For 37 years, the Cameroonian dictator has transformed himself into a cult master so to speak expecting citizens and cabinet ministers to bow in homage. When Biya appeared before the Cameroonian people lately, it was evidently clear that Mr. Biya also known as the “monarch” is now a colony of diseases. Cameroon Intelligence Report senior correspondent in Yaoundé observed recently that Biya is suffering from a failing heart, a failed prostrate and loss of memory which makes it hard for him to carry out his duties as a head of state. So, when will Biya die?

Moving around in diapers over the last seven years, the 87 years old health is now a huge concern not only to his closest collaborators but to the international community. He has not been seen ever since he appeared on state television with the out gone French ambassador to Cameroon.

He loses his mind during conversations and for many months now, it is his wife, Chantal Biya and her relation, Ferdinand Ngoh Ngoh who also moonlights as Minister-Secretary General at the presidency of the republic that have been pulling the strings behind the scenes.

Ngoh Ngoh and Defense Minister Beti Assomo have ordered the army to make a final push in Southern Cameroons. In the days ahead the world will witness more killings in Ambazonia all in a bid to get children back to school and avoid sitting on the negotiating table with Southern Cameroonians.

Biya is definitely not aware of this direction that his government has taken but senior Cameroon political commentators have blamed it all in Biya’s own political misjudgments and his refusal to acknowledge his mistakes.

The young Beti Ewondo French Cameroun political elites around him and the ailing Justice Minister Laurent Esso will not allow Mr. Biya to accept political responsibility to end citizens’ fear and the war in Southern Cameroons.

No one in Yaoundé knows when Mr. Biya will be willing to step down! No one knows when he will tell Francophone soldiers to stop killing innocent Southern Cameroons civilians including women and children. To be sure, Biya continues to head a government that no one takes responsibility, no one apologizes, and no one resigns.

All over the country, citizens are afraid of him and his killer squad, the gendarmerie, the police and the Rapid Intervention Battalion (BIR). There are no more combative press conferences in Yaoundé due to rising tensions in the city between the Bamilekes of the Western region and the Betis of the South.

Under the “One the one and indivisible Cameroon” principle, all media houses in French Cameroun have ignored the sufferings of those they once referred to as our “Anglophone Brothers”.

However, French Cameroonians are beginning to see for themselves the failures of the monstrous liability of a head of state they help in creating. Everything in French Cameroun, their cities, their homes have all been pushed into an abyss.

But none in the Biya Francophone regime is heartbroken by the atrocities committed daily by Francophone army soldiers in Southern Cameroons. This explains why their leader, President Paul Biya till this day has offered no concessions to Southern Cameroonians.

Biya does not have a conscience!! Correspondingly, many citizens have been asking recently when Biya will die.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

Vice President Dabney Yerima’s deliberate silence over the poor conduct of some Ambazonia Restoration Forces in areas like Manyu, Bui, Menchum and Kupe Muanenguba is very disturbing! There are reports of horrible crimes being committed by Southern Cameroons Self-Defense Forces in Ground Zero which is slowly but sure pushing the local population away from the struggle.

We of the Cameroon Concord News Group opined recently that Southern Cameroonian fighters are no saints and popes. The situation has been made all the more complicated by the criminal elements financed by the French Cameroun government and some rogues who have become a threat to the local population.

These rogues that have infiltrated the Ground Zero Defense Council and the Ambazonia Military Forces kidnapping and molesting even Roman Catholic priests such as the case in Kikaikom in Bui and Akwaya in Manyu must be rooted out of our midst. Vice President Yerima should and must make sure that they be made to pay for their crimes.

Cameroon Concord News Group believes and fervently too that they are giving the revolution a bad name and this must be addressed forthwith. The people of Southern Cameroons should at no time be associated with the crimes being committed in our territory.

If the French Cameroun government’s stock in trade is killing, Ambazonians should let it accomplish its mission, after all the more people it kills, the more likely is the independence of Southern Cameroons. Let us give the international community more evidence of the French Cameroun government’s irresponsibility and wickedness.

