Politics

The New Judicial Year opened last February 22, 2017 during a solemn ceremony at the Supreme Court without a word being mentioned on the arrest and detention of super scale Magistrate, Ayah Paul Abine who is also Advocate General at the Supreme Court. His arrest and detention is highly criticized by legal professionals as haven been carried out in gross violation of the law. Incarcerated at the Secretariat of State for Defense, SED, Justice Ayah Paul Abine is yet to be judged as charges are also yet to be levied against him.
Another key point that the public hoped could be addressed at the solemn opening of the New Judicial Year in Cameroon was the grounding of court cases in the North West and South West Regions of the country since the outbreak of Common Law Lawyers strike last November 21, 2016 demanding the redeployment of Civil Law Magistrates to Civil Law zones and Common Law Magistrates to Common Law zones, the creation of a special department at the Supreme Court to hear cases in the Common law domain, the creation of Common Law department in the National School of Administration and Magistracy, ENAM etc.

As stipulated by section 33 of law No. 2006/16 of December 2006 to lay down the organization and function of the Supreme Court, the official opening of the judicial year was marked by two key speeches; that of the Chief Justice, Daniel Mekobe Sone and that of the Attorney General, Luc Ndjodo who earlier made submissions.

In his submission, the Attorney General of the Supreme Court, Luc Ndjodo presented considerations on issues of human rights notably the protection of freedoms by public authority. He stated both national and international legal instruments that protect freedoms of individuals in Cameroon adding that a commission has been created at the Supreme Court to rule on claims for compensation in case of reparation damages suffered by victims of unlawful loss of liberty.

On his part, Chief Justice Daniel Mekobe Sone delivered a speech on the theme "The resurgence of private justice and the rule of law in Cameroon.” Decrying that there has been a resurgence of many forms of private justice which threatens the essence of the rule of law, the Chief Justice stressed that such a situation cannot be tolerated in a democratic country governed by the rule of law as problems ought to be resolved within the ambit of the law.
The Supreme Court Head thus called on citizens to bring all actions before the courts rather than taking the laws in their hands through violence.

The official opening of the new judicial year was also attended by the Speaker of the National Assembly, Hon Cavaye Yiguié Djibril, Vice President of the Senate, Genevieve Tjoues representing the President of the Senate, Prime Minister, Head of Government, Philemon Yang and a college of Cabinet Ministers, the President of the Economic and Social Council, Luc Ayang, CPDM Central Committee Secretary General, Jean Nkuete, CDU National President, Adamou Ndam Njoya, ELECAM Board Chairman, Samuel Fonkam Azu'u, Bar Council President, Ngnie Kamga and Bar General Assembly President Barrister Nico Halle.

The Sun

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Rita Akana

28.Feb.2017

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In recent days, a wave of hysterical abuse has been raining down on Cameroon’s minister of water and power, Basile Atangana Kouna, for the Beti-heavy list of candidates admitted for training in his ministry as solar power technicians and engineers. The outrage is bipartisan, coming in equal measure from the Beti elite, who are incensed that by publishing this list of Beti-only candidates, he has given more ammunition to the West Cameroon Resistance to attack a regime that’s already on the ropes. Mathias Eric Owona Nguini, a Beti university don, calls it a “list of shame that has shocked all the regions of the country, including the Beti regions.” The newspaper “L’Emergance “ angrily accused the minister of attempting to destabilize the regime.

The list has indeed shocked most Francophones, as it provides further irrefutable evidence to bolster the case West Cameroonians have been making for weeks. Namely, that the entire system has been rigged to favor the tribe in power and the Francophones have supinely accepted it.

The shock and outrage being expressed by the rest of the francophone regions shows that a light bulb has finally gone on in their brains. Biya and his gang realize this and are beginning to panic. Such lists are a common practice in government ministries, even those supposedly run by West Cameroonians who so fear losing their perches and perquisites that they dare not even include the names of their own siblings who might have performed better in the selection examinations.

In an interview with a local paper on Wednesday, Minister Kouna said these candidates were being recruited to work in their regions only (Center and South) and that recruitment in the other regions would follow that model to take account of language, availability and cultural practices.

If you believe him, then I have a bridge over the Menchum Falls to sell to you, cheap.
But what he intimated would make eminent sense if only it were true. It would mean that we should have had our own teacher training colleges (or ‘normal schools’ in English*), training local men and women to teach in their towns or villages of origin. You would get true commitment from these teachers and better results from their schools. The same would hold true for the other professions – police, nurses, doctors, etc. In the same vein, we would elect our own local governments (the chimera in the 20 year-old “Decentralization Law”) from governors to village councils. That is actually the old West Cameroon model.

