Monthly Archives: August 2019

27, August 2019

Three die after ferry heading to Cameroon sinks ⁰

At least three people died after a ferry belonging to Cameroon’s shipping company Achouka sank off Cameroon’s Atlantic coast Sunday evening, according to local authorities.

About 200 passengers were on board the ferry, which left neighboring Nigeria and was heading to Tiko wharf in Cameroon’s Southwest region, a Cameroon navy official who preferred not to be named said.

More than 100 people were rescued from the ferry by the navy and about 90 others are still missing, according to officials. Search and rescue efforts continued late Sunday.

It is still unclear what caused the ferry to sink but preliminary investigations showed it encountered rough weather.

Source: Xinhuanet

27, August 2019

Thousands Flee Violence in Southern Cameroons ⁰

Tens of thousands of people have deserted Cameroon’s conflict prone English-speaking regions after a bloody weekend. Fighting between the military and separatists left at least 40 people dead, and a prominent Catholic bishop was abducted. The renewed fighting comes after a military tribunal ordered separatist leaders imprisoned for life. The new violence has dashed hopes that schools would re-open this week, after being closed for three years.

Six hundred people wait at Amour Mezam, a bus terminal in Cameroon’s northwestern town of Bamenda, seeking rides to French-speaking towns. Like other bus companies in this area, the agency here has been overwhelmed with thousands of travelers leaving the English-speaking area over the past week.

Eunice Tanlaka, a 32-year-old, says bus station officials have promised she and her two children will be able to get on the next bus for Yaounde, the capital.

“I have been tired the whole day, the children have been tired, the fatigue is just too much,” said Tanlaka. “Talk less of the transport fare that has been increased. It has not been easy on us, seriously.”

Tanlaka said she is leaving Bamenda because separatist groups ordered businesses closed for at least two weeks, and attacked people who defied their instructions.

23-year-old Elizabeth Mbunwe says she left the English-speaking town of Ndop when a military attack against separatist fighters killed six civilians, including a baby.

“How can you be fighting for someone and then you kill them? The military says they are for the people but then again turn to kill them,” said Mbunwe. “So, it is a whole confusing situation and we do not know who to walk to for help.”

At least eight people, including the Catholic bishop of the Kumbo diocese, George Nkuo, were kidnapped. The bishop was released when priests and hundreds of Catholics started marching to the bush areas where the separatists hide, demanding his freedom. The military says it is hunting for the other kidnapping victims.

Deben Tchoffo, governor of the English-speaking northwest region, says he has deployed troops to protect the population. He urged people not to flee and to assist the government in assuring their own security.

“Within our system of popular defense, I call on everybody, the population, traditional rulers, the administrative authorities, to revamp and remobilize the vigilante groups in the cities, the villages and the remote areas of the region,” said Tchoffo. “We also need the contribution of the population to ease the task of the security forces”

A senior Cameroon military official, who did not wish to be named, warns in a report that visiting the mostly deserted northwestern town of Kumbo he will need military protection.

The recent attacks began after a Yaoundé military tribunal said it had found separatist leader Julius Ayuk Tabe and his nine supporters guilty of secession, terrorism and hostility against the state. The tribunal handed down life prison sentences.

Separatists on social media ordered everyone in Cameroon’s English-speaking western regions to stay home to protest the sentences. They vow that schools will not open in the region until their leader is freed.

Violence erupted in the English-speaking regions in 2016 when teachers and lawyers protested alleged discrimination at the hands of the French-speaking majority.

The government responded with a crackdown that sparked an armed movement for an independent English-speaking state.

Source: VOA

26, August 2019

FECAFOOT suspends professional football league ⁰

The resolution to suspend local football was taken after a meeting at the headquarters of Fecafoot on August 22

The Cameroon Football Federation (Fecafoot) has taken the step to halt the Professional Football League of Cameroon (LFPC) effective immediately due to the “serious and repeated violation of its obligations, as stipulated in Article 14 paragraph 1a of the Statutes Fecafoot, and Article 2 of its own Statutes “.

Fecafoot’s decision was made after their Executive Bureau met on Thursday to deliberate over various issues pertaining to football in the country.

Consequently, league football, originally scheduled to return in early September, has been pushed back to mid-October with another meeting of the federation’s Executive Board slated to be held on September 3.

The major agenda of next month’s meeting will be a review of the situation surrounding Cameroonian football, as well as the resumption of its major leagues, Elite One and Elite Two.

