Biya regime says Africa Cup of Nations will be successful despite Ambazonia threats

13, December 2021

Biya regime says Africa Cup of Nations will be successful despite Ambazonia threats 0

Cameroonian authorities have vowed a safe African Football Cup of Nations when they host the biennial tournament in January. Cameroon’s Anglophone separatists have threatened further attacks on two towns that have stadiums to be used for group matches.

Cameroon’s police, military and senior government officials have been holding meetings to ensure a successful African Football Cup of Nations, AFCON, which runs from January 9 to February 6.

On Thursday, Cameroon assembled its 10 regional governors in the capital to examine the country’s readiness to host 24 African soccer teams, officials and thousands of fans expected for the tournaments.

Paul Atanga Nji is Cameroon’s territorial administration minister and permanent secretary of its National Security Council. He says President Paul Biya ordered the meeting to make sure Cameroon gives Africa and the world the most successful AFCON the continent has ever seen.

Nji says Biya does not want the games to be disrupted by separatists and politicians, whom he accused of wanting to project a bad image of Cameroon to the outside world.

“We have told politicians that Cameroonians want a peaceful CAN [AFCON]. Politicians should be reasonable. All Cameroonians should be ambassadors behind our great leader, President Paul Biya, to make this AFCON a great event. Any attempt to disrupt public order will be dealt with squarely. I am very clear, the regional governors have taken up the challenge to promote peace, unity, tranquility, and living together during the AFCON.”

Nji specifically accused opposition leader Maurice Kamto, who still insists he won the 2018 presidential elections, of planning to disrupt the games.

But Kamto says he will be educating civilians on the need for Cameroon to revise its electoral code, which he says favors Biya, during the AFCON matches.

Meanwhile, separatist groups on social media platforms have issued warnings that AFCON matches should not be played in Limbe and Buea, two towns in the South-West region.

Langmi Nestor, spokesperson of the separatist Ambazonia National Self Defense Council says fighters have been instructed to disrupt the games if Biya does not withdraw its troops fighting separatists in the English-speaking western regions.

“Biya must either come to the negotiation table [with separatists] or we give sleepless nights. The freedom of the people of Ambazonia is far more important than any nonsense in the name of the African Nations Cup.”

Armed groups have been fighting to separate Cameroon’s two English-speaking western regions from the rest of Cameroon and its French-speaking majority for the past five years.

This week, defense officials said extra troops have been deployed to protect soccer fans and players all over Cameroon and vowed the matches in Limbe and Buea would go on.

The military says it has deployed troops to the border between French-speaking and English-speaking regions to stop rebels from advancing during AFCON. The military says it is calling on civilians to assist in maintaining peace during AFCON by reporting strangers and suspicious activity in towns and villages.

AFCON’S opening match is a contest between Burkina Faso and Cameroon, a five-time Africa Cup of Nations champion.

Source: VOA

Biya regime crumbling as more than 30,000 French Cameroonians flee to Chad to escape violence

13, December 2021

Biya regime crumbling as more than 30,000 French Cameroonians flee to Chad to escape violence 0

More than 30,000 people in northern Cameroon have fled to Chad after the violence at the weekend that killed at least 22 people, the United Nations’ refugee agency has said.

Violence broke out in the border village of Ouloumsa on Sunday in a dispute between herders, fishermen and farmers over dwindling water resources, the UNHCR said in a statement on Friday issued from Geneva.

It then spread to neighbouring villages, 10 of which have been burned to the ground.

The clashes have displaced thousands in the country, “forcing more than 30,000 people to flee to neighbouring Chad”, the UNHCR said.

“At least 22 people have been killed and 30 others seriously injured during several days of ongoing fighting.”

The violence is unfolding in Logone-Chari in Cameroon’s Far North Region – the tongue of land that lies between Nigeria to the west and Chad to the east.

The UN figures for those seeking refuge, and the death toll, are far higher than numbers given on Wednesday by other sources.

