By Christopher Ambe Shu
At last, 85,836 candidates who wrote and passed technical examinations organized by the Cameroon General Certificate of Education (GCE) Board from 1995 to 2007 can now collect their certificates after years of delay.
But it remains unclear whether the GCE Board would compensate the candidates for the delay. The lack of certificates for years made it rather difficult if not impossible for many students wishing to further their studies in foreign institutions or universities in the situation where school authorities insisted on seeing certificates. Many others could not get employment for failing to present their certificates. Yet others who by some luck got admission into foreign universities on condition that they would later present their certificates have not been able to graduate several years after completing the courses for lack of the certificates. In the absence of certificates, the GCE Board was issuing attestations of results which were not accepted by some authorities as substitutes for certificates.
Humphrey Ekema, Monono incumbent registrar of Cameroon GCE on March 20 during a public ceremony at Bilingual Grammar School, Molyko-Buea to announce the availability of the certificates and to award certificates to some outstanding laureates, expressed regrets for the undue delay.
“Candiadtes, who have been successful in the GCE Technical Examinations since 1995 through 2007 and those of the Baccalaureate Technique and Brevet de Technicien Examinations organized in English since1997 through 2007, have gone without certificates”, said the registrar at the ceremony ,which was chaired by Louis Bapes Bapes ,Minister of Secondary Education.
The ceremony was considered special because it was the first time in the history of the GCE board that a government minister was handing out certificates directly to candidates who distinguished themselves in the 2007 Examinations organized by the Cameroon GCE Board
Conscious that the GCE Board also runs GCE Ordinary and Advanced Levels but has been producing their certificates, Monono noted that the non-production of the technical examinations certificates had increased “the low opinion the public has of technical education”.
The GCE Board Registrar did not give reasons for the delay of technical examination certificates but thanked the Minister of Secondary Education for providing the means that ensured the production of the thousands of certificates, thus diffusing the tension that was “brewing among studnts, parents, teachers and school administrators on the non-existence of these official valuable documents”
The GCE Board as at now, Monono boasted, does not owe any candidate “any certificate debt” having produced 53,766 certificates(for 2007)session only) in general education,28,350 for Technical education,1,855 for Baccalaureate Technique and 1,877 certificates for Brevet de technician exams. It emerged that, as at now, the GCE board since its creation in 1994 has issued a total of 567,357 certificates including those of 1991-1993 GCE Examinations that were conducted by the Ministry of National Education. He added that the GCE Board started in 1994 with two examinations, 26 subjects and 23,826 candidates but in 2007, the Board had 8 examinations, 415 subjects and 76,188 candidates
The Registrar said the GCE board now produces exam results faster and is “working towards keeping that record, maintaining the validity and reliability of the examinations and measuring learning with honesty” .He lauded efforts made by his two predecessors-Mr Azong Wara Andrew and Dr.Omer Weyi Yembe for the “ solid foundation of today’s Board”
He said the Cameroon GCE Board is a member of the Association for Educational Assessment in Africa (AEAA) and that Cameroon has been offered an opportunity to host the AEAA again in 2009.It first hosted in 2000.
The GCE Registrar used the ceremony to reiterate to the Minister the Board’s most pressing problems. According to Mr. Monono, they include tight office space, exposed offices with no convenient place to do confidential work, noisy environment that does not allow for concentration, lack of space to locate moderation halls, a printing press and the script library. He said the five buildings that house the services of the Board are scattered about, making it not only difficult to coordinate the scattered services but also difficult to move between the buildings.
“The State has provided land (for the construction of new GCE Board office), but the buildings are yet to come. We are aware that the minister is already doing much in this direction to ensure that befitting structures are built on the Board’s permanent site through a yearly provision of investment credits”, remarked Mr. Monono. The Board, he added, needs more skilled workers, and needs to improve on its stock of equipment. He called for much more state subvention
In his response, Minister Bapes Bapes described the award of the certificates to candidates as the success of one of the activities of the pedagogic chain. He said when he took office in at the end 2004 as minister one of the major problems inherited was the pending certificates for successful candidates at the GCE Technical Examinations, which he promised to address. “Toady after three years of hard work we are delivering 85836 certificates from 1995 to 2007-a period of 12 years”, he noted. The minister hailed the management of the GCE Board for living up to expectation.
He promised to address the problems of the Board presented by the Registrar.
He announced that some FCFA 200million has been allotted to do feasibility studies for the construction of a new GCE board office, an amount which was immediately considered by critics in the hall as too excessive. But Minister Bapes later told reporters that the large amount for feasibility studies is because the new office will cost billions of FCFA.
The Minister handed certificates to some 47 students who distinguished themselves at the 2007 GCE exams, and advised them not to sleep on their laurels so that others can emulate their performance. He later stopped at the GCE Board Office for a brief working session with the registrar and co.
Saturday, March 22, 2008
Friday, March 21, 2008
Mayor Begins Environmental Protection Tree-Planting Project in Buea
ANAFOR Signs to give technical assistance to the project By Christopher Ambe Shu
The Mayor of Buea, capital of Southwest Province-Cameroon and the management of the National Forestry Development Agency (ANAFOR) with headquarters in Yaoundé on March 14 in the Buea Council Hall signed a three -year convention of collaboration with regards to the implementation of a giant environment-friendly tree-planting project of Buea Council. ANAFOR is a public institution charged with supporting reforestation and the promotion of forest plantations in Cameroon.
Mayor Charles Mbella Moki (pictured) appended his signature for the Buea Council and Njombe Ewusi Bruno-Deputy-General Manager of ANAFOR did same for his boss at the signing ceremony, which was witnessed by officials and workers of both institutions, as well as journalists.
By the convention, ANAFOR shall give full technical support to Buea Council in its tree-planting project, and “ help realize the planting of council forests and support reforestation with school premises and certain areas chosen by the council,” according to an ANAFOR information sheet made available to the press.
It emerged at the ceremony that, some 40 kilometers of streets will be planted with trees in the Buea council area. Other benefits for the council include: reinforcement of capacity of council officials and workers on sylvicultural techniques, the amelioration of revenue of surrounding populations and creation of job through the maintenance of planted plots, the embellishment of the council surroundings through the planting and development of ornamental species and finally the preservation and restoration of the environment.
Mayor Moki, who in his first term of office started a tree-planting project in Buea which was not successful, noted that, he is more determined now to tree-plant the municipality. He said the Buea Council just adopted a huge budget to ensure that the tree-planting project this time is a great success. “This project is going to build or beef up our efforts towards environmental protection and preservation”, the mayor said. “This project starts almost immediately”
For his Part, Njombe Ewusi, Deputy- General Manager of ANAFOR said , “We are coming to give technical support to Buea Council and accompany them through out the project.ANAFOR is not a funding agency but part of our mission is to search for funds for tree-planting..”
The ANAFOR convention with Buea Council came shortly after similar ones with Tiko, Kumba 1& 2 councils, and after those signed last year with the councils of Abong Mbang Angossas, Bertoua rural, Dimako, Doumaintang and Messamena in the East of the country.
Cameroon: Picking Up The Pieces!
By Tazoacha Asonganyi in Yaounde.
All that is happening in Cameroon today is a result of the obstinate refusal of the regime to fully embrace political pluralism. It has refused to come to terms with the fact that the people are inherently plural, and that in a democracy, they represent an empty centre which no group, interest or institution can claim to incarnate. It has reduced the social domain to appointments and the privileges linked to them; and reduced differences to a slogan - "unity"!
The one party-like regime has so far tried to act like a vast refrigerator, replacing the habits of freedom with servitude; replacing the sovereignty of the people with the whims and caprices of administrative officials. It has given the false impression that official political expression like concocted motions of support are an expression of popular sentiments.
And the "opposition" has only helped to confuse the regime the more. By saying often that they would take action when they were not in a position to take it, the opposition and civil society allowed their bluff to be called so often that the regime became careless with the people. And so when the February upheavals came, they took them all off guard! The upheavals have left us with much speculation and many "facts" about the “"eal" origin of the crisis. The process of sorting the "facts" from the truth is still on-going, accompanied by a most bizarre political communication strategy!
In the process, the hauty regime is so dazed by the effectiveness of people power that it still believes that the people are incapable of the feat! Somebody, obviously of "supernatural" powers must be behind it all, commandeering the people to unwillingly or
unconsciously carry out their wishes!
Politics is a domain where the interaction of individual wills in various ways leads to the creation of a common will. Unfortunately, the repeated electoral "victories" of the regime have become an obstacle and a perennial illusion because they represent a utopian attempt to seize the people’s sovereign power through manipulations by a cabal. It has always been obvious that sooner or later, this would lapse into violence, destruction and killings.
Indeed, the hydra-headed, polymorphous enemy that haunts the nights of the regime is neither the progressives, the G10, the G11 nor the "opposition"; it is democracy!
What is evident is that since the February upheavals, politics has entered one of those febrile, nervous phases in which events seem to be moving towards some momentous but unknown climax, almost independent of the wishes of the actors!
In the cacophony, we are witnessing the usual self-delusion in politics: individual politicians believing that they are better than the others, and that the people trust them more than they trust others! Some being foolish enough to think that they would be understood whatever they say; that people would read their minds and replace what they say with what they think they had to say! Some give the impression that handshakes and smiles on-camera can be the magic wand with which to sweep away the complicated problems the regime has weaved around us!
To avoid the usual practice of eating their own words to remain credible, they should better always say what they mean and mean what they say.
Of course, conflicts and wars arise because we fail to consider the views of others, or communicate with them about mutual differences. Dialogue is a virtue in politics because it allows protagonists to find room for compromises that can save lives and in some cases, cause the mending of ways. Unfortunately, our politics since 1990 has been filled with mutual hatred and disrespect, to the extent that Paul Biya has not been able to bring himself to have direct communication with his "enemies" - the "opposition". He has instead indulged in secret deals, personal favours and intrigues, and thus failed to reassure the people that he has the nation’s good at heart.
The people are like a sensitive nervous system, responding unconsciously to events and signals all over the country. Their life is built on the accumulation of these responses, and shaped by the day-to-day, hour-to-hour signals sent to them from the top. The unconscious synthesis of the responses may create hard feelings that need to be expressed liberally. Martin Luther King and Mahatma Ghandi taught us that non-violence and tolerance are the effective weapons for expressing such feelings. Using the violence of the to prevent the people from expressing these feelings freely led to the February explosion, and will lead to future explosions!
The regime that came on stage in Cameroon in the ‘60s has refused to adjust to changing times: the arrival of the mobile phone, the internet, the inter-city buses, private news media, the global village ... and modern times! News black-outs on CRTV and Cameroon
Tribune, or false announcements about deals with leaders to call off strikes are for the past, not the present. People have better ways of talking to themselves over the heads of these controlled channels.
The signals we are receiving from Nigeria are prove that even hand-picked successors could have the combination of vision and prudence to set about changing the system that thrust them out of the crowd; that they can shine the torch even in their backyard!
All the talk about changing the constitution may be the fear for what could be discovered when such a light reaches the backyard of our own regime; the fear of skeletons in their cupboard!
Indeed, the talk about modifying article 6.2 of the constitution is daily sugar-coated in various forms, but it is uncalled for. If Paul Biya feels that he can embarrass the nation by a sudden exit, he should give way, rather than try to convince us that he wants changes to save the nation from a 45-day or other embarrassment. We should leave the business of papering-over the cracks; the whole governance system in Cameroon has to be changed. We have to rebuild the foundation, but Paul Biya has shown us his bad faith in the implementation of the 1996 constitution.
Therefore the proposed total renewal can only be properly done after 2011 under new leadership!
Paul Biya should no longer confuse the leader pages of Cameroon Tribune for vox-populi. He should listen to the people attentively. He definitely has a lot of advice, but he should know that much of it is the advice of those who want to use him. In moments of crisis, or when issues are controversial like the one concerned with the amendment of the constitution of Cameroon, it is his bounden duty to listen to the people.
All that is happening in Cameroon today is a result of the obstinate refusal of the regime to fully embrace political pluralism. It has refused to come to terms with the fact that the people are inherently plural, and that in a democracy, they represent an empty centre which no group, interest or institution can claim to incarnate. It has reduced the social domain to appointments and the privileges linked to them; and reduced differences to a slogan - "unity"!
The one party-like regime has so far tried to act like a vast refrigerator, replacing the habits of freedom with servitude; replacing the sovereignty of the people with the whims and caprices of administrative officials. It has given the false impression that official political expression like concocted motions of support are an expression of popular sentiments.
And the "opposition" has only helped to confuse the regime the more. By saying often that they would take action when they were not in a position to take it, the opposition and civil society allowed their bluff to be called so often that the regime became careless with the people. And so when the February upheavals came, they took them all off guard! The upheavals have left us with much speculation and many "facts" about the “"eal" origin of the crisis. The process of sorting the "facts" from the truth is still on-going, accompanied by a most bizarre political communication strategy!
In the process, the hauty regime is so dazed by the effectiveness of people power that it still believes that the people are incapable of the feat! Somebody, obviously of "supernatural" powers must be behind it all, commandeering the people to unwillingly or
unconsciously carry out their wishes!
Politics is a domain where the interaction of individual wills in various ways leads to the creation of a common will. Unfortunately, the repeated electoral "victories" of the regime have become an obstacle and a perennial illusion because they represent a utopian attempt to seize the people’s sovereign power through manipulations by a cabal. It has always been obvious that sooner or later, this would lapse into violence, destruction and killings.
Indeed, the hydra-headed, polymorphous enemy that haunts the nights of the regime is neither the progressives, the G10, the G11 nor the "opposition"; it is democracy!
What is evident is that since the February upheavals, politics has entered one of those febrile, nervous phases in which events seem to be moving towards some momentous but unknown climax, almost independent of the wishes of the actors!
In the cacophony, we are witnessing the usual self-delusion in politics: individual politicians believing that they are better than the others, and that the people trust them more than they trust others! Some being foolish enough to think that they would be understood whatever they say; that people would read their minds and replace what they say with what they think they had to say! Some give the impression that handshakes and smiles on-camera can be the magic wand with which to sweep away the complicated problems the regime has weaved around us!
To avoid the usual practice of eating their own words to remain credible, they should better always say what they mean and mean what they say.
Of course, conflicts and wars arise because we fail to consider the views of others, or communicate with them about mutual differences. Dialogue is a virtue in politics because it allows protagonists to find room for compromises that can save lives and in some cases, cause the mending of ways. Unfortunately, our politics since 1990 has been filled with mutual hatred and disrespect, to the extent that Paul Biya has not been able to bring himself to have direct communication with his "enemies" - the "opposition". He has instead indulged in secret deals, personal favours and intrigues, and thus failed to reassure the people that he has the nation’s good at heart.
