Over the last several years, since at least 2016, an inconceivably violent conflict has ravaged the Central African nation of Cameroon. The daily barrage of bloody images posted to social media and the accounts of cruelty and likely war crimes have – at least to date – not been enough to galvanize meaningful or concerted action to resolve what has become known as the Anglophone Crisis. After years of wreckage, there is now a domestic stalemate, a paralyzed status quo that has served to radicalize hardliners on both sides of the conflict.

The roots of the Anglophone crisis date back much farther than 2016, of course. Like many long-simmering issues in the region, hostilities can be traced to the maneuvering of former colonial powers who spliced up African territories with little regard for the dignity or preferences of local populations. This fact, however, does not excuse the failed leadership that has more recently been the norm – embodied most profoundly by President Paul Biya, who has been in power since 1982, longer than most Cameroonians have been alive. In October 2018, Biya secured yet another term in office during an electoral exercise that was marred by credible allegations of vote rigging and a clampdown on political adversaries, including opposition leader Maurice Kamto, who had remained under house arrest until last month.

The Anglophone crisis has registered among the world’s most neglected,’ according to assessments by the Norwegian Refugee Council. And according to the International Crisis Group, the fighting has killed well over 3,000 people and displaced an additional 600,000 more. In Anglophone regions, an estimated 850,000 children are currently out of school – likely much higher today in light of the covid-19 pandemic – and one in three of the region’s four million people are in need of humanitarian aid. Cameroon, once a reputed host for refugees is now a major exporter of people who are fleeing violence and government persecution. The number of Cameroonians seeking refuge in neighboring Nigeria, for example, has crossed the 300,000 mark. The instability inside Cameroon has thus produced negative ripple effects on an entire region, including disastrous economic and commercial blowback.

These statistics, as staggering as they are, barely do justice to the overall magnitude of a conflict that has exacted a huge toll on the lives of ordinary Cameroonians – mainly women and children – who have literally been caught in the crossfire between government forces and Anglophone fighters. In the words of local journalist Comfort Mussa, “hardly a day goes by without news of deaths, abductions, arson attacks and other forms of violence that have become a reality for people in [Anglophone] regions.”

As 2021 gets underway, however, there is a small glimmer of hope that momentum has built behind a reform agenda. Rather symbolically, on New Year’s Day, the United States Senate passed a resolution (bit.ly/3rU9lf1) by unanimous bipartisan consent – no small feat in Washington these days – that sent a strong signal to the Biya government and armed groups alike to end the violence and to commit to an inclusive process of international arbitration. The resolution also raised the prospect of punitive sanctions on those individuals responsible for participating in atrocities. (This author has long called for these actions by the U.S. government, a significant donor to and enduring security partner of the Biya government).

As a longtime partner of human rights defenders and pro-democracy leaders in Cameroon, we at Vanguard Africa heartily welcome this development in the halls of the U.S. Senate. We will also advocate that the incoming Biden-Harris Administration make this resolution – and the key principles upon which it is premised – a key priority of its US-Africa policy moving forward.

Put simply, it is time for both sides of the Anglophone crisis to come to terms with the fact that there is no military solution. The guns need to be silenced. The chaos can no longer continue. Importantly, there is some recognition even among the most militant Anglophone leaders, that this is the only feasible way forward. What is needed today is a negotiated settlement that holds human rights violators accountable and paves the way for a new era of leadership that many Cameroonians are demanding.

The violence perpetrated during the Anglophone crisis, and the lack of respect for the sanctity of human life, has taken a massive toll on future generations of Cameroonians. To relieve citizens from this tailspin, both the government and Anglophone leaders need to take a hard look at this freefall and their respective roles in perpetuating it. A genuinely inclusive dialogue must begin, and the U.S. Government – now vitalized by a rare act of bipartisanship – should help to fill Cameroon’s leadership void that has been so readily exploited.

Source:  Vanguard Africa

Despite all the disappointments of the last four years, some Cameroonians were still glued to their TV sets on Thursday, December 31, 2020, hoping that time might have triggered a change of mind in a man who is completely out of touch with his country’s reality. Cameroon’s president, Paul Biya, who is completely out of ideas on how to address some of the major issues facing his country, addressed the country, placing COVID-19 above national issues which have rendered the country ungovernable.

Even with COVID-19 where his government has left Cameroonians to their own devices, the ailing and confused 87-year-old Biya was quick to point out that 2020 would “undoubtedly be remembered as a dark year marked by hundreds of thousands of deaths worldwide,” adding that “like almost all countries, Cameroon was affected, perhaps less severely than other States. 

He also wondered that “should man take the blame because of his wanton exploitation of the planet’s natural resources and his constant engagement in conflicts leading to massacres and diseases, as well as experiments to develop new weapons?” By asking this question, Mr. Biya who declared war on Southern Cameroonians some four years ago failed to understand that his own constant engagement in conflicts has led to massacres and diseases in Southern Cameroons. While he points a finger at others, he fails to realize that he is the architect of the disaster that is playing out in Southern Cameroons.

