News

9, September 2023

Chief Buthelezi, South Africa’s Inkatha leader, dies aged 95 ⁰

Mangosuthu Buthelezi, the once-feared Zulu nationalist and historic leader of Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) which presided over South Africa’s deadliest violence ahead of the first all-race elections, died Saturday aged 95, President Cyril Ramaphosa announced.

“I am deeply saddened to announce the passing of Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi … Traditional Prime Minister to the Zulu Monarch and Nation, and the Founder and President Emeritus of the Inkatha Freedom Party,” Ramaphosa said in a statement.

“Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi has been an outstanding leader in the political and cultural life of our nation, including the ebbs and flows of our liberation struggle, the transition which secured our freedom in 1994 and our democratic dispensation,” Ramaphosa said.

“He quietly and painlessly stepped into eternity in the early hours of the morning” Buthelezi’s family said in a statement.

Buthelezi, last week was discharged from hospital after a prolonged stay. Funeral arrangements have not yet been confirmed.

Born of royal blood on August 27, 1928, Mangosuthu Gatsha Buthelezi was to some the embodiment of the Zulu spirit: proud and feisty. To others, he bordered on a warlord.

For years he was defined by his bitter rivalry with South Africa’s ruling African National Congress (ANC), a party that was his political home until he broke away to form IFP in 1975.

He led the party from its inception, until the age of 90, a reign marked by bloody territorial battles with ANC supporters in black townships during the 1980s and 1990s that left thousands dead.

Founding father

The current IFP leader, Velenkosini Hlabisa, said in a statement that “as South Africa mourns, the IFP gives thanks –- even through our tears -– for the exceptional leader given to us for so many years. He blessed our country beyond measure. We cannot begin to express our gratitude.”

South Africa’s largest opposition party the Democratic Alliance said on X that South Africans had “have lost a founding father”.

As premier of the “independent” homeland of KwaZulu, a political creation of the apartheid government, Buthelezi was often regarded as an ally of the racist regime.

He was dogged by allegations of collaborating with the old government to fuel violence to derail the ANC’s liberation struggle — a claim he furiously denied.

The country’s second largest opposition party, the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) said in a statement that “his legacy will remain a debate in the South African political terrain for years to come”.

But the EFF commended him for managing “the realms of politics and the Zulu monarchy for decades”.

In the 1980s, the rift between his party and the ANC intensified as he distanced himself from the party and its anti-apartheid strategies, denounced by then-jailed Nelson Mandela as undermining the black leadership.

He also stirred the wrath of the liberation movements by calling for increased international investment in South Africa, opposing the call for sanctions to put pressure on the white government.

Thousands killed

Violence between Inkatha supporters and rival liberation groups escalated in the mid-1980s. By 1990 more than 5,000 people had been killed in clashes.

In 1991, Mandela and Buthelezi held talks and called for an end to the bloodshed.

But a year later, reports resurfaced of IFP-fomented violence, backed by apartheid security forces in Johannesburg and in the eastern Natal region.

A charismatic speaker with a heavy stutter, Buthelezi blamed the ANC for the unrest that threatened to become a full-blown civil conflict, which the apartheid government garishly referred to as “black-on-black” violence.

There was a new surge of unrest between ANC and IFP supporters in the run up to the first democratic elections in 1994, that claimed about 12,000 lives.

Long-serving politician

The violence largely dissipated after 1994, with Buthelezi appointed home affairs minister. He went on to become one of the longest-serving lawmakers.

Debilitated and barely able to walk, the once-feared leader stood hunched back and small, a shadow of his former self, peering at the crowd over his glasses perched on his nose, as he attended the Zulu annual reed dance in September 2022.

Source: AFP

9, September 2023

Over 600 people killed as powerful earthquake hits Morocco ⁰

A powerful 6.8-magnitude earthquake has struck Morocco, killing at least 632 people and injuring 329 others.

The quake struck at 44 miles (71 kilometers) southwest of Marrakesh at a depth of 18.5 kilometers at 11:11 pm (2211 GMT) Friday, the US Geological Survey said. The quake’s epicenter was in a remote area of the High Atlas Mountains.

