16, February 2023

Southern Cameroons Crisis: Ngarbuh Victims Await Trial Three Years After Massacre ⁰

Three years ago, we uncovered a gruesome massacre in Cameroon’s northwest region. Government forces and armed ethnic Fulani killed at least 21 civilians in Ngarbuh village, including 13 children and one pregnant woman. One survivor, who witnessed the killing of his entire family, including seven children, told us: “I saw the military shooting my family members one by one as they attempted to escape. They shot our mother first. Then, they shot the children, whose bodies all fell on her.”

The Ngarbuh killings were one of the Cameroonian security forces’ worst atrocities since late 2016 when the crisis erupted in the country’s Anglophone regions, where armed separatists are seeking independence for the country’s minority Anglophone population.

The government initially denied that its security forces were responsible and embarked on a smear campaign against human rights organizations and media that exposed the massacre. But following international pressure, President Paul Biya established a commission of inquiry on March 1, 2020. The government then admitted its security forces bear some responsibility and announced the arrest of at least two soldiers and a gendarme in June 2020.

The Ngarbuh trial opened on December 17, 2020, before a military court in Yaoundé, Cameroon’s capital. When the trial was announced, it was a welcome step and was seen as a test case that could break the perpetual cycles of impunity in Cameroon.

But since then, there has been little progress. The trial, meant to restart last November, is now slated to resume February 16, just two days after the 3rd anniversary of the massacre. The continued slow pace raises real concerns about whether the military justice system can deliver justice, and if so, when? Additionally, the location of the trial in Yaoundé, 450 kilometers from Ngarbuh, means there will be limited to no access and participation for victims’ families and potential witnesses.

The Ngarbuh massacre was not an isolated event in Cameroon’s Anglophone regions. Since February 14, 2020, numerous civilians have been killed by both government forces and separatists. While other blatant killings have generated inquiries, the only constant over the years has been the lack of accountability for the growing number of human rights abuses committed by both sides.

The resumption of the trial this week offers another opportunity to demonstrate that the military system can deliver accountability and send a signal to would-be violators that these types of crimes are taken seriously. If it doesn’t, the message to the victims’ families will be that the military has little interest in justice.

Culled from Human Rights Watch

16, February 2023

CPDM Crime Syndicate: Motazé prepares end of IMF-led program ⁰

Cameroon’s Minister of Finance, Louis Paul Motazé, is pushing for a plan to anticipate the impact of the end of the IMF-led program. On February 10, 2023, as the new managers of the Autonomous Amortization Fund (CAA) and the National Deposit and Consignment Fund (CDEC) were being installed, the official invited them to find solutions to compensate for the reduction in budget support that will accompany the end of the IMF program.

“(I’m) not sure right now that if the current program, which is scheduled to end in 2024, ends, another one will be negotiated,” the Minister said. “Cameroon will not be indefinitely under programs, we should remember that to manage is to foresee, and it is therefore up to all of us, and to you too, to find resources to replace these budgetary supports, so that Cameroon continues to move forward, and that the financing of our development continues. I am counting on you,” he added.

As a reminder, the 3-year IMF-led program was concluded on July 29, 2021, with the Extended Credit Facility (ECF) and the Extended Fund Facility (EFF) arrangements. Under this program, Cameroon will obtain a total of CFA770 billion in aid, according to the Minister of Finance. CFA380 billion will be provided by the IMF, while the rest should come from donors such as the World Bank, the AfDB, the European Union, and France.

Source: Business in Cameroon

16, February 2023

Mamfe District Hospital: Tales of agony ⁰

It is almost one year since the Manyu District hospital was burned down to ashes. The Mamfe District Hospital was the best in the Division and it did, indeed, stand the population in good stead for more than four decades.

No one could have suspected that such a health facility could be razed, but the war which has pitted Cameroon’s English-speaking minority against the country’s government has brought out the worst in human beings.

The devil seem to have found work for many idle hands in the two English-speaking regions of the country and the anger and frustration triggered by years of marginalization and lack of opportunities have made destruction and wickedness fashionable in Cameroon’s two English-speaking regions.

The burning of the Mamfe District Hospital in 2022 is one of those tragedies of war which many will never be forgotten. Since the burning of the hospital, it has not been easy for the population of Mamfe town, indeed, the entire Division which depended on the hospital for its health-care needs.

