Southern Cameroons War: Does shame have a place in the UN hierarchy?
As more and more civilians have been killed by the Cameroon government of Paul Biya, absentee president for 37 years, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has been silent. He had made a deal with Biya’s UN Ambassador Tommo Monthe as chair of the UN Budget Committee for administrative favors in exchange for silence on the slaughter or “subduing” of the Anglophone minority.
Now on May 1 amid the Coronavirus pandemic, the US State Department as part of a larger statement bragged of “Cameroon: Nearly $8 million for health and humanitarian assistance will help provide infection-control in key health facilities, strengthen laboratories and surveillance, prepare communities, and bolster local messaging. This includes $6.1 million for health and IDA humanitarian assistance from USAID, in addition to nearly $1.9 million in MRA humanitarian assistance to support refugees, internally displaced persons (IDPs), and their host communities. This assistance builds upon more than $960 million in total U.S. investment in the country over the past 20 years, $390 million of which was for health.”
But where did all this money go? Correspondingly, the World Health Organization recently gave Biya’s government 14 luxury vehicles to Biya’s cronies and this was followed by a UN endorsement of Biya’s genocidal campaign in Southern Cameroons “we acknowledge the commitment of the President of Cameroon to resolve the conflict in the North‑West and South‑West regions through peaceful means.”
In the UN’s call to release Southern Cameroons political prisoners, Guterres and his Nigerian Deputy SG Amina J. Mohammed have ignored or been complicity in imprisoning: “Most of the Anglophones who are currently in detention were sentenced on terrorism charges, among which is President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe Julius, and Nine others who were sentenced to life imprisonment. Other inmates have not been convicted yet, and about 75 percent are currently held in pre-trial detention. These people could not be released under Article 8 of the constitution because that falls under the prerogative of the judiciary, whereas those to be freed under the COVID-19 response fall under a presidential decree. The Cameroonian judiciary can release Anglophone prisoners using ‘nolle prosequi’ meaning ‘will no longer prosecute.'”
Now after Guterres ghoulishly took credit for a voluntary ceasefire declared by one opposition group in the Southern Cameroon without making any comment about Paul Biya’s army ceasing fire, the absurdity has become clear. A list of nation states tipping their hat to a ceasefire does NOT include the Cameroon of Paul Biya.
With support from the UN, Biya tried to jam through a vote even amid the Coronavirus crisis. Cameroon is the genocide of Guterres. We’ll have more on this. Guterres has been denouncing some few attacks in Cameroon NOT by Paul Biya’s forces, in Bamenda on Women’s Day.
Meanwhile Guterres and Dujarric have had no comment on, and have refused to answer on, Biya’s expulsion and now public trashing of their own UN OCHA officials in Bamenda, Andrew Jack Pendleton. Biya’s minister Atanga Nji has publicly denounced this UN official for his mild comments on the government’s slaughter of civilians at Ngarbuh. But Guterres has said nothing. The most basic thing a UN Secretary General is expected to do is speak for UN officials being chased out. But no – Guterres is too corrupt.
On February we reported on the killing of more than two dozen civilians including children in Ngarbuh in Southern Cameroons. Since then Guterres, Dujarric and Melissa Fleming have refused to answer daily questions on what has become their genocide in Cameroon.
Now there’s widely circulated video of a toddler whose mother was killed in Babanki (Kedjom Ketinguh) in Mezam, in the North West region of Cameroon. Soldiers are responsible, and 10 other civilians have been killed. One of the witnesses who exposed the Biya government’s mass killing at Ngarbuh, Mallam Danjuma has been killed and dumped in Bui by government forces in Kikaikelaki. And from the UN of Guterres? Nothing. This is Guterres’ genocide.
Reported by Inner City Press