Amnesty International Report 1994 - Cameroon

Hundreds of government opponents were detained for short periods without charge or trial. Most were prisoners of conscience. Political detainees and criminal suspects were tortured and ill-treated; at least two people died from their injuries. In March, two people were killed and more than 20 others injured when security forces opened fire on a peaceful demonstration. There were reports of extrajudicial executions by government forces during security operations in the north of the country. Opposition political parties who had united in a coalition, the Union for Change, continued to campaign against the government of President Paul Biya, who had narrowly defeated John Fru Ndi of the Social Democratic Front (SDF) in 1992 in presidential elections marked by widespread fraud. A new draft constitution was submitted to a government-appointed committee in May and a second draft was completed in June but a final draft had not been submitted to the Head of State by the end of the year. The draft constitution would restrict the powers of the President, proscribe one-party rule and envisaged that Cameroon should remain a UNITAry state: this led to protest from the English-speaking community, which favours a federal system of government and greater autonomy for English-speaking regions. Dozens of people died in continued intercommunal fighting in the far north; in September leaders of the Shua Arab and Kotoko communities signed a peace agreement but fighting continued. The agreement specified that members of the security forces responsible for maintaining order in the Department of Logone and Shari should be from other parts of the country. Critics and opponents of the government, including opposition political party leaders and journalists, were harassed and detained without charge or trial, usually for short periods but in some cases exceeding the legal limit of 72 hours in police custody before referral to a judicial authority. Most were prisoners of conscience. In early March the Union for Change called for weekly demonstrations throughout the country urging, among other things, new presidential elections. Dozens of people were briefly detained following demonstrations in the capital, Yaoundé, and Douala, Bafoussam and Bamenda. Over 100 supporters of the opposition Union des forces démocratiques du Cameroun (UFDC), Union of Cameroon Democratic Forces, were arrested on 31 March when security forces raided the party's headquarters in Yaoundé. The day before, the Minister for Communications had announced that all demonstrations involving a risk of violence were banned. Those arrested included UFDC president, Dr Victorin François Hameni Bieleu, and secretary general Dr André Kekuine. Dr Hameni Bieleu had been held briefly, together with other opposition leaders, two weeks earlier. On 1 April, a further 50 supporters of opposition parties, including the SDF, were arrested. The detainees were held in the Presidential Guard's barracks at Ekounou, outside Yaoundé. They received no food or water until 2 April and were denied visits from lawyers and families until their release on 8 April. The authorities claimed that the UFDC had been planning a violent demonstration. On 14 October Jean-Michel Nintcheu, president of the opposition Rassemblement pour la patrie (RAP), Rally for the Nation, and a leading member of the Union for Change, was taken into custody by police in Douala for questioning, but subsequently escaped and went into hiding. The police held his wife, Clothilde Nintcheu, and seven other family members hostage, in an attempt to make him give himself up. They were held until 22 October. Also in October, the leader of another party, Mboua Massock, was detained for a week without charge after the Programme social pour la liberté et la démocratie (PSLD), Social Program for Freedom and Democracy, published a document cataloguing grievances against the govern-ment, including its failure to pay public employees' salaries. Although most government opponents were detained without charge or trial, Jean-Baptiste Nkouemou, a member of the opposition Union des populations du Cameroun (UPC), Union of Cameroonian Peoples, was charged after being held incommunicado in police custody for three weeks. Normally resident in France, he had attended the UN World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna in June as a representative of a non-governmental human rights organization based in France, the Ligue camerounaise des droits de l'homme, Cameroon Human Rights League. Jean-Baptiste Nkouemou was arrested on 1 September on his arrival from France at Douala airport, because he was in possession of leaflets denouncing human rights violations in Cameroon. He was charged with dissemination of false information, incitement to hatred and revolt against the government but was freed when a court dismissed the case against him on 13 October. Thirty-two supporters of the SDF and five journalists were detained overnight on 3 November after police dispersed a meeting in Yaoundé. At least 15 journalists were detained during the year. For example, in January Martin Ayaba, a journalist working for the independent Cameroon Post, was arrested in Douala, stripped, beaten and held for 10 hours. Pius Njawe, editor of an independent newspaper, Le Messager, was arrested in May following an article critical of President Biya. He was released uncharged the following day but arrested again in August, tried and convicted with two other journalists on charges relating to the publication of confidential documents; he received a six months' suspended sentence. François Borgia Marie Evembe, political columnist of Le Messager, was arrested by police in Yaoundé in August also because of an article critical of President Biya. He was released after four days but rearrested by police at his home the following day and held for a further week before being released uncharged. He was again arrested on 3 November. At least nine students from Yaoundé University arrested in June were detained for almost six months without charge or trial. They were arrested because