The so-called activists living in faraway lands should be told to stop calling on those rogue elements that have been marauding our villages and towns to commit crimes in our names; we must know that we will be losing the sympathy of the international community that is breathing down the government’s throat.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

Think of it that you are a Southern Cameroonian resident in either the Northern or the Southern Zone. Fifty-eight difficult years of marginalization, torture, rape, extra judicial killings, and exploitation are behind you; a huge, depressing darkness lies ahead with the French Cameroun army burning and destroying more than 200 of your villages and towns killing more than 3000 women and children and then the French Cameroun tyrant that dooms your fate declares arrogantly that everything will stay like this and that your children should be sent back to school.

Your territory will remain under French Cameroun military occupation forever and ever. The French Cameroun defense minister, Joseph Beti Assomo who hails from the same tribe as the 86 year old head of state Paul Biya and who is actually the second in importance in the crime syndicate regime in Yaoundé that subjugates your leaders, reechoes the two cubes of sugar rhetoric that a Southern Cameroons state will never be established.

Come to think of it that you are a Southern Cameroonian and your women and children are in danger including those who are living in the bushes and those who have managed to escape into neighboring Nigeria. Everywhere you turn, a Francophone gendarme or a Francophone soldier or a French Cameroun Police officer may open fire at you. Every night, your homes are invaded brutally by elements of the French Cameroun military known popularly as the Rapid Intervention Battalion, BIR. You will never be treated like human beings in a country where your older generation voted peacefully in a plebiscite to create.  They destroy, humiliate, intimidate, perhaps even arrest traditional and religious leaders, possibly without trial.

There are close to 2500 Southern Cameroons detainees. Many have simply disappeared in detention.  If one of your family members is arrested, you will have difficulty visiting him. If you succeed, you will have to pay hundreds of thousands of Franc CFA just to maybe get half an hour’s conversation.

Many Ambazonians have even become accustomed to the French Cameroun land theft policy. At every moment a, French Cameroun civil administrator or members of his family can invade your land, burn your crops or torch your fields and brandish a land certificate issued in French language stating that your ancestral land was handed to him by the government. The French Camerounian will not be brought to justice for this; the gendarmerie officers who are supposed to protect you will stand idly by.  French Camerounians own and run the courts so there’s nothing you can do.

You are indeed a Southern Cameroonian you can’t travel from Akwaya to Mamfe without going through Nigeria!! It’s not easy to move from Kumbo to Jakiri either or Weh to Wum.  A French Camerounian can go to Europe and all over Africa from all the nooks and crannies of French Cameroun name them, Garoua, Maroua, Douala and Yaounde, much more easily than you a Southern Cameroonians can go from Mamfe to Calabar.

Let this be known to Ministers Mengot, Paul Elong, Paul Tasong, Dion Ngute and Barrister Agbor Balla that there are no dreams, no wishes in this Southern Cameroons revolution. Children who are confronted with this kind of situation have a slim chance of accomplishing anything in life, even if they go “Back To School”. All they can look forward to is a life of humiliation and unemployment.

There’s no chance that this situation is about to change anytime soon. French Cameroun is not strong as the leadership claims but has French government backing, the United States is slow in acting, Ikome Sako and Chris Anu have weakened the Ambazonian Interim Government, Boh Herbert, Cho Ayaba, Mbah Akuro and Akwanga are all running out of cash and  isolated, and the world is losing interest in the Southern Cameroons fate. What should Ambazonians do?

We of the Cameroon Concord News Group think that there are two possibilities. The first is to accept, give in, give up and tell Papa Paul Biya that it was a costly mistake to even have tested his political will. The second is to resist. Whom have we respected more in history? Those who passed their days under the oppression and collaborated with it like Blaise Compaore of Burkina Faso, or those who struggled for their freedom like Thomas Sankara?

This explains why we of this publication are behind President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe and his top aides who were arrested in Abuja, Nigeria and the Southern Cameroons young men and women who are involved in the armed struggle against invading French Cameroun soldiers. You have every right to resist. In fact, the great Hon. Wirba has made it clear to you all that it is your civil duty to resist. No argument there. Your right to resist occupation is secured in natural justice, in the morals of history and in international law.

