The Vice President of the Southern Cameroons Interim Government has urged the international community to follow up on the conditions of Southern Cameroons political detainees and prisoners of conscience held in French Cameroun controlled jails and detention centers, after it was revealed they are going through the harshest treatment in the Buea prison.

Dabney Yerima informed members of the Ambazonia war cabinet that “In Buea the prison cells are opened at 11:00am and closed at 4:00pm. This means that our people get 5hours outside their cramped cells. Within those cells are very poor sewage systems and the smell is constant.”

The exiled Southern Cameroons leader noted that the situation is worse with Southern Cameroons detainees in Kumba, Bamenda, and Bafoussam.

The Southern Cameroons Vice President made the revelation during the Amba weekly cabinet meeting on Monday, demanding that international players make sure the inmates are not subjected to torture and abuse, and compel the French Cameroun regime to implement the Third Geneva Convention related to the treatment of prisoners.

By Chi Prudence Asong

Every young person in West and Central Africa knows that there are only two seasons in a year – the dry and rainy seasons. The rainy season is just wrapping up while most people expect the dry season to kick in. But in Cameroon, another season will succeed the rainy season and the dry season might only come later. 

Cameroon is a land of wonders and there is always something new and negative emerging from there. This year, the dry season might have to wait a little longer. A new season – evacuation – has started in earnest and it might take longer than expected.

Cameroon’s government of the old is finally falling apart. The sick and elderly leaders are grudgingly yielding to the dictates of time. The number of evacuations is on the rise and the old and tired are gradually falling apart. First it was the country’s minister of finance, Louis-Paul Motaze, who was rushed to Switzerland where he is currently fighting for his dear life after a massive attack by COVID-19. 

Though relatively younger than most of his peers, the finance minister has almost all of the known lifestyle diseases. Rumor burst out yesterday, indicating that the man who still has some sense of decorum had died. But a source close to the Motaze family has informed the Cameroon Concord News Group that he is still alive but in very bad shape.

The virus has pinned him down and is delivering some of the deadliest punches to a man who has never been athletic. His family members are currently biting their finger nails given that they know that Motaze is immuno-compromised and does not stand a chance. 

Many Cameroonians thought Motaze’s case was just a one-off, but it has simply turned out to be the beginning of a long and disturbing season. The floodgates have been opened. While the government was hoping that other cases would not emerge, the 87-year-old Senate President, Marcel Niat Njifenji, has relapsed. He had been patched up in France a few months ago, but things are really falling apart for a man who is simply a bundle of diseases. 

Besides the lifestyle diseases, Niat is hosting other ailments that will not let him have a good night’s sleep. He is permanently feeling like peeing and since his caregivers cannot keep up, he has been placed in a diaper which gets too wet every thirty minutes. 

Other people have joined the evacuation club and this time around, it is the 84-year-old Sultan of Foumban, Ibrahim Mbombo Njoya. The Sultan’s body has been ravaged by diabetes and a heart problem, and COVID-19 has shown up just to serve as a finisher.  COVID-19 is not a respecter of persons and the Sultan’s family is fully aware of that. His family members are down on their knees knocking their heads to the ground in prayer in the fervent hope that the virus will grant the Sultan clemency for all the sins and crimes he has committed.  

While new members are joining the club, old ones are still out there in France enjoying some reprieve. Inoni Ephraim, the country’s one-time Prime Minister, is still in France trying to have his damaged health repaired. The country’s bad politics and years in solitary confinement have reduced the former prime minister to a shadow of his former self. 

As the Cameroon Concord News Group writes this article, a source at the Presidency of the Republic has just called to advise that another bad case is already getting worse. The country’s president, Paul Biya, will likely be evacuated to Switzerland again as his health is still a concern. Mr. Biya, who has been a host of multiple diseases, is having a tough time eating and sleeping, the source said, adding that for the moment, his is the Kingdom of sleeping pills which he happily eats like peanuts.

The Swiss did a good job to put him back together, but like everything artificial, the decorations are already falling apart and the 88-year-old Biya is losing weight and muscles at a very fast rate. He has lost appetite and the fear of death has plunged him into delirium which is an acute mental disturbance characterized by confused thinking and disrupted attention usually accompanied by disordered speech and hallucinations. 

The evacuations are costing the Cameroonian taxpayer a pretty penny.  President Biya and his collaborators thought they would be young forever. They disregarded the health sector and never thought there will be a day when they themselves would be scrambling for solutions to their health issues. A modern state-of-the-art health facility in Yaoundé could have reduced the number of evacuations and health spending if the greed that has become the hallmark of the government had been cast off. 

