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23, January 2024

Martin Luther King Jr’s youngest son Dexter Scott dies of cancer ⁰

Dexter Scott King, the youngest son of Dr Martin Luther King Jr, has died at the age of 62, the King Center in Atlanta said.

Family members said he died after a battle with prostate cancer.

“He transitioned peacefully in his sleep at home with me in Malibu,” his wife, Leah Weber King, said in a statement.

Dexter King was an activist and served as chairman of the King Center and the president of the King Estate.

Born in Atlanta in 1961 to civil rights leaders, Dr King and Coretta Scott King, Dexter Scott King was named after Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama, where his father served as a pastor for the first time. He was just seven when Dr King was assassinated.

Dexter King’s brother, Martin Luther King III, said he was “deeply saddened” by the loss of his sibling.

“The sudden shock is devastating,” he said in a statement. “It is hard to have the right words at a moment like this. Please keep the entire King family in your prayers, and in particular Dexter’s wife, Leah Weber.”

His sister Rev Bernice King said words “cannot express the heart break” she felt from losing another sibling. Her sister, Yolanda King, died in 2007, a year after her mother.

King attended Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia like his father. He later became a lawyer, a role which he used to help protect the King family’s intellectual property.

The third of the Kings’ four children, Dexter had an “uncanny resemblance” to his father, whom he played in the 2002 movie The Rosa Parks Story, the King Center in Atlanta said.

“He devoted his life to the continued perpetuation of his father’s legacy,” the Center said.

In a statement, civil rights leader Rev Al Sharpton said he sent his condolences to the family, adding “May he RIP, may his legacy live”.

Source: BBC

25, December 2023

Blast rocks market in Bamenda on Christmas Day with no casualties ⁰

An improvised explosive device exploded on Christmas Day morning in Bamenda, the chief town of Cameroon’s Anglophone region of Northwest that has been ravaged by years of armed separatist conflict, several local and security sources said.

The blast struck a market in the T-Junction neighborhood of the city, setting three makeshift shops ablaze, a security source said. “Fortunately the market closed for today, and that is why there were no casualties or injuries.”

“We heard the explosion sound. It was so loud and the sound caused panic among residents,” James Mbah, a resident of the city, told Xinhua over the phone.

Last week, separatist fighters warned that Christmas would not be celebrated in Cameroon’s two Anglophone regions of Northwest and Southwest because the feast falls on Monday, which has been imposed by them since 2017 as “ghost town day” during which all sorts of activities in the two regions do not function.

“We are all spending Christmas at home. The streets are empty and people are just afraid of the unknown and don’t want to step out,” Mbah said.

On Sunday, the region’s governor Adolphe Lele L’Afrique said extra security would be provided to churches and other places of worship because of Christmas.

“Our brave security forces will ensure the safety and security of everyone so that they can celebrate Christmas in peace. People need to collaborate with security forces as well,” the official told reporters after a security meeting in Yaounde, the capital of Cameroon.

Clashes between separatist fighters and government forces intensified in the regions since the start of this year. According to reports by local non-governmental organizations and security officials, abductions were rife, and more than 100 people including soldiers, separatist fighters and civilians have been killed in the conflict since January 2023.

Source: Xinhuanet

13, December 2023

Criminal Biya Francophone officials must be brought to justice ⁰

Southern Cameroons top official says criminal French Cameroun authorities must be brought to trial for their atrocities against the Ambazonian nation, stressing that the Ambazonia Interim Government is seriously following up on the matter at the International Criminal Court.

Comrade Dabney Yerima, Vice President of the Ambazonia Interim Government, made the remarks on Tuesday during a telephone conversation with some Ground Zero commanders in Esu in the Northern Zone of Southern Cameroons.

Yerima stressed that criminal officials of the Biya French Cameroun regime must be tried and that the Southern Cameroons Department of Foreign Affairs headed by Professor Carlson Anyangwe has placed particular focus on the issue.

The top Southern Cameroons official went on to sharply criticize some Southern Cameroons traditional rulers for their refusal to cut off ties with the Yaoundé regime and expel Francophone civil administrators from ancestral lands.

“The Southern Cameroons liberation struggle is currently the root cause of unity among all Southern Cameroonians. Southern Cameroonians particularly those in the West are expected to alter their behavior, and put their words into actions,” Dabney Yerima stated.

