Kamto Demands Investigations into Past Abuses on CRM Militants

The President of the Cameroon Renaissance Movement, Prof. Maurice Kamto, has asked authorities to conduct a judicial investigation into human rights violations inflicted on his party’s militants in 2018, 2019, and 2020.

Maurice Kamto leads the Cameroon Renaissance Movement party, and authorities arrested several of its militants during protests in 2018 and 2020.

On Friday, October 25, Kamto urged authorities to investigate their detention, asserting that they endured torture.

Kamto called for action after authorities promised to investigate the torture of Makossa singer Longue Longue, who faced arrest in 2019.

A video of Longue Longue’s torture that appeared online last week showed security personnel slapping and pressing down on his feet.
 

Why 2018?

Maurice Kamto alleges torture linked to the 2018 Presidential elections, where he stood as one of eight candidates challenging long-serving President Paul Biya.

Maurice Kamto declared he had “scored a penalty” while vote counting was underway, which many interpreted to mean he had won the elections.

The Constitutional Council declared the results, and incumbent Paul Biya of the ruling Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement won with 71 percent of the vote.

Maurice Kamto and his followers often claim that they stole their victory.

Longue Longue As Kamto’s Follower

In 2019, a few months after the presidential elections, popular artist Longue Longue, in a TV interview, asserted that Kamto won the elections.

He offered no proof.

He further asserted that if the elections were to be reorganized, Kamto would still have won by over 90 percent.

Apparently his outing did not please the government, prompting his arrest by elements of Military Security (SEMIL) in Douala.

The arrest is believed to have been linked to his outing on the 2018 election.

Kamto Arrested Twice

Kamto called for a nationwide protest in 2018 to reclaim his “stolen victory,” and authorities arrested and jailed him.

Authorities arrested and detained several of his supporters. In 2020, he organised another protest to oust Paul Biya, who had been in power for 38 years.

The government imposed a ban on the 2020 protest and placed Kamto under house arrest.

That year, authorities arrested several CRM supporters again, and Kamto reports that many of them faced torture and abuse.

According to Kamto, “The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) in its Opinion of 4 November 2022 based on the International Covenant on Political and Civil Rights, which the State of Cameroon ratified on 27 June 1984 and which is therefore enforceable against Cameroon by virtue of the Constitution, officially qualified this cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment of hundreds of CRM militants for their political opinions as arbitrary and illegal.”

“In this opinion, which was issued after an adversarial debate with the Cameroonian government, it is recommended, among other things, that the State of Cameroon immediately open investigations to seek to bring to justice the perpetrators of the criminal treatment to which our militants were subjected, he added.

Victim of Abuse

The opposition leader said he was also a victim of abuse when he was arrested in 2018.

“I was a victim, as was the first Vice President of our party, Mr. Mamadou Mota, who escaped with a broken arm and his degrading image thrown open to the public. Among the cases of several hundred victims of such treatment, I cannot fail to mention the cruel and unbearable case of Mr. Wambo on 27 October 2018 in Douala, whose arm was broken by a gendarme with the butt of his rifle in front of a stunned public, and of Mr. Gaëtan NGANKAM, who was shot at point-blank range by a police officer on the orders of his superiors on 26 January 2019 in Douala. The video of the horrific scene went around the world.” Kamto stated. 

He recounted several atrocities meted out on militants that left them with disabilities.

“The irrefutable evidence of the acts of these torturers is available and awaits that, as in the case of the torture of the artist LONGUE LONGUE, the government finally orders the opening of investigations,” he said.

All those involved in the torture and abuse of CRM Militants, he said, must be held accountable.

This includes both the torturers and their superiors giving the orders.