Using US Human Rights 2018 Report to Call Cameroon to Order !

That is what any keen observer of the evolution of the human rights situation in Cameroon would want to see done, as soon as possible, after going through the 45 page Human Rights 2018 Report.

Torture of an Ambazonia Suspect 

As a matter of fact, the report from the United States Department of State, Bureau for Democracy Human Rights and Labour paints a very sordid picture of happenings in Cameroon as a whole and most especially in Anglophone or the English Speaking Regions of a country once considered to be an island of peace. Many now prefer the name Ambazonia!

The report did not only pick holes with what it terms Cameroon’s strong presidency but also states that in practice the president retains the power to control legislation. There are several instances which indicate that the United States would want President Paul Biya, who has been in power since 1982 to quit. Different American diplomats have repeatedly asked the somewhat sit tight dictatorial President to think about his legacy!

Beyond reporting on Boko Haram which is a threat to the lake Chad Basin area, the US Department of State 2018 Country report took time to document in detail, rights violations ranging from the suppression LGBT rights to basic rights to freedom of speech and movement among others.

The report picked up the story of  Thomas Awah Junior, a journalist who  wrote for the monthly Aghem Messenger magazine. It said he arrested in Bamenda, and later sentenced to 11 years in prison on apparent trumped up charges of  hostility against the nation, secession, revolution, and propagation of disinformation through digital means. 

Concerns were also raised when the state department said it saw pictures of a severely emaciated Awah on social media who was transported to a hospital in Yaounde to be treated for tuberculosis and pneumonia. And despite his ailing condition, the Yaounde regime still keeps him in jail.

To any analyst, the report focuses more on the atrocious rights violations committed in the wake of the 2016 socio-political crisis in Southern Cameroons which muffed into an armed conflict between government forces and what the US termed, separatist groups.

While blaming both government troops and separatists for rights violations like the killing of soldiers, the bulk of the report puts the blame on the majority of the rights violations on the door steps of the Cameroon government. This is evident in the fact that the US suspended military assistance like training and financial aid to the Cameroon military worth billions.

There are incidences in the report to which the government of Cameroon would have to explain to the world why it had to carry out such apparent premeditated rights violations.The US government notes that security and military men did not only kill unarmed civilians but also killed at least seven persons who were mentally and physically challenged in the course of fighting purported separatists.

BIR Soldiers : Noted for Torture

The Cameroon government is seriously being faulted for using its Rapid Intervention Battalion, BIR, a force not within the purview or scope of conventional forces needed to solve the problem of political dissent. 

In other words, the Cameroon government had crossed its limits to use the BIR to massacre, kill, loot, burn down villages, causing hundreds of thousands to be displaced and also a refugee crisis.

In addition, the US does not find it funny that the Yaoundé regime crossed its boarders into Nigeria where it connived and arrested more than 47 refugees and asylum seekers, in flagrant violations of international laws on refoulement and brought them to Cameroon where they have been tortured and detained under life threatening conditions.  The report mentioned the names of the ‘Interim President’ of what it called the ‘so-called Federal Republic of Ambazonia’, Sisiku Julius AyukTabe and 47 others who were held incommunicado for several months. On this score the US gives the impression that they are monitoring the situation in Southern Cameroon very closely though there is more expectation for a robust intervention.

Another curiosity as reported by the Department of State  is that even officials of the moribund and powerless Cameroon National Commission for Human Rights and Freedoms does not have access to some of the 79 prisons that are reportedly operational throughout the country.  This is clear indication that the executive power is directly responsible for the actions undertaken by the judiciary.

As if describing a criminal rogue regime the report inter alia said “government security forces were widely believed to be responsible for disappearances of suspected Anglophone separatists, with reports of bodies dumped far from the site of killings to make identification difficult. 

The government did not readily account for some of the activists arrested in connection with the Anglophone crisis,” the report adds.  Even when the suspects were arrested the US government found the Cameroon government guilty of summary executions, citing the case of Samuel Chumba also known as Sam Soya, who was captured and later beheaded by the Cameroon military.

Although the Cameroon government had denied some of the human rights violations, the US Country Report on Human Rights Practices in 2018 identified elements of the Gendarmerie, the 51st Motorized Infantry Brigade, and the Special Operations Group, GSO of the National Police as being responsible for the repeated and multiple rights violations.

Why Action is Needed Now!

No matter how the Cameroon government tries to downplay the report, reading through the different violations - killings, disappearances, torture etc sends cold down the spines of anyone battling for the promotion of democracy, for the respect of the dignity of everyone and for decent lives for people all over the world.

UN Security Council

The State Department Country Report on Human Rights Practices is expected to trigger world action against Cameroon, and at best for the war declared on Southern Cameroons to be brought to an end by every means. 

The matter should under normal circumstances be taken to the United Nations Security Council and its General Assembly and if possible for a cease fire to be imposed given the savagery that Yaounde has displayed on Southern Cameroonians since 2016.  

Such a report is expected to call world attention, to question the Cameroon government to explain to the world how a peace loving  people they have been living with, suddenly decided to take up arms to fight for their inalienable right to self-determination through all legal means. The expectation from such a report is that US Undersecretary for African Affairs, Tibor Nagy's suggestion that the  Southern Cameroons case be brought before a world forum, should not just be mere rhetoric. 

Although the US State Department did not make any recommendations as expected, the magnitude of the human rights violations  committed by  French Cameroon security and defense forces, especially on Southern Cameroons, suffices for serious governments the world over to call Yaounde to order. 

Please follow the link below for the detail report https://www.state.gov/documents/organization/289187.pdf