The State of Human Rights in Cameroon, According to Cameroonian Citizens
The 2018 presidential elections are coming at a critical junction in Cameroon’s history. The country is beset by significant security challenges: the Boko Haram conflict in the Far North region and the violent uprising in the Anglophone regions. Ordinary people in Cameroon are caught in the middle of two deadly crises. The upcoming elections could bring another layer of instability in the country if the violence faced by the people living in the Far North and the Anglophone regions is not addressed. It is also an opportunity for the citizens to hold the candidates to account and remind them of the current state of human rights in the country.
The fight against terrorism
In late 2013, the armed group Boko Haram already active in neighboring Nigeria started launching attacks in the Far North of Cameroon committing numerous crimes. Since 2013, over 240,000 Cameroonians fled their homes in the Far North region — becoming internally displaced. In reaction, the government waged a legitimate yet aggressive war on Boko Haram and its security forces carried out military operations which resulted in gross human rights violations and crimes under international law, including arbitrary arrests, illegal detentions, systematic torture in illegal detention centers, enforced disappearances and extrajudicial executions. Since 2014, over 1,000 people have been arrested, often on the basis of little to no evidence, on suspicion of collaborating with Boko Haram. Many have been tried under a draconian anti-terrorism law that was passed in December 2014.The 4-year war raging between Cameroonian security forces and Boko Haram has come at a devastating price for civilians.
The 4-year war raging between Cameroonian security forces and Boko Haram has come at a devastating price for civilians.
Ivo Fomusoh
Ivo was a 27-year-old student when he was arrested on December 13th 2014, for forwarding a sarcastic joke SMS about the challenges of getting into university or finding a good job without being highly qualified. The joke included the name of the armed group Boko Haram.
Ivo shared this SMS with two of his friends and all three were arrested, tried in a military court and sentenced to 10 years in prison. In the midst of this personal tragedy, Ivo tries not to lose hope. He thinks whoever wins the elections in Cameroon this year needs to “readjust the system of government that is existing in the country”.
“The judiciary system in Cameroon is so bad. The cases of many people [arrested]were not handled the way they were supposed to. This has caused a lot of suffering, with many innocent people that have been jailed for no reason.”
The 130 disappeared of Magdeme and Doublé
The families of at least 130 boys and men have been waiting for the Cameroonian authorities to reveal their whereabouts since 27 December 2014. On that day, security forces sealed off the villages of Magdeme and Doublé, in the Mayo Sava department in the Far North of Cameroon to conduct a cordon and search operation following repeated attacks by Boko Haram in the area. Gunshots rang in the air in the early morning operation and nine people, including a 7-year-old girl,, were killed by the security forces. The security forces rounded up at least 200 boys and men from the village and forced them into trucks. They took them to the gendarmerie’s headquarter in Maroua and least 130 of them have not been heard from again.
Adama* and Binta*
“Since the day my brother Ousmane* disappeared, we’ve been looking for him. We don’t have much hope that he is still alive because no one has seen him or the others since they went missing.”
Adama and his neighbors say that they feel safe in their villages now. There has not been any attacks by Boko Haram recently, or abuses committed by the army. Nevertheless, he says that “many people don’t intend to vote. We have always voted but we don’t see our value in it anymore”. Numerous residents from Magdeme and Double are unable to vote since their ID cards were seized during the operation conducted in December 2014 by the security forces. Many can’t afford to get new ones.
Binta, a housewife from the Doublé village in her late thirties, lost her husband, two brothers, her son and her father since the raid. She intends to vote because she believes in her civic duty and still has her national identity card. However, she said that, “the judiciary should play its role. Because I have not heard from my missing family members [since their arrest], I don’t really trust it.”
The Anglophone Crisis
Since late 2016, Cameroon’s North West and South West regions — whose grievances date back to the early 1960s — have endured turmoil and violence in what has become a human rights crisis. In October and November of 2016, protests and strikes were organized by groups including teachers, lawyers and students in opposition to what they viewed as the further marginalization of the Anglophone minority, which makes up 20% of Cameroon’s population. Thousands of ordinary people, including students, joined these demonstrations to express solidarity and to air other grievances.
These initial protests were met with fierce repression from the Cameroonian authorities and security forces who arrested hundreds of people, including human rights defenders, journalists and activists.
In October 2017, peaceful demonstrations organized across the Anglophone regions to celebrate the symbolic independence from the country’s French-speaking areas were met with unlawful and excessive force. On 23 September 2018, security forces carried out search operations in two neighborhoods in the capital Yaoundé which led to the mass arrest of at least 50 Anglophone people. The next day, soldiers from the Rapid Intervention Battalion (BIR) unlawfully killed two unarmed men in Great Soppo (South West). Moderate voices faded as armed separatist groups, calling for secession and armed struggle, grew in profile and support. They began to carry out violent attacks against the Cameroonian security forces and state emblems, schools, student and teachers as well as against the general population.
Since the beginning of the crisis, over 160 security forces have been killed, with over 360 security incidents in the two Anglophone regions. Since early October 2017, at least 400 people have been killed.
Cyrille Bechon
Cyrille is the Executive Director of the NGO Nouveaux Droits de l’Homme (New Human Rights-Cameroon). She notes that the state of human rights has deteriorated in Cameroon ever since the anti-terror law was passed in 2014. “This law was used in the North to fight against Boko Haram and now is being used against citizens who are asking for better living conditions in the Cameroon’s two anglophone regions”.
“The killings, torture and kidnappings show the worsening of the situation in these two regions.It is important and urgent for stakeholders from the international and African community but also our government to come up with a sustainable response to the crisis.”
Felix Agbor Balla
Felix is a human rights lawyer and a native of one of Cameroon’s anglophone regions. In January 2017, he was arrested along with Fontem Neba — a university lecturer — by the police. He spent over 6 months in prison before charges against him were dropped and was released.
“How can we have elections at the moment when we have [tens of thousands of] Cameroonian refugees in Nigeria all the while there are gross and systematic human rights violations taking place in the English-speaking regions of the country?
The extrajudicial killings, the detention, the kidnappings, houses being burned down…all of this injustice and impunity needs to be addressed”.
The plight of Cameroonian refugees
In the North West and South West of Cameroon, people saw their villages being burned down by security forces. Some heard that their family members were arrested or killed by troops. Others received official notice to evacuate their towns while others were attacked and sought after by the armed separatist group. The escalating violence led over 25,000 people from the South West and North West of Cameroon to flee to Nigeria.
Many trekked for days into the bushes to reach safety, often leaving some of their family members behind. “My baby was just one week old when we escaped. I left my wife and baby in Ekok (Nigeria) with her friend,” says Serge*, a 43-year-old retailer from the South West region, who now lives in Calabar (Nigeria). Others, who managed to cross the border with their children, can’t afford to put them in school as they are jobless or barely make ends meet through menial jobs.
John*, a 30-year-old businessman from the North West region has been refugee in Nigeria since June 2017. He feels excluded from the electoral process, “no one has told us anything about the elections and whether or not we can vote from Nigeria”. “[Besides] the elections are not the solution right now. What we need first is peace. We just want peace.” Annie*, a 56-year-old woman from the Otu village (South West), says that if peace returned in Cameroon, she would go back, but, “the upcoming election is useless without peace. We want justice. No doubt. The government should investigate and punish those who burn our villages and kill people.”
* Names have been changed to protect the persons’ identities.
