Rights groups in Cameroon have condemned increased attacks on aid workers and hospital staff in the country’s troubled western regions.  The groups blame both government troops and anglophone rebels fighting to create an English-speaking state in majority French-speaking Cameroon.

Ernestine Maika, a 33-year-old nurse, has just arrived in the French-speaking town of Bafoussam. She says she was rescued by Cameroon military in the English-speaking northwestern town of Ndop after separatist fighters seized a vehicle in which she was transporting medical supplies. Maika says it was the third time she has been attacked in three weeks.

“The torment is too much, unbearable,” said Maika. “We are being killed, arrested, kidnapped. It is not fair. I just want to plead because the pain is too much. Humanitarian workers and nurses and medical staff should be allowed to do their work. I just want to plead that they be allowed to go out there and save lives.

The Cameroonian military confirmed that on Wednesday (June 3), four separatist fighters were killed in a gun battle after they attacked health workers in Ndop.

The government said attacks on health workers and humanitarian staff members  have intensified since April, when it launched a $150 million plan to build 115 hospitals, 40 bridges, 400 wells and water taps, 600 kilometers of rural roads, 45 markets and 17,000 private homes destroyed by the separatists.  Human Rights Watch Thursday reported renewed attacks on aid workers.

Iliaria Allegrozzi, senior central Africa researcher for the organization, says aid workers have been victims of kidnapping, killing, kidnapping, extortion and various forms of abuse. She says food and nonfood aid items have been looted or destroyed.

“These attacks do not only impact the lives and well-being of those working at the front line in very challenging conditions but also disrupt the provision of life-saving assistance and services to 2 million people depending on humanitarian assistance and over 600,000 internally displaced,” said Allegrozzi.

Allegrozzi did not immediately confirm the number of health workers attacked but blamed both separatist fighters and the military for the atrocities.

Cameroon government spokesperson Rene Emmanuel Sadi speaking on state media CRTV blamed separatists for the atrocities and said the military has remained professional.

 Sadi says the crimes against aid workers are committed by separatist fighters who are determined to destroy government efforts aimed at returning peace to the restive English-speaking regions. He says the country can only count on the military to restore harmony and consolidate the achievements made so far in the peace process.

Separatists have blamed the military for the abuses on social media, but have warned humanitarian or aid workers against offering assistance in Cameroon’s English-speaking regions without obtaining what the separatists call an express authorization from their government.

The United Nations has expressed what it calls grave concern over the interruption of aid delivery to hundreds of thousands of people in need, following the escalating attacks against aid workers in Cameroon’s English-speaking regions.

The unrest has killed more than 3,000 people and displaced over 500,000 according to the United Nations.  Fifty thousand others are seeking asylum in neighboring Nigeria.

Culled from VOA

There has been massive condemnation in Cameroon after the central African state’s military bowed to pressure from rights groups and journalists Friday and issued a statement that missing Cameroonian journalist Samule Ajiekah Wazizi  died in a military hospital 10 months ago.  Wazizi was arrested for collaborating with separatists fighting to create an English-speaking state in the majority-French Cameroon and had not been seen in public since.

Jude Viban, the Yaoundé-based national president of the Cameroon Association of English Speaking Journalists says he is scandalized that it was only after pressure from journalists, civil society groups and the international community that Cameroon’s military finally issued a statement that journalist Samuel Wazizi had died in a Yaoundé military hospital.

“We are now calling for an independent inquiry, which will involve an autopsy, so that we can know exactly if the cause of death stated by the Ministry of Defense is exact,” Viban said. “Right now, we want to see the corpse of Samuel Wazizi.”

The military said in its statement Friday that Wazizi, who was arrested August 2 in the English-speaking southwestern town of Buea for complicity in acts of terrorism, died on August 17. The statement said when the military transferred Wazizi from Buea to Yaoundé   for further investigation; he became ill and was rushed to the Yaoundé   military hospital, where he died. The statement further indicates that Wazizi, while in detention and before he died, communicated with his family and had access to his lawyers, and that Wazizi’s family was informed of his death.

His lawyers and family said they never heard from him and none of them knew he died 10 months ago.

French Ambassador Christophe Guilhou says after getting conflicting reports about Wazizi’s death, he discussed the matter, which he describes as a human rights issue, with Cameroon’s president. 

He says when he met with Cameroon President Paul Biya Friday (June 5), he discussed human rights concerns the French government had when it learned of Wazizi’s death and Biya promised to order immediate investigations to determine the true causes of his death.

Christopher Ndong, lawyer and rights defender said the military killed Waizizi and that investigations should be opened.  He says Wazizi’s killing is just one of many committed by the military on Anglophones suspected to have links with separatists fighting to create an independent English-speaking state in French-majority Cameroon.

