Cameroon

11, January 2017

Biya meets with Chinese ambassador ⁰

Paul Biya’s media men and women have revealed that the President of China, Xi JINPING has expressed his country’s determination to reinforce ties with Cameroon in 2017. The presidential website reported that the message was disclosed to the 83 year old dictator through the Chinese Ambassador to Cameroon, Wei Wenshua, on Wednesday 11 January 2017, at the Unity Palace.

The Chinese are not interested in human rights, so Ambassador Wei Wenshua extended New Year wishes to the Right Royal President and lauded Cameroon’s “remarkable progress” in 2016. The Chinese Diplomat said the complexities of current international trends are strong indicators for Cameroon and China to strengthen a sustainable bilateral relation. He announced the imminent arrival of the Chinese Minister of Culture in Cameroon, accompanied by a group of Chinese artists; who will perform at the Yaoundé Congress Centre.

In 2015, China was Cameroon’s first trade partner, while the latter was the second largest beneficiary of Chinese aid in Africa; FCFA 1,430 billion.

10, January 2017

South West pro Biya comedians holding emergency meeting in Buea ¹

Following the successful civil disobedience campaign staged by the leaders of the Southern Cameroons consortium on the 9th of January 2017 during which it resolved to extend the strike action until Anglophone demands are met, an emergency meeting of all political elites of the South West region is currently holding in Buea under the direct supervision of the former Prime Minister and Grand Chancellor of the National Orders, Peter Mafany Musonge.

Cameroon Concord News learnt that Musonge who himself was humiliated by the Francophone regime during his time as Prime Minister and Head of Government opened the session expressing regrets that schools have definitely not resumed in West Cameroons. A source in the meeting quoted the Grand Chancellor and Senator as observing that the scenario in British Southern Cameroons was shameful, disgusting and disgraceful to the Yaounde regime and by extrapolation, the South West political elites.

Our informant also revealed at the time of filing this report that some of the CPDM officials in the forum have not been allowed to speak. The Musonge meeting is a vain attempt to the South West to counter the all powerful and truthful Consortium. Our senior political correspondent in the South West who confirmed the arrival of the pro Biya comedians in Buea late today, opined that the so-called South West CPDM leaders are taking the last kicks of a dying horse. With Biya already releasing Southern Cameroons political detainees, it is evidently clear that Yaounde is about to open direct talks with members of the Consortium widely believed to have legitimate authority in Southern Cameroons.

By Chi Prudence Asong in Buea

9, January 2017

Bakossi Chiefs, Ministers Philip Ngwese and Elung Paul: No longer an item ²

Bakossi chiefs say they are not spare wheels for Minister Philip Ngwese and Co, who only run to them when their jobs are at stake. The chiefs collected their share of the Yaounde money but refused to implement their instructions. The CPDM barons from Kupe Manenguba in the South West Region were in their home constituency over the weekend, desperately calling on parents, teachers and students to ignore the civil disobedience campaign and get back to school.

The men called the ministers used money to lure the traditional authorities to attend their meetings, dishing out Cameroonian tax payers money that their Colonial Master General allocated them for this purpose. The Bakossi people did not refuse the payments made by the agents of La Republique. The Chiefs and the local political elites attended the meetings, collected what ever amount was available and promised the two main Francophone surrogates that they would do as the CPDM government has requested. Ministers Philip Ngwese and Elung Paul are reportedly hiding after Kupe Muanenguba recorded a huge participation in today’s ghost town operation.

“We cannot send our children to die because of small chicken change. These people only leave Yaounde and come to see us when they feel that their interests are threatened. When we send them letters about our local worries, they never act. They refuse to respect their engagements towards us. When they called us to attend the meeting, they motivated us financially, and since we needed the money we took it, but we cannot do what they asked us to do. They promised that if our children go to school, they will give us more. But of what use will education be to our children if they go to school, have certificates and come back to stay in our houses?”. One of the chiefs who collected the money noted to this reporter.

Minister Ngwese had already boasted to the press that schools were not interrupted in the Kupe Manengouba Division during the first term and assured the Biya Francophone Beti Ewondo regime that things will continue like that.

