Monthly Archives: April 2018

28, April 2018

Kenya bans lesbian love story set to premiere at Cannes ⁰

Kenya has banned its first feature film to premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, accusing it of having “clear intent to promote lesbianism in Kenya, contrary to the law”.

Director Wanuri Kahiu said she is “incredibly sorry” to confirm the ban of “Rafiki” (or “Friend” in Kiswahili) by the Kenya Film Classification Board. Her film depicts a love story between two women.

“We believe adult Kenyans are mature and discerning enough to watch local content but their right has been denied,” she said Friday on Twitter. The director has said in interviews that she had been nervous about the film’s reception in Kenya, but had received some support. In a strange twist, just days prior, the head of the Kenya Film Classification Board [KFCB], Ezekiel Mutua, had praised her work in an interview with a local radio station.

But on Friday, the KFCB said in a statement that the film “contains homosexual scenes that run counter to the law, the culture and the moral values of the Kenyan people”. The board also accused producers of changing the original script that was licensed for production, which they say didn’t have romantic scenes between the female actors.

The board said it met with the director earlier this month and asked her to edit out the film’s “offensive” parts. On Wednesday, the director instead told the board to go ahead and make a ruling, it said.

Moralising the arts

Under British colonial-era laws, homosexuality remains illegal in Kenya. A person caught in the act can face up to 14 years in prison, though activists say that it is rare for people to be prosecuted. Many members of the LGBTI community do face severe harassment and physical threats.

Mutua, the head of the KFCB and a self-described “fervent moral crusader”, has previously sought to ban films, ads and cartoons he deems immoral, often on the grounds that they promote homosexuality.

After the decision was announced, the KFCB Twitter account began to retweet homophobic tweets supporting the ban.

For activist Kevin Mwachiro, the author ofInvisible – Stories From Kenya’s Queer Community, the ban didn’t come as a surprise.

“I was hoping it wouldn’t be banned, but this does reflect what is happening in society,” Mwachiro told FRANCE 24. “There are moralists in positions of authority who have blurred the lines between what is faith-based and what isn’t. In a secular nation like ours, they are bringing in personal beliefs to something that shouldn’t be moralised.”

He cited other instances – such as the KFCB’s 2014 decision to ban the Kenyan-made film “Stories of Our Lives”. The film, which told five different stories about LGBTI Kenyans, was shown internationally, including at the Toronto International Film Festival.

“It’s terrible when content made by Kenyans for Kenyans is outlawed,” Mwachiro said. “Now ‘Rafiki’ will only be screened in Western capitals.But for LGBT people in Kenya, seeing these stories on the silver screen would help them in their own journeys.”

A prize-winning story

In Kenya, gay rights activists have quickly raised an outcry to the ban, while the Cannes Film Festival shared Kahiu’s comments on Twitter.

“Rafiki” will premiere at the French festival next month in the “Un Certain Regard” category, earmarked for films with unexpected or marginal themes by emerging directors.

The film is adapted from a story called “Jambula Tree” by Ugandan writer Monica Arac de Nyeko, who now lives in Nairobi. The main characters, who live in a housing estate in Nairobi, are the daughters of rival politicians.

It won the 2007 Caine Prize, which is awarded to African writers of a short story published in English.

Legal challenges

In a recent interview with journalist Christiane Amanpour, President Uhuru Kenyatta dismissed gay rights as being “not of any major importance to the people and the Republic of Kenya”.

However, in reality, the ban on “Rafiki” occurs against a backdrop of a nation struggling to come to terms with the varied sexuality of its people.

Currently, Kenya’s High Court has begun hearing arguments in a case that challenges parts of the penal code seen as targeting the LGBTI community. The National Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission argues that the sections are in breach of the constitution and deny basic rights by criminalising consensual same-sex relations between adults. The court on Monday is expected to announce a date for its ruling.

