The Cameroonian government ruled out the possibility of postponing general elections scheduled for February 2020, a government spokesperson said on Monday.

“The government condemns all maneuvers that amount to blackmail and one-upmanship, and denounces the various foreign attempts to interfere, which are in violation of our laws, and which are advocating further postponements, indefinite postponements, of announced legislative and municipal elections,” Cameroon’s government spokesperson Emmanuel Rene Sadi told a press conference late Monday.

Cameroon has already postponed the elections twice and the law prohibits further postponement, Sadi said.

Last week, Cameroon’s opposition leader Maurice Kamto said his party Cameroon Renaissance Movement would boycott the polls, citing insecurity in the English-speaking regions and “biased” electoral code.

Another major opposition party Social Democratic Front has also threatened to boycott the elections if “peace and security” is not restored in Cameroon’s Anglophone regions before the elections.

Sadi said the government reassures that “all security conditions and all measures to ensure the reliability of the electoral process will be taken.”

Elections for members of National Assembly and municipal councillors will take place on February 9, 2020, in Cameroon.

Separatists have vowed to disrupt the elections in the Anglophone regions where they are seeking to create an independent nation they call “Ambazonia.”

Since 2017, government forces have been clashing with armed separatist forces who want the two English-speaking regions of Northwest and Southwest to secede from the majority French-speaking nation.

Source: Xinhuanet

Two leading opposition parties in Cameroon have declared they will boycott the February 2020 municipal and legislative elections to protest the government’s failure to end the conflict in the western region and to effect political reforms.

The Social Democratic Front, which boycotted the opening of parliament over the conflict earlier this month, said on Thursday it would not take part in the polls if peace was not achieved before the elections.

“If peace does not return to the NWSW by February 2020, the SDF will withdraw from the twin elections,” SDF vice chairman Joshua Osih said.

SDF’s threat comes only days after Cameroon Renaissance Movement (MRC) party leader Maurice Kamto called for the boycott of the February 9 elections over weak electoral laws and the anglophone crisis.

“Given the current electoral system, it is impossible to contest the result of the February 9, 2020 elections. If someone rigs or someone who could not even have been a candidate wins, you cannot contest the result and win,” Prof Kamto said.

Authorities have warned that anyone propagating hate speech and defies authority in the run up to the elections will face the full force of the law, with Territorial Administration minister Paul Atanga Nji, saying party officials would be held accountable for “disruption of public order during political rallies.”

Prof Kamto was arrested and jailed in January for leading what the government described as ‘unauthorised protests against the results of the October 2018 presidential poll, which he claimed he won. The protests by his supporters were violently suppressed by security forces leaving at least six people with bullet wounds. He was released in October amid intense foreign pressure as government displayed commitment to the peace talks dubbed Major National dialogue on the anglophone question.

Mr Atanga Nji warned such belligerence would not be condoned this time round. “We lived through horrible scenes after the October 2018 presidential election where a candidate proclaimed himself winner, flouting the laws of the land. Such irresponsible behaviour should never repeat itself. Believe me, such behaviours will face bitter times,” Mr Atanga Nji warned.

The conflict in the English speaking South West and North West regions of the country has since 2017 been the key threat to stability in the country, especially after incursion by separatists and jihadists took advantage of it leading to more than 3,000 deaths and 500,000 displaced.

The International Community, however, fears that massive boycott of the parliamentary and municipal elections would, besides denying the ruling CPDM of legitimacy, foment chaos.

Diplomats have since the major national dialogue at the end of September been meeting President Paul Biya and opposition groups at home and abroad to encourage implementation of its recommendations. The proposals include giving the anglophone region special status with regard to resource allocation and security. A Bill to operationalise that is among the business expected to be brought before parliament.

However, politicians in the region want autonomy under a federal structure and a rotational presidency, which President Biya has said is not subject to discussion. Last week three geopolitical groups — the AU Commission, the Commonwealth and the International Organisation of the francophone — pledged their support to efforts in addressing the conflict.

Source: The East African

The controversial Southern Cameroons lawyer, Barrister John Nsoh provoked a storm recently by saying that the Ambazonia leader, Sisiku Ayuk Tabe is enjoying support from La Republique du Cameroun.