The people are like a sensitive nervous system, responding unconsciously to events and signals all over the country. Their life is built on the accumulation of these responses, and shaped by the day-to-day, hour-to-hour signals sent to them from the top. The unconscious synthesis of the responses may create hard feelings that need to be expressed liberally. Martin Luther King and Mahatma Ghandi taught us that non-violence and tolerance are the effective weapons for expressing such feelings. Using the violence of the to prevent the people from expressing these feelings freely led to the February explosion, and will lead to future explosions!
The regime that came on stage in Cameroon in the ‘60s has refused to adjust to changing times: the arrival of the mobile phone, the internet, the inter-city buses, private news media, the global village ... and modern times! News black-outs on CRTV and Cameroon
Tribune, or false announcements about deals with leaders to call off strikes are for the past, not the present. People have better ways of talking to themselves over the heads of these controlled channels.
The signals we are receiving from Nigeria are prove that even hand-picked successors could have the combination of vision and prudence to set about changing the system that thrust them out of the crowd; that they can shine the torch even in their backyard!
All the talk about changing the constitution may be the fear for what could be discovered when such a light reaches the backyard of our own regime; the fear of skeletons in their cupboard!
Indeed, the talk about modifying article 6.2 of the constitution is daily sugar-coated in various forms, but it is uncalled for. If Paul Biya feels that he can embarrass the nation by a sudden exit, he should give way, rather than try to convince us that he wants changes to save the nation from a 45-day or other embarrassment. We should leave the business of papering-over the cracks; the whole governance system in Cameroon has to be changed. We have to rebuild the foundation, but Paul Biya has shown us his bad faith in the implementation of the 1996 constitution.
Therefore the proposed total renewal can only be properly done after 2011 under new leadership!
Paul Biya should no longer confuse the leader pages of Cameroon Tribune for vox-populi. He should listen to the people attentively. He definitely has a lot of advice, but he should know that much of it is the advice of those who want to use him. In moments of crisis, or when issues are controversial like the one concerned with the amendment of the constitution of Cameroon, it is his bounden duty to listen to the people.
Monday, March 17, 2008
Cameroon’s February Unrest: Sign of Last Days for Biya Regime?
By Mofor Samuel
Presently, Cameroon’s constitution prohibits Paul Biya, already president for close to 26years, from standing for re-election when his current and final seven-year mandate expires in 2011. What is giving Cameroonians sleepless nights is whether there is some level of performance to another term. Close to 26 years in power punctuated by dismal performance only adds Biya to a long list of African despots. Even his last re-election according to reports was a tainted victory.
One may not be exaggerating to say that Biya’s continuity bid heightened the already-charged socio-political atmosphere in the country. In fact Biya and his team appear to be sailing close to the wind that blew the likes of Mobutu, Habre and Amin out of power.
For a continent heading towards breakdown, the continuity syndrome only adds more salt to the wound. African leaders are glued to power while the people pay a heavy toll. Is it not yet time for African people to crush the sit-tight bug? An assemblage of leaders with so much to hide represents the darkness that has enveloped the continent for too long.
Grassroots disenchantment, especially among millions of unemployed people and the rural and urban poor had reached the point of no return. To the millions of Cameroonians reeling in the sun from the effects of hunger, poverty and destitution, Last February uprising by a compassionate group of young people, served to restore a sense of their own human worth. Their “pragmatic actions” have had a broader dimension in that they have helped Cameroonians to perceive again their dignity and self respect. It is precisely this awareness of the people’s physical suffering and of their mental torment and despair that the young people were encouraged to pave the way for a new social order.
Instead of trying to conceal the extent of the suffering; instead of denying that there actually is a problem, as Biya’s cronies have been doing all this while, they ought to as soon as they are appointed or “elected”, nurture ways and means whose sole and specific purpose was to save the people from the never ending economic woes. An important characteristic of the way forward from inception ought to be ingenuity, level- headedness and humility.
What was required of the Biya government was a sustained long- term commitment to the problem of poverty and underdevelopment. The scenario before the social unrest was a government bent on impoverishing its own people, uninterested in the living conditions and unaffected by the high rate of unemployed young persons.
The first characteristic of a new regime within the context of the new social order is to demonstrate its awareness on the causes of the people’s suffering; and above all, come up with a wide range of reforms in the economic and social domains geared towards alleviating the suffering.
The people’s inability to withstand the rigours of hardship stem directly from the traditional siphoning of their wealth by the “upper class” of the yesteryear. To address the causes of hardship would be to reduce the effects of poverty and the toll taken by the two.
The government must unchain the people from traditional indebtedness. Whatever trials and tribulations the country encounters in the future, the unchaining of the people and the country from erstwhile masters will probably remain the most far-reaching reform in Cameroon’s history. These problems were bequeathed by the imperial past which the lack of accountability has been compounding and rendering ever more difficult.
Despite corruption’s merciless pounding of the Cameroonian economy, the swindling of state funds has become more or less a constant feature of national life, with “pests” in the system exacerbating the already bad situation.
Biya and his ministers just can’t do what they need to the country to save it from disaster until they organize the people. With an almost rubber stamp National Assembly and image problems, president Biya needs a carnival of the country’s prefets, governors and ministers to sing “succeed thy self”.
Unable to continue bearing the brunt of the shortage of foreign exchange, basic consumer goods and services, worsening unemployment situation, and fiscal problems etc, Cameroonian youths are yearning for better days or for the Biya regime to quit the scene if they can no longer deliver .
From the very outset, the government was confronted with a range of obstacles which appeared insurmountable. Obviously it became clear to conscious groups in society that a national crisis was inevitable and that the suffering of the majority of the population was reaching unendurable proportions. The eventual outcome was clear: popular uprising in a disorganized manner and extremely violent in character.
The precipitated adjustment of prices and exoneration of taxes on “certain basic commodities” respectively, coupled with an increase of 15% of civil servants’ salaries and 20%in their housing allowance, to say the least, only breed more trouble for the powers that be in future. They are yet to provide a comprehensive answer to the thousands of young people who took to the streets to vent their anger on their plight and abandonment.
Future leaders should accept only that which lends credence to their claims that they are one with the people. They should present themselves as a new breed who seeks to defy the age old philosophy of African politics- that to be elected into public office is to bid farewell to the ghettos of one’s youth.
Hope may lie in the election or appointment of new brains free from fatigue that has been building up among leaders who have spent decades in power.
Finally unless the new breed of office holders are ready to make elections into political office a vocation, for this implies God’s hand in it therefore endowing one with all those godly virtues, then Cameroonians will be met by the same statistics we saw during the time of Mobutu and others of his type in Africa.
Presently, Cameroon’s constitution prohibits Paul Biya, already president for close to 26years, from standing for re-election when his current and final seven-year mandate expires in 2011. What is giving Cameroonians sleepless nights is whether there is some level of performance to another term. Close to 26 years in power punctuated by dismal performance only adds Biya to a long list of African despots. Even his last re-election according to reports was a tainted victory.
One may not be exaggerating to say that Biya’s continuity bid heightened the already-charged socio-political atmosphere in the country. In fact Biya and his team appear to be sailing close to the wind that blew the likes of Mobutu, Habre and Amin out of power.
For a continent heading towards breakdown, the continuity syndrome only adds more salt to the wound. African leaders are glued to power while the people pay a heavy toll. Is it not yet time for African people to crush the sit-tight bug? An assemblage of leaders with so much to hide represents the darkness that has enveloped the continent for too long.
Grassroots disenchantment, especially among millions of unemployed people and the rural and urban poor had reached the point of no return. To the millions of Cameroonians reeling in the sun from the effects of hunger, poverty and destitution, Last February uprising by a compassionate group of young people, served to restore a sense of their own human worth. Their “pragmatic actions” have had a broader dimension in that they have helped Cameroonians to perceive again their dignity and self respect. It is precisely this awareness of the people’s physical suffering and of their mental torment and despair that the young people were encouraged to pave the way for a new social order.
Instead of trying to conceal the extent of the suffering; instead of denying that there actually is a problem, as Biya’s cronies have been doing all this while, they ought to as soon as they are appointed or “elected”, nurture ways and means whose sole and specific purpose was to save the people from the never ending economic woes. An important characteristic of the way forward from inception ought to be ingenuity, level- headedness and humility.
What was required of the Biya government was a sustained long- term commitment to the problem of poverty and underdevelopment. The scenario before the social unrest was a government bent on impoverishing its own people, uninterested in the living conditions and unaffected by the high rate of unemployed young persons.
The first characteristic of a new regime within the context of the new social order is to demonstrate its awareness on the causes of the people’s suffering; and above all, come up with a wide range of reforms in the economic and social domains geared towards alleviating the suffering.
The people’s inability to withstand the rigours of hardship stem directly from the traditional siphoning of their wealth by the “upper class” of the yesteryear. To address the causes of hardship would be to reduce the effects of poverty and the toll taken by the two.
The government must unchain the people from traditional indebtedness. Whatever trials and tribulations the country encounters in the future, the unchaining of the people and the country from erstwhile masters will probably remain the most far-reaching reform in Cameroon’s history. These problems were bequeathed by the imperial past which the lack of accountability has been compounding and rendering ever more difficult.
Despite corruption’s merciless pounding of the Cameroonian economy, the swindling of state funds has become more or less a constant feature of national life, with “pests” in the system exacerbating the already bad situation.
Biya and his ministers just can’t do what they need to the country to save it from disaster until they organize the people. With an almost rubber stamp National Assembly and image problems, president Biya needs a carnival of the country’s prefets, governors and ministers to sing “succeed thy self”.
Unable to continue bearing the brunt of the shortage of foreign exchange, basic consumer goods and services, worsening unemployment situation, and fiscal problems etc, Cameroonian youths are yearning for better days or for the Biya regime to quit the scene if they can no longer deliver .
From the very outset, the government was confronted with a range of obstacles which appeared insurmountable. Obviously it became clear to conscious groups in society that a national crisis was inevitable and that the suffering of the majority of the population was reaching unendurable proportions. The eventual outcome was clear: popular uprising in a disorganized manner and extremely violent in character.
The precipitated adjustment of prices and exoneration of taxes on “certain basic commodities” respectively, coupled with an increase of 15% of civil servants’ salaries and 20%in their housing allowance, to say the least, only breed more trouble for the powers that be in future. They are yet to provide a comprehensive answer to the thousands of young people who took to the streets to vent their anger on their plight and abandonment.
Future leaders should accept only that which lends credence to their claims that they are one with the people. They should present themselves as a new breed who seeks to defy the age old philosophy of African politics- that to be elected into public office is to bid farewell to the ghettos of one’s youth.
Hope may lie in the election or appointment of new brains free from fatigue that has been building up among leaders who have spent decades in power.
Finally unless the new breed of office holders are ready to make elections into political office a vocation, for this implies God’s hand in it therefore endowing one with all those godly virtues, then Cameroonians will be met by the same statistics we saw during the time of Mobutu and others of his type in Africa.
Friday, March 14, 2008
Female Genital Mutilation - A Heinous Practice
By Cecile Ndoh Enie,Washington DC
Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) or female circumcision is one of the oldest and most harmful, traditional or cultural practices affecting the health of women and girls in some communities around the world.
According to a Wikipedia report, the traditional cultural practice predates both Islam and Christianity. A Greek papyrus from 163 B.C mentions girls in Egypt undergoing FGM. It is widely accepted to have originated in Egypt and the Nile valley at the time of the Pharaohs. Evidence from mummies have shown FGM present . While the spread of FGM is unknown, the procedure is now practiced among Muslims, Christians and Animist.
World Health Organization Report (WHO) states that, between 100 – 140 million girls and women in the world are estimated to have undergone such procedure, and 3 million girls are estimated to be at risk of undergoing FGM every year.
In addition, FGM has been documented in 28 African countries as well as several countries in Asia and middle East. Some form of practice have also been reported from other countries including certain ethnic groups in Central and South America. There is also evidence of increasing number of girls and women living outside Europe, who have undergone or may be undergoing FGM.
In Cameroon, it is practiced in some villages in the South west, Far North and Eastern Provinces. Around 60% of all Nigerian women experience FGM and it is most common in the south, where up to85% of women undergo it at some point in their lives.
The practice varies from area to area. In this regard, some perform the operation on infants as young as a few days old or on children between the ages seven to ten years or adolescents and often-on women who are about to marry. More so, the type of surgical forms differs.
WHO separates FGM procedures into four types, - The removal or splitting of the clitoral hood termed Hoodectomy. The excision of the clitoris with partial or total excision of the labia minora, also known as Khafd, meaning reduction in Arabic. The excision of part or all of the external genitalia and stitching/ narrowing of the vaginal opening known as infibulation. What are left are a very smooth surface and a small opening to permit urination and menstrual discharge. The artificial opening is some time not larger than the flammable end of a matchstick. It is the most extreme form an accounts for about 15% of all FGM procedures. Infibulation is also known as Pharaonic circumcision. The fourth type are other forms and may not involve any tissue removal at all. This includes a diverse range of practices, including prickling the clitoris with needless, burning or scaring the genitals as well as ripping or tearing of the vagina or introducing herbs into the vagina to cause bleeding and a narrow vagina.
Like other crude traditional practices such as widowhood, women perform FGM and this ritual is mostly accompanied by celebrations and often takes place in a special hidden place away from the community. The women excisors who carry out these operations acquired their skills from their mothers or female relatives. They are also the community’s traditional birth attendants. In most cases anesthetic is not administered instead, three or four women hold down the child while the operation is done and this takes between 10 – 20 minutes depending on its nature. The wound is treated by applying mixtures of local herbs such as, earth, cow-dung, ash or butter depending on the skills of the excisor.
The motive behind FGM is on the grounds that, it decreases women sexual desire, hygiene aesthetics, facility of sexual relations, fertility, preserving the women’s virginity before marriage and fidelity then after, marking the coming of age of the female child and controlling sexuality. Although FGM is practiced within particular religious sub-cultures, the arguments used to justify FGM vary. They range from health- related to social benefits.
Generally, largely rural women living in traditional societies preserve the practice. Some societies holds in order to be clean for marriage, female circumcision is a pre -condition. Among the Bambara in Mali, it is believed that, if the clitoris touches the head of a baby being born the child will die. The clitoris is seen as the male characteristic of a woman. In order to enhance her femininity, this male part of her has to be removed.
Health wise, complications resulting from deep cuts and infected instruments can cause death. Hemorrhage can occur during circumcision, or accidental cuts to other organs can also lead to heavy loss of blood. Acute infections are commonplace when operations of infibulations are carried out in unhygienic surroundings and with un-sterilized instruments like -kitchen knife, razor blade, a piece of glass or even sharp fingernails. Even so, tetanus and general septicemia, chronic infection can also lead to infertility and anemia. Considering the same tools are usually repeated on numerous girls, it increases the risk of blood-transmitted diseases including HIV/AIDS.
