Politics

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

31, December 2016

Donald Trump praises Putin ⁰

US President-elect Donald Trump has praised “very smart” Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision not to retaliate Washington’s recent expansion of sanctions against Moscow. On Thursday, President Barack Obama ordered a series of new sanctions against Russia as well as the expulsion of 35 Russian diplomats, accusing them of being spies.

However, Putin decided not to expel US diplomats in reprisal, saying he would rather wait to work with the Trump administration to solve the issue. “Great move on delay (by V. Putin) – I always knew he was very smart!” Trump said in a tweet on Friday.

The message soon made the rounds on the internet and was retweeted by the Russian Embassy in the US. The new sanctions came in retaliation for what the White House and the US intelligence community claim to be Russia’s hacks of Democratic operatives and groups during the recent presidential election.

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has reportedly determined in a secret assessment that the Kremlin interfered in the November 8 election to particularly help Trump defeat his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton. Russia and Trump have both denied the accusations, with Putin saying that the US should either provide evidence or stop the allegations.

On Thursday, the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) provided technical details about the tools and cyber infrastructure they said Russian civilian and military intelligence services used for the hack attack, code named Grizzly Steppe.

The document said the cyber attack was carried out to “compromise and exploit networks and endpoints associated with the US election, as well as a range of US government, political, and private sector entities.” However, it did not mention by name the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and Clinton’s campaign chairman John Podesta, whose emails were hacked and released during the campaign.

WikiLeaks, the anti-secrecy website that published the emails, has made it clear that a whistle-blower inside the DNC was behind the leaks and Russia had nothing to do with them. Obama’s move in slapping new sanctions on Russia was hailed by Republican heavyweights like Senators Lindsey Graham and John McCain. Trump, however, criticized the US claims and said it was time to “move on.”

Presstv

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

25, December 2016

Senegal defends UN vote to halt Israel’s illegal settlement ⁰

Senegal has defended its recent UNSC vote to halt Israel’s illegal settlement activities on Palestinian territories, after Tel Aviv recalls its ambassador to Dakar. “Senegal’s position must be saluted. The international community hails Senegal’s stance, especially the Muslim nations,” said government spokesman Seydou Gueye in a televised statement on Sunday.

On Friday, the UNSC Resolution 2334 was passed with 14 votes in favor and one abstention — by the US. It condemned the establishment of settlements by Israel in the occupied Palestinian territories a “flagrant violation under international law,” which it said was “dangerously imperiling the viability” of peace and the establishment of a Palestinian state. “Senegal abided by its diplomatic vision. Since 1975, Senegal has been a member of the (UN) Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People,” he added.

In relation to reports that Israel had also canceled all its aid programs in the west African nation, he noted that the government had not yet been officially informed of such a move. “When it is informed of such a decision, it will issue a response,” Gueye noted. Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has summoned the US ambassador to Israel to discuss the Washington’s abstention in the UNSC vote. Earlier, Israel summoned the ambassadors to Britain, China, Russia, France, Egypt, Japan, Uruguay, Spain, Ukraine and New Zealand over the resolution.

Palestinian factions in the occupied West Bank and the besieged Gaza Strip have collectively welcomed the resolution, with Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki describing the vote as a “victory for the Palestinian people.” Prior to the vote, Tel Aviv attempted to block the vote and prompt a veto by its strongest ally, the United States.More than half a million Israelis live in over 230 illegal settlements built since the 1967 Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and East Jerusalem al-Quds.

Presstv

25, December 2016

Oh lucky man: Kabila to stay in power for another one year ⁰

The opposition and the government in the Democratic Republic of the Congo have agreed on a deal to allow President Joseph Kabila remain in office for an additional year in return for not seeking a third term, the opposition has announced. “Kabila stays for one year,” opposition leader Martin Fayulu said on Friday, adding, “He will not try to stand for a new term.”

