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13, March 2019

Cameroon jails 26 for one year over protest ⁰

The opposition Renaissance Movement (MRC) leader Maurice Kamto was charged on February 2 with “rebellion” and “insurrection.”

Twenty-six people who were arrested in Cameroon in January during protests called by opposition leader Maurice Kamto have been given one-year jail terms, one of their lawyers said Wednesday.

The sentences for “illegal gathering and demonstration” were issued late Monday by a court in the capital Yaounde, said Sylvain Souop, an attorney for Kamto’s party, the Movement for the Rebirth of Cameroon (MRC).

“We have filed an appeal,” he said. “(The decision) is scandalous – it goes against every rule of the law.”

“At least 12” of those sentenced are MRC members while the others had been planning to take part in a non-political demonstration scheduled to be held in Yaounde the same day, he said.

He and around 150 other people were arrested in late January and have been held for nearly three weeks by police in the capital Yaounde.

Eleven other detainees were released, he said. Kamto and dozens of supporters were also arrested over the demonstration, which the MRC chief had called to protest over last October’s presidential elections.

Head of state Paul Biya, 86, was re-elected to a seventh straight term with 71 percent of the vote, followed by Kamto with 14.2 percent, according to official figures for the poll.

The arrests were criticised by the European Union and Amnesty International, while the United States urged Cameroon to release Kamto, saying that his detention was widely perceived as politically motivated. Kamto was charged on February 2 with “rebellion” and “insurrection.”

AFP

13, March 2019

Arrests in Cameroon for Corruption, or Challenges to Biya? ⁰

The recent arrest of a former official in Cameroon for alleged corruption has sparked a debate over whether the government is actually trying to stamp out corruption, or is cracking down on anyone it sees as a challenger to longtime President Paul Biya.

Former defense minister Edgard Alain Mebe Ngo’o was arrested along with his wife and three of his close collaborators.

Political analyst Eugene Mbida says Mebe Ngo’o had occupied several strategic positions, including the director of Biya’s cabinet, police chief, minister of transport and defense minister — who was instrumental in arresting people considered as opponents of Biya. Mebe Ngo’o was widely viewed by Cameroonians as the emblematic future president, according to Mbida.

At least two dozen former government officials have been arrested and imprisoned in Cameroon over the past 10 years, including a former prime minister, several ex-ministers, and heads of state-owned corporations.

The charges against Mebe Ngo’o have not been made public, though corruption is said to be the cause of his arrest. The other officials were arrested on embezzlement charges, but they say they are political prisoners who are suffering for raising their voices against Biya’s 37-year stay in power.

‘Prisoners of conscience’

Former Health Minister Urbain Olanguena Awono, in his book titled Mensonges d’Etat (Lies of the State), says he and other detainees are “prisoners of conscience.”

Jacques Mfeugue of the Yaounde-based Center for the Promotion of Good Governance says the only way for citizens to know if officials are stealing from the public purse is if officials are forced to declare their assets before taking office.

In addition, he says, Cameroon should upgrade the audit bench of the Supreme Court to an autonomous court that investigates financial crimes.

The government denies that Biya persecutes those who oppose him and insists that it fights only corruption. It says the country has lost about $1.5 billion in stolen funds over the past decade, and that the anti-corruption body recovered about $260 million last year.

VOA

13, March 2019

Former Governor Enow Tanjong urges impartiality in resolving conflict in Anglophone regions ⁰

A senior member of Cameroon’s Parliament on Tuesday called on the international community and the government to be more “objective” in resolving the conflict in the two English-speaking provinces of the West African country.

The remarks by Enoh Tanjong, the eldest member of Cameroon’s National Assembly, is believed to be made to show the stance of the Parliament for the first time since the armed conflict started in 2017.

“Solidarity and objectiveness of the international community and the government are fundamental in resolving the conflict,” he said while denouncing “in the strongest terms” the violence perpetrated by “gunmen” in the troubled regions.

