News

6, January 2017

Anglophone soldiers in the Far North region to begin strike action ⁰

The National Telegraph, a home based Anglophone tabloid is reporting that Anglophone soldiers have given President. Biya one condition to look into their worries else they will be forced to follow the footsteps of the Common Law Lawyers and Anglophone teachers in the wake of what has now become known as the Anglophone struggle. The sister publication observed that Anglophone Soldiers of the 2015 batch in the Far North have given the Presidency an ultimatum to solve a bulk of their problems otherwise they would begin a strike action.

Cameroon Intelligence Report is yet to confirm the correctness of this developing story. However, some media sources say the Anglophone soldiers of that batch are being discriminated upon and wouldn’t take any further discrimination from the government. According to National Telegraph sources, since the soldiers stepped foot into Far North, life has been extremely difficult with little or no government attention towards their well being.

“Every day, we are traumatized by the enemy with attacks which one can hardly count. Many of our friends die, we bear all the heart aches, and we spent a year knowing that we will be replaced by others in order to rest for a while even if we have to come back, yet government completely relegates us to the background. September 2016 was programmed to replace people but we were shocked to hear that only the ”ancients”, mostly Francophones were replaced and we were left behind to continue with the new people entering”, an Anglophone soldier confided in National Telegraph.

National Telegraph further stipulated that the Ministry of Defense has a duty and obligation to replace soldiers sent to the Far North one year from date of deployment. National Telegraph revealed that Francophones are mostly taken away from the Far North while Anglophones remain in the same spot. The soldiers have also complained that the individual guns they are using always fail to shoot during attacks because it’s second-rate thereby leading to the deaths of many which is usually not reported by the government. We have very little weapons while the enemy is well armed. We need to know if really we are sent to defend the country or we are sacrificial lambs.

National Telegraph insider quizzed. Furthermore, the health of these soldiers is worrisome; National Telegraph reported that, when they are sick or injured, treatment depends on the individual based on the feeding allowance that is given to them usually on the 7th, 8th or 9th of each month. It’s with that same money and so-called risk allowance that the soldiers can buy drugs by the road side to treat themselves. How can we lack medical care as soldiers defending the nation? one of the soldiers lamented.

According to the National Telegraph, even the 20 permission days which is by right has been suspended and they have spent months going nowhere. The soldiers according to National Telegraph have tabled their problems to the President and have stated in clear terms that should they not be replaced by January 28, 2017, and their bonuses paid all at once, they will begin a strike action. National Telegraph Editorial further writes: “The announcement by Anglophone soldiers is coming at a time when two meetings in Bamenda and Yaoundé between government and representatives of the teachers and lawyers respectively ended in deadlock. The Lawyers and Teachers have been on a peaceful demonstration for months. Schools have virtually shut down in the two English-speaking regions of the North West and South West while courts have completely gone paralyzed. The lawyers have been condemning the infringement on the Common Law system amongst other things while the teachers have decried the erosion of the Anglo-Saxon system of education amongst others.

The general Anglophone community, mostly youths have now joined the struggle demanding for Federalism. Since the strike, tempers have flared and there have been clashes between civilians and security forces. In Buea, several University students were arrested and detained arbitrarily. Others were raped, beaten and looted by security forces sent to maintain peace and order. In Bamenda and Kumba, casualties were recorded with at least five protesters killed by police. Several others were injured while others still remain in detention. Businesses have been slowed down and travelling in some cases made difficult.

In the Bamenda and Yaounde meetings, Teachers and Lawyers demanded for the immediate release of all those held in detention. Meanwhile, all Anglophone Bishops of the Roman Catholic Church have written to the President pointing the need for dialogue. As at the date of this publication, President Biya who has been accused for being in power for too long is yet to make any official statement on the matter….”

Culled from CIR

5, January 2017

Biya cancels New Year Wishes ceremony ²

President Paul Biya is said to be under considerable pressure and panic in Yaoundé after it was revealed that his New Year Day speech was leaked to the public hours before his televised presentation on the 31^st of December. A well-placed source at the Presidency told Cameroon Intelligence Report that close aides to Biya are urging him to order the arrest of many of his collaborators.

The situation became more complicated yesterdays during a press conference by the minister of Employment and Vocational Training, Hon. Zacharie Perevette who Contradicted President Biya’s end of year speech when he observed that the head of state was wrong when Biya said in 2016, 320,000 jobs were Created instead of 400,000 .

Insiders say it was because Jacques Fame Ndongo, the Minister of Higher Education who is responsible for writing the Head of State’s speech, did not consult other cabinet ministers before preparing the document. Jacques Fame Ndongo was in the South West region pushing the Consortium to call off the strike action and the ghost town operation to begin on Monday the 9^th 2017.