But back to that light bulb that is stealing the sleep from the gilded rooms in Etoudi. There is a growing chorus of ordinary Francophones raising their voices in strident support of our cause. From call-in shows on French radio and television networks to online forums and street demonstrations, the Francophones are following the lead of West Cameroonians. There’s even a demonstration planned for Paris, France – France! – this week to support our cause.

Recent history shows us that it is nothing new for West Cameroonians to show the way in that benighted republic and many Francophones now readily concede that. I still remember back in the late 80s and early 90s when we had to fight with these people to get their children to wear uniforms to school. All their school children used to look like street urchins. They finally succumbed to our logic but resented us for it for years because we were right all along.

In an online video doing the rounds these days, francophone lawyer Jean de Dieu Momo is giving his East Cameroon brethren a tutorial in the leadership West Cameroonians have exhibited since independence. He points out that the ‘office de baccalaureat’ came about thanks to our fight for an independent GCE board (which we have partly lost back thanks to Anglophone government stooges). Momo reminds everyone that the multiparty system, many of whose numerous well-fed leaders now shout about ‘national unity,’ was only achieved when John Fru Ndi and a band of intrepid young West Cameroonians marched from Ntarikon to City Chemist Roundabout and were fired on by francophone gendarmes, killing six of them.

This is the kind of history Biya does not want Francophones to be reminded of, for fear that it could be contagious.

There are signs that the regime has become practically paralyzed by fear, given the very unorthodox methods of the West Cameroonian peaceful resistance movement. That the ruling CPDM party has been effectively banned from Bamenda by popular fiat; that the usually reliable tactic of diving our two provinces has failed abjectly this time, with Musonge and his jingoistic elite being booed out of Buea; that Philemon Yang and Paul Atanga Nji are basically persona non gratae anywhere in West Cameroon now, was already troubling enough.

But what must be giving the regime true nightmares was the shocking spectacle in Bamenda on Wednesday, February 22. That was when a company of soldiers in military trucks from Yaounde paraded the streets of the city with the newly won African Cup of Nations and basically no one came out to see them. And if you want further proof that CRTV has sunk to the depths of journalistic depravity, you would notice that the newscasts of that Wednesday evening didn’t mention the Cup visit to Bamenda. Because of this alone, you can ignore the photo shopped pictures now making the rounds of the internet, showing adoring crowds welcoming the cup in Bamenda as the fakes they really are.
This is the stuff of waking nightmares for the regime. As we say at home, football is Biya’s ‘final joker,’ the magic bullet, the stuff he has used the most to perpetuate his rule over the years. He uses it as the prime drug, the ‘opium of the people,’ dispensed to the country in large doses during periods of extreme crisis, to keep the population subdued. It has always worked. So to see it fail so spectacularly is stomach churning for the regime.
If they were any wiser they should have seen this coming after Victoria turned its back on the Women’s Cup matches. But they never learn.

They still cannot come to terms with a defiant population that ignores presidential decrees, government edicts, ministerial decisions and governors’ orders. They probably thought they could outwait us or find a balm to salve the wounds of a West Cameroon tired of strikes, ghost towns and unschooled children. The Nations’ Cup, they thought, would begin to break down the resistance. They thought wrong. Maybe now they begin to understand what we mean. We are fed up and we won’t take it anymore. And the people are just, for the most part, peacefully staying in their homes.

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Rita Akana

26.Feb.2017

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The government through its propaganda media house, CRTV has just disputed claims that 2017 has been declared a blank  year in Cameroon,in the midst of the socio-political crisis in the anglophone regions of the country.

In a statement released last Friday, Youssouf Hadidja Alim,Cameroon's  Minister of  Basic Education of Base, and president of the National Commission of Cameroon for Unesco, indicated that the anglophone crisis can not cause a blank year in Cameroon.

According to the Minister, examinations will take place as scheduled in all anglophone and francophone subsystems.

The Minister went ahead to denounce claims circulating on social media that the school year has been declared blank as "malicious".

According to UNESCO rules , when certain hours of the school year are not covered, the school year could be declared Blank.
Schools have been closed for months now in the Northwest and Southwest regions of Cameroon.

