A damning admission of guilt in Cameroon where government authorities have admitted that soldiers acting alongside a militia shot dead 13 civilians, including 10 children, in Ngarbuh, the restive north-west of the country in February. Officials had initially denied the army was involved in the killings.

In a statement released on Tuesday, Cameroon’s presidency said three soldiers along with members of a vigilante group had stormed a separatist rebel base killing five people, before “discovering that three women and 10 children were killed” in the firefight. It suggested the deaths were accidental but soldiers tried to cover them up. The February 14 massacre in the village of Ntumbo stirred huge public reactions and condemnation.

The United Nations described it “a shocking episode in the ongoing crisis that has afflicted Cameroon’s North-West and South-West regions for the past three years”. And a tally by the Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in total, 21 civilians were killed, including 13 children and a pregnant woman. Its version had blamed the attack on at least 10 troops from an elite army unit who were backed by “at least 30 armed Fulani” militiamen.

All of these, the government had denied, particularly that the army was involved. But President Paul Biya responded by ordering an investigation. And now, what do we have? A U-turn for the government, perhaps an embarrassing one, which still leaves doubts about the official version.

Source: Africa News

President Biya on Friday the 17^th of April appointed former Prime Minister, Philemon Yang to the post of Grand Chancellor of National Orders.

The Southern Cameroons politician with too much blood on his hands reacted by saying that “I am very pleased, I would like to sincerely thank the Head of State. This gives me another opportunity to serve the President of the Republic and also serve the Cameroonian people.”

Yang who spent 20 years in Canada as Cameroon’s ambassador was recently the Head of the permanent delegation of the Central Committee of the ruling CPDM crime syndicate to the North West Region.

The former Prime Minister also observed that he knows nothing about his new mission.

“I guess these are the big challenges. I think that in the coming days I will be able to learn and know what it is all about and that way I can make my small contribution,” he said.

Thus, less than two years after his exit from government, Philemon Yang rebounded at the Grand Chancellery of National Orders. He replaces Peter Mafany Musonge who spent 13 years in this high office.

By Oke Akombi Ayukepi Akap in Glasgow with files from CIN

Cameroon’s main opposition leader said he wants a top court to declare a power vacuum because President Paul Biya hasn’t addressed the coronavirus crisis in the country.

Africa’s second-longest serving president has been criticized on social media for his silence amid the rapid spread of the disease. Cameroon diagnosed the first case of the coronavirus on March 6 and is now among the most affected countries in sub-Saharan Africa, with 855 patients. The 87-year-old was last seen on March 11 after receiving the U.S. ambassador.

“In the face of the unprecedented political situation in which our country finds itself, characterized by the prolonged and unexplained absence of the head of state, I have decided to act,” opposition leader Maurice Kamto said on his Facebook page Wednesday. Kamto called on the speaker of parliament to seize the Constitutional Court.

Known for his secretive leadership style and his frequent, months-long stays in Switzerland, Biya’s silence has also fueled widespread speculation about his health.

Source: Bloomberg

Maybe he was at home. Maybe he was at his favorite Swiss hotel.

It had been 35 days since anyone saw the president of Cameroon — or, at least, since anyone had revealed his whereabouts — and people in the central African country had questions.

“Sir, are you alive?” one man asked on Twitter.

The public absence of Paul Biya — who, at 87, is the oldest leader in Africa — during the coronavirus pandemic fueled outrage, concern and wild theories before the strongman turned up Thursday in a photo with the French ambassador to Cameroon.

“On the menu for our exchange this afternoon: managing the COVID-19 pandemic in Cameroon, France and around the world,” Biya tweeted.

“You have risen?” someone wrote in response.

“We don’t ask you to receive people,” another said. “We ask you to address the nation.”

The photo surfaced one day after Maurice Kamto, the president’s chief political rival, called on Cameroon’s legislature to declare a power vacancy and hold a new election.

The prominent politician, who challenged Biya in the 2018 race, cited the country’s constitution, which dictates that voting must begin within 40 days of a president’s death, resignation or “permanent incapacity.”

“Cameroonians are expecting him to address the nation, to tell them exactly what is going on, to share his vision,” Kamto told The Washington Post. “Whether that photo is real? Authentic? I don’t know.”

