Monthly Archives: August 2018

Former Ghanaian Head of State says France, Biya Cannot Escape Blame For Southern Cameroons Atrocities

17, August 2018

Former Ghanaian Head of State says France, Biya Cannot Escape Blame For Southern Cameroons Atrocities 0

Jerry Rawlings, Former Ghanaian Head of State and President of Ghana, has described the violence in Cameroon as a “horrible situation” and stated that France and Cameroonian leader Paul Biya cannot escape blame for the atrocities in the Anglophone half.

Rawlings made the condemnation while receiving members of the TakeItBack movement led by Omoyele Sowore, a presidential aspirant in the forthcoming elections in Nigeria, at his office in Ridge, Accra, Ghana.

He expressed worry that the situaton in Cameroon hasn’t been receiving consistent media attention because of the interest of some powerful western powers in the country’s resources.

Giving an eyewitness account of the happenings in Cameroon, Togolese Activist, Farida Nabourema, who is part of the TakeItBack team and was recently in Cameroon, said: “The week I was there, they actually shot four young men. We were going into town and a woman stopped us where there were four corpses of Anglophone Cameroonians.

She said the four were killed in an extra-judicial manner.

She added that the family later confirmed that one corpse was deposited at the hospital, while others were taken away by the military. She also spoke of widespread burning of villages, which she described as ethnic cleansing.

Sowore, who is an activist, called for an end to the bloodshed in Anglophone Cameroon, noting that every African life deserves to be protected.

He also called on the international community to look into events in Cameroon for the sake of posterity.

Culled from Sahara Reporters


Is Donald Trump right about modern journalism?

17, August 2018

Is Donald Trump right about modern journalism? 0

Is Donald Trump right about modern journalism? (Certainly for all the wrong reasons)

They cause war? Absolutely.

Division and mistrust? Can that be denied?

The one thing all must understand about Donald Trump is that everything he does is based on how it affects him personally. At his rallies he still talks about the enormous crowd sizes and the love that jumps right out to him all the time. All the people he has attacked personally said or did something that offended him. Not America. Not the Constitution. Not the security of the US but him personally and directly. We see the latest with Trump going off on Amarosa Manigault by using misogynistic and racist language because her new book exposes the dirty inside of the Trump White House.

His relations with world leaders seems to be one-on-one, mano-a-mano, tête-à-tête, but usually one sided. He thinks he has a personal relationship with many world leaders that he can just pick up the telephone and call, regardless of time of day, or night, and expect a friendly ‘Good day to you, Mr. President.’ Most leaders are smart enough to amuse him but he’s just showing himself to the world to be the buffoon we all know he is here in the US.

His relations with world leaders, with the American people, and who knows, maybe space aliens his new space cadets will find, all focus on him directly. This is where the media comes in. Like voyeurs inching down a highway to see a crash, the media loves blood and gore, scandal, catching politicians in lies, and messed up military operations. ‘If it bleeds, it leads.’ This is a journalistic mantra that President Trump cannot understand. Thinking that he is the best of everything, has the best mind, all the solutions, why do the press attack him so much when he falters, which of course, in his mind, he never does? In part, President Trump is a gold mine for them. How many careers are being launched today just in covering Trump? How does the son of a former NY governor, or the heir of the Vanderbilt dynasty, or a McCarthyite ‘liberal’ lawyer get to have so much air time if it wasn’t for the Donald presenting himself to them as they salivate over every tweet that comes out of the White House?

President Trump calls the media ‘fake news’ because they report on him, the president, and not in a good light. And some, like CNN and MSNBC, are so fixated on him and his failings that it’s 24/7 Russia, Russia, Russia, and every tweet and insult gets reported. This, to him, is ‘fake’ news. However, another characteristic of fake news is not reporting the news, mis-reporting it, and misinforming or misleading people about what’s really happening.

For weeks on end, Israel has been killing innocent protesters in their March of Return. Killing journalists, medics, children, amputees, people running away, people empty handed. Not a word from CNN, especially in the initial slaughter. That is fake news.

American Indians and supporters were hosed with freezing water in freezing weather, shot at, dogs let loose on them, as they were protesting the Dakota Access Pipeline. Barely a word. Fake news.

Child poverty in America grew at alarming rates under Obama. No mention of it.

