The Ambazonia Interim Government of Southern Cameroons-controlled English speaking regions have announced a decision to boycott Cameroon’s re-run parliamentary elections to be held from March the 20^th to the 22^nd.     

87 year old President Biya has already called for a re-run of the parliamentary elections, according to a statement issued by the Etoudi presidency.

Speaking to Cameroon Concord News Group, Ambazonia Communications Secretary, Milton Taka said, “The people of Southern Cameroons reject these elections of the French Cameroun parliament and officially declare that they won’t let the elections be held in the Federal Republic of Ambazonia.”

Milton Taka added that since the independence of Southern Cameroons was declared by the Ambazonia leader President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe, the territory now known as the Federal Republic of Ambazonia is out of Mr. Biya’s control and Ambazonians have nothing to do with Biya French Cameroun’s elections.

Additionally, the Southern Cameroons Vice President Dabney Yerima also called for a boycott of the said parliamentary elections re-run.

Vice President Dabney Yerim said, in a statement issued last week that the election boycott comes as the French Cameroun regime is practicing daily killings against the Ambazonian people alongside the continuing campaigns of repression, persecution, arrest, as well as the burning of towns and villages and the demolition of houses belonging to innocent Southern Cameroons civilians.

“The Ambzonia Interim Government announces the boycott (voters and candidates) of the elections scheduled to take place by the dictatorial French Cameroun regime,” the statement said.

For his part, the Southern Cameroons Secretary for Finance, Comrade Tabenyang Brado noted that the French Cameroun regime’s insistence on holding the parliamentary elections re-run is a challenge to the will and efforts of the international community in stopping the ongoing genocide in Ambazonia, and it is a clear attempt by the Biya administration to pervert the course of the Washington Conference on peace negotiations.

This is the third time Southern Cameroonians have boycotted the Biya French Cameroun regime’s elections.

Southern Cameroonians boycotted the presidential elections when Ambazonia Restoration Forces destroyed several ELECAM offices and ballot boxes in Ground Zero.

By Asu Isong in London

The war in Southern Cameroons-Ambazonia has entered its fourth year and a new wave of violence is looming for thousands of civilians in Ground Zero and French speaking Cameroon citizens living around the areas bordering West Cameroon.

Over the last year, the Biya Francophone regime in Yaoundé has seen its grip on the Southern Cameroons territory weakened and President Biya’s position as head of state threatened. All that remains of the Cameroon government in Southern Cameroons is cornered in Buea and Bamenda where two Francophone governors are still posing as administrators with legitimate authority.

And yet in those two cities, a consortium of Ambazonia Restoration Forces showing no regard to the so-called one and indivisible Cameroon are consolidating power, and looking set for a showdown with the Cameroon government army and its French backer. The Cameroon government army says it is responding to an increase in attacks from Ambazonia separatists in the West Region.

After a string of victories against the Cameroon government military, the Ambazonian Vice President Dabney Yerima said recently that Southern Cameroons Restoration Forces now control all border crossings into the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

There are reports that Ambazonia Self Defense groups and armed militia sponsored by the ruling CPDM party have engaged in the same kind of repression that sparked the uprising against the Biya French Cameroun rule four years ago.

Armed militia groups with strong ties to the Cameroon government army have been accused of being behind the assassinations of several well known religious figures, including a cream of Roman Catholic priests and an American missionary.

Thousands of Southern Cameroons civilians have died in Cameroon government army attacks on towns and villages over the past four years, and some 35,000 civilians have fled their homes in to the bushes to escape the fighting.

Southern Cameroons is now home to more than 20 different armed Ambazonia groups and thousands of Cameroon government army soldiers battling for control in a war that has displaced more than half a million people to neighboring Nigeria and to  other parts of French Cameroun. Aid groups on the ground have also witnessed numerous attacks from the Cameroon government army.

Our senior intelligence officer in the chief city of the West Region in Cameroon hinted that there is a huge sense of panic now in Mbouda, Baffoussam and Dschang as more Cameroon government security posts come under attack from Ambazonia fighters.

Health facilities in Southern Cameroons have been forced to close and people are dying or suffering in acute pain because they cannot get the treatment they need in places like Akwaya, Menchum, Bui, Ndian, Batibo and Ndop.

Human Rights Watch reported that it is the beleaguered Southern Cameroons civilians who are finding themselves under attack on all fronts. Charities and Aid organizations are at risk of falling foul of the Yaoundé imposed law if they send aid into Southern Cameroons and many aid workers have been caught up in the fighting.

Celebrations to mark World Women’s Day saw the worst bombing ever since the war started with Ambazonia Restoration Forces targeting the Francophone governor of the North West, Lele Afrique.

Many in Southern Cameroons now fear any Cameroon government offensive.  An international conference in Washington DC that was to discuss the armed conflict in Southern Cameroons was put on hold following the outbreak of the coronavirus.

The UN has warned that continued Cameroon government military assault on Southern Cameroons would create a difficult humanitarian catastrophe in the Sub Saharan region.

