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African press review 9 December 2016

Cameroon crisis worsens as clashes between Anglophones protesting marginalization and security forces result in deaths and dozens of arrests.

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The Cameroon Anglophone crisis

We begin in Cameroon where there are conflicting reports in the press about the death toll from deadly clashes between protesters and security forces in the English-speaking North Western regional capital Bamenda.

The public broadcaster CRTV reports that at least two people were shot dead by police and several other injured as a group of youths were trying to block a meeting for President Paul Biya's ruling People's Democratic Movement in the city while CameroonOnline says the toll was up to four death and expected to rise further.

"Cameroon regime forces shoot at peaceful civilians", headlines Concord. The online paper carries a full-blown picture of local youths bearing the body of an alleged demonstrator shot in the clashes as they marched round the regional capital.

For its part Cameroon Link reports that the two English-speaking regions have been paralyzed by a ghost town operation. It quotes China's Xinhua news agency as reporting that schools and businesses in the two cities remain deserted.

The online publication Cameroun-Info.Net points out in a background article that the Anglophone minority, comprising around 20 percent of the country's 22.5 million population, has long complained of discrimination.

According to the paper, teachers, magistrates and lawyers have led protests denouncing "marginalization" and an unfair distribution of wealth, some calling for independence while others favour a return to a federal system agreed on by the country's leaders on independence in 1961.

That was before becoming a united republic in 1972 after a controversial referendum organized by the country's first president Ahmadou Ahidjo.

Too late to dialogue?

In an article titled 'Anglophone problem: when facts don't lie', the French-speaking Le Jour newspaper looks back at government business over 55 years after Cameroon's independence and re-unification.

There has never been an Anglophone President or an Anglophone Secretary General at the Presidency laments the independent paper. Le Jour also notes that the situation had become untenable for a region that represents about 20% of the population, and accounts for over 60% of GDP.

According to Le Jour, higher education institutions in the country are heavily laden with French courses, which it claims is another way of saying that Anglophones need not apply.

The paper also lists what it calls staggering facts and figures of Anglophone marginalization. It states that out of the 700 ministers appointed since President Paul Biya took office in 1982, only 76 (10.8%) have been Anglophones, adding that just three of the nation’s 33 army generals are Anglophones.

In an editorial the state-owed Cameroon Tribune says it is hard to find any one in the country preoccupied by the need to preserve peace and national concord who is indifferent to what it describes as the unfortunate events rocking the predominantly English-speaking North West and South West regions.

According to the paper, the incidents of the past weeks underscore the gravity of the situation and the urgency to deal with the crisis before it balloons into walls of incomprehension capable of making the bed of radicalization.

Meanwhile, the publisher of the main English speaking Post newspaper, Francis Wache says it is time to elect an Anglophone president in Cameroon, arguing that only such change in the dynamics of Cameroonian politics can end the ongoing crisis. But several readers react angrily to the comments, dismissing his dream as too little too late.

South African MPs ranks cabinet truants in a stunning ranking

In South Africa Times Live and BusinessDay dig out the reasons behind the ranking of two cabinet ministers on parliaments top truancy table.

According to data compiled by the House information service, Mineral Resources Minister Mosebenzi Zwane was registered absent for 31 committee meetings scoring the all-time poorest parliamentary attendance record of all Cabinet ministers.

BusinessDay says Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Minister Van Rooyen is runner up after he missed six meetings without either offering apologies.

Times Live reports that the African National Congress parliamentary caucus suffered embarrassment recently after it failed to pass a Revenue Amendment Bill on two occasions because of truant MPs. According to the newspaper, several disciplinary hearings against ANC MPs are pending because of their failure to attend parliamentary engagements.

"Smoking" chimp Manno returns to Africa aster kissing death in Iraq

And in Kenya, Daily Nation celebrates the new life of Manno the chimpanzee in a local sanctuary after he separated from his mother shortly after birth and smuggled to Iraq.

According to the newspaper Manno, aged four-years-old and believed to have been born in a zoo in the Syrian capital Damascu,  was smuggled out of the war-ravaged Kurdish city of Dohuk as fierce battles raged there between the Iraqi army and fighters of the Islamic State armed group.

Daily Nation says the Chimpanzee arrived the Ol Pejeta conservancy at the foot of Mount Kenya on November 30 and is now on health check quarantine before its delicate introduction to the other chimps in the endangered species sanctuary.

The paper reports that Manno hasn't had any contact with his own kind since at least the end of 2013 when he was illegally sold to the Dohuk zoo for $15,000.

An official of the zoo told Daily Nation that the chimpanzee doesn't seem traumatized by its long ordeal he endured and spends his days in a small cage smoking cigarettes handed to him by amused zoo visitors.

 

 

 

 

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