John Nsoh was immediately accused of using the leader as scapegoat for his own failures. His remarks were aimed at supporters of the Ambazonia Interim Government on whose donations via the Amba Bonds Project, Vice President Dabney Yerima and his team are depending in the Southern Cameroons revolution.

But our chief political man, Soter Agbaw-Ebai said it was a huge political miscalculation for a man of law who once pledged to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe and to create an Ambazonia nation at ease with itself.

To be very accurate, Barrister John Fru Nsoh and his gang including the disgraced Ikome Sako and Chris Anu are trying to turn on another group of Southern Cameroonians as scapegoats to try to deflect responsibility from the poor management of My Trip To Buea funds. It is the action of a desperate man who sees his acolytes in the USA in desperate trouble and his own position under threat.

Every Ambazonian except Sako Ikome, Chris Anu and Kometa have said Barrister John Fru Nsoh was wrong to suggest that President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe has a laptop and a mobile phone provided by the French Cameroun regime in Yaoundé.

Mr John Fru Nsoh launched his attack in an interview with the former Southern Cameroons Communications Secretary, Chris Anu. During the said conversation, John Fru Nsoh appeared like a man in desperately straitened circumstances badly in need of a US social security safety net. Fru Nsoh was indeed begging!! The sight of Barrister John Fru Nsoh as a beggar on ABC TV was an eyesore which drove many Chris Anu viewers away.

All through recorded history, desperate political elites have always uttered and promoted inflammatory and deceptive rhetoric. Barrister John Fru Nsoh, a late arrival in the Ambazonia political amphitheatre is a quick learner in the dark art. He has learned the art of political dishonesty as fast as anyone ever known in Ambazonia history mindful of the fact that he was unknown to most Southern Cameroonians.

He was hired in good faith by the Interim Government of Ambazonia to represent the NERA10 after auditioning by giving a few interviews on Equinox TV in Douala. The leaders of the struggle failed again in hiring someone to a high position without proper background checks. A simple scrutiny would have revealed that John Fru Nsoh was unprofessional, erratic and careless in conduct and experiencing severe financial paucity.

Cameroon Concord News Group reporter in Douala wrote in April this year that John Fru Nsoh was boasting in an off-licence in Douala that his proceeds from the IG for working on the NERA10 case would help him complete the building of his house in Douala. Many saw it as witch hunt!! Today, the Barrister Nsoh builders have since stopped construction due to lack of resources.

Sako Ikome with his political bedfellow, Chris Anu, saw a financially despairing and morally bankrupt John Fru Nsoh as the perfect tool to achieve their goals. He was hired to assassinate the character and integrity of the Ambazonia President, Sisiku Ayuk Tabe. Pa Fru has ever since made ludicrous and unproven allegations that the Ambazonia leader is compromised-a position Ambazonians never bought into till date.

Barrister Fru has constantly repeated the unsubstantiated allegations and promised to provide his evidence when we get to Buea. Ambazonia public opinion has swung immensely in favour of Comrade Dabney Yerima, the Ambazonia Vice President appointed to pilot the revolution in the absence of the leader detained unlawfully in Yaoundé.

This week, Comrade Yerima launched the Ambabond project and announced the creation of The Bank of Ambazonia. A momentous decision that has raised eyebrows in political corridors around the world! Disgraced former Acting President Sako’s attempt to recapture the issue by assassinating the character of President Ayuk Tabe has been unproductive.

To be sure, Ambazonians have deserted him in their numbers since Cameroon Concord News Group uncovered and published irrefutable evidence that he was a professional 419 scammer who loomed large in Limbe before migrating to the USA. He is wanted in Limbe at the local Gendarmerie for his connections with the establishment of a credit union bank that swindled millions of CFA from small traders and farmers. These funds, paid for his trip to the USA. He has used the same approach to successfully ruin the career of John Fru Nsoh as he did to many of his victims in Southern Cameroons and like many who have been under the spell of a scammer before, the barrister is finding it impossible to break free.

