Prominent attorney Michele Ndoki, a vice-president of the Cameroon Renaissance Movement, was shot three times by police on January 26 at a march for honest elections. Ndoki represented opposition presidential candidate Maurice Kamto who challenged the controversial October 2018 election in Cameroon charging widespread election fraud.
Wounded in the leg with multiple shots, Ndoki reported that the policeman who shot her was not indiscriminately firing into a crowd, as some police did, but instead targeted her individually. Afraid for her life after Kamto was arrested and charged with treason for heading the honest election protest march, Ndoki went into hiding.
Ndoki was hunted by the Special Operations Group, a secretive security force, and arrested February 25 trying to seek asylum across the border in Nigeria. The activist lawyer was held in solitary confinement for a week while she was interrogated by the security squad. Despot Paul Biya, who has ruled Cameroon since 1982, has since ordered her case transferred from a civilian court to a military tribunal where the outcome is more likely to be against Ndoki.
Amnesty International has called for Ndoki and Kamto’s release along with 130 other people arrested that also face execution for participating in the honest election march. The formal charges in the post-election crackdown against the peaceful demonstration are rebellion, hostility to the Fatherland, incitement to insurrection, and offense against the President of the Republic.
The human rights organization’s call for release echoes that of the United States. Tibor Naggy, Under-Secretary of State for Africa, urged Biya to release those arrested referring to them as political prisoners. Cameroon’s response is that the rule of law must prevail and the protesters must be held accountable for their actions. The United States has put a hold on military aid to Biya’a regime in light of recent events.
Biya’s long and harsh rule of Cameroon is unraveling as evidenced by the mass arrests and a deepening civil war with Ambazonia, a breakaway English-speaking region that formerly was British Southern Cameroons. In a campaign to crush the rebel Amba militia, Cameroon anti-terror squads have been unleashed to inflict terror on the populace, burning hospitals, churches, and shooting non-combatants.
Cameroon troops control the Ambazonia region by day, while rebel militias control the land at night. Biya has ordered the rebels to lay down their arms or suffer the consequences. The escalating crisis threatens the stability of Biya’s regime as the world learns of ongoing war crimes in Ambazonia and the repression of the Cameroon Renaissance Movement.
Richardson Reports 
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