The earthquake killed people in the provinces and municipalities of al-Haouz, Marrakesh, Ouarzazate, Azilal, Chichaoua and Taroudant, Morocco’s Interior Ministry said in a statement.

The ministry further noted that authorities have “mobilized all the necessary resources to intervene and help the affected areas”.

The quake reportedly caused widespread panic and damaged buildings across cities.

Terrified residents of Marrakesh reported “unbearable” screams following the tremor, with hospitals in the city reportedly seeing a “massive influx” of injured people.

“We felt a very violent tremor, and I realized it was an earthquake,” Abdelhak El Amrani, a Marrakesh resident told AFP.

“I could see buildings moving,” he said, adding that power and phone lines were down for ten minutes.

“People were all in shock and panic. The children were crying and the parents were distraught.”

Fayssal Badour, another Marrakesh resident, told AFP that he was driving when the earthquake hit.

“I stopped and realized what a disaster it was. It was very serious, as if a river had burst its banks. The screaming and crying was unbearable,” he said.

According to local media, a family was trapped in the rubble after their house collapsed in the town of Al-Haouz, near the epicenter of the quake.

Tremors were also reportedly felt in the capital Rabat, as well as the coastal cities of Casablanca and Essaouira.

The earthquake was also felt in neighboring Algeria, where the Algerian Civil Defense said it had not caused any damage or casualties.

Source: Presstv

8, September 2023

Fire engulfs Yaoundé City Hall amid fears of a military coup ⁰

A fire erupted at Yaoundé 6 City Council building in the Acacia district on Friday, September 8, as rumors of a military take over continued throughout Cameroon.

Local media reported that investigations were still going on and it is unclear what actually started the fire. Yaoundé firefighters responded quickly, but despite their efforts, the fire at this significant government building proved difficult to put out.

Reacting to the news, the Vice President of the Ambazonia Interim Government, Dabney Yerima told Cameroon Concord News that “Biya’s tribal initiated criminal arson burning men, women, children, homes, and other structures in the Federal Republic of Ambazonia. They taught people the art of criminal arson and getting away with it. And since then it is a thriving business everywhere. No one should complain. What goes round comes round.”

Also commenting on the situation in Yaoundé, renowned Southern Cameroons academic Professor Carlson Anyangwe said “I should think the people there are deeply fed up and angry with tyranny and state banditry. The looting and plundering fossil man at the highest level of power has been there, worse than George Orwell’s Big Brother in 1984. He has been there for over half a century with nothing to show except continuing bloody torture and oppression. But those Camerounese people have been so castrated and terrorized that they cannot even lift a finger. They are even afraid of their own shadows. I pity them” Anyangwe concluded.

By Chi Prudence Asong

7, September 2023

Ambazonia’s ‘deadliest back-to-school massacre’: Many feared dead in Mile 17 ⁰

Some Church leaders have called the killings ‘a worrying escalation’ of the conflict in Southern Cameroons and a local human rights group says it is extremely difficult to count the bodies of students killed in today’s attacks in Buea and Muea.

Scores of bodies of students – too many to count – remain inside burnt cars from an attack described by Buea residents as the deadliest massacre in the history of back-to-school ever since the beginning of the crisis in English speaking Cameroon.

Fighting started today Thursday in Muea, one kilometer away from Buea the chief city in the South West region where Ambazonia fighters seized the main road linking Muea to Buea.

Cameroon government security forces reportedly responded rapidly and deployed significant military assets but could not stop the attacks that were going on.

Our correspondent in Buea who contributed to this report said that most of the victims were school children and their parents who could not escape from the vehicles when Amba fighters entered Muea and Buea firing on residents.

A businessman in Mile 17 told Cameroon Intelligence Report that it was a onerous task attending to the corpses and even the seriously injured ones who may have died after the fighters left the scene.

The attacks come some days after schools in some areas in Southern Cameroons reopened their doors.

There are fears that the back-to-school project currently being marketed by the Biya Francophone regime in Yaoundé is likely to trigger even more bloodshed. Thousands of Southern Cameroonians have been displaced by the violence

The Yaoundé government has made no official comment on the alleged Buea-Muea massacres.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

7, September 2023

Southern Cameroons War: Amba fighters in shooting spree in Muea and Buea ⁰

A pair of Ambazonia gunmen have reportedly wounded several people and set cars ablaze in a shooting spree in Muea and Buea in Fako Division.

