1, July 2021
Southern Cameroons Crisis: Yerima, Amba Intel Chief discuss ways to achieve final victory 0
Top leaders of the Southern Cameroons struggle have reportedly exchanged views on the latest Ambazonia gains against the Cameroon government military and ways to achieve ultimate victory against the Biya French Cameroun occupying regime.
En route to Brussels on Tuesday for a meeting on the latest developments related to the war in Southern Cameroons, the Vice President of the Ambazonia Interim Government Dabney Yerima had a telephone conversation with the Ambazonia Intelligence Chief in Ground Zero.
Cameroon Concord News gathered that during the conversation, the two front line leaders spoke frankly on the situation in Bui and Otu in Eyumojock and its repercussions on the Biya Francophone regime in Yaoundé.
Southern Cameroons Self Defense Groups based in Ground Zero launched a counter offensive following heavy deployment of Cameroon government troops to Bui and Otu in Eyumojock. Soldiers loyal to the Biya Francophone regime turned a deaf ear an earlier ultimatum from the Ambazonia Interim Government and kept assaulting innocent Southern Cameroons civilians.
The Southern Cameroons was one of the territories set for decolonization in the context of the UN decolonization agenda. Britain’s devious handling of it and the British wheeling and dealing at the UN in 1959 and 1960 caused a great historical injustice to the people of the Southern Cameroons. That injustice continues to cry out for redress. British action resulted in the unconscionable imposition of an unnecessary and precipitated plebiscite with dead-end alternatives. Speaking through Lord Perth, Britain shamefully said the Southern Cameroons and its people were “expendable”.
The plebiscite was imposed in the teeth of opposition by the leadership of the trust territory. It offered a Hobson’s choice of ‘joining’ either Nigeria or French Cameroun. The internationally-prescribed political status option of sovereign independence was deliberately excluded. There was no good reason for doing so. On 11 February 1961, a skewed plebiscite was foisted on the people of the Southern Cameroons. Faced with the Hobson’s ‘choice’ that was forced down their throat, the people opted for independence in political association with Republique du Cameroun. It was agreed in writing between the two countries and to the knowledge of Britain and the UN, that the political association would take the form of an aggregative federation of two states, equal in status.
In 1972 Republique du Cameroun despotically ended the subterfuge of a federation and formerly annexed the territory of the Southern Cameroons as part of its territory. The Government of the Southern Cameroons was dismissed and its parliament dissolved along with the police and the public service of the federated state. All property, including artefacts, official documents and other archives, belonging to the Government of the Southern Cameroons was vandalized, destroyed in situ or carted to Yaoundé and simply burnt to ashes. The reason for this barbarianism was to erase any memory of the Southern Cameroons as a congener of statehood. Republique du Cameroun however continued to camouflage it’s predatory and expansionist politics under the cloak of what it instituted as so-called ‘United Republic of Cameroun’.
By Chi Prudence Asong
1, July 2021
US: Donald Rumsfeld, defence secretary under George W Bush, dies at 88 0
Donald Rumsfeld, a forceful U.S. defence secretary who was the main architect of the Iraq war until President George W. Bush replaced him when the United States found itself bogged down after three years of fighting, has died at age 88, his family said in a statement on Wednesday.
“It is with deep sadness that we share the news of the passing of Donald Rumsfeld, an American statesman and devoted husband, father, grandfather and great grandfather,” the statement said. “At 88, he was surrounded by family in his beloved Taos, New Mexico.”
The statement did not say when Rumsfeld died.
Rumsfeld, who ranks with Vietnam War-era defense secretary Robert McNamara as the most powerful men to hold the post, brought charisma and bombast to the Pentagon job, projecting the Bush administration’s muscular approach to world affairs.
With Rumsfeld in charge, U.S. forces swiftly toppled Iraqi President Saddam Hussein but failed to maintain law and order in the aftermath, and Iraq descended into chaos with a bloody insurgency and violence between Sunni and Shi’ite Muslims. U.S. troops remained in Iraq until 2011, long after he left his post.
Rumsfeld played a leading role ahead of the war in making the case to the world for the March 2003 invasion. He warned of the dangers of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction but no such weapons were ever discovered.
