Sudan to hand former leader Omar al-Bashir, other officials to ICC

11, August 2021

Sudan to hand former leader Omar al-Bashir, other officials to ICC 0

Sudan will hand over to the International Criminal Court (ICC) several of its former leaders, including deposed autocrat Omar al-Bashir, wanted for crimes against humanity and war crimes during the conflict in Darfur, the country’s foreign minister said on Wednesday.

“The Council of Ministers has decided to hand over the wanted persons to the International Criminal Court,” Mariam al-Mahdi, Sudan’s Minister of Foreign Affairs.

According to the official Suna agency, the decision was arrived at after a consultative meeting between the office of the foreign ministry and the new chief prosecutor of the Hague-based court, Karim Khan, who was visiting Khartoum.

The Darfur conflict broke out when rebels from the territory’s ethnic central and sub-Saharan African community launched an insurgency in 2003, complaining of oppression by the Arab-dominated government in Khartoum.

Al-Bashir’s government responded with a campaign of aerial bombings and raids by militias known as janjaweed, who stands accused of mass killings and rapes. Up to 300,000 people were killed and 2.7 million were driven from their homes.

The court charged al-Bashir with war crimes and genocide for allegedly masterminding the campaign of attacks in Darfur. Sudanese prosecutors last year started their own investigation into the Darfur conflict.

Also indicted by the court are two other senior figures from al-Bashir’s rule: Abdel-Rahim Muhammad Hussein, interior and defense minister during much of the conflict, and Ahmed Haroun, a senior security chief at the time and later the leader of al-Bashir’s ruling party. Both Hussein and Haroun have been under arrest in Khartoum since the Sudanese military, under pressure from protesters, ousted al-Bashir in April 2019.

The court also indicted rebel leader Abdulla Banda, whose whereabouts are unknown, and janjaweed leader Ali Kushayb, who was charged in May with crimes against humanity and war crimes.

Source: Africa News

Southern Cameroons Crisis: Swiss leaders call for Biya to step down

11, August 2021

Southern Cameroons Crisis: Swiss leaders call for Biya to step down 0

Prominent political figures in the Swiss Federation have in a secret memo called for the 88-year-old President Paul Biya to step down over his failed Southern Cameroons policy, Cameroon Intelligence Report has gathered from a reliable source in Geneva.

Biya arrived Geneva in a very bad shape and news filtered recently that it will be a miracle if the ailing president emerges from his multiple and complicated health challenges.

Our source hinted that under directives from French President Emmanuel Macron, a Swiss delegation reportedly told Biya that the time has come for him to step aside.

Our senior political man, Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai says the happenings in Geneva marks a significant increase in pressure on President Biya for sending his Francophone army soldiers against Southern Cameroons protesters four years ago.

Meanwhile, some legal minds deep within the International Criminal Court have said that the use of violence in Southern Cameroons may amount to crimes against humanity and are pushing the UN Human Rights Council to refer the Southern Cameroons crisis to the International Criminal Court.

Human Rights Watch believes about 4,000 Southern Cameroonians have been killed and thousands arrested since the crisis started as Cameroon government security forces try to quell the Anglophone uprising.

President Biya has promised political reforms but has continued with his military campaign and blaming the unrest on separatists groups.

The future of the two Cameroons must be determined through frank and genuine dialogue but President Biya is standing in the way. His calls for dialogue and reform have rung hollow while he is imprisoning, torturing, and slaughtering Southern Cameroonians.

By Isong Asu

Yaoundé Says Hundreds of Boko Haram Militants from Nigeria and Chad Surrender

11, August 2021

Yaoundé Says Hundreds of Boko Haram Militants from Nigeria and Chad Surrender 0

Cameroonian officials say at least 82 former Boko Haram fighters from Nigeria and Chad, along with their families, have surrendered to authorities in the past week. Authorities say they’re the latest among hundreds of the militant Islamists who have been defecting since May, when the group’s leader was killed. Cameroon plans to deport the former fighters as the influx has overwhelmed rehabilitation centers along the border.

Cameroon’s government on August 10 said its National Committee for Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration center in Meri, a northern town on the border with Nigeria, has 967 former jihadist militants. A week ago, there were about 700 former Boko Haram fighters and their families in the center.

