Monthly Archives: November 2019

9, November 2019

How to stop Cameroon collapsing into a full-fledged civil war ⁰

For 37 years one man has ruled Cameroon, a staggeringly corrupt, oil-rich state in central Africa. President Paul Biya is an old-fashioned autocrat. When democracy swept across Africa after the cold war ended, he called it a “distasteful passing fetish”. Then he realised he would attract less foreign criticism if he quietly intimidated opponents and rigged elections instead of banning them. He has done so ever since, and kept on good terms with Western powers by posing as a champion of stability in a fissile region. His troops, trained and equipped by France, Israel and America, battle the jihadists of Boko Haram and Islamic State around Lake Chad. They also regularly don blue helmets to keep peace in countries such as the Central African Republic. Yet Mr Biya cannot keep the peace at home.

Instead, a country that was once seen as an exporter of security is now being wrenched apart. A secession struggle rages in its English-speaking regions. Government forces are burning villages, shooting young men and raping women. The conflict has killed thousands and forced more than 500,000 people from their homes.

The strife began as a series of peaceful protests in 2016. Anglophones were aggrieved at their marginalisation in a country dominated by French-speakers. Cameroon is too rigidly centralised to satisfy minorities: only 1% of government spending is locally controlled, compared with more than 50% in neighbouring Nigeria. Strikes and demonstrations over the erosion of English-style common law and the dominance of Francophone officials have since mutated into what looks like a civil war. It could get much worse, as chaos grows, armed separatists kill and soldiers inflict horrors on civilians.

The outside world has barely noticed this disaster unfolding. Appeals for emergency assistance have attracted less than one-fifth of their target: less than half the people who have lost their homes have been given the two pieces of plastic and rope that make up the un’s shelter kit. Cameroon’s main backers have looked away, hoping Mr Biya’s government would quell the rebellion and get back to fighting jihadists in the Sahel. Instead of corralling the warring parties, the African Union and un Security Council have stood aside, rousing themselves only to “welcome” and “praise” Mr Biya’s “national dialogue”, a sham to which key separatist leaders were not invited.

This is a disgrace. The conflict, although bloody, is not intractable. Most people in Cameroon’s two English-speaking regions are probably moderate and would be happy with some more autonomy and an end to the fighting. They could find common ground with those on the government side who might be willing to give a bit more power to the regions.

The longer the fighting persists, the harder it will be to resolve. With the army and separatists in stalemate on the battlefield, peace can come only through talks. For those to happen, both sides need to build trust. The separatists should start by lifting the ruinous ban they enforce on children going to government schools in the areas they control, which threatens to create a lost generation of illiterates. Rebel leaders abroad should tone down their inflammatory talk of secession. The government should release political prisoners and prosecute soldiers responsible for abuses.

Outsiders should press Mr Biya to make peace. President Donald Trump has rightly scaled back military assistance because of atrocities committed by the army. He has also kicked Cameroon out of a programme which grants duty-free access to the us market to African countries that respect human rights. European governments should also turn the screws, especially France, Mr Biya’s closest ally. The ageing strongman once said that only one-party rule could hold Cameroon together. In fact, his overcentralised autocracy has created pressures that could blow it apart. Only dialogue and devolution can save it.

Culled from The Economist

8, November 2019

Southern Cameroons Crisis: Trump Must Put Real Pressure on Biya ⁰

Symbolic half-measures like revoking preferential trade status are not enough to force the repressive regime of Paul Biya to change. Canceling IMF loans and military aid would show that the White House is serious.

On Oct. 31, the Trump administration notified Congress that Cameroon would lose its eligibility status under the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) in 2020. “Cameroon has failed to address concerns regarding persistent human rights violations being committed by Cameroonian security forces,” the White House statement explained, in what is the toughest executive branch language issued about escalating crises in Cameroon, building on a congressional resolution agreed to in July.

The announcement quickly caught fire on social media, a sign of hope for Cameroonians and others who have long called for more external pressure on the country’s octogenarian president, Paul Biya, who has been in power since 1982.

