Monthly Archives: November 2019

Southern Cameroons Crisis: Patrick Ekema’s Wife is in Total Confusion

11, November 2019

Southern Cameroons Crisis: Patrick Ekema’s Wife is in Total Confusion 0

Katherine Ekema, the wife of the former Mayor of Buea, Patrick Ekema, is in total confusion in the United States. Ms. Ekema who is living in Minnesota in the United States is faced with two major challenging situations.

For years, Katherine Ekema and his reckless husband, Patrick Ekema, had been using the Buea City Council account as their personal ATM. Patrick Ekema had shipped his wife and five children to the United States as threats by the Ambazonian fighters increased by the day, especially as Patrick Ekema himself became a millstone stone around the necks of local traders who were also being called upon by the Ambazonian fighters to respect calls for ghost towns.

The unpopular mayor, who died of a massive heart attack a few weeks ago, used to underwrite his family’s reckless lifestyle from Buea, though his monthly salary was only USD600. Having a huge family in the United States requires significant amounts of resources, and this could be very challenging for someone with a paltry salary like Patrick Ekema. It is even worse as his family did not have access to any financial assistance from the American government. The Ekemas have just recently sought asylum and do not have work permits.

Besides housing and feeding the family in the United States, Patrick Ekema also had to finance the studies of the first two children in a community college. These children were paying foreign student fees and only God alone knew where Patrick Ekema was getting all the money to finance their studies. The Buea City Council certainly must audit its records if it really wants to know the extent to which Patrick Ekema had looted its coffers.

The next issue is Katherine’s trip to Buea to bury her notorious and reckless husband who died of a massive heart attack in another lady’s house in Douala. Katherine does not have papers in the United States. She has just sought asylum, claiming that her life and that of her five children were at risk. The American immigration systems allows any and everybody to seek asylum, but Americans also have agents who will have to verify the veracity of her claim.

Research officers at the U.S. embassy in Yaounde have already established a report on her case. They know her husband was a brutal administrator who worked in the interest of the dictatorial regime in Yaounde. She cannot be talking of persecution by a system that gave her more privileges than any ordinary Cameroonian could have.

While obtaining papers remains a tough challenge for her, her immediate problem now is to go home and giver her husband a befitting burial. Without proper travel documents she cannot leave the United States. Even with proper documents, she might not travel to Cameroon without consequences. Landing in Cameroon will simply imply that she has invalidated her asylum claim and has opted not to return to the United States.

Our source in Minnesota has said that she is trying to obtain guarantees from the Cameroon government that she would be able to return to the U.S. if she went home to bury her husband. But the beleaguered Yaounde government does not control American immigration policy. The American rule is clear. If she leaves, she will not return as her trip out of America will be a death sentence to her asylum claim.  

Patrick Ekema has not only died, he has brought untold hardship onto his family. He has also taken with him, the ATM that used to ensure a good life for his family. The free and easy money that was available to Katherine and her five children has melted. The massive heart attack that brought down Patrick Ekema has also damaged Katherine’s hopes for a beautiful easy life.

She will now start thinking of getting a job in the U.S. and her best bet will be heading to MacDonald’s where she will be sure of a minimum wage. But a minimum wage in the U.S. will not enable her to grant her children a decent life. She must start thinking of returning to school to give herself better chances at life.

Her former status as the wife of a mayor has simply stopped to exist. She must come down her fake pedestal to face life the way it should be faced. She must come down her ivory tower if she really wants to sort things out for her children. If she is still stuck in her past mentality, then she is willing to prolong her confusion and agony.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai at the Cameroon Concord News Group’s Global Headquarters in the United Kingdom

Australia: Cardinal Pell’s appeal decision set for Wednesday

11, November 2019

Australia: Cardinal Pell’s appeal decision set for Wednesday 0

Disgraced Catholic Cardinal George Pell will learn Wednesday whether Australia’s High Court will hear an appeal against his child sex abuse convictions, the last possible avenue to clear his name.

Pell, a former Vatican treasurer, is serving a six-year sentence for sexually assaulting two choirboys in a Melbourne cathedral in the 1990s.

A High Court spokesman told AFP on Monday that Australia’s most senior judges will hand down their decision in Canberra on Wednesday on whether to consider Pell’s case.

It comes just over two months after the 78-year-old filed an application for leave to appeal with the court.

He lost a previous attempt to overturn the convictions in Victoria state’s Court of Appeal in August, a landmark decision that saw the judges split in a 2-1 verdict.

That division — which saw two judges back the jury’s verdict and the dissenting judge side with Pell — is at the forefront of his latest bid to overturn the convictions.

