05-27-2018, 10:55 PM
*** 28-May-18 World View -- Dozens killed in English-speaking Cameroon region by French-speaking government police
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
****
**** Dozens killed in English-speaking Cameroon region by French-speaking government police
****
![[Image: g180527b.jpg]](http://Media.GenerationalDynamics.com/ww2010/g180527b.jpg)
Youth wearing a T-shirt protesting the 'Francophonization' of Anglophones (Deutsche Welle)
Twenty-two people were killed on Friday in the Anglophone
(English-speaking) region of Cameroon by army and security forces from
the Francophone (French-speaking) government of 85-year-old president
Paul Biya, who has been in power for more than 35 years.
This is the latest violence in a growing civil war in the Southern
Cameroons, the Anglophone region of Cameroon.
The violence started in November 2016, when peaceful protests began
with claims by Anglophone lawyers that the legal and court systems are
biased toward Francophones, with many laws passed without even being
translated into English. Anglophone teachers joined in, protesting
that all courses in the schools had to be taught in French, and that
any use of English was forbidden. The Francophone police responded by
committing atrocities.
The atrocities by Francophone security forces grew during 2017, and
took a particularly dangerous turn on September 22. What always
happens in these situations, as I've described in Syria, Cambodia,
Burundi, and a number of other countries, is that government officials
feel threated by peaceful protests by the opposition, and respond to
the peaceful protests with violence and atrocities. This kind of
extreme overreaction leaves everyone stunned and shocked at first, but
it doesn't have the intended effect of ending the peaceful protests.
Instead, more people from the opposition join the peaceful protests,
and this leads to more violence and atrocities by the government.
Finally, the activists within the peaceful protesters begin to commit
their own acts of violence. Once that happens, the government is free
to call all the peaceful protesters "terrorists," and then they can
use unbridled violence against all of them, including rape, jailings,
and torture.
In Cameroon, the violence and atrocities by Biya's government
continued throughout 2017, in various forms. Finally, activists
formed a secessionist group called the Liberation Movement of Southern
Cameroons. On October 1 of last year, and declared independence for
the Southern Cameroons, calling it Ambazonia.
The name Ambazonia comes from the Ambas Bay. The bay which is located
in southwestern Cameroon is considered as the boundary between
Southern Cameroons and the Republic of Cameroon. In 1858, British
missionary Alfred Saker founded a settlement for freed slaves at the
bay which was later renamed Victoria. Britain established the Ambas
Bay Protectorate in 1884 with Victoria as its capital.
Biya's Francophone government responded with massive violence,
arresting hundreds of people, and using helicopter gunships to fire on
innocent civilians and kill them. Hundreds of people have been
killed, and hundreds more are missing. This triggered a mass flight
of refugees across the border into neighboring Nigeria.
In an apparent attempt at ethnic cleansing, the Francophone army has
burned down dozens of Anglophone villages, and burned down houses with
people inside. In response, the separatists have been burning down
state buildings and institutions, including schools.
So now there's violence on both sides. The atrocities and violence by
the Francophone government targeting the peaceful Anglophone
protesters radicalized some Anglophone activists into violence and
declaring an independent state of Ambazonia. Now the Anglophone
government can claim that tens of thousands of "terrorists" have been
killed, jailed, tortured, disappeared, or forced to flee into Nigeria.
VOA (27-May) and The Citizen (Tanzania) and VOA (23-May)
****
**** US Ambassador Peter Barlerin accuses Cameroon government of 'targeted killings'
****
Peter Henry Barlerin, the US ambassador to Cameroon, said last week:
<QUOTE>"April has proven the bloodiest so things are not
getting better.
On the side of the government, there have been targeted killings,
detentions without access to legal support, family, or the Red
Cross, and burning and looting of villages. On the side of the
separatists, there have been murders of gendarmes, kidnapping of
government officials, and burning of schools. People on both
sides of the conflict have engaged in speech that dehumanizes the
opposite side."<END QUOTE>
Barlerin also "suggested to President Biya that he should reflect on
his legacy and how he wants to be remembered in the history books."
However Issa Tchiroma Bakary, spokesman for Cameroon's Francophone
government, said:
<QUOTE>"We do not accept the infantilization of the
Cameroonian nation. It is with full knowledge of the facts that
they (Cameroonians) put their ballot in the ballot box.
[The Cameroonian people] are sovereign, and not likely to accept
any diktat from whatever power."<END QUOTE>
The minister described Biya as "a man of honor."
There have been some reports that ambassador Barlerin has returned to
Washington, but those reports are unconfirmed. Deutsche Welle (18-May) and Journal du Cameroun
and Africa News (20-May) and Journal du Cameroun (24-May)
Related Articles
KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Cameroon, Southern Cameroons,
Anglophones, Francophones, Paul Biya,
Ambazonia, Liberation Movement of Southern Cameroons,
Ambas Bay, Alfred Saker,
Peter Henry Barlerin, Issa Tchiroma Bakary
Permanent web link to this article
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Contribute to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
John J. Xenakis
100 Memorial Drive Apt 8-13A
Cambridge, MA 02142
Phone: 617-864-0010
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com
Forum: http://www.gdxforum.com/forum
Subscribe to World View: http://generationaldynamics.com/subscribe
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
- Dozens killed in English-speaking Cameroon region by French-speaking government police
- US Ambassador Peter Barlerin accuses Cameroon government of 'targeted killings'
****
**** Dozens killed in English-speaking Cameroon region by French-speaking government police
****
Youth wearing a T-shirt protesting the 'Francophonization' of Anglophones (Deutsche Welle)
Twenty-two people were killed on Friday in the Anglophone
(English-speaking) region of Cameroon by army and security forces from
the Francophone (French-speaking) government of 85-year-old president
Paul Biya, who has been in power for more than 35 years.