Haematocolpos or the inability to pass menstrual blood (because the remaining opening is often too small) can lead to infection of other organs and also infertility, obstetric. The most frequent health problem results from vicious scars in the clitoral zone after excision. These scars open during childbirth and cause the anterior perineum to tear, leading to hemorrhaging that is often difficult to stop.
Psychologically, most children experience recurring nightmare. Girls who are FGM victims, have come to terms with the fact that they are not like majority of their friends. Thus, mood swings and irritability, constant states of depression and anxiety have all been noted among infibulated girls.
The practice violates among other International Human Rights Laws, the right of the child to “enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health as laid down in Article 24 (paras 1and 3) of the convention on the rights of the child.
Still from a WHO report, many countries have put in place policies and legislation to ban FGM.The number of women who do not want to continue the practice is increasing, and there are indications that the prevalence is declining in some countries, and that it is less prevalent in younger than in older age groups.
Despite , these successes however, the overrall decline has been very slow. Hence, to accelerate the process of abandonment of the practice, there is an urgent need for increased and improved work by all actors, since there is evidence, now that we know what is necessary to stimulate large- scale and speedy abandonment.
More so, some highly successful projects, increased knowledge about FGM and the reasons for its continuation as well as experiences with a vast variety of interventions, possible to significantly reduce the prevalence within one generation. This momentum suggesting that such a change is possible and that the willingness to invest the necessary resources can be achieved.
WHO is working on several fronts to contribute to the elimination of FGM. WHO is also contributing by supporting and initiating research within several fields. Another important contribution from WHO is working towards improved health care for the millions of girls and women who are living with the consequences of FGM.
The United Nations Fund For Population Activities recognizes February 6th as the International Day Against FGM.The push to end FGM by WHO and other Global Health Organizations have been for several decades but, due to the importance in traditional and religious life, the practice remains in many societies.
By Cecile Ndoh Enie,Washington DC
Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) or female circumcision is one of the oldest and most harmful, traditional or cultural practices affecting the health of women and girls in some communities around the world.
According to a Wikipedia report, the traditional cultural practice predates both Islam and Christianity. A Greek papyrus from 163 B.C mentions girls in Egypt undergoing FGM. It is widely accepted to have originated in Egypt and the Nile valley at the time of the Pharaohs. Evidence from mummies have shown FGM present . While the spread of FGM is unknown, the procedure is now practiced among Muslims, Christians and Animist.
World Health Organization Report (WHO) states that, between 100 – 140 million girls and women in the world are estimated to have undergone such procedure, and 3 million girls are estimated to be at risk of undergoing FGM every year.
In addition, FGM has been documented in 28 African countries as well as several countries in Asia and middle East. Some form of practice have also been reported from other countries including certain ethnic groups in Central and South America. There is also evidence of increasing number of girls and women living outside Europe, who have undergone or may be undergoing FGM.
In Cameroon, it is practiced in some villages in the South west, Far North and Eastern Provinces. Around 60% of all Nigerian women experience FGM and it is most common in the south, where up to85% of women undergo it at some point in their lives.
The practice varies from area to area. In this regard, some perform the operation on infants as young as a few days old or on children between the ages seven to ten years or adolescents and often-on women who are about to marry. More so, the type of surgical forms differs.
WHO separates FGM procedures into four types, - The removal or splitting of the clitoral hood termed Hoodectomy. The excision of the clitoris with partial or total excision of the labia minora, also known as Khafd, meaning reduction in Arabic. The excision of part or all of the external genitalia and stitching/ narrowing of the vaginal opening known as infibulation. What are left are a very smooth surface and a small opening to permit urination and menstrual discharge. The artificial opening is some time not larger than the flammable end of a matchstick. It is the most extreme form an accounts for about 15% of all FGM procedures. Infibulation is also known as Pharaonic circumcision. The fourth type are other forms and may not involve any tissue removal at all. This includes a diverse range of practices, including prickling the clitoris with needless, burning or scaring the genitals as well as ripping or tearing of the vagina or introducing herbs into the vagina to cause bleeding and a narrow vagina.
Like other crude traditional practices such as widowhood, women perform FGM and this ritual is mostly accompanied by celebrations and often takes place in a special hidden place away from the community. The women excisors who carry out these operations acquired their skills from their mothers or female relatives. They are also the community’s traditional birth attendants. In most cases anesthetic is not administered instead, three or four women hold down the child while the operation is done and this takes between 10 – 20 minutes depending on its nature. The wound is treated by applying mixtures of local herbs such as, earth, cow-dung, ash or butter depending on the skills of the excisor.
The motive behind FGM is on the grounds that, it decreases women sexual desire, hygiene aesthetics, facility of sexual relations, fertility, preserving the women’s virginity before marriage and fidelity then after, marking the coming of age of the female child and controlling sexuality. Although FGM is practiced within particular religious sub-cultures, the arguments used to justify FGM vary. They range from health- related to social benefits.
Generally, largely rural women living in traditional societies preserve the practice. Some societies holds in order to be clean for marriage, female circumcision is a pre -condition. Among the Bambara in Mali, it is believed that, if the clitoris touches the head of a baby being born the child will die. The clitoris is seen as the male characteristic of a woman. In order to enhance her femininity, this male part of her has to be removed.
Health wise, complications resulting from deep cuts and infected instruments can cause death. Hemorrhage can occur during circumcision, or accidental cuts to other organs can also lead to heavy loss of blood. Acute infections are commonplace when operations of infibulations are carried out in unhygienic surroundings and with un-sterilized instruments like -kitchen knife, razor blade, a piece of glass or even sharp fingernails. Even so, tetanus and general septicemia, chronic infection can also lead to infertility and anemia. Considering the same tools are usually repeated on numerous girls, it increases the risk of blood-transmitted diseases including HIV/AIDS.
Haematocolpos or the inability to pass menstrual blood (because the remaining opening is often too small) can lead to infection of other organs and also infertility, obstetric. The most frequent health problem results from vicious scars in the clitoral zone after excision. These scars open during childbirth and cause the anterior perineum to tear, leading to hemorrhaging that is often difficult to stop.
Psychologically, most children experience recurring nightmare. Girls who are FGM victims, have come to terms with the fact that they are not like majority of their friends. Thus, mood swings and irritability, constant states of depression and anxiety have all been noted among infibulated girls.
The practice violates among other International Human Rights Laws, the right of the child to “enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health as laid down in Article 24 (paras 1and 3) of the convention on the rights of the child.
Still from a WHO report, many countries have put in place policies and legislation to ban FGM.The number of women who do not want to continue the practice is increasing, and there are indications that the prevalence is declining in some countries, and that it is less prevalent in younger than in older age groups.
Despite , these successes however, the overrall decline has been very slow. Hence, to accelerate the process of abandonment of the practice, there is an urgent need for increased and improved work by all actors, since there is evidence, now that we know what is necessary to stimulate large- scale and speedy abandonment.
More so, some highly successful projects, increased knowledge about FGM and the reasons for its continuation as well as experiences with a vast variety of interventions, possible to significantly reduce the prevalence within one generation. This momentum suggesting that such a change is possible and that the willingness to invest the necessary resources can be achieved.
WHO is working on several fronts to contribute to the elimination of FGM. WHO is also contributing by supporting and initiating research within several fields. Another important contribution from WHO is working towards improved health care for the millions of girls and women who are living with the consequences of FGM.
The United Nations Fund For Population Activities recognizes February 6th as the International Day Against FGM.The push to end FGM by WHO and other Global Health Organizations have been for several decades but, due to the importance in traditional and religious life, the practice remains in many societies.
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Buea:Female MP offers Scholarship to 125 Underprivileged Girls
Also gives crop seeds, money, cutlasses to rural women
By Christopher Ambe Shu
By Christopher Ambe Shu
Pictured:Hon Lifaka(left) standing and discussing with some seated guests.Behind her rural women jubilating with packets of corn-seeds
Hon.Monjowa Lifaka Emilia, MP from Fako West Constituency in Cameroon on March 7, 2008 in Buea,donated corn-seeds and cutlasses to over 300 rural women as part of her efforts to empower them. Each woman smiled home with a packet of well treated corn-seeds and a cutlass. The beneficiaries who were mostly from the Bonjongo Court Area and Fako Women Development Association (FAWODA) expressed their hearty thanks to the MP, who, they said, would always think of them. The beneficiaries were particularly happy with their gifts because this month (March) is planting season.
Hon. Monjowa also pledged to sponsor 125 underprivileged girls of her constituency in vocational training centres -that is 25 girls each year for five years. She drew thunderous applause from the huge crowd that turned-up in front of her office in Buea, to witness the donations.
To prove her seriousness, she instantly handed a cheque of FCFA 500,000 to one of the school authorities present for the enrolment of the first 25 girls. She also gave an extra FCFA 500,000 to the women, plus one cow to be slaughtered and shared among them. Then, she gave FCFA 40,000 to two orphaned school girls who had complained to her they could not pay their school registration fees.
As the beneficiaries pledged their continued support to Hon Monjowa, she simply replied: “I have signed a family bond with all of you. Nobody will be strong enough to break it. Empowering women all is my concern”
The March 7 donations came shortly after the same MP made material donations to Government School Mapanja and Government Nursery School, Bova-all in her constituency, to the tune of about three millions FCFA.
Hon Monjowa’s donations, The Recorder learned, are part of her empowerment campaign targeting rural women and needy elementary schools in her constituency.
This MP’s activities continue to attract media attention because many MP’s are often accused of using their parliamentary grants for selfish purposes instead of assisting development in their constituencies.
“Hon Lifaka is an MP with difference. She is always by our side and not far away,” remarked one woman beneficiary. “Other people complain against their MPs, accuse them of greed and embezzlement, but we are OK with ours. She is selfless”
The March 7 donations were characterized by educative presentations on the following topics: government empowerment projects and loan facilities; HIV/AIDS Pandemic; Starting Businesses and government agricultural projects to assist the masses
Worthy of note is the fact that the following day (on March 8)-during celebrations marking the International Day of the Women, in Buea,Hon. Monjowa was singled out for praise by Dr Mrs. Niger Thomas Likowo Agbor,Southwest Provincial Delegate for Women Affairs and the Family.Dr Mrs. Niger publicly lauded her constant efforts to empower the women’s folk, hoping that her example would be quickly emulated.
Hon.Monjowa Lifaka Emilia, MP from Fako West Constituency in Cameroon on March 7, 2008 in Buea,donated corn-seeds and cutlasses to over 300 rural women as part of her efforts to empower them. Each woman smiled home with a packet of well treated corn-seeds and a cutlass. The beneficiaries who were mostly from the Bonjongo Court Area and Fako Women Development Association (FAWODA) expressed their hearty thanks to the MP, who, they said, would always think of them. The beneficiaries were particularly happy with their gifts because this month (March) is planting season.
Hon. Monjowa also pledged to sponsor 125 underprivileged girls of her constituency in vocational training centres -that is 25 girls each year for five years. She drew thunderous applause from the huge crowd that turned-up in front of her office in Buea, to witness the donations.
To prove her seriousness, she instantly handed a cheque of FCFA 500,000 to one of the school authorities present for the enrolment of the first 25 girls. She also gave an extra FCFA 500,000 to the women, plus one cow to be slaughtered and shared among them. Then, she gave FCFA 40,000 to two orphaned school girls who had complained to her they could not pay their school registration fees.
As the beneficiaries pledged their continued support to Hon Monjowa, she simply replied: “I have signed a family bond with all of you. Nobody will be strong enough to break it. Empowering women all is my concern”
The March 7 donations came shortly after the same MP made material donations to Government School Mapanja and Government Nursery School, Bova-all in her constituency, to the tune of about three millions FCFA.
Hon Monjowa’s donations, The Recorder learned, are part of her empowerment campaign targeting rural women and needy elementary schools in her constituency.
This MP’s activities continue to attract media attention because many MP’s are often accused of using their parliamentary grants for selfish purposes instead of assisting development in their constituencies.
“Hon Lifaka is an MP with difference. She is always by our side and not far away,” remarked one woman beneficiary. “Other people complain against their MPs, accuse them of greed and embezzlement, but we are OK with ours. She is selfless”
The March 7 donations were characterized by educative presentations on the following topics: government empowerment projects and loan facilities; HIV/AIDS Pandemic; Starting Businesses and government agricultural projects to assist the masses
Worthy of note is the fact that the following day (on March 8)-during celebrations marking the International Day of the Women, in Buea,Hon. Monjowa was singled out for praise by Dr Mrs. Niger Thomas Likowo Agbor,Southwest Provincial Delegate for Women Affairs and the Family.Dr Mrs. Niger publicly lauded her constant efforts to empower the women’s folk, hoping that her example would be quickly emulated.
