The decision was made before the US presidential election; Donald Trump authorized the United States military to train officers from six so far blacklisted African states.

Just days before the US presidential election, the Trump administration said six African nations including Cameroon previously accused of recruiting children into their armies could now receive US military assistance. 

Former U.S. President Barack Obama had ordered 300 members of the armed forces to Cameroon in 2015 to counter the militant Nigerian Islamist group Boko Haram.

The mission was part of a broader regional effort to stop the spread of Boko Haram and other violent extremist organizations in West Africa.”

The US advanced team reportedly conducted airborne intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance operations in the Far North region.

However, the Trump administration blacklisted Cameroon and five other countries for recruiting children into their military. Critics now say the decision to lift the ban on Cameroon goes a long way to demonstrate how the Trump admin has been consistently inconsistent in its dealing with dictators like Biya.

By Chi Prudence Asong

An ecumenical service in honor of some frontline leaders of the Social Democratic Front, SDF, took place in Yaoundé on Sunday, November 1, 2020.

The ceremony in memory of Hon. Joseph Mbah Ndam, Batonnier Francis Sama, Mayor Balick Awah, and Barrister Manga Moussole was held at the Nkolfoulou residence of SDF National Chairman, Ni John Fru Ndi.

The occasion had an impressive presence of cabinet ministers of the Biya Francophone regime including chartered members of the ruling CPDM-SDF-National Salvation Front consortium of crime syndicates.

The CPDM gang included Grégoire Owona, Minister of Labor & Social Security and Deputy Secretary-General of the Central Committee of the CPDM; Ibrahim Talba Malla, Minister of Public Contracts and National Organizing Secretary of the CPDM; Balungeli Confiance Ebune, Director Of The Prime Minister’s Cabinet; Hon. Jean-Bernard Ndongo Essomba, CPDM Parliamentary Group Leader; Hon. Muyali Boya Mary epse Meboka, MP for Bakassi-Mundemba who also moonlights as Vice-President of the CPDM Parliamentary Group; and Ngally Ngoua Pierre Henri, CPDM Senator for Ocean Division in the South Region.

Also, present were Issa Tchiroma Bakary, Minister of Employment & Vocational Training and President of the National Salvation Front party and Jean de Dieu Momo, Minister Delegate to the Minister of Justice  & Keeper of Seals and President of the PADDEC political party (Les Patriotes Démocrates pour le Développement du Cameroun).

Source: Cameroon Info.Net

Paul Biya, on Monday, November 2, 2020, signed a decree appointing Victor Ndoki as Ambassador to the Federal Republic of Germany.

The Secretary General at the General Delegation for National Security from 2006 to 2015 will replace Jean Marc Mpay in office since August 22, 2008.

The new Biya appointee, Victor Ndoki, who is now in charge of heading the representation of La Republique du Cameroun in the Federal Republic of Germany, has the mission to promote his country’s battered image in Germany in the political, economic and cultural fields.

The Embassy in Berlin also covers the following countries: Austria, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Czech Republic.

By Fon Lawrence

Cameroon’s President Paul Biya declared a day of national morning Wednesday to pay homage to victims of last week’s deadly shooting at a school in Kumba that killed at least seven.

The national flag will be flown at half-mast on Oct. 31 throughout the nation, according to a presidential decree.

At least seven children were killed and several seriously injured after a separatist group attacked the school in the southwest region.

Pope Francis joined the international community Wednesday to condemn the “barbaric” killing of school children.

”May God enlighten hearts, so that similar acts may never be repeated! I send my affection to the families and all Cameroon, and I invoke the comfort that only God can give,” he said.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres also said he was “shocked by a horrific attack.”

Following the massacre, several opinion leaders took to social media with the hashtag, #EndAnglophoneCrisis, to denounce the attacks and urge the government and secessionists to solve the crisis which has affected hundreds of thousands.

The Central African country has been marred by protests and violence since 2016, with residents in English-speaking regions saying they have been marginalized for decades by the central government and the French-speaking majority.

They have demanded independence or a federal state.

Violence in the Anglophone regions in the last three years has claimed an estimated 3,000 lives and caused the displacement of more than 730,000 civilians, according to the Human Rights Watch.

The Norwegian Refugee Council said in June, for a second year running, Cameroon topped the list as the most neglected crisis on the planet in 2019.

Source:  Anadolu Agency

Witnesses say Cameroon police have chased and beaten at least 200 opposition supporters outside the home of opposition leader Maurice Kamto, who has been under de facto house arrest for over a month.  Anti-riot police were deployed to Kamto’s home this week to contain crowds of supporters demanding he be released.  Police blocked Kamto from leaving his house after he organized anti-government protests in September. 

An unknown female supporter of opposition leader Maurice Kamto stripped off her clothes in front of his house Thursday and shouted at the large police presence that his month-long detention was illegal. 

The woman, in her early 50s, screamed that she would not leave until police allowed Kamto out of his house to speak with her. 

She was one of over 200 opposition supporters gathered outside Kamto’s house to mark one month since police surrounded his home, placing him under de facto house arrest. 

Kamto supporter Giselle Malongo says she came from the western town of Bafoussam to ask why Kamto has been stopped from leaving his house since September 22.

She told VOA the police violently brutalized and blocked supporters from meeting Kamto, a man she called “their president.”  Malongo said armed police seized mobile phones from supporters who tried to take photographs (of the clashes).  She said police also prevented them from delivering food donations to Kamto and his family. 

A reporter also witnessed police beating and blocking Kamto’s supporters, some of whom were trying to donate food. 

Christopher Ndong,  secretary general and legal advisor of Kamto’s Cameroon Renaissance Movement party, said police beat 13 supporters so badly that they had to get treated at a hospital.

“Kamto was very furious at this gesture by the military refusing people to come and give him food aid after he had been locked up for a month,” Ndong told VOA.  “There were a lot of hot exchanges.  We decry the attitude of government and its military operatives.  We are saying in fact, this is an infringement to democratic principles and democratic rights.”

Cameroon police gave no official statement on the clashes and would not answer a reporter’s questions. 

Authorities have not officially declared Kamto to be under house arrest, but police have not allowed him to leave his home since he organized nationwide anti-government protests in September.

Cameroon Territorial Administration Minister Paul Atanga Nji said police are watching Kamto because he is being investigated for hostilities against the state. 

“I want to sound a stern warning to unscrupulous politicians that they will face the law.  It must be clear that the discontinuance of legal proceedings does not imply that the charges have been dropped.  Any further act of public disorder will take them back to square one,” Nji said.

The September opposition protests were against Cameroon holding December 6 regional elections. 

The opposition says the electoral laws favor long-ruling President Paul Biya and his Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement party. 

Biya has been in power for 38 years, making him one of Africa’s longest-serving leaders. 

Kamto and about 200 supporters were jailed last year for protesting against the 2018 presidential election results, which named Biya the winner. 

Kamto was released after nine months following international pressure. 

Since then, Cameroon police have closely monitored his activities and all of his political rallies and protests have been declared illegal.

Source: VOA

Politician and professor Pascal Charlemagne Messanga Nyamding recently floated the claim that his own ruling Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement (CPDM) party is controlled by homosexuals.

He made that charge in the World News Cameroon newspaper despite the fact that the CPDM is the party of the country’s revered longtime president, His Excellency Paul Biya.

Messanga Nyamding, a professor of political science at the Institute for International Relations (IRIC) at the University of Yaoundé II, is known for expressing homophobic views to his students, claiming that homosexuality is an unnatural and even diabolical practice.

This isn’t the first time he has used the issue of homosexuality for political ends.

During the 2018 presidential campaigns, Messanga Nyamding accused Cameroonian opposition leader Professor Maurice Kamto of being a supporter of homosexuality.

He presented no evidence to support that statement, nor has he presented evidence to back up his latest complaint about the CPDM. Yet many Cameroonians still believe him.

His latest homophobic denunciation came on Oct. 8, when he declared about the CPDM that “the queers who run our party” threatened to take him to the party’s disciplinary council if he did not go along with their plans.

Unlike those political opponents, he said, he and his allies are the true supporters of President Paul Biya — “the real biyaists”.

Source: 76crimes.com

Ferdinand Ngoh Ngoh, the all-powerful secretary-general at the presidency of the republic, has a key weapon in his running battle against certain rival ministers and advisors to Paul Biya. Africa intelligence reports that Ngoh Ngoh who now has the authority to sign directives on behalf of President Biya is weaponising presidential directives and targeting his rivals in government.

Gregory Ntemoyok Mewanu is now the new Mayor of Kumba. The pro Yaoundé Southern Cameroons business tycoon was elected today at the Kumba town council hall.

The CPDM Kumba spy master won 64 of the 75 cast votes to unseat incumbent Victor Nkelle Ngoh  in a controversial process that recorded 11 spoiled ballots.

The outgoing mayor Nkelle Ngoh was declared mayor of Kumba on March 3, 2020, following the February 9 twin municipal and parliamentary elections. Nkelle reportedly secured 38 votes as against 31 for Mewanu and 6 for Stephen Ekoko Mwelle.

However, Meme politics took a dramatic u turn and Greg Mewanu petitioned the Francophone South West Administrative Court for the elections to be cancelled. The court in Buea upheld the outcome of the April 9 polling but Mewanu again appeared before the Administrative Bench of the Supreme Court and seek and gotten French Cameroun support.

On Thursday, September 24, 2020, the Supreme Court in Yaoundé annulled the March 3, 2020 and ordered a repeat. The Senior Divisional Officer for Meme, Chamberlain Ntou’ou Ndong was ordered to stage a repeat of the electoral process.

Today’s so-called elections justifies more than 58 years of annoying Southern Cameroonians by the French Cameroun regime in Yaoundé. Nkelle Ngoh was first appointed Government Delegate to the Kumba Urban Council in 2009 to replace Cavern Nnoko Mbelle who had held the office for a decade.

The electoral process was teleguided by a Central Committee delegation of the ruling Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement, CPDM led by Paul TASONG NJUKANG, Minister Delegate in charge of Planning.

Balike Esuka Victorine epse Ebanja and Sako Umana McMillan were respectively elected First Deputy and Second Deputy Mayor.

By Rita Akana

Cameroon on Thursday described as “biased” comments by UN experts claiming the main opposition leader Maurice Kamto was under house arrest, and accusing Yaounde of “excessive force” in recent demonstrations.

Kamto is the chief opponent of President Biya, who has ruled the Central African country for 38 years. His house has been surrounded by police for 24 days.

The opposition politician told AFP on Tuesday by phone that he was still being prevented from leaving and was “sequestered”, without any notification from the authorities.

A court hearing which was to rule on a complaint by Kamto’s lawyers for “administrative assault” has been postponed until October 20, an AFP journalist learned on Thursday.

UN rights experts on Monday called for Kamto’s release from house arrest for calling for peaceful protests against Biya. They also called for the release of dozens of others reportedly arrested during demonstrations on September 22.

In a statement received on Thursday by AFP, the government called the UN experts’ comments “subjective and biased” and accused them of having relaying and amplifying “untruths”.

It alleged that Kamto and his associates had defied laws and regulations by “violating the ban on public demonstration”.

“Faced with such threats to public order, it was naturally incumbent on the public authorities to take the necessary measures to deal with the situation, which has been done,” the statement said, without elaborating.

Of 294 arrested supporters of the Movement for the Rebirth of Cameroon (MRC) led by Kamto, it added that 176 had been released.

“Nine people… formally identified as being leaders, planners or organiser of insurrectional marches are currently in the hands of justice,” the statement said.

Some 109 people were also brought before courts in the economic capital Douala and western Bafoussam.

Kamto officially lost to Biya in 2018’s presidential election, and was arrested in January last year following a march protesting the vote. Biya ordered him freed nine months later under international pressure.

On September 18 of this year he called for mass protests to demand electoral reforms as well as a ceasefire in the country’s insurgency-hit English-speaking areas.

Four days later, police crushed a demonstration in the country’s economic capital Douala, detaining 93 protesters of whom 58 were still in custody as of Tuesday, according to their lawyers. They were among more than 500 people arrested across the country.

Source: AFP

Cameroonian opposition leader Maurice Kamto said Tuesday he remained “sequestered” at his home despite a call by UN rights experts for his release from house arrest for calling for peaceful protests against longtime ruler Paul Biya.

The rights experts issued a statement on Monday calling for Kamto’s release and that of dozens of others reportedly arrested during demonstrations on September 22.

Kamto is the chief opponent of President Biya, who has ruled the Central African country for 38 years.

“The (police) unit outside my house is still in place, and I have received no notification whatsoever,” Kamto told AFP, adding that a police car was blocking his driveway.

“Kamto’s house arrest could amount to a deprivation of liberty, in violation of his rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association, as well as liberty and security of person,” the UN statement said.

A team of around a dozen independent experts conducted a mission under the Special Procedures system on behalf of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).

Cameroonian authorities declined several requests for comment by AFP.

Kamto’s lawyers said in a statement they were suing the state over his house arrest and that the trial would begin on Thursday.

“We are extremely worried about mass arrests of peaceful protesters and political activists who express dissent,” the UN experts’ statement said, calling on the authorities to “stop intimidating political activists”.

They added that they were concerned over the “excessive use of force against peaceful demonstrators”.

Kamto officially lost to Biya in 2018’s presidential election, and was arrested in January last year following a march protesting the vote. Biya ordered him freed nine months later under international pressure.

On September 18 of this year he called for mass protests to demand electoral reforms as well as a ceasefire in the country’s insurgency-hit English-speaking areas.

Four days later, police crushed a demonstration in the country’s economic capital Douala, detaining 93 protesters of whom 58 were still in custody as of Tuesday, according to their lawyers. They were among more than 500 people arrested across the country.

Source: AFP