Tag: Cameroon leader

Cameroon – Where Self-Hate is used to Keep a Country in Bondage

On By Dr. Y.In Great Moments, Great PeopleLeave a comment
Flag of Cameroon

It is no secret that the political climate in Cameroon is like an open wound for sore eyes. The Cameroonian regime which has been in place for the past 43 years, and since independence given that the current leader Paul Biya had been in positions of power 20 years prior, is known for being addicted to magic tricks and forgery! The regime’s latest magic trick has been to eliminate the best candidate, Maurice Kamto, by a wave of a wand, or rather a pen, a virtual pen. Over the past two weeks, we have seen a high minister of the nation erase the strongest candidate’s name on the election website, and produce a candidate out of nowhere, and then cement the whole with the stamp of the regime’s judicial arm that is the Constitutional Court this past Monday; all of this crowned by the silence of that double-sided international community (IC) which is always partisan in the face of Cameroonian pain (Cameroon and the Double Standard of the ‘International Community’). What is shocking in Cameroon is not really that a system is trying to maintain itself, but that the population has turned on its highest fighter and defender in bouts of apathy, and hate, hate of itself! I hear people spew insults and hate against those who ask the populations to fight for their freedom, and for their strongest defender of the hour, Maurice Kamto. Yes, Cameroon is a repressive dictatorship, which the IC still calls a democracy, but it is not a crime to dream and wish for a better country! It is actually a divine right!

I have been trying to find words… but Jean-Pierre Bekolo described this weird Cameroonian behavior better in Actu Cameroun. Excerpts below are from Actu Cameroun. Enjoy!

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Maurice Kamto

For Jean-Pierre Bekolo, “Kamto is disturbing because at a time when everyone was accepting the established order, he spoke where we were silent, dreamed where we survived, proposed where we suffered. He is the slap of reality for those who had become accustomed to looking the other way. So we hate him. Not for what he did, but for what he awakens. Because in a dictatorship, the worst enemy is not the one who destroys, but the one who reminds us that everything could be different.”

… Kamto didn’t steal. Kamto didn’t kill. Kamto didn’t insult. Kamto didn’t call for war. He just wanted to be president. And for that, Maurice Kamto was imprisoned, insulted, demonized, humiliated, and censored. Why would many of his own fellow citizens rejoice in his suffering?

… This is a more serious, more deeply rooted phenomenon: a toxic, collective hatred against anyone who dares to stand up in a country where you are taught from childhood to walk bent over.

In a normal society, one can debate, oppose, and propose. In a normal society, wanting to lead one’s country is a civic act. But in some dictatorships, like the one that still haunts Cameroon under the spectral shadow of Paul Biya, wanting to be president is seen as a crime of lèse-majesté, madness, an insult to the order of things.

… Kamto is certainly not perfect; he even has many flaws, but no more than Paul Biya’s regime.

The most worrying thing is that this hatred against Kamto is a symptom of the regime’s success. It no longer rules solely through the police, the army, or fear. It rules from within people. It has colonized their minds. It has succeeded in making the people themselves insult the one who speaks in their name. It has turned society against its own sentinels. The system has entered our bodies.

… It’s no longer just the government that represses—it’s society that self-censors, that self-punishes, that self-expels its own hopes. And this mechanism is much more sustainable than brute repression.

Tonight, Kamto may or may not be rejected by the Constitutional Council [he has been rejected], but the hatred against him, which is in fact hatred against ourselves, will remain, and that’s what must be stopped. Dreaming is not provocation.

Kamto is not hated for having acted badly if we compare his actions to those of the current system; we want him neutralized for having dared to imagine another outcome, another policy, another ethic, another way of being Cameroonian. He dared to disagree without fleeing, to protest without violence, to oppose without hatred. And this is what makes him unbearable in the eyes of a system that only knows how to operate in the shadows, contempt, and fear.

… In all this, it is not Kamto who is to be pitied. It is Cameroon. A Cameroon that celebrates the punishment of those who want to love it differently. A Cameroon that rejoices when those who dare to hope are repressed. A Cameroon that laughs at the suffering of those who refuse to remain silent

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GoodBye to a Courageous Leader : Ni John Fru Ndi and Ushering the Multi-Party Era in Cameroon

On By Dr. Y.In Great Moments, Great PeopleLeave a comment
John Fru Ndi (Source: NewsduCamer.com)

