6, April 2018

Southern Cameroons Genocide Cover Up: Yaounde arrest Rwanda genocide suspect wanted in France ⁰

A former Rwandan policeman has been arrested in Cameroon on suspicion of involvement in the 1994 Rwandan genocide, a judicial source in France, where he is wanted over the killings, said.

Philippe Hategekimana was arrested in Yaounde, Cameroon’s capital, on March 30 under an international warrant issued by French magistrates specialising in crimes against humanity.

France is expected to request his extradition to face charges of organising and participating in multiple atrocities in southern Rwanda in April 1994, including the assassination of a mayor.

France, which had initially dragged its heels on prosecuting suspected perpetrators of the genocide of about 800,000 people, mostly minority Tutsis, has picked up the pace in recent years.

The first French trial over the genocide was in 2014 when former Rwandan spy chief Pascal Simbikangwa was sentenced to 25 years imprisonment for genocide and complicity in crimes against humanity.

Two years later, a Paris court sentenced two former Rwandan mayors to life in prison for their participation in a massacre at a church, where some 2,000 people seeking refuge were bludgeoned and hacked to death.

All three men were arrested in France.

Hategekimana also fled to France after the genocide, settling in the western city of Rennes where he changed his name to Philippe Manier and obtained French citizenship.

But he recently left for Cameroon.

The investigation against him was opened in Paris in September 2015 after a complaint from the Collective of Civil Parties for Rwanda (CPCR), a group set up by a Rwandan-born relative of genocide victims and her husband.

The genocide has caused two decades of tension between France and Rwanda, with the latter accusing Paris of complicity in the killings through its support and military training for the ethnic Hutu forces who carried out most of the slaughter.

Source: The Nation

6, April 2018

Did Gadaffi fund Ukraine opposition leader’s failed presidential bid? ⁰

Corruption investigators in Ukraine are looking into allegations that late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi gave a multi-million euro donation to the presidential campaign of Yulia Tymoshenko in 2010, Ukrainian MP Volodymyr Ariev said.

Tymoshenko denies the claims, but reports of past illicit campaign financing could damage the Ukrainian opposition leader, who is currently beating President Petro Poroshenko in opinion polls ahead of next year’s presidential vote.

Ariev, who is a member of Poroshenko’s ruling BPP faction, said he and other MPs had formally asked the National Anti-corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) look into the allegations published by pan-Arab newspaper Asharq al-Awsat in February.

As soon as this information appeared in the newspaper, three MPs sent a request to NABU with a request to verify this information.

According to Asharq al-Awsat, a Gaddafi representative flew by private jet to Kiev to deliver a briefcase with 4 million euros ($4.9 million) in cash to help finance Tymoshenko’s ultimately unsuccessful 2010 presidential bid.

“As soon as this information appeared in the newspaper, three MPs sent a request to NABU with a request to verify this information,” Ariev told Reuters after he posted a photo on Facebook of NABU’s alleged written acceptance of the request.

Under Ukrainian law, state bodies must investigate any claims if requested by members of parliament. No criminal case has been launched.

Asked to comment on the allegations, the press service of Tymoshenko’s Fatherland party said: “It is nonsense. The information is not correct.”

NABU did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Gadaffi’s financing of foreign elections

The case threatens to draw Tymoshenko into a broader scandal surrounding Gaddafi’s alleged bankrolling of foreign elections.

France is investigating whether former President Nicolas Sarkozy received 5 million euros of Libyan cash to finance his 2007 election campaign.

Tymoshenko has been prime minister twice and was imprisoned by former president Viktor Yanukovich in a case condemned by Western leaders as selective justice.

Known for her trademark braided hairstyle, Tymoshenko lost the 2014 presidential race, but the latest poll by Rating shows her ahead of Poroshenko with 18.7 percent support versus 15.6 percent for the incumbent president.

The next presidential election is slated for March 2019.

While Tymoshenko served as prime minister in 2007-2010, Kiev and Tripoli agreed a number of commercial deals including a plan for Libya to grow wheat on 100,000 hectares of Ukrainian land.