Among the over 260 who arrived within the past one week are 82 former Boko Haram male fighters. The others are women and children.

Francis Fai Yengo is the director of DDR centers created by the government of Cameroon for former fighters. He says over 200 of ex-militants are Nigerians. He spoke on Monday after President Paul Biya sent him to meet the former militants and to evaluate their needs.

“We came to see the fighters, those young women and men predominantly made of Nigerians flooding out from the Boko Haram camps into our country,” he said. “The numbers are increasing daily. We welcome them, but after we have done the necessary verifications, we will send them back rapidly to their country because of the good relationship that our country [Cameroon] has with our neighboring country to the west [Nigeria].”

Yengo said several of the former militants are Chadians. He said Biya has provided space and funds for a bigger DDR center to be constructed in Meme, another northern town not far from Nigeria. Yengo said the center at Meri was too small to contain the increasing number of fleeing Boko Haram militants.

The Multinational Joint Task Force of the Lake Chad Basin that is fighting the jihadist group said the former militants handed themselves to troops around the Sambisa Forest on the Cameroon Nigeria border, an area considered as Boko Haram’s stronghold. The task force is made up of troops from Niger, Cameroon, Chad and Nigeria.

Borno State and Sambisa Forest

Nigeria has not issued a statement on the militants’ defections. Cameroon says it has voluntarily handed former combatants to Nigeria several times but that the number that surrendered this week is the highest.

This month, Cameroon said since May, when Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau was declared dead, the jihadist group Boko Haram and its fighters are weaker and likely to surrender.

Swaibou Issa, a researcher on Boko Haram at the University of Maroua, says  Cameroon, Nigeria and Chad should encourage fighters who are still reluctant to surrender and help to reconstruct their communities. He says rival jihadist groups are carrying out charitable acts around the Lake Chad Basin aimed at luring in Boko Haram militants and having fighters join other terrorist groups.

Issa says within the past two months, the Islamic State in West Africa Province, or the ISWAP, a splinter of Boko Haram, is increasingly gaining power and influence. He says ISWAP has been highly active along the Cameroon, Nigeria, Chad border. He says while recognized international aid groups distribute food to populations in need, ISWAP also shares food to gain sympathy and recruit civilians.

Speaking through the messaging platform WhatsApp from Maroua, Issa said it is possible that many militants want to surrender but fear reprisals from jihadist fighters. 

Kalbassou Daniel is the president of Cameroon’s Far North Regional Council, or the CPDM party, created by the government to speed up local development.

 Kalbassou says it is imperative for the governments of Cameroon, Nigeria and Chad to provide jobs for the ex-jihadist militants. He says the former militants who surrender must be encouraged to have self confidence that is needed before they can reintegrate work for development and become productive contributing members of society. 

Boko Haram terrorists have been fighting to establish an Islamic caliphate in Nigeria’s northeast. The fighters began attacks inside Cameroon in 2014.

According to the U.N., 30,000 people have been killed and 1.8 million displaced in Cameroon, Nigeria and Chad since 2009 when the fighting deteriorated into an armed conflict with Nigerian government troops. 

Source: VOA

Southern Cameroons Crisis causing hardship for women

11, August 2021

Southern Cameroons Crisis causing hardship for women 0

Cameroon President Paul Biya must let “peace reign” in the country’s troubled Anglophone regions, according to a former mayor and Catholic activist.

Elizabeth Kang, a leading member of the Catholic Women Association (CWA) spoke to Crux on the sidelines of the women’s convention for peace in Yaoundé.

“I am pleading on God Almighty to do to the Head of State as he did to Saul. Saul was a murderer and when he was going down to Damascus again to carry out his killing, God changed him and renamed him Paul, and he became a great preacher and wrote many books in the Bible. If our Paul today is Saul, God will change him back to the real Paul,” she said.

Biya has been largely blamed for the five-year conflict in Cameroon’s English-speaking regions where a separatist war has left over 4000 dead and forced more than a million people to flee their homes.

