Cameroon denies suffocation of Boko Haram suspects

The government of Cameroon is refuting allegations by a human rights NGO that its armed forces deliberately suffocated over two dozen suspects of Boko Haram in a gendarmerie cell in the Far North region last December.

Yesterday, March 13, Issa Tchiroma, Communication Minister, told reporters at a press conference in Yaounde that armed forces had nothing to do with the mass death of the 25 Boko Haram suspects. He described the report which was submitted to the United Nations Human Rights Council as ungrounded and doomed.

The Network for the Defence of Human Rights in Central Africa, commonly known by its French language acronym, REDHAC, had in January, in a press statement, which was later made public on February 18, described and denounced several abuses which they said were committed by Cameroon armed forces on the people of the Far North region.

The NGO alleges in the release that soldiers are leaving no stone unturned in their quest for information on Boko Haram to the point that they use crude force to extract confessions from people suspected to have links or provide information to the terror group.

Issa Tchiroma, interpreted REDHAC’s report as meaning the group wants Cameroon put on trial by the UN Security Council, and also get the country to recant the anti-terrorism law which was voted in parliament and promulgated into law by Paul Biya. The NGO gave to understanding that it was in accordance to the stringent law on terror that several dozens of suspects were killed in detention on December 25 and 26 2014.

The minister, equally observed that the NGO is out to discredit the armed forces. “We have to recognize the extreme gravity of the report and emphatically, categorically, denounce the claims.” He said.

Narrating what according to him are the facts of the incident, Tchiroma stated that on December 25 and 26, the armed forces carried out a raid in two villages along National Road Number One – the stretch between Mora and Kousseri in the Far North region where armed attacks had been recorded.

The operation led to the arrest of 70 suspects of which 14 were taken to a gendarmerie brigade in the Far North regional capital, Maroua.

The remaining 56, the minister said, were held in a building which the Gendarmerie legion of the region had prepared for them- they were to be grilled the next day.

The Human Rights report submitted to the UN was based on the fact that 25 of the detainees were dead the following morning. Tchiroma said they died due to overcrowding.

“An immediate burial was arranged for the corpses” Tchiroma said; adding that this was done to prevent contamination of other suspects in detention. He said that an autopsy was carried out in the presence of a magistrate before the burial and that an investigation was opened thereafter.

The commander of the legion was sacked and handed over to the judiciary. Since then, no evidence has emerged in the course of investigations, to prove that the suspects were deliberately murdered. Boko Haram insurgents who escaped the raid, Tchiroma said, returned on December 28 for revenge and killed 2 Cameroonian soldiers.

The communication minister argued that officials of the NGO do not show solidarity towards soldiers who are at the war front and families of fallen soldiers. He reminded reporters how Cameroon is a party to Human rights conventions of the UN and the African Union, and how respect of human rights in war situations is an integral part of the training of the country’s armed forces.

He emphasized that Cameroon is a democratic country with respect for human lives and human rights, facing a terror group which has converse ideologies towards human lives.

“There are hundreds of Boko Haram suspects in Cameroon prisons, they are not tortured, no extra-judicial killings have been carried out though many of them were caught red-handed…raping and killing women and children, Cameroon should not be blamed for human rights.” he said.

Quizzed by Cameroon Journal’s Sylvanus Ezieh on why the minister failed to come out in his characteristic style as government propaganda minister to contradict a similar report by Amnesty International which indicted Cameroon’s armed forces for unjustified killings, Tchiroma stopped the reporter from citing the cases of arbitrary killings, retorting; “You are very wrong. I am not a propaganda minister. All those reports are false.

On why President Biya would not visit wounded soldiers in the hospital or honour fallen ones, he said so much money is spent whenever the president goes out for official ceremonies.

“Thinking that everything can be transposed is very wrong. We of the northern region are happy that the head of state has ordered for billions to be disbursed for development projects in the northern region to curb vulnerability of the youths to Boko Haram recruitments and we do not care whether he visits us or not. Visiting us is to console us, but helping us is better.” He opined. He emphasized that Biya is always working, wherever he is and that he only rests when he sleeps because he works even when he is eating.

To Tchiroma, most Cameroonians are in support of the war against Boko Haram. He said that unlike Chadians who are all in support of the war, there are some Cameroonians who need to be convinced to join the armed forces to wipe out the terror group.