Five months ago, Amnesty International stated: “Cameroonian authorities must act to end the violence against the population and conduct thorough investigations into the killings, acts of torture, rapes, burning of houses and other atrocities committed in the Anglophone regions…” The 5th July 2023 report, like many before, was disapproving and detailed extensive human rights violations and other crimes committed by multiple actors in the war-torn Anglophone regions of the country. Following the report, Cameroon Concord News Group tasked its undercover reporters in the country to establish the extent of the kidnapping-for-ransom market. Our correspondents have revealed a disturbing criminal empire worth hundreds of thousands of dollars operating due to the security vacuum created as a result of the war in the Southwest and Northwest regions of Cameroon.

The war between forces loyal to the regime in Yaoundé against Anglophone separatists seems to have stalled with vast remote areas of the Anglophone regions now ungovernable and Cameroon Concord News Group can reveal that armed criminal gangs now control most of the rural areas, with the government unable to exert any control and authority over hundreds of square miles of land.

Some separatist groups in the diaspora have taken advantage of the security vacuum in the war-torn country with the AGovC (Ambazonia Governing Council) implementing a “liberation tax” rip-off. Our sources reported that this so-called tax is collected through MTN and Orange Mobile Money transfers by gang leaders who own multiple fraudulent mobile money accounts. In many areas, hundreds spoke on condition of anonymity and recounted the ordeals of dealing with rogue Cameroon army soldiers and separatist gang. In Kumbo, Northwest region, a government official said “These Amba fighters are now kidnapping for ransoms, particularly as the money could be paid through MTN and Orange Mobile Money accounts”

There are stories of families that have been separated as Ambazonia fighters chase people to pay huge ransoms. The campaign of violence and intimidation is unbearable in some cases and the only way is for people to leave the country. The family of Joseph Agbor Ndip, who left Cameroon last year as he was hounded by Amba fighters for money with threats of death are still getting intimidating messages from both the Cameroon army and rogue gangs asking them to pay money for their safety. We uncovered that the amount asked in some of these messages is over $10,000 in a country where over 75% live on less than $5 a day.

In many areas of the country, Amba Fighters are charging 10,000 frs CFA ($20) monthly “taxes” to fund the war for independence. Agbor Ndip’s family says they and many others are being blackmailed as traitors for not responding and they live in fear. The family of Monica Eyambe Agbe, who fled an abusive marriage recounted that Amba fighters “have asked us to pay over 20 million CFA that our late father “borrowed” and never paid. How are we ever going to get that kind of money? Our lives are not worth living”

It is disgraceful that the regime in Yaoundé always ignores credible reports from international human rights organizations about abuses in the country. The authorities in Cameroon have actively discredited and delegitimized the July report from Amnesty International. The stories of hundreds of enforced disappearances are real and painful to the families involved. The families of Joseph Agbor Ndip, Monica Agbe, Alfred Tita and Toto Roland and many more are now facing never-ending harassment from the armed gangs and the lawless French Cameroon army operating with impunity.

Yaoundé’s “military victory only” strategy effectively means that they have ruled out a negotiated solution to the conflict. What this means is that some of the country’s most vulnerable people are now cut up between armed gangs and an unruly army. The refusal of Mr Biya and his men to accept that their conservative approach is leading to several avoidable deaths is regrettable.

The Amnesty International report and the findings of the Concord Group over the last three months have exposed leadership fatigue in Yaoundé. The warring parties have announced a detente and this has created a security vacuum for criminals to operate. Kidnapping gangs and a disgruntled Cameroon army extorting money from businesses and the local population are among the major reasons for the massive exodus from the country.

The scale and horror of the war in the Anglophone regions in Cameroon rightly captured the world’s attention for almost six years, but by some strange happenstance, it now appears to be one of the world’s forgotten conflicts. What Amnesty International and our investigation have uncovered is a vicious and malicious underworld of kidnapping for ransoms in a very poor and unsafe environment.

By Chi Prudence Asong, with files from Alain Tabot-Tanyi

Paul BIYA granted a farewell audience to Anindya Banerjee, High Commissioner of India to Cameroon on 29 November 2023 at Unity Palace.

Biya and Banerjee reportedly discussed issues of common interest, including the strengthening of the friendly and cordial bilateral relations that exist between Yaoundé and New Delhi in areas like trade, agriculture, health, and capacity building.

The outgoing Indian Diplomat started his mission in Cameroon on 21 February 2022.

