The death toll from a firefight in an English-speaking region of Cameroon shaken by an armed separatist campaign stands at 32, including five “hostages,” the government said.

The clash erupted at a motel last Friday in Menka, in the Northwest Region — one of two regions gripped by fighting over the last eight months.

“Twenty-seven terrorists (were) neutralised” by a 30-member special unit of police and troops, government spokesman Tchiroma Bakary, who is also communications minister, said late Monday.

The group, which were attacked at a hotel, was an “armed gang” that for months had been “sowing terror and desolation” in the region, killing gendarmes and carrying out kidnappings, rape and extortion, he charged.

Out of “15 hostages” taken by the group, five died, all of them at the hands of the attackers, he said.

About a fifth of French-speaking Cameroon’s population of 22 million is anglophone.

For years, resentment built among anglophones, fostered by perceived marginalisation in education, the judiciary and the economy at the hands of the French-speaking majority.

Demands for greater autonomy were rejected by 85-year-old President Paul Biya, in power for more than 35 years.

The crisis escalated last October after the declaration of the self-described “Republic of Ambazonia” in the Northwest and Southwest Regions, causing scores of deaths and prompting tens of thousands to flee their homes.

Human-rights watchdogs point to a range of abuses, including abductions and targeted killings.

Security forces found five pump-action shotguns, of a type only used by special forces, as well as 17 combat guns and 10 hunting rifles, about 30 military uniforms as well as five berets “which belonged to police and gendarmes who were shot dead in cold blood by the same terrorists,” Tchiroma said.

He denied “allegations that the Cameroonian army carried out a massacre on the civilian population”.

Tchiroma said images of the dead at Menka have been widely distributed on social media, prompting human-rights watchdogs and opposition politicians to voice outrage.

Nji Tumasang, an MP with the English-speaking opposition Social Democratic Front (SDF), speaking after a party delegation visited Menka on Saturday, said 22 people had been killed.

Their identity was unclear, but villagers said they were criminals, not “terrorists” as the army had said, Tumasang said.

Cameroon’s linguistic division dates back to the colonial period. It was once a German colony and was divided between Britain and France after World War I.

In 1960, the French part gained independence, becoming Cameroon, and the following year, the British-ruled Southern Cameroons was amalgamated into it, becoming the Northwest and Southwest Regions.

According to the International Crisis Group (ICG) think tank, “at least 120” civilians and “at least 43” security forces have been killed since the end of 2016.

The UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) says around 160,000 people have been internally displaced and 20,000 have sought refuge in neighbouring Nigeria as a result of the violence.

Source: AFP

It has been two years since the outbreak of the Southern Cameroons conflict.  The senseless war fought between Cameroon government forces and the Ambazonia Self-Defense Council Restoration Forces has already driven more than two hundred thousand Southern Cameroonians out of their homes and approximately some 1600 have died in it. Southern Cameroonians civilians do not suffer in Kondengui Central prison or the famous New Bell prison in Douala only: Cameroon Intelligence Report correspondents have uncovered the Biya government’s campaign of extrajudicial executions at detention facilities in Buea and Mbouda.

Ever since the beginning of the crisis, every week and often twice a week, groups of up to 40 Southern Cameroonians were executed. In two years, as many as 1600 people, most of them civilians believed to be opposed to the Biya regime in Yaoundé, have been killed in secret at Mbouda and Buea. The Ambazonian detainees suffer in inhuman conditions: repeated torture and the systematic deprivation of food, water, medicine and medical care.  We also gathered that the Interim Government of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia have acquired documentation depicting how these extermination policies have killed massive numbers of Southern Cameroons detainees.  Our chief reporter in Northern Zone, Sama Ernest who contributed to this report said there are strong reasons to believe that this routine is still ongoing today.

The Yaoundé government, led by Paul Biya, has never taken time to investigate any killings. All it has always done is to resort to collective punishment wherein the houses of innocent civilians are razed, and innocent youths are gunned down point blank. The actions of the country’s armed forces have created more fighters over the last six months, as ordinary civilians – both boys and girls – now believe they have to defend themselves against a military that is using their tax money to murder the people they are supposed to protect.