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
The Despicable Aspects of Biya's Regime
By Cecile Ndoh Enie ,Washington DC
“ There is no place like home”. A critical look at Cameroon today, I fear if this statement still holds.Cameroon is Africa in miniature, blessed with abundance of natural resources, gifted with the most favourable climatic conditions, yet majority of the people live in abject poverty and deplorable conditions.After late Amadou Ahijo long term reign many longed for a change, hardly did they know the purported propaganda of ‘Rigour and Moralization’ was a mere sham. Just as they say, ‘ from fry pan to fire’.Citing our petroleum sector, where our neigbours Nigeria the African giant enjoyed an economic boom and Equatorial Guinea under the leadership of Obiang Nguema for about forty years, the exploitation of their petroleum sector can be perceived considering the new face-lift of this country.Whereas, the citizens of Cameroon are yet to pinpoint where the dividends of our petroleum sector goes, for there is absolutely little or nothing to show as benefits.The beginning of Biya’s reign started with Economic Crisis and Multi-party politics igniting uproar within the nation. Today ,bribery and corruption, inflation, exploitation and subordination are the order of the day.The most outrageous is the economic situation of Cameroon. Unemployment level is rocketing, some of the employed are yet to be paid or receive just a token vis-Ã -vis their qualification or working hours in the name of earnings.To make matters worse, the private sector which is supposed to assist the public sector in creating employment is being levied what many describe as uncompromising tax rates ,this way drowning most feasible business projects.The most awful is the small- and medium -sized businesses, which in other systems are limited in tax payments, but on the contrary in Cameroon, they are instead subjected to pay multiple taxes without an actual fixed value. While the so called ‘Big Guns’ under the guise of CPDM top Disciples are exempted from paying taxes or should I say exempted from taxes; so they enjoy what can be termed – Tax Free Economy.On a more serous note, this unprogressive taxing system has hampered many business and investment initiative. The situation is not only unfavourable for the indigenes but equally to potential foreign investors.Many Cameroonians living abroad have tried to invest back home, to helpcreate unemployment opportunities .But the procedure to establish and then the taxes involve beginning from excessive custom charges have turned many off, especially those who want to be straight.As a result, most of our citizens especially the youths have decided to stay on while many are planning to travel out in search for greener pasture, since they are not comfortable with the situation back home.Every damn thing is just ridiculous, the civil service, healthcare, education, agriculture, poor road infrastructure, utilities and the list continues.Unfortunately some people opt to eat and drink today forgetting tomorrow, so during political campaigns those sitting on the economic vault throw away money as if they are feeding pigeons in the parks. Today we are all complaining of the increased prices of basic commodities .I remember back home with the tricky CPDM victory celebrations in Buea and in a taxi a lady dressed in CPDM attire was very happy. With the present situation now in Cameroon the words of the cab driver comes back to me today. ‘Be happy now, but tomorrow we shall all go to the same market, because when prices are increased there is no specific market reserved for CPDM Militants. ’ To the Cameroon government the word maintenance or renovation is far-fetched. Thus, official buildings are erected the structure usual below the cost value. And within a few years these administrative buildings with big titles looks dilapidated.Money circulates regularly within the elitist ruling class and I guess they really cannot fathom what the common man goes through since their children study abroad and they spend their holidays abroad and enjoy the comforts they cannot enjoy in their own country. I ponder what stops them from developing their own country and make life comfortable for all.The rural sector slaves to farm and provide food with little or no incentive. The tax collectors ignore the bad roads to collect taxes from these people; meanwhile the living conditions in these rural areas are pathetic –no proper sanitary, educational facilities, poor water supply and no power supply. Yet each day there is fuel increase, I always imagine how those in the rural area cope, since they need constant supply of kerosene to light their lanternsCameroonians are known to be hospitable, patient, tolerant, but I guess enough is enough, when people are pushed to the wall at a certain point they are bound to react.Some people say those causing unrest are fools but I ask what caused them to be such. If those who graduate cannot get jobs what is going to spur youths to be educated. Considering that to be educated stipulates to live a better life. Again a wise saying states ‘ ‘ a hungry man is an angry man’Since 1985 to present day, with the CPDM anniversary celebrated yearly, what have been the achievements, what maturity has the party exhibited and if I may ask what has Biya’s regime to Show? A Cameroonian in the investment market in the US remarked, ‘If the Government of Cameroon could invest properly those at the top would even have more funds to siphone"
“ There is no place like home”. A critical look at Cameroon today, I fear if this statement still holds.Cameroon is Africa in miniature, blessed with abundance of natural resources, gifted with the most favourable climatic conditions, yet majority of the people live in abject poverty and deplorable conditions.After late Amadou Ahijo long term reign many longed for a change, hardly did they know the purported propaganda of ‘Rigour and Moralization’ was a mere sham. Just as they say, ‘ from fry pan to fire’.Citing our petroleum sector, where our neigbours Nigeria the African giant enjoyed an economic boom and Equatorial Guinea under the leadership of Obiang Nguema for about forty years, the exploitation of their petroleum sector can be perceived considering the new face-lift of this country.Whereas, the citizens of Cameroon are yet to pinpoint where the dividends of our petroleum sector goes, for there is absolutely little or nothing to show as benefits.The beginning of Biya’s reign started with Economic Crisis and Multi-party politics igniting uproar within the nation. Today ,bribery and corruption, inflation, exploitation and subordination are the order of the day.The most outrageous is the economic situation of Cameroon. Unemployment level is rocketing, some of the employed are yet to be paid or receive just a token vis-Ã -vis their qualification or working hours in the name of earnings.To make matters worse, the private sector which is supposed to assist the public sector in creating employment is being levied what many describe as uncompromising tax rates ,this way drowning most feasible business projects.The most awful is the small- and medium -sized businesses, which in other systems are limited in tax payments, but on the contrary in Cameroon, they are instead subjected to pay multiple taxes without an actual fixed value. While the so called ‘Big Guns’ under the guise of CPDM top Disciples are exempted from paying taxes or should I say exempted from taxes; so they enjoy what can be termed – Tax Free Economy.On a more serous note, this unprogressive taxing system has hampered many business and investment initiative. The situation is not only unfavourable for the indigenes but equally to potential foreign investors.Many Cameroonians living abroad have tried to invest back home, to helpcreate unemployment opportunities .But the procedure to establish and then the taxes involve beginning from excessive custom charges have turned many off, especially those who want to be straight.As a result, most of our citizens especially the youths have decided to stay on while many are planning to travel out in search for greener pasture, since they are not comfortable with the situation back home.Every damn thing is just ridiculous, the civil service, healthcare, education, agriculture, poor road infrastructure, utilities and the list continues.Unfortunately some people opt to eat and drink today forgetting tomorrow, so during political campaigns those sitting on the economic vault throw away money as if they are feeding pigeons in the parks. Today we are all complaining of the increased prices of basic commodities .I remember back home with the tricky CPDM victory celebrations in Buea and in a taxi a lady dressed in CPDM attire was very happy. With the present situation now in Cameroon the words of the cab driver comes back to me today. ‘Be happy now, but tomorrow we shall all go to the same market, because when prices are increased there is no specific market reserved for CPDM Militants. ’ To the Cameroon government the word maintenance or renovation is far-fetched. Thus, official buildings are erected the structure usual below the cost value. And within a few years these administrative buildings with big titles looks dilapidated.Money circulates regularly within the elitist ruling class and I guess they really cannot fathom what the common man goes through since their children study abroad and they spend their holidays abroad and enjoy the comforts they cannot enjoy in their own country. I ponder what stops them from developing their own country and make life comfortable for all.The rural sector slaves to farm and provide food with little or no incentive. The tax collectors ignore the bad roads to collect taxes from these people; meanwhile the living conditions in these rural areas are pathetic –no proper sanitary, educational facilities, poor water supply and no power supply. Yet each day there is fuel increase, I always imagine how those in the rural area cope, since they need constant supply of kerosene to light their lanternsCameroonians are known to be hospitable, patient, tolerant, but I guess enough is enough, when people are pushed to the wall at a certain point they are bound to react.Some people say those causing unrest are fools but I ask what caused them to be such. If those who graduate cannot get jobs what is going to spur youths to be educated. Considering that to be educated stipulates to live a better life. Again a wise saying states ‘ ‘ a hungry man is an angry man’Since 1985 to present day, with the CPDM anniversary celebrated yearly, what have been the achievements, what maturity has the party exhibited and if I may ask what has Biya’s regime to Show? A Cameroonian in the investment market in the US remarked, ‘If the Government of Cameroon could invest properly those at the top would even have more funds to siphone"
Traditional Rulers Supportive of PCC Women Empowerment Project
By Christopher Ambe ShuPhoto above: Traditional Chiefs at working session with WEEP resource women in Batoke
Photo below:WEEP 's women marching on Women's Day
Through out Cameroon, women last March 8 celebrated, in pomp, this year’s International Day of the Woman under the theme “Investing in Women and the Girl Child” .It was another occasion not only for government officials to show evidence of what the Cameroon Government has been doing to empower women so to lift them out of poverty but also for churches, organizations and individuals. There were calls here and there for people to invest in the woman and girl child. And in Buea, where this writer witnessed the celebrations at Independence Square, Southwest Provincial Governor Eyeya Zanga Louis was very emphatic on the point. Women make up 52% of the population
of Cameroon and are known to be hard-working but lack the much needed support to forge ahead.But this writer’s interest is in what the Presbyterian Church in Cameroon (PCC) has done or is doing to empower Cameroonian women. My choice of PCC was influenced by the fact that during the march past in Buea by women as part of activities marking the women’s day, Ann Munjong, CTRV journalist and “master” of ceremony, in her public remarks, was full of praises for the PCC. Then of course, came a thunderous applause from onlookers .This was when gender -equality advocate Rev .Mary Kinge led women march past with placards of the Women’s Education and Empowerment Project (WEEP) of the PCC.
But what has WEEP done to receive such public accolade?
WEEP, coordinated by Rev Mary Kinge, is aimed at educating and empowering women collectively and individually. WEEP has so far carried out empowerment activities only in Fako Division of the Southwest Province of Cameroon, but plans to reach out to other women in far away areas.
According to Food and Rural Development Foundation (FORUDEF), Buea-Cameroon, a local NGO that recently evaluated the first phase of Women Education and Empowerment Project (WEEP) of the Presbyterian Church in Cameroon (PCC), the project’s success rate stands at over 75%.
The writer learned that, WEEP has greatly reduced women’s ignorance about their rights and responsibilities, and improved their level of education on political and leadership issues. Many women are today local political party leaders, municipal councilors and deputy mayors in Fako, thanks to WEEP educative talks.
WEEP has also improved Cameroonian women’s access and control over resources as well as over their reproductive health.
WEEP achievements included sensitization meetings with women- round -table conferences on Women and Citizens’ rights, training of trainers workshops on gender and women’s rights, seminars on women and their legal rights,worshops on leadership and good governance, and on girl child education
But of more significance is how WEEP has succeeded to convince some traditional chiefs in Fako to accept to include more women in decision-making positions. More often than not traditions,norms and customs been identified a major barrier to the empowerment of the woman. .Traditional chiefs or rulers are the first custodians of these traditions. Conscious that chiefs could play a great role in the empowerment of women if persuaded, WEEP coordinator organized several meetings with some traditional rulers to sell its objectives, and solicit their support to lift women high. At one WEEP meeting with chiefs in Batoke-Limbe last December, Chief of Batoke, Molive Molungu Otto, said “my chiefdom is organized in such a way that women could be seen in all decision structures of my village”. The chief lauded WEEP for trying to increase the participation of women in decision-making, to improve on women’s participation in local governance and to reduce women’s ignorance about their rights and responsibilities. “Women need to come out and know that they have equal opportunities as men and must take up their responsibility to acquire the required knowledge and skills to match the men who are already in an advantaged position due to culture and inheritance”, cautioned Chief Otto at that meeting, hoping that other chiefs would give women the chance to prove their worth. The chief noted, “Once a woman is educated and empowered the nation is built on a solid foundation”
It is reported that chiefs who have met with WEEP educators are now bent on involving more women in decision-making positions, hitherto reserved only for men.
If chiefs, formerly seen as kind of a barrier to the empowerment of women, are today interested to lift the woman, the woman must take up the challenge to assert herself. Shouldn’t the PCC be lauded for its continued efforts to moralize society?
Monday, March 10, 2008
Cameroon’s socio-political drama: Who says it is all over?
By Mofor Samuel
Cameroon is a country endowed with enormous natural resources, brimming with milk and honey. Yet years of neglect and bearing the brunt of oil exploitation has left the common man at the bottom of Cameroon’s development league. Cameroonians are faced with the Herculean task of rewriting the history of a wealthy people savagely impoverished by state tyranny and the greed of their multinational collaborators. Cameroon urgently needs a leader to serve as the right spearhead for the campaign to bring a new era of freedom to the people and relieve them from want, undue marginalization, and injustice as well as freedom from repeated assault on their collective dignity. The palpable lack of development, reflected in all sub-sectors of the country’s economy is unsettling.
There is that great need therefore of a sense of duty for Cameroonians to start looking for someone they trust and believe in to give leadership in their battle to pull down all impediments to justice, as well as rally their resources against forces and agents that enthroned social injustice and inequity as fundamental principle of state policy.
Cameroonians are a patient lot. Furthermore, the struggle of the man on the street is to get the next meal on the table. Cameroonians nowadays are digging deep in their pockets to be able to buy basic necessities. The economy is far from out of the woods. The people yearn for a better deal. The university lecturer, civil servant, council workers and others who toil endlessly the economic wheels of the country turning but who have not receive pay commensurate to their efforts, recount tales of woe.
The latest upsurge of violence in Cameroon which erupted during the last week of February 2008 might have been stirred up by regime insiders. Biya’s government is now more than ever before expected to deliver the people from poverty and deprivation. He and his new team of ministers are faced with a gargantuan task. Concentrating on the problems that are besetting ordinary people’s daily lives would be more convincing. The government must be seen to be making a clean break from the past. Money and more precisely its management should not be a problem. Stories about fraud and corruption continue to litter pages of newspapers and magazines. Politics and money become deadly mix when the political machine is regarded as the means through which one can get one’s hands on some of the country’s money as is the case in Cameroon. It will take strong leadership to introduce a cleaner political culture.
Even the current fashionable combination of HIPC and pro-poor policies has not brought about improvements. In the absence of effective audit systems, an active parliament, proper legislation and planning systems, debt relief is a curse rather than a blessing, to quote one great scholar. It increases corruption, not reduces it. Corruption has been seen as the bane of Cameroon. If it is rooted out, the country could, probably survive without aid.
It is up to the government to get serious about the country’s many unsolved problems- poverty, no job prospects, too little educational and professional training or none at all. For many young men, to get a job is impossible and this makes them to get frustrated. Frustrated youngsters are easy prey for calls to violence and they may be again if nothing is done. Tensions continue to exist. The spectre of destabilization has already come from them and it could still come again.
For the time being, security operatives armed to the teeth are still patrolling the streets, positioned at strategic junctions or guarding certain public facilities. But then what will happen when they eventually leave? Citizens already walk the streets with the fear of intimidation, harassment or undue molestation by security agents. There are more indiscriminate arrests and detention without trial.
Democracy is supposed to equal improved welfare, the absence of dictatorship and the presence of equal rights. Democracy is not all about the rule of law, or the presence of peace in society, but more about how government responds to the basic problems to guarantee peace in the stomach. The prevailing opinion is that government at all levels has not done enough to improve the quality of life of the people.
Not many of the continent’s leaders appreciate the need for change and they believe in the supremacy of their reasoning. They tend to have their own vision of reality. Hence, the contradiction between what African leaders promise their people and what they actually do. Any wonder then that Paul Biya has a mountain of burden to contend with. A few months back, his party and his cronies announced their intention to seek an amendment to the constitution; to smoothen the road for ruling beyond 2011. This seems to be a dress rehearsal for the political atmosphere one can expect during the 2011presidential election.
Biya’s position which is art variance with the provisions of the constitution could only be explained by the need to pave the way for his safe passage to Etoudi.
With Paul Biya still harbouring the intention to run again in the race for the presidency, he is mobilizing quietly those he knows can be relied on to deliver his mandate in parliament and at the grassroots. It is a game of one good turn deserving another. CPDM had an absolute majority in parliament thanks to his total backing of the rigging machinery put in place during the twin elections.
Has Biya’s government learnt that foreign donors will no longer automatically finance the financial holes it created through corruption? Will the people be delivered from misery and frustration; and thus lose the impetus for another round of violence? Difficult to say giving that, it seems as if the population has been overwhelmed by the sit-tight mentality of those in authority, most of who pay more attention to feathering their own nests than to priority issues that affect the welfare of those they lead. The time has come for the dignity of the oppressed people to be restored, and by extension, the rights of Cameroonians to carry their destiny in their own hands by controlling the natural endowments in their country.
