is an old one. His every outing is stubbornly true to form and style. Boring. Predictable. Fact free. Power drunk. Sickening. Removed from reality. Overloaded with empty promises. Full of spin and half truths… Even outright lies.

Those, including some members of the Movement for the Restoration of the Independence of Southern Cameroons (MoRISC), who had hoped that Mr. Biya could use the speech to demonstrate that he is, indeed, the president of the two Cameroons say they were stunned by it. Mr. Biya could have been speaking to the inhabitants of Mars as an actor in some “Alice in Wonderland” movie; oblivious of any reality. With so much at stake, Mr. Biya blew another golden opportunity to make history… to be presidential.

The speech came on the heels of the most violent and tragic government crackdown of peaceful street protests by Southern Cameroonians. Like Pharaoh in Egypt, Mr. Biya sounded God has “hardened his heart”. The time devoted to this issue very early in the speech, betrayed how much the regime has been rattled by ongoing strikes by lawyers and teachers as well as by the wave of street protests across the world and campaigns involving the Diaspora calling, among others, for the restoration of self-rule for Southern Cameroons.

It would have been laughable were it not so tragic. The same Mr. Biya who, by presidential fiat destroyed the “Union of the Cameroons” in February 1984 when he unilaterally reverted to the name of “La Republique du Cameroun”, claimed that he is walking in the footsteps of the founding fathers. Ahmadou Ahidjo, Um Nyobe, Ernest Ouandie, John Ngu Foncha, E. M. L. Endeley and Augustine Ngom Jua must be turning in their graves. The “best pupil” of a certain French president would “eat the earth” (swear) that imposing the worst form of colonial rule on Southern Cameroons creates a “ONE and INDIVISIBLE” country than the two-state federation set up by the founders. Not true!

What is true is the following: only divided families and countries afflicted with divisions would find the need to issue loud sounding declarations about being “ONE and INDIVISIBLE”. Gabon is not proclaiming that it is “ONE and INDIVISIBLE”. Mr. Biya found it important to do so twice in the same speech. Very telling of the gravity of the profound divisions that he knows must exist yet must pretend they don’t exist. A believer in the “argument of force”, the abusive spouse (“La Republique du Cameroun”) in the “union of the Cameroons” wants divorce denied simply because the couple is “ONE and INDIVISIBLE”.

After disseminating a December 15, 2016 “Diplomatic Note” in which it distorts facts and tells outright lies about the events unfolding across Southern Cameroons, Mr. Biya claims in the speech to be “deeply concerned” by these events. A power hungry regime whose secret motto must be “in Machiavelli we trust” slams “The Coffin Revolution” as “a group of manipulated and exploited extremist rioters”. Amazing, right?

Like every abusive spouse, Mr. Biya misidentifies and belittles the problems of the couple. He dismisses the problems raised by the abused spouse as unimportant compared to other ideals and values of the marriage: the sanctity of the matrimonial bed (such as the flag and Constitution) or what Mr. Biya calls the very “foundations of our togetherness”. The president argues that the couple is still “standing on its feet”; that the abused spouse seeking divorce “can rightfully opine on any aspect of national life, including through duly declared peaceful strike action”.

Did anyone warn the regime to be careful what it wishes for? Too late now! MoRISC has already evoked this “inalienable” right… the “fundamental civil right… enshrined in the Constitution” to declare (see our Roadmap at www.morisc.org/roadmap) that Southern Cameroonians, with effect from this first day of January 2017, have “duly declared” an indefinite “peaceful strike” against the colonial “La Republique du Cameroun” until self-rule is restored to the former British Southern Cameroons.

Threat of divorce has a way of reminding abusive spouses of the need to woo their partners as before, charming them with care, love, gifts and flowers. Our first love (Ahidjo) wooed Southern Cameroons on the constitutional promise not to violate the sanctity of the federation of two equal states. In the hope of convincing the abused spouse to stay on in the union, Mr. Biya offered a bribe. He wishes to “personally supervise” (?) the building of a dam on the Menchum River, not far from the site of another project (The Ring Road) whose construction he also pledged to supervised only months into his now 35-year reign. The big problem with telling lies is that the teller has to remember them.