The sick and corrupt octogenarian also pointed out that “I have personally observed that most of our fellow citizens no longer comply with the protective measures prescribed by the Government. At a time when, everywhere else, there is a second wave of the epidemic, coupled with the appearance of a new and more contagious strain of the virus, I urge you once again to put on your face masks, to wash your hands regularly and to consult a physician or any other health personnel if you notice any symptoms. This is the only way to save lives and to curb the spread of the virus.”

He, however, fails to acknowledge that if Cameroonians have walked away from their masks, it is more because his corrupt government lacks the capacity to implement its own policies and decisions. The resources placed at the disposal of the health ministry to fight the highly infectious virus have been embezzled and misappropriated by members of his government and being faithful to his do-nothing attitude, he has been indifferent to all the allegations against the health minister and the thieves in his government are not concerned about any arrests because they know they have not committed the worst crime in Cameroon – eying the presidency. 

Regarding the insecurity in Cameroon brought about by the insurgency in Southern Cameroons and in the country’s northern region, the low-energy president was quick to blame everything on external forces though it is known globally that the unfortunate military drama playing out across the country is born out of the government’s intolerance, arrogance and corruption.

“In recent years, our country has been facing external threats, particularly on our eastern border and in the northern part of our country. In the first case, the threat comes from highway robbers lured by easy prey, namely peaceful stockbreeders and their herds. In the second, the threat now takes the form of isolated raids by Boko Haram or suicide bomb attempts by teenagers. The effective vigilance and action of our Defence and Security Forces have significantly reduced the activities of these criminals,” he said.

But his assessment of the situation is not accurate. If the assessment is not his, then he has been given a sanitized version of the report which clearly underscores that Boko Haram is bombing Cameroonian soldiers out of existence. Thousands have died and many have been maimed by the highly destructive religious sect. 

In Southern Cameroons, the president who has never visited ground zero was quick to present a good picture of a very bad situation in which more than 6,000 Cameroonians have lost their lives. “The situation is different in the North-West and South-West Regions where armed groups maintain an atmosphere of terror and insecurity. They attack isolated communities and educational institutions from time to time to discourage parents from sending their children to school. The list of atrocities and crimes committed by these groups is already long. One of the most heinous of them is that which took place in Kumba recently, resulting in the death of seven school children with several others injured.”

This is really where Mr. Biya has demonstrated that he is good material for psychological and mental analyses. His government has lost credibility and Cameroonians are no longer dupes. The slaughterers of school children across Southern Cameroons are vicious elements unleashed on the population by Atanga Nji, the country’s territorial administration minister, who is an ex-convict. The government has been so desperate to prove to the world that it has a handle on the situation to the point where it has resorted to killing innocent civilians. Ngarbuh, Kwakwa, Muyengue and other towns in the two English-speaking regions are still very fresh in most minds and Cameroonians understand that their government speaks from both sides of its mouth.

“This crime, which is a shock to the human conscience, will not go unpunished. All the perpetrators will be hunted down relentlessly and brought to justice.” Mr. Biya was totally right here, but he was addressing the wrong audience yesterday and he has been doing this for years. He should be telling this to Atanga Nji, Joseph Beti Assomo and the military generals who are the architects of such diabolic and cruel acts in Southern Cameroons. 

“Already, public opinion, particularly in the two regions concerned, can realize, if that is not yet the case, that these so-called “secessionists” are actually nothing more than murderers, and what is more, murderers of innocent children. To say that the Kumba carnage caused widespread outrage is an understatement.” Indeed, it is an understatement. Which government in the world still kills its own citizens like the Biya government has been doing over the last four years? It is not Southern Cameroonians who are secessionists, but a government that is wont to corruption, brutality and injustice. The Yaoundé government has been sowing the seeds of secession for decades and now that it is dealing with a bumper harvest, it is blaming everybody, except itself. 

The purposeless president who now spots a toothless mouth said he would be downloading his responsibilities on other nations. “I would now like to appeal, once more, to the sense of responsibility of the friendly countries hosting the sponsors and of the organizations financing and running the armed gangs in the North-West and South-West Regions, through various channels. All those who would be identified at the end of investigations as initiators or accomplices of these odious crimes will answer for their actions,” he said. But true democracies do not arrest people and send them to their death. The corrupt Yaounde government might have succeeded in Nigeria in its illegal arrest and detention of the Southern Cameroonian President, Julius Ayuk Tabe, and his collaborators because it worked with another corrupt and lawless government, but it will not succeed in countries such as the USA, Canada, the UK, Germany and Australia where some 4 million Southern Cameroonians are residing because in those countries, there is genuine democracy and the rule of law. Mr. Biya must stop dreaming the wrong dreams if he is thinking of genuine peace.   

Despite his manifest failure in the country’s two English-speaking regions, Mr. Biya continues to promote the false idea that his government is pursuing dialogue. “Yet our Government has continued to demonstrate its commitment to openness and dialogue by, for example, releasing many former secessionists and facilitating their reintegration into society.”

