At least 2,000 people have died in the insurgency that began in 2017 in the country’s North-West and South-West regions, where Cameroon’s English-speaking minority is concentrated. English-speakers have accused the French-speaking majority of marginalizing them politically and economically. A government crackdown on a 2016 strike organized by Anglophone teachers and lawyers precipitated the creation of a violent, separatist movement to form a new independent nation called Ambazonia.

Undeterred by international criticism, Biya actually appeared to be stepping up his attacks on the separatists in the months after his October 2018 reelection, as Robbie Corey-Boulet reported in April for WPR. The situation further deteriorated last month when a military tribunal sentenced an Anglophone separatist leader and nine of his followers to life in prison. Separatists have responded with attacks on government security forces and kidnappings of officials perceived to be allied with the regime. They have also instituted a broad shutdown of shops and social services in the Anglophone region. Hundreds of thousands of people have fled their homes.

“We should all know that we are Cameroonians, appointed to serve Cameroon, not our tribes or linguistic groups,” Biya proclaimed in his speech. But even as he announced the dialogue, Biya refused to confirm whether separatist representatives would even be invited.

The process is also set to address other national emergencies, including the Boko Haram insurgency along Cameroon’s border with Nigeria and post-election violence that occurred following Biya’s latest victory.

Culled from World Politics Review

The President did not go far enough, yet he went a distance he has not gone before.

Firstly this speech addressed specifically the Anglophone Crisis, something we have called for since March 2017.

Secondly, he admitted there was a crisis and for the first time apologized and extended condolences to the people affected.

Thirdly, he even attempted to explain his choices and decisions made, something he never has done in the past.

Fourthly he called for dialogue. While the details will have to follow and necessary good faith he heed to the call.

Fifthly while not admitting he will be obliged to consider pardons as part of this broad based dialogue. He insinuated that those who drop arms will not be persecuted. This still leaves the large number in detention to be addressed.

The President failed in my opinion to admit his own government’s shortcomings. If everything was alright then why the dialogue. He also could at least have extended pardon to the leaders who were extradited from Nigeria so to create a platform for meaningful dialogue.

He also could have made a historical reference to the two Cameroons coming together and that the dialogue will enable Cameroonians to evaluate our progress over the last 50 years and take action to resolve the differences.

While he mentioned rehabilitation, it is imperative that he creates the condition necessary for such rehabilitation. This was not evident in his speech.

Many had hoped for more than this. Some for a resignation but practically we are in the middle. There is an opportunity here, let us make the most of it.

Source: AO

iamcameroon

The latest failure by the regime in Yaoundé to get schools in Southern Cameroons up and running again shows that the Ambazonia Interim Government still enjoys massive support among the people of Southern Cameroons and this should serve as a wakeup call to the international community to put their houses in order and accept the reality that Biya and his French Cameroun political elites are fast losing relevance.

Ever since the Yaoundé Military Tribunal sentenced the Ambazonia leader President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe and nine of his top aides to life in prison, Southern Cameroonians have rallied behind their exiled government which now enjoys the trust of the people on Ground Zero.  The Ambazonia leader, Sisiku Ayuk Tabe enjoys greater support in both the rural and urban areas in the Federal Republic of Ambazonia.

Cameroon Concord News Group understands that the people in Ground Zero trust the Ambazonia President more than the influential Roman Catholic religious leaders in the country. We also gathered that Southern Cameroonians advocating for decentralization and federalism are the least trusted.

Reacting to the failed attempt at getting Ambazonia children back to school in 2019, Vice President Dabney Yerima urged the European Union and the United Nations Security Council to take the outcome of this year’s so-called back to school seriously, introspect and accept the stark reality that they are fast losing touch and are simply encouraging the French Cameroun genocidal campaign in Southern Cameroons.

Vice President Dabney Yerima observed that the international community should listen more to the people of Southern Cameroons, rather than assume the defensive mode constantly being employed by the French Cameroun government in Yaounde. Dabney Yerima hinted that the back to school boycott in Ambazonia commands attention and respect and any attempt by the United Nations Central Africa Regional Representative to ignore the Ambazonia collective action will not be helpful.

