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posted by martyb on Friday April 07 2017, @03:29AM   Printer-friendly
from the +++ATH0 dept.

Independent Media (South Africa) reports:

The Internet ban on Cameroon's English-speaking population is cause for great concern in the language dispute, writes Azad Essa.

Millions of Cameroonians have been without the internet for 75 days after the government launched a ban on the service in English-speaking areas. The blackout, which is deliberately targeting the country's minority Anglophone population, started after lawyers began protesting against the overt use of French in English-speaking courts.

The protests spread rapidly across the country with English-speaking regions rallying against what they saw as the latest attempt by the government to "erase" their culture and heritage.

Inner City Press reports:

While Cameroon has cut off the Internet to the Anglophone regions for more than 70 days, the UN throughout the week of March 27-31 repeatedly refused to answer Inner City Press' questions about it [...] On March 31, Inner City Press put a question about the outrage of Cameroon saying it will accede to the UN "electronic communications" treaty while denying such communications to millions of people to UN Spokesman Farhan Haq, video here, UN transcript here:

Inner City Press: Given that the internet has been turned off to millions of people for 76 days, I noticed that the Government says that it's going to be depositing a ratification of something called a UN convention on the use of electronic communications in international contracts. And I wanted to know, will the Secretariat... do they have any role in... in... in reviewing the sort of legitimacy of ratifications or... or... what would you say about a country that's turned off the internet to its own population depositing a ratification to an electronic communications convention at that time?

Deputy Spokesman: Those are separate issues. Regarding treaties, all treaties are looked at to see whether the instruments... whether the treaties are properly filed as they're being deposited.

[...] Inner City Press: I'd sent you a number of questions about Cameroon. Now I have those and something else. First of all, I wanted to know, what's the... what is the status of having a resident coordinator in the country, given that the internet has been turned off to two regions in the country for 76 days?

Deputy Spokesman: Right now, there is an officer-in-charge. There's no new full-time resident coordinator, but there's an officer-in-charge there.

Question: Can you say who that is or which agency it is?

Deputy Spokesman: I believe it's the officer for UNICEF (United Nations Children's Fund) right now.

But when Inner City Press later on March 31 visited UNICEF's Cameroon website to follow up, the most recent report was from 2012, and the top two press releases were about Nigeria, here.


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  • (Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Friday April 07 2017, @03:23PM (1 child)

    by tangomargarine (667) on Friday April 07 2017, @03:23PM (#490279)

    I'm not aware of any strongly English-speaking country that is doing badly.

    Wikipedia lists Belize and Guyana as majority-English-speaking. Guess with "strongly English-speaking" you could probably play some verbal gymnastics and dismiss these.

    Some excerpts from the Guyana article:

    English is the official language of Guyana and is used for education, government, media, and services. The vast majority of the population speaks Guyanese Creole, an English-based creole with slight African and East Indian influence, as their native tongue.

    Historically, politics are a source of tension in the country, and violent riots have often broken out during elections. During the 1970s and 1980s, the political landscape was dominated by the People's National Congress.

    In 1992, the first "free and fair" elections were overseen by former United States President Jimmy Carter, and the People's Progressive Party has led the country since. The two parties are principally organised along ethnic lines and as a result often clash on issues related to the allocation of resources.

    Homosexual acts are illegal in Guyana.

    Guyana's educational system is considered to be among the best in the Caribbean, but it deteriorated significantly in the 1980s, because of inadequate funding and emigration of many highly educated citizens. Although the education system recovered in the 1990s, it still does not produce the quality of educated students necessary for Guyana to modernise its workforce.[citation needed] The country lacks a critical mass of expertise in many of the disciplines and activities on which it depends.

    South America in general is rather shitty so by comparison maybe Guyana is okay.

    And Belize is big in the drug trade and corruption. I recall that article about John McAfee where he said you basically want to stay on the beaches, otherwise it's not safe to walk around really.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 07 2017, @05:36PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 07 2017, @05:36PM (#490367)

    is why he moved there, I wonder if perhaps his view of Belize's corruption/drug trade wasn't in fact a self-inflicted viewpoint.