Up Station Mountain Club

Boko Haram and the Fear of Islamic Extremism in Cameroon: Part 3 – Beyond the Hysteria...

By Dibussi Tande


January 2012 was a particularly hectic and nerve-wracking month for Cameroonian security and intelligence services, along with political, administrative and religious authorities in the “Grand Nord” as they frantically tried to put measures in place to hold back what they viewed as a potential, if not imminent, Boko Haram tidal wave across Northern Cameroon.

Measures taken thus far by Cameroonian authorities to keep the Nigerian Islamist sect in check have ranged from the surveillance and arrest of alleged Boko Haram militants, a call to order and even outright closure of Koranic schools, strict control of who and what is preached in mosques, arrest of itinerant Muslim  preachers, setting up of checkpoints in the outskirts of towns and villages, sensitization tours and crisis meetings with local administrative and religious officials, and officials from neighboring countries particularly Chad, all of this crowned with the deployment of 600 elite troops from 32nd Motorized Infantry Battalion in Mora and the 4th Joint Military Region in Maroua, to monitor the porous Cameroon/Nigeria border. In short, the region is under a de facto state of emergency whose impact has been made more acute by a growing economic crisis stemming from the closure of the Nigeria/Cameroon border in a region whose economy depends primarily, if not solely, on cross-border trade. And the discovery of alleged Boko Haram “hideouts” in the region, along with yet unverified claims in the Nigerian press that Boko Haram leader, Abubakar Shekau, has sought refuge in, and is operating from Ngaoundere, have only heightened the growing psychosis in the region.   

Click here to continue reading this article on Scribbles from the Den.

Boko Haram and the Fear of Islamic Extremism in Cameroon: Part 1 – Boko Haram’s Cameroon Connection

By Dibussi Tande

“Biya was concerned about the threat of Islamic extremism.… He was beginning to worry about Islamic extremists infiltrating Cameroon from Nigeria and making inroads through Cameroonian mosques.” Wikileaks

The wave of Christmas Day bombings in Nigeria carried out by Boko Haram, the extremist Islamist sect which has its base in North-eas Nigeria, has once again raised the specter of religious extremism gaining a foothold in Cameroon.

In fact, long before the Christmas Day bombings, Cameroonian political and religious authorities had began to publicly express their fears of a Boko Haram infiltration of Northern Cameroon, and the spread of its extremist, intolerant and violent ideology to cities as far south as Douala, Cameroon’s economic capital (in the Christian South), which has paradoxically been described as “the most important center of Islamic effervescence in Cameroon” (2), and a “fertile ground for the development of proselytism through a subtle process of grassroots Islamization.”(8) (See When the Periphery becomes the Center: New Islamic Dynamics in Douala-Cameroon by Gilbert L. Taguem Fah).

So what links, if any, exist concretely between Boko Haram and the Cameroonian Muslim community? Are the conditions that gave rise to the sect in Nigeria also present in Cameroon? Can the dominant brand of Islam practiced in Cameroon withstand the influence of Islamic extremism? Or, is Cameroon already fertile ground for the rise of extremist Islamic groups similar to Nigeria’s Boko Haram or the Al-Qaeda Organization in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) which operates in the Sahel countries (Mali, Niger, Mauritania)? To answer these questions, we must start with a quick look at Boko Haram and its ideology.

Continue reading this article on Scribbles from the Den.

Full Text of Controversial Code of Conduct for Election Stakeholders in Cameroon

Dibussi Tande

During the second National Consultation Forum between ELECAM and stakeholders in the electoral process (i.e., legalized political parties, candidates for presidential election, civil society organizations, private and public media) ELECAM introduced a Code of Conduct for Election Stakeholders in Cameroon.

According to ELECAM chairman, Fonkam Azu’u, the code of conduct is:

“a legal instrument the corpus of which should not be considered as a mere enumeration of principles for the organization of a good election but rather, and better still, as a set of rules which we have freely accepted and which we intend, first of all, to apply during the up-coming presidential elections and, later on, during other elections such as the twin legislative and council elections envisaged for 2012.”

Click here for full text of code of conduct from Scribbles from the Den.

Cameroon Presidential Election: Opposition Coalitions Are Overrated...

By Dibussi Tande

1. If the 6 opposition parties that took part in the 1997 presidential election had formed a coalition, they would still  have been unable to unseat President  Biya with a mere 7.43% of total votes cast.
2. If all of the 15 opposition parties that took part in the 2004 presidential election had formed a coalition, they would still have been unable to unseat Biya with a mere 29.8% of total votes cast.
3. In 1997 only 1 of the 10 presidential candidates had more than 3% of votes cast.
4. In 2004 only 2 of the 16 candidates obtained more than 5% of votes.
5. In 2004 12 of the 16 candidates scored less than 1% of votes.
6. Of the 21 prospective candidates for the 2011 presidential elections not more than 5 can reasonably aspire to up to 5% of total votes cast.

