Cameroon Aspects of A Democracy

By Jetyem Jotanga

This book is made up of short notes on aspects of the political life of Cameroon. Arranged in the alphabetical (rather than in the chronological) order, the events discussed here, bring to the fore many of the happenings which have culminated in the war that is ravaging the country today. Added to these is also an addendum of other pieces of wri

• Language: English
• Publisher: LitFire Publishing
• Release date: Jan 16, 2019
• ISBN: 9781643985763

Jetyem Jotanga

The author was born and raised in what was then called the Southern Cameroons. After studying abroad, he returned to Cameroon and worked in the private sector for several years before relocating to the United States of America, where he now teaches economics as an adjunct professor. He is the author (or translator) of several books, including one on the problems of economic development.

Book preview

Cameroon

Copyright © 2018 by Jetyem Jotanga

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher or author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Although every precaution has been taken to verify the accuracy of the information contained herein, the author and publisher assume no responsibility for any errors or omissions. No liability is assumed for damages that may result from the use of information contained within.

ISBN: 978-1-64398-575-6

Printed in the United States of America

LitFire LLC

1-800-511-9787

www.litfirepublishing.com

[e-mail]

CAMEROON

Aspects of a Democracy

By Jetyem Jotanga

DEDICATION

To the many who have fallen, or may fall, to the kidnapped and the imprisoned (including Seseku Julius Ayuk Tabe; Wilfred Tassang; Dr. Nfor Ngala Nfor; Prof. Augustine Awasom; Dr. Cornelius Kwanga; Dr. Henry Kimeng; Elias Eyambe Esq; Dr. Ojong Okongo; Dr. Fidelis Nde Che; and Bixixy Manch), the foot soldiers (even the barefoot soldiers) of the revolution. These have become the poster children of this struggle for freedom and justice.

Preface to the Second Edition

As I write the preface to the second edition of this little book which was first published some twenty odd years ago, war has broken out between the armed forces of La République du Cameroun and the self-styled Self-defense forces of the people of the former British Trusteeship Territory of Southern Cameroons, after the latter unilaterally declared their independence from the former. Following the said U.D.I. by the leaders of the separatist Southern Cameroons, the president of La République du Cameroun, Paul Biya, at the airport on his way back into the country, after yet another extended stay abroad, in the most casual way possible, declared war on those he chose to call "terrorists’. The said war he declared was the next logical step in the on-going tussle between the peoples of the two nations who came together to form a two-state federation.

Almost from the very beginning, as you will read in this narrative, late Dr. Bernard Fonlon addressed a memo to the then president of the newly formed Federal Republic of Cameroon, in which he warned that things were already going bad for the federation. In it, he lamented the marginalization of the people of the Southern Cameroons who, he wrote, were made to stand by idle, instead of being invited to contribute to the task of nation-building. It is obvious today that that warning, and many others that were to follow, were all brushed aside by the régime in Yaoundé. And even as the country is at war, it has never been officially admitted that anybody has been marginalized.

This book is not about the present war that is ravaging the Southern Cameroons nation. It is a collection of short notes (written at the time of the happenings or shortly thereafter) about the political circumstances that have now resulted in the current conflict. The notes are mere glimpses of the political climate that has reigned in the country from long before the conflict erupted.

Besides revising the content of the whole book, with the view to making it more precise and accurate, I have also added an addendum to it containing other writings of mine which, one way or the other, relate to the same narrative. One of them is an imagined speech by Paul Biya to the nation in which he addresses some of the key problems facing the country. In it, he starts by offering to give up power, having realized that his tenure has been a failure. I have also included in this addendum my own rebuttal to a write-up (by someone I know very well) upon which I stumbled on the internet. I have chosen not to include the tittle of the said write-up in this addendum, nor to even mention its author’s name; for I have neither sought nor received his permission to do so.

May/ 30/2018

Preface to the first edition

In 1993, or thereabout, the president of Senegal said something to the effect that Democracy was a universal concept to be accepted or rejected as such. In essence, he was saying that nobody had the right to give another meaning to the concept of democracy to suit his or her personal whims.

If, as one may think, President Diouf was right, then all those who argued that because of their specificity, Cameroonians should settle for something less than democracy, were doing the nation but a disservice.

