Editorial

It was ironic, to say the least, that Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan’s government turned down President Jacob Zuma’s proposal for a South Africa-inspired African Union (AU) rapid response to combat the barbaric Islamist terrorist group Boko Haram – yet apparently hired ex-South African Defence Force (SADF) soldiers to train the Nigerian Defence Force (NDF) to do so. Zuma proposed the deployment of the AU’s as yet untested rapid response force – the African Capacity for Immediate Response to Crises (ACIRC) – at a summit-level meeting of the AU’s Peace and Security Council in Addis Ababa in late January, just before the general AU summit, according to diplomats present. The suggestion was turned down in favour of reinforcing the Lake Chad Basin Commission, building it up to 8 700 soldiers. Just a few days before, though, Beeld newspaper had reported that former SADF soldiers would form the core of a multinational team of private military experts, who were then en route to Nigeria, to help the NDF fight against Boko Haram militants. The 100-strong team had been tasked with training the Nigerian military to launch a massive campaign against the terrorist organisation.

South Africa’s Defence Minister Nosiviwe Mapise-Nqakula was deeply unimpressed. These were not ‘ex-soldiers,’ but simply ‘mercenaries,’ she said. ‘They are mercenaries – whether they are training, skilling the Nigerian defence force, or scouting for them. The point is they have no business to be there,’ she told South African journalists in Addis Ababa. She insisted that the police should arrest them on their return and the National Prosecutions Authority should prosecute and convict them to send ‘a message to all of the South Africans who are going around as mercenaries.’ The minister was referring to the Regulation of Foreign Military Assistance Act. Commonly known as the mercenary bill, it makes it an offence for South Africans to provide any kind of military service abroad without the formal permission of the South African government through the National Conventional Arms Control Committee, which is also supposed to regulate the sale of South African arms to foreigners. According to intelligence sources, several ex-South African Air Force (SAAF) pilots are also participating in the war against Boko Haram – under a separate contract – flying Russian Mil Mi-24 Hind attack helicopters, including in night operations, to good effect.

And overall, the multinational team of South African and other private military experts and official British, American and French military trainers have, by some accounts, contributed significantly to the recent successes of the Lake Chad Basin Commission forces against Boko Haram. This turning of the tide cannot be attributed to the AU’s decision to beef up the force and to seek United Nations (UN) Security Council financial backing for it, as this operation is not yet in the field. ‘The former SADF members are definitely playing a major role in this offensive,’ said a former military intelligence officer this week. ‘They have been in country for a significant time already, involved in training some specialised NDF units. As per normal they are now deployed in an advisory capacity at the front. This includes being deployed with the NDF special forces, artillery, armour and infantry units on the ground.  ‘Most of the gunships [Mi 24 Hinds] are being piloted by former SAAF members and they are flying a huge number of sorties, including nocturnal operations, with great success. There is also close involvement at HQ level, assisting in the planning of operations and the coordination/interpretation of the intelligence effort.’

Jakkie Cilliers, Executive Director of the Institute for Security Studies (ISS) in Pretoria, agrees that if the best of the ex-SADF soldiers are indeed involved in the anti-Boko Haram operation, they would be ‘a huge asset’ for Nigeria. Their skills acquired in tracking and operating in the wooded terrain of southern Angola would be particularly relevant to conditions in northern Nigeria. ‘I have always thought that the ANC [African National Congress] made a huge mistake by criminalising the former SADF soldiers,’ he said, referring to the mercenary bill and suggesting the legislation was more ideological than practical. ‘The only thing they have to sell is their counter-terrorism skills. It would have made much more sense to channel their skills productively, such as towards the UN.’ He cited the success of the old private security/mercenary outfit, Executive Outcomes, in helping the Angolan army defeat UNITA (National Union for the Total Independence of Angola) rebels. Cilliers said Nigeria’s apparent rejection of Zuma’s proposal to deploy ACIRC against Boko Haram was no surprise. ‘It was inevitable that the proposed use of ACIRC would come to nought. Nigeria is very proud and would not readily allow a foreign country to re-establish domestic security. Employing individuals on contract is, however, quite common.’ Neighbouring Chad, Niger and Cameroon were combating Boko Haram on their territory, and collaboration with Nigeria – for example in hot pursuit operations – would not upset national sensibilities in Nigeria. These countries had a direct national interest in the war.