The regime reminds the abused spouse that the “marriage certificate” was based not just on democracy – pure and simple – but “in the model of democracy which I (the abusive spouse) have proposed”. Go figure what this “model of democracy” means! Is it about upholding only those parts of the Constitution that serve the dictatorship? Why has Mr. Biya’s regime not implement the current Constitution, 20 years since it was adopted in 1996? “La Republique du Cameroun” has notably failed to hold a dialogue envisaged in the hope of saving the union of the Cameroons under a 2009 ruling by a court accredited to the African Union. The regime is so abusive it won’t even abide by the court orders to hold a dialogue with the abused spouse within 180 days.

Mr. Biya lacks credibility to point an accusing finger at Southern Cameroonians. Why is it okay for the president to resurrect “La Republique” dead and buried on 1 October 1961 and not okay for the spouse to raise from the death Southern Cameroons? Truth be told. President Biya – not Southern Cameroonians – is the hostage of a few, manipulated regime and party extremists. Their only job over the past 35 years has consisted of shielding the “absentee tenant of Etoudi Palace” from coming face-to-face with the ugly reality of misery, poverty, hopelessness and despair that nearly four decades of his misrule has visited on the peoples of the Cameroons. The extremists include Prof. Fame Ndongo, who has never stopped undermining the Anglo-Saxon system of education. Extremists like Paul Atanga Nji who deny the existence of any problem. Extremists and “agents provocateurs” like Premier Yang, who descended on Buea and Bamenda, looking for a crowd to rent to “Dimabola” for the regime. The extremists include those who violated students, “disappeared” and killed demonstrators. Extremists like those who chased leaders of teachers’ and lawyers’ trade unions in the closing days of 2016 in the hope of signing a deal lifting their strikes. Unable to reach a deal, the regime’s extremists simply “cooked” one up.

What else could it be called but playing desperado? Plain. Simple. Mr. Biya was defiant, warning no doubt that his regime will not retreat into a hole. However, the regime dropped a heavy hint that it could be waving the white flag. At his discretion, Mr. Biya says he may convene discussions on the same problems extremists within claim do not exist.

The dust in Southern Cameroons won’t settle until a deal is reached. Southern Cameroonians are only getting started. They won’t stop mobilizing until they win self-rule. The regime can work for a bargain or it can play ostrich, hiding behind empty slogans like “ONE and INDIVISIBLE”. History is full of the story of countries that once claimed exactly the same bull yet could not prevent the birth of new nations. The people of Southern Cameroons are a different people from those of “La Republique du Cameroun”. They have a right to self-determination that cannot be denied by Yaounde. The march to freedom and self-rule can’t be stopped. Certainly, “La Republique du Cameroun” is “ONE and INDIVISIBLE”. But so, too, Southern Cameroons is “ONE and INDIVISIBLE”.

By Boh Herbert

31, December 2016

Congo-Kinshasa: Kabila agrees to quit power ⁰

The government of the Congolese President Joseph Kabila has reportedly reached an agreement with opposition parties to end the current political crisis in the Congo over his refusal to step down following a defeat in recent polls.

Under the last-minute accord struck Friday by political parties in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo), Kabila will leave office following elections due to be held by the end of 2017, press reports said citing the nation’s Catholic Church leaders who were mediating the negotiations.

“The government is asked to take all steps so that the elections are organized by the end of 2017 at the latest,” said Marcel Utembi, the president of the Congo’s Catholic Bishops’ Conference.

Kabila’s presidential term expired on December 19, but ruling officials have effectively prolonged his mandate until 2018, claiming that the government would not be able to arrange elections before then.

A protester holds a bird as a crowd gathers to rally against extension of Kabila’s presidential term in the neighborhood of Yolo in Kinshasa on December 20, 2016. (Photo by AFP)

Under the reported accord, which is expected to be officially signed on Saturday, Kabila will not be able to revise the constitution to allow him to remain in office for a third term. The parties further agreed that Kabila will appoint a prime minister from the Central African nation’s main opposition bloc to oversee the transition, a key point of contention in the final stages of negotiations. However, neither Kabila nor the country’s leading opposition leader Etienne Tshisekedi are expected to sign the accord, press reports note, raising concerns about whether it would be honored.