Yaoundé has been waging a genocidal war after the people of Southern Cameroons declared an independent state known as the Federal Republic of Ambazonia seven years ago. The Biya Francophone regime has killed at least 10,000people, including more than 5000 children and 4,000 women.

By Toto Roland Motuba

7, December 2023

Yaoundé: Gabon’s New Military Strongman meets Biya ⁰

Gabon’s military leader, General Brice Clotaire Oligui Nguema, visited Cameroon on Wednesday, asking central African states to lift economic sanctions on his country before the 2025 elections.

When Nguema ousted President Ali Bongo Ondimba in a bloodless coup on August 30, economic sanctions were imposed on the country by CEMAC, the six-nation Central Africa Economic and Monetary Community, which condemned the unconstitutional power shift and suspended Gabon.

Nguema said Wednesday that he and Cameroonian President Paul Biya discussed the possibility of lifting economic sanctions before he transfers power to constitutional rule in October 2025. Nguema said he took power to save Gabon from a long rule that ruined the country, and he wants to ensure order is brought back to Gabon before handing power to civilians.

Nguema’s visit to Cameroon ended a tour that has taken him to Chad, the Central African Republic, Equatorial Guinea and the Republic of Congo since he seized power in August.

Jean Rene Oba, an international affairs lecturer at Omar Bongo University in Gabon, said Nguema has been able to convince central African leaders that a military coup was necessary to save Gabon from the Bongo family’s long and autocratic rule that impoverished civilians and created political and ethnic tensions.

“The president of the transition, Brice Clotaire Oligui Nguema, is totally mindful of the reality that here is no single country on earth that can live in its own bubble in the 21st century, so he started a campaign explaining the legitimacy of the action he took on behalf of the Gabonese people and I think the arguments that he has been making are very powerful and that is why we could see he is so welcomed and understood,” Oba said.

Nguema told several hundred Gabon civilians in Yaounde that he seized power to improve living conditions in their oil-producing nation because its citizens remained poor during the 56-year reign of Ali Bongo Ondimba and his father, Omar Bongo Ondimba.

Gabon’s military ruler reiterated that he would hold elections in August 2025.

He said a new constitution that is being prepared would be presented to all citizens in October 2024 and a referendum on its adoption would be held that same year.

Before the elections, Gabon’s military junta says it will fight corruption, accelerate economic reforms, ensure sustainable economic development, restore stability and revise the electoral code.

Georges Mpaga, president of Gabon’s Network of Free Society Organizations for Good Governance, said Nguema’s insistence on executing so many projects looks like a plan to hold onto power.

Mpaga said Nguema should give priority to Gabon’s supreme interest, which as of now is the quest for a return to constitutional order. He said Nguema should make sure Gabon has a constitution which grants and limits powers of government officials, and paves the way for democratic, credible, fair and transparent elections that meet international norms and standards.

Nguema said he will keep his pledge to hand over power to civilians and that he will never betray the confidence entrusted upon him by his country’s civilians and military, as well as a majority of political parties and civil society groups.

Source: VOA

22, November 2023

Biya regime receives first shipment of GSK’s Mosquirix malaria vaccine ⁰

Cameroon received its first shipment of Mosquirix malaria vaccines manufactured by British drugmaker GSK Plc late on Tuesday, as the nation struggles with the mosquito-borne disease that kills more than 600,000 each year globally.

A batch of 331,200 doses of the vaccine – also known as RTS,S – was offloaded at Yaounde’s Nsimalen International Airport, making Cameroon the first African country to receive the vaccine after the pilot programmes in Ghana, Kenya and Malawi.

Malaria remains one of Africa’s deadliest diseases, according to the World Health Organization, killing nearly half a million children under the age of five, and accounting for approximately 95% of global malaria cases in 2021.

The initial consignment of vaccines will go to 42 out of 203 health districts in the country, Cameroon’s health minister Manaouda Malachie said.

“We lose many compatriots who die because of this disease. Today, we have a vaccine which comes to add to the panoply of measures already rolled out,” Malachie told reporters at Nsimalen.

Inoculations will begin next month or early next year, according to a health official who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity.

GSK says more than 1.7 million children in Ghana, Kenya and Malawi have already received at least one dose of the shot, and that it would be rolled out in another nine malaria-endemic countries, of which Cameroon is one, from early next year.