But taking away Cameroon’s AGOA privileges—primarily duty-free access for designated products exported from eligible African countries to the United States, including textiles—will not cause much pain. It will not compel Biya to undertake much-needed political and economic reforms to solve the crisis in the country’s Anglophone region and the related violence driving a humanitarian catastrophe, the deep-rooted governance crisis that includes mass arrests of political opponents and journalists, and an economic meltdown that has been partly concealed by oil-related revenue and ongoing bailouts by international lenders.

The humanitarian crisis gets worse by the month: The Norwegian Refugee Council calls Cameroon the world’s most neglected displacement crisis, while UNICEF reports there has been a “15-fold increase” in the humanitarian emergency there since 2017. The real test of the Trump administration’s resolve on Cameroon will be whether it acts to curtail all military assistance, imposes targeted travel and economic sanctions on individuals, and uses its considerable leverage to punish the Biya regime through international financial institutions and at the United Nations.

Members of the Biya government know that removal from AGOA won’t do much damage. Indeed, CNN recently interviewed an official at Cameroon’s Ministry of External Relations, who pointed out that the country barely benefits from AGOA and that the Trump administration is only trying to punish Cameroon because of its growing ties to China. Indeed, Washington’s move could push Cameroon and other African states further into the waiting arms of China and Russia—countries that do not ask questions about human rights.

This raises the question of why the Trump administration, which is preoccupied with much bigger domestic and foreign-policy challenges, decided to take a high-profile but symbolic stance now and if it is truly seeking to take a tougher line against Biya.

Unlike most reciprocal trade agreements or international financial institution regulations, AGOA includes economic, political, and human rights criteria that make it easier for the U.S. government to find justifications for change in status. These criteria include progress toward establishing “the rule of law, political pluralism, and the right to due process, a fair trial, and equal protection under the law” and that a country “does not engage in gross violations of internationally recognized human rights.” Other countries whose beneficiary status has been withdrawn include Burundi (since 2016), Mauritania (since 2019), and South Sudan (since 2014).

Unlike many other African countries, Cameroon never cultivated the AGOA preferences to drive private sector development, investment, employment, and exports. Today, the United States just squeaks into the list of its top 10 trading partners. Total AGOA-eligible exports reached $63 million in 2018, mostly crude oil, and had already dropped to just $8 million in the first six months of 2019.

Shortly after AGOA was signed into law in 2000, construction started on the Chad-Cameroon pipeline, part of a massive project spearheaded by ExxonMobil to export crude oil from southern Chad. Today, Cameroon’s government receives a $1.32 transit fee for every barrel that flows from Chad through to the export port of Kribi. It also benefits directly from its own modest offshore oil and natural gas production, and further reserves await development.

The nature of governance in Cameroon has always relied on rentier (or gatekeeper) state opportunities—including tropical agriculture, timber, oil, and, more recently, soccer stadiums— over establishing the complex foundations for internationally competitive, value-added industry. There is no desire by the regime to break from its resource curse. It is not a surprise, then, that Cameroon sits near the bottom of Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index or the World Bank’s Doing Business rankings, and it does not come close to passing the governance thresholds of the Millennium Challenge Corporation.

Culled from Foreign Policy

8, November 2019

Former French Cameroun defense minister in murderous spree ⁰

In a remote locality not far away from Mbalmayo known as Nkol Metet, the notorious former French Cameroun defense minister, Remy Ze Meka has reportedly killed at least 3 civilians and injured dozens while driving at lightning speed.

French Cameroun Regional military officials have held Mr Remy Ze Meka in an undisclosed location in Nkol Metet convinced that the villages would lynch him.

It was said that Remy Ze Meka’s subsequent disarray made him a less lethal relevant force, no longer needed by the ruling CPDM crime syndicate.

But his action today in Nkol Metet has made it clear the former defense minister remains a force to be reckoned with, at least by helpless civilians.

One eye witness who spoke to Cameroon Concord News said it was the bloodiest car accident in Nkol Metet which should have gone unreported because of the sheer remoteness of the area.

By Rita Akana in Yaounde

8, November 2019

US: Democrats discussing multiple articles of impeachment against Trump ⁰

Democrats in the US House of Representatives have considered drafting as many as three articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump, as they prepare to take their Ukraine impeachment inquiry public next week after a month of closed-door depositions, according to multiple sources familiar with the deliberations.

No decisions have been made, and what happens will ultimately be shaped by the conclusions and findings of the ongoing impeachment inquiry.

