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6, February 2019

Southern Cameroons Crisis: The genocide is real ⁰

As the world looks the other way, Cameroonian soldiers are pressing forward with their plan to exterminate the indigenous people of Southern Cameroons. As seen in the video below, many young men are being herded to an unknown destination by Cameroonian soldiers with instructions from the minister of defense for severe measures to be taken.

Over the last two days, the Yaounde government has intensified its violent military operations in the two English-speaking regions of the country as separatist leaders call for a one week total lockdown of the region.

It should be underscored that the government’s brutality against the indigenous people of Southern Cameroons has radicalized the people and created more than a million refugees, with over half a million living rough in neighboring Nigeria which does not have the proper infrastructure to receive such a large number of refugees.

Today in Cameroon, there are more than half a million internally displaced persons, with the majority living in Yaounde and Douala. They have to fend for themselves and in many cases, they spend the night in the open where they are harrassed and exploited by government soldiers.

It should be recalled that the government had burnt down more than 140 villages, leaving the local population which is caught between brutal government forces and armed Southern Cameroonians who claim they are fighting for the total liberation of their land helpless.

The Southern Cameroons crisis which started as a protest by teachers and lawyers has spiralled out of control due to the government’s unnecessary violent crackdown that has brought the Southern Cameroonian Diaspora into the fray.

Today, the people of Southern Cameroons prefer to take their cue from the Diaspora instead of the government that has been shooting and killing many young men who have nothing to do with the high level insurgency that is playing out in Southern Cameroons.

Southern Cameroonians have been complaining of marginalization for more than five decades, but the Yaounde government has preferred to deliver to them death and destruction, insteading of seeking to address the issues that have caused the people to feel marginalized.

It should be underscored that Southern Cameroons holds about 60% of the country’s wealth and in the event of any separation, East Cameroon will be reduced to a very poor country.

The Southwest region alone accounts for more than 40% of Cameroon’s wealth. It has huge oil deposits, gold, timber and diamond, but the Southwesterner has been reduced to a sorry spectator of events in his own land. The region’s rich volcanic soil makes it the country’s bread basket.

Added to this is its seas that contain huge fish stocks that are being harvested by foreign companies. Royalties for this wealth is not paid into the councils and municipalities located in the region.

These huge sums of money have been paid to councils in the French-speaking regions for years, and Southern Cameroonians want to rupture such an exploitative relationship that has impoverished the indigenous people of this region.

Since the conflict started in 2016, more than 5,000 Cameroonians have lost their lives, including some 2,000 soldiers. More than three thousand have been injured. Despite this gloomy picture, the United Nations and the international community are indifferent to the genocide playing out in Southern Cameroons.

The country’s army soldiers are killing young men and women indiscriminately. Even children are not safe. The uniformed, sex-starved and drug-inflamed rapists are on a rampage and if the world remains on the sidelines, another Rwanda will play out in Cameroon.

The conflict has crippled the country’s economy, but it has created brand new and lucrative opportunities for the criminals wearing national uniforms.

These days, they round up young men and women for no reason and take them to the nearest police station or gendarmerie brigade where they are required to pay about USD 1,000 to the soldiers. They are sometimes threatened with death.

The soldiers, most of whom are of Beti extraction, always threaten their victims that they would be taken to Yaounde where they would be incarcerated for months without any charges laid.

Impoverished relatives are sometimes asked to pay the money before a certain deadline and this has raised the level of stress and fear in the regions by so many notches.

The world cannot continue to be blind to the rivers of blood that have been flowing in Southern Cameroons for almost three years. How much blood still has to flow for this nasty conflict to draw international attention and condemnation?

The genocide in Cameroon’s English-speaking regions is real and the world must step in to check it. The world must learn its lessons. Rwanda had proven that a few people were capable of bringing death and destruction to a people.

The world had promised that such madness would be checked. But why is the international community indifferent to the sorry plight of the indigenous people of Southern Cameroons?

The world must not let the country’s president, Paul Biya, and his collaborators to mow down an entire people. They must not get away with genocide.

By God, it is great to speak English. So why are Southern Cameroonians being slaughtered while the French and the world keep on cheering Mr. Biya? This needs to end and the time is now.

