The First African American President on his first trip to Sub-Saharan (Black) Africa and the Southern Cameroons Unity Conference 2.0 billed for Washington DC on August 7-9, 2009.
When the call came through we were just walking out the door of the Saint Louis
Park Methodist Hospital. Our little girl had twisted a muscle from trying to do
a hand stand while playing at a friend's birthday party. The doctor's analysis
of the x-ray was that it was a soft-tissue injury; no twisted tendon or broken
bone. Relieved, I was walking out the door when
my phone rang. "What do you think about the speech," a familiar voice
on the other end asked.
"Which speech?" I asked, not sure
if I understood his question.
"The Obama speech in
Accra-Ghana."
"No, I did not see it. Our little girl
had an injury; I am just stepping out of the hospital. As I said in our July
4th conversation, for Africans and people of African ancestry he is going to do
what he has come to represent. 'A self-confidence shot in the arm' for the
wretched of the earth; with a history that includes two and a half centuries of
chattel slavery, two centuries of European colonisation and half a century of
European neo-colonialisation."
"I didn't talk with you on July
4th" was the somewhat irritated tone at the other end just before the line
went dead.
It had been a hot July 4th day with temperatures reaching 85 degree Fahrenheit;
a cool evening breeze blew gently across Saint Louis Park, Minnesota, as I,
some friends, their families and neighbours sipped on our drinks on the back
porch of our hostess's house. The cookout was done and the last hot dogs and
steaks moved from the grill to the hors d'oeuvre table. After hours of
sustained assaults, the horsd'oeuvre table, now covered with several half eaten
dishes of desserts, ha
d managed to hold
its own. Mainly ignored at the moment, the table just gets a dip every now and
then from a courageous guest who just wants to try the taste of a particular
food. It looked like a recovering George Foreman in his corner right after that
historic fight with Muhammad Ali in Kinshasa, Zaire.
Pat--our host--was piling up and organising different canisters and containers
of fireworks on a wooden bench in an open space besides the swing set. Later
when they will be lit, some will puff and whistle before emitting an impressive
display of colours followed by explosions. Some of the fireworks will jump off
the table skid across the pavement in a disoriented manner like a cornered
Minnesotan wild rabbit, emitting red, green, or some other exquisite colour of
light as it goes. Minutes later the city of Saint Louis Park's 4th of July
fireworks will be going off at Aquila Elementary School; with the hiss, shriek
and crackle as they shot across the night sky before bursting into a fountain
of colours followed by the signature boom. It is to get a better view of the
city's fireworks that every year Pat and his family invite friends for a July
4th Party at their house--located directly opposite Aquila.
My phone rang and doc was on the other end. As usual, I was excited to hear
from him. "What’s up?" I asked. For close to two hours he gave me a
tip of how exciting his day had been. He had been talking to people he never
thought in his wildest imagination he would ever hear from again, having been
living in exile the last thirty years. He was talking to students he taught at
college in Africa, the years before he gave up his illusions of improving the
system by simply being a good teacher--after completing his studies in the USA
and returning to Africa. One of his former students --now a doctor in his own
right had run into another student who was in the same class while on a trip to
the US. The conversation eventually ended up about their former teacher and
somehow they got his number and called him. Thirty minutes into our phone call,
standing at the other end of Pat's building, I could see the guests moving
their seats closer to Pat's fireworks bench. It was time to light the
fireworks, but I couldn't stop the phone call.
Doc's call with his former student had extended to a phone-bank type activity
with him successfully talking some forty eight persons, his former students and
their friends, to get registered for the
upcoming Southern Cameroons Unity Conference 2.0 billed
for Washington DC, from August 7-9, 2009. The guy
only managed to watch the 4th of July parade. He missed out on the grilling
and fireworks to spend time mobilising people for a conference he would easily
describe as fastening the bolts and nuts around the dream of his fellow
citizens for the day in which they can live in peace and dignity, free from the
humiliation, oppression and second class citizen treatment of the last 49
years; since the forces of the French neo-colonial regime in Cameroon took over
their country. Their democratically elected government and parliament were
disbanded and an undeclared marshal law imposed. Augustine NgomJua, a former
prime minister, who tried to speak out against the annexation, was amongst the
first to be assassinated.
The drive home from the Methodist hospital took about ten minutes. As soon as I
stepped through the door I grabbed my computer and browsed onto MSNBC to watch
"Obama's speech in Accra-Ghana," I wondered who had called on my way
out of the hospital. Had it been doc, he would have probably told me up front
that the speech was way more than "a continental group therapy with Obama
as the therapist."
