Localities in Cameroon’s southwest region experienced heavy gunfire exchanges between the state security forces and suspected separatists elements leading to the death of a soldier on Thursday.

Governor of the restive region, Bernard Okalia Bilai told the Anadolu news agency that the separatist elements had mounted road blocks in parts of the region, when the army went to clear them, the hostilities ensued.

“Armed gangs of “Ambazonia” (a terrorist group according to government) barricaded several roads in the region and when soldiers went down to clear the tracks, these terrorists attacked our forces,” he said.

The exchanges left residents stranded, some caught in the crossfire had to flee into the bushes whiles others also fled for fear of reprisals from the army, as has usually been reported.

While some officials have reported a death in the regular army, all day yesterday no official report was made public.

Civilians have borne the brunt of these armed confrontations in Cameroon’s minority Anglophone region. “Soldiers go from house to house and arrest young people suspected of belonging to the Ambazonia Defense Force (ADF). Those arrested are sequestrated, beaten and their homes burned,“said John Ngu, one of the villagers, adding that several villages have been deserted in the last 24 hours.

The allegations of security highhandedness has been dismissed severally by the army. Colonel Didier Badjeck, spokesman for the army insisted that “the army does its job professionally and with respect for human rights.”

About 40 security personnel – soldiers, police, gendarmes – and more than 500 civilians have been killed in English-speaking areas since the outbreak of the so-called Anglophone crisis in late 2016, according to the Network of Human Rights Defenders of Central Africa (REDHAC).

In addition, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), more than 7,000 people have reportedly fled to Nigeria’s Cross River State. The Nigerian Emergency Management Agency (SEMA) refers to the figure of 28,000.

Source: Africa News

Justice Martin Mbeng, a onetime senior Southern Cameroons judge was kidnapped when gunmen stormed the funeral service of his late mother in Ewelle village in Eyumojock Sub constituency in the Manyu County. Cameroon Intelligence Report has been reliably informed that the armed men fired bullets in the air and at the vehicle that the retired justice ferried to the village.

Our senior intelligence officer revealed that retired justice Mbeng Martin made a dramatic u-turn in his long held position of benevolent neutrality and launched a negative campaign against President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe, when the regime in Yaoundé informed him that President Biya had plans to appoint his younger brother Martin Mbeng Jr, French Cameroun’s current ambassador to Brazil as Prime Minister and Head of Government but that the Sisiku Ayuk Tabe issue was serving as a stone wall.

We understand the retired judge started a campaign of personal destruction that was aimed at President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe. A source in Ewelle hinted that the elders sounded a note of caution to him to stay clear of the Southern Cameroons revolution and to bear in mind that many people have been killed in Ewelle village by troops loyal to the regime in Yaoundé. His anti-revolution stance including actions against his own kinsman, the President of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia attracted the abduction action from the revolutionary guards protecting Ewelle village.

The former chairman of the Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium, Barrister Agbor Balla in a statement that sparked outrage strongly condemned the targeting of prominent Southern Cameroonians by the Ambazonian freedom fighters and demanded that those responsible for these acts be brought to justice.

Nearly 240 French Cameroun soldiers have been killed in the Manyu County that includes Akwaya, Eyumojock, Upper Banyang and Mamfe Central ever since the Ambazonia revolution started a year ago and spiraled into an armed conflict following the abduction of the President of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia, Sisiku Ayuk Tabe in Abuja, Nigeria.

Thousands of Southern Cameroons have been killed in the war initially fought between troops loyal to President Biya, against Ambazonia forces in Manyu known as the “Odeshi Boys.” Violence has spread throughout Southern Cameroons and now involves most of the nation’s English speaking groups.The United Nations has not commented on the deteriorating situation in West Cameroon.

The French Cameroun government forces stand accused of targeting Southern Cameroons population including women and children and sometimes deliberately shooting at innocent civilians. Cameroon Concord News Group Chairman and Editor-in-Chief, Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai has called for the release of Justice Martin Mbeng and any other Southern Cameroonian detained by the Ambazonian freedom fighters.

A prominent figure of the ruling CPDM crime syndicate from Kendem village, Rose Arongagbor was detained recently but later on released.

