British Members of Parliament (MPs) called Wednesday for the deployment of Peacekeepers to arrest the bloodletting in Ambazonia and reaffirm the right of Ambazonians to assert sovereignty over their Homeland.

During over an hour of debate in the British House of Lords, MPs cited Article 4(b) of the African Union Constitutive Act on the sanctity of borders inherited from colonization to debunk the claim of a “one, and indivisible Cameroon” evoked by the Biya regime to justify the annexation of Ambazonia.

MPs challenged the UK Government to go beyond expressing concern and mouthing platitudes. They urged them to call for the deployment of African Union or United Nations Peacekeepers to help arrest the armed violence that has, so far, killed thousands, internally displaced half a million people and left 3.3 million others in need of humanitarian assistance.

MPs blamed London for lack of sensitivity in prioritizing a 1.5 billion pound oil and gas deals in Ambazonia without regard for the impact such a deal could have on further human rights violations.

Members of the House of Lords also questioned the wisdom of the UN decision in 1961 to deny Ambazonia the right to independence as a stand-alone country. They challenged the legality of the 11th February 1961 plebiscite and the failure over the decades to heed many warnings from Ambazonians about the collapse of the two-state federation and their exclusion from political decision-making.

In response to questions, the UK Government assumed the role of lawyers for the Biya regime, denying accusations that the Biya regime is perpetrating ethnic cleansing; suggesting that violations have been on both sides; and arguing that London can continue to do business-as-usual despite the genocidal violence.

Ntumfoyn Boh Herbert (Yindo Toh)

Amid warming relations with Chad, Israel is reportedly working to normalize relations with Sudan and other African states as the regime steps up its push to strengthen its foothold in the continent.

A senior Israeli official told Channel 10 TV channel that a visit on Sunday by Chadian President Idriss Deby to the occupied territories was laying the groundwork for normal ties between Tel Aviv and the Muslim-majority African states of Sudan, Mali and Niger.

The unnamed official also noted that Israel was seeking to shorten flight times from the occupied territories to Latin America through normalizing relations with African countries.

Deby became the first Chadian leader to visit Israel on Sunday, 46 years after the two sides severed ties.

After meeting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Chadian president pledged a new era of cooperation with “the prospect of reestablishing diplomatic relations.”

Israeli media cited sources in N’Djamena as saying that Deby’s visit was focused on “security,” and that the regime in Tel Aviv had already been supplying weapons and other military equipment to Chad.

Netanyahu, however, declined to comment on potential Israeli weapons sales to Chad.

During his visit, Deby said the future resumption of ties with Israel “does not make us ignore the Palestinian issue.”

The Palestinians, however, protested Deby’s trip to Israel.

Wasel Abu Youssef, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s executive committee, voiced displeasure over the visit.

“All countries and institutions must boycott the extremist government of Israel and impose a siege on it because of its settlement activities, its occupation of Palestinian land,” Youssef was quoted as saying by Reuters.

Over the past two years, Netanyahu has traveled to several African states in a bid to end decades of hostility against the occupying entity and convince them to stop voting against the Israeli regime at the United Nations in favor of Palestinians.

Source: Presstv

President Donald Trump said the United States would not punish its Saudi ally for the gruesome murder of US-based columnist Jamal Khashoggi, despite conceding that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman may have known of the killing.

Defying pressure from US lawmakers to impose tougher sanctions on Saudi Arabia, Trump said he would not cancel military contracts with the kingdom. Such a “foolish” move would only benefit Russia and China, said the US president, whom critics accuse of exaggerating the importance of those weapons sales to the American economy.

Trump said US intelligence agencies were still studying the evidence around Khashoggi’s murder and who planned it.

“It could very well be that the Crown Prince had knowledge of this tragic event – maybe he did and maybe he didn’t!” Trump said in a statement.

“We may never know all of the facts surrounding the murder of Mr Jamal Khashoggi. In any case, our relationship is with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,” he said. “The United States intends to remain a steadfast partner of Saudi Arabia.”

