Cameroon is teetering on the brink of a human-rights catastrophe in a linguistic conflict that has already killed at least 1,850 people, and bilingual Canada must bolster international efforts to avert disaster, according to a report co-written by Canadian human-rights lawyers.

A government campaign in francophone-majority Cameroon against English-speaking minority rights has devolved into an armed conflict between security forces and 10 armed secessionist groups, according to the report published on Monday.

The government is on a repression campaign, burning hundreds of villages, murdering rebels, dissidents and civilians alike and raping and torturing women, according to the report, which was published by the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights, based in Montreal, and the Centre for Human Rights and Democracy in Africa, in Cameroon. Rebel groups have committed their own atrocities, the report says.

The report concludes “reasonable grounds” exist to believe that crimes against humanity have been committed and a concerted international effort is required to prevent the violence from spiralling.

“I don’t think it’s too late,” said Pearl Eliadis, a Montreal human-rights lawyer and senior fellow at the Raoul Wallenberg Centre, who co-authored the report. “I’ve worked in Rwanda, East Timor and Sri Lanka before the civil war. In those cases, it was often too late. Cameroon is a rare case study where there is a moment to intervene. “But Cameroon is a historically stable country that’s on the way to being dismantled.”

Ms. Eliadis said diplomatic pressure, trade incentives, supporting local civil-society organizations and a strong push for investigating crimes could all still work on a conflict that has largely flown under the international radar.

Canada could play an effective role, she added, as a bilingual country with both civil- and common-law legal systems similar to Cameroon. Canada does not have the same colonial baggage as Britain and France, the two powers that created Cameroon along with its linguistic divisions in the 1960s. Cameroon is one of Canada’s oldest allies in Africa and has been among the biggest recipients of Canadian aid in Africa since the 1960s. “Canada, I think, has something unique to bring to the table,” Ms. Eliadis said.

According to the latest numbers from the International Crisis Group published in the report, close to 1,000 separatists, at least 650 civilians and 235 security forces personnel have died in the past two years. The report says 206 villages have been burned so far in 2019, compared with 106 in all of 2017.

Paul Biya has been President of Cameroon for 37 years. His country of 25 million includes about five million English speakers, mostly in the northwestern and southwestern parts of the country. Mr. Biya has also been waging war against Boko Haram in the north. Western countries see him as an ally against Islamist terrorism. In November, 2016, lawyers protested a government move to impose civil law on common-law regions and the lack of effort to implement basic bilingualism. Later that month, teachers joined the protest over plans to impose French in schools.

Security forces cracked down on the protests, shooting and beating dozens and jailing more than 100. Cameroonian barrister Felix Nkongho, who co-wrote the report and led research efforts on the ground, was among them. He was supposed to participate in unveiling the report Monday, but was hiding after receiving death threats.

About 25,000 people of Cameroonian origin live in Canada, about two-thirds of them in Montreal. Olivia Leke, a Southern Cameroonian who lives in Montreal, says many of her family members have fled their homes as violence has escalated.

When she saw the 2016 arrests, she says she “thought it was a joke.” Since then, an uncle’s home was burned and another uncle was kidnapped. Her grandmother died in their home village, and her mother buried her and then fled on a motorcycle to join her father, who saw the school where he served as principal burned to the ground.

“The people who have fled into the bushes have no voice,” Ms. Leke said, adding that the Cameroon government is sensitive about its international image. “Canada must act loudly and clearly to compel the Cameroon government to do what needs to be done.”

Source: The Globe and Mail

As the US announced plans on Friday to send 1,500 more troops to the Middle East amid hostilities with Iran, analysts say the ultra-hawkish National Security Adviser John Bolton has driven much of the escalation in tensions between the two countries.

More than two weeks after the US announced a strengthening of its military presence in the Middle East in response to Iranian “threats”, relations are still fraught between Washington and Tehran.

Since taking office, Donald Trump has expressed an array of conflicting positions, from saying he wants dialogue with the Islamic Republic to making luridly vengeful threats, such as his May 19 tweet: “If Iran wants to fight, that will be the official end of Iran. Never threaten the United States again!”