Christophe Guilhou, the French ambassador, retweeted the image, which showed the men sitting on separate cream couches.

Neither he nor Biya’s office responded to requests for comment.

Photoshop scandals involving the president have damaged trust in the past, said Doris Toyou, a Cameroonian lawyer in New York.

An obviously manipulated photo of Biya at a funeral for fallen soldiers appeared on the presidential website in 2015. (He was in Europe, not at the event.)

“The photo was illegally modified by someone who managed to hack into the site,” the communications minister told France 24 at the time.

People want more than evidence of a meeting with the French ambassador, Toyou said.

“The question remains the same,” she said. “Is he able and willing to perform presidential function?”

Citizens had been wondering: Is Biya’s hand really signing those presidential decrees? Who is actually behind his Facebook posts?

On social media, Cameroonians demanded to hear him speak about the growing outbreak on their soil. The nation has recorded 848 cases and 14 deaths. The airports are closed. Schools and places of worship have shuttered.

Biya’s ministers have done the talking since the first case emerged on March 6. The top health official tweets daily updates in English and French.

The silence is a stark contrast to other presidential approaches to covid-19.

The Senegalese leader has released a video of himself washing his hands. The Ugandan president posted footage of his indoor workout. The Guinean ruler gave a speech with face masks shielding his microphones.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who spent a week in intensive care with a severe case of the virus, allowed cameras to film him this month in a hospital bed.

“During this pandemic, every single country in the world needs to hear from their head of state,” said Kamto, the Cameroonian opposition leader.

The chances of Cameroon declaring a power vacancy are slim to none. The National Assembly and the Constitutional Council, which handle such matters, are crowded with members of Biya’s party.

They’ve defended him over the decades — Biya took office in 1982 — through allegations of military brutality, rigged elections and an extraordinary amount of time spent on private trips abroad — even as a separatist uprising and Boko Haram attacks have rocked the country.

Biya spent a third of his time overseas in 2006 and 2009, according to one widely shared report from the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, an international group of investigative journalists.

During some of his stays in Switzerland, Cameroonians in the country protested outside his preferred hotel: the InterContinental Geneva.

Has he been there lately?

“I do not have any information,” a receptionist told The Washington Post before hanging up.

Biya is known for taking long breaks away from the public eye, said Jeff Smith, the founding director of Vanguard Africa, a pro-democracy nonprofit organization.

“It’s not an uncommon refrain to hear Cameroonians lament the fact that they have a ‘ghost president,’ ” he said.

However, Smith added, “his absence is really quite shocking during a time in which Cameroon has experienced the most cases and deaths due to the coronavirus in all of Central Africa.”

Culled from The Washington Post

The Wedge in our Struggle

My people, there are a number of things the enemy has done to us through these fellows to systematically disrupt our struggle or restoration quest.

1. They killed trust in leadership by propping up dishonest guys in our midst. The act of smearing honest people and making them look untrustworthy is by far the deepest cut. Crooks have become our reference point. No wonder, we no longer trust anyone. Those who can drive this struggle have crumbled under the bullets of unverified calumny. So, when a good idea comes from them, we pull up the smear and use the stench to disqualify its proponent, then the bad guy continues to shout “Feeloo ambazoonians”. No plan on how to move forward except bannings and sowing division. Simple tactic!

2. Disunity among the leadership, so that no constructive action can be taken against LRC. They only agree when the action will not favour us. See the Swiss initiative. They were already exposing our fighters to the Swiss and pushing everyone into their luggage when the plan leaked and the trip by the LGA chairmen to Switzerland was aborted. That was a massive brainwashing scheme that would have brought our liberation struggle crashing. And they were just happy to go and see Switzerland, not knowing that it was a satanic plot.

4. Egotism and the love for money have driven a wedge between us and our goal. Why would someone remind anyone offering to mediate about money owed him by LRC at this time? Why would someone even place a financial precondition for holding talks? Why would someone lie that he has the largest force on the ground and use that to position himself as a power broker before the Swiss? Why would a group of people decide, against expert advice, to sign away to the Swiss their right to a multilateral mediation format? Why would SCian politicians accept Swiss money to go from UK, Canada to the US advertising the Swiss initiative to the exclusion of the European institute for peace (an EU funded organisation)? These questions beg for answers.