The alleged hacks of the DNC is a given to the main stream. But no main stream media would interview William Binney, Ray McGovern or Julian Assange, all with pertinent knowledge that would refute the narrative. That is fake news.

President Trump is right about calling the media fake news, but for all the wrong reasons. To him, it’s fake because he’s their target. But it is fake because it manipulates public opinion, not just against him, but to further narratives that their corporate sponsors demand.

Culled from Presstv


Tanzania to arrest entire village over broken water pipe

17, August 2018

Tanzania to arrest entire village over broken water pipe 0

Tanzanian police said Thursday it planned to arrest all the residents of a village in the country’s south after water pipes were destroyed by a mob.

The inhabitants of Ngolo village were accused of deliberately smashing pipes taking water to a neighboring settlement in Mbeya region.

Governor Albert Chalamila had on Wednesday, “ordered that all the inhabitants of this village be arrested regardless of their condition.”

In response, police on Thursday deployed several vehicles and officers to arrest the villagers, said regional commander Ulrich Matei.

“They committed economic sabotage. The government has disbursed money, installed water pipes and they destroyed them! We cannot accept that,” Matie said.

The police chief added that he had sent “enough vehicles, with enough fuel and police on board” to arrest the villagers.

Details about the incident remain sketchy, but the village, whose population is around 1,600, lies in an area where water resources are sketchy.

(Source: AFP)


US clergy sex abuse revelation fuels push to reform sexual assault laws

16, August 2018

US clergy sex abuse revelation fuels push to reform sexual assault laws 0

The latest revelation of widespread child sexual abuse by US Catholic clergy has given impetus to efforts by legislators, including a Pennsylvania lawmaker who has said he was raped by a priest as a child, to make it easier to prosecute such cases.

Pennsylvania State Representative Mark Rozzi, 47, said he has fought for years to give people who say they were sexually assaulted as children more time to report such crimes to police in Pennsylvania, one of 14 US states considering bills to extend the statute of limitations for such offenses.

“We’re going to get what the victims want,” Rozzi said in a telephone interview on Wednesday, a day after a grand jury found that about 300 priests had sexually abused about 1,000 children over the past 70 years in Pennsylvania.

“You either support victims or you support pedophiles,” Rozzi said.

The grand jury report was the latest revelation in a scandal that has rocked the Catholic Church since the Boston Globe in 2002 reported that priests had preyed on young boys and girls and that church leaders had covered it up.

Similar reports have emerged in Europe, Australia and Chile, prompting lawsuits, sending dioceses into bankruptcy and undercutting the moral authority of the leadership of the Church, which has some 1.2 billion members around the world.

A statute of limitations is a law requiring that prosecutors bring a criminal case within a certain time frame. The advocacy group Child USA said such statutes can block justice as children may not realize they were victims of sex crimes for decades.

Amy Hill, a spokeswoman for the Pennsylvania Catholic Conference, the bishops’ political arm in the state, declined on Wednesday to say whether bishops supported or opposed eliminating statutes of limitations.

“The time to discuss legislation will come later,” she said. “Our focus now is on improving ways that survivors and their families can recover.”

In the past, the group had spoken out against the idea. The national bishops’ conference did not respond to a request for comment.

Some 41 states have eliminated statutes of limitations for criminally prosecuting child sex abuse. Earlier this year, Michigan and Hawaii passed laws giving victims more time to report sexual assaults on children.

Pennsylvania was one of the first US states to raise the age for reporting child sexual abuse. In 2002 it lifted the age to 30 from 23 and five years later raised it to age 50.

State legislators are ready to take up Rozzi’s bill eliminating the limit, said Steve Miskin, a spokesman for House Majority Leader Representative Dave Reed. “It’s definitely something that he’s looking to bring up sooner than later,” Miskin said.

Tuesday’s report could help push through bills in states from California to New Hampshire that would relax the limits for criminal or civil action on sexual assaults on children, said Marci Hamilton, chief executive of the advocacy group Child USA.

Sexual abuse of children extends far beyond the Catholic Church, with teachers and sports coaches also facing accusations.

Given that child abusers in positions of power can continue to assault children for decades, making it easier to prosecute them could prevent future abuse if abusers are imprisoned or lose their positions, Hamilton said in a telephone interview.

“What we want to do is to find out who the hidden child predators are,” said Hamilton, who is also a professor of religion and law at the University of Pennsylvania.