The central figure behind America’s increasingly belligerent stance towards Iran is, however, not the US President but John Bolton, a consistent advocate of regime change in Iran.

‘To Stop Iran’s Bomb, Bomb Iran’

Bolton had been pouring forth warlike rhetoric against Iran for several years before his appointment as national security adviser in April 2018, in paid speeches, opinion columns and as a talking head on Trump’s favourite TV channel, Fox News. “To Stop Iran’s Bomb, Bomb Iran”, implored the headline of his opinion piece in The New York Times in 2015, when the Obama administration was negotiating the nuclear deal from which Trump would go on to withdraw in May 2018.

In 2017, Bolton gave a speech at a conference in Paris organised by the People’s Mujahedin of Iran – a militant opposition movement detested by the Iranian regime and classed as a terrorist group by the US and EU. He declared at this event that the Islamic Republic of Iran would “not last until its 40th birthday” (April 1, 2019).

In his role as national security adviser, Bolton asked the Pentagon to draw up military options for an attack on Iran – provoking considerable disquiet amongst senior officials. On February 11 2019, the 40th anniversary of Iran’s Islamic Revolution, Bolton used the White House’s official Twitter account to tell the Ayatollah Khamenei: “I don’t think you’ll have many more anniversaries to enjoy.”

Such “extremely belligerent rhetoric” has caused heightened concern because there is a “shared interest amongst several leaders – those of Israel, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and indeed the US – in ramping up the antagonism towards Iran,” Karim Sader, a Middle East specialist and former researcher at the French ministry of defence, told FRANCE 24.

“The US has returned to the anti-Iranian reflex of the George W. Bush era, and the Trump administration – especially its national security adviser – is obsessed with the Iranian threat,” he continued.

It remains to be seen how far Bolton will get with his ferociously hawkish views on Iran. Despite his aforementioned moments of vitriolic fervour against the Islamic Republic, Trump ran for the White House as a non-interventionist candidate, and analysts say that his instincts are broadly isolationist.

Is Bolton ‘manufacturing a crisis’?

However, the recent developments in US-Iran relations seem to suggest Bolton’s influence is growing. Indeed, the national security adviser is reportedly taking advantage of the void left by James Mattis, the internationalist defence secretary who resigned in December. Mattis’ successor, the low-key and little-known Patrick Shanahan, is still waiting for the Senate to confirm his appointment.

Bolton was the first US official to announce the dispatch of the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier and B-52 bombers to the Persian Gulf to “send a clear and unmistakable message to the Iranian regime”, in a statement posted on the White House website.

He also lobbied successfully for the Pentagon to produce a plan to send 120,000 troops to the Middle East should Iran attack American soldiers or accelerate its nuclear weapons programme, The New York Timesreported on May 13. Trump denied it, speaking to journalists the next day: “I think it’s fake news, ok? Now, would I do that? Absolutely. But we have not planned for that.”

“I think this is manufactured by Bolton to try to justify the administration’s very harsh policy toward Iran despite the fact that Iran has been complying with the nuclear deal,” Barbara Slavin, an Iran specialist at the Atlantic Council think-tank in Washington DC, told AFP.

“Given Bolton’s record,” she continued, “I wouldn’t put it past him to try to manufacture a crisis here.”

American officials and diplomats have been at pains to argue that the US is not trying to provoke a conflict with Iran. Trump’s strategy – as seen with North Korea – may well be to impose harsh sanctions on Iran and then try and negotiate from a position of strength. “If they call, we would be certain to negotiate,” the US president told journalists on May 20.

“Going back to sanctions and threats against Iran is counter-productive,” Sader warned. “It is the best way to strengthen the most extreme factions within the Iranian state.”

Trump ‘tempers’ Bolton

Described as “tenacious” by Condoleezza Rice (secretary of state during Bolton’s brief, controversial tenure as US ambassador to the UN under Bush from 2005 to 2006), Bolton seems to regard the notion of diplomacy with distaste.

