The European Parliament expresses its deep concern about human rights violations in Cameroon in an emergency resolution adopted on Thursday 25 November by 614 votes to 32 with 40 abstentions.
The text points out that the country is simultaneously facing threats from the terrorist group Boko Haram in its far north and a conflict between the state and an armed separatist rebellion that, in almost five years, has claimed thousands of lives, led to heinous abuses and resulted in a full-blown humanitarian crisis in Cameroon’s English-speaking regions.
Parliament condemns the violations of human rights, international law and international humanitarian law perpetrated by the parties to the armed conflict and stresses the importance of combating impunity.
Parliament urges the Cameroonian government and the political and military leaders of the separatist groups to agree on a humanitarian ceasefire and encourages the parties to the conflict to agree on confidence-building measures, such as the release of non-violent political prisoners and the lifting of the school boycott.
It calls on the government of President Paul Biya and the Anglophone separatists to resume peace talks immediately and asks that the international community, in particular the African Union, Central African states and the EU, offer to take on a mediation role to facilitate dialogue.
Parliament also calls on the Cameroonian authorities to stop trying people in military courts - especially civilians - and not to impose the death penalty. MEPs remind Cameroon that it must uphold the right of all citizens to a fair trial before independent courts and that military courts should not have jurisdiction over the civilian population.
MEPs call on the Cameroonian government to ratify the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)