4. Disrupting fund raising projects is a major scheme to render the struggle bankrupt, apart from embezzlement. Every time a seemingly viable fundraising initiative is laid out, they too will do theirs and distract the public that is already weary of bickering.  They cause the public to transfer their stigma on it, and when the momentum dies down, they abandon theirs. See the bonds, the pins and other financial ideas.

5. Disinformation and Misinformation of the masses. Using their very loud megaphone, they distort every notion of good. Points 1-4 above have been achieved through the alphabet TV and paid social media activists. Some of them puts out their write-ups using the name of some of these activists in exchange for a fee. They deceive the people at home about non-existent diplomatic moves and breakthroughs and distort international relations concepts. It’s like a veil of darkness cast over our people’s heads.

5. The lure of power and the desire to exercise corrupt influence . Even some of the IG converts in the diaspora are easily brainwashed because of the temptation of corruption. Many of them see themselves as an emerging Bulu/Beti clan when we restore our independence. So, they use that to make their communities and families believe that as future ministers and LG chairmen in SC, they will have more benefits and influence than others – greed! Let them show us the blue print or the strategy that will take us to Buea.

6. Killing or disarming our own fighters cannot be excused on any grounds. Is it surprising that we have lost more of our elite soldiers to our own bullets than to LRC? After commissioning Nambere to eliminate some of his peers, it was time to do away with him so that all traces could be wiped. But he preferred to surrender to the enemy than to succumb to the bullets of his own people. He confided his ordeal to those who were ready to listen.  This is a familiar scenario which the RFs do not yet understand. Many who sensed danger have fled the resistance because they don’t know when the order for their execution will come. Others have been captured because their position was deliberately leaked to the enemy. Who does that? Does the mass execution of the Bui 23 tell us anything?

In all

I have travelled round this country and have met different people who have complained about the manner in which they were robbed in broad day light and lamented the general state of things. They told me how they were harangued into donating thousands of dollars for diplomatic trips which never happened. In others, Ngwa Irene personally went there and collected $12000 cash and when the community asked for a receipt it became a brawl. Some communities have not recovered from the financially induced coma caused by these buccaneers.

I challenge all those hiding in WhatsApp groups or FB, wearing aliases to come to a public debate to explain their plan for the restoration, if there is any, and stop using subterfuge to deceive our people. If you cannot diagnose a disease, then you cannot treat it.

Denying these facts is denying, like LRC, that our people don’t have any problem. “Any man who does not know, and knows that he does not know is willing to learn; teach him. Any man who does not know, and knows not that he does not know is a fool; shun him”. We should now understand why for two years we have been spinning in the same spot and claiming that we are on course. Having run out if arguments, they claim that it is because some people don’t use the name “Ambazonia” and so it affects the struggle. 😫 Lame excuse! With all what is going on, ask yourselves again, are these people truly taking us to Buea or to Golgotha?

Yours in the struggle

Fontem Neba

Scholar & Freedom Fighter

Like elsewhere, Cameroonians at home and abroad are very worried over the novel coronavirus which has been rapidly spreading across the country.

By the close of April 7, Cameroon had registered 685 cases of Covid-19, with nine deaths, overtaking other countries to become the second hardest hit in Sub-Saharan Africa after South Africa. Cameroon now has over 15 times as many confirmed cases as any other country in the central African sub-region and one of the highest numbers of daily new cases on the continent. Like many other African countries, Cameroon is not well-equipped to handle a major outbreak of the disease.

But as Cameroonians grapple with the spread of Covid-19, they are also preoccupied with the absence of their leader. President Paul Biya, 87, who in 2018 secured another mandate to extend his 36-year rule to 2025, has not publicly addressed his compatriots since the country registered its first case on March 6. His next-door peer, Ali Bongo Ondimba of Gabon, with just 30 confirmed cases, has addressed his people on at least three occasions, despite still recuperating from a stroke.

Biya was last seen in public on Mar. 11, when he received the US ambassador to Cameroon at the Unity Palace in Yaoundé. No official mention has been made of his whereabouts thereafter. Even pressure from activists and opposition leaders has not forced the African strongman out in public.

