By Siobhán O'Grady
The United States is
scaling back its security assistance to Cameroon following credible allegations
that the Cameroonian military carried out human rights violations in the
Central African country, the State Department said Wednesday.
Cameroon is a key U.S.
security partner, and about 300 U.S. troops are based there to train and assist
the Cameroonian military, including in its fight against extremism in its far
northern region. Human rights groups have reported that Cameroonian security
forces have targeted civilians, in the far north and in the country’s unstable
southwest and northwest regions, where the military is battling English-speaking
separatists fighting to create a breakaway nation called Ambazonia.
“We emphasize that it is
in Cameroon’s interest to show greater transparency in investigating credible
allegations of gross violations of human rights security forces, particularly
in the Northwest, Southwest, and Far North Regions,” the State Department said
through a spokesman via email Wednesday. Security cuts will include the
“provision of four defender boats and nine armored vehicles, and the upgrade of
a Cessna aircraft belonging to the Rapid Intervention Battalion,” or BIR, the
department said.
Members of the BIR, an
elite force that has received assistance from the United States, have been
accused of a wide range of human rights abuses. The Washington Post reported
this week that English speakers from Cameroon’s two Anglophone regions said
members of the BIR burned down civilians’ homes and executed a pregnant woman.
The Cameroonian military denied targeting civilians.
The U.S. aid cuts also
include the withdrawal of a U.S. offer for Cameroon’s candidacy in the State
Partnership Program, which pairs American states’ National Guards with another
country’s armed forces, delivery of certain equipment and helicopter training.
Washington “will not shirk
from reducing assistance further if evolving conditions require it,” the State
Department said.
In more than a dozen
interviews with displaced English speakers in Cameroon, witnesses described to
The Post how the Cameroonian military fired indiscriminately at civilians, in
some cases driving moderate Cameroonians to begin supporting the separatists.
Col. Didier Badjeck, a spokesman for Cameroon’s Defense Ministry, said the
allegations of human rights abuses amounted to “propaganda.”
Last summer, Amnesty
International released an analysis of two videos that appeared to show
Cameroonian security forces executing unarmed people, including children, in
the country’s far northern region.
In August, the Cameroonian
government claimed it had arrested soldiers in connection with one video and
launched an investigation of the other.
On Wednesday, Adotei
Akwei, Amnesty’s deputy director for advocacy and government, urged the United
States to suspend “all security assistance until the Cameroonian government can
show it has not been utilized to commit serious violations of international law
and persons responsible have been held accountable.”
Courtesy: The Washington Post
No comments:
Post a Comment