Southern Cameroonians have been calling for international assistance. They now want the world to protect them against their supposed protectors. The government’s mass murdering tactics and collective punishment have drawn a lot of flak in recent times and even the Trump Administration has been disappointed by the methods the dictatorial government in Yaoundé is using to restore order in the two restive English-speaking regions of the country.

Amnesty International and the International Crisis Group have also been very vocal against the Yaoundé government’s irresponsible actions. For the past six months, the government of Cameroon has been working hard to wipe off villages from its own map through a scorch-earth policy that many in the international community have frowned upon. Amnesty International and the International Crisis Group have all called the government’s action against Southern Cameroonians into questions. The world has been taken aback by the government’s commitment of such human rights abuses.

Kwakwa, Mbonge, Etoko and Kembong in the South West region have been rolled back into the 10th Century by the government. Its plan was to intimidate the people into submission, but the strategy has so far been counter-productive. In Kwakwa, many old people were burnt alive by government forces as a move to punish the entire population for the killing of an army soldier by some unknown and unidentified gunmen.

Other villages have also experienced the government’s wrath and frustration with a rebellion it felt it could put out in one single military action. Mbonge, Bali and Batibo have all been victims of the Yaounde government’s malicious policy designed to stamp out any opposition.

Terrorism has become the buzzword in Cameroon and anybody who holds a view that is contrary to the government’s is considered a terrorist. This is a new tool it is using to stamp out opposition, but times have changed, and the people of Southern Cameroons are clearly resisting a government they believe is corrupt to the marrow and inefficient.

source: www.cameroonintelligencereport.com

More than two dozen people have been killed in one of Cameroon’s Anglophone regions, local sources said on Saturday, although the exact circumstances of their deaths were not immediately clear.

The incident in the town of Menka in Cameroon’s Northwest Region is one of the deadliest since armed secessionists from the English-speaking minority launched an insurrection last year against the predominantly Francophone central government.

Agbor Balla Nkongho, a local human rights lawyer and activist, told Reuters that at least 34 bodies were found on Friday in Menka. He declined to say who had killed them.

Another local source who visited Menka on Saturday and asked not to be named said she saw a total of 29 bodies, including three outside a school, riddled with gunshot wounds. Some were women and others boys as young as 13, she said.

The bodies “are rotting already and reek,” she said.

Army spokesperson confirms battle with separatists

Army spokesman Colonel Didier Badjeck said in a statement to local media that government troops surrounded a hotel in Menka on Friday morning after they were tipped off to the presence of separatist rebels.

A long firefight ensued and “several terrorists were neutralised”, Badjeck said, without providing further details.

A representative for the separatists did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Armed conflict erupted last year in Cameroon’s Anglophone Northwest and Southwest Regions after the government violently repressed peaceful protests that begun in 2016 against perceived marginalisation of English speakers.

Behind Cameroon’s linguistic divide

Cameroon’s linguistic divide harks back to the end of World War One, when the League of Nations divided the former German colony of Kamerun between the allied French and British victors.

Dozens of people have been killed since late last year – including more than 20 soldiers and police ambushed by the separatists – and tens of thousands of refugees have fled to neighbouring Nigeria.

The United States and rights groups have accused the Yaounde government of burning down villages and carrying out targeted killings in the Anglophone regions, charges the government has angrily denied.

The latest violence comes just months ahead of an election in which President Paul Biya, who has ruled the Central African oil producer for the last 35 years, is expected to stand for a fresh term.

REUTERS

A French Cameroun kangaroo court with a conviction rate of almost 100 percent against Southern Cameroonians has concluded the much-delayed trial against the vocal radio host and Southern Cameroons activist Mancho Bibixy on Friday.

Bibixy Mancho leader of the coffin revolution in Bamenda the chief city in the Northern Zone in Southern Cameroons faced uncountable charges, ranging from terrorism to disrespect for state institutions.  The charges were all condemned as baseless and politically motivated by human rights groups including Amnesty International.The case was heard in the Yaoundé military tribunal.