When Anglophone teachers and lawyers took to the streets in 2016 to protest the use of French in English-speaking schools and Common Law courts, Biya deployed the military, taking a hardline stance that escalated tensions, and morphed into demands for self-rule by the country’s English speakers.

Separatists have been fighting the military ever since, and violently enforced a school boycott that has left the regions’ children without an education for five years.

Kang says she believes that Biya has the power to bring the conflict to an end.

“The head of state of this country is the father of this nation. He has the authority to say ‘stop the killing, come my children, let us discuss this issue.’ For me, I hold him very responsible,” she told Crux.

“The head of state of this country has to make a statement to the effect that we are all his wives, we are all his children. … As one woman we want to cry out: Withdraw the army. The army too is dying. The mother of the soldier is wailing like me, the mother of the civilian. We are the same women wailing for our children.”

Kang is a witness to the daily horrors of war in her native Wum. Sometimes, the horrors are too close to home. Among others, her husband has had to spend time in the dreaded Kondengui Central Prison in Yaoundé.

“The first person I lost was my brother’s son whom I raised. Some armed people came and called him out of the house in my absence. In the morning, they had chopped off his ears. The second one was my son. They came and took him out at 5 a.m. [in front of] his wife beat him up and tore his left ear. The third one is my husband who was carried up to Kondengui. He stayed in Kondengui for nine months, and when the family head is not there, you know what that means. An entire family can go astray because the pilot of the house is not there. The other one was my neighbor’s son whose head was blown off by cartridges from unknown persons, and he died. I will not name my cousins that were slain in a whole village. Sometimes, people were carried in other villages and shot in Wum town.”

Holding back tears, Kang notes that women are paying a disproportionate price in the conflict, many of them “menstruating on leaves. The pride of a woman has been taken away. Women are delivering children in the bush, and under very bad conditions.”

The Catholic Women Association came up with various proposals to bring an end to the hostilities.

They called for continued and inclusive dialogue that addresses core issues around peace, solidarity and shared humanity in Cameroon; as well as the equal and permanent involvement of women peace mediators and negotiators in peace processes at all levels, while enforcing their protection at all times.

They also underscored the need to create additional centers for psychological support and trauma treatment, while at the same time making sure that the country’s disarmament and demobilization centers are made functional and responsive to the existing conflict.

“Peace has to reign,” Kang said simply, but added this will be contingent on Biya “calling the army to the barracks, the separatists dropping their guns, and genuine and sincere dialogue to address the root causes of the conflict.”

Source: Crux

Southern Cameroons Crisis: Abandoned CDC-Delmonte workers are stalked by hunger, death

10, August 2021

Southern Cameroons Crisis: Abandoned CDC-Delmonte workers are stalked by hunger, death 0

Deprived of everything under the Franklin Ngoni Njie administration, CDC-Delmonte workers who had been scraping on FCFA 500 FRS per day are now left with nothing. General Manager Ngoni Njie and his Musonge gang have not raised any alarm ever since the war in Southern Cameroons started four years ago as the workers, abandoned in places like Tiko, Mautu, Mondoni, Ekona and Muyuka slid silently into catastrophe.

“They have become like beggars,” said Cameroon Concord News Fako Bureau Chief. CDC-Delmonte workers have been unable to properly feed themselves or their families and many are being forced out of their homes by landlords.

Many of the workers have their tiny arms immobilized by malnutrition, some have kids suffering from tuberculosis and beneath their poorly equipped “Carabout” houses, the dirt floor is slowly being eaten away by the heavy rains in places like Tiko.

The workers are dying like flies and the toll has continued to climb since.

In 2021, at least 37 CDC-Delmonte workers have died across Fako according to Cameroon Concord News sources in the Southern West region.

More than 3000 workers have been left in abject poverty at CDC-Delmonte estates, spread across Southern Cameroons.

The so-called Dion Ngute government is reportedly helpless and lacks the resources to launch any emergency relief program even though conditions remain grim.  The CDC-Delmonte workers are dying either from malnutrition or inadequate medical care.

Dozens of men have left their families to find work in French Cameroun, but women and children have remained in houses on the estate controlled by Ambazonia Restoration Forces.

The Biya Francophone regime has done nothing to penalize CDC and Delmonte for abandoning their workers and the workers are dying in a system closer to the 19th century than the 21st.