“The international community particularly has to be more objective in assessing the political tensions in Cameroon,” Tanjong said as the new parliamentary session opened.

According to the United Nations, more than 430,000 people were internally displaced in the clashes between the government forces and the armed separatists seeking to create an independent nation in the English-speaking Northwest Region and Southwest Region.

“For once the dean (eldest member of parliament) has decided to mention the crisis in the Northwest and Southwest regions. I hope this is the beginning of many things to happen. We need peace to become a reality in Cameroon. This session might be very decisive,” another member of the National Assembly, Joseph Mbah Ndam, told Xinhua.

The parliamentary session, which will last through April 12, is widely expected to come up with a blueprint to end the conflict. It will also elect a new executive bureau for the National Assembly and the Senate, the upper house.

Xinhuanet

13, March 2019

Yaounde Reports Refugee Influx From Central Africa as Peace Initiative Fails ⁰

Cameroon says there has been an influx of refugees from the Central African Republic (CAR) after several armed militias in the CAR rejected the president’s new cabinet as not representative enough, sparking fears of renewed fighting. The U.N. refugee agency, or UNHCR, is trying to take care of them.

Some of the refugees are seeking help at the Garoua Boulay health center. The center receives an average of 30 patients daily, but this Tuesday it has received 70 people.

Nurse Luka Mvondo said a majority of them are children from the CAR who need rest after covering long distances on foot.

He said all sick refugees who submit their UNHCR identification cards are treated free of charge as per an agreement between the government of Cameroon and the United Nations.

CAR refugee women wait to be registered at Gado Badjere, eastern Cameroon.

The government of Cameroon says hundreds of returning and new refugees have crossed over from the CAR since March 5, when armed groups blocked a road in the western CAR to show their dissatisfaction with a new cabinet formed by President Faustin Archange Touadera.

Only six of the 14 armed groups that signed a peace and national reconciliation accord in Khartoum on February 6 are represented in the cabinet.

One group, the Central African People’s Democratic Front, accused the president of failing to comply with the Khartoum peace agreement, which they say requires an all-inclusive government with representatives from all armed groups that signed the deal.

Ngabede Bachirou fled to Cameroon because, he said, there are conflicts in the making unless Touadera quickly corrects his errors.

He said he is very grateful the people and the government of Cameroon have received him and his two children. He said he is particularly happy because his children have been admitted in school so they can have their education and secure their future.

CAR refugee children at Garoua Boulaye play with a host parent.

Jacques Boyer, the UNHCR resident representative in Cameroon, said the refugees are being taken care of despite the limited resources that are available.

He said besides providing humanitarian assistance to the refugees fleeing to safety as fear continues to grip CAR residents, the UNHCR has to reinforce the resilience of the host populations so they are able to handle the different economic, social and environmental shocks.

The CAR has been wracked by fighting since rebels overthrew President Francois Bozize in March 2013. The U.N. reports that in 2018, some 650,000 Central Africans were internally displaced and 546,000 were refugees in neighboring countries, with more than 300,000 in Cameroon.

VOA

13, March 2019

Cameroon: Can the mess ever stop? ⁰

For more than three decades, Cameroon has made the headlines for corruption and each time a senior official is arrested, the public feels that things will get better. But for three decades now, things have moved from better to worse with the future looking really bleak.

Way back in the mid-80s, only very few people were known to have stolen state funds and this did not look like an epidemic. In 1986, two years after the country’s President, Paul Biya, came to power, there were rumors of senior officials of his government stealing state funds. He promptly organized an interview with CRTV, the country’s national network, to dispel such rumors.

In his interview, he asked for proof and many Cameroonians were displeased with his statement on national TV. Many Cameroonians thought that it was incumbent upon the government to investigate any allegations instead of asking ordinary citizens to bring any evidence in their keeping.

The business of embezzling money is very sophisticated for an ordinary man to understand and it is only the government with its vast resources that can get to the bottom of things if it really wants to know the truth in a country like Cameroon.