Source: Goal.com

26, August 2019

Cameroon-Nigeria Border: Six Mine-resistant Military Vehicles Intercepted ⁰

No fewer than six mine-resistant military vehicles have been intercepted by a joint security operatives in Konkol, a border community in Maiha Local Government Area of Adamawa State between Nigeria and Cameroon republic.

It is not clear yet if the vehicles were exiting or coming into the country when they were intercepted.

A source in the Nigeria Customs Service, who spoke with Sahara Reporters said, “We have the six mine-resistant equipment at office in Yola.

“It was a joint operation involving our officers, the Department of State Services, army and others.”

Sahara Reporters learnt that the military high command in Abuja had ordered an urgent investigation into the discovery.

Source: Sahara Reporters

26, August 2019

Southern Cameroons Crisis: Prominent kidnapped Catholic bishop released ⁰

A prominent Catholic bishop in Cameroon was released late Saturday after being kidnapped in the country’s volatile English-speaking Northwest region, according to church officials.

“Bishop George Nkuo of Kumbo Diocese has been released by his captors. He is back in the parish and in good health,” the officials said in a statement.

Armed separatists claimed responsibility for kidnapping the bishop, claiming that they “wanted him to pray and bless us.”

The abduction came barely a week after two Catholic priests were kidnapped in the region.

Kidnapping of priests has become widespread in the region since an armed conflict started in 2017.

Cameroon’s Northwest and Southwest regions are English-speaking, while the rest of about 80 percent of the country is French-speaking. Separatists in the two English-speaking regions have been fighting government forces in an effort to establish a separate state.

About 530,000 people have been displaced internally and hundreds killed by the conflict, according to the United Nations.

Source: Xinhuanet

26, August 2019

Life Sentences Against Ambazonia Leaders Will Only Prolong Crisis ⁰

The separatist crisis in Cameroon deepened this week after a military tribunal handed down life sentences to the separatist movement’s leader and nine of his followers. As observers warned that the sentences would make it harder to bring the two-year conflict to an end, separatist militias launched reprisal attacks that killed at least two people and forced dozens more to flee their homes.

The conflict has its roots in concerns within Cameroon’s minority English-speaking population that they have been historically marginalized by the French-speaking majority. A 2016 strike in the Anglophone North-West and South-West regions culminated in a declaration of autonomy in October 2017. The situation rapidly deteriorated from there.

As Robbie Corey-Boulet detailed in an April briefing for WPR, long-time President Paul Biya responded to the declaration with a brutal state crackdown, with security forces killing civilians, sexually assaulting women, and burning and looting homes. The separatists in turn have reacted with a campaign of kidnappings and assaults. Hundreds of people have died and more than 500,000 have been displaced in the past two years.

The sentencing this week of separatist leader Sisiku Ayuk Tabe and his followers further undermines any opening for dialogue between the two sides. The 10 separatists were arrested in Nigeria’s capital, Abuja, last year and deported to Cameroon, where they faced charges of rebellion and complicity in terrorism, among others. In addition to the life sentences, they were ordered to pay a fine of $50 million.

Few domestic observers agreed with the assessment of government officials, who said the sentencings would not halt efforts to start a dialogue. Prince Ekosso, an opposition leader, told Voice of America, “The decision would intensify tension in the North-West and the South-West. It would intensify killings and it would intensify the destruction of properties.”

Source: World Politics Review

26, August 2019

What it would take to break the impasse in Cameroon’s deadly crisis ⁰

Felix Agbor Balla Nkongho is a leading Cameroonian lawyer and award-winning human rights advocate. Nkongho was detained for nine months for taking part in protests against the marginalisation of the legal and education systems in the English-speaking regions of Cameroon. The Francophone government responded with deadly violence marked by gross human rights violations. Nkongho (49) visited South Africa earlier this month to create awareness about the crisis in his country. He fielded questions from Cheryl Hendricks and Gabriel Ngah.

What is the nature and the causes of the conflict in the English-speaking regions of Cameroon?

The main cause is dissatisfaction among the English-speaking people of the south west and north west regions with the state of the Union between La Republique du Cameroun (Republic of Cameroon) and British Southern Cameroons. That Union came into being in 1961 when British Southern Cameroons opted to join La Republique du Cameroun, rather than the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

In the course of this Union, the English-speaking people have suffered gross marginalisation in all spheres of life. They have been treated as second-class citizens by the Francophone government in Yaoundé.

In 2016, the disgruntlement escalated into a full-blown conflict. This came after the government ignored Anglophone lawyers’ and teachers grievances about the erosion of the Anglophone education and legal systems in favour of Francophone systems and practices.

