The United Nations Security Council’s decision to hold an informal meeting on Cameroon on May 13, 2019 gives momentum to international efforts to address the human rights crisis in the country’s Anglophone regions.

“Security Council members should call on the government of Cameroon and leaders of armed separatist groups to end abuses against civilians in the Anglophone regions and hold those responsible for abuse accountable,” said Lewis Mudge, Central Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “This meeting is an opportunity to remind abusers that the world is watching.”

Since late 2016, deadly violence has gripped the Anglophone regions of Cameroon, claiming the lives of 1,800 people and forcing half a million to flee their homes. Among the most at-risk groups are people with disabilities and older people who have faced violent attacks, abandonment, forced displacement, and problems getting humanitarian assistance.

Government forces have killed scores of civilians, torched hundreds of homes, and used torture and incommunicado detention with near total impunity. Armed separatists have assaulted and kidnapped dozens of people, including students and teachers, amid increasing attacks and growing calls for secession of the North-West and South-West regions.

Since late April, Human Rights Watch has documented more abuses, including killings and burning of homes.

On April 19, a stray bullet fired by soldiers killed a 72-year-old woman in her house in Mamfe, South-West region. Her son told Human Rights Watch that soldiers raided the neighborhood and started shooting indiscriminately: “Everyone fled, but my mother was too old to run. As she was near the window, a bullet went through and hit her on the right side of the chest. She died on the way to the hospital.”

On April 23, armed separatists killed Adam Assana, a gendarme, in Muyuka, South-West region. His body was found decapitated and dismembered the following day along the Muyuka-Kumba road. A local resident told Human Rights Watch: “He was not on duty. His car was stopped an ‘Amba’ [separatist] checkpoint. When he was identified as a gendarme, he was kidnapped and killed. The separatists had pierced his mouth with a wooden stick.”

On April 25, violence erupted in Bamenda, North-West region, after armed separatists dropped a human head, allegedly belonging to a soldier, at the Hospital Roundabout. Security forces responded by shooting along Commercial Avenue, forcing people to flee. A social worker from Bamenda told Human Rights Watch: “We heard gunshots by the soldiers from all angles. We had to lie on the floor for hours.” Accounts from a dozen residents and videos show that soldiers broke into deserted shops.

On April 27, soldiers from the Rapid Intervention Battalion stormed a health center in Wum, North-West region, looking for wounded separatists and beat some of the medical staff. A female nurse who was hit on her head and jaw said: “As they didn’t find any boys [separatists] they started beating us. I was hit so bad that I could not eat or swallow.” The health center remained closed until May 9.

On April 28, armed separatists kidnapped a 42-year-old man in Sabongari, North-West region. Witnesses and residents told Human Rights Watch that the man had gone to the separatists’ camp l4 kilometers from Sabongari to negotiate the release of a traditional chief who had been abducted. “He went there and was taken hostage instead, while the chief was released,” a resident said. The man managed to escape on May 8.

On April 30, soldiers killed a 16-year-old boy in Kikaikelaki village, North-West region. Three witnesses said that the security forces entered the village with military vehicles, including at least three armored cars, and started to shoot indiscriminately, causing people to run away.

Three witnesses and two family members told Human Rights Watch that soldiers shot him in the leg as he tried to flee, then executed him at a nearby roundabout. “They first shot him in the leg and then carried him to their vehicle,” one resident said. “They dropped him at the Tsenla roundabout and killed him with a bullet in the head. We buried him the same day at the Presbyterian church.”

Security forces also burned down and looted 11 homes in Kikaikelaki. A man whose home was torched told Human Rights Watch: “When the military came, I hid for safety. I watched them steal gallons of fuel from a store and set my entire compound on fire. All I had is gone.”

The recent violence is part of an increase in attacks on civilians since the beginning of 2019. Further human rights violations are likely if the government does not rein in its forces and armed separatist leaders do not give clear instructions to their fighters to stop abuse, Human Rights Watch said.

The informal Security Council meeting comes after months of international condemnation of the violence unfolding in the Anglophone regions, including by the UN high commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet.

In the follow-up to this meeting, the UN Security Council should make Cameroon a formal item on its agenda and press authorities to investigate members of the security forces alleged to have carried out killings and destruction of property and prosecute those responsible. It should also publicly announce to armed separatist groups that their leaders will be held responsible for serious crimes committed by their fighters.

The council should consider imposing targeted sanctions against high-level people from both sides who bear responsibility for serious abuses.