Costs related to such cases have taken a heavy toll on church coffers, reaching nearly $600 million since July 2013, according to a May report by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops.

US church leaders have said that they have implemented extensive new measures to prevent the sexual abuse of children by clergy.

(Source: Reuters)


Southern Cameroons Crisis: More bad news in the offing

16, August 2018

Southern Cameroons Crisis: More bad news in the offing 0

It never rains, but it pours. Cameroonians and Cameroon are in for tough times. The country’s future is gradually heading to the rocks. The monarch’s health is fast deteriorating and this does not augur well for a country that is already mired in political and military chaos that is tearing the people apart.

On Tuesday, the very first results from tests carried out on Mr. Biya clearly indicated that the “monarch” had a health crisis on his hands. A Cameroon Intelligence Report source in Switzerland has hinted that the situation is concerning and from every indication, the monarch has not got much time left. The source added that the trip to Switzerland was prompted by the fact that his health condition was already becoming an issue to his close collaborators.

Many of Mr. Biya’s collaborators fear that he might not be able to take the heat that comes with a strenuous exercise like an election campaign. The people around him are concerned and are working round the clock to ensure nothing filters out.

But bad news always travels very fast. Like lies, bad news loves flying and news of Mr. Biya’s poor and declining health is on many lips at the Unity Palace where many fear he might not make it this time around. His party members, especially those of the Central Committee, are working hard behind the scenes to ensure that if the inevitable happens, they will be able to have a candidate that will unite the party and win the upcoming presidential election.

Cameroon Intelligence Report has been reliably informed that the ruling party’s ailing secretary general, Jean Nkuete, has been worried over the last few days. While putting a brave face in public, the secretary-general who has been scarred by vitiligo, has been displaying some signs of frustration and anger. He has been Mr. Biya’s major pawn in their game to keep power for decades. But with the monarch’s health failing, Mr. Nkuete knows that the young hawks in the government might elbow him out of the corridors of power.

Ruling party stalwarts know that there is bad news in the offing. Their party has not endeared itself to the people of Cameroon. Its mismanagement of the economy has hurt many Cameroonians and this is no good news for a party that is looking forward to re-election. Although the ruling CPDM has never really won an election, it is scared that with millions of voters clearly displaying their frustration with the party, their rigging machinery may not deliver the results they expect.

The fear within the ruling party is huge. The Southern Cameroons crisis that has put the country in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons has hurt the ruling party in a big way. The ruling party has clearly mismanaged a protest, giving it a chance to grow into a full blown civil war.

A member of the ruling CPDM has aptly captured the mood in the country and party. In a secret interview with the Cameroon Intelligence Report correspondent in Yaounde, the party stalwart, who elected to be anonymous, said the country could spiral out of country if care was not taken. He took a swipe at the president whom, he said, behaved as if nothing was happening in the country. He chided his colleagues in parliament and senate who had done everything possible to ensure that the Southern Cameroons crisis did not get discussed in both houses.  

The member of the party’s central committee hinted Cameroon Intelligence Report that the party was gradually falling apart just as Mr. Biya himself who is gradually yielding to a failing heart and a distended prostrate. The party needs to carry out some fundamental changes, he said, adding that the country itself needed an extreme makeover. A sea change in economic policies will enable the crumbling economy to once more find its feet, he said.

“Our party which many erroneously think it is a great party is coming apart. The internal succession battles are ripping the party apart. With Mr. Biya’s health going south, it is clear that his days are numbered. He has been the one holding the party together and now that many party members suspect his health is failing him, they think that someone else should replace him so that the party can have a fair chance at the upcoming presidential election. Mr. Biya seems to wield a lot of power both within the party and the country, but honestly, he is not the person running the show. The country is in very unsafe hands and those who have warmed their way into Mr. Biya’s heart are clearly mismanaging things,” the desperate CPDM Central Committee Member said.

He added that “what our country is going through today in the two English-speaking regions of the country clearly offer us a manual on how best to mismanage a problem. We have already lost more than 2,000 young men and women, including our uniformed officers who should have not been sent to the English-speaking regions in the first place. We of the ruling party must learn how to listen to our people if we have to endear ourselves to the population.”