This comes on the heels of another small victory for activists when a Court of Appeal in Mombasa ruled that conducting forced anal examinations of people accused of same-sex relations is unconstitutional.

Victories like this make Mwachiro hopeful.

“We aren’t out of the woods yet but a lot of work has been going on behind the scenes,” he said. “We live in a beautiful country with talented people.”

(FRANCE 24 with AFP, AP)

28, April 2018

40 people fleeing violence drown off Congo-kinshasa ⁰

Forty civilians have drowned after their boats overturned on a storm-swollen river while they were fleeing fighting in the northwest Democratic Republic of the Congo.

“As of Wednesday night, we recovered the bodies of 40 people” after their boats capsized, Jean Bakatoye, vice governor of South Ubangi province, said Friday. The number of the victims is expected to rise, the senior local official said.

“The toll is still provisional as other bodies were swept downstream,” Bakatoye said. The civilians were attempting to cross the Ubangi River, which marks part of the border with the adjacent Republic of Congo, in order to escape fighting between DR Congo troops and “outlaws,” Bakatoye said.

The events occurred in the remote border area of Dongo, after an army position was attacked on Sunday, he said.

“Several soldiers” were wounded, he said, although four witnesses said they had seen the bodies of two troops and four attackers.

Army reinforcements were deployed on Monday, prompting panic among villagers who feared a wider conflict, Bakatoye added.

Dongo was shaken by a revolt by the Enyele ethnic group in 2009, which was put down by the Congolese army the following year. Fighting killed an estimated 270 people and forced 200,000 others to flee their homes.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo is suffering from growing insecurity. New conflicts are erupting as President Joseph Kabila struggles to maintain his grip on power after his constitutional term in office expired in December 2016.

Armed groups are active in the eastern provinces of North Kivu and South Kivu, which border Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and Tanzania.

Violence has also erupted in the central region of Kasai. There a tribal chieftain known as the Kamwina Nsapu, who rebelled against Kabila’s regime, was murdered in September 2016.

Another conflict is flaring up in the country’s Ituri province between the Hema and Lendu communities.

Source: Presstv

27, April 2018

Southern Cameroons Crisis: Long jail terms will not cut it! ⁰

The Southern Cameroons crisis has entered a new phase. After the failure of intimidation and attrition, the Yaounde government has decided to roll out a new strategy – making an example of Southern Cameroonians who are in the government’s jails in Yaounde.

Ever since the crisis started more than a thousand Southern Cameroonians have been arrested and taken to jails in Yaounde where they are being tortured and threatened with death if they do not rescind their plan to split the country.

For more than one year, there have been many trials, but only few Southern Cameroonians have actually been convicted and sometimes on trumped up charges. Today, terrorism seems to be the most fashionable allegation and it seems to be the government’s tool of choice when it comes to threatening Southern Cameroonian freedom fighters, although none of the fighters is bulging.

Recently, Mr. Mancho Bibixy, a broadcaster and activist, accused of threatening the country’s sovereignty has been found guilty of terrorism due to his role in the protests that triggered the Southern Cameroons crisis.

Mr. Bibixy had appeared in a coffin at a protest in the north-west city of Bamenda in November 2016 which he said symbolized Southern Cameroonians who had died before their real death. He urged his fellow citizens not to be scared of speaking truth to power, as their fate was already worse than death.

He was convicted of eight counts, including rebellion and hostility against the state. Six other Southern Cameroonians – Tsi Conrad, The Emile Agwe, Tangwa Maloin Tangwa, Azelecha Martin, Guingah Valentine, Junior Awahro Thomas – were also found guilty of the same counts by the Yaounde Kangaroo court on the same day as Mr. Bibixy.

Apart from the long jail terms awaiting them on their sentencing day, all seven have already been ordered to pay CFAF 579 million, the equivalent of more than USD 1 million, in damages. This is more of a joke to many observers. While working, those convicted were simply scraping a living in a country wherein the government does not care about its citizens. How will they ever raise USD 1 million while in jail?

