Biya Upbeat about 7th term amidst violence
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| The U.S. State Department on Monday condemned the release of a video appearing to show soldiers in Cameroon killing two women and their kids, among others. |
As President Paul Biya, 85, prepares to run for a seventh
term as president, foreign governments and human rights organizations are
increasingly sounding the alarm on growing violence between French and English
speakers in the country.
Biya
announced that he would seek a seventh term as president on Friday, having
clocked 36 years as the nation’s head of state in which most of the country,
but not those in government, have experienced a significant economic decline.
Should Biya win the election, he will be 92 years old by the time his latest
term ends.
Another significant issue with Biya’s rule is that he
does not live in Cameroon for much of the year, preferring Switzerland to his
own country. The New York Times noted this week that Biya has spent 4.5 of his
36 years in office abroad, even though his country faces major economic
challenges, regular terrorist attacks on the part of neighboring Nigeria’s Boko
Haram, and growing strife between francophone and anglophone Cameroonians.
According
to Voice of America, few doubt that Biya will be able to keep power, given that
his announcement of his intent to run triggered almost immediate support from a
variety of smaller parties unaffiliated with his ruling Cameroon People’s
Democratic Movement.
Specifically,
one minority party leader reportedly endorsed Biya because he “is the right
person and the real person to handle the anglophone problem.”
Protests
have been ongoing in Southern Cameroons, the English-speaking part of the
country, since November 2016. Anglophones complain that the government gives
favorable treatment to those who speak French and have largely ostracized
English speakers from society. Among the complaints have been the failure of
the government to translate laws and important documents into English and the
imposition of French in schools where most speak English, despite both French
and English being official state languages.
Biya’s government has responded to protests largely with
violence, triggering the rise of a secessionist movement to establish a new,
English-speaking country called Ambazonia. Biya himself has promised to take
“all measures” to end the uprising
The
violence in Southern Cameroons made headlines again this weekend with the
surfacing of a video on social media appearing to show government soldiers
killing two women and two children, one an infant. The NGO Amnesty
International confirmed last week that it had “gathered credible evidence” that
the men in uniform in the video were indeed soldiers acting under Biya’s
authority. Biya’s government has denied that the video shows state actors,
calling it “fake news.”
“Extensive
analysis of the weapons, dialogue and uniforms that feature in the video,
paired with digital verification techniques and testimonies taken from the
ground, all strongly suggest that the perpetrators of the executions are
Cameroonian soldiers,” Amnesty International concluded.
The
group also concluded that the video was likely filmed in the Far North region
of Cameroon, not near the Southern Cameroons area where much of the violence is
occurring. The Far North is where Cameroon has many of its run-ins with Boko
Haram, however, as it is near Nigeria. Biya has sent troops into the Far North
to attempt to find and kill Boko Haram members.
There is
no evidence that the women and children in the video have any affiliation to
Boko Haram or to Anglophone separatists. Yet the violence depicted has
nonetheless triggered outrage in the context of crackdowns against civilians
the government uses the fight against both groups to justify. Multiple killings
occurred in the South West region of Cameroon last week, as well, the dead
belonging to both police forces and Anglophone separatist groups.
“The
United States is gravely concerned over the recent video depicting men wearing
military-style uniforms executing two women and two children, one an infant,”
State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said in a statement Monday. “We
call on the Government of Cameroon to investigate thoroughly and transparently
the events depicted in the video, make its findings public, and if Cameroonian
military personnel were involved in this atrocity, hold them accountable.”
Biya’s
government has yet to roll out a campaign platform for the incumbent that
addresses concerns with state violence nationwide.
Source: Breitbart.com
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