Official Ambazonia (Anglophone Cameroon) thread

[DrBanneker]

Cameroon's national day Sunday was marked by violence in its troubled English-speaking region, with two policemen killed, soldiers wounded and a mayor kidnapped by suspected armed separatists.


In the capital, Yaounde, in central Cameroon, President Paul Biya, who has ruled since 1982, presided over a public show of the country's military might.

But in the English-speaking town of Bangem in southwest Cameroon, the mayor, Ekuh Simon, was kidnapped. In a video shared by suspected armed separatists Simon said he and his deputy were kidnapped by separatists for planning independence celebrations. He said he is being held hostage by the Ambazonia Restoration Forces that had said the national day should not be celebrated.

 

[The Odum of Ala Igbo]

Can the Cameroonian military launch kinetic operations against both Boko Haram and these insurgents? Will they pull troops out of the Northern region?

 

[DrBanneker]

Can the Cameroonian military launch kinetic operations against both Boko Haram and these insurgents? Will they pull troops out of the Northern region?

Good questions. The Ambazonians seem to be exploiting their distraction to launch raids. At what point does Biya decide Ambazonians are the real threat?

I am thinking the hit back is going to come soon though. Biya isn't going to allow this to fester much longer.

 

[DrBanneker]

YAOUNDE (Reuters) - More than two dozen people have been killed in one of Cameroon’s Anglophone regions, local sources said on Saturday, although the exact circumstances of their deaths were not immediately clear.

The incident in the town of Menka in Cameroon’s Northwest Region is one of the deadliest since armed secessionists from the English-speaking minority launched an insurrection last year against the predominantly Francophone central government.

Agbor Balla Nkongho, a local human rights lawyer and activist, told Reuters that at least 34 bodies were found on Friday in Menka. He declined to say who had killed them.

Another local source who visited Menka on Saturday and asked not to be named said she saw a total of 29 bodies, including three outside a school, riddled with gunshot wounds. Some were women and others boys as young as 13, she said.

The bodies “are rotting already and reek,” she said.

Army spokesman Colonel Didier Badjeck said in a statement to local media that government troops surrounded a hotel in Menka on Friday morning after they were tipped off to the presence of separatist rebels.

A long firefight ensued and “several terrorists were neutralized”, Badjeck said, without providing further details.

A representative for the separatists did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

 

[Turk]

Paul Biya is a piece of shyt. fukk him and France for keeping him in power.

 

[DrBanneker]

Cameroon’s anglophone war, part 1: A rifle as the only way out

Great videos in the article as well interviewing fighters and refugees.

Emmanuel Freudenthal recently became the first journalist to spend time with an anglophone armed group, trekking for a week with them in the sun and rain, across rivers and up steep hills, through dark rainforests and fields of giant grass. In this two-part series, he explores the make-up and motivation of the Ambazonia Defense Forces, and how the civil war brewing in Cameroon is changing the lives of fighters, civilians, and refugees.

Before the army destroyed his village and killed his three brothers, Abang was a farmer and an electrician. Today, he’s one of hundreds of anglophone men fighting with hunting rifles and magical amulets against the US- and French-trained Cameroonian army in an attempt to win independence for a new country they call Ambazonia.

According to the leader of the Ambazonia Defense Forces, Cho Ayaba, his group has 1,500 active soldiers spread over more than 20 camps throughout anglophone Cameroon.

Over the course of a week, IRIN met combatants from several camps and saw about 100 fighters in total. The ADF appears to be the main armed group operating in anglophone Cameroon. Their equipment is poor – they wear flip-flops rather than combat boots.

These guys don't seem to be armed well too

Around his neck, Abang carries what he calls, with a smirk, a monkey gun. It’s a hunting rifle made in Nigeria. To load it is cumbersome: you twist a screw under the barrel so the gun snaps open in the middle, push a cartridge inside the chamber, click the rifle back into place, and finally twist the screw to lock it.

Abang carries half a dozen red hunting cartridges tucked into a belt around his waist. He can’t afford more than that. None of the ADF men in Abang’s camp have assault rifles; the entire rebel army appears to have barely a dozen of them.

 

[Turk]

 

[The Odum of Ala Igbo]

The BBC is reporting on this but they remained quiet when the Nigerian military killed hundreds in Kaduna, Imo, Anambra and Delta States while detaining thousands.

The BBC is trying to undermine French Africa, of course. But French and German media organizations LOVE reporting on Biafra related killings.

 

[DrBanneker]

The BBC is reporting on this but they remained quiet when the Nigerian military killed hundreds in Kaduna, Imo, Anambra and Delta States while detaining thousands.

The BBC is trying to undermine French Africa, of course. But French and German media organizations LOVE reporting on Biafra related killings.

Pretty much. Post the genocide, they kicked the French influence out of the Rift Valley and almost the Congo itself. Though I don't think Nigeria is keen on destabilizing Cameroon and supporting seccession, even if the rebels are English speaking. They already extradited the main leadership to Biya's tender care.

 

[Turk]

 

[The Odum of Ala Igbo]

 

[DrBanneker]

Separatists attack Minister of Defense's convoy, 10 dead

These guys are bold despite having poor armament...

 

[///Vega+++]

subs

 

[DrBanneker]

subs

See first post...