Spokesmen for the government and Kabila’s ruling coalition were not available for immediate comment on the reported agreement. The development came as negotiators spent weeks in tense talks seeking to ensure the first peaceful transfer of power in the impoverished nation since its independence in 1960. It remains unclear, however, if polls can be arranged by the end of the upcoming year, or if leading politicians, including Kabila, will live up to the terms.

Meanwhile, Kabila’s extension of his rule has sparked bloody clashes in the country. Security forces killed nearly 40 protesters last week as they rallied against the continuing tenure of a ruler who rose to power in 2001 following his father’s assassination. There are growing concerns that the current standoff could lead to a repeat of clashes seen between 1996 and 2003 in eastern Congo in which many died, mainly due to starvation and disease.

Presstv

31, December 2016

A total of 510.000 people have been newly registered on the electoral lists ⁰

A total of 510.000 people have been newly registered on the electoral lists in Cameroon. The Director General of Elections Cameroon, Abdoulaye Babaye made public this figure in Yaoundé on the 30^th of December 2016 during a ceremony to present and handover the voters lists of the 4.000 polling stations of the Centre Region to the Secretary General at the Centre Regional Governor’s Office.

As the revision of electoral lists begins on the 3rd of January 2017, Abdoulaye Babaye hopes the period will be another opportunity for Cameroonians to register and swell-up the number of potential voters. The present number of voters stands at 6.250.000.

CRTV

31, December 2016

Donald Trump praises Putin ⁰

US President-elect Donald Trump has praised “very smart” Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision not to retaliate Washington’s recent expansion of sanctions against Moscow. On Thursday, President Barack Obama ordered a series of new sanctions against Russia as well as the expulsion of 35 Russian diplomats, accusing them of being spies.

However, Putin decided not to expel US diplomats in reprisal, saying he would rather wait to work with the Trump administration to solve the issue. “Great move on delay (by V. Putin) – I always knew he was very smart!” Trump said in a tweet on Friday.

The message soon made the rounds on the internet and was retweeted by the Russian Embassy in the US. The new sanctions came in retaliation for what the White House and the US intelligence community claim to be Russia’s hacks of Democratic operatives and groups during the recent presidential election.

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has reportedly determined in a secret assessment that the Kremlin interfered in the November 8 election to particularly help Trump defeat his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton. Russia and Trump have both denied the accusations, with Putin saying that the US should either provide evidence or stop the allegations.

On Thursday, the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) provided technical details about the tools and cyber infrastructure they said Russian civilian and military intelligence services used for the hack attack, code named Grizzly Steppe.

The document said the cyber attack was carried out to “compromise and exploit networks and endpoints associated with the US election, as well as a range of US government, political, and private sector entities.” However, it did not mention by name the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and Clinton’s campaign chairman John Podesta, whose emails were hacked and released during the campaign.

WikiLeaks, the anti-secrecy website that published the emails, has made it clear that a whistle-blower inside the DNC was behind the leaks and Russia had nothing to do with them. Obama’s move in slapping new sanctions on Russia was hailed by Republican heavyweights like Senators Lindsey Graham and John McCain. Trump, however, criticized the US claims and said it was time to “move on.”

Presstv

30, December 2016

Anglophone Problem: Dr Christopher Fomunyoh says Biya’s government does not listen ¹

Dr. Christopher Fomunyoh, Africa Regional Director of the National Democratic Institute, the US-based Think Tank has said that it is difficult under the current Biya pattern of governance to know who to make concrete proposals on how to resolve the Anglophone problem.

Christopher Fomunyoh added that the situation is becoming more intractable because hardliners in the Biya Francophone Beti Ewondo regime keep refusing the existence of the problem. The renowned Anglophone personality also noted that President Biya cannot implement any acceptable solution to the prevailing situation in British Southern Cameroons.

He told Le Jour newspaper that “some speak of federalism as a solution, but there is no assurance that if adopted, federalism would not remain a dead letter, as the current regime has done with the decentralization adopted in 1996.” Dr. Fomunyoh hinted that for 20 years, the constitutional provisions to decentralization have not been applied. “It must be recognized that those who have governed our country for decades have mastered only one approach of Jacobin centralization of power “.

