Monthly Archives: May 2018

17, May 2018

Secession: New Catalan leader shuns Spanish constitution ⁰

Quim Torra, Catalonia’s new separatist leader, was sworn in Thursday during a brief ceremony without central government representatives in which he avoided promising to obey the constitution and pledged instead to follow “the will of the Catalan people”.

The ceremony marks the end of nearly seven months of political limbo in the northeastern Spanish region, which has been under direct rule from Madrid since the central government deposed Catalan president Carles Puigdemont following a failed declaration of independence on October 27.

“I promise to loyally fulfil the duties of the post of regional president being faithful to the will of the Catalan people represented by the Catalan parliament,” Torra said as he was sworn in, using the same formula as his predecessor and mentor Puigdemont.

The 55-year-old did not promise to obey the Constitution nor the statute that regulates Catalonia’s autonomy.
He appeared flanked only by a Catalan flag, without the traditional Spanish flag and portrait of the king that protocol states must be present, in a small side-room of the regional government building in Barcelona.

Spanish Foreign Minister Alfonso Dastis criticised the ceremony, saying it done “on the sly”, as if Torra “were a second-rate president”.

The hardline separatist Torra was handpicked by Puigdemont, who is currently in Berlin awaiting potential extradition to Spain, where he faces jail on charges of rebellion and misuse of public funds.

He has stressed he is merely a “caretaker president” as he awaits the return of Puigdemont, whom he considers the “legitimate” leader, and has pledged to keep fighting for independence from Spain.

Torra’s swearing-in ceremony only lasted a few minutes and the central government decided not to send any representatives in a sign of tensions between the two.There were no representatives of political parties or civil society either.

As a deferential gesture towards Puigdemont, Torra did not put on the medallion that regional presidents usually wear when they are sworn in.Now Torra needs to form a government, a prerequisite for Madrid to lift direct rule.

But this isn’t assured as Torra has said he wants to reintegrate deposed regional ministers into his government, many of whom are either in preventative custody for their role in the secession drive or in self-exile like Puigdemont.

If the Spanish government decides this is illegal, it could maintain direct rule over the region as requested by center-right party Ciudadanos, whose hardline stance towards the Catalan crisis has resounded in Spain.

The party is now threatening to overtake Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy’s Popular Party in regional and municipal elections next year.

In the more immediate future, however, Rajoy needs the support of the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) in parliament to approve the 2018 budget.

The PNV wants Madrid to lift direct rule as it strongly supports regional autonomy and is sympathetic to the Catalan cause.
Caught between the two, Rajoy has pledged to watch Torra closely and maintain control over regional finances to avoid public money going to any separatist initiatives, and has also said he is willing to meet the Catalan leader.

Meanwhile, another battle is going on in the courts, with 25 separatist leaders being investigated for rebellion or other offences, nine of whom are in preventative custody and another seven abroad.

On Wednesday, a Belgian judge rejected the extradition request of three former Catalan ministers due to irregularities in the arrest warrants, dealing a blow to Spain.

A court in Germany has also rejected extraditing Puigdemont to Spain for rebellion, a very serious charge that implies violence took place and which many legal experts have discarded.

The court is still considering whether to hand him over to Spain on the lesser charge of misuse of public funds.
Faced with these setbacks, Spain’s Supreme Court has said it is was considering replacing rebellion with sedition, which does not imply violence took place and is less severe.

(Source: AFP)

17, May 2018

Officials meet to examine international risks of Ebola in Congo ⁰

Congolese and UN officials were racing to prevent a runaway Ebola outbreak in Congo on Thursday, working out the logistics of keeping newly arrived vaccines well below freezing in a steamy region on the equator with unreliable power.

World Health Organization (WHO) spokesman Christian Lindmeier said the UN body would convene an Emergency Committee meeting on Friday to consider the international risks.

This is the Democratic Republic of Congo’s ninth epidemic since the disease was identified in the 1970s, but also its most alarming because of the risk of transmission via regular river transport to the capital Kinshasa, a city of 10 million.

An experimental but highly effective vaccine is being deployed against the virus, with health workers being vaccinated first, but it needs to be kept 80 degrees Celsius below freezing in a humid region where daytime temperatures hover around 30.