The Cameroon Radio and Television (CRTV) aired conflicting reports on the back to school in Southern Cameroons which the Ambazonia Interim Government noted that they were part of a grand French Cameroun conspiracy.

The leadership of the Ambazonia Interim Government opined recently that the international community needs to understand the Southern Cameroons terrain in which they are operating and map out strategies to facilitate the independence of Southern Cameroons.

The boycott of schools and the success of the lockdown in Southern Cameroons also indicate that President Biya and French Cameroun are of no relevance in Ambazonia. The fractious nature of the Southern Cameroons revolutionary groups have led to the plummeting fortunes of the resistance. However, on the other hand, President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe has consistently provided responsible leadership and maintained unity in the Ambazonia Interim Government despite upheavals linked to the corrupt former acting leaders.

What is clear from this year’s school boycott is that Sisiku Ayuk Tabe is the central figure and embodiment of the Southern Cameroons resistance,  while Biya and his consortium of CPDM crime syndicates are losing relevance both in Southern and French Cameroun.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

Ten leaders of the separatist Ambazonia Interim Government in Cameroon lodged an appeal on August 26, 2019, against their August 20 convictions and life sentences by a military court following a trial that raises serious concerns of due process and violations of fair-trial rights.

Although the trial, on charges including terrorism, rebellion, and secession, commenced in December 2018, all the alleged evidence against the men was only presented to the defense in court during a single 17-hour overnight hearing that started on August 19. The court admitted thousands of pages of statements and documents as evidence against the accused and over 1,000 items of forensic evidence, such as guns, spears, and laptops, that defense lawyers told Human Rights Watch they did not know about and were unable to examine, discuss with their clients, or effectively challenge.

“It appears that the military court handed down a hasty verdict and sentence without giving the accused any meaningful opportunity to defend themselves,” said Lewis Mudge, Central Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “This process has been plagued by pretrial abuses and serious allegations of fair-trial breaches that warrant independent and impartial judicial review, which we hope will happen under appeal.”

The trial, which was conducted in French without adequate translation though the defendants were entitled to a trial in English, their mother tongue and an official language in Cameroon, took place after serious violations of the defendants’ rights in detention. Defense lawyers accused the judges of bias and withdrew from the proceedings after the main military judge threatened them with arrest for raising objections.

Sisiku Ayuk Tabe, head of what is known as the “Ambazonia government,” and nine other leaders had been arrested in January 2018 in Nigeria’s capital, Abuja, and forcibly returned to Cameroon, in an extrajudicial transfer that was denounced by the United Nations Refugee Agency as violating the fundamental principle of non-refoulement – the practice of not forcing refugees or asylum seekers back to a country where they risk persecution, torture, or other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment. The forced return of the 10 leaders was also declared illegal by a Nigerian court in March 2019. The men were then held in incommunicado detention at the State Defense Secretariat detention facility (Secrétariat d’État à la défense, SED) for six months, during which they had no access to their lawyers and families. Human Rights Watch has documented that torture and other abuses are endemic at the SED.

Fru John Nsoh, lead counsel for the separatist leaders, told Human Rights Watch that while the trial of his clients started in December 2018, all hearings prior to August 19 focused on peripheral procedural matters. He said that defense lawyers had no prior knowledge of the evidence presented to the court by the prosecution, and were not given any chance to view, comment, or object to the evidence, nor were they permitted to cross examine the four witnesses called by the prosecution.

The men were also tried before a military tribunal, despite international standards deeming the trial of civilians in military courts, in principle, to be incompatible with the right to a fair trial. Cameroon has been condemned by the UN Human Rights Committee for prosecuting civilians before military tribunals. The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights has also repeatedly reinforced that under regional human rights standards, including the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, the trial of civilians in military courts is prohibited without exception, and that the only purpose of military courts should “be to determine offences of a purely military nature committed by military personnel.”

