Tag: Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement

U.S. State Department’s Latest Report on Cameroon Human Rights

On April 12, 2022, the U.S. State Department released its 2021 Country Reports on Human Rights. This report is the latest annual report for nearly five decades that “strive[s] to provide a factual and objective record on the status of human rights worldwide.” The 2021 report covers 198 countries and territories. [1]

Cameroon Human Rights[2]

Here is the outline of the details on the status of various human rights in each of the 198 countries and territories, including Cameroon:

Section 1. Respect for the Integrity of the Person

  1. Arbitrary Deprivation of Life and Other Unlawful or Politically Motivated Killings
  2. Disappearance
  3. Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading treatment or Punishment
  4. Arbitrary Arrest or Detention
  5. Denial of Fair Public Trial
  6. Arbitrary or Unlawful Interference with Privacy, Family, Home, Or Correspondence

Section 2. Respect for Civil Liberties

  1. Freedom of Expression, Including for Members of the Press and Other Media
  2. Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and Association
  3. Freedom of Religion
  4. Freedom of Movement and the Right To Leave the Country
  5. Status and Treatment of Internally Displaced People
  6. Protection of Refugees

Section 3.  Freedom to Participate in the Political Process

Section 4.  Corruption and Lack of Transparency in Government

Section 5.  Governmental Posture Towards International and           Nongovernmental Investigation of Alleged Abuses of Human Rights

Section 6.  Discrimination and Societal Abuses

Section 7. Worker Rights

Executive Summary of Cameroon Human Rights

The report on Cameroon begins with the following Executive Summary.

“Cameroon is a republic dominated by a strong presidency. The president retains power over the legislative and judicial branches of government. The ruling political party, the Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement, has remained in power since its creation in 1985. The country held legislative elections in February 2020 that were marked by irregularities. The ruling party won 152 of 180 National Assembly seats. Paul Biya has served as president since 1982. He was last reelected in 2018 in an election marked by irregularities.”

“The national police and the national gendarmerie are responsible for internal security. The former reports to the General Delegation of National Security and the latter to the Secretariat of State for Defense in charge of the Gendarmerie. The army shares some domestic security responsibilities; it reports to the minister delegate at the presidency in charge of defense. The Rapid Intervention Battalion reports directly to the president. Civilian and military authorities did not maintain effective control over the security forces. There were credible reports that members of the security forces committed numerous abuses.”

“Casualties rose in the Anglophone crisis in the Northwest and Southwest Regions. Anglophone separatists used improvised explosive devices with greater success. ISIS-West Africa increased attacks in the Far North Region. The government continued to crack down on the opposition Cameroon Renaissance Movement, and in December several of its members were sentenced to prison for terms ranging from one to seven years following protests in 2020.”

“Significant human rights issues included credible reports of: unlawful or arbitrary killings, including extrajudicial killings by the government and nonstate armed groups; forced disappearances by the government; torture and cases of cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment by the government and nonstate armed groups; harsh and life-threatening prison conditions; arbitrary arrests or detention; political prisoners or detainees; serious problems with the independence of the judiciary; arbitrary or unlawful interference with privacy; punishment of family members for offenses allegedly committed by an individual; serious abuses in a conflict, including abductions and unlawful recruitment and use of child soldiers by nonstate armed groups; serious restrictions on freedom of expression and media, including violence, threats of violence, or unjustified arrests or prosecutions against journalists, censorship, and criminal libel laws; substantial interference with the right of peaceful assembly and freedom of association, including overly restrictive laws on the organization, funding, or operation of nongovernmental organizations and civil society organizations; serious restrictions on freedom of movement; inability of citizens to change their government peacefully through free and fair elections; serious and unreasonable restrictions on political participation; serious government corruption; lack of investigations and accountability for gender-based violence; trafficking in persons; crimes involving violence or threats of violence targeting lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, or intersex persons; and the existence or use of laws criminalizing same-sex sexual conduct between adults.”

“Although the government took some steps to identify, investigate, prosecute, and punish officials who committed human rights abuses or corruption, it did not do so systematically and rarely held public proceedings. Impunity remained a serious problem.”

“Armed separatists, Boko Haram and ISIS-West Africa, and criminal gangs also committed human rights abuses, some of which were investigated by the government.”

Conclusion[3]

Commenting on this report, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said governments around the world, including Russia and China, grew more repressive last year. One example was the increasingly brazen way governments were “reaching across borders to threaten and attack critics” while some governments such as Cuba, Egypt and Russia were quick to lock up critics at home. Blinken also noted there had been “a serious erosion of human rights” in Afghanistan.

