News

31, October 2017

Yaounde Military Tribunal sentences opposition leader to 25 years ⁰

A military court in Cameroon has sentenced an opposition party leader to 25 years in prison following trial that has been branded as unfair by Amnesty International.

Aboubakar Siddiki, President of the main opposition party in northern Cameroon, ‘Mouvement patriotique du salut camerounais’, has been convicted of charges including hostility against the homeland, revolution and contempt of the President.

However, Amnesty International has said Aboubakar Siddiki who was arrested in August 2014 together with Abdoulaye Harissou, has been convicted despite “no credible evidence being presented to the court”. They were accused of being involved in a conspiracy to destabilise the country.

“Aboubakar Siddiki is the latest victim of the Cameroonian authorities’ strangling of opposition voices. Alongside Abdoulaye Harissou he has already spent more than three years in detention, suffered torture and now he must face a future behind bars on the basis of a politically motivated and deeply flawed trial,” said Ilaria Allegrozzi, Amnesty International’s Lake Chad Researcher.

In the same trial, Abdoulaye Harissou, was also sentenced to three years prison for non-denunciation. A report by Amnesty International claims that the two were held incommunicado for over 40 days in an illegal facility run by the General Directorate of External Relations and subjected to torture following their arrest in 2014.

Initially charged with complicity in murder, illegal possession of arms, hostility against the homeland, revolution, non-denunciation and contempt of the President, their trial began on 22 January 2016. On 9 October 2017, all charges except ‘non-denunciation’ were dropped against Harissou, but those against Siddiki were maintained.

The court also dropped all charges against three journalists – Baba Wame, Felix Ebole Bola and Rodrigue Tongue –who were charged in 2014 with ‘non-denunciation’ of information and sources in relation to the same affair.

Amnesty International has called on the Cameroonian authorities to release and drop all charges against Aboubakar Siddiki and Abdoulaye Harissou while advising the Central African country to refrain from ever using military courts to prosecute civilians.

The government denies the charges are political. Dozens of people have been killed and hundreds arrested in a crackdown in recent months on protests in Cameroon’s English-speaking regions. Residents there say they suffer social and economic marginalisation in the predominantly Francophone country. The protests have become a lightning rod for opposition to President Paul Biya’s 35-year rule.

Source: Malawi 24

31, October 2017

Obasanjo-Biya Comment: Nigerian High Commissioner holds talks with Senate Speaker ⁰

Nigerian High Commissioner to Cameroon, Lawan Abba Gashagar has met the so-called Speaker of the Senate, Marcel Niat Njifenji over comments made by former Nigerian Head of State, General Olusegun Obasanjo on the Southern Cameroons crisis. Niat Njifenji and Ambassador Lawan Abba reportedly held a meeting on Friday, October 27, 2017.

Lawan Abba Gashagar, recalled that Cameroon hosted thousands of Nigerian refugees and that to date, the two countries are thinking about the strategy to set up a process to accompany them to their country of origin in the best conditions.

Cameroon Concord News gathered that regarding the situation in Ambazonia, Lawan Abba Gashagar said that his country encourages a peaceful and diplomatic resolution of the problem. “There is no question of supporting any situation likely to create problems for our neighbors, just as we do not want our neighbors to support a situation that will be a problem to us,” he added. Many Southern Cameroonians have taken refuge in Nigeria as a result of the rapes, extra judicial killings and massive arrests including genocide currently going on in Southern Cameroons.

In an interview on October 25, 2017 in the panafrican newspaper Jeune Afrique, Olusegun Obasanjo, former Nigerian Head of State made public his opinion on the Anglophone crisis in Cameroon. OBJ said that federalism is a good system of governance, because “thanks to federalism, each party can express itself on the future of the country and move at its own pace without disturbing others.” He also made a passionate call for President Biya to leave power.

By Rita Akana, CCN

30, October 2017

Clashes in Central African Republic leave at least 2 dead, 10 wounded ⁰

Fighting between armed groups around the town of Batangafo in northern Central African Republic have left at least two dead and 10 wounded, aid workers said Monday.

Seven of the wounded were admitted to a hospital run by Doctors Without Borders (MSF) in Batangafo and three were sent to a facility in Kabo, Sandra Smiley, with MSF in the capital Bangui, said.

UN sources said fighting broke out on October 24 between anti-Balaka militia — a group that says it is defending Christians — and another armed group, the Patriotic Movement for Central Africa (MPC).

At least two people died in the village of Saraghba, a few kilometers from Batangafo, but it was too dangerous to access the zone to get a complete toll, concurring sources said.

Batangafo is one of many hotspots in the violence that has gripped CAR over the past four years. In September, the death of a worker employed by a humanitarian group plunged the town into violence, leaving a confirmed death toll of six and 28,000 people without aid.

Mired in poverty but rich in diamonds and other minerals, CAR has been battered by a conflict between rival militias that began after then-president Francois Bozize was overthrown in 2013.

Under a UN mandate, the former colonial power France intervened to push out the Muslim Seleka fighters who had taken over, and the UN launched a peacekeeping mission in 2014. But the country remains chronically prone to violence, with armed groups controlling most of the country.