Ni John Fru Ndi, the major political opponent to the current president of Cameroon for almost 3 decades has passed away. Affectionately called “The Chairman,” John Fru Ndi came up at the twilight of the National Conference in Cameroon with the creation of the Social Democratic Front (SDF) in 1990. Over the years, his party came to symbolize hope in a place where there had been no ‘real’ leadership change in over 30 years. His party was seen as the main opposition party to the government for over 2 decades. He was unavoidable in the political arena, and ran for president several times. He came close to winning in the October 1992 presidential election, but through some constitutional gymnastics and some play by the Supreme court (always) his win was pulverized and given to the governing party. The Supreme Court judge who heard his petition alleging fraud, said his “hands were tied” – and let the official results granting victory to incumbent Paul Biya, with 40% of the vote, stand. This caused great upset among SDF supporters and Fru Ndi was placed under house arrest for three months in his home in Bamenda, and a state of emergency was declared in the country. Later, Fru Ndi was nonetheless invited with his wife to the inauguration of US President Bill Clinton in January 1993.

Ni John Fru Ndi (Source: Bonaberi.com)

Like everyone back then, Fru Ndi began his political career in the 1980s as a member of Biya’s Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement (RDPC). Through the years, he grew frustrated with the one-party system. In 1990, during the years of the National Conference when Cameroon officially ended the one-party rule, he formed the opposition party the Social Democratic Front (SDF). Although he hailed from the Northwest province of Cameroon (English speaking area of Cameroon), he strove to represent all Cameroonians, and aspired for the unity of the entire country seeking a federally unified Cameroon. He addressed the masses in pidgin English. Soon, SDF came to stand for “Suffer don finish” – where with his arrival in power, his party would usher the end to suffering. At political rallies, he would raise his fist to shout “SDF” to the crowd, who would chant back en masse: “Power to the people!” This call and response was repeated until the third time when they would roar back: “Power to the people and equal opportunities!” The masses were galvanized; for many Cameroonians who had been muzzled for far too long under the one-party frame, this was the opportunity to exercise their civic duties and participate in the political life of their country. They saw in Fru Ndi the alternative to the stuck-up politics. Their efforts were repressed by the governing party; the early 1990s were the years of strikes, street protests, “zero-deaths,” and more.

John Fru Ndi addressing the masses in Bamenda (Source: Cameroonpostline.com)

In recent years, Fru Ndi was not a supporter of the secessionist rebellion in Anglophone Cameroon that has claimed tens of thousands of lives and displaced countless people over the last six years. He was even kidnapped twice and beaten up by militants of the secessionist group in 2019, and part of his house was burnt down. The  secessionists were angered by what they saw as his betrayal for not supporting their demand for an independent state of Ambazonia, as they call Cameroon’s two English-speaking areas – the Northwest and Southwest regions. This forced him to sadly relocate from his beloved Bamenda to the capital Yaounde. He was very proud of his origins and rarely was seen wearing anything but atogho, traditional Bamileke clothing from the Northwest region, or Boubou: A Traditional African Garment.

Flag of Cameroon

Many claim that he should have united the opposition behind one leader against the government, as he had failed to get the coalition formed by the opposition to agree to field a single candidate to take on Mr Biya; or that he had been corrupted by the governing party.  Fru Ndi may have made mistakes, but at some point he represented the hopes of millions, hopes for a different future, a different alternative; and he had the courage to stand up and create a party who united people from all levels of the society, ushering the era of multi-party in Cameroon which was often paved with thorns. He has left a major imprint in Cameroon’s politics.

Below are some tributes from AfricaNews,

“I salute the memory of a singular, charismatic and courageous leader,” said current opposition leader Maurice Kamto who ran for president in 2018.

“The story of the return to multi-party politics in Cameroon cannot be written without [Fru Ndi’s] name in bold gold,” said politician Akere Muna, who ran for president in 2018. “His life is a lesson to the fact that leadership is about serving and not about being served,” he said.

“Ni John Fru Ndi for the SDF (Social Democratic Front, editor’s note) was the guide, that is to say, the man who traced the furrow along which we walk, the man who against all odds imposed the return to a multi-party system in Cameroon on 26 May 1990 and with it a set of individual and collective freedoms granted to the entire Cameroonian people” Marcel Tadjeu , Chairman of the Douala 5 SDF electoral constituency told AfricaNews correspondent.

Read also articles on the BBC, ABC, and AfricaNews.

Castor Osendé Afana: A Cameroonian National Hero

On By Dr. Y.In Great Moments, Great People2 Comments
Castor Osende Afana
Castor Osende Afana

Brilliant economist, Castor Osendé Afana is considered a national hero in Cameroon, however he is not as well-known as Ruben Um Nyobé, or Felix-Roland Moumié, or even his alter ego on the western front of Cameroon, Ernest Ouandié.  Like those three, he was also assassinated, and paid with his life for his passion for the freedom of Cameroon, and Africa from colonialism.  So who was Castor Osendé Afana?

