Politics

25, December 2016

Senegal defends UN vote to halt Israel’s illegal settlement ⁰

Senegal has defended its recent UNSC vote to halt Israel’s illegal settlement activities on Palestinian territories, after Tel Aviv recalls its ambassador to Dakar. “Senegal’s position must be saluted. The international community hails Senegal’s stance, especially the Muslim nations,” said government spokesman Seydou Gueye in a televised statement on Sunday.

On Friday, the UNSC Resolution 2334 was passed with 14 votes in favor and one abstention — by the US. It condemned the establishment of settlements by Israel in the occupied Palestinian territories a “flagrant violation under international law,” which it said was “dangerously imperiling the viability” of peace and the establishment of a Palestinian state. “Senegal abided by its diplomatic vision. Since 1975, Senegal has been a member of the (UN) Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People,” he added.

In relation to reports that Israel had also canceled all its aid programs in the west African nation, he noted that the government had not yet been officially informed of such a move. “When it is informed of such a decision, it will issue a response,” Gueye noted. Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has summoned the US ambassador to Israel to discuss the Washington’s abstention in the UNSC vote. Earlier, Israel summoned the ambassadors to Britain, China, Russia, France, Egypt, Japan, Uruguay, Spain, Ukraine and New Zealand over the resolution.

Palestinian factions in the occupied West Bank and the besieged Gaza Strip have collectively welcomed the resolution, with Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki describing the vote as a “victory for the Palestinian people.” Prior to the vote, Tel Aviv attempted to block the vote and prompt a veto by its strongest ally, the United States.More than half a million Israelis live in over 230 illegal settlements built since the 1967 Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and East Jerusalem al-Quds.

Presstv

25, December 2016

Oh lucky man: Kabila to stay in power for another one year ⁰

The opposition and the government in the Democratic Republic of the Congo have agreed on a deal to allow President Joseph Kabila remain in office for an additional year in return for not seeking a third term, the opposition has announced. “Kabila stays for one year,” opposition leader Martin Fayulu said on Friday, adding, “He will not try to stand for a new term.”

The unexpected deal between the opposing sides came after dozens of people were killed in anti-government protests this week. The United Nations (UN) said on Friday that some 40 people were killed. A government spokesman declined to comment on the specifics of the deal, which requires final approval by all the delegates at negotiations mediated by the country’s Catholic Church. Jean Marc Kabund, the secretary general of the DR Congo’s largest opposition party, the UDPS, warned that the deal was not yet closed. “Today is the last day (of talks),” he said, adding, “It’s make it or break it.”

President Kabila’s second term in office expired on Tuesday. According to the constitution, a new president must be elected now. However, Kabila has remained in office as a presidential election scheduled for last month was postponed because of what the government said were delays in registering voters.

This image, taken on December 20, 2016, shows a man screaming as people gather to protest in the neighborhood of Yolo in Kinshasa, the DR Congo. (By AFP)

His father, former president Laurent Kabila, was assassinated in 2001 in the country, which has never witnessed a peaceful transition of power.He took office just ten days after the assassination of his father.

The protests and killings this week have raised fears that the African state is headed toward more instability and a major conflict.

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24, December 2016

Congo-Kinshasa: Opposition parties near deal on power transition ⁰

Political parties in the Democratic Republic of Congo have stopped negotiations before finalizing a power transition agreement, under which President Joseph Kabila will leave office next year. Participants in the negotiations said the talks between the opposition and the government in the DR Congo, which lasted for 12 hours, came to an end at about 5:30 a.m. local time (0430 GMT) on Saturday.

The negotiations were set to resume at 11 a.m. local time. “At that time … it will be possible to propose a final document that can be signed this afternoon,” opposition delegate Francois Mwamba said. Mwamba noted that the negotiating parties had failed to agree on some points of the deal, which was recently brokered by the country’s Catholic Church. The deal would allow President Joseph Kabila to remain in office for an additional year but the constitution could not be changed to let him run for a third term.