Southern Cameroons political elites serving with the ruling CPDM government in Yaoundé are too scared now to speak out against the leadership pattern of the 87 year old President Biya. Any Southern Cameroons prominent figure that speaks against the atrocities being committed by the Cameroon government army soldiers in Southern Cameroons is libeled a secessionist and a criminal.

Receiving a pat on the back earlier this month, the Russian Ambassador to Cameroon supported the Yaounde regime’s handling of the crisis in Southern Cameroons and condemned aid groups helping Southern Cameroons civilians caught in the fighting.

Southern Cameroonians living in Ground Zero are confused and afraid of what will happen next. In many ways, the Federal Republic of Ambazonia has successfully entered its fourth year of war much as it did in the first. Extreme violence and crimes against humanity plagues the entire territory.

Last week, hundreds protested in the city of London, the cradle of the Southern Cameroons Problem against the British Monarchy for its deliberate silence on the genocide going on in Southern Cameroons.

The London protest represented the first Southern Cameroons peaceful demonstration in an event that was attended by Her Majesty the Queen and it came despite little or no action from the Commonwealth.

The Biya Francophone regime reportedly arrested hundreds of formally cleared Ambazonian fighters and civilians with a track record of unarmed opposition activity. This approach led by the Territorial Administration Minister, Paul Atanga Nji has further hampered the Cameroon government’s efforts to retain control over Southern Cameroons.

As long as President Biya remains in power, the situation in Southern Cameroons will not improve. Southern Cameroons refugees and the internally displaced will not return for fear of joblessness, homelessness and arbitrary arrest. The fighting will continue.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

United Nations Secretary General Guterres has no comment on, and have refused to answer on, Cameroon’s expulsion and now public trashing of their own UN OCHA officials in Bamenda, Andrew Jack Pendleton. Biya’s minister Atanga Nji has publicly denounced this UN official for his mild comments on the government’s slaughter of civilians at Ngarbuh. But Guterres has said nothing. The most basic thing a UN Secretary General is expected to do is speak for UN officials being chased out. But no – Guterres is too corrupt.

On February 16 Inner City Press from its sources in Cameroon reported on the killing of more than two dozen civilians including children in Ngar in NW Cameroon.

Before 10 am on February 17 Inner City Press in writing asked Guterres, his spokespeople Stephane Dujarric and Eri Kaneko about the killings. 

There was no answer, and with Dujarric on vacation in Orlando, Florida, Eri Kaneko fielded only two questions at a ten minute long noon briefing on February 17 that Inner City Press was banned from entering and asking at.   Since then Guterres, Dujarric and Melissa Fleming have refused to answer daily questions from Inner City Press on what has become their genocide in Cameroon.

 Now there’s widely circulated video  a toddler whose mother was killed in Babanki (Kedjom Ketinguh) in Mezam, in the North West region of Cameroon. Soldiers are responsible, and 10 other civilians have been killed. Meanwhile corrupt Guterres and Catarina Vaz Pinto, the First Lady of Faux Socialism, ran right by Inner City Press loud questions about Cameroon on February 29, into the publicly funded mansion Guterres lives in some of the time.

Also one of the witnesses who exposed the Biya government’s mass killing at Ngarbuh, Mallam Danjuma has been killed and dumped in Bui by government forces in Kikaikelaki. And from the UN of Guterres? Nothing. This is Guterres’ genocide. He has the only press that ask him about it, even from his propaganda speech at NYC’s The New School.

Source: Inner City Press

Macron and Biya put aside their differences to talk about resolving violence in Cameroon.

The presidents of France and Cameroon “agreed on the need for an impartial inquiry” into the violence perpetrated in Cameroon’s Northwest Province during a phone conversation between the two heads of state on Sunday, 1 March.

Emmanuel Macron’s controversial remarks that set off a firestorm on 22 February when he promised to exert “maximum pressure” on Paul Biya to bring “Cameroon’s intolerable violence” to an end are but a distant memory. The French authorities are now evidently looking to calm the diplomatic spat.

The terse communiqué released by the French president’s press office expresses France’s evident resolve to de-escalate tensions between Yaoundé and Paris after they had mounted in the week leading up to 1 March.

Accordingly, during the phone call, Biya and Macron “agreed on the need for an impartial inquiry in response to the violence perpetrated against civilians in Ngarbuh village in the Northwest Province.”

Hardly a concession for Yaoundé given that it recently ordered the opening of an inquiry.

Significant support

The very same communiqué also indicates that “both presidents agreed to keep in touch to follow up on the political initiatives resulting from the Major National Dialogue,” without ever mentioning the issue of political prisoners or negotiations with secessionists, two taboo subjects for Cameroon’s government.

However, Macron had previously assured the leader of the Brigade anti-sardinards (BAS) activist group, Calibri Calibro, who had questioned him on the matter, that he would speak with the Cameroonian president about the crisis.

“I’m going to call President Biya next week and we’re going to put as much pressure as possible to bring an end to the situation,” the French head of state had said regarding the Ngarbuh massacre.

Does Macron’s return to diplomatic norms have something to do with the Cameroonian authorities’ strong reaction to his comments, with the government using every means at its disposal to convey its discontent? It is hard to say for sure.