Culled PRC

Any meeting intended to mobilize people to celebrate a disastrous leader in a failed state in the middle of a war and a cost-of-living crisis is likely to provoke strong emotions and should never be considered. Such meetings won’t be contemplated in any country where decent values and uprightness are second nature. CPDM political meetings around Southern Cameroons have been considered controversial, provocative and banned for over six years. The last CPDM assembly in Mamfe on Monday, 6th November, moved from controversial to pitiful. The meeting was held a few hours after the cruel massacre of over 25 innocent and defenseless people in Egbekaw village. The purpose of the meeting was for the leaders of the CPDM crime syndicate in Manyu to celebrate 41 years of Paul Biya on Cameroon’s throne.

It offered the Manyu CPDM criminals a rare opportunity to send photographic evidence to the CPDM central committee in Yaoundé that they were still loyal to the country’s Supreme leader, Paul Biya. After the Egbekaw massacre, the overwhelming majority of people in Mamfe thought that the assembly should have been cancelled. The people of Mamfe wanted a peaceful march around the city to express solidarity and demonstrate empathy and sympathy with the families of those who lost their lives in tragic and inhuman circumstances. However, the so-called Manyu CPDM elites were not in the mood for compassion. They had come to Mamfe under the protection of armoured vehicles designed for the streets of Ukraine and nothing would stop them—not even the worst massacre in Manyu in over 18 months.

And so, the celebration went ahead under a pathetic spectacle. Chief Tabetando of Bachou Ntai village looked every inch as frail as his boss, Niat Njifenji, the senate president. The Chief could hardly stand without the aid of his walking stick. Minister Mengot Arrey Nkongho appeared reddish in complexion, a considerable worry for a man who prides himself on his looks. The minister must have sat in an uncomfortable position for hours, squeezed inside the armoured tank that transported them from Muea to Mamfe. The minister looked apprehensive, shaken and wore the look of a man with a running stomach. The sight of the day belonged to Chief Prof Teddy Ako of the Chiefdom of Ossing. Cameroon Concord News has reliable information that Chief Ako is a decent man dragged reluctantly into CPDM politics by the other gang members. Chief Ako’s CPDM shirt was four sizes too large for him. It looked on him like a carpenter stitched it. Then, there was the former Mayor of Mamfe, one Mr Ayuk Takunchong, notorious for always hugging the corridors of power in search of leftovers.

The meeting went ahead with these clowns taking turns to read messages of support to Mr Biya. A sorrowful sight indeed! As people cried in Egbekaw and the hospital mortuary, these thugs sat down, ate, drank and celebrated forty-one years of misery. It was scandalous and criminal.

The quality of Manyu leaders today is a considerable worry. They are political comics pretending to lead a people desperate for strong and upright leadership. Pa Enow Tanjong, the late Chief ET Egbe including the late Hon Effiom, and Chief Michael Tambong Kima will be turning in their graves with fury as they watch these delinquents and petty criminals making a mockery of the art of leadership.

These are complex times for Cameroon and Manyu when intellectual and political giants are required to lead, but unfortunately, clowns have the levers of power. The CPDM does not welcome brave and gifted visionaries; therefore, the future of Manyu and Cameroon is in serious trouble.

By Agbor Paul Enow in Mamfe

90-year-old Biya is marking today (Nov. 06) his 41 year-rule over the divided Cameroonian nation.

Last year, thousands gathered in Yaoundé, for the occasion but the president did not attend.

Paul Biya, a former Prime Minister, took the reins of Cameroon on November 6, 1982 following the resignation of the country’s first president Ahmadou Ahidjo.

Many voices within the ruling CPDM crime syndicate have already called for him to vie in the 2025 presidential election for an 8th, 7-year term.

Critics of his regime, however, wore black on Sunday. Some cited corruption, bad governance, and an ongoing succession battle.

Biya who celebrated his 90th anniversary last February is Africa’s second-longest serving leader.

Under him, Cameroon has faced challenges in recent years that range from a secessionist movement in the country’s English-speaking regions to the threat in the north posed by Islamic extremists aligned with the Nigeria-based Boko Haram group.

Paul Biya last won a presidential election in 2018.

Source: Africa News

A delegation of the Communist Party of China led by Wang Junwei, director of the Academic and Editorial Committee of the Institute of Party History and Literature of the CPC Central Committee, visited Cameroon from Saturday to Tuesday.

During the visit, the delegation held meetings with Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly Theodore Datouo and Jean Nkuete, the secretary-general of the Central Committee of the ruling Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement, elaborating on the Chinese path to modernization and China’s policy toward Africa.

The two sides also exchanged views on the implementation of the important consensus of the two heads of state and on deepening relations between the two parties and the two countries.

The Cameroonian side expressed its willingness to strengthen exchanges and cooperation with the Chinese side, draw on each other’s strengths and explore the path to modernization suited to its own national conditions.