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[1] U.S. State Dep’t, 2021 Country Reports on Human Rights (April 12, 2022).

[2] U.S. State Dep’t, 2021 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices: Cameroon (April 12, 2022).

[3] Crowley, U.S. Report Describes a Global Retreat on Human Rights and Democracy, N.Y. Times (April 12, 2022);U.S. State DRyan, Human rights and democracy eroding worldwide, U.S. finds, Wash. Post (April 12, 2022).

 

Cameroon Grants Special Status to Its Anglophone Regions

On December 20, Cameroon’s bicameral legislature adopted a statute granting “special status” to its two Anglophone regions “founded on their linguistic particularity and historic heritage.” Expressly mentioned in that regard were its schools and judiciary systems.[1]

Senator Samuel Obam Assam, from the ruling Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement, the majority group in the Senate, said, “This is a law unique in the world. It is an answer to our fellow countrymen’s concerns.”

But it is unclear whether this new law will resolve the Anglophone crisis.

Jean-Michel Nintcheu, a congressman from the main opposition party, said he did not believe the law would solve the crisis. “The Anglophones, even the moderate ones, want a federal state. This law is not the result of a dialogue.. we were against it.” Another Anglophone leader, Ivo Tapang, a spokesman for 13 armed groups called the Contender Forces of Ambazonia, declared, “We want independence and nothing else.”

The Cameroon News Agency expressed scepticism about this new law. It said, President “Biya has given the cow away but held the rope firmly. Apart from the window dressing post of Government Delegate which disappears but reappears as Grand Mayor, the position of regional executives; there will be someone appointed in the person of Public Independent Councilor. It is not clear whether the posts of SDO’s and Governors will disappear. . . . [T]he most trumpeted Special Status in all ramifications looks sweet on paper but complicated.” The News Agency made the following additional points:

  • “The State argues that they are instituting the special status in the Anglophone regions because of its specific educational, judicial system based on the Common law and their traditional values.” But the common-law judiciary will “suffer from [another] new law that allows French-speaking Magistrates to preside over court sessions in common law jurisdictions in French. [Common law] lawyers launched an unsuccessufl strike action” for Parliament to dismiss this bill. Barrister Akere Muna, however, “says such a law can still be rejected by President Paul Biya by not promulgating it.”
  • The Regional Assembly will have 90 regional Councilors divided into two bodies: House of Chiefs and House of Divisional Delegates [will be] led by the President of the Regional Executive body and comprise 70 members.” The “House of Chiefs with 20 members will be led by the Vice President of the Regional Executive who must be a traditional ruler . . . [and] will be the sole body to ole body to decide on all traditional issues in the two regions including monuments, oral tradition and linguistic map of the regions.”
  • “The regional Executives will be comprised of a President, Vice President, Two Secretaries, A Questor and three Commissioners in charge of (a) Economic Development, (b) Social and Health Development, and (c) Sport, Education and Cultural Development.

Another sceptical reaction was voiced by  Dr. Nick Ngwanyam, a politician who grew up in the Anglophone region. “When we were told that we would have a special status, everybody was confused. It was something we were not really looking at. In terms of terminology, we had to find out what it meant. It was like an empty container and everybody was waiting for the meaning to fill it. And when that meaning came, I for one realized it would not solve our problems.”

“’It is too little, coming too late,’ says Senator Henry Kemende. It says in Section 328: ‘In addition to the powers devolved on regions by the proposed law, the North-West and South-West Regions may exercise the following powers: Participating in the formulation of national public policies relating to the Anglophone education sub-subsystem.’ This is like a piece of sugar in a basin of water, their participation will not be felt. What we would have expected is to empower the regions to determine policies over the educational, judicial, legislative and executive system, to determine issues at a national level, and not just a local level,’ Kemende emphasizes.”

“The power to address issues that directly affect their daily lives is what Anglophones have been yearning for in Cameroon’s Northwest and Southwest regions, Kemende said. ‘They are the people who want to be in control of their own destiny, without guidance from somewhere else with foreign mindsets that don’t suit their local realities.’”

Conclusion

The new law for Special Status for the Anglophone regions sounds like a good measure, but as a non-Cameroonian this blogger cannot make an overall assessment of whether it will resolve the crisis.

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[1]  Cameroon MPs pass devolution bill for anglophone regions, CGTN (Dec. 20, 2019); Reuters, Cameroon Grants Special Status to Anglophone Regions, N.Y. Times (Dec. 20, 2019); Special Status Introduces Regional  Executive and Assembly in NWSW, Cameroon News Agency (Dec. 13, 2019); Cameroon: Anglophone’s special status—too little, too late?, DW (Dec. 23, 2019).