The only limitation that the Southern Cameroons Interim Government now faces is on the means of resistance. Ambazonians should be moving from den guns to bombs if not all our demonstrations in capital cities in the West and the lives of our fallen heroes will be all in vain. Are we to despair and give up? This has almost never happened in history, so we’ll continue.  It is our right to resist.

Why should a Southern Cameroons lawyer and leader of the much respected Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium be clamouring for Southern Cameroons parents to again put their children in the hands of people who set live children on fire in Buea and Bamenda universities?

Southern Cameroonians don’t want armed settlers from French Cameroun who invade university campuses and raped students infecting hundreds with HIV.  Southern Cameroonians do not want to be in a country where judges sentence children for making a Boko Haram joke because of their origin. Southern Cameroonians don’t want French Cameroun supported by France to continue tyrannizing them, so they will resist. The Ambazonia Diaspora should start making available their money to Vice President Dabney Yerima. That’s what it means to be part of the Southern Cameroons resistance. We agree that sometimes our Amba Boys have acted with heinous murderousness, but even that is not as bad when compared to the crimes committed by French Cameroun soldiers in the Federal Republic of Ambazonia.

Ambazonians, it’s your right; it’s your duty

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

For those who are familiar with the expression “wata na wata” you probably think of it as a historical Southern Cameroons grievance over events that unfolded some 57 years ago. That was the time when the French government facilitated the creation of the so-called Federal Republic of Cameroon and later transformed it into the United Republic of Cameroon.

The French Commissioner to French Cameroun, Roland Pre ousted Andre Marie Mbida as Prime Minister of French Cameroun and replaced him with a man the world came to know as President Ahmadou Ahidjo. Ahidjo was then accorded the task of assimilating British Southern Cameroons.

Some Southern Cameroonians fled towns like Mamfe and Nkambe upon hearing of the 1961 plebiscite results that John Ngu Foncha and the KNDP had won.  Southern Cameroons political elites who called for a thorough interpretation of the plebiscite results were flushed out. Correspondingly, communities that tried to resist the reunification process were decimated.

There was a feeling of considerable slaughter of Southern Cameroonians during the Bamenda Preparatory Conference in 1961 and it has been hard for Southern Cameroons political commentators to explain why Dr Emmanuel Lifafe Endeley was absent in Bamenda. Endeley wrote a letter to the Bamenda Preparatory Conference which was never read but in that document, he noted that his feeling about the Plebiscite was more of a “massacre” than anything else.

When all was said and done, the Federal Republic of Cameroon was established after the Foumban Conference and on May 20th 1972, French Cameroun started the process of seizing and destroying everything that is Southern Cameroons. Since then, the people of Southern Cameroons lost everything including the name of the port city of Victoria that was changed to Limbe by French Cameroun political elites with the support of the disgraced Prime Minister Ephraim Inoni.

As the Biya Francophone government continues to celebrate its military superiority over Ambazonia Self-Defense Forces, Southern Cameroonians are weeping over the failure of leadership in the Interim Government caused by the abduction of President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe and his top aides in Abuja, Nigeria.

This is true as the French Cameroun army continues to destroy Ambazonia villages and killing hundreds of Southern Cameroons women and children. It is genocide for the explicit purpose of replacing the Southern Cameroons population with French Camerounians, ignoring the objections of major human rights organisations like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International.

The French Cameroun army has successfully decimated as many as 200 Southern Cameroons villages and in some cases even ordered Ambazonians out of their ancestral homes so that the French Cameroun army and it civil administrators can take their place.  These French Cameroun crimes against the people of Southern Cameroons have surpassed the scale of calamity carried out in Rwanda during the genocide. The international media has failed to convey Southern Cameroons’s tragedy accurately as a struggle against marginalisation, discrimination and exploitation.

To resolve this conflict, the Southern Cameroons leader, Sisiku Ayuk Tabe made an extraordinary gesture despite the enormity of the injustice imposed on him, his aides and the Ambazonian people for over 57 years. President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe requested for an all inclusive dialogue to be hosted in a foreign country and supervise by the United Nations.

