Atrocities in Cameroon

Perknose

Forum Director & Omnipotent Overlord
Forum Director
Oct 9, 1999
46,684
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By the military units of the government's French speaking majority funded and trained by us, against the minority English speakers.

"There have been widely circulated videos of individuals in military uniforms—both those of the Cameroonian army and those of the government’s elite military guard, the Battalion d’Intervention Rapide (BIR)—committing a vast array of violent acts against civilians, including burning dozens of villages in Anglophone regions, torture, and indiscriminate killing.

In one video, men in military fatigues can be seen setting village houses ablaze before walking away to let them burn to the ground.

In one video, men in military fatigues can be seen setting village houses ablaze before walking away to let them burn to the ground.Another shows individuals in BIR uniforms beating a man with a two-by-four. And in July, videos surfaced showing military officers executing women and children.

After initial cries of “fake news,” the government ultimately acknowledged its veracity. Sadly, these are not anecdotes; there is a vast library of documented atrocities—and with presidential elections less than a month away, the violence is likely to get worse.

The conflict in Cameroon’s English-speaking regions is rooted in the country’s colonial past and path to independence, and it cannot necessarily be resolved by outside powers. But the U.S. government could put a unique type of pressure on Cameroon’s leaders simply by enforcing U.S. laws already on the books.

The so-called Leahy Law, passed in 1997 and named for its chief advocate, Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy, essentially bars the Departments of State and Defense from providing military assistance to foreign security forces that have credible accusations of human rights violations made against them. From a growing number of press reports, firsthand accounts, and on-the-ground videos, it’s clear that the BIR and the military more broadly are violating Cameroonians’ human rights.From a growing number of press reports, firsthand accounts, and on-the-ground videos, it’s clear that the BIR and the military more broadly are violating Cameroonians’ human rights. These are exactly the types of forces the Leahy Law was designed to target.

The BIR has always been a bit of an outlier when compared with its counterparts from other branches of the armed forces: It’s well funded, receives training from the United States, and is led by a retired Israeli military officer. The BIR doesn’t even report to the country’s defense minister, taking orders instead directly from Biya."


^^^ Our government needs to enforce Leahy's Law. I won't be holding my breath. :(
 
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hal2kilo

Lifer
Feb 24, 2009
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It's really sad shit like this happening around the world if we weren't so engaged with other things and the only us crowd.
Well, they aren't white. As far as I've gathered, and I include previous admins, we really don't give 2 shits about lower Africa. Chinese are all over the place in that part of Africa. We seem not to have a concern.
Edit: And we already know this admin has surely lumped Cameroon as one of those shithole countries.
 
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pauldun170

Diamond Member
Sep 26, 2011
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In Murica, you first need to point where on the color wheel this atrocity has occurred in order for concern to happen.

IMG_0426-e1496433211670.jpg
 

GagHalfrunt

Lifer
Apr 19, 2001
25,284
1,997
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Instead we're consumed with stupid tweets and the shape of the POTUS's wang.
We really are horrible people.

We've been ignoring Africa for longer than America has been a country. This is a tiny drop in an ocean of atrocities that goes back hundreds of years before the Colonial period. We don't give a shit because:

a) a lot of the time we're involved, or at least sponsoring the people committing the atrocities
b) it's way the hell over there
c) it's Africa and they don't have anything we want

The end. That's never going to change and it has nothing to do with Tweets and Trumps and Tigers and Bears, oh my. Africa has been a shithole since before Colombus came to America. Europe has been causing many of the problems and ignoring others for over 600 years. We've only been causing many of the problems and ignoring others for about 200. Yay Us!! USA!! USA!! USA!!

It's Africa. There are always at least 2 or 3 ongoing atrocities. That hasn't changed in the time you've been alive, why are you pretending to care now?
 

Homerboy

Lifer
Mar 1, 2000
30,890
5,001
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We've been ignoring Africa for longer than America has been a country. This is a tiny drop in an ocean of atrocities that goes back hundreds of years before the Colonial period. We don't give a shit because:

a) a lot of the time we're involved, or at least sponsoring the people committing the atrocities
b) it's way the hell over there
c) it's Africa and they don't have anything we want

The end. That's never going to change and it has nothing to do with Tweets and Trumps and Tigers and Bears, oh my. Africa has been a shithole since before Colombus came to America. Europe has been causing many of the problems and ignoring others for over 600 years. We've only been causing many of the problems and ignoring others for about 200. Yay Us!! USA!! USA!! USA!!