The population is desperate and though the government had moved critical services to the preventive health facility in Mamfe town, the population is still suffering and holds that the services offered leave much to be desired.

The staffs of the health facility, for their part, are finding it challenging to meet up with the public’s health demands. Due to this unfortunate situation, the death rate in the town has gone up by at least 30% with women and children being the hardest hit.

The Mamfe preventive health-care facility was never designed to deal with intensive care and delivery cases. It has never been endowed with the capacity to deal with heart problems, asthma, kidney failure and other critical illnesses but following the burning of the district hospital, this poorly equipped preventive health facility is now charged with the duty of handling very challenging situations though it is bereft of the proper equipment.

According to a medical officer at the health facility who elected anonymity, preventive medicine and curative medicine are different and tasking the preventive health-care facility with such a challenging task without the proper tools and equipment is one tough job which may result in many deaths.

The health official further explained that with the recent influx of IDPs from neighbouring Akwaya Sub-division where multiple inter-ethnic wars are playing out, the health situation in the Manyu Divisional headquarters has gotten worse.

The IDPs are not only flooding the town, they are also flooding the lone preventive health facility in the town as many of them come with diseases like miseales, scabbies, smallpox, typhoid and other diseases which are hard to handle by the medical staff.

The increasing population is also a source of stress for staff who are required to work without equipment. Their unfriendly working conditions have been compounded by an acute shortage of well-trained government paid staff and a lack of much-needed medications.

Speaking to the only medical doctor at the health facility, our correspondent in Mamfe learned that the challenges waiting to be addressed include a lack of proper medical infrastructure, the absence of a modern intensive care unit, the non-existence of a neo-natal unit and a Tuberclosis (TB) unit. A shortage of wards and maternity beds is robbing the health workers at the facility of a good night’s sleep.

The medical expert also advised that the makeshift health facility was in a dire need of delivery beds, stethoscopes, emergency vans, ambulances, laboratory equipment, x-ray machines, electrocardiograms and essential medications like anagelsics and antibiotics.

The government had promised to take appropriate measures to ensure residents of Mamfe got the care they needed but it is yet to match actions with words.

Manyu citizens in the USA, UK and Canada have been raising funds and they are looking forward to the government creating the appropriate environment for the money raised to be wired to the appropriate quarters for the rebuilding of the destroyed hospital.

It is in this context that Manyu Toronto, Canada, will be organizing a massive fundraiser in the summer to acquire modern equipment for the hospital. Manyu Toronto will be pleased to receive assistance from well-wishers across the globe.

By Dr Joachim Arrey with correspondent reports from Mamfe

16, February 2023

Buea: Ekona women protest and demand for the release of their children ⁰

Women in Ekona, a town in Muyuka sub-division of the South-west Region, mobilized themselves and protested at the Legion office in Buea, on February 15, 2023.

An unspecified number of women from Ekona, carrying peace plants, gathered in front of the legion office in Buea and requested for the release of their children who were arrested in Ekona on Sunday, February 12, 2023.

According to sources in Ekona, the youths were in a football field as there was an ongoing football match, when the military stormed the area and carried out a mass arrest. The following day, February 13, more arrests were made by the military.

Talking to another protester, she said that, the military made it a norm to arrest their sons and brothers for no reason and termed them separatist fighters.

After spending hours in front of the legion office and putting movement of vehicles on hold, the women decided to leave after they were told that their sons would be released and sent back home.

Residents of Ekona, especially young men have witnessed several assaults from both the military and the separatist fighters, since the start of the ongoing crisis and are yet to recover from the damages caused by the conflict.

By Cecilia Manjang

15, February 2023

Journalist Martinez Zogo Affair: Laurent Esso faces life in jail ⁰

Justice Minister Laurent Esso, who had led several concocted high-profile CPDM government investigations into corruption, is now en route to jail for life for participating in the murder of journalist Martinez Zogo.

Laurent Esso has been in the business of killing for decades and he is expected to be auditioned by state prosecutors at the Yaoundé Military Court following a decision by the 90-year-old President Biya.

Esso has been in the Biya government ever since the 90-year-old dictator came to power in 1982 and has led many high-profile investigations and crackdowns including a probe into the famous Albatross affair.

Recently, investigators admitted that Laurent Esso has a special relationship with business tycoon Amougou Belinga and that he reportedly participated in the killing of journalist Martinez Zogo.