Even though the recent social unrest showed few signs of seriously threatening the regime’s control, other stresses within the country could encourage some in the hierarchy to continue the “war”. Who says it is all over?
Cameroon is a country endowed with enormous natural resources, brimming with milk and honey. Yet years of neglect and bearing the brunt of oil exploitation has left the common man at the bottom of Cameroon’s development league. Cameroonians are faced with the Herculean task of rewriting the history of a wealthy people savagely impoverished by state tyranny and the greed of their multinational collaborators. Cameroon urgently needs a leader to serve as the right spearhead for the campaign to bring a new era of freedom to the people and relieve them from want, undue marginalization, and injustice as well as freedom from repeated assault on their collective dignity. The palpable lack of development, reflected in all sub-sectors of the country’s economy is unsettling.
There is that great need therefore of a sense of duty for Cameroonians to start looking for someone they trust and believe in to give leadership in their battle to pull down all impediments to justice, as well as rally their resources against forces and agents that enthroned social injustice and inequity as fundamental principle of state policy.
Cameroonians are a patient lot. Furthermore, the struggle of the man on the street is to get the next meal on the table. Cameroonians nowadays are digging deep in their pockets to be able to buy basic necessities. The economy is far from out of the woods. The people yearn for a better deal. The university lecturer, civil servant, council workers and others who toil endlessly the economic wheels of the country turning but who have not receive pay commensurate to their efforts, recount tales of woe.
The latest upsurge of violence in Cameroon which erupted during the last week of February 2008 might have been stirred up by regime insiders. Biya’s government is now more than ever before expected to deliver the people from poverty and deprivation. He and his new team of ministers are faced with a gargantuan task. Concentrating on the problems that are besetting ordinary people’s daily lives would be more convincing. The government must be seen to be making a clean break from the past. Money and more precisely its management should not be a problem. Stories about fraud and corruption continue to litter pages of newspapers and magazines. Politics and money become deadly mix when the political machine is regarded as the means through which one can get one’s hands on some of the country’s money as is the case in Cameroon. It will take strong leadership to introduce a cleaner political culture.
Even the current fashionable combination of HIPC and pro-poor policies has not brought about improvements. In the absence of effective audit systems, an active parliament, proper legislation and planning systems, debt relief is a curse rather than a blessing, to quote one great scholar. It increases corruption, not reduces it. Corruption has been seen as the bane of Cameroon. If it is rooted out, the country could, probably survive without aid.
It is up to the government to get serious about the country’s many unsolved problems- poverty, no job prospects, too little educational and professional training or none at all. For many young men, to get a job is impossible and this makes them to get frustrated. Frustrated youngsters are easy prey for calls to violence and they may be again if nothing is done. Tensions continue to exist. The spectre of destabilization has already come from them and it could still come again.
For the time being, security operatives armed to the teeth are still patrolling the streets, positioned at strategic junctions or guarding certain public facilities. But then what will happen when they eventually leave? Citizens already walk the streets with the fear of intimidation, harassment or undue molestation by security agents. There are more indiscriminate arrests and detention without trial.
Democracy is supposed to equal improved welfare, the absence of dictatorship and the presence of equal rights. Democracy is not all about the rule of law, or the presence of peace in society, but more about how government responds to the basic problems to guarantee peace in the stomach. The prevailing opinion is that government at all levels has not done enough to improve the quality of life of the people.
Not many of the continent’s leaders appreciate the need for change and they believe in the supremacy of their reasoning. They tend to have their own vision of reality. Hence, the contradiction between what African leaders promise their people and what they actually do. Any wonder then that Paul Biya has a mountain of burden to contend with. A few months back, his party and his cronies announced their intention to seek an amendment to the constitution; to smoothen the road for ruling beyond 2011. This seems to be a dress rehearsal for the political atmosphere one can expect during the 2011presidential election.
Biya’s position which is art variance with the provisions of the constitution could only be explained by the need to pave the way for his safe passage to Etoudi.
With Paul Biya still harbouring the intention to run again in the race for the presidency, he is mobilizing quietly those he knows can be relied on to deliver his mandate in parliament and at the grassroots. It is a game of one good turn deserving another. CPDM had an absolute majority in parliament thanks to his total backing of the rigging machinery put in place during the twin elections.
Has Biya’s government learnt that foreign donors will no longer automatically finance the financial holes it created through corruption? Will the people be delivered from misery and frustration; and thus lose the impetus for another round of violence? Difficult to say giving that, it seems as if the population has been overwhelmed by the sit-tight mentality of those in authority, most of who pay more attention to feathering their own nests than to priority issues that affect the welfare of those they lead. The time has come for the dignity of the oppressed people to be restored, and by extension, the rights of Cameroonians to carry their destiny in their own hands by controlling the natural endowments in their country.
Even though the recent social unrest showed few signs of seriously threatening the regime’s control, other stresses within the country could encourage some in the hierarchy to continue the “war”. Who says it is all over?
Friday, March 7, 2008
Cameroonian Youth, Patriotism and Participation in Development
By Mofor Samuel
“The youth are the leaders of tomorrow.” This statement that is often been made by the powers that be in different occasions, when addressing youth has rightly or wrongly been received by the latter with a lot of mixed feelings. This skepticism on the part of the youth is due to the fact that policy makers scarcely or simply do not match words with action.
In every generation, there are problems a community must try to solve, dangers it must overcome and opportunities that it must seize. Cameroonians have long understood that education is the main escape route from poverty. Little attention is paid to educating youth to understand and cope with changes in social, economic and political life, and to opening their minds to changing ideas and values about the world. There is almost no political education to prepare for responsibility in a world where youth increasingly desire to share responsibility. Economic and political pressures on students and pupils therefore encourage passive conformity and discourage independence and responsibility.
During the last Youth Day, thousand of youth were seen marching past. But then one begins to wonder and imagine where they are marching to when the future looks so bleak. With little or no job opportunities, the rate of unemployment keeps soaring every year as young people are been churned out of schools. Some observers are of the opinion that the youth in Cameroon have no future because our leaders have mortgaged this future. Our leaders on their part say that they are doing everything possible to remedy the situation. The creation of the National Employment Fund, Vocational Centres to orient youth towards employment opportunities and above all, the creation of the Ministries of Employment and Vocational Training as well as of Small and Medium Size Enterprise are just some measures taken by government to curb unemployment. According to the National Employment Fund, the rate of unemployment for the cities of Douala and Yaoundé stood at 25.6 and 21.5% respectively.
The inability of the state to absorb the teeming number of youth or to create a conducive atmosphere for them to be self employed has put the youth at crossroads, with the immediate consequences being a high rate of unemployment, hardship and poverty amongst them. This has led to an upsurge in crime wave, fey mania, cultism, sects, kidnapping, murder, duping, drug trafficking and addiction, homosexuality etc to make ends meet. Others have turned to prostitution thus contracting HIV/AIDS; w hich is killing them in thousands thus affecting the labour force of the country. The bottom line being that there is a high rate of insecurity all over the country. Even government is helpless in the face of this increase in crime wave perpetrated by the youth.
Why is it that picking up a job in Cameroon has become a hard nut to crack? Who is to blame for the present situation; the high rate of unemployment in spite of all the employment opportunities in the country? Are Cameroonian youth just being lazy or lack initiatives, or is it the government that is indifferent to their plight? Does the government take major decisions before taking measure decisions concerning them? How are the youth involved in decision making as far the issue of employment is concerned?
Real and lasting development based on social justice can be achieved through effective participation of youth in decisions affecting their future. The youth must effectively participate in development programmes targeting them in decision making, planning and implementation of such projects, to enhance the success and future sustainability of project activities and outcomes. Programmes designed for youth should help them to become independent. They should be able to, orgnise change on the basis of their access to knowledge, to political process, and to financial, social and natural resources. The State has an important role in providing a policy and legal framework that promotes free and autonomous youth organizations. For example, by-laws and property laws needs to be re-examined and where necessary modified to encourage youth’s entitlement to membership and access to management committees. Procedure by which organizations can acquire legal recognition should not be cumbersome and should not impose internal structure and rules on organizations.
The solutions to practical and immediate needs usually serve as the easiest and the best entry point for mobilizing youth, for building social cohesion and for creating self- management capability.
The social cohesion of youth groups is best strengthened by encouraging youth self organization, creativity and initiative. Youth should be allowed to devise their own form of organization and rules according to their needs and particularities, although participatory and democratic management within youth groups should be encouraged. It is usually effective to build upon already existing, if any youth groups.
The Cameroonian youth have often accused the government of not letting them have a say in many decisions taken concerning them. The issue of employment and the high rate of unemployment is an ocular proof to this accusation. The youth in their vast majority believe that the existing powers are placing a lot of stumbling blocks and obstacles in front of them as far as employment is concerned.
One hand cannot tie a bundle and secondly the future of every nation belongs to the youth, and so it is very normal for policy makers to involve them actively in the designing, planning and shaping of this future. The theme of this year’s Youth Day is youth, patriotism and participation. Patriotism is not pretence and so if the powers that be are really serious as far as the future of the youth is concerned then they have to put in place the necessary mechanisms needed to attain this objective.
“The youth are the leaders of tomorrow.” This statement that is often been made by the powers that be in different occasions, when addressing youth has rightly or wrongly been received by the latter with a lot of mixed feelings. This skepticism on the part of the youth is due to the fact that policy makers scarcely or simply do not match words with action.
In every generation, there are problems a community must try to solve, dangers it must overcome and opportunities that it must seize. Cameroonians have long understood that education is the main escape route from poverty. Little attention is paid to educating youth to understand and cope with changes in social, economic and political life, and to opening their minds to changing ideas and values about the world. There is almost no political education to prepare for responsibility in a world where youth increasingly desire to share responsibility. Economic and political pressures on students and pupils therefore encourage passive conformity and discourage independence and responsibility.
During the last Youth Day, thousand of youth were seen marching past. But then one begins to wonder and imagine where they are marching to when the future looks so bleak. With little or no job opportunities, the rate of unemployment keeps soaring every year as young people are been churned out of schools. Some observers are of the opinion that the youth in Cameroon have no future because our leaders have mortgaged this future. Our leaders on their part say that they are doing everything possible to remedy the situation. The creation of the National Employment Fund, Vocational Centres to orient youth towards employment opportunities and above all, the creation of the Ministries of Employment and Vocational Training as well as of Small and Medium Size Enterprise are just some measures taken by government to curb unemployment. According to the National Employment Fund, the rate of unemployment for the cities of Douala and Yaoundé stood at 25.6 and 21.5% respectively.
The inability of the state to absorb the teeming number of youth or to create a conducive atmosphere for them to be self employed has put the youth at crossroads, with the immediate consequences being a high rate of unemployment, hardship and poverty amongst them. This has led to an upsurge in crime wave, fey mania, cultism, sects, kidnapping, murder, duping, drug trafficking and addiction, homosexuality etc to make ends meet. Others have turned to prostitution thus contracting HIV/AIDS; w hich is killing them in thousands thus affecting the labour force of the country. The bottom line being that there is a high rate of insecurity all over the country. Even government is helpless in the face of this increase in crime wave perpetrated by the youth.
Why is it that picking up a job in Cameroon has become a hard nut to crack? Who is to blame for the present situation; the high rate of unemployment in spite of all the employment opportunities in the country? Are Cameroonian youth just being lazy or lack initiatives, or is it the government that is indifferent to their plight? Does the government take major decisions before taking measure decisions concerning them? How are the youth involved in decision making as far the issue of employment is concerned?
Real and lasting development based on social justice can be achieved through effective participation of youth in decisions affecting their future. The youth must effectively participate in development programmes targeting them in decision making, planning and implementation of such projects, to enhance the success and future sustainability of project activities and outcomes. Programmes designed for youth should help them to become independent. They should be able to, orgnise change on the basis of their access to knowledge, to political process, and to financial, social and natural resources. The State has an important role in providing a policy and legal framework that promotes free and autonomous youth organizations. For example, by-laws and property laws needs to be re-examined and where necessary modified to encourage youth’s entitlement to membership and access to management committees. Procedure by which organizations can acquire legal recognition should not be cumbersome and should not impose internal structure and rules on organizations.
The solutions to practical and immediate needs usually serve as the easiest and the best entry point for mobilizing youth, for building social cohesion and for creating self- management capability.
The social cohesion of youth groups is best strengthened by encouraging youth self organization, creativity and initiative. Youth should be allowed to devise their own form of organization and rules according to their needs and particularities, although participatory and democratic management within youth groups should be encouraged. It is usually effective to build upon already existing, if any youth groups.
The Cameroonian youth have often accused the government of not letting them have a say in many decisions taken concerning them. The issue of employment and the high rate of unemployment is an ocular proof to this accusation. The youth in their vast majority believe that the existing powers are placing a lot of stumbling blocks and obstacles in front of them as far as employment is concerned.
One hand cannot tie a bundle and secondly the future of every nation belongs to the youth, and so it is very normal for policy makers to involve them actively in the designing, planning and shaping of this future. The theme of this year’s Youth Day is youth, patriotism and participation. Patriotism is not pretence and so if the powers that be are really serious as far as the future of the youth is concerned then they have to put in place the necessary mechanisms needed to attain this objective.
British Southern Cameroons Hits Hard on Biya Regime over Human Rights Violations
VIEWS AND RESOLUTIONS OF THE SOUTHERN CAMEROONS’ NATIONAL DEFENSE COUNCIL ON THE MOST RECENT POGROM AND HAVOCKS COMITTED ON THE TERRITORY OF THE BRITISH SOUTHERN CAMEROONS BY THE BIYA REGIME:
Fellow-citizens of the British Southern Cameroons,
In the last week of February, the people of Cameroun Republic gave an example of how the rebellion would be when they finally sit up against Biya’s long years of political stewardship to the French. That popular revolt was triggered by one man’s stubborn and reckless determination to crown himself life president of that country. It was also triggered by the cruel economic hardship and grinding poverty cynically imposed on the population by that man’s hideous misgovernment and ghastly mismanagement. That revolt spilled over into our Homeland, the British Southern Cameroons, which is for the time being still under the colonial occupation of Cameroun Republic.
The Yaoundé colonial regime seized upon that spill-over revolt as was stated in the earlier statement from the Presidency of the British Southern Cameroons, to once more order its military and police forces to carry out yet another round of organized extensive massacres of our people. These barbarities, which the ruler of Cameroun Republic and his brutal regime find very congenial, partake of that country’s national policy of continuing ferocious repression in the Southern Cameroons. That policy of repression is carried out in the hopeless hope of striking terror in us. The terror is meant to deflect us from the sacred task of breaking the chains of colonialism with which we are fettered and rightfully asserting our everlasting freedom as a sovereign independent nation.