The long-running case has pitted the most senior convicted Catholic child molester against a former choirboy now in his 30s, who two of the appeal judges found to be “very compelling” and someone who “was clearly not a liar, was not a fantasist and was a witness of truth”.

The third judge, however, found the victim’s account “contained discrepancies” and there was a “significant possibility” Pell did not commit the offences.

Pell’s legal team argued in their written submission to the High Court that the majority judges applied an “erroneous judicial method” in upholding the jury’s verdict that reversed the onus of proof onto him, an argument roundly rejected by prosecutors.

The court will not hear oral submissions from the parties before handing down its decision, which the spokesman said was not unusual.

Pell and his supporters have staunchly maintained he did not commit the crimes, which came to light after one of the victims went to police when the other died of a drug overdose in 2014.

During Pell’s trial under a court-ordered veil of secrecy, the Vatican gradually removed him from top Church bodies with little explanation.

Shortly after his conviction, Pell was removed from the so-called C9 Council of Cardinals that are effectively the Pope’s cabinet and inner circle of advisers.

The Vatican says it will avoid launching an investigation into his conduct until after all legal avenues are exhausted.

Source: AFP

Southern Cameroons Crisis: French Cameroun troops withdraw from positions in Mamfe following deadly attack

11, November 2019

Southern Cameroons Crisis: French Cameroun troops withdraw from positions in Mamfe following deadly attack 0

Cameroon government forces loyal to the regime in Yaoundé have withdrawn from their isolated positions at the banks of the Manyu River exposed to Ambazonia Restoration Forces attacks. The troops including elements of the French Cameroun gendarmerie have now regroup in stronger places in Mamfe town after the very deadly attack from the Manyu Ghost Warriors.

This decision reportedly ordered from Yaoundé has already been implemented throughout the Manyu County and Cameroon Intelligence Report understands other withdrawals from Ekok in Eyumojock and Tinta in Akwaya will follow soonest.

French Cameroun troops deployed to Manyu, suffered an attack recently that claimed the lives of 5 soldiers according to Cameroun government sources in Mamfe.

A statement from the Ambazonia Security Council that confirmed the attack hinted that it was carried out by what the Southern Cameroons Homeland Security Department codenamed as The Seals Team 2 of Manyu RFs aka Ghost Warriors.

The mayor of Mamfe John Ayuk Takunchong who recently held a public meeting grouping okader riders and boasted that the Manyu County was under the command and control of the Yaoundé regime has moved his family to an unknown destination in Douala.

By Rita Akana

Scores of mass graves of Southern Cameroonians killed by Biya exist in Menchum, Manyu and Ndian

11, November 2019

Scores of mass graves of Southern Cameroonians killed by Biya exist in Menchum, Manyu and Ndian 0

The Interim Government says there are several mass graves in three Southern Cameroons Counties with remains of scores of innocent Ambazonia civilians killed by the French Cameroun army deployed to Southern Cameroons.

Vice President Dabney Yerima, told Cameroon Concord News Group correspondent in Germany late on Sunday that the forest and massive grass field areas in Menchum, Manyu and Ndian are harboring mass graves. The Ambazonia exiled leader noted that any peace process with French Cameroun would require an internationally supervised process of the exhumation of the mass graves.

Comrade Dabney Yerima added that the Ambazonia Interim Government is working with Southern Cameroons Restoration Forces in Ground Zero to establish the locations of other mass graves in Mezam, Lebialem and Bui Counties.

The victims whose bodies were found in mass graves in Menchum, Bui and Manyu were killed by Cameroon government troops under the direct supervision of President Paul Biya.  

The jailed Ambazonia leader President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe told the Paris-based Jeune Afrique that some 20,000 Southern Cameroons civilians have been systematically executed by the Biya Francophone Beti Ewondo regime. Hundreds were purportedly taken from Kumba, the chief city in the Meme County to rural areas like Ekiliwindi and Konye, where they were killed and buried en masse.

The Biya genocidal campaign is on-going and involves several phases ever since the beginning of the Southern Cameroons resistance. Vice President Dabney Yerima has appealed to religious leaders and local witnesses to help the Ambazonia Interim Government uncover graves containing bodies of Southern Cameroonians killed by troops loyal to the regime in Yaoundé.

By Asu Isong with additional reporting from Sama Ernest

Bolivian president Evo Morales announces resignation

11, November 2019

Bolivian president Evo Morales announces resignation 0

Bolivian President Evo Morales announced his resignation Sunday, caving in following three weeks of sometimes-violent protests over his disputed re-election after the army and police withdrew their backing.