Ahead of Amougou Belinga’s arrest in the nation’s capital Yaoundé, investigators also established that Laurent Esso had also been part of the criminal gang of the Francophone mafia boss and shared a telephone conversation with Belinga minutes before journalist Martinez Zogo was murdered.

Justice Minister Laurent Esso is also being accused of covering several cases of murder brought against Amougou Belinga.

The influence of Esso, who is yet to receive his summon within the ruling CPDM party has been described by top Biya aides as a cancer that should to be eliminated.

On Tuesday, Amougou Belinga and his gang were ferried in very old National Gendarmerie Toyota pickups to the Yaoundé Military Court in a move described by many political commentators in Yaoundé as the end of the preliminary investigation into the journalist Martinez Zogo affair.

Like Laurent Esso, they all have been accused of being part of the clique that killed journalist Martinez Zogo.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

15, February 2023

Yaoundé: President Biya will die next year ⁰

Cameroon’s President, Paul Biya, will surely be dying next year based on what he said on June 9, 2004, following an announcement that he had died in 2004.

Many Cameroonians have been looking forward to Mr. Biya’s death but they may have to wait for one year again as Mr. Biya is not in a rush to leave this planet.

On Monday, Mr. Biya celebrated his 90th birthday and he is in good shape. If anybody is expecting the 90-year-old Biya to die this year, then he might be hoping against hope.

Biya has repeatedly defended his record in the past and says that the government has made strides to return peace to the minority English-speaking regions where separatists are trying to form their own state.

He touts his Vision 2035 plan as a blueprint to boost development over the next 12 years.

Biya was born in Mvomeka’a, a village in the southern equatorial forest, in 1933, the year prohibition ended in the United States and Adolf Hitler became Chancellor in Germany.

After studying in Paris, he returned to Cameroon in 1962 as a top civil servant and quickly rose to become the Prime Minister in 1975. He was hand-picked as successor after the country’s first post-independence president Ahmadou Ahidjdo decided to resign suddenly in November 1982.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

14, February 2023

Journalist Martinez Zogo Affair: Jean Pierre Amougou Belinga going, going, gone! ⁰

Jean Pierre Amougou Belinga the main suspect in the murder of whistleblower journalist Martinez Zogo, his hit man lieutenant colonel Justin Danwe and twenty other persons who have been in custody for more than a week at the Secretariat of State for Defense were on Tuesday transported in two security vehicles like common criminals and presented before judges at the Yaoundé Military Court located at the Ngoa Ekelle district in the nation’s capital.

Amougou Belinga and his gang were ferried in very old National Gendarmerie Toyota pickups in a move described by many political commentators in Yaoundé as the end of the preliminary investigation into the journalist Martinez Zogo affair.

Cameroon Concord News Group understands that the custody in SED was extended three times in compliance with the law. This week, it became mandatory to remove the suspects from SED.

Commenting on the happenings in Yaoundé, Cameroon Concord News Nelly Epupa opined that it is now up to the Military Court to issue new detention warrants for Amougou Belinga and his killer squad or to extend their stay in SED pending further investigation.

By Rita Akana with additional editing from Nelly Epupa

14, February 2023

As Biya celebrates his 90th birthday, is he heading towards a centenary? ⁰

After celebrating 40 years at the helm of Cameroon, the patriarch Paul Biya is celebrating his 90th birthday with only a few discordant voices.

Celebrations follow on from one another within the Cameroonian presidency’s entourage.

On 6 November, several thousand of Paul Biya’s supporters celebrated his 40 years as head of the country. Biya is Africa’s second longest reigning monarch, just behind the 43 years that Equatorial Guinea’s head of state has spent on the throne. However, the clan is hosting a more private affair this 13 February to celebrate the 90th birthday of the self-proclaimed “Lion Man”.

Apart from crowned heads who do not have to go back to the drawing board 100 times, nonagenarians are rarely found at the top of leadership institutions, like Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe, who resigned at the age of 93, and Tunisia’s Béji Caïd Essebi, who died in office at 92. Biya is currently the oldest sitting head of state.

Is Biya’s birthday “private”? The event is making headlines in Cameroon, newspapers and social media echo the lavish festivities in Mvomeka’a, the patriarch’s birthplace, some 250km from Yaounde. After the festivities, it will be interesting to note which privileged person has been invited around the cake to be included in the photo. Beyond blood ties, the political family is having a field day. A member of the Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement (CPDM), Justine Diffo salutes the birthday of the man who mentored her with his ‘institutional aura’ and ‘spiritual halo’.