But we are proud we have a gallant and avant-garde youth with an iron-will determination to soldier on with us until we get to the Promised Land. Our youths, girls and boys, students and non-students, employed and unemployed are the spear of our nation. They have never hesitated to attend to the call of Destiny and History. They have dedicated themselves to bringing forth a new nation in Africa dedicated to freedom, the pursuit of happiness, human rights, democracy, good management and the rule of law. We salute them even as we mourn those murdered in cold blood by the colonizer. We condole with the relatives and friends of all those visited by the angel of death from Cameroun Republic. Those who have been murdered by the colonizer gave their lives for the Southern Cameroons nation to be born. It shall be! We must therefore dedicate ourselves to the unfinished work that they have so far nobly advanced. Let the tyrant, with so much blood on his hands fear! He has to face this alternative: either the people of the Southern Cameroons are to be exterminated or the people of the Southern Cameroons are to be free from colonial bondage!
Fellow-citizens,
Our Homeland was once a peaceful, free, democratic, prosperous and fully self-governing country. It was a country under the rule of law and effective human rights protection. It was a beacon of hope and freedom in Africa, and, in fact, a home to thousands of refugees fleeing from French Cameroun. Bloodshed, repression, political prisoners, political assassinations, extrajudicial killings, torture, police maltreatment and harassment, arbitrary arrest and imprisonment were all unknown in our Homeland. But since coming under the colonial occupation of Cameroun Republic we have known nothing but death, mayhem, suffering, humiliation and sorrow. Our land has experienced nothing but desolation and spoliation. Complete darkness has descended on our land and on our people. There is hopelessness everywhere. The colonizer’s thirst for our blood seems unquenchable. Day in day out the colonizer slaughters our people. Day in day out we bury our dead. Day in day out we mourn our dead. Day in day out we grief over our relatives and friends maimed, tortured and arbitrarily imprisoned by the colonizer. Even those who have persisted in hoping against hope that they can patch up with the colonial occupation of our Homeland must now see that there is no future whatsoever under colonial rule. It is not by error that mankind has classed occupation and colonization as crimes against humanity, never to be accepted.
Fellow-citizens,
How long shall the people of Southern Cameroons grief and groan under the burden of foreign occupation? How long shall we carry this cross placed on our heads from across the Mungo by the Yaoundé colonial regime? How long shall we tolerate this colonization from hell as if we can do nothing about it?
Surely it cannot be our destined end and lot on earth to suffer and toil forever under the yoke of colonial occupation by the neighbouring country of Cameroun Republic. The time has come to shirk off the spirit of self-resignation and make a turning point in our history. We once did it before, and we shall do it again! ‘It was by daring and by doing that the Roman state grew and not by the timid policies that cowards call caution.’
The time of orphanage for our people is over! The time when the people of Southern Cameroons were like a flock without a shepherd is over! We have reached a turning point in the quest for the restoration of our homeland. The Restoration Government and all of us are condemned by Fate to set our land and ourselves free and to restore the peace, freedom, prosperity and the life of light and hope that existed in our land, before it was covetously occupied by a predatory Cameroun Republic!
The Restoration Government calls on every woman, man, youth, and child of the Southern Cameroons, as a first and bold step towards our liberation, to, as from now withdraw from all participation in the political life of Cameroun Republic. We have no business with the affairs of that country, except that aspect of its affairs that consists in trying to keep us in bondage, in regard to which it is our sacred duty to ensure that its colonial occupation of our land comes to grief.
We call on traders, taxi drivers etc in all our towns and all our professionals to form and manage their own separate associations for the defence of their interests.
We request that those of our men and women called to holy orders should, in their weekly prayers of intercession, never tire of asking God to bring the Southern Cameroons out of the Cameroun Republic house of bondage even as He delivered the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. For Jesus gave the assurance that ‘ask, and it shall be given you.’
Our men and women in uniform serving in Cameroun Republic have no business getting involved in the restless tribal intrigues among the politicians and military/police of that country. They would do well to avoid getting involved in the various crimes against humanity in which the civil and military leadership of that country would soon be indicted for. The task of today for our men and women in uniform is to factor their savvy into our national liberation struggle and thereby contribute towards our collective freedom as a people.
From now on we, the people of Southern Cameroons, have only one dream, one focus and one mission: the restoration of our Statehood. That is the only legitimate cause for which we must all focus all our energy and wherewithal. With this in mind we ask all our people to hold themselves ready to execute the commands of the Restoration Government. The moment of revolt for our cause shall come. For it is clear even to the cursory observer that this recent dance of death and mayhem by Cameroun Republic is a curious mixture of unconsciousness and deliberateness, of blindness and awareness, in which the doomed leadership of that country is moving, like the last days of the Nazi leadership, towards inexorable disaster.
The Restoration Government is at work. The outward symbols of the independent state of the Southern Cameroons (flag, anthem, emblem, motto etc) have already been formally publicized. There would follow in the weeks ahead the proposed draft national constitutional which will be submitted to the people for extensive debate and eventual adoption. There has been set in motion a process by which we can all participate in the choice of our country’s name. At the end of the process the name selected for the country would be formally announced. Furthermore, there are a number of policy frameworks that are in gestation. These will be put out one after the other as soon as they are ready. The major one, an economic framework, is near completion. As soon as it is ready it shall be made available to the people to see and gauge the vision we have for independent Southern Cameroons.
We have been informed by a number of stakeholders of certain initiatives by them that are afoot. There is unshakable determination out there to ensure that the civil and military officials of the Biya royal gangsterdom who are most criminally responsible for crimes against humanity are made to answer for their crimes internationally. We shall actively support that initiative by providing the documentary and real evidence that we have gathered over the years relating to those crimes. We invite our people to supply us with more names and evidence. We are determined to put an end to the institutionalized culture in Cameroun Republic of impunity for crimes under international law. Our support for this initiative does not of course mean we shall remove the names of the individuals concerned from the ‘List of Most Wanted Persons for Crimes against Humanity’ that we have compiled and continue to update.
We are also informed that at the moment a list of some of the persons involved is being put together for the purpose of initiating an international campaign for asset freeze and travel bans. We have some names ourselves and would support this initiative as well.
Finally, a Cameroun Republic human rights organization based in Douala, known as ‘Maison des Droits de l’Homme’, and a Cameroun Republic political organization in exile, Known as ‘Conseil National pour la Résistance’, are both calling for an international commission of inquiry into the latest pogrom carried out by Biya and his military and police forces. We support that call and would work with those organizations to ensure that such a commission is instituted.
The liberation of the Southern Cameroons is not a matter of if, but when. Right now, the captive citizen of the Southern Cameroons is up on his feet resolved to be a slave no more. He is resolved not to commit the historical contradiction of submitting to the very colonialism which has wrought age-long suffering and ruin in the Southern Cameroons, the very colonialism to be fought and which makes the sovereign statehood of the Southern Cameroons a categorical imperative.
God made the Southern Cameroons our own land. He tells us, ‘I have given you the land to possess it; stop begging for what you are entitled to.’ That land shall be our own space of existence on Earth!
The British Southern Cameroons shall be free, come what may!
Calson Anyangwe ,
Head of Restoration Government
Fellow-citizens of the British Southern Cameroons,
In the last week of February, the people of Cameroun Republic gave an example of how the rebellion would be when they finally sit up against Biya’s long years of political stewardship to the French. That popular revolt was triggered by one man’s stubborn and reckless determination to crown himself life president of that country. It was also triggered by the cruel economic hardship and grinding poverty cynically imposed on the population by that man’s hideous misgovernment and ghastly mismanagement. That revolt spilled over into our Homeland, the British Southern Cameroons, which is for the time being still under the colonial occupation of Cameroun Republic.
The Yaoundé colonial regime seized upon that spill-over revolt as was stated in the earlier statement from the Presidency of the British Southern Cameroons, to once more order its military and police forces to carry out yet another round of organized extensive massacres of our people. These barbarities, which the ruler of Cameroun Republic and his brutal regime find very congenial, partake of that country’s national policy of continuing ferocious repression in the Southern Cameroons. That policy of repression is carried out in the hopeless hope of striking terror in us. The terror is meant to deflect us from the sacred task of breaking the chains of colonialism with which we are fettered and rightfully asserting our everlasting freedom as a sovereign independent nation.
But we are proud we have a gallant and avant-garde youth with an iron-will determination to soldier on with us until we get to the Promised Land. Our youths, girls and boys, students and non-students, employed and unemployed are the spear of our nation. They have never hesitated to attend to the call of Destiny and History. They have dedicated themselves to bringing forth a new nation in Africa dedicated to freedom, the pursuit of happiness, human rights, democracy, good management and the rule of law. We salute them even as we mourn those murdered in cold blood by the colonizer. We condole with the relatives and friends of all those visited by the angel of death from Cameroun Republic. Those who have been murdered by the colonizer gave their lives for the Southern Cameroons nation to be born. It shall be! We must therefore dedicate ourselves to the unfinished work that they have so far nobly advanced. Let the tyrant, with so much blood on his hands fear! He has to face this alternative: either the people of the Southern Cameroons are to be exterminated or the people of the Southern Cameroons are to be free from colonial bondage!
Fellow-citizens,
Our Homeland was once a peaceful, free, democratic, prosperous and fully self-governing country. It was a country under the rule of law and effective human rights protection. It was a beacon of hope and freedom in Africa, and, in fact, a home to thousands of refugees fleeing from French Cameroun. Bloodshed, repression, political prisoners, political assassinations, extrajudicial killings, torture, police maltreatment and harassment, arbitrary arrest and imprisonment were all unknown in our Homeland. But since coming under the colonial occupation of Cameroun Republic we have known nothing but death, mayhem, suffering, humiliation and sorrow. Our land has experienced nothing but desolation and spoliation. Complete darkness has descended on our land and on our people. There is hopelessness everywhere. The colonizer’s thirst for our blood seems unquenchable. Day in day out the colonizer slaughters our people. Day in day out we bury our dead. Day in day out we mourn our dead. Day in day out we grief over our relatives and friends maimed, tortured and arbitrarily imprisoned by the colonizer. Even those who have persisted in hoping against hope that they can patch up with the colonial occupation of our Homeland must now see that there is no future whatsoever under colonial rule. It is not by error that mankind has classed occupation and colonization as crimes against humanity, never to be accepted.
Fellow-citizens,
How long shall the people of Southern Cameroons grief and groan under the burden of foreign occupation? How long shall we carry this cross placed on our heads from across the Mungo by the Yaoundé colonial regime? How long shall we tolerate this colonization from hell as if we can do nothing about it?
Surely it cannot be our destined end and lot on earth to suffer and toil forever under the yoke of colonial occupation by the neighbouring country of Cameroun Republic. The time has come to shirk off the spirit of self-resignation and make a turning point in our history. We once did it before, and we shall do it again! ‘It was by daring and by doing that the Roman state grew and not by the timid policies that cowards call caution.’
The time of orphanage for our people is over! The time when the people of Southern Cameroons were like a flock without a shepherd is over! We have reached a turning point in the quest for the restoration of our homeland. The Restoration Government and all of us are condemned by Fate to set our land and ourselves free and to restore the peace, freedom, prosperity and the life of light and hope that existed in our land, before it was covetously occupied by a predatory Cameroun Republic!
The Restoration Government calls on every woman, man, youth, and child of the Southern Cameroons, as a first and bold step towards our liberation, to, as from now withdraw from all participation in the political life of Cameroun Republic. We have no business with the affairs of that country, except that aspect of its affairs that consists in trying to keep us in bondage, in regard to which it is our sacred duty to ensure that its colonial occupation of our land comes to grief.
We call on traders, taxi drivers etc in all our towns and all our professionals to form and manage their own separate associations for the defence of their interests.
We request that those of our men and women called to holy orders should, in their weekly prayers of intercession, never tire of asking God to bring the Southern Cameroons out of the Cameroun Republic house of bondage even as He delivered the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. For Jesus gave the assurance that ‘ask, and it shall be given you.’
Our men and women in uniform serving in Cameroun Republic have no business getting involved in the restless tribal intrigues among the politicians and military/police of that country. They would do well to avoid getting involved in the various crimes against humanity in which the civil and military leadership of that country would soon be indicted for. The task of today for our men and women in uniform is to factor their savvy into our national liberation struggle and thereby contribute towards our collective freedom as a people.
From now on we, the people of Southern Cameroons, have only one dream, one focus and one mission: the restoration of our Statehood. That is the only legitimate cause for which we must all focus all our energy and wherewithal. With this in mind we ask all our people to hold themselves ready to execute the commands of the Restoration Government. The moment of revolt for our cause shall come. For it is clear even to the cursory observer that this recent dance of death and mayhem by Cameroun Republic is a curious mixture of unconsciousness and deliberateness, of blindness and awareness, in which the doomed leadership of that country is moving, like the last days of the Nazi leadership, towards inexorable disaster.
The Restoration Government is at work. The outward symbols of the independent state of the Southern Cameroons (flag, anthem, emblem, motto etc) have already been formally publicized. There would follow in the weeks ahead the proposed draft national constitutional which will be submitted to the people for extensive debate and eventual adoption. There has been set in motion a process by which we can all participate in the choice of our country’s name. At the end of the process the name selected for the country would be formally announced. Furthermore, there are a number of policy frameworks that are in gestation. These will be put out one after the other as soon as they are ready. The major one, an economic framework, is near completion. As soon as it is ready it shall be made available to the people to see and gauge the vision we have for independent Southern Cameroons.
We have been informed by a number of stakeholders of certain initiatives by them that are afoot. There is unshakable determination out there to ensure that the civil and military officials of the Biya royal gangsterdom who are most criminally responsible for crimes against humanity are made to answer for their crimes internationally. We shall actively support that initiative by providing the documentary and real evidence that we have gathered over the years relating to those crimes. We invite our people to supply us with more names and evidence. We are determined to put an end to the institutionalized culture in Cameroun Republic of impunity for crimes under international law. Our support for this initiative does not of course mean we shall remove the names of the individuals concerned from the ‘List of Most Wanted Persons for Crimes against Humanity’ that we have compiled and continue to update.
We are also informed that at the moment a list of some of the persons involved is being put together for the purpose of initiating an international campaign for asset freeze and travel bans. We have some names ourselves and would support this initiative as well.
Finally, a Cameroun Republic human rights organization based in Douala, known as ‘Maison des Droits de l’Homme’, and a Cameroun Republic political organization in exile, Known as ‘Conseil National pour la Résistance’, are both calling for an international commission of inquiry into the latest pogrom carried out by Biya and his military and police forces. We support that call and would work with those organizations to ensure that such a commission is instituted.