Over the years, there has been a deliberate effort by the Francophone administration to erase the federal structure of the state and assimilate – or annihilate – the English-speaking parts.

The arrest of the leaders of the civil society organisation, Anglophone Consortium in 2017, worsened the situation. People in Anglophone regions rose in protest, demanding their release, and an end to Anglophone marginalisation.

The response by the government of President Paul Biya was brutal, marked by massive killings and arbitrary arrests. Civilians responded by creating self-defence armed groups. These later morphed into the Ambazonia Restoration Forces that are today clamouring for outright independence or separation from Cameroon.

What are the key demands and government responses?

The key demands of Southern Cameroonian activists are either a return to the two state federation of 1961, or to be granted outright independence. The United Nations (UN) denied their quest for autonomy in 1961. Instead, it granted them conditional independence by joining either La Republique du Cameroun or the Federal Republic of Nigeria. This was contrary to UN Trusteeship law.

The birth of the Southern Cameroon National Council in the 1990s kept the quest for an independent Southern Cameroons alive, in line with its status in 1961.

The government rejects calls for separation and maintains that decentralisation is the best option in a one and indivisible Cameroon.

The government reacted to teachers’ and lawyers’ demands by creating the common law section at the National School of Magistracy, and transferred some French-speaking teachers from English schools. It also announced the employment of 1000 bilingual teachers, implemented a timid transfer of French-speaking magistrates from English courts, and created a Bilingualism Commission to

[promote the] respect of bilingualism and multiculturalism principles as well as provisions of government services relating to language.

These measures have failed to address the root causes of the crisis and remain unsatisfactory.

What is the international response?

There have not been any significant measures to address gross human rights violations from regional or international powers. As a result, people continue to be killed and their property and homes destroyed with impunity by state security forces. Population displacements continue on a massive scale.

The Anglophone crisis remains one of the most neglected crises in the 21st century, with more than 2 000 people killed and hundreds of homes burnt. More than 50 000 Cameroonian refugees are expected to be registered in Nigeria by the end of the year. Schools have been shut down for three years now.

Thankfully, humanitarian organisations, including UN agencies, are providing life-saving assistance to displaced people and others in need. But humanitarian assistance has not addressed the causes of the crises.

Recently, the European Union took the lead with a resolutionencouraging the parties to initiate dialogue.

Also, the United Nations Commissioner for Human Rights visited Cameroon in May 2019 and called for an investigation into the violation of human rights. She too urged inclusive dialogue that takes the root causes of the conflict into account. Additionally, the United States Congress has passed a resolution expressly calling for a return to a federal system of government in Cameroon.

The US and Germany have withdrawn their military cooperation with Cameroon in protest at the human rights violations.

Unfortunately, a mediation initiative led by a Swiss humanitarian organisation between the government and the separatists appears to have failed to deescalate the crisis. On the whole, calls for an all-inclusive dialogue without preconditions have fallen on deaf ears.

What should be done to achieve a peaceful resolution of the conflict?

First, the government should withdraw its soldiers to their barracks and stop acts of violence. This could be followed by declaring a ceasefire and urging separatist fighters to stop attacks on military positions in Anglophone regions. The government should also release all people it has detained.

Second, regional and international players should pressure the Biya government to create an environment for dialogue through diplomatic channels. If this fails, economic and other sanctions should be imposed against the government.

Finally, the UN needs to set up a political mission in Cameroon with a mandate to resolve the Anglophone crisis.

What role can South Africa – as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council – play?

South Africa can contribute by championing a resolution for the Security Council to trigger direct UN intervention under its charter.

South Africa could also ask the International Court of Justice to determine whether the conditional granting of independence to Southern Cameroons complied with the UN Trusteeship law, and to remedy any lapses.

Culled from The Conversation

23, August 2019

Cameroon’s civil war will continue ⁰

Since January last year, the two Anglophone regions of Cameroon have slid into a conflict that would have been unimaginable a few years ago. The Anglophone northwest and southwest have suffered the havoc of a war of secession that has displaced at least half a million people, leaving 1.3-million in need of humanitarian assistance, according to the United Nations Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

The conflict is largely based on historical grievances stemming from the fact that the Anglophone minority has been systematically marginalised since the abolishment of the federal system of government in 1972. Although periods, including in the 1990s and 2008, saw increased activism for Anglophone secession, the movements never became violent.
But this changed last year after the violent government crackdown on teachers, lawyers and civilians advocating for legal recognition for the English language.

In the 20 months since then, the government and the Anglophone secessionist have become entrenched in their positions.