By Chi Prudence Asong with files from Rita Akana and Sama Ernest

Cameroon Concord News has learned that another bomb exploded today in the Lebialem County in Southern Cameroons.  We understand the installation ceremony for the new DO for Lebialem was slated for today Monday in Menji, the headquarters of the Division.  Our correspondent in the Ambazonia constituency reported that the DO arrived Alou in the morning from Dschang in a military convoy.

The DO and his French Cameroun military entourage came under attack around Nchobenyae. We gathered that 7 soldiers were killed and several others were seriously wounded.  The remains of the troops were transported to Menji and later to Dschang. The wounded are currently receiving treatment at MHA Hospital in Nveh.  The DO’s car managed to escape the attack.

Earlier on Saturday a military truck transporting soldiers from Mamfe to reinforce the deployment in Azi was also attacked by the Lebialem Dragons. The soldiers reportedly screamed and begged for help. In Alou, a military truck on patrol came under fire but no casualties were recorded. Today’s explosion in Lebialem is the 4th in Just 3 Days. An explosion at Beluah last Friday killed 9, and injured several other soldiers.

By Chi Prudence Asong with files from Menji

Press Release

Limbe, Monday, April 9, 2018: After its maiden edition in 2016 and following a break in 2017 due to
uncertainties from the ongoing Anglophone Crisis, the COURAGE IN JOURNALISM AWARDS is back. The
awards will be presented in a ceremony in Limbe on World Press Freedom Day, May 3, 2018.

Journalists, news organizations and journalism enthusiasts among the general public are requested to
nominate articles that fulfill the following criteria:

– Articles, blogs, broadcast and podcast clips published between May 4, 2017 and April 25, 2018;
– Articles, blogs, broadcast and podcast clips that demonstrate courage in newsgathering, courage
in the tone of narration and courage in the decision to have them published;
– Articles and blogs published in a newspaper or online, radio or TV broadcasts or podcasts:
– Entries that meet journalism standards;
– If none of the entries fulfill these conditions, awards may not be presented.

The following shall constitute the Panel of Judges:
– Alice Esambe Tatah: former CRTV journalist of Morning Safari fame;
– Hilary Kebila Fokum: Publisher/Editor of The Messenger and Yaounde Messenger;
– Gideon Taka: Emeritus Radio Cameroon/CRTV Editor and Station Manager and Journalism
Trainer;
– Victor Epie’Ngome: Emeritus Radio Cameroon/CRTV Editor-in-Chief, Director of Civil Initiatives
for Development with Integrity (CIDI) and Journalism Trainer

The Judges shall be assisted by Franklin Sone Bayen, Publisher of MEDIApeople and Journalism Trainer,
as Administration Secretary.
Entries may be nominated in the following ways:
– ONLINE ENTRIES: email the link(s) with name of author(s) and news organization
– NEWSPAPER: scan the entire article(s) and email with name of author(s), issue reference (date
and serial no.);
– RADIO/TV: email uploaded clip or link or post CD/DVD to the Jury as follows:
– South West: Victor Epie’Ngome (677524478/654741961)
– North West: Gideon Taka (694126830/650072258)
– Yaounde: Alice Esambe Tatah (673026370)
Hilary Kebila Fokum (677339858/696847781)
Franklin Sone Bayen (677897167/693693881)

– All entries must be received latest April 25, 2018 at midnight local time.
Entries for the COURAGE IN JOURNALISM AWARDS may be emailed to:
courageinjournalismawards@gmail.com
The COURAGE IN JOURNALISM AWARDS is organized jointly by MEDIApeople, CiDi and CReAM.

A prominent human rights activist in Cameroon has accused the army of causing civilian deaths through fires of houses and places of worship in the English-speaking region of the South-West, an accusation rejected by the army.

Agbor Bala Nkongho, director of the NGO Centre for Human Rights and Democracy in Africa, posted on his Facebook page, a chilling account that describes a miliary raid on a remote village in the region.

“On Tuesday, April 3, the Cameroonian army attacked and burned several houses in Mungo Vendeur, a small village located about 40 km from Nguti to Koupé-Manengouba (South-West). Ms Egbe Maria Ndonge was burned to death in her house while she slept,” said Nkongho.