Well, Castor Osendé Afana was born in 1930 in Ngoksa near Sa’a, in the Centre Region of Cameroon.  In 1948 he was admitted to the seminary at Mvolyé, in Yaoundé, where he became a strong friend of Albert Ndongmo, the future Bishop of Nkongsamba.  He was excluded from the seminary in 1950 because of his critical and rebellious character.  It is as a ‘candidat libre’ that he successfully passed the first part of the Baccalauréat.  He then started in philosophy at the Lycée Leclerc where he headed student manifestations demonstrating against the poor food service there.  He nonetheless went on to successfully pass the 2nd part of the baccalauréat in 1952.

Later, Osendé Afana obtained a full scholarship to study Economics in Toulouse, France.  By 1956, he was a vice-president of the Black African Students Federation in France (Fédération des étudiants d’Afrique noire en France – FEANF), and was managing director of the FEANF organ L’Etudiant d’Afrique noire.   As a UPC militant he ensured that the issues of Cameroon were well-covered in the magazine.  In 1958, Osendé Afana was named General Treasurer of FEANF, as well as being responsible for the UPC in France.

UPC Leaders (L. to R.) front row: Castor Osende Afana, Abel Kingué, Ruben Um Nyobé, Felix Moumié, and Ernest Ouandié
UPC Leaders (L. to R.) front row: Castor Osende Afana, Abel Kingué, Ruben Um Nyobé, Felix Moumié, and Ernest Ouandié

After the French government dissolved the UPC by decree on 13 July 1955,  most of the UPC leaders moved to Kumba in the British-administered Southern Cameroons to avoid being jailed by the colonial power.  In July 1957, under pressure from the French, the British authorities in western Cameroon deported the leaders of the UPC to Khartoum, Sudan.  They moved in turn to Cairo, Egypt, to Conakry, Guinea and finally to Accra, Ghana, where they were hosted by President Nkrumah.  In 1958, after Ruben Um Nyobé’s death, Osendé Afana decided to abandon his thesis and rejoin the leadership of the UPC, proposing himself as a candidate for the new Secretary General.  Nyobé’s successor, Félix-Roland Moumié, told him “There is no longer a Secretary General.  There was one, he is dead, that is it.”  However, Osendé Afana was designated UPC representative at the Afro-Asian People’s Solidarity Conference in Cairo in December 1957 – January 1958.  After Cameroon’s independence in 1960, the UPC continued to fight the government of President Ahmadou Ahidjo whom they considered a puppet of the French colonial power. Continue reading “Castor Osendé Afana: A Cameroonian National Hero” →

Ruben Um Nyobé: Fighting for the independence of Cameroon

On By Dr. Y.In Great People20 Comments
Ruben Um Nyobé
Ruben Um Nyobé

With presidential elections taking place this Sunday October 9th in Cameroon, with its plethora of opposition candidates, and no real organization, I thought that a trip down memory lane to the time of the 1940s-1960s when there was a real opposition in Cameroon will be very appropriate. I would like to talk about one of Cameroon’s greatest opposition fighters and freedom fighters: Ruben Um Nyobé, the real father of Cameroon’s independence.

Ruben Um Nyobé was a Cameroonian freedom fighter, and an anti-imperialist leader. Born in Song Mpeck in 1913, Um Nyobé was a stellar student raised in a modest family of farmers.  Initiated to the culture of the Bassa by his father who was well-versed, Um noticed early all the crimes committed by the colonial administration on the indigenous people, crimes such as indentured servitude, forced labor, dehumanization, spanking, beating etc…  This made him later write: “la colonisation, c’est l’esclavage ; c’est l’asservissement des peuples par un groupe d’individus dont le rôle consiste à exploiter les richesses et les hommes des peuples asservis“( “Colonization is slavery; it is an enslavement of the populations by a group of individuals whose role is to exploit the riches and the men of the enslaved populations.”)

Flag of the UPC
Flag of the UPC

On April 10th, 1948, the Union des Populations du Cameroon (Cameroon People’s Union or UPC) was founded and was first led by Leornard Bouli, and later Um Nyobé  was elected general secretary. The main goal of the party was the independence and reunification of both (British and French) Cameroons.  Its symbols were a red flag with a black crab on it: red for the blood of patriots who lost their lives, the crab as a reference to the reunification of Kamerun, and black to symbolize the color of the Black continent, Africa, the cradle of humanity.