The US president himself said last week that he is a moderating influence on Bolton. “I actually temper John,” Trump said.

The influence of a national security adviser who makes Trump look moderate has even prompted anxiety amongst Republican legislators. Senator Rand Paul – a maverick non-interventionist on foreign policy, but broadly supine in the face of Trump’s decisions – called Bolton “a malign influence on the administration”.

“I think the most important thing is to put the administration on notice that they do not have congressional permission to go to war with Iran and we need to make sure we’re not involved in anything that is provocative enough to encourage a skirmish that leads to a bigger war,” Paul continued.

It could be that Trump agrees with Paul. The president lambasted his advisor for pushing forward the US’s hardline stance on Nicolas Maduro, which hasn’t lived up to its promise of forcing the Venezuelan president out of power. Trump said Bolton wants to get him “into a war”, The Washington Post reported on May 8.

Bolton certainly likes to play hardball on the world stage. But it’s a game that could have calamitous consequences for the Middle East.

France 24

US President Donald Trump has heaped praises on Boris Johnson, a main candidate to become next British prime minster, saying he may meet him and Nigel Farage, Britain’s top eurosceptic politician,  during an upcoming visit to London.

Speaking outside the White House on Thursday, Trump described Johnson and Farage as good and interesting guys and said they were friends of him.

“Nigel Farage is a friend of mine, Boris is a friend of mine. They’re two very good guys, very interesting people.”

Trump said the two, known as the architects of Britain’s imminent withdrawal from the EU, have done a good job in politics.

“I think they’re big powers over there. I think they’ve done a good job … I like them, I mean they’re friends of mine,” he said.

Trump said that he might meet the two in his trip to the UK starting on June 3.

Although insisting he is not supporting them, Trump’s remarks on Johnson and Farage could be an immense show of political support for the two as they try to have a more powerful presence in the British politics and on Brexit.

Johnson is currently the top favorite to win a late July leadership race in the ruling Conservative Party and replace incumbent Theresa May who will officially step down on June 7.

Farage, whose newly -established Brexit party gained a significant 32 percent of the votes in last Thursday EU parliament elections, is also believed to be looking for a way to have a say in government’s way of handling Brexit.

Trump’s visit to the UK comes against the backdrop of increasing calls for protests in London and other places, especially in Portsmouth, where he will attend a June 5 ceremony to commemorate the Second World War events.

Senior political figures have boycotted a ceremony by British queen to host Trump in Buckingham Palace, saying the divisive US president should not be welcomed in the UK.

Source: Presstv

Calls for impeachment of US President Donald Trump have grown among politicians in the United States in the wake of special counsel Robert Mueller’s final statement at the conclusion of the so-called Russia probe.

Mueller “could not clear the president, nor could he charge him — so he has handed the matter to Congress, which alone can act to deliver due process and accountability,” said 2020 runner Pete Buttigieg Wednesday.

Another pro-impeachment Democrat, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, also reiterated her stance towards impeachment as some lawmakers were refusing to join the cause.

“American people deserve an open process to look at documents and hear from witnesses related to the Mueller investigation. So far, President Trump has stonewalled Congress. In doing so, he has left us with only one option: for Congress to begin impeachment proceedings,” she said.

Kamala Harris, a 2020 Democratic hopeful, also characterized Mueller’s statement as an impeachment referral.

“What Robert Mueller basically did was return an impeachment referral. Now it is up to Congress to hold this president accountable,” she said.

Elizabeth Warren directly used the term as well, stressing her calls for impeachment.

“Mueller’s statement makes clear what those who have read his report know: It is an impeachment referral, and it’s up to Congress to act. They should,” said the Massachusetts senator.

Former Vice President Joe Biden, meanwhile, supported impeachment proceedings, suggesting that the move is not a very peasant one.

Biden “agrees with Speaker Pelosi that no one would relish what would certainly be a divisive impeachment process, but that it may be unavoidable if this administration continues on its path,”  said a representative for the  former vice president.

Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, however, exercised some caution by refusing an outright endorsement of impeachment proceedings.

