Human Rights deteriorates in Cameroon

Human rights has been noted to be deteriorating in Cameroon. For more than two weeks now, the authorities in Yaoundé have been under an extremely serious accusation following an extrajudicial execution of a political opponent.

According to the weekly, Jeune Afrique in Paris which conducted a thorough investigation on this issue, captain Guerandi Mbara Goulongo, a former Cameroonian officer and one of the masterminds of the April 1984 coup against the Paul Biya regime, who has been in exile for 30 years have been abducted and executed on an order from Yaoundé.

Jeune Afrique reported that, in January of last year, the ex-officer who lived between Burkina Faso and Europe was caught in a trap by thugs hired by the Cameroonian authorities.

According to them, José Alberto Fernandes Abrantes, a former colonel of the Portuguese Special Forces, conspired with security to trade in weapons with one Georges Starckmann. Then the arms merchant living in France, offered Mr. Guerandi an aircraft which was to take him to another arms merchant in Russia for supplies to fuel a rebellion in Cameroon.

The aircraft took off from Sofia, the Bulgarian capital, heading to Russia but on the way, the companions of Mr. Guerandi gave him a powerful sedative and changed the route back to Cameroon, where they handed him to the security forces in secrecy. It is the reluctance of the authorities to pay the remainder of the promised sum that pushed them to reveal the case of mercenaries.

Pressed by a part of the political class and civil society to respond to this serious accusation, the Cameroonian authority has remained silent on the matter. Even the very talkative Minister of Communication and Government spokesman, Issa Tchiroma Bakary, who did not hesitate to organize a press conference last week to explain the questionable conditions of Lydienne Yen Eyoum who is to serve 25 years jail term for embezzlement, has been silent on the subject.

This case is even more serious considering the fact that Mr. Guerandi had obtained the status of political refugee in Burkina Faso where he had become a teacher, after having submitted a doctoral thesis in political science at the Université Paris-Descartes in 1997.

Moreover, he had benefitted as an ex-putschists in 1984, an amnesty decided by president Biya, which did not permit the Cameroonian authority to track him down.

Several petitions were sent to Yaoundé for them to throw more light on the case. The former Minister delegated to Justice Maurice Kamto played a key role in this.

This eminent jurist who is one of the 34 members of the United Nations international law commission recalled that Cameroon is a signatory to many international instruments dedicated to the protection of human rights, including the International Convention for the protection of all persons against enforced disappearances of 2006.

He claimed that for the establishment of an international independent investigation commission, the facts are being held in several countries.

The revelation of this case, to which part of the Cameroonian press has already dubbed 'Guerandigate' occurs in a particularly difficult context of human rights in Cameroon. In August, two notables from the North of the country were arrested in extrajudicial conditions.

Aboubakar Sidiki, president of MPSC, an opposition party was arrested almost under similar conditions in his office in Douala. According to the Government, the two men were allegedly in contact with Central African armed groups and posed a threat to the security of the State.

In November 2013, the International Federation of leagues of the of human rights (FIDH) had already reported the arrest and arbitrary detention of Célestin Yandal, young president of the collective Touboro youth, an association for the defence of the rights of the youth in the Adamawa (North) region.