The Cameroon government denied a Human Rights Watch researcher entry to the country on April 12, two days after Human Rights Watch published a short report on a deadly attack by soldiers, gendarmes, and members of the Rapid Intervention Battalion on a village in the North-West region. Bachelet visited Cameroon last week and raised the lack of access for both international and national human rights activists and humanitarian agencies.

“Cameroon’s move to block a human rights researcher and observers shows its determination to conceal its brutality,” Mudge said. “The UN Security Council should encourage the country to allow access to international human rights organizations and cooperate with them.”

Source: Human Rights Watch

The White House has contacted Swiss authorities to share a telephone number with Iran in hopes that Tehran will contact US President Donald Trump, CNN reports.

The White House contacted the Swiss on Thursday, the same day Trump publicly appealed to Iran to call him amid heightened tensions, the broadcaster cited a source as saying.

The source, however, said Iran was “highly unlikely” to demand the number from Swiss authorities.

The Swiss embassy represents US interests in Tehran, where Washington has had no mission since 1980.

While Trump called for talks on Thursday, he did not rule out military action against Iran.

Earliest this week, hawkish national security adviser John Bolton announced that the US was deploying an aircraft carrier strike group and a bomber task force to the Middle East in a bid to send a “message” to Iran.

Asked about the deployment decision on Thursday, Trump said Iran had been “very threatening.”

“We have information that you don’t want to know about. They were very threatening, and we just want to have — we have to have great security for this country,” Trump said.

On Friday, a senior commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) stressed that Tehran would not engage in talks with the Americans.

IRGC’s deputy head for political affairs, Brigadier General Yadollah Javani, said the US thinks it can intimidate Iran into negotiations with a combination of military threats and sanctions, but to no avail. 

The senior military commander also said the US will not dare to wage a war on Iran despite its deployment of bombers and an aircraft carrier to the Persian Gulf.

In a further provocative move Friday, the Pentagon announced that it would deploy an amphibious assault ship and a Patriot missile battery to the Middle East to counter the “Iranian threat”.

Many observers have questioned the US administration’s sudden and vague assertions about Iran in the region, citing contradictory remarks made by US intelligence officials and politicians.

Iranian officials have also dismissed the allegations as part of the US administration’s “psychological warfare” against the country.

Speaking on Thursday, Iran’s envoy to the United Nations Takht Ravanchi slammed the Trump administration’s allegations of rising Iranian threats, saying they were based on “fake intelligence”.

Tensions rose after the US said last month that it would not renew waivers allowing Tehran’s eight largest customers to purchase oil from Iran in order to bring Iranian oil exports to zero.

Washington withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) last year and reimposed unilateral sanctions that had been lifted under the landmark 2015 agreement.

Iran on Wednesday informed the UK, France, China, Russia and Germany — the remaining five signatories to the deal — that it was suspending some of its commitments under the deal.

Tehran also gave the three European signatories 60 days to meet their commitments, especially in the banking and oil sectors, and guarantee Iran’s interests in the face of US sanctions.

US unilateralism

Countries affected by US sanctions have expressed discontent, citing tight market conditions and high fuel prices that harm oil-dependent industries.

Last month, Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said the US decision to end sanctions waivers had even angered Washington’s allies.

“People are not happy. China is not happy, Turkey is not happy, Russia is not happy. France is not happy. US allies are not happy that this is happening and they say that they will find ways of resisting it,” said Zarif.

On Friday, Germany’s leading news weekly Der Spiegel published an article highlighting how Washington’s bid to pressure Iran had endangered Washington’s European allies, specifically Germany.

“Trump’s confrontational Middle Eastern policy has exacerbated the tensions between the US and its European allies, because, unlike the situation in Venezuela, Europe would be directly affected. The continent’s very security is at stake,” read the article.

“Washington is exacerbating regional tensions with its policy of applying maximum pressure on Iran,” Niels Annen, a high-ranking official at the German Foreign Ministry, told the publication.

Member of the German parliament with the Green Party and member of the Foreign Affairs Committee Jürgen Tritten said, “The US appears to be looking for a pretext to escalate the conflict with Iran.”

The paper also said the Europeans are in disarray in the face of Washington’s bid to pressurize Iran, with German foreign policy agreeing more with Tehran than its ally in Washington.

Deputy parliamentary group leader for the German SPD party, Rolf Mützenich, urged the German government to push for a UN Security Council resolution “requiring strict compliance with international law in the Middle East”.

The move, Mützenich said, will seek to counter US policies in the Middle East which disregard international law, notably in the case of Trump’s recent dealings over Palestine and Iran’s nuclear deal.

Source: Presstv