President Paul Biya and his gang of French Cameroun political elites simply moved the goalposts. The French Cameroun army has continued to destroy Southern Cameroons towns and villages. To be sure, Biya’s killing machine has continued to operate under the pretence of a “Back to School” process now headed by a certain Barrister Agbor Balla.

French Cameroun government ministers who hail from Southern Cameroons including some Southern Cameroonians running fraudulent NGOs have moved us farther away from holding Yaoundé accountable for their crimes, supporting Beti Ewondo extremist hardliners for blood money, backing away from Southern Cameroons statehood, taking everything off the table and even replacing the use of the word “Federalism” with ‘Decentralization” to support French Cameroun army’s presence on Southern Cameroons territory.

So here we are, more than three years after the Southern Cameroons revolution started, Ambazonians are back at square one with some struggling on social media to defend a Pastor-Leader who wasted their hard earned money for his self-aggrandizement with a few pretending to host an Ambazonia Cultural Festival in London on the 17th of August at a time when much of the international community has resigned itself to tepid commentary instead of meaningful action against the Biya Francophone regime.

Biya and his French Cameroun military with support from the French government and French speaking African diplomats have barred Southern Cameroonians from every avenue towards dignity and freedom: No right to reside in a viable environment, no right to return to their original homes from Nigeria or from Europe and America, and live bullets awaits those who mount any effective protest, even when they’re unarmed and non-violent.

But no matter how bleak the reality looks today in Ground Zero and in the Southern Cameroons Interim Government with Sako  Ikome and Chris Anu now appearing as fifth citizens (Fifth citizens were Europeans who cooperated with the Nazi when the German army invaded their respective countries), in terms of policy and on  Ground Zero including the work of Vice President Dabney Yerima, there is a counter-reality we Ambazonians must recognise: Southern Cameroonian aspiration for freedom is mightier than any army that stands in its way. French Cameroun bullying and coercion over the past 3 years have not broken the spirit of the Southern Cameroons revolution, and another 57 years won’t either.

The Southern Cameroons resistance for justice, which envisions the kind of equality and prosperity that protects the future of all Ambazonians, will continue until we bring this 57 years long “wata na wata” battle to an end, once and for all.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

Is President Paul Biya’s regime on the verge of crumbling? Happenings over the past three months suggest it is. First are the obvious signs: the reemergence of Boko Haram attacks in the Far North region demanding immediate deployment of more troops, a long standing ally President Obiang Nguema of Equatorial Guinea now set to build a wall to prevent Cameroonians from entering his country, the Southern Cameroons war that has become more intractable, the security situation in the East region that is deteriorating at catastrophic rapidity and the curious fact that the man himself is suffering from cancer. But there are some equally intriguing bits of circumstantial evidence.

The first emerged recently, when Biya signed a decree informing Cameroonians that the Secretary General at the Presidency, Ferdinand Ngoh Ngoh will henceforth deputize for him. Many within the Francophone regime responded privately by stating that such a move has no constitutional backing. The arrest of former Defense Minister Edgar Alain Mebo Ngo’o had long signaled that Ferdinand Ngoh Ngoh was already in charge and the ailing Biya and his ruling Beti Ewondo clan were attempting to prevent a major break deep inside the government.  And would Ferdinand Ngoh Ngoh have so crudely ridiculed Mebo Ngo’o—and, by extension, the Francophone dominated Beti Ewondo military, which has favoured the Biya regime if he did not realize the end was near?

Recently, the Biya government has been kicking international human rights groups and their representatives out of the country. The International Crisis Group was forced to leave as there was fear that the renowned body was helping the world to witness the impending collapse of the Biya regime.

In August alone, the regime has invested hundreds of millions of FCFA (money that it does not even have) on a campaign to get Southern Cameroons parents to send their children back to school. The whole exercise seems to have failed.  Few will fail to notice that the local population in Southern Cameroons now feels that the Ambazonia Restoration Forces have booted the French Cameroun army out of town. Every Southern Cameroonian now believes it is safe to come out against Biya.

Also, the West has placed the regime in some kind of economic sanctions.  German Chancellor Dr Angela Merkel recently stopped all military cooperation with Yaoundé. The Americans took a more radical approach by not only ending a very lucrative military deal with Biya but also pulled out all US servicemen and women from the North region that were stationed there to help in combating the Nigerian Islamic sect Boko Haram.