of their membership of an organization called the Students' Parliament which had opposed increases in student fees announced in January. The government said that the Students' Parliament was responsible for the death of a student at Yaoundé University in April. However, students said that he had been killed by the security forces. The Minister of Education announced that the death would be investigated but no findings had been made known by the end of the year. At least 15 people were reported to be held illegally on the orders of a traditional ruler, known as the lamido, in Rey Bouba in the Department of Mayo Rey in Northern Province. Some of those detained were arrested in May while others had been held since 1992; they were reported to be supporters of opposition political parties. They were held in the private residences of the lamido and other local dignitaries. In May the lamido was reported to have ordered some 300 armed men under his control to open fire on the inhabitants of Mbang Rey following protests against the removal from office of a local chief by the lamido; about 10 people died and several others were wounded. Despite complaints to the government by opposition members of the National Assembly from the Department of Mayo Rey about these detentions and killings, there was no official investigation and it appeared that the lamido acted with the tacit approval of the authorities. Political detainees and criminal suspects were routinely beaten following arrest. They were often stripped, held in filthy and overcrowded conditions and denied food and water. Two people were known to have died as a result of torture, but other deaths in custody may have occurred. Louis Abondo Langwoue was arrested by gendarmes on 16 March in Diang, Eastern Province, after being accused of theft by his employer. He died four days later. Gendarmes who took his body to the Provincial Hospital in Bertoua for an autopsy claimed that he had died from poisoning. However, a senior doctor concluded that death had resulted from severe and prolonged beating. The doctor was subsequently dismissed from the hospital. Cyprian Tanwie Ndifor, who worked at a Catholic pastoral centre, was arrested on 15 December with a friend, apparently suspected of theft. They were taken to gendarmerie headquarters in Bamenda, North-West Province. Although visited in detention on the day of their arrest, subsequent visits were refused. Three days later gendarmes admitted that Cyprian Tanwie Ndifor was dead. He had apparently died on the night of 15 December after being severely beaten. During his detention in March, Dr Hameni Bieleu was beaten and denied medication to treat diabetes. On 1 August Peter Ndoh, a businessman, was arrested by police in Bamenda for illegal possession of firearms and taken to Douala, where he was tortured while held incommunicado in police custody. He was reported to have been beaten while suspended from a tyre and received serious injuries including a broken shoulder blade. Initially denied medical treatment, he was finally admitted to hospital at the end of August before being returned to prison. SDF supporters detained in Yaoundé in November were beaten and kicked by police; one woman subsequently required treatment in hospital. In none of these cases was any action taken by the authorities against those responsible. Two people were killed after security forces fired on peaceful demonstrators in Bamenda in March. Gendarmes initially used tear-gas to disperse the demonstration, organized by the Union for Change, but when this failed they opened fire, killing two men and injuring more than 20 others. Prime Minister Simon Achidi Achu denounced the killings and said there would be an inquiry. A commission of inquiry, reported to have been composed entirely of government security officials, concluded that the gendarmes had fired in self-defence and no member of the security forces was prosecuted in connection with the shootings. The security forces were reported to have arbitrarily arrested and killed members of the Shua Arab community in June during military operations ordered by the Ministry of Defence against armed bandits in the Department of Logone and Shari in the far north. There has been long-running conflict between the Kotoko community and Shua Arabs which has claimed hundreds of lives in recent years. Shua Arabs were apparently indiscriminately accused of banditry by the Kotoko. The security forces reportedly attacked several Shua Arab villages, rounding up and beating the inhabitants. At least seven men were reported to have been extrajudicially executed and another to have died as a result of torture. Sixty-two men were reported to have been arrested and held without charge in Makari before being transferred to Kousséri. They were subsequently released. In May, 10 soldiers and gendarmes accused of extrajudicial executions of Shua Arabs in Kousséri in January 1992 were tried by a military tribunal in Yaoundé (see Amnesty International Report 1993). Six were convicted; two received sentences of death, the others terms of imprisonment ranging from 10 to 15 years. The other four were acquitted. Appeals against the convictions and sentences were still pending at the end of the year. No other death sentences were known to have been passed and there were no executions. Amnesty International called for the release of prisoners of conscience and criticized the detention of government opponents beyond the legal limit. It called for impartial investigation of all reports of torture and ill-treatment, for those responsible for such abuses to be brought to justice and for all prisoners to be safeguarded against torture or ill-treatment. In March Amnesty International called for Dr Hameni Bieleu to be allowed medical treatment and in August it urged that Peter Ndoh be admitted to hospital for treatment of injuries sustained under torture. Amnesty International also called for thorough investigation of all killings by the security forces and for those responsible for extrajudicial executions to be brought to justice. However, there was no response from the government.