Cameroon ministry of supreme state audit on Thursday began training some senior government officials on the handling and control of public funds.

The training, first of its kind, is to encourage transparency in the management of public affairs, combat corruption, embezzlement and all the malfunctions existing in public life in Cameroon, said Rose Mbah Acha, Minister Delegate at the Presidency in charge of Supreme State Audit.

“We don’t want a situation where mismanagement has been committed and a lot of losses have been incurred by the state,” Acha said at the start of the training program in the capital, Yaounde.

Mainly officials of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development are taking part in the training but measures will be taken to extend to other ministries, the minister said.

“We want to make the activities of these administrations charged with revenue collection more efficient,” she added.

Cameroon is determined to fight corruption and encourage good governance in key sectors such as economic, financial and social management, public service and justice, according to officials of the supreme state audit.

Source: Xinhuanet

When Cameroon ratified the World Heritage Convention in 1982, it pledged to protect and preserve its rich historical and cultural heritage. Cameroon is also party to the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property. Now, it faces a crucial test in keeping these promises following an attack by government troops on a sacred site of great cultural importance.

On September 24, soldiers from the Rapid Intervention Battalion (BIR) attacked and looted the Royal Palace in Bafut, North-West region. Included on a Tentative List of World Heritage Sites since 2006 by UNESCO, the United Nations body for education, science and culture, the Bafut Royal Palace hosts the family of the “Fon,” the traditional regional authority. It comprises over 50 buildings arranged around a shrine and is surrounded by a sacred forest. But the palace also sits at the epicenter of a simmering crisis in the country’s Anglophone regions.

At least 10 BIR soldiers attacked the palace where, according to witnesses, the soldiers may have suspected Anglophone separatists were hiding. They shot and wounded the Fon’s brother before looting the palace museum and taking several precious artifacts, including a bronze mask from the 18th century and golden necklaces. The military operation lasted for three hours and occurred during a traditional ceremony with more than 200 people.

This is not the first time government forces have disregarded UNESCO obligations. In September 2018, BIR soldiers destroyed parts of the Bafut palace roof, again on the pretext of searching for separatists. In the 2018 and 2019 attacks, no separatists were found.

The Fon has asked the government, its international partners, and UNESCO to conduct an independent investigation into the attack. The government should rein in BIR forces and hold commanders of the recent assault accountable for their actions.

More than buildings and precious objects, the Bafut Palace is a piece of Cameroon’s history and a key element of its cultural identity. In the current unrest in the Anglophone regions, belligerents should make sure that this cultural heritage is protected.

Source: Human Rights Watch

Cameroon government army soldiers attacked Ambazonia Self-Defense positions in Bali Nyonga on Saturday in a military operation just a day after the so-called Grand National Dialogue announced that the regime in Yaounde was preparing to accord special status to Southern Cameroons in a bid to end the Ambazonia conflict.

Cameroon Concord News gathered that residents fled Bali Nyonga and the Southern Cameroons town of Bali toward Manyu held by Southern Cameroons Restoration Forces.

The Cameroon government onslaught killed at least eleven civilians and six Ambazonia fighters, and wounded scores of civilians, our source said.

Yaounde said the offensive was targeting “separatists fighters” — the Ambazonia separatist group and other armed militias operating on the main highway linking Mamfe to Bamenda.

The Ambazonia Interim Government is yet to comment on the recent assault seen potentially as sending contradicting signals to the people of Southern Cameroons.

By Sama Ernest in Bamenda

Vice President Dabney Yerima says British Southern Cameroonians have a track record on how to resist colonial forces. The Ambazonian exiled leader said on Tuesday during a telephone conversation with our correspondent in Germany that the massive deployment of Nigerian troops in front of the Eastern Regional Assembly at Enugu in 1953 should remind Yaoundé that Southern Cameroonians would not allow French Cameroun government soldiers to stifle the resistance.

Comrade Dabney Yerima observed that “Whosoever is going by that name La Republique du Cameroun should be aware that the Federal Republic of Ambazonia have a history of resistance and not allowing colonial forces to usurp the rights of the Ambazonian nation and continue to exploit and marginalize its citizens.” Mr. Yerima added that the founding fathers of the British Southern Cameroons state handed over a legacy to resist during difficult conditions.