Culled from HenrietteLounge.com

8, January 2017

Apostolic Nuncio delivers CPDM style speech at State House ⁰

Ambassadors, High Commissioners, Representatives of International Organizations and other foreign dignitaries accredited to Yaounde have presented best wishes of the New Year 2017 to the Cameroonian dictator, President Paul Biya. The ceremony that took place at the Unity Palace started with a speech delivered by the Apostolic Nuncio, Mgr Piorro Piopo in his capacity as Dean of the Diplomatic Corps. The Dean made an analysis of the just ended year which he revealed was rich in activities.

The Vatican ambassador to Yaoundé and Malabo cited the visits of a number of world leaders to Cameroon, including the Head of States of Italy in May 2016, that of Chad in October, the leaders of Senegal, Nigeria and those of Central African Sub region. Mentioned was also made of the Director General of the International Monetary Fund who visited Cameroon twice last year.

The Dean ignored the rapes and ritual killings and the numerous human rights violations going on in the country and instead saluted the dubious approach of dialogue and concerted action to tackle major issues incarnated by President Biya.

By Sama Ernest with files from CRTV

6, January 2017

Governors, SDO’s and DO’s are running around West Cameroon: Too little, too late ¹

The people of West Cameroon have no reason before God and man to resume schools following the continuous brutal repression and oppression that has always resulted in the killing, rape, torture, and imprisonment of our innocent children by the same government that now suddenly pretends to care.

At this time in our history, we as a people, must stand up and face our oppressors. If this government were interested in our plight, our children’s’ schools and classrooms would not be filled by theirs and their teachers who forcefully un-teach them in a language they do not understand. When a system like ours wants to subjugate and enslave us, it comes for our children. They have gone too far. We must stop them now. The schools are ours! The children are ours! We are determined! They will stay home!

Bravo to our Teachers’ Unions and our Common Law Lawyers for standing up firm against these and other injustices against our people. We must now stand by them from Ndian in the South to Donga –Mantung in the North, and ensure that by sacrificing a school year, we will collectively cease back our freedom and dignity that have been trampled upon for over 55 years.

THE TIME IS NOW! WE MUST MAKE IT HAPPEN!

THIS IS THE CORE OF OUR RESISTANCE TO BLATANT, DECEITFUL, PROVOCATIVE AND INHUMANE OPPRESSION.

Has this government ever really cared about the fate of our children? Can a government that cares for its children send soldiers to rape, torture and kill them? Our people of West Cameroon, when did the union between TWO EQUAL PARTNERS become that between master and slave?

The Governors, the SDO’s and the DO’s are running around West Cameroon in circles. WHY THE PANIC? Is the master just frustrated that the slave has risen? Is the government just frightened that for 55 years, “the few cubes of sugar” have stubbornly refused to melt?

DIGNIFIED PEOPLE OF WEST CAMEROON, THE RESISTANCE HAS COME TO STAY…UNTIL… WE gain our Independence.

2, January 2017

Southern Cameroons is on an Indefinite Strike against Colonial “La Republique” until Self-Rule is Restored ⁰

Most presidential speeches are unpredictable. Not so with speeches by Paul Biya, the President of “La Republique du Cameroun”. Last Saturday was the president’s 35th end-of-year address and it proved, anew, that Mr. Biya’s newest problem is an old one. His every outing is stubbornly true to form and style. Boring. Predictable. Fact free. Power drunk. Sickening. Removed from reality. Overloaded with empty promises. Full of spin and half truths… Even outright lies.

Those, including some members of the Movement for the Restoration of the Independence of Southern Cameroons (MoRISC), who had hoped that Mr. Biya could use the speech to demonstrate that he is, indeed, the president of the two Cameroons say they were stunned by it. Mr. Biya could have been speaking to the inhabitants of Mars as an actor in some “Alice in Wonderland” movie; oblivious of any reality. With so much at stake, Mr. Biya blew another golden opportunity to make history… to be presidential.

