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| SKY FM Ndu |
Johannesburg,
August 9, 2018--Cameroonian
authorities should speedily investigate an alleged arson attack on community radio
station Sky FM in the volatile Northwest region and ensure those responsible
are prosecuted, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.
Unknown persons on August 3 set fire to
the station, destroying the building and equipment, according to the station
owner Abdou Borno, an article on Sky FM's official
Facebook page, Cameroonian journalist Ndi Eugene Ndi, and two local website
reports. The equipment included two transmitters, computers, four recorders, a
video camera, a mixer, decoder, television set, and office furniture, according
to Borno.
The radio station is based in the town
of Ndu, about 124 km (77 miles) from Bamenda, the capital of the Northwest
region--one of two regions where Anglophone separatists have been
waging an armed struggle for an independent
state called Ambazonia against the
French-speaking government of President Paul Biya, according to news
reports. A recent Human Rights Watch report blamed both sides for grave
abuses against civilians, including killings.
"All parties to the conflict in
Cameroon, whether government forces or Ambazonians, should stop targeting journalists
and media organizations and allow them to operate safely and without fear of
reprisal," said Angela Quintal, CPJ Africa Program Coordinator. "The
media is not the enemy. Journalists are simply trying to do their jobs by
ensuring that citizens are armed with useful information in what has become an
increasingly bloody phase in Cameroon's history."
Borno told CPJ that he learned of the
fire the morning of August 4 when the manager of the nearby Summit Hotel,
Nformi Victor, called him to tell him that the radio station had burned down.
According to Borno, Victor told him that a hotel receptionist heard a noise at
about 11 p.m. the night before; she did not investigate further since she did
not hear the noise again and because it was windy.
Sky FM's station manager, Bernard Tata
Gibip, found a cutlass, gasoline container, and a box of matches near the radio
station after he too was alerted by Victor, Borno told CPJ.
The station broadcasts in English and
"all other local languages including Limbum and Mbororo," on topics
including culture, health, and the economy, according to Borno, who is a local
official of Biya's ruling Cameroon People's Democratic Movement party. The
station also broadcasts BBC programs and national broadcasts in French.
Borno told CPJ on August 7 that he
believed his radio station was targeted because of its "Back to
School" campaign, which began last year encouraging students to return to
school. The new school year starts in September, and a school boycott has been
in place since November 2016 when lawyers and teachers in both the Anglophone
Northwest and Southwest regions began protesting the alleged marginalization
of English by Biya's central government in Yaounde, according to news reports.
The grassroots protest was then taken over by separatist factions as the
conflict escalated with Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch accusing
them of violently enforcing the boycott, according to the independent
humanitarian news website, IRIN.
The station has been off air since May
19 after its two transmitters were damaged in a lightening strike; they were
planning to relaunch the week of August 8, according to Borno.
Borno told CPJ that because the new
school year starts next month, the "separatist activists know very well
our stand so they decided to burn the entire radio house with all
equipment."
In a detailed emailed statement to CPJ,
a spokesperson for the separatists' Self Defense Council of the Ambazonian Interim Government (ASC),
A.J.N. Mbiydzenyuy, said it controlled about 98 percent of the
"restoration forces"-- who are the self-defense units of the
separatist Ambazonia movement--
in the Northwest and Southwest regions and that there was no evidence that they
were responsible for the arson attack.
"The ASC leadership has never
approved [an] arson attack, the restoration forces council in Nkambe is unaware
of any involvement of their forces...and the field commanders of our forces in
Ndu declined responsibility of the FM radio station arson attack," he said.
CPJ could not verify independently the
alleged motive or whether separatists were responsible for the alleged arson.
Ndi, the publisher and editor-in-chief
of the weekly NewsWatch,
told CPJ that both the government and separatists were targeting journalists.
"Separatists are threatening us with messages that we are siding with
government in our reports as we try to stay neutral or objective in the crisis.
On the other hand, any report that seems to be propagating the agenda of the
separatists is tantamount to the crime of 'apologies de terrorisme' punishable
under the anti-terrorism law by the government," he said.
Borno said he employed four staff
members to report and produce programs. He said that the station, which he
established in 2013, was not a profit-making enterprise, nor was it subsidized
by the government.
Communications Minister Issa Tchiroma
Bakary, who also serves as a government spokesperson, did not respond to CPJ's
request via Whatsapp for comment. The Northwest Governor Adolphe Lele Lafrique
had not replied to CPJ's request for comment at the time of publication
When News Breaks Out, We Break In. (The 2014 Bloggies Finalist)
