OSLO, Norway
A Cameroonian separatist leader has been arrested in Norway for his alleged role in the ongoing armed conflict in the Central African country.
Lucas Ayaba Cho (above) was arrested
on Tuesday on "charges based on his various expressions on social
media", his lawyer said.
Cho is an influential figure
in the Anglophone movement pushing for independence from Cameroon, where over
6,000 people have been killed and nearly a million others displaced since
fighting began in 2016.
Some in the country's two
English-speaking regions say they are discriminated against by the
French-speaking majority.
Human rights group Amnesty
International has accused both government troops and the armed separatists of
killings, rapes and torture of civilians.
A Cameroonian official told our
reporter that Norway and Cameroon had a security agreement, which could see Cho
being extradited in the coming days.
His lawyer said he wasn't
aware of any extradition request.
Cho, who describes himself as
a liberation leader, is one of the most prominent separatist leaders shaping
the conflict in Cameroon’s restive Anglophone regions.
On its website, the
52-year-old is described as Commander-in-Chief of the Ambazonian Defence Forces
(ADF), one of several armed groups seeking independence from Cameroon.
He commands his movement from
his base in Norway, where he is believed to have ordered a recent two-week
lockdown as part of the separatists' campaign to boycott schools.
Known for his tough-talking
and hard-line approach, he came under criticism after ADF fighters recently
targeted taxi drivers in the North-West region, ordering them to change the
colour of their vehicles from yellow to white and blue – the colours of the
flag of the planned break-away state of Ambazonia. Some of those who refused
saw their vehicles burnt.
The ADF's political wing, the
Ambazonia Governing Council, has imposed a “liberation tax” which compels
people living in the restive Anglophone regions to pay a certain amount of
money to fund the conflict against the government.
In January 2017, he said he
survived an assassination attempt after holding talks with other separatist
leaders in Belgium.
His anti-institutional
radicalism did not emerge with the outbreak of the Anglophone crisis in 2016.
It’s a trait that dates as far back as the 1990s when he was reportedly
expelled from the University of Buea for taking part in demonstrations over an
increase in tuition fees.
Norway’s National Criminal
Investigation Service (KRIPOS) said Cho “had a central role in an ongoing armed
conflict in Cameroon”.
On Wednesday, the Norwegian
investigators sought his custody from the Oslo District Court.
“We are in an early phase of
the investigation, and there are several investigative steps that remain,”
Norwegian prosecutor Anette Berger said.
Emmanuel Nsahlai, a US-based
lawyer representing some victims of the Anglophone crisis in Cameroon, hailed
Cho's arrest as a "significant victory" against separatist violence
in Cameroon.
"This arrest marks a
critical step in holding him accountable for his actions and bringing justice
to the victims of his violence," Mr Nsahlai told the BBC.
Cho is not the first
separatist leader to be arrested abroad in connection with the violence in
Cameroon.
Since the outbreak of the
conflict, the Cameroonian government has been urging foreign countries hosting
separatist leaders to facilitate their repatriation back home for trial over
their role in the ongoing violence.
In 2018, Julius Sisiku Ayuk
Tabe, the leader of the Anglophone separatist movement, and 46 others were
arrested in Nigeria and later extradited to Cameroon.
No comments:
Post a Comment