Working in Cameroon hardly brings financial happiness. Many people have been trapped financially and many senior government officials are permanently in fear of an arrest, as most of them are corrupt. Over the last ten years, the country’s president, Paul Biya, has thrown hundreds of his former collaborators in jail for embezzling state funds.

Some of those collaborators have opted to return their loot in exchange for freedom, but Mr. Biya does not seem to be listening. He himself is being accused of playing a significant role in the billions of dollars that have been missing from state coffers. His constant trips abroad have cost the poor taxpayers millions and many Cameroonians are very bitter with a leader who only thinks about himself and his family.

The political uncertainty in the country is causing many Cameroonian civil servants to rob the country blind as a means of securing their children’s future. Most Cameroonian workers want to send their children abroad as a means of sparing them the pain of unemployment that is blighting millions of lives in the impoverished Central African country.

Unemployment rates in the central African country are unfortunately high and even those working are permanently seeing stars before the month ends. Poverty seems to have thrown a blow to the heads of Cameroonian workers and many will never recover from this government-imposed dehumanizing poverty.

It will be a miracle if those convicted will ever pay such an amount while in jail. The government and its judges appear to be making a mockery of the country’s legal system. While the judiciary is independent on paper, in reality, it is under the executive branch’s baneful influence.

Bribery and corruption have spread into the judiciary like a malignant cancer and the judges and magistrates have all been compromised. This is causing many people to make a mockery of the judicial system. Every Cameroonian knows that with money, everything is possible. Many people have walked away with murder even when there is incontrovertible evidence against them.

Before leaving the court on the day of his hearing, Mr. Bibixy made an emotional appeal to the judge, urging him to make the most of the opportunity available to him, with a view to seeking solutions to the grievances of the country’s English-speaking minority.

“You have an opportunity to begin solving the Anglophone crisis or add more fuel to the fire. History will be the final judge,” he said, adding that he was a man of dialogue and not a man of violence. He urged the government to pursue peaceful means to reach solutions that will rid the country of the specter of war that is handing over its head.

For almost two years, the country’s government has been playing tricks with a situation that is very likely to cause a lot of pain and suffering to an already impoverished people. Despite calls by the international community for an inclusive dialogue that could spare the country the type of bloodbath that its neighbors have experienced, the government has continued to pursue its policy of collective punishment in the two English-speaking regions where many people have lost their homes and hundreds of young fighters killed in cold blood.

In many parts of the English-speaking regions, young men, many of whom are innocent and have nothing to do with the ugly fighting that is playing out over there, have been arrested and taken to unknown destinations. Many have been buried alive, while others have been used by the country’s sex-starved and alcohol-inflamed soldiers as shooting targets.

The rule of law that is supposed to be upheld by the government is gradually becoming the rule of weapons where those with weapons dictate the rule and the country’s government is doing its best to encourage this form of lawlessness that is breeding hatred and feeding the circle of violence that is claiming many lives in Southern Cameroons.

A crisis that started as simple protests by lawyers, teachers and students in Buea and Bamenda has been allowed to metamorphose into a full blown armed conflict due to the government’s arrogance and inefficiency. The government’s decision to slaughter hundreds of Southern Cameroonians on October 1, 2017, is today viewed by many across the globe as an unfortunate error of judgment.

Many people around the world who have been watching Cameroon descend into chaos think the country’s government should actually embrace peace, but the country’s ailing and old leader wants to take the country to the grave with him. Many of these observers have been waiting for the government to lay the ground work for the much-touted inclusive dialogue that the country’s president has been talking about.

Mr. Biya and his government are not in the mood to smoke the pipe of peace. Though Mr. Biya had declared in New York during a session of the UN General Assembly meeting in late 2017 that “we all are hankering after peace”, he seems to be more interested in war than peace. Mr. Biya is being accused today across the globe as someone who is paying lip-service to the notion of inclusive and sincere dialogue.