What is certain is that the chants shouted by the “young onlookers” who took to the streets to denounce Macron’s remarks outside the French embassy on 24 February reached the highest French officials via a detailed report which, according to our sources, was sent to the Quai d’Orsay, the site of France’s diplomatic headquarters.

In light of Macron’s tempered stance, Yaoundé is expected to retain France’s support in the endless crisis pitting Anglophone separatists against Cameroon’s government. Yaoundé is trying to negotiate with international players that seek to open a direct dialogue with the currently incarcerated leaders of the separatist movement. The violence continues to take a heavy civilian toll.

Source: The Africa Report

President Paul Biya of Cameroon is, in many ways, your bog-standard African “authoritarian ruler”, or, as diplomats don’t say, “dictator”. He has held on to power for almost forty years and is now in his seventh term as head of state, the oldest and longest-standing ruler in Africa. In 1983, as sole candidate, he won 99.98 per cent of the votes. He followed the example of other one-party states in the 1990s, allowing opposition parties to emerge and simply rigging subsequent elections.

At present, his troops are committing atrocities against an embattled English-speaking minority. They are rampaging through English-speaking villages in a French-speaking country whose economy is de facto controlled by French companies (over a hundred in almost all sectors including off-shore oil).

Cameroon has a civil war on its hands. Anglophone grievances came to a head in 2016, when the Francophone-dominated regime imposed French-speaking judges on Anglophone courts and Francophone teachers in Anglophone schools. Swiss and Commonwealth representatives have tried to mediate but President Biya thinks he can solve his problem militarily and has told both, in no uncertain terms, to go away.

Until 1960, there were two Cameroons. The larger territory was governed by France using the French legal and education systems and language. But in the smaller south and west territories, English common law took precedence, with English judges and English school exams. The present conflict dates back to decolonisation in 1961, when a UN-backed independence referendum offered the Anglophones the choice between joining Nigeria or joining French Cameroon. Thus 20 per cent of the population were not even offered the option of self-determination.

Under President Biya, the Francophone-dominated government, based in the capital of Yaoundé, has marginalised the mainly Anglophone northwest and southwest regions. Only one of 36 cabinet posts is held by an Anglophone. Since 2017, despite the constitution guaranteeing human rights, reputable human rights organisations have recorded the repeated use of force against Anglophone demonstrations. Journalists are arrested and tortured. Government troops, notably the Rapid Intervention Force, have been burning down English-speaking villages, with the result that 656,000 people have fled, between 35,000-50,000 of them into Nigerian refugee camps. Meanwhile, secessionist militias have become increasingly violent. Banditry is rampant. Civilians — including Catholic priests — have been kidnapped, some tortured. Catholic-run schools and clinics have closed, with 800,000 children deprived of schooling. Casualties on both sides have mounted: some 2,000-5,000 have been killed in the violence.

By October 2019, Biya was talking about a “major national dialogue”, but the Anglophone leadership was by now flying under the flag of a “Government Council of Ambazonia’, its name for the two secessionist regions. A paper promise of “special status” on the Quebec model for the two Anglophone regions was refused; few Anglophone leaders were willing to attend the talks while the repression continued, and “special status” left real power centred on the largely Francophone capital, Yaoundé. Biya is France’s man. He is housing 350,000 refugees from the Central African Republic and Nigeria, while deploying Cameroonian troops to fight Boko Haram. He is useful.

But what is France’s role? France never really left Cameroon. It has never shed a certain chauvinistic pride in the merits of its language, so Cameroon with a majority speaking French is an asset. The French Foreign Legion is dotted around the region.

I remember a high-level exercise in “entente cordiale” on Africa in the early 1990s when John Major was Prime Minister. It was held in one of the grand reception rooms of the Quai d’Orsay, resplendent with the decorative arts of the Second Empire, the ornate home of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The British delegation comprised the FCO, Dfid and international developmental NGOs. We were duly impressed. The French fielded staff from quite different government directorates, notably their intelligence services and military plus a lonely anthropologist. That also spoke reams.

An international group of Catholic bishops, brought together by the Toronto-based — non-partisan — Global Campaign for Peace and Justice in Cameroon, has recently signed an open letter to President Biya. They call on the president to join Swiss-led negotiations to address Anglophone concerns and claims. Increased international pressure is necessary if this is ever to happen. But Biya rejects what he claims is foreign interference in a domestic issue, insisting on a “home-grown peace initiative only”.

As the bishops wrote: “When the international community ignores escalating atrocities of the kind happening in Cameroon, it often ends up paying a massive bill. Sooner or later, we must fund refugee camps and peacekeepers, host negotiations, accommodate thousands of migrants seeking asylum, and then help rebuild shattered nations. It makes more sense to use diplomacy to stop the violence at an early stage, finding a political solution to a political problem through inclusive peace negotiations”.

Europe, including Britain, remains distracted by Brexit, but the US has begun to apply pressure, distancing itself from the Biya regime by reducing military aid and removing favourable trade status. It is time for another visit to the Quai d’Orsay and for a little more entente cordiale.

Source: The article.com