Two weeks ago, Cameroon’s main opposition leader, Maurice Kamto issued an initial seven-day ultimatum, calling on president Biya to personally address the nation. On April 3, Kamto called on the population of coronavirus-affected regions to stay at home—a move the runner-up of the 2018 presidential election said he took because “the Head of State has refused to assume his functions in the fight against the coronavirus.”

The Popular Action Party on its part expressed concerns over the inaction of President Biya and accused Yaounde authorities of playing “a hide-and-seek game.” The party promised to seize the country’s constitutional council to make a declaratory statement on the vacancy or not of the presidency.

Despite his country exhibiting multiple layers of vulnerability to Covid-19, Biya has stuck with his reticence for public speaking. He however instructed the prime minister to put in place a 13-point response strategy and has through social media called on Cameroonians to respect the measures put in place. From wherever he is, the president has also signed several decrees, including one instituting a national solidarity fund to fight COVID-19 and another appointing officials to lead the reconstruction of the conflict-ravaged English-speaking regions in the country’s southwest.

It isn’t unprecedented for Biya to be unseen or silent during critical moments in the life of the country. Even recent widespread rumors of his demise on social media have not forced his hand. His aides and supporters have described this phenomenon as “presidential silence” and have often argued that “his attitude is a sign of maturity and wisdom.”

Biya’s “private visits” to his usual retreat at the Intercontinental Hotel in Geneva has often been a source of political controversy and quiet embarrassment. One estimate is that he’s spent 15% of his time in power, abroad.

Over the last decade, Biya has made the top floor suites of the five-star luxury hotel into his home away from home spending months at a time even as his country has slowly descended into conflict from Boko Haram Islamic terrorists in the north and an Anglophone-led insurgency in north- and southwest of the country.

Culled from Quartz Africa

Cameroon’s ruling party has swept all 13 seats in parliamentary by-elections held late last month in the conflict-wracked anglophone west of the country, the constitutional council announced Tuesday.

Long-ruling President Paul Biya’s Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement (CPDM) won all 13 seats at stake in 11 constituencies in the North-West and South-West regions of the central African country.

The CPDM “ran the table” in 10 North-West districts and one in the South-West, state broadcaster CRTV reported.

The wins reinforced the party’s massive majority in the 180-member parliament to 152 seats.

The two anglophone regions have been rocked by deadly violence as armed separatists campaign for independence from the rest of Cameroon, which is majority French-speaking.

The conflict has killed more than 3,000 people and displaced nearly 700,000 in less than three years, according to humanitarian organisations.

Separatist fighters had called on people in the two regions to boycott nationwide municipal and legislative elections on February 9, issuing threats to anyone who planned to vote.

Several NGOs including Amnesty International reported multiple clashes between the separatists and the army ahead of the polling, though only one incident — in the North-West region — was reported on election day itself.

The constitutional council said on February 25 that the vote would have to be rerun in several parts of the two anglophone regions.

The opposition Social Democratic Front, dominated by anglophones, contested the results of the by-elections, but the constitutional court rejected their demand for another re-run.

Source: AFP

The coronavirus pandemic could narrow one gaping inequality in Africa, where some heads of state and other elite jet off to Europe or Asia for health care unavailable in their nations. As countries including their own impose dramatic travel restrictions, they might have to take their chances at home.

For years, leaders from Benin to Zimbabwe have received medical care abroad while their own poorly funded health systems limp from crisis to crisis. Several presidents, including ones from Nigeria, Malawi and Zambia, have died overseas.

The practice is so notorious that a South African health minister, Aaron Motsoaledi, a few years ago scolded, “We are the only continent that has its leaders seeking medical services outside the continent, outside our territory. We must be ashamed.”

Now a wave of global travel restrictions threatens to block that option for a cadre of aging African leaders. More than 30 of Africa’s 57 international airports have closed or severely limited flights, the U.S. State Department says. At times, flight trackers have shown the continent’s skies nearly empty.

Perhaps “COVID-19 is an opportunity for our leaders to reexamine their priorities,” said Livingstone Sewanyana of the Foundation for Human Rights Initiative, which has long urged African countries to increase health care spending.