But the truth did not take time to come out. No sooner had the president challenged the population than the very first managing director of CRTV, Elie Florent Etouga, absconded with the corporation’s budget. This was a sign that things were not as tidy as the president had portrayed in his interview. He later came on TV to acknowledge that some of his collaborators had stolen state money and were living out of the country.

This announcement was not only an indictment of Mr. Biya’s government, but a clear indication that the president was blissfully unaware of what was happening around him. Indeed, his statement in defense of his collaborators only served as the opening of the floodgates. After Mr. Elie Florent Etouga, Mr. Messi Messi, a managing director of a popular government financial institution, also fled the country with huge amounts of money in the early 90s as Cameroonians started demonstrating for multiparty politics and as things looked like Mr. Biya was losing his grip on power.

Mr. Messi Messi later alleged that the financial institution had been ruined by Mr. Biya’s wife and her family who constantly showed up at his office with bits of paper to collect money at the behest of the president’s wife. From that date, Cameroon made its way into the spotlight for the embezzling prowess of its government officials.

The last two decades have seen hundreds of Cameroon government officials being sent to jail for embezzlement. Even a Prime Minister, Ephraim Inoni, is also languishing in jail for dipping his hands into the government’s coffers. Cameroonians now joke that there is an entire government in jail and that the only vacancy in the country’s maximum security prison, Kondengui, is the post of president.

This implies that Cameroonians are looking forward to the day Mr. Biya will be taken to jail for presiding over a corrupt system. Cameroonians are at a loss for words. They argue that much of the embezzlement cannot be occurring without the president’s knowledge. They point to the fact that most of those in prison are people who are from the president’s ethnic group or region, arguing that there should have been a well-defined background check system to ensure that the public service does not get filled with criminals.

The public has been calling for a computerization of the system to ensure that a few people do not have absolute control over state funds, but these pleas have fallen on deaf ears and the looting of the system has continued unchecked. The embezzlement of state funds has not only hurt the president’s reputation as a leader, it has also hurt the economy.

Stealing state money has become a favorite sport among Cameroonians. Most Cameroonian civil servants, especially customs officials, tax inspectors, and heads of national corporations are clearly living well beyond their means and most of them have their children out of the country, mostly in Western countries where the stolen money is safely kept.

But this week, the country has been asking if the country’s economy will ever recover following the arrest of a former minister of defense, Alain Edgar Mebe Ngo’o, for the embezzlement of billions of taxpayers’ money. Pictures of the former minister’s mansion have been trending online and many Cameroonians are shocked at the display of opulence by Mr. Biya’s ministers.

Mr. Mebe Ngo’o’s case seems to be the worst in the country’s history. His wife, children and nephews are all involved and the list of his assets has left many Cameroonians wondering if this will ever stop. For more than three decades, the country’s government has been conducting itself like a crime syndicate and many members of the president’s ruling party are considered as Mafia kingpins who hold that they are above the law.

While the country is bleeding money and jobs, many members of the country’s ruling party have become very rich. The country’s economy is in a free fall and if something is not done, it will collapse and many lives will be exposed to hardship and death. The corruption has become all pervasive and it has now reached other sectors of the economy.

Schools, banks and hospitals have not been spared by this cancer that is tearing the country apart. The country’s hospitals have been ruined by corruption and most of them are more of consultation clinics. The country’s death rate has risen and it is even unsettling to know that medical doctors are more interested in money than in the health of their patients.

Regarding the financial sector, it could be said that it too has been hit hard by corruption as a result of what is happening in government circles. Late last year, the Central African Banking Commission (Cobac) issued sanctions on Cameroonian bank managers for various acts of corruption. This followed its September 22, 2018, meeting, the conclusions of which were published by Abbas Mahamat Tolli, the commission’s Chairman and Governor of BEAC.

The concerned managers reportedly violated exchange regulations and did not comply with prudential standards. Those affected by that decision included Alphonse Nafack, MD of Afriland First Bank; Isong Udom of United Bank for Africa; Gwendoline Nzo-Nguty Abunaw of Ecobank Cameroon; Waidi Loukoumanou of BGFIBank Cameroon as well as André Alexis Megudju, Managing Director of Crédit communautaire d’Afrique, a former microfinance institution that received Cobac’s banking accreditation in March 2017.