In short, opposition coalitions are not as important in presidential elections as we tend to believe (1992 being the exception...). Having every political party go it alone may actually be better (in terms of clarifying the political landscape) than creating a coalition of disparate political parties, many of which are moles of the regime in power.
 
Candidates for the 2004 Presidential Elections

2011 Presidential Election: How Candidates Are Navigating the Social Media Landscape

By Dibussi Tande

The use of social media for political campaigns received a major boost in 2008 thanks the Obama presidential campaign which used social media platforms in a creative way to engage and mobilize voters. Since then, practically all candidates running for political office have tried to replicate the Obama social media strategy, with more or less success. Recent events in North America and the Middle East have also helped to highlight the power of social media as a tool for building a community of supporters or voters, engaging your audience, reaching out to supporters, converting skeptics, generating much needed media buzz, and raising funds.

One of the most striking novelties of the 2011 presidential election in Cameroon is the impressive number of candidates who have incorporated social media into their campaign strategies, even though the Internet penetration rate in the country is estimated at a mere 5%. Obviously, the target audience are Cameroonians abroad and the international community, and significantly, the international media, which can serve as an echo chamber for candidates and offer the kind widespread and free publicity which regular media outlets in Cameroon cannot – e.g., an interview on the BBC, RFI, and Aljazeera or on TV5.

Click here to read entire article on Scribbles from the Den.

Beyond the Partisan Rhetoric: Issues and Questions about Cameroon’s Diaspora Voting Act (I)

By Dibussi Tande

On July 9, 2011, Cameroon’s parliament adopted a bill granting Cameroonians abroad the right to vote in presidential elections and referendum organized in Cameroon.

 
Symbolic vote of the Cameroonian Diaspora at the Esplanade du Trocadéro in Paris in July 2007 (c) Le Code

On June 13, President Biya signed it into law, thereby complying with a demand, which along with calls for the recognition of dual citizenship, had been at the center of the political demands of Cameroonians abroad for years. The new political dispensation has been received with mixed feelings within the Diaspora community with many arguing that the law falls short of expectations  and does not resolve the systemic issues around organizing elections in Cameroon.

On the other hand, the Biya regime and its supporters have hailed the law as a landmark moment for Cameroonian democracy, which shores up the President’s democratic credentials.

Whatever the legitimacy of these competing claims, it is obvious that the debate over the Diaspora voting act is largely, if not primarily, driven by partisan politics. It is yet to become a dispassionate discussion about what is really needed to make the vote of Cameroonians abroad a credible and inclusive one that enriches the democratic process in Cameroon.

Click here to read the rest of the article on Scribbles from the Den

Full Text of Law Granting Cameroonians Abroad the Right to Vote

The National Assembly deliberated and adopted, the President of the Republic hereby enacts the law set out below.

Section 1. Cameroonian citizens settled or resident abroad shall exercise their right to vote through their participation in the election of the President of the Republic and in referendums.

Section 2. (1). Cameroonian citizens settled or resident abroad shall be entered on the registers of electors opened at diplomatic representations and consular post in their countries of residence or attachment.

Click here to reading the rest of the law on Scribbles from the Den.

Wikileaks: A Rare Insight into the Mind of President Paul Biya

In this most revealing wikileaks document on Cameroon thus far, President Paul Biya makes a number of interesting revelations during a February 2010 discussion with (former) U.S. ambassador Janet Garvey – a rare window into the mind of Cameroon’s taciturn and inscrutable ruler. For example, during the discussion the President "confirmed that more corruption-related arrests were coming under his anti-corruption initiative Operation  Epervier" (Sparrowhawk), although (contrary to rumor) he thought this would not likely include former Prime Minister Ephraim Inoni because the evidence against him was thin and he didn't steal much money".  The president also "professed frustration with China contrasts with the rising profile of Chinese investments in Cameroon..." Read on.

 

Click here to read Ambassador Garvey's entire report on her meeting with President Biya on Scribbles from the Den

Memory Lane (May 16 – 17, 1991): Opposition Parties Launch “Operation Ghost Town”

By Dibussi Tande

On May 12, 1991, 22 political parties and 10 human rights associations, including the Yaounde University Students' Parliament, met in Bamenda to discuss the political situation in the country. In their final communiqué, they gave  President Biya 14 days to reconsider his stand on the National Conference, and issued the Bamenda Plan of Action which announced a two-day nationwide Ghost Town campaign (also known as operation dead cities) on May 16 and 17.