Under the agreement, presidential elections would also be held in 2017. The unexpected accord came after dozens of people were killed in anti-government protests this week. The United Nations put the death toll at some 40. Opposition leaders Martin Fayulu and Jose Endundo said a prime minister would be chosen from the main opposition bloc and veteran opposition leader Etienne Tshisekedi would supervise the implementation of the agreement.

Kabila has not immediately commented on the news. President Kabila’s second term in office expired on Tuesday. According to the constitution, a new president must be elected now. However, Kabila has remained in office as a presidential election scheduled for last month was postponed because of what the government said were delays in registering voters.

Kabila has been accused of trying to cling on to power. His supporters, however, say that he is committed to the constitution but stepping down from power would possibly spark a power struggle that could put his life in danger. His father, former president Laurent Kabila, was assassinated in 2001 in the country, which has never witnessed a peaceful transition of power. He took office just ten days after the assassination of his father.

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22, December 2016

President Biya is Cameroon Concord News Man of the Year 2016 ³

Blood and intrigues have earned President Paul Biya Cameroon Concord News Man of the Year nomination. This may seem unprecedented but justifiable. Blood and intrigues are the defining attributes of Paul Biya’s presidency. Indeed, blood and intrigues are at its highest as we write. They, therefore merit special attention in our choice of our man of the year.

The choice of Mr Biya as Cameroon Concord News Man of the Year 2016 is not without difficulties. The first difficulty is that it is unprecedented and requires some explanation for reasonable people to contextualize and understand.

We are conscious that no matter what explanation we may give, there will be significant questions begging for answers. The choice is unconventional and fails to meet the conventional criteria for the choice of a classic man of the year. But we hasten to state that this choice is not intended to celebrate any remarkable achievement of Mr Paul Biya for the public good. Far from that, it is intended to create international awareness and focus on the acts and conduct of the man whom if the international community fails to act promptly, may set the entire sub-region on an internecine war of attrition and possible genocide.

President Paul Biya is an African strongman who over a period of thirty-four years has established an absolute brutal dictatorship. During these long years in power, he has succeeded to make Cameroon a deeply divided nation. He is a master of the politics of ethnicity.

His staying power is mired in dividing and playing one ethnic group against the others in order to compel subservience. His reign is characterized by a state of fear, a permanent state of emergency symbolized by daily motions of support broadcast by the national radio-television network and published by the national daily Cameroon Tribune. These motions of support convey a sublime sense of potential political instability, fear and the anxiety of a nation at war with its soul.

In thirty-four years President Biya has established a system of government which may be characterized as a pyramid scheme of institutional corruption. With it, he manipulates, controls and dominates Cameroon’s political life. From the summit of this corrupt enterprise, he politicizes and supervises a supposed war against corruption. He relies on this war against corruption to keep in check a frightened and docile nation.

Among the many victims of this war are, some ambitious members of his crime syndicate who initiated a premature contest for power; at a moment Biya needed their unalloyed support to eternalize power. For daring, he put them in jail. The next are the rats in Paul Biya’s Alibaba Empire of corruption. They are the gate-keepers of the corrupt empire. Their crime is that they helped themselves beyond their permitted limit from the sesame treasure of Paul Biya’s prurient corrupt government. While he has encouraged and promoted this category of stooges, he has on occasion sacrificed them as disposable fodder aimed at concealing or deflating international attention and spotlight on the dire consequences of his failed economic policies, systemic corruption, egregious violations and crass misgovernance.

The third category is made up of potential troubling witnesses whom he brought too close to his regime of personal power, but whose long term allegiance, he cannot vouchsafe. To instill fear and compel allegiance from the political power elite he created and nurtured to serve him and him alone, he created a Special Criminal Court which he uses against adversaries, real or apparent at his will and caprices.

