Professor Wallinjon Fombad Tenjericha Muna MD, PHD, FACC is no more. He died this Sunday morning February the 24th 2019. This item is still developing!!

Cameroonian politician and opposition leader Maurice Kamto has told the military court that he is a civilian and doesn’t deserve to be tried and charged in a military court.

Kamto and his supporters are being charged of insurrection – a crime punishable with the death penalty, other charges include holding illegal gatherings and disturbing the peace the peace of the country.

Kamto, a leader of the Cameroon Renaissance Movement (MRC) and his supporters contested last year’s elections claiming that the country’s decade’s ruler Paul Biya had rigged the election.

He then called upon his supporters to hold protests in four major cities across the country which according to authorities distorted the peace and security of the nation.

The court later postponed his trail until next week in order for court to make a decision about the legality of his trial.

PlustvAfrica

Cameroon’s president, Paul Biya, and first lady, Chantal Biya, are scheduled to leave Yaounde, Cameroon, for Geneva, Switzerland, on bord a chartered aircraft tomorrow February 24, 2019.

The luxurious airplane, which has been rented for tens of millions of taxpayer’s money, will also take the reclusive leader to France. He is expected to spend several weeks in Geneva where he will be seeking medical attention.

Meanwhile, the Brigade Anti-sardinards (BAS) – a Diaspora-driven initiative designed to raise awareness of the despicable military, economic and political situation in the country – which had issued a warning to the Intercontinental Hotel in Switzerland, which hosts Mr. Biya and his large entourage each time he is in Geneva, have begun taking positions across continental Europe, particularly in Switzerland, to disrupt Mr. Biya’s health tourism program.

More than 100 members of the BAS are already in Geneva while hundreds more are expected to leave Germany, Belgium and France today evening to ensure that the Cameroon leader does not know any peace during his time in Europe.

Mr. Biya and his entourage are very likely to face lots of protests in Geneva as the country’s Diaspora is prepared to give the dictator a very bad name for his brutal killings in Southern Cameroons and the imprisonment of Maurice Kamto, the country’s opposition leader.

It should be recalled that Mr. Biya had declared war against the country’s English-speaking minority in 2017 and since his declaration of war, more than 3,000 civilians have been killed by Mr. Biya’s army, more than a million civilians have been displaced, with more than 400,000 seeking refuge in neighboring Nigeria that is collaborating with the Yaounde government in its determination to slaughter as many Southern Cameroonians as possible.

Meanwhile, more than 170 villages have been burnt down by soldiers who are out on a collective punitive expedition which is only making the secession of the English-speaking minority a likelihood.

It has been reported that the Cameroon strongman and his government are seeking to change his itinerary given that they are aware of the protests waiting for them in Switzerland and France.

The profile picture attached to this report is a photo of the airplane rented for the presidential couple and their itinerary. More will be yours in the days ahead.

By Soter Agbaw-Ebai in the United Kingdom

On February 16, 170 students, mostly girls under 18, were abducted by a group of armed separatists from a boarding school in Kumbo, in the North-West region of Cameroon. The separatists, who stormed the building in the early hours, also abducted a teacher and two guards. Everyone was released the following day amid rumours of ransoms being paid. The school remains closed.

Human Rights Watch has interviewed numerous witnesses and reviewed many images of the recent abuses in Kumbo.

The crisis in the Anglophone regions has taken a heavy toll on education. Separatists and unknown assailants have damaged, destroyed, or burnt down scores of schools and kidnapped hundreds of students across the regions.

The security situation in Kumbo is extremely volatile and the city has been in a state of crisis since September. Over the weekend, in what appears to be an act of retaliation against residents perceived as sympathetic to the separatists, security forces burnt down scores of private homes and shops across Kumbo. Destruction of private property by the Cameroonian security forces has been rife since the crisis started. Human Rights Watch has documented the burning of more than 20 villages by members of the security forces between 2017 and 2018 in both the North and South West regions.

The day after the mass abduction, soldiers looking for wounded separatists broke into the Shisong hospital and fired several shots in the air. The soldiers also threatened to kill a man in front of hospital staff. This comes as reports highlight more attacks on health facilities, including the looting of a health center in Wosing village by separatists on February 15, and the destruction of the Kumba district hospital on February 11

Kumbo remains almost completely shut down due to ongoing violence between separatists and security forces. Thousands of people have fled the area since violence escalated. Those who stayed behind have told Human Rights Watch they live in fear of the violence

Both Cameroonian authorities and the separatists should stop unlawful abuses of residents and ensure that humanitarian actors have free and unhindered access to the area to assess needs of the population and provide assistance.

Human Rights Watch

Opposition leader Maurice Kamto will today be summoned by a military court on charges which carry the death penalty, as the Cameroonian authorities intensify their post-election crackdown on critics, Amnesty International said today.

Kamto, the president of the Cameroon Renaissance Movement (Mouvement pour la Renaissance du Cameroun-MRC) is the first of a group of 131 people arbitrarily arrested last month and charged by the military court with rebellion, hostility against the homeland, incitement to insurrection, offence against the president of the republic,  and destruction of public buildings and goods, to be summoned by an investigating judge. They all face the death penalty which is the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment and a violation of the right to life.

It is horrifying that the Cameroonian authorities are considering sentencing Maurice Kamto to death simply for daring to participate in a peaceful protest. He is one of many people who have been caught up in a wave of mass arrests as authorities attempt to silence their critics. Marie-Evelyne Petrus Barry, Amnesty International’s West and Central Africa regional director

“As well as having their rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly crushed, many of Cameroon’s opposition members are now facing unfair trials by military courts. We are calling on authorities to end this ruthless assault on dissenting voices. Civilians should not be tried by military courts and should not face the death penalty for exercising their human rights.”

International and regional human rights bodies including the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights consider that military courts should not, in any circumstances whatsoever, have jurisdiction over civilians. This is also recognized in the Principles of fair trial in Africa.

Following his arrest on 28 January, Maurice Kamto, who was also a presidential candidate, spent two weeks in detention, during which time his lawyers and family saw him only once. He is detained at Yaoundé Principale Prison along with six MRC supporters and officials. The rest of the 131 are detained in a different prison. Amnesty International considers that they should have never been arrested in the first place.

On 19th February, 12 of another group of 15 opposition members arrested on 26 January in Yaoundé appeared before an ordinary court. According to the prosecutor they had been arrested for attempting to participate in a banned demonstration. The hearing was postponed until 25 February.

“Authorities should stop being less and less tolerant of criticism and take concrete actions to promote human rights,” said Marie-Evelyne Petrus Barry.

Amnesty International

In the fight for independence from the Francophone majority, separatists in the English-speaking northwest and southwest regions of Cameroon have turned on their own children. A series of kidnappings of pupils and teachers, which culminated in the abduction of 170 children in Kumbo last weekend, forced a shutdown of all schools.

Roman Catholic Bishop George Nkuo told DW, ”They wanted to make a point. There should be no school in the entire division. We were the only school operating, so, for our punishment, they brought the children to where they brought them, as a sign that we’ve disobeyed them.”

The children were released a day later, after the Catholic school bowed to the separatists’ pressure and closed its doors. Some of the children had been abused and even tortured, according to a statement by the government in the northwest region where the kidnapping took place.

Human rights abuses by all sides

Parents in Bamenda waiting for news of their kidnapped children

“They are using children as a bargaining chip, which is not only immoral but also illegal,” Jonathan Pedneault of Human Rights Watch (HRW) told DW. The non-governmental organization has been documenting attacks by self-proclaimed Anglophone separatists against schools and children since 2016.

While HRW could not confirm that abuse was committed against the children kidnapped in Kumbo, other cases are well documented: ”They have beaten people who were kidnapped or under their custody. They have also attacked workers on banana plantations, chopping off their hands and fingers,” Pedneault said.

Children in Cameroon are scared. In places like Kumbo, the situation is serious, 16-year-old Rosaline told DW. ”They are burning houses. They are kidnapping students.” Rosaline left behind her parents and friends and fled from Kumbo to Bamenda in order to be able to go to school. Far from home, she says ”life is difficult.” Among other things, Rosaline complains that in Bamenda, where she is staying with her aunts, there is never enough to eat.

Life is hard for many children in Cameroon. According to the United Nations children’s fund UNICEF, there are 2.3 million children in need in the country. One in every three minors suffers from malnutrition. The latest statistics of the World Health Organization (WHO) show that 74 out of 1,000 children die before the age of five. Girls have to deal with the added torture of female genital mutilation (FGM) and many are married off long before they reach adulthood.

Government troops stand accused of atrocities in the English-speaking regions

The crisis has deprived hundreds of thousands of children of the chance of an education, which is widely recognized as the best way out of poverty. Repeated school lockdowns are perceived as a threat by 17-year-old Tracy, who fears that the teachers may not be able to finish the syllabus. The bitter irony of the separatists’ attacks is not lost on her: ”This crisis has also reduced my vocabulary in English.”

Impunity for the perpetrators

The children cannot expect any help or protection from President Paul Biya. ”The response of the government has been one of abuse from day one,” says HRW’s Jonathan Pedneault. Peaceful protesters have been shot, their leaders arrested, and civilians targeted, ”causing a very severe humanitarian crisis,” including 500,000 displaced people in one year. Separatists turning against their own people are playing into the hands of the government: ”One key method of counter insurgency is ‘conquer and divide’,” Pedneault said.

The international community is reluctant to put pressure on Paul Biya. He is seen as a trusted ally in the fight against the jihadist group Boko Haram in the Lake Chad area and provides valuable logistical aid to the UN stabilization missions in the area. ”That has translated into a lack of international criticism.

The problem is that it sends all the wrong signals to decision makers both in Yaounde and within the Anglophone group, who think they can get away scot free,” Pedneault said. He would like to see Germany take on a more active role: ”Germany has a history in Cameroon and I think it is a voice that would be welcomed by a number of actors on the ground.”

Children robbed of their future

Children are the first casualty of any conflict

What makes the whole situation even more tragic for the children of the English-speaking regions is the fact that, before the crisis, this was a relatively well-developed area of the country. ”There was a lot of economic activity, especially in the southwest, with lots of jobs, including for youth,” Pedneault said. The crisis has severely disrupted the economy. Separatists have been attacking key economic sectors like banana plantations and forestry.

For its part, ”the government has imposed internet bans which disrupted the emerging technological industry in the southwest. And it has been targeting youths as well: a lot of taxi motorcycles have been confiscated by government soldiers,” Pedneault said, adding: ”This is creating a cycle of poverty and anger, making young people much more sympathetic to the separatists.”

Preventing children from going to school is ”going down a very, very dangerous road,” he warned. ”It’s now the third year that children have difficulties accessing school in the area.” Soon, there will be larger numbers of students with incomplete curricula who will have difficulties going to university and getting good jobs. ”Those are very worrying prospects,” Pedneault concluded.

DeutschWelle

The Manyu Ghost Warriors’ media relations released a statement late on Wednesday mourning the death of one of their field commanders that was recently killed by friendly fire.

According to Manyu Ghost Warriors’ media wing, their field commander, General Shina Rambo, recently died after sustaining life-threatening wounds from gunshots fired by a serviceman in his regiment.

The Manyu Self-Defense group loyal to the Southern Cameroons Interim Government did not specify what led to the incident that Shina Rambo sustained these wounds, nor did they mention which area he was deployed at before his death.

Below is the full text made public via the Manyu Global Voice

Beloved brothers and sisters of Manyu:

This is a sad day for us as a people. We have lost one of our bravest warriors.

It is with a heavy heart that I announce that General Shina Rambo is no more! Rambo died today, February 20th, 2019, from injuries he sustained from gunshots fired by one of our own in GZ. Details will be brought to you as soon as investigations wrap up.

Kindly join me to convey our heartfelt sympathies to General Rambo’s grieving family and brothers in arms.

Shina will be buried with full Ambazonia/ASC/Manyu Ghost Warriors military honors.

A two-day mourning period has been declared. All unnecessary arguments on the Manyu Global Voice Forum have been suspended during this mourning period.

You shall await further announcements. All MUST abide by this directive. Thanks

RIP Rambo

Chairman

At least two people were killed in an attack blamed on Ambazonian Restoration Forces in Douala, the country’s economic metropolis. Cameroon government sources hinted that unidentified gunmen staged an attack late on Sunday in the locality of Mombo, (Littoral) bordering the Southwest region.

“Two people were killed in a shooting incident in the night on Sunday in Mombo. The attack was perpetrated by gunmen who came on board motorcycles from the Southwest region “said Samuel Ivaha Diboua, governor of the Littoral region in French Cameroun.

The governor further noted that a massive response from the defense and security forces sent the armed Ambazonia fighters away from the region.

Cameroon Concord News understands this is the second Ambazonian attack inside French Cameroun’s Littoral territory. In July 2018, the gendarmerie post at Penda Mboko, near Mbanga came under attack from Ambazonian fighters.

On the 23^rd of December 2018, Southern Cameroons Restoration Forces in the Northern Zone of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia attacked villages in the Bangourain district, bordering the northwest. More than 80 houses were burned during this attack.

Since the end of October 2016, at least 347,000 people have fled the violence in Southern Cameroons between defense forces and Ambazonia Restoration Forces. The number of Cameroon government forces killed in the fighting by Southern Cameroons Self-Defense groups remains unknown.

By Sama Ernest in Douala

A group of unidentified gunmen attacked at least six workers of the SPM plantation in Tiko, South West region of Cameroon.

The workers were attacked by the gunmen in the plantation as they took time to chop off their fingers as well as ears before sending them away. The injured workers are presently receiving treatment at a medical facility in Tiko as security officers open investigations to track down the perpetrators of the act.

This is not the first time plantation workers in Tiko are suffering such attacks from gunmen in the locality. Close to two dozens of workers have had their fingers chopped off in previous attacks in the area.

Devdiscourse.com