Combat-ready troops were deployed in Cameroon’s capital Saturday as supporters of opposition party leader Maurice Kamto defied a ban on protests against the outcome of the 2018 presidential election. 

Kamto and his backers contend he won the Oct. 7 election and that his victory was stolen by long-serving President Paul Biya.  Kamto was to participate in the protests for the first time since Biya ordered his release from prison, but he reportedly was being held at his house under guard by government police.  
 
Hundreds of supporters of Kamto’s Cameroon Renaissance Movement Party (CRM) demanded that the government withdraw its anti-riot police from the esplanade of the Ahmadou Ahijo Stadium in Yaounde so they could listen to the message that Kamto had for them. 
 
Among the protesters was Etienne Tankeu, 39, a businessman who was arrested with Kamto on Feb. 28 in Douala and detained in Yaounde with Kamto until Biya ordered their release. 
 
Tankeu said he did not understand why each time the CRM has wanted to organize peaceful protests, the government has threatened them with charges of insurrection, revolt and hostilities against the state. 

Court proceedings halted
 
Kamto and hundreds of his supporters were freed Oct. 5. That’s when Biya ordered an end to court proceedings against CRM members following calls from delegates to the national dialogue he held to address the country’s crises. 
 
The Saturday protest in Yaounde was to be the first public meeting between Kamto and his supporters since he was released from custody. 
 
Christopher Ndong, CRM secretary-general, told VOA in a telephone interview that he and some party officials, including Kamto, were prohibited by the police from leaving a home where they met ahead of the protests. He said that despite a heavy police presence, they were still committed to meeting their supporters, who have been eager to hear from their leader. 
 
“We cannot let our fundamental rights be trampled upon,” he said. “We are not afraid, because what we are doing is within the law and it is our right. So you see, this is a government that is confused. They are in fact doing everything with impunity. We cannot be afraid, because we are working and acting upon our rights.” 
 
Similar protests in the southern towns of Sangmelima and Ebolowa were banned by the government. Kamto’s supporters defied the ban in Sangmelima, Biya’s hometown, and a confrontation Friday between CRM followers and those of Biya’s CPDM party left at least six people injured. 

Advice to Kamto: Stand down

Rene Emmanuel Sadi, Cameroon’s minister of communications, said Kamto was not relenting from wanting to destabilize Cameroon. He said Biya won the election in a landslide and that Kamto should accept the result or face the consequences as mandated by Cameroon laws. 
 
“We believe that Mr. Kamto and some warmongers among his supporters have failed to take full measure and to grasp the profound meaning of the presidential clemency welcomed by the entire national and international community,” Sadi said. 

The election results showed Biya winning with 71 percent of the vote. His strongest challenger, Kamto, was a distant second with 14 percent. 
 
If arrested again, Kamto could be charged with sedition, insurrection and inciting violence. Those are the same charges leveled against him when he defied a government ban on protest marches and was arrested in Douala.

Source: VOA 

Armenian FM Zohrab Mnatsakanyan had a meeting with Cameroon Foreign Minister Lejeune Mbella Mbella within the 36th Ministerial Conference of the Francophonie in Monaco.

The FMs expressed mutual readiness to work together to enrich the bilateral agenda and make full use of the great potential existing in Armenian-Cameroon relations. The importance of holding consultations between the FMs and activating high-level contacts and mutual visits were highlighted.

The two expressed satisfaction with the cooperation and mutual support established within international structures.

In this context, the partners particularly referred to the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie as an important platform for expanding cooperation in the Francophone region.

The Ministers discussed the results of the 36th Ministerial Conference of the Francophonie, the priorities of the Armenian Presidency and the joint work planned within them.

Source: News Armenia

Dr. Efande John Lyonga has been appointed interim mayor of the Buea Council for a period of sixty days before a fresh election is held.

He was appointed on Wednesday October 30th by the French Cameroun Senior Divisional Officer of Fako, Emmanuel Ledoux Engamba following the death of Patrick Ekema Esunge on Sunday.

Voted in as second deputy mayor of the council in 2013, he was elevated to first deputy on July 27, 2019 after the late Ekema Patrick masterminded a council session vote of no confidence on Emmanuel Motomby Mbome

The interim mayor will now run the affairs of the council for sixty days before fresh elections will be conducted to get the successor of Patrick Ekema Esunge.

Source: Journal du Cameroun

A month after Cameroon held a national dialogue hoping to resolve the country’s bloody anglophone separatist crisis, the prospect of peace still seems far away.

Armed anglophone separatist forces have clashed with government troops almost daily over two years of escalating conflict in the North West and South West regions of the central African country.

The population has been hostage to the violence, which has claimed more than 3,000 lives in English-speaking parts of the mostly francophone country, according to the International Crisis Group. More than half a million people have abandoned their homes.