It's Africa. There are always at least 2 or 3 ongoing atrocities. That hasn't changed in the time you've been alive, why are you pretending to care now?

Where did I imply I was "pretending to care now"?
My whole point is that we SHOULD care about this atrocity. We should have cared about ALL the atrocities - just as you outlined. That's why I said we're a horrible people.
 
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GagHalfrunt

Lifer
Apr 19, 2001
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Where did I imply I was "pretending to care now"?
My whole point is that we SHOULD care about this atrocity. We should have cared about ALL the atrocities - just as you outlined. That's why I said we're a horrible people.

That's where you said it. If you think we SHOULD care about Africa it's because you're pretending to. You didn't give a shit last week, last month or last year, so what changed your mind? This particular atrocity is about a 1 out of 10 on the Africa scale, why do you and Perknose pretend to care about this one when you didn't give a shit about the 9 out of 10 and 10 out of 10 atrocities?
 
Mar 11, 2004
23,424
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That's where you said it. If you think we SHOULD care about Africa it's because you're pretending to. You didn't give a shit last week, last month or last year, so what changed your mind? This particular atrocity is about a 1 out of 10 on the Africa scale, why do you and Perknose pretend to care about this one when you didn't give a shit about the 9 out of 10 and 10 out of 10 atrocities?

What? Sorry that is shit logic and you know it. You're just trying to act like everyone is like you and doesn't give a fuck.

Maybe because they weren't aware of it? WTF? Gotta love assholes like you "why didn't you care until you knew about it?" I wonder. And you're the same asshole that will go around saying why are people making a fuss about some issue, there's worse stuff going on or happened before and then you bitch that people just keep moving on to the "next outrage". Maybe people aren't able to focus on any given one because there's a multitude of them and that there are ones they can more directly do something about or at least are impacted by? And often times there will be a big show about doing something about them (and there'll be a ceasefire or truce or something that causes it to die down for a while so people think there actually is something being done about them).

So it doesn't matter then? Then what the fuck are you bitching about? "Guys stop caring about this, you only get to care if you cared before but you didn't because you weren't keenly aware of them, including ones that happened 500 years ago, and so if you didn't care back then you shouldn't care now, you're just pretending." What the fuck? Seriously you're fucked in the head and just want to justify you being an unsympathetic piece of shit, that is the only reason you're trotting out this total fucking garbage argument.

Where's the evidence they didn't care about the other ones? That they weren't making threads about them?

We've been ignoring Africa for longer than America has been a country. This is a tiny drop in an ocean of atrocities that goes back hundreds of years before the Colonial period. We don't give a shit because:

a) a lot of the time we're involved, or at least sponsoring the people committing the atrocities
b) it's way the hell over there
c) it's Africa and they don't have anything we want

The end. That's never going to change and it has nothing to do with Tweets and Trumps and Tigers and Bears, oh my. Africa has been a shithole since before Colombus came to America. Europe has been causing many of the problems and ignoring others for over 600 years. We've only been causing many of the problems and ignoring others for about 200. Yay Us!! USA!! USA!! USA!!

It's Africa. There are always at least 2 or 3 ongoing atrocities. That hasn't changed in the time you've been alive, why are you pretending to care now?

Who is "we"? I mean, maybe you're immortal but I sure as fuck wasn't alive when America first started, let alone "hundreds of years before the Colonial period", so how the fuck you expect me to be able to have done anything about this stuff, I don't know. But hey, we're really just assholes and pretending to care now. Doesn't matter who you are or where you come from, if you care about something only after you're made aware of it, well you're just a pretender and an asshole for caring.
 
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Mar 11, 2004
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Clinton didn't uphold it.
W. didn't uphold it.
Obama didn't uphold it.

Thanks for your dewey-eyed concern 20 years later.

Ok, we get it you're completely unconcerned and never gave a shit. So fuck off then. I really cannot fathom how you can't see how stupendously fucking dumb your posting here is.

Are you trying to have a competition to see if anyone else can give a shit less than you do? I sure as shit don't see you making threads about this stuff, or offering any solutions (beyond well just fuck everything I guess?), let alone doing anything so why you're copping this holier than thou attitude is baffling. But hey, keep on keeping on showing that you can give more of a shit about getting mad at people for caring about it than caring about it yourself. What you think that proves other than that you're a colossal asshole, well actually that just seems to be what you're striving for. Congratulations you win asshole of AT P&N today. So how about you do everyone a favor and be super cool and stop giving a shit about other people giving a shit so we don't have to deal with your dumbass.
 
