Cameroon: Post-election crackdown escalates with arrest of opposition leader Maurice Kamto

Following the arbitrary arrest of Cameroon’s main opposition leader Maurice Kamto, Samira Daoud, Amnesty International’s West and Central Africa Deputy Director said: 

“The arrest of Maurice Kamto and four of his staff supporters signals an escalating crackdown on opposition leaders, human rights defenders and activists in Cameroon. The authorities must immediately and unconditionally release them, as well as peaceful protesters detained at the weekend simply for exercising their rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly.

“Instead of taking steps towards improving the country’s human rights record, we are witnessing the authorities becoming less and less tolerant of criticism. This must stop.

“The authorities should now allow people to enjoy their human rights including by ending the crackdown on peaceful demonstrations and dissenting voices

Background

Yesterday, opposition party leader Maurice Kamto, president of Movement for the Renaissance of Cameroon (MRC), who according to the electoral commission came second in the October 2018 presidential election was arrested in the capital Douala along with two of his supporters Albert Dzongang and Christian Penda Ekoka. They were brought to the Yaoundé ‘’Police Judiciaire’’ and were not allowed to meet their lawyers.

In parallel, two other members of the MRC were arrested. They are Alain Fogue, treasurer of the party and Célestin Djamen who was taken by the police from Douala general hospital where he was undertaking medical care after being wounded by bullet during the weekend protest.

Last weekend the MRC called for public protests or “marches blanches” across the country to protest against alleged mass irregularities in the electoral process.

More than hundred protesters were arrested in Douala, Yaoundé, Dschang, Bafoussam and Bafang. Around 50 were released on Sunday and the remaining have been placed under administrative custody.

Courtesy: Amnesty International, January 29,2019

Cameroon's Main Opposition Leader Kamto Arrested for Protest

Maurice Kamto Photographer: Reinnier Kaze/AFP via Getty Images

By REUTERS

DOUALA — Cameroonian authorities arrested opposition leader Maurice Kamto on Monday, his lawyer said, after weekend protests that security forces dispersed with live bullets, wounding six people.

Kamto has been mobilizing dissent against President Paul Biya since losing what he says was a fraudulent election in October. Kamto declared himself winner at the time of the poll and has since challenged Biya's win in the African Union court.

Protests are rare in Cameroon, outside its troubled Anglophone western region, and tend to be swiftly put down by force and mass arrests.

"I can confirm that professor Maurice Kamto was arrested (today)," his lawyer, Agbor Bala, told Reuters by telephone, adding that it was because of the weekend protests in which dozens took part. The treasurer of his Cameroon Renaissance Movement party, Alain Fogue, was also detained, Bala said. 

At 85, Biya is the oldest leader in sub-Saharan Africa and most Cameroonians have known only him as president. He holds Cabinet meetings only every few years and spends a lot of his time on private trips to Switzerland. But the opposition has been unable to mount a credible challenge to him.

The election cemented his place as one of Africa's longest- serving leaders, but allegations of ballot stuffing and intimidation loomed over his victory, and turnout was low because of a secessionist uprising in the Anglophone regions in which hundreds have died. 

Biya's camp has denied all allegations of electoral fraud.

(Reporting by Josiane Kouagheu; Writing by Tim Cocks; Editing by Peter Cooney)

Cameroon to establish a new growth planning instrument to replace the current Growth and Jobs Strategy Paper (Dsce) on January 1, 2020

(Business in Cameroon) - Cameroonian Deputy Minister in charge of the Economy, Paul Tasong (photo), kicked off January 23 off  in Yaoundé, work to develop a new reference framework for the country's development. Work is expected to generate a new planning instrument to replace the current Growth and Jobs Strategy Paper.

“Dsce expires on 31 December 2019. For January 1, 2020, we need a new planning instrument,” the official said.

“The very first indicator was sustained economic growth over the 10-year period. The aim was to achieve an average growth rate of 5.5% over the planning period. To date, we have not achieved this growth rate in a totally satisfactory manner. The average growth rate today is 4.5%,” he added.

Still, according to Mr. Tasong, Cameroon failed to cut poverty by 10% as expected, reducing it by only 3%. But, he said, these unmet objectives are linked to the fact that the country has faced an external challenge, the fall in oil prices. Further, Cameroon is experiencing a security shock due to crisis in the Northwest, Southwest, East and Far North.

In 2009, Cameroon adopted a long-term development vision through the Dsce, phase 1 of which runs from 2010 to 2019. During this period, Cameroon did not achieve expected growth results. From 2020 to 2027, the country plans to reach upper-middle income country status. This will be done by focusing on its immediate assets such as agriculture and mining, while ensuring a less unequal distribution of income. Phase 3 (2028-2035) is expected to make Cameroon an industrialized country.

Sylvain Andzongo

Cameroon media urged to campaign against hate speech

By Patience Toge

Some 30 media professionals have been implored to use their media organs especially now that Cameroon is battling with the Anglophone Crisis, to launch campaigns against increasing hate speeches.

The call was made by rights promoters during a two-day [10-11th January 2019] seminar on “Discriminatory speech, propaganda and incitement to hatred”, which took place in Douala ,organized by the United Nations Center for Human rights and Democracy in Central Africa ( UNCHRD-CA), for media professionals, social media actors and bloggers.

The participants who converged on Douala, brainstormed on the way forward to end hate speech in the media landscape in Cameroon 

Drawn from four Regions of the country- North West, South West, West and Littoral, participants were drilled on the negative impact of hate speech in communities, especially with the ongoing crisis in the two English speaking regions of Cameroon, which has engaged government forces and armed separatists in deadly confrontations, resulting in thousands of deaths and wanton destruction of property. 

The seminar was aimed at reminding journalists of their professional responsibilities as news bearers to the communities, by critically examining published stories on the Anglophone crisis.

 “It is evident that the media has played a role in escalating the crisis” said Kiven Fonyuy, Communication and Advocacy Associate for UNCHRD-CA.

 “Crisis reporting techniques have become more than ever before necessary for journalists and social media actors in the North West and South West but also in the West and Littoral Regions where political debates in various media channels have a firm influence on the people’s opinions about the crisis, the actors and the victims,”  Kiven Fonyuy added.

Participants were therefore encouraged to remain as professional as ever in their reporting of the crisis so as to avoid escalating the crisis with the use of hate speech.

The legal framework with regards to international law was explained to seminar participants by the Program Assistant for Human Right and Democracy for central Africa (UNCHRD-CA) ,Christian Fritz Ntopa, to enable them better understand the law on hate speech and incitement to hatred and its implications.At the end of the seminar, participants came out with a media strategy to delete discriminatory messages in the media, in order to help de-escalate tension in the context of the Anglophone crisis.

Anglophone Crisis: Alleged Sponsor of Separatist Fighters Hunted by Security Agents

 By Kits Tanjong

Security forces are said to be hunting for Oru Raymond, a man who was arrested and reportedly detained in Mamfe, accused of providing illegal shelter to separatist fighters who are designated as terrorists by Cameroon government.

It was in December 2018 that Oru Raymond, sources said, took advantage of an outdoor work for inmates and escaped from detention cell, prompting security agents to launch a manhunt for him.

 Several inmates who attempted to escape along with Oru Raymond were arrested.

 Details of how Oru Raymond, escaped the vigilance of his guards and disappeared could not be obtained by press time.

Oru, his mother and sibling had been arrested early October 2018, when security forces stormed their family residence in Kembong,near Mamfe ,Manyu Division of the Southwest region, accusing them of sheltering and aiding  Amba fighters .

But the three family members were detained in separate locations.

 

Reports of security searches for alleged Amba suspects and or separatists on the run are common as the Anglophone crisis is escalating and turning more and more bloody and deadly.

Since the Anglophone crisis erupted in late 2016 over corporate demands by Common Law advocates and teachers of the English subsystem of education, fatal clashes between Government forces and armed separatists have become almost a weekly occurrence in towns and villages of the two English-speaking Northwest and Southwest regions of Cameroon.

The crisis, which turned bloody and violent in late  2017 has resulted in the death of over 3000 citizens, and led to the wanton destruction of public and private property worth hundreds of billions of Francs CFA.

About half a million people have been internally displaced provoking a humanitarian crisis. According to the UN and other rights groups over forty thousand Cameroonians fleeing the crisis are seeking asylum in neighboring Nigeria.

The Cameroon government is battling hard to overpower the armed separatist fighters, who want an independent state for the minority Anglophones who constitute the two English-speaking regions of the country’s ten regions (eight of which are French-speaking).

With increasing resistance by the separatists, the Cameroon government has repeatedly accused Anglophone separatist leaders and activists abroad of sponsoring and instigating the violence and vandalism reportedly perpetrated by the Amba fighters back home.

The crisis has been characterized by ghost towns, killings, kidnappings, rape, violence, beheading of so-called blacklegs, burning of houses and physical torture of suspects.

President Paul Biya, who has ruled Cameroon since 1982, has insisted Cameroon is “one and indivisible” and considers calls from Anglophone activists for separation as a threat to national unity

The Cameroonian leader has also likened the separatists to terrorists and has reiterated his determination to neutralize them, if they don’t drop their arms.

The Government has blacklisted some Anglophone leading activists abroad and has requested their host countries to repatriate them to Cameroon for prosecution.

They include: Mark Berata, Cho Ayaba,Tapang Ivo,Akwanga Ebenezar,Chris Anu and John Mbah Akuroh.

In January 2018, Sisiku Julius Ayuk Tabe , the first-ever President of the unrecognized Republic of Ambazonia and his cabinet members were extradited from Nigeria to Cameroon -and they have since then been incarcerated at the Kondengui Maximum Security Prison in Yaounde

 

 

Cameroon: More killings Ahead

(Being a reflection by Barrister Ayah Paul Abine* on his Facebook page on January 3,2019 - after President Paul Biya's New Year Message  to Cameroonians)

"Before his abduction and captivity, Ayah Paul Abine had, on at least ten occasions, called for and strongly recommended dialogue to resolve the ‘Anglophone Crisis’. He did not relent after his release and subsequent to the formal declaration of the Anglophone War. Ayah graphically painted the picture of the somber effects of war!!!

As if to vindicate him, in the prosecution of the war, unarmed Anglophone civilians dressed in red have been killed on occasions as if for the fun of it. On other occasions, it has been the turn of those in black. On others yet those in blue and white! The killers even turned their guns against the demented (mad).

EVEN THE DEMENTED!!!

In the currency of the war, scores of villages have been burnt down, some entirely; at times with human beings burnt alive in their houses – some in their sleep. In the currency of the war, foodstuffs have been burnt to ashes to secure the demise of the survivors of the guns! And we have seen the photos of both cash and food crops destroyed for fatal effect in the long term.

In the currency of the war, innocent Anglophones have been rounded up and taken away – no-one can vouch today if all are still alive or as to their whereabouts: many are languishing in dungeons. Thousands are battling it out with animal predators in the wild even as we write. Thousands more have relocated to foreign lands internally; and many more to Nigeria principally. These temporary survivors have had to fend for themselves for months before some even just smelt any relief supplies.

In all these situations of a merciless war, clearly out of the ordinary, the Camerouoonianese Authorities have consistently and sadistically praised the army for their ‘efficiency and professionalism’!

NO COMMENT!!!

AND NOW!!!

In his ‘address to the nation’ on December 31, 2018, Mr. President did issue an ultimatum to the Anglophones to surrender UNCONDITIONALLY or be ‘NEUTRALIZED’!

Going by the prosecution of the war in the past, it is tantamount to a call for more indiscriminate killings and the wanton destruction of property! It is a call for the callous killing of the very people Mr. President said voted him into office just three months back at as much as 89% in some places!!!

WHERE WITHER???

UNFORTUNATE!

SO SO SAD!

*Barrister Ayah Paul Abine, is a retired prosecutor of the  Supreme Court of Cameroon. Barrister Ayah is a noted Biya Critic and advocate for the rights of Anglophones in Cameroon.He was jailed for eight months by the Cameroon Government and released without any formal charge.