The Yaounde government responded to international pressure by organising the talks that took place from September 30 to October 4, leading to the adoption of dozens of recommendations to restore peace.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian will be in Cameroon on Wednesday for a two-day visit, with the declared aim of encouraging President Paul Biya “to follow up on this dynamic”.

“The population in the crisis zones is still confronted with the same realities as prevailed before the dialogue,” said Blaise Chamango, an activist in Buea, the capital of the South West region.

– ‘Bandit groups take advantage’ –

Schools in some districts “remain closed and inaccessible,” he added, while “dead city” protest strikes imposed every Monday by separatist forces have not stopped.

Several attacks by armed groups have been reported in the past weeks, notably in the North West, reputed to be the more rebellious.

“Atrocities have resumed strongly in Bamenda,” the North West regional capital, Cameroon state radio declared last week.

“There are people who still have weapons, who are still in camps,” acknowledged George Ewane, the spokesman for the national dialogue.

“We’re not necessarily dealing with separatists, but with bandit groups who take advantage of the situation.”

Ewane said that 58 fighters had laid down their arms in the South West earlier this month. “The situation gets better by the day… The grand dialogue has brought much comfort to people’s hearts.”

The five days of talks were boycotted by most separatist leaders, but gathered more than 1,000 participants. They recommended “special status” for the North West and South West regions, home to most of the anglophone minority that makes up 16 percent of Cameroon’s population.

The language split is a vestige from federation in 1961, a year after independence, when a British-ruled territory on the Nigerian border joined with the former French Cameroons.

The federal system was replaced in 1972 by a united republic. Some separatists have long argued that centralised francophone power neglected the anglophone regions. In 2017, the tension erupted into violent conflict.

Biya, who has maintained authoritarian rule since 1982, hailed the resolutions from the dialogue as “rich and varied”. He promised that they will be “the object of attentive and diligent examination with a view to implementing them.”

– ‘Special status’ –

An expert group is currently working on “the content of the special status” and the government is drawing up legislation to give shape to such status in practice, Ewane said.

“We would like the bill to be put to parliament during the next parliamentary session,” he added, which is in November.

The anglophone population remains “rather sceptical”, said activist Chamango, “because they no longer have confidence in the government.”

The recommendations were also immediately rejected by separatist leaders based abroad.

Absent from the dialogue amid talk of his failing health, Biya surprised many by ordering the release of 333 detainees linked to the crisis, as well as 102 opposition activists arrested during peaceful protests against his re-election in 2018.

Those freed included the president of the Movement for the Renaissance of Cameroon (MRC), Maurice Kamto, who challenged Biya at the polls and was released after eight months in jail.

“The grand national dialogue does not seem to have brought a new and lasting solution to the demands of the anglophones regarding the shape of the state,” Kamto said as he came out of prison.

He argued that peace required “direct talks with the political representatives of the armed groups that control the terrain”.

At the end of August, the most influential separatist chief, Julius Ayuk Tabe, was given a life jail term by a military court in Yaounde, with nine of his supporters. From jail, he dismissed the dialogue as a “non-event”.

But government spokesman Rene Emmanuel Sadi has said: “We don’t envisage any dialogue more inclusive than the one… that just took place in Yaounde.”

Culled from AFP

The controversial mayor of the regional capital of the Southwest, Patrick Ekema, died at the age of 46 on Sunday, 27 October in a private clinic in Douala, following a heart attack.

The mayor of Buea was one of the pillars of the struggle against the “Ambazonian” independence fight.

The news of his death, which began circulating in the morning, was confirmed at midday by the public broadcasting office. According to reports, Ekema was rushed to a clinic in Douala’s Bonapriso district early on Sunday morning.

His death marks the departure of one of the major actors in the crisis that has been shaking the English-speaking regions of Cameroon since the end of 2016.

As mayor, Ekema was a fervent supporter of the struggle against the Ambazonian independence movement. He built a reputation as a breaker of the Ambazonian supporters “ghost city” policy, usually imposed every Monday by armed Ambazonian militias.

Radical and controversial

In his drive to thwart the Ambazonian movement, he spared no effort to restore order in his city, to the point of taking controversial measures. His decision to permanently seal shops and stores that remained closed on the days of “ghost cities” was widely criticised and eventually repealed.

Throughout his life, Ekema paid a heavy price for his radical stances. In September 2017, the residence of the municipal magistrate was attacked by angry demonstrators. The mayor managed to save the magistrate’s life by firing warning shots to disperse the crowd.

Following this episode, he found it necessary to acquire a close-knit guard detail, often numbering ten people.

In September 2018, it was reported security forces alerted to the presence of armed individuals in the Sawa Hotel in Douala, stormed the establishment, causing panic in the city, before realizing that they were the bodyguards of the Mayor of Buea.

Ekema was renowned for his shock statements. At one point, he announced he wanted to kidnap the relatives of the independence fighters to force the resumption of school in the English-speaking area.

Patrick Ekema made his last public appearance during the Grand National Dialogue initiated by Paul Biya, at the end of September.

Culled from The Africa Report