The Vice President said Ambazonian women and children have become accustomed to a cycle of deadly attacks by French Cameroun soldiers that repeat itself daily throughout Southern Cameroons territory. Dabney Yerima also pointed out that the Ambazonia Interim Government will hold talks with Southern Cameroonians in the diaspora to discuss the Amba Bond Project which he believes will manage to offset those deadly military blows from French Cameroun through a better use of Ambazonian money donated by its citizens in Europe, the USA, South African, Canada, Asia including the Scandinavians.

Vice President Dabney Yerima said equipping Ambazonia Restoration Forces remains top on the Interim Government’s agenda despite the IG’s continued efforts to contain the humanitarian situation in Nigeria, IDPS in French Cameroun and the thousands living in the bushes.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

A Cameroon national was arrested in Noida on Tuesday for allegedly duping people in the name of converting their Indian currency notes into American dollars through a “magic”, the police said. The accused, Kamleu-Nya Alain, was arrested from Sector 121 in Noida, the police said. He told the police that he has earlier also been jailed in India for fraud and his passport is submitted at the Tis Hazari Court in Delhi at present, Noida Superintendent of Police Vineet Jaiswal said.

“He would promise people to return them more money, and convert their Indian currency notes into US dollar notes. A white powder and water-like fluid has been seized from his possession which he would use for the ‘magic trick’ for converting notes, he said.

A man approached the police on Monday claiming the foreigner has duped him of Rs 10 lakh using the same “magic trick”.

Alain would use his “magic trick” on notes and tell gullible people to check the money after two hours and find it converted into American dollars, the officer said.

“The victim handed him over Rs 10 lakh and got back a packet of plain papers in the shape of currency notes, with the first and last notes of the wad having a Rs 2,000 note which was printed by the accused,” Jaiswal said.

An FIR has been registered against him under IPC sections for fraud, under the Foreigners Act and the IT Act, and he has been sent to jail, the police said.

The Rs 10 lakh of the victim have been recovered from Alain and the wad of fake notes has also been taken into possession by the police, the police said.

Source: News Nation India

Chief Ephraim Inoni, one of the most commanding French Cameroun surrogate in Southern Cameroons and a Biya acolyte is now struggling to finish sentences, is not even aware that he is in Kondengui prison and even forgets his wife’s name.  The so-called Patriarch of Bakingili is reportedly a much-diminished ruling CPDM figure created by the progressive effects of dementia and an undisclosed form of cancer.

Cameroon Intelligence Report gathered that the former prime minister first started to show signs of mental deterioration two years ago, when he confused facts during a private conversation with a journalist from the USA. During the said interview he also struggled with his words and his memory.

The man who was top in those days is now seeing his memory failing badly, and his ability to understand and interact with other CPDM barons in the Kondengui prison is fading.

We understand some South West Chiefs have written a memo to President Biya via Prime Minister Dion Ngute pleading with the French Cameroun dictator to allow Mr. Inoni to go abroad for treatment. Mola Inoni can no longer lead conversations with other inmates in detention, can hardly remember the beginning of a sentence by the time he gets to the end and  often forgets the death of his first wife.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

Cameroon Intelligence Report sources in Yaoundé have revealed that scores of Southern Cameroons detainees have lost their lives since 2017 after being exposed to various forms of brutal torture at the hands of their French Cameroun interrogators in prisons and detention centres all over La Republique du Cameroun.

Ambazonia Vice President Dabney Yerima said in a recent report before a trip to Switzerland that French Cameroun prison officials use various methods of torture, both physically and psychologically, against Ambazonia detainees. “They have been humiliating their personality and pressuring them to speak low of the Southern Cameroons diaspora” Comrade Yerima said.

The Southern Cameroons Vice President also pointed to the case of Ambazonia detainees killed during the Kondengui Prison Revolt by French Cameroun troops loyal to the Biya Francophone Beti Ewondo regime.

French Cameroun warfare-trained infantry forces known as the Rapid Intervention Battalion (BIR) reportedly killed many Southern Cameroons prisoners in Douala New Bell after torturing them. Southern Cameroons detainees were was also badly tortured in the Buea Prison and many were transferred to Tcholeri, where some passed away.

Two Southern Cameroons detainees died shortly after they were severely beaten by French Cameroun soldiers at Mbouda in the West region.