“If the House Judiciary Committee deems it necessary, I will support their decision,” said the 2020 hopeful.

House Speaker Nancy Pelsoi, who plays a key role in possible impeachment proceedings, also noted that the investigations would continue, voicing disappointment at Mueller’s statement.

“I am gravely disappointed in the Justice Department for their attitude, their misrepresentation of the Mueller report to begin with, their hiding behind something you could never find in the Constitution that the president is above the law and their misrepresentations even under oath by the attorney general to the Congress of the United States,” she said. “Nothing is off the table but we do but we do want to make is such a compelling case, such an iron-clad case, that even the Republican Senate, which at the time seems to be not an objective jury, will be convinced of the path that we have to take as a country.”

President Trump immediately reacted to Mueller’s remarks, announcing that the case against him has been closed.

“Nothing changes from the Mueller Report. There was insufficient evidence and therefore, in our Country, a person is innocent. The case is closed! Thank you,” tweeted the president.

Source: Presstv

US President Donald Trump has defended siding with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, insisting that former Vice President Joe Biden is a “low IQ” person as Kim has said.

The US President toll to Twitter Wednesday to continue the fight with his Democratic opponent in the 2020 presidential election.

“I was actually sticking up for Sleepy Joe Biden while on foreign soil. Kim Jong Un called him a ‘low IQ idiot,’ and many other things, whereas I related the quote of Chairman Kim as a much softer “low IQ individual.’ Who could possibly be upset with that?” the president tweeted.

Trump was criticized earlier in the day by a Biden aide for siding with Pyongyang on Memorial Day on foreign soil.

“To be on foreign soil, on Memorial Day, and to side repeatedly… against a fellow American and former vice president speaks for itself,” Biden deputy campaign manager Kate Bedingfield said in a statement timed after Trump’s return to the White House.

During his visit to Japan, Trump did not put aside political races back at home and promoted Kim’s description of President Barack Obama’s vice president.

“Kim Jong Un made a statement that Joe Biden is a low-IQ individual. He probably is, based on his record. I think I agree with him on that,” Trump said during a press conference with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

The American commander in chief initially said he agreed with Kim on Twitter.

“North Korea fired off some small weapons, which disturbed some of my people, and others, but not me. I have confidence that Chairman Kim will keep his promise to me, & also smiled when he called Swampman Joe Biden a low IQ individual, & worse. Perhaps that’s sending me a signal?” Trump tweeted.

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders even acknowledged late Saturday that Trump agrees with the North Korean leader.

Biden has not reacted to the comments but campaign officials have brushed off the attack.

Source: Presstv

Mr. President, UN Security Council members,

I wish to thank the Security Council for this opportunity to speak about the massive human suffering I witnessed when I visited Cameroon three weeks ago.

I traveled to both the South-West province of Cameroon and the Far North. In the former, I met with communities fleeing armed conflict. In the latter, I spoke with refugees and internally displaced families fleeing Boko Haram violence.

Cameroon has been a generous host to refugees, including from the Central African Republic and Nigeria. We appreciate the cooperation of the authorities in providing sanctuary to people in great need.

Mr. President,

When brutal fighting displaces hundreds of thousands of civilians, it usually sets international alarm bells ringing. But, the shocking unmet needs of tens of thousands of people fleeing violence in South-West and North-West Cameroon has resulted in no systematic mediation efforts, no large relief programme, little media interest and too little pressure on the parties to stop attacking civilians.

The collective silence surrounding the atrocities is as shocking as the untold stories are heart-breaking. That is why this session is so important.

A group of displaced and disillusioned women I met told me that they felt abandoned by the international community, as well as by the conflict parties.

They asked me, where is international solidarity? Where are the African organisations, the donor nations? Where is Europe? This conflict has roots in generations of interference from European powers.

When I visited the provincial capital Buea, I met with families from the hundreds of villages that have been burned. They affirmed that tens of thousands of people are still hiding in the bushes, and that new attacks are taking place every week.

Children have been denied their right to education for years because of the political conflicts between grown adults. Most schools have been closed, and the Ministry of Education affirms that at least 780,000 children are out of school. We risk losing a generation to illiteracy.

