Cameroon sink Zambia in Afcon warm-up
Fellow Ambazonians, Good evening, accept Revolutionary Greetings from President Sisiku AyukTabe and the collective leadership in detention.
As we speak, our people are confronted by multiple challenges. The most significant being a threat to our very own existence. A challenge not many people have been forced to confront in the course of their history. We are trying to deal with the fallout of a war of extermination imposed on our people by the French neo-colonial regime in next-door Cameroun in its effort to enforce its occupation.
Our brave restoration forces, whom less than 3 years ago were teachers, students, farmers, cab drivers, buyam sellam, and ordinary citizens, are fearlessly standing up to the cowardly French Cameroun government death squads that Burn down entire villages and shoot down babies in their sleep. The Cameroun Prime Minister now roams our streets begging for federalism, which less than three years ago, their President said could never be a topic for discussion. Our revolution is rooted in our inalienable right to self-determination, a right that can neither be given nor taken away by any government or legal power. As a boy, my mum would often send me to deliver my grandfather’s roasted corn, boiled peanuts or roasted plums at his woodcarving shop in Bamenda. In his days before retirement my grandfather was a policeman in the former British Southern Cameroons.
As he snacked on the corn, my grandfather would call me by my clan name Nkur Nkur, and in a pensive tone as he contemplated the main problems facing our communities, and he would urge me to “please, fight for the freedom of our people from the lie we are living when you grow up!”. As young as I was, I didn’t get the full picture. He would tell stories of what it was like to have lived and worked in the democratic Southern Cameroons before the occupation.
It all became clear to me, when he was arrested as the Chairperson of the Cameroon Anglophone Movement (CAM), along with his comrades, and merciless beaten at the Gendarmerie Legion in upstation Bamenda. Their crime being their willingness to talk about their deep conviction in the need for a free and independent Southern Cameroons they could call home.
On my visit following their release, his legs were suspended on a stool with scary blood clots and blisters on every patch of skin on both legs. I wept in pain, but he repeated himself again in a semi whisper, looking at me straight in the eyes: “Don’t forget what I have told you, and even if I die, fight to liberate our people from this bondage.” Every day, when I see the lifeless bodies of Our people of Southern Cameroons killed or wasted by the brutal forces of La Republique du Cameroun (LRC), the picture of my Grandfather’s legs appears before me;
When I hear our refugees are hungry and helpless, that picture appears before me; When I hear our IDPs especially the women lack sanitary towels, for their personal hygiene, that image appears before me; When I hear our boys who have committed themselves to defend homeland have no food or the right tools to use to defend us all, Grandfather’s words steer me in the face; When I hear we cannot afford the legal fees for our leaders in jail or cannot afford mattresses for most LRC captives of their senseless war and detainees in their filthy jails, that image hunts me; When I see our brothers distracted and fighting each other instead of the occupier and colonizer, that image hunts me; When I see our people on all streets, in all houses and in all communities; villages and towns willing to continue to sacrifice everything they have including their lives, resolved never to give up until we get into a fee Ambazonia, that image hunts me. Many of us have similar stories like that of my Grandfather, of Ambalanders that came before us who on passing on to eternal glory bequeathed to us the call to free our motherland. That call seemed answered by the 2016 launch of the revolution for the independence of Ambazonia. And tonight, I want to talk to you about the battle we are waging to resuscitate our revolution from a downward spiral triggered by the January 5, 2018, abduction and forcible return to the Cameroun regime, of the leadership of our burgeoning movement for the independence of Ambazonia. I am talking here of our leaders: Comrade President Sisiku Julius AyukTabe, Comrade Deacon Mr. Wilfred Tassang, Comrade Professor Augustine Awasum, Comrade Dr. Cornelius Kwanga, Comrade Dr. Henry Kimeng, Comrade Dr. Fidelis Ndeh-Che, Comrade Dr. Egbe Ogork, Comrade Barrister Shufai Berinyuy, Comrade Barrister Elias Eyambe, and Comrade Dr. Nfor Ngalla Nfor
These in addition to earlier detentions of other Ambazonian leaders like Comrades Mancho Bibixy, Patrick Ndangoh, Penn Terence, Dzenjoh Germaine, Tsi Conrad, Dasi Alfred, Tebit, just to mention a few.
Revolutionaries as a must should sacrifice for their people. We hail our leaders in detention for the Ambazonia Freedom Protocol that proclaims “Total Independence or Resistance forever”. This is an epitome of the words of revolutionary leader, Mandela, during the Rivonia Trial address in defending his revolutionary actions and goals, when he said: “I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if need be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die”. “Total Independence or Resistance forever” is your mantle, our vision and we can’t wait to meet in Buea in a free Southern Cameroons/Ambazonia.
The Cameroon military and government death squad the Rapid Intervention Battalion (BIR), has since burnt down more than 206 Ambazonian villages, along with the old and the sick in their beds in some cases. They take their time to loot businesses and homes in some cases prior to burning down the villages as they did in parts of their country in the 1960s. They also make sure make sure to kill our pigs and dogs while they are at it. More than 2000 of our fellow Ambazonian citizens have been slaughtered, either by summarily execution, or randomly shot without cause by Camerounese soldiers. Beyond the malicious premeditated massacres, terror inducing tactics like deliberately dumping corpses to decompose in the village square have been deployed.