5, February 2019

Indomitable Lions: Stephane Mbia returns to China ⁰

The former Cameroon captain has teamed up with the Nine-headed Bird after cancelling his contract with Toulouse

Stephane Mbia has returned to China with newly promoted Super League side Wuhan Zall.

The 32-year-old cancelled his contract with French Ligue 1 side Toulouse this January after failing to secure regular playing time.

He was limited to five appearances this season since teaming up with the Stadium TFC outfit last summer on a year deal.

Source: Goal.com

5, February 2019

Four Southern Cameroons civilians killed as 10-day lockdown begins ⁰

At least four civilians were shot dead in war-torn Southern Cameroons on Tuesday as Southern Cameroonians began what the Ambazonia Interim Government called a “10-day lockdown”.

“In the Southwest region, three civilians including a student were killed in the localities of Buea, Tiko and Mutegene,” a military officer who opted for anonymity revealed. “In the chief town of Northwest, Bamenda, a commercial motorcyclist was shot dead,” said the officer.

Residents interviewed by the Chinese media organization Xinhua said there were “deafening” sound of gunshots in major junctions of the regions.

“We have been hearing the sound since morning. Businesses have closed and there is virtually no circulation of vehicles in the town,” Emmanuel Mbah, a resident in Bamenda hinted.

The Francophone army said the Southern Cameroons civilians were killed by Ambazonia Restoration Forces as a measure to impose a lockdown in the regions. However, the Southern Cameroons Interim Government have denied killing the civilians and rather blamed the Francophone army for “careless shooting.”

The Ambazonian Interim Government has banned all sorts of activities in the regions from Feb. 5-14 as a move to disrupt National Youth Day activities expected to be celebrated on Feb. 11.

On Saturday, the Francophone Governor Bernard Okalia Bilai of Southwest threatened to “severely punish” civil servants in the region who will respect the lockdown.

“If they don’t work, they will be sacked,” Bilai said. Southern Cameroonians are seeking to secede from French-majority Cameroon and have already created a new nation called ” The Federal Republic of Ambazonia.”

According to the United Nations, more than 430,000 people have been displaced internally since the separatists started clashing with government forces in 2017.

Reported by Sama Ernest with files from Xinhua

5, February 2019

Biya Regime Apologizes for Government Official’s Comment That Jewish ‘Arrogance’ Caused Holocaust ⁰

The government of Cameroon has apologized to Israel for an incendiary remark made by one of its officials describing the Nazi Holocaust as having been brought on by Jewish “arrogance.”

Deputy Justice Minister Jean de Dieu Momo made the comment during an interview on state television on Sunday in the context of the African country’s current political woes. Asked why he thought the detained opposition leader Maurice Kamto had refused to accept defeat following the Oct. 7 presidential election, Momo invoked the Nazi persecution of the Jews.

“In Germany, there was a race of very rich people. They had enormous economic power,” the deputy minister said. “And they were so arrogant that the German people felt a little nervous. Then one day, a certain Hitler came to power and put these populations in gas chambers.”

The remark was understood as a warning to the Bamiléké ethnic group which Kamto belongs to, who have a “reputation for being successful businessmen,” according to the BBC‘s “Africa Live” program. Momo, who is also an ethnic Bamiléké, said it would be wrong for the group to seek political power alongside its economic influence, and suggested that trying to do so could be dangerous for the entire community.

In a statement on Monday, the Israeli embassy in Yaounde, the capital of Cameroon, “strongly” condemned Momo’s comment, which it said “makes a tacit justification of the Holocaust by Nazi Germany.”

Shortly after Israel voiced its criticism of Momo, the Cameroon government distanced itself from the deputy minister’s remarks.

“The government of the Republic of Cameroon would like to stress that the minister concerned was speaking in a personal capacity,” Communications Minister René Emmanuel Sadi said in a statement to the AFP news agency on Tuesday. Sadi added that the government “deplores” the Momo’s comment, but did not elaborate on whether he would face further censure.

Source: Algemeiner

5, February 2019

UN spokesman calls for increasing humanitarian aid for Nigerian refugees in Cameroon ⁰

UN agencies and their humanitarian partners need to increase aid to Nigerian refugees in neighbouring Cameroon, Stephane Dujarric, the chief UN spokesman said on Monday.

