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YAOUNDE. – Cameroon’s 85-year-old President Paul Biya was sworn in on Tuesday for a seventh term after disputed elections and amid mounting unrest in an English-speaking region.
He pledged to uphold the “integrity (and) unity” of the West African nation in a ceremony overseen by parliament speaker Cavaye Yeguie Djibril.
Biya, who has ruled the country for 35 years, was declared victor in the October 7 vote with 71 percent of the ballot.
But the elections were marked by low voter turnout, violence and allegations of fraud.
On the eve of Biya’s inauguration, 79 students and three supervisors, including their headmaster, were abducted from a school in the Northwest Region, where anglophone separatists have launched an armed campaign for independence.
Cameroon’s 22 million people are mainly French-speakers, but around a fifth are English-speaking.
In 2016, resentment at perceived discrimination in education, the judiciary and the economy fanned demands for autonomy in the Northwest and neighbouring Southwest Region.
In 2017, as Biya refused any concessions, radicals declared an independent state – the “Republic of Ambazonia” – and took up arms.
Attacks by the secessionists and a crackdown by the authorities have led to the death of at least 400 civilians this year as well as more than 175 members of the security forces, according to an NGO toll.
More than 300 000 people have fled the violence, many of them living hand-to-mouth in the forests, and some across the border into Nigeria.
In the October election, turnout was a meagre five percent in the Northwest and 15 percent in the Southwest – but Biya won more than two-thirds of the vote in both regions.
Meanwhile, Cameroon’s president on Tuesday warned Anglophone separatists to lay down their arms or face the full force of the law, a day after dozens of schoolchildren were abducted in the rebel region.
Clashes between a secessionist movement and the army began more than a year ago in west Cameroon, killing over 400 civilians and forcing thousands to flee their homes.
An army spokesman blamed separatists for Monday’s kidnapping. A separatist spokesman denied involvement and said government soldiers had carried it out, as a ploy to discredit the insurgents.
President Biya, in his inauguration speech did not mention the kidnapping but attacked the separatists.
“They need to know that they will face the rigor of the law and the determination of our defence and security forces,” Biya said in the national assembly.
“I appeal to them to lay down their arms.”
Last week, an American Baptist missionary was shot dead amid fighting between the army and separatists in Bamenda.
The secessionists have imposed curfews and closed schools as part of their rebellion against the French-speaking government, which they say has marginalised the Anglophone minority.
Samuel Fonki, a minister of the Presbyterian Church in Cameroon, said he had been mediating with the kidnappers for the children’s release. He said separatists were responsible.
The search for the children continued on Tuesday. About 200 parents gathered outside the school, waiting to hear if their children were among those who had been abducted or had remained unharmed at the school. – AFP/Reuters/HR
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