The speech came on the heels of the most violent and tragic government crackdown of peaceful street protests by Southern Cameroonians. Like Pharaoh in Egypt, Mr. Biya sounded God has “hardened his heart”. The time devoted to this issue very early in the speech, betrayed how much the regime has been rattled by ongoing strikes by lawyers and teachers as well as by the wave of street protests across the world and campaigns involving the Diaspora calling, among others, for the restoration of self-rule for Southern Cameroons.

It would have been laughable were it not so tragic. The same Mr. Biya who, by presidential fiat destroyed the “Union of the Cameroons” in February 1984 when he unilaterally reverted to the name of “La Republique du Cameroun”, claimed that he is walking in the footsteps of the founding fathers. Ahmadou Ahidjo, Um Nyobe, Ernest Ouandie, John Ngu Foncha, E. M. L. Endeley and Augustine Ngom Jua must be turning in their graves. The “best pupil” of a certain French president would “eat the earth” (swear) that imposing the worst form of colonial rule on Southern Cameroons creates a “ONE and INDIVISIBLE” country than the two-state federation set up by the founders. Not true!

What is true is the following: only divided families and countries afflicted with divisions would find the need to issue loud sounding declarations about being “ONE and INDIVISIBLE”. Gabon is not proclaiming that it is “ONE and INDIVISIBLE”. Mr. Biya found it important to do so twice in the same speech. Very telling of the gravity of the profound divisions that he knows must exist yet must pretend they don’t exist. A believer in the “argument of force”, the abusive spouse (“La Republique du Cameroun”) in the “union of the Cameroons” wants divorce denied simply because the couple is “ONE and INDIVISIBLE”.

After disseminating a December 15, 2016 “Diplomatic Note” in which it distorts facts and tells outright lies about the events unfolding across Southern Cameroons, Mr. Biya claims in the speech to be “deeply concerned” by these events. A power hungry regime whose secret motto must be “in Machiavelli we trust” slams “The Coffin Revolution” as “a group of manipulated and exploited extremist rioters”. Amazing, right?

Like every abusive spouse, Mr. Biya misidentifies and belittles the problems of the couple. He dismisses the problems raised by the abused spouse as unimportant compared to other ideals and values of the marriage: the sanctity of the matrimonial bed (such as the flag and Constitution) or what Mr. Biya calls the very “foundations of our togetherness”. The president argues that the couple is still “standing on its feet”; that the abused spouse seeking divorce “can rightfully opine on any aspect of national life, including through duly declared peaceful strike action”.

Did anyone warn the regime to be careful what it wishes for? Too late now! MoRISC has already evoked this “inalienable” right… the “fundamental civil right… enshrined in the Constitution” to declare (see our Roadmap at www.morisc.org/roadmap) that Southern Cameroonians, with effect from this first day of January 2017, have “duly declared” an indefinite “peaceful strike” against the colonial “La Republique du Cameroun” until self-rule is restored to the former British Southern Cameroons.

Threat of divorce has a way of reminding abusive spouses of the need to woo their partners as before, charming them with care, love, gifts and flowers. Our first love (Ahidjo) wooed Southern Cameroons on the constitutional promise not to violate the sanctity of the federation of two equal states. In the hope of convincing the abused spouse to stay on in the union, Mr. Biya offered a bribe. He wishes to “personally supervise” (?) the building of a dam on the Menchum River, not far from the site of another project (The Ring Road) whose construction he also pledged to supervised only months into his now 35-year reign. The big problem with telling lies is that the teller has to remember them.

The regime reminds the abused spouse that the “marriage certificate” was based not just on democracy – pure and simple – but “in the model of democracy which I (the abusive spouse) have proposed”. Go figure what this “model of democracy” means! Is it about upholding only those parts of the Constitution that serve the dictatorship? Why has Mr. Biya’s regime not implement the current Constitution, 20 years since it was adopted in 1996? “La Republique du Cameroun” has notably failed to hold a dialogue envisaged in the hope of saving the union of the Cameroons under a 2009 ruling by a court accredited to the African Union. The regime is so abusive it won’t even abide by the court orders to hold a dialogue with the abused spouse within 180 days.