But that plea has not led to action, even as the continent wrestles with major crises including deadly outbreaks of Ebola and the scourges of malaria and HIV.

Spending on health care in Africa is roughly 5% of gross domestic product, about half the global average. That’s despite a pledge by African Union members in 2001 to spend much more. Money is sometimes diverted to security or simply pilfered, and shortages are common.

Ethiopia had just three hospital beds per 10,000 people in 2015, according to World Health Organization data, compared to two dozen or more in the U.S. and Europe. Central African Republic has just three ventilators in the entire country. In Zimbabwe, doctors have reported doing bare-handed surgeries for lack of gloves.

Health experts warn that many countries will be overwhelmed if the coronavirus spreads, and it is already uncomfortably close. Several ministers in Burkina Faso have been infected, as has a top aide to Nigeria’s president. An aide to Congo’s leader died. For most people, the new coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms.

“If you test positive in a country, you should seek care in that country,” the head of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. John Nkengasong, told reporters Thursday. “It’s not a death sentence.”

In Nigeria, some worried their president might be among the victims. Long skittish about President Muhammadu Buhari’s absences from public view, including weeks in London for treatment for unspecified health problems, they took to Twitter to ask why he hadn’t addressed the nation as virus cases rose.

Buhari’s office dismissed speculation about his whereabouts as unfounded rumor. When he did emerge Sunday night, he announced that all private jet flights were suspended. International airports were already closed.

An even more frequent overseas traveler, Cameroon’s 87-year-old leader, President Paul Biya, faces rising criticism over his public absence since the virus spread to his country. Cases in Cameroon leapt Friday to over 500, the second most in the sub-Saharan region after South Africa.

While travel restrictions have grounded the merely wealthy, political analyst Alex Rusero said a determined African leader probably could still find a way to go abroad for care.

“They are scared of death so much they will do everything within their disposal, even if it’s a private jet to a private hospital in a foreign land,” said Rusero, who is based in Zimbabwe, whose late President Robert Mugabe often sought treatment in Asia.

Perhaps nowhere is the situation bleaker than in Zimbabwe, where the health system has collapsed. Even before the pandemic, patients’ families were often asked to provide essentials like gloves and clean water. Doctors reported using bread bags to collect patients’ urine.

Zimbabwe’s vice president, Constantino Chiwenga, departed last month for unrelated medical treatment in China, as the outbreak eased in that country. Zimbabwe closed its borders days later after its first virus death.

Chiwenga has since returned — to lead the country’s coronavirus task force.

But some in a new generation of African leaders have been eager to show sensitivity to virus-prevention measures.

The president of Botswana, Mokgweetsi Masisi, initially defied his country’s restrictions on travel by government employees to visit neighboring Namibia for its leader’s inauguration. But he entered self-quarantine and now reminds others to stay home, calling it “literally a matter of life and death.”

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa announced he had tested negative, just ahead of a three-week lockdown in Africa’s most developed country. Madagascar President Andry Rajoelina has as well.

Other leaders, including Burkina Faso President Roch Marc Christian Kabore and Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, have tweeted images of themselves working via videoconference as countries encourage people to keep their distance.

While African leaders are more tied to home than ever, their access to medical care is still far better than most of their citizens’.

In Burkina Faso’s capital, Ouagadougou, medical student Franck Bienvenu Zida was self-isolating and worried after having contact with someone who tested positive.

The 26-year-old feared infecting people where he lives, but his efforts to get tested were going nowhere. In three days of calling an emergency number to request a test, he could not get through.

Source: AFP

Today, the world is faced with another global menace similar to the Spanish Flu of 1918 which killed almost 50 million people the world over between 1918 and 1919. This is the CoronaVirus or Covid-19 which originated in the Wuhan District of China in December 2019.

In a media briefing on March 11th, 2020, World Health Organization Director General, Dr Tedros A.G said the agency had characterized the Covid-19 as a pandemic. A pandemic, according to Britannica is an outbreak of infectious disease that occurs over a wide geographical area that affects a significant proportion of the world’s population, usually over the course of several months or years.