Gaddafi visited Kiev during a tour of ex-Soviet states in 2008, three years before he was overthrown and killed by rebels. He hosted Tymoshenko in a Bedouin-style tent that he had pitched in central Kiev as was his habit on official trips.

REUTERS

6, April 2018

Spain: Pro-independence Catalans celebrate as Puigdemont granted bail ⁰

Pro-independence Catalans celebrated the decision by a German court to release on bail the former Catalan separatist leader Carles Puigdemont but also protested for the freedom of other jailed separatists in Spain.

The state court in Schleswig, Germany said the 55-year-old ex-president could leave a prison in northern Germany with a 75,000-euro ($92,000) payment. It wasn’t immediately clear when Puigdemont would be released.

In the town of Figueres, around 100 pro-independence protesters stood in silence for a half hour while wearing white masks with red crosses on their mouths. Demonstrators said the masks and crosses symbolize the oppression by the Spanish government.

The protest ended peacefully with a long round of applause.

(Source: AP)

6, April 2018

Yaounde: CPDM gov’t bans the sale of arms and ammunition in six regions ⁰

Cameroon has banned the sale of arms and ammunition in six regions of the country, including the two English-speaking regions where a deep socio-political crisis has played out for over a year, the authorities announced Thursday.

The Minister of Territorial Administration, Paul Atanga Nji, has decreed “the prohibition, until further notice, of the sale of hunting and protection weapons and their ammunition in the Adamaoua, Central, Littoral, West, North-West and South-West regions”, according to a statement.

“To date, the number of firearms in circulation far exceeds the number of authorizations duly granted by the competent authorities,” the minister said in the text.

To date, the number of firearms in circulation far exceeds the number of authorizations duly granted by the competent authorities.

Cameroon has ten regions. Among these, the two English-speaking regions (Southwest and Northwest) have been at the center of a political crisis since the end of 2016 awhile their neighbouring regions (Littoral, West) are also affected by the ban.

For more than three months, the Anglophone crisis has turned into an armed conflict of low intensity, where an armed branch of the Anglophone separatists, who are agitating for secession from Cameroon and the creation of a new state, “Ambazonia”, is fighting the security forces deployed in numbers by Yaoundé.

English-speaking separatists have killed 28 members of the security forces since late 2017, according to an AFP compilation based on official statements. Other observers in Yaoundé speak of a higher toll.

In addition, the Amadoua region affected by the ban is neighbouring the Central African Republic, where state authority is weak in provinces where armed groups fight for control of resources and influence.

According to the text, the armouries of the six regions concerned will have to be closed and an inventory of the weapons which are there will have to be drawn up.

The minister has asked holders of unauthorized weapons to turn them over to local authorities and those with legally recognized weapons to register.

In November and February, the authorities in the south-west and north-west respectively banned the sale of arms in their regions on a temporary basis.

Presidential elections are scheduled to be held later this year, even as the ruling party Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement (CPDM) won 63 out of the 70 senate seats in local elections held on March 25.

AFP

5, April 2018

CPDM crime syndicate “wins” 90% of elective senate seats ⁰

Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement (CPDM), the country’s ruling party has swept an overwhelming majority of seats in the senate after the March 25 polls.

According to official results from the elections body, ELECAM, CPDM won 63 out of the 70 seats available. The remaining seven seats went to the main opposition, Social Democratic Front (SDF).

CPDM won in nine out of the ten regions of the central African country with the SDFwinning only in one of the Anglophone regions – the North West. Seven other parties failed to win a seat.

Cameroon’s parliamentary system caters for 100 senators out of which 70 are to be elected by municipal councillors across the country. The remaining 30 slots are the prerogative of the president.

The senatorial elections marks the start of a busy electoral calender as it is set to be followed by council, legislative and presidential elections later this year. The respective dates are yet to be determined by the President.

President Paul Biya is expected to seek another term in office after over three decades in charge. The country is currently riled by secessionist elements in the Anglophone regions – northwest and southwest regions.

