Cameroon Delegation In US For AGOA Talks

A delegation led by Felix Mbayu, Minister Delegate to the Minister of External Relations in charge of Relations with the Commonwealth has visited the US following the country’s decision to cut off Cameroon from the Africa Growth and Opportunities Act, AGOA beneficiary list.

The team is said to have met with the United States Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, Tibor Nagy on Monday 25 November 2019, to “plead” for the decision to be reversed.

The delegation’s trip comes days after Communication Minister, Emmanuel Sadi had said the US decision was biased, explaining that the human rights violations in the North West and South West regions were carried out by Ambazonian fighters and not government forces.

Sadi had taken close to a month to respond to the US claims of troops’ professionalism gaffes and persistent rights violations in Cameroon.

Despite a series of alleged extra judicial killings, unlawful detention, arrests and torture of pressmen as well as innocent civilians, government maintained that the US decision was flawed and even went ahead to downplay the benefit of AGOA to Cameroon.
Cameroon’s defence forces, Territorial Administration boss Atanga Nji Paul had said “are highly professional”.

The delegation’s visit to the US also comes after Tibor Nagy had openly declared that the crisis in the Anglophone regions can’t be solved through the military option.