Cameroon has been independent since 1960 and has no lessons to learn in the way its defence forces legally pursue their missions of securing populations.

“We have received reports of 6 civilians killed and reports of civilian killings in the village. Intentionally killing civilians and destroying civilian property are war crimes, which should be thoroughly investigated,” he continued.

Nkongho was one of the leaders of the first uprising of the English-speaking protest at the end of 2016. Arrested in mid-2017, he was released in September by presidential decree.

It is in this area that 12 Italian and Swiss tourists were briefly arrested by armed men on Monday, according to their travel agency.

The army responds

“Cameroon has been independent since 1960 and has no lessons to learn in the way its defence forces legally pursue their missions of securing populations. We also do not intend to respond to maneuvers of intoxication and diversion,” Colonel Didier Badjeck, spokesman for the Cameroonian army, contacted by telephone from Libreville, told AFP.

“It is extraordinary how some of these so-called actors of the region have resorted to faking the truth, or transforming it. We ask that evidence of these alleged abuses by our forces is presented to us,” he added.

Since the end of 2017, the security situation has deteriorated considerably in the English-speaking regions of the North-West and South-West, with armed separatist groups multiplying violent actions against state forces and kidnapping civil servants.

Yaoundé responded by force, deploying a strong security apparatus. The army has been accused several times of abuses through testimonies in the press and on social networks.

Observers fear that the Anglophone crisis could disrupt presidential elections scheduled to be held at the end of 2018.

AFP

Cameroon has banned the sale of arms and ammunition in six regions of the country, including the two English-speaking regions where a deep socio-political crisis has played out for over a year, the authorities announced Thursday.

The Minister of Territorial Administration, Paul Atanga Nji, has decreed “the prohibition, until further notice, of the sale of hunting and protection weapons and their ammunition in the Adamaoua, Central, Littoral, West, North-West and South-West regions”, according to a statement.

“To date, the number of firearms in circulation far exceeds the number of authorizations duly granted by the competent authorities,” the minister said in the text.

To date, the number of firearms in circulation far exceeds the number of authorizations duly granted by the competent authorities.

Cameroon has ten regions. Among these, the two English-speaking regions (Southwest and Northwest) have been at the center of a political crisis since the end of 2016 awhile their neighbouring regions (Littoral, West) are also affected by the ban.

For more than three months, the Anglophone crisis has turned into an armed conflict of low intensity, where an armed branch of the Anglophone separatists, who are agitating for secession from Cameroon and the creation of a new state, “Ambazonia”, is fighting the security forces deployed in numbers by Yaoundé.

English-speaking separatists have killed 28 members of the security forces since late 2017, according to an AFP compilation based on official statements. Other observers in Yaoundé speak of a higher toll.

In addition, the Amadoua region affected by the ban is neighbouring the Central African Republic, where state authority is weak in provinces where armed groups fight for control of resources and influence.

According to the text, the armouries of the six regions concerned will have to be closed and an inventory of the weapons which are there will have to be drawn up.

The minister has asked holders of unauthorized weapons to turn them over to local authorities and those with legally recognized weapons to register.

In November and February, the authorities in the south-west and north-west respectively banned the sale of arms in their regions on a temporary basis.

Presidential elections are scheduled to be held later this year, even as the ruling party Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement (CPDM) won 63 out of the 70 senate seats in local elections held on March 25.

AFP

The Philemon Yang administration has reportedly launched a crusade against the publication of administrative documents on social media. Cameroon Concord News gathered that the so-called head of government took offense at the publication of confidential documents and information from state institutions and public sector bodies.

Some of these documents, some of which are issued by the Francophone dominated security services, often bearing the words “CONFIDENTIAL”, “SECRET” or “VERY SECRET”, are “sensitive”. Philemon Yang was quoted as saying that these publications affect “the effectiveness of public action” and also constitute “serious” attacks on the security of the state, increasingly subject to security threats in many forms.

