Monthly Archives: November 2016
Strikes to continue unabated as Prime Minister Yang Philemon mission fails
Anglophone trade unions have announced a continuation of the massive strike action after their meeting with the President Biya emissary failed to reach an agreement. Prime Minister Philemon Yang held intensive discussions with Barrister Bobga of the CCLL association, Tassang Wilfred of CATTU, Tameh Nfon Valentine of TAC including leaders of the motortaxi drivers union. But the conversations were not productive.
The Premier also met with traditional authorities, the clergy, the Vice Chancellor of the University of Bamenda, Prof. Nkuo Theresa Akenji and the leader of the Social Democratic Front, Ni John Fru Ndi. Cameroon Intelligence Report gathered that the climax of the forum was the political discourse the Prime Minister initiated with the leaders of SYNES,TAC, CATTU, PEATTU, BATTUC, and CEWOTU represented respectively by Dr Abangma James, Tameh Valentine, Tassang Wilfred, Afu Steve , Ayeah Emmanuel, Kimfon Michael and Tasi Ntang Lucas.
After three hours of deliberation, Yang Philemon and his CPDM team from Yaoundé that included some Francophones requested the teachers’ delegation to draw up a chronograph of their demands and to set up a timeline of activities which would involve what Philemon Yang called “institutional framework.” The Prime and his men also demanded that the trade unions should give the CPDM government a time frame to work and submit results and above all make a declaration that the strike has been called off.
The Anglophone leaders told the prime minister that the Southern Cameroons strike action cannot be called off on the basis of promises. A frustrated Yang Philemon and his predominantly Francophone delegation were disappointed. The debate on suspending the strike was frank, candid and thoughtful. The many Francophones who were part of the Philemon Yang delegation publicly opined that the Anglophone leaders should suspend the strike to save the Prime Minister. The Anglophone leaders observed that by refusing to suspend the strike they were protecting the Prime Minister from being a victim because they know he is powerless in the La Republique structure. The talks ended in fiasco but has however galvanized a wonderful solidarity between the lawyers and the teachers.
By Rita Akana in Bamenda
Police widens investigations into sexual abuse of youngsters within English football
Investigations by British police into the sexual abuse of youngsters within English football has widened as more former players speak out about being abused as children by their coaches. The number of individuals speaking about the abuse they suffered has grown. At least eight footballers have come forward with allegations of sexual abuse within the sport dating back to the 1980s. Jason Dunford, once a youth player with Manchester City, alleged Friday that a football pedophile ring was covered up. The sexual allegations have been made against several coaches but have so far centered mainly on Barry Bennell, a youth coach with Manchester City. Last week, Andy Woodward became the first player to disclose publicly the abuse he suffered by Bennell, triggering a flow of similar claims.
Bennell has been jailed three times for offences that included the rape and abuse of boys. He was jailed for a third time in 2015 when he pleaded guilty to abusing a boy at a football camp in Macclesfield, northwest England, in 1980. Britain’s Professional Footballers’ Association chief says he expects the number of players coming forward will continue to rise. According to authorities, a dedicated hotline, set up after the abuse claims came to light, has so far received more than 100 calls. Recent figures show the number of UK child sex abuse cases reported to police is dramatically on the rise, with cases being passed to police at a rate of 100 a month by the public inquiry set up following the Jimmy Savile scandal.
Savile, a BBC radio and television presenter who died in 2011, was accused of numerous allegations of sexual abuse stretching back six decades. An Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) in Britain was announced by then-UK Home Secretary Theresa May on July 7, 2014. Simon Bailey, head of the national coordinating unit Operation Hydrant, said in May that his team was expecting to be given 30,000 reports of new child sexual offenses by the end of the inquiry. He calculated that the continuing increase would mean that by 2020, police across the country would be investigating 200,000 cases of child sexual abuse.
Culled from Presstv
Fidel Castro of Cuba passes on!!!
The legendary leader of the Cuban revolution, Fidel Castro, has died, Cuban state television has announced. He was 90.
CAMEROON IN CRISIS: The Anglophone Problem-Bribes or Bullets?
In 1985, a maverick English-speaking Cameroonian lawyer, Gorgi Dinka, declared that President Paul Biya had abrogated the 1961 union between French Cameroon and the Southern Cameroons by decreeing that the name of the country was no more the “United Republic of Cameroon” but simply, “Republic of Cameroon”.
Lawyer Dinka claimed that by a stroke of President Biya’s pen, French Cameroon had abrogated the Union, and that Southern Cameroonians had to create their own country called Ambazonia –derived from Ambas Bay, the protectorate that Britain established in 1884 before ceding to Germany in 1887.
With Dinka’s arrest in 1985, the Ambazonia independence movement took off. To most Anglophones who had been used to the Gestapo tactics of Cameroon dictatorship, Dinka’s arrest was just another storm in a teacup. But today, with the generalized strike launched by Common Law lawyers, engulfing other sectors of the population in the two Anglophone regions, Dinka’s revolution seem to have become a raging Prairie fire.
Yet, the senile Biya government which is adverse to sharing power in a putative federation, is digging its heels and spreading bribes and bullets. The conundrum of Anglophones who are hoping for a federation is that the French –inspired system, that prevails in Cameroon does not have the concept of a federation in its political lexicon.
The Yaoundé government has been silently implementing its policy of assimilation, gradually eroding all English –speaking institutions in the former Southern Cameroons. After the abolition of the House of Assembly (Parliament), and House of Chiefs in Buea, the predominantly French speaking government has expropriated all important positions and imposed French as the de facto language of the country to the virtual exclusion of English.
Since 1990 when the Social Democratic Front (SDF) was launched in a gush of bloodshed, Biya has been using the stick and the carrot, or bullets and bribes to contain the opposition. Fru Ndi who was a firebrand rabble-rouser, has mellowed after receiving a few million francs CFA, from Biya. (He of course denies being bribed, but encourages his followers to take any money the government gives, because it is the taxpayers’ money and not Biya’s).
Leaders of the nearly 250 opposition parties have been handsomely rewarded, making the creation of a political party one of the most profitable business ventures in Cameroon. That is why, all the leaders of the main opposition parties in Cameroon, have refused to cede power to a younger generation, because their political parties have become bargaining chips in the big money game that is Cameroon politics.
The stealthy takeover of the judiciary in the two Anglophone regions with the infusion of French speaking judges and prosecutors imposing the Civil law system and requiring lawyers to make submissions in French seems to have gone too far. It has turned out to be a risky move that has backfired.
Yet, with the failed Anglophone leadership and the culture of accepting bribes from the Yaoundé regime, most observers are skeptical that the strike action will result in far-reaching reforms. But the regime seems to have been taken aback by the grown swell of protest on the coattails of the Common law lawyers which has extended to lawyers in London and the rest of the Diaspora in Europe and North America.
Most observers believe that this is a precursor to the real storm that will be engulfing Cameroon with the imminent death of Paul Biya who at 83, is in fragile health and seems determined to die in power.
By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai (Editor-in-Chief) Cameron Concord News Group
Women’s AFCON: The girls are into the semis
The Indomitable Lionesses of Cameroon have once more projected their superiority at the ongoing 2016 Women AFCON by beating the Mighty Warriors of Zimbabwe 2:0. The game which was the third in group A leaves Cameroon at the top of the table with nine points and five goals in all three encounters with Egypt, Zimbabwe and South Africa.
Turkish based Cameroonian striker Michelle Kaba opened the score bank for the Carl Enow Ngatchu girls at the third minute of Play. The coordinated play styles and agility of the Indomitable Lionesses of Cameroon continued and at the 52nd minute, the debutante scorer, Michelle Akaba made it through again to the Zimbabwean backyard and got her second of the game.
The throwbacks from both teams lasted till the end of the regular play time with central left and right winger strikers like Ngono Mani, Gaelle Enganamouit, Ada and many others seriously engaged in the hostilities against Zimbabwe. Cameroon now heads group A and has qualified for the Semi-Final games of the competition which starts November 29.
CRTV
Justice Ayah writes to Biya, calls for a government statement on the Radio Balafon affair
November 24, 2016
AN OPEN LETTER TO PRESIDENT PAUL BIYA
Mr. President,
As access to you is so difficult otherwise, we wish to avail ourselves of this means, the most easy open to us, to draw your attention to what your press secretary must have briefed you on already .
If it may please you to permit a little digression, Sir, we are all already aware of the dangerous role Radio Mille Collines played in inciting the terrible genocide in Rwanda. Next door, in Nigeria, similar incitement resulted in the pogrom that befell the Ibos in Northern Nigeria in the mid-sixties. Similar rumours in the era of modern telecommunication technology can set a country ablaze within seconds.
You are not without knowing, Mr. President, that Anglophones have been referred to in Cameroun as the Trojan Horse, and called upon to leave the country if they were dissatisfied with the way they are (mis)treated in Cameroun. With apparent official connivance, the ordinary Camerounese now considers the Anglophone as not belonging here.
When, therefore, Radio Balafon, as reported on the internet, spreads the rumour that Anglophones are chasing Francophones out of Bamenda where Anglophones are seen as mere squatters on their own native land, and your government seemingly connives at it all, no Anglophone feels safe anywhere in Cameroun, let alone, east of the Mungo.
Therefore are we demanding, in consequence, that an official statement be published on the Radio Balafon matter expeditiously so that Anglophones are put on their inquiry, please!
AYAH Paul ABINE
SUPREME COURT, YAOUNDE
PAP NATIONAL PRESIDENT
FOUNDER JUSTICE4ALL
Teachers releases statement amid meeting with Prime Minister
On the instructions of the head of State, the Prime Minister Philemon Yang is meeting with representatives of teachers and lawyers today Friday 25 November 2016 at Ayaba Hotel in Bamenda.
No teacher should enter any school campus today on any one’s orders or instructions for whatsoever reason, staff meeting, class council or whatever.
The meeting with the PM will decide the way forward, including the fate of Principal Mbake of GBHS MUEA who has been detained at the Central Police Station in Buea on the instructions of the Governor Okalia Bilai (a man who should have retired 4 years ago), on trumped up charges of belonging to the SCNC.
The STRIKE CONTINUES and no Regional, Divisional or sub divisional officer or agent of Government should give contrary orders until Anglophones establish in the meeting today that they are welcome in Cameroon.
All Anglophones should be vigilant and ensure that no one intimidates or tramples on their rights anymore. Any such cases should be made known immediately and those playing “the colonial master” will be shamed and ostracized from the Anglophone Community.
ALL ANGLOPHONE TEACHER UNIONS
Cameroon government spokesman insults Anglophones, says they are “extremists and an insignificant minority”
While the public is awaiting the opening of a frank and thoughtful dialogue on the demands of the Cameroon Common Law Lawyers and those of the Anglophone teachers as requested by the opposition and the Cameroonian civil society, the Biya regime seems to have chosen the path of repression and hard-line.
Issa Tchiroma, the Minister of Communication fired the first salvo last night as he denounced British Southern Cameroonians and called them extremist and an insignificant minority. The corrupt Francophone politician stated that a small group of demonstrators defied all the rules required for the preservation of public order and perpetrated acts of vandalism in the North West region.
The Minister of Communication who was a signatory to a document demanding that power be given back to the North noted that the demands of the Anglophones will have no favorable answer from the Biya Francophone Beti Ewondo regime.
Our chief political correspondent in Yaoundé who contributed to this report observed that the Biya regime has declared a war and let every Anglophone be ready with their matching song.
By Rita Akana
Yaounde: Minister wearing a hat receives diplomats
The Ambassadors of Gambia and Austria have presented advanced copies of their letters of credence at the Ministry of External Relations. They were received separately on Wednesday 23rd November 2016 by the Minister Delegate at the Ministry of External Relations in charge of Relations with the Commonwealth, Joseph Dion Ngute who wore a hat indoors.
The Austrian Ambassador before his appointment was the Deputy Inspector-General at the Federal Ministry for Europe, Integration and Foreign Affairs in Austrian capital, Vienna while the new Ambassador of Gambia to Cameroon, Famara Gaye was the Allied Law Chambers Solicitors Lawyer for Immigration, Civil Litigation, Family, Property, Personal Injury and Criminology since November 2015. Both diplomats are resident in Abuja – Nigeria.
CRTV