The gruesome murder of Khashoggi, who vanished after being lured into the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2, has hugely embarrassed Washington.

The killing torpedoed a powerful PR campaign led by the crown prince to show that the conservative Islamic state has embarked on a new reformist path.

It also threw into question the White House strategy to make MBS, as the royal prince Mohammed Bin Salman is widely known, its main partner in the tinderbox region.

After offering numerous contradictory explanations for Khashoggi’s disappearance, Riyadh said last week he had been killed and his body dismembered when “negotiations” to convince him to return to Saudi Arabia failed. It said allegations the prince had ordered the killing were false.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said in Washington on Tuesday that Turkey was not entirely satisfied with the level of cooperation it was receiving from Riyadh on Khashoggi’s murder and may seek a formal United Nations inquiry.

Republican and Democratic leaders of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee said they had asked Trump for a second human rights probe over Khashoggi’s killing.

Similarly, Representative Francis Rooney, a Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said Washington should apply the so-called Magnitsky Act to those responsible for Khashoggi’s death. The law freezes US assets of human rights violators and prohibits Americans from doing business with them.

Saudi prince ‘involved’ in murder

Trump has for weeks resisted accepting mounting evidence of Saudi government involvement in the Khashoggi killing – and accusations that MBS ordered the hit.

However, with The New York Times reporting that the CIA has definitively concluded that Prince Mohammed was involved, the focus turned to whether Trump would punish his Saudi partner or find a way to let it slide.

In his statement, released by the White House press office, Trump took the latter option, saying that the US-Saudi relationship was more important than the possible involvement in the crime of Prince Mohammed.

He noted that Saudi King Salman and the crown prince “vigorously deny any knowledge of the planning or execution of the murder of Mr Khashoggi”.

“The United States intends to remain a steadfast partner of Saudi Arabia to ensure the interests of our country, Israel and all other partners in the region,” he said.

Trump acknowledged a strong push in Congress for the United States to sanction MBS and take other action against the Saudi leadership.

“I will consider whatever ideas are presented to me, but only if they are consistent with the absolute security and safety of America,” he said.

“Mr. Trump bizarrely devotes the FIRST paragraph of his shameful statement on Saudi atrocities to accuse IRAN of every sort of malfeasance he can think of. Perhaps we’re also responsible for the California fires, because we didn’t help rake the forests – just like the Finns do?” Zarif wrote on Twitter.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP, REUTERS)

The United Nations human rights wing has expressed worry over the security situation in Cameroon’s restive Anglophone regions from where it says it continues to receive daily reports of violence on the part of state security forces and secessionist elements.

Ravina Shamdasani, spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights, said in a statement on Tuesday: “We are deeply concerned about the worsening violence in the Southwest and Northwest regions of Cameroon, as we continue to receive reports of abductions and killings by armed groups, as well as extrajudicial killings by State armed forces.

“We urge all sides to refrain from acts of violence that have, for more than a year now, left the population in these regions living in fear, unable to access their basic human rights.”

She detailed instances of abduction especially from the Bamenda secondary school plus the most recent incident in the south-west region where eight students and an official are reported to have been abducted.

“They were all subsequently released, after some parents paid ransoms and the Catholic Diocese of Kumba intervened,” the spokesperson added.

Cameroon army’s complicity, effects of crisis

Also in recent months, Cameroonian armed forces have allegedly carried out a number of extrajudicial executions in the Northwest and Southwest regions.

On 20 October, in the village of Rom, in the Northwest town of Nwa, security forces reportedly killed four villagers during a confrontation with armed secessionist groups, while on 24 September, two men suspected of being secessionist fighters were reportedly killed on the spot. There have been numerous such reports in the preceding months.

What began as protests in October 2016 in the Northwest and Southwest regions against structural discrimination escalated into violence in 2017, and the situation has worsened considerably since then.

