Monthly Archives: December 2019

Southern Cameroons Crisis: Biya regime withdraws contested language law

6, December 2019

Southern Cameroons Crisis: Biya regime withdraws contested language law 0

Cameroon has withdrawn a controversial bill that sought to promote the use of French and English languages in official corridors.

The withdrawal just before Parliament adopted came after lawyers protested on the streets that the legislation could lead to more French-speaking judges being assigned to courts in the English-speaking North West and South West of the country.

Cameroon is deeply divided with the Anglophone region agitating for secession into a republic of Ambazonia on the grounds that political leadership and allocation of resources is skewed in favour of the Francophone parts of the country.

The agitation started in 2017 spawning a crisis that has to date left 3,000 people dead, displaced half a million internally and forced 40,000 others into refuge in Nigeria

President Paul Biya called a Major National Dialogue in October to seek solutions to the crisis but the talks were undermined by absence of rebel leaders and claims that government officials handpicked delegates.

Nevertheless, President Biya also extended a gesture of reconciliation through release of more than 330 people held over political charges including opposition leader Maurice Kamto.

The international community saw this as a promising foundation and have been urging for more talks over the crisis with the AU, the Commonwealth and La Francophone political groupings the latest to offer support.

The sticking point in the Bilingual Bill—which is part of a programme of cultural integration—provided for use of either English or French in ordinary and special courts during proceedings as well as rulings.

The use of either rather than both is the sticking point.

“If the bill is adopted, where is the guarantee that the French majority will use English in French speaking towns like Dschang, Yagoua and Monatele with relative ease just as officials have been doing in West Cameroon?,” posed Barrister Oliver Ngwang Shey.

“Yaounde does not have the zeal to foster or maintain the Anglophone culture as a minority,” said Shey, a member of the Cameroon Bar Association.

A lawyers’ strike in 2016 over what they termed an erosion of the common law practice degenerated into violence that metamorphosed into an armed conflict when separatists joined in and declared the creation of an independent state of Ambazonia in 2017..

The UN says the conflict has created a fast-growing humanitarian emergency now affecting nearly two million people, a “15-fold increase since 2017.”

In a rare public comment on the issue last month, President Paul Biya told a Mo Ibrahim-moderated panel discussion on the sidelines of the second Paris Peace Forum that the root cause of the problem was the country’s background of having been governed by Germany, Great Britain and France.

“My country was divided with the juxtaposition of cultures and civilizations. We have had conflicts that are being resolved at the moment to give the part that was under British colonization a special status,” President Biya said.

The Bilingual Bill appears to have been part of efforts to give the two languages am equal footing, a task complicated by the different cultures, education and judicial systems in the two regions.

Biya said the special status would recognise the needs of the Anglophone zone as part Cameroon’s territory. He said the government had considered integrating English speakers into the majority francophone system but shelved the idea.

“I believe that countries are now concerned about affirming their identity today,” President Biya said in justification for the special status. However, the regions want complete autonomy in a federal state with a rotational presidency which the government has ruled out.

Source: The East African

US: Joe Biden slams Trump after he was mocked by NATO leaders

6, December 2019

US: Joe Biden slams Trump after he was mocked by NATO leaders 0

US Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden has sought to take advantage of President Donald Trump’s cold reception at a NATO summit in Britain, as footage emerged of other leaders mocking the US president.

In an online election ad released Thursday, Biden said portrayed himself as someone who is highly experienced in foreign affairs and can restore America’s global standing.

Biden, 77, blasted Trump as a “dangerously incompetent” and “incapable” head of state.

“The world sees Trump for what he is; insincere, ill-informed, [and] corrupt,” he says in the video. “And if we give Donald Trump four more years, we’ll have a great deal of difficulty of ever being able to recover America’s standing in the world.”

His online ad features a video of other world leaders mocking Trump at a Buckingham Palace reception held alongside the NATO summit this week.

Biden has touched on Trump’s belligerent style on the world stage repeatedly this week as he travels across the state of Iowa. With his six terms as a senator and two terms as vice president, Biden believes the international experience is a winner for him in the upcoming presidential election.

In an interview with the Associated Press on Thursday, Biden said he not only has a better demeanor and skill set for the job than Trump, but he also has more relevant experience, deeper knowledge and more extensive relationships abroad than his Democratic competitors.