The Chadian Red Cross had said there were at least 3,000 refugees, although the number was likely to grow, while the Cameroonian authorities said at least four had died.

Almost 80 percent of the new arrivals are women, many of them pregnant, and children, the UNHCR said.

They have found refuge in the Chadian capital N’Djamena and villages along Chad’s bank of the Logone River.

The UNHCR said at least 10,000 have fled to N’Djamena from Kousseri, a town of 200,000 people whose cattle market was destroyed in the fighting.

Chad’s military government leader Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno on Wednesday issued a statement to say the situation was “worrying” and appealed to international donors to help the arrivals.

A bout of fighting between herders and fishermen in August led to 45 deaths and an influx of at least 10,000 people into Chad.

As in the latest incident, the fighting began over management and access to water, the Cameroonian authorities say.

Violent conflict between ethnic groups is relatively rare in Cameroon compared with Chad and Nigeria, where fighting over resources between semi-nomadic herders and sedentary farmers is frequent.

Cameroonian officials say two of the parties in the conflict are fishermen of the Musgum community and ethnic Arab Choa cattlemen.

SOURCE: AFP

Biya’s continued stay in power: Opposition wants to change the electoral code

13, December 2021

Biya’s continued stay in power: Opposition wants to change the electoral code 0

Mandatory voting, lowering the security deposit and modifying the Electoral Council’s composition… We list out the main points of the reform project that the opposition was prevented by police from presenting on 24 November as planned.

The show of force had an unexpected effect. On 24 November, police and gendarmes were deployed in large numbers in front of the Hilton Hotel in Yaoundé, where the opposition was due to officially present its draft reform of the electoral code.

The organisers had no choice but to postpone the event at the last minute, so the guests had to leave. Even so, against all odds, the police’s muscular intervention put the initiative back in the spotlight. Launched by seven political parties last March, it seemed to have disappeared from the radar.

What does this 231-page document, which the opposition is now distributing to all public officials and diplomats in Yaoundé, contain? According to the technical secretariat that contributed to it, 15 political parties, 12 civil society organisations and about 50 citizens responded to the call for contributions that was launched.

The proposals, which mainly concern the electoral code’s provisions that require some modifications, were analysed, excluding those that could require the Constitution to be revised. “This is the minimum acceptable for the elections to take place smoothly,” say the members of the opposition.

The standard and the unexpected

Some of these proposals are fairly standard: introducing a single ballot paper; lengthening the duration of electoral campaigns (30 days instead of 15); lowering the security deposit required for legislative elections (from 3m CFA francs ($5,165) to 500,000 CFA francs per candidate) and municipal (from 50,000 CFA francs to 25,000 CFA francs); and prohibiting polling stations from being set up in barracks or chieftaincies.

THE RACE TO TRANSFORM

Others are more surprising, such as making voting compulsory. This would complement Article 2 of the electoral law, which currently stipulates that the election is by universal, equal and secret suffrage, and that it can be direct or indirect. The measure aims to reduce the abstention rates observed in recent elections. During the last local elections in February 2020, turnout was just over 40%.

The opposition has fear and doubts regarding the neutrality, representativeness and independence of the Electoral Council.

To remedy this, it has proposed that the 18-member body be composed – in future – of eight representatives from parties sitting in the Assembly; three representatives from parties only present in municipal councils; three figures from the three parties whose candidates emerged top during the last presidential election; two representatives from the administration that were chosen by the president of the Republic who have had no political affiliation for at least three years; and two members of the civil society.

The minutes from the 2018 presidential election proved to be a stumbling block while the case was being examined before the Constitutional Council. In general, the authenticity of the documents transmitted to the Commission Nationale de Recensement des Votes was often questioned.

The opposition therefore proposed establishment of a communal commission that will be responsible for supervising votes, ensuring the conformity of the minutes and be above the departmental commission. The objective is to reduce the risk of litigation at the national level. The same document adds that all the minutes should have the same legal value, but that today, only the Elecam’s PV is valid in case of dispute.