Many observers hold that he is more interested in keeping power than in making Cameroon the beacon of peace. He and his government see governance as a do-or-die affair and any dialogue that could diminish their power will never be something they will contemplate. They know their time is almost up, but they hold that they must go down with the entire country. Their attitude is shocking many around the world. The fighting in Cameroon is not only taking away innocent lives, it is also robbing the country of its scarce development resources.

To them, the atrocities being committed by government troops are simply war games worthy of their admiration. They seem to be deflecting public opinion from the fact that Southern Cameroonians, who have been victims of the government’s marginalization, simply want to be heard. They want years of injustice and disrespect to be addressed. But wont to violence and dictatorial ways of doing business, the government is unrelentingly pursuing its legendary policy of violence which has transformed an entire region into a massive killing field.

The government’s reaction to Southern Cameroonian demands has been anything but effective. This reaction has gone a long way in creating a bloody conflict that is not necessary. Government actions have only gone a long way in radicalizing many Southern Cameroonians. The radicalization has unfortunately given birth to many armed groups in the two English-speaking regions of the country.

As a response to the creation of these armed groups, the government has stepped up its killing spree to prove that it is in control of the territory. It is strange to see a duly constituted government come down to the level of a ragtag army. It is even stranger to see the government engage in the killing of its own citizens just because they have expressed their minds.

This conflict has really disrupted life in many parts of the English-speaking regions. Schools and courts have remained closed and a generation of children is being traumatized by the images and pictures they are seeing on the ground. Besides the trauma, these kids will wind up illiterate as there are no prospects of school resuming anytime soon, especially in rural areas where there is no government authority. The government itself has simply surrendered and does not consider the education of these kids as a priority.

Though ghost town operations organized by angry English-speaking Cameroonians with the objective of bringing the government to the negotiating table are gradually fizzling out, the country’s economy seems to have been seriously hurt. The government is running out of resources and its allies abroad are reluctant to give it more money. Even the Chinese are playing games with the Yaounde desperate government that is losing sleep because its treasury is losing money at an unexpected rate.

Falling oil production and prices have hit the government like a ton of bricks. The Southern Cameroons crisis that the government thought would end after a few weeks is gradually robbing the country’s economy of its vitality. The country’s economic indicators are unfortunately trending very low and it is obvious that the days ahead are bleak for the country’s civil service.

Even the country’s military is already dealing with some challenges. The Southern Cameroons crisis has eroded its financial resources. The payment of per diems is gradually becoming a tough challenge despite the signing of presidential decree by the country’s reclusive leader, indicating that each soldier fighting in the two English-speaking regions will be earning CFAF 30,000 a day as per diem. The money has not been flowing the way of the soldiers and many young army soldiers are deserting the military for fear of being killed by the tough Ambazonian fighters who are giving the government a run for its money.

Initially, the sticking point was the government’s refusal to discuss the form of the state. Southern Cameroonian had argued that the current centralized system was too inefficient and corrupt. They wanted a system that would grant them the freedom to run their own schools and courts. They argued that the presence of Francophone judges in their courts had resulted in a miscarriage of justice in many parts of the region.

They also argued that the presence of Francophone teachers in Southern Cameroonian schools did not guarantee their children the educational quality that would enable their children to be competitive at the international level. But the government was not willing to listen. It was still insisting on implementing its decentralization policy that had been put on hold for more than two decades. These issues and the refusal to discuss the form of the state have caused the conflict to drag on. And it has today taken forms that are too complicated even for the Yaounde government to handle. The killings have become a daily affair and they have resulted in moderate English-speaking Cameroonians to see secession as the ultimate solution.

The country is, today, in a fix. The government that is used to shutting up its opponents is unable to find reliable partners to dialogue with. It has already tried different forms of dialogue that have been rejected by the people. Truly, what it had organized was more of a monologue than a dialogue. The ruling party has been discussing within itself and it thinks its conclusions will be binding on all Cameroonians.