Which is that society which does not have its own specificity which distinguishes it from all other societies? None. No two countries on earth are identical. Yet, the same democratic values are upheld and respected in many countries, in spite of their respective specificities.

ASPECTS OF A DEMOCRACY is an account of the democratic process in Cameroon. It is an attempt at portraying what passes for democracy, as lived by Cameroonians, or as perceived by the lay observer. It is a look at the stuff of which our own brand of democracy is made.

I cannot claim to present here the absolute truth about the events which, to my mind, constitute acts of political expression. In deed, nobody can honestly do so: since no one can be everywhere at all times. Even the most informed person can present only a partial view of what is happening in the country at any time: given that the political scene is not just one spot, but the whole nation, and that the actors are not just one person, but almost all Cameroonians, each in their different ways. Therefore, this book, at best, represents only a keyhole view of Cameroon’s political scene over a period of time.

I have written in the past tense. This is for two reasons. The first one is that many of the practices related here are so disheartening that one would hardly imagine they happened in our day and age. The second reason stemmed from my fervent desire to see things change for the better even before this book rolled out of the press. To me, it is as though the era of barbaric rule (to which the francophones alluded in their premier national anthem) is already over.*

I look forward to the day when we shall join the mainstream of democratic nations. Hopefully, that day will not be long in coming.

Jetyem Jotanga

5th July, 1997

------------------------------------------------------

*A loose translation of 3 lines of the said anthem reads as follows:

In the past, you lived in barbarity.

Like a sun, you start appearing.

Little by little, you start emerging from your Savagery.

ALL ANGLOPHONE CONFERENCE

As it became evident that some form of constitutional debate was in the offing, some prominent Anglophones thought it wise to convene a meeting of all Anglophones at which a common stand could be defined for the upcoming debate. The Response to invitations to attend that meeting was much greater than the conveners expected. About 5000 Anglophones who mattered converged in Buea on April the 2nd and 3rd, 1993 for the meeting which turned out to be a huge success. In attendance were veteran politicians like Dr.J.N. Foncha, S.T. Muna, Tamfuh Samuel and many others.

All was not smooth sailing for the AAC, as government did quite much to forestall the conference. Arrangements made for the holding of the conference on the Buea University campus were cancelled at the last minute by government authorities; leaving no other venue than the Catholic mission’s Mount Mary Maternity Centre. Therein, the meeting was held, to the satisfaction of both the conveners and the invitees. At the end of the two-day conference, the AAC came up with a statement called the Buea Declaration (see definition elsewhere).

In spite of the historic importance of that meeting, as well as the reawakening, therefore, of the Anglophone spirit, government feigned ignorance of all what had taken place at the Mount Mary Clinic. Images recorded at the conference by State-run CRTV were never broadcast.

AAC II

During the week preceding the holding of the long convened and widely publicized AAC II, there arose a great wave of uncertainty as to the chances of success of the conference, as the government, wishing to forestall the meeting, set its anti-AAC machinery to work. People were commissioned to try and dissuade others in the two Anglophone provinces from attending the meeting. They were the infamous gang of five, which included a career diplomat. At one point, the then Secretary General at the Presidency of the Republic tried to deceive the convenors of AAC II into calling off the conference by promising to get the President – who was then honeymooning in Switzerland – to announce the resumption of the long suspended constitutional talks–the so-called grand/large débat. The convenors’ reaction to that proposal was unequivocal: The train has already left the station and cannot be stopped.

The meeting, proper, went on smoothly; albeit in a rather scattered manner. After they were refused access to the Catholic Mission Hall in Mankon, Bamenda–the proposed venue for the meeting–those in attendance (thousands of them), withdrew to secret meeting places wherein work was carried out in sub-committees.

For three full days, i.e. from April 29 through May 1, 1994, the city of Bamenda became the scene of a rat race between the security forces drawn from all over the country and participants at the conference. Meeting places were constantly shifted to avoid disruption and/or arrest by security hands who were bent on marring the conference.