Another proposed change – which would amend Articles 133, 168 and 194 of the electoral code – is that post-election disputes be examined after the provisional results have been announced. Therefore, the body would only be able to proclaim an election’s final results once the Constitutional Council settles any possible post-election disputes.

Source: The Africa Report

Mandatory voting, lowering the security deposit and modifying the Electoral Council’s composition… We list out the main points of the reform project that the opposition was prevented by policefrom presenting on 24 November as planned.

The show of force had an unexpected effect. On 24 November, police and gendarmes were deployed in large numbers in front of the Hilton Hotel in Yaoundé, where the opposition was due to officially present its draft reform of the electoral code.

The organisers had no choice but to postpone the event at the last minute, so the guests had to leave. Even so, against all odds, the police’s muscular intervention put the initiative back in the spotlight. Launched by seven political parties last March, it seemed to have disappeared from the radar.

What does this 231-page document, which the opposition is now distributing to all public officials and diplomats in Yaoundé, contain? According to the technical secretariat that contributed to it, 15 political parties, 12 civil society organisations and about 50 citizens responded to the call for contributions that was launched.

The proposals, which mainly concern the electoral code’s provisions that require some modifications, were analysed, excluding those that could require the Constitution to be revised. “This is the minimum acceptable for the elections to take place smoothly,” say the members of the opposition.

The standard and the unexpected

Some of these proposals are fairly standard: introducing a single ballot paper; lengthening the duration of electoral campaigns (30 days instead of 15); lowering the security deposit required for legislative elections (from 3m CFA francs ($5,165) to 500,000 CFA francs per candidate) and municipal (from 50,000 CFA francs to 25,000 CFA francs); and prohibiting polling stations from being set up in barracks or chieftaincies.

THE RACE TO TRANSFORM

Others are more surprising, such as making voting compulsory. This would complement Article 2 of the electoral law, which currently stipulates that the election is by universal, equal and secret suffrage, and that it can be direct or indirect. The measure aims to reduce the abstention rates observed in recent elections. During the last local elections in February 2020, turnout was just over 40%.

The opposition has fear and doubts regarding the neutrality, representativeness and independence of the Electoral Council.

To remedy this, it has proposed that the 18-member body be composed – in future – of eight representatives from parties sitting in the Assembly; three representatives from parties only present in municipal councils; three figures from the three parties whose candidates emerged top during the last presidential election; two representatives from the administration that were chosen by the president of the Republic who have had no political affiliation for at least three years; and two members of the civil society.

The minutes from the 2018 presidential election proved to be a stumbling block while the case was being examined before the Constitutional Council. In general, the authenticity of the documents transmitted to the Commission Nationale de Recensement des Votes was often questioned.

The opposition therefore proposed establishment of a communal commission that will be responsible for supervising votes, ensuring the conformity of the minutes and be above the departmental commission. The objective is to reduce the risk of litigation at the national level. The same document adds that all the minutes should have the same legal value, but that today, only the Elecam’s PV is valid in case of dispute.

Another proposed change – which would amend Articles 133, 168 and 194 of the electoral code – is that post-election disputes be examined after the provisional results have been announced. Therefore, the body would only be able to proclaim an election’s final results once the Constitutional Council settles any possible post-election disputes.

Source: The Africa Report

CPDM Crime Syndicate: 4 members of Cameroon women’s handball team abscond in Spain

13, December 2021

CPDM Crime Syndicate: 4 members of Cameroon women’s handball team abscond in Spain 0

Spanish police are investigating the disappearance of four members of the Cameroon women’s handball team, who apparently absconded from a hotel in Valencia, where they were competing in the World Championships.

The Cameroonian delegation reported the women as missing on Thursday, a police spokesperson said.

Police were not treating the disappearance as suspicious as the women left with all their belongings and there was no sign of a struggle.