“For now, the cold chain is guaranteed at -80 degrees until Kinshasa,” Health Minister Oly Ilunga told Reuters. “There is a fridge that will be prepared (on Thursday) … in Mbandaka and that will be at -80.”

“This vaccine is no longer experimental. The effectiveness has been proven and validated,” he added. “Now that we are facing the Ebola virus we must use all the resources we have.”

The WHO expert committee will decide whether to declare a “public health emergency of international concern”, which would trigger more international involvement, mobilizing research and resources, Lindmeier said.

Emergency Committees have been set up to advise on past outbreaks such as the 2016 Zika epidemic in Latin America and the huge West African Ebola outbreak that killed at least 11,300 people in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia from 2014 to 2016.

Mindful of criticism it received for being too slow during that epidemic, when it took months to convene an Emergency Committee, the WHO is moving fast on Congo’s latest outbreak.

The committee can advise WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on actions to be taken by Congo and other countries to try to halt the international spread of disease without unduly interfering with trade or transport.

The Kinshasa government reported the outbreak on May 8, one day after two samples tested positive, and within days the WHO was sending experts, preparing a helicopter “air bridge” to the site, and planning a vaccination campaign.

There have already been 44 suspected, probable or confirmed cases of Ebola, and 23 people have died. Potentially most worrying is a confirmed case in the city of Mbandaka, which has a population of about 1 million.

“The arrival of Ebola in an urban area is very concerning and WHO and partners are working together to rapidly scale up the search for all contacts of the confirmed case in the Mbandaka area,” said WHO Regional Director for Africa Matshidiso Moeti said in a statement.

In this handout photograph released by UNICEF on May 13, 2018, health workers wear protective equipment as they prepare to attend to suspected Ebola patients at Bikoro Hospital in the Democratic Republic of Congo on May 12, 2018. (Photo by AFP)

Mbandaka is also connected via the Congo River to Kinshasa, a crowded city where millions live in unsanitary slums not connected to a sewer system.

Several public boats a day head from there downstream over the river to the capital. They are so overloaded with people that they sometimes topple over, toilets are filthy and water for washing absent.

The other Ebola cases were spread across sites in remote areas where the disease might not travel quickly.

Already the WHO has warned that there is a “moderate” regional risk because the disease could travel along the river to Central African Republic and Congo Republic. But it has said the global risk is low because of the remoteness of the area and the rapid response launched so far.

This file photo taken on June 13, 2017 shows health workers at an Ebola quarantine unit on June 13, 2017 in Muma, after a case of Ebola was confirmed in their village. (Photo by AFP)

Even if the logistics of the ‘fridge bridge’ prove easy enough to overcome, “the vaccine is not a magic bullet,” Peter Salama, WHO’s medical emergency program head told Reuters this week, especially since health workers have been infected.

“Having healthcare workers infected is usually a ‘canary in the mine’ for potential amplification,” he said.

(Source: Reuters)

17, May 2018

Will thousands more die to show that Biya can no longer rule over Cameroon? ⁰

The revelation is as sobering as it is shocking-the beheading of Southern Cameroons women and children by army soldiers deployed to the region by President Paul Biya. Every Southern Cameroonian family has had firsthand experience with violence. The Manyus, Bangwas, Mettas, Balis, Nso, Orokos, Bafaws, Bakweri, Bakossi, Aghen and others are sharing similar insights, shaped in no small part by a bitter dose of realism. There are no prescribed remedies to the imploding situation in Southern Cameroons/Ambazonia. Will thousands more Southern Cameroonians die to show that Biya can no longer rule over La Republique du Cameroun?

Unlike the other East African leaders who are mindful of human suffering and have been working hard to seek an end to the conflict in South Sudan, the regional and international partners involved in Southern Cameroons have proven to be terribly insensitive and they clearly don’t care how their silence is harming ordinary Southern Cameroonians.

We of the Cameroon Concord News Group believe and fervently too that the choice was clear from the very beginning of the Southern Cameroons crisis two years ago: sacrifice Biya to save the so-called one and indivisible Cameroon, or sacrifice the one and indivisible Cameroon to save Biya. The Francophone regime embraced the latter to preserve itself and hundreds of Southern Cameroonians are dying in the process. No regrets, no hesitation. None whatsoever.

