The European Regional Federation of the Cameroon Renaissance Movement (CRM) brings to the attention of public opinion the following: since 28 January 2019, President Maurice KAMTO, National President of the MRC and nearly 160 activists and allies of the coalition that supported him during the presidential election of 07 October 2018 have been kidnapped in many cities in Cameroon. These abducted persons were all systematically deported to Yaoundé and detained for two weeks at the Secretariat of State for Defence (SED) and the Special Operations Group (GSO), without trial or warrant of arrest. To date, these abducted persons have all been subsequently transferred to Yaoundé Central Prison (Kondengui) under the instructions of a judge of the Yaoundé Military Court.
In addition to this arbitrary deprivation of the individual freedoms of our leaders, there is a campaign of intimidation and incitement to tribal hatred orchestrated by the government in Yaoundé, targeting certain ethnic components of the Cameroonian national community. This campaign is gaining momentum with repressive and discriminatory arrests at the entry and exit of Cameroon’s international airports.
The European Regional Federation of the MRC strongly and vigorously denounces these arbitrary arrests and all these unjustifiable detentions suffered by all our fellow citizens targeted by these unfair practices of the illegitimate power in Yaoundé. It draws the attention of the international community to the fact that these highly discriminatory practices perpetrated by border control officers acting under the orders of the Yaoundé authorities constitute a major obstacle to the free movement of persons and a fundamental violation of human rights. It states that these practices are similar to the beginning of the implementation of the final solution recommended with anti-Semitic delight by the Minister Delegate for Justice during his clearly anti-Semitic intervention, which was previously recorded and then widely broadcast on the public-owned television station CRTV on 03 February 2019, and which stated: “In Germany, there was a people who were very rich, and who had all the economic levers, it was the Jews and that they were so arrogant that the German people felt frustrated. Then one day a certain Hitler came to power, who put these people in gas chambers[…]”, thus bringing the Bamiléké community closer to the Jewish people.
The European Regional Federation of the MRC strongly urges the international community to take strong action to put an end to these dangerous abuses that could plunge Cameroon into yet another dramatic conflict for all its inhabitants.
Finally, the European Regional Federation of the MRC demands the immediate and unconditional release of President Maurice KAMTO and the 160 people who were imprisoned with him. The European Regional Federation of the MRC urges the Government of Yaoundé to stop these repressive and discriminatory arrests at national borders.
Done at Strasbourg, 26 February 2019
The Secretary of the European Regional Federation of the MRC
Henri DJOKO.
