The Secretary of State of the Holy See paid a six-day diplomatic visit to Cameroon, a country ravaged by civil war, in which the Catholic Church plays a key role in resolving the conflict.

Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Secretary of State for the Holy See arrived in Cameroon on January 28, 2021 for a six-day visit, at the end of which he gave the pallium to Msgr. Andrew Neka, metropolitan of Bamenda, in the northwestern part of the country. The archdiocese was not chosen at random: in fact, it is at the heart of the Anglophone conflict which has plagued the political and social life of Cameroon for nearly five years now.

The world cannot be totally wrong. The Pope has called for peace. He has spoken to Mr. Biya about the need to engage Southern Cameroonians in a frank and fruitful dialogue but Mr. Biya has remained adamant.

The Pope, like many heads of state has sent special envoys to talk Mr. Biya out of the madness and cruelty he has brought to a once prosperous nation, but his inhuman indifference to wise counsel has only made his soldiers to think that they have carte blanche to kill and maim whoever they meet in their path.

This mentality is not addressing any issues. At best, it is counterproductive. The chaos the war is spreading in Cameroon should have advised the government to rethink its ways. The number of civilian and military deaths is rising and there is no end in sight.

The government might have superior military power, but the determination of eight million Southern Cameroonians will surely keep the military in the jungles of Southern Cameroons for a very long time.

Many soldiers have been killed and thousands have been maimed by determined Southern Cameroonian fighters and this has struck fear in the minds of these young soldiers, many of whom have only been trained for six months and rushed to the killing fields of Southern Cameroons where they are made to see death first hand.

The Genesis of the Current Conflict

To reconstruct part of the context of the current crisis, one must return to 1961: West Cameroon—a former British colony—is made up of Northern Cameroon and Southern Cameroon. Through a referendum organized by the United Nations, the populations of Southern Cameroon chose to join as a federated state to Eastern Cameroon—a former French colony—while the people of Northern Cameroon opted for an attachment to Nigeria.

But, in 1972, a constitutional reform completely shook up the situation, transforming federal Cameroon into a unitary republic, depriving the English-speaking region of its autonomy. Another twist in 2016: a movement to strike by teachers and lawyers demanding more recognition from the central state. Demonstrations quickly led to an uprising in the English-speaking regions of the northwest and southwest.

The conflict then degenerated into a murderous crisis with clashes between separatist troops and the regular army: the Catholic Church quickly found itself on the front line in an attempt to mediate, in order to find concerted solutions. A delicate position that earned it reprisals, sometimes bloody, from the separatists and sharp reproaches from the executive.

Since its outbreak, this civil war that lives up to its name has claimed more than 2,000 dead and 650,000 displaced. In addition, more than 800,000 children have been out of school.

A Diplomatic Visit for Peace

The day after his arrival, the Secretary of State of the Holy See spoke with the Cameroonian Head of State, Paul Biya: “we discussed the various points concerning the conflicts, in particular the situation in the north and the southwest of the country. What we are impatiently waiting for is reconciliation and peace, especially in the current situation where there are many other crises starting with COVID-19,” declared Cardinal Parolin, at the conclusion of the presidential interview.

“Cordial exchange…with his eminence Cardinal Pietro Parolin, bearer of a message of peace,” the Head of State soberly declared on his Twitter account.

The US Maryland gang had called for a boycott of the Mass celebrated in Bamenda on January 31 in order to denounce what is considered to be the partisan the attitude of the Catholic Church in the conflict. But the legitimate Southern Cameroons Interim Government headed by Vice President Dabney Yerima threw its weight behind the visit.  A partially followed appeal: despite the suspension of activities in town and deserted roads, the faithful came by the thousands to attend the giving of the pallium to their archbishop.

“We are sure,” Archbishop Nkea said, “that your arrival in Bamenda will be like rain, which never falls without watering the land,” said the Bamenda ordinary. “This visit by Cardinal Parolin is a light in our tunnel. It is read as a sign that peace will soon return,” the Cameroonian prelate believes. Let us hope so for this war-torn country.

By Chi Prudence Asong with files from the Vatican

I long for a Cameroon where anglophone children no longer mimic the sound of gunfire, and Mondays are no longer “stay-at-home” days decreed by armed men.

I want to go back to a time – not so long ago – when education was a religion in every household, and schools were places children were eager to attend, promising a brighter future.

These days, we have school massacres, boycotts, kidnappings.

We have more than 80 percent of schools closed, and over 1.1 million children out of class.

We have teachers and students stripped naked, terrified, jeered at by gunmen, and those images posted to social media.

We have stay-at-home days – ordered by separatist fighters to demonstrate anglophone solidarity – that merely impoverish us all.

There has been four years of war, but all that suffering seems to be largely ignored by the rest of the world. That’s why, as an investigative human rights journalist, I feel compelled to write this.

Schools become a target

“Ambazonia” secessionists took up arms in 2017 to protest the marginalisation of the anglophone Northwest and Southwest regions by the majority French-speaking Cameroon – an issue keenly felt in those zones at the time.

Much of the killing and violence in this conflict has been by the government security forces – their abuses well documented by rights groups. The counter-insurgency campaign fuels the cycle of violence, and the alleged impersonation of separatist fighters adds confusion to the tragedy.

