Trump Strips Cameroon of U.S. Trade Benefits Over Allegations That Military Committed Human Rights Abuses Against Civilians and Separatists

Videos coming from the English speaking part of Cameroon, where rebels are fighting to form an independent state called “Ambazonia,” published on June 25, 2018. | (Screenshot: YouTube/BBC News Africa)

President Donald Trump has stripped trade benefits from Cameroon over accusations that its military has committed human rights abuses against civilians and separatists in the West African country’s two civil war-ridden Anglophone regions. 

In a letter to U.S. Congress last week, Trump blasted the Cameroonian government’s “persistent gross violations of internationally recognized human rights.”

The president said the French-speaking central government has failed to address concerns related to reports of extrajudicial killings, unlawful detentions, torture and other abuses said to have been committed by security forces against civilians and rebels.

“I am taking this step because I have determined that the Government of Cameroon currently engages in gross violations of internationally recognized human rights, contravening the eligibility requirements of section 104 of the (African Growth and Opportunity Act),” the president wrote in his letter.

Trump’s decision effectively removes Cameroon as a beneficiary of the African Growth and Opportunity Act, legislation passed in 2000 with the aim of assisting countries in Subsaharan Africa by giving them privileged access to the U.S. market.

Under AGOA, countries are able to export goods to the U.S. duty-free. But countries must maintain eligibility. One requirement is that countries not engage in gross violations of human rights. Partner countries must also demonstrate progress in areas such as establishing the rule of law, political pluralism, and workers’ rights.

As a result, Cameroon’s AGOA beneficiary status will expire on Jan. 1, 2020.

Since Cameroon’s Anglophone crisis began in 2016, thousands have been killed and hundreds of thousands have been displaced from their homes.

The civil conflict grew out of longstanding grievances of people in the two English-speaking regions of the country who felt they were being underrepresented by the French-speaking central government.

When protestors took to the streets in 2016, the government responded with deadly force. While actors on both sides of the conflict are accused of rights abuses, security forces are said to have killed civilians, burned down homes, and even tortured armed rebels.

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SOURCE: Christian Post, Samuel Smith