World

2, November 2018

Cameroon is melting down — and the United States couldn’t care less ⁰

An American missionary was shot dead on Tuesday in Cameroon during clashes between the separatists and government soldiers. Charles Wesco, 44, was traveling with his wife, son and a driver when they came under fire.

More than 400 civilians have already died in the conflict between the country’s French-speaking majority and its English-speaking minority. But perhaps the tragic death of a Westerner — one who had devoted his life to helping Cameroon — will now prompt the United States and Europe to stop looking away.

President Paul Biya, in power for 36 years, is set to be sworn in next week for another seven-year term after claiming victory Oct. 7 in elections marred by allegations of fraud. Despite ample evidence of vote tampering and insecurity on election day, Washington was quick to congratulate the people of Cameroon on what it called a “largely peaceful elections.”

Cameroonians, who have long been yearning for peace, can hardly be blamed for regarding that statement as a mockery. Most of them, not only the English-speakers who are fighting desperately for independence, had hoped that Biya would leave the palace. Those hopes are now dashed.

I spent voting day in Buea, the capital of the southwest Anglophone region. I didn’t see a single person voting after midday — apart from the governor, who showed with a bodyguard of heavily armed soldiers. Most of the locals stayed indoors for their safety. In this region, where people have taken up hunting guns to fight his regime, Biya shamelessly claimed he won the majority of votes. Villages around Buea are entirely deserted — people are living in the forests, from fear of the president’s soldiers. Some 500,000 have been displaced by the fighting. I could hear gunfire before, during and after the election. More than a dozen people died in the Anglophone areas in the course of 24 hours. How could Washington give this farce a clean bill of health?

After the voting had closed, African Union observers said the ballot went well — despite the fact they couldn’t send any of their team to the far North, where the Boko Haram insurgency is wreaking havoc, or in the English-speaking regions, where the secessionists are fighting the regime. The AU verdict was not entirely surprising, because it routinely approves flawed elections; the U.S. statement in support of Biya was, however, a disaster.

If Biya, as expected, remains in office for the coming seven years, it is highly likely that the country will slide into a terrible civil war — one of which the world will take notice only when nobody is left to save. The worsening crisis is largely the result of the Biya regime’s refusal to address the grievances of the country’s English-speaking minority, who have long suffered from systematic discrimination. In silencing them, soldiers have killed about 4,000 Anglophone civilians, according to the Center for Human Rights and Democracy in Africa, a nongovernmental organization based in Buea.

Decaying bodies lie scattered on the streets of the capital. Sources tell me that hospital mortuaries in the city of Bamenda in the northwest are full, no place left for fresh bodies. The sights triggered memories of my own experience of Rwanda’s genocide against the Tutsis in 1994. The comparison is more apt than it might seem at first sight. France, Biya’s leading supporter in the West, is repeating the same mistakes it committed in Rwanda.

The killing of Anglophone Cameroonians is not only the problem that confronts the country. Corruption is also ubiquitous. Though I had valid documents to travel and work in Cameroon, I had to pay money to be allowed to pass through every police and military checkpoint. Even at the international airport in Douala, staffers there extort money from passengers. This is not fiction. It’s my personal experience.

Bribes are common in many African countries, but Cameroon has reached another level. The anti-corruption organization Transparency International ranks Cameroon among the most corrupt nations in the world, having it tied for the 153rd spot out of 180 countries.

Biya remains unconcerned. He has spent at least four and a half years in total on private trips in the 36 years he has been president, according to research conducted by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project. He has made himself at home in Geneva’s five-star Intercontinental Hotel, spending an estimated $65 million on stays there since he came to power. Back home, most Cameroonians are struggling to make ends meet, and war-displaced women and children have no place to sleep. Meanwhile, critics are killed or locked away in maximum-security prisons; many others have gone in exile.

It’s high time for the West to reconsider its relationship with Biya — or at least to hold him accountable for the atrocities committed under his rule. Cameroonians, both English and French speakers, should stand up for their country and remove the leaders who are tearing them apart. Thirty-six years of pain is too much to endure. And they have nothing left to lose.

Source: The Washington Post

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26, October 2018

Canada Speaks of Biya’s re-election ⁰

Many countries have been trying to nicely draw the attention of the Cameroon government to the disaster that might play out in the country following the rigged October 2018 presidential poll.

Among those countries is Canada, the gentle giant that has been in the spotlight for the right reasons. A great economy, genuine democracy, universal health coverage, free education right up to high school, great housing and above all a great sanctuary for people running away from persecution.

After the comedy that was staged at the Constitutional Council, Global Affairs Canada has issued a statement, urging the government to implement the necessary reforms that might help the country avoid future political problems.