Furthermore, Cobac also examined seven financial institutions accused of non-compliance with banking regulations, lack of internal control and money laundering, among others. According to the regulator, these institutions have freed themselves from the rules governing the foreign exchange market.

This is the story of a country that has made corruption its hallmark. The story of Cameroon’s corruption is one that will continue for a long time, as long as the government does not find anything wrong with its ways. Corruption has blighted many lives. Many young Cameroonians are unemployed and millions are looking outwards for opportunities in distant lands. Today, it is normal for young Cameroonians to hold that their country has no plans for them and this is causing the country to lose many talented people. The brain drain has reached alarming proportions and it will be difficult for the government to reverse this unfortunate trend.

By Kingsley Betek and Linda Embi

12, March 2019

British PM secures ”legally binding changes’ to Brexit withdrawal agreement from the EU ⁰

British Prime Minister Theresa May has claimed to have secured ”legally binding changes” to the Brexit withdrawal agreement from the European Union prior to a key parliamentary vote on Tuesday.

British Cabinet Office Minister David Lidington notified Parliament of the development following negotiations between May and EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker in the French city Strasbourg earlier on Monday.

Lidington said the sides had agreed to a joint legally binding mechanism seeking to replace the so-called Irish backstop with alternative arrangements by December 2020.

“The EU cannot try to trap the UK in the backstop indefinitely, and that doing so would be an explicit breach of the legally binding commitments that both sides have agreed,” Lidington said.

The backstop clause of the Brexit deal is an insurance policy designed to prevent the return of border checks between British-ruled Northern Ireland and Ireland, which is an EU member.

Critics of May’s deal believe the backstop may trap the UK in the EU’s customs union indefinitely once the clause is triggered at the end of 2020.

Monday’s development comes as government sources had said earlier in the day that previous talks with the EU over the matter had reached a standstill.

UK, EU Brexit talks

May also didn’t appear in parliament following an urgent question called by Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn about progress in the Brexit talks. Corbyn accused May’s government of “delay”, saying that it is now “time for answers”.

May’s draft Brexit deal with the EU was rejected in parliament by a large majority on January 15. She has since vowed to work with the EU to find a solution to the backstop problem.

However, many expect the premier to finally fail to gain parliament support for her Brexit deal.

May has said that if a revised version of the deal is rejected in the House of Commons, she will have no option but to bring the UK out of the EU on March 29 in a disorderly manner.

A no-deal Brexit is speculated by many to entail serious political and economic repercussions for the country.

Presstv

12, March 2019

Zinedine Zidane re-appointed as Real Madrid’s new manager ⁰

Real Madrid have re-appointed their former manager, Zinedine Zidane, after the Galacticos’ poor results in the La Liga, and their early exit from the Champions League.

Real Madrid´s newly appointed French coach Zinedine Zidane arrives to give a press conference on March 11, 2019 in Madrid. (AFP)

The Spanish club announced the Frenchman’s return to the Santiago Bernabeu, just 10 months after his departure, replacing the struggling Santiago Solari at the helm till the year 2022.

The 4-1 win over Valladolid in the La Liga on Sunday, wasn’t enough to keep Solari at the Bernabeu, as they got eliminated from the UEFA Champions League at the hands of Ajax, and also endured two straight defeats at the hands of their arch-rivals Barcelona.

Los Blancos are currently 3rd in the league, 5 points behind 2nd placed Atletico, and 12 behind leaders Barcelona.

12, March 2019

Cameroon suspended from WTO for failing to pay XAF180 million contribution ⁰

Cameroon just got suspended from the World Trade organization (WTO) for non-payment of its contribution amounting to XAF180 million. Trade minister, Luc Magloire Mbarga Atangana, has referred the matter to the Prime Minister’s office on March 5 and requested that the country complies with the requirements of WTO’s Trade Facilitation Agreement.

