Human Rights Watch Strikes Cameroon Over Routine Torture, Incommunicado Detentions
Human Right Watch has accused Cameroonian authorities of routine torture and the incommunicado detention of persons suspected to have ties with armed separatists.
In its latest report today May 6th 2019, titled ‘Cameroon: Routine Torture incommunicado Detention”, Human Rights Watch says Cameroonian authorities have held incommunicado 26 persons at the State Defense Secretariat SED since January 2018 and January 2019, including 14 cases of torture, with reports that the numbers are fast on the rise.
The NGO says Gendarmes and other security forces at the State Defense Secretariat (Secrétariat d’Etat à la défense, SED) have severely beaten and used near-drowning to extract a confession from detainees.
They regret that torture has long been endemic in Cameroon’s law enforcement, especially against those suspected of being members of, or supporting armed separatists or Boko Haram.
The rights group has called on the United Nations Security Council and other partners to take steps towards a return to peace in Cameroon. They say the UN Security Council should put the situation in Cameroon on its agenda, condemn the torture, and call on the Government of Cameroon to end these practices.
Lewis Mudge, Central Africa Director for Human Rights Watch, says security forces in Cameroon have used torture for over the years, without fear of repercussions and the UN Security Council should send a clear message to Cameroon that ending torture in detention is critical to addressing the crisis in the Anglophone regions.
Human Rights Watch revealed compiled testimonies accompanied by shocking images of individuals arrested in several parts of the Anglophone regions, taken to detention centres in Yaoundé, held incommunicado and tortured severely for several months and majority being civilians.
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bieya’s militia (BIR) through the minister of communication Sabi, declared that french cameroun military is conducting the war on Ambazonia professionally. Let the international community judge this despot regime and her crimes on Ambazonians, asking peacefully to be left in peace to live their lives in their Home Land. Ambazonians shall live free in their Home Land!!!!
This HRW Report (https://www.hrw.org/africa/cameroon) has recorded many atrocities committed by ambazombie terrorists on other Anglophone Cameroonians.
RECENT ABUSES BY SEPARATISTS (AMBAZOMBIE TERRORISTS)
Armed separatists in Cameroon have also committed serious abuses, including attacks on schools, killings, kidnappings, and extortion. Human Rights Watch confirmed three separate incidents since August 2018 in which separatist fighters injured seven civilians and dozens more cases of apparently unlawful attacks on agricultural workers on banana plantations near Tiko, South-West region. In January 2019, armed separatists severely beat an ethnic Fulani man with sticks and machetes in Momo Division, North-West region. Separatist leaders should issue clear orders to stop fighters from attacking civilians and mistreating anyone in their custody, Human Rights Watch said.
Since July 2018, armed separatist groups have physically assaulted dozens of workers of the Cameroon Development Corporation (CDC), a public agribusiness company. Human Rights Watch spoke with seven victims of three incidents, all of them working in the company’s banana plantations near Tiko, South-West region. They were either beaten or maimed, and in one case, shot. The workers said that they were targeted because they refused a general strike called by the separatists.
A 49-year-old woman, who was among the 49 workers beaten or maimed following an attack by separatists on the CDC banana plantation in Mafange on August 24, 2018, said:
The separatists were armed with hunting guns and machetes. They started beating me and my colleague. They beat me on my head and on my back several times. I fell on the ground and they kept beating me on my back and on my knees.
A 47-year-old man who was attacked at the company’s Dungo Estate banana plantation on October 31, 2018, said:
I saw seven men coming with machetes and guns. They were young and spoke to me in pidgin English. There was a commander among them, he was giving orders to the other boys. He said, “Have you ever heard about the Amba? I am the chief of Amba. Why are you working? You are not supposed to be working!”. One of them pointed a gun at me. Another put banana leaves in my mouth, so that I couldn’t scream. They beat me with machetes on my back. Then, they struck my right hand with the machete and almost chopped off two fingers. I was bleeding badly. They didn’t care. They put me down and tied my hands from the back. I was face to the ground. Then I felt a huge pain. One of them had shot me in the right buttocks. They abandoned me like that.
