His Excellency Mr António Guterres

Secretary-General

United Nations

One United Nations Plaza

New York, NY  10017

Open Letter

ABDUCTION, ILLEGAL DETENTION AND DEPORTATION OF MY HUSBAND (JULIUS AYUK TABE) AND 46 OTHER CAMEROONIAN ASYLUM SEEKERS AND REFUGEES BY THE AUTHORITIES OF CAMEROON AND NIGERIA.

Dear Mr Secretary-General,

From the opening moments of your tenure, you were determined to make the promotion of human dignity the core of your work, and pledged to help alleviate the sufferings of the most vulnerable people on earth, especially those forcefully displaced from their homes and communities. At your direction, the UN has adopted a “new approach” that recognizes the institution’s past failures and calls for a “victim-centered strategy rooted in transparency, accountability and justice.”You have spoken movingly of the plight of victims and described how their accounts will haunt you forever. On 26 June 2018, marking the International Day in Support of Victims of Torture, you stated that “torture in any form is absolutely unacceptable and can never be justified,”in all circumstances including periods of emergencies, political unrest and even war. This is inspiring and comforting, and gives me and families of victims worldwide some hope.

However,my husband Mr Julius Ayuk Tabe(leader of the people of the Southern Cameroons)and scores of other prominent Southern Cameroonian exiles living in Nigeria, who were abducted in Abuja on 5 January 2018, unlawfully deported to Cameroon and detained incommunicado for six months, are still languishing in illegal detention in Yaoundé, Cameroon. Prior to their abductions, many of them were working in Nigeria as university professors, engineers, businessmen and legal practitioners. Others were refugees who recently fled Cameroon Government-sponsored violence and incipient genocide in the Southern Cameroons.These abductions and extraditions were in flagrant violation of the United Nations Declarations of Human Rights, and the apparent continued silence of the United Nations on this issue calls into question the seriousness with which the United Nations takes its commitment to protect the fundamental rights of peoples everywhere.

Mr Secretary General, I plead with you to use your good offices to compel the government of Cameroon to release my husband and all other Southern Cameroonians being held illegally in detention centers in Cameroon, and for that government to end the genocide it is carrying out in the Southern Cameroons. My husband and fellow detained Southern Cameroonian leaders have suffered untold hardship, torture, cruelty, inhumane and degrading treatment in detention. Mr Secretary General, at the time of writing this Appeal, the Government of Cameroon announced that it had commenced the process of final interrogation of these detainees, after which they will be arraigned before the Military Tribunal in Yaoundé. If your office continues to be silent, the outcome of the trial by the Military Tribunal in Cameroon is predicted to parallel the unlawful hanging of Ken Saro Wiwa and his 9 Ogoni compatriots in Nigeria in 1995 after a similar trial by that nation’s Military Tribunal.

The inaction of the United Nations to compel the Government of Cameroon to respect its commitments under relevant international agreements and conventions it has ratified will send the wrong message to nations of the world that fundamental international regulatory instruments can be violated and eroded with impunity and without penalty. The weeks of street protests around the globe (including in front of the UN Headquarters in New York) led by the peace-loving people of the Southern Cameroons, which greeting the sad news of my husband’s illegal abduction and detention in Nigeria, bear testament to the weight of the responsibility Mr Ayuk Tabe bears as leader of the people of the Southern Cameroons. My husband and his lieutenants in the Southern Cameroons revolution are freedom fighters and men of peace, who are seeking to free our people from the determined clutches of the villainous vampiric political mess that is Cameroon. My husband and his colleagues are striving to restore dignity to the people of the Southern Cameroons by restoring their fundamental rights and freedoms as human beings.

I thank you for your time and hopefully look forward to your response.

Sincerely,

Lilian Ayuk Tabe

The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, is seeking access to Cameroon to verify what he says are alarming reports of horrific abuse by separatist and government forces in the country’s English-speaking Northwest and Southwest regions.