But lately, trust in the separatist fighters has also begun to fade.

They have enforced an unpopular school boycott since 2016 to protest what they see as the dismantling of the region’s separate education system, and its assimilation within French-speaking Cameroon.

The turning point for public sympathy came in October 2020, when armed men stormed a school in Kumba in the Southwest region and killed seven children and wounded 13 others. Nobody has claimed responsibility for the attack, although the government blamed the separatists.

The Kumba killing became just one in a series. In November, gunmen attacked Kulu Memorial College in the Southwest, and to punish the teachers and students for attending school, stripped them naked and beat them.

Barely 24 hours later, 11 teachers were kidnapped by armed men from a mission school in Kumbo, in the Northwest region. They were released after two days, following pressure from civil society groups and the Presbyterian church.

Intimidated, the local population sits on the fence for fear of being tagged as sympathisers by either side. Others are packing up and leaving the conflict zones.

Evolution of the crisis

Like nearly all the children from these regions, I now know the choking effect of tear gas and the sounds of live bullets.

At the start of the crisis in 2016, I was an eager journalism and mass communication student at the University of Buea – Cameroon’s most prestigious English-speaking university – in the capital of the Southwest region.

It was a time of high tension. Student protests against alleged corruption by the vice chancellor turned into much more serious anti-government demonstrations – and the security forces responded with beatings and violence.

The iconic image of those days is shaky cellphone footage from the Buea campus of the security forces deliberately humiliating female students, forcing them to roll in the mud.

There has been four years of war, but all that suffering seems to be largely ignored by the rest of the world.

As students, we were unsure whether it was worth the risk to continue with our studies. But the idea of missing our final exams after three tough years was an even more painful thought.

That was then: Things now are far worse.

Women and girls have been hardest hit by the school closures and lockdowns imposed by the separatists – with a spike in teenage pregnancy, rape, and transactional sex.

In Kumbo, a hotbed of the crisis in the Northwest region, a government health survey of girls aged between 15 and 19 found that the majority were out of school and almost half had become teen mothers.

Yaoundé and major cities like Douala and Bafoussam have seen a huge influx of displaced people. The streets are full of young anglophone children hawking goods. In private homes, young girls are employed as domestic workers, earning as little as $35 a month.

And then came COVID-19 last year. It shut down the world but not the war, and has made the struggles of already poor and vulnerable households so much worse.

Even if parents wanted to send their children to school, the fees are a burden that many can no longer afford.

Change of heart?

I sometimes wonder what would have become of me if I hadn’t mustered the courage to ignore the unrest and complete my studies at the University of Buea.

I have opportunities now – working in Yaoundé – that so many children from the conflict zone will never have; children who these days can barely count to 10, let alone read.

That is leading to some rethinking among separatist leaders in the diaspora – where nearly all are based – over the continuation of the school boycott. After championing the ban for the past four years, activists like Mark Bareta and Eric Tataw, for example, have pressed for armed fighters to allow children to go back to school.

That is good news. But how does the damage of four lost years get repaired?

There was a time when schools in the anglophone region were famous throughout the country as bastions of quality education. This war was supposedly waged to liberate and raise up our children. Poverty and illiteracy seem the only winners.

Source: The Humanitarian

Extrajudicial killings are grossly inhuman and must be condemned and the killing of three chiefs by Field Marshall, a feared fighter in Lebialem, should be condemned by all responsible and peace-loving citizens of Cameroon.

The story of the point blank shooting of those local authorities has even caught the attention of the Yerima-led Interim Government and it has been worried about such reckless brutality.

Speaking to the Cameroon Concord News Group’s London Bureau Chief, an official of the Interim Government regretted the violence Field Marshall has unleashed on those chiefs for no apparent reason.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, the official said that such acts of violence only go a long way in giving the insurgency a very bad name, making it hard for the international community to take the different factions involved in the fighting in Southern Cameroons seriously.

“Nothing justifies the killing of those three local authorities in a public square. Southern Cameroons is not Afghanistan where people just get killed for no apparent reason,” the official said.

“No anger, no frustration and no story can justify such inhuman brutality. That is not the Southern Cameroonian mentality and such an action will never be condoned by the interim government,” the official stressed.

“We condemn this act just like we condemn the burning of our civilians and any abuse committed by the army like what occurred in Ndu recently,” he stressed.

“As Southern Cameroonians, we must never condone such a waste of human life. We are urging Field Marshall and all the other groups to stop intimidating the population. We are also calling on the fighters on the ground to stop killing Southern Cameroonians just because we disagree with them. We are fighting to build a democracy in Southern Cameroons and actions by Field Marshall and some shadowy figures on the ground only go a long way in calling into question our honest intention to bring about an independent and democratic Southern Cameroons,” the official concluded.

The interim government’s message is clear and honestly, there is nothing right in taking a human life and the actions of Field Marshall speak volumes to the abuse that is taking place in the two English-speaking regions of Cameroon.

The fighting in the country’s two English-speaking regions of Cameroon is the outcome of a recklessly declared war by a leader who has been out of touch with his country’s realities.

This is a war that does not have a place in Cameroon’s history but given that Cameroonian authorities have only one tool – ferocious brutality- in their small toolbox, they had to unleash terror on Southern Cameroonians who were simply bringing their sorry plight to the attention of the same authorities.

