Nformi Sonde Kinsai
13 March 2008
A delegation from the London-based Amnesty International, AI, will be visiting Cameroon to meet the 22 Social Democratic Front, SDF, militants detained at the Yaounde Kondengui Maximum Security Prison.
Sources at the prison who requested for anonymity disclosed this information to The Post on February 26 during a visit to investigate human rights violations in the prison by the National Commission on Human Rights and Freedoms, NCHRF.
The detainees who were originally 23 in number (John Ngu died in detention last year) were arrested on May 26, 2006 at the SDF Yaounde Secretariat following the death of a militant, Grégoire Diboulé.
Diboulé was killed during a clash at the controversial parallel convention of the SDF party convened by the former Chairman of the National Advisory Council, Clement Ngwasiri.
The militants have been to several detention centres in Yaounde such as those of the Research Unit of the National Gendarmerie, the Central Police Station and the Legal Department. Since July 9, 2006, they have been in pre-trial detention at the Kondengui Prison.
The prison sources equally hinted that the AI delegation will have a working session with officials of the Ministry of Justice, pay a courtesy visit to the NCHRF and visit the SDF detainees.
The Post gathered that the efforts deployed by AI to have the political detainees released, are the outcome of lobbies by foreign bodies and some human rights groups. An independent source disclosed that the announced visit by AI caused panic within government circles and prompted a recent crisis meeting chaired by the Secretary of State in charge of the Penitentiary in the Ministry of Justice, Emmanuel Ngafeeson.
Meanwhile, in a working session with the SDF and other detainees who had written petitions on violations of their rights in detention, the Chairman of the NCHRF, Dr. Divine Chemuta Banda, said the investigative visit was a follow-up to that of June last year which was essentially devoted for the learning process of members of the Commission.
He said the appalling conditions of thousands of detainees especially those of the cell code-named Kosovo as highlighted in the Salatou Report is lamentable.Chemuta recalled that during the June 2007 visit, a representative from the Kosovo cell declared that under proper judicial circumstances, more than half of the detainees in that cell are supposed to be released.
In reference to a complaint forwarded by Retired Colonel James Chi Ngafor, one of the detainees, the Chairman of the NCHRF said only a stone-hearted human being would not react promptly to such a complaint considering its contents.
He said the mission of his delegation was to find out whether the new Criminal Procedure Code, CPC, was being respected, whether those in detention have committed crimes and to also alert the Penitentiary administration to know that prisons are correction centres and not hell on earth.
He added that if after regular visits to the prisons, it is attested that the people are unjustly detained, the Commission would strongly recommend their release.
Worsening Cell Conditions
Col. Ngafor told the Commission members that their conditions at Kondengui are worsening day by day. He said following the CPC and the articles on habeas corpus, their continuous incarceration since January 30 is illegal.
Ngafor said that since February 2007, their planned appearance in court suffered postponements until April 5 of the same year when one presiding judge, Mrs. Noah, simply threw the case out of court, rejected all appeals from the SDF lawyers and has since then refused to write the judgment as provided for by article 285 of the CPC.
On the charges being leveled against them, Ngafor talked of "cooked up" charges such as conspiracy to assassination and inflicting light and deep wounds. The Colonel retorted that he has loyally served the nation for 40 years in the military and he should be the first to be executed if found guilty.
On the state of their health, Ngafor recalled that the first penitentiary doctor they met had traumatised everybody even though he now enjoys the right to visit the hospital at anytime.
He, however, said that is not the case with one Peter Fonso who is supposed to undergo a surgical operation but who was denied that right when Hon. P.C. Fonso volunteered to take the detainee to hospital.
One Dieudonné Foba, who, because of the harsh conditions cannot see nor hear was arrested alongside others was presented to the members of the NCHRF. To portray the deteriorating health conditions of detainees, Ngafor hinted The Post that he sees corpses leaving the prison everyday.
Philip Che Asah, SDF Organising Secretary and one of the detainees, recounted their ordeal in the detention centres and the sanitation efforts they made. He said, for example, that they gave FCFA 180,000 to an officer at the Gendarmerie to provide them electricity. He said they equally unblocked and made toilets usable by removing 48 buckets feces at the Central Police Station.
Che said that out of the 57 people arrested at the SDF Yaounde Secretariat, only 22 of them are languishing in jail today, while others who were released through corrupt practices were thugs from the Ngwasiri camp.
Asked to comment on the accusations that the prison administration cares little about the health of the detainees, the Kondengui Prison Superintendent, Francis Nkemanda Lebule, said it is difficult for him to know the individual health situation of the estimated 4,100 detainees.
He also said that there is a serious problem of bail concerning people arrested and detained before the CPC went operational in January 2007.
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BRITAIN IS A CRMINAL COUNTRY. AFTER THEY COLONIZED, BRITISH SOUTHERN CAMEROONS FROM 1919 TO 1961, THEY LEFT WITHOUT HANDING OVER INDEPENDENCE TO THE CITIZENS INSTEADM THEY HANDED OVER SOUVEREIGNTY TO FOREIGNERS, TO FRENCH CAMEROUN ,WHO HAD TODAY REDUCED THESE BEAUTIFUL,PEACE LOVING PARADISE TO WRTECHED BEGGARS ON THEIR OWN LAND. ALL EFFORTS TO REDRESS THIS PROBLEM FALLS ON DEAF EARS OF 10 DOWNING ST. SCNC,SCAPO, SCYL ALL AHVE DEMONSTRATED FOR INDEPENDENCE , BUT WITH NO ECONOMIC INTEREST IN SOUTHERN CAMEROONS BRITAIN HAD MADE NO CALL FOR A TALKS AIM AT RESTORING INDEPENDENCE TO THE LONG SUFFEREING, PEOPLE OF BRITISH SOUTHERN CAMEROONS, INSTEAD BRITAIN CONTINUE TO ROMANCE THE GOVERNMENT OF CAMEROUN AS IF THERE EXIST ANY DEED OF OWNERSHIPTO SOUTHERNCAMEROONS BY( CAMEROUNS GOVT OF PAUL BIYA)NOR ANY TREATY BETWEEN THE TWO COUNTRIES.
SOO ALL THE GEBNOCIDE CUSED BY PAUL BIYA AND AMADU AHIJO OVER BSC SINCE 1961 THIS LAKE NYOS, 3000, BUEA, 27, TOMBEL 200, MAMFE 36,BAMENDA 100, ETC BRITAIN IS RESPONSIBLE, BRITAIN MUST ANSWER TO CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY FOR ITS CONTINUE SILENCE OVER THIS MATTER WHATS SDF? ITS NOT ANYTHING BUT ONE MAN. WITH3 SEATS OUT OF 187 IN THE FRENCH CAMEROUN DOMINATED PARLIAMENT, SDF IS NOT THE REPRESENTATIVE OF THE BRITISH SOUTHERN CAMEROONS PEOPLE, (SCNC AND SCAPO IS) AND THEY ARE THOUSANDS IN JAIL ILLEGALLY, BRITAIN HAD NEVER VISITED ANY.