The U.N. human rights office said the situation in Cameroon’s English-speaking communities has worsened considerably since protests against what the English-speakers see as structural discrimination started two years ago.

The Anglophones are demanding an end to what they allege is their economic and political marginalization by the country’s Francophone majority.

The High Commissioner’s spokeswoman, Ravina Shamdasani, told VOA what began as protests for greater access to jobs and linguistic equality has gotten out of hand. She said violence by both armed separatists and the government has spiraled out of control.

“The violent separatists, these armed groups are killing people, torching schools, carrying out kidnappings and extortion and all sorts of horrible human rights abuses to try to disrupt the situation,” she said. “The government’s role should be to protect people in such a horrible environment. Instead, the government is employing a heavy-handed response, which is not helping the situation. It is further causing human rights violations.”

United Nations figures show more than 21,000 refugees have fled to neighboring countries, while some 160,000 people are internally displaced by the violence, with many reportedly hiding in forests.

An army spokesman has rejected charges of abuses by the security forces as “rumors.”

Shamdasani said there is a lot of misinformation and propaganda on both sides. She added that the High Commissioner has asked that monitors be allowed to verify allegations of abuse against both security forces and armed separatists.

The government has rejected this request, she said. Consequently, she added that the U.N. human rights office will have to consider other options to keep tabs on the situation, including remote monitoring.

Source: VOA

Russian President Vladimir Putin and his South African counterpart Cyril Ramaphosa met on the sidelines of the 10th BRICS summit in Johannesburg.

The leaders signed a joint declaration of strategic cooperation between Russia and South Africa on Thursday. They also signed an agreement relating to the agricultural sector and a memorandum of understanding on water resources.

The BRICS summit is taking place in Johannesburg between July 25 and 27. Heads of state or government from the five member states (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) will discuss areas of possible cooperation.

(Source: Ruptly)

A SOLDIER WALKS alone down a dirt road with an automatic rifle strapped to his back. It’s an innocuous beginning to a disturbing video.

Moments later, a group of soldiers and civilians follows. Another man – dressed in military fatigues and wearing aviator sunglasses — repeatedly strikes a woman who clutches the hand of a young girl, perhaps 7 or 8 years old. “You are going to die,” says the soldier, who refers to the woman as “BH,” an apparent reference to Boko Haram. He steers her off the road, and the young girl, likely her daughter, follows. Another soldier does the same to a second woman who has a toddler strapped to her back, guiding her into a dirt expanse.

Videos of executions have become commonplace in our news culture, with the Islamic State, Al Qaeda, and other terror groups filming atrocities and sharing them on social media. But this video from Cameroon is particularly cold-blooded. The soldiers make the women kneel on the ground. One of the soldiers gestures to the young girl and says, “Yes. Little girl, come here,” directing her to stand next to her mother. He then pulls the girl’s shirt over her head, blindfolding her.

Gunshots follow in fast succession.

The violence seems to have ended until a soldier goes to inspect the bodies. “The child is still alive,” he says, standing over the young girl, who has collapsed to the ground and lies on her back, with no perceptible movement. Another shot is fired at her. A few feet away, the toddler strapped to the other woman’s back lies motionless. All of them – the two women and two children — have been executed.

“I had to watch the video many times in order to analyze it,” said Ilaria Allegrozzi, Amnesty International’s Lake Chad researcher and no stranger to atrocity videos associated with the Boko Haram conflict in the region. “It haunted me for days afterward. It’s one of the most disturbing videos I have ever seen in my career.”

The atrocity in this video was not carried out by Boko Haram or ISIS or Al Qaeda. It appears to have been committed by members of Cameroon’s armed forces – a military that receives substantial aid from the United States, whose troops operate from secretive drone bases in the north of the country. It is one of America’s closest military allies on the continent.

“Cameroon is a vital partner in the fight against Boko Haram, ISIS-West Africa, and other violent extremist organizations in the Lake Chad Basin region,” Maj. Sheryll Klinkel, a Pentagon spokesperson, told The Intercept. “Our relationship with Cameroon is designed to promote stability and security within the region.”

Snippets of the video have been published by a variety of news outlets, but none have shown the executions. The Intercept has obtained the full video and is publishing it with subtitles (the dialogue is in French). With the U.S. government offering no indication that it is reconsidering its aid to Cameroon’s military — the State Department and the Pentagon have merely called on Cameroon to investigate what happened — it is in the public interest for an authenticated and translated version of the entire video to be made available.

The video first came to public attention earlier this month, when it began to circulate online. Government spokesperson Issa Tchiroma Bakary quickly branded it as “fake news” and said it was “an unfortunate attempt to distort actual facts and intoxicate the public.”

Amnesty International soon issued a detailed analysis of the footage in a report that accused Cameroon’s armed forces of responsibility. “The Cameroonian authorities’ initial claim that this shocking video is fake simply doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. We can provide credible evidence to the contrary,” said Samira Daoud, deputy director of Amnesty International’s West Africa office. “Given the gravity of these horrific acts — the cold-blooded and calculated slaughter of women and young children — these hasty and dismissive denials cast serious doubt over whether any investigation will be genuine.”

After Amnesty released its report, State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert issued a statement expressing concern about the executions. “International media, Amnesty International, and Cameroonian human rights organizations attribute the actions portrayed in the video to the Cameroonian military,” the statement read. “We call on the Government of Cameroon to investigate thoroughly and transparently the events depicted in the video, make its findings public, and if Cameroonian military personnel were involved in this atrocity, hold them accountable.”

The Pentagon echoed the State Department’s position. “We are aware of the video. At this time, we cannot confirm the authenticity of the video, nor can we confirm any possible military affiliation of those shown in this troubling video,” Klinkel told The Intercept by email. “We echo the State Department’s call for the Government of Cameroon to investigate thoroughly and transparently the events depicted in the video, make its findings public, and if Cameroonian military personnel were involved in this atrocity, hold them accountable.”

Allegrozzi says more is necessary. “This should be part of a broader effort by the government to put an end to grave human rights violations by Cameroon’s security forces fighting Boko Haram,” she told The Intercept.

With media and political pressure mounting, Cameroon’s government seemed to backtrack and reportedly arrested four soldiers, three of them directly implicated in the killings, according to a July 19 article from Agence France-Presse. But the minister of defense, Joseph Beti Assomo, has also accused the writer and activist Patrice Nganang of creating the video in order to “overwhelm” Cameroon’s armed forces.

ACCORDING TO AMNESTY, the executions of the two women and two young children were likely carried out by members of Cameroon’s armed forces in the Far North region of the country. “Both the weapons and uniforms of the soldiers in the video are indicative of the Cameroon army, and display patterns consistent with a number of possible units, including regular infantry and the Rapid Intervention Battalion (BIR), the special forces of the Cameroonian army,” reads a statement issued by the human rights group.

It’s unclear when the executions of the four unarmed civilians occurred, but emergence of the video comes roughly one year after Amnesty, the London-based research firm Forensic Architecture, and The Intercept exposed illegal imprisonment, torture, and killings by Cameroonian troops – specifically the BIR — at a remote military base that is also used by U.S. personnel and private contractors for drone surveillance and training missions. As the U.S. military fortified the Cameroonian site, known as Salak, and supported the elite local troops based there, Amnesty found that suspects held at the outpost were subjected to water torture, beaten with electric cables and boards, or tied and suspended with ropes, among other abuses.

The United States has a long tradition of working with unsavory regimes — from Chile’s brutal military dictatorship under Augusto Pinochet to Indonesia’s brutal military dictatorship under Suharto — and training with “partner-nation” security forces that have been implicated in serious criminal acts. A 2016 joint investigation by The Intercept and 100 Reporters, analyzing 6,176 leaked diplomatic cables, found that the process to weed out human rights abusers from U.S. training programs relied on highly questionable vetting procedures.

If the response of the U.S. military to the Salak disclosures is any indication, the latest controversy over the videotaped executions in Cameroon will not fundamentally alter America’s relationship with the West African nation.

After the Salak revelations, U.S. Africa Command launched an investigation, but never publicly announced details about its aims. According to a State Department official who spoke on the condition of anonymity, AFRICOM’s investigation “did not consider Cameroonian human rights violations but focused on whether DoD [Department of Defense] personnel had knowledge of abuses by Cameroonian military forces.”

It appears, in other words, that the U.S. military was less concerned with what the Cameroonians were doing, than whether any Americans knew about it. According to Klinkel, the Pentagon spokesperson, the investigation “looked into the involvement, knowledge, reporting, and training of U.S. forces deployed to Cameroon as they relate to allegations in the Amnesty International report” and “whether U.S. forces were aware of any actual or alleged human rights abuses committed by Cameroonian forces prior to the Amnesty International report.”

While the investigation, headed by Brig. Gen. Timothy McAteer, concluded last November, the report was never made public. For nearly one year, AFRICOM has ignored periodic requests from The Intercept seeking comment about the parameters, scope, and findings of its probe. “I do not have a timeline on when the investigation results will be publicly released,” Klinkel told The Intercept.

“The results of the investigation have yet to be publicly released and this must be rectified,” Amnesty’s Ilaria Allegrozzi, said. “The report must be publicly released, not only to find out if any U.S. military personnel were aware of incommunicado detention and torture, but also to convey to the Cameroonian authorities how seriously the United States takes this issue.”

Following the 2017 torture revelations, U.S. military assistance to some, if not all, military units in Cameroon was reportedly suspended. The Pentagon claimed not to “have anything” on the subject, but the State Department official told The Intercept that “the suspension was based on the [U.S. government] analysis of all sources of credible information, including the 2017 Amnesty International report.” The official said assistance was suspended “to all Cameroonian security force units where there is credible information implicating those units in the commission of gross violations of human rights,” also known as GVHR. The official did not, however, specify which Cameroonian units had been cited and whether they had any connection to the 2017 allegations. “The suspension of assistance to these units will remain in effect until the allegations of GVHR are resolved, and the Government of Cameroon has taken effective steps to hold perpetrators accountable, as appropriate,” the official told The Intercept.

In April, the State Department released its annual human rights assessment of Cameroon and cited Amnesty’s 2017 findings, detailing a raft of abuses, including

Arbitrary and unlawful killings through excessive use of force by security forces; disappearances by security forces and Boko Haram; torture and abuse by security forces including in military and unofficial detention facilities; prolonged arbitrary detentions including of suspected Boko Haram supporters and individuals in the Anglophone regions; harsh and life- threatening prison conditions. … In the Far North region, security forces also were reported responsible for holding incommunicado, torturing, and in at least 10 cases killing suspected Boko Haram and Islamic State (ISIS)-West Africa supporters in detention facilities run by the military and intelligence services.

Klinkel said that the State Department report did not result in any changes to the assistance provided to Cameroon. “DoD provides assistance ONLY to Cameroonian units who have NOT been credibly implicated in gross violations of human rights after a thorough vetting process,” she wrote in an email. “U.S. law prohibits DoD from providing any training, equipment, or other assistance to a unit of a foreign security force if DoD has credible information that the unit has committed a gross violation of human rights.”

Just 10 days before the State Department took Cameroon to task in print, Peter Barlerin, the U.S. ambassador there, presided over a ceremony celebrating the transfer of two American-made surveillance aircraft to the Cameroon Air Force. He seemingly contradicted key findings of the human rights report. “Cameroon is a model of effective cooperation between the army and the inhabitants of the Far North to ensure their safety,” Barlerin told the audience. “Cameroon’s efforts to collaborate with the United States and credible international organizations in the provision of training on human rights, respect for the law of armed conflict, and the control of the army by civilians deserve special mention.”

In May, at an event marking the start of a two-year State Department-funded counter terrorism initiative, Barlerin called attention to the fact that the United States “advises and assists Cameroonian forces, trains its forces, and provides intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance support.” Days later, in prepared remarks, he noted that Cameroon’s military was, indeed, guilty of “targeted killings, detentions without access to legal support, family, or the Red Cross, and burning and looting of villages.” He nonetheless “congratulated” Cameroonian President Paul Biya – who has now held power for 35 years — on “joint efforts to fight Boko Haram and the Islamic State in the Far North.”

On July 3, in remarks at a U.S. Independence Day celebration at the Hilton hotel in Cameroon’s capital, Yaoundé, Barlerin seemed to suggest an agree-to-disagree mindset. “It is good to see an opening in Cameroon with regard to national and international organizations working in the field of human rights — we do not have to agree on everything to discuss around a table,” he said.

Source: The Intercept

The United Nations human rights chief said on Wednesday he was “utterly appalled” by a recent video appearing to show Cameroonian soldiers shooting to death women carrying small children as suspected Boko Haram extremists.

“I am deeply worried that these killings captured on camera may not be isolated cases,” the statement by Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein said.

Zeid also said he was deeply alarmed by reports of abuses in Cameroon’s northwest and southwest where deadly fighting has grown between security forces and Anglophone separatists.

The unrest that began in 2016 with teachers and lawyers demanding respect for the regions’ English education and justice systems led to a government crackdown and the emergence of armed separatists seeking an English-speaking state. The government in largely French-speaking Cameroon has barred the UN human rights office from those areas, Zeid said.

Human rights groups have accused both sides of abuses including torture and the burning of homes, and the UN has said more than 180 000 people have fled.

The government’s “heavy-handed security response” will only make life worse for civilians, Zeid said.

The government has condemned separatist attacks and defended its security forces, saying all alleged atrocities are investigated.

Warnings about Cameroon’s security crisis are growing as the Central African nation faces an October election in which 85-year-old President Paul Biya, in power since 1982, says he will run again.

Source: AP

Former Ghanaian Head of State Jerry Rawlings has criticized the international community for turning a blind eye to the plight of Southern Cameroonians, urging France and the European Union to unite in support of the persecuted English speaking minority in Cameroon.

The senior Ghanaian citizen made the comments at a special edition of GUBA Awards 2018 in Ghana recently.  He condemned the global media blackout on the sufferings of Southern Cameroonians, saying horrific images of the killings in Ambazonian of women and children have made no headlines in media worldwide.

The Great JJ also censured the international community’s indifference to the plight of Southern Cameroonians and called on the United Nations to focus on the crisis gripping the English speaking community in Cameroon.

Southern Cameroonians have been deprived of their inalienable rights while facing systematic discrimination, violence and hatred from the Biya regime. Rawlings further urged the French government to pressure Biya’s government to respect Anglophone rights, advocating for the urgent dispatch of humanitarian aid to the internally displaced Southern Cameroonians inside Cameroon and those forced to take refuge in neighboring Nigeria.

Rawlings urged the Biya Francophone regime to end its crackdown on Southern Cameroonians. Many Southern Cameroonians have suffered appalling deaths, and those that have lived through the atrocities have witnessed or endured unspeakable cruelty.

The Southern Cameroons community is one of the most persecuted minorities in Africa. Some 161,000 Ambazonians are languishing in displacement locations in French Cameroun since President Biya declared war against the English speaking community in Cameroon.

The French Cameroun army has carried out several operations in Southern Cameroons, home to about 8 million English speaking Cameroonians. For over two years now, there have been numerous reports of arbitrary killing, rape and other atrocities against Southern Cameroonians at the hands of troops loyal to the Biya Francophone regime. At least 50,000 Southern Cameroonians have fled to neighboring Nigeria in the face of the crackdown.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

A senior aide to Acting President Samuel Ikome Sako has said that the Interim Government is preparing a response over recent shocking killings of Southern Cameroonians in Fako, Meme, Lebialem and Mezam Counties. The Ambazonian official who is currently in Southern Cameroons also underlined the need for an independent investigation into the carnage in Muyuka that led to the death of a Roman Catholic priest Rev. Father Sob.

In a telephone conversation with our correspondent in Buea, the President Sako senior adviser voiced concerns about tensions in Southern Cameroons over the past few months, which have seen French Cameroun government forces kill almost 300 Southern Cameroonians and injured dozens.

The Interim Government (IG) of the Federal of Ambazonia recently warned that the Biya regime military escalation has the potential to generate threats to peace even in French Cameroun. The Ambazonian Interim Government also noted that President Sako has ordered IG agents in both the Northern and Southern zones to advance accountability for the killings, as well as all alleged violations and abuses of international humanitarian law.

Tensions have been running high along the border separating the Lebialem County and Dschang in French Cameroun with a Cameroon government official revealing that some 140 Ambazonian fighters serving with the Red Dragons were reportedly killed by Cameroon government forces.

The Southern Cameroons war reached its peak recently following an attack on defense minister Beti Assomo’s convoy. Political commentators have warned that the situation in Southern Cameroons may be severely aggravated in the coming months. It is anticipated that the October presidential elections could also further inflame tensions.

No UN official has criticized French Cameroun military activities in Southern Cameroons.  The so-called African Union has also not condemned the Biya regime’s detention of thousands of Southern Cameroons children.

An estimated 865 Southern Cameroonians are being held in administrative detention in Kondengui and SED in Yaounde. Yaoundé has blatantly refused to charge or release all of them. The administrative detention is a form of imprisonment without trial or charge that allows the Biya Francophone regime to incarcerate Southern Cameroonians for an unlimited period.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

China’s President Xi Jinping pledged during a visit to Senegal on Saturday to strengthen economic ties with Africa, a continent already awash with cheap Chinese loans in exchange for minerals and huge construction projects.

Xi arrived in Senegal on Saturday for a two-day visit to sign bilateral deals, the first leg of an Africa tour that will also take him to Rwanda and South Africa, the latter for a summit of BRICS countries: Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.

China now does more trade with Africa than any other nation does, and its consistent overtures to the continent contrast sharply with the United States, whose President Donald Trump has shown little interest in it.

The visit was Xi’s first trip to West Africa as president, but his fourth to Africa, he told a joint press conference with Senegalese President Macky Sall after their third ever meeting.

“Every time I come to Africa, I have seen the dynamism of the continent and the aspirations of its people for development,” Xi said. “I am very confident in the future of Sino-African relations.”

Earlier, Xi was greeted by a brass band and hundreds of people waving Chinese and Senegalese flags and wearing T-shirts emblazoned with the two leaders’ faces.

Chinese investment in African infrastructure

Africa is in the midst of a boom in infrastructure projects, managed and cheaply financed by China, part of Xi’s “Belt and Road” initiative to build a transport network connecting China by land and sea to Southeast Asia, Central Asia, the Middle East, Europe and Africa.

China has pledged $126 billion for the plan, which has been praised by its supporters as a source of vital financing for the developing world. In Senegal, Chinese loans have financed a highway linking the capital Dakar to Touba, its second main city, and part of an industrial park on the Dakar peninsula.

China’s ambassador to Senegal Zhang Xun was quoted by the local press in March as saying China had invested $100 million in Senegal in 2017.

“Senegal takes a positive view of China’s role in Africa,” Sall said at the news conference. “For its contribution to peace and stability and equally … for the financing of budgets.”

But critics say Africa is loading itself up on Chinese debt that it may struggle to repay, with estimates ranging in the tens of billions of dollars. That could leave African nations with no choice but to hand over controlling stakes in strategic assets to the Chinese state.

U.S. officials have warned that a port in the tiny Horn of Africa nation of Djibouti, a host to major U.S. and French military bases, could suffer this fate, although Djibouti rejects the fear.

In Guinea, meanwhile, one of the world’s poorest nations, China is lending $20 billion to the government in exchange for aluminium ore concessions.