The secessionists, which are mainly led by people now based in the United States and Europe, have rejected calls for “dialogue” and insisted on only entering into direct negotiations for independence. The government insists that the secessionists are terrorists and has denied that its military has committed atrocities such as targeted killings and burning down villages. Furthermore, the two sides have become embroiled in infighting that has made even the potential of conflict resolution immensely difficult.

The secessionists have divided into two groups. One is led by Sisiku Julius Ayuk Tabe, who is imprisoned in Yaoundé and was convicted this week on terrorism charges and sentenced to life in prison, and the other US-based Samuel Ikome Sako. The same can be said of the government with some Cabinet members more in-line with the hardline stance taken by President Paul Biya and others supporting the conciliatory tone expressed by Prime Minister Joseph Dion Ngute.

Amid all of this, the people residing in the two Anglophone regions continue to suffer at an unimaginable rate at the hands of both sides. Targeted and random killings of combatants and civilians alike at the hands of the government is commonplace. Instances of such have seen stray bullets taking the lives of women and children.

Further, the government has killed young men fearing that they may be secessionists. Similarly, the secessionist forces, who are called the Amba Boys, have prevented children from attending school in both Anglophone areas for nearly three years.

They also regularly kidnap civilians, including employees of humanitarian organisations. Further, they have been accused of barbaric actions such as decapitations, rape and drinking people’s blood.

In the past six months the international community has begun to pay more attention to the crisis that continues to deteriorate in what used to be one of Central Africa’s most stable countries. The US has cut some military assistance to the country and, during its presidency of the United Nations Security Council this past May, also co-organised a Security Council arria-formula (briefing) meeting on the country.

Canada and the European Union have expressed frustration and outrage at the situation. Even the government of Switzerland used its good offices to arrange dialogue sessions through a Geneva-based nongovernmental organisation that has yet to produce any tangible outcomes.

If anything, it has been a step back. It continues to deteriorate because of a variable that is relatively straightforward but near impossible to address, which is that the two sides are not willing to compromise on their hardline stances and have no motive to do so.

The leadership of the Anglophone secessionists is not directly suffering from the continuous war to the extent they would be if they lived in the midst of it. The government realises that it is much more sophisticated militarily than the secessionists and live in the relative stability of the capital Yaoundé. Further, the two sides are hinged upon several notions that must be dismissed if the conflict is to be resolved.

The secessionists have been firm in their position for months that they will only settle for independence, what they often refer to as restoration. This is because a key notion of their argument is based on an element of historical revisionism.

Specifically, they argue that the UN resolution that organised the post-colonial plebiscite in Cameroon in 1961 gave what was then British Southern Cameroons independence. Hence they strongly believe that history and international law are on their side in their bid for an independent state called Ambazonia.

The infighting between and within the independence movement has led to chaos and, at times, incompetence. Yet, all factions agree on one thing: they will only settle for independence and the conflict will continue until it is obtained.

The government has not been any better than the secessionists in its actions. It continuously denies the severity of the crisis regarding displacement figures and the number of fatalities. Additionally, it refuses to accept that the current crisis has its more recent origins in the beatings, intimidation, arrests and killing of Anglophone teachers and lawyers in the latter half of 2016. The independence movement became violent only after the military killed pro-secession demonstrators in 2017. Even after the breakout of violent conflict in 2018, the government denies proven human rights atrocities, and says the crisis is solely the result of “Ambazonian terrorism”. In doing so, it ignores the root causes of the crisis, for which the government bears responsibility.

It appears that the situation in the Anglophone regions of Cameroon will continue to deteriorate at the expense of civilians. Despite substantial international efforts, the conflict has yet to be resolved, largely because of the stubborn and zero-sum mentality that has been taken by the two sides.

Unless the secessionists and the government are able to change how they approach the conflict, any chance of it being resolved soon is wishful thinking.

Source: Mail&Guardian

22, August 2019

Can the Church help stop Cameroon’s slide into civil war? ⁰

Last week unidentified gunmen seized two Catholic priests in the village of Ibal in the restive Anglophone region of Cameroon. Church officials said they were “kidnapped late at night” and appealed to their abductors to release them unharmed. Local police claimed that the kidnappers were separatists seeking to break away from Francophone Cameroon and found an independent Anglophone state. But separatist leaders denied that they had taken the priests.