It is the first deadly Ambazonia attack carried out by restoration forces in the heart of the historic city of Buea. On Thursday, 7 September, 2023 Southern Cameroons fighters inspired by happenings in Gabon and Niger raided Muea and moved into Buea.

The Buea-Muea attack comes just a week after schools reopened their doors in some towns and villages in Southern Cameroons.

A source in the Francophone governor’s office in Buea contacted by Cameroon Concord News hinted that police officers sent to counter the Ambazonia attack on Molyko ended up in Bongo Square.

The Vice President of the exiled Ambazonia Interim Government Dabney Yerima is expected to address the people of Southern Cameroons on the state of the revolution, meaning not only that attacks on schools remains highly likely but a further attack in academic establishments in the cities of Buea, Bamenda, Limbe and Kumba may be imminent.

Cameroon Concord News understands that Buea police have asked the Cameroon government military command in the South West region to deploy a number of military personnel in support of their armed officers.

This means some armed police and gendarmerie officers guarding schools will be replaced by soldiers.

By Rita Akana in Buea

6, September 2023

Gabon: General Nguema says ousted President Bongo ‘free to go abroad’ ⁰

Gabon’s former president Ali Bongo, who was ousted in a putsch, is free to leave the country and travel abroad, the leader of the coup that toppled him said on Wednesday.

“He has freedom of movement… and can travel abroad if he wishes,” general Brice Oligui Nguema said in a statement read on state television.

Bongo, in power for 14 years, had been under house arrest since the military coup of August 30, carried out without bloodshed less than an hour after his party proclaimed his re-election in a vote described as fraudulent by the putschists.

“Given his state of health, the former President of the Republic Ali Bongo Ondimba has freedom of movement. He can travel abroad if he wishes to carry out his medical checks,” Colonel Ulrich Manfoumbi Manfoumbi said, reading a press release signed by Oligui, who took his oath as transitional president on Monday.

Bongo suffered a serious stroke in October 2018 which left him physically impaired, with particular difficulty moving his right leg and arm.

Source: AFP

6, September 2023

Southern Cameroons Crisis: Eric Tataw arrested in the US ⁰

The US-based Anglophone journalist, cum separatist who rose to prominence by asking separatist fighters to cut off the hands and fingers of plantation workers, back in Cameroon’s South West region, was arrested on Thursday, August 31, 2023, upon request by a Federal judge.

He had been into active activism, trumping for the independence of the North West and South West regions of Cameroon, a country they named Ambazonia. But after a few years, his activism was less seen in the social media space, as he ventured into business.

Now, the US government said the money he used to do business was loaned to him through the Paycheck Protection Program, PPP, in 2020. But what caused his early arrest, was a criminal complaint filed by special agent and investigator, investigator Kyle ZGraggen. He said there was evidence that Eric Tataw violated Title 18 U.S.C and 1512(b)1, that is tampering with a witness with the intent to influence the testimony of the witness in an official proceeding.

The investigator also said in a long narrative that he had sufficient evidence that Eric Tataw tried in futility to coerce a witness to tell lies during the court sessions. The witness had recordings where Eric Tataw is heard planning how to lie in front of judges.

Why investigations

Before his arrest, Eric Tataw, the owner of the online news site National Telegraph, was under investigation for several federal offenses such as wire fraud and Paycheck Protection Program, PPP loan fraud.

Investigator said so far, they have discovered that the loan was gotten via fraud including lies about the amount of monthly payroll, the number of employees, and the annual revenue of this business, the National Telegraph.

“As a result of fraudulent applications, National Telegraph was approved for two PPP loans, totaling over $ 163,000 in 2020 and 2021,” a statement read.

Lavish Lifestyle

Investigators also found out that Eric Tataw did not use these PPP loans for the business and payroll for which it was intended. But he spent at least a portion of it, buying impermissible personal expenditures, the investigator revealed.