I was also shocked by the scale and brutality of the crisis. Even hospitals have been attacked, and health workers fear for their lives.

The absence of a humanitarian response commensurate to the hundreds of thousands of people in great and unmet need is striking. We are too few humanitarian actors on the ground, and we are gravely underfunded.

My colleagues in the Norwegian Refugee Council and other relief organisations in Cameroon tell me they can reach people in need in the South-West and North-West despite the insecurity.

Parties to the conflict said they are ready to support access to all areas of great need. This includes the South-West Governor who I spoke with in Buea, and armed opposition groups with whom we are in contact. Our immediate priority is access and assistance to people hiding in the bushes, who as of today receive no assistance or protection. They fear they cannot return to their torched villages, nor do they feel that it is safe for them to go to the urban centres.

These families are terrorized beyond belief.

Similarly in the Far North, civilians feel abandoned. The humanitarian response is severely underfunded and underreported. The displaced children I met in the capital town, Maroua, and surrounding areas, had hoped one day to return to their ancestral lands from where they fled Boko Haram violence. But insecurity still plagues these areas.

The only thing that has changed for these communities is that their suffering and the violence raged against them has disappeared from our TV screens, hearts and minds.

In my 40 years as a humanitarian worker, I have too often seen how the lack of early intervention results in smaller conflicts becoming horrific and endless wars. There is still time to avoid the conflict in the South-West and North-West from escalating further, with untold suffering as a consequence. Equally, there is time to give hope and durable solutions to displaced families in the Far North, and to the Central African refugees that Cameroon hosts.

Mr. President, UN Security Council members,

Our conclusions are the following:

1. The UN, the Secretariat, this Security Council, and all the agencies and programmes of this great family of organisations, need to do better in what we have all pledged; act to ensure conflict prevention, conflict resolution and bridge building before it is too late.

The crisis in the English-speaking part of Cameroon is one of the world’s most neglected. The lack of information and international political attention has allowed the situation to deteriorate from peaceful demonstrations to the atrocities committed by both sides. We need more independent information and reporting from the crisis. And more than anything we need to protect and assist defenseless civilians.

1. We urgently need national and international conflict resolution resources to help stop the violence and start UN talks about the many grievances that exist. Mediation or facilitation of peace talks should be done by local, national or international actors that have the trust of both the government and non-state armed groups.
2. Organisations and countries with influence over the conflict parties must make it clear that the attacks on civilians, on their homes and villages, and their schools and their hospitals, are crimes under international law that cannot be allowed to continue.

The deep and acute protection crisis might also be alleviated by a greater presence by international organisations. The UN Country Team should be given the financial and human resources needed to put protection at the centre of its response.

1. A first step to break the vicious cycle could be a concerted international effort to reopen and provide protection for schools and schoolchildren. Today, the political and strategic conflict among politicians and armed men has paralyzed education for young people. It must be possible to de-politize education. The grown adults must at agree on finding a way for children to return to school, as the mothers I met pleaded for.

To do this, both parties must show willingness to make compromises on the issues that so early became contentious in this conflict. UN and humanitarian partners also need to strengthen their efforts to pave the way for an effective education response.

1. We need to ramp up the humanitarian response. As the Emergency Relief Coordinator noted, many of the 1.3 million people who need humanitarian support have received no assistance. A massive funding injection is needed to save lives.

We need to extend the scope of the humanitarian response beyond city centres and into rural areas in South-West and North-West region. The total funding for Cameroon must be increased; money cannot just be shifted from other regions towards the crisis in the South-West and North-West.

If we do not act today, lives will be lost. The future of a generation of Cameroonians hangs in the balance.

Thank you.

US President Donald Trump has brought up the idea of investigating whom he considers the main obstacle on the path to reelection, former Vice President Joe Biden.

Trump told Politico in an interview Friday that it would be “appropriate” for him to discuss an investigation into Biden and his family ties in Ukraine with Attorney General William Barr.