The unexpected deal between the opposing sides came after dozens of people were killed in anti-government protests this week. The United Nations (UN) said on Friday that some 40 people were killed. A government spokesman declined to comment on the specifics of the deal, which requires final approval by all the delegates at negotiations mediated by the country’s Catholic Church. Jean Marc Kabund, the secretary general of the DR Congo’s largest opposition party, the UDPS, warned that the deal was not yet closed. “Today is the last day (of talks),” he said, adding, “It’s make it or break it.”

President Kabila’s second term in office expired on Tuesday. According to the constitution, a new president must be elected now. However, Kabila has remained in office as a presidential election scheduled for last month was postponed because of what the government said were delays in registering voters.

This image, taken on December 20, 2016, shows a man screaming as people gather to protest in the neighborhood of Yolo in Kinshasa, the DR Congo. (By AFP)

His father, former president Laurent Kabila, was assassinated in 2001 in the country, which has never witnessed a peaceful transition of power.He took office just ten days after the assassination of his father.

The protests and killings this week have raised fears that the African state is headed toward more instability and a major conflict.

Presstv

24, December 2016

Congo-Kinshasa: Opposition parties near deal on power transition ⁰

Political parties in the Democratic Republic of Congo have stopped negotiations before finalizing a power transition agreement, under which President Joseph Kabila will leave office next year. Participants in the negotiations said the talks between the opposition and the government in the DR Congo, which lasted for 12 hours, came to an end at about 5:30 a.m. local time (0430 GMT) on Saturday.

The negotiations were set to resume at 11 a.m. local time. “At that time … it will be possible to propose a final document that can be signed this afternoon,” opposition delegate Francois Mwamba said. Mwamba noted that the negotiating parties had failed to agree on some points of the deal, which was recently brokered by the country’s Catholic Church. The deal would allow President Joseph Kabila to remain in office for an additional year but the constitution could not be changed to let him run for a third term.

Under the agreement, presidential elections would also be held in 2017. The unexpected accord came after dozens of people were killed in anti-government protests this week. The United Nations put the death toll at some 40. Opposition leaders Martin Fayulu and Jose Endundo said a prime minister would be chosen from the main opposition bloc and veteran opposition leader Etienne Tshisekedi would supervise the implementation of the agreement.

Kabila has not immediately commented on the news. President Kabila’s second term in office expired on Tuesday. According to the constitution, a new president must be elected now. However, Kabila has remained in office as a presidential election scheduled for last month was postponed because of what the government said were delays in registering voters.

Kabila has been accused of trying to cling on to power. His supporters, however, say that he is committed to the constitution but stepping down from power would possibly spark a power struggle that could put his life in danger. His father, former president Laurent Kabila, was assassinated in 2001 in the country, which has never witnessed a peaceful transition of power. He took office just ten days after the assassination of his father.

Presstv

22, December 2016

President Biya is Cameroon Concord News Man of the Year 2016 ³

Blood and intrigues have earned President Paul Biya Cameroon Concord News Man of the Year nomination. This may seem unprecedented but justifiable. Blood and intrigues are the defining attributes of Paul Biya’s presidency. Indeed, blood and intrigues are at its highest as we write. They, therefore merit special attention in our choice of our man of the year.

The choice of Mr Biya as Cameroon Concord News Man of the Year 2016 is not without difficulties. The first difficulty is that it is unprecedented and requires some explanation for reasonable people to contextualize and understand.

We are conscious that no matter what explanation we may give, there will be significant questions begging for answers. The choice is unconventional and fails to meet the conventional criteria for the choice of a classic man of the year. But we hasten to state that this choice is not intended to celebrate any remarkable achievement of Mr Paul Biya for the public good. Far from that, it is intended to create international awareness and focus on the acts and conduct of the man whom if the international community fails to act promptly, may set the entire sub-region on an internecine war of attrition and possible genocide.

President Paul Biya is an African strongman who over a period of thirty-four years has established an absolute brutal dictatorship. During these long years in power, he has succeeded to make Cameroon a deeply divided nation. He is a master of the politics of ethnicity.

His staying power is mired in dividing and playing one ethnic group against the others in order to compel subservience. His reign is characterized by a state of fear, a permanent state of emergency symbolized by daily motions of support broadcast by the national radio-television network and published by the national daily Cameroon Tribune. These motions of support convey a sublime sense of potential political instability, fear and the anxiety of a nation at war with its soul.

