CHRDA Reviews Report on Rights Abuses
By Boris Esono in Buea
 |
Barristers Agbor Balla, Michelle Ndoki, Enow Benjamin and
others at the
re-launching of the CHRDA report on rights abuses in NOSO
|
The Center for Human Rights and Democracy in Africa, CHRDA
has re-launched its report detailing the rights abuses and violations committed
during the ongoing Anglophone conflict in Cameroon. This was during activities
marking the 2019 edition of the International Human Rights Day on 10 December.
The
report published with support from the Open Society Initiative West Africa
(OSIWA), in partnership with the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights, is
titled ‘Cameroon’s Unfolding Catastrophe: Evidence of Human Rights Violations
and Crimes against Humanity’.
The
report which focuses on events from October 2016 to May 2019 was first launched
in Canada.
The
lunching was witnessed among others by Barrister Michelle Ndoki, President of
the Women wing of the Cameroon Renaissance Movement (CRM) party, Barrister Enow
Benjamin, President of the Fako Lawyers’ Association, FAKLA; Rights activists,
leaders of CSOs and journalists.
The
report provides an evidence-based characterization of the conflict and the
rights abuses committed by both government forces and the separatist fighters.
It
concludes that there are reasonable grounds to believe that crimes against
humanity have been committed in Cameroon. It underscores the need for immediate
action to be taken to prevent further atrocities, protect civilian populations
and seek accountability.
Launching
the report, the CEO of CHRDA, Barrister Felix Agbor Nkongho, said the re-launch
was aimed to further sensitize people in Cameroon. He said the sensitization
will enable CSOs, journalists and other interested parties to know the crimes
and atrocities committed.
Human
rights groups and international organizations have reported deteriorating
political, humanitarian, and security conditions as a result of extrajudicial
killings, torture, arbitrary arrests, severe deprivations of liberty, and mass
displacements of civilian populations.
International,
regional, and domestic actors, such as the United Nations, the International
Crisis Group (ICG), Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the Global
Centre for the Responsibility to Protect, among others, as well as the media
and Cameroonian human rights organizations, including the Centre for Human
Rights and Democracy in Africa (CHRDA), have been reporting on the crisis and
expressing grave concern.
In the report
more than 200 villages have been partly or completely destroyed, forcing
hundreds of thousands of people to flee while the rate of attacks on villages
has increased steadily, usually causing significant damage. Between 450, 000
and 550, 000 people have been displaced as a result of the crisis, representing
about 10 per cent of the regions’ population, the report read in part. An
additional 30, 000 to 35, 000 people have sought asylum in neighbouring
countries.
CHRDA
through the report provides evidence that much of the violence is intentional
and planned, including retaliation attacks on villages by government security
forces, often followed by indiscriminate shooting into crowds of civilians,
invasions of private homes and murder of their inhabitants, and the rounding up
and shooting of villagers. Violence against women has been widely reported.
Non-state actors, including local armed groups, also bear much responsibility
for the violence.
As the
report demonstrates, the military is conducting a deliberate, violent campaign
against civilian populations. Moreover, the existence of internal conflict does
not absolve or minimize Cameroon’s responsibilities under domestic and
international law to respect, protect, and fulfil human rights, to fulfil its
positive duties to protect civilians during security operations, and to ensure
the human rights of those arrested and detained are protected.
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