So Much to Learn...So Little Time: The Next Failed African State

Another African state is going the way of Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe, Yoweri Museveni's Ugandaand Idriss Deby's Chad et al. Cameroon, my second home is about to become an absolute monarchy. Paul Biya, autocrat, dictator and general abuser of human rights has, along with his ~~cronies~~ sorry fellow "elected representatives", decided that 25 years in power is simply not enough...he needs more. In other words he has not yet amassed enough of a personal fortune off the backs of the Cameroonian people and the naive donors who throw money at him to improve the life of the people.

There are many that say he has been a force for good in Cameroon; a country "invented" its former colonisers (UK, France and Germany) and one with around 250 different tribal groups and languages. People say Biya has done a great job in maintaining the peace in such an ethnic mix, not too difficult a job if you beat, imprison and generally punish people with impunity. I have a theory on this. It is not that Biya has kept the peace, but that there are so many different ethnicities that no groups can form a large enough alliance to challenge the hegemony. The only reall opposition to the power of the RDPC is the SDF, a primarily Anglophone political party, which due to the geopolitical divide of the country can never hope to gain enough support to seriously challenge. (Out of the 10 provinces 8 are francophone and only 2 anglophone)

In typical Cameroonian style, MPs were paid by the RDPC to encourage them to approve the necessary changes in the constitution. (I am surprised that this was necessary given that over half of Biya's cabinet are members of his own Beti tribe.)This bill which was passed on Thursday not only gets rids of limits to presidential terms but grants total immunity to the president for any acts committed during his term(s) of office.The problem here is that the political elite in Cameroon live a life of luxury far beyond the dreams and imaginations of ordinary Cameroonians; their lifestyles fuelled by extraordinary levels of corruption. (When I went to Cameroon with VSO in 2000, Cameroon was rated, by Transparency International, as one of the most corrupt countries in the world.) They are an elite completely out of touch with the populace.

Not so long ago I blogged about the disturbances which had hit Cameroon, ostensibly against rising food prices. Prices are still rising, and coupled with this destruction of democracy, Cameroon is on the edge. The miltary are apparently everywhere, rounding up groups of youths and imprisoning them. After the disturbances there were reports of corpses floating down the Wouri (Douala's river). Now, despite a return to relative calm, one of Cameroon's more outspoken singers has been arrested for using "strong terms" and thus inciting February's riots in his latest song "La Constitution Constipée."

In one of the few reports I could find by the western media, Radio Netherlands reports that corpses are being held to cover up the real number of people killed during the riots and that people were forbidden to mention that their relative had been killed by bullets.