In thirty-four years President Biya has established a system of government which may be characterized as a pyramid scheme of institutional corruption. With it, he manipulates, controls and dominates Cameroon’s political life. From the summit of this corrupt enterprise, he politicizes and supervises a supposed war against corruption. He relies on this war against corruption to keep in check a frightened and docile nation.

Among the many victims of this war are, some ambitious members of his crime syndicate who initiated a premature contest for power; at a moment Biya needed their unalloyed support to eternalize power. For daring, he put them in jail. The next are the rats in Paul Biya’s Alibaba Empire of corruption. They are the gate-keepers of the corrupt empire. Their crime is that they helped themselves beyond their permitted limit from the sesame treasure of Paul Biya’s prurient corrupt government. While he has encouraged and promoted this category of stooges, he has on occasion sacrificed them as disposable fodder aimed at concealing or deflating international attention and spotlight on the dire consequences of his failed economic policies, systemic corruption, egregious violations and crass misgovernance.

The third category is made up of potential troubling witnesses whom he brought too close to his regime of personal power, but whose long term allegiance, he cannot vouchsafe. To instill fear and compel allegiance from the political power elite he created and nurtured to serve him and him alone, he created a Special Criminal Court which he uses against adversaries, real or apparent at his will and caprices.

A key consideration in our choice of Mr Paul Biya as Cameroon Concord News Man of the Year is his presidency of blood and intrigues. These are key attributes on which his presidency was firmly established from inception. From one stage-managed attempted coup d’état aimed at expunging the lingering political influence of his “illustrious predecessor” Ahmadou Ahidjo an attempted coup d’état which was savagely repressed was organized. The toll in human and material cost of the violent repression has never been made public. Timid attempts by Northern Cameroon’s power elite to seek an answer to this lingering and smoldering powder keg has so far been ignored.

That massacre set the stage for President Paul Biya to establish a platform for the fulfillment of a long term French- inspired ambition to completely wipe out the internationally recognized identity of the Southern Cameroons as a means of securing its gulf of Guinea oil economy. President Biya engineered and enacted a law re-emphasizing and clarifying the identity of La Republique du Cameroun and its inherited boundaries at independence on January 1, 1960. This action was the powder keg that ignited the identity crisis that has bedeviled Cameroon ever since, with the Southern Cameroons arguing with international law and history on its side that by redefining its identity within its international recognized borders consistent with its international identity at the UN and the AU,, La Republique du Cameroun must withdraw its forces and administrators on the territory of the Southern Cameroons to its said internationally recognized boundaries forthwith.

The ongoing mayhem, crimes against humanity and a drift towards potential genocide in the territory of the Southern Cameroons perpetrated by forces deployed by President Paul Biya to suppress a popular uprising clamoring for freedom and independence arose from resistance to annexation, cultural asphyxiation and colonial imposition. The ongoing uprising therefore arises from the arrogance of power, political and geostrategic choices that are endangering the peace and security in the gulf of Guinea requiring urgent United Nations Intervention.

The plethora of deliberate but uninvestigated human disasters in Lake Nyos, the Nsam fire disaster, the University of Yaounde Zero Mort student massacres, the University of Buea students massacred during various student protests, the February 28, 2008 massacre of peaceful protesters all over the national territory, the recent Eseka train disaster and persistent shameful attempts to conceal responsibility for these crimes against humanity bear the stamp of presidential responsibility. The legitimate question to ask is who stands to benefit from these crimes if not the President who holds the constitutional mandate to protect all citizens and uphold fundamental freedoms?

The use of the constitutional institutions of governance like the National Assembly and the Judiciary as tools for the entrenchment of tyranny and oppression makes President Paul Biya, an imperial president, endowed with the power of life and death over a citizenry resigned to their fate and the forces of nature for survival.

Rather than confront the ills afflicting the nation, like the institutional pauperization of the masses, the paucity of basic necessities like water, electricity, affordable medical care, road infrastructure, and rising insecurity, the President relies on these depravities as political tools to compel allegiance and political control.