“Certainly it is a very big issue and we’ll see what happens. I have not spoken to him about it. Would I speak to him about it? I haven’t thought of that. I mean, you’re asking me a question I just haven’t thought of,” said the president.

The investigation would be about Biden and his family’s business dealings in Ukraine as the vice president.

“Because he’s a Democrat it’s about 1/100 the size of the fact that if he were a Republican, it would be a lot bigger,” Trump said, adding that it could be “a very big situation” for Biden.

The 2020 Democratic contender reportedly threatened to withhold $1 billion in US loan guarantees unless Ukraine  removed a top prosecutor looking into an energy company Biden’s son Hunter was a board member of.

After the allegations were released in a New York Times report, Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani called for an investigation into the matter.

During a Friday night appearance on Fox News, Giuliani said he had changed his mind about going to Ukraine and pushing for an investigation there.

“I’m not going to go,” Giuliani said. “I think I’m walking into a group of people that are enemies of the president, in some cases enemies of the United States, and in one case an already convicted person who has been found to be involved in assisting the Democrats with the 2016 election.”

The leading Democratic Party presidential candidate has previously called for impeachment of the Republican president over obstruction of justice amid the so-called Russia probe.

Trump suggested that Biden is his strongest rival among Democrats, asserting that “It seems that many of them aren’t registering with, you know, the public.”

Source: Presstv

“In the Southern and Western Anglophone parts of Cameroon, there is an armed conflict; nobody is talking about it, nobody is engaging to end (it) There is no mediation, there is no humanitarian programme commensurate to the scale of the suffering. But there are hundreds of torched villages and there is now between four and five hundred thousand people displaced within the Anglophone part of Cameroon”

Jan Egeland

Head of the Norwegian Refugee Council

Britain’s Foreign Minister Jeremy Hunt has expressed regrets that his country’s policy on Libya has failed since London and allies in the NATO military alliance launched an invasion in 2011 to oust long-time ruler Muammar Gaddafi. 

“We have not covered ourselves in glory with our policy on Libya. Let us face it,” Hunt said in a Tuesday interview with the Guardian newspaper.

The top British diplomat said if London knew that Libya would become a hotbed of militancy in North Africa, it would have second thoughts on the 2011 invasion.

“… if we knew in 2011 we would be in the situation we are now we would be asking ourselves some searching questions,” he said.

The comments came as Britain and other international powers are in disagreement over how to help Libya regain peace after some eight years of civil war.

The main row is over Khalifa Haftar, a Gaddafi-era military general who has defied the international community by launching an all-out offensive against a United Nations-backed government in the capital Tripoli.

Haftar and his large army of militant groups have enjoyed funds and support from oil-rich countries in the Persian Gulf region. However, countries to the west of Libya and certain countries outside the region are against his rise to power, saying it would destabilize the region.

Hunt said Britain should take a lesson from its failure in the 2011 invasion of Libya and allow Haftar to have a role in the future Libyan government.

“We do not agree with what Haftar is doing. We do not think it is possible for Haftar to achieve a military victory, and as a government he will not be seen as legitimate by whole swathes of the country. So we want a political process,” he said without elaborating how Haftar could help Libya’s future.

That comes as Libya’s prime minister Fayez al-Sarraj has repeatedly accused Haftar of trying to sabotage international efforts to establish peace in Libya, saying he has no interest in contributing to a democratic process.

Source: Presstv

Japan’s 85-year-old Emperor Akihito ends his three-decade reign on Tuesday when he abdicates to his son Crown Prince Naruhito. FRANCE 24 takes a look back at his 30 years as head of state.

Akihito will announce his abdication in a palace ritual on Tuesday evening, but technically he remains the emperor until midnight, when his era of “Heisei”, or “achieving peace,” ends and his son Naruhito takes over, starting a new “Reiwa” era of “beautiful harmony”.

The succession has been marked by festivities across Japan, though the rituals are off-limits to the public and traffic will be tightly controlled outside the palace. A more elaborate enthronement ceremony for Naruhito will be held in October, when he will proclaim his ascension before officials and guests from inside and outside the country.

France 24