Mr. Biya lacks credibility to point an accusing finger at Southern Cameroonians. Why is it okay for the president to resurrect “La Republique” dead and buried on 1 October 1961 and not okay for the spouse to raise from the death Southern Cameroons? Truth be told. President Biya – not Southern Cameroonians – is the hostage of a few, manipulated regime and party extremists. Their only job over the past 35 years has consisted of shielding the “absentee tenant of Etoudi Palace” from coming face-to-face with the ugly reality of misery, poverty, hopelessness and despair that nearly four decades of his misrule has visited on the peoples of the Cameroons. The extremists include Prof. Fame Ndongo, who has never stopped undermining the Anglo-Saxon system of education. Extremists like Paul Atanga Nji who deny the existence of any problem. Extremists and “agents provocateurs” like Premier Yang, who descended on Buea and Bamenda, looking for a crowd to rent to “Dimabola” for the regime. The extremists include those who violated students, “disappeared” and killed demonstrators. Extremists like those who chased leaders of teachers’ and lawyers’ trade unions in the closing days of 2016 in the hope of signing a deal lifting their strikes. Unable to reach a deal, the regime’s extremists simply “cooked” one up.

What else could it be called but playing desperado? Plain. Simple. Mr. Biya was defiant, warning no doubt that his regime will not retreat into a hole. However, the regime dropped a heavy hint that it could be waving the white flag. At his discretion, Mr. Biya says he may convene discussions on the same problems extremists within claim do not exist.

The dust in Southern Cameroons won’t settle until a deal is reached. Southern Cameroonians are only getting started. They won’t stop mobilizing until they win self-rule. The regime can work for a bargain or it can play ostrich, hiding behind empty slogans like “ONE and INDIVISIBLE”. History is full of the story of countries that once claimed exactly the same bull yet could not prevent the birth of new nations. The people of Southern Cameroons are a different people from those of “La Republique du Cameroun”. They have a right to self-determination that cannot be denied by Yaounde. The march to freedom and self-rule can’t be stopped. Certainly, “La Republique du Cameroun” is “ONE and INDIVISIBLE”. But so, too, Southern Cameroons is “ONE and INDIVISIBLE”.

By Boh Herbert

31, December 2016

A total of 510.000 people have been newly registered on the electoral lists ⁰

A total of 510.000 people have been newly registered on the electoral lists in Cameroon. The Director General of Elections Cameroon, Abdoulaye Babaye made public this figure in Yaoundé on the 30^th of December 2016 during a ceremony to present and handover the voters lists of the 4.000 polling stations of the Centre Region to the Secretary General at the Centre Regional Governor’s Office.

As the revision of electoral lists begins on the 3rd of January 2017, Abdoulaye Babaye hopes the period will be another opportunity for Cameroonians to register and swell-up the number of potential voters. The present number of voters stands at 6.250.000.

CRTV

30, December 2016

Anglophone Problem: Dr Christopher Fomunyoh says Biya’s government does not listen ¹

Dr. Christopher Fomunyoh, Africa Regional Director of the National Democratic Institute, the US-based Think Tank has said that it is difficult under the current Biya pattern of governance to know who to make concrete proposals on how to resolve the Anglophone problem.

Christopher Fomunyoh added that the situation is becoming more intractable because hardliners in the Biya Francophone Beti Ewondo regime keep refusing the existence of the problem. The renowned Anglophone personality also noted that President Biya cannot implement any acceptable solution to the prevailing situation in British Southern Cameroons.

He told Le Jour newspaper that “some speak of federalism as a solution, but there is no assurance that if adopted, federalism would not remain a dead letter, as the current regime has done with the decentralization adopted in 1996.” Dr. Fomunyoh hinted that for 20 years, the constitutional provisions to decentralization have not been applied. “It must be recognized that those who have governed our country for decades have mastered only one approach of Jacobin centralization of power “.

On the management of these social tensions by the CPDM government, Christopher Fomunyoh stated: “As I said last week in Kumba in the South West region, no Head of State or political leader chooses the crises that arise during his mandate, but it is on the management of these different crises that they are judged. I welcome the fact that Prime Minister Philemon Yang traveled to Bamenda to meet lawyers ‘and teachers’ leaders, and that the Governor of the North-West Region increased his citizen contacts at the height of the crisis to calm the spirits heated by the brutality of certain elements of the forces of order and by the false and untimely statements of certain policians. That said, you will recall that in a statement of 23rd November I asked that President Paul Biya address the nation to appease and reassure everyone. I remain convinced that such an approach initiated from the beginning would have allowed better management of the crisis “.