This might just be the time when the US develops its own African policy,
un-subsumed to that of Europeans, Africa's former colonial powers of Britain
and France in particular. Clinton and Bush might have taken serious steps to
increase US aid to Africa; the truth is that Africa's problems are more
political than economic.
The last American president to categorically state in public and behind close
doors that Africa needs to be allowed to run its own affairs was Franklin Roosevelt.
At a meeting to sign the Atlantic Charter at the Bay of Argentia, off the coast
of Newfoundland in 1941, President Roosevelt did not hesitate to go at it with
Churchill one evening after diner.
President Roosevelt
: ...I can't believe that we can fight a war
against fascist slavery, and at the same time not work to free people all over
the world from a backward colonial policy.
Winston Churchill: What
about the Philippines?
Franklin Roosevelt: I'm glad you mentioned them. They get their
independence, you know, in 1946. And they've gotten modern sanitation, modern
education; their rate of illiteracy has gone steadily down....
'The peace,' said [Roosevelt] firmly, 'cannot include any continued despotism.
The structure of the peace demands and will get equality of peoples...'
Roosevelt saw to it that his vision of free peoples was codified into the
Atlantic Charter. Unfortunately Roosevelt died four years later on April 12, 1945. The Europeans soon converted the US
into their new found bully boy for Africa.
A few years later the CIA helped the Belgian Intelligence Service in a coup to
overthrow and assassinate the first democratically elected president of Congo,
Patrice Lumumba. Not too long after that the CIA was at war with independent
movements in Angola, Mozambique, Namibia and the anti-apartheid African
National Congress of Nelson Mandela in South Africa. All Europeans needed to do
was tell the McCarthy terrorised US Congress that these Africans were all
communists.
When Obama said, "....Now, make no mistake: History is on the side of
these brave Africans, not with those who use coups or change constitutions to
stay in power. Africa doesn't need strongmen, it needs strong
institutions,"
This cannot have been to the ordinary people in Africa who have for more than
half a century fought exactly for those strong democratic institutions. I guess
the people most worried about Obama's words will be the French elite and their
Club 89 think tank--where policies to maintain French exploitation of Africa are
churned out on a daily bases.
-The French organised the assassination of Sylvanus Olympio, the democratically
elected first president of Togo. Their strongman "Eyadema" ran the
country for 37 years with an iron fist and when he died in 2005 his son took
over. Togolese watched in despair, seeing the hundreds of thousands of their
brothers and sisters the regime killed with impunity in its 37 years.
-Thomas
Sankara, the charismatic young leader of Burkina Faso--who fought
corruption, improved health-care, and became the greatest champion for women's
rights on the continent as well as a symbol of African liberation--was another
victim of the French. He was president at 34 and by the time he was
assassinated fours later in 1987 in a French organised coup, he had been
recognised by the WHO for his exemplary work to improve the health of the
people of the small West African country. The French strongman Compaore that
was put in charge has run the country for 22 years.
-Zairians managed twice to kick out of power the guy that will come to be known
as the most corrupt and brutal dictator in Africa, Mobutu Sese Seko. France
deployed Special Forces both times to shoot the leaders of the overthrow and
put Mobutu back in charge.
-In Rwanda, "guerre psychologique" (psychological warfare) tactics by
French special forces in an effort to defend their strongmen Habyarimana, and
stop democratic reforms, instigated enough fear and panic that would culminate
in the 1994 genocide.
-In 1992 a pro-democracy uprising in Congo-Brazzaville succeeded to kick out
the French strongman Denis Sassou-Nguesso who had been president for 13 years.
Democratic elections were held and a new president--Pascal Lissouba was
elected. Five years later the French organised the overthrow of the
democratically elected government and re-installed their strongman Denis Sassou-Nguesso,
and he has been president since.
-The other countries where the French have
done all to stop democratisation include Chad, Central African Republic, Gabon,
Cote d'Ivoire, Niger and Djibouti. The new members to that group are Equatorial
Guinea and Angola.
-The case of Cameroon is particularly intriguing.
The year was 1955. Across Africa the battle to end European colonisation was
raging. In West Africa, where the movement had started, the colonialists had
all but lost. In Central Africa,
French
forces were carrying out a massive bombing campaign against French Cameroon,
the first Francophone country to dare take up arms to fight for their freedom.
With T26 bombers and helicopters, villages were razed to the ground with napalm
bombs; classrooms, hospitals, dispensaries, and bridges were destroyed.