During this week’s NATO summit to mark the 70th anniversary of the military alliance, Trump branded the leader of America’s northern neighbor “two-faced” after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau appeared to gossip about Trump in comments caught on camera and microphone.

Trudeau was seen standing in a huddle with French President Emmanuel Macron, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte and Britain’s Princess Anne, daughter of Queen Elizabeth II at Tuesday evening’s Buckingham Palace reception for NATO leaders.

Trudeau could be heard saying incredulously, “he takes a 40-minute press conference off the top.” Trudeau confirmed that was a reference to Trump’s long and unscheduled press conference earlier Tuesday.

Trudeau also said: “You just watched his team’s jaws drop to the floor.” He explained Wednesday that was in reference to Trump’s decision to hold the next Group of Seven meeting at Camp David, the US presidential retreat.

Source: Presstv

Political Islam: Nigeria transfers Sheikh Zakzaky, wife to ‘dilapidated’ jail

6, December 2019

Political Islam: Nigeria transfers Sheikh Zakzaky, wife to ‘dilapidated’ jail 0

Nigerian authorities transfer top Shia cleric, Sheikh Ibrahim Zakzaky, and his wife to a dilapidated prison, where many detainees have so far died due to lack of medical attention.

A High Court ordered the Department of State Services on Thursday to transfer the cleric and his wife, Zinat, to the Correctional Center, in Kaduna State, Northwest of the country.

Sheikh Zakzaky, who is in his mid-sixties, lost the sight of his left eye in a 2015 raid by security forces, that left more than 300 of his followers and three of his sons dead. His wife also sustained serious injuries during the raid.

He has been kept in custody along with his wife and a large number of his followers ever since.

Members of the Islamic Movement in Nigeria (IMN) said on Thursday that any attempt to take the couple anywhere other than a hospital will put them in further jeopardy.

The IMN described the move as a “mischievous” attempt by the government to humiliate “our leader, Sheikh Ibraheem Zakzaky, and subjecting him to further hardships.”

The IMN said the facilities at the Kaduna Central Prison are dilapidated.

They said it is the same prison where some survivors of the December 2015 raid perished due to lack of medical attention.

“It can therefore never be a substitute for appropriately furnished medical facility that can take care of their urgent medical needs,” the group said in a statement.

It said that by sending them to this prison, the government had “chosen a path of dishonor and shame in charging the Sheikh and his wife for aiding and abetting alleged offences they couldn’t prove in the same court against hundreds of his supporters.”

“They refused to diligently pursue the case, but rather use one flimsy excuse or the other to delay making any progress in the case because of their knowledge that they don’t have a case against them,” the IMN added.

Earlier this year, the IMN accused the Nigerian government of having poisoned Zakzaky in jail after “large and dangerous quantities of lead and cadmium have been found in his blood.”

Back in August, the couple was transferred to India to receive medical care. Days later, however, they had to return to Nigeria after they had “lost all faith” in the prospect of receiving proper treatment there, according to the Islamic group.

“Since that return, the Sheikh and his wife have been largely held incommunicado. No contact with their legal representatives was given and only a minimal contact with doctors and even that only after the Sheikh’s wife took seriously ill in detention.” the IMN said. .

Source: Presstv

Japan launches human trial of new Ebola vaccine

6, December 2019

Japan launches human trial of new Ebola vaccine 0

Japanese scientists will begin the country’s first human trial for a new vaccine against the deadly Ebola virus this month, they said Friday.

The vaccine, which has previously been tested in monkeys, uses an inactivated form of the virus that can only effectively replicate in artificial cells.

Scientists hope that will make it safer than other treatments, the Institute of Medical Science at the University of Tokyo said in a press release.

“We think there’s high hope for a new, safe vaccine which can be produced effectively,” Yoshihiro Kawaoka, a professor of infectious diseases at the university who helped developed the vaccine, said in the release.

The university will begin the clinical study later in December, injecting 30 healthy adult men with two doses of the vaccine, four weeks apart.

They will be monitored for side effects and whether they have developed immunity to Ebola.

The Ebola virus is passed on by contact with the blood, body fluids, secretions or organs of an infected or recently deceased person.

