A majority of Americans think US President Donald Trump is doing more to divide the country and believe hate crimes and prejudice have dramatically increased since his election, a new poll has found.

A total of 62 percent of registered US voters say Trump is fueling divisions, while 31 percent say he is doing more to unite the country, according to a Quinnipiac University national poll released Thursday. Sixty percent of American voters disapprove of Trump’s response to the recent white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, where one counter-protester was killed and 19 others were injured.

The survey also found that 59 percent of voters said Trump’s decisions and behavior have encouraged racist and white supremacist groups. Some 55 percent of American voters say there is too much prejudice in the nation today. Prejudice against minority groups is a “very serious” problem, 50 percent of voters say.

Since Trump’s election, “the level of hatred and prejudice in the US has increased,” 65 percent of voters say. Trump has been widely criticized for his response to the Charlottesville rally after he said “both sides” were to blame for the violence.

UN human rights experts have urged the US government to “unequivocally and unconditionally” condemn racist speech and hate crimes, warning that a failure to do so could fuel further violent clashes by white supremacist groups.

The UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD), issued an “early warning and urgent action” statement on Wednesday, which is reserved for serious situations, saying that “there should be no place in the world for racist white supremacist ideas or any similar ideologies that reject the core human rights principles of human dignity and equality.”

The warning specifically noted the August 12 rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, where deadly clashes broke out between white supremacists and counter-protesters. The UN experts asked US politicians and public officials to undertake concrete measures “to address the root causes of the proliferation of such racist manifestations.”

Source: Presstv

At least half a dozen schools in Cameroon’s two English-speaking regions have been burned in the past week. It is the latest sign of deepening tensions as the ongoing strike in Cameroon’s two English-speaking regions enters its tenth month.

The strike began in November 2016 with anglophone teachers and lawyers in the northwest and the southeast. They said English-speaking citizens are marginalized in the bilingual country and demanded reforms. But secessionist groups soon joined the movement, and their calls for full independence for the English-speaking zones derailed dialogue and helped spur a government crackdown.

Continued arson attacks in Cameroon’s English-speaking northwest have prompted calls for the creation of self-defense militia. Some parents in Bamenda said it is no longer safe after their children’s school, the Baptist Comprehensive High School, was set ablaze August 13.

Residents say schools are being targeted for failing to respect the call to strike until all anglophone activists are released from detention. Messages circulating on social media this month have called for businesses to close three out of every five working days.

Wilfred Ndong, the government official in charge of basic education for the northwest, said law enforcement agencies cannot be present in every school. “We have advised them to form vigilante groups in the schools so that they can help to secure the places for us,” he said. “And in places where they can afford, let them light up the places. Some of these things happen because of the dark nature of the environments concerned.”

Markets and government buildings have also been targeted this year in the northwest and southwest.No one has claimed responsibility. The government has condemned the vandalism and blamed it on militant separatist groups.

Cameroon government spokesperson Issa Tchiroma told VOA police discovered a cache of weapons and a bomb-making factory in the northwestern town of Mbengwi earlier this month. He said seven people were arrested, including a Cameroonian-born Belgian national who had smuggled his way into the country through Nigeria.

“He admitted being a member of the Ambazonia and the main leader of the armed wing of the Liberation Movement of Southern Cameroon,” he said. Ambazonia is a name proposed by separatist activists for the nation they would create.

At least 60 people arrested in connection with the strike have appeared before a military court in the capital to answer charges of attempting to destabilize the country and cause revolt. A black and white video released online in early August, which shows 12 purported strike detainees in what appears to be a dark, underground prison has further raised tensions.

The government has declined to comment on the video, but the footage has been shared widely on social media in Cameroon. In it, the speakers compare their conditions of detention to “concentration camps,” and say they will gladly die if need be for the cause of independence for the two anglophone regions.

Cameroon is officially a bilingual country, with anglophones comprising about 20 percent of the country’s 23 million inhabitants.

Violent strike-related unrest in December, coupled with emerging separatist rhetoric, prompted a government crackdown. Strike leaders then broke off dialogue with the government to resolve the crisis until all those arrested are released.

A former lawmaker from the northwest region, Paulinus Jua, said dialogue is needed. “If government were doing a lot, things would have subsided,” he said. “But you see that this thing is instead especially in anglophone Cameroon getting more radicalized. Something can be done. Dialogue, genuine dialogue, comprehensive genuine dialogue. That is what we have been complaining about in this country for so long.”

President Paul Biya has announced some reforms in response to the strike, like a new common law section of the Supreme Court, but has said he will not engage in dialogue that threatens national unity.

Source: VOA

Cardinal Christian Tumi has revealed that the reunification of Cameroon was only a fake arrangement. In an interview the retired prelate granted recently to lavoixdukoat.com, Tumi said that “There was never a marriage between Anglophone and French Cameroon. They live in concubinage.”

The former archbishop of Douala opined that no act was formally taken in July 1961 in Foumban. “They signed nothing at Foumban. Prime Minister John Ngu Foncha (who was a former Catholic teacher) did not have the power to negotiate, because Cameroon was under the tutelage of France and England. As the French supported Ahidjo, they were at the conference. It was England and the United Nations that had to validate the act. But these two were not present. There has never been a document about what happened in Foumban. People went to drink wine. ”

The de facto federalism thus devoted left many fond memories to Cardinal Tumi. He recalled that the country enjoyed good governance. For him Cameroon was “well managed, development was the basis. There was a prime minister in every part of the country. Paul Biya had signed a text on federalism (Reference to the 1996 Constitution, Editor’s note) which specified that governors should be elected, it should have ten federated states. Paul Biya then promised decentralization. That must have been good. But I have the impression that he was asleep when he signed the document and that he woke up after doing so, since he did not implement anything. The problem is that you do not want to share power, “he said.

Christian Tumi believes that there is indeed an Southern Cameroons problem. He explained that even if the problems are the same everywhere in the country, West Cameroon has its specificities. According to him, Southern Cameroons was already considered a country and managed itself, with its administration, a prime minister before joining Cameroon. He believes that an effective implementation of decentralization would have eliminated any problem. Especially those he sees in other parts of the country.

Reacting to the acts of violence perpetrated here and there, the much respected Cardinal Tumi noted that “We can forgive the person, it’s passion, but it’s unacceptable. All violence is unacceptable. We cut the hand of a girl who was going to write her exams. No reason can support that. But We can forgive.”

Culled from Cameroon Info.Net