The AAC II came up at a time when the regime least desired it; a time when it was ill-advised to go ahead and announce its banning. At a time when government had good reason to convince the international public opinion that it was ready to start cleaning up its badly stained Human Rights record, banning a meeting convened to examine ways and means of instituting (even a semblance of) democracy would have proven just the contrary. Which was why they were left with no other choice than the use of unorthodox means to sabotage a meeting they hated so much.

After it became clear that the so-called gang of 5 had failed in their mission to dissuade the chiefs and people of the North/West province from attending the AAC II, government, which controlled and, especially, abused the country’s radio and TV networks, made a radio announcement to the effect that the convenors had postponed the meeting to a date to be announced later.

Not even that unexpected announcement could forestall the holding of the conference. Contacted, all three convenors denied knowledge of any decision to postpone the meeting. To be convincing, that announcement needed to be taken with much more than a pinch of salt. And government was unable to provide such. What intrigued many an observer was the fact that government took upon itself to announce the postponement of a conference whose convening it had not previously announced.

At the end of the day the conference came up with what was styled the Bamenda Proclamation which, in effect, was a follow up to the famous Buea Declaration.

The twelve-page Bamenda Proclamation recalled the purpose and the circumstances of the inception of the All Anglophone Conference. It also reviewed the work done by its standing committee between the AAC I and the AACII, which included, among other things, the writing and the presentation of a draft Federal Constitution in both English and French, the effort made to establish dialogue with government authorities in order to address the issue of constitutional reforms.

However, the paper noted with regret the negative response of the government to the AAC approach, as well as the regime’s show of indifference to the state of Anglophone Cameroon as highlighted in the Buea Declaration. The document went on to restate that any union between Francophone Cameroon and Anglophone Cameroon would last, develop and prosper only if built on a solid foundation and sustained in an atmosphere of openness, etc. In that document, the AAC again stated its rejection of the Unitary State as well as its stand for a Federal form of government based on the dual nature of the country’s colonial heritage as regards organization and the conduct of public affairs.

The Bamenda Proclamation announced the dissolution of the standing committee of the AAC and the creation of an Anglophone Council to replace it. The new Council was required to secure constitutional talks between Cameroon’s two linguistic communities on the basis of the Draft Federal Constitution as presented by the defunct standing committee. In case of refusal by government to dialogue or to engage in meaningful constitutional talks within a reasonable time, the Anglophone Council was empowered to proclaim the revival of the independence and the sovereignty of the Anglophone territory, after having communicated with its people. The Council was further required to take all necessary measures to safeguard the independence, the sovereignty and the territorial integrity of Anglophone Cameroon. In the event of such a declaration of independence, the Council was empowered to transform itself into a Constituent Assembly, without the necessity of convening another AAC. The new Assembly would then draft, debate upon and adopt a Constitution for the independent and sovereign State of Southern Cameroons.

It was intended to wrap up the three-day long Bamenda conference with a press briefing at the Mondial Hotel, to which both local and international newsmen were invited. But then, the authorities saw this as an occasion to lay hands on the Chairman of the AAC, Lawyer Sam Ekontang Elad. As the press briefing was about to start, a fresh troop of security men, apparently brought in from Bafoussam, surrounded the hotel building. But before long, word of the imminent arrest went round town and the would-be captors of Lawyer Ekontang Elad found themselves roped in by the teaming Bamenda population.

In the ensuing confusion, the lawyer smuggled himself out of the hotel, disguised as a chief steward. He was ferried to another secret venue where he and his colleagues gave an emotionally charged press conference.

ADVANCED DEMOCRACY

A term which entered Cameroon’s political repertoire with the advent of the New Deal government. No one really knew what it stood for, since the regime’s practices had hardly changed from those of its predecessors. At best, it was just a new brand name for an old product. The same old palmwine in new calabashes.

THE ANGLOPHONE PROBLEM

For many years, Cameroonians of the Anglo-saxon sub-culture struggled to make it be accepted that there was, indeed, a minority problem in the country; and that they, the largest minority group, were victims of undeclared, but obvious marginalisation policies. For long, their pleas for an acceptable solution to what had come to be known as the Anglophone problem fell on deaf ears. Under the guise of national integration (the code-name for marginalisation), Francophones were being appointed to all key positions in the country. At best the Anglophone could only hope