Our chief intelligence officer in Yaoundé leading an independent investigation has highlighted that the concept of torture is not limited to the use of violence against Southern Cameroons detainees during their arrest and interrogation, but all the appalling procedures that they go through inside French Cameroun detention centers fall within the framework of torture.

The most notorious of these methods include solitary confinement that is constantly being used on the Ambazonia leader, President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe and his top aides and detention of Southern Cameroons detainees in harsh and compelling conditions that do not meet the minimum health standards.

French Cameroun physical torture against Ambazonia detainees from the very first moment of their arrest, beating them on different parts of their bodies, without any consideration to the injury of some detainees has resulted in severe injuries, which has caused amputations and diseases that accompanied the prisoners even after some were release.

Sleep deprivation through continuous interrogation sessions of up to 12 hours, restricting the detainees during their interrogation, tightening restrictions to prevent blood circulation from reaching their hands, beatings, slapping, kicking, verbal abuse, intentional humiliation, as well as threats to arrest a family member, threats of sexual assault, denial of toilet use, denial of bathing or changing clothes for days or weeks, exposure to extreme heat, constant noise and verbal abuse are among other methods of torture use by the French Cameroun prison apparatus.

More than 2,000 Southern Cameroonians are reportedly held in La Republique du Cameroun jails. Hundreds of the inmates have apparently been incarcerated under the practice of administrative detention, a policy under which Ambazonian inmates are kept in French Cameroun detention facilities without trial or charge. Some Southern Cameroons prisoners have been held in administrative detention for up to three years.

By Sama Ernest and Rita Akana in Yaounde

The Ambazonia leader President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe says Ambazonia Restoration Forces should continue the Self-Defense against French Cameroun occupation of Southern Cameroons land until complete separation and independence is gotten from La Republique du Cameroun.

President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe made the comments in a soul-searching conversation with our correspondent in Yaounde during which he also appealed to Southern Cameroonians in the diaspora not to abandon Ambazonia refugees in LRC & Nigeria, IDPs within the homeland and those living in the bushes.

Hundreds of Ambazonian Self-Defense Forces, the defence wing of the Southern Cameroons Interim Government recently took part in October 1 celebrations throughout the territory.

The Ambazonia leader noted that the Federal Republic of Ambazonia came into the union with La Republique du Cameroun with special status and pointed out that there was no need for a “new special status after 58 years.”

Sisiku Ayuk Tabe observed that Southern Cameroonians have always been oppressed, but after just three years of the resistance Ambazonia is now a cornerstone and front to be reckoned with in the equations of war. He added that the massive deployment of French Cameroun army soldiers to Southern Cameroons and the failed so-called Grand National Dialogue represents the vigor of the Ambazonia Self-Defense Forces, the resistance, and the steadfastness of the Ambazonian people.

He challenged Southern Cameroonians who feel proud and confident of their participation at Mr Biya’s MND to each take a copy of the resolutions to their respective villages; invite their people to the village square, read aloud the resolutions, get the applause of the people. Anyone who cannot accomplish this simple fit, must consider himself/herself a let down to his/her people. Who do you represent, if you cannot face your people with the resolutions? He asked.

President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe further hailed Ambazonians in the diaspora, the locomotive of the restoration train as he refers to them, who are working hard and helping to improve Southern Cameroons capability to deter any threat posed by La Republique du Cameroun. He stressed that despite the atrocities of the French Cameroun government military, Southern Cameroonians in Ground Zero are imposing new facts, breaking old theories, and will remain steadfast.

The leader also denounced fake news circulating on social media on talks with the French Cameroun opposition group headed by Prof Maurice Kamto. He called on Southern Cameroonians to be more vigilant and place a watchful eye on people who are trying to use the Southern Cameroons war of independence for their self aggrandisement.

“The worst thing we face today in the Ambazonia war of independence is the belief held by some that they must lead and in so doing they must slander anyone with a different approach and different opinion” he added. Sisiku Ayuk Tabe also called for unity among all Ambazonia factions to defend the Southern Cameroons cause.

Southern Cameroons has been under French Cameroun military onslaught since 2017, which has caused a decline in living standards and claimed the lives of some 4000 Ambazonians.

By Chi Prudence Asong and Asu Isong in London