“It seems the women left of their own accord,” the spokesperson said, adding that police had no theories as to where they might have gone. The championships began on Dec. 1.

Athletes have frequently used international sporting events to seek asylum or escape poor conditions in their home countries, including seven Cameroonians who disappeared during the 2012 London Olympics.

Source: Reuters

Deadly unrest closing schools in Southern Cameroons

13, December 2021

Deadly unrest closing schools in Southern Cameroons 0

There are no students in the playground of the high school in the Bomaka district of Buea — just the odd goat grazing on overgrown grass.

Buea is the capital of Cameroon’s Southwest Region — one of two regions gripped by violence after anglophones launched a campaign to break away from the country’s French-speaking majority.

In Bomaka, almost all the schools have been closed since 2016. It has just one junior school that remains open, but whose rollcall has slumped from around 600 to just 69 today.

“The crisis has killed the schools,” said Isaac Bissong, its headmaster. “Many pupils have left this neighbourhood to study elsewhere because they are afraid.”

In one classroom, only eight students were present when AFP visited. The silence in the once-bustling corridors was heavy.

Unlike other schools in the country, the green, red and yellow flag of Cameroon was nowhere to be seen — “that could get us into trouble,” said Bissong.

The school is located less than three kilometres (two miles) from Muea, one of the separatists’ strongholds and the scene of many clashes.

Bissong provides whatever security he can for the school, although he is not armed.

He sits on a chair at the school entrance, on the lookout for potential trouble.

– Deaths and threats –

Anglophone separatists in the Southwest and neighbouring Northwest Region regularly attack schools that they accuse of teaching in French.

Teachers and other civil servants have been killed after being accused of “collaborating” with the central government in Yaounde.

The predominantly French-speaking country is ruled with an iron fist by President Paul Biya, 88, who has been in power for 39 years.

Years-long grievances among the anglophone minority brewed for years, overflowing into a declaration of independence on October 1, 2017.

Armed separatists launched attacks on the security forces, triggering a violent crackdown.

The spiral of bloodshed has claimed more than 3,500 lives and forced around 700,000 people to flee their homes, according to monitors.

NGOs say that killings of civilians and abuses have been committed by both sides.

According to UNICEF, in 2019, some 850,000 children were not in school in the English-speaking regions.

In October 2020, a dozen men stormed the Mother Francisca International Bilingual Academy in Kumba, in the Southwest Region, opening fire on pupils.

They killed seven children aged between nine and 12. A dozen others were shot or macheted.

On November 24 this year, four students and a teacher were killed by gunmen in the Southwest.

– ‘Children are dying’ –

“Children are dying, and teachers too, for providing an education that these armed people do not want, believing it is not good for their region,” Jan Egeland, secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, told AFP during a visit to Buea.

“There’s a generation of children who are on the verge of becoming illiterate because they have not been to school.”

In the streets of downtown Buea, armed soldiers were on patrol.

Blaise Chamango, a parent, said she was constantly worried for the children’s safety.

“Before leaving them at school in the morning, I pray”.

“When we send our children to school, we can receive threats,” said another parent, Manu Dao. “I am sad because their future is at stake.”

Many families have fled.

In the Southwest’s coastal area of Souza, one school is hosting 596 displaced English-speaking children this year, out of a total of 1,087 pupils.

The pupils are sometimes crammed 90 to a class.

“Many of them are in a state of shock,” said school official Joseph Mencheng.

“Many have seen people killed, their parents in some cases. Sometimes, in the middle of a lesson, they bring up some horror they have experienced.”

Stephanie, aged 12, is in a class with children years younger than her.

“I left my village because there was a war and I couldn’t go to school for three years,” she explained.

Nine-year-old Dipanda is talking with three classmates in another crowded classroom.

She comes from a small village in the Northwest Region. She says she is delighted to be back in school after classes were stopped “because of the war.”