When the first French Cameroun military onslaught failed, an Anglophone criminal, Paul Atanga Nji was appointed Minister of Territorial Administration and was ordered to step in to save the Biya regime, and in the current process many more are dying. No worry, no sorry. None.

The Minister Atanga Nji’s effort has already failed, and the Biya regime continues to bleed. The French and the Americans have now stepped in under the same pretext: Only by saving Biya could Boko Haram and terrorism be defeated and the one and indivisible Cameroon saved, contends US Ambassador Peter Barlerin.

So, will thousands more Southern Cameroonians die to show that Biya can no longer rule over La Republique du Cameroun?

Ever since the UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres decided to back off from the crisis in Southern Cameroons, the international community has argued, rather poorly, that it was in Cameroon’s best interest not to interfere and that outside involvement was no remedy for the country’s political problems.

But instead of putting the US’ weight behind a political solution through talks with the Interim Government of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia, the US ambassador gave Biya the license to continue killing Southern Cameroonians. The Biya Francophone regime with French government support has transformed the crisis in Southern Cameroons into a renewed so-called war on terror where Buhari of Nigeria and Chad’s Idris Deby are privileged members.

Yaoundé will discover, sooner rather than later, that it can’t succeed in this senseless military campaign. The only achievement in the process is simply that many more will die in vain. Such scenario will prove most costly to French Cameroonians too as the country continues to fall apart. If the Federal Republic of Nigeria continues to play innocent and Europeans and Americans continue to play catch up, Biya’s foul play is sure to pave the way for another bitter and bloody chapter in the history of the two Cameroons.

It’s evidently clear at this point in time that there are no good options for Biya; that the sweetest among all plausible scenarios is bitter and it is that President Biya should step aside.

Indeed, the last two years of turmoil in Southern Cameroons, like the previous 36 years of Biya’s dictatorship, have taught both French and Southern Cameroonians that the bloodier the change, the worse the outcome, and the longer the wait, the more complicated the change.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

17, May 2018

Nigeria, Cameroon forces kill 15 Boko Haram insurgents ⁰

Nigerian and Cameroon forces killed 15 Boko Haram insurgents during gun battles to clear the Lake Chad region of the violent group, officials said on Thursday.

A statement by Col. Onyema Nwachukwu, spokesman of the counter-insurgency operation in the country’s troubled northeast, said a joint operation of Nigerian and Cameroonian forces in the southern Lake Chad Basin region on Wednesday engaged Boko Haram militants in fierce battle at various locations. The troops also recovered an arms cache, he said.

“Combined troops of Operation Lafiya Dole and the Cameroonian Defence Forces have killed 15 Boko Haram insurgents in separate encounters in Southern Lake Chad Basin,” Nwachukwu said. He said the military troops “dislodged the insurgents from their hideouts after a fierce battle.”

Four men, 33 women, and 16 child hostages were also rescued from the insurgents’ camp, Nwachukwu said. He said the military has started interviewing the rescued hostages before taking them to camps for displaced persons.

Boko Haram has recently stepped up attacks on communities, including suicide bombings in the northeast. On Tuesday, a male suicide bomber suspected to be Boko Haram detonated explosives near Maiduguri, northeastern Nigeria, killing five local security volunteers.

The attack came when the military announced a major offensive against the insurgents called Operation Last Hold to clear Boko Haram from the Lake Chad Basin area and return those displaced by the nearly nine-year conflict to their homes to start farming and fishing. The Lake Chad Basin region extends to the extreme north of Nigeria, Niger, Chad, and Cameroon.

Source: World Bulletin.Net

17, May 2018

Australia slams Cameroon human rights as athletes told ‘go home’ ⁰

Australia has joined the US, Britain and dozens of other nations in criticising Cameroon’s human rights record, as up to a dozen of the West African country’s Commonwealth Games athletes have not returned home.

Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton warned athletes overstaying their Games’ visas will be found and deported, although some have reportedly received bridging visas after claiming asylum.

Allegations of torture, arbitrary detention and attacks on civilians by security forces, suppression of freedom of speech and the media, and continued criminalisation of LGBTIQ+ people were raised against Cameroon at the United Nations.

The Cameroon team at the Commonwealth Games opening ceremony. About 11 members of Cameroon's team are still in Australia (may not be pictured here).

The West African country created from merging French and British colonies is wracked by civil conflict between the Francophone majority and Anglophone minority, as well as incursions by terrorist group Boko Haram.