Meanwhile the Anglophone consortium says the school year has already been declared blank.The consortium writes:

1. There would be no GCE in Southern Cameroons and eventually no one in La Republique will take the exams.
2. The school year is blank already. La Republique is keeping this from its people. All those few Francophones running to have classes in UBa, UB etc, you are wasting a big time because certificates this academic year from the Cameroons would not be recognised.
3. The government continued push for schools to resume is a way to keep french cameroun from rising and down playing the unity of the country that Southern Cameroonians have punctured. The government has been in a series of lies telling.
What do we do now? As advised by our UN contacts we must continue the pressure so that the UN fact finding mission comes in. We must make sure Ghost towns on Mondays and Tuesdays are effective till the end of the month when it shall be reviewed and all schools must remain closed plus other actions such as taxes boycott.
Our parents should occupy the kids home to learn other skills, do some community work.
This is a struggle that needs patience and sacrifice thus let's all communicate back home to our families. Special caution to the Francophones who are currently sabotaging this struggle.
This is a winning struggle and our current action hurts La Republique.

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Rita Akana

26.Feb.2017

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Cham Formoukum

26.Feb.2017

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Harmony Bobga Mbuton, president of Cameroon’s North West Lawyers Association, returned to The Stream on Al Jazeera this week, just over two months since the show originally explored the protests among his country’s English-speaking communities, who claim French-speaking President Paul Biya’s government is treating them as second-class citizens.

The Stream host Femi Oke says that, since that show, “The government of Cameroon has pulled the plug on the internet and banned public gatherings in the regions fraught with tensions. What started as strikes for bilingualism in the Northwest and Southwest territories have revealed very deep political divides that spread beyond language, culture and geography.”

On The Stream in December, Issa Tchiroma Bakary, the Minister of Communications, promised negotiations but Mbuton says these broke down quickly. “In fact, I was part of the negotiations that ensued and took place in Yaounde on 27-28 December 2016. The government had constructed the questions that had to be dealt with in the negotiation to suit their own purpose. We walked out of the dialogue and the next thing we heard was that they started arresting us, which is what forced me to flee from Cameroon, through Nigeria to here [Washington DC] now.”

Mbuton’s wife and children are still in Cameroon, where he says, “The situation is bad,” comparing it to “what happened in Rwanda when the genocide began.”

He claims that people are being arrested and taken away, with their families unable to find out where. “It is tipping into the point where the population is saying that even with their empty hands and sticks, they are ready to start providing resistance to protect themselves.”

The media and internet blackout makes it difficult to verify claims like this; as Mbuton says, the internet ban has meant “that the government has operated behind the curtains because there is no easy access to information within the territory anymore.”

Mbuton says people are using smartphones to send images and information out to the world by traveling to the French-speaking parts of Cameroon where there is still internet, “but it’s not flowing as it was.“

 Since the protests began nearly four months ago, Biya has signed a decree establishing a national commission to promote bilingualism and has addressed protesters several times in major speeches. At least several hundred protesters have been arrested. Some are being tried for terrorism for allegedly calling for secession of the Anglophone regions. They could face the death penalty if convicted.

Mbuton says the strike is ongoing and international protests are increasing. Even Cameroon’s recent victory at the African Cup of Nations was not enough to unite the country. “The provocative move to go and show off the African Cup that was won by Cameroon was welcomed by ghost towns,” says Mbuton. “People abandoned the streets. Only the entourage from Yaounde was parading the streets – in military vehicles.”

About The Stream

The Stream is a social media community with its own daily TV show on Al Jazeera English. For more information, visit http://stream.aljazeera.com/ or follow @ajstream on social media.

Kevin Kriedemann & Joy Sapieka

PR: Africa

Al Jazeera English

+27(0)83 556 2346 (Kevin)

+27 73 212 5492 (Joy)

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Jazeera English

25.Feb.2017

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A fight for freedom is never a programmed activity. Mistakes are going to be made and people will perish when they least expected. Tempers would flare even amongst those in the war chamber.

It can never be a perfectly executed dance with timed exits and entrances. Every sacrifice is important.The person jailed loses his freedom,the person on the run or in hiding lives in flight and wishes on some days he was already in jail.The person who loses his or her life is at peace but paid the ultimate price.The person actively fighting and receiving stab wounds is in active pain. The people on the ground burying the dead and caring for the wounded are drained of their humanity.

The rest of us watching helplessly on the sidelines carry the burden of the story which we must spread to the four corners of the earth. Please, let us do our part and stop this blame game while posturing with hindsight wisdom. It saps energy from those on the frontlines.

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Rita Akana

25.Feb.2017

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