Everything was fair game. The leader of the French Cameroon independence movement
Ruben Um Nyobe was eventually shot dead by French troops. The to-be first
president of an independent French Cameroon Felix Moumie was assassinated by the French Secret Service on a
trip to Belgium to raise awareness about their cause.
To the west, between French Cameroon and Nigeria was a little oasis of
quietness, where two of the first most successful democratic elections in post
colonial Africa (1954 and 59) had taken place, with a functional parliamentary
system. This place was called by the strange descriptive name of the United
Nations Trust Territory of
Southern Cameroons, Anglophone Cameroon by
others. This brings me to another three hour call I received at 12:00AM of that
July 4th, from one of Doc’s co-organiser of the upcoming Southern Cameroons Unity Conference 2.0. The caller an Emergency
room Staff at a hospital in one of the mid- or western cities had called me on
his way home from a long shift at work. You would think he would be tired. I
hardly got a word in. He had obviously spent a gazillion hours trying to
figure-out how his ancestors could have trusted the British to assist them to
transition from a UN trust territory to self government and independence, with
the kind of reputation Britain already had on the continent. He went on to
explain why the present focus of emancipatory movements across Africa and in
Anglophone Cameroon in particular has to focus on consensus/horizontal
organising, as an antidote for the age-old European practice of eliminating
legitimate leaders and arming and propping puppets in their stead.
The territory had first been colonised in 1858 as the British Ambas Bay Colony.
Britain then gave it to Germany in 1887 as pay off for land in the Middle East
that both countries were fighting over. The Germans promptly added the
territory to their colony Kamerun. When Germany lost WWI France took over
Kamerun which became French Cameroon and Britain regained control of the
territory of Ambas
Bay which was eventually dubbed the United Nations Trust Territory of Southern
Cameroons under British administration (Anglophone Cameroon).
Initially considered unimportant, Britain
allowed the necessary process of development of self-governing structures that
eventually led to parliamentary elections and formation of democratic
governments in 1954 and 1959. Things changed with the kickoff of the
decolonisation movement. The
British wanted to hold onto the newly discovered oil in Nigeria by imposing
their lackey Tafawa Balewa as the first president of an independent Nigeria.
They became suspicious that Nigerian activists could contemplate using an
independent Anglophone Cameroon next door as a stage for prolonged resistance
if Nigeria suddenly became unsafe for them. Leaders of the French Cameroon
independence movement on their part were already using Anglophone Cameroon as a
safe base from which to launch attacks against French troops in French
Cameroon. It was through Anglophone Cameroon that renowned leaders of the
decolonisation movement like Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana and Sekou Toure of Guinea
provided support to the French Cameroon freedom fighters. French forces
eventually destroyed the French Cameroon independence movement.
With colonisation legislated as illegal by international law, France imposed a
former colonial cadre--Ahidjo as the first president of the newly
"independent" French Cameroon. He would later be replaced by Mr Biya,
who was a militant against the independent movement and demonstrated against it
on several occasions in Paris. That would be like one of the Loyalists
(British-Americans who opposed American independence) becoming the second
president of the independent United States, with the help of London of course.
Loïc Le Floch-Prigent, former chair of the French government owned oil
conglomerate--Elf said
"Paul
Biya took power with the help of Elf to hold-in Anglophone Cameroon."
Confident of continuous French control of
French Cameroon, France and Britain annexed the so-called Anglophone Cameroon
to French Cameroon. The democratically elected government in Anglophone
Cameroon was disbanded. The discovery of oil in Anglophone Cameroon will make
an already complicated situation worse. The new rallying cry for French
Cameroon nationalism is “the call to resist attempts by Anglophone Cameroon to
take away the oil."
The victims of this struggle range from a
former Prime Minister to an unborn baby who died when a French Cameroon soldier
kicked her mom in the stomach in a town called Kumbo in 1997. The premise of
French Cameroon nationalism is today defined by their opposition to the quest
of Anglophone Cameroon citizens for their rights to self-determination, freedom
of association or expression, a line the French Cameroon dictatorship has sung
for years over the airwaves.
President Obama's speech did have some
words for this kind of myopic, neo-colonial inspired definition of French
Cameroon nationalism: "But defining oneself in opposition to someone who
belongs to a different tribe or who worships a different prophet [or had a
different colonial history-my addition] has no place in the 21st
century...."
In an interview for the book "Guns and Ghandi in Africa" The first
president of Zambia and one of the leaders of the decolonisation movement
Kenneth Kaunda stated emphatically that: "France is the devil in
Africa."