This government’s penchant for brutality and its under-estimation of the determination of the people of Southern Cameroons has resulted in some 7,000 deaths, a disruption of life in the two English-speaking regions of Cameroon and the displacement of thousands of Southern Cameroonians, with many living rough both at home and in neighboring Nigeria.

Despite the increasing human suffering, the Yaounde government has not deemed it necessary to seek peaceful means to engineer sustainable solutions.

Thousands of civilians have been burned alive, including babies, but these gruesome images are not strong enough to cause the ailing and dying president of Cameroon, Paul Biya, to contemplate a change in strategy. It is indeed unfortunate that a man can be this frozen in his position and thoughts.

The world cannot be totally wrong. The Pope has called for peace. He has spoken to Mr. Biya about the need to engage Southern Cameroonians in a frank and fruitful dialogue but Mr. Biya has remained adamant.

The Pope, like many heads of state has sent special envoys to talk Mr. Biya out of the madness and cruelty he has brought to a once prosperous nation, but his inhuman indifference to wise counsel has only made his soldiers to think that they have carte blanche to kill and maim whoever they meet in their path.

This mentality is not addressing any issues. At best, it is counterproductive. The chaos the war is spreading in Cameroon should have advised the government to rethink its ways. The number of civilian and military deaths is rising and there is no end in sight.

The government might have superior military power, but the determination of eight million Southern Cameroonians will surely keep the military in the jungles of Southern Cameroons for a very long time.

Many soldiers have been killed and thousands have been maimed by determined Southern Cameroonian fighters and this has struck fear in the minds of these young soldiers, many of whom have only been trained for six months and rushed to the killing fields of Southern Cameroons where they are made to see death first hand.

But how many soldiers and civilians must die for Mr. Biya to understand that the worst peace agreament is better than the best war?

If fighting and killing are beautiful, why have Mr. Biya and his collaborators not sent their own children to the war front? What have they been telling the numerous widows of those young soldiers who have lost their lives in a war that will never make Cameroon better?

Why can Mr. Biya and his collaborators not understand that while checking the insurgency is good, going to the negotiating table with the warring factions to iron out differences could bring lasting peace and stability in Cameroon?

Instead of paying leap service to the notion of one and indivisible Cameroon, why not match actions to words by addressing the root cause of the problem? Will Cameroon not be one and indivisible if it is federal and inclusive?

Why is the government intentionally giving the country a bad name and pushing its economy to the bottom of the abyss? Genuine patriotism does not exclude dialogue as a means of achieving sustainable peace.

Mr. Paul Biya and his government still have time to reverse some of the damage they have caused in the country. There is no prize for being stone-hearted and the evil that Mr. Biya and collaborators are spreading in Cameroon might one be the potion of their children.

The numerous killings in Cameroon will forever be considered as the legacy of Mr. Biya who in the 1980s asked Cameroonians this important question: What type of Cameroon do you want for your children?

From every indication, he has offered an answer to that question and it clear that the Cameroon he wants for future Cameroonians is a Cameroon that is intolerant, corrupt, nepotic, dishonest and economically bankrupt.

History will forever have it that once upon a time, there was a president in Cameroon who had all the natural resources in the world, the best human resources in Africa and the total support of the international community for him to transform his country into an earthly paradise, but he opted to destroy the country and its people by fostering corruption, inaction and nepotism which have transformed the country into a living hell.

As Mr. Biya continues to implement his machiavelian agenda, the world is simply wondering why a man who is supposed to be the light of his country could be so hellbent on destroying his own fatherland.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

For four long years, the Yaoundé government should have understood that violence only begets violence, but the authorities of this collapsing country seem to be on a diet of power and nothing, except a robust intervention of the international community can instil some sanity in the minds of those who rule Cameroon.

Violence seems to be the cornerstone of the government’s territorial administration strategy to the extent where the soldiers sent to the two English-speaking regions of Cameroon think that they have been given carte blanche to kill any and everybody.

These soldiers should have been properly trained to make the population their ally in their effort to end the insurgency that is really tearing the country apart.

The injustices that have triggered the discontent among the country’s English-speaking minority have been left unaddressed despite the loss of life, but new despicable situations are being generated everyday by the soldiers who think it is their divine right to treat the local population in the North West and South west regions as animals.

The Southern Cameroonian insurgency is a challenging and massive problem that requires a huge tool box, but the morally and ideologically bankrupt Yaoundé government has demonstrated that the only tool in its small tool box is brutality; a tool that has only made matters worse.

This government has no regard for human life and the manner with which army soldiers treat suspects in Southern Cameroons clearly underscores that winning hearts and minds is not a key thrust of the government’s conflict resolution strategy, that is, if it has a strategy.

The obvious abuse in a recent video wherein army soldiers are molesting an innocent civilian speaks to the government’s penchant for human rights violations. The fact that abusive government forces are never punished only encourages them to commit more atrocities.

What is more interesting is the happiness with which the soldiers themselves document their own atrocities. They are happy, relaxed and enthusiastic to commit murder with impunity.

Such images do not make room for reconciliation as both camps will be retaliating and even seeking to outdo each other.

However, while the ragtag military groups fighting for the total liberation of Southern Cameroons can be forgiven because of their ignorance and irresponsibility, government troops which engage in such gross human rights violations fail to understand that they belong to a state military which has responsibilities under the Geneva Convention.