A key consideration in our choice of Mr Paul Biya as Cameroon Concord News Man of the Year is his presidency of blood and intrigues. These are key attributes on which his presidency was firmly established from inception. From one stage-managed attempted coup d’état aimed at expunging the lingering political influence of his “illustrious predecessor” Ahmadou Ahidjo an attempted coup d’état which was savagely repressed was organized. The toll in human and material cost of the violent repression has never been made public. Timid attempts by Northern Cameroon’s power elite to seek an answer to this lingering and smoldering powder keg has so far been ignored.

That massacre set the stage for President Paul Biya to establish a platform for the fulfillment of a long term French- inspired ambition to completely wipe out the internationally recognized identity of the Southern Cameroons as a means of securing its gulf of Guinea oil economy. President Biya engineered and enacted a law re-emphasizing and clarifying the identity of La Republique du Cameroun and its inherited boundaries at independence on January 1, 1960. This action was the powder keg that ignited the identity crisis that has bedeviled Cameroon ever since, with the Southern Cameroons arguing with international law and history on its side that by redefining its identity within its international recognized borders consistent with its international identity at the UN and the AU,, La Republique du Cameroun must withdraw its forces and administrators on the territory of the Southern Cameroons to its said internationally recognized boundaries forthwith.

The ongoing mayhem, crimes against humanity and a drift towards potential genocide in the territory of the Southern Cameroons perpetrated by forces deployed by President Paul Biya to suppress a popular uprising clamoring for freedom and independence arose from resistance to annexation, cultural asphyxiation and colonial imposition. The ongoing uprising therefore arises from the arrogance of power, political and geostrategic choices that are endangering the peace and security in the gulf of Guinea requiring urgent United Nations Intervention.

The plethora of deliberate but uninvestigated human disasters in Lake Nyos, the Nsam fire disaster, the University of Yaounde Zero Mort student massacres, the University of Buea students massacred during various student protests, the February 28, 2008 massacre of peaceful protesters all over the national territory, the recent Eseka train disaster and persistent shameful attempts to conceal responsibility for these crimes against humanity bear the stamp of presidential responsibility. The legitimate question to ask is who stands to benefit from these crimes if not the President who holds the constitutional mandate to protect all citizens and uphold fundamental freedoms?

The use of the constitutional institutions of governance like the National Assembly and the Judiciary as tools for the entrenchment of tyranny and oppression makes President Paul Biya, an imperial president, endowed with the power of life and death over a citizenry resigned to their fate and the forces of nature for survival.

Rather than confront the ills afflicting the nation, like the institutional pauperization of the masses, the paucity of basic necessities like water, electricity, affordable medical care, road infrastructure, and rising insecurity, the President relies on these depravities as political tools to compel allegiance and political control.

The resolution of the Bakassi crisis was supposed to be celebrated as a defining achievement of a Biya presidency, but the Southern Cameroons problem of which Bakassi is a significant component if not satisfactorily resolved, will lead to reigniting with ferocious intensity, the Bakassi crisis with sub-regional and regional consequences.

The President declared war against Boko Haram from a foreign capital, Paris. That again was an unprecedented. However, while due credit must be given to the Cameroon Army for their war effort against Boko Haram, the economic neglect which was exploited to recruit Cameroonians into these terrorist organization must be addressed. Doing so needs adequate resources and a national Marshall Development plan which President Biya has in thirty-four years failed to establish. Cameroon is instead economically on the decline and has become a heavily indebted nation, mortgaging the future of the nation far into posterity.

Without any form of stylistic felicity, Cameroon Concord News holds the firm opinion that under the circumstances painted above, Cameroon is living on the heart pulse of one individual. There is no visible possibility of democratic change of government in Cameroon. The institutional framework does not exist. There is no constitutional court envisaged by the Constitution to adjudicate on constitutional issues including the political transition, should there be a constitutional imperative. This is a powerful indication that Mr Biya does not envisage retiring from politics and relinquishing power through constitutional means.