The crisis unfolding in Cameroon’s Anglophone regions broke out around October 2016, when students, teachers, and lawyers from the region took to the streets to demand greater respect for their rights. In response, security forces unlawfully killed and arbitrarily arrested peaceful protesters, escalating the crisis. Since then, numerous separatist groups have emerged, taking up arms and calling for the independence of the North-West and South-West regions, which they call “Ambazonia.”

Armed separatists have committed numerous abuses against civilians, including kidnappings for ransom, torture, and unlawful killings. They have also attacked dozens of school buildings and occupied them. They have also enforced a boycott of schools, disrupting the education of thousands of children since 2017. Human Rights Watch cannot comment on the credibility of the charges brought against the men in connection with any crimes committed by armed separatists.

The Cameroon military court also ordered the 10 men to pay fines totalling 262 billion CFA francs (US$442,000) for civil damages and court costs.

“To conduct a trial with these kinds of due process violations is no way to uphold rule of law and human rights in the midst of an escalating crisis in the Anglophone regions of Cameroon,” Mudge said. “The Cameroonian authorities should focus on addressing the legitimate grievances of its Anglophone population and make sure that members of the security forces who are responsible for abuses are held accountable.”

Source: Human Rights Watch

It is evidently clear that regional and international leaders are not involved in the crisis in Southern Cameroons and the African Union, the European Union and the United Nations have proven to be either terribly insensitive or outright psychopaths. To be accurate, the international community clearly doesn’t care how their policies harm ordinary Southern Cameroonians.

The international community’s choice was clear from the outset: kick out Biya to save the so-called one and indivisible Cameroun, or sacrifice the Republic of Cameroon to save Biya. The ruling CPDM party embraced the latter to preserve itself and more than 4,000 Southern Cameroonians have died in the on-going process. No regrets from Yaoundé and pro Biya Southern Cameroons criminals such as Atanga Nji, Peter Mafany Musonge, Victor Mengot, Paul Tasong and Dion Ngute.

When the French Cameroun army failed to crush the Ambazonian Self-Defense Forces, the Southern Cameroons Interim Government and the Southern Cameroons diaspora stepped in to protect the territorial integrity of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia, and in the process another 2,000 or more were killed. Again, no worry! no sorry! None!

As that effort also failed following the arrest and forced extradition of the Southern Cameroons leader and his top aides from Abuja to Yaoundé and the election of disgraced Dr Ikome Sako at the head of the Southern Cameroons Interim Government, the jailed leadership stepped in again stating that the complete independence for Southern Cameroons is the only way forward.

So, will 6,000 more Southern Cameroonians die to show that the 86 years old President Biya can no longer rule over Southern Cameroons?

Ever since the United Nations Security Council decided to back off from the threat to hit the Biya regime with sanctions following its refusal to engage in meaningful dialogue, the West has argued, rather poorly, that it was in the best interest for La Republique du Cameroun to manage the deteriorating situation in Southern Cameroons and that outside involvement was no remedy for the war.

Correspondingly, instead of putting the UN and the Commonwealth’s weight behind a political solution, UN and the Commonwealth including the African Union chief diplomats have all chosen to start a long-term campaign of receiving gifts of gold from President Biya. In the process, the Southern Cameroons crisis has become an alibi for international civil servants and diplomats to interfere in La Republique Du Cameroun as long as they steered away from the Biya regime.

Thanks to the US ambassador to Cameroon, the regime in Yaoundé failed to paint the Southern Cameroons crisis as a new landscape for a renewed so-called war on terror. As we write, no one is coordinating any action to pave the way for a political solution in Southern Cameroons.