The Prime Minister gave standing instructions for cabinet ministers to systematically bring before the competent disciplinary bodies the public officials presumed guilty of violating the obligation of professional discretion. Philemon Yang has also ordered the National Agency for Information Technologies (ANTIC) and the National Center for Development of Informatics (CENADI), to be involved.

By Sama Ernest

Basile Atangana Kouna, Cameroon’s former water and energy minister and other top government officials held over an anti-corruption crackdown have been shown in a video commemorating Easter in prison.

Journalists tweeted screengrabs of Basile and others – Nguini Effa, Mendo Ze and Jena Willian Solo – all in suit taking part in mass on the eve of Easter at the Kondengui maximum security prison located in the capital, Yaounde.

The three other detainees are a former Ministry of Public Works official, the head of a state company, and the ex-rector of the University of Douala.

The religious service involved a church set up in the prison with a priest delivering a sermon. The former ministers a joined by other attendees sitting under a tent following proceedings.

It is largely held that the four are being detained as part of an anti-corruption drive known as Operation Sparrowhawk. It remains to be known which particular case Basile is to be charged with.

 VIP prisoners: Basile Atangana Kouna, Nguini effa,Mendo ze and Jean William solo taking part in the mass

 He was arrested and deported from Nigeria in March after President Biya kicked him out of a March 2 cabinet reshuffle. He had already been ordered the previous month not to leave the country.

As a result of its oil wealth, corruption has been widely reported especially in the area of revenues from crude exports. Transparency International ranked it 153 out of 180 countries on its annual corruption perceptions index.

Biya,85, has ruled the Central African nation since taking over from a retiring predecessor in 1982. He won the 1983 polls with 99.98 percent and has since won reelection at every election cycle.

He is expected to again seek re-election in presidential polls later this year. The first of multi-level elections, Senate vote, was held last month. The presidency has yet to announce a date for the presidential and other elections.

Cameroon’s oil-dependent economy has been crippled by low crude prices. And separatists are mounting a guerrilla campaign in the country’s two English-speaking provinces, demanding independence from the majority Francophone Central African nation.

Culled from Africa News

• With no rape, no looting and no extortion tainting their record, this could be the most crimeless war by a very disciplined “army”

In a village along the Kumba-Mamfe-Bamenda road, a curious trial took place one of these past weekends. At a funeral I attended, village youths gathered for grave-digging, witnessed the trial (in my presence) of three young men who the previous day had assaulted two other young men over a negligible social issue. From the brutality of the fight, it looked like a gang fight. Eyewitnesses said the attacking “gangsters” were under the influence of marijuana and Tramadol.

The first among the “gangsters” to be brought to the “dock” and ordered to kneel down, told the “jury’ that their assault was intended to punish the victims for snatching someone else’s girlfriend – she is not the girlfriend of any of the gang members.

The leader of the village youths said he wanted to know in what capacity the three took upon themselves to “discipline” the “woman-snatchers”. The gangster kneeling before the jury said they simply sought to teach the woman-snatchers a lesson as they had warned them repeatedly to leave someone else’s girlfriend alone. But word had gone around the village that the gangsters claimed they were “Amba Boys” seeking to impose order in that capacity and that they were acting under the influence of their newly acquired “Odey Chi” powers. Odey Chi is believed to be a charm that renders its users invincible and provides them protection against machete cuts and bullets.

It turned out that their claim of belonging to the Ambazonia Defence Force (ADF) or its related factions had reached the ears of “authentic” Ambazonia separatist fighters in the bush, otherwise called Amba Boys or Odey Chi Boys. Credible sources say the ADF boys visited the village at night to enquire after claims that “some rascals are using our name to commit atrocities in the village”. The graveside trial was thus staged for the attention of the “authentic Amba Boys”.

The Amba Boys stood right opposite the youth “judges”, behind the litigants and observed quietly as they testified. Someone standing by elbowed me discretely and whispered to me, “Those are the real Amba Boys.” They all carried strange amulets that looked like charms. Confused, I asked, also whispering, “Real Amba Boys how? Who are the fake ones?” Then I was told about the Odey Chi/Amba Boys claim by the gangsters.

As the trial proceeded, the other two gangsters walked to the scene. Ordered to join their “accomplice” in kneeling down, only one of them obeyed. The third resisted, haughtily ranting, boasting and daring anyone with guts to force him to his knees.

