08.06.2022, 10:16
Zitat:Cameroon: Africa's Unseen Crisishttps://www.fpri.org/article/2022/05/cam...en-crisis/
The crisis in Cameroon, the site of one of the world’s unseen wars for nearly six years, falls into that latter category. This Central African country of 26 million people has been locked in a series of conflicts, ranging from fighting between the Francophone central government and Anglophone separatists in southern Cameroon to interethnic clashes in the country’s north. Killings, kidnappings, and internal displacement of people fleeing the violence, if left unchecked, could lead to another Rwanda-type catastrophe. Over 6,000 people have been killed and nearly one million people have already been displaced by the ongoing violence in the country. [...]
Cameroon was once considered a beacon of stability in Africa. After its independence from France in 1960, Cameroon enjoyed a period of peace that allowed the country to develop critical infrastructure such as roads and railways and profitable agricultural and petroleum industries. The Francophone majority, however, dominated the central government. As a result, the Anglophone region of the country was marginalized and left out of power sharing. Tensions between the two groups intensified when Ahmadou Ahidjo, the country’s first post-independence president, resigned in 1982 and was replaced by Paul Biya, a position he has held ever since.
Differences between Francophone and Anglophone Cameroonians were further exacerbated in 2008, when the constitution was amended to abolish presidential term limits. This allowed Biya, whose Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement holds a strong majority in the National Assembly, to become president for life.
For the last several years, international experts have been concerned that Cameroon could descend into chaos. In 2016, lawyers, students, and teachers from the country’s English-speaking minority launched protests objecting to their under-representation and cultural marginalization by the central government. The state responded with a brutal crackdown. The ensuing violence has caused a massive dislocation. According to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, Cameroon security forces have engaged in a scorched earth policy of razing villages and indiscriminately torturing, maiming, and killing civilians with tactics that border on ethnic cleansing. These actions have targeted the people of Southern Cameroon, home to the country’s Christian Anglophone minority. [...]
Cameroon lies in the center of the Gulf of Guinea in Central Africa. The region accounts for 60 percent of the continent’s oil production and contains 4.5 percent of proven global oil reserves. Cameroon produces 66,000 barrels per day and is the fifth-largest oil producer in Africa (Nigeria is the largest producer of oil on the continent). Cameroon’s population is projected to rise to 50 million by 2050 and to nearly 90 million by 2099.
Schneemann