Cameroon's President Ready to Talk About Anglophone Crisis
Cameroon's President Ready to Talk About Anglophone Crisis
(Bloomberg) -- Cameroon’s President Paul Biya is ready for talks about the grievances of residents living in the country’s English-speaking regions to end an insurgency in which hundreds of people have died.
“The President has asked me to tell you that he is ready to dialogue on everything that you ask, except secession,” Prime Minister Joseph Dion Ngute said Tuesday at a public meeting in Buea, capital of the Southwest region, one of two Anglophone provinces where insurgents have been fighting government troops to break away from the majority-Francophone nation. “There is too much suffering; we cannot continue like this.”
The conflict started in late 2016 with peaceful protests against the dominance of French language in schools and courtrooms of the Northwest and Southwest regions, where most people speak English. The attacks between the roaming gangs of insurgents and the army have decimated the local economy in the conflict zone, and according to the United Nations, displaced more than 437,000 people.
To contact the reporter on this story: Pius Lukong in Yaounde at plukong@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Andre Janse van Vuuren at ajansevanvuu@bloomberg.net, Jacqueline Mackenzie
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