The government which sends its troops to Southern Cameroons has a huge responsibility to ensure that Southern Cameroonian fighters who are caught are treated based on the requirements of the Geneva Convention.

The world is not without rules. There could be some chaos especially that caused by Donald Trump’s Administration as former president Donald Trump sought to withdraw the United States from many international organizations, but the Biden Administration has clearly stated that it will be filling its leadership role and human rights will be given pride of place on its agenda.

While the Yaoundé government might be protecting those who have committed atrocities in the two English-speaking regions of Cameroon, Southern Cameroonians must make it their duty to expose those human rights violations.

Southern Cameroonians living in exile in any part of the world must sink their differences if they really want to achieve something. They must alert the authorities of their host countries to the government- orchestrated massacre that is playing out in Southern Cameroons.

Instead of fighting each other, the various Southern Cameroonian groups must understand that unity is strength and that if they fail to make common cause, those on the ground will continue to pay a huge price.

The internecine conflicts within the various groups and the internal disagreements between the different factions have clearly robbed the insurgency of its vitality and this is giving the Yaoundé government the possibility of thinking that it can obtain a clear military victory in Southern Cameroons.

Today, there are many Southern Cameroonian groups abroad and most of these groups do not even collaborate to ensure that the Yaoundé government is given a good run for its money.

Each group now lays claim to legitimacy and recognition by the people of Southern Cameroons, but the truth is totally different.

No group is legitimate. No group is without its supporters. No group will represent the entire Southern Cameroons in the event of any negotiations. No group will fight alone to achieve the total liberation of Southern Cameroons and no group has the resources to prosecute this war.

The truth is that, as Southern Cameroonians continue to fight each other, they are unknowingly letting the Yaoundé government off the hook.

If the government has to feel any pressure, the different factions must bury their pride and ego to reach out to the other groups so that a new and formidable force, capable of becoming a nightmare to the government, can be created.

This struggle is far from over and if Southern Cameroonian groups do not make common cause, the Yaoundé government will continue to have an upper hand and its soldiers will continue to treat innocent civilians better than cattle.

All hopes are, however, not lost. Despite the numerous factions which have helped to weaken the unity of purpose that held Southern Cameroonians together, one fact remains.

Julius Ayuk Tabe is the poster boy of this struggle and many Southern Cameroonians still long for the days when he was a clear symbol of unity and determination.

Southern Cameroonians must come together. They have a common interest. The enemy is still strong and he is doing all he can to roll back the gains the insurgency has made over the last four years.

The disunity among Southern Cameroonians that is killing the insurgency needs to be brought to an end if the enemy must be brought to the negotiating table.

The violence which has become the government’s hallmark needs to be made known around the world and this must be done through concerted efforts. Going it alone will not deter the government from killing and maiming innocent individuals and children.

If the burning of a baby by government forces and the beating of an innocent man by BIR officials for no crime committed and the numerous atrocities that have shocked the world cannot speak to the leaders of the various factions, what then will speak to them for them to understand that making common cause is central to making the Yaoundé government to come to the negotiating table?

Time is of the essence. The government has ratcheted up its violence and brutality against the people of Southern Cameroons and this will not end if all the leaders of these factions do not come together to act as a single group.

The IG must immediately undertake diplomatic initiatives that will enable the world brand the Yaoundé government as a massive and merciless abuser.

The world has been caught in multiple crises and for it to pay attention to what is happening in Southern Cameroons, the various factions involved in this struggle must start working together. There is power in numbers and the world needs to know that Southern Cameroons has the right men and women who are capable of making a difference.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

Chairman, Editor-In-Chief

Cameroon Concord News Group

The roasting of a baby on February 11, 2021 in Batibo in the North West region of Cameroon seems to be shocking to millions around the world, but very few people remember that the burning of homes during an insurrection or insurgency in Cameroon is a government policy which dates back to the days of the marquisard movement in East Cameroon.

The burning of a baby in Batibo on the country’s Youth Day by government army soldiers is a clear reminder that peace and stability are still illusory in Cameroon though the government is giving the impression that things are stabilizing in Southern Cameroons.

The roasting of vulnerable people is nothing new during this conflict that has already sent more than 7,000 Cameroonians to an early grave.

Kwakwa and Ngarbuh are still fresh in many minds. In Kwakwa, an old woman and a sick old man were roasted alive by army soldiers who are supposed to protect innocent civilians.

In Ngarbuh, government troops gunned down scores of people and set homes ablaze, leaving many calcinated in their homes. These were young children and pregnant women who had nothing to do with the insurgency that has been playing out in the two English-speaking regions of Cameroon for over four years.

The government clearly holds that burning the homes of the poor and innocent people will cause the population to discontinue its support to the insurgents even when it has not been really proven that the population is supporting the fighters.

From every indication, it is also clear that the population has been caught between the devil and deep blue sea. The same population is being threatened by the Southern Cameroonian fighters when the fighters feel that they have been betrayed by somebody.

The population is confused and does not know who to turn to. The government is supposed to support these people who have lost their source of livelihood due to the fighting that is playing out in the Northwest and Southwest regions of the country.