The death rate is typically high, ranging up to 90 percent in some outbreaks, according to the WHO.

Several Ebola vaccines exist, including rVSV-ZEBOV and a new formula produced by a Belgian subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson that went into use last month in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The country is in the grip of an Ebola epidemic that has killed more than 2,000 people in 15 months.

It is the second most deadly to date after a 2014-2016 outbreak which left some 11,000 people dead and underscored the urgency to bring a vaccine to market.

The current outbreak is the tenth in the country since its first in 1976.

Source: AFP

Ambazonia: Vice President Yerima says Bank of Ambazonia, Amba Bonds are vital IG financial reforms

5, December 2019

Ambazonia: Vice President Yerima says Bank of Ambazonia, Amba Bonds are vital IG financial reforms 0

Southern Cameroons Vice President, Dabney Yerima says the establishment of the Bank of Ambazonia and the Amba Bonds Project are necessary reforms carried out by the Interim Government to win the support of the diaspora and to equip the Restoration Forces.

Dabney Yerima made the comments during a telephone conversation with the Cameroon Concord News Group in which he also observed that fighting corruption in the Interim Government has made him a better leader and that financing the Restoration Forces is among the Ambazonia Interim Government’s top priorities.

The Ambazonia Second-in-Command revealed that he will be starting an international mobilization of Southern Cameroonians all over the globe beginning with the Republic of South Africa this December. Comrade Yerima added that the Interim Government’s priority has moved away from fighting corruption and misappropriation of funds to financing the creation of an Ambazonia Defense Force.

President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe replaced the disgraced former Acting President Samuel Sako Ikome under pressure from the Southern Cameroons Diaspora, who accused the gang of fake pastors of stifling the Southern Cameroons revolution and quest for an independent state.

Sako Ikome said at the time that he was the right man to take Southern Cameroonians back to their historic headquarters in Buea. But he reached a dead end in trying to resolve the financial scandal that rocked the Interim Government which has been further complicated by his refusal to obey the Ambazonian leader.

A source familiar with the exiled Southern Cameroons Interim Government cabinet said Sako Ikome and his acolyte, former Communications Secretary Chris Anu were both taking the last kicks of a dying horse.

Speaking at a news conference this week in Holland, Vice President Dabney Yerima indicated that progress had been made strategically in the formation of the Ambazonia Defense Force. He stated that the Interim Government was in agreement with the commanders in Ground Zero to appoint a trusted figure fully backed by all Restoration Forces and supported with a majority of competent, specialized people with military experience.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai in London

Boat mishap off Mauritanian coast kills 58, over 80 survivors rescued

5, December 2019

Boat mishap off Mauritanian coast kills 58, over 80 survivors rescued 0

Scores of migrants who swam through rough Atlantic Ocean waters to safety from a capsized boat while 58 others drowned were receiving care Thursday in Mauritania after one of the deadliest disasters this year among people making the perilous journey to Europe.

The boat that left Gambia a week ago had been carrying at least 150 people, including women and children.

It was headed toward the Canary Islands when it tried to approach the Mauritanian coast to get fuel and food, Laura Lungarotti, chief of mission in the West African nation with the U.N. migration agency, told The Associated Press.

“Many drowned. The ones who survived swam up to the Mauritanian coast close to the city of Nouadhibou,” she said. “The Mauritanian authorities are very efficiently coordinating the response with the agencies currently present” in the northern city.

At least 83 people swam to shore, the agency said. An unknown number of injured were taken to the hospital in Nouadhibou. It was not immediately clear whether anyone remained missing. Survivors said the boat had left Gambia on Nov. 27.

There was no immediate statement from authorities in Gambia, where tens of thousands of people have set off in hopes of reaching Europe in recent years.

Despite the country’s small size, more than 35,000 Gambians arrived in Europe between 2014 and 2018, according to the U.N. migration agency.

A 22-year rule by former President Yahya Jammeh affected the country’s economy, especially for youth, and contributed greatly to the exodus.

Since Jammeh fled into exile in January 2017 after a surprise election loss, European countries have been pushing to return asylum seekers.

But Gambia’s economy still suffers. The coastal nation was shaken earlier this year by the collapse of British travel company Thomas Cook.

