20, February 2018
Understanding the Southern Cameroons Struggle 0
Separatists in Cameroon’s restive English-speaking regions have faced a violent crackdown since declaring the creation of “Ambazonia”, a self-proclaimed republic independent from the majority French-speaking country.
The violence has helped fuel support for a growing separatist movement, including armed groups, who in turn have carried out a string of attacks on police and the military. Dozens on both sides have died, and tens of thousands have fled into neighbouring Nigeria.
ENGLISH
The political drive for the separatist cause began in 2016 after police broke up demonstrations by English-speaking lawyers and teachers who protested against working in French.
The Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium (CACSC), locally known as “the Consortium”, was formed to campaign against what they viewed as discrimination and marginalisation by the francophone majority.
Although it campaigned for federal ties — not secessionism — the campaign met with unyielding opposition from octogenarian President Paul Biya.
The Consortium was dissolved in January 2017, two of its leaders were arrested, and within the anglophone protest movement, the pendulum began to swing in favour of independence.
On October 1, prominent leader Sisiku Ayuk Tabe declared the self-proclaimed republic of “Ambazonia”, named after Ambas Bay on the Atlantic Ocean. The state has not been recognised internationally.
Biya countered with a crackdown and enlisted the help of neighbouring Nigeria in denying a haven to the “terrorists”.
ASYLUM
In January, Ayuk Tabe and 46 of his supporters were extradited by Nigeria to Cameroon despite claims that many of them had lodged asylum applications.
In this climate of spiralling mistrust and revenge, calls for separatism, rather than federalism, are dominant.
The loudest calls have come from the Southern Cameroons Ambazonia Consortium United Front (SCACUF), headed by Ayuk Tabe, which advocates peaceful means to advance independence.
Many of its members are activists with a background in teaching, law or farming, but it also counts former leaders of the outlawed Southern Cameroon National Council (SCNC), which began the campaign for independence back in 1995.
“Negotiations are our best weapon,” said Millan Atam, a SCACUF leader.
But since the crackdown and the roundup of Ayuk Tabe, the peaceful stance is being outflanked by radicals, some of whom advocate taking up arms against “the colonialist occupying forces”.
KIDNAPPING
The International Crisis Group (ICG) estimates that there are likely to be several hundred fighters.
On February 11, these groups and some other separatist movements gathered in an umbrella organisation called the Ambazonia Recognition Collaboration Council (ARCC).
Its most prominent member is a firebrand former student trade unionist, Lucas Cho Ayaba, who heads an armed group that calls itself the Ambazonia Defence Forces (ADF).
The ADF claimed responsibility for kidnapping a government official on Sunday in Batibo, a town near the Nigerian border.
It says it has “thousands of fighters,” although commentators say the figure more likely to be around a hundred or so.
“We have a bloc defence strategy — every village, every group of young people can fight for Ambazonia, and we are ready to help them,” he told AFP.
FORCE
Another armed group is Southern Cameroons Defence Forces (SOCADEF), led by Ebenezer Akwanga, like Cho Ayaba an ex-student trade unionist.
In the late 1990s, the two were allies in challenging the moderate strand of separatism, taking their slogan about “the force of argument” and reversing it, to “the argument of force.”
The ADF and SOCADEF have claimed responsibility for most of the attacks in the anglophone areas. Other smaller, armed factions are also engaged in the conflict, such as the Tigers of Ambazonia, Vipers and the Ambaland Forces, but their impact is unclear.
Attempts have been made to unite the various independence groups, with at least four “conclaves” in Nigeria. The groups have so far failed to unite behind a single leader or structure.
“Today, we are divided, it can not work like this,” a leader said via the WhatsApp messenger service.
Source: AFP
23, February 2018
Australia’s scandal-hit deputy PM resigns 0
Australia’s scandal-hit deputy leader Barnaby Joyce announced Friday he was quitting and moving to the backbench amid claims of sexual harassment and controversy over an affair with a now-pregnant former aide.
Joyce, whose National Party rules alongside Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s Liberals, has been front-page news in Australia for two weeks since it emerged he had left his wife of 24 years for his younger former media adviser, who is now expecting their baby boy.
The 50-year-old had insisted he would ride out the storm but his position became untenable on Friday when a sexual harassment complaint against him, which he denies, was lodged with the party.
“I will say on Monday morning at the party room (meeting), I will step down as the leader of the National Party and deputy leader of Australia,” Joyce said at a press conference in Armidale, his country New South Wales electorate.
Joyce was due to be the acting prime minister this week with Turnbull meeting US President Donald Trump in Washington, but opted to take leave.
With Foreign Minister Julie Bishop also out of the country, the role has been assumed by Senate leader Mathias Cormann, who said ahead of Joyce’s decision that any harassment claim must be taken seriously.
“Any allegation of sexual harassment is a very serious allegation,” he told reporters.
Joyce called the allegation “spurious and defamatory” and said he wanted it investigated by the authorities.
“I have asked that that be referred to the police,” he said, while admitting it had been “the straw that broke the camel’s back.”
His decision to quit came with colleagues reportedly growing increasingly frustrated with his handling of the love-child scandal.
Joyce had opted to give several media interviews this week, at a time when he was expected to be on leave and out of the spotlight and two of the party’s backbenchers had publicly called on him to resign.
A furious Turnbull, who relies on the smaller National Party to govern, slapped a formal ban on sex between cabinet members and their staff in the wake of the Joyce affair.
He twice declined to offer support for his deputy when asked by reporters in Washington on Thursday.
Junior Nationals minister David Gillespie has indicated he would be a candidate for the vacancy, while reports said Veterans Affairs Minister Michael McCormack had significant backing.
The new Nationals leader will automatically become deputy prime minister, under a coalition agreement between the two major parties of the center-right.
The daily media headlines on the scandal have riveted the Australian public and sparked debate about workplace culture amid the global #MeToo movement against sexual harassment.
But it has also highlighted the perilous state of the coalition government, which just a few months ago survived a crisis over lawmakers’ dual citizenship that threatened its wafer-thin parliamentary majority.
(Source: AFP)