He also added that “I will never say this in public, but I think the arrogance that has become the hallmark of my party is due to the fact that we have always rigged elections. If the people actually had to decide on who has to win elections, I think my fellow party members will learn how to be humble. Arrogance and greed are suffocating our country and the ruling party. Some people think the country belongs to them and anybody who holds a contrary view is immediately branded a terrorist. That is not how to run a country and a party. We have only succeeded to transform Cameroonians into our enemies and this gives the opposition parties a clear advantage.”

Cameroon, he underscored, was headed in the wrong direction. “We cannot continue to slaughter each other and the president is behaving as if nothing is happening. He has lost total control of how to address this huge fire that he ignited when he declared war on Southern Cameroonians. From every indication, it is clear that the government has not got a plan to put an end to this crisis. The soldiers are all trembling and the fighters on the ground have succeeded to intimidate everybody. Many of my colleagues who are either senators or parliamentarians are all scared of going to their constituencies. They know what awaits them out there. They have been working with the corrupt government to rob the people of their happiness and the time of reckoning has come. None of them can really stand up to the people’s scrutiny.”

“We all are scared. The country is gradually imploding and if we are not careful, we may go the way of many of our neighbors. I am not from Southern Cameroons or Ambazonia, but the pain and suffering the crisis in that region is spinning into the French-speaking part of the country is a great concern even to the president. With huge crowds moving into East Cameroon, it is clear that the Amba boys or whatever they are called, could use that opportunity to set up shop in many of our big cities. This is no good news for many of us who really want a peaceful resolution of this problem.”

“The fear is all the more unbearable when we see those videos of people being shot and killed at point blank in the country’s northern region. What will northerners be thinking of the country’s military which is predominantly Beti? The international community has clearly lost faith in us. Human rights groups such as Amnesty International are working hard to expose our government’s brutality and lack of respect for human life. I am indeed at a loss for words. The evil I see in our country leaves me awake all night. We cannot continue to pretend as if we are not human beings. If we cannot deal with the situation, then we should let the United Nations to come in and put an end to the needless killings that are giving our country a very bad name,” he regretted.

In his view, while Cameroon is falling apart, the country’s president is in Geneva, Switzerland, in search of proper medical attention for his failing heart and prostrate. He stressed that the 85-year-old monarch, who had presided over his country’s destiny for almost 36 years, had been dealing with a failing health for more than ten years and his country of choice when it comes to treatment is Switzerland.

“The president is suffering. His health is a serious issue to his collaborators and many fear that he might not make it to the end of the year. He is suffering from shortness of breath and he can barely stand and walk. His wife and children are all in fear, as the 85-year-old has been spotting a sorrowful and lonely figure. There is bad news on the horizon. The fear is that if the president disappears from the scene, there could be some chaos in the country. For now, there is a lot of confusion and many of his collaborators have already begun jockeying for recognition as the next-of-kin even when the constitution is clear about what will happen in the event of a vacancy,” our source said.

He chided the president for having not built a state-of-the-art medical facility in his country. He said the president was more interested in his own wellbeing instead of working for every Cameroonian to feel safe at home.

“What does he think other Cameroonians are saying about him? Each time he is sick, he heads abroad for treatment. What if other leaders had not developed their own medical facilities? He behaves as if he is a special being. We are all human and it is wrong for him to be misusing state funds for his health. Cameroon deserves better. We have the human resources and our financial resources can grant us even the best medical facility in the world. We have a leadership crisis and Mr. Biya has clearly demonstrated that the fate of his compatriots is not important to him. How many women still die in our country while giving birth? How many children die even before attaining five years? We need new leadership in this country. We need people who can reverse some of the destruction the current government has wreaked on our people. You may not believe me. The CPDM has people with great vision, but they are hardly ever given a chance to display what they are capable of doing. Once this group of people leave power, you will see a new CPDM,” he said.

But it is not only the political front that bears bad news for Cameroonians. The country’s economy is in a total mess. Major rating agencies of the world have just delivered bad news to Cameroonians. Their government is no longer credit-worthy and any loans delivered to the country, will come with a huge price tag.

Currently, Standard & Poor’s credit rating for Cameroon stands at B with a stable outlook. Moody’s for its part, rates the Central African country at B2 with a negative outlook. Fitch’s credit rating for Cameroon was last reported at B with stable outlook. Generally, a credit rating is used by sovereign wealth funds, pension funds and other investors to gauge the credit worthiness of a country like Cameroon. The lasting ratings thus have a huge impact on the country’s borrowing costs.