In the last two modern impeachment proceedings against Presidents Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton, the House Judiciary Committee sent three and four articles of impeachment, respectively, to the full chamber for consideration, including articles charging abuse of power, obstruction of justice, and contempt of Congress for defying congressional subpoenas.

Democrats have floated the possibility of charging Trump with abuse of power for efforts to pressure the Ukrainian government to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden’s family and the 2016 election, as well as obstruction of Congress for the administration’s refusal to comply with subpoenas for records and witness testimony.

They have also weighed an obstruction of justice charge centered on the president’s efforts to obstruct former special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation. Mueller’s findings in the second volume of his report, focused on obstruction, are repeatedly referenced in the report accompanying their resolution laying out the impeachment inquiry.

Some Democrats have suggested that the article charging Trump with obstruction of Congress could resemble the article drawn up on the same charge against President Nixon, and itemize all the subpoenas the administration has defied.

House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office declined to comment on the potential articles of impeachment at this stage in the process, and the speaker has not endorsed any number of articles or specifics suggested in the caucus.

The topic of the number of articles was raised by a lawmaker in one recent meeting Pelosi held with a group of Democrats focused on impeachment messaging, according to sources familiar with the discussion, though Pelosi did not appear to engage with the comment one way or another.

The focus is on what’s in front of us right now: making the public case about the president’s abuse of power and his actions to undermine the 2020 election,” a senior Democratic leadership aide told ABC News.

While some lawmakers also support charging Trump with violating the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution, though others have advocated for keeping the impeachment push narrowly focused on the Ukraine matter.

Although the bulk of the impeachment hearings will happen in the Intelligence Committee, the Judiciary Committee will draft the articles of impeachment. It’s not clear whether they will include accusations of criminal wrongdoing.

The Judiciary Committee is expected to move forward with the process after receiving a report from the House Intelligence, Oversight and Foreign Affairs Committees summarizing their inquiry in the coming weeks. Other panels, including the House Ways and Means and Financial Services Committees, could also share information with the Judiciary Committee from their ongoing investigations that could be used to craft the articles of impeachment.

Politically, putting forward multiple articles of impeachment could benefit some House Democrats – including the freshman lawmakers from moderate and GOP-leaning districts who have raised concerns about the administration’s obstruction of Congress, but who have yet to say conclusively whether they believe Trump’s actions towards Ukraine are impeachable.

It could also focus pressure on some Republicans in the House and Senate who have disapproved of the administration’s refusal to comply with some of House Democrats’ oversight efforts, but rejected concerns of whether Trump has abused his power as president.

in 1998, the GOP-led House Judiciary Committee approved four articles of impeachment against President Bill Clinton, though the House only passed the first and third articles – charging Clinton with providing false testimony to a grand jury in the Paula Jones case, and obstruction of justice related to evidence in the Jones case.

The second and fourth articles were defeated, with 28 Republicans voting with Democrats against a second perjury charge, and 81 siding with the minority against charging Clinton with abuse of power.

“It gives Democrats in tighter districts the opportunity to say they’re open-minded,” Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., who voted against Clinton’s impeachment in 1998, told ABC News.

But King, who said he did not find Trump’s comments to Ukraine’s president impeachable and defended the White House’s ability to challenge congressional subpoenas, predicted that few Republicans would cross party lines in any vote to impeach Trump in the House.

“Most if not all Republicans will look at all the articles as being tied together,” he said.

(Source: ABC News)

8, November 2019

Ambazonia Restoration Forces to teach French Cameroun lesson if diaspora invest in Amba Bonds Project ⁰

The head of the Southern Cameroons Intelligence Agency says Ambazonia Restoration Forces will teach the French Cameroun regime a lesson if provided with modern war equipment. In a recent briefing with Vice President Dabney Yerima on the state of the revolution, the Ambazonia Intel chief told the exiled cabinet on Sunday that the French Cameroun enemy is waging a war against Southern Cameroonians but Restoration Forces in Ground Zero are ready to face it with their men, society and capacity.

He highlighted that the Biya Francophone regime was harboring delusions thinking it could defeat Southern Cameroons Self Defense Forces within a very short period. He pointed out that Yaoundé was now aware that the Ambazonia resistance movement has the capacity to paralyze the enemy.

