Anglophone Crisis: Defense Minister Reacts to Allegations of Presence of French Troops in Troubled Regions

In front of Members of Parliament at the Ngoa-Ekelle glasshouse in Yaoundé on Thursday, July 5, 2018, Minister Joseph Beti Assomo answered pertinent questions in relation to the crisis in the two English speaking regions of Cameroon.

According to reports, this was triggered by a video posted on social networks July 2018 by the Paul Ayah Abine Foundation, which offers humanitarian aid to refugees and displaced persons from the crisis in the Northwest and Southwest regions.

In the video, a woman in a hospital ward with her left leg bandaged says she was shot by a white man at her home in Ekona, Southwest Region. This testimony had spread like wildfire causing many people to assert bluntly that the French military is fighting alongside the Cameroonian defense and security forces against the struggle for independence by separatists in the English speaking regions.

During a session of oral questions to members of the Cameroonian government on Thursday, July 5, 2018 at the National Assembly in Yaoundé, an MP asked the Minister of Defense if the information on the presence of French soldiers in the South West region is true.

“There is no French force either in the Southwest or in the North West. The crisis in these two regions is a Cameroonian crisis, so nothing can authorize or justify such a presence” replied Joseph Beti Assomo. He took the opportunity to denounce images on social media that he said are aimed at conveying misinformation around the crisis.

According to our source, the former governor of the littoral region refused to answer a question about the alleged use of chemical weapons in the struggle to contain separatists’ activities.

It should be recalled that he French government has in several occasions, tipped dialogue as the ultimate means of dealing with the perennial crisis in the two English speaking regions of Cameroon.

Meanwhile, there are some opinion holders who think that France has a strategic role to play in ending the crisis given that it was one of the colonial powers of Cameroon.

By LVV