Mancho Bibixy received widespread international support, including a letter from the detained President of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia, Sisiku Ayuk Tabe. Mancho nonetheless knew there was a strong likelihood that he was going to be convicted. “Under the Biya Francophone military law, I am already convicted,” he told Cameroon Concord News.

Reacting to the French Cameroun verdict against Mancho Bibixy, the Chairman of the Cameroon Concord News Group Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai said, “Jesus Christ had to deal with just one Pontus Pilate. Bibixy Mancho had a hall full of them in Yaoundé.” The case was challenging and lasted 16 months. Mancho Bibixy faced more than 56 French Cameroun witnesses, all of them army soldiers who are illegally occupying Southern Cameroons.

Here are the various jail terms slammed by the president of the Yaoundé military tribunal, Colonel Abega Mbezoa Epse  Eko Eko on the seven (7) Southern Cameroons activists in Yaounde:

*Tsi Conrad,* 15 years in jail

*Tha Emile Agwei,* 13 years in jail.

*Tamngwa Malvin T,* 13 years in jail.

*Guingah  Valentine,*  10 years in jain.

*Aselecha Martin,*  13 years in jail.

*Awah Thomas,* 11 years in jail.

*Mancho Bibixy,* 15 years on jail.

They shall all pay in damages to the court and to the civil party as follows

*Court* 64m

*Civil party* 204m

The defense lawyers have promised to appeal the case

By Chi Prudence Asong with files from Rita Akana in Yaounde

A law enforcement officer was killed on Monday by Anglophone secessionists in Cameroon, as English speaking Cameroonian activists continue to seek independence with bombs and guns.

Mahamat Aldou Djaribe, 24, an indigene of Kousseri in Cameroon’s far north, was killed on Monday in the troubled Southwestern region, reported local newspaper, L’Oeil du Sahel.

Since calls for independence by South West and North West regions activists in Cameroon escalated last year, many soldiers and policemen have been gunned down while the Cameroonian  military has also killed, arrested and tortured many activists.

Cameroon, a country in central and west Africa, has about 81 percent of people who speak French and about 19 who speak English, as a result of brutal colonialism from France and the United Kingdom, following the defeat of the German armies in the first and second world wars.

Germany was in charge of Cameroon until the first world war broke out and Cameroonians spoke German with no one speaking English or French until the country was divided and shared between Britain and France who won the war.

Cameroonians began to advocate for the unification of the divided country after the war. But it took time and it was only in 1960 and 1961 that Cameroon under France and then Britain became independent.

In 1972, a referendum brought both Cameroons together again similar to the country that existed before it was divided by France and the UK, although by then, some territories had been lost.

Since the re-unification of English and French speaking Cameroons in 1972, English speaking Cameroonians have complained of marginalization, a charge often denied by equally impoverished French speaking Cameroonians, especially those in the country’s far north where Boko Haram has been wreaking havoc since 2014 without a single visit by President Paul Biya who has been in power for 35 years since 1982.

While English speaking Cameroonians want Cameroon to go back to the time before 1972, French speaking Cameroonians argued that Cameroon had always been one country before France and Britain divided and shared it and would remain one country.

Following protests for equality and justice late in 2016 in the two Anglophone regions in Cameroon that were met with force by the Cameroonian military, Anglophone activists said they were declaring independence.

They called their “new country” the Republic of Ambazonia. But the activists were arrested in Nigeria and extradited to Cameroon. Violence has continued to escalate for the liberation of the activists and the independence of North West and South West regions in Cameroon.

Source: Today News Africa

As President Paul Biya led National Day celebrations in Yaounde on Sunday, several policemen were killed, soldiers wounded and mayors kidnapped in Cameroon by suspected armed separatists who had warned against celebrating the central African state’s national day in English-speaking regions.

A Nigerian military contingent — part of the Cameroon effort to fight a Boko Haram insurgency — sang before Biya, cabinet ministers, diplomats and thousands of people during the National Day parade in Yaounde.

