Cameroon: in the shadow of Nigeria

[davidbfpo]

Most of the posts on the Cameroon were in the current Nigeria thread and thirteen have been copied here today.

The threads title was Cameroonian Soldiers killed in the Bakassi, a border dispute with Nigeria in 2007 and now IIRC settled amicably.

The new title is Cameroon: in the shadow of Nigeria.

[davidbfpo]

In FP's emailed Situation Report:

Obama announced the deployment of 300 commandos to Cameroon to work with the security forces from Cameroon, Chad, Benin, Niger and Nigeria in a bid to bolster the local effort against the Nigeria-based Boko Haram militant group.

The NYT has a little more:

Mr. Obama announced in October that he had ordered 300 troops, most of them special operators, to Cameroon ...The American troops, Mr. Obama said, would provide intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance for the region, largely by operating unarmed surveillance drones. The troops would not engage in combat, he said.

Link:http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/28/wo...y-answer.html?

An interesting deployment, especially as Nigeria has officially - under the current and previous presidencies - did not have good working relations. Plus to my recollection Cameroon has not had a previous US deployment, for example an elite unit was Israeli-trained.

[davidbfpo]

A rarity, a US journalist reports from the Cameroon, after spending time "out & about" looking and asking questions. Yes the title implies the focus is on newly opened, expanding facility for US drones - there is more:https://theintercept.com/2016/02/25/us-extends-drone-war-deeper-into-africa-with-secretive-base/?

On the much-heralded (in 2015) regional, multi-national force:

The new multinational force had gotten up and running in November, he said, adding that most of the soldiers belonged to the BIR — “among the best troops in Cameroon.” But other sources told me that the multinational force had been beset by internal feuding. The Nigerian military was demanding a leadership role, and the Chadians and Cameroonians were resisting. The feuding had slowed the integration of the three nations’ soldiers into a single unit; the “multinational force” along Cameroon’s border, for example, was still almost entirely made up of Cameroonians, and by the time I caught up with the officer in mid-January, it had made only four brief incursions into Nigeria.

[davidbfpo]

A short BBC World Service report from northern Cameroon, including some comments by the local military (BIR) and gendarmerie commanders on changing Boko Haram tactics:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-35838112

[davidbfpo]

An overview by an ICG analyst:https://sustainablesecurity.org/2016...m-in-cameroon/

A couple of key points:

...the military cooperation between Chad and Nigeria or Nigeria and Cameroon that, despite the bottlenecks recorded at the beginning, has improved significantly over recent months to the extent that the right of hot pursuit is now a reality....No serious brainstorming is done on development issues and the fight against radicalization at the regional level. In the same light, no reflection has been initiated on the ways to end this crisis now that Boko Haram is weakened.

[davidbfpo]

So after four months of disorder in the English-speaking region of Cameroon a Nairobi-based reporter writes a report and he headline:

A nation divided: tensions mount in Cameroon as English speakers marginalised by Francophone majority

Link:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017...arginalisedby/

I had not seen any reporting of this, but one must wonder if Boko Haram are the winners here.

The BBC World Service two weeks ago had a radio podcast:http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p04tnn64

[davidbfpo]

A comprehensive overview and update on Cameroon's northern province and Boko Haram:http://oxfordresearchgroup.org.uk/pu...ing_boko_haram