For their part, the Swiss ordered President Biya to leave their country and they are now in support of regime change as a goal towards ending the numerous crises that have rocked the Cameroonian nation. The Dutch and the Belgians have all withdrawn financial aid to the Yaoundé regime. Our senior political correspondent in Paris, France noted that the French are hoping that the Biya regime will collapse as soon as possible.

Again, these events prove nothing definitive. They are, at most, signs, signals, tokens of shifts in the game of perceptions and the correlation of forces.  For, if the signs do point to a real trend, and not just random coincidence, they might indicate that Biya’s regime will implode very soon.

Surely with Biya’s acolytes dying like flies name them: Martin Belinga Eboutou, Sadou Hayatou, General James Tataw and his allies shifting into neutral, neutrals relishing his downfall, and local foes moving into open opposition mean something. These shifts, along with divisions in the military, might be enough to convince Biya or those around him that the game is up, that there’s no way out, and that their best-case scenario is for Mister Paul Biya to resign.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

Barrister Julius ACHU, lawyer for the State of French Cameroun, ( Partie Civile) in the case between The People Vs Julius Ayuk Tabe & 9 others is a Douala based lawyer of Southern CAMEROONS ( Ambazonia) extraction who has lived the greater part of his life in La Republique du Cameroun and is renowned for his unscrupulous appetite for money such that the Biya Francophone regime has used him several times to achieve nefarious objectives.

From a family whose fortunes have been linked to the French Cameroun colonial empire for more than six decades, Barrister Julius Achu was the so-called Anglophone Cameroonian who sued Roman Catholic Bishop’s of Kumbo, Buea and the Archbishop of Bamenda claiming more than 150 million francs CFA as damages when the crisis pitting French Cameroun and Ambazonians began with the boycott of Schools and the Courts in 2016.

On Monday the 05^th of August 2019 in the Yaoundé Military Tribunal, Barrister Julius ACHU on behalf of his clients, the state of French Cameroun yelled that they give a damn to the opinion of the international community and the various International human rights instruments that the defense lawyers had cited generously to buttress their case, particularly the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).

He shouted at the top of his voice that he didn’t care that some of them were in the court hall (and he turned and looked at the gallery where two white ladies said to be US diplomats were sitting). He ridiculed the international community and opined that they will not come to determine how justice should be dispensed in French Cameroun and prayed the presiding judges in the panel comprised of Lt Colonel MISSE MISSE Jacques Baudouine and Magistrates EDOU MEWOUTOU Fidele Armand and NGOUONGUE TIANI Sandrine to deliver Justice strictly according to French Cameroun laws.

Before the court session actually started, Mister Julius Achu requested and gotten the support of French Cameroun security men to prevent President Sisiku Julius Ayuk Tabe’s niece Alicia Egbe from entering the court premises. Barrister Julius Achu told the French Cameroun military judges that Alicia Egbe consistently brings “white men” to court.

By Asu Isong with files from our Yaounde Intel Officer

Fellow Ambazonians,

I come to you with revolutionary greetings from your President, Sisiku AyukTabe and his team in the Principal Prison in Kondengui, Yaounde. Today marks the eighth day of their hunger strike.

Yesterday, Tuesday the 6th of August 2019, lawyers of the Interim Government reported to the President and his team that they had seen Comrades Macho Bibixy, Penn Terence, Tsi Conrad, Ngalim Felix, Babila Vena and other frontline leaders that have been unaccounted for since the peaceful prison demonstration on the 22nd of July 2019, asking for better living conditions or unconditional release.

We can confirm that they have now been returned to the central prison in Kondengui,Yaoundé. They have been abused in the most horrifying way known to man. They have all received multiple stitches from alarming cruelties. They have broken bones and multiple bruises. Some of them have lost some teeth. They have all suffered severe weight loss. But we thank God that they are all alive.