“On October 22, Cameroon’s Constitutional Council announced that president Paul Biya is the winner of the presidential election. Canada takes note of this result and takes this opportunity to encourage the Cameroonian authorities to continue implementing the necessary reforms to strengthen the electoral legal framework,” the statement says.

“We call on the Cameroonian authorities and all stakeholders to engage firmly in an inclusive dialogue in order to find long-term peaceful solutions to the crisis and put an end to the violence that rages in the northwest and southwest regions,” the statement stresses.

“This situation has serious social and economic consequences for the Cameroonian people and the country as a whole. It also had a negative impact on the participation of the populations of these regions in the electoral process,” the statement adds.

“Canada is a long-time friend of the Cameroonian people and seizes the opportunity to reiterate its commitment to support Cameroon in its future efforts to meet the challenges of peace and social and economic development. Canada remains ready to accompany Cameroon in its process for the return of peace,” the statement concludes.

It should be indicated that Canada hardly criticizes other countries openly, but it is always ready to lend a hand. This great country that has always been considered as the best country in the world to live in, clearly believes in peace. It holds that without justice and peace, no country will progress.

Canada has had to deal with minorities too. Understanding the importance of peace, successive Canadian governments have always worked for peace and they have always considered dialogue as the key that can enable people across the globe to live a peaceful and fulfilling life.

It is therefore not in error that the notion of peacekeeping is associated with Canada. It remains a great country to raise kids and live a fulfilling life. A land of immigrants, Canada has touched many souls, including late Professor Bernard Nsokika Fonlon who had great admiration for Canadian bilingualism.

By Joachim Arrey

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25, October 2018

British Minister for Africa writes to Biya following the recent elections in Cameroon ⁰

We remain deeply concerned about the deteriorating situation in the Anglophone regions, which continue to suffer from high levels of violence and human rights abuses perpetrated by both security forces and armed separatists. The UK calls on the Government of Cameroon to now take urgent action to address the crisis in the Anglophone regions.

We hope that President Biya will reach out to all sections of Cameroonian society and work to build confidence and trust. It is crucial for all parties to engage in a peaceful and structured process leading to constitutional reforms, as previously set out by the President, and avoid excessive use of force.

The UK is concerned at the worsening humanitarian situation in the Anglophone regions and the impact this is having on the lives of ordinary people. We call on all parties to grant full and unhindered humanitarian access to the affected population.

The UK will continue to work alongside the international community to encourage and support efforts to resolve the Anglophone crisis. It is vital that all parties now work together to secure a peaceful future for all Cameroonians.

22, October 2018

Paul Biya Gives a Master Class in Fake Democracy ⁰

One of the world’s most experienced autocrats has clinched another seven-year term by bending the rules of the game in his direction in ways both old and new.

It’s no accident that Paul Biya is the second-longest-ruling head of state in the world who isn’t a monarch. Nor that Cameroon’s constitutional council confirmed today that Biya, who has been in power for 36 years, has won a seventh term in office and is set to lead the country until 2025.

By any objective standard, the Cameroonian election on Oct. 7 was a farce, according to outside observers. Voter turnout was marked by apathy, and in some regions, outright fear, with credible sources saying that less than 1 percent of voters cast ballots in some areas. In the country’s English-speaking regions, harsh crackdowns on an emerging secessionist movement kept many polling stations closed and left others mostly attended by soldiers.

But the country’s state media want you to know that the elections went just fine, and they can cite “outside monitors” to prove it.

On Oct. 8, state-run outlet Cameroon Radio Television (CRTV) interviewed a group of international observers who praised the country’s elections as credible and fair. One election observer, filmed by CRTV and identified as Nurit Greenger, a Transparency International observer, called Cameroon’s elections “extremely good.” She added, “I don’t think there is a way you can cheat.”

There was just one hitch: Transparency International has no election observers in Cameroon, and the organization has no ties to the group that appeared on CRTV.

“It’s still a bit of a mystery as to who decided to say that they were a Transparency International group,” Michael Hornsby, a spokesperson for the organization, told Foreign Policy. “But I think it’s very telling that one of the individuals kept repeating that they were trained by us—long after we had said we had nothing to do with them.”

The strange spectacle reflects what has become a growing trend of autocrats using new methods to add a gloss of legitimacy to elections that are deeply flawed. This particular tactic of using outsiders as props has cropped up with such frequency around the world—from Azerbaijan to Equatorial Guinea—that real election experts even have a name for them: “zombie observers.”

But of all the world’s autocrats who pretend to be democrats, Paul Biya is one of the most accomplished. And although experts agree that he may be making more mistakes than usual, this hasn’t undermined his hold on the presidency.