The Yaounde trick has not borne any fruits. It has lost its charm. Time has worn out its charm. Cameroonians, especially Southern Cameroonians, are too smart for the government. Using so-called elites who have been rejected by the people of the two English-speaking regions to go and talk to the rebelling population has been the biggest comedy the world has ever watched. The efforts of these people actually came to naught and many of them were simply relieved when they left the region, as the threat of death was hanging over them like the Sword of Damocles.

Using people like Peter Mafany Musonge, Chief Mukete, Chief Tabetando and others was truly an error of casting. These people have no credibility and the people no longer listen to them. Many of these people clearly belong to the past, if not to the grave. Solving the Southern Cameroons crisis will require different measures and different actors. Using old people is a strategy whose time has passed. Even appointing half-baked people like Atanga Nji in top positions will never solve the problem.

Mr. Atanga Nji is already running out of steam. The energy he came with following his appointment as the minister of territorial administration is already dying down. If anybody had trusted that Mr. Atanga Nji would address the Southern Cameroons crisis, it is time for that person to start disabusing his mind. A few helmets to motor cycle riders will not address an issue that has been ruining lives for more than five decades.

Similarly, handing down long jail sentences to Southern Cameroonian fighters in Yaounde will never dampen the determination of those who are still fighting. The crisis can only be addressed at the negotiating table and this will only be possible if President Julius Ayuk Tabe and those in jail are released. The Diaspora is still very active and it is time for the government to build a long reliable bridge for the Diaspora to come to the negotiating table.

The Southern Cameroonian Diaspora is rich. It has more than three million members and thanks to these hardworking Southern Cameroonians, those on ground zero have been able to make the government feel the pinch of its stupidity and dishonesty. After more than five decades in exile, the Diaspora also wants to play a key role in the management of the country’s socio-political landscape. If the government is thinking of building any such bridge, it must understand that it will be a long one, as it must reach the beautiful shores of North America where the brain of the rebellion is found.

By Kingsley Betek and Ebot Etchi with contributions from Soter Agbaw-Ebai at the Cameroon Concord News Group Global Headquarters

27, April 2018

Catholic bishops urge Buhari to resign for ‘failing to protect lives of Nigerians’ ⁰

The Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria has asked president Muhammadu Buhari to resign, in the wake of the killing of two priests and their parishioners in the wee hours of Tuesday morning.

Buhari has also been summoned by the country’s legislators to discuss the security situation in Benue state. The lawmakers also passed a vote of no confidence in the country’s security chiefs on Wednesday.

The Catholic Bishops accuse the president of ignoring repeated calls to bring his attention to the skewed and ineffective security apparatus and strategy employed to contain clashes between the mainly Christian farmers and Muslim herdsmen.

‘‘Since the president who appoints the security chiefs has refused to call them to order, we can only conclude that they are acting out a script he approves of,’‘ the bishops said in their statement.

The statement goes ahead to say the president has lost the trust of the citizenry, since he has failed in his duty to keep the country safe.

‘‘Whether this failure is due to inability to perform or lack of political will, it is time for him to choose the path of honour and consider stepping aside to save the nation from total collapse.’‘

Buhari has been accused of leniency in this matter, with many pointing to the fact that he shares ethnicity with the Fulani semi – nomadic herdsmen. Both the herdsmen and the settled farmers have however carried out attacks that have left hundreds dead.

President Muhammadu Buhari, who took office in 2015 vowing to end the insurgency, warned citizens against playing into the hands of the agents of disunity, while condolingwith the victims of the latest attack.

The issue of securing Africa’s most populous country has become politically charged in the run-up to an election next year which Buhari said he wants to contest.

The Middle Belt region includes a number of swing states that could play a significant role in determining Buhari’s electoral prospects.

Source: Africa News

27, April 2018

Only Ambazonia’s victory will end Cameroon’s armed struggle. Biya regime can do nothing ⁰

The only option now opens to the UN and the African Union in Southern Cameroons is whether or not to make it worse. No amount of motion of support to Biya, counterfeit elections, feel good rhetoric from Chief V.E.Mukete or “intermittent” killing of Ambazonians is going to impede the Interim Government’s path to victory in its war of independence. The French and the Nigerian governments are now aware that every ounce of military and intelligence aid given to the Biya Francophone Beti Ewondo regime is only going to prolong Southern and French Cameroun’s citizens’ agony.

Immediately after the abduction of the President of the Federal of Ambazonia, Sisiku Ayuk Tabe Julius and his top aides in Abuja Nigeria, French Cameroun intelligence and French Cameroun media declared that the Southern Cameroons revolution was about to fail. That was wrong. Since the coronation of Dr. Samuel Sako as the Acting President, Southern Cameroonians have step-up self-defense efforts multiplying and consolidating their gains against the Biya regime. Biya 35 year’s action in Southern Cameroons has never been productive, except of death and destruction.

Biya’s war declaration at the Nsimalen International airport, the deployment of French Cameroun soldiers in Manyu, Lebialem, Batibo, Mundemba, Belo, Kumba, Jakiri and Bamenda including the killing of close to a thousand Southern Cameroonians have had zero impact. There is one small thing. Small but great and it is that the leadership of the Interim Government of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia understands the Biya regime is fighting for its survival and does not care about innocent Southern Cameroons civilians or the niceties of international treaties. The regime backers such as the French and the corrupt Buhari administration in Nigeria only see a cynical foreign policy coup in the offing.

Mr. Joseph Beti Assomo, the country’s defense minister, is alleged to have boasted that by the time the conflict ends, there will be no Southern Cameroonians in the English-speaking regions. This testifies to the many claims of a government-sponsored genocide that are on social media. Even the Joint Chief of Staff, General Rene Meka has accepted that French Cameroun forces have killed hundreds of civilians in Southern Cameroons.

Inhumanity lies in the killing of any civilians in war. This is the trade mark of the Biya regime. Last week, the state owned television, CRTV estimated that all civilians had fled Menji, Kwa Kwa, Dadi, Kendem, Akwaya, Tombel, Belo and Mbonge, mostly from inevitably indiscriminate French Cameroun onslaught. Former Prime Minister Peter Mafany Musonge has been quoted as saying that civilian deaths are the price you pay for fighting for independence.

The deliberate silence maintained by the US and UK diplomatic missions in Yaoundé and Abuja including the European Union is a clear indication that the laws of war are enveloped in hypocrisy, largely because they are written by petrol dollars. The British embassy in Yaoundé has still not commented on the killings of hundreds of British Southern Cameroonians. The Commonwealth of Nations is no longer interested about human rights abuses but on how to help the UK survive Brexit. This whole argument is not over morality, merely degrees of obscenity.

To this I put my name

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

27, April 2018

Southern Cameroons Crisis: Belo fighters force army to retreat after face off ⁰

Armed men believed to be separatists forced Cameroonian security forces to retreat when the two engaged in exchange of fire on Wednesday in the restive northwest region.

According to the BBC Africa Live page, the military was forced to withdraw from the town of Belo located in northwestern Cameroon following heated exchanges.

The army have for months now been engaged in exchanges with separatist elements under the banner of the so-called Ambazonia republic.

Local media portals have reported of raids by the army in many parts of the Anglophone regions – northwest and southwest. Reports say the army have often burnt down and shot people in their raids when they suspected that people were habouring separatists.

Hundreds of people are said to have fled into nearby bushes for fear of being caught in the cross fire. The United Nations has also reported that over 20,000 Cameroonians have fled into Nigeria fleeing the violence back home.

What started as a push for rights by teachers and lawyers in the Anglophone regions, have since October last year escalated into an armed confrontation between Yaounde and different separatist groups.

The main group, Ambazonia Defense Force (ADF) have claimed responsibility for some of the guerilla-style attacks that have killed over 20 members of the security forces – soldiers, police and gendarmes.

Recently, governor of the Southwest region was attacked whiles on his way for an official assignment. The armed convoy of Governor Bernard Okalia Bilai came under fire from suspected separatists on his way to and from the town of Labialem.

Culled from Africa News

27, April 2018

Mancho Bibixy blames courts for fueling Anglophone crisis ⁰

Mancho Bibixy has averred that the courts were complicit in the raging political and security crisis facing the Central African nation.

Mancho and six others were earlier this week convicted of terrorism and other charges including secession and hostility against the state. Their trial, which lasted months, was held by a military court in the capital Yaounde. Sentencing is reserved till May 8th, 2018.

Cameroon media said he was acquitted of some other charges as rebellion, civil war, destruction of property, killing and non-possession of an ID. Another accused was however acquitted and discharged. Even though his lawyers have said they will appeal the ruling, the outspoken Mancho delivered a message to the trial judge during his last appearance stressing that the court had taken the line of fuelling the Anglophone crisis.

“You have an opportunity to begin solving the Anglophone crisis or add more fuel to the fire. History will be the final judge,” he is quoted to have said. The terrorism charge largely stems from their actions supposedly “threatening Cameroon’s sovereignty.”

He first appeared in a coffin at a protest in Bamenda (capital of the Northwest region) in November 2016. His action it is said was to convey the message that minority English-speaking Cameroonians “seemed to have died before their real death” and therefore they had nothing to fear but to speak against the injustices.

The other accused persons include: Tsi Conrad, The Emile Agwe, Tangwa Maloin Tangwa, Azelecha Martin, Guingah Valentine, Junior Awahro Thomas. They were all ordered to pay 579m CFA francs ($1m; £770,000) in damages.

Local media reports that he and his co-accused are currently being held at Yaoundé‘s Kondengui Central Prison awaiting sentencing.

Source: Africa News

26, April 2018

UN finds five mass graves in Congo amid ethnic violence ⁰

United Nations investigators have discovered five probable mass grave sites in eastern Congo’s Ituri province where an outbreak of ethnic violence has killed at least 263 people, a UN peacekeeping mission said.

The report from the mission provides the most comprehensive portrait to date of the human cost of months of violence between Lendu pastoralists and Hema herders since December that has caused one of Africa’s most serious refugee crises.

Violence across eastern Congo’s borderlands with Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi has spiked since President Joseph Kabila refused to step aside at the end of his mandate in 2016, eroding state authority and emboldening armed groups.

The mostly Lendu-led attacks have forced more than 60,000 people to flee across Lake Albert into Uganda, and the UN refugee agency expects 200,000 refugees to reach Uganda this year. Tens of thousands of others have fled to other towns inside Congo.

The investigators did not provide details about the suspected mass graves, but said that about 120 towns and villages were pillaged and destroyed between December and mid-March.

According to Hema refugees Reuters interviewed last month in Uganda, Lendu groups typically attack Hema villages shortly after dusk with guns, machetes, axes and bows and arrows.

The precise motives for the attacks are difficult to pin down but tensions between the two communities have long been stoked by disagreements over cattle grazing rights, crops, gold mining and political representation.

Open warfare between the two communities from 1999-2007 is estimated to have killed some 50,000 people in one of the bloodiest chapters of a civil war in eastern Congo that left millions dead from conflict, hunger and disease.

Aid agencies say the crisis is a “mega-disaster” and are trying to raise over $2 billion to respond but Congo’s government has accused them of exaggerating the situation and boycotted a recent donor conference.

(Source: Reuters)

26, April 2018

Malta’s National Football Coach Gets Fired After Applying For Position With Cameroon ⁰

Malta’s national football team coach, Tom Saintfiet, has been given the sack after he reportedly replied to a call for a position within the Cameroonian Football Federation.

The Malta Football Association has released a statement relating to his departure.

“Following a thorough analysis of the situation, a decision has been taken to relieve Mr Saintfiet of his duties as National Team Coach. To this end, the Malta Football Association communicates that the employment contract of Tom Saintfiet has been terminated with immediate effect,” the Association said.

Saying they sought “reassurances” from Mr Saintfelt about reports that he had not applied for the post of coach of another national team, they ended the meeting with his termination.

The 45-year-old Belgian has denied these reports, saying he never applied for a job in Cameroon, and saying that even the Cameroonian Football Federation themselves admit that many coaches do not know that someone applied in their name.

“There are agents who do it without informing the coaches. I had applied for the Cameroon job in 2012, 2014 and 2015, but this year I am very happy to be in Malta with my family and have a long-term commitment. I have no reason to apply anywhere else, and I never sent any application,” he told Maltatoday.

He’s since removed a public Facebook post where he had denied applying for the position. Mr Saintfiet was appointed to Malta’s national football team last October. He watched over an embarrassing 3 – 0 defeat against Estonia in his first match, and has only coached the team through two consequent matches, both of which were goalless losses for the Maltese side.

He has coached teams in many countries, including Malawi and Bangladesh. Since his departure, the Malta National Football Team’s Wikipedia page has been tampered with, and now displays famed Arsenal coach Arsene Wenger as the coach of the Maltese team.

Source: LovinMalta.com

26, April 2018

Catholic church should intervene in Southern Cameroons crisis ⁰

The Roman Catholic church should mediate in the crisis in the English-speaking regions of Cameroon, where separatists and security forces are embroiled in a dangerous conflict, a thinktank urged Thursday.

“The Catholic Church could help break this dangerous stalemate,” the International Crisis Group (ICG) said in a report.

“Other than the Catholic clergy, there are few prospective peacemakers,” it said. “If no-one fills that role, the separatist sentiment already voiced by many anglophones will continue to grow, fuelling further violence and exacerbating the ongoing insurgency in the anglophone regions, with elections in late 2018 a flashpoint.”

The crisis began in 2016, when activists in Cameroon’s anglophone minority stepped up a campaign for greater autonomy.

Their demands were rejected by President Paul Biya, prompting radicals to make a full-blown declaration of independence last October.

Since then, 31 members of the security forces have been killed by separatists, according to an AFP toll based on official figures. The number of armed separatists or civilians killed by police and troops is unknown.

At the same time, humanitarian needs in the anglophone regions have grown. According to UN estimates, tens of thousands of people have been displaced by the fighting.

The ICG said the church could help by stating “its impartiality” on the big question facing anglophone regions — federalism versus decentralisation.

“A clergy able to project a position of neutrality could work with other trusted actors to mediate between anglophone leaders and the state and stem a dangerous and growing crisis,” it said.

The church is one of Cameroon’s strongest institutions, as it is present in all of the country’s 10 regions and nearly a third of the population is Catholic, the report said.

It cautioned though that the church also had to overcome its own divisions between French- and English-speaking clergy.

Cameroon’s Northwest and Southwest Regions are home to most of the country’s anglophones — a minority of about 20 percent in the predominantly French-speaking country of 23.4 million.

Within the minority, a perception of injustice has grown that anglophones suffer discrimination in the economy, education and the judicial system at the hands of the francophone majority.

The anglophone presence is a legacy of the colonial period in Africa.

France and Britain divided up the former German colony under League of Nations mandates after World War I.

A year after the French-ruled territory became independent in 1961, the southern part of British Cameroons was integrated into a federal system.

Federalism was then scrapped 11 years later for a “united republic” — a centralised system that 85-year-old Biya, in power for more than 35 years, has said will not be changed.

The ICG warned last October that “murderous repression” by the authorities would only feed secessionism — a warning that the government lashed as an attempt to destabilise the country.

Source: Dailymail.co.uk