Fire has consumed seven shops at the Limbe New market early Thursday, razing all its contents to ashes. According to some Motor Bike riders who were the first to arrive the scene, the fire started around 4am. They recounted how they saw chunks of smoke in the air accompanied by sudden light that pierced the darkness sending an unusual signal that all was not well.

The people of Church Street Limbe accompanied by many bikers struggled to put off the fire three hours after. They did so with local means due to the absence of fire fighters. Cameroun Info.Net reported that the Fire fighters from the Limbe City Council and SONARA did not show up despite incessant calls.

Roofs of some of the shops got burst and the fire found its way out of the shops, several goods especially palm oil, clothes were consumed by the flames. The Divisional Officer for Limbe One, Epalle Seraphine together with some Francophone Gendarmes visited the site but refused to talk to the press saying on the Senior Divisional Officer, Zang III was in best place to issue a public statement. The cause of the tragic incident has not been established yet but traders are suspecting a criminal act.

Cameroun Info.Net

These are horrible times for Bamenda inhabitants. Arbitrary Arrests, Torture and Extortions are plentiful in their daily menu served by gendarmes, police and soldiers. Ask those who have been arrested in recent weeks and taken to the gendarmerie premises Up Station. Many (whose names are being withheld for fear of further victimization) have recounted horrendous stories of beatings and degrading treatments, to

Their crimes! Well, simply possessing a mobile phone with text messages, pictures or videos relating to the current Southern Cameroons resistance is synonymous to terrorism. And for this they could be blind folded and shipped off to the capital Yaoundé. First you would pass through the torture room. To say that that they are arrested is to put it nicely. Otherwise, these are citizens who are simply abducted and extradited to French speaking Yaoundé where they are detained for long periods before being arraigned in a military court.

Physical violence

As it has turned out for many, it is even a big surprise that beatings and physical torture are virtually absent in the infamous National Gendarmerie head quarter, SED as is the case in Bamenda. “I was surprised that I was not beaten at SED when we arrived there. Whereas I had expected that they would cripple us with the baton. It’s terrible what they did to us in Bamenda” said 45-year-old man recently ferried from Bamenda.

At Up Station Bamenda, “those arrested are beaten so badly they can’t walk with swollen feet and limbs. Gendarmes take turns flogging them with batons and smashing them with boots and gun butts”. The other day, gendarmes at Mile 4 Nkwen pounded a driver with gun butts in full view of the population before dragging him into their office. The victim’s face was terribly swollen, with his bloody eyes almost falling off from their sockets. Cry and wail as you may, the baton will keep rising and falling on you until your torturer gets exhausted or hands over to his partner.

“I witnessed how they tortured a young, deaf and dumb fellow. They beat him repeatedly asking him to admit that he was encouraging the strike”, said a former detainee just released from the judicial police in Bamenda. He almost came to tears as he recounted he described the beatings in detention facilities.

Ask the City Council officials of the Bamenda Food Market what happened to them last week – a day after the marketplace went up in flames. To cut things short, they were picked up and taken to GMI police station where a barge of terror was unleashed on them. They were so badly thrashed that they were unable to walk within a short time of administering the corporal punishment.

Imagine a young man jugging on the streets towards Up Station Bamenda early in the morning. Gendarmes stop him and demand his ID and phone. Then they whisk him off to their station just because they found text messages relating to the Anglophone struggle. Then as darkness falls, he is bundled into a van and sped driven to Yaoundé. He is then charged for terrorism and secession. Life imprisonment is now hanging over him should the French speaking military court find him guilty. But that is the same story of dozens of Anglophones arrested from parts of the North West and Southwest regions.

Night Raids

Bamenda has for several months now been militarized. And in what appears like a State of emergency scores of “young people are being arrested in day and night time raids. We are now living in fear and moving without valid identification is now taboo” said a Metta Quarter resident. Anxiety is growing amongst the population as no one knows when his/her turn to be arrested will arrive.

“Imagine troops cordoning off a neighborhood, allowing no one out and no one in. Imagine you are deep asleep with your family. And then, soldiers come pounding on your door; ordering you to open. They force their way into your bed room, turn it upside down, inside out”. The raids popularly called Kale Kale are an old practice in French speaking East Cameroun but dreaded by English speakers. Francophone administrators and gendarmes introduced the practice into Anglophone Cameroon decades ago. Kale Kales are currently taking place in different neighborhoods in Bamenda, Ndop and other towns in the northwest region. Residents of Metta Quarter are still in shock following a recent raid.

“They just popped into my home with guns. I could not question if they had any search warrant because they could feel I am rude and bundle me to Yaoundé”, said a resident. “I don’t know what they were looking for. They went into my bed room scattering everything. They also searched my kitchen. Then they wrote OK on the door and left”.

Another inhabitant told CAMCORDNEWS that “they kept asking for receipts for every gadget in the house: TV, blending machine, decoder etc. We are not safe in this city anymore. You stay in your house and they follow you into your bed room”.

Cameroon Concord News gathered that dozens of young people were arrested during the raids for possessing leaflets promoting the Operation Ghost Town or civil disobedience campaign taking place every Monday in the English speaking northwest and southwest regions. The said campaigns have stopped schools from reopening for three straight months. Young people were taken away and risk being whisked off to the capital Yaoundé, simply for having text messages or videos about the Anglophone protests on their hand sets.

The police department in Bamenda would not comment on the reasons behind the raids despite repeated requests by journalists. But the regional governor, Lele L’Afrique, has now prescribed that civilian vigilante groups be set up in the different villages and towns. The governor is alarmed by the number of arson on schools’ infrastructure and markets, which the authorities believe are the handiwork of those enforcing the civil disobedience campaign.