The liberation of the Southern Cameroons is not a matter of if, but when. Right now, the captive citizen of the Southern Cameroons is up on his feet resolved to be a slave no more. He is resolved not to commit the historical contradiction of submitting to the very colonialism which has wrought age-long suffering and ruin in the Southern Cameroons, the very colonialism to be fought and which makes the sovereign statehood of the Southern Cameroons a categorical imperative.
God made the Southern Cameroons our own land. He tells us, ‘I have given you the land to possess it; stop begging for what you are entitled to.’ That land shall be our own space of existence on Earth!
The British Southern Cameroons shall be free, come what may!
Calson Anyangwe ,
Head of Restoration Government
How to Bungle a Healing Process
By Prof.Tazoacha Asonganyi
Rosa Luxemburg used to say that revolution is the only form of war in which the final victory is prepared by a series of ‘defeats’. To me, the end of the recent upheavals in Cameroon cannot really be taken as a defeat for the people, although the behavior of some barons of the regime is giving that impression. In each regime, there are always those who have much in common with that figure in Dicken’s ‘A Tale of Two Cities’ called Vengeance, who hover around and cause much harm to those they consider the vanquished.In politics like in sports, there will always be winners and losers. Following victory, the wounds inflicted on adversaries during the struggle to obtain victory have to be dressed; how best to heal the wounds of those victory casts as losers is fundamental to society. After all, it is one thing to win a dirty fight in politics; it is quite another to ensure that dirt is not hurled into the arena you control becauseof your victory.The outing of the so-called "elites" of Mfoundi has certainly hurled much dirt into the regime’s arena; sotoo the many deaths and the shabby treatment of those who were "arrested" in relation to the upheavals. The "elites" have sent a clear message that the Head of State has surrounded himself with second rate people, minions who would not puncture his ill-placedpolitics. The minions are in positions they are certainly least qualified to occupy. Those of them whoare dissociating themselves from their heinous outing are just the proverbial wolves in sheep’s clothing!Following his ‘victory’ over those who attempted to overthrow him by coup-d’état in April 1984, Paul Biya made a monumental mistake by leaving the fate of the vanquished to those who would have been hurt had the coup succeeded. They were the ones who prescribed punishment, and punishment they prescribed! Everybody knows about the mass graves in Mbalmayo, and the scars they left behind. One of the scars is his fear of the most important decision that faces him: letting go the presidency in 2011 as directed by the Constitution of Cameroon.Following this other ‘victory’, he seems to be in the process of making virtually the same mistake. Children are being pushed into prison as if there is no tomorrow. Prisons are not separate from our society; they are part of it. Prison is not a huge cupboard where we dispose of people we simply want to lock up and forget about. All prisoners except a handful that will die in prison or get shot will sooner or later be released into society. We all know that our prisons do not work, because most prisoners return to crime when they are released. The hundreds of our youths being sent to prison have to be prepared there for the jobs they were asking for through the upheavals. Their education there will not be a luxury; it is inextricably linked to the future safety of all citizens.As these injustices are being perpetrated, the public media built up during the era of the one party regime have set themselves up as a force opposed to the will of the people. On a daily basis, their editorial comments masquerade as news. They select ‘facts’ to support their predetermined point of view that the constitution of Cameroon should be given "a general touch" so that in the process, article 6.2 can also be touched to allow their man to face his fear of quitting! To strengthen this point of view, counter arguments have been silenced by closing up private media organs.The people are already locked in a fearful embrace with the regime, insisting on the opposite of what the regime wants. In seeking to extricate the regime from this embrace, there are plenty of shortcuts that can be used, but all of them are dangerous traps. Whatever shortcut the regime is dreaming up, they better think about what they would be putting at risk. They can win battles, but Cameroonians have their eyes on the final victory!
Rosa Luxemburg used to say that revolution is the only form of war in which the final victory is prepared by a series of ‘defeats’. To me, the end of the recent upheavals in Cameroon cannot really be taken as a defeat for the people, although the behavior of some barons of the regime is giving that impression. In each regime, there are always those who have much in common with that figure in Dicken’s ‘A Tale of Two Cities’ called Vengeance, who hover around and cause much harm to those they consider the vanquished.In politics like in sports, there will always be winners and losers. Following victory, the wounds inflicted on adversaries during the struggle to obtain victory have to be dressed; how best to heal the wounds of those victory casts as losers is fundamental to society. After all, it is one thing to win a dirty fight in politics; it is quite another to ensure that dirt is not hurled into the arena you control becauseof your victory.The outing of the so-called "elites" of Mfoundi has certainly hurled much dirt into the regime’s arena; sotoo the many deaths and the shabby treatment of those who were "arrested" in relation to the upheavals. The "elites" have sent a clear message that the Head of State has surrounded himself with second rate people, minions who would not puncture his ill-placedpolitics. The minions are in positions they are certainly least qualified to occupy. Those of them whoare dissociating themselves from their heinous outing are just the proverbial wolves in sheep’s clothing!Following his ‘victory’ over those who attempted to overthrow him by coup-d’état in April 1984, Paul Biya made a monumental mistake by leaving the fate of the vanquished to those who would have been hurt had the coup succeeded. They were the ones who prescribed punishment, and punishment they prescribed! Everybody knows about the mass graves in Mbalmayo, and the scars they left behind. One of the scars is his fear of the most important decision that faces him: letting go the presidency in 2011 as directed by the Constitution of Cameroon.Following this other ‘victory’, he seems to be in the process of making virtually the same mistake. Children are being pushed into prison as if there is no tomorrow. Prisons are not separate from our society; they are part of it. Prison is not a huge cupboard where we dispose of people we simply want to lock up and forget about. All prisoners except a handful that will die in prison or get shot will sooner or later be released into society. We all know that our prisons do not work, because most prisoners return to crime when they are released. The hundreds of our youths being sent to prison have to be prepared there for the jobs they were asking for through the upheavals. Their education there will not be a luxury; it is inextricably linked to the future safety of all citizens.As these injustices are being perpetrated, the public media built up during the era of the one party regime have set themselves up as a force opposed to the will of the people. On a daily basis, their editorial comments masquerade as news. They select ‘facts’ to support their predetermined point of view that the constitution of Cameroon should be given "a general touch" so that in the process, article 6.2 can also be touched to allow their man to face his fear of quitting! To strengthen this point of view, counter arguments have been silenced by closing up private media organs.The people are already locked in a fearful embrace with the regime, insisting on the opposite of what the regime wants. In seeking to extricate the regime from this embrace, there are plenty of shortcuts that can be used, but all of them are dangerous traps. Whatever shortcut the regime is dreaming up, they better think about what they would be putting at risk. They can win battles, but Cameroonians have their eyes on the final victory!
Monday, March 3, 2008
Southern Cameroons President In Exile Condemns Killing of His Citizens By Biya Regime
Following is a statement from Prof. Calson Anyangwe,President of British Southern Cameroons (BSC)Government in Exile ,condemning Last February massacre of Anglophones In Cameroon by The Biya Regime
BSC Restoration Government Responds To February 2008 Massacre by Paul Biya
"Fellow British Southern Cameroonians:
The brutality that was carried out against our citizens this past week adds a sweltering sense of urgency to the restoration of our stolen sovereignty. The most important thing you should do at this time is refrain from involving yourselves in the political affairs of the foreign country next door to us and east of the Mungo river. For these matters in the Cameroun Republic are veritable distractions from our total focus on restoring our independence. Paul Biya's brutality on our citizens this past week should make it even clearer and even more urgent that we should not waver for a single moment from our determination to take our national sovereignty.
Your Restoration Government has chosen, for the time being, not to retaliate. Consider the kind of entity we are dealing with here. In his televised speech, when Biya used the phrase “apprentice sorcerers”, he reminded us all, once again, that he is not normal human; that he is a demonic force, a blood thirsty sorcerer. Photos of the youths whom Biya's troops slaughtered this week depict this event as the veritable handiwork of a demon and seasoned “sorcerer”. Yes, the British Southern Cameroons Restoration Government is at work to decolonize our country and restore our self-government. But in no way do we want to build our reclaimed sovereignty on blood. For it is written, “those who come with the sword die with the sword.” Unless forced to resort to force, our goal is to leave for our children the legacy of a nation that is built on the rule of law. ◊
Self defense is an inalienable right, inalienable because it is inherent in all humans, not derived from any law. And so international law and morality bow to it. Indeed, strikes, riots and revolutions have always been the preferred pathways out of oppressions and towards autonomy. The Boston Tea Party and the later American Revolution decolonized the people of the United States, transforming them into one of the greatest nations in the world today. Storming of the Bastille in 1789 freed the French from a tyrant as corrupt blood thirsty as Paul Biya.
To our neighbors suffering the brutal weight of this Biya regime, we offer our sympathy--since we fully share your grief--and we rise to stand with you as you fight to reclaim your God-given right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Biya's heavy handedness with you continues the state terrorism that Ahidjo directed against your parents in the 1960s. Time has not erased from human memory Ahidjo's genocide which killed more than half a million of your patriotic parents in the first decade of your independence– almost all of them Bassas and Bamileke. Time is not going to erase memory of the massacre that Paul Biya is now carrying out against your children today in 2008. Have no doubt that the world is witnessing that only the name has change, for Biya’s regime is a mere continuation of Ahidjo's 1960s regime.
Speaking to the nation on February 11, 2008, just two weeks earlier, Paul Biya pretended that the future was rosy for the youth of Cameroun Republic. Now, barely two weeks later, his helicopter gunship and machine guns slaughter these very youth, letting the world know that by "rosy" he actually meant a bloody future for you. And your offense? Asking for employment and fair prices for basic needs. No family head butchers a hungry child for crying. If Biya were serving you or your country, he would never call you “apprentice sorcerers”; instead, he would relieve your pain. On national television last week, he would be talking like other presidents today when they meet a suffering community--with empathy in his eye and voice, not with vengeance and the fury of a blood thirsty vampire. You deserve better.
Fortunately, time favours you, not Biya who cannot turn back the clock. He represents the past – the dark past. The youths of Cameroun Republic represent the future, and the Cameroun Republic rightfully belongs to them. Do not give up. Continue your valiant struggle against the sorcery that holds you and your country hostage. Victory and history are on your side. Once you free yourselves of the dark cloud that Biya and his regime have hung over you since 1982, we shall re-establish our ages long diplomatic and trade ties. We promise you our friendship and pledge to maintain good, exemplary, neighbourly ties with you. For now, harbour not the slightest doubt but that you have our total moral support. It is obvious that the freedom loving democratic world out there also sympathizes with you and supports you morally.
To our British Southern Cameroonians, your Restoration Government is hard on the program to return us to the state of independence, freedom and civilized rule. That is because the Southern Cameroons was practically independent, its people were free and government was civilized and a servant of the people and not their master. You shall have a major role to play in bringing us to our dream of freedom.
Carlson Anyangwe
Head of Government
BSC Restoration Government Responds To February 2008 Massacre by Paul Biya
"Fellow British Southern Cameroonians:
The brutality that was carried out against our citizens this past week adds a sweltering sense of urgency to the restoration of our stolen sovereignty. The most important thing you should do at this time is refrain from involving yourselves in the political affairs of the foreign country next door to us and east of the Mungo river. For these matters in the Cameroun Republic are veritable distractions from our total focus on restoring our independence. Paul Biya's brutality on our citizens this past week should make it even clearer and even more urgent that we should not waver for a single moment from our determination to take our national sovereignty.
Your Restoration Government has chosen, for the time being, not to retaliate. Consider the kind of entity we are dealing with here. In his televised speech, when Biya used the phrase “apprentice sorcerers”, he reminded us all, once again, that he is not normal human; that he is a demonic force, a blood thirsty sorcerer. Photos of the youths whom Biya's troops slaughtered this week depict this event as the veritable handiwork of a demon and seasoned “sorcerer”. Yes, the British Southern Cameroons Restoration Government is at work to decolonize our country and restore our self-government. But in no way do we want to build our reclaimed sovereignty on blood. For it is written, “those who come with the sword die with the sword.” Unless forced to resort to force, our goal is to leave for our children the legacy of a nation that is built on the rule of law. ◊
Self defense is an inalienable right, inalienable because it is inherent in all humans, not derived from any law. And so international law and morality bow to it. Indeed, strikes, riots and revolutions have always been the preferred pathways out of oppressions and towards autonomy. The Boston Tea Party and the later American Revolution decolonized the people of the United States, transforming them into one of the greatest nations in the world today. Storming of the Bastille in 1789 freed the French from a tyrant as corrupt blood thirsty as Paul Biya.
To our neighbors suffering the brutal weight of this Biya regime, we offer our sympathy--since we fully share your grief--and we rise to stand with you as you fight to reclaim your God-given right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Biya's heavy handedness with you continues the state terrorism that Ahidjo directed against your parents in the 1960s. Time has not erased from human memory Ahidjo's genocide which killed more than half a million of your patriotic parents in the first decade of your independence– almost all of them Bassas and Bamileke. Time is not going to erase memory of the massacre that Paul Biya is now carrying out against your children today in 2008. Have no doubt that the world is witnessing that only the name has change, for Biya’s regime is a mere continuation of Ahidjo's 1960s regime.
Speaking to the nation on February 11, 2008, just two weeks earlier, Paul Biya pretended that the future was rosy for the youth of Cameroun Republic. Now, barely two weeks later, his helicopter gunship and machine guns slaughter these very youth, letting the world know that by "rosy" he actually meant a bloody future for you. And your offense? Asking for employment and fair prices for basic needs. No family head butchers a hungry child for crying. If Biya were serving you or your country, he would never call you “apprentice sorcerers”; instead, he would relieve your pain. On national television last week, he would be talking like other presidents today when they meet a suffering community--with empathy in his eye and voice, not with vengeance and the fury of a blood thirsty vampire. You deserve better.
Fortunately, time favours you, not Biya who cannot turn back the clock. He represents the past – the dark past. The youths of Cameroun Republic represent the future, and the Cameroun Republic rightfully belongs to them. Do not give up. Continue your valiant struggle against the sorcery that holds you and your country hostage. Victory and history are on your side. Once you free yourselves of the dark cloud that Biya and his regime have hung over you since 1982, we shall re-establish our ages long diplomatic and trade ties. We promise you our friendship and pledge to maintain good, exemplary, neighbourly ties with you. For now, harbour not the slightest doubt but that you have our total moral support. It is obvious that the freedom loving democratic world out there also sympathizes with you and supports you morally.
To our British Southern Cameroonians, your Restoration Government is hard on the program to return us to the state of independence, freedom and civilized rule. That is because the Southern Cameroons was practically independent, its people were free and government was civilized and a servant of the people and not their master. You shall have a major role to play in bringing us to our dream of freedom.