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Mar 11, 2004
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IMO the answer is to end foreign intervention entirely.

I disagree. Not just because it will hurt those countries (absolutely I can agree we aren't always great, and far too many times have been quite horrible to/for countries that we intervene in/for, I think its very often still better than the alternative, it just takes a long time to be able to see that, but look how South Korea has prospered, Vietnam eventually prospered via working with the US decades after the War and their dealing with the other shit going on like the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia; Iraq, while still having a lot of problems, is on the road to a better future - which there's going to be a lot of concerns because of the region and stuff like Global Warming is going to be particularly hard on them), but because it too will hurt the US. People seem to forget that without the rest of the world, we likely never become a superpower, and we don't experience the prosperity that we did. Now, certainly we can discuss nuances (like, how we prospered via other countries' willing to exploit their own people to prosper some themselves - which that's a lot more complex than most people are willing to admit), and its not all positive (but neither is it all negative). But it was general progress. There's going to be issues that need to be addressed (and there's almost always going to be areas for improvement). But we can't afford to isolate, it'll actually make our problems worse.

And while, it can seem like the opposite, we actually have made progress on stuff like genocide and the like. That's not to dismiss situations like this, but that this type of thing was more common and on larger scale before. We were making progress (but it can quickly go the other way). And going isolationist (let alone potentially skewing towards fascism ourselves), when the rest of the world is having a strong fascist lean, it could be catostrophic. It leads to stuff like World Wars. At best, we're likely heading to another major Cold War-esque showdown with China (where both sides are going to try and exploit differences into Nationalistic pride that will make people more exploitable, fueling the problems, just like we saw during the Cold War).

Now, absolutely we need to be measured and considerate in when/where/how we intervene. But we need to be very careful as we're risking dooming ourselves by pulling back. We need to wrest sanity back, and then reinforce our foreign support (which doesn't have to mean military and/or other intervention; something that has been noted but not made a huge fuss about is how much Turmp and his administration have harmed our foreign diplomatic situations, we'll need to immediately build that back up, and we're going to have to spend years proving that we're not going to roll back, but because how we keep bouncing from Republicans that do insane shit - that hurts ourselves and other places - and Democrats who then try to get things back to sanity and then when they get things going in the right direction, America, goes back to the insane Republicans, and its been getting worse and worse). And keep working at making progress, which we were (yes it wasn't as good as we'd have liked, but it was progress).
 
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Sinsear

Diamond Member
Jan 13, 2007
6,439
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Can we expect Conan to be there soon to tell us Cameroon is not a shithole?
 

BoomerD

No Lifer
Feb 26, 2006
65,278
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This shit is terrible, but is just another day in most of Africa. Try as I may, I just can’t seem to find any fucks to give about it.
I’d rather use my limited supply of caring fucks on the terrible/stupid shit that happens in my own country.
 

Blackjack200

Lifer
May 28, 2007
15,995
1,688
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This shit is terrible, but is just another day in most of Africa. Try as I may, I just can’t seem to find any fucks to give about it.
I’d rather use my limited supply of caring fucks on the terrible/stupid shit that happens in my own country.

Is that why you came into the thread? To tell us about how you don't care about people suffering and dying?
 

BoomerD

No Lifer
Feb 26, 2006
65,278
13,545
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Is that why you came into the thread? To tell us about how you don't care about people suffering and dying?

Is there a better reason? Should I have come in here gnashing my teeth and wailing about something I just found about and it inflamed my liberal tears?

Africa has been a shithole for centuries. Consider that the slaves that became Americans wouldn’t have come here if it wasn’t for the African slave traders who captured people from all over the continent and sold them...
Africans killing other Africans...sadly, just another day on the continent.
 
Nov 8, 2012
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This shit is terrible, but is just another day in most of Africa. Try as I may, I just can’t seem to find any fucks to give about it.
I’d rather use my limited supply of caring fucks on the terrible/stupid shit that happens in my own country.

Yes, agree - BUT! In order to be caring and sympathetic, you must get rid of your borders and let immigrants flow through freely. For those types of people couldn't possibly cross the border as well.