Over 160,000 people have been displaced by violence in Cameroon since 2016, according to UN estimates.

“Australia notes with concern the recent outbreak of violence between Cameroon security forces and protesting minority groups in the county’s southwest and northwest,” Australian diplomat Alexander Chapman told the UN’s Universal Periodic Review of human rights in Cameroon in Geneva.

“Australia recommends Cameroon lift unnecessary restrictions on freedom of assembly, investigate the alleged use of force in demonstrations, and ensure arrested protestors receive fair trials.”

Australia, which this year began its three-year term as a member of the UN Human Rights Council, echoed the United States in its statement to the UN hearing.

“We remain concerned by credible allegations of humans rights violations and abuses by security forces,” US diplomat Huda Ibrahim said.

“We recommend to the government the following, one acknowledge and investigate credible allegations of human rights violations and abuses and hold those to account.”

Numerous countries raised allegations of torture, supported by graphic videos posted on social media showing men in Cameroonian uniforms violently assaulting what appear to be civilians.

Other videos show troops burning villages and severely wounding people.

English-speaking southern Cameroonians have been demanding a separate state of Ambozonia based on colonial borders, claiming they are heavily discriminated against and marginalised by the French-speaking majority.

“There is peace in this region, it is not the entire region or the entire country that’s been involved in an uprising saying they want a republic,” Cameroon’s Foreign Minister Lejeune Mbella Mbella told the UN review.

“It is a community that has taken the entire country hostage and raised awareness of the international community, sometimes wrongly, to what they call repressions in the Anglophone region.”

Mr Mbella Mbella told the UN its military had engaged in torture without government authorisation.

“One hundred and eight officials were brought to the courts for acts of torture or cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment committed in the exercise of their functions and they were convicted,” he said, adding armed forces were being educated on complying with international treaty obligations to prevent crimes against humanity.

Soldiers carry the coffins of the four soldiers killed in the violence that erupted in the northwest and southwest Regions of Cameroon in 2017.

In the West African country’s far north, the military has for years been fighting terrorist group Boko Haram as well as the separatists.

“These elements have cut off heads, arms and feet. These are images we can see on the internet. These are atrocious images. No state can tolerate this state of affairs,” Mr Mbello Mbello said.

Earlier this week, British Minister of State for Africa Harriett Baldwin told parliament she visited Cameroon and the prime minister in February to express her concerns.

“It is a serious situation. There is violence from all sides in Cameroon and we are extremely concerned about the situation,” she said.

“We are encouraging not only the government there but all Cameroonians to participate in a process of inclusive dialogue. It is an election year and the election must take place without people resorting to violence.”

At least eight – possibly up to 11 – Cameroonians have not returned home from the Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast in April and are expected to seek protection after their visas expired on Wednesday.

“It’s really helpful to see countries like Australia criticising the human rights situation in countries such as Cameroon,” said Sarah Dale, principal lawyer at the Refugee Advice and Casework Service (RACS) in Sydney, which has been in contact with a number of the games athletes and officials.

“These are the exact kinds of reports that we use to demonstrate a person’s well-founded fear of persecution.”

Australia has a tiny Anglophone Cameroon community numbering a few hundred. It welcomed the federal government’s statement at the UN.

“I was excited when I heard that Australia is interested,” said Gana Tetu, a southern Cameroon community leader in Canberra.

“The situation in southern Cameroon is horrific, there’s a lot of killing going on, everyday people are dying. Southern Cameroonians just want to restore their state.”

Mr Tetu said southern Cameroons refused to take part in the Commonwealth Games in protest at French Cameroonian athletes being eligible, saying only those from the former British colony should be allowed.

He opposes any French-speaking Cameroonian athletes or officials being given protection visas.

“If they’re granted those protection visas, then I’m pretty sure southern Cameroons in Australia will go on the street and protest,” he said.

The federal government’s Smartraveller website warns anyone travelling to Cameroon to “exercise a high degree of caution” and in the far north “we advise against all travel there due to the very high risk”.

About two dozen games athletes and officials including from Rwanda, Uganda, Ghana and Sierra Leone are still thought to be in Australia.

Home Affairs in a statement said it “will not be commenting on individual cases” and it has “stood up a dedicated operation to ensure those that should depart Australia do so.”