“I resign my post as president,” the leftist Morales said in a televised address, capping a day of fast-moving events in which several ministers and senior officials quit as support for Latin America’s longest-serving president crumbled.

The streets of La Paz immediately exploded in celebration, as jubilant Bolivians set off firecrackers and waved the country’s red, yellow and green flag.

Morales, 60 and in power since 2006, was declared the winner of the October 20 presidential election a narrow margin, giving him a controversial fourth term.

But the opposition said there was fraud in the vote count and three weeks of street protests ensued, during which three people died and hundreds were injured.

The Organization of American States carried out an audit of the election and on Sunday reported irregularities in just about every aspect that it examined: the technology used, the chain of custody of ballots, the integrity of the count, and statistical projections.

As chanting Bolivians kept up demonstrations in the street, Morales called new elections, but this was apparently not enough to calm the uproar, and the commanders of the armed forces and the police joined the calls for the president’s resignation.

PressTV-Bolivia's Morales calls new vote in outstanding concession

Violence continued Sunday as a caravan of buses taking opposition supporters to La Paz was attacked, leaving three people injured, including one by gunfire.

To make the announcement that he was stepping down, Morales traveled by plane to the coca-growing Chimore region of central Bolivia, the cradle of his career in politics.

It was there in the 1980s that Bolivia’s first indigenous president made his name as a combative union leader defending farmers who grow coca, which in the Bolivian countryside is used for medicinal and other purposes. It is also the raw material for making cocaine. 
He was accompanied by vice president Alvaro Garcia Linera, who also resigned.

On social media, Bolivians speculated that Morales might leave the country, perhaps going to Argentina, which just elected a center-left government.

(Source: AFP)

CPDM Crime Syndicate: Biya sets Feb. 9, 2020 for parliamentary and municipal polls

11, November 2019

CPDM Crime Syndicate: Biya sets Feb. 9, 2020 for parliamentary and municipal polls 0

Cameroon will hold its legislative and municipal elections on February 9, 2020, according to a presidential decree announced on Sunday.

The last legislative polls was held in 2013 for five-year terms.

President Paul Biya who was re-elected in 2018 has twice postponed the elections.

The 2018 presidential election stoked a political crisis in this Central African nation, where Biya has ruled for 37 years.

Opposition leader Maurice Kamto was imprisoned along with some of his supporters for denouncing electoral fraud through marches.

Since his release in October, Kamto’s attempts to hold public meetings have not been approved by authorities.

His Movement for the Renaissance of Cameroon has said the party had requested certain preconditions be met, like a revision of the electoral code.

The main opposition party in Parliament , the Social Democratic Front failed to comment on its participation in the 2020 legislative polls when reached by AFP.

AFP

Bolivia: President Morales calls new vote in outstanding concession

10, November 2019

Bolivia: President Morales calls new vote in outstanding concession 0

Bolivia’s President Evo Morales has called a new presidential election in an outstanding concession, as the opposition in the Latin American country has disputed the results of the recent election that the incumbent has won.

In a TV address on Sunday, Morales said he would “call for new national elections, which, by voting, allow the Bolivian people to democratically elect new authorities.”

The announcement came after the Organization of American States (OAS) — which was tasked with doing a count audit after the opposition claimed the previous poll was fraudulent — released a preliminary report saying the election must be re-run due to irregularities.

“The first round of the election held on October 20 must be annulled and the electoral process must begin again, with the first round taking place as soon as there are new conditions that give new guarantees for it to take place, including a newly composed electoral body,” the organization said.

Electoral authorities announced that Morales secured an outright win in the first round of the presidential election on October 20, while his rival and the head of the Civic Community opposition party, Carlos Mesa, refused to recognize the results of the vote.

Opposition parties claimed that there had been irregularities in the vote-counting process, and the Bolivian president accused the opposition of trying to overthrow him.

The new announcement by Morales came after he called on Saturday for “urgent” negotiations with the opposition amid reports that the country’s police and security forces had joined anti-government protesters.

Morales, who spoke at a press conference in the Bolivian capital of La Paz, called for a round-table discussion with the four political parties represented in the country’s assembly.

The Bolivian military said in a statement the same day that it wouldn’t confront the demonstrators in the weeks-long standoff over Bolivia’s disputed election.

Three people have died and hundreds injured in often violent protests since Morales claimed a fourth consecutive term in the election.

The president came to power in 2006 as Bolivia’s first indigenous leader and has won his previous three terms with solid majorities.

