The Communist Party of Swaziland supports calls for an end to atrocities being committed by the Cameroonian military in Ambazonia, the former UN Trust territory of Southern Cameroons, also known as English-speaking Cameroon.

The Communist Party of Swaziland (CPS) condemns the continued atrocities committed on the people of Ambazonia by the Cameroonian government and its security forces. A former UN Trust territory Under British administration, the people of Ambazonia have for decades been denied their right to self-determination. The region has been characterised by the systematic burning down of entire villages, targeted kidnapping and killing of human rights activists, the rape and killing of women, men and children, by the Cameroon military. The government has in some instances shut down the internet in attempts to hide the atrocities.

The CPS calls for the working class of the world to unite in the call for the halting of human rights violations in the region. The CPS also supports calls for the United Nations Security Council to mandate an Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on this conflict and for the African Union to actively resolve the conflict.

Since September 2016, the Cameroon military has carried out a systematic and ruthless military campaign against the minority Ambazonian communities. Initiated in 2016 to suppress peaceful demonstrations for the rights of the populations in the regions, the campaign has relentlessly violated international human rights law.  These include, among others, the burning down of more than 400 villages by the Cameroon military – along with the burning of the old and the sick in their own homes in some cases. The military has forced tens of thousands to seek refuge in neighbouring Nigeria, and also internally displaced close to a million people. In March 2019, the United Nations reported that about 4 million people in the region had been affected by the conflict.

The Cameroonian government and its military have ignored all calls for an end to the atrocities committed by its soldiers in the region, including ignoring a call from the African Union’s Special Rapporteur on Human Rights on Cameroon to:

1. Investigate the alleged killings, rapes, inhumane treatment and human rights violations on peaceful protesters by the riot police, elements of the gendarmerie, the military and the BIR in Bamenda, Buea and Kumba;

2. Immediately end the alleged violence against civilians and take necessary steps to ensure that the human rights of its citizens and all its inhabitants are respected;

3. Uphold the right to freedom of expression, assembly,

4. Cease all arbitrary arrests and detention; and

5. Release all individuals unlawfully arrested during the protest.

In the months that followed there were peaceful protests by the people in the region, countered by more vicious persecution of peaceful protesters by the Cameroonian government.

The violent suppression of the voices of Ambazonians is clearly systematic and will not end without united decisive action from all peace-loving people across the world. The Communist Party of Swaziland calls for the African Union to also play a decisive leadership role in the conflict. The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights has the duty to promote and protect human rights within the African continent. Cameroon is a State Party to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights. The Communist Party of Swaziland thus also calls upon the Commission to engage in practical programs of action for these atrocities committed upon the Ambazonian people by the Cameroonian government to end.

Issued by the Communist Party of Swaziland

Thokozane Kenneth Kunene

General Secretary

The Biya Francophone regime in Yaoundé is moving slowly but surely towards approving dual citizenship laws as a move to end the crisis in Southern Cameroons and encourage Cameroonians living in the diaspora to support the so-called one and indivisible political fabrication.

Some docile French Cameroun MPs now say both Southern Cameroons and French Cameroun diaspora are a great partner in economic development whose relocation from their homeland should cease to be seen as a brain drain or loss.

A group of prominent members of parliament from the ruling CPDM crime syndicate have all supported a 421-page document comprising 1,245 articles whose purpose is to reform inter alia, the Civil Code, the Nationality Code and the organization of civil status in Cameroon.

The new law proposed by Biya and his Essingan gang seeks to provide a solution to the problem of dual nationality that was prohibited by the law of 11 June 1968 in Cameroon.

 Cameroon Concord News Group understands dual nationality has always caused tensions and polemics because of its application by the French Cameroun authorities with President Biya, Adolphe Moudiki of SNH, tennis super star Yannick Noah and football legends Samuel Eto’o, Patrick Mboma and Roger Milla allowed to move in and out of the country with European passports.

The predominantly French Cameroun MPs recently opined that Southern Cameroonians and French Cameroun citizens  living abroad can still contribute effectively to the Cameroonian economy without having to leave their foreign adopted countries.

The focus of the divided National Assembly in Yaoundé now is to work and develop modalities on how this engagement can be actualized without putting President Biya and his family at risk of losing power.

A well-placed source deep within the CPDM Central Committee who spoke to Cameroon Concord News but sued for anonymity pointed out that Biya and his acolytes were shifting their thinking after realizing that Cameroonians abroad can help the country immensely while living abroad.

Prime Minister Dion Ngute is expected to appeal to all Cameroonians who lost their citizenship to apply for reinstatement immediately when the new law is promulgated. Chief Dr. Dion Ngute is pushing for a united Cameroon as a nation to have strong bonds with its diaspora citizens who contribute a lot to Cameroon’s economic development.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

Vice President Dabney Yerima, the leader of the Southern Cameroons struggle and the Interim Government has said that resistance is the only option left to free the Ambazonia homeland.

“The Biya Beti Ewondo French Cameroun reconstruction plan is a new CPDM crime ploy to keep Southern Cameroonians in perpetual slavery exploiting West Cameroonian land and resources,” Dabney Yerima said.

Comrade Yerima stressed that the people of Southern Cameroons would use all means available to get to Buea, the capital of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia.

In this week’s war cabinet briefing, the exiled Ambazonia Vice President also described French Cameroun’s decision on reconstruction of Ambazonia as an act of provocation.

