18.01.2022, 10:16
Zitat:Assassination mars Cameroon's football fiesta, exposes missed political goalshttps://www.france24.com/en/africa/20220...ical-goals
The killing this week of a prominent senator from Cameroon’s anglophone western region, while the country hosts the 2022 Africa Cup of Nations, has put a spotlight on a conflict the government has tried to paper over. While President Paul Biya hails the tournament as a symbol of unity, his government’s policies have exacerbated deadly divides. [...]
Hours later, the opposition politician’s body was found in his native Bamenda, capital of Cameroon’s war-torn Northwest Region, his chest riddled with bullets. Kemende, a lawyer and lawmaker for the Social Democratic Front (SDF) party, one of Cameroon’s main opposition parties, was an outspoken human rights defender. He was also a leading representative of the country’s marignalised anglophone minority, who constitute around 20 percent of the country’s 28 million population. [...]
Militants from a motley mix of armed groups fighting for a separate state – called “Ambazonia” – in the anglophone west have threatened to disrupt the games. Confronting a separatist insurgency in the west, a jihadist threat in the north and a pandemic across the world, the government nevertheless responded with a confident motto: “Safety will be guaranteed”. [...] The slaying of a prominent parliamentarian in the Northwest Region followed by a deadly attack in the Southwest Region has put a spotlight on a conflict the Cameroonian government has attempted to shield from the international community. [...]
Meanwhile Ambazonia militants routinely target civilians accused of “collaborating” with the government in Yaounde and have enforced a school boycott, depriving hundreds of thousands of children of their education. “It’s always the civilians, the ordinary people caught in the middle, who suffer,” said Rebecca Tinsley, a London-based activist with The Global Campaign for Peace and Justice in Cameroon. “The violence is just getting worse. In 2021, there were more than 80 IED [improvised explosive device] attacks in the anglophone region alone. Because of the violence, nearly a million children are not able to go to school and there’s very little security, making the lives of ordinary people very difficult.”
Schneemann