The former US Undersecretary of State for African Affairs, Tibor Nagy Jr., has suggested that the United States, under President-elect Donald Trump, will pressure the Cameroon Government to resolve the protracted armed conflict in the Anglophone regions of the country.
Tibor Nagy, who has been very vocal about the crisis, made the hint in a tweet shortly after Donald Trump secured a remarkable victors against Vice President Kamala Harris in the November 5 presidential elections.
After he polled amazingly in all swing states, the media referred to the victory as a clean sweep.
Donald Trump first served as US President from 2017 to 2020 and failed to secure a consecutive second term after losing to President Joe Biden.
With a crushing victory at the 2024 elections,Trump returns to the White House for a second time when he will be sworn in.
Reports say he had since his re-election retreated to his Palm Beach residence in Florida where he is vetting candidates for a new cabinet.
According to Ambassador Tibor Nagy Junior, the Cameroon government’s mistreatment of the Anglophone minority is likely to attract pressure from the Trump administration.
“If President Trump selects certain people whose names have come up for high level posts, the Yaoundé regime will get much more pressure over its mistreatment of its Anglophone population,” the diplomat wrote on X, formerly Tweeter.
The Anglophone Crisis has received little attention from the Biden administration since 2021, despite stating that the crisis was going to be one of its priorities in Africa.
“Cameroon Govt has gotten a relatively free ride with Biden; hopefully that will change,” Tibor Nagy added.
Donald Trump is yet to release his foreign policy, as he is expected to take over from Joe Biden as president of the United States of America in January 2025.
During the first Trump administration, not much was done to force the Cameroonian government to resolve the conflict.
Trump suspended Cameroon from the Africa Growth Opportunity Act (AGOA) programme in late 2019 over “persistent gross violations of internationally recognised human rights” by Cameroonian security forces. However, critics argue that this was part of a larger policy to restrict access to trade from developing nations, rather than an action which put pressure on the Cameroon government.
Still in 2019, the US government is alleged to have cut millions in security and military aid to Cameroon amid growing concerns over the Cameroonian government’s human rights record.
It terminated over $17 million in security aid, including funds for radars, four defender-class patrol boats, nine armoured vehicles, training programmes for C-130 aeroplanes and helicopters, and the withdrawal of an offer for Cameroon to be a candidate for the State Partnership Programme.
A planned US-funded upgrade to a Cessna aircraft belonging to Cameroon’s elite Rapid Intervention Battalion force was also terminated.
It is unclear if these actions were intended to have any impact given that the previous year, when the conflict was at its peak, the US had provided Cameoron with significant military assistance.
It is unclear at this point whether Trump’s ‘America first’ policy will involve him paying any particular attention to issues in Africa, which he did not visit during his first presidency. Also, Trump failed to mention any of the conflicts in Africa during his campaign, where one of his key messages was to end wars in Europe and the Middle East.
The Battalion, which received training and equipment from the USA, has come under fire for allegedly violating human rights.
Rights abuses committed by the army, according to human rights reports, include arson on villages, extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, torture, and the arbitrary arrest and detention of thousands of civilians in the two regions without trial.
Armed separatists have also been indicted for grave atrocities: extrajudicial killings, extortion, kidnapping for ransom, and torture.
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