The ratings by these agencies is indeed a big punch to the country’s liver. Receiving a downgrade from Moody’s is the worst thing that can be happening at this time to a struggling country like Cameroon.  The change from stable to negative is a clear indication that the country’s economic indicators are trending very low.

A downgrade simply implies that credit rating agencies no longer have confidence in Cameroon’s financial future and its ability to continue servicing its debts. In other words, Cameroon’s default risk on its debts is getting higher by the day and even more worrying for Yaounde is Moody’s reason for such a negative rating.

According to Moody’s, persistent political instability (the Southern Cameroons Crisis) in the country is a major worrying factor. In the agency’s view, there is heightened uncertainty. Credit ratings are like red flags to potential lenders. They give an idea to lenders on a country’s ability to pay back its debt. This implies that the lower the country’s credit rating, the less likely that institutions will be willing to lend money to such a country.

It should be recalled that as Southern Cameroonians threaten to walk away from their ‘political marriage’ with East Cameroon, this is sowing uncertainty in the minds of many potential investors, especially those who have a huge interest in the country’s oil and gas sectors.

If Southern Cameroonians succeed to walk away, then Cameroon will be losing about 60% of its wealth. Southern Cameroons is blessed with enormous wealth and the Yaounde government holds that it is by terrorizing Southern Cameroonians that it will succeed to keep them under control and in ignorance of what is happening to their resources.

It should also be noted that for almost 50 years, the Rio Del Rey estuary in the South West region of Cameroon has been the source of more than 90% and at times 100% of all the country’s hydrocarbons, specifically oil. Since 2014, Cameroon has exported more than US$5.88 billion worth of products, of which more than US$2.65 billion, about CFAF 1,650 billion, has been from crude oil alone. This is a significant amount of money and the Yaounde government cannot afford to lose such revenues.

The government is scared, especially as the possibility of a secession is there. All its efforts to lay the matter to rest have been futile. Its divide-and-rule strategy has simply fallen apart as North westerners and South westerners clearly understand that they are united for a purpose that will bring them happiness and prosperity. Not even the government’s military violence has succeeded to take the wind out of the fighters’ sail. The more the government kills, the more determined the fighters become.

And the chaos that is playing out in the two English-speaking regions of Cameroon has given Moody’s more fodder for its cannon. Rating agencies have always called the Yaounde government to reason. The government’s legendary mismanagement has been a cause for concern for this rating agencies and international development finance institutions which have always urged Yaounde to be more transparent in the management of its oil revenue.

Cameroon is in for rough times both politically and economically. As the health of the country’s president continues to become a huge concern, many investors will be holding off on their plans to invest. The situation has been complicated by the bad news from Moody’s. Cameroon is not credit-worthy. That is the message from the rating agency and investors have to beware of a country that is incapable of improving its political and economic environment.

The government is not reliable and it lacks the means to put out an insurgency that started like a simple protest. The chaos in the country’s English-speaking regions and Boko Haram’s relentless bombing of ordinary citizens in the country’s northern part, are not giving Cameroon a good name. Investors love peace, but Cameroon is only capable of delivering chaos. Investors will therefore not be putting their money in a place rating agencies now consider as a black hole. Cameroonians have to take their government to task if things have to change. If things continue the way they are, then the country is heading for a possible political and economic implosion.

 By Kingsley Betek


Ambazonia Interim Government says killing of medics in Southern Cameroons ‘disgrace to Biya and President Macron

16, August 2018

Ambazonia Interim Government says killing of medics in Southern Cameroons ‘disgrace to Biya and President Macron 0

The Interim Government of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia says a recent deadly attack by French Cameroun government forces on the town of Mbengui in the Northern Zone, which massacred two nurses and 14 other innocent civilians, is a disgrace to the Biya Francophone regime and the French government, the main sponsor and arms supplier to French Cameroun.

The Ambazonian Department of Health issued the declaration as hundreds of medics in the Northern Zone came out in their numbers on Wednesday to pay their last respects to their colleagues who were shot at the weekend by soldiers loyal to the regime in Yaounde. Cameroon Concord News Group understands  Nancy Azah and her husband, Njong Paddisco ran two separate clinics in Mbengwi.