In France, the president is reportedly being urged by his French mentors to quit the leadership of the CPDM an opinion which has been shared by some senior Francophone Beti Ewondo politicians. The many scandals that have rocked Etoudi including news that some prominent Anglophone political elites are threatening to join the Southern Cameroons Struggle has prompted Biya to cancel the presentation of New Year wishes at State House scheduled for today Thursday 5th Jan.2017.

Our Yaoundé informant hinted that the ceremony has been rescheduled on Friday the 6^th of January 2017. CPDM insiders are now arguing that Biya having succeeded in defusing political tension that was generated by Fru Ndi and the SDF, should very much consider retiring at the end of his current seven-year term.

Culled from Cameroon Intelligence Report

5, January 2017

Nigeria: 3 female bombers killed in a crowded market ⁰

Pro-government anti-terror fighters in Nigeria have managed to kill three radicalized girls before they could detonate their explosive vests in a crowded market in the country’s northeastern province of Adamawa, officials say.

The incident occurred on Wednesday when civilian fighters spotted the three girls and became suspicious that they were wearing explosive vests as the three were trying to pass a checkpoint in a village near the town of Madagali, said local council chairman Yusuf Muhammad Gulak. He said the girls ignored the fighters’ commands to stop and began running, prompting fire from the forces.

According to Gulak, the girl in the lead was shot first, and her explosives were activated as a result. The blast killed her and another one of the would-be terrorists. The third girl was also gunned down as she tried to escape the scene. Officials blamed the Takfiri Boko Haram terrorist group for the attempted attack.

In recent months, army troops and civilian fighters in Nigeria have managed to foil many bomb attacks involving terrorists wearing explosive vests before the assailants were able to reach heavily-populated targets and detonate their bombs of their own accord.

Last month, however, two women, with the Boko Haram, killed 57 people and injured 177, including 120 children, after they detonated their explosive vests at a bustling market at Madagali, some 20 kilometers from the Wednesday shootings scene. Boko Haram later claimed responsibility for the massacre. On December 24, Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari, who came to power in 2015 with a pledge to eradicate Boko Haram, announced that the army had “crushed” the terror group a day earlier by retaking its last key bastion, deep inside the thick Sambisa Forest in the northeastern province of Borno.

Boko Haram terrorists started their reign of terror in 2009 with the aim of toppling the Nigerian government. In their heyday in early 2015, they managed to control an area in the country’s northeast as vast as Belgium, but they lost most of that territory over the last year as the Nigerian government, along with troops from some affected neighboring countries such as Chad and Cameroon, launched a joint military campaign to eradicate the militant group. The group, whose name means “Western education is forbidden,” has pledged allegiance to Daesh, a Takfiri terrorist group mainly active in Iraq and Syria. Boko Haram terrorists have so far killed more than 20,000 people and forced over 2.7 million others from their homes.

Presstv

5, January 2017

CPDM malicious plot to stifle the ghost town operations uncovered ²

The government is reportedly doing everything to destroy the present Anglophone nationalism. Information has filtered that following a meeting that held in Yaoundé on Monday the 2nd of January, the the regime developed strategies which were handed down to highly placed Anglophone political elites. The vicious arrangements include:

That all the political elites, Senators, MPs ,and Mayors of the ruling CPDM should jointly sign press releases and make public to their people asking them to denounce strike and go back to school on Monday.
That instructions be given to all administrative authorities in the Anglophone regions to hold meetings latest Friday the 5th and send reports on the same day. Main agenda is to tell all education stake holders to get back to school on Monday.
To use the media on Monday to cover schools reopening and show to the world that there is no Anglophone problem.
Money allocated for this exercise are as follows:
a) Governors of the South West and North West regions= 30.000,000 frs
b) S.D.Os = 100.000,000 FRS each.
c) D.Os = 150.000,000 FRS each.

That these amounts should be used as follows:

Governors to use theirs for proper supervision of their respective regions
SDOs to call meetings and ensure entrainment, transport to participants and tips to local media men and women.
DOs to also call meetings and ensure entertainment, transport to participants and tips to local media gurus. Pay some money to some teachers, popular parents, traditional authorities and other Southern Cameroonians who will accept to denounce the strike on radio and television.

We gathered that a huge Francophone reward awaits constituencies and sub constituencies that will succeed to stifle the Southern Cameroons ghost town operation. Many of the Anglophone political elites have been promised appointments and promotions.

5, January 2017

Gunmen have killed 2 peacekeepers in the Central African Republic ⁰

Gunmen have killed two Moroccan peacekeepers with a UN mission in the southeast of the Central African Republic (CAR). MINUSCA, or the Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic, said in a statement on Wednesday that the peacekeepers were attacked while they were escorting fuel trucks on Tuesday afternoon about 60 kilometers west of the town of Obo.