The party was at first the Cameroonian branch of the RDA, of which Um Nyobé became one of its vice presidents in 1949.  However, the RDA of Houphouet-Boigny choose to cooperate with the French colonial administration, while UPC of Um Nyobé  refused to join in this treason and choose to continue the fight for the immediate recognition of the nation of Cameroon (independence), and its reunification.  Um Nyobé, the leader of UPC, was particularly charismatic, courageous, and a very good orator.  For the Cameroonian intellectual youth of those days, he was without any doubt the leader which embodies Cameroonian patriotism, and for the masses,  he was the hero who will bring a new dawn.  His aura was such that his name travelled into the country in rural areas.  He was affectuously known as “Mpodol” or “celui qui porte la voix ou qui défend la cause“, “the one who carries the demands.” He was particularly active, wrote political articles, held  meetings where as much as tens of thousands could be seen, met the masses, and moved across the country.

Ruben Um Nyobé with his family
Ruben Um Nyobé with his family

As the charismatic leader of the UPC, Ruben Um Nyobé (1913-1958), defended three times (1952, 1953, and 1954) the cause of Cameroon at the United Nations tribune in New York.  On 22 April 1955, the UPC published the “Proclamation commune” (Common proclamation), which was considered as a unilateral declaration of independence and a provocation by the French authorities.  On 19 May, Um Nyobé went underground and on 22 May, the French gendarmes dispersed UPC meetings and the party announced it would no longer recognize French authority. Following violent riots, the UPC and its branches were banned by the French authorities on 13 July 1955.  Since the UPC was then the main political party in Cameroon, the French authorities decided to support other, less provocative parties, to try to divide-and-conquer. In December 1956, the UPC which was banned from participating in the general elections, set up an armed branch called the “Comité National d’Organisation” (Organization National Committe or CNO) and started an armed struggle. A pacification campaign was performed by the French army which was actually a genocide perpetrated on the people of Cameroon, and culminated with the assassination of Um Nyobé on 13 September 1958.  He was murdered by the French army, near his natal village of Boumnyebel, in the department of Nyong-et-Kéllé in the maquis Bassa. Um Nyobé ‘s death set in motion events that totally decapitated the UPC (even to this date) as the strongest opposition party of Cameroon.  In essence, his murder allowed the French to set a neo-colonial state in Cameroon, which today still lives as a puppet state serving Western interests.  At the time, however, his fierce fight forced the French colonial power to abuse of its powers, commit a genocide (still not well-documented almost 50 years later) in the Western highlands, and Bassa maquis, and finally forcing them to award independence to Cameroon.

Ernest Ouandié, Marthe Moumié, and Abel Kingue in Geneva after Felix Moumié's death
L-R: Ernest Ouandié, Marthe Moumié, and Abel Kingue in Geneva after Felix Moumié's death

The independence of Cameroon, under complete French control, was proclaimed on 01 January 1960 and some leaders of the “legal UPC” rallied President Ahidjo.  However, others in the UPC continued with the struggle within the country and abroad.  Félix Moumié, Um Nyobé ’s successor, was poisoned with thallium on 3 November 1960 in Geneva by a French secret agent (William Bechtel).  Abel Kingue died in Algeria in 1964, while Osende Afana was arrested and decapitated in 1966. A post-colonial struggle by UPC rebels opposing the new Cameroon army (trained and armed by France) continued until August 1970 when the last battalion of the UPC, commanded by Ernest Ouandié, was arrested.  Ouandié was sentenced to death and was shot by a death squad in a market on 15 January 1971, in Bafoussam.  The civil war, resulting in the destruction of villages and use of napalm is estimated to have resulted in at least 30,000 to 500,000 deaths.  It has been conveniently removed from official history, both in Cameroon and in France.

In his book, Richard A. Joseph says: “He [Ruben Um Nyobé ] was undoubtedly one of the most brilliant political thinkers and organizers to emerge after the Second World War in Africa. Had he survived to lead his country to independence, he would most certainly be ranked today on the same level as Julius Nyerere, and the late Kwame Nkrumah and Patrice Lumumba.” 

Remember Ruben de Mongo Béti
'Remember Ruben' by Mongo Béti

Check out the website Grioo.com where there is a good biography on Ruben Um Nyobe’s life. Don’t forget to check out the website of Dibussi Tande. The great Cameroonian writer Mongo Béti wrote the book Main basse sur le Cameroun, autopsie d’une décolonisation (about the Cameroonian resistance led by the UPC) which was banned in France in the 70s, which led to him to write Remember Ruben in honor of Ruben’s memory.  As leader of the UPC, Um Nyobé  made several trips to the United Nations headquarters in New York where he spoke in favor of an independent Cameroon. I leave you here with the rare footage, the only footage of Um Nyobé speaking at the UN tribune.  This is the only audio and visual record of Um Nyobé  found to date. Enjoy hearing Mpodol speak!!!  It is a real treasure!!!