Several senior political commentators have criticized the African Union and the United Nations for inaction on the Biya regime’s policy of killing innocent Southern Cameroons citizens. In a broadcast to Ambazonians recently, Communications Secretary, Hon. Chris Anu said, Southern Cameroons interim government does not pin its hopes on the UN or the AU for any effort towards ending the genocidal campaign going on in Southern Cameroons, but rather relies on its own restoration forces and other freedom-seeking people to that end.

Over 2,000 people have been killed and 170 villages burned in English-speaking regions of Cameroon. Violence has escalated in Cameroon’s Anglophone regions in the last 18 months, with reports of French-speaking state forces launching a string of random attacks, kidnappings, and rapes against English-speaking residents and their villages.

After English-speaking residents in the Northwest and Southwest regions protested in October 2016 demanding autonomy because they feel underrepresented in the government, violence in those communities escalated throughout 2017.

Last month, the United Nations expressed concern that the violence against those communities has only “worsened considerably” since 2017 as there have been multiple reports of detention, torture, burning down of homes and excessive use of force by state forces.

Over the past weeks, several European and North American cities have been witnessing Ambazonian protests against the Biya Francophone regime and its French government partners deep within the UN and AU structures. Ambazonian protesters in Canada recently also called on the international community to punish the regime in Yaounde for its crimes against Southern Cameroons civilians.

In a relevant development, the Interim Government of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia has summoned all Southern Cameroons resistance groups to Washington DC for a unity meeting.

By Rita Akana in Bamenda


Southern Cameroons Crisis: All the times the Mayor of Mamfe has contradicted his own arguments

16, August 2018

Southern Cameroons Crisis: All the times the Mayor of Mamfe has contradicted his own arguments 0

John Ayuk Takunchong, the CPDM mayor of the Mamfe municipality has called on Manyus to stand behind the one and indivisible Cameroon idea blaming the Southern Cameroons Diaspora for the war currently going in the Federal Republic of Ambazonia.

The Chief Tabetando acolyte warned that any attempt to frustrate the union with French Cameroun or leave the Republic of Cameroon would be a “betrayal” of the role played by the Cameroon army in defending the Bakassi Peninsular.

However, what is not well known is that until he decided to join the CPDM crime syndicate, Takunchong took the polar opposite position against the Biya Francophone regime in Yaoundé. Far from being a committed hard one and indivisible Cameroon campaigner, the mayor of Mamfe actually had a long record as a popular Southern Cameroons footballer of arguing for Southern Cameroons to sever ties with French Cameroun.

Here are some of the times that the mayor of Mamfe has fundamentally contradicted his own arguments vis-à-vis Southern Cameroons relationship with French Cameroun.

“I was never given a chance with the Indomitable Lions because I do not speak French”

Takunchong today is saying that our union with French Cameroun remains the best thing that ever happened. However, this was very far from his position before the Southern Cameroons revolution.

“I would vote to move away from these Francophones. I’m in favour of the creation of a state for Anglophones. I want us to be able to build our own national football team where players are selected because of their skills and not because they live in Douala and Yaoundé and can speak French.”

“The army camp in Besongabang has done more harm than good to my people”

Takunchong today delivered his support for the Cameroon government army stating that many Francophone soldiers died defending the Bakassi Peninsular.  However, this is a long way from Takunchong’s previous position on the Cameroon military.

“I am not by any means happy with these Francophone soldiers in Besongabang. They have killed many of our young people and there hasn’t been any strong condemnation from Minister Agbor Tabi or Hon. Rose Abunaw,” Takunchong told an audience in early 2000 when troops went on a rampage in his native Besongabang and killed many young men and women. Many Besongabang citizens fled to Nigeria and nothing has been heard of them till this day.

The most Anti French Cameroun mayor in Southern Cameroons

Takunchong today is claiming that Southern Cameroonians need to send their children to school and that the Biya Francophone regime has done all what it can to provide quality education for Southern Cameroons kids.

However, during the period when Takunchong could not study in the University of Yaoundé due to his lack of mastery of the French language, he toured the nooks and crannies of Bonamousadi and Cradat condemning the fathers of reunification.

By Eyong Johnson Agbor in Buea


Kenya: President Uhuru’s War on Corruption: Lasting Legacy or Political Theater?

16, August 2018

Kenya: President Uhuru’s War on Corruption: Lasting Legacy or Political Theater? 0

Two top-ranking officials in Kenya were charged with corruption this week in a $3 billion Chinese-built railway project, as part of President Uhuru Kenyatta’s efforts to show no official is out of reach in the war on graft. However, some analysts question if the charges will lead to convictions or if they are simply political theater.