By Chi Prudence Asong

29, December 2016

Prof. GHOGOMU Paul MINGO: Statement by the Judas Iscariot after the failed Bamenda meeting ³

After deliberations, the Francophone surrogate passing for a chairman of the Adhoc Interministerial Committee made public this communique;

1- The Ad hoc Committee wished to work with all members. However, based on claims which have nothing to do with education, trade unions and other associations left the hall. Only representatives of confessional private education and private higher education displayed a sense of good faith to contribute to the working session.

2- The three ministers of basic, secondary and higher education presented Government efforts towards the English-speaking subsystem of education and its willingness to continue dialogue. I will cite, amongst others, the on-going census of secondary school teachers to redeploy them to fill the gap observed in the English-speaking subsystem of education. It is also the same for the draft Order to set the duration of studies and naming the certificates obtained in technical education of the English-speaking subsystem of education. I also wish to mention the holding of the National Forum on Education in 2017, which brings lots of hope for the education community as a whole and the English subsystem in particular.

3- I wish to congratulate all participants who had a sense of efficiency and patriotism.

4- Within the framework of its sovereign missions, the State will continue towards dialogue and concertation with all stakeholders to achieve realistic and progressive results to technical concerns of one sub-system of education or the other (English-speaking subsystem, French sub-system).

5- Both sub-systems are bound to coexist in Cameroon, each in its specificity and originality without anyone trying to absorb the other.

6- With regard to extremist trade unionists who publicly refused to be part of this working session for reasons that have nothing to do with the education of young Cameroonians, Government will take its responsibility.

7- The State shall not allow individuals who do not show proof of good faith to take pupils, students, parents, Civil Society Organizations hostage; they who have just one wish: That the English-speaking sub-system of education should function effectively in the interest of our nursery, primary, secondary and university youth of the English-speaking subsystem, who are an integral part of the national educational system.

8- The Adhoc committee shall continue to work with people who display good faith to preserve the specificity, the originality and the radiance of the English-speaking subsystem of education in a Cameroon that is united in diversity.

9- The Adhoc Committee is determined to find efficient solutions to genuine problems in the English-speaking subsystem of education, in accordance with the laws and regulations of the Republic.

10- I wish to inform you that we have met with students, teachers in their large majority, parents and all people of good will. They are against this manipulation of trade unions, and will want schools to start as soon as possible. That is the Government’s stand point. Let us not jeopardize our children’s future.

11- We call on all men and women, Cameroonians of good will to do all so that classes resume early January in all parts of the North West and South West Regions. The Government will take her responsibility. Cameroonian children in the North West and South West regions must be educated as their brothers and sisters in the other eight regions.

29, December 2016

North West Lawyers reinstate Barrister Bobga Harmony as their leader ⁰

Members of the North West lawyers Association, NOWELA, have canceled a decision taken on December 27, 2016 that removed Barrister Bobga Harmony Mbuton as their leader.

In a press release on Wednesday December 28, 2016, the lawyers said that, “We hereby withdraw our initial position passing the vote of no confidence on our President. Consequently the resolution dated 27 December is null and void and we state clearly that Barrister Bobga Harmony Mbuton remains the President of NOWELA.”

The lawyers had dismissed their president for partaking in the Yaoundé meeting geared at seeking lasting solutions to problems raised by Common Law Lawyers against the wish of the general assembly. The lawyers saw this as a provocation and an attempt to sell out the struggle of the Common law Lawyers.

But it was later explained that Barrister Harmony went to Yaoundé without the final document of the Consortium which called for a boycott of the meeting chaired by Pierre Fogue, Minister Delegate at the ministry of Justice. It was also revealed that at the time of Barrister Bobga’s departure for Yaounde, the Consortium was still in conclave.

Culled from CIN