The resolution of the Bakassi crisis was supposed to be celebrated as a defining achievement of a Biya presidency, but the Southern Cameroons problem of which Bakassi is a significant component if not satisfactorily resolved, will lead to reigniting with ferocious intensity, the Bakassi crisis with sub-regional and regional consequences.

The President declared war against Boko Haram from a foreign capital, Paris. That again was an unprecedented. However, while due credit must be given to the Cameroon Army for their war effort against Boko Haram, the economic neglect which was exploited to recruit Cameroonians into these terrorist organization must be addressed. Doing so needs adequate resources and a national Marshall Development plan which President Biya has in thirty-four years failed to establish. Cameroon is instead economically on the decline and has become a heavily indebted nation, mortgaging the future of the nation far into posterity.

Without any form of stylistic felicity, Cameroon Concord News holds the firm opinion that under the circumstances painted above, Cameroon is living on the heart pulse of one individual. There is no visible possibility of democratic change of government in Cameroon. The institutional framework does not exist. There is no constitutional court envisaged by the Constitution to adjudicate on constitutional issues including the political transition, should there be a constitutional imperative. This is a powerful indication that Mr Biya does not envisage retiring from politics and relinquishing power through constitutional means.

President Paul Biya is undoubtedly the undisputed heart pulse of a nation of twenty-three million people who are living at his pleasure. He is deified by his supporters who additionally credit him for being the master of time and destiny of the nation. One of them, Professor Fame Ndongo claimed the status of the President’s slave and invited the nation to follow. These attributes confer considerable power and authority on President Paul Biya next to, if not at par with God. This indeed, is the problem with Cameroon.

By nominating Mr Biya Cameroon Concord News Man of the Year, Cameroon Concord Group does not in any way subscribe to or validate these attributes or the policies of Mr Biya that have earned him this nomination. Cameroon is besieged from the East, the North and now the Southern Cameroons in international conflicts. These conflicts are a product of a deliberate policy of blood and intrigues.

Behind this facade of the power of blood and intrigues, there are visible cracks on the walls of absolute power and the tyranny of absolute personal power. Will the His Excellency the pulse of the nation, the master and controller of time, beat the timeless time of one and only true God to mend the visible cracks to sustain his eternal power? The answer lies in a clear understanding of the parable of the rich fool.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

Editor-in-Chief

Cameroon Concord News Group

22, December 2016

UN: Security Council urges Gambia’s President Jammeh to transfer power ⁰

The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) has called on Gambia’s longtime head of state, Yahya Jammeh, to hand over power to President-elect Adama Barrow, who won the December 1 polls in the West African country.

In a statement read at an open council meeting on Wednesday, the 15-member body said it was “encouraged” by decisions by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the African Union to recognize Barrow as Gambia’s future leader.

Barrow and Jammeh secured 43.3 and 39.6 percent of the vote respectively. Jammeh, who has governed the country for 22 years, initially accepted the results but later reversed his position, saying the polls were riddled with irregularities and vowed to challenge the outcome in the Supreme Court.

ECOWAS, in turn, urged Jammeh to honor his initial pledge to accept electoral defeat and threatened “to take all necessary action to enforce the results” of the polls. However, Jammeh said he would not step down and accused West African leaders of violating the ECOWAS principle of non-interference. “I am not a coward. My right cannot be intimidated and violated. This is my position. Nobody can deprive me of that victory,” he said during a televised speech.

Reports said ECOWAS might seek approval from the UNSC, of which Senegal is a non-permanent member, for the use of force against the Gambia. The UNSC said ECOWAS initiatives “aimed at ensuring a peaceful and orderly transition process.” It further urged Barrow’s security to be “fully ensured” and called on Gambian defense and security forces to “demonstrate maximum restraint to maintain an atmosphere of calm” in the capital, Banjul.

Barrow’s inauguration ceremony is expected to be held on January 19. Jammeh, who seized power in a 1994 military coup, has come under fire by human rights groups for what is said to be his crackdown on opponents.

Presstv