Kenya Railways’ managing director Atanas Maina and Lands Commission chairman Muhammad Swazuri are accused of overseeing $2 million in fraudulent compensation payments. More than a dozen other Kenyan officials and business people are also facing charges related to the illegal buying and selling of the state corporation’s land.

FILE - Kenya Railways attendants prepare to receive a train launched to operate on Standard Gauge Railway line constructed by the China Road and Bridge Corporation (CRBC) and financed by Chinese government as it arrives at the Nairobi Terminus.
FILE – Kenya Railways attendants prepare to receive a train launched to operate on Standard Gauge Railway line constructed by the China Road and Bridge Corporation (CRBC) and financed by Chinese government as it arrives at the Nairobi Terminus.

 

While the accused deny the charges, the arrests were hailed in Kenya as a rare crackdown on top-level corruption.

However, political analyst Linda Oloo says the prosecutions are less about systemic change and more about Kenyatta.

“Uhuru [Kenyatta] is more concerned about his legacy [and] how will history judge him after his presidency, so that is why he is trying to play the good-man syndrome right now, by doing things that will appeal to the general public. What he is doing is mostly for his image after office,” Oloo said.

In June, Kenyatta announced that all public servants would undergo a compulsory “lifestyle audit” to account for the sources of their income and assets.

Some argue it’s not all political theater.

Kenyatta and Swiss President Alain Berset signed an agreement aimed at helping Kenya recover corrupt assets stashed by Kenyan officials in Swiss banks.

FILE - Swiss President Alain Berset, right, speaks with his Kenyan counterpart President Uhuru Kenyatta during a joint press conference at the State House in Nairobi, July 9, 2018.
FILE – Swiss President Alain Berset, right, speaks with his Kenyan counterpart President Uhuru Kenyatta during a joint press conference at the State House in Nairobi, July 9, 2018.

 

In addition, Kenyatta’s director of public prosecutions has arrested top officials at Kenya’s National Youth Service, electric power provider, and more than a dozen firms accused of benefiting from illegal tenders and misappropriated funds.

And Kenyatta on Sunday declared his determination to win the war on graft, even if he has to go after his close associates.

“Over the last few weeks, I have lost many friends,” Kenyatta said. “Many have called me asking, ‘How can you be watching when all the destruction is going on?’ I say a time has come to fight impunity.”

Opposition leader Raila Odinga last year accused the president of diverting the railway to benefit the Kenyatta family. Odinga ceased his criticism in April after making a deal with Kenyatta to work together.

In June, a Kenyan lawmaker linked Kenyatta’s younger brother, Muhoho, to the importation of contraband sugar. In response, President Kenyatta said that if there is evidence, then his brother should be investigated and prosecuted.

But going after a sitting president’s family is unlikely in Kenya, and the National Land Accord Movement’s David Kimanzi doubts top officials will be among those punished.

“There has not been a single conviction of a person who has looted the public coffers. Every person now is looking for how it is going to be their turn to eat,” Kimanzi said.

Despite this week’s high-level arrests, there are still officials who are untouchable, according to Kimanzi. If you touch them, he says, you touch the very core of the government.

Culled from the VOA


22 children die in boat sinking on Nile River in Sudan

15, August 2018

22 children die in boat sinking on Nile River in Sudan 0

A boat carrying more than 40 pupils has sunk while crossing the Nile River in Sudan, leaving at least 22 primary school children dead.

The state news agency SUNA reported that the small boat went down around 750 kilometers (470 miles) north of the capital Khartoum on Wednesday morning while it was crossing the river to a school in the village of Kabna.

A female hospital employee in the village also drowned.

“This morning, 22 schoolchildren and one woman died when their boat sank in Bouhayra in Nile State as they traveled to school from Kneissa,” the agency said.

SUNA added that the boat sank after one of its engines broke down “halfway across because of a strong current.”

A witness, who asked not to be named, said that the vessel had been crossing the river against the current, adding, “All the families (in the area) are in mourning.”

The small boat was reportedly overloaded, carrying sweet potatoes and grain in addition to the passengers.

According to the agency, the victims’ bodies have not yet been recovered.

Ibrahim Hassan, another witness, said at least nine children survived the ordeal.