In a recent fundraiser in California, the former barrister who is now a round-the-clock Ambazonia activist was paraded as a refugee. The audience was asked to donate for his welfare. Interestingly, Field Marshall of Lebialem, a fine Ambazonian fighter who is tenaciously and irresponsibly being dragged into frontline politics by some intellectually reckless and morally insolvent Ambazonian leaders reportedly pledged$150 to The Barrister John Fru Nsoh Fund.

Watching the video, a sense of sadness descended upon me. A once prominent and respected Southern Cameroons lawyer has been reduced to a public beggar in the USA.It reminded me of what a wretched combination greed and dishonesty represent.

John Fru Nsoh is in possession of a green card. Correspondingly, his claim to be a refugee in the United States is therefore bogus. He is desperate to elbow the leader of the Ambazonian revolution, Sisiku Ayuk Tabe, to grab the headlines and some few dollars more.

Barrister Nsoh’s shameful demise is a lesson to every Southern Cameroons political elite that they should be mindful of greed and dishonesty. Nsoh John Fru has lost it all. He now follows his political bedfellows from one fundraiser to another with a begging bowl.

All the respect and reverence he enjoyed in Cameroon, Ambazonia and the diaspora has disappeared making him irrelevant in Ambazonia politics. Consequently, he is willing to embark on any toxic campaign against President Ayuk Tabe.

It is hard to take this pro Sako comedian seriously but it is also very difficult not to feel sorry for him to have fallen for Pastor Sako’s scam.

Asu Isong

London Bureau Chief

The result of UN Secretary General, Guterres’ sold out diplomacy – a Potemkin Village of fake dialogue accompanied by violence and censorship. Guterres is no better than Biya. At least Biya is officially senile. What is Guterres’ excuse?

Now on December 1 Guterres’ resident coordinator in Yaoundé has issued a statement about a death — it’s good she does this, but she has remained silent on many, many killings by Biya’s forces, like Guterres has: “Yaounde, 1 December 2019 – The Humanitarian Coordinator in Cameroon, Ms. Allegra Baiocchi, strongly condemns the killing of an aid worker in north-west Cameroon. “I am deeply saddened by the news of the horrific execution of an aid worker last night. On behalf of the United Nations and the wider humanitarian community, our deepest condolences go to his family, friends and colleagues,” said Ms. Baiocchi.  On 30 November, Mr. Pascal Ngwayi, of COMINSUD, a local NGO and UN partner, was abducted and later killed by armed men in Donga Mantung Division of the North West Region.” We’ll have more on this.

On November 28 Guterres was silent again about Cameroon, the continued lock up of a sick journalist (Guterres in his sick away enjoys and continues his retaliation against investigative journalism which asks how he spends public money, today in Lisbon) – while “Yaoundé Special Criminal Court decision to reject a request for Amadou Vamoulké’s provisional release although two medical reports say this journalist needs treatment abroad and his continuing detention violates Cameroonian law.

On November 5 before 8 am Inner City Press in writing asked Guterres, Stephane Dujarric, Melissa Fleming and of course Amina J. Mohammed, “November 5-2: On Cameroon and press freedom, what are the belated comments and actions of SG Guterres on that the South West Chapter of Cameroon Journalists Trade Union have showed up in court for their detained colleague, Samuel Wazizi.

Five days later, nothing at all. Nor on Cameroon peacekeepers’ sexual abuse. Guterres and the other three are entirely corrupt. And see their partners in censorship. US President Trump has written to the U.S. Congress, cutting off trade benefits to Biya’s Cameroon: “I am taking this step because I have determined that the Government of Cameroon currently engages in gross violations of internationally recognized human rights, contravening the eligibility requirements of section 104 of the (African Growth and Opportunity Act).”

Trump took this action while Guterres covers up Cameroon “peacekeepers” rapes of children in CAR, and torching of villages in SW and NW. The dialogue of which Guterres made so much, while banning all Press questions about it, is dead.

Culled from Inner City Press

Three international organizations have ended an official visit to Cameroon with a call for efforts to restore security, justice and the conditions for the resumption of normal life in English-speaking northwest and southwest regions of the country hit by the separatist crisis that has killed over 3,000 people. The Commonwealth, African Union, and International Organization of La Francophonie delegation says it is convinced dialogue remains the preferred path for peace to return, but that the government should start implementing the recommendations of the last major national dialogue it organized. Some, however, have been critical of government efforts.