President Paul Biya is undoubtedly the undisputed heart pulse of a nation of twenty-three million people who are living at his pleasure. He is deified by his supporters who additionally credit him for being the master of time and destiny of the nation. One of them, Professor Fame Ndongo claimed the status of the President’s slave and invited the nation to follow. These attributes confer considerable power and authority on President Paul Biya next to, if not at par with God. This indeed, is the problem with Cameroon.

By nominating Mr Biya Cameroon Concord News Man of the Year, Cameroon Concord Group does not in any way subscribe to or validate these attributes or the policies of Mr Biya that have earned him this nomination. Cameroon is besieged from the East, the North and now the Southern Cameroons in international conflicts. These conflicts are a product of a deliberate policy of blood and intrigues.

Behind this facade of the power of blood and intrigues, there are visible cracks on the walls of absolute power and the tyranny of absolute personal power. Will the His Excellency the pulse of the nation, the master and controller of time, beat the timeless time of one and only true God to mend the visible cracks to sustain his eternal power? The answer lies in a clear understanding of the parable of the rich fool.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

Editor-in-Chief

Cameroon Concord News Group

22, December 2016

UN: Security Council urges Gambia’s President Jammeh to transfer power ⁰

The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) has called on Gambia’s longtime head of state, Yahya Jammeh, to hand over power to President-elect Adama Barrow, who won the December 1 polls in the West African country.

In a statement read at an open council meeting on Wednesday, the 15-member body said it was “encouraged” by decisions by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the African Union to recognize Barrow as Gambia’s future leader.

Barrow and Jammeh secured 43.3 and 39.6 percent of the vote respectively. Jammeh, who has governed the country for 22 years, initially accepted the results but later reversed his position, saying the polls were riddled with irregularities and vowed to challenge the outcome in the Supreme Court.

ECOWAS, in turn, urged Jammeh to honor his initial pledge to accept electoral defeat and threatened “to take all necessary action to enforce the results” of the polls. However, Jammeh said he would not step down and accused West African leaders of violating the ECOWAS principle of non-interference. “I am not a coward. My right cannot be intimidated and violated. This is my position. Nobody can deprive me of that victory,” he said during a televised speech.

Reports said ECOWAS might seek approval from the UNSC, of which Senegal is a non-permanent member, for the use of force against the Gambia. The UNSC said ECOWAS initiatives “aimed at ensuring a peaceful and orderly transition process.” It further urged Barrow’s security to be “fully ensured” and called on Gambian defense and security forces to “demonstrate maximum restraint to maintain an atmosphere of calm” in the capital, Banjul.

Barrow’s inauguration ceremony is expected to be held on January 19. Jammeh, who seized power in a 1994 military coup, has come under fire by human rights groups for what is said to be his crackdown on opponents.

Presstv

20, December 2016

Regional Governors in Yaounde for semi-annual conference ⁰

The Minister of Territorial Administration and Decentralization, René Emmanuel Sadi, has summoned the regional governors to the nation’s capital Yaoundé. Nine out of the ten regional heads will participate in the deliberations to take place at the Yaoundé city council hall. The Center region will be represented by the Secretary General at the Governor’s office following the passing into eternity of Governor Otto Wilson.

It would be the second semi-annual conference of regional governors for the year 2016 commencing today, Tuesday the 20^th of December to Thursday the 22^nd of December 2016. The participants will focus on the general theme “Administrative authorities, reform of the budget program and performance of public administration”.

The regional governors met in Yaoundé five months ago for the first semi-annual conference on administrative authorities, implementation of the three-year contingency plan, local governance and the rule of law.

By Sama Ernest

19, December 2016

Biya’s Laptop computers: Another broken promise by the CPDM government ⁰

Some few months ago students all over the national territory took to the streets thanking President Paul Biya for offering them made in China laptops. All attempts at getting the student community to wait until the CPDM laptops were delivered met with a stone wall. The presidency of the republic announced that the students were going to get the computers before Christmas.