“In fact, it is condemnable,” Ndong said. “We have series and series of killings in Cameroon where the regime is killing and does not look accountable. They do all of that with impunity. We regret. Honestly it is not correct.”

Wazizi worked for Chillen Muzik and TV. English-speaking journalists say his arrest, torture and death and the fact that the military hid his dead body for 10 months without a statement until pressured to do so show how reporters risk their lives in Cameroon.

The military says Wazizi is in a Yaoundé mortuary but Wazizis family members and lawyers say they have not seen the body.

Source: VOA

A senior CPDM Member of Parliament who is upset with the way the country’s president, Paul Biya, is running the nation has called on COVID-19 to visit Mr. Biya who is suffering from multiple health issues.

The Member of Parliament (MP), who called the Cameroon Concord News Group office in the United Kingdom yesterday, said that Mr. Biya and his collaborators had ruined the country, adding that it was time for him to quit the political scene and the planet.

The MP, who elected anonymity, regretted that COVID-19 had not been to the right places since it came to Cameroon. The senior CPDM official said it was wrong for young people to be killed by the invisible virus while those who, in their view, did not have any business on this planet were still hiding at the Unity Palace and other high places.

The MP added that Mr. Biya was the epitome of recklessness and incompetence, stressing that it would take Cameroon more than five decades to recover from the damage the Biya regime had inflicted on the country.

“Our country is going through the most trying times. The government is grossly incompetent and the captain of the boat is more concerned about his old age than about the future of a country he has ruined,” the MP said.

“I thought with the arrival of the virus on our shores, some of the human toxic waste would be swept away. The virus seems to be avoiding the real places it should have been visiting,” the Southwest MP regretted.

“What happened to the Unity Palace, the Senate and the National Assembly where some of the greatest destroyers of our country are hiding?,” the MP quipped.

“Nature is very unfair to Cameroon. Why would it let a bunch incompetent and corrupt dinosaurs to take an entire country hostage?,” the honorable member questioned.

Speaking about the Senate president, Marcel Niat Njifenji, who is currently in France battling for his life, the honorable Member of Parliament said the 86-year-old Senate President was a bag of lazy bones that was always ready to waste taxpayers’ money.

“Why is the state wasting such amounts of money to sustain a man who is, at best, a walking dead? Why would he be airlifted to France at a time when the country is looking for resources to check the spread of the Coronavirus?,” the MP asked.

The CPDM insider also advised that a combined session of the senate and parliament would soon take place to approve a government bill to be submitted for the creation of the post of vice-president in Cameroon.

The MP said he was not so sure about the new government configuration, but was prompt to add that the post of Prime Minister might disappear.

The MP warned that the constitutional amendment might not bring smiles to the faces of many Southern Cameroonians who have been fighting the government for years.

The MP also added that the president’s son, Frank Biya, might be appointed in the days ahead as many government insiders have expressed their concerns about the way things are being run.

The MP urged the Cameroon Concord News Group to use its privileged position to sensitize the world about the calamity that is slowly befalling the country.

“Why would Mr. Biya and his cohorts ever think that what happened in Togo and Gabon must happen in Cameroon? Cameroon is a different terrain and if such a primitive game had to play out in Cameroon, things could go horribly wrong,” the MP said.

“Cameroonians, the MP said, should be on the watch out. Opposition political parties must continue to be vigilant. I know my party and I understand that there is a lot of manipulation taking place within the system,” the MP said.

“As Cameroonians, we should not yield to such injustice. We must fight. I might belong to the ruling party, but I disagree with the mess that is playing out in our country. For some of us, we cannot complain. We have eaten and drunk with the devil and it will hard to say we cannot dance with the dangerous devil. We don’t have a choice, but we will continue to support efforts at ousting this evil regime from behind the scenes,” the MP concluded.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai in London

Press Release Ref. NO. 02/06062020

STATEMENT ON Mr AYUK TAKUNCHUNG INVOKING EVIL SPIRITS

Fellow Manyus,

There is a video circulating on social media wherein the former mayor of Mamfe, Mr Ayuk Takunchung, staged a performance calculated to invoke the fury of evil spirits against our people.

We come to you today upon broad consideration and consultation with our elders and traditional rulers in Manyu to make the following pronouncements with their blessings;

1. The charade from Mr Ayuk Takunchung was designed to impress his

fellow collaborators and paymasters in Yaoundé and wasn’t sanctioned by any Manyu traditional authority or council.

2. Mr Ayuk Takunchung has no traditional mandate to perform such a ritual in Manyu without the consultation of the chiefs and elders of Mamfe.