In light of Obama's Accra speech, "...we stand ready to partner
through diplomacy and technical assistance and logistical support, and we will
stand behind efforts to hold war criminals accountable,... "
One begins to wonder if he is going to pull a Roosevelt on the French President
Sakorzy or just play safe and stick to increasing aid for Africans, or as this
writer thinks, pull an Obama. That is to say go at the problems with the same
calm and hyper-rationality that will end-up tearing apart the problem limb from
limb or, to use Obama's words, "we will look back years from now to
places like Accra and say this was the time when the promise was realised; this
was the moment when prosperity was forged, when pain was overcome, and a new
era of progress began. This can be the time when we witness the triumph of
justice once more. Yes we can."
With the hindsight of the Accra speech, had Doc been the one who called as I
stepped out of the hospital, he would surely have said, if Obama as president
of the United States is a new crest of the dream of the 57 individuals whom in
1776 risked king George's hangman to sign the American Declaration of
independence, that speech is a great milepost in Africa's march to total independence.
Activists for the struggle for freedom, liberty and justice for the peoples of
the former colony of Ambas bay (Anglophone Cameroon) meanwhile are looking to
their
August meeting in Washington DC,
Capital of the United States, as another chance to fasten the nuts and bolts of
that half-century long African dream.
As part of the Unity Conference 2.0
outreach effort to the American public, an Africa-Wants-To-Be-Free panel is
planned for Friday August 7, 2009. The
introduction of the Panel reads as follows:
Over the years,
the narrative that conveniently reduces every political conflict in Africa into
an age old "inter-tribal conflict" has succeeded to build a sound
proof wall between the American public and the underlying causes of most of the
conflicts in Africa. This has made it difficult if not impossible for ordinary
Americans to choose sides in pro-democracy struggles in the continent and push
the US government to actively denounce and pressure oppressive regimes for
change.
We are thus left with a charity-focused African policy as opposed to a
pro-democracy focused one.
In the foreword to his book on the role of the various players (France being a
major player) in the Rwandan genocide, the French historian Gérard Prunier
writes:
"The Rwandese genocide is the results of a process which can be analyzed,
studied and explained. Just as we can analyze study and explain the genocide of
the North American Indians in the nineteenth century or the genocide of the
Jews during the Second World War.
And this author thinks that understanding why they died is the best and most
fitting memorial we can raise for the victims. Letting their deaths go
unrecorded, or distorted by propaganda, or misunderstood through simplified
clichés, would in fact bring the last torch to the killers' work in completing
the victims' dehumanisation." "I hope it [his book] can be an
antidote to the idea that Africa is a place of darkness, where furious savages
clobber each other on the head to assuage their dark ancestral blood lusts. If
this book does nothing other than dispel this feeling (which sneaks even into
the recesses of many ‘liberal’ minds), it would have already fulfilled its main
purpose."
Discussing the ways of opposing this "inter-tribal conflict"
narrative is the purpose of our Africa-Wants-To-Be-Free panel, planned for
Friday August 7, 2009, from 6:00PM to 8:00PM at the Youth Centre Church of the
Resurrection Greencastle Rd, Burtonsville, MD 20866, Washington DC. We hope
this panel will be the start of a discussion to launch a USA
Africa-Wants-To-Be-Free campaign.
Similar efforts in France under the caption of Anti Francafrique (French
neo-colonial policies in Africa) or Africa-Wants-To-Be-Free France, have been
so successful that the issue of Francafrique became a topic at the last French
presidential election. The campaign has snowballed into the current
investigation by a French magistrate of embezzlements by three African dictators
--Omar Bongo of Gabon, Denis Sassou-Nguesso of the Republic of Congo and
Teodoro Obiang Nguema of Equatorial Guinea.
About the
Author
Valentine Eben is an alternative media activist from Ambazonia (annexed to
French Cameroon in 1961) and Editor of The IMC a New Model. He presently coordinates a campaign for
justice for students murdered by French Cameroon forces at peaceful protest.
For more information, see www.standingwiththestudents.org .
Someone is thinking
Posted by: facter | Saturday, 18 July 2009 at 11:34 AM
I finally get it. That Southern Cameroons is Anglophone Cameroon and present Cameroon is French Cameroon.
Posted by: Sarah Antell | Saturday, 18 July 2009 at 03:25 PM
See you at the conference, people.