By Asu Isong in London

Fellow Southern Cameroonians – Ambazonians,

The IG’s Call to Social Citizenship Towards the Appeal Against the Nocturnal Trial and Life Sentences to our President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe and his Close Aides

Accept Revolutionary Greetings from our Leadership in Detention (LIDs) who on black Tuesday the 20^th of August went through a 19 hours Nocturnal Trial ending at 05h38 with illegal life sentences. This, despite the Nigeria Abuja High Court Judgement of the 1^st of March 2019 that declared their abduction and transfer to Yaoundé illegal and by implication the trial and sentences. La Republique du Cameroun and its alias thought by given life sentences to our leaders, they will stifle our revolution. Unfortunately, it has rather re-engineered our struggle for total independence or resistance forever.  We therefore owe a collective responsibility to

Comrades; President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe; Deacon Wilfred Tassang; Professor Augustine Awasum; Dr. Cornelius Kwanga; Dr. Henry Kimeng; Dr. Fidelis Ndeh-Che; Dr. Egbe Ogork; Barrister Shufai Berinyuy; Barrister Elias Eyambe, and Pa. Nfor Ngalla Nfor all of whom were handed life sentences by the Military Tribunal in Yaoundé to explore all available local remedies despite the lack of rule of law in La Republique du Cameroun.To this regard, today, the 29th of August 2019, our LIDs have just been notified with a Certificate of Appeal and other documents confirming their appeal against the verdict of their case at the Military Tribunal in Yaoundé, La Republique du Cameroun. This will require $10 000 in the next 10 days on or before the 7^th of September 2019.

We know that there is no rule of law in La Republique du Cameroun and that we should not subject our leaders to their Kangaroo Nocturnal Courts. However, we need to evaluate the competing needs of our limited resources against the competitive advantages of (i) Keeping the LIDs in high morals that we have not abandoned them; (ii) explore all local remedies in an effort towards continental and international actions (iii) improved media exposure of our struggle; (iv) improved advocacy of our struggle; (v) international diplomacy value and (vi) uniting factor of the struggle. The above are just the top six competitive advantages amongst many other reasons why we as a people must rise up as One Ambazonia to raise the $10 000 just as we did in June 2019 for the legal case within the next seven days on or before the 6^th of September to enable timely transmission. Payment options are available in annexure A of this release not as ransom from LRC but exhaustion of local legal remedies.

Justice for the Nera10 Leaders

Short Live the Revolution

God Bless the Federal Republic of Ambazonia

Yours in Servant Leadership

Dabney Yerima

Vice President – Federal Republic of Ambazonia

Annexure A to:

The IG’s Call to Social Citizenship Towards Appeal Against the Nocturnal Trial and Life Sentences to our President Sisiku AyukTabe and his Close Aides

To ensure total accountability and stewardship to our people, you are encouraged to use the following payment platforms into the IG-Care Treasury.

PAYMENT METHODS

(1) Paypal/Zelle: payment@ambagov.org.

(2) Cashapp #: 6462759595.

(3) Bank Transfer: Name of Account: Ambazonia Humanitarian Relief, Inc

Ref: Name – LID or Farmer

Checking

Act # 446043575486

Routing# 052001633

Savings

Act# 446043575473

Routing# 052001633

(4) South Africa:

AMBA SA BANKING DETAILS

Account name: SCACUF-SA

FNBAcc No –  62702089956

Branch code: 250655

Use your name and cellphone number as reference as well as “LIDs”.

(5) Germany & Euro payments

Paypal: pacgermany@sccgbayern.org

Justice for the Nera10 Leaders

Short Live the Revolution

God Bless the Federal Republic of Ambazonia

Yours in Servant Leadership

Dabney Yerima

Vice President

Federal Republic of Ambazonia

The Ambazonian who is shaping French and Southern Cameroons political future was taken back to his small room where a huge wall separates him from the other jailed members of his cabinet and visitors. Sisiku Ayuk Tabe, the Interim president of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia was charged with rebellion, sedition and terrorism and sentenced to life in prison by the Yaoundé Military Tribunal.

President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe was the main figure in what is now known to be the most important political case ever brought before a Cameroonian court. The Ambazonia president is one of 10 Southern Cameroons civil leaders who appeared before the Yaounde Military Tribunal on charges related to secession and subsequent declaration of independence.