Source: www.sbs.com.au

17, May 2018

Southern Cameroons crisis raised in U.K. parliament ⁰

Cameroon’s Anglophone crisis has been raised in the House of Commons – the United Kingdom’s lower house of Parliament with a request from the government as to what it is doing over the situation.

The issue was raised by MP Jessica Morden (Labour Party member for Newport East) who wanted answers over the security crisis and the resultant refugee crisis in the Central African country.

Her question directed to the British Minister for Africa, Harriet Baldwin also demanded ‘a meaningful process to address the issue and to end the violence.’

In response, Baldwin reiterated the U.K. stance that there was the need for cessation of violence by parties and more than anything for the process of inclusive dialogue given that key polls are slated for later this year. Below are her full remarks:

“I am delighted Mr. Speaker that she has managed to get this important issue on the Order Paper and for discussion here in the House of Commons because it is a serious situation, there violence from all sides in Cameroon, we are extremely concerned about the situation.

“And we are encouraging the government but all Cameroonians to participate in the process of inclusive dialogue. It’s an election year and this must take place without resorting to violence.”

The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Its opposite is the upper house, known as the House of Lords. Both chambers meet in the Palace of Westminster.

Officially, the full name of the house is the Honourable the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in Parliament assembled.

Baldwin, MP for West Worchestershire who doubles as a Minister of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) on a trip to Cameroon called for dialogue. She visited capital of the southwest region of Buea and met with a number of stakeholders.

“Important visit to Buea in South West Anglophone region hearing from local people about the impact of the ongoing dispute and the urgent need for dialogue,” she said in a tweet accompanied by a photo of a meeting of leaders in Buea.

Source: Africa News

17, May 2018

One and Indivisible Cameroon sliding towards partition ⁰

No political commentator knows when President Biya is going to stop his senseless war against the people of Southern Cameroons. From Cameroon government intelligence sources, we understand that the Ambazonia Self-Defense Council Restoration Forces are in complete control of the rural areas. The French Cameroun government is determined to re-assert its sovereign authority over all Ambazonian territory, as well as the ambiguous political situation in Southern Cameroons, where the Interim Government has effectively banned all activities of the ruling CPDM party.

Over the past several months, a growing number of senior political analysts have concluded that President Biya is losing Cameroon’s brutal war. Seemingly from a position of strength some few years ago, Biya could appoint and dismiss any Anglophone political elite and he had consolidated control over West Cameroon. But things are changing so rapidly on Ground Zero and the French Cameroun army appears to have been abandoned by its main Yaoundé sponsors, all of whom are now preparing for life after Biya. As our chief correspondent in Buea recently put it, the Federal Republic of Ambazonia looks as though is here to stay.

That may be so. But the temptation to over-interpret the latest events on the battlefield has bedeviled policymakers since the Southern Cameroons uprising began. The military challenge to Biya’s rule has taken a new dimension even though some significant amounts of Ambazonian territory remain in Yaounde’s hands. If Biya is losing the war, he’s doing so at the cost of dismembering the country. Events in the Federal Republic of Nigeria points to a chaotic outcome after the presidential elections in 2019 and this will have a spillover effect on the war in Southern Cameroons. A number of factors including major diplomatic push by the Interim Government’s pragmatic approach suggest that Cameroon’s de facto partition is a more likely outcome. What might this look like? And is separation something the French Cameroonians should accept or oppose?

Since 1900, approximately two dozen conflicts ended by either de facto or de jure partition. These range from the loss of sovereign control over small territorial enclaves (e.g., Cyprus in 1964 or Somaliland in 1991) to declarations of sovereignty with full international recognition (e.g., Eritrea and Croatia in 1991, South Sudan in 2011). More recently, several Nigerian politicians have proposed a similar approach in Cameroon. This reflects deep skepticism on whether Biya will be able to reunify his so-called one and indivisible Cameroon and a recognition of the degree of divide that’s already taken place. A quick glance at the situation in Manyu, Lebialem, Belo, Bamenda, Muyenge, Kumba, Ndian, Batibo reveals a complex patchwork corresponding to discrete blocs held by the French Cameroun government, the Ambazonia Self-Defense Council Restoration Forces and armed gangs operating from Nigeria. Biya’s control over some areas in Southern Cameroons is limited to economic loyalty. For example, the French Cameroun government has continued to pay salaries to civil servants, even in areas outside its control. But over time, the Interim Government will make these constituencies become increasingly autonomous: Every Southern Cameroons County flies the Ambazonian flag, operates its own security and takes orders from the Interim Government. Administrative, judicial institutions and educational curricula are still being developed by the exiled government in the USA.