We currently have more than 2500 political prisoners being illegally held by the Cameroun regime: 20 in the Principal Prison in Yaoundé, 220 in the Kondengui High Security Prisons or central prison in Yaoundé, and 50 others in secret detention centers around Yaoundé. 600 in Buea, 116 in Douala, 4 in Edea, close to 200 in the Bamenda Central Prison with the rest scattered in detentions centers across Cameroon, from Mbalmayo, Bafoussam, Mbouda, Dschang, Bertoua, Foumban and of of recent Ngaoundere.
More than half a million of our people have been forced to abandon everything they worked for their entire lives to become refugees in Nigeria and other neighboring countries like Ghana, and millions are internally displaced in Ambazonia and across the border in Cameroun. More than 100 of our villages have been deserted and taken over by grass, as tens of thousands of villagers flee into the forest to seek safety from the Camerounese military, and are now living in the forest exposed to all kinds of dangers.
The UN Security Council was warned in December 2018, that this conflict had become “one of the fastest growing displacement crises in Africa.” In April 2019, the UN reported that the conflict was affecting at least 4 million people. That is close to the entire population of Ireland or New Zealand, and more than the population of some 103 countries, members of the UN.
The sadness and anger of our people is not just about the material and human losses, but it is about a wrenching anxiety that the communities their ancestors built for thousands of years might be lost for good. I refuse to let that happen, and our resolve has been tested and our resilience to be free proven. On my appointment as VP on May 14, 2019, and the reinstatement of this Interim Government, my team and I immediately set about a process for an in-depth multi-stakeholder appraisal of the revolution along with the deployment of multiple assessment teams to establish the exact needs of our revolution, and how to meet those needs. These assessment teams stretched from the needs of our sisters and brothers defending our communities to the exact location of every Ambazonian in need of assistance. The assessment also stretched from young people injured defending our communities in desperate need of vital care, to identifying the whereabouts of every Ambazonian being held by the Cameroun colonial regime. These assessment teams continue their work on the ground. Thus far the need has been revealed to be pretty substantial.
But make no mistake. We will fight the setback that followed the abduction of our leaders with everything we’ve got and for as long as it takes. We will make the Camerounese regime pay for the damage it has caused. And we will do whatever is necessary to get our revolution to recover its full vigor. Our resolve has been tested and our resilience to be free proven. Thank you my dear people for all your sacrifices. Buea is our prize and that we will together deliver to ourselves. Our women are increasingly taking the central stage.
Eleanor Roosevelt said: “A woman is like a tea bag – you never know how strong she is until she gets in hot water.” We salute the women of Ambazonia for their selflessness and sacrifices for the struggle to the extent of digging graves to burial our children slain by LRC. In the same vain we invite all Amba women in the homeland and the diaspora to stand up and join your sisters, mothers and grandmothers. Take your place in history and provide the much desired leadership only a woman can provide to ensure the defense of the restoration of our independence quest just as the Federation of South African Women did in the famous march to Union Building on 9th of August 1956 that took the South African liberation movement to the next level.
Tonight I’d like to lay out for you what our battle plan is going forward: What we’re doing to overcome the challenges resulting from the January 5, 2018 abduction of our leaders, what we are doing to prevent a repeat of the breakdown in the functioning of our revolution as revealed by endless infighting following the kidnapping of leaders, and what we’re doing to ensure our refugees, IDPs and prisoners get a sustainable stream of support no matter what happens to the leadership of the movement at any given time. Our revolution needs participatory democratic structures that do not rely on the character of individuals in leadership for accountability to reign in the processes of decision making. To establish such, we looked at the movement within the frame of a Unified Self-Defence, Unified Political Engagement of our community and a Coordinated International Outreach.
Resolution number 25 of the 4th conclave granted autonomy to SCBC to work towards self-sustainability as a broadcaster in the continent under an independent board. Months after that the board presented a clear plan of action that will see the Interim Government reserve 51% shareholding of the broadcaster as majority shareholder and the remaining 49% of shares to be open for Ambazonians to invest into the SCBC project as proud Ambazonian investors. This was to be for capitalization and to showcase Ambazonia’s first public-private business model; fulfilling both an advocacy and revolutionary education and information mandate. There was an attempt to abort that national vision by fellow comrades through both inadvertently and sometimes deliberate misinformation, and unfortunately outright lies in some instances. Despite the difficulties and challenges that these incidences created for SCBC, it managed to ride the storm. It has remained the people’s TV station and remains the primary source of information for most of our people in Ground Zero. It must continue to be owned and used by all Ambazonians to promote our struggle. If there were any lapses in its operations, in this New Dawn, let’s fix them.
I thank all other independent Ambazonia-owned media initiatives and activists for their sacrifices and contributions for our freedom. We got a lot more work ahead of us. This is the time to redouble your efforts. Autonomous political institutions are the character of the 21st century global social justice movements, and we can optimize our revolution by developing structures that facilitate smooth exchange and collaboration with other global social justice movements.