Also speaking during the Sunday cabinet meeting was Vice President Dabney Yerima who praised the intelligence chief for making the trip to Ground Zero. Comrade Yerima stated that Southern Cameroonians will never take it at ease with an enemy that threatens their existence, stressing that Southern Cameroonians all over the world should continue to invest in the Amba Bonds Project to free the homeland.

Cameroon Intelligence Report understands the French Cameroun army is fully stretched and any decisive and swift action from Southern Cameroons Restoration Forces who have remained fairly capable and utterly determined irrespective of the internal divisions that have rocked the Interim Government will send La Republique parking out of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia.

The Ambazonia leaders unanimously agreed that Southern Cameroonians will not compromise on even one iota of the Ambazonia quest for independence.

About 20,000 Southern Cameroonians, most of them civilians have lost their lives during French Cameroun’s three year war on Ambazonia. However, there are under-the-table talks in Yaoundé that the French Cameroun military had effectively lost the war by failing to achieve its aim.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

7, November 2019

French President says NATO is suffering ‘brain death’ ⁰

French President Emmanuel Macron said he believed NATO was undergoing “brain death”, lamenting a lack of coordination between Europe and the United States and unilateral action in Syria by key member Turkey, in an interview published Thursday.

“What we are currently experiencing is the brain death of NATO,” Macron told The Economist magazine.

The president’s explosive comments, appearing to question the very future of NATO, threatened to send shock waves through the alliance ahead of a summit in Britain next month.

“You have no coordination whatsoever of strategic decision-making between the United States and its NATO allies. None,” said Macron.

“You have an uncoordinated aggressive action by another NATO ally, Turkey, in an area where our interests are at stake,” he added, according to an English transcript released by The Economist.

Turkey’s latest military operation against Kurdish forces in northern Syria was staunchly opposed by fellow members like France, but made possible by a withdrawal of US forces ordered by President Donald Trump.

“There has been no NATO planning, nor any coordination,” Macron said.

And while NATO works well in communicating between armies and commanding operations, “strategically and politically, we need to recognise that we have a problem”, he said.

“We should reassess the reality of what NATO is in light of the commitment of the United States,” he warned, adding that “In my opinion, Europe has the capacity to defend itself.”

‘Drastic words,’ says Merkel

Macron said that while “it’s not in our interest” to expel Turkey from NATO – as has been urged by some politicians – member states should “reconsider what NATO is”.

But German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Thursday rejected Macron’s view that NATO was experiencing “brain death”, saying that such comments were not necessary.

Macron “used drastic words, that is not my view of cooperation in NATO”, said Merkel after talks with visiting chief of the translantic defence alliance Jens Stoltenberg.

“I don’t think that such sweeping judgements are necessary, even if we have problems and need to pull together,” she added.

Stoltenberg meanwhile stressed that “NATO is strong”, adding that the United States and Europe “work together more than we have done for decades”.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, speaking during a visit to the German city of Leipzig as part of anniversary events for the fall of the Berlin Wall 30 years ago, also dismissed Macron’s remarks.

“I think NATO remains an important, critical, perhaps historically one of the most critical strategic partnerships in all of recorded history,” he told a press conference.

That was why it was “an absolute imperative that every country participate and join in and contribute appropriately to achieving that shared security mission,” he added, in a nod to Washington’s longstanding gripes about some member countries not paying their way.

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, speaking at the same press conference, also said he believed strongly in the military alliance “especially as we face ever more and ever greater global challenges”.

However, Moscow on Thursday hailed Macron’s comments.

“These are golden words… a precise definition of the current state of NATO,” Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova wrote on her Facebook page.

‘Strategic dialogue with Russia’

In the interview, Macron also emphasised it was crucial to seek a rapprochement with Moscow, which regards NATO and its expansion into ex-Communist bloc states with huge suspicion since the alliance was set up to counter the USSR.

“We need to reopen a strategic dialogue, without being naive and which will take time, with Russia,” said Macron, who is seeking to broker an end to the conflict in Ukraine and has courted President Vladimir Putin as a partner.

He said NATO did not reexamine its future in the early 1990s after the collapse of the Soviet Union and “the unarticulated assumption is that the enemy is still Russia”.