Carlson Anyangwe
Head of Government
Saturday, March 1, 2008
Cameroon: Edging Towards Total Rupture!
By* Tazoacha Asonganyi
There is pent up anger in Cameroon which can be summarized as no more corruption, no more power cuts, no more Biya, no more flawed elections, no more price hikes, no more joblessness... By the constant refusal to let the people have their say during elections, theregime gave legitimacy to this anger. By converting power from a competitive business to a privilege guarded by a monopoly, the regime gave legitimacy to this anger. By taking liberties with the law and the constitution, the regime gave legitimacy to the anger.By locking up private media houses and repressing public manifestations, the regime gave legitimacy to the anger. By trampling on the cause of the common person, of the humble members of society, of the underprivileged, of the poor, the regime gavelegitimacy to the anger…The will of the people is always expressed through the democratic process. Everywhere there is injustice, including in totalitarian regimes, there have always been protests.The regime had to know that with many private resentments building up in the people, there was need for the resentments to be voiced from time to time, through demonstrations in the streets as much asappeals to conscience. Since appeals to conscience failed, the people decided to win their rights back by demonstrations in the streets. Since peaceful demonstrations were banned, they decided to vent their anger in ways uncontrollable by the regime!The people have lost control over elections and the electoral process; they have lost their sense of participation and rights. At the heart of the upheavals across the country is this anger, deriving from a feeling of hopelessness; guiding it is the similarity of the feeling across the national territory.It is to give vent to such feelings of frustration
that the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and protest is secured for everyone in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Charter of the UnitedNations, The African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights and all other related international conventions duly ratified and affirmed by the Constitution of Cameroon. These instruments give everyone who has the intention of organizing a peaceful demonstration theright to do so, in spite of the possibility of violent counter-demonstration or the possibility of extremists with violent intentions joining the demonstration or the feelings of persons opposed to the ideas or claims that the demonstration seeks to promote.The regime thought the decision to modify article 6.2 of the constitution would ensure a longer stay in power for Paul Biya; instead, it cracked the people’s tolerance of his stay in power. The regime decided to control the press to contain the people; instead, itprecipitated the spilling of their anger.Inexperience with conflict resolution and an instinctive inability to adapt to diversities has led the regime to mistakes; it will eventually lead it to its demise! The street protests have caused the regimeto panic. Panic is a burst of insanity; in it, they sought to create fear. But the laws of fear are unpredictable because in fear, people may turn and fight or turn and flee! The regime has probably learned this to its peril!A government that refuses to contemplate the possibility of being turned out of office by constitutional means will almost certainly end in disgrace. Paul Biya has put in his mind that he is significant only because of the office he holds now; he has to borrow a leaf from Jimmy Carter, Al Gore…and why not Alpha Oumar Konare? He should guard against throwing the Cameroon baby out with thebathwater of one-man rule!
It is only when the powerful soviet communist regime suddenly collapsed like a house of cards in the early ‘90s that many people understood that within the soviet regime, there had always been an invisible network of small protest groups bound together by shared values, that laid siege for decades and finally caused the seemingly all pervasive communist system to give way so easily in a matter of months.In the communist system, the regime monopolised publiclife. Civil society that persistently seeks to define itself as distinct from the state, despite efforts from the state to prevent it from doing so, could notbe visibly created. Therefore it acted outside the public arena, consistently challenged the values and authority of the state, and struggled underground for political change.Like in the soviet communist regime, there is an alternative political culture in Cameroon that has bloomed during the past 25 years of dictatorship and repression, and fueled periodic, angry ruptures.Cameroonians of all shades of opinion and of all origins meet regularly in small, informal groups in the many bars across the country and discuss politics, sport and all. Because such discussions usually include the PMUC, they can now distinguish trueaffection from that of a jockey to his horse! Such regular meetings and discussions connect them to power. Slowly, they have become a critical mass that can let go at the spark of ignition. With daring onesto throw their bodies and their courage at the resistance of the regime following each spark, getting the critical mass to grab power through protests will soon become common place.This time around, the protests led to discussions and curious declarations from the Government Delegate of the capital city of Cameroon, and the Head of State! Sadly, all these were at cross-purposes because the
two sides - the regime and the people - were looking at each other through different social telescopes: the regime from the feel-good position of those who buy nothing from their pockets; the people from a position of the desperation of those who struggle daily to have a meal on the table while paying heavy prices and taxes for everything they manage to afford. Petrol, kerosene, electricity, water, little food items, taxi fares…are items that either barons of the regime do not need or they get for free; yet these are necessities that move ordinary people.The debate about whether or not to modify the constitution has become intellectual; events have since moved on. The regime may have the guns, the money and the brute force, but morality and people power count for more!
*Tazoacha Asonganyi is a Yaounde University Professor and former Secretary-General of SDF, Cameroon’s leading opposition party.Yaounde.
There is pent up anger in Cameroon which can be summarized as no more corruption, no more power cuts, no more Biya, no more flawed elections, no more price hikes, no more joblessness... By the constant refusal to let the people have their say during elections, theregime gave legitimacy to this anger. By converting power from a competitive business to a privilege guarded by a monopoly, the regime gave legitimacy to this anger. By taking liberties with the law and the constitution, the regime gave legitimacy to the anger.By locking up private media houses and repressing public manifestations, the regime gave legitimacy to the anger. By trampling on the cause of the common person, of the humble members of society, of the underprivileged, of the poor, the regime gavelegitimacy to the anger…The will of the people is always expressed through the democratic process. Everywhere there is injustice, including in totalitarian regimes, there have always been protests.The regime had to know that with many private resentments building up in the people, there was need for the resentments to be voiced from time to time, through demonstrations in the streets as much asappeals to conscience. Since appeals to conscience failed, the people decided to win their rights back by demonstrations in the streets. Since peaceful demonstrations were banned, they decided to vent their anger in ways uncontrollable by the regime!The people have lost control over elections and the electoral process; they have lost their sense of participation and rights. At the heart of the upheavals across the country is this anger, deriving from a feeling of hopelessness; guiding it is the similarity of the feeling across the national territory.It is to give vent to such feelings of frustration
that the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and protest is secured for everyone in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Charter of the UnitedNations, The African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights and all other related international conventions duly ratified and affirmed by the Constitution of Cameroon. These instruments give everyone who has the intention of organizing a peaceful demonstration theright to do so, in spite of the possibility of violent counter-demonstration or the possibility of extremists with violent intentions joining the demonstration or the feelings of persons opposed to the ideas or claims that the demonstration seeks to promote.The regime thought the decision to modify article 6.2 of the constitution would ensure a longer stay in power for Paul Biya; instead, it cracked the people’s tolerance of his stay in power. The regime decided to control the press to contain the people; instead, itprecipitated the spilling of their anger.Inexperience with conflict resolution and an instinctive inability to adapt to diversities has led the regime to mistakes; it will eventually lead it to its demise! The street protests have caused the regimeto panic. Panic is a burst of insanity; in it, they sought to create fear. But the laws of fear are unpredictable because in fear, people may turn and fight or turn and flee! The regime has probably learned this to its peril!A government that refuses to contemplate the possibility of being turned out of office by constitutional means will almost certainly end in disgrace. Paul Biya has put in his mind that he is significant only because of the office he holds now; he has to borrow a leaf from Jimmy Carter, Al Gore…and why not Alpha Oumar Konare? He should guard against throwing the Cameroon baby out with thebathwater of one-man rule!
It is only when the powerful soviet communist regime suddenly collapsed like a house of cards in the early ‘90s that many people understood that within the soviet regime, there had always been an invisible network of small protest groups bound together by shared values, that laid siege for decades and finally caused the seemingly all pervasive communist system to give way so easily in a matter of months.In the communist system, the regime monopolised publiclife. Civil society that persistently seeks to define itself as distinct from the state, despite efforts from the state to prevent it from doing so, could notbe visibly created. Therefore it acted outside the public arena, consistently challenged the values and authority of the state, and struggled underground for political change.Like in the soviet communist regime, there is an alternative political culture in Cameroon that has bloomed during the past 25 years of dictatorship and repression, and fueled periodic, angry ruptures.Cameroonians of all shades of opinion and of all origins meet regularly in small, informal groups in the many bars across the country and discuss politics, sport and all. Because such discussions usually include the PMUC, they can now distinguish trueaffection from that of a jockey to his horse! Such regular meetings and discussions connect them to power. Slowly, they have become a critical mass that can let go at the spark of ignition. With daring onesto throw their bodies and their courage at the resistance of the regime following each spark, getting the critical mass to grab power through protests will soon become common place.This time around, the protests led to discussions and curious declarations from the Government Delegate of the capital city of Cameroon, and the Head of State! Sadly, all these were at cross-purposes because the
two sides - the regime and the people - were looking at each other through different social telescopes: the regime from the feel-good position of those who buy nothing from their pockets; the people from a position of the desperation of those who struggle daily to have a meal on the table while paying heavy prices and taxes for everything they manage to afford. Petrol, kerosene, electricity, water, little food items, taxi fares…are items that either barons of the regime do not need or they get for free; yet these are necessities that move ordinary people.The debate about whether or not to modify the constitution has become intellectual; events have since moved on. The regime may have the guns, the money and the brute force, but morality and people power count for more!
*Tazoacha Asonganyi is a Yaounde University Professor and former Secretary-General of SDF, Cameroon’s leading opposition party.Yaounde.
Cameroon:Private Radio Suspended, Independent Newspapers Prevented From Appearing
By Reporters sans Frontières (Paris)
PRESS RELEASE
Reporters Without Borders is concerned at a crackdown against the media which criticised the government following an outbreak of rioting in Douala in the southwest.
As the communications minister called on newspapers to be "responsible", the unrest has left the privately-owned press in crisis after security forces raided the studios of Magic FM radio seizing equipment and forcing it to close. Much of the privately-owned printed press has been prevented from appearing.
Trouble broke out on the fringes of a taxi-drivers strike on 25 February, against the background of political tensions over a planned reform of the Constitution aimed at ending the limit on the number of terms the country's president can serve.
Despite the end of the strike, on 27 February, clashes continued and escalated between demonstrators and security forces and privately-owned newspapers, chiefly printed in Douala, have not been able to appear. Only state media are still being distributed.
"The situation is deteriorating on a daily basis and becoming untenable for the independent media in Douala", the worldwide press freedom organisation said. "Since they cannot be printed they are no longer in circulation"
"Moreover, it is not for the communications ministry to give lessons to journalists. What will happen to those who do not observe the "recommendations" and do not practise self-censorship ?" it asked.
"Only the central administration can legally suspend a radio. We call on the authorities to immediately lift this measure which was taken unfairly by the police and return Magic FM its broadcast equipment", the organisation said.
The Communications Minister, Jean-Pierre Beyiti Bi Essam, on 28 February summoned the editors of privately-owned newspapers to his office and urged to "show responsibility" and "not to publish any news which could pour oil on the flames".
On the same day, in Yaoundé, southern Cameroon, security forces raided the offices of Magic FM without a warrant and ordered its closure. "Right now the radio is no longer broadcasting. A score of police arrived yesterday and seized our equipment saying that we had been irresponsible in letting listeners analyse the head of state's speech," editor, Roger Kiyeck, told Agence France-Presse (AFP).
The police were referring to the programme Magic Attitude, which invites listeners to phone in and comment on the news. Some listeners who called in on the morning of 28 February considered that the speech made by the head of state the previous evening in which he said he would use "all legal means" to restore order was more "aggressive than appeasing" and that it did "not respond to the wishes of the people".
Kiyeck said the security forces also took computers, the mixing console and broadcast equipment. Police questioned the station's owner, Grégoire Mbida Ndjana, and the presenter of the offending programme, Jules Elobo.
The communicaitons minsistry on 21 February ordered the suspension of privately-owned Equinoxe TV, on the grounds that its owner had not paid a deposit of 100 million CFA francs required to obtain a broadcast licence.
Reporters Without Borders defends imprisoned journalists and press freedom throughout the world. It has nine national sections (Austria, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland). It has representatives in Bangkok, London, New York, Tokyo and Washington. And it has more than 120 correspondents worldwide
PRESS RELEASE
Reporters Without Borders is concerned at a crackdown against the media which criticised the government following an outbreak of rioting in Douala in the southwest.
As the communications minister called on newspapers to be "responsible", the unrest has left the privately-owned press in crisis after security forces raided the studios of Magic FM radio seizing equipment and forcing it to close. Much of the privately-owned printed press has been prevented from appearing.
Trouble broke out on the fringes of a taxi-drivers strike on 25 February, against the background of political tensions over a planned reform of the Constitution aimed at ending the limit on the number of terms the country's president can serve.
Despite the end of the strike, on 27 February, clashes continued and escalated between demonstrators and security forces and privately-owned newspapers, chiefly printed in Douala, have not been able to appear. Only state media are still being distributed.
"The situation is deteriorating on a daily basis and becoming untenable for the independent media in Douala", the worldwide press freedom organisation said. "Since they cannot be printed they are no longer in circulation"
"Moreover, it is not for the communications ministry to give lessons to journalists. What will happen to those who do not observe the "recommendations" and do not practise self-censorship ?" it asked.
"Only the central administration can legally suspend a radio. We call on the authorities to immediately lift this measure which was taken unfairly by the police and return Magic FM its broadcast equipment", the organisation said.
The Communications Minister, Jean-Pierre Beyiti Bi Essam, on 28 February summoned the editors of privately-owned newspapers to his office and urged to "show responsibility" and "not to publish any news which could pour oil on the flames".
On the same day, in Yaoundé, southern Cameroon, security forces raided the offices of Magic FM without a warrant and ordered its closure. "Right now the radio is no longer broadcasting. A score of police arrived yesterday and seized our equipment saying that we had been irresponsible in letting listeners analyse the head of state's speech," editor, Roger Kiyeck, told Agence France-Presse (AFP).
The police were referring to the programme Magic Attitude, which invites listeners to phone in and comment on the news. Some listeners who called in on the morning of 28 February considered that the speech made by the head of state the previous evening in which he said he would use "all legal means" to restore order was more "aggressive than appeasing" and that it did "not respond to the wishes of the people".
Kiyeck said the security forces also took computers, the mixing console and broadcast equipment. Police questioned the station's owner, Grégoire Mbida Ndjana, and the presenter of the offending programme, Jules Elobo.
The communicaitons minsistry on 21 February ordered the suspension of privately-owned Equinoxe TV, on the grounds that its owner had not paid a deposit of 100 million CFA francs required to obtain a broadcast licence.
Reporters Without Borders defends imprisoned journalists and press freedom throughout the world. It has nine national sections (Austria, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland). It has representatives in Bangkok, London, New York, Tokyo and Washington. And it has more than 120 correspondents worldwide
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