United Nations chief Antonio Guterres, who last week made a four-day visit to CAR, is calling for the UN Security Council to renew the mandate of the organization’s 10,000 peacekeepers when it expires on November 15, and add another 900 blue helmets.

(Source: AFP)

30, October 2017

Suspected Boko Haram raid kills 10 in Cameroon village ⁰

Suspected Boko Haram militants killed at least 10 villagers in northern Cameroon on Sunday night in what army and local officials said was revenge for attacks by Cameroon’s army.

Cameroon’s semi-arid far North region has been a target of Boko Haram suicide bombings and raids for eight years as the Islamist insurgency spilled over the border from Nigeria, killing 20,000 and uprooting nearly three million in the Lake Chad region.

Cameroon forces have tried to beat back insurgents but have struggled to stop unpredictable attacks that have been the hallmark of Boko Haram’s bid to carve out an Islamic state. A senior army source said the attackers came to the village of Gouderi at 11 p.m. on Sunday and killed 11 people.

Two local officials told Reuters by phone that “about 10” had been killed. “It looks like revenge because the army killed Boko Haram members in this village and forced others to retreat to Nigeria,” the army source said.

Source: Vanguard

30, October 2017

Yaounde Military Court begins trial of Southern Cameroons suspects ⁰

A huge consignment of war equipment that was discovered in Mbengwi in the night of August 2nd to 3rd has been presented to the Chief state prosecutor at the Military Tribunal in Yaoundé. The equipment was presented alongside three of the six suspects arrested in connection to the discovery.

The group led by Dassi Alfred is in a French Cameroun court after the Biya regime claimed preliminary investigation had been carried out by security services. It also marks the start of a concocted legal proceedings against Southern Cameroonians accused of attempting to destabilize the country.

The weapons exhibited at the Yaoundé Military Tribunal included semi automatic fire arms, night vision equipments with laser rang finders, glasses and shielding fire episcope, bipods and tripods for precision weapons, explosives, detonator cords, chargers for sniper rifles, explosive charge containers and explosive device switches, timers.

The French Cameroun government revealed that these war arsenals were uncovered in Mbengwi, Momo State by security forces following a tipoff from intelligence services. The so-called government spokesman and Minister of Communication, Issa Tchiroma Bakary in a press conference granted September 2017, said the group was preparing to carry out attacks against defense, security and administrative authorities.

Source: CRTV

30, October 2017

Trump’s approval rating drops to lowest point of his presidency ⁰

Just 38 percent of Americans approve of Donald Trump’s performance as president, making the former businessman the least popular modern president at this stage of his tenure, according to a new poll.

More than half of respondents, 58 percent, disapprove of Trump’s job performance in the NBC News/Wall Street Journal Poll released on Sunday.

The poll showed that Trump’s approval rating fell five percentage points since September to reach the lowest point of his presidency.

Similar polls found former President George W. Bush had 88 percent approval at this stage in his term, former President Barack Obama had 51 percent and former President Bill Clinton had 47 percent.

Trump has largely lost support among independent adults and white adults without a college degree.

The respondents cited the president’s handling of the NFL players’ protests, his failure to introduce health care reforms and his response to Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico as the reasons why they put Trump in a negative light.

“This is his worst showing of his young presidency so far,” Democratic pollster Fred Yang of Hart Research Associates, who co-conducted the survey, told NBC News.

Trump is doing fairly better on the economy, with 42 percent of respondents approving and 37 percent disapproving of him in that regard.

Another poll has found that a majority of Americans believed that politics in the US have hit a “dangerous low point” under Trump.

Seventy-one percent of voters said the current political divisions were comparable to the Vietnam War era. A little more than half of the respondents thought Trump deserved “a lot” of blame for the current status.

The poll also found that dysfunction was rampant in Washington, with 70 percent deeming the Trump administration as dysfunctional and 80 percent holding a similar opinion about Congress.

Source: Presstv

29, October 2017

Ambazonia: Updates from the Conclave ⁰

The 4th conclave is on, most of the delegates have arrived and are gradually settling in. Some other delegates have already had their pre-conclave meetings.

There are rumors of some participants being left out of the conclave. Those are false rumours. For security reasons the Conclave is known only by some and members of the organizing committee.

The current information going out about the VC and some delegates being left out of the conclave is untrue.

All participants duly invited will be informed through proper channels and time.

For peace and security we want to caution that delegates should treat matters of the conclave as classified. Ambazonians would be duly informed at the appropriate times.

We want to inform you to be rest assured that due process is being followed and not everything will and can be reported on social media for reasons we all know.

Stay tuned for updates from the conclave through our official channels.

SCACUF

28, October 2017

Kennedy murdered by hard-line faction of US military ⁰

Former US President John F. Kennedy was murdered in a coup d’etat by a hard-line faction of the American military and intelligence agencies with the support of Israel’s Mossad and some organized crime networks, according to an American scholar and researcher.