The new Corona Virus (Covid-19)is affecting 199 countries and territories around the world. It has so far infected more than 721,412 people across the world, killing 33,965 (March 30th, 2020 statistics from cnn.com). The geometrical patterns in the growth of Covid-19 is alarming as it has left so many health experts and scientists confused as to the way forward. It is a collective fight that needs every hand on deck. The number of infected cases and deaths around the world is expected to rise during the first quarter of April 2020 as speculated by health experts in the United Kingdom.

On March 6th, 2020, the Cameroun’s Minister of Public Health, Dr Manaouda, announced the first case of Covid-19 in Yaoundé. The measures taken by the government of Cameroun to contain the virus from spreading further were not stringent enough as the airports were left open for many people from infected Countries abroad to fly in undetected. The numbers of infected cases are now on a steady rise. In a recent tweet on March 29th, 2020, the Public Health Minister made known the number of Covid-19 infected cases in Cameroun; 139 and counting.

The same conditions and fears described by Human Rights Activist Jennifer Gonnerman in the article “Chesa Boudin on His Incarcerated Father and the Threat of the Coronavirus in Prisons” are very visible in the jails in Cameroun where more than 1000 Southern Cameroons Prisoners of Conscience have been held following the Southern Cameroons Conflict where President Paul Biya declared war on November 30th,2017.These prisons which span from Yaoundé, Douala, Buea, Baffoussam, Yoko etc are a breeding ground for the Covid-19 owing to it’s poor sanitation, lack of portable water, scanty or no medical aid,no testing device, prison warders from the outside world who mingle freely with the detainees  and most important of all are the overcrowded nature of the prisons leaving thousands of detainees touching and mingling with each other at very close range.

It’s for these reasons that Human Rights Watch and the United Nations Human Rights Commission have picked on the situation of detainees in Cameroun and the world over respectively. Michelle Bachelet,in a statement at the Geneva UNHRC head office described in a few words the situation that these prisoners of conscience face as the global Covid-19 pandemic surges on.

“In many countries, detention facilities are overcrowded, in some cases dangerously so. People are often held in unhygienic conditions and health services are inadequate or even non-existent. Physical distancing and self-isolation in such conditions are practically impossible”

Prisons and jails are amplifiers of infectious diseases such as COVID-19, because the conditions that can keep diseases from spreading – such as social distancing – are nearly impossible to achieve in correctional facilities. The Yaoundé Central Prison where I’m currently serving a 12 year sentence on trumped up charges and politically motivated reasons fit squarely in this category.

The Prison built in 1968 to host 1000 inmates is home to about 5000 detainees (that’s five times the number) amongst who are more than 200 Southern Cameroons Prisoners of Conscience. This overcrowding influences the appropriation of space and the power structures within the prison, in a context where the prisoners are unevenly divided between the 14 quarters of the Kondengui Maximum Prison. These more than 5000 detainees share less than 20 filthy latrines doted in the various quarters from 1 to 14. In the event of the virus spreading inside the prison, no medical care will be possible and the death rate will be alarming. The prisoners are piled on top of each other; it’s impossible to keep any safe distance. The Yaoundé Central Prison is a volcano ready to explode if just a rumour of one positive case of Covid-19 is left to circulate within the prison walls.

Human rights organizations like the National Commission of Human Rights (NCHR), Centre for Human Rights and Democracy in Africa (CHRDA), The Central African Human Rights Defenders Network (REDHAC) and a host of others who know the situations of these prisons very well should be pressing on for an amnesty to be given to these detainees before one of the detainee is infected with the Covid-19. It is their responsibility to do more before these overcrowded prisons are suddenly transformed into a mortuary.

The government of Cameroun recently took measures to curb the spread of the virus, including shutting down schools, closing borders, banning mass gatherings, and encouraging people to follow hygiene rules but these measures are not stringent enough to combat this global threat.

The Cameroun’s prisons, which are notably overcrowded, keeping social distance, practicing self-isolation, and taking basic measures such as hand washing are just not possible with hundreds of detainees crammed in the same small cell. The Prison administration under the leadership of Hamadou Madi recently took measures such as limiting the number of visitors into the inner court yard of the prison, obliging visitors to put on face masks and disinfecting the entire prison but these measures too are not enough to guarantee the safety of the detainees who still come in contact with the Prison Warders from the outside world on a minute by minute basis. The idea of social distancing or self isolation is farfetched in these prisons especially those in the town of Yaoundé which according to statistics from the Country’s Ministry of Public Health is the most infected town.