Cardinal Christian Tumi pointed out that the path to Cameroon’s demise was shaped by French intervention in the politics of the country. In the Northern Zone, the Anglophone Minister of Territorial Administration, Paul Atanga Nji and his partners have created armed groups and though small, the North West area is now buzzing with French Cameroun-funded killer squads. The precise objectives of this Minister Atanga Nji operation in the North West remain unclear.

In the South West, self-defense forces loyal to the Interim Government are exercising their influence over the Cameroon army and attacks against government forces are rampant. To be sure, Biya regime forces are extremely vulnerable and the area remains self-governing and resistant to Yaoundé authority.

It is important to stress that separation is an outcome almost every Southern Cameroonian wants including those in the Diaspora. However, the international community continues to insist on Cameroon’s unity and territorial integrity. After two years of war, the vast majority of Ambazonians are comfortable with inclusive dialogue precisely on the grounds that it would be a step towards separation.

Deep within the French Cameroun army, the fight is no longer over Southern Cameroons as a whole, but about making as much money as possible preparing for a new government after the CPDM.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

17, May 2018

Trump says some illegal immigrants are ‘animals ⁰

US President Donald Trump says some of the undocumented immigrants who have crossed the border into America are “animals” and need to be deported.

“We have people coming into the country, or trying to come in — we’re stopping a lot of them,” Trump told a round-table discussion about California’s sanctuary laws on Wednesday.

“You wouldn’t believe how bad these people are. These aren’t people, these are animals, and we’re taking them out of the country at a level and at a rate that’s never happened before,” he said.

Trump made the remarks when asked about his administration’s plans to keep out undesirable immigrants, including members of international criminal gangs like MS-13.

The Republican president, who has shown little tolerance for illegal immigration since taking office in January last year, used the meeting with state and local officials to criticize America’s immigration laws, calling them “the dumbest laws on immigration in the world.”

The Trump administration is taking legal action to invalidate sanctuary laws, which limit communication between local law enforcement and federal immigration officers.

Officials partaking in the meeting complained to the president that state laws were making it more difficult for their communities to find and deport criminals.

Trump blamed Republicans for passing “bad laws.” He also took a jab at Mexico, which is bordered to the north by the United States, for “doing nothing” to stop illegal immigration.

Trump’s remarks and his criticism of California prompted a fiery response from the state’s Democratic governor, Jerry Brown.

“Trump is lying on immigration, lying about crime and lying about the laws of California,” Brown said in a statement. “Flying in a dozen Republican politicians to flatter him and praise his reckless policies changes nothing. We, the citizens of the fifth-largest economy in the world, are not impressed.”

Trump has promised to build a wall on the border with Mexico to stop migrant flow into the US. He has also warned so-called “sanctuary cities” to either do away with lax immigration laws or have their federal funding cut.

Source: Presstv

16, May 2018

Southern Cameroons War: The Focolare Movement is leaving Lebialem County ⁰

The foundation on which Lebialem is built has collapsed, and the possibility of rebuilding maybe smaller than a mere discussions. A decision to shut-down Mary Health African of Hospital Fontem – Lebialem was reached yesterday.

The selfless people – the Focolare Movement, whose only mission is “Love and Unity” and who indisputably own the recognition, and from whom no one can take away that “Honor” for building the Lebialem from scratch to its current image, are leaving.

After a lengthy meeting lasting many hours of evaluating the current circumstances of a war on citizens; they searched through pages, and their-52-year history in the area; “life and death,’ then, a tearfully decision – leave.

One of their many challenges laminated at the meeting, many of the medications come in from outside the country, especially Europe, but now they are limited to, not merely the inability to bring in medication from Europe, but also dealing with ruthless uneducated warring soldiers, who do not understand the work of the gentle people.

