On
Cameroon Internet Cut-Off, US
State Dept Tells ICP It Has
Raised Bilaterally Since Nov
28
By Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS,
March 15 – 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 14 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.
***
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