The Military judges that dealt with the case were all from President Biya’s Beti Bulu tribe. It was through their hands that La Republique du Cameroun handed over the controversial verdict on the gravest political crisis the country has faced in its 57 years of so-called reunification. The trial process and the judges were manifestly biased and acted following a President Biya- French Cameroun political criteria.

No one expected that the Sisiku Ayuk Tabe trial was going to be fair! But it has become a lever for democratic change in the face of a state which has greatly regressed in democratic terms. President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe may be behind bars, but the Ambazonia leader has serious political clout and remains in charge of the Southern Cameroons revolution.

The leaders in the diaspora have attempted to impose a lockdown in Southern Cameroons which some have argued is unfortunately winding down the struggle. Some political commentators including Dr Joachim Arrey of the Cameroons Concord News Group have opined that the changing dynamics in the crisis calls for a different approach and that using crude means to mount pressure on the Biya Francophone government could be counterproductive.

However, Ambazonians view the Yaoundé Military Tribunal and the French Cameroun political elites as those unfairly prosecuting their leaders for defending the basic democratic rights of Southern Cameroons citizens. The children of the jailed leaders have not been able to see their dads for more than two years only because their fathers are defending the right of Ambazonia to exist.

In his indictment of the Ambazonia leaders, the French Cameroun judge described the actions of President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe and his aides as an attack on La Republique du Cameroun’s constitutional order.

Of course the Southern Cameroons leader declaration of independence was to force La Republique du Cameroun to accept the separation of that territory now referred to as the one and indivisible Cameroon, a goal that he still maintains will be attained.

President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe told our Yaounde city reporter that he and his cabinet ministers were not guilty of any of the offenses they were charged with.

President Ayuk Tabe observed that he’s ready to spend as many years in prison as it takes until Southern Cameroons gains its independence.  Many including some in French Cameroun believe the Ambazonia leaders should not have been given a life sentence.

Sisiku Ayuk Tabe had pointed out some few days before the Yaounde Military Tribunal verdict was made public that even if it sounds strange, unilaterally declaring the independence of a territory is not a criminal offense.

The French Cameroun judges acted on Biya regime orders! But the Southern Cameroons leader has said that establishing an independent state of Southern Cameroons with headquarters in Buea is the only way forward.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

The politically motivated life sentences slammed on Sisiku Ayuk Tabe and nine Ambazonian leaders by a Court-martial in Cameroun with the complicity of the government of the Federal Republic of Nigeria is one more unfortunate example of the militarization of justice, civil and political rights in African through inter-state terror. The ten victims, who were in Nigeria under the protection of international law, were abducted from a hotel in Abuja Nigeria in a coordinated operation carried out by Nigeria and Cameroun intelligence and paramilitary operatives. A Federal High Court in Abuja, Nigeria has since decided that the abduction and rendition of these victims was illegal and violated the Nigerian constitution and international law and ordered the return to Nigeria of the abductees; a decision, the Nigerian government has so far ignored.

The entire operation leading to this Cameroun staged night judicial terror is a slur on the rule of law credentials and constitutional governance of Nigeria and Cameroun. It provides cattle fodder for the validation of the criticism made by an increasing number of observers that the two countries may be paying lip-service to the supposed fight against Boko Haram in which the international community has deployed extensive resources. Going by the interstate abduction and court-martial of these victims in a night judicial ritual, a method allegedly used by Boko Haram in its operations, could this hydra-headed monster so-called Boko Haram not be but a stealth interstate ruse used to create instability to justify political brigandage and the corrupt externalization of political power relying on international resources and support? Why will supposed sovereign nations prefer interstate terror to the international rule of law in the conduct of international relations?

This irrelevant parody of justice against Sisiku Ayuk Tabe and Southern Cameroons leaders is about ten individuals. It is about the consequences in Nigeria, La Republique du Cameroun and Africa of the legitimization of abduction and state terror as alternatives to the international rule of law. The international community must make a strong statement condemning this travesty and judicial brigandage and seek the unconditional release of these victims. Its indifference may unfortunately be construed as a tacit validation of impunity in an explosive region where violence is not a rare commodity.