This fight against the Covid-19 is the fight of our lives and every hand is needed to stop it before it ravages humanity as we all know. The UN Human Rights Commissioner beckoned on state authorities to examine ways to release those particularly vulnerable to COVID-19, among them older detainees and those who are sick, as well as low-risk offenders because the detention facilities in many countries are severely overcrowded, making detainees and staff particularly vulnerable to catching the deadly new coronavirus. Amid fears that the coronavirus will carve a deadly path through prisons and jails, some countries are heeding to the Michelle Bachelet’s clarion call by releasing thousands of inmates. Ethiopia’s president, last week released over 4,000 prisoners in an effort to prevent overcrowding in prisons and contain the spread of the coronavirus.

By Penn Terence Khan

Yaounde Central Prison

As regional and international partners focus on countering Boko Haram in West Africa’s Lake Chad Region, another crisis is playing out in southern Cameroon, where the armed conflict between the government and separatists has killed more than 3,000 and displaced close to 600,000. After nearly two years of violence, the two sides are at a stalemate, even with sustained Swiss-led efforts to broker peace. Despite stalled progress, there are further steps that regional governments, France, and the United States can take now to facilitate a peaceful transition and post-conflict recovery.

To maximize the probability of success, however, these disparate actions must be guided by a political strategy for stabilizing southern Cameroon. The United States can play a lead role in defining this strategy and supporting the lead actors to implement it.

Three core pillars, in particular, should comprise the strategy in order to resolve the crisis: conflict prevention and mitigation to protect civilians, investigate extra-judicial killings, and help stabilize conflict-affected areas; preparation for potential dialogue between the government and separatists; and, pending those talks, a framework for an inclusive political transition that respects core tenets of democracy and governance.

Central to all of these must be a focus on democracy and governance to address the democratic deficits underlying the broader crisis. The U.S. government should make strategic short-term investments to increase citizen participation in local governance, while supporting long-term stabilization and redress of political and security grievances. Below, we outline these democratic deficits and ways to address them.

HISTORIC ROOTS OF A DEMOCRATIC CRISIS

The ongoing crisis began in 2017 when Anglophone teachers and lawyers in the northwest and southwest regions mobilized protests in opposition to perceived discrimination by the Francophone government in Yaoundé. The government crackdown on protesters, and exacerbation of long-standing grievances, led aggrieved communities to create a separatist movement and declare independence for “Ambazonia.” Parliamentary and municipal elections were held February 9 amid an opposition boycott, low voter turnout fueled by apathy and separatist intimidation, and the prospect of violence from Boko Haram. President Paul Biya’s ruling party won in a landslide. The contests did little to quell grievances in conflict-affected areas, which are rooted in long-standing historical divides.

Anglophone Cameroonians often articulate their grievances through the lens of World War I. The 1919 partition of the former German colony Kamerun into British and French Cameroons created two separate polities with distinct political hierarchies and governance systems. Independence in 1961 brought British Southern Cameroonians a narrow choice through a plebiscite: assimilation into either French Cameroon or neighboring Nigeria, but not independence in their own right. Despite widespread discontentment during the vote, Southern Cameroonians chose to join French Cameroon as part of a federation between the two states.

After independence, Cameroon’s first president, Ahmadou Ahidjo, employed an assimilation policy to administratively and linguistically merge the Southern Cameroons with Francophone Cameroon in order to maintain access to its natural resources. President Ahidjo completed the assimilation process in 1972 with a unilateral referendum that replaced the federal state with a unitary state and increased executive power. Southern Cameroons lost its autonomous status and became the Northwest Region and the Southwest Region of the Republic of Cameroon. The democratic closing in the early 1990s further exacerbated Anglophone Cameroon’s political marginalization: The resulting electoral constraints combined with President Paul Biya’s increasingly autocratic leadership created an uneven playing field for Anglophone politicians to compete in national elections.

WHY DEMOCRACY, RIGHTS, AND GOVERNANCE ARE CENTRAL TO A STABLE AND INCLUSIVE TRANSITION

Grievances thus persist because the deep roots of the Anglophone crisis lie in Cameroon’s outstanding democratic deficits. Any political strategy to stabilize the country’s conflict-affected regions must account for these deficits and include tactics to address them.

