By Matthew Russell Lee, interviews I, II
UNITED NATIONS, August 1 – Amid reports that the UN is providing electoral assistance in Cameroon, where Paul Biya has ruled for more than 30 years, Inner City Press on July 27 asked UN Spokesman Farhan Haq about the assistance, and for a read-out of a reported meeting between UN Genocide Prevention official Adama Dieng and a delegation from Southern Cameroons. Video here, from Minute 17:25. Haq claimed there is UN electorial role - seemingly false - and said that Dieng rarely gives read-outs.
In fact, as Inner City Press learned after waiting to speak to the delegation, it was not Dieng but his assistant Mr. Castro they met with. Periscope of interview(s) here. Photo here. Now the Paul Biya government is sending its own delegation to the US from August 3 to 9 to try to spin how well it is treating the Anglophones, despite arrests and abuse. Inner City Press tweeted a photo of the letter, here. The delegation will be made up of Fabien Nkot, Ghogomu Paul Mingo and Elvis Ngolle Ngolle. We will report more once Elvis has left the building - and before. Given the UN's Francois Fall's false report, it is unclear if Castro will, in fact, get any action from the UN's Human Rights machinery in Geneva. As Inner City Press similarly filmed, Secretary General Antonio Guterres' chief of staff and his Deputy SG Amina J. Mohammed both attended Cameroonian Ambassador Tommo Monthe's celebration of the extinguishment even of Federalism in the Cameroons. We'll have more on this. After Inner City Press repeatedly asked UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres and his spokesman about Cameroon's Internet cut-off and abuses, the UN's answer after its Resident Coordinator Najat Rochdi was shown to block the Press and then left for the Central African Republic was that the UN Office on Central Africa (UNOCA) envoy Francois Lounceny Fall would be visiting in May. This turned out to be misleading like so much with today's UN system, including UNDP and the UN's media "partners." While on July 27 Felix Aghbor Balla and others Inner City Press has repeatedly asked the UN about are hauled back into court, in the UN a groupwhich never asked about Cameroon and actively got Inner City Press thrown out and still restricted says it is hosting the "Southern Cameroons Public Affairs Committee." But this UN Correspondents Association UNCA is a group which, when Inner City Press sought to covering their event (video here) in the UN Press Briefing Room to see if they discussed having taken full page ads from an entity owned by UN bribery indictee Ng Lap Seng got UN Spokesman Stephane Dujarric and then DPI Cristina Gallach to evict Inner City Press (audio here, video here) and restrict it still. Only at the UN. We'll have more on this. While in New York the UN belatedly answered Inner City Press with another statement of concern for the Anglophone areas, it was quietly conferring with the Yaounde racket run for more than thirty years by Paul Biya, rigger of many elections. Among the tellingly quiet UN team: Francis Nadjita - one step down from UNOCA's Francois "Failing" Fall - and Pascale Roussy. They were told, again, about the abuse of Anglophones the UN has so long cooperated in. Yet have they said anything? We'll have more on this. The UN at the highest level is enabling the abuses. UN Office on West Africa director Chambas, when Inner City Press asked him about Cameroon forces killing 97 Nigerians and abuses of Anglophones, said to focus on "bigger ticket items" - Boko Haram. Video here from 8:25. But in that fight, as exposed in detailed by Amnesty International, Paul Biya's forces engage in torture, in the Salak base with French military presence.