“The response needs to be scaled up significantly to cope with the influx of people, with many refugees reluctant to return to Nigeria’s Rann area or any other camp in Ngala without assurances of their safety and security,” he said.

“Aid workers are working with authorities to protect the refugees’ right to asylum and to relocate them to safer areas away from the border,” Dujarric told reporters at a regular briefing.

He said that Allegra Baiocchi, the Humanitarian Coordinator for Cameroon, and representatives from the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and local authorities, visited the Goura refugee site in the far north of Cameroon, adjacent to northeast Nigeria where government troops have been clashing with terrorist groups.

Some 35,000 Nigerian refugees have fled into Cameroon. “Aid organizations are providing food, shelter and water and sanitation, among other services,” Dujarric said.

“At the end of January, the World Food Program (WFP) began distributing food for 13,500 Nigerian refugees,” he said, adding that the 2019 Humanitarian Response Plan for Cameroon seeks financial aid to assist 2.3 million vulnerable people.

Xinhua

5, February 2019

Why China just quietly wrote off a chunk of Cameroon’s debt in secrecy ⁰

When top Chinese diplomat Yang Jiechi met Cameroon President Paul Biya in the capital Yaounde last month and wrote off a chunk of the African country’s debt, the deal very nearly went unnoticed. China issued no press release, and the Cameroon government did not mention the debt cancellation in its write-up of Yang’s visit.

It was only when a Chinese news report later alleged that Beijing had written off 3 trillion Central African CFA francs ($5.2 billion) of Cameroon’s debt during Yang’s trip that the existence of a deal emerged. The figure was incorrect. Five billion dollars is close to the amount Cameroon has borrowed from Beijing since 2000, according to the China Africa Research Initiative (CARI), and exceeds the amount the country is believed to still owe.

But while the news report was wrong, its release did force the Chinese government to speak publicly about what type of deal had been reached. Last week, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying told CNN: “China agreed to waive the interest-free inter-governmental debt that Cameroon had not paid back by the end of 2018.” That debt was worth $78.4 million. Cameroon’s total debt is 5.8 trillion Central African CFA francs ($10 billion), about a third of which is owed to China, according to the International Monetary Fund. In short, this was a tiny slice of Cameroon’s liability to China. So why the initial secrecy?

African debt backlash

Debt write-offs for developing nations are usually greeted with great fanfare, such as the IMF and World Bank’s Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative, or the Paris Club’s landmark debt wipe-out in the early 2000s. In China, it’s more complicated: African debt has become increasingly controversial at home. When President Xi Jinping pledged a $60 billion package of aid, investment and loans to Africa last September at the triennial Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, angry posts emerged on the Chinese internet.

Critics questioned why China — where at least 30 million people still live in poverty, defined as an annual income of less than 2,300 yuan (about $340) — was giving money to Africa. Censors quickly deleted the complaints. There is also this to consider: African nations have borrowed $143 billion from China since 2000, according to CARI figures. Beijing’s leniency toward Cameroon could prompt other heavily leveraged nations, such as Ethiopia, Djibouti and Zambia, to expect similar treatment.

China may have also sought an under-the-radar arrangement because of Cameroon’s political turmoil. Last week, police arrested Maurice Kamto, the Cameroonian opposition leader who claims to have won last year’s election, along with several staff supporters, amid protests that are fueling political instability. The West African nation is battling a Boko Haram insurgency in the north, while a secessionist movement is destabilizing the two Anglophone regions of the largely French-speaking nation which was born from the unification of a former British and a former French colony. Due to the unrest, Cameroon has been stripped of the right to host the 2019 African Cup of Nations, the continent’s biennial soccer championship, which will now take place in Egypt.

An election posters for Cameroonian President Paul Biya in Yaounde in November 2018 reiterates he has “the force of experience” on his side.

From a human rights perspective, the bar for Chinese political partners in Africa is low. Beijing backed Zimbabwe during some of the darkest years of dictator Robert Mugabe’s rule, and poured money into Angola under former president José Eduardo dos Santos, an authoritarian figure associated with large-scale corruption.

But 85-year-old Biya, who has ruled Cameroon for 36 years, is increasingly looking like an “inappropriate partner” from a business standpoint as China faces growing scrutiny on the continent, says Chris Roberts, a political scientist at the University of Calgary. “Cameroon in every way, shape or form is getting worse by the day in every metric,” says Roberts. “This regime has dismantled whatever foundations it had for a stable economy.”