The secessionists have entered an armed phase of a struggle for independence. About twenty five security forces have so far been killed in guerilla style attacks. Government received over 40 separatist members deported from Nigeria, they included leader Sisuku Julius Ayuk Tabe.

Culled from Africa News

5, April 2018

Yaounde: Issa Tchiroma’s kidnap and rescue account disputed by tour operator ⁰

African Adventures, a tour operator in Cameroon says the government’s official statement that a dozen foreign tourists had been rescued in a military operation was not accurate.

Government said on Wednesday that security forces had rescued a dozen foreign tourists and six locals kidnapped in the restive Anglophone region. The foreign contingent were said to include seven Swiss and five Italians.

Information minister, Issa Tchiroma Bakary said the army’s elite Rapid Intervention Batallion rescued the group hours after they were abducted on their way to the Twin Lakes in Mount Manengouba National Park, about 300 km (186 miles) northwest of the capital Yaounde.

But according to the company, in the April 2, 2018 incident, its clients were not kidnapped but rather they were only stopped by an armed group and their documents checked.

Their statement added that just when the group were about to leave, security forces arrived, resulting in a brief engagement, after which they were allowed to leave.

African Adventures’ position muddies the waters even more because the Swiss government according to an RFI reporter also said it was not until yesterday (April 4) that they were told about the incident. Bakary blamed the kidnap on “secessionist terrorists”, a term used by the government to refer to the English-speaking separatists who want to carve out a new state called Ambazonia from mainly French-speaking Cameroon.

The Ambazonian Defence Force (ADF), the main Anglophone separatist group battling state security forces, denied any involvement in the kidnappings.

“ADF does not take hostages. ADF arrest enablers and collaborators and does not arrest foreign nationals,” Cho Ayaba, a leader of the Ambazonian Governing Council, to which the ADF is loosely affiliated, told Reuters.

The ADF has been responsible for most of the shootings that have killed more than 20 state security agents in a year-long uprising against President Paul Biya’s Francophone government that they say has marginalised the English-speaking minority.

Source: Africa News

5, April 2018

France ‘to launch European military crisis force in June’ ⁰

France says it will “launch” a deployable European military crisis force in June, with French defense officials confirming that the army would work outside of existing European Union efforts.

French Defense Ministry sources revealed on Wednesday that the French government had been in touch with a dozen countries, including Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and Denmark, over the military crisis force and had organized a working group to outline the idea in March, Reuters reported.

It was not clear what countries had joined the initiative — the sources did not reveal the names of the countries — but enough countries had apparently agreed to be involved to make a launch possible.

The initiative reportedly aims to unite European countries with a military capacity and political desire to cooperate on planning, carry out joint analyses of emerging crises, and swiftly react.

“It would not be within the European Union and would allow countries outside it, like Britain, to be part of it,” one French military source said, even as the UK is yet to officially leave the EU.

“It’s creating a smaller group of countries that have common analysis and procedures,” another source said. “It would plug in the different military planning and operations centers.”

The sources left the door open to other countries joining the force later.

It was also unclear why the plan involved so much secrecy. The French discussions on the matter with other countries had not been previously reported.

Germany has been loath to participate in military intervention forces. But French Defense Minister Florence Parly is expected to discuss the project with her German counterpart, Ursula von der Leyen, in Paris on April 5, according to Reuters.

During a speech on Europe last September, French President Emmanuel Macron stressed the need for a shared European military intervention force and defense budget by the end of the decade.

Two month later, 25 participating EU member states signed a pact to fund and develop a new military union that would coordinate policies and projects among members in the face of alleged threats from the east of the continent.

The agreement on the Permanent Structured Cooperation, or PESCO, was part of efforts led by Germany and France to bring the EU closer to having a permanent joint military force parallel to NATO but exclusive to the EU.

Denmark, Malta, and Britain are EU members absent from the PESCO scheme, which came into force in December.

French officials insist that the newly-proposed European military crisis force will not cannibalize the PESCO defense pact.