The attention has now been moved to Buea where progress has been slow. Our team of six lawyers have informed us that during the peaceful prison protests of 23rd July 2019 where political detainees were demanding for an improvement in their living conditions and unconditional release, the doors of the prison where opened by the authorities for the military to enter and kill comprehensively. Upon entering the prison, they shot at prisoners indiscriminately killing four and wounding over seventy-five. Of the four killed one corpse was carried and deposited at the Regional Hospital, Buea and the other three were carried away to an unknown destination. Nobody knows where they were deposited.

Five of the wounded were taken to the Regional Hospital where they are in critical conditions whilst the others are being managed within the prison medical wing. The French Cameroun authorities aren’t allowing our lawyers’ access to any of the political detainees. Our lawyers have confirmed that sixty political detainees were moved into an unventilated water torture chamber in the aftermath of the demonstrations. They were there until the 5th of August 2019. From the prison, our lawyers went to the Regional Hospital, Buea where they weren’t allowed to see the five political prisoners admitted there after their ordeal. During a short trip to the military court, they succeeded to discuss with some of the detainees who corroborated all the facts they have gathered.

Today, they will be informing the Prison authorities and the Minister of Justice of their intent to see the political detainees and the whereabouts of the three massacred comrades.

In all this sad public tragedy, the cruelty of the French Cameroun authorities is being laid bare for the world to see. For engaging in peaceful protests about their living conditions, our comrades have sustained life-threatening injuries, endured Nazi-style torture and lost their lives. The fact that the Cameroon authorities have considerable disregard for our lives strengthens our case for freedom and independence. Southern Cameroonians, rich or poor, educated or untrained should be under no illusions as to the enormity of the state-sponsored cruelty we face. The barbarisms ditched upon our comrades are not isolated incidents. They are well planned, rehearsed and authorized from the highest tier of Cameroun power.

Our President and his team have made it clear to the world that the hunger strike will only be called off after the lawyers’ confirmation of seeing all our political detainees or knowing the whereabouts of the massacred. This position hasn’t changed despite their frail bodies. Their bodies are frail but their minds and determination remain resilient. We must take inspiration from them. Our resolve and determination should not falter despite the turbulent times. The pressure on the French Cameroun authorities has paid some dividends but we must keep it up.

We must continue to make the case that this ill-fated fifty-eight years political experience can’t endure. It’s freedom now or resistance forever.

Thank You

Dabney Yerima, Vice President

Issued 7th of August 2019

The decision to stay as a French Cameroun Governor, Senior Divisional Officer, Divisional Officer or District Head in Southern Cameroons is now your choice and you are responsible for your personal safety in the Federal Republic of Ambazonia.

We of the Cameroon Intelligence Report and Cameroon Concord News take the safety and security of both French Cameroun and Southern Cameroons citizens living in the Southern and the Northern Zones of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia very seriously and we have been providing credible and timely information to enable them to make well-informed decisions regarding their stay in the conflict infested territory.

The content on Cameroon Intelligence Report and Cameroon Concord News are provided for information only. While our cream of reporters all over Southern Cameroons have been making every effort to give both French Camerounians and Ambazonians correct information, we are hereby stating that our reports have been provided on an “as is” basis without warranty of any kind, express or implied.

The Editorial board of the Cameroon Concord News Group is hereby informing all French Cameroun administrative officials and the population of Southern Cameroons to begin evacuating the Southern Cameroons territory.

Our senior intelligence reporters in the USA, Europe, the and Republic of South Africa and in Ground Zero have all hinted of a full scale war with French Cameroun forces deployed to Southern Cameroons.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

Chairman/Editor-in-Chief

Cameroon Concord News Group

116TH CONGRESS 1ST SESSION S. RES. ll

Calling on the Government of Cameroon and armed separatist groups to respect the human rights of all Cameroonian citizens, to end all violence, and to pursue an inclusive dialogue to resolve the conflict in the Northwest and Southwest regions.

IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

llllllllll Mr. CARDIN (for himself, Mr. YOUNG, Mr. DURBIN, Mr. LANKFORD, Mr. VAN HOLLEN, Mr. MARKEY, Mr. COONS, Mr. KAINE, and Mr. MERKLEY) submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on

llllllllll

RESOLUTION Calling on the Government of Cameroon and armed separatist groups to respect the human rights of all Cameroonian citizens, to end all violence, and to pursue an inclusive dialogue to resolve the conflict in the Northwest and Southwest regions.