Military analyst Helmoed Römer Heitman, a former member of the resource group of South Africa’s Defence Review Committee, also agreed that the involvement of the ex-SADF people ‘is a very good idea from everyone’s point of view – as long as they have picked the right people.’ Especially when the national defence force budget had just been cut, further undermining the credibility of the government’s rhetorical commitment to regional stability. He said the sort of operations that the ex-SADF soldiers would be conducting against Boko Haram would be very similar to some of the operations they had conducted against the South West Africa People’s Organisation (SWAPO), namely ‘very high mobility operations by small forces, heavy in firepower and in protected vehicles, and based on the prompt and quick exploitation of intelligence; backed up by air assault or even parachute insertion of stopper groups.’ Heitman said it was in South Africa’s wider interest ‘to see Boko Haram put back in its box as soon as possible,’ adding that ‘any instability of this nature in Africa affects investors’ views of the whole continent…’ He said he did not understand why the government ‘seems to be all steamed up about it,’ unless it was the same naiveté that influenced the enactment of the mercenary bill, ‘which was not in South Africa’s long-term strategic interest.’

Heitman thought the Nigerians had displayed ‘extraordinary professional insight and moral courage’ to employ the former soldiers. Cynics might suggest, though, that Jonathan deliberately turned down South Africa’s official offer of help through ACIRC, while recruiting South Africans clandestinely, precisely to nettle Zuma. This faintly echoed South Africa freezing R63.8 million wired by the Abuja government to a South African company to buy military hardware last October. Abuja has insisted that the deal had been cleared with Zuma – and the ex-SADF soldiers now in Nigeria have likewise also insisted, according to Beeld, that their involvement was cleared at the highest echelons of the South African government, even if the defence minister did not know about it. Cilliers, though, does not see such a political conspiracy in the recruitment of the South African soldiers – just simple desperation by Jonathan to beat Boko Haram back before the elections at the end of this month, which were postponed by six weeks precisely for that purpose. Still, this episode will undoubtedly further aggravate the sour relations between the two countries. Pretoria is still smarting over what it regards as Nigeria’s incompetent, if not malicious, handling of the bodies of the 84 South Africans who died when a church collapsed in Lagos in September. One of South Africa’s grievances, incidentally, was that Abuja blocked government pathologists from helping identify the bodies – while hiring a private South African firm to do so. That sounds familiar. Another example of good business but bad government relations?

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Ngwa Bertrand

05.Mar.2015

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Depicting the Special Criminal Court established to prosecute alleged corrupt government officials and the several Alibabas responsible for pilfering from the public treasury as the President’s court is no misnomer.  We call it the President’s court because it is one instrument of power through which the President is reining in on perceived opponents from within his CPDM power conduit. An attribute of a genuine court is the fairness of the trial proceedings in cases which are brought before the court for trial. It is not the number of convictions entered against accused.  A court is legitimate and recognized as such because of its exercise of judicial, executive, legislative and administrative independence.  A court that is independent must be accessible to all citizens after all, is equality before the law, not a constitutionally protected value? The Special Criminal Court is lacking in these attributes of impartiality, judicial independence and accessibility.  It is perceived more as the President’s Court than a Court of Justice.

Establishing this court was President Biya’s way of saving himself the embarrassment of being humiliated during his perennial trips abroad as the President of the most corrupt countries in the world.  This ranking of the country as the most corrupt or one of the most corrupt countries had a potential to hamper President Biya’s personal pecuniary interests far from the borders of Cameroon.  There was therefore a personal interest need to establish the court.  Another personal interest need was to avail himself of a legal tool under his direct control to consolidate absolute power, blackmail potential rebels and competitors within the system and to stifle any form of institutional opposition. He perceived the court as a tool with which to whitewash his more than thirty years of corrupt governance and the rape of the economy.  With the war against Boko Haram, the fight against corruption using the Special Criminal Court has afforded Paul Biya justification contest in the next institutionally flawed elections in order to eternalize power purportedly to direct the war against terror and the war against corruption.  True to the name the President’s Court, the President has exclusive preserve in referring cases to the Special Court and the power to terminate them. He decides who will be arrested, who will be investigated and who will serve time and who will not.

In one instance, he ordered a detained Minister Bapes Bapes released from remand custody at Kondengui when a warrant was issued for his arrest without the presidential fiat.  Recently Titus Edzoa a former Secretary-General at the Presidency of the Republic and former personal physician of the President benefitted from a purported Presidential pardon whose primary purpose was the release of a French citizen Thiery Atangana from jail.  The fear of a presidential referral to the Special Criminal Court on additional charges of corruption under a practice devolved under the supervision of Paul Biya called “rouleur compresseur” pushed Titus Edzoa   to rejoin the CPDM Party without a public resignation or repudiation of his membership of the party on which he intended to contest presidential elections prior to his incarceration.  Edzoa was a victim of this system of presidential justice when new charges were brought against him when his first imprisonment was about to end in other to maintain him in prison.