“What really stands out in Cameroon and elsewhere is the degree that highly abusive, repressive, and, in this case, dictatorial regimes will go to, to somehow get this stamp of approval,” said Jeffrey Smith, the executive director of Vanguard Africa, a nonprofit organization focused on democracy promotion in African states.

Part of that strategy involves doing just enough to keep the United States and other major Western powers from bothering to notice. In Biya’s corner is a small but powerful constellation of lobbying and public relations firms that the government has embraced in the buildup to the 2018 vote in an effort to buy the prestige of outside approval. These firms have shouldered the weight of managing the country’s media relationships and keeping in contact with U.S. lawmakers.

Documents filed under the Foreign Agents Registration Act show the Biya government is channeling upward of $184,000 a month to these firms. Squire Patton Boggs is currently receiving $100,000 a quarter from Cameroon. Glover Park Group—which just cut ties with the Saudi government—is providing public affairs and communications support to the Embassy of Cameroon in Washington for $51,000 a month, and in September, Mercury Public Affairs secured a media relations contract with the government worth $100,000 a month. Squire Patton Boggs and Glover Park Group did not return phone calls asking for comment, while Michael McKeon, a partner at Mercury Public Affairs, told Foreign Policy that the group “does not represent Cameroon” at present, despite his name being on a contract that runs until 2019.

“Biya in this case is really trying to play the PR game … they’re trying to somehow present this regime that has been in power for [nearly] 40 years as a credible guarantor of the democratic rights and aspirations of its people,” Smith said. “Once you start peeling back the layers, the opposite is true.”

Kah Walla, who became the first woman to run for president in Cameroon in 2011, calls the country an “electoral dictatorship.” She told FP, “Keep in mind in electoral dictatorships, the opposition is running against the incumbent, his party, the civil service, the state media, and even most of the private media, which tend to be run by party cadres, as well as the armed forces.”

In Walla’s run against Biya, she experienced the tampering first hand. “On voting day, our party representatives were thrown out of polling stations, threatened, and bribed in various parts of the country,” she said. “As an opposition party, not only do all the existing rules apply to you, but they’ll make up other ones as they go along,” she added. That has continued in 2018 as well—leading opposition candidate Maurice Kamto alleged in front of the Constitutional Council that members of his party, the Cameroon Renaissance Movement, were chased out of polling stations this time around.

The country’s Constitutional Council offers a 72-hour window for candidates to lodge complaints about the electoral process. But Biya appoints the members of the council, and complaints have to be heard before official results are released, leaving candidates without any evidence to substantiate their claims.

Nkongho Felix Agbor Balla, a high-profile Anglophone human rights lawyer in Cameroon who spoke in support of Kamto at the Constitutional Council this week, said that Biya stacked the courts in his favor against any electoral challenges. He told FP that the judges “cannot bite the fingers that feed them, they can not go against their master. These are people that would never allow Mr. Biya to lose an election.”

The Cameroonian Embassy in Washington declined a request for comment. For years, Biya has stayed in power by co-opting elites who could potentially challenge him, undermining a fragmented opposition, and bending state institutions—including those overseeing the election—toward his own interests.

In part thanks to Biya’s agile maneuvering, few in Washington were paying attention to Cameroon’s election. But the stakes are higher in Biya’s seventh presidential run: Even as the fight against the Islamist militant group Boko Haram is winding down, with reportedly fewer than 1,000 active fighters in the country’s north, Cameroon still has to confront the distrust and displacement caused by the insurgency. And it is now facing widespread political strife and conflict on another front that has taken aim at the country’s very foundation, the combination of French- and English-speaking regions into a single state.

These deeper demographic divisions could eventually undermine Biya’s hold on power—though some experts expect the 85-year-old president to live out the rest of his life in office as the insurgency continues to smolder, given the strength of Cameroon’s military. Cameroon is fraying along a familiar seam—one that divides its 5 million English-speaking citizens and its Francophone majority, which makes up around 80 percent of the country. It’s an arrangement that has held since the creation of Cameroon—which emerged as an independent nation from colonial rule in 1961 when the area governed by British rule elected to join its French-speaking neighbors instead of Nigeria.

Experts say that in the decades since its independence, the government in Yaoundé has gradually chipped away at the rights and government support for its English-speaking citizens. “Since 1961, everything encompassing the Anglophone legal system, educational system, and identity has been diminished over time—to the point where Anglophones no longer recognize the entity in which they currently belong within the framework of today’s Cameroon,” said Christopher Fomunyoh, the director of the Africa program at the National Democratic Institute.

In the northwest and southwest of the country, what started off in 2016 as protests from teachers and lawyers in the Anglophone regions pushing for more rights and support has transformed into an armed separatist movement. Some Anglophones have gone as far as advocating for the creation of a separate state—Ambazonia—which they want to see split off from Francophone Cameroon entirely.

The Anglophone crisis intensified to the point where gunfire and threats have nearly emptied entire towns. “Displacement is a very good indicator of trouble—people are leaving these areas because there is a lot of violence,” said Richard Moncrieff, the program director for Central Africa at the International Crisis Group. The group, a nongovernmental organization that tracks conflict and crises around the world, has reported that as many as 300,000 people have fled their homes in the northwest and southwest of Cameroon.

The violent government crackdown, which has seen about 400 people killed, has had dramatic political impact. Voter turnout in the Anglophone regions fell to remarkable lows—to the extent that there was “nearly no election” in the northwest and southwest, according to autocratic politics expert Brett Carter—reflecting the almost universal distrust in Biya among the English-speaking population.

“I don’t really think the government made much of a legitimate effort to make sure that Anglophone citizens voted,” said Carter, a professor at the University of Southern California. “It’s important for observers to understand the extent to which government violence over the past year and a half has reshaped the Cameroonian political landscape.”

Balla described the atmosphere on election day as he monitored polling stations in the southwest region: “The security presence in town was very intimidating … most people, who were scared of the military, decided to stay at home.” He added, “in one polling station, close to my house in Buea, at least 300 members of the military voted there.”

“There is an emerging civil war. Anglophones feel completely disenfranchised, but they didn’t need the elections to tell them that,” Moncrieff added.

But the brewing crisis has hardly made a blip in Washington, outside of an Oct. 11 statement from the U.S. State Department reiterating America’s neutrality in the elections and calling for “calm and the careful [sic], non-partisan conclusion of the remaining phases of the vote tabulation process.”

The State Department has been treading lightly with its remarks about Cameroon’s election after a diplomatic uproar sparked by carefully couched comments from the U.S. ambassador, Peter Henry Barlerin, earlier this year. In June, Barlerin suggested in a meeting with Biya the president “should be thinking about his legacy and how he wants to be remembered,” citing George Washington and Nelson Mandela as role models. The government jumped on the comments, accusing him of criticizing Biya and trying to sway elections, and later several local media outlets alleged he paid $5 million to opposition candidates. The U.S. Embassy called the claims “entirely false.”

Violence and longstanding rampant corruption have taken a heavy toll on Cameroon’s economy. But the country remains one of Central Africa’s most stable and economically significant countries. And Biya has consistently emphasized the relative stability of the country in comparison to its neighbors like the Central African Republic as a key platform for his re-elections. “For decades, Biya has run on a campaign of, ‘Look at our neighbors. Look at Nigeria, what a mess. Look at Chad, what a mess. We’re stable, we’re unified. We’re a strong country to be proud of,’” said Natalie Letsa, a scholar on sub-Saharan Africa at Stanford University. “I think that the Biya government is trying to keep that narrative alive the best they can, which is relatively easy given the lack of access to information in parts of the country.”

But for Biya to emerge from the 2018 election with no coherent plan to resolve conflict in the Anglophone regions will have far-reaching consequences.

“Forty percent of the region’s economic output comes from Cameroon. It’s a highly important country in terms of its political influence and the influence that Biya has on neighboring countries,” Smith said. “I think as Cameroon continues to regress, it’s going to continue to drag the rest of the region down.”

Culled from Foreign Policy.com

17, October 2018

Cameroon’s Presidential Poll: Kamto’s team produces incontrovertible evidence ⁰

After throwing out Prof. Kamto’s application for members of the Constitutional Council to recuse themselves because of the numerous conflicts of interest outlined in the applicant’s application, the Kamto legal team put up an impressive show on the irregularities that actually marred the October 7, 2018 poll.

The team’s lead legal expert put the team’s collective effort and determination to expose the ruling party’s sloppy rigging strategy on display. The team outlined cases of massive fraud, with numbers for many polling stations not adding up and some results report signed without being properly verified if they had been signed by the right persons. The reported cases of fraud concerned, in particular, the Far North, the South, and the Northwest and Southwest regions.

In the two English-speaking regions, it was reported that since the population had been chased away by government forces that had resorted to shooting young men, army soldiers voted as many times as they could, oblivious of the fact that everybody was aware that the population had moved into East Cameroon and on voting day, there was no security for those who wanted to venture out to vote.

Some of the result reports did not even have the signatures of the returning officers and where there were signatures, the number of signatures on the first pages did not match the number of signatures on the following pages. Some results reports were produced based on the recommendations of the authorities who, in many cases, were ruling party supporters.