UNICEF representative Juliette Haenni said it was a historic moment to protect children.

“Children are the most concerned. The ones we are targeting are the six to 24 months old – the most vulnerable,” Haenni said.

The WHO says a second malaria vaccine developed by Britain’s University of Oxford, R21/Matrix-M, will become available by mid-2024.

Source: Reuters

6, November 2023

Mamfe: 20 killed in Egbekaw village attack ⁰

Separatist rebels killed around 20 people, including women and children, on Monday in Egbekaw a village in Mamfe the chief town in Manyu.

The overnight attack occurred in Egbekaw village, the scene of deadly clashes between rebels and government forces for seven years.

“The attack left around 20 dead, men, women and children, and 10 seriously injured people are in hospital,” a senior regional administrative official said on condition of anonymity.

A security forces official and an official from a governmental body also confirmed the attack and provisional toll.

Cameroon’s primarily English-speaking Northwest and Southwest regions have been gripped by conflict since separatists declared independence in 2017.

It followed decades of grievances over perceived discrimination by the francophone majority.

President Paul Biya, 90, who has ruled the central African nation with an iron fist for 41 years to the day, has resisted calls for wider autonomy and responded with a crackdown.

The conflict has claimed more than 6,000 lives and forced more than a million people to flee their homes, according to the International Crisis Group.

Both the separatists and government forces have been accused of atrocities in the fighting.

Rebels “attacked the civilian populations of Egbekaw and the provisional toll is 23 dead and around 15 houses burnt,” a local gendarmerie officer told AFP by telephone, also speaking on condition of anonymity.

An official from the country’s human rights commission confirmed the attack and spoke of 15 dead. “But this figure can evolve,” the source told AFP.

There had been no claim of responsibility over the attack on Egbekaw.

“It happened at 4:00 am. Armed young people came and fired on sleeping residents in their houses and set a whole block of houses on fire,” a resident told AFP by telephone requesting not to be identified out of security concerns.

“Twenty-three people have already been removed from the debris, some of whom are not even recognisable because of the fire.”

He said there was reason to believe it was connected to the November 6 anniversary of Biya assuming power as president in 1982.

A meeting of the ruling Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement (RDPC) was planned in the area, he added.

Armed groups are regularly accused of abducting, killing or injuring civilians whom they accuse of “collaborating” with Cameroonian authorities.

Security forces are also often accused by international NGOs and the United Nations of killings and torture against civilians suspected of sympathising with the rebels.

Last month, rebels “summarily executed” two villagers in public in the Northwest region whom they accused of collaborating with the army.

In July, Amnesty International reported that security forces, separatist rebels and ethnic militiamen had committed “atrocities” in the Northwest Region, including executions, torture and rape.

By Alain Tabot-Tanyi

3, November 2023

Top Francophone army generals to soon be punished for their crimes ⁰

The exiled leader of the Ambazonia Interim Government has denounced the ongoing military campaign against Southern Cameroons villages and the loss of lives of civilians, stating that many of the Francophone army generals and their Anglophone acolytes will soon pay for their crimes.

On a Wednesday post on social media, Vice President Dabney Yerima said the French Cameroun genocidal machine is actively at work in the rural settlements in Southern Cameroons.

“French Cameroun war criminals and their known Anglophone advocates will soon kneel before the exemplary willpower and resilience of the Ambazonian nation; and will be punished for their crimes,” Yerima pointed out.

As of this week, at least 34 Southern Cameroonians have been killed by Francophone army soldiers among them women and children.

The exiled leader also stated that Anglophone journalists covering the war in Southern Cameroons are facing particularly high risks. Many have been killed and some have fled the country.

Dabney Yerima said due to the massive deployment of Francophone soldiers and raids on newspaper offices, journalists such as Nelly Epupa, Toto Roland Motuba and Ewang Miriam Metchane are now refugees in Europe and the US.

“The main challenge for journalists covering the Cameroon government military campaign in Southern Cameroons is their own safety” Yerima furthered.

“Journalists in Southern Cameroons have paid and continue to pay unprecedented tolls and face exponential threats,” Vice President Dabney Yerima concluded.

By Chi Prudence Asong

5, October 2023

Mali army, rebels head toward potentially decisive confrontation ⁰

Mali’s army is deploying towards a northern separatist rebel stronghold in a high-risk operation which could foreshadow a widescale confrontation and prove a turning point after a decade of conflict.