Nigerian Lieutenant Colonel Mochtar Sani Daroda said the soldiers were invited by Biya to participate as recognition for their fight against the militant group that has left 25,000 people dead and more than 2.6 million displaced in Cameroon, Nigeria, Chad and Niger.

“The class brigade is the elite brigade that carries out national functions on behalf of the Nigerian army,” Daroda said. “They also provide security of the president and the entire federal capital city [Abuja ] and they have been selected to participate in one of the parade we hold in very high esteem. A very special corps to take part in your [Cameroon] parade.”

But tensions flared in many towns and villages of Cameroon’s English-speaking regions, including Konye, Batibo, Ekona and several villages.

At least two policemen and several people were killed.

In a recording provided by suspected separatists, Mayor Ekuh Simon of Bangem, an English-speaking town in southwest Cameroon, said he was kidnapped with his deputy for distributing uniforms for residents to march in National Day ceremonies. Separatists had called for a boycott of events.

Simon said he is being held by Ambazonia restoration forces.

Ambazonia is what separatist’s call their self-declared republic in the English-speaking regions of Cameroon.

Nobert Ngu says he escaped Saturday from Ekona to Yaounde when armed separatists started shooting to stop people from celebrating National Day.

Ngu said his house was attacked. “Some boys saw my father inside the house, attacked my father. I lost my father because of this crisis,” he added.

Biya’s government had asked people to come out in numbers to celebrate National Day as a sign of unity.

Tensions in Cameroon began in November 2016 when English-speaking teachers and lawyers protested, saying they were frustrated with the dominance of the French language and the marginalization of the Anglophone population.

The crisis intensified early this year when separatist leader Ayuk Tabe was arrested with 48 others in Nigeria and extradited to Cameroon.

International rights groups have condemned the harsh government crackdown on the English speaking regions and indiscriminate arrests of suspects.

Culled from VOA

Cameroon on Sunday marked 46th National Day amidst growing tension in English speaking Northwest and Southwest regions.

Culled from Africa News

May 19, 2018

The Ambazonia Self-Defence Council (ASC) advises against 20^th May celebration and travel to the following zones of Ambazonia territory: Northern Zone and Southern Zone.

The ASC advises against all activities of 20^th May celebration and travel to the following specific counties of Ambazonia:

Northern Zone: Boyo; Bui; Donga Mantung; Menchum; Mezam; Momo; Ngoketunjia.

Southern Zone: Bakassi; Fako; Kupe Muanenguba; Lebialem; Manyu; Meme; Ndian.

The ASC advises against all activities of 20^th May celebration and travel to all cities, towns, and villages of the following specific chief towns of Local Government Areas within all the counties of Ambazonia:

Northern Zone: Andeck; Bali; Benakuma; Fonfuka; Furu-Awa; Funding; Mbengwi; Ndop; Njinikom; Njikwa; Nkambe; Nkor; Nkum; Santa; Tubah; Zhoa; Babessi; Ndu; Kumbo; Belo; Bafut; Widikum; Wum; Ako; Misaje; Elak; Jakiri; Nwa; Balikumbat; Batibo; Mbiame.

Southern Zone: Archibong; Akwaya; Alou; Bamusso; Buea; Bangem; Dikome Balue; Ekondo Titi; Eyumojock; Idabato; Idenau; Isangele; Kombo Abedimo; Kombo Itindi; Konye; Mamfe; Mbonge; Menji; Mudemba; Muyuka; Nguti; Tiko; Tinto; Toko; Tombel; Wabane.

On 30^thNovember 2017, President Paul Biya of La Republique du Cameroun imposed a war on the territory of Ambazonia, its people, and property. President Biya’s appointed Governors, Senior Divisional Officers, and District Officers have imposed a state of emergency in some cities, towns and districts indefinitely effective 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. daily. The appointed administrators have also ordered citizens and resident to vacate their communities.