Source: Presstv

5, April 2018

Liverpool fans bombard Man City bus with bottles ⁰

Liverpool fans threw bottles and cans and aimed fireworks at the Manchester City bus as it arrived at Anfield ahead of Wednesday night’s Champions League game.

In the video, Liverpool fans can be seen launching bottles at Manchester City’s bus before the game on April 4.

Liverpool won the game, 3-0.

(Source: AP)

5, April 2018

Opposition candidate Julius Maada Bio wins Sierra Leone presidential runoff ⁰

Opposition candidate Julius Maada Bio has won a narrow victory in a run-off election to become Sierra Leone’s next president, according to official results by the country’s electoral body.

The National Electoral Commission announced at 10:00pm local time that Maada Bio of the Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) won 51.8 percent of a total of over 2.5 million ballots cast in the March 31 vote, beating out the ruling All People’s Congress candidate Samura Kamara, who garnered 48.1 percent.

Kamara, a former foreign affairs minister, and Maada Bio, who briefly ruled Sierra Leone as head of a military junta in 1996, were vying to replace outgoing President Ernest Bai Koroma, who cannot seek re-election due to term limits.

I feel happy about the results. I am here because my president Julius Maada Bio has won the election in this country.

Maada Bio is to be sworn in as president tonight at a yet to be disclosed venue.

“The new president will be sworn in tonight,” Chief Justice Abdulai Hamid Charm told Reuters.

SLPP supporters began celebrating in the streets of the capital Freetown on Wednesday evening in anticipation of the official announcement of results.

“I feel happy about the results. I am here because my president Julius Maada Bio has won the election in this country,” said Adolfus Kargbo, among a group of SLPP supporters chanting Maada Bio’s name.

Who is Maada Bio?

Julius Maada Bio, 53, has tasted the presidency before having served a military Head of State for about three months. He led the National Provisional Ruling Council (NPRC) military junta government that lasted from January 16 to March 29 1996.

He has also tasted how it feels to be on the ballot paper, he was the Sierra Leone Peoples Party’s candidate for the last elections. He lost to outgoing Ernest Bai Koroma.

As a military ruler, he toppled his boss in the NPRC junta Captain Valentine Strasser in January 1996 but handed over to democratically elected Ahmed Tejan Kabbah of the SLPPafter the 1996 presidential elections.

He later retired from active service that year and moved to the United States to further his studies. He earned a Masters Degree in International Affairs from the American University in Washington DC.

He was born on May 12, 1964 and graduated from military academy in October 1987 aged 23. He has played part in peacekeeping ops by the United Nations famously in Liberia. He played a role in the 1992 coup and led the 1996 one before handing over after elections.

He returned from the U.S. to join the SLPP in 2005. Contested to lead the party but lost the bid. He was picked as party’s presidential candidate in 2012 polls and garnered 37% of votes to place second.

He is a Roman Ctholic married to Fatima Bio a practicing Muslim and a Gambian national. They got married in an interfaith ceremony in London in 2013. The couple have a child but Maada Bio has three other children from a previous marriage. The vice presidential candidate of the SLPP is Jalloh Mohamed Juldeh.

The largely peaceful election process has come as a relief for the country of 7 million people, who endured a civil war in the 1990s and whose economy was dragged down by an Ebola epidemic in 2014-15 and a global slump in commodity prices in 2015.

Source: Africa News

4, April 2018

Southern Cameroons Struggle: BEWARE OF THE DESPERATE CRIMINAL TACTICS OF FRENCH CAMEROUN ⁰

Cameroon Concord News Group has documented and published unimpeachable evidence of genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and several international crimes committed against the peace-loving people of the Southern Cameroons by French Cameroun. These crimes are ongoing for the past fifty-six years. Cameroon Concord News Group has established that the motivation for these crimes are of an economic nature for which France is the primary beneficiary. It is France’s economic interests over the abundant mineral and natural resources in the Southern Cameroons/Ambazonia that has corruptly sustained colonial rule over the Southern Cameroons. Over the past fifty-six years, French Cameroun unleashed a reign of terror over the Southern Cameroons. Through collective punishment, systematic rape and humiliation of our girls and women, torching of civilian settlements, pillage and looting of our natural and petroleum resources, massacre of civilians, enforced disappearances, systematic torture, large scale abductions and imprisonment, indignities on women and children and several egregious violations, French Cameroun with impunity put the collective existence of the people of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia in jeopardy.