In really war times, Hospitals – a place where the dying, the wounded and the sick come, are guarded and protected from any attack, but just over two weeks ago, an employee a member of their 80-persons strong-staff was seized, tortured to death. The hospital called for a day of mourning from all other hospitals across Cameroon. No report here on the response; but the torture and killing of this employee, criss-cross the floor of discussion.

Today, the hospital lies flat, eight patients in total, in a 120 beds inpatient hospital, doctors and nurses take cover on a minute by minute base; and they are words of uncontrollable weeping, and wailing yesterday when this news of the Focolare’s departure broke.

Neither the War-President-in-Chief, nor anyone in that country knows what it takes to bring-in one of the members of the Focolare, or one of the doctors, or one of the nurses, from around the world to settle in that area. And no one has the slightest ideas of the extensive medical service these people provide to the entire area, off course, this is why no one cares about whoever dies.

Source: LECDA Yahoo Group

16, May 2018

War in Southern Cameroons: Joseph Beti Assomo’s investigation will go nowhere ⁰

The Francophone Minister for Defense, Joseph Beti Assomo was forced to inform local and international public opinion of the creation of a commission of inquiry into the brutal killing of a Southern Cameroonian which French Cameroun army soldiers claimed was a leader of an armed group in the Northern Zone. The Francophone dominated Cameroon army admitted its troops had meted out inhumane treatment to a suspected separatist arrested in the North West region of the country.

According to Mr. Joseph Beti Assomo, gendarmes deployed to the Northern Zone to fight the so called separatists had “mistreated and tied up” an alleged separatist leader during his arrest on Saturday. A viral social media video showed French Cameroun forces having tied the suspects’ hands behind him. The suspect who was lying on his belly in muddy conditions is kicked and his head is stamped upon by some of the gendarmes and a Francophone police officer.

Out of shame and embarrassment, the operations manager of the French Cameroun war machinery, Joseph Beti Assomo opined that the gendarmes were “clearly out of the norms and legal techniques in such circumstances.” The Biya Francophone regime announced to the world that an investigation has been opened to identify (and) where appropriate sanction the perpetrators of these acts contrary to respect for human rights.

Joseph Beti Assomo told a lie that the Southern Cameroonian was nicknamed “general” and was a separatist leader who was arrested on Saturday. Assomo further pointed out that the innocent Southern Cameroonian was actively sought for several weeks for his involvement in acts of violence against the population and (in) the killing of the personnel of defense and security forces.

If you have been following the war in Southern Cameroons, you will know Mr. Joseph Beti Assomo who said that French Cameroun soldiers would implement President Biya’s war decision without batting an eyelid. He is now seeking a longer timeframe to submit a fake report to the international community on the numerous atrocities committed by French Cameroun army soldiers in Southern Cameroons. But for social media, there won’t be any French Cameroun investigation. What genius set that investigation?

Legal obstacles

All military judges and army and gendarmerie commanders are from President Paul Biya’s Beti Ewondo tribe whose main goal is to keep Biya and his tribal setting in power and plunder Southern Cameroons wealth. The Yaoundé government will not allocate any resources required to pursue this investigation as they have done in the past with the Lake Nyos Gas disaster, the Nsam Fire Disaster, the Mbanga-Pongo Plane Crash and the Eseka train disaster including the murder of Bishop Balla.

Biya and members of his Francophone CPDM crime syndicate are struggling to give the impression that there is indeed a responsible government in Yaoundé. Mr. Beti Assomo has never been in a position to comment on the genocide going in Southern Cameroons. But with Communications Minister Issa Tchiroma Bakary anticipating the end of the Biya regime, Assomo is now in the spot light.

The investigation was made public to take the political heat off the Biya Francophone Beti Ewondo Government in reaction to shocking revelations made recently by the United Nations. The Biya regime with help from the French have kept the UN silent for too long. As part of the transaction, UN Secretary General received a golden statue from President Biya worth millions of US dollars.

We also know that the French embassy in Abuja, Nigeria is bankrolling the arrest of Southern Cameroonians in the Federal Republic of Nigeria by the Buhari regime. Southern Cameroons has since become a “commercial success” for the French as they now have control of the CDC-the biggest Agro-Industrial Plant in West Africa and the oil and gas fields in the Bakassi Peninsula. This feeds the narrative that Southern Cameroonians are strangers in their ancestral land. The Joseph Beti Assomo investigation will go nowhere.

By Sessekou Asu Isong, London