The violence has led to massive internal displacement – at least 436,000 people are believed to be internally displaced, while more than 30,000 have fled to Nigeria since September last year.

UN condemnation, call for probe and dialogue

We strongly condemn the human rights violations and abuses that have plagued the people in the Northwest and Southwest regions of Cameroon. We call on armed secessionists groups to refrain from the use of violence.

We urge the Government to respect and protect the rights of all, to address the long-standing grievances of the communities in these regions, including through dialogue, to promptly investigate all cases of violations reportedly involving its security and defence forces, and to hold perpetrators responsible.

We also reiterate our readiness to work with the Government of Cameroon, including through an assessment mission to the Northwest and Southwest regions of the country that will enable us to be able to look into the human rights situation first-hand and engage with the Government accordingly on ways to address it.

Source: Africa News

As violence in the former British colony, Cameroon, escalates, the UK government has again rejected calls to give diplomatic support to the English-speaking community.

After a House of Lords debate, initiated by Lord Boateng, representatives of Britain’s Cameroonian community expressed disappointment that the UK will not rally international pressure against the Francophone Cameroonian regime.

Despite a recent Amnesty report describing the Cameroon regime’s campaign of “arbitrary arrests, torture, unlawful killings and destruction of property” in the Anglophone region of the West African nation, the UK will go no further than urging all sides to seek dialogue. British Cameroonians told ICN they had been hoping Britain would give practical support to the Catholic bishops’ conference later this month.

Since the violence began two years ago, almost half a million Anglophone Cameroonians have fled their homes, following attacks by government soldiers. The UNHCR reports that 26,000 have sought refuge in neighbouring Nigeria. According to Amnesty, 450 to 500 civilians and 185 members of the security services have been killed in the conflict. Meanwhile, UNICEF believes that 58 schools have been destroyed.

The Catholic bishops’ conference has described the regime’s actions as, “inhuman, blind, monstrous violence.”

Last month, Cameroon held an election that was judged neither free nor fair by international standards. President Paul Biya, age 85, has been in power since 1982. Of the October election, Archbishop Samuel Kleda, the president of the bishops’ conference, said: “One has the impression election results are decided before voting takes place.”

Meanwhile, Biya’s main opponent has been arrested, and joins 47 other political leaders who are being held without charge.

On Wednesday evening, Lord Boateng, a former high commissioner to South Africa, told the House of Lords that the blame for the current conflict lay with Cameroon’s 1961 independence referendum. The British and French colonial powers gave the country’s English-speaking minority a choice between joining Nigeria or being absorbed by the French-speaking majority in Cameroon, rather than creating a separate Anglophone country. Since then, Boateng said, any constitutional protections for Anglophones, who make up 20% of the West African nation’s population, have been eroded.

Lord Alton told the House it was unsurprising that English speakers had objected two years ago when Francophone judges were imposed on Anglophone courts, dispensing laws they did not understand, and Francophone teachers took the place of English speakers in the Anglophone region’s schools. While condemning the violence of militant extremists, Alton said that government soldiers had responded to peaceful protests with disproportionate force.

“The International Crisis Group reports that a government helicopter hovered outside a church, shooting anglophone worshippers as they emerged from Mass,” he said.

Lord Alton urged the UK to reject the path of moral equivalence whereby it considers that both sides in the Cameroon conflict are as bad as each other. “We should not underestimate the influence that we have, but it speaks volumes that we left it to the American ambassador to express his disapproval of the Cameroonian Government’s brutal response to peaceful protests.”

Lord Judd urged the UK not to simply issue the usual calls for a cessation of violence and a negotiated settlement. He asked British ministers to give practical help to make inclusive and meaningful peace talks possible, which required diplomatic pressure to be put on the Cameroonian authorities. During the debate, several speakers noted that the UK should be working with France, its former colonial partner in Cameroon, to push the Francophone regime to seek a federal solution that would guarantee the rights of the Anglophone minority.

Lord Alton questioned how serious Britain was when it claimed to care about the democratic values and human rights desired by English speakers, led by the Catholic church. “There is nothing admirable about being even-handed in the face of the suffering of the anglophone community,” he said. “The United Kingdom should support the anglophone community’s peaceful civil society leaders in seeking genuine and inclusive talks. We need a targeted strategy for atrocity prevention and a commitment to bring to justice those responsible for human rights violations wherever they occur.”

Source: Independent Catholic News

Russia has denounced France’s “egotist” behavior in Africa and has urged the country to recognize its peace efforts in the continent at the United Nations Security Council.

Speaking to the council on Thursday, Russian Deputy Ambassador Dmitry Polyanski urged France to “set aside historical complexes, egotism and parochial national interests.”

“We are pro-actively helping the CAR, knowingly with the support of the people and we would like our efforts to be duly reflected in the French draft,” said Polyanski.

The comments come after France presented a draft resolution countering a recent Russian peace initiative for the Central African Republic, arguing that any presented settlement has to be led by the African Union.

“There must be no ambiguity about the central role of the African Union initiative, as asserted in our draft resolution,” French Ambassador Francois Delattre told the council.

Furthermore, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov also denounced France’s Africa policy last week, accusing the country of illegal control over the former colony island of Mayotte, north of Madagascar.

Russian foreign minister

Russia has signaled its intent to increase influence in Africa, a move seen by France as meddling in its former colonies.

Since 2014, Moscow has signed 19 military agreements in African countries including Ethiopia, Nigeria and Zimbabwe, according to its foreign and defense ministries.

Moreover, Russian military trainers and security advisers have been sent to CAR following a bilateral deal with the government.

Last August, Russia was able to broker a preliminary peace agreement between opposing Central African militia who had convened for talks in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum.

The talks are part of ongoing negotiations seeking to address unrest in CAR after sectarian violence, specifically targeting the Muslim minority, plagued the country following the toppling of then-president Francois Bozize in 2013.

Despite an announced ceasefire between the opposing factions, the country has not yet fully emerged from its bloody past.

Source: Presstv

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu plotted his next moves Thursday after his defence minister resigned over a controversial Gaza ceasefire, throwing his coalition into crisis and raising the possibility of early elections.

After Avigdor Lieberman announced his resignation on Wednesday, Netanyahu was clinging to a one-seat majority in parliament and one of his main right-wing rivals was also threatening to pull out of the coalition.

Education Minister Naftali Bennett of the far-right Jewish Home party was demanding to be given the defence portfolio or he would withdraw his eight seats from Netanyahu’s governing coalition.

Another key coalition partner, Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon of centre-right Kulanu, reportedly told Netanyahu elections should be called as soon as possible because a stable government was needed to keep the economy on track.

Netanyahu was meanwhile seeking to contain the political fallout of his decision to accept a ceasefire deal on Tuesday that ended the worst escalation between Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza since a 2014 war.

Lieberman said it was “capitulating to terror” when announcing his resignation and also criticised Netanyahu’s recent decision to allow Qatar to send millions of dollars in aid to the blockaded Palestinian enclave.

He formally submitted his resignation on Thursday.

Beyond that, there have been protests calling for tough action against Hamas by Israelis living near the Gaza border whose communities were targeted by barrages of rockets from Gaza this week.

A poll published on Thursday found some 74 percent of respondents were unhappy with Netanyahu’s handling of the escalation with Gaza and its Islamist rulers Hamas.

Giving further ammunition to Netanyahu’s political critics, Hamas has portrayed the ceasefire and Lieberman’s resignation as a victory.

“This government has failed to establish deterrence,” Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, from Bennett’s Jewish Home, told army radio on Thursday.

‘Mr. Security’

Netanyahu’s political popularity is in large part due to his reputation as Israel’s “Mr. Security”, as he has often been dubbed, and he has defended his decision saying: “Our enemies begged for a ceasefire.

“In times of emergency, when making decisions crucial to security, the public can’t always be privy to the considerations that must be hidden from the enemy,” he said.

