The Vice President of the Ambazonia Interim Government Comrade Dabney Yerima said on Tuesday that the arrogant 90-year-old President Paul Biya of French Cameroun now has to accept the complete and total independence of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia with its resistance mentality.

Speaking to a group of Ground Zero commanders late on Tuesday, the exiled Southern Cameroons leader pointed out that “so long as Ambazonia Self Defense Forces remain resolute on resistance and independence, the entire Federal Republic of Ambazonia shall be liberated.”

Yerima warned that Southern Cameroonians should focus on the liberation struggle and ignore the happenings and current going-on in Yaoundé.  He furthered that the French Cameroun enemy seeks to take advantage of the division in the Southern Cameroons diaspora by using some pro La Republique agents to sabotage the Ambazonia Interim Government.

Dabney Yerima noted that the much publicized Babanki kidnapping of some 50 Southern Cameroons women was teleguided from Yaoundé.

He added that the French Cameroun enemy has been irked by its failure since 2016 and Ambazonia’s refusal to accept the French Cameroun arrogance known popularly as “Special Status.”

Amba fighters, Vice President Yerima went on, have always proved that they have no fear of La Republique threats and are ready to carry out missions deep inside French Cameroun.

By Chi Prudence Asong with files from Haggai Achuo

A lot of tongues have been wagging on what caused Saturday’s dramatic explosions in Bonaberi and Bonanjo in Douala the economic capital.

Cameroon Intelligence Report chief correspondent in Douala noted that there are plenty of theories, not all of them very credible.

Yaoundé was quick to report that the bomb attacks were carried out by Ambazonia fighters from the South West region.

The Governor of the Littoral Region accused Southern Cameroons Self Defense Forces of attacking Bonaberi and Bonanjo in an “act of terrorism”.

The Bonanjo attack was staged in Bessèkè, a district in Douala 1 hosting military and civilian parade organized as part of the 51st National Day of Unity celebration.

This is not the first time reports have circulated suggesting that Ambazonia fighters have access to explosive devices and bombs.

The bomb attack on Bonaberi in the fourth district targeted “Grand Hangar” and injured many people.

According to a source at the national gendarmerie, it was homemade bombs, specifically improvised explosive devices hidden in bags.

By Haggai Fung Achuo in Douala

Cameroon has been celebrating 51 years as unified nation with a military and civilian parade on National Unity Day in its capital Yaoundé.

For all but 10 of those years it has been ruled by just one man, President Paul Biya.

And at 91 years old he is now the oldest head of state in the world.

The country is now less united than ever: Thousands of people have been killed since 2016 and over a million people displaced after a group of Anglophone Cameroonians began to fight Biya’s Francophone government.

Some of those who watched the parade sounded optimistic about their country’s future and welcomed the day.

“It is to remind that we are one people, it’s to remind that it’s together that we can build and develop, it’s to remind that it’s together that we can be happy, it’s together that we can live in peace,” said Therese Temgoua, a Francophone Cameroonian who is a bank executive.

“I think it’s a happy day, and what I’ve seen today shows that Cameroon’s democracy is actually in the right direction,” Enobi Akepe, an anglophone Cameroonian who is a university lecturer, said.

But one francophone journalist described the unity of the country as a “facade.”

“Today, Cameroonians agree that we are living in a certain facade of unity. First, because in the North-West and South-West, you know that there are secessionists who do not let us breathe. On the other hand, we see the rise of hatred in the country,” said Pierre Youte, a journalist and the director of Soleil d’Afrique newspaper.

This rainy season Cameroon is also facing a cholera epidemic which has spread to all of its regions and is known to have infected around 20,000 people.

The figure is likely to be higher as only those infected people who manage to reach hospital are counted.

On Friday, on the eve of National Unity Day, the authorities closed down some of Yaoundé’s food markets to prevent the spread of the deadly bacterial disease.

Source: Africa News

Thousands of people are demonstrating this week, calling for peace and reconciliation ahead of National Day on May 20. Peace caravans led by activists, clerics and traditional rulers are calling for an end to hate speech and the separatist conflict that has killed more than 6,000 people in Cameroon since 2017.

A band of youths leads several hundred Cameroonians in protests against hate speech in the capital, Yaounde, on Thursday. The protesters are also calling for peace and reconciliation in the central African state.

Organizers say the protests began in towns and villages across Cameroon on Monday ahead of the country’s National Day on May 20.

Thousands of Christians from Cameroon’s Catholic, Presbyterian and Baptist churches joined the protest in Yaounde Thursday.

Reverend Father Humphrey Tatah Mbui is the director of communications at the National Episcopal Conference of Cameroon. He said Christians cannot be indifferent at a time when increasing hate speech and xenophobic statements are creating conflicts and damaging Cameroon’s image.

“It is wickedness and the type of hate speech that destroys the country. If we want peace in this country we must learn to start controlling the kind of words we use, the way we talk to other people and dialogue,” he said.

Mbui said clashes between communities increased in Cameroon after the disputed 2018 presidential election in which President Paul Biya was declared the winner. Opposition leader Maurice Kamto also claimed victory.

In addition, some French-speaking host communities accuse English speakers displaced by the separatist conflict in the west of being separatist fighters or sympathizers.

The tension goes the other way, too. Earlier this month, a human rights group said scores of French speaking civilians in English-speaking regions were victims of hate speech.

Meanwhile, Cameroon’s National Communication Council issued over two dozen warnings last year to radio and TV stations the NCC says hosted guests who promoted hate speech.

Cameroon’s communication minister, Rene Emmanuel Sadi, said civilians are also increasingly using social media to vilify and humiliate people, or to incite hatred and call for violence against people of different religions, languages, ethnic groups and gender.

Sadi said all social strata in Cameroon suffer the consequences of hate speech fanned by some civil society groups, intellectuals, politicians, activists and social influencers. He said the most common manifestations of hate speech in Cameroon include ethnic and social discrimination, stigmatization, tribalism, irredentist claims, calls for insurgency and sometimes genocide, gender violence and violence against minorities.

Sadi said the Cameroon government is fighting hate speech as a priorty to safeguard democracy and the rule of law and to preserve the values of peace, unity and living together.

The government says President Biya wants Cameroonians to show love for their country as they celebrate National Day on Saturday. Biya will preside over celebrations in Yaounde.

In 2021, the International Crisis Group warned in a report that social media platforms, especially Facebook, were increasingly being used by Cameroonian youths to heighten political and ethnic tensions.

Source: VOA

Jean Marc Mpay, Cameroon’s former ambassador to the Federal Republic of Germany, has died aged 78.

Jean Marc Mpay’s death was confirmed by the Cameroon embassy in Berlin following media reports which claimed he had suffered a stroke while in Yaoundé, the nation’s capital.

Paying tribute, Chief Ashu Peter Ashman former CPDM Sub Section president for Wuppertal said: “He was a great diplomat and a great character.”

“All our thoughts are with his family,” Chief Ashu Peter added.

Ambassador Jean-Marc Mpay was born on 21 July 1945. He completed studies in Law and Economics at the University of Yaoundé and post-graduate studies in Political Science in Ottawa, where he also served from 1977 to 1981 at the Embassy of Cameroon.

From 1991 to 1998, he was Cameroon’s First Embassy Counsellor and later Envoy-Embassy Counsellor at the Permanent Mission of the Republic of Cameroon to the United Nations in New York.

Ambassador Jean-Marc Mpay was nominated ambassador of the Republic of Cameroon in Berlin on February 2008 as successor of Jean Melaga, who served for 24 years as Cameroon’s chief diplomat in both Bonn and Berlin.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai in Essen, Germany

President Biya has been visibly limping.  Recently, he canceled some of his meetings.

The 90-year-old Biya who has been ruling Cameroon for 41 years is currently suffering from a bad knee with speculation rife over his participation in this year’s national day celebration.

The Francophone dictator was expected in Geneva, Switzerland for surgery on his ailing knee but did not show up due to happenings in Yaoundé.

Cameroon Intelligence Report gathered that Biya had to deal with the Martinez Zogo affair that involved his spy chief Eko Eko and Justice Minister Laurent Esso. He was also concerned about the sudden diplomatic crisis with the Republic of Chad over the oil company Savannah Energy.

All these issues forced Biya to give up surgery on his knee, which has been causing him pain for several months. The operation would have meant a trip to Geneva for several days, and above all a forced rest on a wheelchair for several months-a situation that is unthinkable for the Biya entourage who are only interested in showing the world that he is still in charge of affairs in Yaoundé.

Cameroonians have seen time and again that their president struggles to climb or go down stairs during his rare public appearances. Paul Biya is expected on Saturday, May 20, 2023 at the “Boulevard du 20 Mai” to preside over the civilian and military parade of the National Unity Day, which will be in its 51st edition.

By Rita Akana

The Cameroonian government is appealing for hundreds of millions of dollars to help vulnerable groups such as children, people with disability, and women who are the most affected by conflict.

The government, along with humanitarian agencies, says they must raise $407 million to meet the needs of the approximately 3 million most vulnerable people in the country.

Overall 4.7 million people in the country could be classed as “vulnerable”, it was revealed. That’s one in six people who need assistance. More than three quarters of them are women and children.

About 3 million people are facing acute food insecurity, and more than 2 million people are internally displaced, refugees, or returnees.

The 2023 Humanitarian Response Plan drawn up by the government and International humanitarian agencies says they need money for protection services and life-saving assistance for people suffering the effects of violence, natural disasters, climate shocks, and disease outbreaks.

The announcement did not specify who they would ask for this money, but the request was aimed at “the international community”.

Sufficient funding

Matthias Naab, Humanitarian Coordination in Cameroon during his presentation on Thursday urged the international community to provide “early, flexible and sufficient funding”.

“It will support livelihoods and resilience, to ensure that affected women, men, girls and boys can meet their basic needs. Priority will be given to interventions for those in greatest need, including internally displaced persons, returnees, refugees, and host communities who continue to generously open their homes to those in need,” he said.

Cameroon is dealing with terrorist attacks in the Far North region, where the civilian population continues to be subject to armed attacks, improvised explosive devices (IEDs), kidnappings, including of children, looting, and destruction of property and infrastructure, by Islamist militants.

Seven years after separatists embarked on a mission to independence in the Northwest and Southwest, there have been reports of human rights violations that have led to important population displacements.

Insecurity in the neighboring Central African Republic has seen the influx of over 340,009 refugees in the East, Adamawa, and Mort regions.

Over 224 humanitarian organizations are working with the United Nations and government to boost response in Cameroon.

Source: Humanglemedia.com

The Cameroonian government has secured new financial support as part of the reconstruction of the war-torn Anglophone regions of the Northwest and Southwest. Yesterday, the Minister of Economy, Alamine Ousmane Mey, signed a loan agreement of €32.250 million (about CFA21.1555 billion) with Muhmmad Al Jasser, Head of the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB).

This financing, the Cameroonian official said, “will support the government’s efforts to rebuild and rehabilitate essential infrastructure, strengthen social cohesion and revitalize the local economy in the targeted regions”. It is another helping hand in this reconstruction process, for which fund mobilization remains a headache.

Out of a requested CFA154 billion (about $258 million), Cameroon only raised CFA11.5 billion by mid-2022, representing a mobilization rate of 7.4%, official data showed. In detail, Paul Tasong, who coordinates the project, explained that 75% of this amount came from the State itself; the private sector contributed CFA1.2 billion; the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) CFA400 million; and Japan CFA1.5 billion. Last March, Japan approved an additional CFA1.3 billion, bringing its total contribution so far to CFA2.8 billion.

Source: Business in Cameroon