The abduction is just the latest in a series of troubling incidents involving churchmen in the West African country. In May 2017, the body of Bishop Jean-Marie Benoît Balla was discovered in the Sanaga River. The authorities ruled that it was suicide, but local Church officials insist he was murdered. In November 2018, a missionary priest from Kenya was shot dead outside a church in Kembong, in the Anglophone region. Reports suggested that he was killed in crossfire between the Cameroon army and separatists.

The recent surge in violence has undermined Cameroon’s reputation as one of Africa’s more stable nations. President Paul Biya has ruled the country since 1982. Last year the 86-year-old won a seventh term with a remarkable (some say suspicious) 71 per cent of the votes. But many Western observers blame his refusal to compromise for the worsening conflict in the Anglophone region.

The crisis is rooted in the country’s colonial history. During the First World War, Britain and France combined forces to take over German Kamerun. The Treaty of Versailles gave most of the territory to France. It awarded Britain two small regions next to Nigeria, known as Northern Cameroons and Southern Cameroons. In a 1961 referendum, Northern Cameroons opted to join Nigeria, while Southern Cameroons voted for union with Cameroon, with the assurance that it would have substantial autonomy, including its own prime minister. But in 1972, after another referendum, Cameroon adopted a new constitution which swept away the federal system, replacing it with a unitary state. Southern Cameroons lost its autonomous powers and was divided into two administrative areas, the Northwest Region and the Southwest Region.

President Biya has resisted all appeals to restore autonomy to the Anglophone region. Separatists, in turn, have become ever more vociferous. In September 2017, they declared independence, renaming the Anglophone territories Amazonia and clashing with government forces.

The Catholic Church has a unique role to play amid this conflict, which verges on civil war. The Church is one of the few institutions that truly integrates both French- and English-speakers. Catholics account for 38 per cent of Cameroon’s 20.4 million inhabitants, with Protestants comprising 26 per cent and Muslims 21 per cent, according to the US State Department’s International Religious Freedom Report.

The Church has called consistently for negotiations between the government and separatists. It has suggested that some decentralisation of powers could help to end the unrest. It has also denounced the violence in the Anglophone region. For that, it has paid a price.

In May 2018, shots were fired at the residence of Archbishop Samuel Kleda, president of Cameroon’s bishops’ conference. A local news agency described the incident as an “attempted assassination”. A month earlier, Archbishop Kleda had given a television interview in which he called on the government to make concessions and for both sides to stop the killing. “Since we’re all in the same country and all brothers, our message is to stop the violence immediately at all costs, without vengeance, and accept others who don’t think like us,” he said.

But the fear is that the separatists and the government have moved beyond the point where they can “accept others who don’t think like us” and are engaged in a fight to the death. If this is so, there is little the local Church can do. It will not be able to ensure the safety of clergy in the blood-soaked Anglophone region.

Perhaps it is therefore time for the Vatican to intervene. Biya evidently has a certain respect for the Church. His father was a catechist who hoped his son would become a priest. It was not to be: Biya attended a minor seminary but ultimately left Cameroon to study law in Paris. In 2013, his government signed an agreement with the Holy See outlining the Church’s legal status. If Pope Francis were to invite Biya to Rome perhaps he might be able to persuade him to budge. It seems that no one else can.

Source: Catholic Herald

22, August 2019

Pirates contact owner of vessel seized off Cameroon ⁰

The pirates, who kidnapped eight sailors from a cargo vessel off the coast of Cameroon last week, contacted the ship owner, according to a source from the Russian Embassy in Cameroon on Wednesday.

Three Russian nationals are being held hostage and a ransom for their release is being negotiated on, a source in the embassy said in an interview with Russian state-run news agencies TASS and RIA.

The talks can last for up to two weeks and the amount of ransom will not be revealed for the captives’ security, the source said.

The health condition of the Russian captives is “satisfactory,” according to the source, and an agreement was reached to supply them with medicines against malaria.

“The pirates, based on our information, are Nigerians. Presumably, the sailors were taken to Nigeria. An emergency response group is negotiating the release of sailors,” the source said.

Nigerian police spokesman Frank Mba said there was no information yet about three Russian sailors abducted off the Cameroonian coasts last Friday.

“We will act immediately once we have any information on the incident or their whereabouts,” Mba told Anadolu Agency.

Earlier, Russia’s Foreign Ministry said its diplomats are working with Cameroonian officials to accelerate the process of the release of the Russian citizens.

The vessel, which belongs to German company MarConsult Schiffahrt, was attacked near Port Douala, eight sailors were kidnapped, one Ukrainian, three Russians and four Filipinos. The vessel itself was not seized.

*Abu ‘Adnan contributed to this story from Lagos, Nigeria

Source: aa.com