Human Rights Watch heard accounts from reliable sources that separatists have carried out more attacks against the company’s workers around Tiko in early January 2019. CDC is the second largest employer in Cameroon and runs banana, palm oil, and rubber plantations in Cameroon’s South-West region. Most of its factories have been shut down amid separatist threats.
Fuler Ayamba, the secretary general of the Ambazonia Defense Forces, in a March 14 letter to Human Rights Watch, said that the group condemned the maiming of the company’s workers and that the group’s fighters were not responsible.
Human Rights Watch has also documented cases of abuses by separatists in other parts of the South-West and North-West regions.
In January, at least 10 armed separatists abducted and tortured an ethnic Fulani man near the village of Alabukam, North-West region. They accused him of collaborating with the military. Human Rights Watch analyzed a video that surfaced in April showing at least three separatists with machetes and sticks threatening and torturing the man, who was naked and tied up on the ground.
A friend of the victim told Human Rights Watch that he has been missing since the kidnapping and recognized him in the video: “I think he’s dead. I think the Amba [separatists] killed him. The Amba target the Mbororo [ethnic Fulani]. They accuse them of informing the soldiers.” All sources who spoke to Human Rights Watch about this case said that the attackers were from the separatist group Ambazonia Defense Forces. However, the separatist group has denied any responsibility. Human Rights Watch has documented at least 10 other cases involving abuses by separatists against ethnic Fulani since December 2018.
On February 4 at about 7:45 a.m., about five armed separatists attacked a 24-year-old woman in Buea, South-West region. They accused her of opening a restaurant on the day the separatists declared a general strike. They cut in her right leg with a machete and repeatedly stabbed a 23-year-old man in the back with a fork.
The UN has been in french Cameroon three times without putting pressure,an end on the biya butcher, terrorists, lying barbaric regime in 3 years,UN had over looked the genocide,scorch earth policies, mass suffering refugees,IDPs, miliary rape, unlawful jail sentence without trial and in military court,all the daily inhumane crimes in the SW NW regions,there cannot be Peace without Justice,we will continue to fight biya with all means necessary,expose him to the world because it is the only language he understands,the only way to gain our stolen independence,this patriotic generations from Ambazonia will never respect,trust,live together with french Cameroon or continue to be rule by them,we have stated our independence already mentality and we shall either take it or distabilise the entire french Cameroon,biya, atanga,musonge,ekema and all those slave elites will get the wrath sooner
Beware of the second betrayal by the UN after 57 years of slavery in French Cameroun
Dear Fellow Ambazonians,
The UN Security council is meeting on May 13th 2019 for a hearing and examination on the ongoing genocide exacted on Southern Cameroon by La Republic du Cameroun. Be forewarned that the despot’s tremendous lobby machine is hard at work, reaching every corner of the UN to infiltrate in order to cement our subjugation and final extinction from the face of the earth.
In the past three years, Biya has mercilessly slaughtered Ambazonias in cold blood while the UN and AU looks the other way. Remember all UN high officials visiting French Cameroun in the past three years are awarded gold statuettes or bracelets by Biya. However, none has been allowed travel to assess the ongoing atrocities perpetrated by the BIR (Biya’s militia) on Ambazonians. Other Human Rights Officials entering Cameroun to visit Ambazonia have been denied entry into Cameroon as the genocide continues unabated. French Cameroun minister of communication continues to lie to the international community that the situation in Ambazonia is under control contrary to on the ground reports by the international NGOs.
These points below need to be addressed by the UN Security Council on May 13, 2019.
• Was there any Union Treaty between French Cameroun and Southern Cameroons? If there is none, the two countries should go their separate ways. Southern Cameroons had their independence on October 1, 1961.
• Why has the UN been so reluctant to stop the genocide in Southern Cameroon having been informed Biya declared war on Ambazonia in 2017?
• Did the UN nullify the international boundary between Southern Cameroon and French Cameroun? If not, the UN should force French Cameroon to retreat to her boarders.