3. Rituals invoking our ancestors or evil spirits are performed by our elders with the singular consent of traditional rulers not politicians.

4. Manyu Elders and Chiefs have reaffirmed that for curses to be effective, they must be founded on truth. In light of the grounds above, the Manyu Liberation Council is by this statement reassuring the Manyu Liberation Ghost Warriors, the Manyu diaspora and all Manyu people in Ground-Zero, Ground-1 and Ground-2 that the struggle to liberate Manyu and Ambazonia is legitimate and as a people we need not dread the fury of evil spirits.

The legitimacy of our cause justifies the blessings we have enjoyed from our ancestors and the gods so far. The wretched performance on video should be treated with the contempt it deserves as it exhibits evidently an act of utter desperation.

Sincerely,

The Manyu Liberation Council Project Team

Many Cameroonians have surely watched the video the former Mayor of Mamfe, Ayuk Takunchong, and his con-man, recorded yesterday in Mamfe in a bid to impress senior members of the crime syndicate known as the CPDM.

While the video is intended to give the impression that Mamfe has been recovered from the Amba boys, there is a sub-text that must be taken seriously.

The video is a clear demonstration of how frustrated Mr. Ayuk Takunchong has become. He had been promised that he would be made a senator and this made him to stay out of the race for the Mamfe City Hall.

Mr. Takunchong has his eye on a senatorial position in Yaoundé, but things do not seem to be falling in place.

The country’s president and the crime syndicate chairman, Paul Biya, has the prerogative of appointing 30% of the country’s senators and this was used as a solid argument to lure Mr. Takunchong from the Mamfe City Hall.

His appointment, his godfathers said, was a reward for all the heavy lifting he had done for the ruling party, but what he did not know was that Biya hardly reacted very fast and that sometimes, before he appoints anybody, that person will have to go through a series of financial disappointments and frustration with the system that has helped to take the person from grass to grace.

Mr. Takunchong is already running out of money and patience. Since leaving the Mamfe City Hall, the flamboyant mayor who spots a pot belly has not earned a dime. He has begun feeling the financial heat and this is pushing him into all the acting that was seen in the video.

Mr. Biya is a very good political tactician. He does not just appoint people because they need the appointments. He needs people who can continue to defend his fake ideology within academic and intellectual circles. The CPDM political ideology is hated and despised by the majority of the country’s population so the party needs very sharp spin doctors who can help to give the dying party facelift.

Ayuk Takunchong lacks what it takes to do such a heavy duty job. He is good for the rural areas where he can easily intimidate the hungry and desperate rural population.

Besides, if he has to be appointed as a senator, then Chief George Tabetando, one of the many senate vice presidents has to die or be fired by the president.

But Senator George Tabetando is not in rush to leave this planet. Like his colleague, Niat Njifenji, the senate president, Tabetando has taken all the necessary measures to be around again for a long time.

Chief and Senator Tabetando is only 77 years old and by Cameroon’s standards, he is a very young man. He therefore still has a lot of gas in his tank; that will take him for at least ten years. 

This implies that Mr. Takunchong will either be patient for a long time or he has to look for a way to eliminate Chief Senator Tabetando to take his place. His ridiculous and unpleasant video was a coded message to the Yaoundé government, reminding it of the financial storm that was coming his way.

Chief Tabetando does not drink. He has never smoked and he eats only organic food which implies that he will not be leaving this planet anytime soon. This is a man who eats mostly roasted cocoyams with plums. At his age, he is a picture of health despite the pressure brought onto him by Amba fighters who have fired him from his position as the chief of Bachou Ntai.

Mr. Takunchong is facing bleak and stormy days ahead. All promises made to him are unfortunately not falling into place. The heat is on and the once flamboyant mayor is now dealing with nightmares and sleepless nights.

The financial fountain has been turned off and if something is not done in the months ahead, Mr. Takunchong who is in the crosshairs of the Amba boys might have to make peace with his arch enemies just for him to know some peace of mind.

Senator Tabetando is in real trouble. Takunchong needs his position, but since he has no plan to die soon, this might create a serious conflict between them.

However, Chief Tabetando has a choice. He could negotiate with Biya to find something for Takunchong who is already feeling the financial heat while waiting for the day he will die.

Takunchong will surely run out of patience. Death does not seem to target old people in government. Biya himself and Niat Njifenji are all resisting death and there is no sign that Chief Tabetando will do anything that will make him attractive to death.

He will keep on eating organic food to ensure that he does not throw caution to the wind. Alcohol and Chief George Tabetando will never make good bed fellows.

If Takunchong will have to engineer Tabetando’s death, then he might only do so through a young woman as women, especially the young ones are the aging senator’s Achilles heels.