No one should be under the illusion, that the impugned court-martial process and its outcome is a victory for French Cameroun or Nigeria that collaborated in it. It is an international symbol of shame for the two countries and a validation of the just claims of the Southern Cameroons to sovereignty and freedom. The ten did not present the case of the independence of the Southern Cameroons by violent means. At their abduction, they were merely articulating the claims which the Southern Cameroons have strenuously presented for the past fifty-seven years, at the United Nations, at home and worldwide. Rather than seek dialogue to resolve the conflict, Cameroun declared war with impunity, hoping to subdue the aggrieved people of the Southern Cameroons through genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. The Nigeria government which Africa and the world relied on to mediate in this and other African disputes, decided to throw its support to the government of French Cameroun in the mistaken belief that the abduction of these victims would end the crisis! By its own miscalculation, Nigeria, lost an opportunity to oversee a peaceful solution to a potentially protracted conflict in its own backyard.

Ambazonia is an albatross on the neck of the Republic of Cameroun which will loosen its grip only when Ambazonia is fully liberated. The life sentences only extend the duration and complexity of the conflict which neither the present leaders of Cameroun or Nigeria will be around to see how it plays out. May be only their progeny, may as fate often does, have the chance to have glimpses of these victims when they will be liberated to partake in the celebration of an independent and free neighbouring Ambazonia. The night justice of shame will not define the cause they stand for. The sustained resistance, self-defense and the unbreakable will and resolve of a people who have craved for justice with peace plants, memoranda to the UN and the international community, their precious blood and the eternal conscience of humanity will determine the outcome of this conflict and not conspiratorial carnage, terror and the arrogance of ephemeral power of a frail failing dictatorship. For this reason, by imposing the so-called life sentences and other coercive conditions of life on Southern Cameroons captives, they might in this occasion, have put their own poisoned portions on their own lips and that of their nation.

By Chief Charles A.Taku

Yaoundé is still not prepared to launch a campaign that would explain to the world that the trial of the Ambazonia leader, President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe and his senior aides will be held with total transparency as it unfolds. The Francophone regime headed by 86 years old President Paul Biya has not realize how much is at stake and that they have to do things right.

The whole process of abduction and extradition to Yaoundé from Abuja has discredited both Nigeria and French Cameroun democracies and the Biya Francophone regime as well. The President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe and the NERA 9 trial is the most politically explosive in modern French and Bristish Cameroons history.

The Ambazonia-French Cameroun trial also reflect how divisive the so-called one and indivisible Cameroonian nation has become : while the Cameroon government and its ageing leadership insist the trial of the Ambazonia leader is an exemplary demonstration of justice in action, the Ambazonian Interim Government has warned it will prove that French Cameroun’s judiciary is not fit for purpose.

Ten prominent leaders of the Ambazonia Interim Government are in the Yaoundé Military Tribunal and the whole trial process has been shameful, disgusting and disgraceful. They could face the death penalty or a jail sentence of up to 25 years if found guilty of charges of terrorism presented by public Francophone prosecutors predominantly from the Beti-Bulu tribal extraction.

The Vice President of the Southern Cameroons Interim Government Dabney Yerima has warned that the outcome of the trial is a foregone conclusion, because, he claims, the judiciary is controlled by Biya and his French Cameroun political elites who are determined to punish not just an alleged violation of Francophone law but Southern Cameroons nationalism as a whole.

Vice President Dabney Yerima told Cameroon Intelligence Report that the NERA 10 trial is not against a crime, because no crime was committed against French Cameroun. He opined that the Yaoundé Military Tribunal Theater remains a political trial and a prosecution of pro-independence ideology.

Dabney Yerima pointed, for example, to the fact that the NERA 10 have been in Nigeria and French Cameroun custody for more than a year and the Yaounde court keeps changing its trial judges.  Another major bone of contention has been the charges themselves particularly that of terrorism, which implies the use of violence, something that President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe has always publicly rejected.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai