Moscow has pledged a “tough response” to new US sanctions against seven of Russia’s most influential oligarchs amid the growing tensions between Russia and the West over the poisoning of former double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Britain.

“We will not let the current attack, or any new anti-Russian attack, go without a tough response,” Russia’s Foreign Ministry announced in a statement on Friday.

Earlier in the day, US Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin announced the fresh sanctions on the Russian Oligarchs and 12 companies they own, 17 senior Russian officials and a state-owned arms export firm, over a range of activities, including Moscow’s alleged meddling in the 2016 US presidential election.

Companies like Gazprom, Burenie and Renova group have also been added to the sanctions list while the US assets of “oligarchs” such as aluminum tycoon Oleg Deripaska and lawmaker Suleiman Kerimov, whose family controls Russia’s largest gold producer, Polyus, have been frozen.

Washington said the punitive measures are in response to Russia’s policies regarding Ukraine and Syria, as well as its cyber activities and attempts to subvert Western democracies. The US sanctions are the most significant since Crimea’s re-integration with Russia in 2014.

Britain claims the Soviet-designed Novichok nerve agent was used to poison Skripal, 67, and his 33-year-old daughter, Yulia, in the British city of Salisbury on March 4 and points the finger at Russia. The Skripals remained hospitalized in critical condition, but they gradually recovered.

Numerous allies of Britain, including the United States, have ordered the expulsion of dozens of Russian diplomats as part of seemingly coordinated attempts against the Kremlin.

Russia, which denies any involvement in the incident, took reciprocal measures against states that make “unfriendly” decisions ejecting foreign diplomats from Moscow. Also, the Kremlin urged these states to review the UK’s evidence pertaining to the case before taking any steps against Russia.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry accused “powerful forces” in the US and Britain of being behind the nerve agent attack.

On Wednesday, Russia called on the United Nations Security Council to hold a meeting to discuss Britain’s accusation that Russia was involved in the Salisbury incident.

The news comes as ties between Moscow and Washington have plummeted to levels not seen since the Cold War due to the two countries’ disputes over the crises in Ukraine and Syria and after US officials accused Russia of meddling in the 2016 US presidential election.

Russia says the US is planning to deploy some 400 anti-ballistic missiles on Russia’s doorstep as part of its military buildup in Eastern Europe.

Western countries have levied broad economic sanctions against Moscow over its support for pro-Russia forces in eastern Ukraine and Crimea’s reunification with Russia.

In late 2016, Washington alleged that Russia had influenced the US presidential election in November that year to help Donald Trump get elected, an allegation that Russia strongly denied.

Russia and the US are also at odds over the Syrian crisis, as they are backing opposite sides in the conflict.

Russia has been assisting the Syrian government in its battle against extremist militants, while the US and its allies back Takfiri militants fighting to topple Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Source: Presstv

It has been confirmed that a bomb exploded this morning at Belua causing untold damage to the military and vehicles of French Cameroun government forces. Belua is located in the Lebialem County in the Southern Zone of the Federal Republic of Ambzonia.

Cameroon Concord News sources say the French Cameroun army vehicle is beyond repairs. The number of human casualties is yet to be ascertained.  There is pandemonium at Menji and MHA Nveh where the injured are receiving emergency treatment.

This item is still developing

South Korea’s disgraced former president Park Geun-hye was jailed for 24 years Friday for corruption, closing out a dramatic fall from grace for the country’s first woman leader, who became a figure of public fury and ridicule.

The sentence followed a trial lasting more than 10 months which ended with Park being found guilty on multiple criminal charges, including bribery and abuse of power.

“The amount of bribery the accused received or demanded in collaboration with Choi amounts to more than 23 billion won ($21.7 million),” Judge Kim Se-Yoon said, referring to Park’s secret confidante and long-time friend Choi Soon-sil.

“I sentence the accused to 24 years in prison and 18 billion won in fines.”

Park, 66, had boycotted most of the trial in protest at being held in custody. She was not present in court for Friday’s judgment which, in a rare move, was broadcast live on television.

The daughter of assassinated dictator Park Chung-hee, Park took office in 2013 as a conservative icon who cast herself in the role of daughter of the nation — incorruptible and beholden to none.

Less than four years later, she was impeached, stripped of all her powers and ousted from office on the back of months-long mass protests that brought millions onto the streets of Seoul and other cities.

The trigger was a snowballing graft scandal involving Park and Choi and accusations of graft, influence-peddling, and taking bribes from corporate bigwigs in exchange for policy favors.

Much of the public anger was focused on Park’s relationship with Choi and accusations that she let her childhood friend — who held no formal position or security clearance — meddle in state affairs, including high-level appointments and editing official speeches.

Choi is the daughter of a shadowy religious figure who had served as a mentor to Park for decades until his death in 1994. She was tried separately and sentenced in February to 20 years in prison.

The scandal reignited public criticism in South Korea of the cozy and often corrupt ties between top officials and the powerful, family-run conglomerates — called “chaebol” — that dominate the world’s 11th-largest economy.

Park becomes the third former South Korean leader to be convicted on criminal charges after leaving office, joining Chun Doo-whan and Roh Tae-woo, who were both found guilty of treason and corruption in the 1990s.

Park’s presidential predecessor, Lee Myung-bak, is currently in custody as prosecutors investigate multiple corruption charges involving him and his relatives.

Chun and Roh received presidential pardons after each spent around two years in jail — a privilege that may elude Park for many years, said Jeong Han-wool, an analyst at the Seoul Hankook Research think-tank.

There is some residual sympathy for Park among her core supporters, who have always seen her as a heroically tragic figure who lost both her parents to assassins and devoted her life to the service of her country.

The fact that she never married or had children was part of her appeal, given the nepotistic tendencies of many senior officials.

“I’m married to the Republic of Korea. I have no children. South Koreans are my family,” she once declared.

(Source: AFP)

A former Rwandan policeman has been arrested in Cameroon on suspicion of involvement in the 1994 Rwandan genocide, a judicial source in France, where he is wanted over the killings, said.

Philippe Hategekimana was arrested in Yaounde, Cameroon’s capital, on March 30 under an international warrant issued by French magistrates specialising in crimes against humanity.

France is expected to request his extradition to face charges of organising and participating in multiple atrocities in southern Rwanda in April 1994, including the assassination of a mayor.

France, which had initially dragged its heels on prosecuting suspected perpetrators of the genocide of about 800,000 people, mostly minority Tutsis, has picked up the pace in recent years.

The first French trial over the genocide was in 2014 when former Rwandan spy chief Pascal Simbikangwa was sentenced to 25 years imprisonment for genocide and complicity in crimes against humanity.

Two years later, a Paris court sentenced two former Rwandan mayors to life in prison for their participation in a massacre at a church, where some 2,000 people seeking refuge were bludgeoned and hacked to death.

All three men were arrested in France.

Hategekimana also fled to France after the genocide, settling in the western city of Rennes where he changed his name to Philippe Manier and obtained French citizenship.

But he recently left for Cameroon.

The investigation against him was opened in Paris in September 2015 after a complaint from the Collective of Civil Parties for Rwanda (CPCR), a group set up by a Rwandan-born relative of genocide victims and her husband.

The genocide has caused two decades of tension between France and Rwanda, with the latter accusing Paris of complicity in the killings through its support and military training for the ethnic Hutu forces who carried out most of the slaughter.

Source: The Nation

African Adventures, a tour operator in Cameroon says the government’s official statement that a dozen foreign tourists had been rescued in a military operation was not accurate.

Government said on Wednesday that security forces had rescued a dozen foreign tourists and six locals kidnapped in the restive Anglophone region. The foreign contingent were said to include seven Swiss and five Italians.

Information minister, Issa Tchiroma Bakary said the army’s elite Rapid Intervention Batallion rescued the group hours after they were abducted on their way to the Twin Lakes in Mount Manengouba National Park, about 300 km (186 miles) northwest of the capital Yaounde.

But according to the company, in the April 2, 2018 incident, its clients were not kidnapped but rather they were only stopped by an armed group and their documents checked.

Their statement added that just when the group were about to leave, security forces arrived, resulting in a brief engagement, after which they were allowed to leave.

African Adventures’ position muddies the waters even more because the Swiss government according to an RFI reporter also said it was not until yesterday (April 4) that they were told about the incident.  Bakary blamed the kidnap on “secessionist terrorists”, a term used by the government to refer to the English-speaking separatists who want to carve out a new state called Ambazonia from mainly French-speaking Cameroon.

The Ambazonian Defence Force (ADF), the main Anglophone separatist group battling state security forces, denied any involvement in the kidnappings.

“ADF does not take hostages. ADF arrest enablers and collaborators and does not arrest foreign nationals,” Cho Ayaba, a leader of the Ambazonian Governing Council, to which the ADF is loosely affiliated, told Reuters.

The ADF has been responsible for most of the shootings that have killed more than 20 state security agents in a year-long uprising against President Paul Biya’s Francophone government that they say has marginalised the English-speaking minority.

Source: Africa News

For more than two months, many people around the world have been wondering about the whereabouts of the Southern Cameroonians abducted in Nigeria in January 2018 and extradited to Cameroon at the end of January. There have been lots of speculations, with many assuming that the Ambazonian president and his cabinet had been killed by the Yaounde government as the easiest way out of the conflict.

This has been pure speculation. The government of Cameroon through its spokesperson had made a commitment that those extradited to Cameroon would be given a fair trial. Though doubts exist, the international community is still holding the government to its words. Mr. Ayuk Tabe and his collaborators have not been granted access to a lawyer and this is in contravention of all legal rules in the country and around the world.

However, acknowledging that 47 Southern Cameroonians had been extradited meant that the government was telling the international community that it was prepared to follow global norms in the handling of such matters. The government knew and still knows that killing Mr. Ayuk Tabe will only make things worse. If his arrest resulted in the escalation of the crisis in the days that followed, then his killing would surely set Cameroon on fire.

But today, Cameroon Concord News Group, Southern Cameroons most read news platform, has finally established that Mr. Ayuk and his collaborators are in Yaounde at the Gendarmerie where they are being given VIP treatment contrary to fears that they are being molested and tortured.

According to a Cameroon Concord News Group source, last week Mr. Ayuk and a few of his collaborators  were let out to have some fresh air. Our source said he saw him, but given the context and circumstance, he could not talk to him. He said he recognized him and was pleased to stand face to face to this man who has caused the Yaounde government to lose sleep.

He added that where the Southern Cameroonians are kept is not a place that is very exposed. They are kept at the extreme corner of the Gendarmerie, very close to the foyer of the Gendarmerie and this does not grant the detainees enough fresh air.

The Cameroon Concord News Group’s source has been keeping an eye on Mr. Ayuk Tabe and has said that Mr. Ayuk Tabe is healthy and in good spirit. He added that he was sure some good things would soon be happening as the head of state is also looking forward to a peaceful resolution as the international community continues to use back diplomatic channels to mount pressure on the government.

Since January 2018, Cameroon Concord News and Cameroon Intelligence Report have been working on this case and have used inside sources to gather information on this matter and these efforts have yielded some reassuring results. “Mr. Ayuk Tabe is being treated well in the hope that he could be used for future negotiations,” our source said.

“The government understands that only Mr. Ayuk Tabe and his collaborators can make meaningful decisions for the people of Southern Cameroons and if the killings and destruction playing out in the two English-speaking regions have to come to an end, Mr. Ayuk Tabe must be made to play a key role in the entire process,” our source added.

The government wants a speedy end to the problem, but cannot accept any rhetoric on secession. The government wants Mr. Ayuk Tabe who is the legitimate face of the struggle to walk away from his idea of splitting the country.  He has been recognized as the poster child of the Southern Cameroons crisis that has put the country on the spotlight for all the wrong reasons.

Meanwhile, the American Embassy in Yaounde is seeking ways to bring Cameroonians to the negotiating table with a view to finding a peaceful resolution to the crisis that has torn the country apart.

The American Ambassador, Peter Henry Barlerin, yesterday brought together some civil society leaders, clergymen, political leaders, and representatives of human rights organizations, as well as a government representative who shared perspectives on the Southern Cameroons crisis in order to chart a path towards a peaceful resolution of the conflict that is clearly at a dead end.

Speaking during the occasion, Barrister Felix Agbor-Balla who stands for federalism and who had served some time in jail because of this crisis, stressed that the  government’s failure to comply with provisions of the Foumban Conference was to blame for the crisis. He also pointed to the flagrant and extensive social exclusion, social and economic injustice, structural division and political discrimination as those issues that need to be promptly addressed if Cameroon had to remain one and indivisible.

He argued that to restore peace and to calm down tensions, Messieurs Mancho Bibixy, Terence Penn Khan and others facing trial at Military Courts in Yaounde must be released. He stressed that Mr. Ayuk Tabe Julius and 47 others arrested in Nigeria and extradited to Cameroon should be given access to their lawyers and offered amnesty to participate in any sincere and inclusive dialogue that would  serve as the basis for the building of a modern and peaceful Cameroon.

He called for an immediate, inclusive and transparent dialogue that should be mediated by neutral parties as a means to guarantee compliance with any resolutions that will be made during the dialogue.

He stressed that ending the conflict through dialogue would speed up disarmament, a return of refugees and internally displaced, as well as a building of social and mutual trust.

“It is time to put a permanent end to killings on both sides, violence and suffering upon the innocent civilian population,” he stressed.

With such efforts, it is like Cameroonians will soon be seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. Cameroonians want peace. They want genuine and negotiated peace. They need an inclusive and a sincere dialogue that will lay to rest many of the issues that are hurting the country’s efforts to attain sustainable levels of development.

But these efforts will surely not be a panacea. Old ways will be difficult to address. People who have been having many benefits from the corrupt and highly centralized system are not yet ready to lose some of their benefits. To them, the country is theirs and changing the status quo will be like bending over backwards to please the masses who, in their view, do not matter.

The Southern Cameroons crisis will surely linger for a long time.  The country’s economy has already taken a lot of punches and if care is not taken, it may bottom out. For now, the government has one objective. Pay civil service salaries in order to avoid a popular uprising.

The government understands that as long as the Francophone majority can put food on the table, it will never challenge the government. In this regard, it is working hard to keep Cameroonian mouths busy with food and it is ensuring that beer, its sedative of choice, makes it to the bars on a daily basis. The country’s breweries have been ordered to produce more beer brands so as to keep Cameroonians out of touch with the political and economic reality of their country.

According to an inside source, there are plans to reduce the price of beer in the two English-speaking regions of the country. This is intended to bring many Southern Cameroonians to the bars. By drinking heavily, they will be busy drowning their worries in alcohol and this will lead to a fizzling of the crisis that has given the government a bad name.

But the government seems to be forgetting that there is a huge external factor in this crisis – the Southern Cameroons Diaspora that is hell-bent on financing this crisis and possibly take the destruction to East Cameroon. Currently, there are many fund-raising efforts underway in many North American cities. These resource mobilization facilities are intended to purchase more arms so that the large willing pool of fighters back in Cameroon can be more equipped to wreak more havoc.

The Southern Cameroons Diaspora is wealthy. This is a Diaspora that has successfully transformed marginalization into an opportunity. If the government really wants an end to this conflict, then it must engage with the Southern Cameroons Diaspora, especially with Southern Cameroonians who are in the United States and Canada. Without that, the country will continue to be in total turbulence.

The Diaspora wants to play an important political and economic role in Cameroon. It wants old systems to be deleted. It wants the elimination of a market-dominant minority from the system. This minority seems to be the bane of the existence of most lives in Cameroon. The Diaspora wants an end to political tribalism that is ruining the country.  If Cameroon has to walk away from its ugly past, then it must reengineer its systems. The current ones are outdated and inefficient. And this can only be achieved through meaningful, inclusive and sincere dialogue.

By Kingsley Betek, Rita Akana with contributions from Soter Agbaw-Ebai