More than 5000-armed security and paramilitary forces from La Republique du Cameroun’s regular army have been deployed to Ambazonia by the government of President Biya. In view of media reports of summary execution of hundreds of unarmed civilians, razed to ashes of scores of homes in at least 73 villages, roasted to death of dozens of disabled parents in their homes, hundreds of abductions-for-ransoms, and dozens of cases of raped girls and mothers; Ambazonians and foreigners are advised to remain indoors and safe starting Saturday morning, 19 May 2018 to Monday monring, 21 May 2018 until the situation stabilises.

Soldiers of La Republic du Camerooun’s regular army especially the Rapid Intervention Battalion (Bataillon d’Intervention Rapide, BIR) and armed police from police’s special rapid intervention units known as “Equipes spéciales d’intervention rapide” (ESIR) are very likely to try to carry out attacks in Ambazonia. Specific methods of attack are evolving and increasing in sophistication.

• On 13 May 2018, BIR soldiers arrested Chief Arrey Franklin of Mbenyan village and dozens of youths at daytime on their way to a funeral in Eyumojock town, Manyu county, Southern Zone. They were all gruesomely tortured and Chief Arrey Franklin died of bleeding while the whereabout and life of the youths remains uncertain.
• On 17 May 2018, dozens of BIR soldiers and ESIR police invaded Bali Nyonga village, break into homes of civilians, shot and killed several unarmed civilians including a community-respected father and professional public transport driver commonly known as Mr. Kantona and his elder brother, a cultural musician, known as Mr. Chasii. Kantona and Chasii were removed from their homes and shot dead at close range in front of their wives, children, and neigbours by, a strategy to terrorize Ambazonians.
• On 18 May 2018, BIR soldiers shot and killed several unarmed civilians including Mr. Bawack Samuel and Mrs. Ashu Precilia (wife of Ashu Polycarp) in Etoko mile 22 village, Mamfe, Manyu county. Similarly, Samuel and Precilia were shot at close range in front of their children and family members, a strategy to terrorize Ambazonians.

All persons, be Ambazonians or foreigners, are subject to regular threats and terror activities by the soldiers and armed security forces of La Republique du Cameroun. Make sure you stay away from 20^th May celebration and related activities as a precautionary security measure.

You should follow the instructions of the Interim Government of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia. There is a high threat of kidnapping throughout Ambazonia by soldiers and armed security officers of La Republique du Cameroun in coordination with local administrators.

Foreigners – resident or visiting or working – in Ambazonia especially citizens of French Cameroun and Nigeria and Western Countries are very likely to be publicly and brutally killed by soldiers and armed security officers of La Republique du Cameroun with the ultimate purpose to blame the incidents and killings on Ambazonia restoration forces.

The level of self-defence assistance the ASC-Restoration Forces can provide to citizens, residents, and travelers as well as their property in Ambazonia is extremely limited.

You can email the Ambazonia Self-Defence Council to share or inquire more information at official@ascrf.org.

Nso Obi Foncha

Spokesperson

It has been 18 years since Akere Muna founded the Cameroon chapter of Transparency International, the anti-corruption watchdog agency. And although the organization has scored some successes, the overall picture is not improving. In 2017, Cameroon slipped to 153rd out of 180 countries in TI’s annual corruption perception index, a slight drop from their ranking the previous year.

So Muna has decided to set his sights higher. In the October election, he will run against President Paul Biya, who has held power in the West African country for more than three decades. And although the 65-year-old lawyer knows challenging the powerful incumbent carries risks, he is ready for them.

“I know that I’m considered as being a threat to the current system,” Muna told VOA. “But I think that, you know, one has a choice of being a silent accomplice or an active actor for change, so I’ve chosen my side.”

Biya last won re-election in 2011 with 78 percent of the vote and is considered the overwhelming favorite in the upcoming election. In 2009, Cameroon’s parliament voted to lift term limits. Biya has held power since 1982, making him Africa’s second-longest serving president behind Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo of Equatorial Guinea.

Anti-corruption platform

But Muna believes he has found an issue people will rally behind: fighting corruption. Corruption is so endemic in Cameroon, Muna said, that a patient suffering a serious injury, such as a snake bite, can expect to be asked for a bribe just to receive treatment at a hospital.