The plan, which many political commentators have described as a “Nonsensical Nonsense” denies Southern Cameroonians everything including Federalism and the right to govern their homeland.

Interim Government protest against Special Status

The level of barbarism being perpetuated by the Cameroon government military and pro Biya government militias as they pursue their genocidal war and scorch earth policy to completely annihilate the Southern Cameroons (Ambazonia) is alarming.

So far, as a result of the on-going genocide in the Southern Cameroons (Ambazonia), an estimated 21,000 people have been killed, over 298 towns and villages have been burnt down, over 120,000 people are seeking refuge in Nigeria and further afield, over 1million people are internally displaced or living in bushes and over 3,000 persons incarcerated in prisons and detention facilities.

French Cameroun President Biya and his military and private militia will be held accountable for these crimes. While not exonerating Ambazonian self-defense forces, we also know that Mr Biya’s government is doing everything through its private militia (popularly known as Atanga Nji Boys) to commit atrocities and link them to self-defense forces, so as to evoke international sympathy. Only an independent fact-finding mission can establish the facts and thus far, Mr. Biya’s government has resisted all requests by independent humanitarian organizations to visit Southern Cameroons and establish the facts.

By Chi Prudence Asong and Isong Asu in London

A Hanoian returning from Cameroon has tested Covid-19 positive, raising the nation’s active cases to 23, the Health Ministry confirmed Friday.

“Patient 353,” 31, is a resident of Hanoi’s Thach That District. He flew in from Cameroon, transiting in Nigeria, Ethiopia and Malaysia before arriving June 25 in Ho Chi Minh City on Vietnam Airlines flight VN9674.

He was quarantined upon arrival at the city’s District 7 Hospital and moved to the Cu Chi field hospital in the eponymous district after he tested positive for the novel coronavirus.

On Friday afternoon, one more patient was announced Covid-19 free at the National Hospital for Tropical Diseases in Hanoi.

This patient, a Vietnamese man repatriated from Russia on May 13, was admitted to the hospital on May 17. He has tested negative for the virus twice and is now in stable condition. He will remain in the hospital for medical monitoring for another 14 days.

With the latest updates, Vietnam has 23 active cases after the recovery of 330 patients. Vietnam has also gone 71 days without community transmission of the Covid-19 virus.

The nation’s most critical patient, a British pilot, has made great progress after being comatose for more than two months, and doctors are preparing to discharge him from HCMC’s Cho Ray Hospital, where he has been treated for other serious health issues after recovering from Covid-19 more than a month ago.

The Covid-19 pandemic has affected over 210 countries and territories and around 449,000 deaths have been reported so far.

Source: e.vnexpress.net

Cameroon says the temporary closure of most restaurants and border trade during the COVID-19 pandemic has dropped food prices by up to 70 percent.  While food sellers are suffering the lost income, cheaper prices have helped some of Cameroon’s poorest to cope during the economic disruption.

After the COVID-19 pandemic forced restaurants to close in Cameroon’s capital, Yaounde, a new way of business emerged to sell the surplus of cheap food. 

Trucks that used to deliver large quantities of food to the city’s eateries and hotels now go from street to street, selling fruit, vegetables, and chicken to the general public.   

But food distributors like Christoph Nanze say the pandemic is destroying their business.  

He says his wholesale buyers have dried up with restaurant closures and the banning of large gatherings and border trade. 

Nanze says they are suffering because vegetable, meat and chicken sellers no longer have access to markets in Nigeria, Gabon and Equatorial Guinea.  Since the neighboring countries sealed their borders to stop the spread of COVID-19, he says, food prices have decreased sharply.  Nanze says the price of a 20-liter bucket of fresh tomatoes has dropped from $15 to only $4, while the price of a chicken that weighs 1.5 to 2 kilograms has fallen from $10 to about $3 to $4.

But in poor neighborhoods, where day laborers and laid off workers have been struggling during the pandemic, the cheap food is a blessing. 

Among the buyers is 39-year-old unemployed single mother of two, Amina Awah.  She says it is the first time in her life that she can afford to buy a few meals of meat per week for her children.  

She says she is very happy that food is now very cheap and poor Cameroonians like her can add chicken to their diet.  Awah says she does not like seeing people infected and dying from COVID-19 but, she wishes for prices to remain low so that the poor can also eat well.

But as the poor like Awah express joy, Cameroon’s farmers trade unions have called on the government to assist them.  

The Cameroon Poultry Trade Union’s Joseph Tchomb says the fall in food prices means members are unable to repay their loans. 

He says farmers are also discouraged from producing and, if no government assistance comes soon, Cameroon may face a food shortage.  

Tchomb says the COVID-19 crisis has exposed Cameroon’s fragile economy.  If the government does not give financial assistance to farmers and food sellers, he says, their businesses will crumble.  Tchomb says banks that gave out loans to traders should renegotiate the terms because so many people cannot afford to pay them back.

Cameroon’s Minister of Finance Louis Paul Motaze says the government is preparing a rescue plan for farmers.  He says the government plans to give farmers tax breaks and subsidies to ensure production.

Motaze says the government and Cameroon’s President Paul Biya are very much aware of the difficulties that traders are going through.  He says they are doing everything possible to assist them.  Although the government is already losing close to $2 billion in revenue due to COVID-19, says Motaze, Biya has removed taxes for food stuffs.

Motaze says the government has vowed not to allow the possibility of any food shortages.

Source: VOA