Extortions

Money speaks! “Oh yes, eight of you could be arrested for one of those imaginary crimes. Then two of you agree to cough up a hundred bucks or more each. No receipts are issued. But guess what, the two of you will be freed” a bitter ex detainee said. Such money no doubt ends up in the private pockets of your oppressors. And the deal can sometimes run into hundreds of thousands. We have even heard of millions of CFA being asked from relatives of detained suspects. As the people of Bamenda say in local parlance, “something di spoil, fix another one”. Loosely, this means the sufferings of some people is good tidings for others. So many of the uniformed men wielding batons are somehow making brisk business. The more people they arrest, the more opportunities they create for extortions.

Randy Joe Sa’ah Azeng

Some 25 innocent Southern Cameroonian citizens accused of hostility against the Biya Francophone Beti Ewondo regime were made to appear last week at the Yaounde Military Tribunal alongside the leaders of the Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium.

The 25 Southern Cameroon youths were arrested in connection with the demonstrations linked to the Anglophone crisis and have been charged with hostility against the homeland, degradation of public property, looting, terrorism and financing of terrorism.

The second trial of Barrister Agbor Balla, Dr. Neba Fontem and BBC Mancho ended up in fiasco as the chief clerk of the Yaounde Military Tribunal decided to listen to the 25 new accused cases simultaneously with that of the detained Consortium leaders

The Francophone Judge of the tribunal, who identified the 25 new suspects, wanted the trial of the three Anglophone leaders and the latter to become a single case. The Attorney-General’s Office had indeed stated that there was some connectivity between the acts of the first three and the 25.

By Rita Akana in Yaounde

It has emerged many Judges believe the arrest and detention of an Advocate General of the Supreme Court of Cameroon is an insult, but do not dare to make their opinion public. Lord Justice Paul Ayah Abine, advocate general at the Supreme Court was arrested in his home as part of a government crackdown on the Anglophone community.

A Francophone Judge last week blatantly refused to release him from detention as demanded by his lawyers who stated that his arrest violated Cameroon’s criminal proceedings.  According to article 629 of the Code of Criminal Procedure: when a magistrate of the judicial order is liable to be charged with an offense, the competent public prosecutor submits an application to the president of the Supreme Court who appoints a magistrate to examine the case and three others, at least at the same level as the accused, with a view to the possible trial of the case in the first instance.

The deliberate silence maintained by the Judges of the Supreme Court of Cameroon on the detention of Lord Justice Paul Ayah Abine is worrying. The magistrates have been saying privately that they are very unhappy about what is happening. But are subject to a certain law of silence and therefore, cannot express themselves publicly about their discontent.  Local media reports say there is an urgent need for the establishment of a magistrates ‘union, as is the case in the Republic of Chad.

One of the magistrates who spoke to us and sued for anonymity observed that “In a system such as ours where the Head of State appoints the magistrates and he can sanction them, transfer them as he pleases and where everyone is trying to preserve his advantages or his post. They cannot complain publicly. But it is rather striking that the magistrates remained absolutely silent before the cavalier arrest of one of their own.”

The silence of Cameroonian Magistrates and Judges is surprising when one considers that Lord Justice Ayah Paul is a very high magistrate who has been the subject of an arrest and lengthy police custody.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

Ace CRTV’s Sport Journalist, Deputy Director in charge of coordinating new Television Channels has been summoned to appear before investigators at the State Defense Secretariat of the National Gendarmerie. The sports commentator is expected to appear before at SED on Tuesday March 28, 2017 by 9 am local time.

Though the reasons for his convocation is not made known in the summon served him upon instructions from ‘hierarchy’, it however revealed that it is related to treason according to the criminal Procedure Code. Other sources say he will also be questioned on what the regime has painted as his “special relations with the Chairman and Editor-in-Chief of the Cameroon Concord News Group, Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai and the accreditation of a CRTV crew  for the FIFA World Cup in Brazil.

If he is apprehended, he will become the 9th Journalists to be arrested since the start of the Anglophone problem. His appearance will be the second in one week after Barrister Akere Muna was previously heard at the same institution in relation to the Anglophone crisis. Fon Echekiye writes on his facebook page that “Bracing up For unusual chat Tuesday.”

By Rita Akana with cables from Cameroun Info.Net

Francophone government officials in Southern Cameroons have voiced plans of setting up community policing groups in the face of attacks in schools and business establishments. Policing in West Cameroon has failed and the already tense climate in the North West and South West regions has taken on a new dimension since the so-called Prime Minister and Head of Government, Philemon Yang’s tour.

Increasing insecurity, threats to parents defying the Consortium, burning of teachers’ vehicles, fire in colleges and the destruction of shops that opened their doors during ghost towns are some of the issues occupying the Francophone administrative personnel in Southern Cameroons. Several government academic institutions in both the South West and North West have been destroyed. These are actions carried out by a group of individuals whose identities remain unknown.

“We do not know what to expect or who they will attack next. These are new methods to intimidate those parents and students who go to class and who no longer wish to stay at home. We are afraid, because we do not know who is behind this other form of terror,” noted a Francophone parent resident in Bamenda.

To put an end to this situation, a meeting was held in the services of Governor Adolphe Lele Lafrique, in the presence of traditional and religious authorities. A spokesperson for the Francophone governor revealed that “All have opted for vigilance committees to fight the specter that worries the Anglophone regions. During the meeting, the pro CPDM traditional leaders of Mezam as well as the mayors resolved to create non-state policing groups to secure property and public buildings.

By Sama Ernest