Moussa Faki Mahamat, chairperson of the African Union Commission, says after exchanging views with Cameroonian President Paul Biya, Prime Minister Joseph Dion Ngute, representatives of the main political parties, religious leaders, youth representatives and a cross-section of Cameroonians,  the organizations are convinced that there is a yearning for peace to return to the restive English-speaking regions.

He says they noted that a majority of Cameroonians welcomed the convening of the Grand National Dialogue from September 30 to October 4,  in which Cameroon’s government  consulted with political party leaders, activists, opinion leaders, traditional rulers, lawmakers and clergy, and are anxiously waiting for the government to implement its recommendations.  Those recommendations include establishing some sort of special status for the minority English-speaking regions, to be considered by the country’s parliament.  It also backed enforcement of the constitutional language giving English and French equal status and saying they must be used in all public offices and documents.  It also backed continuing the process of decentralization by giving more powers and resources to local councils. 

Mahamat participated in the tripartite mission with  International Organization of La Francophonie Secretary General Louise Mushikiwabo and Commonwealth Secretary General Patricia Scotland to encourage national peace efforts.

Mahamat said after their meetings in Yaounde, they observed that a large majority of Cameroonians supported the convening of the major national dialogue and believe it aided their quest for peace.  He said they were convinced that dialogue remains the only path to peace, and asked the government to implement the recommendations of the national dialogue.

After the national dialogue, hundreds of prisoners were freed when Biya ordered a halt to court proceedings against them, saying he was implementing the recommendations of the dialogue.

However, Albert Mvomo, an official of the opposition Cameroon United Party, says Biya’s government has not been doing enough to solve the crisis. He says the AU, OIF and Commonwealth delegation should have proposed sanctions to force Biya to solve the crisis.

He says the three organizations, like any international organization, should force the government in Yaounde to solve the crisis in the English-speaking regions through economic and diplomatic sanctions. He says Cameroon’s government shows no serious sign of wanting to stop the crisis.

Mvomo said the growing number of displaced people in towns and villages in the French-speaking regions showed the government has not been doing much to stop the separatist conflicts.

Simon Munzo,  an Anglophone leader who took part at the national dialogue, says while some recommendations would require legislation, Cameroon should have started showing serious signs that it wants peace to return by restoring public infrastructure and villages and towns destroyed by the fighting for the population to return. 

“We expect the government to maintain the momentum through the implementation of the recommendations of the dialogue,” said Munzo. “Some of them require legislation. Others do not, for example rebuilding schools and bridges and all of that. You do not need legislation for that except in terms of budgeting. Now, there are other aspects that will require modifying the constitution.”

Separatists have insisted on social media that they do not recognize the outcome of the national dialogue and will be ready to negotiate with the Yaounde government only on the terms of the separation of the English-speaking and French-speaking parts of Cameroon.

Source: VOA

War Resisters’ International has recently been joined by new affiliates. One of the new affiliates of our expanding network is the Ambazonian Prisoners of Conscience Support Network (APOCS Net). On this Prisoners for Peace Day, we feature APOCS Net’s work and encourage our followers to write to Ambazonian prisoners of conscience, alongside other prisoners for peace and conscience.

Below is a call for support from APOCS Net explaining their work and encouraging everyone to stand in solidarity with, and write to, Ambazonian prisoners of conscience. 

The Ambazonian Prisoners of Conscience Support Network

The Ambazonian Prisoners of Conscience Support Network (APOCS Net) was started in January 2018 by Ambazonian diaspora organizers and allies in South Africa, the United Kingdom and the United States who wanted to help Ambazonians who had been rounded up and imprisoned in secret detention centers of the French Neocolonial regime in Cameroon.

The current generation of Ambazonian Prisoners of Conscience refers to people imprisoned for the expression of their conscientiously held belief that the fundamental human rights of the people of Ambazonia, formerly the United Nations Trust Territory of Southern Cameroons under United Kingdom administration, needs to be respected by all — including the French neo-colonial regime in Cameroon and its allies. The conflict between Ambazonia and Cameroon, which is the basis for the imprisonment of close to 3,000 Ambazonian political prisoners, has it roots in the military occupation of Ambazonia by Cameroon following an ill-fated UN plebiscite on a confederation between the two countries in 1961.