 

[T'krm]

I have no dog in this fight and am pushing no agenda but as this rebellion seems to be growing it probably deserves its own thread.

Sorry for the long post but I wanted to at least outline the basics.

First a bit of prologue.

After the Congress of Berlin, Germany got a big chunk of Central/West Africa called Cameroon. It was originally named that by Portuguese explorers due to the multitude of shrimp they found there (camarão).

Of course WWI happened and Cameroon went to the allies (UK and France). France administered most of it but a few small provinces neighboring Nigeria (northern and southern Cameroons) were administered as part of Nigeria

German language pretty much died out in Cameroon, Tanzania, and Namibia so the British parts were anglicized and the French parts became Francophone. Fast forward to independence for Nigeria in 1960. The Cameroon territories are put under trust and decide which direction they want to take. North Cameroons votes to join Nigeria where they are today and South Cameroons votes to join Francophone Cameroon in 1961. The form of government was a federation of West Cameroon (old Southern Cameroon) and East Cameroon (old French Cameroon).

This marriage was about to get rocky though. President Ahmadou Babatoura Ahidjo, who had been prez since independence, proposed a referendum on reconfiguring the state in 1972. It is claimed the English and French questions on the ballot were worded deceptively differently. Even stranger, the referendum passed with 99.99% for the unified state. This dissolved the federalist structure in 1972. Ahidjo had offered federalism to the southern Cameroonians in part so they would opt not to join Nigeria like the north Cameroonians, but this was now gone.

From the perspective of the West Cameroonians, this was betrayal of the founding deal of Cameroon. Ahidjo gave mostly lip service to the federation from the start and seemed comfortable banning it after power was cemented and the one-party state established.

From the perspective of East Cameroonians, the West was trying to create a binary state, not a singular unified identity as Cameroonians that transcended language and regional culture. Emmanuel Endeley, one of the first prominent South Cameroonian politicians, had at first wanted to push out French speaking Cameroonians before elections so that South Cameroon could become independent or part of Nigeria. He later joined the political elite of a united Cameroon though in the opposition with John Foncha, another South Cameroonian politician (who served as prime minister of West Cameroon and Vice President of Cameroon) until Ahidjo created a one party state incorporating them.

Things slowly moved on until the new (and still) president Paul Biya (Africa's longest reigning head of state now Mugabe is gone) changed the country name from the United Republic of Cameroon to the Republic of Cameroon in 1982. This dispensed even more with a pretense of federalism and centralized the state even more.

John Foncha among others formed the All Anglophone Conference in 1993 to protest these moves and demand greater autonomy for English speaking areas. In 1994 the organization became the Southern Cameroons National Council. Foncha and others went to the UN to plead their case for autonomy but apparently after seeing no progress the SCNC decided to push for secession instead of autonomy. The organization was declared illegal in 2001.

Ambazonia flag

Ambazonia Area

So without going into detail about all the other accusations by each side we can get to the root of the current violence.

In late 2016 a group of Anglophone lawyers set up a protest march against what they saw as the sidelining of common law (British tradition) in West Cameroon in favor of the French style system. They were apparently violently repressed (whether on official orders or just bad soldiers it is not clear). A teacher strike followed this claiming English education was being sidelined by Biya's government.

Following this students at University of Buea and National Polytechnic Bambliin the region protested and they were put down, some being arrested and tortured. Youths in other areas protested were killed.

Following calls by a prominent lawyer, Felix Agbor Balla, and civil groups (notably Balla's new group
Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium(CACSC)) for return to the federation, on a New Year speech in 2017 Paul Biya called the protestors violent terrorists and extremists and began repression of their activities. He also did put in place some measures to support billingualism through a national commission and hiring 1,000 bilingual teachers in technical subjects. However, the slide had begun.

In response Balla and others initiated Operation Ghost Town Resistance where West Cameroonians stayed home Monday and Tuesday to protest conditions and pretty much stop business and government from functioning. No CACSC is banned and Balla and others are arrested. Cameroon also cut Internet to large parts of West Cameroon.

As always, once the moderates are gone, more strident elements take control and the lead group is now
The Southern Cameroons Ambazonia Consortium United Front (SCACUF) under the leadership of Sisiku Julius Ayuktebe, a former exec at Cisco and CIO of the American University in Nigeria, who was the interim president of "Ambazonia", the chosen name of the hoped-for independent West Cameroon. However, he was arrested by Nigeria in January and deported to Cameroon with other separatists in late February. The new leader is now Sako Ikome Samuel.

Also the Ambazonia Defense Forces (ADF) lead by Lucas Cho Ayaba also emerged and is running guerrilla tactics against the Cameroonian Army. It is unclear to me if the two are definitely linked and it seems at least Ayuktebe didn't openly promote violence. Sako Ikome Samuel is now declaring an era of "self-defense and communal defense" so the two may be linked more closely now.

So we have open insurgency now in West Cameroon. How many West Cameroonians support SCACUF or ADF is unclear. Many seem to be fed up with what they perceive as marginalization. Many other Cameroonians (East and West) feel however this movement is destroying the prospect of a multicultural, united Cameroon. Some even point out that the two areas were ethnically linked before the imperialists.

Either way this could be interesting. The Anglophone diaspora seems to be involved but otherwise I don't know where the funds are coming from.

Comments and clarifications welcome.