Meanwhile, Mr. Takunchong con-man who came from Bachou to accompany the former mayor stage his show is facing the prospect of being homeless.

Amba boys have already sent him a message, advising that his home and those of his brothers and cousins will be burnt in the days ahead. He is still crying and is contemplating to quit the village.

He seems to be the first victim of the junk traditional rite Takunchong deceived him into performing in Mamfe town.

The con-man wants to apologize, but does not know how to go about it. He is not a very attractive target to Amba boys, so he will not be kidnapped but he will only be rendered homeless, a source close to the fighters informed the Cameroon Concord News Group.

“The little money former mayor Takunchong gave me is already finished. I don’t know what caused me to accept Takunchong’s offer. I am now going to render my entire family homeless,” he said.

“My stupidity is killing me. I am not even sure the mess we did would work. Takunchong has killed me. Since amba fighters delivered their verdict, I have not been able to eat. I am already sick. I am confused,” he concluded.

By Isong Asu with files from Camcordnews team in Mamfe and Yaoundé

Cameroon’s government faces mounting accusations that foot-dragging and incompetence have helped coronavirus gain a deadly grip.

In less than three months, the official case tally has risen to nearly 6,600, including 200 deaths — the third-highest number of infections of any country south of the Sahara.

Compared with Europe and America, this total is low, but experts warn of COVID-19’s ability to spread like wildfire in countries where health systems are weak and testing is poor.

Despite forecasts that cases would peak in June, schools and universities were suddenly told to reopen this week, prompting teachers and parents to warn that safety preparedness was nowhere near ready.

Cameroon on March 5 became the first central African country to register a case of the virus — a 58-year-old French national who had arrived in the capital Yaounde in February.

But it was not until two weeks later that the authorities set down restrictions for the country’s 25 million people.

The opposition has repeatedly criticised what it says is the government’s failure to take the threat of COVID-19 seriously, as many other African countries imposed radical containment measures early on.

Albert Ze, an economist specialising in health issues, told AFP that management of the epidemic had been “disastrous.”

“We missed the opportunity to contain the virus at the very beginning,” he said.

President Paul Biya, who has been in power for nearly four decades, only appeared publicly on television on May 19, pressured by the opposition and the World Health Organization (WHO) after more than two months of silence.

– No lockdown –

“We are seeing a particularly significant progression of the epidemic — it’s extremely serious,” Eugene Sobngwi, vice chairman of the health ministry’s scientific council, told state television on May 24.

Cameroon could become “the laughing stock of the world,” he said.

Rebutting such worries, Health Minister Manaouda Malachie on Monday said the case figures “should not be a cause for alarm… so far the government has been in control of the situation”.

Ze accused the government of a lax response in key areas as the epidemic began to brew.

“Cameroon did not close its land, air and sea borders until March 18 — 12 days after the first ‘imported’ case, and weeks after many other African countries,” he said.

The government was also laid back in social distancing, limiting gatherings to 50 people while other countries on the continent set a maximum of 10.

No lockdown has ever been imposed in Cameroon, and restaurants, bars and nightclubs were only forced to close after 6pm.

And those restrictions, as well as rules for distancing on public transport, were not implemented until mid-March.

Despite the late response, the impact of those measures was “immediate — Cameroonians understood there was a major problem,” said Professor Yap Boum II, an epidemiologist and head of a Doctors Without Borders (MSF) research centre in Yaounde.

A month after the start of the epidemic, the authorities required wearing of facemasks, and this too helped strengthen awareness and tighten control over the virus, he said.

But on April 30 the government abruptly eased public transport restrictions and allowed bars, restaurants and nightclubs to reopen in the evenings.

In the public’s mind, the brakes were now off, said Boum.

The move “led to an almost total relaxation of the population, as if this announcement sounded the end of the epidemic,” Boum said.

“We saw fewer and fewer people wearing masks, and more and more people in bars — and a month later we more than tripled” the number of cases and fatalities, he said.

– Back to school –

The reopening of schools and universities, another unexpected move, has been attacked as premature by teachers’ unions and parents, who have taken to social media to voice their fears.

The amount of equipment made available is “ridiculously small,” said Roger Kaffo, general secretary of the National Union of Secondary School Teachers, pointing out that the supply of 3,000 masks was not even one mask per teacher at secondary-school level.

Daniel Claude Abate, president of an association of small and medium-sized businesses and member of the ruling RDPC party, defended the government’s decision not to impose the toughest restrictions.

“We cannot afford to shut down our countries, with fragile economies, as others do,” he said.

Even so, “there should have been surveillance policy measures” to track the virus, he said, conceding the government had made “some mistakes.”

Source: AFP