Even beyond the labelled “biyaists”, each one has his own zeal, more or less constrained by the weight of the presidential institution. On 7 February, the University of Yaounde 1’s rector sent a letter to the heads of departments inviting them to “make arrangements in advance (…) to mobilise students” to the ceremony scheduled for this Monday at the Yaounde Sports Palace.

In Cameroon, where life expectancy at birth is around 59 years, old age is an indisputable reason for respect. Although Biya’s birthday should be the occasion for a 24-hour political truce, the impressive number of years he has lived inevitably gives rise to debates on the succession.

Will the 64-year-old Finance Minister Louis-Paul Motaze win the jackpot when the time comes, or will Biya’s fading from the political scene trigger a clan war? As usual, the current head of state wants to weigh all possible options. Last July, during a press conference with France’s President Emmanuel Macron, “Popaul” reminded everyone that his term ends in 2025, adding: “When this mandate expires, you will be informed of whether I have decided to stay or go to the village.” This seems to suggest that he has not ruled out formally running for president in 2025.

Culled from The Africa Report by Nelly Epupa (Cameroon Intelligence Report)

13, February 2023

Global Think Thank Donates to IDPs in Mamfe ⁰

The Global Think Tank for Africa has once more put smiles on the faces of pupils in Mamfe following the donation of didactic materials to pupils who have been displaced due to the socio-political crisis in the country’s twoEnglish-speaking regions.

On Friday, February 10, 2023, the organization through the inspectorate of basic education in Mamfe donated didactic materials to some 50 internally displaced children drawn from 10 schools in mamfe.

This is the 4th batch of pupils to benefit from the largesse of the Global Think Tank for Africa, a Canada-based not-for-profit organization.

So far, some 250 IDPs have benefited from this humanitarian assistance and the project is on going as planned and it will be extended to villages close to Mamfe town where the fighting has stopped.

On behalf of the children, the Inspector of Basic Education for Mamfe, Mr. Herman Taku Arreyngang, extended his great appreciation and called on other external elites of Manyu Division to follow the example of the Global Think Tank.

Speaking over the phone from Abidjan, Ivory Coast, the Executive Director of the Global Think Tank for Africa, Dr. Joachim Arrey, said that education was the foundational key to a child’s success and that it was important to help Africa’s future leaders to have that foundation so that they can acquire the skills and knowledge which will enable them to play their future leadership role.

“There is no better way of helping our children than by granting them the knowledge and skills they will need in future, Dr. Arrey said.

“No society will be ready for the future if its future leaders are not educated. While education alone will not grant the children the knowledge and leadership skills they will need tomorrow, it will however open their eyes and will grand them the foundation they need to live in a society which is increasingly a knowledge-based society,” he stressed.

He thanked the inspector of basic education and his team members who have been working tirelessly to help the children cope with the stress of leaving their natural environment.

“The teachers in Mamfe are really doing a good job. It is not easy to work in a war zone where the most vulnerable of our society are being threatened for going to school. I don’t know how to thank the authorities of basic education in Mamfe for their selfless services to our desperate children. May the Lord grant them more energy so that they can continue to do the great job they are doing,” Dr. Arrey said.

Asked about the program, Dr. Arrey said his organization would continue to support the IDPs for as long as the crisis continues.

By Thomas Ashu Atem

13, February 2023

Buea: Bishop Bibi backs Pope Francis on ‘economic colonialism’ in Africa ⁰

The exploitation of Africa has remained a major talking point across the continent, especially after Pope Francis roundly condemned what he called “economic colonialism” in Africa.

On his long-awaited trip to the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan, the pope repeatedly decried the transformation of ill treatment from political domination to economic victimization.

“Political exploitation (of the Congo and more generally of Africa) gave way to an economic colonialism that was equally enslaving,” Pope Francis told an audience of Congolese politicians and other dignitaries. “As a result,” he continued, “this country, massively plundered, has not benefited adequately from its immense resources.”

“It is a tragedy that these lands, and more generally the whole African continent, continue to endure various forms of exploitation,” Francis said. “The poison of greed has smeared its diamonds with blood,” he said—a reference to what has become known as Congo’s blood diamonds.