Six decades of disciplined protest have been based on the principles of nonviolence and the slogan “the force of argument, not the argument of force.” The recorded history of repression against indigenous Ambazonians, however, goes as far back as 1891 during the period of German colonization. Legendary leader Mountain King Kuva Likenye was deported from Buea to Wonya Mokumba because of his anti-colonial stance, where he fell ill and died soon after.

The number of Ambazonian political prisoners has skyrocketed since fall 2016, following nationwide protests to defend the Ambazonian common law–based judicial system from the Cameroonian regime’s attempt to replace it with what amounts to a colonial court system.

Leaders from all corners of Ambazonian civil society have been rounded up in the dragnet that followed this nonviolent uprising — teachers and teachers union leaders (including Vice Principal Penn Terrence and Mr. Wilfred Tassang, organizer with the Ambazonian Teachers’ Union, CAPTAC), lawyers and legal workers union leaders (including Barrister Shufai Berinyuy and Barrister Eyambe Elias, both organizers with the Ambazonia Legal Workers Union), journalists and press union leaders (including Mancho Bibixy, Tsi Conrad, Awah Paul and Felix Ngalim), student union leaders, doctors, and members of the traditional rulers association. 

The most high-profile prisoner is Sisiku AyukTabe Julius, an open source tech developer known for his nonviolent leadership and philanthropic work, who in January 2018 was arrested along with his aides while meeting at the Nera Hotel in Nigeria, and forcibly returned to Cameroon in violation of the international legal principle of nonrefoulement.

In March 2019, the Federal High Court of Nigeria ruled that the abduction and deportation of these “Nera 10” and other prisoners by Nigerian authorities was illegal within Nigeria, and a violation of international law, and that they should be immediately released and returned to Nigeria. Yet they are still being imprisoned by the Cameroon regime.

These prisoners of conscience continue to provide leadership from behind bars, and APOCS Net works to support their physical and emotional well-being, to gather and disseminate information that is relevant to their struggle, and to organize solidarity actions in consultation with their needs and campaigns. We also work to support imprisoned human rights defenders in Cameroon, such as the Kamto 203 and l’Association pour la Défense des Droits des Etudiants  au Cameroun (ADDEC), as well as other political prisoners in the rest of the Francafrique controlled territories. APOCS Net actively seeks to contribute to the building of a global network in solidarity with imprisoned human rights defenders all over the world.

Below is information on how you can write to the Ambazonian prisoners of conscience named in this article. Follow the links to read more.

The Nera 10: 

• Mr. Julius AyukTabe — American University of Nigeria in Yola, North Eastern Nigeria
• Mr. Wilfred Tassang — organizer with the Ambazonia teachers Union, CAPTAC
• Professor Augustine Awasum — Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Northern Nigeria
• Dr. Cornelius Njikimpi Kwanga — Umaru Musa Yar’adua University in Katsina, Nigeria
• Dr. Henry Kimeng — Ahmadu Bello University, Nigeria
• Dr. Fidelis Ndeh-Che — American University of Nigeria in Yola, North Eastern Nigeria
• Dr. Egbe Ogork — Associate Professor, Bayero University in Kano
• Barrister Shufai Berinyuy — Organizer with the Ambazonia Legal workers Union
• Barrister Eyambe Elias — Organizer with the Ambazonia Legal workers Union
• Dr. Nfor Ngalla Nfor — Ambazonia Civil Society leader

Write to the Nera 10 prisoners at the following address:

Prison Principal Kondengui Yaoundé

B. P 100, YAOUNDÉ

Cameroon

NOTE: write to each prisoner individually, using their individual names; do not use the term Nera 10!

• Penn Terrence: https://ambazoniapocs.net/node/11 
• Mancho Bibixy, Tsi Conrad and others: https://ambazoniapocs.net/node/8 

Write to Penn, Mancho and Tsi at:

Prison Centrale de Yaoundé

B. P 100, YAOUNDÉ

Cameroon