At the time, Gambia’s tourism minister said the government convened an emergency meeting on the collapse, while some Gambians said the shutdown could have a devastating impact on tourism, which contributes more than 30% of the country’s GDP.

AP

Southern Cameroons Crisis: Yaounde Military Tribunal adjourns trial of Taraba 37

5, December 2019

Southern Cameroons Crisis: Yaounde Military Tribunal adjourns trial of Taraba 37 0

A French Cameroun government case against 37 innocent Southern Cameroons civilians abducted in Taraba State in Nigeria which raised fears of President Buhari’s interference in the Ambazonia crisis has been adjourned to the 2nd of January 2020.

The 37 Southern Cameroons asylum seekers in the Federal Republic of Nigeria were abducted on the 31st of December 2017 and illegally deported to French Cameroun and are facing charges of terrorism acts of terrorism, secession, and lack of National Identification Cards.

Cameroon Concord News understands that they were illegally deported to French Cameroun on the 26th of January 2018 and spent a year incommunicado in the bunkers of the National Gendarmerie Headquarters (SED) in Yaoundé without access to sunlight, no medical attention and are undergoing torture.

The 37 were later transferred to the Kondengui Central Prison on the 04th January 2019 where they have spent another year marking two years of unlawful detention without trial. They were meant to appear before the Military Court in Yaoundé for the 3rd time today.

The European Union and the United States government have voiced concerns on the deteriorating human rights situation in French Cameroun vis a vis the Southern Cameroons crisis. The next hearing is due to take place on Jan. 2nd.

By Kingsley Betek

What has happened to the Ambazonia veteran leader Mola Njoh Litumbe?

5, December 2019

What has happened to the Ambazonia veteran leader Mola Njoh Litumbe? 0

That’s the question every Southern Cameroonian seems to be asking, amid all kinds of speculation following Mola Litumbe’s uncharacteristic absence from the public eye. Mola Litumbe was last seen in Douala attending Dr Simon Munzu’s mother’s funeral activities.

The Ambazonia Interim Government has not made any statement on the influential veteran leader and staunch supporter of President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe for some time now. But there are indications from a Southern Cameroons front line leader in the USA that an Ambazonian icon may be smelling his last days on earth.  

In a recent posting on social media, Seseskou Christmas Ebini stated that “I have not spoken to Mola Njoh Litumbe for a while now. I have not been able to reach him on the phone to have the regular chats we use to have. The leaders in jail President Sisiku Julius Ayuk Tabe, Chairman Nfor Ngalla Nfor and all the other leaders ask me each time how Mola is doing and for me to transmit their warm regards and appreciation to him. I have called Mola’s number several times but it is not going through”.

Seseskou Ebini added that “I went asking people in Buea about Mola so I can get some information about him to our leaders in jail who hold him in very high regards. By the normal nature of things, it is just normal for Mola to be winding down and slowing down.”

Mola Njoh Litumbe is above 100 years, has had a very active and blessed long life and the Southern Cameroons revolution has been blessed with his presence. “We wish Mola to be with us long enough to see us in Buea, but that will be God’s will” Seseskou Ebini furthered.

The Ambazonia front liner pleaded to every Southern Cameroonian to offer a silent prayer of Thanksgiving and appreciation for Mola Njoh Litumbe.

By Asu Isong in London

Trump calls Trudeau ‘two-faced’ at NATO summit as candid chat goes viral

5, December 2019

Trump calls Trudeau ‘two-faced’ at NATO summit as candid chat goes viral 0

NATO leaders professed unity on Wednesday at a summit near London — but a spat over off-the-cuff chit chat at a royal reception rattled their show of solidarity. 

U.S. President Donald Trump branded the leader of America’s northern neighbor “two-faced” after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau appeared to gossip about Trump in comments caught on camera and microphone.

Trudeau was seen standing in a huddle with French President Emmanuel Macron, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte and Britain’s Princess Anne, daughter of Queen Elizabeth II, at Tuesday evening’s Buckingham Palace reception for NATO leaders.

Trudeau could be heard saying incredulously, “he takes a 40-minute press conference off the top.” Trudeau confirmed that was a reference to Trump’s long and unscheduled question-and-answer session with journalists earlier Tuesday.