Only McNamara served as defence secretary for longer than Rumsfeld, who had two stints – from 1975 to 1977 under President Gerald Ford, for whom he also served as White House chief of staff, and from 2001 to 2006 under Bush.
Rumsfeld was known for imperious treatment of some military officers and members of Congress and infighting with other members of the Bush team, including Secretary of State Colin Powell. He also alienated U.S. allies in Europe.
In 2004, Bush twice refused to accept Rumsfeld’s offer to resign after photos surfaced of U.S. personnel abusing prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad. The scandal triggered international condemnation of the United States.
The United States faced global condemnation after the photos showed U.S. troops smiling, laughing and giving thumbs up as prisoners were forced into sexually abusive and humiliating positions including a naked human pyramid and simulated sex. One photo showed a prisoner forced to stand on a small box, his head covered in a black hood, with wires attached to his body.
Lightning rod for criticism
Rumsfeld personally authorized harsh interrogation techniques for detainees. The U.S. treatment of detainees in Iraq and foreign terrorism suspects at a special prison set up under Rumsfeld at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, drew international condemnation, with human rights activists and others saying prisoners were tortured.
He was a close ally of Bush’s vice president, Dick Cheney, who had worked for Rumsfeld during the 1970s Republican presidencies of Richard Nixon and Ford.
Rumsfeld became a lightning rod for criticism and, with the Iraq war largely a stalemate and public support eroding, Bush replaced him in November 2006 over Cheney’s objections.
Days after vowing Rumsfeld would remain for the rest of his term, Bush announced his departure a day after mid-term elections in which Democrats took control of Congress from Bush’s Republicans amid voter anger over the Iraq War.
Robert Gates, a soft-spoken but demanding former CIA director, took over from Rumsfeld in December 2006 and made sweeping strategic and military leadership changes in Iraq.
Many historians and military experts blamed Rumsfeld for decisions that led to difficulties in Iraq. For example, Rumsfeld insisted on a relatively small invasion force, rejecting the views of many generals. The force was then insufficient to stabilize Iraq when Saddam fell.
Rumsfeld also was accused of being slow to recognize the emergence of the insurgency in 2003 and the threat it posed.
The U.S. occupation leader under Rumsfeld, L. Paul Bremer, quickly made two fateful decisions. One dissolved the Iraqi military, putting thousands of armed men on the streets rather than harnessing Iraqi soldiers as a reconstruction force as originally planned.
The second barred from Iraq’s government even junior members of the former ruling Baath Party, essentially emptying the various ministries of the people who made the government operate.
Afghanistan invasion
Rumsfeld also oversaw the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 to oust the Taliban leaders who had harbored the al Qaeda leaders responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States. As he did in Iraq two years later, Rumsfeld sent a small force to Afghanistan, quickly chased the Taliban from power and then failed to establish law and order.
U.S. forces during Rumsfeld’s tenure also were unable to track down Osama bin Laden. The al Qaeda chief slipped past a modest force of U.S. special operations troops and CIA officers along with allied Afghan fighters in the Afghan mountains of Tora Bora in December 2001. U.S. forces killed him in 2011.
Critics argue that had Rumsfeld devoted more troops to the Afghan effort, bin Laden may have been taken. But as he wrote in “Rumsfeld’s Rules,” his compilation of truisms dating to the 1970s: “If you are not criticized, you may not be doing much.”
Another quote from “Rumsfeld’s Rules” was equally apt: “It is easier to get into something than to get out of it.”
Rumsfeld was known for his rollicking news conferences in which he sparred with reporters and offered memorable quotes.
Speaking in 2002 about whether Iraq would give weapons of mass destruction to terrorists, he said: “Reports that say that something hasn’t happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns. There are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns. That is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns – the ones we don’t know we don’t know.”
Rumsfeld later titled his memoir “Known and Unknown.”
“Stuff happens,” he told reporters in April 2003 amid rampant lawlessness in Baghdad after U.S. troops captured the Iraqi capital.
During his time away from public service, Rumsfeld became wealthy as a successful businessman, serving as chief executive of two Fortune 500 companies. In 1988, he briefly ran for the Republican U.S. presidential nomination.
Rumsfeld also served as a Navy pilot, U.S. NATO ambassador and was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. He and wife Joyce had three children.
(REUTERS)