His Likud party has hit back at suggestions he will be forced to call early elections, saying Netanyahu will take over the defence portfolio at least temporarily in addition to the premiership, foreign affairs and health portfolios he already has.

A Likud spokesman said Netanyahu would continue consultations on Thursday aimed at stabilising his coalition. There has long been speculation that Netanyahu may call elections before they are due in November 2019, particularly with police having recommended charges against him in two corruption probes.

The attorney general is expected to announce in the coming months whether to pursue charges against him, and some analysts believe he would be better positioned to combat them with a fresh electoral mandate.

But Netanyahu would want to make the move at the most advantageous time and likely not with public attention focused on the Gaza ceasefire.

Qatari cash

The Gaza violence had erupted on Sunday with a botched Israeli special forces operation inside the territory that turned deadly and prompted Hamas to vow revenge.

Palestinian militants responded with rocket and mortar fire, as well as an anti-tank missile that hit a bus that Hamas says was being used by Israeli soldiers. A soldier was severely wounded in the attack.

Around 460 rockets and mortar rounds were fired from the Gaza Strip, wounding 27 people, three of them severely.

A Palestinian labourer from the occupied West Bank was killed when a rocket hit a building in the Israeli city of Ashkelon.

Israel hit back with widespread air strikes on some 160 targets in the Gaza Strip before the Egyptian-brokered truce took effect on Tuesday. Seven Gazans were killed.

The escalation came despite Netanyahu’s decision to allow Qatar to transfer millions of dollars in aid to Gaza for salaries as well as fuel to ease a chronic electricity shortage.

The cash transfers had led to calmer protests along the border after months of deadly unrest. But they also drew criticism from within Netanyahu’s own government, and Lieberman slammed them in announcing his resignation.

(AFP)

US President Donald Trump insists his Republican Party has won the 2018 midterm congressional elections despite losing the House of Representatives to Democrats, threatening the opposition party against using their newly found power in the lower chamber of Congress to hinder his political agenda.

The Republican head of state took to Twitter on Tuesday to take credit for his party’s success in widening their narrow majority in the Senate by winning more seats in midterms.

“Those that worked with me in this incredible Midterm Election, embracing certain policies and principles, did very well. Those that did not, say goodbye! Yesterday was such a very Big Win, and all under the pressure of a Nasty and Hostile Media!”

While Democrats were never projected as the favorites to flip the Senate, it is still surprising to see how they failed to make a splash despite receiving intense support from party heavyweights such as former President Barack Obama, former VP Joe Biden and former First Lady Hillary Clinton.

In a major blow to President Trump, Democrats score a critical victory by flipping the House of Representatives, while the Senate remains in Republican control.

Trump wrote only the “fake news” would refuse to “give us proper credit for this great Midterm Election.” Trump then went after Democrats, advising them against launching House level investigations into his administration like some party members have suggested.

 “If the Democrats think they are going to waste Taxpayer Money investigating us at the House level, then we will likewise be forced to consider investigating them for all of the leaks of Classified Information, and much else, at the Senate level. Two can play that game!”

Immediately after it became clear that Democrats had won the lower chamber of Congress for the first time in eight years, there were speculation that they would use the opportunity to give Trump more headache.

While impeachment seems a distant possibility now that Democrats have failed to secure a big enough majority, they still can put Trump under pressure by frustrating his legislative agenda and also dig deep into his business career.

The president has already been accused by Democrats of obstruction of justice in the ongoing investigation into his alleged ties with Russia which is led by Justice Department’s Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

Trump took a jab at the probe in his post-election Twitter rant, calling it a “witch hunt.” Keeping control of the Senate was the highlight of the night for Republicans as they lost ground in pretty much every other aspect of the midterms.

In addition to losing the House, they were also projected to lose seven gubernatorial races to Democrats as well. Overall, however, it seems like Trump managed to do well  enough in what shaped up as the first chance for many Americans to pass judgment about his presidency.

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