One of Cameroon’s Separatists’ leaders, Sisiku Ayuk Tabe/ credit/Guardian
Cameroon Clamps Down on Separatists’ Leaders
Fifteen leaders of the Southern Cameroon National Council (SCNC), the separatist movement of the Anglophone minority of the country, have been issued international arrest warrant.
The warrant is part of Cameroon authority’s efforts to check separatists’ agitation in the Central African country.
A local website said, Sisiku Ayuk Tabe, the self-proclaimed president of the Anglophone consortium is among those wanted and now faces arrest and extradition.
The security situation has in the past led to the burning of schools, detonation of homemade bombs in the main cities of Bamenda and Douala. The most recent incident was the killing of three security officers in an overnight raid on a checkpoint.
The Guardian reports that English speaking minority in the central African country makes up a fifth of the population but has long complained of discrimination. They said they are often excluded from top civil service jobs and that many government documents are published only in French, even though English is an official language. Protests began in October 2016 over the appointment of Francophone judges in the English-speaking region.
There have been investigations into unrest caused by agitations in Cameroon.
“Apart from the material damage, precise enquiries have been opened by judicial authorities on the toll,” Defence Minister Joseph Beti Assomo said on state radio.
AFP reported that 14 people died “in violence in the run-up to the symbolic October 1 declaration of independence of Ambazonia, the name of the state the separatists want to create”. But Amnesty International has given a toll of 17.
Cameroon’s anglophone-francophone rift dates back to 1961 when the British-administered Southern Cameroons united with Cameroon after its independence from France in 1960.
The English speakers complain they have suffered decades of economic inequality and social injustice at the hands of the French-speaking majority.
Anglophones account for about a fifth of the 22 million population.