Cameroon

15, January 2017

Southern Cameroons ghost town operation begins tomorrow ¹

The Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium, CACSC has declared that tomorrow Monday the 16^th of January 2017 and Tuesday the 17^th be observed as days of civil disobedience. The much respected members of the Consortium have also hinted of the possibility of extending the ghost town operations indefinitely if Yaounde fails to hold an immediate referendum in West Cameroon. The information is contained in a statement released after the two day meeting held with members of the Francophone Ad Hoc Committee put in place to continue to deceive Southern Cameroonians to remain with La Republique du Cameroun.

The West Cameroon leaders stated in the release that talks with the French speaking Cameroonians were cordial and some Francophone government ministers showed signs of good faith. The leaders revealed that all 18 points tabled were properly examined. But added that federalism which is a key factor in the on-going Anglophone uprising was avoided by the Francophone political elites. The Francophones however opined that federalism can only be discussed in the Francophone dominated National Assembly in Yaounde.

At the close of the Bamenda meeting which ended in a deadlock, the Southern Cameroon leaders announced a major ghost town operation beginning tomorrow. The leaders pointed out that the civil disobedience campaign is a counter to the Francophone government’s continuous militarization of West Cameroon, the excessive use of force by La Republique’s security apparatus on unarmed Anglophone civilians and the deliberate silence on the part of the Biya Francophone Beti Ewondo regime to seek lasting solutions to the Anglophone problem. Southern Cameroon leaders also called for the unconditional release of all youths arrested in the defunct North West and South West regions.

Cameroon Concord News Group has deployed a cream of reporters to bring to our readers updates on the ghost operations beginning tomorrow.

By Chi Prudence Asong in Bamenda

12, January 2017

Trust in Biya is gone, so too is confidence in his appointees ¹

Etoudi is propagating the idea that the various designated mediators sent to Southern Cameroons have failed and that there is an urgent need for the presence of the 83 year old Cameroonian dictator-the man widely believed to have plunged the nation into its present state of confused identity. The pro Yaounde politicians are insinuating that Paul Biya’s presence could be an effective solution for things to return to normal in the South West and North West regions. It is not true. What is true is that Biya has lost his chance among the greats.

The failure of dialogue and negotiations cannot be blamed on the Anglophone leaders but on Biya’s pattern of governance. Biya is not only tactless but very reckless and too full of himself. The Anglophone crisis has eventually exposed him. We of this publication can now say loudly and clearly that Biya is a political disaster that has been around for the last 34 years. While the Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium has been consistently consistent with their demands and actions, Biya and his entire CPDM crime syndicate have been caught committing the same errors or falling into spectacular new ones.

To be sure, even primary school pupils of British Southern Cameroons including those of La Republique du Cameroun have come to the conclusion that there is just no one to challenge the Consortium. So, tribalism has made Paul Biya to end as a prominent and successful failure. Schools in the South West and North West have not resumed as articulated by a certain Ghogomu Mingo and the anti Anglophone Minister of Higher Education, Jacques Fame Ndongo. Minister Atanga Njie is hiding!! So too are all CPDM political actors from the defunct South West and North West regions. Justice Ayah Paul is seeking for notice. However, it is evident; schools will only open their doors if the Anglophone problem is resolved.

Given the current situation, no glimmer of hope is envisaged for a return to normal in the coming days if Biya does not step aside or personally engage the new generation of Anglophone leaders. Reviewing of government strategy will change nothing. British Southern Cameroonians have had enough of this Francophone bad faith and marginalization. The Prime Minister and Head of Government could not do anything, cabinet ministers, Senators, MPs and Mayors either. Jean Kueté, the Secretary General of the Central Committee of the ruling CPDM party was almost lynched in Bamenda after an unsuccessful attempt to hold a political meeting.

A frustrated Biya has come to understand that his 34 years as head of state has been because of the goodwill of the Cameroonian people not the army or the gendarmerie. The regime is now aware that the North West/ South West Divide tactics is a thing of the past. Yaoundé is also well informed that the cast of the men called to lead the talks were unpopular citizens in their respective constituencies. The pronouncements that came out of some cabinet ministers namely, Laurent Esso, Fame Ndongo, Atanga Njie and Issa Tchiroma Bakary made the situation moved from bad to worse.

The Yaoundé regime underestimated the Consortium and described them using a battery of adjectives. But our teachers, lawyers, Okada men, business community, Anglophone Roman Catholic Bishops including some right thinking CPDM political elites are now reading from the same script. To God be the Glory. To Biya’s greatest surprise, the Consortium has become so powerful to the extent that if the Anglophone leaders decide to request the release of Chief Inoni and Fonjindam-they will get it done in one second!! We of this group are appealing to the Consortium not to forget the Wum detainees. It was in Wum in Menchum Division where it all started. This is strength you get when you involve the common man in any political struggle. We of the Cameroon Concord News Group are proud to surrender our loyalty to The Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium.

Contrary to what many are thinking today that the only one able to solve the Anglophone Problem in Cameroon is the President of the Republic. We believe that Biya will only be among the Francophone representatives in the presence of the United Nations and African Union envoys to map out the way forward for the two territories. Trust in Biya is gone, so too is confidence in his appointees. Only a neutral third body can mediate between us and them.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

Editor-in-Chief

Cameroon Concord News Group

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