Morales won last month’s vote with a lead of over 10 points against Mesa, his nearest rival. The victory was marred by a near 24-hour halt in the count, which, when resumed, showed a sharp shift in Morales’ favor.

Source: Presstv

Southern Cameroons Crisis: Cardinal Tumi says Christians should become more involved in politics

10, November 2019

Southern Cameroons Crisis: Cardinal Tumi says Christians should become more involved in politics 0

Every Christian is a “rebel against evil,” according to Cameroon’s lone cardinal.

Speaking during a program on Cameroonian state television, Cardinal Christian Tumi also called on Christians to become more involved in politics.

“Every Christian is a rebel against all that is not good-that is morally evil. A Christian is a rebel against lies,” Tumi said.

“Politics is part of the world and Christ has told us: Go into the whole world and proclaim the Gospel message. Wherever there is man acting; the Church has to be present,” he said.

“We are therefore called to evangelize the politicians and politics, because their activity also is preparing them for the kingdom of God. There is no activity that is out of the region of the church,” Tumi continued.

The program brought together Christian leaders from different denominations to discuss relations between Church and State in the West African country, which is currently experiencing a number of crises, including a rebellion in the country’s two English-speaking provinces. Cameroon is 80 percent French-speaking, and the Anglophone minority has long complained about discrimination and marginalization by the Francophone majority.

Around 70 percent of the country’s population is Christian, almost evenly divided between Catholics and Protestants.

During the program, the President of the Cameroon Baptist Convention, Reverend Godwill Ncham, said he believed in the separation of Church and State, but insisted it doesn’t mean that “the Church or Christians cannot be involved in politics.”

“It is intended to create boundaries so that as a Christian when you get involved in politics, you don’t turn the political platform into a Church,” the Baptist minister said.

“So I believe the dichotomy of Christians not involved in politics is not true to scripture, because the Christian life calls the Christian to engage all of life. There is also the false dichotomy of circular and sacred. I am first a Christian before a pastor; and my Christian life calls me to engage the traditional sinful background from which I come unto transformation, and I am supposed to engage others and bring them to transformation as well .So to say that a Christian should not be involved in politics because he would dirty himself is inadequate. A Christian should be involved in politics in order to clean up the politics,” Ncham continued.

Tumi even said that if had not become a Catholic priest, he would have become a politician.

“Politics is good. Take for instance; President Paul Biya. He will answer for the role he has played as the head of state of a people of God. The people in every country are the people of God, created by Him. Every power comes from God, and therefore they must exercise power with fear, and look at their power as occasions to serve,” the cardinal said.

Tumi criticized politicians for telling lies and making promises they never intend to keep, and said Christian politicians should be able to inject truth into politics.

“The Truth is the agreement between what I am saying and what I am thinking. If what I am thinking contradicts what I am saying, I am telling a lie. And we pastors have been called and sent by God to promote the truth. Christ is the truth. ‘I am the Truth, I am the light, I am the way,’ says Christ. The truth is objective. If it is not objective, it’s not true,” he explained.

Tumi said the Christian’s mission should also be to sanitize politics, because “Christ came to save the sinner, not the saint.”

“So where sin abounds, the Grace of God also abounds. So therefore, wherever a human being is found-be he or she good or bad, we have to be there to try to bring the lost child back to the fold,” he said.

The Christian leaders were unanimous that the state was “at war” against the Church.

The Moderator of the Presbyterian Church, Rt. Rev. Samuel Fonki Forba, accused the government of undermining religious studies.

“Religious studies in our schools should not be mocked and treated as a side issue,” he said.

“What is happening in our country is because the morals of our society have gone down the drain, and we must do something to keep those morals. When things are bad, that’s when they (political leaders) call on religious leaders to come and have an ecumenical prayer session for the nation,” Forba continued.

“When things are moving the way they want them to move, the Church is not recognized. And so we are saying that we have a lot to offer; to partner with the state of Cameroon to change the present dispensation. They must recognize the role of the Church in all of this,” he said.

Tumi was even more harsh in his criticism of the government, reprimanding the state for excluding religious studies in competitive examinations for professional schools.

“It’s a fight against us. It’s a fight by the government against us,” the cardinal said.

“You are telling the children that religion is not so important, and it betrays your ignorance. The highest university in England is Oxford University and the highest degree you get in Oxford University is DD – Doctor of Divinity, and that’s religion,” he said.

The animosity of the Cameroonian government against the Church reached a head in 2017 when the Archbishop Cornelius Fontem Esua of Bamenda, his auxiliary Bishop Michael Bibi, Bishop George Nkuo of Kumbo, two priests – Fathers Michael Kintang and William Neba – and ministers from other denominations were dragged to court for  statements made in connection with the Anglophone crisis in Cameroon’s North West and South West regions.

