-Since late 2016, Cameroon has been submerged in civil unrest,
with English-speaking separatists
fighting the largely French-speaking government.
The conflict is now known as the Anglophone Crisis.
On October 30th, Charles Wesco,
an American missionary who had recently moved
to the English-speaking Northwest region,
was shot and killed while traveling in a vehicle
with two members of his family.
In the immediate aftermath of his death,
both the military and the separatists
were accused of killing Wesco.
Journalists reporting on the story
faced pushback from the government,
which was eager to distance itself from the killing.
And because of her reporting, one journalist
was served criminal fake-news charges.
The death of an American in the Anglophone Crisis
was a particularly sensitive incident in Cameroon,
and, in some ways, it propelled the conflict
there onto the international stage.
The military receives training and support from around 300 U.
S.
troops based in the Far North region,
where another war is being fought against
Boko Haram militants.
I asked Mimi why the government is increasingly questioning
and jailing journalists who cover the Anglophone Crisis.
-Because this is a Cameroonian problem.
The separatist fighters, who are now brandished as terrorists,
are Cameroonians.
Those who are dying on a daily basis,
those boys and girls who have decided to take up arms
against their own military -- they are Cameroonians.
-On the day Wesco was killed,
Mimi posted accounts on Twitter and Facebook from one source
saying that it was the military who shot at the missionary.
She later published the military's statements
that claimed it was, in fact, the separatists who shot him.
-If I was out to sabotage the military,
as they claim, I shouldn't have given
the government's version of the story.
-She didn't feel that she had done anything wrong,
but soon after, military police visited her office
to serve her papers.
Mimi Mefo faced charges including publishing false news
and cyber-criminality, among other serious accusations.
And she ended up spending a few nights behind bars.
-She said in her tweet and on her Facebook page
that it was the Cameroonian army
who killed the priest, the pastor.
-She was later released,
and when she reappeared in court,
the charges were dropped after a pardon
from president Paul Biya himself.
-Incontestably, she made a mistake.
The head of state decided to stop the pursuit
on the basis of humanitarian grounds,
magnanimity, humanity,
and to give this woman who made a mistake,
to give her another chance to take back up her job
and to do it this time with a lot more attention.
-There are still a lot of unanswered questions
about what happened the day Charles Wesco was killed.
-We do not know who shot my husband.
It was -- I've kind of just given that to God.
My husband didn't go there for any agenda,
except to serve the Lord Jesus Christ.
That would just be my main concerns --
you know, that my husband's death would be turned
into a political thing in any way, shape, or form.
-We recovered the pastor's body.
We determined the presence of lead pellets
that come from 12-caliber cartridges.
Our security and defense forces, you understand,
that our forces don't use this type of ammunition.
It's a terrible problem for us,
fake news, disinformation, poisoning.
-According to the Committee to Protect Journalists,
as of early December,
seven journalists were in jail in Cameroon,
including four on fake-news charges,
making Cameroon the second-leading jailer
of journalists in sub-Saharan Africa.
In mid-December, president Paul Biya intervened
to release some of those journalists.
-It's practically unacceptable that,
on the basis of an article, without questioning the person,
hearing the person's version of the story,
you would throw the person behind bars.
We have the impression that if you are not singing
the praises of a particular individual,
either the government or the pro-independence fighters
or even the opposition, we are considered as an enemy.
We want a society where journalists would be able
to tell the stories of your society
without being reprimanded by anybody.
-Do you see the media
as the enemy now? -No.
No, no, no.
The media is not the enemy.
The media cannot be the enemy, no.
Journalists first need to verify the authenticity of information
before publishing it.
The journalist is not the enemy.
Not at all.