What’s happening on the ground?

A large Malian army convoy left the city of Gao on Monday headed towards the northern Kidal region.

It is reportedly to go first to the localities of Tessalit and Aguelhok north of the town of Kidal to take over camps being vacated by departing troops of the UN stabilisation force, MINUSMA.

The UN mission has been pushed out by the ruling junta and has been handing over its camps to Malian authorities.

The handover – which began with the camp at Ber in mid-August – is a prime factor in a recent resumption of hostilities by the separatists.

Against the backdrop of numerous armed groups vying for control, the separatists claim the UN sites should be returned to them.

The Coordination of Azawad Movements (CMA) – an alliance of predominantly Tuareg groups seeking autonomy or independence from the Malian state – has carried out a series of attacks on army positions since the Ber operation.

Its fighters are now regrouping in the Kidal region.

Source: AP

3, October 2023

Franck Biya, in the shadow of his corrupt and ailing father ⁰

He is not officially a candidate for anything and has never publicly leaked the slightest ambition. But her slender silhouette is increasingly visible in official meetings, on social networks and the images distilled by the Cameroonian presidency. A new presence which inevitably raises questions in a country where discussions around the succession of the “captain” are less and less theoretical: is Franck Biya positioning himself to inherit the presidential chair occupied for forty years by his father Paul, 90 years old since February 13?

In central Africa where, from Chad to Gabon, via the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), political dynasties have become a norm, seeing Franck Biya, 52, appearing behind the scenes of the Cameroonian presidency is a sign, even if everyone will be careful not to consider it as a dubbing. We can no longer count the ambitious people and putative successors struck down by the courts when their intentions became too clear. Kondengui prison in Yaoundé has become, for more than ten years, the place of residence of many ministers and secretaries general of the presidency.

Franck Biya remained in the shadows. Eldest son of the indestructible president and his first wife, Jeanne-Irène, who died in 1992, he did part of his studies at the University of South Carolina, then lived for a long time in France. A businessman, he invested, among other things, in real estate and forestry.

“He doesn’t waste money on nightclubs”

His discretion did not prevent non-governmental organizations (NGOs) from looking into his affairs. In 2012, Afrione Cameroun, one of his companies, was cited in a case of embezzlement of public funds. In 2020, Greenpeace claimed that it was “the minority shareholder” of South Cameroon Hévéa (subsidiary of Halcyon, global rubber giant), a company that the nature protection NGO accused of deforestation of several thousand hectares of forests. He never reacted to these accusations.

The person concerned says nothing about the intentions attributed to him by chroniclers from the Etoudi palace, but does nothing to deny them either. When Emmanuel Macron sets foot in Yaoundé in July 2022, the road from the airport to the capital is dotted with banners and signs calling for his candidacy. The authorities will quickly have them removed, but no observer will miss the handshake between Franck Biya and the French leader in the corridors of the presidency. In November, another appearance, this time in Garoua, the capital of the Northern region, to celebrate the forty years of Paul Biya’s accession to the presidency. The opportunity for a first contact with the activists of the Cameroon Peoples Democratic Movement (CPDM), the ruling party.

Culled from Globe Echo

3, October 2023

Time to resolve Southern Cameroons persistent yet forgotten crisis ⁰

Cameroon’s Anglophone conflict undermines national unity and is arguably the most damaging of the country’s multiple crises. It sparked demands for secession and led to separatists proclaiming a new state of Ambazonia in the country’s English-speaking North West and South West regions on 1 October 2017. The regions are home to about 20% of the population.

Celebrations surrounding ‘Independence Day’ are typically marred by clashes between government forces and armed separatist groups. Violent attacks during this year’s commemoration underscore the depth of the problem that seems forgotten.

The crisis was sparked in October 2016 when demands by teachers and lawyers for reform of the English-speaking regions’ educational and judicial systems were brutally suppressed. The authorities’ violent response to citizens’ concerns about the marginalisation of Anglophone linguistic and educational systems and the underrepresentation of English-speaking Cameroonians in politics turned into an ongoing political crisis.

The government made some concessions, including a Major National Dialogue in 2019, but failing to invite key separatist leaders, achieved little. Decisions stemming from the dialogue led to the granting of an ambiguous ‘special status’, with supposed autonomy, to the regions.