Cameroonians want the rule of law to be the guarding principle on which justice is administered in the name of the people of Cameroon and not that of the President.  To the extent that the Special Criminal Court functions at the pleasure of the President, it fails to meet this threshold.  The justice rendered in the court cannot be said to be free and fair nor independent.  Because the court serves the political interests of the President, it is institutionally unjust and thus an affront to the tenets of justice and fundamental fairness.  Cameroon needs to confront the scourge of institutional corruption, the abuse of public trust, the arrogance of power and the impunity of misrule.  The Special Criminal Court as presently constituted is the wrong institution to confront these systemic crimes.

 

 

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Ngwa Bertrand

02.Mar.2015

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Depicting the Special Criminal Court established to prosecute alleged corrupt government officials and the several Alibabas responsible for pilfering from the public treasury as the President’s court is no misnomer.  We call it the President’s court because it is one instrument of power through which the President is reining in on perceived opponents from within his CPDM power conduit. An attribute of a genuine court is the fairness of the trial proceedings in cases which are brought before the court for trial. It is not the number of convictions entered against accused.  A court is legitimate and recognized as such because of its exercise of judicial, executive, legislative and administrative independence.  A court that is independent must be accessible to all citizens after all, is equality before the law, not a constitutionally protected value? The Special Criminal Court is lacking in these attributes of impartiality, judicial independence and accessibility.  It is perceived more as the President’s Court than a Court of Justice.

Establishing this court was President Biya’s way of saving himself the embarrassment of being humiliated during his perennial trips abroad as the President of the most corrupt countries in the world.  This ranking of the country as the most corrupt or one of the most corrupt countries had a potential to hamper President Biya’s personal pecuniary interests far from the borders of Cameroon.  There was therefore a personal interest need to establish the court.  Another personal interest need was to avail himself of a legal tool under his direct control to consolidate absolute power, blackmail potential rebels and competitors within the system and to stifle any form of institutional opposition. He perceived the court as a tool with which to whitewash his more than thirty years of corrupt governance and the rape of the economy.  With the war against Boko Haram, the fight against corruption using the Special Criminal Court has afforded Paul Biya justification contest in the next institutionally flawed elections in order to eternalize power purportedly to direct the war against terror and the war against corruption.  True to the name the President’s Court, the President has exclusive preserve in referring cases to the Special Court and the power to terminate them. He decides who will be arrested, who will be investigated and who will serve time and who will not.

In one instance, he ordered a detained Minister Bapes Bapes released from remand custody at Kondengui when a warrant was issued for his arrest without the presidential fiat.  Recently Titus Edzoa a former Secretary-General at the Presidency of the Republic and former personal physician of the President benefitted from a purported Presidential pardon whose primary purpose was the release of a French citizen Thiery Atangana from jail.  The fear of a presidential referral to the Special Criminal Court on additional charges of corruption under a practice devolved under the supervision of Paul Biya called “rouleur compresseur” pushed Titus Edzoa   to rejoin the CPDM Party without a public resignation or repudiation of his membership of the party on which he intended to contest presidential elections prior to his incarceration.  Edzoa was a victim of this system of presidential justice when new charges were brought against him when his first imprisonment was about to end in other to maintain him in prison.

Cameroonians want the rule of law to be the guarding principle on which justice is administered in the name of the people of Cameroon and not that of the President.  To the extent that the Special Criminal Court functions at the pleasure of the President, it fails to meet this threshold.  The justice rendered in the court cannot be said to be free and fair nor independent.  Because the court serves the political interests of the President, it is institutionally unjust and thus an affront to the tenets of justice and fundamental fairness.  Cameroon needs to confront the scourge of institutional corruption, the abuse of public trust, the arrogance of power and the impunity of misrule.  The Special Criminal Court as presently constituted is the wrong institution to confront these systemic crimes.

 

 

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Ngwa Bertrand

02.Mar.2015

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Depicting the Special Criminal Court established to prosecute alleged corrupt government officials and the several Alibabas responsible for pilfering from the public treasury as the President’s court is no misnomer.  We call it the President’s court because it is one instrument of power through which the President is reining in on perceived opponents from within his CPDM power conduit. An attribute of a genuine court is the fairness of the trial proceedings in cases which are brought before the court for trial. It is not the number of convictions entered against accused.  A court is legitimate and recognized as such because of its exercise of judicial, executive, legislative and administrative independence.  A court that is independent must be accessible to all citizens after all, is equality before the law, not a constitutionally protected value? The Special Criminal Court is lacking in these attributes of impartiality, judicial independence and accessibility.  It is perceived more as the President’s Court than a Court of Justice.