Residents of the region rely on wooden boats to cross the Nile, which is an important transport route for people and goods in the country.

Monsoon rains in Sudan regularly last from June to November and cause the Nile, one of the world’s longest rivers, and its tributaries to overflow.

Source: Presstv


Nigerian soldiers protest as Boko Haram attacks surge

15, August 2018

Nigerian soldiers protest as Boko Haram attacks surge 0

Disillusioned and exhausted, Nigerian troops battling a surge in Boko Haram jihadist attacks have reached breaking point, protesting less than six months before presidential polls.

The Nigerian army dismissed it as a “misunderstanding”, but on Sunday hundreds of soldiers protested in the airport of Maiduguri, the capital of restive northeast Borno state, for several hours, shooting into the air and disrupting flights.

They were furious about a planned redeployment to a battlefront in the remote Lake Chad region after fighting Boko Haram jihadists for years without relief.

“We should not have been here for more than a year but this is our fourth year and still they are asking us to move to Marte,” one of the protesting soldiers told AFP on condition of anonymity.

“We need some rest, we are war-weary and need to see our families.”

The protest comes after a wave of bloody assaults on military bases in the northeast, forcing the army to retreat and marking a Boko Haram comeback.

The resurgence of violence has put pressure on Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari, who is seeking a second term in office and maintains that the country is now in a “post-conflict stabilisation phase.”

Experts say that Nigeria hasn’t faced such a serious threat from the jihadists since the peak of the insurgency between 2013 and 2015, when Boko Haram controlled swathes of territory in the country’s northeast.

“There has been a military evolution akin to what we’ve seen in Syria and Iraq,” said security analyst Yan St Pierre to AFP.

“Boko Haram’s quality of attack is higher, the level of preparedness is higher.”

The Nigerian military is overwhelmed by the “catastrophic security situation,” said St Pierre, “they are relying on old tactics no longer applicable in the northeast.”

Desperate to stop the onslaught, Nigeria’s military chief Yusuf Tukur Buratai said that “cowardly” soldiers would be punished by death in a July 27 memo seen by AFP.

Soldiers who “abandon their positions” have the potential to “rubbish all the laudable gains made in the operations in the past 3 years against BHT (Boko Haram terrorists).”

– Relentless attacks –

The attacks are relentless. In less than a month, dozens of soldiers have died, though in the absence of any official death toll from the military, the number is feared to be much higher.

Boko Haram has traditionally launched attacks during Nigeria’s rainy season between June and September when roads become water-logged, making it difficult for troops to do patrols.

The more mobile jihadists seize the opportunity to restock their arsenal of weapons from war-torn Libya and Mali through Nigeria’s porous borders.

Sanda Kime, who is part of the militia force fighting against Boko Haram in Lake Chad, said the latest attacks were because of “huge arms supplies” secured by the jihadists.

“They are now better armed which makes them more daring,” said Kime.

The garrison town of Monguno is on high alert after Boko Haram sent out a warning this week that it would attack on August 22 during the Muslim Eid festival, said residents and aid workers.

Similar threats were sent to troops in Askira and Uba towns, security sources said.

On Monday, the United Nations announced the suspension of humanitarian work by its agencies in Monguno from August 19 over security concerns, according to an internal memo seen by AFP.

– Easy hideouts –

Fighters loyal to IS-affiliated Boko Haram factional leader Abu Mus’ab Al-Barnawi are believed to have carried out most of the raids.

The faction is mostly based in the Lake Chad area and in areas south of Maiduguri including Benisheikh and Buni Yadi in nearby Yobe state.

In June, Nigerian fighter jets bombarded Al-Barnawi’s Tumbun Gini enclave in the Lake Chad area, forcing him to flee southwards to a forest near Benisheikh, 80 kilometres south of Maiduguri, according to sources with deep knowledge about the group.

“He moved his operational base to the Benisheikh area from where he planned the attacks on military bases,” said a source who asked not to be named for fear of reprisals.

Al-Barnawi, the son of Boko Haram’s deceased founder Mohammed Yusuf, has found sanctuary in the Lake Chad region, an area fertile in vegetation and fish that is difficult for security forces to penetrate.

“The camps are a reservoir of fighters for the group from where they plan and launch attacks”, said Usman Nalado, a fisherman from the town of Baga on the shore of the lake.

“To end their attacks troops need to smoke them out.”

Source: AFP


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