These crimes escalated from September 22, 2017 to October 1, 2017 when the people of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia reclaimed their independence and sovereignty over their territory. The people and government of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia under the leadership of the President His Excellency Sisiku Ayuk Tabe deserved the protection of international law but the international community betrayed the “never again” sacred trust it made to humanity after the holocaust by allowing French Cameroun deploy weapons of mass destruction to kill and maim armless civilians on its watch. Cameroon Concord News and Cameroon Intelligence Report have consistently denounced the use by French Cameroon of the stolen wealth and resources of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia to corrupt Senior UN officials and some members of the government of Nigeria to facilitate the commission of crimes against the Federal Republic of Ambazonia among which the abduction of His Excellency the President and members of the Interim Government was.

The decision by the Interim Government of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia to resort to self defence to protect its people and territory has recorded successes so far. The resilience of the people and the successes recorded with so little has alarmed the enemy and its co-conspirators in Nigeria and France. Before his abduction by a joint criminal gang comprising Nigerian intelligence personnel and a French Cameroun special operations death squad, the President of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia in an address enjoined the citizens of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia to protect the lives of civilians of all nationalities found in the territory of Ambazonia. Endorsing self defense after the abduction of our leaders, the Acting President Dr Samuel Sako and the Interim Government of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia reiterated this policy which was established by His Excellency the President of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia. Cameroon Concord News Group fully endorsed the policy.

French Cameroun’s military operations within the territory of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia has as its primary focus the massacre of civilians, the looting, pillaging, and torching of civilian settlements, the rape of our girls and women, and several other crimes. These crimes for which Paul Biya by himself, or through his subordinate criminal agents, like Laurent Esso, Fame Ndongo, Atanga Nji, George Tabetando, Issa Tchiroma Bakary, Owona Nguini, Okalia Bilai, Lele L’Afrique, Joseph Beti Assomo ( minister of armed forces) French Cameroun services commanders deployed to prosecute the genocide, have taken responsibility are well documented. The sheer magnitude of the crimes and its potential to spill over to the territories of neighbouring countries and the sub-region has forced the international community to begin to pressurize French Cameroun to halt its criminal campaign and to engage in an all-inclusive dialogue with the legitimate representatives of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia.

To ease this pressure, French Cameroun has developed criminal tactics aimed at de-legitimizing the Federal Republic of Ambazonia’s self-defense efforts, its defense of its sovereignty and its people. This strategy of French Cameroun is developing right before our very eyes. Unfortunately, some gullible Ambazonia leaders in search of power and relevance are falling into these traps. French Cameroun is courting an unstructured group of gullible individuals loosely called Federalists to preposition themselves as persons it can rely on to organize a dialogue aimed at resolving the current crisis. These gullible individuals will be used to validate the one and indivisible Cameroun policy of French Cameroun and then dumped to face the consequences of their treachery of their people’s aspirations. The so-called dialogue will be a French Cameroun internal initiative with some foreign envoys accredited to French Cameroun deployed acting as facilitators. Atanga Nji on behalf of French Cameroun presented the nature of the dialogue that French Cameroun will organize and own as well as the condition it intend to impose for participation. Chris Anu was right and quick to reject the so-called dialogue outright, opting rather for negotiations organized by an external international actor that will provide a facilitator for the occasion. A party to a negotiation cannot impose an agenda, the nature and composition of the representation by another party. The negotiations will surely be on the terms of separation, accountability for the crimes committed within the territory of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia and the payment of reparations for the crimes committed.