The government of Cameroon has no pity for anybody. The death of children and pregnant women during this fighting does not arouse any pity in government officials. The government has one objective – proving that it can win a war – and the generals leading the troops clearly hold that the insurgency is an opportunity for them to enrich themselves.

The same government has been unleashing its army soldiers on the population just to demonstrate its strength. In Santa in the Northwest region, government forces mowed down some 20 young men in a hotel and the country’s territorial administration minister, Atanga Nji Paul, argued that the boys were fighters even when it was proven that it was the same government that had invited those boys to that hotel for reasons only known to Atanga Nji.

In Muyengue, the government was caught with its pants down with its soldiers setting homes ablaze though the soldiers were wearing blue helmets just to implicate the United Nations.

Government atrocities during this conflict have been carefully documented and whenever the war ends, those who committed these acts or commandeered these acts of extreme violence will be brought to book.

A government has the duty and responsibility of protecting its population but in Southern Cameroons, the Yaounde government is instead working hard to demonstrate that it is more devilish than the ragtag military that is fighting for the total liberation of Southern Cameroons.

Instead of seeking ways of ending the violence and engineering peace in the two English-speaking regions of the country, the Yaounde government is doing its best to prove a point that has no raison d’etre.

This is a war that could have been clearly avoided if the government had used known instruments of conflict management and resolution. Genuine dialogue, a key thrust of conflict resolution, was clearly ignored and to deceive the people of Southern Cameroons and the international community, the despicable Yaoundé government organized a semblance of dialogue wherein it chose who had to participate in it, which issues had to be discussed and what resolutions and conclusions had to be reached by the participants; an idea which only caused the conflict to escalate by multiple notches.

The roasting of a baby in Batibo is no accident and let nobody be deceived by whatever the government would say.

The Yaounde government is in the business of winning an argument and it will stop at nothing to prove its point. As usual, it will order an investigation, the findings of which will remain a dead letter like most of the other investigations conducted over the last 39 years by a government that has been conducting itself like a crime syndicate made in the same mould as the Sicilian Mafia.

Despite its efforts, the Yaounde government must understand that regardless of the ferocious brutality it is inflicting on the population, a clear military victory is a clear impossibility.

The more atrocities the government commits in Southern Cameroons, the more it creates more determined and angry fighters whose cardinal objective is to avenge the death of their loved ones.

The only way out of the quagmire the government has created will be sincere dialogue held with key Southern Cameroonian factions in a neutral place in the presence of a neutral third party.

But such dialogue cannot take place when the poster boy of the rebellion, Julius Ayuk Tabe, and other key elements of the Southern Cameroons struggle are still being held in the dungeons of East Cameroon.

A good first step will be releasing all those who have been arrested within the framework of the struggle and granting a general amnesty to all those who have directly or indirectly played a role in this struggle!

The burning of homes, babies and the old will never bring peace to Cameroon. On the contrary, it will only sow bitterness, revenge, death and destruction. The government must learn from history and it must acknowledge that times have changed.

If it defeated the marquisard movement in the 60s, it must understand that there was no internet and those involved in the marquisard movement were not many.

Today, there are some four million Southern Cameroonians out of their country and each one of them has been affected by the senseless fighting. And this is causing many of them to contribute money, ideas and time to ensure that the government stews in its own juice in Southern Cameroons by killing army soldiers and police officers who are collaborating with the corrupt Yaounde regime.

Despite the death and destruction that have already played out in Southern Cameroons, there is still room for genuine and sustainable reconciliation; an opportunity the government needs to seize if it is really looking forward to making Cameroon one and indivisible.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

Chairman, Editor-In-Chief

Concord News Group

As of 7 February 2021, the number of people killed in the conflict in Cameroon stands at over 20,000. With the International Community maintaining a kind of deliberate and worrying silence, it is impossible to imagine the end of this conflict.

The 4 February 2021 report from Human Rights Watch (HRW) accused the Cameroon army of carrying out the atrocities in Mautu on 10 January 2021.

The report was irrefutable and stated “Army soldiers killed at least nine civilians in Cameroon’s Anglophone South-West region, on January 10, 2021, Human Rights Watch said today.

“The dead included a woman and a child, and four civilians were injured. The soldiers also looted scores of homes and threatened residents,” the report said.

The report was damning and embarrassing to the Yaounde regime as attacks on civilians, especially women and children are becoming rampant and these brutalities are a pattern that goes back over four years.

Over 421 villages have been burned down by the army in Cameroon. The arrest, detention, and execution of suspected separatists and their sympathizers are rampant, and the end is not nigh.

According to Rights groups in Cameroon, the Saturday, January 23, 2021 killing of four minors in Bamenda took the total number of unprovoked executions by the army to 133 in 2021.

These attacks on women and children date as far back as 2018 when Mrs. Susan Ndi and Ms. Gladys Ngwesang both of Bali, were accused of running errands and supplying food to separatists.

Their arrest and subsequent disappearance, like hundreds of such cases, was suppressed and the government of Cameroon has made no official statement ever since.

Last week’s report from HRW is timely but the local population must be asking what next.

A community leader in Bamenda who elected anonymity furthered that “when in 2018 Ma Gla and Ma Suzzy were abducted under false charges of aiding Amba Boys, we raised an alarm and pushed for their immediate release, but people didn’t take us seriously. Now, that inaction from us emboldened the army.”