As well as trade and minerals, China has also seen Africa as a source of political support. Chinese diplomacy has, as of May this year, succeeded in getting every African country except Swaziland to break off diplomatic relations with Taiwan, which China sees as a renegade province.

(REUTERS)

Sama Jude knew it was time to flee his home town in western Cameroon when he heard the sound of gunfire ringing above the roof of the University of Buea where he’s taught for four years. As clashes between the nation’s army and separatist rebels intensified, the 41-year-old lecturer packed his bags and fled to the commercial capital, Douala, about 60 kilometers (37 miles) to the east.

In its first public report to detail the damage from the conflict, the government last month appealed to donors to fund a special humanitarian emergency plan to help 75,000 displaced people and 22,000 others who’ve fled the country. Separatists have killed 84 members of the security forces in at least 123 attacks since the crisis began in 2016, according to the report, a figure the Defense Ministry later put at about 120.

“This is heading straight toward civil war if nothing is done,” said Hans De Marie Heungoup, a Nairobi-based analyst at the International Crisis Group. “The military has killed civilians indiscriminately and burnt dozens of villages. Militias are also increasingly targeting civilians, particularly collaborators of the government. It’s getting more tense as the elections approach.” More than 220 civilians have been killed in the last 10 months, he said.

Roads Blocked

Campaigning is set to begin soon, even as it’s unlikely the vote can be held in areas of the Anglophone regions where regular gunfights between separatists and government troops take place. Across the main urban settlements, including Kumba, Muyuka and Limbe in Southwest, public transport is at a standstill and businesses are closed, with militias blocking major roads and setting fire to cocoa and rubber plantations.

With roads and ports that are vital for landlocked neighbors including oil-producing Chad and Central African Republic, Cameroon has the biggest economy in the central African monetary zone. Its population of 23 million depends mostly on agriculture.

The latest unrest began in late 2016 with peaceful protests by teachers and lawyers against the dominance of the French language in schools and courts. It’s escalated into a conflict in which armed splinter groups are killing soldiers and police officers, kidnapping government officials and harassing village chiefs they accuse of collaborating with the authorities.

The armed groups, estimated to comprise at least 1,000 active members, are largely funded by Cameroon’s diaspora, according to the ICG.

The political leadership of the Anglophone movement has been imprisoned since January. Advocacy groups including Human Rights Watch have said the government’s heavy-handed response contributed to an escalation of the conflict. Last week, the New York-based organization released satellite imagery showing security forces had torched dozens of villages, and accused them of committing torture and summary executions.

Social Media

In the latest incident, armed men dressed in camouflage are seen riddling two women and two small children with bullets on a dusty roadside after accusing them of supporting the Nigeria-based Islamist group Boko Haram. The video, which was widely circulated on social media, prompted the U.S. to call for an investigation into the killings. Amnesty International says it was carried out by the military.

The government has consistently denied allegations that the security forces commit abuses, saying the separatists conduct hate campaigns on the internet and falsely accuse troops of “imaginary atrocities.”

Social media platforms play a particularly toxic role in the crisis, the government said last month. Gruesome videos and photos of alleged human-rights abuses by both sides have appeared regularly on Facebook and Twitter, as have mobile-phone videos of military operations in the two regions.

“It’s now at a crisis level that we haven’t seen before with pictures of burnt-down villages and bodies hanging from trees circulating on social media,” said Jeffrey Smith, executive director of Vanguard Africa, a U.S.-based non-profit organization that monitors elections in Africa.

While very few people supported secession when the protests began, public opinion in the Northwest and Southwest regions has shifted toward separation, according to Heungoup.

“It’s impossible to resolve this crisis without involving the leadership of the Anglophone separatists, but there’s no dialogue with them,” Heungoup said. “The government comes across as arrogant and having no sense of accountability, and it’s done no fundamental concessions. That’s the problem with Biya — if two years ago he had done half of the little he’s done so far, the crisis wouldn’t have reached this level.”

Source: Bloomberg