Established by the Germans after the 1884 Berlin Conference, the CDC plantations now being auctioned to French businessmen by the Francophone political leaders in Yaoundé are among the few examples of large-scale organized agriculture in Southern Cameroons

There are several plantations in the two Cameroons but those in Southern Cameroons are widely seen as having the worst labour conditions. Most of the workers live below the U.N.’s $2 a-day threshold for extreme poverty.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

US: New York Governor Andrew Cuomo resigns

10, August 2021

US: New York Governor Andrew Cuomo resigns 0

Gov. Andrew Cuomo resigned over a barrage of sexual harassment allegations Tuesday in a fall from grace a year after he was widely hailed nationally for his detailed daily briefings and leadership during the darkest days of COVID-19.

The three-term governor’s decision, which will take effect in two weeks, was announced as momentum built in the Legislature to remove him by impeachment. It came after New York’s attorney general released the results of an investigation that found Cuomo sexually harassed at least 11 women.

Investigators said he subjected women to unwanted kisses; groped their breasts or buttocks or otherwise touched them inappropriately; made insinuating remarks about their looks and their sex lives; and created a work environment “rife with fear and intimidation.”

Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul, a 62-year-old Democrat and former member of Congress from the Buffalo area, will become the state’s 57th governor and the first woman to hold the post.

The #MeToo-era scandal cut short not just a career but a dynasty: Cuomo’s father, Mario Cuomo, was governor in the 1980s and ’90s, and the younger Cuomo was often mentioned as a potential candidate for president, an office his father famously contemplated seeking. Even as the scandal mushroomed, Cuomo was planning to run for reelection in 2022.

Cuomo still faces the possibility of criminal charges, with a number of prosecutors around the state moving to investigate him.

The string of accusations that spelled the governor’s downfall began to unfold in news reports last December and went on for months.

Cuomo called some of the allegations fabricated, forcefully denying he touched anyone inappropriately. But he acknowledged making some aides uncomfortable with comments he said he intended as playful, and he apologized for some of his behavior.

He portrayed some of the encounters as misunderstandings attributable to “generational or cultural” differences, a reference in part to his upbringing in an affectionate Italian American family.

As a defiant Cuomo clung to office, state lawmakers launched an impeachment investigation, and nearly the entire Democratic establishment in New York deserted him — not only over the accusations, but also because of the discovery that his administration had concealed thousands of COVID-19 deaths among nursing home patients.

The harassment investigation ordered up by the attorney general and conducted by two outside lawyers corroborated the women’s accounts and added lurid new ones. The release of the report left the governor more isolated than ever, with some of his most loyal supporters abandoning him and President Joe Biden joining those calling on him to resign.

His accusers included an aide who said Cuomo groped her breast at the governor’s mansion. Investigators also [found] the governor’s staff retaliated against one of his accusers by leaking confidential personnel files about her.

As governor, Cuomo touted himself as an example of a “progressive Democrat” who gets things done: Since taking office in 2011, he helped push through legislation that legalized gay marriage, began lifting the minimum wage to $15 and expanded paid family leave benefits. He also backed big infrastructure projects, including airport overhauls and construction of a new bridge over the Hudson River that he named after his father.

At the same time the behavior that got him into trouble was going on, he was publicly championing the #MeToo movement and surrounding himself with women’s rights activists, signing into law sweeping new protections against sexual harassment and lengthening the statute of limitations in rape cases.

His national popularity soared during the harrowing spring of 2020, when New York became the epicenter of the nation’s coronavirus outbreak.

His tough-minded but empathetic response made for riveting television well beyond New York, and his stern warnings to people to stay home and wear masks stood in sharp contrast to President Donald Trump’s brush-off of the virus. His briefings won an international Emmy Award, and he went on to write a book on leadership in a crisis.

But even those accomplishments were soon tainted when it was learned that the state’s official count of nursing home deaths had excluded many patients who had been transferred to hospitals before they succumbed. A Cuomo aide acknowledged the administration feared the true numbers would be “used against us” by the Trump White House.

Also, Cuomo’s administration was fiercely criticized for forcing nursing homes to accept patients recovering from the virus.