“So, the question about the present purpose of NATO is a real question that needs to be asked,” especially by the United States where Trump sees the alliance as a “commercial project”, he said.

And Macron said he believed that Putin, for all the anti-Western bombast from the Kremlin, would find his strategic options limited, in the long term, to “a partnership project with Europe”.

“If we want to build peace in Europe, to rebuild European strategic autonomy, we need to reconsider our position with Russia,” said Macron.

He praised the stance on the issue of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban – criticised by many in Europe for being authoritarian and close to the Kremlin.

“He’s quite close to our views and has a key intellectual and political role” in central Europe, said Macron.

‘Edge of a precipice’

The French president, seen by analysts as Europe’s most prominent leader amid Brexit and the looming exit of Merkel in 2021, has sought to stand tall on the foreign policy stage and implement a vision of reforming Europe.

But he said the European Union had been brought “to the edge of a precipice” by a dwindling focus since the mid-1990s on the bloc’s political integration.

“Europe has forgotten that it is a community, by increasingly thinking of itself as a market, with expansion as its end purpose,” said Macron, who recently blocked expanding the EU to include North Macedonia and Albania.

He also said he wanted European nations to break the “taboo” against using deficits to stimulate growth and investment, and scrap a strict limit on eurozone deficits.

Macron said it was a time of turmoil with Europe losing track of history, a risk of the US and China becoming the sole global powers, and authoritarian regimes emerging in its neighbourhood.

“All this has led to the exceptional fragility of Europe which, if it can’t think of itself as a global power, will disappear, because it will take a hard knock,” he said.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)

7, November 2019

Southern Cameroons Conflict denies Ambazonia kids their education ⁰

More than 855 000 Cameroonian children are out of school following the failure by over 4 000 schools to open for the new academic year.

Schools remain closed because of the largely English-speaking North-West and South-West regions beset by conflict between state security and separatists demanding self-rule.

More than 4 100 primary and 744 secondary schools remain closed or have ceased operating, two months into the new academic year.

Fear of violence has kept parents from sending their children to school while at the same time blocking teachers and staff from reporting to work.

Among these children, almost 150 000 have been displaced from their homes, which increases their vulnerability and trauma.

Henrietta Fore, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Executive Director, said the minors subsequently faced a higher risk of recruitment by armed groups, child marriage, early pregnancy and other forms of exploitation and abuse.

“Thousands of children in Cameroon are living in fear. They need peace so that they can resume their education and reclaim their future,” she said.

In some areas where schools have been closed, community-run learning activities have been initiated to ensure that children do not miss out further on their education.

Fore urged communities, armed groups and government authorities to protect education in all its forms and enable children to learn in a safe and protective environment.

“Education must remain above politics,” she said.

English speaking communities allege marginalization by the government of President Paul Biya, which is dominated by French-speaking Cameroonians.

Source: CAJ News

7, November 2019

Biya regime sacks U-17 national football coach ⁰

Cameroon Football Federation (FECAFOOT) on Wednesday sacked the head coach of its national U-17 football team, Thomas Libiih for the team’s poor performance at the FIFA U-17 World Cup that is underway in Brazil.

“Following the premature exit of the U-17 male national football team of Cameroon from the FIFA World Cup in Brazil, the Cameroon Football Federation puts an end to thefunctions of coach Thomas Libiih and that of the entire technical, administrative, and medical staff,” the federation’s president, Seidou Mbombo Njoya said in a statement released Wednesday evening.

Njoya also said, Libiih and his staff had refused to sign the code of conduct of the national football team.

Cameroon were knocked out of the championship in the first round after losing all their three group matches, scoring one and conceding six goals.

Libiih qualified Cameroon for the FIFA U-17 World Cup after winning the CAF U-17 Africa Cup of Nations following a 5-3 win against Guinea on penalties during the final in Dar es Salaam, Tanzanian in April.

Cameroon’s last participation at the FIFA U-17 World Cup was in 2003.

Source: Xinhuanet

7, November 2019

Yaounde Shrug Off US Suspension of Preferential Trade ⁰

Cameroon has shrugged off U.S. President Donald Trump’s announcement last week to suspend the country’s preferential trade status over alleged human rights abuses by security forces.