Source: China Daily

Joshua Osih was elected Sunday, October 29, president of the Social Democratic Front (SDF), said this party, which is one of the two main opposition movements in Cameroon, a country led unchallenged for more than forty years by Paul Biya.

Mr. Osih, 54, until then first vice-president of the party, succeeds John Fru Ndi, who died on June 12 after having chaired the SDF since its creation in 1990. The SDF is the first opposition movement represented in the National Assembly with 5 seats out of 180 in a chamber largely dominated by the party of President Paul Biya. At 90 years old, the latter is regularly accused by the UN and international NGOs of repressing the opposition in this vast Central African country of nearly 30 million inhabitants.

Mr. Osih was elected with 62% of the votes of SDF activists gathered in congress against two other candidates, Jean Takougang, member of the party’s electoral commission, announced to AFP. John Fru Ndi had long been the main opponent, very close to winning the presidential election in 1992 with nearly 36% of the vote against nearly 40% for Mr. Biya. But in recent years, the SDF has lost ground, going from 43 deputies in 1997 to only 5 in 2023.

“Violation of human rights”

During the 2018 presidential election, the SDF recorded the worst score in its history, with Joshua Osih receiving only 3.35% of the vote. It was the Cameroon Renaissance Movement (MRC) which then positioned itself as the leading opposition party, its leader Maurice Kamto winning 14.23% of the vote against 71.28% for Mr. Biya.

In June, Amnesty International accused the government of “violation of human rights”in particular by imprisoning “arbitrarily” opponents, civilians, journalists, civil society leaders and by having them judged by military courts, invoking acts of “terrorism”.

Mr. Kamto was imprisoned for nine months without trial in 2019 for peaceful protests against the government and was only released after international pressure. The MRC has no elected representatives in the Assembly because it boycotted the 2018 legislative elections.

In 2019 and 2020, nearly 700 MRC executives and activists were arrested like Mr. Kamto, during and after “unquestionably peaceful marches” but “objects of violent repression”, had accused experts mandated by the UN in November 2022. The majority were released after eight months of detention without trial but forty-seven were sentenced to prison in 2021 by a military court. Forty-four are still imprisoned.

Source: AFP

On the evening of Oct. 4, two frightened-looking middle aged men in T-shirts were forced by armed men to sit on the ground in the middle of a village square in Guzang, in North West region of Cameroon, one of two main English-speaking regions in the predominantly Francophone Central African country.

The two men were alleged to have been spies for the national Francophone-led government. In a video seen by Semafor Africa, and shared widely on Cameroon social media in recent weeks, the men were lined up and executed by a firing squad in front of a small crowd of villagers. The execution has been claimed by the armed wing of the Ambazonia Governing Council (AGovC), a separatist group.

That moment of almost casual, coldblooded violence earlier this month is a dark reminder of one of Africa’s low profile but seemingly intractable armed conflicts taking place in Cameroon’s English-speaking North West and South West regions, which the separatists refer to as an independent state called Ambazonia.

The battle has also moved to Washington DC’s K Street, infamous for its expensive lobbying firms. Houston-based separatist leader Chris Anu confirmed to Semafor Africa that, on behalf of the “Federal Republic of Ambazonia,” he had contracted the lobby firm Scribe Strategies, led by veteran Washington player Joseph Szlavik, in a bid to make their case to key Africa watchers on Capitol Hill and at the United Nations.

“La Republique du Cameroun [government of Cameroon] is in the habit of saying that it doesn’t know who to talk to in Ambazonia,” Anu said. “By hiring a lobbyist, we are saying to LRC that they now know who to talk to and how to reach us.” He said the separatists will be speaking with “one voice” in conducting future negotiations or referendum matters via the firm.

Know More

Cameroon’s armed separatist conflict has claimed the lives of over 6,000 people, displaced 630,000 internally and a further 88,000 as refugees to next-door Nigeria. Its roots lie in Europe’s imperial past. In 1884, Germany annexed swathes of independent kingdoms in Central Africa to form a colony it named Kamerun but lost it after World War I to Britain and France which partitioned the territory.

In the 1960s, some in the British territory wanted independence by forming their own state, and not by joining neighbouring Nigeria or the already independent French Cameroun. However, they were not given that third option under a U.N.-organized referendum. This has bred frustration and secessionist agitations ever since. In 2016, protests against the imposition of French language officials in English-speaking schools and courts sparked protests and strike action by lawyers and teachers. But things turned violent the following year.

Amindeh’s view

For the past seven years, the lingering Anglophone crisis has attracted little global attention aside from the odd headline, presumably because it doesn’t significantly threaten the interest of major foreign powers.