Furthermore, after the Major National Dialogue, the Government fast-tracked the implementation of an ambitious decentralization policy which includes a special status for our North-West and South-West Regions, which takes into account their specificities and aspirations.” The comedy he and his government organized in 2018 was nothing more than a monologue that was doomed to failure. His special status to Southern Cameroonians came with massive violence and death to innocent civilians. He should be too old and blind not to understand that Southern Cameroonians simply do not care about his “Special Status of Death.”

He senility does not let him figure out that his collaborators are taking advantage of him. He does not seek to know anything. He depends on false and sanitized reports. In his warped thinking, he holds that he can urge the brave fighters of Southern Cameroons to abandon their noble objectives to submit themselves to the madness he and his collaborators have organized in the name of DDR. “I once more urge the youths who have been enlisted in armed gangs to come out of the bush and sign up with the Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration (DDR) centers in order to return to a normal life, like their other young compatriots,” he said.

“The prevailing insecurity in the North-West and South-West Regions has caused untold damage to our country. Our democracy allows for the peaceful expression of all opinions, in compliance with the laws and regulations in force. Otherwise, peace and stability would be jeopardized,” he said. For once, he acknowledged that the Southern Cameroons crisis had hurt the country in more ways than one. However, if he does not prioritize genuine dialogue over the hypocrisy he and his collaborators have been organizing, the country will continue to go down the drain.

He has a choice – continue to talk tough and let the country continue in its downward spiral or speak the language of peace in order to appease the people of Southern Cameroons. Though there are many Southern Cameroonian factions involved in this struggle, many are of the view that their goals could be achieved through genuine dialogue held in the presence of a neutral third party. President Julius Ayuk Tabe and his team are willing and ready to sit at the negotiating table where they plan to professionally articulate Southern Cameroonian ideas on the way forward. It is up to Biya to come down from his high horse and make things happen sooner rather than later.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

Biya and his Francophone Beti Ewondo gangs are already setting out new political terminologies in a bid to steady a failed nation and a diving economy in the president’s 2020 end of year address to the nation. But this time around, those empty speeches will instead sow more anger, confusion and doubts that the 87-year-old dictator is up to handling the fast-worsening political and security situation in the two Cameroons.

The French Cameroun monarch did not speak to the Cameroonian people during that dreadful moment of the coronavirus pandemic when the rhythms of everyday Cameroonian life was shutting down — with schools and businesses closing, local football league suspended, hospitals were being deserted by HIV and cancer patients who feared for their lives.

Cameroon state radio and television (CRTV) instead fed the public with stories that the President unveiled via Prime Minister Dion Ngute several measures to help contain the spread of the coronavirus. In the next 48 hours, Biya’s speech will leave many Cameroonians in Limbo. However, millions of Southern Cameroonians will follow but the 2021 policy speech of the Vice President of the Ambazonia Interim Government, Dabney Yerima.

Millions of Southern Cameroonians cannot put food on the table! Thousands are living in the bushes and thousands are now refugees in neighboring countries. The story is becoming more intractable in La Republique du Cameroun with a majority of French Cameroonians now saying Biya is the worst ever in their nation’s history.

Biya is indeed the worst leader Africa has ever seen and after 38 years as head of state, he is now a good example to illustrate that practice does not make perfect. He is not only proven to be incompetent but he is indeed truly inhumane. With the backing of the French government and French multinationals, he does not give a damn about anything but lying about it all, claiming that he is a wise leader and faking his own greatness through some half-baked French Cameroun political elites. This has been demonstrated by everything French and Southern Cameroonians have seen over the last 38 years and we of the Cameroon Concord News and the Cameroon Intelligence Report are saying that this complete and total mess must be his legacy and those such as Simon Achidi Achu, Chief VE Mukete, Elvis Ngolle Ngolle, Yang Philemon, Itoe Benjamin, Dion Ngute, Paul Tasong, Paul Atanga Nji and a host of other Southern Cameroons stooges and enablers who have ignored and empowered Biya and solicited this brand of his own horrible actions towards citizens of the two Cameroons.  Biya must be remembered as the worst leader ever and many Southern Cameroonians should be ready to spit on the graves of his Southern Cameroons acolytes once their remains are brought home to Ambazonia.

Biya’s ruling CPDM crime syndicate is made up of dangerous white collar criminals, all rotten to the core. Africa has never seen anything like Biya. His kind of insensitivity to humanity, his disregard for justice, the Holy Roman Catholic Church that raised him up and he is literally no friend to Islam and he’s been the President of La Republique du Cameroun for 38 good years?

We of the Concord Group do not care what your religion is? But who governs like this and still receives Holy Communion? Who does this by all accounts and is still being referred to as the Father of the nation? What is this Biya thing really about?

Everyone within the consortium of the ruling CPDM crime syndicate including the army now seems confused. But the good news is, the man Biya is the worst ever. He’s been terrible for his own family because nobody knows what the hell he is about anymore and neither do his blood relations.

After 38 years as head of state, the two Cameroons are now on their knees and the only chance for the citizens to get to a better place is for the army to step in and get rid of this outrageous man.

By Chi Prudence Asong