The U.S. Justice Department is investigating the state’s handling of data on nursing home deaths. In addition, the state attorney general is looking into whether Cuomo broke the law in using members of his staff to help write and promote his book, from which he stood to make more than $5 million.

The governor had also increasingly come under fire over his rough and sometimes vindictive treatment of fellow politicians and his own staff, with former aides telling stories of a brutal work environment.

Cuomo has been divorced since 2005 from the author and activist Kerry Kennedy, a member of the Kennedy family, and was romantically involved up until 2019 with TV lifestyle personality Sandra Lee. He has three adult daughters.

He gained political experience early on as his father’s hard-nosed and often ruthless campaign manager, and went on to become New York attorney general and U.S. housing secretary under President Bill Clinton before getting elected governor in 2010.

New York has seen a string of high-level political figures brought down in disgrace in recent years.

Gov. Eliot Spitzer resigned in 2008 in a call-girl scandal. Rep. Anthony Weiner went to prison for sexting with a 15-year-old girl. Attorney General Eric Schneiderman stepped down in 2018 after four women accused him of abuse. And the top two leaders in the Legislature were convicted of corruption.

(AP)

French football fans await Messi in Paris amid rumours of transfer to PSG

10, August 2021

French football fans await Messi in Paris amid rumours of transfer to PSG 0

Paris Saint-Germain supporters have been gathering in anticipation of the arrival of Argentina superstar Lionel Messi after his emotional Barcelona departure at the weekend.

Members of the PSG faithful assembled outside the club’s Parc des Princes home and at an airport to the north of the French capital on Monday as the Qatari-owned outfit looked set to add the 34-year-old to a squad that already includes Neymar and Kylian Mbappe.

Paris is expected to be Messi’s next destination after his tearful exit from the side he has represented throughout the 17 years of his glittering professional career.

However, on Monday journalists from AFP TV spotted him still at his home near Barcelona alongside his family as well as his friend and former teammate, Luis Suarez.

Later, French media reported that he had left for Ibiza to hold discussions with the Parisian club.

Following last week’s announcement by Barca that they could not afford to keep their all-time top goal-scorer, PSG emerged as the favourites to sign Messi, helped by the deep pockets of their Qatari owners.

They see him as the missing piece in their jigsaw as they chase the Champions League, the trophy they want more than anything else.

Off the field, his rumoured move has added 1.2m followers to PSG’s social media accounts since Friday.

“I am happy if he arrives at Paris,” new PSG goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma told Sky Sports Italia on Monday outside his Parisian hotel.

“He is the strongest in the world, I am excited and happy at the thought of having him in the team,” he added.

Coming to terms

Messi conceded at his tearful farewell news conference in Barcelona on Sunday that joining PSG was a “possibility”.

In reality, with Abu Dhabi-owned Manchester City having ruled themselves out, they are about the only club who can afford what is expected to be a deal worth 35 million euros ($41 million) a year.

“I gave everything for Barcelona from the first day that I arrived right to the last. I never imagined having to say goodbye,” Messi said.

“I have still not come to terms with the reality of leaving this club now – I love this club.”

He leaves Barcelona with 672 goals in 778 appearances, a record tally for one club.

Messi won 35 trophies at the Camp Nou after joining Barca aged 13, but his last appearance was a damp squib: a 2-1 home defeat behind closed doors against Celta Vigo in May.

His trophy tally includes four Champions League and 10 La Liga titles.

“The greatest of all,” wrote Messi’s old Barcelona teammate Dani Alves—who won the Olympic gold with Brazil—in an Instagram message on Monday.

One group of Barcelona fans, represented by a Parisian lawyer, announced their intention to lodge a complaint with the European Commission in connection with the rules of financial fair play that Barcelona and PSG must follow.

‘Extraordinary for Ligue 1’

Despite offering to cut his salary by half to seal a new five-year contract which the club carrying debts of 1.2 billion euros ($1.41 billion) and the player had agreed on, the deal foundered on strict Spanish league salary cap rules.

Messi’s arrival would make PSG even more obvious favourites to reclaim a French title they missed out on last season to Lille.