Much of the battle is being fought on the ground and also on social media platforms with separatist activists and pro-government operators taking turns to spread propaganda.

It’s important to note both sides in the crisis have been spending in the U.S. to fund a lobby war. Since the conflict erupted, separatists told us they have contracted at least two lobby firms, Foley Hoagg and now Scribe Strategies & Advisors. The government for its part has used several lobby and PR firms on a variety of matters. They include Glover Park Group, Clout Public Affairs, Mercury Public Affair and Squire Patton Boggs.

It seems the conflict has descended into a stalemate with both sides hoping that the other will get exhausted and give up. As Arrey Elvis Ntui, a senior analyst for Cameroon at Brussels-based International Crisis Group, put it, the conflict has outlived narrow efforts made by the government and Anglophone separatist groups in the last seven years. “What could change the scenario is the parties doing what they have so far failed to do: discuss an end to hostilities and a political solution,” Ntui posited.

Room for Disagreement

Cameroon’s government insists that the socio-political upheaval in its North West and South West regions is an internal affair which it has under control. When the Canadian government announced early this year that Cameroon’s leaders had agreed to enter a peace process facilitated by Canada, Yaoundé was quick to issue a rebuttal. “It is first and foremost up to the Cameroonian people, to the institutions and leaders that have been freely chosen, to seek appropriate ways and means to address problems facing our country [Cameroon],” it said in a statement.

The View From Buea, South West Cameroon

Dr. Suh I Fru Norbert, a political scientist and conflict resolution expert at the University of Buea in the South West region, said nothing substantial had changed since the shock of the executions. “In a situation of asymmetric warfare, it is common for fighters to make sporadic appearances of the sort to remind the enemy they can still do something…However, what appears as a puzzle is to see such a mobilization at a market square in the day without the presence of conventional security forces,” Norbert told Semafor Africa.

Culled from News.Yahoo

Former Secretary General at the presidency of the republic Professor Titus Edzoa expressed his willingness to lead a transition government in the event President Biya agrees to step down.

Edzoa, however, maintained he will not support another mandate for President Biya in the next presidential race.

Professor Titus Edzoa told Equinox TV that any change in the government should be made under constitutional processes.

“Should there be a transition government and I am asked to serve the Cameroonian people solely for transition purposes, I would agree to lead,” Edzoa said.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

The Cameroonian government has put in place the system of “divide and rule”, which makes attempts by the country’s military to overthrow President Paul Biya impossible, a Catholic peace entity has said, allaying fears of “a possible coup” in the Central African nation.

Following recent military coups in Africa, particularly the July 26 one in the West African nation of Niger that ousted President Mohamed Bazoum from power, and the one in the Central African nation of Gabon on August 30, which resulted in the ouster of President Ali Bongo from power, the 90-year-old Cameroonian President reportedly made significant changes in his military, reshuffling the country’s defense delegate to the presidency, the staff of the air force, the navy, and the police.

According to Denis Hurley Peace Institute (DHPI), which has presence in Cameroon, the Central African country’s citizens are calling for the forceful removal of President Biya who ascended to the presidency through a coup d’état in 1982.

According to the peace entity of the Southern Africa Catholic Bishops’ Conference (SACBC), Cameroonians are congratulating Gabon and have “unanimously called on the military leaders of Cameroon to follow suit.”

A coup in Cameroon, DHPI says, may be an uphill task for the military who have been divided into various groups, and an animosity created among them.

“It must be noted that Paul Biya, who has been the ruler of Cameroon since 1982 had diversified the Armed Forces in the country as a preventive measure for a possible coup,” the peace entity says.

Having suffered a failed military coup in 1984, Biya is said to have wasted no time in creating many arms of the military. In this light, the country has the Gendarmerie, the Regular Army, the National Presidential Guard and the Rapid Intervention Brigade widely known by its French acronym as BIR.

“With this diversification of the Armed Forces, Biya has used the tactic of divide and rule as some arms of the military are given preferential treatment to the detriment of others, for example the BIR is supposedly the envy of the Armed Forces in Cameroon,” DHPI says.

The SACBC entity says the diversification of Cameroon’s Armed Forces, coupled with the recent adjustment in command of the top brass of Defense Sector “has canceled out any possibility of a military coup taking place in Cameroon any time soon.”

“Paul Biya will continue wielding power until a different strategy is devised to unseat him”, the Catholic peace entity reports, adding that President Biya’s early years in office had been “tarnished by tyranny and breaches of human rights.”

Mali, Guinea, Burkina Faso, Chad, Sudan, Niger and now Gabon have all faced the upheaval of military takeovers over the past three years, removing democratically elected presidents.

Culled from aciafrica