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

Over the past month, the government of Cameroon has given various indications that its approach to the Anglophone crisis may be changing. After three years of escalating violence, it opened a Grand National Dialogue on 30 September. A few days later, it gave a presidential pardon to over 300 people who had been arrested on misdemeanour charges related to the Anglophone protests. And soon after that, it released several opposition figures including presidential candidate Maurice Kamto who had spent over eight months in prison.

On the surface, these policies suggest a shift in strategy. However, at the same time, the level of violence between the Cameroonian military and secessionist fighters has intensified in recent weeks.

Why is this? Has the government’s approach to the Anglophone crisis really changed?

A new strategy?

The recent actions of President Paul Biya’s administration all bear further scrutiny.

To begin with, the Grand National Dialogue was arguably doomed from the start. Separatists, who have been calling for externally-mediated talks, refused to engage with it from the outset. Many saw the framing of the conference as politically-compromised.  

The release of detainees charged with misdemeanours is certainly welcome, but only accounts for a small proportion of those imprisoned. Many more Anglophone activists have been charged with terrorism, a capital offence under Cameroon’s legal code, and remain in jail. Some of those detainees are combatants, but others were arrested for taking part in demonstrations, having “Ambazonia propaganda” on their phones, or on suspicion of cooperating with secessionists. Dozens of separatist leaders arrested in Nigeria in January 2018 also remain locked up in Yaoundé’s notorious Kondengui Central Prison.

The release of Kamto and other opposition leaders should be celebrated too, but it has little to do with the Anglophone crisis. Kamto is a Francophone and was arrested following a presidential election that the secessionists boycotted.

Examining the government’s recent actions in context suggests that its approach has changed far less than it might initially seem. A look at two new strategies of the Cameroon government towards its English-speaking region reinforces this view.

The first is that, following the national dialogue, the government has reshuffled its Divisional Officers (DOs) across the country. Many people in the Anglophone regions perceived the officials in their areas, many of whom were Francophone, to be corrupt. The shake-up may lead to a change of faces, but there is no guarantee that the new ones will be any less corrupt, while they will all still be loyal to the ruling Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement (CPDM). The same will be true if the heads of state-owned companies or governors are similarly reshuffled as some are expecting. Moving around regime loyalists will do little to address feelings of marginalisation among the Anglophone minority.

The government’s other main new initiative is the establishment of a vigilante and community policing programme in Bamenda, the capital of the English-speaking Northwest Region. The initiative, launched in mid-October, has seen groups of young men being given megaphones, motorcycles and metal detectors. Their primary task is to conduct neighbourhood patrols and alert the army when they come across suspected secessionist fighters. The plan is modelled on a successful initiative in Cameroon’s far north region to fight Boko Haram, though it is notable that those vigilante groups were armed while those as part of the new initiative are not.

This new strategy may have some use, but it highlights the fact that the government continues to see the conflict as a problem of terrorism to be combated with counterinsurgency. This notion is supported by reports that the government is seeking to increase its military capacity in order to attack separatist hideouts. Last week, it purchased advanced artillery from Russia. It has also recently launched offensives that have killed both combatants and civilians. On 20 October, it arrested Paul Njokikang, a Catholic priest and coordinator of the Catholic aid organisation Caritas, causing widespread outrage.

Cameroon seems intent on maintaining its military approach to the crisis even though this has not only failed to stem the conflict but encouraged growing numbers of Anglophones to take up arms.

The secessionists change tack

For their part, the secessionists calling for an independent state of Ambazonia have also been reconsidering their approach. In recent weeks, they have reportedly decided to focus less on international rallies and the lobbying of foreign governments, which have proven largely fruitless. Instead, they seem to be diverting resources to fighters on the ground.

This has already led to a recent uptick in attacks, including one on the convoy of the governor of Northwest region and various military outposts. Militants have reportedly killed a former combatant who laid down his arms as part of a government disarmament programme as well as some members of the new vigilante initiative in Bamenda.

There has also been an increase in unusually brutal violence, some of it targeting civilians. Most shockingly, a video has emerged appearing to show combatants mutilating and murdering a female prison guard. The secessionists claim the act was carried out by government-sponsored actors and that they have captured three individuals behind it, but have not released any further proof. Separatists also kidnapped and tortured a school teacher in the city of Kumba, only releasing her after a hefty ransom was paid. They allegedly maimed employees of the Cameroon Development Cooperation in Southwest Region.

The way forward

The events of the past few weeks make it clear that neither the government nor the separatists plan to change their violent approach to the crisis. In fact, fighting has only increased and the two sides appear as fixed in their positions as ever.

The secessionists insist they will only meet with the government if talks are brokered by a third party such as Switzerland. The government rejects all offers of legitimate mediation. This kind of externally-guaranteed negotiation, however, is the only way out of the crisis. It is the only option to stop the bloodshed and end the spiral. Anything short of this is, at best, window dressing.

Source: Africanarguments