Trudeau also said: “You just watched his team’s jaws drop to the floor.” He explained Wednesday that was in reference to Trump’s decision to hold the next Group of Seven meeting at Camp David, the presidential retreat.

Power & Politics✔@PnPCBC

.@JustinTrudeau, @EmmanuelMacron, @BorisJohnson and other VIPs shared a few words at a Buckingham Palace reception Tuesday. No one mentions @realDonaldTrump by name, but they seem to be discussing his lengthy impromptu press conferences from earlier in the day.

Footage of the palace reception was recorded by a pool camera. The clip was posted online by Canadian broadcaster CBC and has been viewed more than 5 million times.

Speaking Wednesday at the summit venue in Watford, outside London, Trump said Trudeau was likely upset that the U.S. president had broached the fact that Canada falls short of the NATO target of spending 2% of its gross domestic product on defense.

“Well he’s two-faced,” Trump told reporters. “And honestly, with Trudeau he’s a nice guy, I find him to be a very nice guy but you know the truth is that I called him out on the fact that he’s not paying 2% and I guess he’s not very happy about it.”

Redmond Shannon✔@RedShannon

Donald Trump on Justin Trudeau: “He’s two-faced… I called him out on the fact that he’s not paying 2%”

Trudeau had a quiet word and a handshake with Trump as he arrived at the summit Wednesday, and later tried to shrug off the episode.

“As you all know, we have a very good and constructive relationship between me and the president,” Trudeau told reporters at a news conference.

Asked if the incident had given him pause for thought, Trudeau said that ensuring the focus of attention remained on matters of substance “is something that we’re all going to try to do a little harder.”

Sarah Sears@iamSas

PM Trudeau was asked about his “jaw drop” comment that was caught by microphones last night. Here was his explanation – and a nod that his team was also caught off guard by last night’s video.

Johnson, meanwhile, professed ignorance when asked by reporters about the conversation.

“That’s complete nonsense,” he said, adding: “I really don’t know what is being referred to there.”

Leaders of the 29 NATO states met to mark the 70th anniversary of the military alliance — and trying to patch up differences over defense spending, the alliance’s strategic direction and member nation Turkey’s military action in northern Syria.

The two-day gathering ended with a show of unity, as the leaders declared their commitment to the alliance’s principle of collective defense, saying in their final declaration that “an attack against one Ally shall be considered an attack against us all.”

(AP)

Health group withdraws staff from Congo-Kinshasa amid violence

5, December 2019

Health group withdraws staff from Congo-Kinshasa amid violence 0

The non-profit group Doctors without Borders (MSF) pulled its foreign staff out of an eastern region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo after an armed group tried to enter its compound.

The group is the latest aid agency to withdraw its staff from the Biakato region, after three health workers treating Ebola were killed in an unclaimed attack last week at an accommodation camp in Biakato Mines in Ituri Province.

That attack prompted the World Health Organization to withdraw its staff from the area.

MSF said that on Tuesday night, a group wielding machetes and sticks broke into the Biakato Health Center, where it operates an Ebola Treatment Center. There were no casualties and the group did not enter the Ebola facility, it said.

A separate group with the same weapons then tried but failed to enter the MSF facility in Biakato Mines. The NGO said they threw stones but did not do any damage.

“Due to a deterioration in the security situation, MSF made the difficult decision to withdraw all non-local staff from the Biakato region,” MSF said in a statement.

According to local authorities, the attackers from last week’s incident are likely to be members of the Mayi-Mayi armed militia group, which is fighting for a share of the country’s wealth.

The DRC is undergoing its 10th Ebola epidemic, which is the second-deadliest on record.

The death toll from an Ebola outbreak in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo has risen to more than 200.

An outbreak of the much-feared hemorrhagic virus has killed 2,206 people mainly in North Kivu and neighboring Ituri, according to the latest official figures.

Insecurity has complicated the epidemic from the outset, compounding resistance within communities to preventive measures, care facilities, and safe burials.

On November 4, the authorities said more than 300 attacks on Ebola health workers had been recorded since the start of the year, leaving six dead and 70 wounded, some of them patients.

(Source: AFP)

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