“I have the honor to inform you, Mr. Prime Minister, Head of Government, that the arrears of our contributions to the World Trade Organization have now peaked at XAF138 million for 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018,” the trade minister wrote, stressing there is another XAF42 million to be paid for the FY2019, making an aggregate amount of XAF180 million.

According to Mbarga Atangana, Cameroon is currently subject to category III administrative sanctions, which consist of the suspension of all technical assistance activities and the denial of any access to training organized by the WTO. “Only the clearance of these arrears would allow our country to regain its rights within the Organization,” he concluded.

Source: Business in Cameroon

12, March 2019

Yaounde: Defense minister evaluates security measures following “growing violence” ⁰

Cameroon’s Minister of Defense, Joseph Beti Assomo on Monday held a meeting with senior military and police officers to evaluate security measures in the country in the wake of “growing violence”.

“The security situation in the country now is marked by violence sparked by secessionists and criminal gangs in the Northwest and Southwest regions. This has led to suffering,” Assomo said at the start of the meeting in the capital, Yaounde.

“Fortunately this is being fought by defense and security forces with courage, determination and professionalism in strict respect of laws,” he said, while expressing his regret over the dissemination of “fake news” about the conflict in the regions, which is detrimental to the army’s image.

“In any case, defense and security forces, will not fall into the traps of fake news. They (forces) will sanction any undisciplined soldiers going against military rules.” Assomo said. The meeting is expected to establish a blueprint that will ensure a return to normalcy “in violent parts of the country”, officials of the army told reporters.

Cameroon is facing growing insecurity in its two English-speaking regions of Northwest and Southwest where separatists want to create a new nation called “Ambazonia”. Government forces are also engaged in battles with kidnappers in the mountainous region of Adamawa and Boko Haram terror group in the Far North region of the country.

Xinhuanet

11, March 2019

Iran’s Rouhani arrives in Iraq on first official visit ⁰

Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani arrived in Iraq on Monday for his first official visit, state television said, as Baghdad is under pressure from Washington to limit ties with its neighbour. Before leaving Tehran Rouhani hailed the “special” relations between Iran and Iraq, saying they could not be compared to Baghdad’s ties “with an aggressor country like America”.

His visit to Iraq is the first since he became president in 2013. “Iran-Iraq relations are special,” Rouhani said at Tehran’s Mehrabad airport before flying to Baghdad, Iranian state television reported, adding that Tehran was always ready to help its neighbours.

“America is despised in the region. The bombs that the Americans dropped on Iraqis, Syrian people and other countries cannot be forgotten,” he added. Baghdad has been under pressure from Washington to limit ties with its neighbour, particularly after the United States last year withdrew from the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran and hit Tehran with sanctions.

Iraq was given limited waivers to continue buying electricity and natural gas from Iran, with Washington calling on Baghdad to partner with US companies to become energy independent. After Turkey, Iran is the top supplier of imported goods to Iraq, including cars, gas, home appliances and vegetables.

Iran has close but complicated relations with Iraq, with significant influence among its Shiite political groups. The two countries fought a bloody war from 1980 to 1988 and Tehran’s influence in Baghdad grew after the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq toppled the government of Saddam Hussein.

Iran was the first country to respond to Iraqi calls for help after Islamic State group jihadists captured second city Mosul in 2014 and threatened to overrun Baghdad and Kirkuk.

Tehran dispatched “military advisors” and equipment overnight along with the famous Revolutionary Guards elite Quds Force commander Qasem Soleimani to prevent IS jihadists from approaching its western borders.

Following the defeat of IS in Iraq, Iran is trying to position itself to gain a prime role in rebuilding the war-ravaged country.

During the visit, Rouhani is set to meet Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdel Mahdi and President Barham Saleh, as well as the country’s chief Shiite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, according to the Iranian government’s website. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif preceded Rouhani to Iraq to prepare for the visit.

AFP