Whereas Paul Biya has held office as Cameroon’s President since 1982, and won reelection to a seventh term in October 2018; Whereas Cameroon receives United States foreign aid and participates in the Department of State-led Trans-Sahara Counter-Terrorism Partnership (TSCTP) and United States-supported efforts to counter Boko Haram;

Whereas the Government of Cameroon has increasingly cracked down on political expression, including by imprisoning opposition leaders and supporters, banning opposition and civil society conferences, reinforcing troop deployments to deter and disrupt protests, and restricting access to Facebook and other social media platforms;

Whereas the Government of Cameroon has repeatedly restricted freedoms of expression and the media nationwide by shutting down the internet, harassing and detaining journalists, refusing licenses to independent media, and intensifying political attacks against the independent press;

Whereas Boko Haram and an Islamic State-affiliated splinter group have destabilized northern Cameroon since 2014, marked recently by a June 2019 attack on security forces in Far North Cameroon that killed dozens of soldiers and civilians;

Whereas the Boko Haram insurgency in Cameroon’s Far North region has created an estimated 263,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs), causing an escalating humanitarian crisis in difficult to access areas;

 Whereas tensions between predominantly Christian farmers and predominantly Muslim Fulani herders have contributed to religious and communal tensions throughout West and Central Africa in recent years, including in the Northwest region of Cameroon;

 Whereas members of the Government of Cameroon’s Rapid Intervention Battalion (BIR), which receives United States counterterrorism training and support, have been accused of torture and extrajudicial killings and may be in contravention of congressionally mandated ‘‘Leahy human rights vetting’’ requirements; Whereas the 2018 Department of State Human Rights Report documented torture and abuse by Cameroonian security forces, ‘‘prolonged arbitrary detentions including of suspected Anglophone separatists by security forces,’’ and violations of freedoms of expression and assembly;

 Whereas, following Cameroon’s October 7, 2018, elections, the African Union Election Observation Mission stated that ‘‘the current [legal] framework needs to be strengthened in order to safeguard the democratic principles of separation of powers, fairness, and independence and impartiality,’’ which the Department of State echoed, emphasizing that electoral irregularities ‘‘created an impression that the election was not credible or genuinely free and fair’’;

Whereas Anglophone Cameroonians have long felt marginalized by official actions and policies of the Government of Cameroon;

Whereas, while the Government of France has condemned attacks by armed separatists, it has a meaningful role to play in pushing the Government of Cameroon to lift restrictions on freedoms of expression and the media, end arbitrary detention, and engage in inclusive dialogue with Anglophone leaders;

Whereas, beginning in late 2016, protests organized by lawyers, teachers, and students were violently repressed by the Government of Cameroon, leading to numerous deaths and imprisonments, including of journalists and lawyers;

Whereas, in January 2017, the Government of Cameroon ordered the suspension of internet services in the northwest and southwest regions of Cameroon, the suspension lasting for 93 days and having a major, debilitating effect on the economy, educational institutions, freedom of expression, and social communication of the region’s residents;

 Whereas the conflict escalated in late September and early October 2017, when Cameroonian security forces brutally cracked down on unarmed civilians peacefully demonstrating, resulting in at least 20 people dying and leaving over 100 injured;

Whereas, in 2017, armed separatist groups launched a campaign to pressure school officials in the Anglophone region to go on strike as part of a boycott against the Government of Cameroon, and began burning school buildings and threatening education officials with violence if they did not comply;

 Whereas human rights monitors have documented armed groups killing traditional leaders and targeting civilians who are perceived to be supporting or working with the Government of Cameroon, and armed militants have killed Cameroonian security force personnel;

 Whereas numerous credible reports from human rights monitors, including the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, have documented the excessive use of force by Government of Cameroon security forces against Cameroonians living in the Anglophone regions, including the burning of villages, the use of live ammunition against protestors, arbitrary arrest and detention, torture, and sexual abuse;

Whereas the Department of State has expressed serious concern over the Government of Cameroon’s use of force to restrict free expression and the use of violence against individuals protesting the government’s policies in the Anglophone regions;