Posted by: Mbo | Sunday, 19 July 2009 at 02:55 PM
This article very succinctly articulates the plight of the African and the Southern Cameroonian in particular, while pointing out the grip and consequences of the colonial infrastructure. I will be attending the conference in Washington DC in August to show support and help promote the liberation of the Ambazonian territory presently annexed to La Republique du Cameroun since 1961. Fellow Ambazonians and Southern Cameroonians rise like one man and support the Way Forward Initiative to take back our motherland. We need everyone on board as we move this struggle to completion.
From Obamaland
Banso power
Posted by: Banso Power | Sunday, 19 July 2009 at 05:17 PM
This is excellent.It is my hope that all interested groups should attend. See you at the conference.
Posted by: Chimasa | Monday, 20 July 2009 at 10:22 AM
Hope the resolutions of the conference will be followed by concrete actions.
Every single day, I keep contemplating on the solution to this nightmare. The gentleman's approach has failed grossly. Maybe we could try some guerrilla attacks aimed at eliminating diehard supporters of the regime. Any Cameroonian who has the effrontery to support Biya at this time, is not worth being part of the victories which we need to score at this critical period.
Posted by: Bob Bristol | Monday, 20 July 2009 at 12:32 PM
Sarah, I know. Like a Southern Cameroonian who has been trying to tell other people about our struggle I know first hand how frustrating the name confusion between Southern Cameroon and Cameroon can be in the way of relating our struggle to leave in peace and security. But finally we will hopefully come up with a different soon so that people can by pass the name confusion and listen to the message.
Posted by: Moh Manyi | Monday, 20 July 2009 at 03:06 PM
As a human rights volunteer who has worked in a couple of African countries, I am really surprised by how much this article has succeeded to change my mind. I remember how for years I kept telling my friend that you need to democratize the whole Cameroon. I am starting to think different both from this article and watching this movie:
http://standingwiththestudents.org/
Posted by: Travis Bartz | Monday, 20 July 2009 at 03:17 PM
I guess the most exciting thing about this article is the fact that it is written in such a simplistic and creative narrative manner that even someone who doesn't know squat about Africa was able to understand. Kudos and all the best with your conference.
Posted by: Abby | Monday, 20 July 2009 at 03:23 PM
The introduction about the Africa-Wants-To-be-Free Panel is so true it made me a bit embarrassed.
Thanks, I will go look for the book you referenced.
Good Luck.
Posted by: Ang | Monday, 20 July 2009 at 03:26 PM
Is Biya thinking: "Anglophone Cameroon? Soon Oil-Rich Cameroon versus Oil-Dry Cameoun? Still, a really different name without 'Cameroon' in it would make it harder for me to fool outsiders that Nigeria's eastern neighbour is just the southern part of my Cameroun". He should...
Posted by: Beeya | Monday, 20 July 2009 at 04:37 PM
Definitely agree. Getting a different name for the territory will be immensely helpful. One will he able to cut to chase instead of a winding history just to make people see the difference and not get deceived by the similarity in nomenclature. C u at the conference
Posted by: Egbembah | Monday, 20 July 2009 at 05:55 PM
With notable exceptions, our struggle has been hampered by a lack of sophistication about the world and the crucial partners whom we need by our side. This article indicates a remarkable advancement in thinking, which needs to be translated into concrete action.
Posted by: Ma Mary | Monday, 20 July 2009 at 07:23 PM
It is about time. This issue has been held hostage by egos and racketeeers. It is about time somebody took it back.
Posted by: Bankrika Jumbe | Monday, 20 July 2009 at 09:37 PM
Me too, I must attend.
Posted by: Oyez | Wednesday, 22 July 2009 at 06:01 AM
That is what I am talking about. We have to identify our interests and fight for them.
Posted by: Mbo | Thursday, 23 July 2009 at 02:20 AM
Generally in Africa, in our engagements with our future, we have elevated an illustrious son or hero to leader, then we deify him and expect him to deliver on his own. With rare exceptions, they have been intoxicated with power, from all the praises and abject worship. They start accumulating wealth and trappings of village dictator power. Then someone or people criticise them. They become paranoid, develop forces of suppression and surround themselves with sycophants and ethnic power brokers. This is the pattern, and it can be seen everywhere and with a terrible version in Cameroon.
The key to solving this problem is a consensus process which engages the people in their own governance and requires accountability from leaders at all levels. The Way Forwards Network employs such a process. It is one of the very few African organizations I know of that employs such a process, which is different in a fundamental way from the way we ordinarily do business.
If you are in the Maryland/Washington DC area, do not fail to attend the meetings starting today at 6PM.
Posted by: Ma Mary | Friday, 07 August 2009 at 05:01 AM