French Cameroun is conscious that crimes of an international character committed against civilians will never go unpunished. Not in our time. For this purpose, it is attempting to pin responsibility for its crimes on Southern Cameroons legitimate self-defense fighters. Unfortunately, some of our leaders are falling into these traps and deliberate policy of criminalization. Cameroon Concord News Group has seen a video in the social media posted by French Cameroun through its surrogates with child soldiers holding and manipulating arms. French Cameroon did this knowing that the crime of conscription and deployment of children below the age of 15 years as child soldiers is one of the most serious international crimes. This mischief was easily identified by several Ambazonians who rightly denounced it as an enemy scheme aimed at attempting to blackmail our self-defense efforts. The self-defense forces of Ambazonia do not put their identity out in the social media in order not to invite harm to the families of the fighters and their communities. This sensible self-defense strategy deprives traitors and spies on the payroll of the enemy the ability to subvert the strategic and tactical operational command decisions taken by Ambazonia fighting forces at ground zero. Cameroon Concord News deplores in very strong terms the conduct of persons aligned with a social media frenzied Ambazonia for alleging armed adult and child soldiers were members of the ADF. This plays into the ego of a leaders known for taking responsibility for actions helpful or harmful without thinking about the consequences for the entire cause. Endorsing this French Cameroun mounted video posted to social media carefully laying out a case of conscription and use of child soldiers is troubling.

Cameroon Concord News strongly condemns the execution of civilians who are not taking part in the armed conflict. Cameroon Concord News and the National Telegraph published news reports about the summary execution in cold blood of some seven civilians who were in the custody of French Cameroun forces who were brought to Kendem Upper Banyang by Tabatando to force the people to vote in senatorial elections organized by French Cameroun. These elections were banned by the Interim Government of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia. There exists a deliberate pre-planned criminal military strategy by French Cameroun to summarily execute Ambazonian civilians. Cameroon Concord News is please that based on the operational orders of the interim government, Ambazonia self-defense forces have so far not targeted civilians. The burning to painful death of old and vulnerable people in civilian settlements, cowardly execution of civilians in Kendem and other locations in Ambazonia are criminal acts which will never be forgotten or forgiven. Ambazonia can never again belong to the same nation with an enemy republic that preys on the blood of its civilians. The alleged execution of a high French Cameroun government functionary of Ambazonia origin by the ADF on the orders of Dr Cho Ayaba must also be vehemently condemned. Cameroon Concord News holds the opinion that this reckless conduct provides French Cameroun the opportunity to abduct and execute people of Ambazonia origin and place the responsibility on our self-defense fighting forces. There is no greater way of demoralizing and de-legitimizing the cause for which our people have greatly sacrificed than painting and presenting this irresponsible image to the international community. This conduct if not abated may send the wrong signals to our different communities within our territory from which these individuals hail. For this reason, summary executions of civilians must be discouraged and condemned.

Cameroon Concord News Group has published news reports about the existence of an organized elaborate trans-border criminal network operating in French Cameroun and Nigeria which abducts foreign nationals for ransom. Issa Tchiroma Bakary, Cavaye Djribril, Amadou Ali, Atanga Nji and members of the political Islam crime syndicate associated with Boko Haram within the immediate political circle of Mohammadu Buhari are members. The announced military operation that allegedly liberated foreign tourists of European origin at a moment when no known tourist could venture into the territory of Ambazonia under French Cameroun’s scourge earth criminal military operations is a hoax. It is a desperate attempt to criminalize the Ambazonia revolutionary war of survival and obtain by fraud a European Union resolution branding our fighting self-defense forces as terrorist organizations. The Interim Government must come out strongly to deny and denounce this desperate criminal ploy. It must ask for an international investigation into the alleged abduction as well as other crimes committed by French Cameroun in our territory. In the light of this spurious, desperate and shameful fabricated allegation, French Cameroun should allow human rights organizations it had hitherto denied access to conduct investigations on this allegation and that of other crimes perpetrated by French Cameroun soldiers. Investigators from the countries of origin of the alleged abductees should come to conduct independent investigations as well. The Interim Government should allow access into the territory of Ambazonia for the purpose of these investigations, but such access must be denied to French Cameroun forces whose presence on our territory is and must never ever be condoned.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

Chairman, Editor-in-Chief

Cameroon Concord News Group