Whereas both the Government of Cameroon security forces and armed groups have been documented targeting and brutally killing civilians in the Anglophone regions, including women and children;

 Whereas in February 2019, the Department of State announced it would withhold some security assistance to Cameroon, citing credible allegations that the Cameroonian military carried out human rights violations;

 Whereas United States citizen Charles Wesco was senselessly killed near the town of Bamenda, Cameroon, on October 30, 2018, after being caught in what the Department of State has characterized as ‘‘cross fire’’;

 Whereas the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs stated in March 2019 that at least 530,000 were internally displaced in areas affected by the Anglophone conflict;

 Whereas the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has estimated that $298,900,000 is required to provide humanitarian assistance throughout Cameroon, and only 21 percent of the appeal has been funded as of July 2019;

 Whereas the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees reported that it had registered roughly 36,000 Cameroonian refugees from the Anglophone regions in Nigeria as of April 2019;

Whereas some Cameroonian diaspora organizations in the United States and Cameroonian-based civil society organizations are working to address the needs of Cameroonian internally displaced persons on the northwest and southwest regions of the country and refugees in Nigeria;

Whereas Anglophone activists were forcibly returned from Nigerian custody to Cameroonian authorities in January 2018, despite many having reportedly submitted asylum claims in Nigeria; and Whereas 10 of the 47 individuals forcibly returned from Nigeria now face charges before a military court that would be punishable by the death penalty, while the other reportedly remain in detention without charge: Now, therefore, be it Resolved, That the Senate— urges all parties to the Anglophone conflict in Cameroon, including political opposition groups, to—  agree to an immediate ceasefire; guarantee unfettered humanitarian assistance; exercise restraint and ensure that protests remain peaceful; and engage in inclusive dialogue with civil society to get to a political solution that respects the rights and freedoms of the people of Cameroon;  strongly condemns the abuses committed by Boko Haram, state security forces, and armed groups in the Anglophone regions, including extrajudicial killings and detentions, the use of force against nonviolent civilians and protestors, and violations of the freedoms of press, expression, religion, and assembly; affirms that the United States Government continues to hold the Government of Cameroon responsible for upholding the rights of all citizens, regardless of their religious beliefs, political views, or the regions in which they reside; urges the Government of Cameroon to— initiate a credible, inclusive, good, and full-faith effort to work with religious, cultural, and community leaders in the Anglophone region and the Cameroonian diaspora to engage in meaningful dialogue and address grievances and seek nonviolent solutions to resolve the conflict, including possibly involving an independent mediator in such negotiations; respect the fundamental rights of all Cameroonian citizens, including political activists, faith leaders, and journalists; ensure that any security operations are conducted in accordance with international 2 human rights standards, including efforts to ensure security forces only use force under appropriate circumstances; investigate all allegations of human rights abuses, including religious freedom violations, committed in the Anglophone regions and take the necessary measures to prevent arbitrary detention, torture, enforced disappearances, deaths in custody, and inhumane prison conditions; promote the rule of law through more transparent accountability mechanisms; improve election processes and reform electoral institutions; promptly charge or release all those detained in the context of the Anglophone crisis, including all Anglophone activists arrested in Nigeria, and ensure that any future detainees are treated with due process, in accordance with Cameroon’s penal code and international 22 human rights norms; ensure that detainees are treated fairly and humanely, with proper judicial proceedings, including a registry of those detained by the Cameroonian security forces, and with full access to legal resources; release human rights defenders, civil society activists, political prisoners, journalists, trade unionists, teachers, faith leaders and any  other citizens who have been arbitrarily arrested and detained without trial or charge; and work with United States law enforcement to thoroughly investigate and prosecute Charles Wesco’s murder; and urges the armed groups in Anglophone areas to engage with government officials to peacefully express grievances and credibly engage in nonviolent efforts to resolve the conflict; immediately stop committing human rights abuses, including killings of civilians, torture, kidnapping, and extortion; end the school boycott and immediately cease attacks on schools, teachers, and education officials, and allow for the safe return of all students to class; and immediately release all civilians illegally detained or kidnapped.