In the Far North region which has been given to Mr. Paul Biya, the number of votes cast was higher than the number of registered voters. The CPDM rigging machine in that region had actually worked overtime and it failed to take into consideration the number of registered voters.

But it was in the South region, which is the president’s region which the ruling party felt that it had a free hand to do whatever it wanted. Its sloppiness resulted in many mistakes, with even dead people voting. The Constitutional Council session was put off to Wednesday at 9:30am Cameroon time after Council members were totally overwhelmed by the evidence Prof. Kamto’s team provided.

Meanwhile the Constitutional Council had rejected early on Tuesday the application for recusal filed by the Kamto Campaign. It was however said he could challenge the incompatibility of the person who appointed Council members and the person in question is President Paul Biya who himself was also a candidate in the October 7 presidential poll.

Knowing well that the outcome of the application could not be otherwise, Maurice Kamto felt it was necessary for him to follow the legal procedure as the best way to expose the Biya regime to the international community as being the judge and jury in a case on the country’s future and stability depend.

The debates are continuing, but what happened today during the hearing was just a foretaste of what will be playing out in the days ahead. In opening statements by Prof. Kamto’s legal team, the various lawyers called on the chair of the constitutional council to exercise justice, reminding him that the future of the country depended on whatever decision the Constitutional Council would take.

First to fire was Barrister Yondo Black who pointed out that all the members of the constitutional council were also members of the ruling party whose role in the just-ended election had been called to question. He added that the person who appointed them was himself a candidate in the election and it would be challenging to accept that the Constitutional council would be impartial in a case in which members of the constitutional council stood to gain.

For his part, Barrister Akere Muna added that Cameroon had never known a smooth transition as the country switched from a single party state to a single party democracy wherein the ruling party was in control of everything. He urged the President of the Constitutional Council to exercise sound judgment in taking a decision that could make or mar the peace of the country.

Other lawyers also pointed out the inconsistencies and the conflict of interest that would make it hard for the Constitutional Council members to be impartial. It should be recalled that the wife of the president of the constitutional council is a ruling party parliamentarian and the president of the constitutional council is still working as a lawyer and defending state interest with the latest situation taking place on September 30, 2018.

They also pointed out that various members of the constitutional council were either members of the central committee of the ruling party or had been appointed to serve as chairmen of the boards of directors of various state-owned corporation; a situation that made it hard for them to be impartial in addressing the post-electoral conflict in Cameroon.

With the application for recusal rejected, the debates on the various electoral irregularities will therefore continue and Cameroonians are looking forward to justice although many argue the outcome of the hearing is already known. With a Constitutional Council set up by Mr. Biya and comprising mainly members of his party, it is clear that many of the complaint on electoral fraud will be thrown out to give the incumbent another 7-year term.

Meanwhile, as the political crisis in Yaoundé continues, the country has continued with its descent to chaos. In the English-speaking region of the country, the killings have continued and soldiers loyal to Mr. Biya are continuing with their rampage. They have shooting carelessly in major cities in the region and this has led to the death of many young men.

Cameroon’s downward spiral seems to be unstoppable. As the political situation continues to decline due to the presidential election, some people are secretly amassing weapons in preparation for a battle that might plunge the entire sub-region into chaos.

By Kingsley Betek, Sama Ernest and Asu Vera Eyere

14, October 2018

Burundi accuses Belgium of ordering hit on independence hero ⁰

Burundi on Sunday accused former colonial power Belgium of ordering the assassination of independence hero and Crown Prince Louis Rwagasore in 1961, a move likely to further poison ties between the two countries.

A government statement said Belgium was the “true backer of the assassination of Rwagasore”, in the first direct accusation over the murder by Bujumbura, which said it plans to probe the six-decade old incident.

The statement said that Brussels “has yet to explain itself” over the killing of Rwagasore, who played a key role in Burundi’s anti-colonial movement.

Rwagasore was named prime minister in the run up to independence, but was shot dead a month later by a Greek assassin accompanied by three Burundian members of a pro-Belgian party at a hotel in the capital — a little over a year before independence was achieved in July 1962.

He is one of Burundi’s most beloved heros, with his name gracing stadiums, schools and roads across the country.

In the statement, the government said it “plans to launch a technical commission to investigate the assassinations … of Rwagasore” and his two young children a few months later.

The Kingdom of Burundi, believed to date to the 17th century, came under German colonial rule in 1890, but was awarded by the League of Nations to Belgium after World War II.

Rwagasore was the eldest son of King Mwambutsa IV.

Burundi has been gripped by political crisis since President Pierre Nkurunziza sought a third term in office in 2015, provoking severe civil unrest that has left at least 1,200 dead and displaced over 400,000 people.

In October 2016, Belgium withdrew its ambassador to Burundi and suspended several development projects, as Bujumbura’s relations with foreign allies worsened over the crisis.

The following month, the executive secretary of the ruling CNDD-FDD Evariste Ndayishimiye accused Belgium of “acting as if Burundi is still under its yoke,” on Twitter, after accusing it of backing the opposition.

AFP

14, October 2018

Corrupt Gutteres: Cameroon among African representatives on UN Human Rights Council ⁰

The United Nations Human Rights Council on Friday elected a new set of representatives to serve three-year terms. In all, 18 countries were elected across the world.

The African representatives who made it were from three regional blocs – West, Central and East Africa: Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Eritrea, Somalia and Togo.

The move has however attracted the ire of political and human rights groups who insist that Eritrea, Cameroon and Somalia had no business serving on the Council given their current rights record.

Eritrea is a known jailer of dissidents – political, media, religious. The United Nations rapporteur has repeatedly reported of arbitrary arrests and detention. Asmara has most times remained mute or dismissed such reports.

Cameroon is in the middle of two security crisis – the Boko Haram war in the Far North and separatist face off in the Anglophone regions. The army has serially been reported of using highhandedness in both operations.

Soldiers have been filmed burning down villages in the Anglophone regions whiles videos have exposed arbitrary killing of unarmed civilians in the Far North region.

Over in Somalia, the fight against insurgent group Al-Shabaab has often resulted in government’s arbitrary use of powers to arrest suspects and journalists. State security forces have also been accused of killing people believed to be affiliated with the insurgents with little or no basis.

Toho also has its human rights record tainted in the anti-government protests of 2017 when security forces fired at protesters and were also caught on camera beating protesters.

Togo was also the only African country that voted with the United States at the U.N. in recognizing Jerusalem as capital of Israel. The Human Rights Council is an inter-governmental body within the United Nations system made up of 47 States responsible for the promotion and protection of all human rights around the globe.

Source: Africa News

11, October 2018

Yaounde: Tension mounts as ELECAM seeks to doctor results ⁰

Tension is mounting in Yaounde as supporters of Prof. Maurice Kamto suspect the election-organizing body is working behind closed doors to doctor the results. Mr. Kamto’s team yesterday held a press conference in which it deplored the government’s tactics aimed at falsifying elections and fomenting violence in the country.

The press conference, which was delivered by Prof. Kamto’s spokesperson, Olivier Nissack, was a moment for Mr. Nissack to state his party’s commitment to legality while at the same time underscoring the fact that MRC would defend its victory which is based on the results sheets available to them.

Meanwhile, Kamto’s treasurer, Okala Ebode, and another member of his strategy team, Engelbert du Bon Datchoua, have been kidnapped and taken to an unknown destination.

Many observers are wondering if Prof Kamto would be kept under house arrest just to ensure he does not achieve his objective. This was the same tactic that was used after the 1992 presidential election.

The government is on edge and it is using all intimidation tactics in the books to preempt a popular uprising. Yesterday, the city of Yaounde was full of riot police, a means the government wants to prove that it has the right muscles to scare even the most courageous adversary.

The government seems to have been cornered. The crises it has created in the regions over the last 25 years seem to be migrating like a huge dangerous storm to Yaounde, the nation’s capital. A miscalculation on its part could plunge the country into a long bitter civil war that might result in thousands of deaths and huge property destruction.

The government is already spreading the fake idea that in the event of any conflict in most of the country’s towns and cities, the losers will be the Bamilekes, a huge and hardworking ethnic group that controls the country’s economy.

The government hopes that using such a scare tactic will discourage the people who have brought Prof. Kamto his victory. But this lie is not cutting ice with the youths and rich Bamileke business owners who are sick and tired of the government’s corruption and inefficiency.

In 1992, the government which is also the ruling party, popularly known as a crime syndicate, robbed the opposition of its victory when the SDF candidate, John Fru Ndi, beat Mr. Biya by a wide margin, but the Supreme Court, acting in lieu of the Constitutional Council, handed the victory to Mr. Biya who immediately imposed a state of emergency in the Northwest region just to cage Mr. Fru Ndi.

Even the National Democratic Institute (NDI), an American not-for-profit organization that monitors elections, had recognized the numerous irregularities that had characterized and marred the 1992 poll.

The government might have succeeded in 1992, but it will have to deal with a different beast this time around. Mr. Fru Ndi had been called a bookseller just to belittle him and break him down, but this time around, their strategy is not going to work.

Prof. Kamto is a globally respected legal expert who will not be intimidated and bullied into submission. He has the following and has the potential to make East Cameroon ungovernable.

Despite government threats, Prof. Kamto and his team are simply going about their business without paying any attention to the sideshow staged by the military and the police under the supervision of the overzealous territorial administration minister, Atanga Nji.

Prof. Kamto is expected in Douala on Thursday where he will hold a press conference at the residence of former Bar President, Yondo Black. He will be accompanied by Akere Muna, another legal heavy weight who is hell-bent on bringing real political change to Cameroon.

The press conference will be coming at a time when there are hints of a move by Douala chiefs to manipulate youths to demonstrate against Prof. Kamto, a ploy hatched by the beleaguered regime to contain any political violence that might erupt after the release of the fake election results

Prof. Kamto is expected to raise important issues like the Anglophone crisis at a time when Ayuk Tabe will be appearing in court in Yaounde for trial and the gimmicks the government is playing to rob the people of their victory.

While the government is working over time to come up with more sinister plans to hoodwink the population into abandoning Prof. Kamto and into frustrating any plan the opposition might be hatching, Prof. Kamto and his team are calm and unfazed, as they have already won the hearts and minds of Cameroonians who are sick and tired of a regime that has been conducting itself like a mafia.

Cameroonians are determined this time around and they will be filing the streets on the day the results will be released. The military will be confronted just like Southern Cameroonians have done in the two English-speaking regions of the country.

The country is already awash with weapons and it will be a lot easier to cut Mr. Biya’s army to normal proportions. Southern Cameroonian fighters have already demystified the military and every Cameroonian now holds that he can face up to a military that is corrupt and divided.

The fighting in the regions is gradually spreading to the nation’s economic and political capitals and the government is scared that the election results might usher in a situation that might be hard for it to handle.

The signs are not good. Mr. Biya and his men have overplayed their luck and hands. The end may be near. The government might want to tread carefully in order to avoid a situation that might result in the population chasing cabinet ministers and the president in the streets like bunch of common criminals.

It is clear that in the event of any street fighting, Mr. Biya’s ethnic group will pay a huge price. The Betis account for less than 10% of the country’s population, but account for more than 70% of the top positions in government and the military. This has been a source of frustration to other Cameroonians, many of whom have simply decided to leave the country to seek greener pastures abroad.

Cameroonians are frustrated and many, especially the youths, hold that their fate is worse than death and they are prepared to fight a government they hold has imposed itself on them for 36 years. The regime’s dismal economic record and its poor management of the Anglophone crisis are coming back to bite it where it hurts the most.

After more than 36 years in power, Mr Paul Biya, the country’s president and the ruling party’s presidential candidate has run the country’s economy aground. He has been using the country’s treasury as his personal ATM. He spends most of his time abroad where he lavishes state funds.

His wife’s shopping and lavish lifestyle can only be compared to that of Marie Antoinette, the last French Queen, who together with her husband, Louis XVI, abused the French to the extent that a French revolution was orchestrated in 1789.

Regarding unemployment, the country is witnessing the highest unemployment rates on the continent. Cameroonians have been reduced to beggars in their own country. Today, to have a job, young men and women have to either pay the employers or have sex with their future bosses.

Homosexuality is on the rise and many young men now see it as a sure path to securing a job. The system has dehumanized its own citizens and this is a huge source of stress and frustration for many young Cameroonians who do not know where to turn to.

Regarding healthcare, the country’s hospitals have been reduced to consultation clinics while the road network has become a sure death trap.

There is still time for the government to understand that its tricks will not always produce the desired results. It must understand that Cameroonians are more determined today than in 1992. With a strong Diaspora and social media, it is possible for many things to be exposed.

Prof. Kamto is the man of the moment. This is his time. It will be wise to recognize this so as to do the right thing to avoid a bloodbath that might destabilize the entire sub-region.

Prof. Kamto has already stretched a hand of friendship to Mr. Biya and his family. It will be wise to accept this gesture in order to end up in history books as a hero and an elder statesman, instead of insisting on playing tricks just to end up as a common criminal at 86.

Americans had already foreseen this ugly situation and they had, through their ambassador in Yaounde, advised Mr. Biya to think about his legacy. But their advice fell on deaf ears. Will Prof. Kamto’s wise counsel also go unheeded? The ball is in Mr. Biya’s court.

By Kingsley Betek and Sama Ernest in Yaounde.

10, October 2018

US tasks Cameroonians to await official poll results ⁰

The United States says it remains an impartial party to Cameroon’s electoral process and calls on citizens to patiently await the officially declaration of results from the election body, ELECAM.

The embassy in Yaounde in a Facebook post said they supported Cameroonian voters’ decision to use the polls to make their voices heard.

The statement read as follows: “The U.S. Embassy congratulates all Cameroonians who voted on October 7. Before the election, many stated the long-held view that in a single round election with multiple parties, coalitions improve the likelihood of electoral competition.

“We reiterate our neutrality with respect to the outcome and strongly support the right of the Cameroonian people to choose their leader through the democratic process.

“We call on all parties to wait until the official results are announced before making pronouncements about the supposed winner, and to resolve peacefully any grievances through established legal channels.”

The statement came barely hours after an opposition aspirant, Maurice Kamto, announced that he had earned a decisive victory. Kamto, a former minister of the Paul Biya administration did not give any figures or basis for his declaration.

The government through the Information Minister chided Kamto’s irresponsible illegal declaration, stressing that it was only the Constitutional Council that had the right to declare results.

A Kamto spokesperson justified his announcement with the excuse that he had only made a projection and not usurped the work of any body.

“Maurice Kamto did not proclaim himself president, he claimed victory, it’s not the same thing,” Olivier Nissack reportedly said.

Source: Africa News

7, October 2018

Southern Cameroonians boycott Cameroun election as violence worsens ⁰

Many Cameroonians face being unable to vote in the country’s election on Sunday because of insecurity and fear driven by worsening violence in its anglophone regions.

Paul Biya, the 85-year-old who has ruled Cameroon since 1982, looks set to capitalise on a divided opposition to easily win his fifth election since reluctantly adopting a multiparty system in 1992.

Separatists in the English-speaking regions have announced a boycott of the poll, and many voters there have said they are too scared to go to the polls. At least 400 civilians have been killed in unrest in the past year, and hundreds of thousands have fled their homes.

“Who can vote when our brothers are dying? How can we even vote, when you don’t know how safe it will be?” asked Chimene Ngum, a 23-year-old student in Bamenda, capital of the anglophone Northwest region.

The rebellion that erupted in the country’s two anglophone regions was triggered by the violent repression of a peaceful protest a year ago, after lawyers complained that magistrates were being appointed to their courts despite their poor English. It spread to the regions’ teachers and students, then activists symbolically declared the two anglophone regions the independent republic of Ambazonia.

A taxi passes an electoral poster for President Paul Biya in Yaounde.

Biya’s government responded with a wave of arrests and killings.

For years, anglophones have felt deliberately sidelined and neglected, their infrastructure left to crumble. Last year, for instance, Biya’s home region was allocated almost twice the money that the anglophone regions got combined, the public investment budget shows, despite their vital importance to Cameroon’s economy. Much of the country’s oil production is off the coast of the Southwest region, and onshore are its biggest cocoa-growing areas.

Biya was due to visit Buea, the Southwest regional capital, on Wednesday for a rally, but called off his trip at the last minute after the “Amba boys”, as the forces of the Ambazonian separatists are known, issued more threats. It would have been the first trip he has made to the anglophone regions since 2014, in which time he has spent at least 260 days on private trips abroad, many to Geneva.

Teachers who were bussed into a heavily securitised Buea to participate in the ruling party’s rally said they were threatened that there would be consequences if they did not attend. Meanwhile, gunfights broke out between Ambazonian and Cameroonian forces in villages near the city.

It is unclear how many of the 4000 polling stations due to open in the anglophone regions will function on Sunday, though some are determined to cast their ballots.

Supporters of President Paul Biya repairing a car on their way to a rally in Maroua

“I am going to the polls this Sunday, despite the fact that our brothers don’t want us to. They should understand that this is the only way we can get the change we want,” said Judith Mafor, a supporter of the main opposition party. “We have tried with guns and this has taken us to the graves and to the bushes.”

Others said they would not risk voting and described feeling powerless.

“We vote all the time and the outcome remains the same,” said Josephine Ngum, a tailor from Bamenda. “Why do I have to vote again? In a country where real democracy is instituted, when someone’s term of office is over, he steps down for another person to take over. This is not the case with Cameroon.”

Chimene Ngum said she didn’t even have a voter’s card. “Even if I had one, I wouldn’t vote because the results would still be the same. Paul Biya always wins,” she said.

After Robert Mugabe’s fall from power last year, Biya took up the mantle of being Africa’s oldest president, making Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni, 74, and Nigeria’s Muhammadu Buhari, 75, seem young.

Equatorial Guinea’s Teodoro Obiang, 76, currently holds the title for the longest-serving president in Africa, having ousted his uncle in a military coup in 1979. Biya, who rules his cocoa and oil-producing country essentially by decree, is second.

Culled from The Guardian