With Christmas just seven days to go and with the presidency unable to pay salaries for its temporal workers, some student leaders used by the regime to stage the support rallies for President Biya have been heard murmuring privately that the President Biya laptop gift was just another CPDM hoax.

Nothing is being mentioned both in government circles and in the universities about the laptops. Cameroon Concord News understands any student caught talking about the laptops is now branded a secessionist. The so-called Minister of Higher Education, Fame Ndongo has shied away from questions concerning the project. It is expected that the Biya Francophone Beti Ewondo regime will include the laptop scheme in the Emergence 2035 program.

By Sama Ernest

18, December 2016

Zimbabwe’s ruling party, ZANU-PF endorses President Robert Mugabe for 2018 ⁰

Zimbabwe’s ruling party, ZANU-PF, has endorsed President Robert Mugabe as its candidate for the upcoming presidential election. Mugabe was endorsed at a party conference held on Saturday in Masvingo, located about 300 kilometers southeast of the capital Harare.

Deputy Secretary Eunice Sandi Moyo said the party’s congress had voiced “its support to the president and first secretary comrade Robert Mugabe as the sole candidate for the forthcoming 2018 elections.” The endorsement of the incumbent president was met with resounding applause from supporters attending the annual conference.

Thousands of cheering supporters chanted slogans in Shona language meaning, “Rule, Rule Father.” Mugabe, 92, has ruled the African country for more than 36 years and won the most recent election in 2013. He has been in power since the country’s independence from the British colonial rule in 1980. In April, thousands of supporters of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), Zimbabwe’s main opposition party, attended a demonstration in Harare, calling for the resignation of the president.

Zimbabwe has seen a surge in public discontent with an economic crisis that has left banks short of cash and the government struggling to pay its workers. Many have taken to the streets over the past weeks, protesting against the failure of the Mugabe administration in addressing economic woes. ZANU-PF is also in turmoil over a successor for the ailing president, which has triggered more concerns that the country, known for its rich resources, would slide deeper into chaos.

Presstv

16, December 2016

Biya Francophone Beti-Ewondo regime’s strategy to stifle the Anglophone nationalism uncovered ³

An insider has hinted Southern Cameroonians on what the Biya Francophone Beti Ewondo regime is developing as a strategy to stifle our Anglophone nationalism. Below is part of the release that was made public by an anonymous source in Yaounde:

The Biya Francophone Beti Ewondo regime intends to use Delay tactics, using time in saying they are processing information we gave. (Very worrying point) time kills and interest might wane.

More Francophone ministers will start speaking in English

Signs and billboards will be slowly changed to both languages with English appearing bold

Important ministers in say 3-4 ministries will be Anglophones

Majority Francophone staff in divisional and sub- divisional schools will be transferred

Many Anglophone teachers will be posted to teach in Francophone zones with an increase in salary as compared to those in Anglophone zones (a pull factor, watch out)

Some Provincial and divisional judges will be Anglophones in Anglophone areas

Speeding up of the Kumba-Mamfe road construction

Do not be glad, these things are just window dressings for they will soon fade away. Behind the scene right now are spies, sent out to spy and sabotage the leaders in the Anglophone struggle. Beware they are going to use women and money to bribe them. Do not be alarm if you hear of theft and sex scandals. It saddens me to say this, but some leaders will trip. They have employed hackers, who are working right now in trying to track and expose. I won’t name the country from where the hackers came from. Let all our prominent leaders mind what they say over the phone and in SMS, they are listening to them and listening to the closest 5-10 persons in their circle of friends.

