Human Rights Watch Suspected of Minimising Death Toll in Southern Cameroons War

There is heavy suspiscion that the International Organisation, Human Rights Watch is deliberately underreporting the death toll in the Southern Cameroons War.

Veteran Journalist and Pro-Independence Activist, Ntumfoyn Boh Herbert in an article published on March 28 2019, wonders aloud how the death toll could only be at 170 as reported by Human Rights Watch in its March 27 Report. HRW claims the 170 death is from October 2018.

Can HRW Be Considered Credible?

If we go by the Cameroon government figures of 84 soldiers killed as published in its ‘emergency humanitarian plan’ and the different massacres by Cameroon soldiers, in Pinyin, Buea and other areas it is impossible for only 170 people to have been killed. Majority are of course civilians.

Boh Herbert’s article has credence given that the Biya Regime is noted for bribery and corruption. They even hired fake Transparency International Elections Observers in 2018. 

In the wake of the conflict Yaounde has hired two US lobby firms which are there to defend their dented human rights image. 

Below is the full article.

Is Human Rights Watch on Biya’s Payroll?

By Ntumfoyn Boh Herbert (Yindo Toh)

Human Rights Watch (HRW) is back with more cover up on behalf of the Biya regime, if one judges from the underreporting of civilian fatalities in the latest media reporting citing HRW.

Let me say this again. The international community is working frantically, just as it did in 1959 and 1961, to deny the people of Ambazonia their right to independence. We have to organize better to prevent history from repeating itself.

Before going on to the falsifications outlined in the latest Human Rights Watch, let me remind you of the following facts that show where the world is struggling to go:

•        According to a report submitted to the Cameroonian dictator Paul Biya, the Secretary General of the United Nations committed to use – please, read abuse – his office to cover for the Biya regime. They have been doing a great job so far, including banning Matthew Lee of Inter City Press.

•        The United Nations Human Rights Council is also covering for the Biya regime by claiming, falsely, during the review of HR39 and, more recently, HR40 that the Biya regime had taken action to address rights violations when no action had been taken.

•        Despite the fact that 38 of the 47 countries seated in the United Nations Human Rights Council supported the motion brought before HR40 by 72 human rights organizations calling for the designation of a special rapporteur on human rights on the Cameroons, the UK took over and claimed to speak for these groups of countries by calling instead on Ambazonians to accepted mediated talks without preconditions. This is a position the United States Department of State is also selling.

•        US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs traveled to Cameroon and did not even dare to mention the word “federalism”, electing instead to mention the need for the implementation of the 1996 so-called Constitution regarding decentralization.

Ntumfoyn Boh Herbert : Doubting HRW

•        The Security Council seized itself of the crisis in the Cameroons, thereby taking it away from the General Assembly where it could be determined without a veto to a platform within the UN where France can – all alone – prevent Ambazonia’s sovereignty from ever being cleared.

•        The State Department 2019 Human Rights Report on Cameroon underreported the rights violations of the Biya regime; failing to acknowledge that a war was going on; highlighting figures provided by the Biya regime and telling reporters that the US has been shocked by the pictures/videos they have been receiving from the Biya regime. nothing about the massacres in Ambazonia.

The latest example is not just under-reporting by Human Rights Watch. The New York-based organization is circulating outright falsification of facts about civilian fatalities. It is hard not to think or even conclude that Human Rights Watch is probably on mission on behalf of the Biya regime to bury the self-determination aspirations of Ambazonians.

Let me remind everyone that this is the same organization which last year provided its draft report on rights violations in the Cameroons for the Biya regime to read, in advance, and it would appear, clear before publication. This is the same organization which, in publishing its report, inserted a supplement from the Cameroon government denying accusations of rights violations contained in the same report. This is the same organization which once given a chance to launch their report at the United Nations head offices in New York last year, managed to invite the Biya regime to take the floor to defend itself against accusations of rights violations. 

In other words, Human Rights Watch is reporting rights violations that it is also allowing the Biya regime to debunk, with the blessing of Human Rights Watch. It is only thanks to the Association of United Nations Correspondents that Human Rights Watch was prevented from offering a platform at the UN head offices for the Biya dictatorship to rubbish any rights violations reported in the HRW report of last year. Let me not forget that this is the same organization which, for fear of publishing too bloody a report on the Cameroons last year, simply excluding it from its annual report.

In its most recent report, Human Rights Watch is now claiming that the number of civilians killed in Ambazonia is 170. One hundred and seventy civilian fatalities. No more!

Justice Needed

This is the kind of cover up that has me asking if Human Rights Watch is on the payroll of the Biya regime. Remember, that Human Rights Watch said last year that they did not include the Cameroons in their report because they lacked funding to cover the country. 

Might it be that the Biya regime is now footing their bills? The reporting by Human Rights Watch should cause every Ambazonian to worry and to call up the FBI to urge the Federal Bureau of Investigation to investigate possible collusion with the Biya regime.

Let me prove why the number of deaths reported by Human Rights Watch cannot be even remotely accurate. This is not about carelessness. This is not that Human Rights Watch missed the fatalities. It is that they are underreporting the fatalities.

Human Rights Watch knows, because they were part of the Congressional Hearing on Capitol Hill in the summer of last year that during the month of May 2018 alone, the number of civilians killed in Ambazonia was above 150. As a matter of fact, the closest analysis on the fatalities, provided by the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (ACLED) Project database, put the fatalities in May 2018 at 151.

The ACLED pointed out that the fatalities for May 2018 were a threefold increase on April 2018. Meaning that no fewer than 50 were killed in April 2018. So, if Human Rights Watch bothered only to add up the fatalities for the months of April and May 2018, they would have been able to report over 200 deaths in only two months.

It is a shame that an organization like Human Rights Watch is victimizing human rights victims all over again by refusing even to acknowledge and report their executions by the regime with which this New York-based organization, it would seem, submits their reports for censorship and/or clearance prior to publication. Disgraceful!

Although ACLED does not capture all fatalities [see link] they have recorded over 800 fatalities. https://www.acleddata.com/tag/cameroon/

Ntumfoyn Boh Herbert (Yindo Toh)