Source: AFP

Mister President: Samuel Eto’o takes over the dysfunctional FECAFOOT

11, December 2021

Mister President: Samuel Eto’o takes over the dysfunctional FECAFOOT 0

The New Bell wonder boy, Samuel Eto’o, has taken over the Cameroon Football Federation, FECAFOOT, after a tough fight against the lame duck incumbent, Seidou Mbombou Njoya.

Eto’o’s victory was a forgone conclusion as he had rolled out a massive campaign strategy that had put other contestants in the shadow.

Eto’o, who understands the issues which have disabled FECAFOOT and has come to the rescue of the dysfunctional federation on many occasions, had promised to address those issues during his four-year term.

He had stressed the need to address the issues facing former players, adding that the country’s football leagues were capable of feeding and housing all football actors.

Eto’o, it should be underscored, has saved the lives of several former players who are either homeless or sick and this action has endeared him in the minds of many Cameroonians.

He sometimes paid airtickets for players when the federation was cash-strapped, causing many Cameroonians to hold that he should take over the dysfunctional federation.

Eto’o’s plan to give Cameroon’s football a shot in the arm, places young Cameroonians at the center of every action, a reason why many are prepared to die for him.

He has promised to build a new building for the federation and he will be working very hard to bring in investors in order to make football in Cameroon a massive business venture that should bring benefits to the youths and country.

Cameroonian youths had vowed to go on a rampage if the elections were rigged as they knew that Samuel Eto’o, the man who embodies their dream, would easily scale through  if the elections were free and fair.

The people’s pressure has paid off and it is evident that when young people decide on who has to determine their destiny, nothing can stop such a person.

Cameroon, has over the last four decades, been the ridicule of the world because of the dysfunctional nature of the country’s football federation.

Mr. Eto’o’s election has brought hope and smiles to many faces and millions of Cameroonians are looking forward to the wonder boy transforming things in Yaounde and across the country.

By Dr. Joachim Arrey

Football: Samuel Eto’o elected as new president of Cameroon Football Federation

11, December 2021

Football: Samuel Eto’o elected as new president of Cameroon Football Federation 0

The FC Barcelona and Inter Milan legend has been voted as the new president of the Cameroon Football Federation (CFF).

Former Cameroon international Samuel Eto’o is the new boss of the West African nation’s football governing body after winning the 2021 FECAFOOT General elections held on Saturday.

The 40-year-old defeated incumbent Seidou Mbombo Njoya in the FECAFOOT president elections which took place at the Monte Febe Hotel in Yaounde.

 Eto’o is the all-time top scorer of Cameroon with 56 goals in 118 matches.

 The role as football chief in the country set to host January’s Africa Cup of Nations became vacant when the incumbent Seidou Mbombo Njoya saw his tenure canceled by the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

 Cameroon will host the 33rd edition of the Africa Cup of Nations from January 9 to February 7, 2022.

Published in Africa Football

Professor Anyangwe: Only idiots in Yaoundé assume burning of houses will undermine the Ambazonia struggle

11, December 2021

Professor Anyangwe: Only idiots in Yaoundé assume burning of houses will undermine the Ambazonia struggle 0

Renowned Southern Cameroons academic who also moonlights as a high-ranking official with the Ambazonia Interim Government, Professor Carlson Anyangwe has described the youthful French Cameroun political elites that believe they can stifle the British Southern Cameroons uprising by burning down Ambazonia towns and villages as “idiots”, stressing that the struggle now lives in the bliss of victories.

“There are some French Camerounians who still think that they can weaken the people of Southern Cameroons by destroying their towns, cities and villages, I say unto them that they are idiots” Professor Carlson Anyangwe said in reaction to the burning of several houses in Bamenda recently by Cameroon government soldiers loyal to the French Cameroun regime in Yaoundé.

Carlson Anyangwe added that such Africans don’t read history and don’t know that the secret of Ambazonia strength is in “Our faith and trust in our Creator.”

