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afrol.com, 22 November - Presently, the UN Committee against Torture is hearing a Cameroonian Government delegation on the heavy torture allegations against the country. Also the well documented extra-judicial executions by mixed army and gendarmerie units are brought up. Cameroon, as one of the 123 States parties to the UN Convention against Torture, is required to submit periodic reports to the Committee. States parties customarily also send Government delegations to answer questions about the reports. The Committee meeting is united in Geneva to discuss the newly admitted report of Cameroon on torture. The UN panel's 10 independent experts currently are querying the Government delegation, among other things, on reports of widespread abuses by police officers during arrests and detention; on allegations that a system of "administrative internment" could allow indefinite detention of persons with no opportunity for appeal; and on complaints that crimes, including extra-judicial executions, had been committed under an "operational command" set up to combat robbery and organized crime. Afrol.com earlier reported about mass graves found outside Cameroon's biggest city Douala earlier this month, which most likely cover the remains of victims of on a paramilitary unit set up in June to fight the rising crime. The city's outspoken Archbishop, Cardinal Christian Tumi, claims that the "blatant excesses" of the police unit could account for up to 500 people killed and missing in the city. Tumi does not doubt that Government officials are behind these killings. As this event is recent and not sufficiently accounted for, is has not been mentioned in the discussions so far. Cameroonian officials were, however, interviewed on a similar affair in the Northern Cameroonian city of Maroua two years ago, which is well documented. In Maroua, documentation about a large but undetermined number of extra-judicial killings perpetrated by a special antigang gendarmerie unit tasked with combating highwaymen has accumulated. Local groups estimate that between 300 and 800 persons had been killed in Maroua in 1998 and 1999. The extra-judicial executions committed by police and military units where not mentioned in the governmental report to the Committee. Mr. El Masry of the Committee thus asked the Cameroonian officials about the killings. Mr. El Masry asked if so-called "anti-gang" units, formed of mixed army and gendarmerie elements, were not subject to legal rules, as charged, as it had been said that these units operated in the three northern provinces of the country with impunity and carried out, among other things, extra-judicial executions. As the governors of those provinces had said they had no authority over the activities of the units, Mr. El-Masry asked who controlled their operations and what instructions were given to them. The para-military unit have been created under the direct authority of the Minister of Defense and operate outside the normal chain of command for law-and-order units. The security forces, including the military forces, remain under the effective control of the President, the civilian Minister of Defense, and the civilian head of police. The delegation was also questioned thoroughly about other forms of torture, practiced routinely by police and military. There are reports about torture against detainees by police, machetes being used against detainees, etc., resulting in injuries and several deaths. In his mass in Douala last Sunday, Archbishop Christian Tumi asked his Lord to receive well the victims of torture and extra-judicial killings and to forgive the torturers. "I think particularly of all those who died as a consequence of torture and various assassinations, victims of the excesses of the operational command since its installation in the city of Douala," Tumi said, according to the Messanger. Addressing the torturers, he said "Forgive them, because they do not know what they do". He continued: "We can only request one thing from the Lord - that they have courage to refuse to kill and say 'no' to acts of cruelty each time it is necessary." The Cameroonian delegation is supposed to answer to the allegations today.
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