Southern Cameroons Crisis: Biya crawls into Washington DC ⁰

Cameroon’s self-serving and sit-tight president, Paul Biya has been received in Washington DC by a crowd of desperate sycophants who are still hoping that they could one day be appointed if they continue to sing the Yaoundé strong man’s praises in a ceremony bereft of fanfare.

The crowd, which was carefully selected and vetted by Cameroon embassy officials, was on hand to receive the tired and disorientated leader who was visibly suffering from fatigue after the 8-hour long flight from Geneva.

According to a source close to Mr. Biya’s entourage, this year’s celebration for the Yaoundé strong man’s visit in the American capital will be low-key because it is being reported that a massive demonstration is being prepared by Southern Cameroonians in Washington to prove that the ineffective and senile Biya is an iron fist in a velvet glove.

The Yaoundé tyrant is expected to meet with officials of the US administration and businesspeople but many in Washington DC hold that Cameroon is a black hole which holds no good news for American investors.

Mr. Biya has promised, on many occasions, to make the country’s business environment conducive for foreign investors but has never kept his promise. The legal framework also leaves much to be desired and the reform of such a framework will make it hard for Mr. Biya to manipulate the system.

This has caused many American business owners and investors to view him as the “wizard of lies” to whom principle and discipline are foreign concepts.

Meanwhile, many American lawmakers are urging the Biden Administration to avoid Mr. Biya and the crowd of kleptocrats he has brought to Washington DC.

Many question his human rights credentials and they are displaying videos of soldiers killing women and children in Southern Cameroons at the behest of the Yaoundé kleptocratic and gerontocratic regime.

The US lawmakers are also pointing to reports by human rights organizations like the International Crisis Group and Amnesty International which have clearly indicted Mr. Biya and his brutal assassination of protesters in the two English-speaking regions of Cameroon.

Mr. Biya, who had an intense steroid consumption session in Geneva, is in the American capital to attend the US-African Leaders Summit where he is expected to lobby the Biden Administration for support to its efforts to crush a tough insurgency in Southern Cameroons which has sent over four thousand poorly trained Cameroonian soldiers to an early and lonely grave.

Sources close to the US State Department have told the Cameroon Concord News Group correspondent in North America that Mr. Biya’s plea will fall on deaf ears as the Yaoundé regime has refused to listen to calls for a peaceful resolution.

Mr. Biya will be requesting for some Southern Cameroonians suspected of financing the insurgency in the country’s English-speaking regions to be repatriated, but his request will be a dead letter as most Southern Cameroonian in America are bearers of American passports.

“The US never sends its citizens for them to be tried on mere suspicion in a country wherein the rule of law does not exist. The Biya regime has a tough job on its hands. It must show convincing evidence demonstrating that those it suspects actually engage in acts which are against the US law, and even if it comes with such evidence, American citizens in the US will only be tried by US laws,” the source which sought anonymity said.

“The FBI might have arrested and indicted three American citizens in relation to the war in Cameroon, but they are still not yet guilty. The FBI indictment and evidence might not stand the test in American courts as celebrity lawyers are opting to take up the case,” the source added, stressing that “Cameroon lacks what it takes to mount pressure on the US.”

The six-year-old insurgency which has resulted in the deaths of some ten thousand Cameroonians has put the fragile and collapsing Cameroon regime under volcanic pressure which has already ruined the health of the  ministers of defense and territorial administration.

The fighting has delivered some deadly punches to the country’s economy and the government has ended up with a bloodshot eye. It has been humiliated in the jungles of Southern Cameroons and it is now seeking American help on how to put an end to the insurgency.

More will be yours as our North American correspondent makes it available.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai