French Cameroun: Biya signs decree establishing a police station in the Port of Kribi

18/04/2017

After signing numerous decrees establishing the Autonomous Port of Kribi and appointing the officials and administrators of this infrastructure located in his region of origin, the 84 year old Cameroonian dictator, Paul Biya, signed on Monday, April 17, 2017, another Decree establishing a police station in the Autonomous Port of Kribi.

Article 1 of the decree stipulated that an Office of the Port is to be set up within the Regional Delegation for National Security in the South region. The second and last article stipulated that the organization and the missions entrusted to the Port Authority Commissariat are those laid down by Decree No. 2012/540 of 19 November 2012 on the organization of the General Delegation for National Security, as amended and supplemented by the Decree number 2016/372 of 04 August 2016.

By Rita Akana

South Africa gives asylum to Congolese pastor wanted in his homeland

18/04/2017

Congolese pastor Joseph Mukungubila Mutombo, wanted in his homeland for alleged involvement in violence more than three years ago, has obtained asylum in South Africa, his lawyer says. “He has obtained political asylum following a March 30 decision” to that effect, Charlie Mingiedi said on Monday.

“It is a relief. He can now once again involve himself in political life,” Mingiedi said of the controversial pastor, who claims to be a prophet. South African officials, who had previously rejected the pastor’s asylum requests, made no immediate comment on the said approval.

Kinshasa wants to question Mukungubila, who has described himself as God’s “last envoy to humanity” over the late 2013 violence, which left more than 100 dead. The Congolese government blamed him for orchestrating a spate of attacks in December 2013 on the airport, the main army headquarters in the capital and in the second city of Lubumbashi.

He fled to South Africa, where he was arrested in May 2014 on an Interpol warrant issued at Kinshasa’s behest at his house in the suburbs of Johannesburg before being released on bail. At the time, his lawyer said he stood accused of murder, intentional and aggravated assault, malicious destruction, as well as illegal and arbitrary detention.

South African authorities eventually dropped the case, citing lack of evidence. Mukungubila, who denies the allegations against him, stood against President Joseph Kabila, whose government he has bitterly criticized, in 2006 elections. According to Mingiedi, the pastor will not return home but will keep up pressure on Kabila from abroad. “There is no return to the Democratic Republic of the Congo) DRC but he will continue to mobilize the Congolese people against the dictatorship ruling the country,” Mingiedi said.

Source: Presstv

Lawyer for the Consortium of Parents alleges that his life is in danger

18/04/2017

Barrister ACHU Julius NGU, the legal representative of the so-called Consortium of Parents which has dragged some Catholic Bishops to court, has revealed that some unidentified people are after his life and want him dead or alive.

Speaking on Equinoxe Television, a Douala based news channel; the lawyer described by one of the operation managers of the Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium as a clown said his pictures are trading on social media with an inscription, “Wanted Dead or Alive.” Barrister ACHU Julius, who is the lawyer for the Consortium of Parents which has embarked on a legal battle with the Catholic Church in Bamenda, is claiming the sum of 150.000.000 FCFA as special and general damages for non school resumption.

The Consortium of Parents reportedly created by the Biya Francophone Beti Ewondo regime is accusing the Bishops, Principals, Reverend Fathers and Sisters for their role in ensuring that school does not resume basing their arguments on numerous outings by the latter which according to the legal representative were offences and punishable under the Penal Code.

Reacting on the accusations, the President of National Episcopal Conference, Archbishop Samuel Kleda said the, “The Catholic Church did not begin the strike and cannot be accused today of preventing students from going to school.”

The Archbishop of the Douala Archdiocese wondered why only the Catholic Church when schools have been paralyzed in almost all sectors both in Public, Private and Confessional schools. However His Lordship Samuel Kleda said the Church has no lawyer but will be in Court for Justice to prevail.

Source: Cameroun Info.Net

Southern Cameroons Problem: Flogging a dead horse

17/04/2017

With the third term of the school year scheduled to start on Monday, April 17, 2017, government officials have stepped up their actions to ensure schools effectively open in the Anglophone zone where students and teachers have spent almost the entire school year at home. A strike started by Anglophone lawyers and joined by almost all Anglophones in 2016, has left schools closed and exposed the marginalization orchestrated against Cameroon’s English-speaking minority. The strike has also exposed the government’s inability to deal with socio-professional and political issues, a situation that has eroded the government’s authority and credibility.

Over the last two weeks, government officials have had some relief, as schools closed for the much celebrated Easter break. However, with schools scheduled to start this week, the government is once more scrabbling for solutions to the Anglophone problem that has become a nightmare that will not go away anytime soon. Cameroon’s three ministers of education are once more losing sleep as Anglophones students and teachers stick to their guns. The core issues have not yet been properly addressed to ensure things return to normal. The strikes that have paralyzed the English-speaking part of Cameroon are gradually spreading to the Francophone region and this is striking fear in the minds of many government officials.

Federalism and the imprisonment of Anglophone leaders are still standing in the way of genuine dialogue. Anglophones do not trust the government and despite explanations by some government surrogates that some of these issues could only be addressed over the long term, Anglophone teachers and parents are not buying into the government’s rhetoric which, in their view,is not worth its weight in gold. The government is being accused of speaking from both sides of its mouth and despite the numerous presidential decrees and ministerial orders, Anglophone teachers, parents and students have remained frozen in their positions. They hold that the decrees and orders are not even worth the paper on which they are written. The government, according to Anglophones, has reneged on many of its promises, many of which are always designed to score political points. Anglophones point to the 1996 constitution that has been in the drawer for twenty-one years. Many hold that if key provisions of this constitution had been implemented, Cameroon would have avoided this unfortunate situation in which it finds itself and life would have been worth living in this resource-rich country.

Over the last six months, the government has used a slew of measures to ensure schools resume in the Anglophone zone, but the English-speaking minority has, through peaceful civil disobedience, made mincemeat of all government efforts to send teachers and students back to school. Government policy has so far been focused on getting schools in major Anglophone cities to resume. In rural areas, grass and rodents have taken over schools. While its efforts to have schools reopened could be commendable, the government must understand that most schools in Cameroon are in the rural areas and its inability to generate employment opportunities and create wealth for many Anglophones is pushing many parents to question the rationale behind sending their kids to school when many of them end up struggling to put food on the table after many years in school.

The government’s message seems to be falling on deaf ears. As far as Anglophones are concerned, the government is flogging a dead horse. Its efforts to please the international community are making it look ridiculous. Its numerous actions to restore its authority have always collapsed like a pack of cards and many analysts hold that the government has been shooting itself in the foot by sending out the wrong signals. It has been carrying a bloodshot eye ever since Anglophones decided to break rank and challenge it on many fronts. According to Anglophones, the government is guilty as charged and only a genuine appeasement policy will restore confidence. The government is replete with hard-liners who clearly belong to a different epoch and their heads seem to be stuck in a thick cloud. Its appeasement strategy has, at best, been shoddy. Its basket of measures has not been convincing. It is bereft of sincerity and humility, and this has given Anglophone teachers and students an opportunity to enjoy the longest holiday in the country’s educational history. Its mix of policies smacks of incompetence and bad faith, and this has made the conflict to stick around for a very long time.

Its carrot and stick approach is only helping to dent its image as the people have turned down even its most luscious carrots. Anglophones understand that what could be as luscious as locust today, could one day be as bitter as “coloquintida”. For the stick, Anglophones are simply not paying attention to it. The wall of fear has collapsed and Anglophones are determined to wear down the government until it understands that old ways and strategies can no longer work in an era where many Cameroonians are self-reliant and less dependent on a government whose corruption and ineffectiveness are spreading death, pain and suffering across the country.

The country’s English-speaking minority wants its young students to go to school, but not in the context where they will be taught by Francophone teachers whose knowledge of English is, at best, embryonic. The government’s harmonization and integration policy has hurt many Anglophones. It has unfortunately resulted in Anglophones being “Francophonized” and this is leading to the creation of “intellectual hybrids” among Anglophones who, in many cases, end up being unemployed because their knowledge and skills are inadequate. Without the proper skills, language level and knowledge, these “half-baked” Anglophone graduates cannot ply their trade in a global village that is very demanding when it comes to intellectual refinement. While many countries are embracing the new mantra that calls for citizens across the globe to think globally and act nationally, the Cameroon educational system seems to be fostering the opposite and this is robbing many Anglophone Cameroonians of great opportunities abroad. The world has become a global village and a sound education is the master key to a better life even beyond a citizen’s territorial borders. Anglophones think they do not have that master key and the government is investing little or nothing to put them on the same pedestal with their Francophone colleagues.

While educational authorities are trying to put their best foot forward to clean up the mess they created six months ago, their colleagues of the justice ministry are still caught up in their cobweb of confusion. Like Anglophone schools, Anglophone courts have also been closed for more than six months. This has given criminals the liberty to ply their trade without fear, especially in places like Akwaya and Eyumojock. In these places, many administrative officers have been rendered helpless and some have even been fired by the local population. In Akwaya, in particular, the locals have been replacing the Cameroon flag with the Nigerian flag. They are currently considering themselves as Nigerians until such a time that an appropriate solution to the Anglophone problem is found. They hold that the Yaounde government has marginalized them for decades, pointing to the absence of roads and modern hospitals in their region.

They view the arrest of Ayah Paul, an illustrious son of Akwaya, as an insult to honest citizens who have been victims of a well-orchestrated marginalization scheme. They insist that until Paul Ayah is released, the government will never have its administrative officers in that part of the country. They contend that the government will never send troops to that part of Manyu Division as there are no roads and Nigeria will never allow large numbers of troops to transit through its territory in order to get to Akwaya. In such a context, it will be hard for courts to operate and deliver the justice that is supposed to ensure peace. The country’s administrative and legal systems, they say, are ineffective and dysfunctional. The judges, they contend, are corrupt and many have only rudimentary knowledge of English. This explains why Anglophone lawyers have called for the practicing of Common Law and the withdrawal of Francophone judges and magistrates from courts in the English-speaking part of Cameroon.

In a bid to get the legal system running once again in Anglophone Cameroon, last week, the President of the Cameroon Bar Association, Barrister Ngnie Kamga Jackson, announced that striking Common Law Lawyers would next month call off their strike. This implies that the courts will be open for business on May 2, 2017. But many Common Law lawyers are already characterizing his statement as part of the Laurent Esso staged “comedy of helplessness”. They contend that the strike was never called by the Cameroon Bar Association president, adding that Mr. Ngnie Kamga had no right to call off the strike. Many of the Common Law lawyers hold that they are no longer part of the Cameroon Bar Association as they have formed their own bar association which has, unfortunately, been proscribed by the government.

While the government has yielded to some of the demands of Anglophone lawyers, the lawyers, for their part, are looking forward to the implementation of those measures the government has announced. The government, they hold, cannot be trusted as it has, on many occasions,reneged on its own promises. They argue that the government is noted for creating many commissions on many important national issues, but no concrete actions are ever taken after many years of investigations. Many presidential decrees, they argue, have remained dead letters, as their implementation leaves much to be desired.

If the government has to stop flogging a dead horse, it must change its strategies. Old strategies have failed and have gone a long way in causing the Anglophone problem to take root and snowball. If schools and courts have to resume, the government must release Anglophone leaders who, the population contends, were kidnapped by the government and shipped to Yaounde. The government must establish a comprehensive appeasement programme and put in place implementation mechanisms that will inspire hope and confidence in the people.Many observers hold that Cameroon is gradually sliding into chaos. The presence of the UN Secretary-General’s special representative, Mr. François Louncény Fall, in Yaounde last week speaks to the fear the international community has regarding the country’s Anglophone crisis. Mr. Fall used the occasion to urge Cameroonian authorities to examine with diligence the difficulties of the populations and entrepreneurs of the English-speaking regions of North West and South West, which have been deprived of Internet since mid-January 2017. “This is a deplorable situation. But I am convinced that this important development and communication tool will be gradually re-established throughout Cameroon”, he said before leaving Cameroon on 13 April after a four-day official visit.

Cameroon has to avoid chaos because in the event of chaos, the impact could be far-reaching. The government has the responsibility of ensuring that Cameroon remains stable. If Cameroon fails as a nation, the entire Central African sub-region will be thrown into a pretty mess that will destabilize the entire sub-region for decades. If it wants to spare the country such a tragedy, it must release all those arrested following the outbreak of the Anglophone problem. It must also understand that the law was made for man and not man for law. If it continues to stick to the law, then it really wants to see Cameroon go down the dangerous path of political chaos that has weakened its neighbours.

Dr. Joachim Arrey

Contributing Editor

Cameroon Concord News Group

France to tighten security on election day

17/04/2017

France has announced plans to further beef up security measures to ensure that no terrorist activities occur on the day of its presidential election later this month. “No threat is ruled out… In terms of security, over 50,000 police personnel will be enlisted,” French Interior Minister Matthias Fekl told the Le Journal du Dimanche weekly.

The minister added that military troopes would also be present in cities on the day of the vote, which is April 23. A run-off is scheduled for May 7 in anticipation of an inconclusive first round. France has been in a state of emergency since a series of terrorist attacks hit Paris in November 2015, leaving a total of 130 people dead.

Meanwhile, candidates in the election have been making efforts to win the votes of undecided French citizens. Opinion polls show record numbers of voters — one in three — are still undecided. The race for the presidency features Francois Fillon, Emmanuael Macron, Benoit Hamon, Jean-Luc Melenchon, and Marine Le Pen. Incumbent Francois Hollande is not re-running for office.

Le Pen has caused the most controversy with her extremist, far-right policies. On Monday, protesters demonstrated in the multi-ethnic Paris suburb of Aubervilliers against a rally planned by Le Pen’s supporters in a nearby concert hall. “No fascists in our neighborhoods,” they shouted. Several candidates, including Le Pen, have adopted eurosceptic tendencies in their campaigns. So has self-styled Melenchon.

A leftist firebrand, Melenchon drew tens of thousands of supporters chanting “Resistance” at a rally in the southwestern city of Toulouse on Sunday. The 65-year-old delivered an ode to freedom and international solidarity interspersed with swipes at his rivals, particularly conservative Fillon, who is a former prime minister.

Le Pen from the National Front is leading the polls. She proposes France’s exit from the European Union and voices concerns about security and immigration. She is followed closely by Macron, whose newly-founded En Marche (Forward) Party is described by its president as neither “the right nor the left.” Macron, who had several posts in Hollande’s government, pursues the pro-European policies of outgoing President Hollande.

Culled from Presstv

Father Benedict XVI, A Friend of Jesus Christ

17/04/2017

On April 18, 2005, two days after he had just celebrated his 78^th birthday, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger delivered the homily Pro Eligendo Romano Pontifice to the College of Cardinals gathered at St. Peter’s Basilica, Rome. As Dean of the College of Cardinals, it was Ratzinger’s responsibility to highlight to his brother cardinals some spiritual yardsticks that could guide their discernment as they entered into conclave to elect Peter’s Successor. While the buzz word of Ratzinger’s masterful homily became his denunciation of what he styled the “dictatorship of relativism,” the central nexus of Ratzinger’s homily, I believe, lay elsewhere. He was not a prophet of doom unleashing canons of denunciation on culture, but a lover who was eager to share the love of his life, Jesus Christ, because he was convinced that encountering Jesus of Nazareth was a more liberating and joyful experience than atheistic secularism could offer. In other words, the central nexus of Ratzinger’s homily was an invitation into a friendship with Jesus Christ.

Commenting on the Gospel text from John, I no longer speak of you as slaves (…). Instead, I call you friends” (Jn 15: 15), Ratzinger identifies two essential qualities regarding friendship with Jesus Christ: Firstly, there are no secrets between friends, evidenced by Christ entrusting the body of his Church into the hands of weak mortals, in this context, those charged with the solemn responsibility of electing the Bishop of Rome. Christ has made known to them the knowledge of God. He has made known to them everything he has learnt from his Father. Above all, he has entrusted the mysteries, the sacramental economy into their hands. We speak in his name, “This is my Body;” “I absolve you from your sins;” etc. Because the Lord has made us his friends, we have been invited into his power, into his relationship with the Father, so that from this encounter and intimacy, we become active agents of bringing about God’s liberating love to our world that is so much in need of God’s love, and yet often unconscious of this need. The second reading that Ratzinger gives to friendship with Jesus is the communion of wills: idem velle – idem nolle, same likes, and same dislikes: “You are my friends if you do what I command you” (Jn 15: 14). To be a friend of Jesus is to allow one’s discernment and consciousness to be shaped by Jesus Christ. It is to love what Jesus loves. It is to strive to live daily God’s will. I cannot be a friend of Jesus if my choices, preferences and likes contradict the manifest and revealed will of Jesus. For Ratzinger therefore, I am a friend of Jesus if I am completely open and transparent with Jesus, and daily seek to live a Christ-like life.

As Benedict XVI, Joseph Ratzinger developed this theme of friendship with Jesus Christ especially in his homilies at priestly ordinations in which he presided as Bishop of Rome. To be a friend of Jesus Christ invites one into a greater intimacy of knowledge and communion, for friendship demands intimacy and knowledge. Father Benedict’s new ministry of prayer on behalf of the whole Church certainly mirrors to us his fondness and intimacy with Jesus of Nazareth, the love of Benedict’s life.

To be a friend of Jesus Christ as seen in the life of Benedict XVI, clearly has an ecclesial dimension. How could it be otherwise in Joseph Ratzinger! As Benedict himself said in his Chrism Mass Homily in 2008, “being friends with Jesus is par excellence always friendship with his followers. We can be friends of Jesus only in communion with the whole Christ, with the Head and with the Body; in the vigorous vine of the Church to which the Lord gives life.” Friendship with Jesus Christ is friendship with the Church of Jesus Christ, because owing to the intrinsic link between the Church and Christ, the community of the Church is not an accidental product of time that could perhaps have emerged in its concreteness in a later time that was unrelated to Christ.

Friendship with Jesus Christ likewise implies modelling one’s life after the hypostatic union of Christ, not primarily in terms of the union between Jesus’ humanity and divinity as taught by Council of Ephesus in 431, but in the sense of the identification of mission and person in Jesus of Nazareth. In Jesus, person and mission coincide, to the extent that to be a friend of Christ is to radically orient one’s life in a pragmatic, existential manner that is caught up in the never completely discernable transcendence that defines and shapes the openness with God, with Christ as the model of mission and person. In large part, Benedict’s deep sense of the symbolic, of a “disposable” anthropology is built on the conviction that his life is simply a standing for Another, a “representative” of Another, a being-in-reference to Another, a symbolic intercommunication meant to keep the window of the world open to the refreshing and life-giving breeze of God.

Because Benedict believes that mission cannot be severed from person, what mattered was not his own person as Joseph Aloysius Ratzinger. He had responded to the call of the Lord as a priest, and the consequence of that response was to cease to live for himself. His life in the horizontalization of priestly ministry was a reflection of the verticalization that took precedence and shaped the resultant person-outcome of Joseph Ratzinger.Like his mentor, Augustine of Hippo, Benedict’s fruitful priestly life was a search for the face of his friend, Jesus Christ, as he himself wrote in the introduction into his trilogy on Jesus – a classic that will be with the Church for ages to come. And still following Augustine, Benedict, as is evident from his Last Testament, found himself, in finding Jesus. It became clear to this Son of Bavaria, with the passage of time, that he was not the only one searching, but Jesus was searching for him as well, even antecedent to Benedict’s conscious search for the Lord. Benedict discerned an aprioriness of love which his friend, Jesus, had for him, a realization that led him to see love as the very being of God. Jesus Christ is the a priori fundamental ground of Ratzinger’s a posteriori discovery and knowledge of himself.

With Augustine, his theological and spiritual master, Benedict discerned his life as a gift of love, and he was certain that God’s love will never abandon him, since God had fashioned everything in measure, weight and number (Wisdom 11:20). The search for God, for the face of the love of his life, – quaerere Deum, became for Joseph Ratzinger, a bedrock of genuine anthropology. Christology, as a systematic treatment of the person and work of Jesus, was not his intention, as Benedict forcefully wrote in the Foreword to the second volume of his trilogy on Jesus, for the simple reason that Christology, notwithstanding the gains made by the historical-critical method,is often subjected to a sterile demythologization and conceptualization sounding verbalism in which Jesus of Nazareth becomes someone left in the past, perhaps in stacks of university libraries. Benedict’s sole desire was not a systematization of Jesus, but to make his friend known and loved, because he had arrived at the certainty that the brokenness that was plaguing the lives of so many post-modern men and women was a desperate cry for help that could only be met by the loving encounter with Jesus of Nazareth. To know Jesus of Nazareth was to enter into the open future of God that is transformative of the present. It was not mere coincidence that when Benedict visited his homeland, his theme for his apostolic visit to Germany was, Where there is God, there is a Future! The subtle implication could not be ignored: Where there is no God, perhaps there is no future!

When Joseph Ratzinger found himself in finding Jesus of Nazareth what did he see? We can dare a response to this question by looking into his spiritual memoirs, his trilogy on Jesus of Nazareth, which should be seen as the unmistakable public testament of Ratzinger’s long friendship with Jesus. Clearly at the evening of is earthly life, Ratzinger, like the Samaritan Woman in John’s Gospel, felt the greatest good he could do to the world was to invite the village of the world to come to the well of Jesus and drink, so that we will never be thirsty again. Rather than settle for the mediocre, the minimal, and lesser waters away from Christ, that is, the shallow waters of egoism; of a life lived for the narrow vision of the self. Standing by Jacob’s well, we suddenly realize that it is not the well that is deep and us having no cistern to draw from the well. The real well is Jesus, and the water he gives to quench our thirst is the friendship with him. Little wonder that the Samaritans begged him to stay longer in their town!

In the first volume of Jesus of Nazareth, Benedict runs through the classical Christological designations of Jesus: Kyrios; Son of God; Son of Man; Son; and the I Am. But given that he himself is clearly not eager to designate his work as a Christological text, we must look elsewhere to get a better appreciation of what Joseph Ratzinger’s long life-search had found. And that brings us to the second volume, in which Ratzinger himself writes in the foreword, that it is “only in this second volume do we encounter the decisive sayings and events of Jesus’ life (…) I hope that I have been granted an insight into the figure of our Lord that can be helpful to all readers who seek to encounter Jesus and to believe in him.” For a man who has always read into the fact that his birth took place on Holy Saturday, a symbolic sign of the Church that though longing for the light and hope of the Risen Lord, is not yet there, Easter for Benedict is the real defining moment of his quest for his friend, Jesus of Nazareth. His friend is the Risen One! This is the quintessential Ratzingerian characterization of Jesus of Nazareth. Why? Because hope in the present and for the future is borne from the Risen One, and without hope, the human being has nothing to live for, and life becomes a meaningless, boring routine. The Risen One is the central theological metaphor for Joseph Ratzinger because it is about hope and the future that informs, humanizes and divinizes the present.

This is significant because Joseph Ratzinger is a thorough Augustinian who believes in a broken human nature, a broken world, in which the battle between the two loves of the City of God and the City of men and women is a tangible, unending reality. With the eyes of Easter, Ratzinger is able to diagnose the cure for the malady of what Pascal trenchantlynamed as diversion and indifference, that not only is eroding the humanity of men and women, but also depriving us of the meaning and joy of life, to the extent that men and women now live with little or no sense of the future. Perhaps as we celebrate Father Benedict XVI’s ninetieth birthday tomorrow, April 16, 2017, in gratitude to God for the unique gift of this man, this priest, this bishop, this genius of a mind, this unassuming, meek and shy friend of Jesus Christ, it is important to still pay attention to what this friend of Jesus Christ is telling us about his friend: “Jesus’ Resurrection was about breaking out into an entirely new form of life, into a life that is no longer subject to the law of dying and becoming, but lies beyond it – a life that opens up a new dimension of human existence – an “evolutionary leap.” In Jesus’ Resurrection, a new possibility of human existence is attained that affects everyone and that opens up a future, a new kind of future, for mankind. Christ’s Resurrection is either a universal event, or it is nothing (1 Cor. 15:16, 20). And only if we understand it as a universal event, as the opening of a new dimension of human existence, are we on the way toward any kind of correct understanding of the New Testament Resurrection testimony. Jesus has not entered normal human life like Lazarus and the others whom Jesus raised from the dead. He has entered upon a different life, a new life – he has entered the vast breadth of God himself, and it is from there that he reveals himself to his followers” (Jesus of Nazareth, Vol. II, 244 -245). Finally, we now know what Benedict found in finding Jesus: A “new kind of life;” a vast “breadth of God himself”! Jesus has not kept this “new life” from his Ratzinger his friend, precisely because there are no secrets between friends, and Ratzinger, by submitting his will to Jesus, entered into the same likes and dislikes of his friend, Jesus the Nazarene. With immense gratitude and uplifted hearts, we thank you, Father Benedict, for your eloquent communication of this “new kind of life” to us. Vergelt’s Gott, Father Benedict!

By Maurice Ashley Agbaw-Ebai (AMDG)

Biya Francophone regime creates a Consortium of Parents, Appoints senior army officials as leaders

17/04/2017

The Francophone regime in Yaoundé reportedly taking the last kicks of a dying horse has created an obscure organization known as the Consortium of Parents headed by highly placed military officers. The group announced its existence recently by dragging Southern Cameroon Roman Catholic Bishops, Principals and Reverend Sisters to a court in the Bamenda province.

Local media reports say Archbishop Cornelius Esua, Bishop George Nkou together with the Principals of Sacred Heart College Mankon, Saint Bede’s College, Ashing-Kom, Our Lady of Lourdes, Mankon and the President of Bamenda Episcopal Conference, BAPEC, have all been summoned for crimes alleged by parents whose children are in various Roman Catholic Schools. The Consortium of Parents is demanding the sum of 150.000.000 FCFA as special and general damages.

The hierarchy of the Bamenda Ecclesiastic Province has confirmed the news and added that they received a direct summons from the a group calling itself the Consortium of Parents to appear before the Bamenda Court of First Instance on Friday the 21^st of April, 2017.

In a release, the Bishops said the so-called Consortium of Parents was acting through a certain Colonel Tamambang and Lt. Colonel Terence SAMA both of whom are unknown to the Roman Catholic Church in Southern Cameroons. A senior Roman Catholic prelate was quoted as saying the summons and entire process might have a hidden commanding hand from the regime in Yaoundé.

By Sama Ernest

Dr. Boniface Forbin: Exit of a journalistic Icon

16/04/2017

Dr. Boniface Forbin has met his end in his home in Yaoundé. The circumstances surrounding his death have not been made public by his family. The publisher-editor’s death may not be separated from The Herald Newspaper. Former newsmen and women including the Herald People have observed that at the inception of multiparty politics in Cameroon, relations between the Herald and the Biya administration took a nose-drive and the Herald Group took an unfriendly view of the regime (e. g, Biya’s fictitious anti-corruption campaign). Such became the unfolding of fishing in trouble waters…

Forbin resigned from the defunct Cameroon Airlines and started The Herald Newspaper. He understood that media freedom was better in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and North Korea than in Cameroon. He successfully taught Anglophone journalists the difficulty of being a reporter in Francophone dominated Cameroon.

Forbin and his kinsman Asong Ndifor invested time in training young correspondents on the challenge for Journalism in Cameroon. Forbin had the support of Napoleon Viban and men like Dr. Joachim Arrey, the late Kum Set Ewin, Peter Ngea Mbeng, Tabe Paul Blondo, Ekinneh Agbaw-Ebai, Gerald Ndikum and the Herald Newspaper told the world that the story of the press in Cameroon was that of persecution and perseverance and closure of newspapers, often without an enabling law.

Forbin declared his unflinching support for the Publisher of the Cameroon Post Group, Paddy Mbawa over the Epey Mandengue Affair. Paddy Mbawa had been flogged, head shaved with broken glass and photos published by some sister Anglophone newspapers for 30 pieces of silver. Forbin stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the wives of journalists who suffered persecution. He was in a Douala hospital to see the wife of the late Pius Njawe who lost her baby after her husband was forced out of their home and taken to the New Bell prison.

He told this reporter when he joined the Herald from the Weekly Post that “When you really want to expose human rights abuses in Cameroon… it becomes more dangerous.” Rest in peace Doc

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

Brexit: Number of British citizens applying for Irish passports surges by two-thirds

16/04/2017

The number of British citizens applying for Irish passports has increased by more than two-thirds, Ireland’s Foreign Minister Charlie Flanagan says, attributing it in part to Brexit. “It’s reasonable to suggest that Brexit is a factor in what are record numbers of applications,” Flanagan stated on Saturday while expressing concerns on the impact of the UK’s impending pullout from the European Union, The Guardian reported.

“I think it’s also reasonable to assume that there are large numbers of people of Irish descent who now feel that they would like to remain as EU citizens in what is a changing time in relations between Ireland and the UK,” he added.

According to the report, the Irish foreign ministry announced that 51,079 people from Great Britain and Northern Ireland applied for passports in the first quarter of 2017, compared with 30,303 during the same period the previous year. It further received 250,000 passport applications from across the world in the same quarter.

Flanagan further stated, “I am very concerned about the impact of the UK’s withdrawal from the EU on our economy here in Ireland, and I am really anxious to make sure the Good Friday agreement is not disturbed.”

Under the Good Friday agreement, the 1.8 million people resident in Northern Ireland are entitled to Irish and EU citizenship. “I am saddened that the UK is leaving the EU formally, but I of course very much accept the desire and will of the majority in the UK,” added the top Irish diplomat.

Flanagan also pointed out that less than four days after the Brexit vote last June, there had been a surge in applications because of a “sense of concern.” This is while application from the UK for Irish passports climbed by 83% in the three months after the referendum.

Ireland’s foreign ministry, the report said, is hiring extra staff and has launched an online passport renewal service to handle the number of applications.

Source: Presstv

Taking the last kicks of a dying horse: Biya regime drags Roman Catholic clergies to court

16/04/2017

The Biya Francophone government through the Bamenda Court of First Instance has summoned Bishops Cornelius Fontem ESUA, Bishop Michael, Bishop George NKOU, Fathers Michael KINTANG and Williams Neba for statements and releases made during the heart of the Anglophone crisis which according to the regime have paralyzed activities in schools.

In a summon with seven counts handed to the defendants, the complainant is accusing the Roman Catholic clergy men of failing to ask parents to send their children to school despite collecting school fees from them, causing confusion and persistently refraining from performing duties which are to teach children which according to the Francophone government is an offence contrary to and punishable under section 151 of the Penal Code.

Archbishop Cornelius Fontem ESUA and Bishop George NKOU after a meeting signed a release indicating that the non resumption of school was as a result of the Anglophone crisis. They are equally accused of causing the nonpayment of salaries of teachers in Mission schools for several months now an offence contrary to and punishable under section 183(2) of the Penal Code.

Other counts include release of Communiqué which propagated false information and puts national Unity in danger among others. The Civil Claimant is therefore claiming the sum of 150.000.000 FCF5, One Hundred and Fifty Millions Francs CFA for special and general damages from the Catholic Church which is the employer of the accused. They are expected to appear at the Bamenda Court of First Instance on April 21, 2017 by 9am.

Source: Cameroun Info.Net

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