I saw one of the “VIP guests” closing in on the ranting young man. Short and stout and looking vexed, the “authentic Amba Boy” grabbed stubborn village youth by the legs, lifted him with ease and flung him to the ground, head first. He pulled out a machete from… his trouser pocket; it seemed and made a gesture like to slaughter the young man he had flung to the ground. At this, the entire “jury”, the rest of the youths present and even his fellow Amba Boys, rose like one man and pounced on his machete.

A village youth who grabbed the machete was left with a bleeding palm from the machete cut. Someone standing by said the wound could be fatal because weapons used by the Odey Chi Boys are always mystically lethal so that a mere wound or scratch from their machetes or bullets was a certain cause of death. No treatment! Minutes later, when I saw the wounded young man, he had a red piece of cloth wrapped on the wrist of his wounded hand. He said the Amba Boys gave him as an antidote.

The graveside scuffle led to a commotion that brought the trial to a premature end. The Amba Boys told the village youths not to bother. They said they would handle the matter their way and left the village.

NO RAPE, NO LOOTING, NO EXTORTION

In another village, young men with guns and machetes riding motorbikes, stopped at a sales point of smuggled fuel and whisked away gallons of fuel. The salesman and onlookers were left dumbfounded. The act looking like looting, they stayed mute, at least thankful they were not hurt. But to their utter surprise, the young men who “seized” their fuel returned the next day and paid for the fuel they took away.

Some bike riders have testified that sometimes the Amba Boys seize their bikes to get away to some location, but once there, they call someone they know to ask them to collect their bikes where they abandoned them before entering the bush, describing the place.

When Amba fighters went on the rampage at Wone village also along the Kumba-Mamfe road, where they burnt down a lugging trailer and had bloody fire-fights with defence and security forces, travelers who ran into their “checkpoints” say the boys asked for money to buy cartridges for their dane guns. Their driver offered 2000FCFA. The boys asked him to throw the money on the ground, explaining that they do not receive money directly to their hands. When they, the passengers, each offered their own share of money, the Amba Boys turned them down and said what the driver had given them was enough. Just 2000FCFA! The Odey Chi Boys only enquired whether there were any soldiers in disguise in their vehicle. After performing a ritual by swinging a machete in front of them, which it is believed, would have turned red or smeared with blood were an “enemy” in their vehicle, they were allowed to drive on.

A driver transporting me to Bamenda on March 29, told me that on his way to Kumba earlier that day he ran into the Amba Boys at Kendem village, just under 40km from Mamfe. He said all they asked from him and his passengers was, “Any Gendarme dey inside dis moto?” (Is there any Gendarme in this vehicle?). They were allowed to drive on. “Some passengers were afraid they would search and seize money and their property, but those boys do not ask for money,” said the driver.

 MY PRELIMINARY CONCLUSION

As well as there are concordant testimonies and reports of neither looting nor extortion by the Amba Boys, there have equally been no reports of rape. These three are the acts of atrocity most commonly reported by guerrilla fighters for obvious reasons: they would rape women because staying in bush hideouts for long could leave them sex-starved; they would loot where they attack and leave people fleeing for their lives; they would extort from frightened persons, taking advantage of their intimidating posture with arms. Besides ransoms reportedly collected from hostage-taking, none of these atrocities have been blamed on the Amba fighters.

Short of my wished opportunity to interview the Amba Boys, one-on-one, it is generally believed that their Odey Chi cult prohibits them to have contact of any kind with women, including sex and even eating food cooked by women. I am yet to confirm that. It is said their cult equally bars them from stealing/extorting or looting. “If they do any of those, they will lose their powers and lose their invincibility,” said someone claiming to be familiar with the dictates of the cult. “That’s why some of them a killed in battle, but on the whole, most of them do not succumb to bullets, reason why they are fearless and have the courage to attack soldiers, without waiting to be attacked.”

If this is true of the Amba Boys, can’t I conclude that their war will be a sane war, one free of atrocities, and thus a Holy War of sorts? Doesn’t that impose a kind of rare discipline on the troops?

By Franklin Sone Bayen