Some in Ligue 1 have mixed feelings about the impending arrival of arguably the greatest player of all time.

“It’s extraordinary for Ligue 1,” said Metz coach Frederic Antonetti.

“But for a purist like me, Messi should have finished his career at Barcelona.”

This summer PSG have already added veteran Spanish defender Sergio Ramos from Real Madrid and Italy’s Donnarumma, the star of Euro 2020.

They have also signed Liverpool midfielder Georginio Wijnaldum, snatching the Dutchman from under the noses of Barcelona, and spent 60 million euros on Inter Milan right-back Achraf Hakimi, who scored on his league debut at the weekend.

An added attraction in moving to Paris is that coach Mauricio Pochettino, like Messi, started his career at Newell’s Old Boys in Rosario, Argentina.

All going to plan he could be unveiled to supporters on Saturday, when PSG play at home to Strasbourg and a full house of nearly 48,000 will be allowed in for the first time since the coronavirus pandemic struck 18 months ago.

(AFP)

South Africa: Jacob Zuma corruption hearing scheduled to resume online this Tuesday

10, August 2021

South Africa: Jacob Zuma corruption hearing scheduled to resume online this Tuesday 0

The corruption trial of former South African president Jacob Zuma, is scheduled to resume online this Tuesday. The office of the chief justice announced this after the KwaZulu-Natal High Court in Pietermaritzburg last week declared that the case would be heard in open court.

Jacob Zuma is currently in prison for contempt of court , but since last week he’s has been in a nearby hospital.

His legal team had complained that a virtual appearance would infringe on his rights. But Zuma is still in hospital on the eve of the trial proceedings and a postponement is likely.

His lawyers are expected to offer evidence of his undisclosed medical issues which could lead to a further postponement of the corruption case.

Source: Africa News

“Independence of Southern Cameroons a reality, will materialize soon and very soon”

10, August 2021

“Independence of Southern Cameroons a reality, will materialize soon and very soon” 0

The Vice President of the Southern Cameroons Interim Government says the independence of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia and the final collapse of the Biya Francophone crime syndicate in French Cameroun is not just an aspiration, but a reality, which will materialize soon and very soon.

Dabney Yerima made the remarks in separate meetings on Sunday with members of the Ambazonia war cabinet and heads of Ground Zero operations.

During the meetings, Vice President Yerima congratulated all Southern Cameroons Self Defense groups on their achievements in countering La Republique du Cameroun aggression against the people of Southern Cameroons, saying, “In view of undeniable realities in Ground Zero, the leadership of the Southern Cameroons Interim Government believes that Buea is now on sight and the fall of the 88-year-old French Cameroun butcher is imminent.”

Yerima said the balance of power has shifted in favour of Ambazonia Restoration Forces adding that the Amba fighters were now more powerful and will achieve a victory beyond just a military triumph.

Biya and his French Cameroun political elites launched a brutal military campaign against Southern Cameroonians four years ago following a peaceful protest against decades of political and economic marginalization.  

According to the Southern Cameroons Interim Government, more than thirty-five thousand Southern Cameroonians have been killed in the Francophone dominated army offensive, including women and children. Scores of innocent civilians have also been wounded including the destruction of more than 400 villages.

Elsewhere in his remark, Yerima said only unity can speed up the journey to Buea. He emphasized that strengthening Amba fighters through the Big Rubbergun Project is a strategy that should never be stopped.

By Chi Prudence Asong

3 Cameroon gov’t soldiers killed in Boko Haram attack

9, August 2021

3 Cameroon gov’t soldiers killed in Boko Haram attack 0

At least three soldiers were killed in a Boko Haram attack in Cameroon’s Far North region, security and local sources said on Monday.

One militant of the terror group was also killed in the overnight attack on a military outpost in Sagme, a locality of the region.

A military official, who requested anonymity, told Xinhua that the terrorists attempted to dislodge troops in the town, located about 343 kilometers south of Maroua, capital of Far North region.

Boko Haram militants had in the pasted attempted to seize Sagme, which sits near the borders with Nigeria and Chad, but they were repelled by government forces.

In July, militants raided a military outpost in the town, killing eight soldiers, according to the Cameroon army.

Source: Xinhaunet

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