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Cameroon Condemns Separatists for Abducting Village Chiefs

Moki Edwin Kindzeka

   YAOUNDE - There has been widespread condemnation of separatists in
   Cameroon for a string of attacks and abductions of traditional village
   chiefs. Anglophone rebels released two chiefs on Monday but killed
   another for defying their demand not to participate in Cameroon's
   December 6 regional elections.

   Scores of Dibanda villagers, near southwestern Cameroon's Buea town,
   are mourning their chief, whose body was found Sunday after he was
   abducted by rebels.

   Cameroon authorities say Chief Emmanuel Ngalle Ikome was abducted on
   December 13 with two other village chiefs -- they were freed on Monday
   unharmed.

   His daughter, 37-year-old Libonge Epossi, says the anglophone
   separatists also abducted four family members when they attacked the
   palace.

   She says a few dozen people who were in the palace escaped to
   neighboring houses and bushes when the rebels were shooting
   indiscriminately in the air. Epossi says Chief Ikome was abducted along
   with two other village chiefs who had come for the inauguration of the
   newly constructed Dibanda palace building.

   Cameroon's government says rebels abducted four other village chiefs in
   the northwest region last week. Two were immediately released but the
   whereabouts of the other two is unknown.

   Buea lawmaker Donald Malomba Esembe, who visited the bereaved family on
   Monday, says the rebels killed her father because he took part in
   Cameroon's first regional elections on December 6.

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