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  • Macron heads to Cameroon for 3-nation Africa tour amid mixed reception

    Macron heads to Cameroon for 3-nation Africa tour amid mixed reception

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    French President Emmanuel Macron is in Cameroon to start his 3-nation Africa tour, where he is expected to discuss the African food crisis sparked by Russia’s war in Ukraine, the need for Cameroon to increase its agricultural production and the upsurge in insecurity in the country.

    Macron is due to spend three days in Yaounde, Cameroon’s capital, before heading to Benin and Guinea Bissau.

    The Cameroon government has given Yaounde a facelift for Macron’s visit, with bulldozers razing makeshift market stalls and shacks on the streets where Macron’s convoy will pass.

    “They have destroyed my only source of livelihood,” said Solange Kemje, 28, among the several hundred stall owners affected.

    Others welcome the visit of France’s leader, hoping that Macron will extend help in the face of rising insecurity from jihadi violence that has spilled over from neighbouring Nigeria.

    The central African state is also battling a separatist conflict that has killed at least 3,300 people and displaced more than 750,000 in five years, according to the UN. Rebels are fighting for Cameroon’s English-speaking minority to have an independent country called Ambazonia.

    Some hope that hope Macron will influence President Paul Biya to end the use of force as a solution to the separatist crisis in Cameroon’s English-speaking regions, according to Capo Daniel, deputy defence chief of the Ambazonia Defense Forces, one of the separatist groups.

    “One of our factions in our liberation movement called for a lockdown to protest Emmanuel Macron’s visit,” said Capo. “But other movements will be watching this event with the hope that Emmanuel Macron will push Paul Biya to choose the path of peaceful resolution of the war [of separatist violence] as an alternative to the current posture of the state of Cameroon to use war to resolve the problem with Ambazonia.”

    Cameroon says France supports its military to fight separatists and the jihadi violence from Nigeria’s Boko Haram rebels but has given no details on how many weapons have been received from France.

    Others hope that Macron will encourage Cameroon’s 89-year-old President Paul Biya, who has been in power for close to 40 years, to retire.

    “The discussion should go around a peaceful transition of power in Cameroon and also the issues of human rights and democracy in Cameroon,” said Prince Ekosso, leader of the United Socialist Democratic Party.

    Biya is accused of rigging elections in order to stay in power until he dies. But he maintains he always won democratic elections fairly.

    Cameroon signed a defence treaty with Russia and agreed to let China carry out mining, both of which reduced the influence of France in the country, Prince Ekosso said.

    For its part, Cameroon’s Consumers League says it wants Cameroon, Benin and Guinea Bissau to ask Macron to reconsider EU trade sanctions on Russia. The consumer advocacy group blames the EU sanctions for fuel and wheat shortages and rising food prices across Africa.

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  • Emmanuel Macron can be a peacemaker in Cameroon

    Emmanuel Macron can be a peacemaker in Cameroon

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    -DW News

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    Yaounde, Jul 25: Macron’s visit, part of a four-day Africa tour, comes as France has been forced to withdraw from Mali, where its armed forces have fought an increasingly violent Islamist insurgency. Meanwhile, Boko Haram, a fundamentalist terrorist group originating in Nigeria, continues to cause havoc in Cameroon’s Far North Region. France supports Cameroon’s security services with training, weapons and money, as do the United States and the UK.

    Yet, several Sahel countries currently battling offshoots of the Islamic State are turning to Russia and its mercenaries for support, rather than their former French colonial masters. In April, Cameroon also renewed a defense agreement with Russia. Macron will want to use his trip to the capital Yaounde to reinforce historic bonds with Cameroon’s Francophone-dominated government, ensuring that yet another former colony does not slip out of the French orbit of influence.

    Emmanuel Macron can be a peacemaker in Cameroon

    France also has significant business interests in the region. Many French companies operate in Cameroon, including Bollore Transport & Logistics, which opened a hub in the southwestern town of Kribi in June. Mass distribution company BUT also announced plans to open its first store in Cameroon.

    PM Modi gets warm hug from French President Emmanuel Macron upon arrival in FrancePM Modi gets warm hug from French President Emmanuel Macron upon arrival in France

    Solving the Anglophone standoff

    At the top of Macron’s agenda should be encouraging a peaceful and prosperous economic environment in Cameroon. That means using France’s vaunted position to press President Paul Biya to embrace a political, not military, solution to the country’s Anglophone separatist insurgency.

    Twenty percent of the population speaks English and uses the English legal and education system left behind by the United Kingdom, which shared a colonial-era mandate with France. The federal system established at independence in 1960, intended to give autonomy to the Anglophone and Francophone parts of the country, was dismantled by the majority-Francophone government, stripping English-speakers of their rights and marginalizing them.

    Peaceful Anglophone protests in 2016 were met with disproportionate force by Biya’s security forces. As the situation deteriorated, calls for secession grew. Various armed groups, fighting for independence for the breakaway state “Ambazonia,” have brought education and the economy to a near halt in the Northwest and Southwest Regions while battling Cameroon’s armed forces to a bloody stalemate.