Working behind the scene right now are ethnologists and sociologists employed to cause great division among the Anglophones. These people know the weakness in our tribal cultures and are going to set a wave hoping it breaks our spine. Please do not start hating people in this professions, they are just being used because they know very well how societies are structured. Here are some of the things I think they will propose and try to do;

Organize simple things such as canoe races between people in the coastal areas from Wouri to Bamusso with large sums of money to be won. Event will be covered by the media and historians will be called to start talking about their similarities and common ancestors, and you will start to hear things like sawa land, sawa people. Manyu will be ignored from these events and these will upset certain chiefs, elite and natives and that will be the start of the breaking of the peoples of the SW. The Mbo’s and Bakossi will be encouraged through cultural and sporting events to link up with Nkongsamba. As you can see these diabolic events have isolated Manyu and Labialem peoples. They will use our chiefs and elites for these evil jobs. My brothers and sisters do not be alarm and fall for these when you see these things unfolding. Warn your Cheifs and elites.

Appoint a North Westerner as Governor of South West or a big cooperation in the South West, and then get some chiefs to oppose publicly, so the Governor/General manager will be remove with the hope that people from the North West will be upset, and this will be made into a huge story. This trick will be to plant mistrust and their media will promote it. This same trick will be used in the North West, but this time they will use someone from the Western province to plant division and isolate North West. My people like we say in pidgin “shine your eyes” and do not fall for these.
Offer Prime Ministerial office to someone from Ndian hoping it will upset Manyu and to please Manyu, appoint one of their elite as governor in littoral/ centre province. Forgive me if you do not buy my analysis, but this is how I perceive the bite and blow from this diabolic “system”. They are trying to isolate North West at the same time divide South west making it to look like Manyu, Lebialem, Manegoumba and Bagem are against Fako, Bamusso and Meme
For the North West they will stir tribal wars and make it national news. Favour weaker group over stronger one. Let not your hearts be trouble my people. “Shine your eyes” and avoid falling for this. They will also stir up news in West Cameroon that North West will rule and gain more, so as to frighten any weaker comrade. At the same time they will stir within South West that Manyu natives are more and will dominate and they (the system) will offer to help Fako and Bamusso if they reject Federation.

Please let this not sway you, for the rule of law, open opportunity for all will have to be the bedrock of our federation. The shallow reason you see they are trying to set confusion amongst Manyu in SW and NW as a whole is that, they (the system) thinks these two benefit the most from others. But it is a lie. West Cameroon has lot of unexploited resources in the North West, such as iron ore in Ndop, Coal, rare earth minerals along Nkambe all the way to Furawa, following that mighty Katsina River, just to name a few. We know they do not release these info for fear of us separating. Same goes with Manyu, Bangem, Labeliam. We know there is bauxite in Bagem and Labialem, some crude oil in Mamfe, pozzalan in Manegouba and many more because as it stands our region is least exploited. The only resource heavily extracted is the crude from Ndian, timber from Korup and Nguti and now some crude from Limbe.

We all have some differences, its normal but we should all rally around the Identity (Anglophone). Look the USA and Canada are made up of people from Africa, Europe and Asia. What binds us should be our Anglophones. Guard this closer to your hearts, for if we fail they will suck in South West into Littoral and North West into West, by creating what they will call Coastal/Sawaland State and Grassfeild State. This will come about by them proposing a 6-7 states solution. Flee from these proposal, because if we are sucked in, only force can be use to liberate us and it will be deadly.

They are now back to their drawing boards planning drastic and carefully thought over ideas. There is blame game in their camp now and some heads will roll, some are saying they had been very arrogant and harsh with “assimilation” or “harmonization”. The implementation of their diabolic plans will be gradual this time, as you can see the system is very upset by what we have done. We have shattered what they have built since 1962 till date in just 2 years. We should be very tactical and foresighted, take no soft speeches in English by some as change or appointments as a solution.