• There is no Need for a referendum. Southern Cameroun had their independence in 1961. The idea that there are federalist and separatists in Southern Cameroon, is Biya’s ploy to further drag Ambazonia into another referendum and into the mess we are in now. Any Ambazonian who has a problem with the 1961 Independence should decide where to relocate.
• Southern Cameroonians are not Anglophones. Biya’s use of that designation has been to codify and subjugate Ambazonians forever. The UN should be instructed to referain from that designation as well.
• Exiled and displaced Southern Cameroonians returning home should be given a safe, unrestricted pass to Ambazonia only. The UN has to declare no stop overs in La Republic du Cameroun for Ambazonians as the BIR (Biya’s militia) has been instructed to capture and kill on the spot any Southern Cameroonians returning from exile to their homeland. Any decision taken by the UN void of directives for returning Ambazonians puts them in harm’s way.
Please, strategize on the UN Security Council Meeting of May 13th 2019. Our advocates are to be on the same level plane as Biya’s lobby machinery is determined to confuse and recalibrate all discussions to his favor. Let’s not repeat the mistakes of the past and once more enslave ourselves and our future generations.
THANKS TO THE AMBAZONIAN DEFENSE FORCES ON GROUND ZERO AND ABROAD. LET US NEVER GET TIRED OF DEFENDING AMBAZONIA OUR ONLY HOMELAND ON THE PLANET. bieya the french cameroun despot and his militia (BIR) have already killed 10,000 of us, mimed over 6,000, displaced over 3 million, 3,000 tortured and imprisoned in french cameroun dungeons as he continues his genocide. bieya the despot of french cameroun and his regime will not escape justice. bieya and his criminal regime will pay mightily for all the atrocities committed on the peaceful people of Ambazonia soonest!!!
https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=24565&LangID=E
Michelle Bachelet (UN High Commissioner for Human Rights) welcomes Cameroon’s willingness to cooperate to tackle human rights crises
GENEVA (6 May 2019) – The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet, after concluding a visit to Cameroon, has welcomed the Government’s openness to work with the UN Human Rights Office, and the rest of the UN, to seek effective solutions to the major human rights and humanitarian crises caused by the serious unrest and violence taking place in the west and north of the country.
“I believe there is a clear – if possibly short – window of opportunity to arrest the crises that have led to hundreds of thousands of internally displaced people, as well as the killings and brutal human rights violations and abuses that have affected the northern and western areas of the country,” Bachelet said. “But it will not be easy to turn these situations around. It will take significant actions on the part of the Government, and substantial and sustained support from the international community – including us in the UN.”
“The challenges are immense, and the situation involving some ten or more separatist movements in the North-West and South-West regions risks spiraling completely out of control, if serious measures are not taken to reduce tensions and restore trust. There is also a general understanding that the root causes and underlying grievances must also be tackled if long-term stability is to return to a country that had, until just a few years ago, been one of the most settled and peaceful in the region.”
The UN Human Rights Chief noted that the Government is also facing other major challenges, including cross-border incursions by armed groups and criminal organizations along its eastern border with the Central African Republic. At the same time, in the north of the country, the armed forces are struggling to cope with the depredations and suicide attacks perpetrated by Boko Haram and, in the far north around Lake Chad, the population is being terrorized and attacked by another extremist organization, the so-called Islamic State in West Africa (ISWA). In addition, Cameroon is hosting hundreds of thousands of refugees from the Central African Republic and Nigeria.
In several regions, civilians and soldiers have been killed and mutilated, and entire villages have been burned. Children have been abducted and forced to join the armed groups and have even been utilized as unwitting suicide bombers by Boko Haram. In the two western regions, schools, hospitals and other key infrastructure has been targeted and destroyed by the various separatist groups; and government employees, including teachers who have dared to continue teaching, have been targeted and killed or abducted.
SUNSHINE:
I thought you are too smart to FALL FOR THAT ELABORATE HOAX, A UN Security Council Meeting on May 13, 2019!!! There is no such meeting.