Deep pockets, deep port

China established diplomatic relations with Cameroon in 1971. Their economic partnership grew after Nicolas Sarkozy became president of France in 2007 and oversaw his country’s decreased engagement with its former colonial territory, leaving a vacuum for Beijing to fill. Since the turn of the century, China has been granting Cameroon debt relief: In 2001, it canceled $34 million of debt, then in 2007 it forgave another $32 million and $30 million was wiped out in 2010. Those figures in fact paled in comparison with the $227 million Canada forgave in 2006, for example, notes Roberts.

But it was in 2011 that China really committed to Cameroon by agreeing to build and finance a new port in the fishing town of Kribi. It seemed a stable place to invest: Cameroon was considered a relatively peaceful nation in a war-torn region. Cameroon’s existing port of Douala was overworked, run down and restricted by its location on a sediment-filled estuary. When completed in 2035, Kribi will be the biggest deep-water port in the region. It will handle exports of Cameroon’s bauxite, iron ore and other minerals and could also serve the Chad-Cameroon Petroleum Development and Pipeline Project, which pumps oil from landlocked Chad.

The first two stages of the project, constructed by China Harbor Engineering Company, were worth $1.2 billion.CHEC is also building a $436 million highway to connect the new port with Douala and has agreed to construct a railway to an iron ore deposit. Other Chinese companies have been throwing up concrete towers around Kribi, in anticipation of its transformation into a thriving regional commercial hub. The Kribi port will also extend the reach in West Africa of China’s Maritime Silk Road, an initiative that Senegal signed on to last year. It is an important part of President Xi’s massive multinational One Belt One Road economic development plan.

The old port compared with the new Chinese-built facility.

“The Gulf of Guinea is strategic for China,” says Xavier Auregan, a specialist on China-Africa relations in Francophone nations, explaining that a foothold there strengthens its interests in West Africa from the Ivory Coast to Gabon. “Cameroon is one of the countries that can bring together the energy infrastructure of … West Africa.”

China’s activity in Cameroon is not restricted to the new port: It was responsible for 90% of road construction and restoration in the country as of 2014, and Chinese companies have built dams and hydroelectric power facilities there. China has also undoubtedly benefited from these developments, with many of the contracts going to its firms. But the Cameroonian government has taken out considerable loans to fund them and debt repayments look increasingly problematic in a now faltering economy. “If you’re saying we lent this money for this project or development effort, and we’re just writing it off because we know we’re never going to get it back,” says Roberts, “that has a domestic effect, but it also has international implications.”

One of the big concerns around Chinese loans in Africa is debt-trap diplomacy — the idea that Beijing will pressure countries that can’t repay loans into handing over key assets. Last December, Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta denied that Mombasa’s massive Kilindini Harbor, the largest port in East Africa, had been listed as collateral for a multibillion-dollar Chinese loan to fund a railway. China also denied the report. In Djibouti, similar concerns have been raised over China’s recent acquisition of a stake in a port there.

Gold mine tensions

China’s decision to provide Cameroon with debt relief also comes at a fraught moment between the country’s traditional gold-mining community and Chinese mining companies. East Cameroon is rich in gold. Justin Kamga, coordinator of the Forests and Rural Development Association (FODER) in Yaounde, says Chinese companies are operating illegal mines across the region and have scant respect for the land.

A Chinese mine site in Cameroon. Industrial machines are used to dig up the site.

The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not reply to CNN’s request for comment. Local Cameroonian miners typically use artisanal mining methods which do not damage the environment, says Kamga. Chinese companies use heavy machinery that often pockmarks villages with multiple holes 30 meters deep, destroying farmland.

Between 2012 and 2015, Kamga said that more than 250 excavations were abandoned, mostly by Chinese companies. From 2015 to 2018, he said, more than 100 people died in such holes, which trigger landslides and spark local outrage at Chinese companies. In December, nine people died in such an incident, according to FODER.

Artisanal gold miners in East Cameroon.

