Yaoundé has reportedly ordered all Sub Divisional Officers in Southern Cameroons to invite traditional authorities, local elites, the clergy and opinion leaders before the end of this week to seek for ways and means to stifle the Anglophone uprising.

Our informant hinted that the Biya regime is now changing its strategy and wants to make sure schools reopen at all cost.  We have gotten intelligence that the Prime Minister will join the members of the Ad Hoc Committee today in Bamenda to persuade Southern Cameroons teachers to call off the strike.

The Yaounde regime has decided to accept all Anglophone demands and then tell the world that President Biya should be given time to study the documents before making a decision. Mindful of the fact that the Cameroonian dictator has a good track record in staying mute over very important issues until the storm is over, the Consortium has warned that schools will only resume if all Southern Cameroon demands are met and immediately implemented via a presidential decree.

Concerns have recently been expressed by the UN and the Biya’s Francophone Beti Ewondo regime is currently under pressure from the international community. The leaders of the Consortium have hinted that Southern Cameroonians firmness to the ongoing strike will be the determine factor.

The UN will have to intervene if the strike continues. No matter the threats and promises, the Consortium has reminded Southern Cameroonians not to bow down. Stand firm and get the best in the days ahead for your children.

The special session between the Ad Hoc Committee and the Consortium has ended again in total failure. The teachers staged a walked out after asking for the release of those still held in Kondengui.  The meeting was prolonged because Higher Education Minister, Fame Ndongo pleaded to have a session with the leaders. We gathered that instead of opening a political discourse on the issues raised by the Consortium, the Biya acolyte proposed the sum of 30 million each for the leaders to suspend the strike.

The leaders at that point concerted and understood that the Yaoundé regime was not serious about solving the Anglophone problem but just playing around. The meeting was a desperate attempt by Fame Ndongo and his gang to get a possible answer back to Paul Biya. Minister Fame Ndongo during the deliberations pretended to be a very humble Beti Ewondo political elite and clamored for schools to resume in Southern Cameroons.

Wilfred Tassang who gave a short press briefing after the forum came to an abrupt end revealed that out of the 15 points tabled by the Consortium, they only succeeded in holding discussions on just 7. Tassang noted that the Francophone divide and rule tactics remains a delicacy within the Ad Hoc Committee members who announced that they intend to hold another meeting tomorrow only with the lawyers. Tassang told local and international press men and women that the all strike action remains. He added that all schools in Southern Cameroons will also remain closed.

By Rita Akana in Bamenda

The Presidency of the Republic is planning a massive overhauling of the security apparatus at State House. It has been revealed that trafficking and rampant leaked of confidential information has prompted the presidential couple to reorganize their private security personnel. CIR has learnt that many of the state, non-state policing staff including the secret service would be evicted from Unity Palace and the dictator’s private villas in both Yaoundé and M’vomeka.

The 83 year old Paul Biya has decided to clean up from top to bottom his domestic security entourage and those at the Directorate of Presidential Security (DSP) regularly deployed to his private residence. Inside sources say the decision was reached after immense pressure from first lady Chantal Biya.  Information also filtered that Chantal Biya plans to replace even her aide-de-camp Lieutenant Mindja. Highly placed sources say only the youthful first lady intends to keep only her chief of security Lieutenant-Colonel Etienne Honlong and her driver.

Our chief political correspondent hinted that detailed investigations had been carried out for a long time by the intelligence services of the DSP, under the direct supervision of Major General Ivo Desancio Yenwo and the findings of the investigations confirmed the suspicions that weighed on some security agents around Cameroon’s so-called first family.

By Sama Ernest with files from Le Jour

On Feb. 8th, 2016, hundreds of youths in Wum in Menchum Division NWR, took to the streets protesting the brutal killing of a young Commercial Bike Rider by a soldier. The said soldier {a francophone} had stabbed the young at about 2am following an argument over a woman. That happened in a liquor bar in central town. The soldier promptly fled. Infuriated, youths seized the slain man’s body from the Wum mortuary and paraded it on the streets for hours and finally dumped it at the military barracks. Things degenerated and soldiers opened fire in the ensuing confrontation. Many were wounded.

In the days and weeks that followed, soldiers and police from Bamenda cracked down on the population taking away scores of young people and the 3rd Class Chief of Waindo in Wum. At least four others were dragged from their sick beds at the Wum General Hospital – against the advice of the doctor in charge. They were all whisked off to Bamenda and demanded in prison custody. Also note that the arrests were typical of the abuses unleashed on UB students last month – breaking into homes, seizing of suspects, smeared in dust and mud; they were beaten and parading half-naked at the Wum Grand Stand and in scorching sun.

Then one night, without warning they were plucked from their prison cells and shipped off to Yaoundé (including a lone pregnant girl prisoner) a relative to the dead Ben Skin Rider. Although the pregnant girl was subsequently released after about three months, nothing has been heard of the rest of the Anglophone Detainees from Wum.

Theirs was clearly a daring resistance to what they described as excesses of French speaking soldiers who frequently acted with impunity, tormenting women, man and bike riders etc. Their pent up anger exploded and they razed a building at the military barracks and vandalized some military trucks – just like last November’s riots in Bamenda where irate youths burnt down a police station. Southern Cameroonians have resisted the regime and obtained the freedom of several youths arrested in Bamenda and taken to Yaounde. The Consortium has done well to achieve this. Is it too much to ask that this same protest action be directed towards the freedom of the Wum Detainees languishing for one long year now in French speaking Yaounde?

The only difference between the Wum Youths and their Bamenda compatriots is the dates of their respective protests or resistance activities. But their motives were definitely the same. The Wum Youths should be honoured for standing up to the brutality of the regime even at a time when the current nationalist momentum was absent. Justice that is good for the Bamenda youths is also good for the Wum and Kumba youths still being held in Kondengui – far away from their home. At best they should simply be freed.

At worst, they should be brought back to their region where (if they must), undergo trial in Bamenda or Wum where the military court can also seat . This way, they will be near their relatives who would easily support their welfare behind bars. So shall we abandon the Wum Youths? Kai!! May our consciences deprive us of good sleep if we do.  Dear Consortium Members, did you hear my plea? Did the Hon. Wirba not tell us this is a DUTY?

Randy Joe Sa’ah

“The Choice to be independent does not depend on the Biya Government. It belongs to the people who have been despised, rejected, and neglected. Hence, just as a civil court allows for Divorce and the Church grants a temporary separation of couples in difficulties until the terms of a contract or covenant is reviewed and respected, the choice is in the hands of the Southern Cameroonians.” This is the homily that Rev Father David Fomanka gave out recently to the people of Southern Cameroons.

 The man of God added that “They do not need an approval from the Biya Regime. They need to take on their destiny and march on, and use the international body that recognizes statehood so that self-determination and autonomy, fundamental Human Rights is instated. The people need to go get more organized, envisage a trusted leader, form their own government and request from the international body to be recognized.”

He warned that any attempt of La Republic to violate this sovereignty will be an act of war against a nation. “For if a Union is no more a Covenant and a people are seen as junior partners and not equal human beings then there is no point. I watch in areas where there are inter-tribal conflicts, how military men from La Republic come in and torture and rape poor villages, burden them with kids and leave them to charitable organizations to determine their future and growth. This is not a dignified union and no one can sit still and just think it is enough to be obedient to a system that does not guarantee the rights, dignity, freedom, liberty and ability for a people to live a life of self-determination.”

Rev. Father Fomanka added that it is time to make a strong move and unseal a bond that is not workable!!! “What justification is there for the Biya regime to storm people’s privacy and houses and arrest families that are living peacefully and not going out there to cause any demonstration? And we would say “This is Cameroon!!!” No, this is an act of terrorism against a people that are hated and seen as second class citizens in a country they would have thought were their own. The power of democracy cannot be undermined and there is need for those who think authority was given them through merits, to realize that all authority comes from above.”

The priest observed that Christ made it clear to Pilate: ” You would not have had any authority over me, if that authority were not given to you from above!” If you shot the mouths of the people from crying, stones will cry out. We cannot stop the blood of innocent victims from crying for vengeance from above… And only a matter of time the Lord himself will descend on the unfaithful tenants of the vineyard, Divide the Kingdom and set them apart… Remember the Writing on the wall “Mene Mene Teke and parsing— You have been weighed on the balance and found wanting…. God had decided to divide your Kingdom….” A Word to the wise is enough!!!!!

By Rev. David Fomanka