MINUSCA said two other peacekeepers were injured in the attack. The attackers “fled into the bush.” Parfait Onanga-Anyanga, the head of MINUSCA, denounced the attack, saying, “No claim can justify individuals directing their grievances against peacekeepers whose presence on CAR soil is only aimed at helping the country emerge from the cycle of violence.”

In March 2013, the Central African Republic toppled into chaos when then President Francois Bozize was ousted by the mainly Seleka rebel alliance and was replaced by Michel Am-Nondokro Djotodia, the first Muslim to hold the presidency in the generally-Christian nation.

The coup, however, caused a series of deadly retaliatory attacks between the Seleka rebels and the Christian militia known as anti-balaka, who reacted by engaging in large-scale attacks against the minority Muslims. Some 13,000 peacekeepers have been deployed to the country by the UN as part of MINUSCA. Civilians, however, say it does not do enough to protect them against scores of armed groups.

Presstv

4, January 2017

Southern Cameroons to begin ghost town operations soonest ⁰

The leaders of the Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium, CACSC, have signed an important document declaring the beginning of ghost town operations on Monday the 9^th of January in British Southern Cameroons.

In a statement jointly signed by the President Barrister Agbor Felix Nkongho, Dr Fontem Neba of SYNES University of Buea and Wilfred Tassang of Cameroon Teachers Trade Union, the Anglophone leaders appealed to all Southern Cameroonians residing in the North West and South West regions to see themselves as one person and stage a ghost town operation to counter what they termed governments attitude to undermine the will of the Anglophone people and to get schools start without solving the problems raised by Anglophone teachers and the Common Law Lawyers.

Said the leaders “We must stand together and continue our peaceful resistance until the demands of the Lawyers and teachers tabled relating to our existence have been satisfactorily addressed.”

The Consortium observed that all teachers, lawyers, taxi drivers, commercial bike riders, business operators and all Southern Cameroons citizens should stay at home on Monday January 9, 2017. The leaders have demanded a total shut down of schools, markets and businesses. They have also requested Southern Cameroonians to stay away from street marches, public demonstrations and avoid any confrontation with the forces of law and order including the army.

The decision was made public some few minutes after some political elites from the North West and South West regions in a joint press release called on Anglophone parents to send their children to school on Monday January 9, 2017.

Culled from Cameroon Intelligence Report

4, January 2017

South West CPDM barons have declared their unflinching support for the Southern Cameroons struggle ³

Highly placed government officials from the South West region have declared their unflinching support for the Southern Cameroons nationalism. The political elites based in Yaounde the nation’s capital have reportedly addressed an anonymous letter to the Anglophone teachers and the Common Law Lawyers consortium. Our senior political correspondent in the Center region reported that tension seems to be mounting deep within the ruling party for Biya to resolve amicably the Anglophone problem. Below is a copy of the document as sent to our London news desk:

To Southern Cameroonians and

Particularly To The Consortium.

We want to applaud the efforts put forth already by the southern Cameroonians in the fight for our liberation. We understand that as CPDM militants our efforts might be hindered by party lines but with what a few of us have seen and experience these days in Yaoundé has made some of us to start having a rethink thereby choosing the liberation movement over party bonuses. We want all of you to first of all understand that this fight is legitimate as it is backed by our constitution. We all as Southern Cameroonians have been marginalized and manipulated irrespective of our political affiliations. The future of our grand and great grand children is in jeopardy.

During the last presidential address, the president ignored all our advices given to him which were aimed at either organizing a referendum for a federal state or putting the decentralization model into practice. We also asked him not to be harsh when addressing the Anglophone problem but because his believes in what Prof. Fame Ndongo tells him, he went on to call us extremist. How can he then call for dialogue with people termed as “Extremist”?.

Our main aim of writing is to encourage all southern Cameroonians not to give up now. Yaoundé the capital is in serious dilemma. If we relent our efforts and go back to school or courts it means we will NEVER be taken seriously. This is the period to double our efforts so that our demands can be made instantly. For this to be achieved we call on the various Teachers Trade Union Leaders and Lawyers. Parents most understand that this fight is for a more propitious future for their children because if we allow things they way there are now, our children will not have any voice in this Union in the next thirty years or so.

Most ministers, directors, and corrupt government officials have build many hostels in Buea and they are afraid of their investment being destroyed. Also most of their children are in Anglophone boarding secondary schools and Universities thus they will want our grievances to be resolved at all cost. We should understand at this point that the president hardly fulfils his promises. If we don’t double our efforts his promise of creating a permanent “National Institution” to look into our problems will just die a natural death just like other previous promises. What we are saying in that the STRIKE MOST CONTINUE in full swing. We have gone far and many people have died for this struggle to end without concrete solutions. We are happy because with your expertise in social media as we have experienced, this message will be rapidly spread for everyone to be aware of some of our positions to this struggle.