Read Ms Bachelet’s communique following her fact-finding mission to Cameroon. She was there on the behalf of the United Nations (UN), 193 member states. More important than Mr Tibor Nagy.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet,
after concluding a visit to Cameroon, has welcomed the Government’s openness to work with the UN Human Rights Office, and the rest of the UN, to seek effective solutions to the major human rights and humanitarian crises caused by the serious unrest and violence taking place in the west and north of the country.
SUNSHINE:
A few questions and remarks on your overly theatrical or melodramatic piece.
I was wondering if you could answer the following questions?
1. You write and I quote “These points below need to be addressed by the UN Security Council on May 13, 2019”. Have you sent the “points” to the UN Security Council?
2. What was the name of Southern Cameroons when it attained independence in 1961? How did Southern Cameroons attain independence? What is a Union Treaty?
3. What is genocide? The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights just returned from a fact-finding mission in Cameroon, and there is no genocide in the NW and SW Regions of Cameroon. You people keep saying that President Biya declared war, no! What he said was that the killers (ambazombie terrorists), those who killed military personnel, will be hunted down.
4. Cameroon is ONE AND INDIVISIBLE, WITH 10 REGIONS. Each Region has the same status as each of the other Regions.
5. Did Mr Biya coin the word “ANGLOPHONE?” I often refer to French-speaking Cameroonians as FRANCOPHONES.
6. You write and I quote “Please, strategize on the UN Security Council on May 13, 2019”. Who are to strategize, and how do they strategize when phantom ambazonia has no place on the table and no country has recognized phantom ambazonia?
We never had two Cameroons as sovereign countries. HOGWASH!!! Baloney!!! LIES!!!
The Cameroons were administered as Trust Territories. The Trusteeship Agreement for the Territory of the Cameroons Under British Administration was approved by the General Assembly of the United Nations on 13 December 1946. The Territory was that part of the Cameroons lying to the west of the boundary defined by the Franco-British Declaration of 10 July 1919.
Following separate plebiscites in the northern and southern parts of the Cameroon under United Kingdom held in 1961, the people of the Southern Cameroons, by a substantial majority, decided to ACHIEVE INDEPENDENCE BY JOINING INDEPENDENT REPUBLIC OF CAMEROON. The people of Northern Cameroons, by a significant majority, decided to achieve independence by joining the independent Federation of Nigeria. So, the Republic of Cameroun achieved independence and became a sovereign nation or country whilst Southern and Northern Cameroons remained Trust Territories under the United Kingdom.
The TWO QUESTIONS (given by the United Nations) in the plebiscites were:
(a) Do you wish to achieve independence by joining the independent Republic of the Cameroons?
(b) Do you wish to achieve independence by joining the independent Federation of Nigeria?
The Trusteeship Agreement of 13 December 1946 concerning the Cameroons under the United Kingdom administration was terminated, in accordance with Article 76b of the Charter of the United Nations. With respect to the Northern Cameroons, on 1 June 1961, upon its joining the Federation of Nigeria as a separate PROVINCE of the Northern Region of Nigeria; with respect to the Southern Cameroons, on 1 October 1961, upon joining the Republic of Cameroun.
These are established hard (stubborn) facts that are set in stone. The international community can not be fooled by ignoramuses.
accusations and counter accusations: Why can’t the UN come under it’s own escort come in and verify for itself? For those of you out there and undisturbed, PM of LR revealed plans in the Assembly of the AU whereby NW joins the Western Province, and SW the littoral. If you are with them polish up your French and remain indivisible as some supporters of LR on this platform
TABETANDO,
DO YOU WANT THE U.N. TO COME OVER AFTER YOUR COMMUNICATIONS SECRETARY,CHRIS ANU, ISSUED A WARRANT OF SEIZURE OF ALL U.N. FACILITIES IN YOUR TERRITORY?
SO YOU SEE HOW MYOPIC YOU ARE?
THINK WELL BEFORE POSTING.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (Michelle Bachelet) visit to Cameroon, and MKPD opinions plus other stories, such as the Human Rights Watch report, and Gendarmerie corruption crackdown in Cameroon.
https://www.facebook.com/ma.kontri.pipo/videos/2311879858874484/