Social media has been the platform where such lifestyles have been seen as Eric Tataw on many occasions boasted of acquiring houses and several businesses, CNA cannot independently confirm if the money used to acquire these properties was from the PPP loans.

Role in Cameroon armed conflict

Eric Tataw is one of the Activists who preached violence against the population in the ongoing war in Cameroon’s Anglophone regions. The investigator said Witness 1, during investigations that Eric Tataw, told the Witness what to say to judges if asked about his role in the Cameroon conflict, kidnappings, and violence against the population.

During the crucial days of the conflict, Eric Tataw, far in his comfort zone in the US, instructed Separatist fighters to cut off the hands and the fingers of farmers who dared him by working at the Cameroon Development Corporation, CDC, and plantations. That is why he was nicknamed the “garri master” a colloquial word used in the place of “cut off”. He even went far in August 2018 to ask the Separatists to “garri” cut off the hands of those from French regions, “And let me take it as a point of duty to tell all of you that this is the time to start “garrying” those people across the Mungo…to garri these people, it is the only way that will change the focus of this regime…do not allow them, go to their houses, garri their most dominants hands…in Buea, Bamenda, go there and garri them…quote me anywhere, My name is Eric Tataw.” He said in one of his videos.

Eric Tataw shall appear in court on September 8, 2023, in Maryland. It is not yet clear if the conflict in Cameroon and his role will be on the table.

Source: Cameroon News Agency

6, September 2023

Southern Cameroons Crisis: Amba releases photos of newly bombed military vehicle ⁰

A Southern Cameroons restoration group known as team Retinant of Alou in Lebialem Division in the South West region has displayed photos of a French made military vehicle the group destroyed from Cameroon government soldiers.

According to statements made by the group in some of the videos, the vehicle was destroyed by a bomb planted by the Ambazonia fighters in Alou. The group also claimed to have killed many soldiers.

In the past weeks, Cameroon government army soldiers have been targeted by the Amba fighters all over Ground Zero.

Hundreds of soldiers and officers have been reportedly killed ever since the crisis started six years ago.

Yaoundé has maintained a kind of silence of the lamb following the publication of the Alou video.

Cameroon Concord News gathered that the soldiers killed in Alou were on patrol to clear some Ambazonia elements in the area following credible intelligence when they were ambushed by the group on Tuesday, September 5, 2023.

By Rita Akana

6, September 2023

Anglophone journalist Kingsley Njoka jailed with dangerous criminals ⁰

Authorities in Yaoundé have transferred journalist Kingsley Fomunyuy Njoka to the ward housing dangerous criminals in the Kondengui Maximum Security Prison in Yaoundé, Cameroon Intelligence Report has learned.

The transfer took place recently after he was again questioned about his journalism covering the conflicts in Southern Cameroons.

Plainclothes security agents abducted journalist Kingsley Fomunyuy Njoka in May 2020. He is being held in pretrial detention in Kondengui.

Njoka formerly worked as a correspondent for “Tough Talk,” a current affairs show on local broadcaster Canal 2 English, at a Catholic biweekly magazine, L’Effort Camerounais, and the Catholic-owned printing house Macacos, according to his lawyer Amungwa Tanyi and Canal 2 English host Divine Nyaryike, both of whom spoke to CPJ via messaging app.

Njoka is also a member of the Cameroon Association of English-Speaking Journalists.

By Ewang Miriam Metchane

4, September 2023

Southern Cameroons Back-To- School: 2 head teachers killed in Boyo ⁰

Two teachers were killed by a group of Ambazonia Restoration Forces in Boyo Division, Biya regime said Sunday. The victims were two male teachers in their 40s.

The Francophone dominated police have still not disclose how the head teachers were killed. A motive hasn’t been established.

But fingers are pointing to Southern Cameroons Self Defense Groups that are strongly against the reopening of schools.

“For now it is far too early to comment on that,” a police officer in Boyo contacted by Cameroon Concord News said.

Our correspondent in Bamenda, citing administrative sources, said the Amba fighters were heavily armed with AK 47s.

The two head teachers Eric Foinjang and Ndim John Boudji reportedly attended a back-to-school meeting on Saturday in Kom and were targeted by Ambazonia fighters operating in the Ijim Mountain.

By Fon Lawrence