Establishing this court was President Biya’s way of saving himself the embarrassment of being humiliated during his perennial trips abroad as the President of the most corrupt countries in the world.  This ranking of the country as the most corrupt or one of the most corrupt countries had a potential to hamper President Biya’s personal pecuniary interests far from the borders of Cameroon.  There was therefore a personal interest need to establish the court.  Another personal interest need was to avail himself of a legal tool under his direct control to consolidate absolute power, blackmail potential rebels and competitors within the system and to stifle any form of institutional opposition. He perceived the court as a tool with which to whitewash his more than thirty years of corrupt governance and the rape of the economy.  With the war against Boko Haram, the fight against corruption using the Special Criminal Court has afforded Paul Biya justification contest in the next institutionally flawed elections in order to eternalize power purportedly to direct the war against terror and the war against corruption.  True to the name the President’s Court, the President has exclusive preserve in referring cases to the Special Court and the power to terminate them. He decides who will be arrested, who will be investigated and who will serve time and who will not.

In one instance, he ordered a detained Minister Bapes Bapes released from remand custody at Kondengui when a warrant was issued for his arrest without the presidential fiat.  Recently Titus Edzoa a former Secretary-General at the Presidency of the Republic and former personal physician of the President benefitted from a purported Presidential pardon whose primary purpose was the release of a French citizen Thiery Atangana from jail.  The fear of a presidential referral to the Special Criminal Court on additional charges of corruption under a practice devolved under the supervision of Paul Biya called “rouleur compresseur” pushed Titus Edzoa   to rejoin the CPDM Party without a public resignation or repudiation of his membership of the party on which he intended to contest presidential elections prior to his incarceration.  Edzoa was a victim of this system of presidential justice when new charges were brought against him when his first imprisonment was about to end in other to maintain him in prison.

Cameroonians want the rule of law to be the guarding principle on which justice is administered in the name of the people of Cameroon and not that of the President.  To the extent that the Special Criminal Court functions at the pleasure of the President, it fails to meet this threshold.  The justice rendered in the court cannot be said to be free and fair nor independent.  Because the court serves the political interests of the President, it is institutionally unjust and thus an affront to the tenets of justice and fundamental fairness.  Cameroon needs to confront the scourge of institutional corruption, the abuse of public trust, the arrogance of power and the impunity of misrule.  The Special Criminal Court as presently constituted is the wrong institution to confront these systemic crimes.

 

 

Details

Ngwa Bertrand

02.Mar.2015

Hits: 1853

Write comment (0 Comments)

Depicting the Special Criminal Court established to prosecute alleged corrupt government officials and the several Alibabas responsible for pilfering from the public treasury as the President’s court is no misnomer.  We call it the President’s court because it is one instrument of power through which the President is reining in on perceived opponents from within his CPDM power conduit. An attribute of a genuine court is the fairness of the trial proceedings in cases which are brought before the court for trial. It is not the number of convictions entered against accused.  A court is legitimate and recognized as such because of its exercise of judicial, executive, legislative and administrative independence.  A court that is independent must be accessible to all citizens after all, is equality before the law, not a constitutionally protected value? The Special Criminal Court is lacking in these attributes of impartiality, judicial independence and accessibility.  It is perceived more as the President’s Court than a Court of Justice.

Establishing this court was President Biya’s way of saving himself the embarrassment of being humiliated during his perennial trips abroad as the President of the most corrupt countries in the world.  This ranking of the country as the most corrupt or one of the most corrupt countries had a potential to hamper President Biya’s personal pecuniary interests far from the borders of Cameroon.  There was therefore a personal interest need to establish the court.  Another personal interest need was to avail himself of a legal tool under his direct control to consolidate absolute power, blackmail potential rebels and competitors within the system and to stifle any form of institutional opposition. He perceived the court as a tool with which to whitewash his more than thirty years of corrupt governance and the rape of the economy.  With the war against Boko Haram, the fight against corruption using the Special Criminal Court has afforded Paul Biya justification contest in the next institutionally flawed elections in order to eternalize power purportedly to direct the war against terror and the war against corruption.  True to the name the President’s Court, the President has exclusive preserve in referring cases to the Special Court and the power to terminate them. He decides who will be arrested, who will be investigated and who will serve time and who will not.