My team and I understand that financial accountability has been one of the biggest challenges for leadership and movements and Organizations. The lack of accountability has sown the seed of mistrust that has demotivated most of the financially viable Ambazonians. To resolve this challenge in the weeks ahead, our first step towards collaboration will be to share a presentation on the tools and models on community and resource mobilization to be used by all movements and organizations in our struggle. A single platform will be made available from which Ambazlanders can donate to any organization of their choosing or a group of them with one donation.
All organizations who will sign up to collaborate on this initiative will have their own representatives sitting on an independent financial management board that helps organizations with their reporting back in a way that will reassure donors that the work is being done with their money and everything is accounted for. This sounds daunting but it’s a challenge we have brought together some great minds to help create as our first real step towards genuine collaboration and respect to independent movements and even groups advocating for our unconditional independence. This initiative is truly Ground-breaking. It is the inter-marriage of complexity, revolution, accountability, transparency and technology (ONE AMBAZONIA). Exact details on how we will roll it out will be you the people to own ONE AMBAZONIA in the days ahead. To the initiator of this wonderful idea, the god’s of Ambazonia bless you and your team. This is a New Dawn.
My team and I wish to announce the creation of the Bank of Ambazonia (BoA) as a unique symbol of our revolution. AKA “The Ambazonian Ngangi House” will be organised as an informal financial institution (shadow bank) to spur sustainable resource mobilisation through a central but decentralised collection platform, expenditure management, accountability and to improve solidarity with all counties, countries and regions who will provide independently-elected board members or governors and elect the chairperson and deputy of the board. The BoA in time will amongst its objectives provide short-term loans to Counties to enhance and strengthen their capabilities to defend and provide humanitarian relief to their communities as well as provide a safe alternative for the Counties/LGAs to bank/save/move their money.
We further announce the Ngangi Money – a collaborative and networking platform for the Counties during which all Counties will contribute for the benefit of one county each week. In this case, we will be providing a reasonable amount of resources for impactful County support to the homeland. More details on the Ambazonian Ngangi House (BoA) and the Ngangi Money programmes will be provided in the weeks ahead. This is a New Dawn.
Nelson Mandela, quoting Marianne Williamson, inspired us with the following words: “As we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others”. I employ all leaders of our revolution to be a spotlight of what we expect of our people within the quest of our liberation struggle.
We shall urgently embark on our homeland and diaspora community reconstruction / community social mobilization project through our local government areas; counties; countries and regions. In this regard, my team and I wish to announce a world-wide protest on Sunday September 22nd and Tuesday Oct 1st 2019 in the diaspora and a Ghosted Homeland on those two days as a manifestation of our collective resolve towards the complete restoration of the independence of Southern Cameroons – Ambazonia that was declared on 1st October 2017 by our President, Sisiku Julius AyukTabe. To this end, I call on all physical constituencies in the diaspora to get to work starting with their immediate community and constituency lobbying as a build up to our Independence Day. A detailed plan for the preparation of September 22nd and October 1st will be rolled out in the weeks ahead. This is a New Dawn.
We had planned to urgently create a database documenting genocidal crimes of the French Camerounese terrorist forces within the shortest possible time. To our greatest amazement as cabinet, some truly bona fide Ambazonians challenged themselves to this revolutionary responsibility and created an amazing website that captures the atrocities of the occupier, LRC. I employ you all to go visit the website: www.ambazoniagenocidelibrary.com. On behalf of all our people we commend and celebrate you, these sisters and brothers and call on all bona fide Ambazonians to emulate your example. We are truly proud of you. Please reach out to me directly. Data and information are the ingredients we need to dismantle LRC in diplomacy, the courts, communication and revolutionary public relations. The cabinet of the IG had created an Ambazonia Department of Statistics whose work was shelved. Your team will champion evidence collection against LRC again so that not even one atrocity is missing in our archives. Albert Mukong is so proud of your team and so are we. This is a New Dawn.
On credible and accountable leadership with integrity, we the people of Ambazonia have an opportunity for an inclusive nonpartisan and non-sectarian leadership in order not to compromise our legitimate legal history. This is against the backdrop of division within SC leadership, infighting and a negative image of our struggle to our people and the international community due to the perceived lack of integrity, accountability and moral compass. The biggest casualty are our people in the homeland. Einstein described insanity as “doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results”. Our collective selfless leadership action is compelling at this time to save lives and the suffering in our homeland. In his book, Attuned Leadership, Dr Khoza, commented that: Leaders are not just born to the role. They are born, then made – and sometimes unmade by their own actions. A leader who is not attuned to his or her followers soon becomes a leader in limbo and invariably then fails. Connectedness, compassion, empathy, integrity, humility, reasonableness and a determination to be effective are the keys to attuned leadership. Attuned Leadership provides a compass for the direction of ethical leadership. African humanism or Ubuntu, evokes both reason and empathy as the basis for ethical leadership.
It is very important that we get down to the hard work of international outreach; using empirical knowledge from the works of other independence movements that went ahead of us. This is going to be of great importance in securing critical support and humanitarian assistance for our IDPs, refugees and political prisoners. The recent history of similar conflicts show that no exile community has the capacity to single handedly fund the needs of their refugees, IDPs, and political prisoners. Rather, independence movements mainly provided seed capital and prototypes of creative initiatives, which then get scaled-up to meet the required needs by the donor community. Then there is the issue of mobilizing the global social justice movement to take up our course, of which we are just in the beginning stages of initiating working relations with major players. There is the issue of fighting the lobbyist of the Cameroun regime. Again, here we need a coherent strategy and coordinated messaging. We look to the white paper by our outreach (Foreign Affairs) department on deployment of independent autonomous organizing in days and weeks ahead.
I urge all activists and groups in our communities to engage these conversations and share their feedback on the state of affairs with our revolution as our various departments start putting out their whitepapers on how we hope to proceed. This is a New Dawn
As data comes in from our assessment teams on the field we will be offering adjustments to these white papers as necessary. If there are other ideas on how to achieve the goals of accountability and participation in the community, we would like to hear them. We understand that without our community’s engagement with the ideas in the whitepapers from our departments, no matter how good the ideas are, it will be an exercise in futility.
That’s why the second thing we’re focused on, is preventing a repeat of the breakdown in the functioning of our revolution as revealed by endless infighting following of the abduction of leaders.
The sudden absence of our leaders just as our revolution was breaking records in its capacity to mobilize our community at home and abroad created such pain and frustration that some of us ended up taking it out on our fellow comrades instead of staying focused on the enemy.
We ended up losing several comrades under conditions that could have been avoided. A toxic cloud of distrust, backstabbing and gossip continues to hang in the air. We must muster the courage to seek peace and unity with our fellow brothers and sisters to go beyond this cloud of suspicion to a place of enough struts to then build self-standing accountable and autonomous institutions with which to do the heavy lifting necessary to bring our independence to fruition.
I know we can make Buea a reality faster if we bury all the unproductive tensions in our midst, celebrate each other’s strengths and support each other’s weaknesses. When we to do so, a space for revolutionary Creativity, Accountability, Respect, & Excellence, that has been so severely undermined by our infighting will most definitely see the light of day again. That’s why we must make a commitment to grassroots participation that goes beyond calls for unity of the leaders of the various groups as a way to bring the community together. That will be the mark of a New Dawn
I make that commitment tonight. Since taking office on May 14, 2019, I have assigned teams formally and informally to do a need assessment on our people on Ground One, Ground Zero and our Prisoners of Conscience locked up in the various detention centres spotted in LRC and Ambazonia. It is the duty of this administration to get closer to our people and be as participatory as possible. We’ve reached out to sisters and brothers within and without the administration as well as organizations in and out of our community for assistance in their area of expertise and experiences to get problems solved. Some great men and women have given their all to make our revolution move forward. Because of your efforts, a handful of projects that were standing or forgotten have been reactivated.
So far, since May 2, 2019 after the President re-instated the Cabinet of 5th January 2018, I am happy to inform Ambazonians that:
Like I said, our various Departments will present whitepapers and schedules for when they will be providing updates on their achievements.
Your Federal Republic of Ambazonia – Interim Government (FRA-IG) proudly informs Ambalanders of our agenda for “THE NEW DAWN – FRA IG CARE”. The renewal (new dawn) of your Federal Republic of Ambazonia Interim Government (FRA-IG) has started and my team and I are hard at work to put in place radical transformative action that will reduce the carnage on our people and increase our resistance, save lives and relief the suffering of the people both in Ambazonia and Ground One. Our approach moving forward will be project results-centered funded in-house or in collaboration with our partners.
The New Dawn: FRA IG-CARE would mean for us all: C=Creativity – We should all motivate our people, our teams and encourage innovation. A=Accountability – We will account to our people timeously, accept responsibility for our actions, outcomes and aspire to exceed public expectations. R= Respect – We shall exercise due regard for fundamental and people’s rights to question our actions as well as respect the rights of women, children and all those that live within Ambazonia and respect the laws of our land. E= Excellence – We adhere to the highest level of professional norms and standards.
For this to achieve its full potential we will need all hands on deck. This brings me to the question of our need for unity, unity and unity as a movement. I am referring here to reconciliation, peace, peace and unity with our fellow comrades, as it was before the abduction of our leaders. To our brave restoration forces who now live under trees, sleep on bare stomachs, have sacrificed your livelihoods, jobs and families and literally given up everything you have including your lives to fight for our collective freedom, our words will never be able to express enough the depth of our appreciation to you. We commit to never abandon you until we get to Buea and beyond. To our parents, relatives and communities who have lost loved ones, their blood will never go in vain. Accept our deepest condolences.
To all patriotic Ambazonians who attended both the APNC Philadelphia and ASSC Berlin conferences, we thank you. My administration and I commit to implement all resolutions from both conferences that advance our cause.
I want again to publicly acknowledge my brother, Dr. Sako Ikome for all his efforts to advance this struggle I publicly stretch out a hand of peace and forgiveness of hurt feelings to him. He answered the call to duty when the Ambazonia movement for independence called in the capacity of AIP. We equally thank the collective of the leadership team that worked with Comrade Dr Sako. There is a lot more we can do together to contribute to the advancement of this revolution.
Allow me to start the process of our overall fence-mending and coming together by unbanning AGC and her defense organ ADF and SCYL and her defense organ SOCADEF with immediate effect. I wish to use this opportunity to publicly stretch out to them, a hand of peace and forgiveness. Only together can we deliver motherland, Ambazonia. And again, if there are other ideas of how to achieve unity in our community, we would like to hear them.
Our Ambazonia Dream – Looking into the future post our restoration quest, the Ambazonia Dream is anchored on “Quality of Life” and acknowledges the urgent need to redress almost six decades of social and economic stagnation, injustice, rogue governance, dilution of democracy, freedom, liberty, culture, education and the legal system. A life of quality is a life of opportunity, the opportunity for steady productive employment and financial independence; the opportunity to own a home and retire in security; the opportunity to enjoy a clean and healthy environment; the right to peace, freedom and liberty, the opportunity to take our future in our own hands and shape it to our will. Fellow Comrades, Fellow Countrymen and women, these are the ideals for which we are killed daily, ideals we must have in our live time. We have already prevailed over LRC. Our people are committed to a free homeland and a free indigenous home they must have. We need to stand together and take ownership of our resource-endowed ancestral land and country. Our rich human capital – the curse of almost six decades that has seen Ambazonians thrown into all countries on the planet, one that has become a blessing as we bring back our experiences, expertise, skills and money to restore our statehood, rebuild our true home and regain our dignity as a people.
In Conclusion – We must be vigilant and learn our enemy’s actions and use them to sharpen our reflexes. For the pillar to be firm enough to hold up a house it needs to be buried deep, enforced with rocks, compacted and tested. Your friends are NOT going to do that for you, it’s your enemies who raise you up by default. My people, let those against us not shaken your resolve because it’s their hate and anger that empowers our resolve and it will be total independence or resistance forever.
To paraphrase Barack Obama’s in his 2004 address: This evening, if you feel the same revolutionary energy like I do, the same revolutionary urgency like I do, the same revolutionary passion like I do, the same revolutionary hopefulness like I do, if we do what we must do, I have no doubt that all across our nation, our indigenous home, the people will rise up as they did on September 22nd and October 1st 2017, and Ambazonia will reclaim its promise, and out of this long political and legal darkness a brighter day will come. In July 2017 the then Chairman of the Governing Council Sisiku Ayuk Tabe was prophetic in our quest for our restoration when he said: They will Firstly “ignore us” – and they did; Secondly “then they laugh at us” – and they did; Thirdly “they fight us” – and they are; and lastly he foretold that “We will win” – We certainly shall win.
Our success is assured. We have achieved so much within a short time. One more key ingredient is necessary to take us across the finish line; UNITY. Be an Ambassador for ONE AMBAZONIA project and let’s match on to Buea soonest. ONE AMBAZONIA is your project. Make it happen. Ambazonia must be free soonest.
Thank you, And may God Bless Ambazonia It shall be Total Independence or Resistance forever
At least three civilians were killed and several others injured in violent clashes opposing the native Aghem population and the muslim community in Wum, Menchum County, the region’s Francophone governor Adolphe Lele Lafrique revealed.
Following “an attack staged by secessionist activists” in Thursday that led to the killing of a local Hausa community leader, “a group of Hausa and Aku youths” carried out Monday “targeted acts of vandalism,” killing two and injuring five, Lafrique said in a statement Tuesday.
The violence also caused “destruction of houses and property” of the both sides, he said, adding that prompt intervention of government forces on ground significantly contributed to check the situation from degenerating.
“Investigations are ongoing to identify and punish all those responsible for such unfortunate initiatives that undermine national unity, national cohesion and our territory integrity,” Lafrique said.
The attack, pitting a civil community against armed separatists, was the first of its kind since November 2017 when separatists began clashing with government forces to demand the independence of the minority two Cameroon’s Anglophone regions of Northwest and Southwest.
The Ambazonia Interim Government condemned “inter-tribal conflict” blaming the government for fueling the dispute in order to “weaken” support for the armed separatists from the locals.
At least 430,000 people have been displaced internally by the conflict, according to the United Nations.
Eight people were killed and several others injured on Saturday in Ekona, a locality in Southwest, one of the two troubled English-speaking regions of Cameroon, according to local sources.
“I personally saw over eight corpses, mostly men and a woman. They were lying in the bush. All of them were shot at close range,” a local resident who asked not to be named revealed on Saturday.
There were conflicting reports of the identity of the killed. Armed separatists claimed that all those were civilians shot by government forces, but the army said they were separatists killed in a counter-attack.
“The army received intel (intelligence) of the presence of several terrorists (separatists) in the locality and ambushed them on their way to attack a village. They opened fire the moment they discovered our position and we retaliated. About 10 of them were neutralized and others escaped with serious injuries,” an army officer who preferred not to be named said.
Since November 2017, government forces have been clashing with armed separatist forces who want the two English-speaking regions of Northwest and Southwest to secede from the largely French-speaking nation and form a new country called “Ambazonia”.
Reported by Xinhuanet
Authorities in Liberia have blocked the internet, in what is perceived to be a move to suppress ongoing anti-government protests in the capital, Monrovia.