Dr. Kevin Barrett, a founding member of the Scientific Panel for the Investigation of 9/11, made the remarks in a phone interview with Press TV on Friday while commenting on the release of documents related to the Kennedy assassination.

On Thursday, President Donald Trump allowed the release of thousands of documents related to the assassination of Kennedy in November 1963, but delayed the publication of some “sensitive” files at the request of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

“President Trump, who has said interesting things about the JFK assassination in the past — such as the claim that Ted Cruz’s father, Rafael Cruz, may have been involved in the killing of President Kennedy — is an interesting president to decide whether to release these many, many thousands of intelligence records relating to the assassination,” Dr. Barrett said.

“And his decision has come as a bit of a surprise to many of us who thought he would just release them. He instead has chosen to withhold hundreds and hundreds of records rather than releasing them,” he stated.

“And what was really interesting was what he said when he did this. Trump said, ‘I have no choice.’ And then he said the reason for not releasing these records was that releasing them would do irreparable harm to national security,” he noted.

“These are very interesting statements to come from a president who’s talked quite loosely about the JFK assassination — which of course was an American coup d’etat — in the past,” the analyst said.

“So, Trump seems to be telling us something between the lines. He has no choice. Well, what does that mean? He certainly theoretically has the choice of just releasing everything. Or maybe if he didn’t have a choice, I guess that would mean somebody was holding a Mannlicher Carcano to his head, or possibly a more viable gun of some kind,” he said.

What harm release of complete info about JFK case could do?

James Jesus Angleton, former chief of CIA Counterintelligence

“And when he said it would do irreparable harm to national security: How could a case more than 50 years ago have any bearing on today’s national security? Obviously all of the sources and methods, meaning the foreign spies and the way they were recruited, have long since passed into oblivion,” Dr. Barrett said.

“The only rational understanding of this kind of statement is that the irreparable harm to American national security that could come from a complete and full release of all of the government’s information about the JFK case would be that some of it might inadvertently reveal that President Kennedy was murdered in a coup d’etat by a hard-line faction in the American military and intelligence agencies with the private support from billionaires like H.L. Hunt, and perhaps from some organized crime networks, including Meyer Lansky’s,” he stated.

“We know about that these are the same people who tried to kill President Castro, and apparently found Kennedy an easier target,” he observed.

“And Michael Collins Piper’s book Final Judgment: The Missing Link in the JFK Assassination Conspiracy makes the case that behind the CIA, which was the most active player in the coup d’etat that overthrew Kennedy, we had the hidden hand of the Israeli Mossad by the way of the CIA’s Counterintelligence chief James Jesus Angleton, who was in fact an Israeli mole in the CIA. And to this day, there is a statue honoring Angleton in Tel Aviv,” the researcher said.

“These are sorts of things that Americans will learn if the truth comes out. Their faith in their government would be shaken, and that is the harm to the national security that might be done,” he added.

“But I think in the long run it would actually help American national security by helping us reestablish our democratic republic. That’s what needs to happen. We need the full truth about the JFK assassination and so many other crimes of the Deep State,” Dr. Barrett concluded.

Culled from Presstv

28, October 2017

Biya-Guterres Meeting: Etoudi treating details like a nuclear secret ⁰

Nothing has so far filtered from exchanges between the French Cameroun dictator, Paul Biya and UN Secretary General. Antonio Guterres arived the Unity Palace yesterday the 27^th of October, 2017 from a trip to the Central African Republic.

A well-placed source hinted Cameroon Concord News that both men had an intensive conversation on the Southern Cameroons crisis, the war against the Nigerian Islamic sect, Boko Haram and the influx of refugees including the security situation in the Central African Republic.

By Sama Ernest, CCN

27, October 2017

Yaounde Military Tribunal: Mancho Bibixy coming out strong as the new Southern Cameroons leader ⁰

The Great Bibixy Mancho has appealed to the Biya regime and its gang of corrupt judges to release all Southern Cameroons young men and women detained in the context of the Anglophone crisis. The Hon. Bibixy Mancho made the declaration at the hearing on October 26, 2017 in the Yaounde Military Tribunal.

During the hearing, the radio host was the first to speak at the Yaoundé Military Court, “Madam President, Yes, I took part in the demonstrations, condemn me to death, but let these children go back to Bamenda, they did not do anything. They are detained in very bad conditions, without being able to benefit from the assistance of their parents. When some members of their families come to visit them in prison, they are stuck in front of the gate because they do not have a pass to get to them, it is better that they are judged in Bamenda where they can benefit from the assistance of their loved ones, “the leader said.

After his speech and that of the other detainees who denounced the inhuman conditions in which they are incarcerated, Mancho Bibixy who is the only geniune leader of the Southern Cameroons crisis remained in detention. He was accused by the state prosecutor for instigating the rebellion in the Bamenda County.

Mancho Bibixy was arrested on November 30, 2016 in Bamenda. Seen once in a coffin during a march, on November 28, 2016, he also demonstrated with the MPs and Senators of the Social Democratic Front. But by some strange happenstance, Mancho Bibixy did not benefit from the so-called presidential pardon on August 29, 2017.

By Eyong Johnson, CCN