11, June 2019
Violence escalating in Southern Cameroons 0
Prospects for talks between authorities and separatist movements to end escalating violence in Cameroon’s English-speaking region are slim, a senior human rights official said, dismissing assertions by both sides to be open to dialogue.
A separatist insurgency broke out in 2017 following a government crackdown on peaceful protests in the English-speaking Northwest and Southwest, which complain of being marginalised by the French-speaking majority.
Prime Minister Joseph Ngute said government would be willing to talk to the rebels, but would not consider demands for secession – a position hard-line separatists said they will not accept.
Eleven movements representing Anglophone Cameroon, including the main armed factions, last month said they were willing to enter mediated discussions with the state.
Almost daily violence from both sides has intensified, forcing thousands of civilians to seek refuge in Cameroon’s French-speaking regions and neighbouring countries.
“There is no desire for dialogue. The abuses are from both sides and civilians are finding themselves in the middle,” Ilaria Allegrozzi, Senior Central Africa Researcher at Human Rights Watch, told reporters in Paris.
“The position of government is an almost complete denial and there is total impunity for violence.”
The oil, cocoa and timber-producing nation was among western Africa’s most settled until a few years ago.
The United Nations estimates since 2017 about 1,800 people have been killed and more than 530,000 displaced with 1.3 million in need. Authorities promised to act over accusations of rights violations by security personnel.
Allegrozzi, refused entry to the country in May because of her research, said it was clear the rebels were too divided to form a platform to negotiate, an element government was using to its advantage.
She estimated the total number of separatist fighters at about 3,000 with evidence they were acquiring more sophisticated weaponry.
The crisis has slipped beneath the international radar given President Paul Biya’s close co-operation with Western states in the fight against Islamist militant group Boko Haram in West and central Africa.
The United States is become increasingly critical of government and the separatist crisis was discussed for the first time at the UN Security Council last month.
Allegrozzi said the Anglophone population was increasingly in tune with independence. “There is a growing support towards the separatists and secession,” she said.
Source: Reuters
11, June 2019
Francophone Crisis: Biya Regime Arrests More Opposition Supporters as Protest Efforts Intensify 0
Cameroon has detained hundreds more supporters of opposition leader Maurice Kamto, who is facing treason charges after leading protests and asserting that he won last October’s presidential election. The arrests happened Saturday as security forces disrupted a planned demonstration calling for Kamto’s release. Book seller Germain Kamte was found lying on the ground Monday in the Nlonkak neighborhood of Cameroon’s capital with bruises all over her body.
She told the people who found her that police stopped her and four of her friends, accused them of supporting a planned opposition protest, and then beat them. Kamte said the police beat her and four others severely, saying they were rude because two of the girls pleaded to be allowed to speak with their lawyers. Police kicked them all over their bodies, Kamte said, and used batons to beat them on their heads and under their feet.
Police refuse to respond
Cameroon police refused to respond to Kamte’s accusations, but routinely deny use of excessive force. Territorial administration minister Paul Atanga Nji said the police were deployed to maintain public order. He said the planned protest by supporters of the Cameroon Renaissance Movement party was illegal and its arrested leader, Maurice Kamto, a threat to stability.
“We can no longer tolerate those who undermine the laws of the republic,” Nji said. “He [Kamto] has a hidden agenda to destabilize Cameroon. We will not give him the opportunity.” Kamto’s supporters had promised to defy yet another ban on protests Saturday and demonstrate for his immediate release, along with over 500 arrested and detained supporters. But Cameroon’s security forces disrupted the protest and detained about 200 more opposition supporters, according to the CRM party.
Crackdown condemned
CRM Secretary General Christopher Ndong condemned authorities for deploying troops to crack down and refusing their right to protest. “We have taken the pains to write declaring that we want to protest,” Ndong said. “For more than 300 subdivisional offices (administrative units in Cameroon), systematically the government has rejected it. We now use the constitutional right because it is in the constitution that we have a right to march and protest for things that are going wrong.”
Human rights activist Jean Pierre Bengono says Cameroon should not be using the military to stop protests. Bengono said no normal human being would be happy seeing the military of a country that is supposed to protect its people assemble every morning, ready to arrest those who simply want to express their opinions. He said all organized democracies need the opposition to check political excesses and discuss the well-being of its people.
Disputed election
Kamto declared himself winner of the Oct. 7, 2018, presidential election and accused the President of Cameroon, Paul Biya, who has led for 36 years, of stealing his victory. Biya was declared the winner with 71 percent of the vote, far ahead of Kamto’s 14 percent. Police arrested Kamto and his colleagues in January after days of peaceful protests turned violent, with security forces using riot gear to disperse crowds in Yaounde, Douala and Mbouda.
Source: VOA