On Cameroon
Internet Cut-Off, French PR
Tells ICP UNaware Of It, Will
Check, Thibault & Biya
By Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS,
March 17 – On Cameroon,
where the Internet has been
cut off by the government in
the Northwest and Southwest
(Anglophone) regions for 57
days and counting, Inner City
Press on March 17 asked
France's Ambassador to the UN
Francois Delattre about his
counterpart in Yaounde, Gilles
Thibault, earlier this month congratulating
32-year President Paul Biya
for how he's dealing with the
areas. Delattre replied that
he was unaware but would look
into it. Video
here.
Back on
March 14 Inner City Press
asked the US State Department:
"Back on November 28, 2016,
the Department issued a
statement of 'concern[] over
recent Cameroonian government
actions to restrict free
expression.' Since then, the
government has cut off the
Internet in the two regions,
also known as the Anglophone
areas, has arrested
journalists and most schools
remain closed. Is the US State
Department concerned about
these developments and if so,
what if anything has it done
about them?"
On March
15, a US State Department
official answered Inner City
Press: "We have discussed this
issue with the Government of
Cameroon both before and after
our statement of
concern. We don’t go
into the details of our
diplomatic conversations, but
we engage regularly with the
government on this and other
issues as part of our normal
bilateral relations." We hope
to have more on this.
On March
9, Inner City Press asked both
the International Monetary
Fund and the UN Security
Council's president about the
crisis in Cameroon's
Anglophone areas and heard
that while the IMF
acknowledges the financial
risk, the Security Council
does not see it as a threat to
international peace and
security. But the UN's
Resident Coordinator Najat
Rochdi has said nothing about
the crisis, and blocks
on Twitter the Press
which asks about it. Is the UN
system failing, in its new
Secretary General's promise of
increased preventative
diplomacy?
When the
IMF's spokesperson Gerry Rice
took questions on March 9, Inner
City Press asked about Cameroon,
specifically the crackdown in
the northwest and southwest of
the country. Inner City Press
asked, "On Cameroon, after the
mission led by Corinne Delechat,
what is the status of talks for
a program, and since the IMF
cited “civil unrest in the
neighboring Central African
Republic,” please state the
IMF's awareness of civil unrest
and arrests in Northwest and
Southwest Cameroon, also known
as the Anglophone areas, and
their impact." Rice read out the
question and then said, among
other things, that the risk
factors for 2017 include a
continuation of the "social and
political events" in the
"so-called Anglophone" areas of
Cameroon. Interim
video here. On IMF
site, here,
from 34:56. IMF
transcript
***
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