Three killed in opposition protest

Three people died and six others were severely injured on Monday in Kumbo, Northwestern Province, when security forces cracked down on anti-government demonstrators on the 40th anniversary of Cameroon's unification, media and local sources reported. Another 140 were arrested, according to the BBC.

The protesters were supporters of the Southern Cameroon National Council, an organisation whose aim is to gain independence for Cameroon's two English-speaking provinces, the Northwest and Southwest.

Those arrested include a vice-president of the SCNC and a journalist of the tri-weekly "La Nouvelle Expression". Jean-Gabriel Makong of the Ligue Camerounaise des Droits de la Personne, a human rights organisation, told IRIN on Tuesday that the SCNC official was being detained in a prison in Bamenda, 450 km northwest of Yaounde. He said that the reporter, who was arrested for writing an article last week saying that security forces would deploy in the province to repress protests, was due to appear before the state prosecutor during the day.

The government had banned the demonstration in both provinces. Though no incident was reported in the Southwest province, the ban was defied in the Northwest where SCNC supporters are more hard-line, Makong said. The situation remains "pretty tense", he said. Troops were still patrolling in both provinces, he added.

SCNC is headed by Frederic Ebong who currently lives in exile in Nigeria. In December 1999, the group seized the national radio station in Buea, 300 km southwest of Yaounde, and declared independence. SCNC wants independence because it says that Anglophones have been marginalised. English-speaking Cameroonians make up about a fifth of the some 15 million Cameroonians.

In 1961, the two parts of Cameroon, which had been under French and British rule respectively, came together as the Federal Republic of Cameroon. In 1972, the federal system was scrapped following a referendum and the country became the United Republic of Cameroon. In 1984, President Paul Biya renamed it the Republic of Cameroon.