    Schools in the Anglophone regions have been closed for the best part of five years, causing massive harm to an entire generation of innocent children. Civilians and civil society groups are caught between increasingly rogue government soldiers and non-state armed groups, both of which extort from the population and behave with impunity.

    Macron says Iran nuclear deal 'still possible'Macron says Iran nuclear deal ‘still possible’

    Misery piles on for civilians

    As a result, tens of thousands have fled to neighboring Nigeria, and nearly one million more are internally displaced, some trying to survive in the bush. The Center for Human Rights and Democracy in Africa, Cameroon Anglophone Crisis Database of Atrocities, and Human Rights Watch, among others, keep a roll call of atrocities and misery being committed on innocent civilians.

    Diplomatic attempts to secure peace talks have stalled, and France and Biya have hung back from acknowledging the seriousness of the conflict. The French have reportedly refused to join a proposed contact group of nations hopeful for a negotiated settlement and been hesitant to support efforts by other countries for peace. Yet, their historic and present-day business and military ties mean that they could have enough power to persuade Biya to announce a road map for inclusive talks to reach a new constitutional settlement that improves governance for both Anglophones and Francophones.

    Recent weeks have seen attacks by armed separatist groups in Cameroon’s Francophone regions, a concerning new trend. These attacks lend additional urgency for Macron to engage President Biya on the Anglophone Crisis. The security situation now threatens Anglophone and Francophone Cameroonians alike.

    Emmanuel Macron can be a peacemaker in Cameroon

    Forcing Biya’s hand

    It is in France’s interest to push Biya to redeem his personal legacy and return Cameroon to being an “island of stability in a troubled region” by engaging in mediated peace negotiations with the Anglophone population, including moderate leaders and civil society as well as the men with guns. There is little trust on either side, which is why commentators believe Biya must transparently commit to peace talks, as well as release political prisoners as a confidence-building measure. Certainly, Macron must ask that the four Medecins Sans Frontieres workers facing trial be first on the list for immediate freedom, followed by Anglophones tortured and jailed unjustly for political reasons.

    India-France ties: PM Modi-Macron meet in Paris, talks to figure host of key issuesIndia-France ties: PM Modi-Macron meet in Paris, talks to figure host of key issues

    Macron is into his second and final presidential term. He can now focus not on winning votes at home but on recalibrating France’s role in Africa. He can seek a genuine partnership in Cameroon, built on the search for peace and prosperity for all of Cameroon’s citizens. Let us hope he seizes the opportunity before any new crises emerge, succession or otherwise.

    Source: DW

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  • Africa: Macron Begins First Africa Trip of New Term With Visit to Cameroon

    Africa: Macron Begins First Africa Trip of New Term With Visit to Cameroon

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    President Emmanuel Macron begins a three-nation tour of western African states on Monday, in the first trip to Africa of his new term as he seeks to reboot France’s post-colonial relationship with the continent.

    Macron kicks off the July 25-28 tour, also the first venture outside Europe of his new mandate, with a visit to Cameroon, before moving on to Benin and then finishing the trip in Guinea-Bissau.

    It’s the first time he’s visited those three countries since becoming President in 2017.

    Top of the agenda in the talks will be food supply issues, with African nations fearing shortages especially of grain due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

    But security will also loom large as France prepares to complete its pullout from Mali this year, with all countries in the region seeking to head off fears of Islamist insurgencies.

    The trip to three countries which rarely feature on the itinerary of global leaders comes with Macron, who won a new term in April, pledging to keep up his bid for a new relationship between France and Africa.

    France has also followed with concern the emergence of other powers seeking a foothold in an area Paris still considers parts of its sphere of influence, notably Turkey under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan but also increasingly China and Russia.

    ‘Political priority’

    The tour “will show the commitment of the President in the process of renewing the relationship with the African continent”, said a French presidential official, who asked not to be named.

    It will signal that the African continent is a “political priority” of his presidency.

    In Cameroon, which has been riven by ethnic violence and an insurgency by anglophone separatists, Macron will meet President Paul Biya, 89, who has ruled the country for almost 40 years and is the longest-serving non-royal leader in the world.

    Biya has run the country with an iron fist, refusing demands for federalism and cracking down on the rebellion by separatists.

    Macron will move on Wednesday to Benin, a neighbour of Africa’s most populous nation Nigeria. The north of the country has faced more deadly attacks, with the jihadist threat now spreading from the Sahel to Gulf of Guinea nations.

    He is likely to be lauded for championing the return in November of 26 historic treasures which were stolen in 1892 by French colonial forces from Abomey, capital of the former Dahomey kingdom located in the south of modern-day Benin.

    Benin was long praised for its thriving multi-party democracy.

    But critics say its democracy has steadily eroded under President Patrice Talon over the last half decade. Opposition leader Reckya Madougou was sentenced in 2021 to 20 years in prison on terrorism charges.