Cameroon grants 'special status' to Anglophone region amid unrest

Yaounde passes law allowing English-speaking regions 'special status' in a bid to calm the deadly conflict.

The violence forced half a million people to flee and presented President Paul Biya with his biggest threat in 40 years of rule [Charles Platiau/Reuters]

Cameroon's parliament has granted "special status" to two English-speaking regions to try to calm separatist violence that has killed 2,000 people, but the separatists say only independence would satisfy them.

The law, passed on Friday in a special session of parliament, said the Anglophone Northwest and Southwest regions would "benefit from a special status founded on their linguistic particularity and historic heritage".

The legislation mentioned schools and the judiciary system as part of the special status - a delayed response to protests in 2016 by teachers and lawyers.

Conflict between Cameroon's army and English-speaking fighters seeking to form a breakaway state called Ambazonia began after the government cracked down violently on peaceful protesters complaining of being marginalised by the French-speaking majority.

The conflict has forced half a million people to flee and presented President Paul Biya with his biggest threat in nearly 40 years of rule.

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

But 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," he said.

'We want independence'

The reforms were recommended at the end of national talks organised by Biya in October to chart a way out of the conflict.

But separatists boycotted that dialogue, saying they would negotiate only if the government released all the political prisoners and withdrew the military from the Northwest and Southwest.

"We want independence and nothing else," said Ivo Tapang, a spokesman for 13 armed groups called the Contender Forces of Ambazonia.

He said the special status made no difference as no law passed in the Cameroonian parliament should be imposed in Ambazonia.

The roots of Cameroonian English speakers’ grievances go back a century to the League of Nations' decision to split the former German colony of Kamerun between the allied French and British victors at the end of the first world war.

SOURCE: NEWS AGENCIES

Thanks for reading. Follow the page and Share it.

Biya Sets Feb 9 For Cameroon’s Parliamentary Elections

Channels Television 

 

File: Cameroon President Paul Biya speaks as he meets with French former hostages at the presidential palace in Yaounde on April 19, 2013. capital. AFP PHOTO / REINNIER KAZE

 Cameroon’s presidency announced Sunday that parliamentary elections will be held on February 9, in the latest sign that veteran ruler Paul Biya is seeking to end a long-running political crisis.

Opposition parties reacted cautiously to the presidential decree, with one spokesman urging a reform of the electoral code before the vote.

The last parliamentary elections took place in 2013 for a mandate of five years, but President Biya, who has ruled Cameroon for 37 years, has twice postponed fresh polls.

Biya, 86, was re-elected last year, but the result was contested by his main opposition rival in the vote, Maurice Kamto of the Movement for the Rebirth of Cameroon (MRC).

The 65-year-old Kamto was jailed in January after his party staged several peaceful marches challenging that result.

Released in October, he has since tried three times to hold marches but was denied permission each time.

The West African country was for years considered relatively stable, but it has been shaken by a two-year-old separatist uprising in the west as well as attacks by the jihadist group Boko Haram in the north.

Biya, under international pressure, held a national peace dialogue last month during which he announced the release of 333 detainees linked to the separatist crisis.

He also ordered the release of 102 opposition activists arrested in 2018 during protests over his re-election.

Contacted by AFP, MRC general secretary Christopher Ndong said the party needed time to evaluate the news of fresh elections before responding.

“We have asked that certain preconditions be met, such as the revision of the electoral code,” he said.

The main opposition party in parliament is still the Social Democratic Front (SDF), even though its candidate in last year’s presidential election garnered only 3.35 percent of the vote, coming in fourth.

Contacted by AFP, the party was not immediately willing to say whether it would take part in next year’s elections.

Late last month, Washington announced it was stripping Cameroon of its preferential trade status because of its poor rights record.

Thanks for reading. Follow the page and Share it.