Cameroonian economists say U.S. plans to withdraw the central African nation from the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) beginning Jan. 1, 2020, would have little economic impact as bilateral trade is very low, making it mostly symbolic.

The 2000 law aims to stimulate U.S. trade and investment in sub-Saharan Africa by giving 39 countries duty-free access to the U.S. market.

But participants must work toward a market-based economy, upholding labor standards, establishing the rule of law, and respecting human rights.

University of Yaounde economist Gladys Mebenga said Cameroon can be an economic success without the U.S. trade support.

Cameroon’s export to the U.S. is less than 3 percent of its total exports, she said, adding that petroleum products, which form a majority of Cameroon’s trade exports, are in high demand by many of the 127 countries where Cameroon does business.

Cameroon’s National Institute of Statistics reports that its leading trade partner in 2018 was China, which accounted for 23 percent of exports. The U.S. was in 12th position, importing 2.8 percent of Cameroon’s exported goods.

In a press release issued after Trump’s statement, the U.S. embassy in Yaounde said relations between Cameroon and the U.S. remain strong despite the change in AGOA status.

It said that in 2018, Cameroon exported roughly $220 million in goods and services to the U.S.; $63 million of it under AGOA, over 90 percent of which was crude oil.

Frederrick Ekouda, visiting economic analyst at the Catholic University of Central Africa, said there is little dependence on the U.S. market.

America is not the only destination where Cameroon can sell its petroleum products, he said, adding that Cameroon also has economic partners in Brazil, China, South Korea and Russia.

But while the loss of AGOA status may not have an immediate impact on Cameroon’s economy, it would be a black mark on the country’s record, according to rights groups.

Roger Essoh of the Center for the Protection of People Traumatized by Conflicts (CEPPTC) said that stigma could deter other nations from offering Cameroon such trade deals.

Cameroon willfully committed itself to respect the terms of AGOA, Essoh said, and it is imperative for President Paul Biya to fix the human rights record instead of allowing his country to continue to sink economically.

US accusations

Trump’s message to Congress said despite intensive engagement between the U.S. and Cameroon, Yaounde had failed to address persistent human rights violations by security forces. The allegations included extrajudicial killings, arbitrary and unlawful detention, and torture.

Cameroon’s government has denied frequent accusations of rights abuses in its fight against Anglophone separatists and Boko Haram militants.

Government spokesperson Rene Emmanuel Sadi said U.S. claims of gross violations are unfounded.

Cameroon’s military forces respect all human rights norms, he said, adding that they are restoring order and protecting Cameroon’s territorial integrity and the lives and properties of its people.

But rights groups point out evidence of abuses by both Cameroon’s military and the militants they are fighting.

Cameroon’s five-year fight against Boko Haram insurgents has left more than 27,000 people dead and two million displaced.

Since 2017, Yaounde’s conflict with Anglophone separatists has killed about 3,000 people.

VOA

7, November 2019

Human Rights Watch welcomes President Trump’s trade squeeze on Biya ⁰

International rights group, Human Rights Watch, HRW; have welcomed a recent move by the United States to push the Cameroonian government to act on human rights abuses especially among its security forces.

According to a statement by their Central African researcher, Ilaria Allegrozzi stressed that despite Washington’s move, there was the need for more global action on Cameroon.

“The US termination of the designation of Cameroon as a beneficiary country under AGOA should be a wake-up call to the Cameroon government and should stir action from other international partners to Cameroon to publicly address serious human rights concerns in the country,” she said.

Before last week, announcement that the Trump administration intended to cut AGOA (Africa Growth and Opportunities Act) trade benefits for Cameroon by January 1, 2020, Washington had in February scaled back security cooperation citing persistent human rights violations in the country.

AGOA is an initiative that allows sub-Saharan African countries to export to the US without a customs duty. It is usually open to governments that have established or making progress toward establishing, rule of law, political pluralism, fair trial and due process standards, and equal protection under the law.

In his message to Congress, President Trump said Cameroon has failed to address concerns regarding government forces’ persistent human rights violations, including extrajudicial killings, arbitrary and unlawful detention, and torture.

Human Rights Watch researchers have been active in report of excesses by security forces and separatists in the country’s Anglophone regions hit by secessionist violence. They have also reported on similar cases in the Far North region where authorities are fighting Boko Haram elements.

Source: Africa News