Elsewhere in his remarks to Cameroon Concord News, Professor Carlson Anyangwe stressed that those who conspired against the struggle are now calling for unity among Southern Cameroons restoration groups. Anyangwe also stressed that Vice President Dabney Yerima and the Ambazonia Interim Government are determined to go on resisting against the French Cameroun enemy.

For close to five years, Cameroon government army soldiers have been burning homes in Southern Cameroons in the hope that the population will submit, but this old and ineffective strategy is not delivering the desired results. Southern Cameroonians are determined to get this problem addressed once and for all and throwing in the towel is not an option.

As many Ambazonians get robbed of their dignity and means of livelihood by the brutal Francophone dominated military through such devilish ways, so too do these Southern Cameroons civilians look for ways to get their ‘pound of flesh’ and there is no better way than joining the ranks of the Ambazonia Revolutionary Guards who are only too willing to see their ranks swell.

The burning of homes did work in the early 1960s when the government of Ahmadou Ahidjo, the country’s first president, was facing a guerrilla warfare against a movement which was fighting the French-imposed government in East Cameroon (French-speaking Cameroon), but that strategy is, without a doubt, the least effective in modern times.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

Destruction of Southern Cameroons: Yerima says Francophone army presence is occupation, should be resisted by all means

11, December 2021

Destruction of Southern Cameroons: Yerima says Francophone army presence is occupation, should be resisted by all means 0

The Vice President of the Ambazonia Interim Government has stressed the resolve of the people of Southern Cameroons to rid the entire Ambazonia homeland of French Cameroun army soldiers and colonial administrators.

Speaking to Cameroon Intelligence Report late on Friday, the exiled Southern Cameroons leader, said self defense actions throughout the Federal Republic of Ambazonia will continue until the entire Southern Cameroons homeland occupied by La Republique du Cameroun army soldiers is totally liberated.

“The Ambazonia Interim Government affirms that French Cameroun military presence in Southern Cameroons is an occupation which must be resisted by all possible means,” Vice President Yerima added.

Dabney Yerima stressed that the Biya French Cameroun regime has been maintaining its presence on the Ambazonian soil to encourage divisions among the ethnic groups of Southern Cameroons and steal the resources of the people of Ambazonia. Yerima also called on Ambazonia Revolutionary Guards to try and end French Cameroun’s plunder of Southern Cameroons natural resources.

For close to five years, Cameroon government army soldiers have been burning homes in Southern Cameroons in the hope that the population will submit, but this old and ineffective strategy is not delivering the desired results. Southern Cameroonians are determined to get this problem addressed once and for all and throwing in the towel is not an option.

As many Ambazonians get robbed of their dignity and means of livelihood by the brutal Francophone dominated military through such devilish ways, so too do these Southern Cameroons civilians look for ways to get their ‘pound of flesh’ and there is no better way than joining the ranks of the Ambazonia Revolutionary Guards who are only too willing to see their ranks swell.

The burning of homes did work in the early 1960s when the government of Ahmadou Ahidjo, the country’s first president, was facing a guerrilla warfare against a movement which was fighting the French-imposed government in East Cameroon (French-speaking Cameroon), but that strategy is, without a doubt, the least effective in modern times.

By Isong Asu and Soter Agbaw-Ebai

Postpone the AFCON in Cameroon due to the Southern Cameroons crisis

10, December 2021

Postpone the AFCON in Cameroon due to the Southern Cameroons crisis 0

Africa’s most prominent soccer championship, the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON), has twice been pushed forward.

The first postponement was because Cameroon was deemed unprepared to host the games, and the second was because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Confederation of African Football (CAF) — Africa’s soccer governing body — is now being asked if the escalating violence in the country’s Anglophone regions poses too great a threat to spectators and team safety.

A vicious civil war has been raging in Cameroon’s English-speaking areas, whose people make up 20% of the Central African country, since September 2017.

The clashes are between Cameroonian government forces and armed separatist groups.