“Hands off the Democratic Republic of the Congo! Hands off Africa! Stop choking Africa: it is not a mine to be stripped or a terrain to be plundered,” Francis warned.

That message has continued to make headlines.

The Bishop of the Cameroonian diocese of Buea, Michael Bibi, whose diocese is located in the far south of Cameroon’s majority anglophone western regions, told Crux the Pope’s “economic colonialism” criticism was a reference to the idea of neo-colonialism.

In a conversation with Crux, Bibi described the political liberty African nations obtained from their erstwhile colonial overlords as a “flag and anthem” independence, “while the purse strings remained in the hands of the former colonial masters.”

Bibi said he sees a marked difference in the levels of such neo-colonial arrangements between former British and French colonies. “France,” he said, “more than any other former colonial power, continues to have an iron grip in the economic and political affairs of her former colonies.”

“Many wonder whether we should even use the adjective ‘former’,” Bibi said, adding that the rate at which young Africans are dying in the Mediterranean Sea “as they risk their lives in search of greener pastures in Europe,” dramatically illustrates the relevance of the pope’s message.

Bibi said that the degree and extent of interference in the economic affairs of African states differs between the former colonial powers.

“Some of the biggest economies in Sub-Saharan Africa are former colonies of Britain (Nigeria, South Africa, Kenya, Ghana) and these countries are also the leading democracies on the Continent,” he said. “When you compare their lot with that of the former French (and Belgian) colonies, you begin to see that France, more than any other former colonial power, continues to have an iron grip in the economic and political affairs of her former colonies.”

“Frequently,” Bibi went on to say, “these states have turned to China for help, but they are often so weak that they cannot strike a fair bargain with the Chinese Government. When loans are given, the construction must be done by a Chinese company.”

The resulting picture is one in which the major players fostering this economic colonization “are the former colonial powers in Europe, especially France, the Chinese, and the Americans as well.”

He said that France uses “a complicated network of financial economic policies and political control through the threat of regime change and their military presence to maintain the status quo,” while China exercises financial and commercial influence through loans, and “the Americans use their influence over the United Nations Security Council and the IMF and similar International Organization to have their way over many issues.”

Bibi said there is a cultural element to the involvement of Western powers, especially, in African affairs. “Another major instrument used by the players, especially the former colonial masters, is the formation of Associations ostensibly to celebrate the same culture such as the Francophonie and the Commonwealth of Nations,” he said.

Colonization, in Bibi’s view, continues to affect the continent’s economic life and impact the impact on the lives of ordinary people.

“The economic life of the African continent will not change,” Bibi said, “if foreigners continue to make all the decisions.” He went on to say: “If Africans must be the first beneficiary of the economic decisions of the continent, then they themselves must make the decisions.

Bibi said that the mass migration of young Africans to Europe and America of young Africans, “who should stay back and contribute towards the development of the continent,” is one consequence of the current state of affairs.

African leaders are not blameless, in Bibi’s view, many of whom for many years “have played this role of accomplices sometimes willingly and sometimes unwillingly,” but always with the same consequences.

“It is often said that the oppressor would not be so strong if he did not have accomplices among the oppressed,” Bibi said, adding that he believes African leaders should “look less on what they stand to lose” in standing up to those who would exploit their nations and peoples.

“Economic colonization is a dynamic phenomenon,” he said, noting the recent economic summit to which US President Joe Biden had invited them, and a similar invitation from China, and the knowledge that Russia has another similar meeting in the works.

Bibi said African leaders “must use this opportunity to seize control over their economic affairs because it may never be given to them on a platter of gold. Freedom, whether economic or political, must be seized.”

“Too often,” Bibi said, “they only seek to protect their small individual interests at the detriment of that of their countries.”

Bibi spoke also of the “will to be free” that both leaders and citizens in Africa “must have.” Leaders, he said, “must have the courage to enact policies that will benefit their people and their countries first. They must have the courage to bear the consequences of doing so.”

African citizens, for their part, “must start giving up short term solutions like struggling by all means to travel out of the country.”

“The people who will make Africa great,” Bibi said, “are not those who travel out, but those who remain to work: to open up businesses, whether farms or factories.” Bibi noted that some of those who leave think that they will come back and do that, but in the main, they gradually become “absorbed by the material abundance in the West and forget about their lofty ambitions.”

“Africans,” said the bishop of Buea, “must love their continent enough to want to stay back and contribute to its development.”

Source: Crux