The time has come, and aging is a process nobody can reverse. Old age is a disease, and it must be taken seriously like any of the age-related diseases. Having a modern and well-equipped hospital will allay everybody’s fears, including that of those who erroneously think they are eternal. 

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

Ambazonia Restoration Forces attacked several Cameroon government military positions late on Sunday September 12, 2021 in the North West.

At least seven Cameroon government army soldiers were killed by the fighters, Cameroon Intelligence Report has gathered from military sources in Bamenda.

A source in the governor’s office hinted CIR that the attacks were carried out simultaneously on several military posts in the North West region.

We understand a total of three army posts were targeted, notably in the localities of Nkambe, Noni and Ndu. The seven soldiers killed have been identified as Corporal Betsou, Tetang Amade, Alima Ngono, Beldou Dankreo and Koyang Paul.

On Friday, two other soldiers were killed in a similar attack in the locality of Chouame. Yaoundé is maintaining a kind of silence of the lamb as all focus is now on the Africa Cup of Nations.

Since the beginning of the conflict, official figures indicate that some 1,200 soldiers have died in Southern Cameroons. But independent sources put the figure at 3000. The conflict has also cost the lives of more than 35,500 people and forced more than 700,000 others to flee their homes.

By Fon Lawrence in Bamenda

The Southern Cameroons Interim Government says the 88-year-old Biya and the French Cameroun military will never be able to break the will of the Ambazonian people by intensifying aggression and destruction of British Southern Cameroons towns and villages.

Vice President Dabney Yerima said in a statement on Sunday that the regime in La Republique du Cameroun is neither able to shatter the will of Southern Cameroonians nor capable of weakening the Ambazonian resistance fighters across Southern Cameroons towns and villages by committing crimes and acts of aggression.

“The escalation of Biya regime attacks on both the Catholic and Presbyterian Churches is part of Yaounde’s continued aggression against the Southern Cameroons people and a desperate attempt to divert attention from the internal political crises in French Cameroun” Dabney Yerima said in the Sunday statement.

Why the people of Ambazonia are fighting

Self-determination under international law: The people of Ambazonia are fighting to vindicate their unquestionable and inalienable right of self-determination. They will continue to fight until self-determination is achieved. The right of self-determination is a norm of jus cogens. It is fortified by the internationally-secured territorial framework of the territory of Ambazonia, a framework standing firmly on two territorial treaty-based pillars.

Legitimate rejection of colonialism in any form, shape or manifestation: The fight of the people of Ambazonia also represents a strong and unyielding rejection of colonialism in any form, shape or manifestation. The rejection is consistent with international law which gives colonized people struggling for their liberation the right to the assistance of third parties.

Territory secured by boundary treaties: The territory of Ambazonia is safeguarded by international treaties. Ambazonia’s international boundary to the north and to the west down to the Bakassi Peninsula is well defined by, and is now demarcated on the basis of, the Anglo-German treaty of 1913 specifying the boundary between the British territory of Nigeria and the German territory of Kamerun. Ambazonia’s international boundary to the east is defined and demarcated on the basis ofthe Anglo-French treaty of 1916. The boundary alignment wasendorsed in 1919 at the Treaties of Versailles, confirmed by the League of Nations in 1922, and reconfirmed by the Anglo-French treaty of 1931 respecting the boundary between the British Cameroons and French Cameroun. The territorial integrity of Ambazonia is thus firmly secured under international law.

Title to territory and the principle of utipossidetisjuris: Sovereign title to the territory of Ambazonia belongs to the people of Ambazonia, and not to any other people. The people of Ambazonia are entitled to the integrity of their territory. And this means Republique du Cameroun, which achieved its independence from France on 1 January 1960, must respect the integrity of its own territory, respect the AU core principle of intangibility of African borders as obtained on the day of achievement of independence, and abandons its pursuit of the internationally wrongful conduct of territorial expansionism.

Historical parallels

There are illustrative historical parallels to the darkness that has befallen Ambazonia. The parallels are: Morocco’s occupation and attempt to annex the Western Sahara; Imperial Ethiopia’s occupation and attempt to annex Eritrea; Indonesia’s occupation and attempt to annex East Timor; and apartheid South Africa’s occupation, refusal to leave Namibia and attempt to annex it. Predictably, all these cases led to wars of national liberation. And in all of them each latter-day colonial occupier/oppressor lost.

By Isong Asu with additional reporting from Soter Agbaw-Ebai