On the management of these social tensions by the CPDM government, Christopher Fomunyoh stated: “As I said last week in Kumba in the South West region, no Head of State or political leader chooses the crises that arise during his mandate, but it is on the management of these different crises that they are judged. I welcome the fact that Prime Minister Philemon Yang traveled to Bamenda to meet lawyers ‘and teachers’ leaders, and that the Governor of the North-West Region increased his citizen contacts at the height of the crisis to calm the spirits heated by the brutality of certain elements of the forces of order and by the false and untimely statements of certain policians. That said, you will recall that in a statement of 23rd November I asked that President Paul Biya address the nation to appease and reassure everyone. I remain convinced that such an approach initiated from the beginning would have allowed better management of the crisis “.

By Chi Prudence Asong

29, December 2016

Prof. GHOGOMU Paul MINGO: Statement by the Judas Iscariot after the failed Bamenda meeting ³

After deliberations, the Francophone surrogate passing for a chairman of the Adhoc Interministerial Committee made public this communique;

1- The Ad hoc Committee wished to work with all members. However, based on claims which have nothing to do with education, trade unions and other associations left the hall. Only representatives of confessional private education and private higher education displayed a sense of good faith to contribute to the working session.

2- The three ministers of basic, secondary and higher education presented Government efforts towards the English-speaking subsystem of education and its willingness to continue dialogue. I will cite, amongst others, the on-going census of secondary school teachers to redeploy them to fill the gap observed in the English-speaking subsystem of education. It is also the same for the draft Order to set the duration of studies and naming the certificates obtained in technical education of the English-speaking subsystem of education. I also wish to mention the holding of the National Forum on Education in 2017, which brings lots of hope for the education community as a whole and the English subsystem in particular.

3- I wish to congratulate all participants who had a sense of efficiency and patriotism.

4- Within the framework of its sovereign missions, the State will continue towards dialogue and concertation with all stakeholders to achieve realistic and progressive results to technical concerns of one sub-system of education or the other (English-speaking subsystem, French sub-system).

5- Both sub-systems are bound to coexist in Cameroon, each in its specificity and originality without anyone trying to absorb the other.

6- With regard to extremist trade unionists who publicly refused to be part of this working session for reasons that have nothing to do with the education of young Cameroonians, Government will take its responsibility.

7- The State shall not allow individuals who do not show proof of good faith to take pupils, students, parents, Civil Society Organizations hostage; they who have just one wish: That the English-speaking sub-system of education should function effectively in the interest of our nursery, primary, secondary and university youth of the English-speaking subsystem, who are an integral part of the national educational system.

8- The Adhoc committee shall continue to work with people who display good faith to preserve the specificity, the originality and the radiance of the English-speaking subsystem of education in a Cameroon that is united in diversity.

9- The Adhoc Committee is determined to find efficient solutions to genuine problems in the English-speaking subsystem of education, in accordance with the laws and regulations of the Republic.

10- I wish to inform you that we have met with students, teachers in their large majority, parents and all people of good will. They are against this manipulation of trade unions, and will want schools to start as soon as possible. That is the Government’s stand point. Let us not jeopardize our children’s future.

11- We call on all men and women, Cameroonians of good will to do all so that classes resume early January in all parts of the North West and South West Regions. The Government will take her responsibility. Cameroonian children in the North West and South West regions must be educated as their brothers and sisters in the other eight regions.

29, December 2016

North West Lawyers reinstate Barrister Bobga Harmony as their leader ⁰

Members of the North West lawyers Association, NOWELA, have canceled a decision taken on December 27, 2016 that removed Barrister Bobga Harmony Mbuton as their leader.

In a press release on Wednesday December 28, 2016, the lawyers said that, “We hereby withdraw our initial position passing the vote of no confidence on our President. Consequently the resolution dated 27 December is null and void and we state clearly that Barrister Bobga Harmony Mbuton remains the President of NOWELA.”

The lawyers had dismissed their president for partaking in the Yaoundé meeting geared at seeking lasting solutions to problems raised by Common Law Lawyers against the wish of the general assembly. The lawyers saw this as a provocation and an attempt to sell out the struggle of the Common law Lawyers.

But it was later explained that Barrister Harmony went to Yaoundé without the final document of the Consortium which called for a boycott of the meeting chaired by Pierre Fogue, Minister Delegate at the ministry of Justice. It was also revealed that at the time of Barrister Bobga’s departure for Yaounde, the Consortium was still in conclave.

Culled from CIN