In October 2022, discreet talks between government and Anglophone leaders in the diaspora signalled interest in formal negotiations. However, these efforts haven’t quelled the separatist rebellion, which has claimed over 6 000 lives and internally displaced 630 000 people, with 86 000 seeking refuge in Nigeria.

A recent Amnesty International report details atrocities – including sexual and gender-based violence – by armed separatists, militias and security forces against civilians. The crisis has also disrupted hundreds of thousands of children’s education and halted socio-economic activities in the two regions.

Separatists have repeatedly expressed readiness for talks under international mediation

The government has intensified its pursuit of a military solution, hoping to take advantage of widening fragmentation between the armed separatist groups, which it calls ‘terrorists’. In early 2023, troops deployed to the North West attacked separatist positions.

Separatists are committed to fighting for an independent Ambazonia, regardless of the cost. They have repeatedly expressed readiness for talks under international mediation, but government won’t accept their conditions. These include the release of political prisoners, demilitarisation of the Anglophone regions and amnesty for exiled separatists.

The conflict continues to evade continental and international scrutiny. Besides some statements of concern by African Union (AU) Commission chairperson Moussa Faki Mahamat, the AU has done little. During Faki’s visit to Yaoundé in 2018, President Paul Biya committed to resolving the crisis, but these promises have fallen flat.

And despite the grave implications for stability in Central Africa, the AU’s Peace and Security Council (PSC) has yet to discuss the Cameroon crisis. As a PSC member, Cameroon likely blocks attempts by other member states to table the issue for debate.

Despite the grave implications for Central Africa’s stability, the AU PSC has not discussed the crisis

At the same time, the government has pulled the plug on mediation efforts. In September 2022, Biya halted a government-sponsored Swiss-led dialogue. A new initiative saw discreet pre-mediation meetings with several separatist groups in Canada late last year. Although the government denied seeking Canadian assistance, Canada’s foreign ministry maintained it had accepted an invitation from both parties to mediate.

Further political turmoil is brewing ahead of Cameroon’s 2025 general elections. Rival elites are jostling to succeed Biya, who has held power since 1982. He will be 92 when the polls open. Since gaining independence in 1960, Cameroon hasn’t had a single democratic transfer of power.

The military coup on 30 August that ousted Gabon’s Ali Bongo has had an unsettling effect in Cameroon. It forced Biya to reshuffle senior military roles and consolidate his power by reducing the influence of some security services branches and suppressing coverage linking Cameroon with coups.

Health problems could rule him out of the 2025 race, creating a power vacuum. Biya has reportedly been pursuing plans for his son Franck Biya to succeed him, although a dynastic succession would probably be unwelcome among the ruling Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement’s senior members. The military could exploit any succession-driven instability to justify a coup.

The country is also battling Boko Haram violence in the Far North. Fatalities from this conflict are well above 3 000, with at least 250 000 people displaced. Rebel incursions from the Central African Republic affect the country’s east, complicated by sporadic intercommunal clashes in the Far North and South. Farmer-herder tensions have also resurfaced between Nigerian pastoralists and Cameroonian farmers.

The PSC could deploy the Panel of the Wise as a preventive tool, instead of reacting after the country disintegrates

The nation is also grappling with a web of corruption scandals tied to the Africa Cup of Nations’ organisation in early 2022, and the assassination of journalist Martinez Zogo in January 2023.

Ahead of Ambazonia’s ‘Independence Day’, tensions soared in the North West and South West, and security forces stepped up attacks on separatist hideouts. Separatists have recently hardened their stance, enforced moratoriums on public life through ‘ghost towns’, threatened government employees, and increased violence against civilians. With both parties to the conflict unwilling to compromise, clashes will probably continue as economic and social neglect are further entrenched in the Anglophone regions.

The crisis cannot be ignored. The PSC must table Cameroon for discussion, especially as the Economic Community of Central African States – which has rarely tackled conflicts in its member countries – is unlikely to deal with the matter. The PSC could recommend deploying the Panel of the Wise as a preventive diplomacy tool, instead of reacting only after the country disintegrates.

Cameroon’s international partners should press for inclusive dialogue to resume. Should talks gain traction, partners must highlight the need to strengthen governance and expedite decentralisation so the Anglophone regions benefit from the autonomy their ‘special status’ should have granted them.

Source: Institute for Security Studies