Regulations stipulate that operators should safely cover holes, but Kamga says the Cameroon army protects Chinese mining companies, meaning they often face little legal retribution. Cameroon ranked 152 out of 180 countries on the 2018 Corruption Perceptions Index. The Cameroon government did not respond to CNN’s emails asking for comment. Auregan says that while reckless mining has tarnished China’s image, it is unlikely to be the reason for the write-off of the 2018 debt. “China sees the geostrategic and long-term vision of the importance of Cameroon in that region,” says Roberts. In short, as long as China needs a maritime foothold in West Africa, Cameroon’s debt burden may be lightened for a while longer.

Culled from the CNN

5, February 2019

Biya regime’s Anti-Semitism Crisis: Yaounde abandons Minister Momo ⁰

When Barrister Jean de Dieu Momo went from being an unknown lawyer to a cabinet minister in the Biya Francophone Beti Ewondo regime, there was no natural urge to know more about him. He was simply a pro Biya comedian. Now he has provided not only local but the international media plenty to go through. Ever since he was installed as a Cameroon government minister by Prime Minister Dion Ngute, Jean de Dieu Momo has been the kind of French Cameroun politician from the West region who shows up everywhere seeking for notice and stays late in television stations to protect the already battered image of the Biya regime.

Questioned recently on the Cameroon Radio and Television (CRTV) on why he thought his kinsman and opposition leader Prof Maurice Kamto had blatantly refused to accept defeat following the October 7^th presidential election, the so-called Francophone cabinet minister used long established anti-Semitic stereotypes.

He noted authoritatively that “In Germany, there was a race of very rich people. They had enormous economic power. And they were so arrogant that the German people felt a little nervous. Then one day, a certain Hitler came to power and put these populations in gas chambers.” These are the kind of evil men that the 85 year old Biya relies on for his political survival and relevance in a country that is crumbling at catastrophic rapidity.

Correspondingly, the Israeli Embassy in Cameroon has said it is outraged at comments made by Cameroon’s Deputy Justice Minister Jean de Dieu Momo in which he justified the Holocaust that some six million Jewish people were killed in Nazi Germany.

It is vital to understand that Prof Maurice Kamto, the leader of the MRC party, comes from the Bamelike ethnic group who have a reputation for being successful businessmen and women. Minister Momo, who is also an ethnic Bamelike, further opined that it would be wrong for the group to seek political power alongside their economic influence, and suggested that trying to do so could be dangerous for the entire community.

The Israeli Embassy in Cameroon noted in a statement that “the government official has justified the Holocaust perpetrated by Nazi Germany”. It went on to suggest the comments would have an impact on the two countries’ relationship. The embassy called for “an immediate apology,” from Cameroon’s government and they have gotten one.

But nobody in Yaoundé even from within the ruling CPDM crime syndicate had really paid attention to Minister Momo after his anti Semitic comments, because why would you? He simply sounded a note of caution to his Bamileke community not to dare challenge Biya like the people of Southern Cameroons.

It is now evidently clear that the Biya regime is run by a gang of Holocaust deniers who only need the Jewish state for interest-free loans and weapons including political protection. The Biya regime’s war in Southern Cameroons-Ambazonia is being waged using Hamas and Hezbollah tactics-groups that continue to pose serious danger to the state of Israel. President Biya’s most trusted pilot for more than three decades has been a Palestinian national.

In the apology statement issued by the Cameroon government, Yaoundé was quick to say that the Deputy Minister for Justice was speaking on a strictly personal basis. The Biya regime further pointed out that “The Government of Cameroon strongly deplores the irrelevant comments of the said personality and completely disassociates itself.”

With the Biya Francophone Beti Ewondo regime perilously weakened by Boko Haram and the war in Southern Cameroons, Holocaust deniers like Ministers Momo, Paul Atanga Nji and Ferdinand Ngoh Ngoh are closer than ever to becoming Cameroon’s Chief executive. There is a fear, a real fear of this disturbing development in the Cameroon political story.

This is not a low attack on the Yaounde government. Tribalism and nepotism have been the organizing principles of the Biya regime and the 85 year old leader has allowed prejudice to go unchecked ever since he took office in 1982. Yaoundé’s attempt to respond to the Minister Momo issue has somehow managed to make things worse.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

5, February 2019

Ukraine: Comedian ahead in unpredictable presidential poll ⁰

A Ukrainian comedian who plays the country’s president in a TV series is currently the favorite to take on the real-life role in this spring’s election, recent polls show.