First, Anglophone Cameroonians remember the disenfranchisement of two separate referenda, with people perceiving the results to have inaccurately represented popular political preferences. This legacy casts immediate suspicion on any deal forged between Anglophone leaders, separatists, and the Cameroonian government in Yaoundé. Ahead of any peace negotiations, domestic and international stakeholders must adopt a citizen-centric approach to drafting a settlement to end the crisis. Community consultations with Anglophone citizens living in and outside the country remain essential for establishing citizen buy-in and restoring the region’s trust in the political process. Any future national dialogue processes or peace negotiations should involve groups of Anglophone citizens displaced internally and internationally by the crisis as advisory bodies to the negotiations.

The second democratic deficit is Cameroon’s persistent centralization of power. While Cameroon decentralized through a 1996 amendment to the constitution and a 2004 Orientation of Decentralization Law, administrative bottlenecks and political interference prevent the country’s 360 municipal councils from carrying out their responsibility to lead development in areas such as healthcare, education, and social welfare. Just five years ago, Cameroon’s ministries devolved operations to the municipal level, but ministers regularly impose conditions on the use of funds. Persistent blockages to creating an autonomous, functional infrastructure for subnational governance continue to exacerbate present grievances and hinder progress toward a government structure that maintains Cameroon’s territorial integrity while vastly increasing its responsiveness to citizen needs.

The international community needs to make targeted investments to improve the collaboration between local elected officials and civil society organizations. Technical support from other constitutionally devolved African nations like Kenya can help Cameroon creatively troubleshoot political and bureaucratic blockages in the decentralization process. This approach needs to be grounded in improving and expanding the existing efforts of committed nonpartisan civil society organizations to hold municipal councils accountable. In the long run, the international community needs to support Cameroonian political leaders, civil society members, and citizens develop and execute a plan for the country’s federalization that is embedded in a negotiated settlement.

The third democratic deficit is the closed space in which civil society operates. Under President Biya, Cameroon has been a closed space for civil society and political activists challenging the government’s authority. Rights-based organizations in Cameroon are routinely persecuted for exercising their oversight role and exposing human rights violations committed by the government. The government, however, allows civil society organizations to work on issues that are not considered a threat to its control, such as women’s and children’s rights and service delivery. Though, due to the closed political space, many organizations in Cameroon, especially those located outside of the main city centers, cannot readily access technical assistance or resources that would strengthen their engagement with the government and contribute to policy reforms on low-risk issues.

In the midst of the crisis, local civil society organizations — particularly those led by women — and community leaders like religious authorities and traditional chiefs are filling service delivery vacuums left by ineffective governance. Not only do these civil society leaders provide socioeconomic relief to Anglophones in the form of locally-sourced humanitarian assistance and psychosocial support to bereaved citizens, but they also act as back-channel negotiators to incentivize separatist family and friends to consider non-violent approaches to address their grievances. The international community should continue to voice support for civil society leaders on the front lines of the crisis and apply public pressure to the Cameroonian government should they continue to repress these actors. Since the Cameroonian government applies less pressure to apolitical social welfare organizations, international partners should also increase assistance activities to civil society leaders working directly with internally-displaced Cameroonians to increase their service coverage and build their legitimacy as neutral humanitarian actors.

THE WAY AHEAD

Cameroon’s long-term stabilization starts now. While a negotiated settlement between the Cameroonian government and the armed Anglophone groups is the only pathway for sustainable peace, the country’s local governance infrastructure — particularly its municipal councils — requires immediate technical and financial support to capably carry out its decentralized functions and serve the needs of a population in crisis. Social welfare-focused civil society organizations and community leaders are crucial neutral actors whose contributions to humanitarian assistance and peace efforts will only increase once negotiations progress. In the aftermath of a deal, these local governments structures and civil society leaders will provide crucial support for the resettlement of displaced populations, the reintegration of former combatants, and the settlement of wartime grievances. The international community should support decentralized local government structures and civil society leaders now to provide immediate stabilization assistance and to increase the chances of societal recovery after the parties reach an agreement.

Culled from Brookings.edu