Parties on both sides of the conflict committed widespread human rights violations in 2020, including extrajudicial or summary executions and mass murders in Cameroon’s Anglophone regions, a report by Human Rights Watch found.

There are now mounting calls to delay the AFCON competition until the warring parties call for a ceasefire and enter peace negotiations.

Can matches be played in Anglophone regions?

According to the AFCON fixture, 24 qualifying teams are scheduled to play matches in six venues across Cameroon.

Limbe stadium is in the Anglophone zone, Bafoussam stadium is near its border, and the others, located in majority-French-speaking regions (Yaounde, Douala, and Garoua) may also be vulnerable to attacks.

In 2021, the Anglophone conflict witnessed an escalation in improvised explosive devices (IED).

There have also been several explosions outside the Anglophone regions, with officials holding separatist groups responsible for the blasts.

In particular, Yaounde saw IED explosions which injured civilians in June, July, August, and November 2020.

There is a real risk of such attacks in all AFCON venues, especially in Limbe.

Although Limbe is one of the few relatively quiet towns in the Anglophone regions, two bomb attacks during the African Championship of Nations football tournament in January 2020, one of which injured police officers, highlights the city’s vulnerability.

An armed separatist group called the Fako Action Forces (FAF) claimed responsibility for at least one of those IEDs. Moreover, the same group has recently been active in Buea, the capital of the Southwest Region and close to Limbe.

Last month, FAF claimed an IED attack on the University of Buea which injured 11 students. They also killed a driver for defying the separatists’ Monday stay-at-home- “ghost town” orders, which have been in place for five years.

CAF under pressure

Given the increasing attacks on civilians, the Confederation of African Football may come under pressure to postpone the tournament until President Paul Biya’s regime attends peace talks.

Moreover, during AFCON, the deteriorating security situation would pose risks to players on and off the pitch.

The Cameroon authorities allegedly wish to host AFCON because of its status this will confer on them, on the continent and beyond.

Many believe that President Biya hopes to win the favor of young Cameroonians by staging the matches. Yet, the games may also offer an opportunity for young Cameroonians to express their frustration with the country’s human-rights abuses.

The Cameroonian government has consistently responded to peaceful protests with violence and military action, losing support and driving more youth to take up arms.

Biya, 88, has been in power since 1982.

International election observers routinely condemn Cameroon’s elections for lacking legitimacy.

Human rights watchdogs accuse his forces of behaving with impunity, targeting unarmed civilians in the Anglophone regions, burning villages, and causing over 700,000 people (out of 6 million people living there) to flee into the bush or elsewhere in the country. Tens of thousands more are in exile in neighboring Nigeria and beyond.

When sports mix with politics

This controversial AFCON is not the first time sporting events have become sensitive politically.

In the 1970s, protests greeted the cricket team of repressive apartheid South Africa when it went on tour.

The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan led the USA and other countries to pull their athletes from participation in the 1980 Moscow Olympics.

Politics overshadowed the 2008 Beijing Olympics due to China’s human-rights violations, brutal crackdown on Tibet, and initial refusal to support sending peacekeepers to stop a genocide in Darfur.

The upcoming 2022 Beijing Olympics is under scrutiny due to China’s mistreatment of its Uyghur minority.

Cameroon security services recently conducted anti-terrorism simulation exercises, including a mock attack on a stadium, but the shadow of the 1972 Munich Olympics, where the Palestinian group Black September murdered 11 Israeli athletes, hangs over any proposed AFCON soccer games.

The fact that the country needs to practice these simulations begs the question: Why is the Confederation of African Football allowing AFCON to take place in an insecure environment and under the authority of a government committing crimes against humanity against its citizens?

For the sake of AFCON and the sake of suffering Cameroonian citizens, the Confederation and the Cameroonian government should think carefully about the safety and morality of hosting the Africa Cup of Nations in January in Cameroon.

Source: DeutscheWelle

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