As the deadline for candidate nomination expired overnight, surveys showed Volodymyr Zelensky ahead of former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko and incumbent Petro Poroshenko.

But with a record number of candidates in the race, the vote remains highly unpredictable.

“Thirty people have been registered, this is an all-time high,” commission spokesperson Kostyantyn Khivrenko told AFP, saying the documents of about 40 potential candidates are also being considered.

Zelensky, 40, has tapped into widespread frustrations with the country’s political class and the slow pace of reforms.

Various recent polls put him at between 19 and 23 percent, with Tymoshenko and Poroshenko several points behind — varying between second and third place.

But political analyst Anatoly Oktysiuk from Kiev’s Democracy House told AFP that Zelensky’s largely “young, often passive” supporters were likely to not turn out, predicting his final share of the vote would be lower.

Zelensky, already a popular comedian, has in recent years won further fans with his portrayal of the country’s leader in a sitcom called “Sluga Narodu” — which translates as “Servant of the People.”

But he has also rallied largely young supporters to his own political cause.

Others, however, highlight his lack of experience and flag up his ties to Poroshenko’s billionaire foe Igor Kolomoisky, who owns the television channel on which Zelensky stars.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko (R) gives a speech during a meeting with his supporters in Kiev on January 29, 2019. (Photo by AFP)

Observers say the race is too close to call.

“It’s very unpredictable at this stage who might actually win,” US Ambassador Kurt Volker told journalists last week, stressing that Washington would work with whichever democratically-elected leader emerged from the vote.

Poroshenko, a 53-year-old chocolate tycoon, sailed to victory in a May 2014 election after a popular uprising ousted the Moscow-backed regime of Viktor Yanukovych.

He promised to pivot the former Soviet country of nearly 45 million people towards the West and has sought to push through ambitious reforms.

But critics say corruption is still rampant and Poroshenko has done little to rein in fellow oligarchs, although the economy is showing signs of recovery after a recession.

Tymoshenko, the runner up, rose to international prominence through her role in the 2004 Orange Revolution.

But after 15 years — three of which were spent as head of government and another three in jail following a trial denounced in the West as selective justice — she remains a highly divisive figure.

Voting will take place on March 31, with a second round three weeks later if no candidate takes more than 50 percent.

(Source: AFP)

5, February 2019

Why the Ambazonia Interim Government matters so much in a turbulent Southern Cameroons ⁰

When ailing President Buhari and his consortium of crime syndicates in the Federal Republic of Nigeria abducted and forcefully handed over His Excellency President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe and his top aides to the Biya Francophone regime in Yaoundé, Southern Cameroonians both at home and in the Diaspora struggled to make sense of it. First, Ambazonians were shocked when they got an insight into what transpired at Nera Hotel in Abuja which was never broadcasted on Nigerian television. The Southern Cameroons Interim President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe and his cabinet were held in an undisclosed location in Nigeria by a regiment of the Nigerian secret service currently being controlled by President Buhari’s Fulani kinsmen before they were extradited to Yaoundé.

So far, a detail explanation for this bizarre sequence of events emerged from Cameroon Concord News Group reporters in Abuja and Yaounde and many in French Cameroun and beyond agrees on the reason behind President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe’s abduction: Biya regime at the Sisiku’s increasingly confident leadership in the quest for Southern Cameroons independence. Above all, the Federal Republic of Nigeria is under French pressure because it is the strongest British colonial force that can chase away the French and liberate the Francophone African countries whose central bank is the French treasury.

The Interim Government of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia began life some few years ago as an administration formed to defy French Cameroun’s 57 years occupation of Southern Cameroons. Since the election of President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe as Interim President, the Southern Cameroons Interim Government has successfully rallied Ambazonians throughout the globe to join the resistance.

The Interim Government contended from the very inception of the Southern Cameroons resistance that its growing arsenal was solely for self- defense in the face of numerous French Cameroun army attacks and for three years running the Ambazonian Interim Government has not been defeated militarily by French Cameroun with support from France and CEMAC nations. The Biya Francophone regime with the support of the French government and diplomats from Francophone African countries such as Chad, Gabon and Congo-Brazzaville have marked the Ambazonia Interim Government as a potential threat to regional stability in the Gulf of Guinea and the CEMAC region, a status the Ambazonia Interim Government retains to this day deep within the UN, the EU and the African Union.