Ncham said such extreme measures by the state are to be expected.

“The Church being taken to court is expected, because if you look at the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says: ‘Blessed are the peacemakers, blessed are those who thirst after righteousness’; and he says those who are peacemakers and who thirst after righteousness will be persecuted. So we consider the being taken to court as being part of the persecution of the Church trying to fill its role in the community,” the Baptist minister said. “And it shouldn’t hurt us to produce wounds that will not heal, it should fortify us to be resilient to continue to play our role in the community.”

Source: Crux

Italians protest ex-minister Salvini’s immigration ‘hate-decree’

10, November 2019

Italians protest ex-minister Salvini’s immigration ‘hate-decree’ 0

Refugees and pro-migrant activists have staged a rally in the Italian capital, Rome, protesting a tough immigration bill that was introduced during former interior minister Matteo Salvini’s time in office.

Despite Salvini having stepped down in September, the controversial bill, which has made immigration to Italy very difficult, has remained in effect since October 2018.

Footage of the Saturday rally showed protesters marching past the Colosseum, carrying banners and placards denouncing the “hate-decree of Salvini.”

“Why don’t they cancel this hate-decree of Salvini? Salvini is not in the government but his decree still exists. How is it possible to live this barbarism? We are really jaded,” said Mahamadou Quasid, a refugee.

Italy’s Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte (L) and former interior minister and deputy prime minister Matteo Salvini (file photo)

The protesters also denounced the racist incidents that have occurred in Italian stadiums in recent months, where players such as Kalidou Koulibaly and Mario Balotelli have been abused due to their skin color.

Large numbers of asylum seekers — who have since 2015 been risking their lives by taking the perilous journey across the Mediterranean Sea on debilitated boats from North Africa and the Middle East to reach Italian ports — will be asked to leave Italy because of the “Salvini Decree.”

The perilous journey, harsh living conditions at the destination, and the risk of deportation have reduced the overall number of asylum seekers heading to Europe more recently. Data from refugee organization including the UNHCR, IOM and Frontex show that the overall numbers of asylum seekers entering Europe has significantly decreased.

However, European leaders have warned of a refugee crisis “even greater” than the one that hit the continent in 2015.

PressTV-Germany warns EU of bigger refugee crisis than 2015

In an unprecedented refugee influx, over one million people arrived in the European countries in 2015, most of them fleeing from conflict zones in the Middle East and North Africa.

A year later, Turkey became Europe’s gatekeeper after signing a deal with the EU aimed at controlling the inflow of refugees into the continent. The agreement ended the influx, bringing the number down to around 30,000 annually in the following years. Recently, numbers have seen a slight rise as implementation of the deal has reportedly become lax.

Source: Presstv

Kenya’s president Uhuru Kenyatta rejects gay agenda in global population conference

10, November 2019

Kenya’s president Uhuru Kenyatta rejects gay agenda in global population conference 0

Kenya’s president Uhuru Kenyatta rejected any gay agenda to be tabled in a global population conference to be held in Nairobi next week.

Kenya will host the population conference “but will not accept practices that are at conflict with our cultures,” President Uhuru Kenyatta has said.

Kenyatta reiterated Kenya’s stand to protect cultural norms by not allowing any practices that will be seen devaluing traditions of various local communities.

It is understood that the President was referring to the push by reproductive health activists for legal abortion and homosexual rights during the conference.

“We will welcome the visitors Nairobi. We will be there and we will listen. But will be firm in rejecting what we do not agree with,” he said.

“We have a stand,” he said, adding that “But on things that do not conform with our cultures and religion, we will firmly reject,” he told the gathering attended by UNFPA country director Ademola Olajide and western diplomats.

President Kenyatta has been quoted many times rejecting total inclusion of homosexuals in the constitution.

Kenya’s High Court on May 24, 2019 upheld laws criminalizing homosexual acts between consenting adults.

Several Africa states have made it illegal to practise homosexuality though some have changed tune.

In January, Angola issued a revised penal code that no longer punished so-called “vices against nature.” Other African countries that have revoked anti-homosexuality laws through penal code reform in recent years include Seychelles, Mozambique, Sao Tome and Principe, and Lesotho. Botswana’s High Court is scheduled to hear a case in June, on the constitutionality of laws that make same-sex intimacy a crime.

But 33 countries in Africa still have laws on the books that outlaw consensual same-sex relations. One of them, Chad, criminalized same-sex relations for the first time in 2017.

Source: Africa News

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