It’s either Full Federation with all its tenets or Separation. Let the Consortium be careful with who they bring on board and how they draft and list their points. If all their points are satisfied but no federation granted it will take two generations to wipe the slate clean, and this might be deadly. If they say we are talking politics, we should agree, politics affects all sectors of life and politicians are the decision makers. We are talking about all these because of what politician did. Do not shy away when they say avoid politics.

Some of their advisers are telling them to offer us Full Federation, but the system is worried. The “system” says they need a guarantee, and it should be, we sign a clause which will state that Secession will never be raised in say 100 years from the date of such signing and it be enshrine in a new constitution. If we take this option, we also have to propose that all the points raised plus Full Federation with all its tenets, be protected and enshrine in the constitution and upheld to its fullest, and if it’s not followed we will opt out of the union and go our way as a separate state.

We should also ensure that the state flag bears two stars as a reminder that, these are two peoples living together under a Federal system. The name of our country should also include the words United and Federal. These are reminders and should not be left out.

Brothers and sisters I have more to say but I will reserve for now. Please feel free to use these info to educate our people if you dim fit, I have no copyright issue with it.

A point to highlight, CDC might be lost; its destruction had been going on for some time. She will suffer from competition brought to it by the “system”; the “system” has created large farms in the East and South growing palms and rubber. They have few workers and most are seasonal same as Herackles farm, so they stand a better chance of undermining CDC in selling their produce. This will cause CDC to be indebted and be forced to be privatized to foreign companies and behind these foreign companies will be top people from the “system” their family and friends. They will create companies abroad in what is call “company layering” and use these companies to buy shares in a foreign company and ask this foreign company to come and buy over CDC shares. We should watch out and teach our people to be vigilant and be vocal.

Found in Old Mount Mary’s Church Buea

16, December 2016

Former French Prime Minister says West policy in Syria has failed ⁰

The former French prime minister and the Republican party’s presidential candidate has criticized the Western policy towards Syria’s nearly six-year-old conflict, stating that Europe’s stance vis-à-vis the deadly crisis has shown “indignation.” Speaking to reporters following a meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and leaders of European center-right parties in Brussels on Thursday, Francois Fillon stated that Europe has to engage in negotiations with parties involved in the Syrian conflict to save lives. “I told European leaders that what we are forced to concede today is that Western diplomacy and in particular European diplomacy has failed,” he said, rejecting the option of a US military onslaught against Syria.

The 62-year-old French politician, who has previously called for restoring ties with the Syrian government, added, “The other option is a strong European diplomatic initiative to bring around the table all those who can stop this conflict,” which started in March 2011. Commenting on the European strategy with regard to Russia, which has been conducting an air campaign against militants in Syria for over a year, the French presidential hopeful said, “I simply have a lot of respect for Russia. I’ve always said whether Russia’s leader is called Vladimir, Boris or Igor, he is the leader of the biggest country in the world. Europe must have a long-term strategy with Russia and not just act emotionally.”

Fillon’s comments come as Russia has criticized the West for its failure to contain extremist militants it supports in Syria and “indefinite” procrastination when it comes to peace talks for the war-ravaged Arab country. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said last month that the West had been unsuccessful to wield influence on Takfiri militants in Syria. “As a result, the prospects for the start of a negotiation process and the return to peaceful life in Syria are postponed for an indefinite period,” he said at the time.

The United States has been supporting militants it calls “moderate.” Russia has in return emphasized there are no such militants in Syria, and all militant groups are perpetrating savage acts of terror in the conflict-ridden country. Washington refuses to designate specifically what groups it deems “moderate,” even though Moscow has expressed preparedness for potential cooperation in that regard.

US officials have been campaigning strongly against Russian aerial attacks in Syria, saying the strikes may target the “moderates.” Russia began its air campaign against Daesh and other terrorist groups in Syria in September 2015 upon a request by the Damascus government. United Nations Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura estimates that over 400,000 people have been killed in the Syrian conflict. The UN has stopped its official casualty count in Syria, citing its inability to verify the figures it receives from various sources.

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