Nationwide, corruption affects three main sectors: education, health and justice.

“These are the sectors that hit the poorest of the poor, and that is sad,” Muna said. “But, of course, if you go upstream in other areas you find out that the delivery of government service is very, very much destroyed by the rising tide of corruption.”

Cameroon is not alone in facing the scourge of corruption. Muna, who participated in the U.N.’s High Level Panel on Illicit Financial Flows, said $50 billion leaves the African continent illegally each year.

“The embezzlement, the thievery of government funds is really at a scale that is now a systemic problem,” he said.

Hans De Marie Heungoup, a Cameroon analyst for the International Crisis Group, said most voters believe the election is a foregone conclusion and will register in the last week, if they vote at all. The question is not who wins, but which challenger, the Social Democratic Front or another opposition group, emerges as the most viable challenger to the ruling party.

Even the issue of corruption will not be enough to galvanize voters, according to Heungoup.

“There is kind of a resignation of Cameroonians,” he said. “Very few among the ordinary Cameroonians will really think there is a candidate who will be able to curb or to eradicate corruption as it has been so entrenched in the society totally from the political leadership. And even in the normal interactions corruption has become a way of life.”

​Calls for secession

Cameroon faces other challenges. Protests by the English-speaking minority have led to violent clashes with government forces. The group is now pushing for secession and calling for the creation of a new state, Ambazonia.

Muna believes much of this anger stems from people not feeling represented by their government and believing their voices will only be heard through violence. He hopes these people will get behind his candidacy to bring about change peacefully.

“I’m saying that the problem is with the government of our country, so we should change the government and not the country,” he said. “I’m pushing for that — for the ballot and not for the bullet.”

Heungoup said some in the Anglophone region of Cameroon resent the fact that Muna, who is a native of that region, is participating in the election at all. They believe his candidacy legitimizes the elections in the eyes of the international community.

“They have vowed by all means to stop and prevent elections in the Anglophone side. Now let us see if they will be able to put their words in practice,” Heungoup said.

Source: VOA

The Cameroon army has admitted that some of its officials had meted out inhumane treatment to a suspected separatist arrested in the NorthWest region of the country.

According to the Defense Minister Joseph Beti Assomo, speaking on state radio, gendarmes deployed to the restive region to fight separatists had “mistreated and tied up” an alleged separatist leader during his arrest Saturday.

A viral social media video showed officials having tied the suspects hands behind him. The suspect who was lying on his belly in muddy conditions is kicked and his head is stamped upon by some of the gendarmes and a police.

The gendarmes (paramilitary officials) are “clearly out of the norms and legal techniques in such circumstances,” the minister acknowledged, his condemnation followed a very strong online protest to the video.

It is the first time the army has acknowledged abuses committed by security forces deployed in the two English-speaking regions riled by separatist violence since October 2017.

“An investigation has been opened to identify (and) where appropriate sanction the perpetrators of these acts contrary to respect for human rights,” said the minister.

Nicknamed “general”, the abused person is an alleged separatist leader who was arrested on Saturday, said Beti Assomo. The said general according to authorities “was actively sought for several weeks for his involvement in acts of violence against the population and (in) the killing of the personnel of defense and security forces”.

Security forces have been repeatedly accused by NGOs and witnesses of abuses and burning houses. “We only burn houses where we discover weapons,” the army defended its actions in late April.

The central African regions English speaking regions have been mired in a security crisis that has been tagged the “Anglophone crisis”. In the two regions, northwest and south-west, fighting has become almost daily between the Cameroonian security forces and armed men.

The armed groups say they are fighting to establish an independent Ambazonia Republic. According to the International Crisis Group (ICG), “at least 120” civilians and “at least 43” members of the security forces have been killed since late 2016. The separatist record is unknown.

160,000 people have fled their homes as a result of the violence, according to the UN, and 34,000 have fled to Nigeria, according to the Nigerian Emergency Management Agency (Sema).

Source: Africa News