In one instance, he ordered a detained Minister Bapes Bapes released from remand custody at Kondengui when a warrant was issued for his arrest without the presidential fiat.  Recently Titus Edzoa a former Secretary-General at the Presidency of the Republic and former personal physician of the President benefitted from a purported Presidential pardon whose primary purpose was the release of a French citizen Thiery Atangana from jail.  The fear of a presidential referral to the Special Criminal Court on additional charges of corruption under a practice devolved under the supervision of Paul Biya called “rouleur compresseur” pushed Titus Edzoa   to rejoin the CPDM Party without a public resignation or repudiation of his membership of the party on which he intended to contest presidential elections prior to his incarceration.  Edzoa was a victim of this system of presidential justice when new charges were brought against him when his first imprisonment was about to end in other to maintain him in prison.

Cameroonians want the rule of law to be the guarding principle on which justice is administered in the name of the people of Cameroon and not that of the President.  To the extent that the Special Criminal Court functions at the pleasure of the President, it fails to meet this threshold.  The justice rendered in the court cannot be said to be free and fair nor independent.  Because the court serves the political interests of the President, it is institutionally unjust and thus an affront to the tenets of justice and fundamental fairness.  Cameroon needs to confront the scourge of institutional corruption, the abuse of public trust, the arrogance of power and the impunity of misrule.  The Special Criminal Court as presently constituted is the wrong institution to confront these systemic crimes.

 

 

Details

Ngwa Bertrand

02.Mar.2015

Hits: 1812

Write comment (0 Comments)

Depicting the Special Criminal Court established to prosecute alleged corrupt government officials and the several Alibabas responsible for pilfering from the public treasury as the President’s court is no misnomer.  We call it the President’s court because it is one instrument of power through which the President is reining in on perceived opponents from within his CPDM power conduit. An attribute of a genuine court is the fairness of the trial proceedings in cases which are brought before the court for trial. It is not the number of convictions entered against accused.  A court is legitimate and recognized as such because of its exercise of judicial, executive, legislative and administrative independence.  A court that is independent must be accessible to all citizens after all, is equality before the law, not a constitutionally protected value? The Special Criminal Court is lacking in these attributes of impartiality, judicial independence and accessibility.  It is perceived more as the President’s Court than a Court of Justice.

Establishing this court was President Biya’s way of saving himself the embarrassment of being humiliated during his perennial trips abroad as the President of the most corrupt countries in the world.  This ranking of the country as the most corrupt or one of the most corrupt countries had a potential to hamper President Biya’s personal pecuniary interests far from the borders of Cameroon.  There was therefore a personal interest need to establish the court.  Another personal interest need was to avail himself of a legal tool under his direct control to consolidate absolute power, blackmail potential rebels and competitors within the system and to stifle any form of institutional opposition. He perceived the court as a tool with which to whitewash his more than thirty years of corrupt governance and the rape of the economy.  With the war against Boko Haram, the fight against corruption using the Special Criminal Court has afforded Paul Biya justification contest in the next institutionally flawed elections in order to eternalize power purportedly to direct the war against terror and the war against corruption.  True to the name the President’s Court, the President has exclusive preserve in referring cases to the Special Court and the power to terminate them. He decides who will be arrested, who will be investigated and who will serve time and who will not.

In one instance, he ordered a detained Minister Bapes Bapes released from remand custody at Kondengui when a warrant was issued for his arrest without the presidential fiat.  Recently Titus Edzoa a former Secretary-General at the Presidency of the Republic and former personal physician of the President benefitted from a purported Presidential pardon whose primary purpose was the release of a French citizen Thiery Atangana from jail.  The fear of a presidential referral to the Special Criminal Court on additional charges of corruption under a practice devolved under the supervision of Paul Biya called “rouleur compresseur” pushed Titus Edzoa   to rejoin the CPDM Party without a public resignation or repudiation of his membership of the party on which he intended to contest presidential elections prior to his incarceration.  Edzoa was a victim of this system of presidential justice when new charges were brought against him when his first imprisonment was about to end in other to maintain him in prison.

Cameroonians want the rule of law to be the guarding principle on which justice is administered in the name of the people of Cameroon and not that of the President.  To the extent that the Special Criminal Court functions at the pleasure of the President, it fails to meet this threshold.  The justice rendered in the court cannot be said to be free and fair nor independent.  Because the court serves the political interests of the President, it is institutionally unjust and thus an affront to the tenets of justice and fundamental fairness.  Cameroon needs to confront the scourge of institutional corruption, the abuse of public trust, the arrogance of power and the impunity of misrule.  The Special Criminal Court as presently constituted is the wrong institution to confront these systemic crimes.

 

 

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Ngwa Bertrand

02.Mar.2015

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