The Ambazonia Interim Government’s political and self-defense power grew throughout the beginning of the Southern Cameroons revolution, but it was soon put to the test immediately after the arrest and extradition of President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe. As French Cameroun political elites celebrated the criminal action that was jointly taken by the Biya-Buhari gangs, the Ambazonia Interim Government worked with the Ambazonia Self-Defense Council (ASC) to fend off French Cameroun sponsored groups such as the ADF of Cho Ayaba and Morisc of Boh Herbert trying to topple the Interim Government. Fighting alongside the Ambazonia Interim Government’s forces, the ASC came to play a critical role in the struggle and continues to do so.

In the closed to three years since the Southern Cameroons war began, the Ambazonia Interim Government’s self-defense power has grown disproportionately. Even though the Interim Government is yet to secure unhindered access to arms supplies due to stone walls erected by the President Buhari administration and valuable field experience. Politically, however, the Ambazonia Interim Government has given the Biya Francophone regime a run for their money. Some unscrupulous Southern Cameroons political elites in the Diaspora have recently developed a greedy position towards the complex conflict. This has made the Ambazonia Interim Government too weak, both politically and militarily, to engage in a conflict with a neighbor supported by France and countries in the CEMAC region. Nonetheless, Acting President Samuel Sako Ikome and his powerful Communications Secretary Chris Anu are not sitting idle and watch Ground Zero fighters – fight alone to save the Federal Republic of Ambazonia.

With Restoration Fighters on Ground Zero, the Ambazonian Interim Government has become something much more than a mere resistance body against French Cameroun occupation. The Ambazonian Interim Government now possesses power that is typically reserved for African states with backing from the West: the power to help regimes rise or fall even in Mighty Nigeria.

If President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe wanted the Ambazonia Interim Government to stay in Nigeria and waged an armed struggle against French Cameroun, he would have done so immediately after he took over leadership of the struggle. That explains why Abuja invited him to the negotiation table but made a dramatic U turn and interfered so boldly and directly in the Southern Cameroons crisis. By arresting President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe and his top aides in Abuja, the God father of political Islam, President Buhari sought to pull the political rug from underneath Ambazonia Interim Government’s feet.

The Southern Cameroons struggle is now in a critical position. If the Ambazonia Interim Government gives up its popular support, that will be the end of the show. But should it heed the ASC’s advice it will come out as a more powerful administration. Whatever the Ambazonia Interim Government does with the ASC, its ’s next move puts hundreds of thousands of Southern Cameroonians in Ambzonia, French Cameroun and Nigeria at risk.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

5, February 2019

Francophone Crisis: Biya regime makes more “friends” in Israel with Holocaust comment ⁰

The Israeli Embassy in Cameroon has said it is outraged at comments made by Cameroon’s Deputy Justice Minister Jean de Dieu Momo in which he appeared to justify the Holocaust, in which some six million Jewish people were killed in Nazi Germany.

Asked on state television why he thought opposition leader Maurice Kamto had refused to accept defeat following the 7 October presidential election, Mr Momo used long established anti-Semitic stereotypes:

“In Germany, there was a race of very rich people. They had enormous economic power. And they were so arrogant that the German people felt a little nervous. Then one day, a certain Hitler came to power and put these populations in gas chambers.”

Mr Kamto, the leader of the MRC, comes from the Bamelike ethnic group who have a reputation for being successful businessmen. Mr Momo, who is also an ethnic Bamelike, said it would be wrong for the group to seek political power alongside their economic influence, and suggested that trying to do so could be dangerous for the entire community.

“Educated people like Kamto should know where he is leading his people. When you are a leader, you lead your people away from danger, not towards it,” Mr Momo said.

The Israeli Embassy in Cameroon said in a statement that “the government official has justified the Holocaust perpetrated by Nazi Germany”. It went on to suggest the comments would have an impact on the two countries’ relationship

These anti-Semitic comments, coming barely one week after Cameroon and the world participated in the commemoration of the International Day for the Remembrance of the Holocaust constitutes a big disappointment for bilateral relations between Cameroon and Israel.”

The embassy has called for “an immediate apology,” from Cameroon’s government. The government spokesman has not been available for comment.

BBC