Paul and Chantal Biya have been in Geneva since the evening of sunday July 11, 2021. The presidential couple indeed left Yaoundé in the morning of Sunday for a “short private stay in Europe”, indicates a press release from the Civil Cabinet of the Presidency. This trip of the Cameroonian presidential couple comes more than two years after the last private stay in Switzerland.
Thousands of Cameroonians hostile to the power of Yaoundé, are announced in Geneva where they will demonstrate in places held in secret, to be outraged at the massacres in the separatist regions of Cameroon, the “bad governance” in their country and also to demand for some, the release of “political prisoners“. Charters have been announced in several European capitals for Geneva since Monday, July 12, 2021.
A special security device has been deployed at the Intercontinental Hotel in Geneva, where the Head of State and the First Lady have taken up residence, along with their delegation, namely Samuel Mvondo Ayolo, director of the Civil Cabinet of the Presidency; Rear Admiral Joseph Fouda, Special Advisor to the President of the Republic; and Simon Pierre Bikele, Head of State Protocol.
Immediately informed, the Anti-Sardinards Brigade (BAS) plans to disrupt this stay. Several elements of this group of diaspora activists fiercely opposed to the Yaoundé regime have already called for mobilization for a large demonstration on Saturday, July 17, 2021 on the shores of Lake Geneva.
Abdoulaye Thiam, alias “Calibri Calibro“, who is presented as the head of BAS, has indeed published a video in which he urges Cameroonians living on the old continent to mobilize. “I call on you to a massive gathering of the Cameroonian diaspora in Geneva… The homeland is calling us and we must respond to the call of the homeland. Biya Bi Mvondo and his retinue have no citizenship in Europe, “he said.
We remember that activists from the diaspora demonstrated in 2019 in the lobby of the hotel where the presidential couple resided, forcing Paul and Chantal Biya shortened their stay. Members of the presidential security service had been convicted by the courts following violence against a Swiss journalist mistaken for a demonstrator.