With the Biden administration set to announce that the US will return to the UN Human Rights Council to fight injustice and tyranny around the world, many rights groups and activists are hoping that the end of these executions against civilians, women and children in Cameroon might just be around the corner.

By Chi Prudence Asong with files from Bamenda

Created with great pomp in 2017 and presented as a solution to the socio-political crisis shaking Cameroon, the ‘Commission pour la Promotion du Bilinguisme et du Multiculturalisme’ [Committee for the Promotion of Bilingualism and Multiculturalism] is struggling to bring a deeply divided country together.

Peter Mafany Musonge slowly made his way to the Yaounde Convention Centre. On 21 January, the former prime minister of Cameroon attended a meeting there along with the other 14 members of the Commission pour la promotion du bilinguisme et du multiculturalisme [National Committee for the Promotion of Bilingualism and Multiculturalism] (CNPBM), an institution he has headed since its creation in 2017.

As he settled into meeting room “A”, where the biannual session took place, Musonge was aware that his citizens have a long list of demands. Especially since, for the year 2021 alone, its budget amounts to about 3bn CFA francs (€4.5m) – a substantial budget in a context of crisis, in which resources are scarce. The adoption of this package is, moreover, the main item on the agenda.

“This budget will allow us to carry out our three main programmes,” said Musonge in a brief statement to the media at the end of the session. “The programme on bilingualism, which is to be extended and implemented throughout the country, the programme on multiculturalism and living together and, finally, the one on governance and institutional support.”

“No effects on the ground”

A plan of action that should give a boost to activities in the field and silence criticism. There are indeed prominent public voices denouncing the organisation’s wait-and-see approach, given the fact that the social climate is deteriorating as the days go by. The events that occurred during the 2018 presidential election were a continuation of the problems that have affected the country since the Anglophone crisis began in 2016.

Musonge himself acknowledges a resurgence of “intra-community stigmatisation.” “In the political field, frightening expressions such as ‘supremacists’ or ‘ethno-fascists’ are used to label certain individuals or groups […] On the economic front, odious rhetoric is directed against certain tribes that are depicted as ‘land thieves’ and ‘invaders.’ This worrying phenomenon can lead to uncontrollable acts of violence,” he said in a forum at the end of 2020.

Civility

Presented three years ago as the solution to these divisions, the CNPBM is struggling to break a cycle that has plunged the country into a climate of anxiety and where violence is ongoing. “We don’t feel the effects of this committee on the ground,” says Peter O., a resident of Yaoundé. “Since its members were installed, hate speech between communities has increased. Even the Anglophone crisis, which was at the origin of its creation, is still ongoing.”

No reforms, no sanctions

The controversy over the purchase of company cars, which tainted the institution in August 2018, is still fresh in many people’s minds. The revelations surrounding a public contract of 700m CFA francs – awarded by mutual agreement and intended for the purchase of 15 Toyota Prado V8 vehicles for members of the committee – had shocked public opinion.

However, according to several observers, the committee’s apparent inertia is above all due to its structure and prerogatives. “It is difficult to expect anything from such a consultative body. Resolving the socio-political crises that undermine the country is a matter of governance, but this commission does not have the power to implement reforms,” says Franck Essi, a consultant for the think tank Strategies Consulting Firm.

“Its members took part in the major national dialogue [held in early October 2019], but they had no decisive role in organising and facilitating discussions. Nor does the commission have the means to track down and punish the abuses observed in society.”

Criticism that CNPBM members reject, highlighting their contribution to the adoption of laws promoting official languages and on hate speech. “The committee is not in hibernation,” said Musonge. “We are doing conceptual work for the head of state. Sanctions are not a priority for the committee” said George Ngwane, one of its members. “The important thing is to push people to adopt good practices.”

Will this be enough? Only time will tell.

Culled from Africa Report

There is an African proverb that says that only a fool tests the depth of a river with both feet. Despite the availability of wisdom to help many in society, there is always a fool who, out of greed, will want to test the fury and frustration of a people impoverished and emasculated by corrupt authorities. The latest tragedy of a man attempting to rewrite history is a certain scum journalist who is vertically and horizontally challenged and goes by the name Ashu Nyenty. To seek relevance, political and career promotion, he took to Cameroon’s national broadcaster, CRTV, recently to insult the sensibilities of 25 million Cameroonians by uttering insulting flattery upon a public failure and a monument of embarrassment. Ashu Nyenty spewed that Paul Biya, a man responsible for running a prosperous nation to the ground, is a blessing to his people and Cameroonians are lucky to have him as their head of state.

In the video, which is now viral, Ashu Nyenty justified his qualifications as a half-baked clown on a national platform with a megaphone and nothing constructive to say. Because Ashu Nyenty only cares about himself and represents such falsehood and shameless political and career ambition at a time when the Butcher of Mvomeka is killing thousands of Southern Cameroonians, we, of the Cameroon Concord News Group will focus on his person. He must know that his sycophancy and disgracefully deranged support and flattery of a first-rate criminal is intolerable.