This is the latest violence in a growing civil war in the Southern
Cameroons, the Anglophone region of Cameroon.
The violence started in November 2016, when peaceful protests began
with claims by Anglophone lawyers that the legal and court systems are
biased toward Francophones, with many laws passed without even being
translated into English. Anglophone teachers joined in, protesting
that all courses in the schools had to be taught in French, and that
any use of English was forbidden. The Francophone police responded by
committing atrocities.
The atrocities by Francophone security forces grew during 2017, and
took a particularly dangerous turn on September 22. What always
happens in these situations, as I've described in Syria, Cambodia,
Burundi, and a number of other countries, is that government officials
feel threated by peaceful protests by the opposition, and respond to
the peaceful protests with violence and atrocities. This kind of
extreme overreaction leaves everyone stunned and shocked at first, but
it doesn't have the intended effect of ending the peaceful protests.
Instead, more people from the opposition join the peaceful protests,
and this leads to more violence and atrocities by the government.
Finally, the activists within the peaceful protesters begin to commit
their own acts of violence. Once that happens, the government is free
to call all the peaceful protesters "terrorists," and then they can
use unbridled violence against all of them, including rape, jailings,
and torture.
In Cameroon, the violence and atrocities by Biya's government
continued throughout 2017, in various forms. Finally, activists
formed a secessionist group called the Liberation Movement of Southern
Cameroons. On October 1 of last year, and declared independence for
the Southern Cameroons, calling it Ambazonia.
The name Ambazonia comes from the Ambas Bay. The bay which is located
in southwestern Cameroon is considered as the boundary between
Southern Cameroons and the Republic of Cameroon. In 1858, British
missionary Alfred Saker founded a settlement for freed slaves at the
bay which was later renamed Victoria. Britain established the Ambas
Bay Protectorate in 1884 with Victoria as its capital.
Biya's Francophone government responded with massive violence,
arresting hundreds of people, and using helicopter gunships to fire on
innocent civilians and kill them. Hundreds of people have been
killed, and hundreds more are missing. This triggered a mass flight
of refugees across the border into neighboring Nigeria.
In an apparent attempt at ethnic cleansing, the Francophone army has
burned down dozens of Anglophone villages, and burned down houses with
people inside. In response, the separatists have been burning down
state buildings and institutions, including schools.
So now there's violence on both sides. The atrocities and violence by
the Francophone government targeting the peaceful Anglophone
protesters radicalized some Anglophone activists into violence and
declaring an independent state of Ambazonia. Now the Anglophone
government can claim that tens of thousands of "terrorists" have been
killed, jailed, tortured, disappeared, or forced to flee into Nigeria.
VOA (27-May) and The Citizen (Tanzania) and VOA (23-May)
****
**** US Ambassador Peter Barlerin accuses Cameroon government of 'targeted killings'
****
Peter Henry Barlerin, the US ambassador to Cameroon, said last week:
<QUOTE>"April has proven the bloodiest so things are not
getting better.
On the side of the government, there have been targeted killings,
detentions without access to legal support, family, or the Red
Cross, and burning and looting of villages. On the side of the
separatists, there have been murders of gendarmes, kidnapping of
government officials, and burning of schools. People on both
sides of the conflict have engaged in speech that dehumanizes the
opposite side."<END QUOTE>
Barlerin also "suggested to President Biya that he should reflect on
his legacy and how he wants to be remembered in the history books."
However Issa Tchiroma Bakary, spokesman for Cameroon's Francophone
government, said:
<QUOTE>"We do not accept the infantilization of the
Cameroonian nation. It is with full knowledge of the facts that
they (Cameroonians) put their ballot in the ballot box.
[The Cameroonian people] are sovereign, and not likely to accept
any diktat from whatever power."<END QUOTE>
The minister described Biya as "a man of honor."
There have been some reports that ambassador Barlerin has returned to
Washington, but those reports are unconfirmed. Deutsche Welle (18-May) and Journal du Cameroun
and Africa News (20-May) and Journal du Cameroun (24-May)
Related Articles
- Nigeria threatens Cameroon as 40,000 refugees cross the border (08-Feb-2018)
- Cameroon Catholic Church splits over government 'barbarism' and 'growing genocide' (15-Jan-2018)
- Cameroon's army to force English-speaking children to attend school (31-Aug-2017)
- Brief generational history of Cameroon (15-Feb-2017)
KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Cameroon, Southern Cameroons,
Anglophones, Francophones, Paul Biya,
Ambazonia, Liberation Movement of Southern Cameroons,
Ambas Bay, Alfred Saker,
Peter Henry Barlerin, Issa Tchiroma Bakary
Permanent web link to this article
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Contribute to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
John J. Xenakis
100 Memorial Drive Apt 8-13A
Cambridge, MA 02142
Phone: 617-864-0010
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com
Forum: http://www.gdxforum.com/forum
Subscribe to World View: http://generationaldynamics.com/subscribe