Netblocks, an organisation that monitors internet disruptions and shutdowns confirmed the shutdown on Friday afternoon, saying access to social networking platforms Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram and Snapchat had been restricted.
‘‘The disruptions affecting ordinary operation of the social media platforms have raised concerns of a state order to restrict the Save The State protests in Liberian capital Monrovia,’‘ NetBlocks said in its statement.
The protests are likely to be a a key test for President George Weah, who campaigned over the same issues in his ascent to president, about 18 months ago.
The protesters are bracing for a possible violent showdown with security forces or even prolonged disruption.
The protests coalition calling itself the Council of Patriots, comprises politicians, professions, students and ordinary members of the public.
George Weah, in power since January 2018 is struggling to revive a country that is one of the poorest in the world.
He insists he is aware of the burden of ordinary people, and improvement to health, education and roads remain his priorities.
Source: Africa News
US lawmakers say aviation giant Boeing discovered in 2017 that a cockpit warning light on its 737 MAX aircrafts that played a role in two air disasters was defective but decided to defer fixing it until 2020.
US Representatives Peter DeFazio of Oregon and Rick Larsen of Washington state said in a statement on Friday that Boeing sped up the process of fixing the defect only after the first of two deadly crashes involving Max planes last October in Indonesia.
The feature, called an angle of attack alert light, was designed to warn pilots when sensors measuring the direction of the plane’s nose up or down relative to oncoming air might not be working.
The faulty sensor and warning light is suspected of playing a role in two deadly crashes involving Boeing’s best-selling 737 MAX in Indonesia in October and in Ethiopia in March, killing 346 people.
The sensors fed incorrect information to computers on board the two planes.
DeFazio and Larsen said Boeing decided in November 2017 to defer a software update to correct the so-called AOA Disagree alert defect until 2020, three years after discovering the flaw.
The two legislators, both leaders of a House of Representative committee that’s investigating the Max crashes, said Boeing did not inform the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) about the defect until after the Lion Air crash more than one year later, the lawmakers said.
Larsen questioned why Boeing didn’t consider the problem critical to safety “and I am concerned it took Boeing so long to report this defective feature to the FAA and its customers.”
The two 737 MAX crashes have left Boeing facing one of the biggest crises in its more than 100-year history and have triggered investigations by the US government and members of Congress.
The planes have been grounded around the world since March, awaiting approval from US and international regulators before they can return to service.
Source: Presstv
A group of Democratic lawmakers in the US Senate have called on the Federal Reserve to investigate President Donald Trump’s relationship with Germany’s Deutsche Bank over alleged suspicious transactions.
The Democratic senators urged top officials in the Federal Reserve in a letter on Thursday to investigate Deutsche Bank AG’s ties with the US president and his son-in-law and adviser, Jared Kushner, citing the need for “further examination” of media reports about potentially suspicious transactions at the bank involving Trump business entities in 2016 and 2017 – during the presidential campaign and Trump’s first year in office.
The plea was made in response to a New York Times article on May 19 that said specialists at Deutsche Bank had recommended transactions by legal entities controlled by Trump and Kushner be reported to a federal financial-crime regulator but top officials at the German bank had rejected the advice and not alerted the government.
The specialists said the handling of the Trump and Kushner transactions had been part of a pattern of the bank’s executives rejecting valid reports to protect relationships with lucrative clients.
The Thursday’s letter called on the Fed, which is one of the main regulators of Deutsche Bank’s American operations, to look into the transactions and review whether the bank had complied with anti-money-laundering laws.
“Only by conducting a thorough review of the full range of this activity can we better understand what happened in these cases; what practices, procedures, or personnel may need to be changed at the bank; and what regulators should do to ensure the Federal Reserve’s ability effectively to monitor compliance with anti-money-laundering laws,” the senators wrote.
The letter, sent by Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, was signed by six other Senate Democrats, including Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, who is campaigning for the presidential candidacy of the Democrats in 2020 and Sherrod Brown of Ohio, the top Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee.
Representatives of the Fed and Deutsche Bank have up to this point declined to comment.
“This is a test of the Fed’s independence,” Van Hollen said in an interview with the New York Times. “It would be gross negligence if they weren’t investigating.”
Trump’s relationship with Deutsche Bank has been a focal point for Democratic Party investigators in Congress as the bank has served as a principle lender for Trump’s real estate business.
Democrats in the House have subpoenaed the bank for financial records involving the American head of state, his family and his businesses. But the investigatory effort is on hold while Trump’s lawyers challenge the subpoena in court.
Source: Presstv
A hundred members of the opposition Movement for the Rebirth of Cameroon (MRC) were freed Thursday following their arrest during demonstrations last week, the party told AFP.
However MRC vice president Mamadou Mota, who was also detained on June 1, remains in detention, the same opposition party source said.
In all, 351 MRC supporters were arrested during protests which took place in several towns throughout the country, including Nkongsamba, in the west, and Yaounde, according to the party’s figures.
“There are still 251 people incarcerated in prison cells,” said Ndong.
At least 30 of those arrested, including Mota, have been transferred to Yaounde’s main prison.
The prison also houses MRC head Maurice Kamto, the country’s main opposition figure who has been detained since January.
The MRC has been organising demonstrations since the October 2018 presidential election. According to official results, Kamto came second but the MRC says the vote was rigged in favour of President Paul Biya, who has been in power for 36 years.
Saturday’s protests called for the release of Kamto and other party supporters who were arrested after another protest in January.
Such protest marches are banned by Cameroon.
Video footage posted on social media sites Thursday show MRC militants claiming, after their release, that they were tortured while in detention.
The use of torture in police station is a frequent occurrence according to many sources.
In February Kamto and other opposition supporters appeared before a military tribunal in Yaounde accused of “insurrection, hostility to the homeland (and) rebellion”, offences which carry a possible death penalty.
Their lawyers have appealed to the UN working group on arbitrary detention over the arrests.
Source: AFP
Prospects for talks between authorities and separatist movements to end escalating violence in Cameroon’s English-speaking region are slim, a senior human rights official said on Friday (Jun 7), dismissing assertions by both sides to be open to dialogue.
A separatist insurgency broke out in 2017 following a government crackdown on peaceful protests in the English-speaking Northwest and Southwest, which complain of being marginalised by the French-speaking majority.
Prime Minister Joseph Ngute has said the government would be willing to talk to the rebels, but would not consider their demand for secession – a position hardline separatists have said they will never accept.
Eleven movements representing Anglophone Cameroon, including the main armed factions, last month said they were willing to enter mediated discussions with the state.
But almost daily violence from both sides has intensified, forcing thousands of civilians to seek refuge in Cameroon’s French-speaking regions and neighbouring countries.
“There is no desire for dialogue … The abuses are coming from both sides and the civilians are finding themselves in the middle,” Ilaria Allegrozzi, Senior Central Africa Researcher at Human Rights Watch, told reporters in Paris.
“The position of the government is an almost complete denial … and there is total impunity for the violence.”
The oil, cocoa and timber-producing nation was among western Africa’s most settled until a few years ago.
But the United Nations estimates that, since 2017, about 1,800 people have been killed and more than 530,000 displaced with 1.3 million in need. Authorities have promised to act over accusations of rights violations by security personnel.
Allegrozzi, who was refused entry to the country in May over her research, said it was also clear that rebels were too divided to form a platform to negotiate, an element the government was using to its advantage.
She estimated the total number of separatists fighters at about 3,000 and there was evidence that they were acquiring more sophisticated weaponry.
The crisis has tended to slip beneath the international radar given President Paul Biya’s close cooperation with Western states in the fight against Islamist militant group Boko Haram in West and central Africa.
But the United States has become increasingly critical of the government and the separatist crisis was discussed for the first time at the U.N. Security Council last month.
Allegrozzi said the Anglophone population was increasingly in tune with idea of independence. “There is a growing feeling of support towards the separatists and secession,” she said.
Source: Reuters/nh
It is almost one week since Cameroon’s lone oil refinery went up in smoke and the scale of the destruction is now obvious to everybody. SONARA will be out of business for at least three years and the government will have to come up with a huge chunk of money if it must have its largest ATM up and running again.
Rebuilding SONARA will require more than USD 20 billion and the government does not have that money in its coffers right now. SONARA has an insurance policy, but that will not kick in until cost adjusters and other agents complete their investigations.
This is indeed bad news for the cash-strapped and corrupt government that has been treating SONARA as its piggy bank, with government officials always sending helicopters to pick up raw cash from the oil refinery when a financial squeeze is staring the government in the face.
This has been the government’s modus operandi for decades. But this is gradually coming to an end, as state corporations keep on sliding into financial challenges. The Southern Cameroons crisis has robbed the Yaounde government of its vital sources of revenue.
CDC and PAMOL have gone under and it will take billions of dollars to set them back on track. Preliminary meetings with multilateral donors like the World Bank and the African Development Bank Group have not yielded much as state-owned corporations in the English-speaking regions of the country will need billions for them to get back into operation and they are really not good businesses for investors, at least for now.
It should be mentioned that a few months ago, the Board of Directors of the African Development Bank Group had approved a loan in favor of the Yaounde government for the construction of the ring road in the Northwest region. The World Bank had also approved its own share of the money, but both institutions had to put every on hold as the military situation in the region spiralled out of control.
The government’s military violence and its scorch earth policy in the two English-speaking regions of the country are gradually coming back to bite it. Its penchant for violence has robbed the country of vital resources that could help give the Central African nation’s development efforts a shot in the arm.
Cameroon is teetering on the brink of a human rights catastrophe in a cultural and linguistic conflict that has already killed more than 3,000 people. A government campaign against the country’s English-speaking minority has devolved into an armed conflict between security forces and over 10 armed secessionist groups. This situation might only get worse if urgent actions are not taken by the international community.
The Southern Cameroons crisis that started a protest by teachers and lawyers has been allowed to tailspin into chaos and this is really sucking energy and oxygen out of the country’s economy.
The government’s ability to attract investors to the country has been diminished by the senseless killings and human rights violations taking place in the country. Rebuilding SONARA will be an uphill climb, as investors have very low appetite for Cameroon’s debt.
The burden of rebuilding the country’s lone refinery has been placed on the fragile and aging shoulders of the country’s Prime Minister, Dion Ngute, who is currently suffering from insomnia. He thought his only challenge was the Southern Cameroons crisis, but the sticky situation born of the explosion in the country’s lone oil refinery is robbing Mr. Ngute of his sleep. It is also dumping a lot of age on him.
Ever since the fire gutted the refinery, Prime Minister Ngute, has been working the phones and holding countless meetings. Raising USD 20 billion has become a nightmare to Mr. Ngute who understands that the government he leads lacks credibility and confidence of bilateral and multilateral donors.
Very few people will actually invest in an unstable environment. The Yaounde government is very much aware of that and this explains why it has been shouting since last week that the explosion that reduced SONARA to rubble was a case of force majeure and not sabotage as claimed by separatists who have been hellbent on bringing the facility to its knees.
If the government admits that rebels are to blame for SONARA’s meltdown, then it would lose the race for resources to rebuild the bedeviled refinery that is still threatening to throw up more fire.
On Monday, huge fires were reported where the refinery’s reservoirs are located. It took firefighters and officials of the facility three hours to figure out what was happening. SONARA seems to have been jinxed and its woes will not be over anytime soon.
The initial fire that occurred last Friday had gutted the atmospheric distillation unit which is a key component of the facility. Indeed, that is where the oil refining process starts and engineers working for the refinery have indicated that it will take a very long time to rebuild the facility which has been delivering “golden eggs” to the corrupt and irresponsible Yaounde government.
Several meetings have been going on at the Presidency, but it is the panic at the Prime Minister’s Office that is attracting attention. Dion Ngute is losing sleep. The SONARA meltdown is putting his leadership qualities through their paces.
Prime Minister Ngute has to address so many issues, including the thorny Southern Cameroons crisis that has given the government a very bad name. But for now, he seems to be focused on SONARA. The government is out of cash and it needs other means to replenish its resources.
It is based on this that the Prime Minister is looking at the possibility of sending a high-level delegation to Abidjan to have discussions with the African Development Bank, the continent’s premier development finance institution that is capable of granting Cameroon an emergency loan of about USD 1 billion through its soft arm window.
The continent’s surest conduit for the channeling of investment finance has the experience of granting Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Under Stress (HIPCUS) like Cameroon low interest loans with little or no conditionalities. That is why the Yaounde government is seeing the African Development Bank (AfDB) as the institution that will grant it a bailout.
The African Development Group will next week hold its Annual Meetings in Malabo where it will be seeking a capital increase and an African Development Fund replenishment. If this is achieved, Cameroon will surely be one of the first countries to benefit from the replenishment.
That is why Prime Minister Ngute will also dispatch a huge delegation headed by the country’s Minister of Plan and Regional Development who doubles as the African Development Bank Group’s Governor to Malabo to have talks with AfDB officials. The minister will be meeting with the AfDB President who is open to lending Cameroon a helping hand.
There are also plans to send another delegation to Washington D.C. to have discussions with World Bank authorities. The discussions will focus on loans and grants that will enable the beleaguered government to rebuild the collapsed refinery.
But the discussions in Washington will be very tough as America might influence the World Bank’s decision. World Bank loans and grants to Cameroon might come with conditionaities that might border on the cessation of hostilities in the two English-speaking regions of the country.
Currently, the government has been discussing with the French government through unofficial channels. The French are willing to provide some financial infusion as they have been the primary beneficiaries of Cameroon’s oil. They are however concerned about the hostilities in the country and the current political climate is worrisome to them.
The jailing of Cameroon’s leading opposition leader, Professor Maurice Kamto, the presumed winner of last year’s presidential election, has attracted condemnation from rights groups across the world.
France is concerned about its own image and it is gradually distancing itself from the Biya regime that has become a lightning for controversy, especially as the majority of EU countries are insisting that the Yaounde government must hold an inclusive dialogue with Southern Cameroons. They are also calling for the release of Professor Kamto who is considered by the EU as a prisoner of conscience.
The government of Cameroon is no longer at ease. It has a lot on its plate and with its resources dwindling, it is clear that it might soon be down on its luck. This is more disturbing as its former allies are all jumping ship. EU countries have become very vocal about the government’s authoritarian nature.
America and Canada are breathing down the government’s neck and this is rattling the fragile government which needs more friends at this time. The end seems to be near and the rantings from Yaounde are no longer cutting ice with anybody.
The Yaounde government still has a choice. It must stop conducting itself as a rogue state. It should embrace the idea of an inclusive dialogue, release all political prisoners, including all Southern Cameroonians arrested within the framework of the armed conflict that has left thousands of Cameroonians dead, and grant general amnesty to all Cameroonians living abroad as a means of reducing the pressured that is gradually destroying it.
If it continues to conduct itself as it has done over the last three years, it must be ready to face the worst and even donors and investors will not come to its aide when the chips go down. The ball is in its court!
By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai at the Global Headquarters in the United Kingdom and Kingsley Betek in Malabo for the African Development Bank Group’s Annual Meetings.