Cameroonians hardly suffer fools gladly and their reaction towards the Ashu Nyenty Comedy of helplessness speaks to the anger in many Cameroonian minds. The current anti-Ashu Nyenty alliance now in Cameroon is a remarkable testimony to his capacity to inspire revulsion from his words of dishonesty, absurdity, and flattery. He is a disgrace and has irresponsibly and purposefully put the lives of his family members in the county of Manyu in the Southern Cameroons at risk. Ashu Nyenty is also now an embarrassment to all GHS Mamfe alumni and he must be treated as such.

Even if one concedes Ashu’s right to free speech and opinion, one must marvel at his motive for such carelessness in act and repugnance in words considering he suffered the ignominy of being expelled from the University of Yaoundé for deception and delinquency. His subsequent mutation and reappearance at the University of Buea with an alteration to his name did not safe him as he was apprehended and expelled again. His deception, as witnessed in his now famous video, is not a fluke but a character flaw. His dismissal from The University of Buea was reported in the Weekly Post by Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai who is now Cameroon Concord News Group’s Editor-in-chief and Chairman.

Cameroonians are cursed to have such inept calamities passing as PhDs and journalists.  It is entirely clear that Ashu Nyenty possesses a questionable intellect and a warped mind. He counts his English during his boring shows on CRTV and presents with neither finesse nor  structure and has set the record for having videos on YouTube with less than 20 views after ten months.

Ashu Nyenty, one way or another, will go down in infamy as a man who took flattery to the gutters and septic tank of journalism for calling a dying diaper-wearing demagogue a blessing. If any doubts were left about Ashu Nyenty’s place of dishonour in history for his sightless surrogacy, they have now been erased. The video is an almost unimaginable buffoonery and inexcusable idiocy in insinuating that Cameroonians are blessed to have a stationary and brain-dead clown as their leader.

Many journalists and critics in Cameroon have all but abandoned their professional standards because the CPDM poison has spread far beyond their ability to ignore. Journalism and standards in public office and the truth in Cameroon are in intellectual and moral life support. Several distorted and stunted Anglophone comedians are holding briefs for the CPDM crime syndicate. They have popped up around Yaoundé and on social media in recent years, each seemingly more irritating than the other but this intellectual lilliputian called Ashu Nyenty is fast becoming the worst of them all.

Today, in what is meant to be a channel for candour and facts to the people of Cameroon, CRTV is a shameless public relations department of the CPDM crime syndicate. It is a dull caricature of twenty-first century broadcasting, characterised with mediocrity and rotten to the core with criminality, meaninglessness, and incompetence. Unfortunately, in a country where the best brains have been killed, are in prison or in exile, one must accept the reality that the chaffs are now running the show with astonishing ineptitude. And so, we are cursed with the Ashu Nyenty(s) of this world.

Media illiteracy in Cameroon is a huge problem but the media’s ability to inspire disgust by airing absurdity, falsehoods, CPDM nonsensical adulation is curiously astonishing. How many killings of Southern Cameroonians can people like Ashu Nyenty tolerate, excuse, and ignore? How much injury by Biya and his thugs to the Cameroon political space does he quantify and qualify as a blessing?

Cameroonians watched in disbelief and horror as the pint-sized so-called journalist inspired revulsion in his short video of feigned flattery of a monster whose own close collaborators agree in private that he is an abject failure. Calling his sickening utterances in the video intellectual and professional is grossly immoral and irresponsible.

Is his goal to speak truth to power or to flatter those in power? Is his goal to stand by the principles of the law he claims to have studied or to seek relevance and career promotion? A few hundred miles away in Accra and Abuja, journalists and the press are holding their respective governments responsible.  The Cameroon government has always been lucky that in a country where poverty has stripped nearly all its citizens of their dignity, honesty has been dumped into the latrines.

It is now painfully clear that Ashu Nyenty is seeking political favours within the high office of the CPDM crime syndicate, but he must heed the warning of Shakespeare that “this above all: to thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day”. Ola Rotimi wrote in The Gods are not to Blame “if crocodiles eat their own eggs, what would they do to the flesh of a frog?”. Let him look at the Kondengui Maximum Security Prison and reflect on those words.

It is not hard to understand why so many in the Cameroons have chosen not to go along with the CPDM’s core principles of theft, deception and flattery designed to keep a dying despot in office. Ashu Nyenty must know that a career that is complicit in undermining the values of integrity and academic uprightness does not mean much.

Unfortunately, Paul Biya refuses to accept the reality of his considerable failures and thrives on flattery and criminality. Ashu Nyenty must have been told this, so, human specimens like him are determined to create an alternate reality in which a war criminal and prolific embezzler is a blessing. 

The values of journalism and the law which he purports to represent are being undermined by Paul Biya and he will pay a steep price for his moment of madness in that video.

There are countless lessons to be learned here, including uncomfortable questions about the quality of education and persons delivered from universities in Cameroon and the place of integrity and honesty in Cameroon’s public life. Ashu  Nyenty has become a public irritant with a mind foolishly immature and incapable of sound intellectual judgment.

Ashu Nyenty’s unashamed audacity is made more painful and pathetic because this is the time Cameroon needs men and women with brains and integrity. For a man with a PhD attached to his name, he is an embarrassment. He has tested the depth of the dangerous waters of the Cameroons with both feet, the price for his ignorance, provocation and stupidity is huge and he would pay sooner rather than later.