4, January 2017

Vice Chancellor of the University of Bamenda hosting anti Anglophone meeting ⁰

We have gotten intelligence that there is a meeting presently going on in the University of Bamenda grouping all heads of government establishments, directors and top management called by the Vice Chancellor of the university under the instructions of the most anti Anglophone cabinet minister ever, Fame Ndongo.

The so called minister for Higher Education has reportedly given standing orders to the Anglophone heads that they should diverse a method to call off the strike and students should resume classes. (This story is developing and was culled from a sister publication Cameroon Intelligence Report)

4, January 2017

New UN Secretary General says he is not a miracle maker ⁰

The new United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres has warned that he is not a “miracle maker” and that the global body faces “very challenging times.” Guterres made the remark on Tuesday before starting his first official day of work at the UN headquarters in New York after succeeding Ban Ki-moon as secretary general on January 1.

“I think it is useful to say there are no miracles…I am sure I am not a miracle maker,” he said. He went on to underscore the large number of complex crises around the world the United Nations must deal with, adding that the world body should have no “illusions” over the “challenging times” it faces.

“We see everywhere in the world conflicts that multiply and are interlinked and have triggered this new phenomenon of global terrorism,” he added. Guterres stressed that despite easing the sufferings of some people, “we still fail in the prevention of conflicts and conflict resolution.”

He went on to add that there is a large amount of resistance around the world and a large amount of skepticism over the UN’s role. “We need to be able to recognize our shortcomings, our failures…get rid of the straightjacket of bureaucracy,” he added. “The only way we can achieve our goals is to really work together as a team and serve the values enshrined in the Charter and that unite humanity.”

Guterres was elected for the post by the UN General Assembly for a five-year term on October 13 last year. He was the prime minister of Portugal from 1995 to 2002, and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees from June 2005 to December 2015. In his first message as the UN chief, Guterres called on all people across the globe to put “peace” above all else. “Let us resolve to put peace first,” he said.

Presstv

4, January 2017

Multiple secret visits to Bamenda by Francophone officials ⁰

The National Executive Secretary of Cameroon Teachers Trade Union, CATTU, Wilfred Tassang has revealed that the government of Cameroon is presently in a desperate attempt to forcefully get schools to resume come Monday Jan 9. Wilfred Tassang opined that “Huge sums of money were dulled out to traditional rulers this Christmas through governors to first class rulers, SDOs to second class and DOs to third class rulers to pressure the teachers.” Cameroon Intelligence Report understands the money is part of the 24 billion FCFA paid by the Minister of Finance to CPDM business tycoon Baba Danpullo.

Cameroun Info.Net reported earlier today that Mr. Wilfred Tassang has sounded a note of caution to all traditional rulers against receiving such money to sell their consciences. “Whilst we caution any of our fathers who have taken this money of wickedness not to further desecrate the throne and their authority by taking the wrong side in this struggle, we appeal to all stakeholders not get give up at this point in time, when victory is so close.”

He added that “Those who are for us are more than those who are against us. That’s the only reason to be advanced for the fact the President’s speech leaked more than 3hrs to presentation. We have friends in very high places.” Wilfred Tassang observed that if the Biya Francophone Beti Ewondo government fails to force-start schools on the 9th, Yaoundé will also be forced to face the reality.

There have been multiple secret visits to Bamenda ever since the New Year by very highly placed CPDM government officials indicating yet another sign of desperation. Contrary to a position held by Justice Ayah Paul which called on the Anglophone leaders to give Biya a chance, it is evidently clear that the Biya regime up to now has not announced any measures taken to solve either the problems raised by lawyers or teachers. The Great Wilfred Tassang has appeal to all the teachers not to allow the strike to collapse. “If it does, we shall be greatly spited and the regime will not be under pressure to address these grievances.”

Mr Tassang has also warned union leaders against taking of bribes that will undermine the strike, in his words “For union leaders and others at the forefront of this struggle, beware! It has been revealed in the spirit realms, the release of a huge amount of VOODOO money meant to maim the brain and cause heavy carnage. We hereby call on all to fear God and resist the enemy that he may flee from us.”

The Executive Secretary of Cameroon Teachers trade Union however, reminded parents and the Anglophone student community that teachers and lawyers are not fighting for personal gains but to make Anglophone Cameroon children to be proud of belonging to a nation which they can call their own.

At the time of filing this report, information filtered out that Prime Minister Philemon Yang was en route to Bamenda in a bid to keep his job. The Teachers Trade Unionists say they have not been summoned to any meeting. It was reported that the anti Anglophone Higher Education Minister, Jacques Fame Ndongo was in Kumba to lure teachers back into the classrooms.

Culled from Cameroon Intelligence Report