By Isong Asu

London Bureau Chief

Cameroon Concord News Group

US President Joe Biden is aware that the Biya Francophone regime in Yaoundé has a history of reckless aggression against its own citizens and particularly the English speaking minority. Biden is also well informed of the Biya’s regime deep hatred for free speech, democracy and the rule of law and has for more than two decades helped French sponsored groups linked with French business interest to destabilize the Central African Republic.

We of the Concord News Group are of the opinion that US President Biden should begin his foreign policy project in Africa precisely in La Republique du Cameroun where an 87-year-old dictator is slaughtering his own citizens in great numbers.

President Biden should follow the George Bush example that brought freedom and dignity to the Iraqi people by issuing an ultimatum to Paul Biya and his gang of Beti Ewondo army generals to step aside within 48 hours or face military action.

A genocide being perpetuated by Mr Biya’s military is going on in the English part of the country now known as Southern Cameroons-Ambazonia. To stop it, the current US administration should be decisive. The level of barbarism by the Francophone dominated military and pro Cameroon government militias as they pursue their war and scorch earth policy to completely annihilate English speaking Cameroonians is alarming.

So far, as a result of the on-going Cameroon government military campaign in the English speaking regions, an estimated 20,000 people have been killed, over 280 towns and villages have been burnt down, over 120,000 people are seeking refuge in Nigeria and further afield, over 1million people are internally displaced or living in bushes and over 3,000 persons incarcerated in prisons and detention facilities. It is also reported that over 4.5. Million people are at risk of famine. One thing we know for sure is that Mr Biya and his military and private militia will be held accountable for these crimes.

Reacting to the sad situation in the former British Southern Cameroons, the Foreign Affairs Committee of the United States Congress introduced on 8 September 2020, Resolution 684 on the crisis in the Cameroonian regions of the North-West and South-West and was adopted on 1 January 2021.

Resolution 684 condemned the abuses committed by state security forces and armed groups in the northwest and southwest regions of Cameroon, and affirmed that the United States continues to hold the Government of Cameroon accountable for safeguarding the security and constitutional rights of all its citizens, regardless of region, religion, or political opinion. In addition, it urges all parties to the conflict in Cameroon, the Government of Cameroon, U.S. foreign relations entities, and members of the international community to take specific steps to resolve the ongoing civil conflict in Cameroon.

The U.S. Congress was also critical of France’s action in the conflict.  “…France maintains considerable interests in Cameroon, including significant economic and security cooperation, but has not sufficiently used its influence to stem atrocities committed in English-speaking regions or to support stronger international action to seek a resolution to the conflict,” Resolution 684 said.

While not exonerating Southern Cameroons Self-Defense Forces, Cameroon Concord News Group also know that Mr Biya’s government is doing everything through its private militia (popularly known as Atanga Nji Boys) to commit atrocities and link them to Southern Cameroons self-defense groups, so as to evoke international sympathy. Only an independent fact-finding mission can establish the facts and thus far, Mr. Biya’s government with French government support has resisted all requests by independent humanitarian organizations to visit English speaking Cameroon.

In passing resolution 684, the US Congress abundantly made the case for unleashing US forces against the regime in Yaoundé. Human Rights Watch confirmed that nothing has been heard from deportees that were transported by two known flights from the United States to Cameroon, on October 13 and November 11. The flights reportedly carried 57 and 37 Cameroonians respectively.   

All peaceful efforts to put an end to the crisis in the English-speaking region, which is now in its fifth year, have failed again and again and again because the international community is not dealing with peaceful men.

President Biden needs to tear down the apparatus of terror in Yaoundé that continues to kill, girls and women continue to be raped, villages continue to be burnt down, and a force of occupation continues to occupy and terrorizes a people for speaking the English language.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

On the very last day of President Donald Trump’s administration a polarised United States remains on edge over the prospect of election-related violence.

Domestically many are not just breathing a sigh of relief but screaming with happiness, and yet polls say 35% of the country believes he’s being ousted illegitimately. That illustrates just how polarising Trump has been here, and while many wonder if he’ll run for president in 2024 many others hope he is leaving public office permanently.

Trump seemed to combine Barack Obama’s skill in manipulating the media, George W. Bush’s readiness to provoke international hatred, Bill Clinton’s ability to disregard the truth and Ronald Reagan’s jingoism. He was routinely and credibly accused of conduct which degraded public service, of re-legitimising American White supremacy, of intentionally provoking societal rifts and much, much more.

Trump’s ascension provoked the greatest burst of political activity and independent journalism in the US in 50 years. Black Lives Matter, #MeToo, the importance of voting and other progressive movements seem to be in direct response to Trump’s regular use of sexism, racism, jingoism and elitism.

Internationally Trump took America’s post-9/11 “you’re either with us or against us” worldview to a new extreme. He illegally tore up international agreements, banned travel from seven mostly-Muslim countries and antagonised longtime US allies.

Trump, who switched his party affiliation five times, has successfully reshaped the Republican Party. He was the first 21st century mainstream politician to be openly anti-free trade, to voice opposition to America’s “endless wars”, to admit the national decline of the US since the Great Recession, to bring attention to the role of a “Deep State” in the US and to openly question the integrity of the nation’s corporate-dominated media.

The Trump era was truly unlike any other. His legacy will be debated, but his detractors are innumerable, intense and international.

Culled from Presstv