On May 16, the Ghost Town campaign effectively began, the first to be jointly organized by the National Coordination of Opposition Parties and Associations (NCOPA), which would soon be known simply as "The Coordination." The Grand West (i.e., the Littoral, West, Northwest and Southwest provinces) and the major towns in the Grand North (the Adamoua, Far North and North provinces) effectively went "dead" while the three pro-Biya provinces of the East, South and Center remained "alive" with offices, markets, stores, and other businesses staying open.

Click here to continue reading this article on Scribbles from the Den

IMF Director, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, held in Custody in New York for  alleged sexual harassment

Translated from French by Dr. Peter Wuteh Vakunta

Source : http://www.rfi.fr/ameriques/20110515-le-patron-fmi-dominique-strauss-kahn-garde-vue-agression-sexuelle

 

Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Director of IMF was arrested on Saturday May 14 at the JFK Airport in New York on his way to France. Accused of alleged sexual harassment of a female hotel employee, he is being detained at a police station in New York at present. Dominique Strauss-Kahn is one of the political heavy weights in France viewed as a possible candidate for the Socialist Party during the upcoming 2012 presidential elections.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn was arrested aboard an Air France aircraft  bound for Paris at the John Fitzgerald Kennedy Airport by  security agents in charge of the ports in New York and  New Jersey and handed over to the  Manhattan police.  

The Director of IMF is accused of sexually harassing a female employee at the Sofitel Hotel in Times Square in New York on Saturday morning. The IMF in Washingston is yet to react to this  breaking news.

Mr.Dominique Strauss-Kah was scheduled to attend a conference of Finance Ministers of the Euro Zone in Brussels, and later give a talk on Wednesday at the 12th Economic Forum organized by the European Commission in Brussels.

The next day he was going to deliver a paper titled   « International Recovery and Cooperation: Challenges to Surmount » at the Peterson Institute in Washington on the subject of international economics. Mr. Dominique Strauss-Kahn has been Director of the IMF since 2007. Though he has not announced his decision to run for elections as a candidate for the Socialist Party, opinion polls have placed him top on the list. 

Dr. vakunta

http://www.vakunta.blogspot.com

Memory Lane (May 6, 1991): Bloody Crackdown on the University of Yaounde Student Movement

By Dibussi Tande

"In the days following the military crackdown, reports began to emerge of widespread looting and rape by soldiers, and of students killed and either dumped in a lake near the university or buried in mass graves outside of Yaounde."

20 years ago today, on May 6, 1991, elements from the Cameroonian security forces launched a brutal assault on the University of Yaounde student residential area called Bonamoussadi to decapitate the Parlement student movement.
 

The May 6 assault was the bloody culmination of a month-long confrontation between University of Yaoundé students and the Biya regime which quickly spread beyond the gates of the University, transforming itself into a nationwide civil disobedience campaign which was anything but civil.

The events that led to the attack on Bonamoussadi began fairly innocuously in late March 1991 when the University campus was flooded with tracts calling for a protest march on April 2 in support of a general amnesty and a national conference. On April 1, 1991, Chancellor Joel Moulen issued a statement banning the planned demonstration, and warning students that there would be severe reprisals if they went ahead with the march. Given the disturbances that had occurred in other parts of Cameroon and elsewhere in Africa, what Joel Moulin did was to effectively publicize and legitimize the demonstration.

Click here to continue reading article on Scribbles from the Den

Cameroon’s Diaspora-driven Cyberspace: A Platform for Civic Engagement or a Threat to the Biya Regime?

By Dibussi Tande

Simply put, the Biya regime has never viewed Cameroonian cyberspace as a viable space for civic engagement and public discourse, instead, it sees it as a threat to the regime – a space that must either be controlled, co-opted, contained, or simply coerced into submission.

Why and how the Biya Regime is obsessed with controlling online speech and muzzling Diaspora political activism.

On February 22, 2011, Issa Tchiroma, Cameroon’s Minister of Communications and the Government Spokesperson organized a press conference in which he lashed out at Cameroonians in the Diaspora for using Facebook and Twitter to try and launch Egypt-type protests in Cameroon:

"They are quietly living abroad and it is easy to send messages through the Internet or Facebook, instigating people to demonstrate. If they are sincere, let them come back to the country and compete within the ambit of the law for political positions. Government is aware of the intoxication, and these same Cameroonians in the Diaspora have been disenfranchised because of their treacherous behavior... Cameroonian families would not allow their children to go to the streets to be massacred."

The Minister did not explain why citizens exercising their constitutionally-protected right of freedom of assembly and free speech would be “massacred” and by whom…

Barely three weeks later on March 8 2011, mobile phone operator, MTN, announced that it was suspending its Twitter via SMS service in Cameroon after the government demanded it to do so for reasons of “state security” [the service was restored 10 days later after widespread international outcry].

Although observers with only a passing interest in Cameroon were stunned by the virulence of the Minister’s declarations against the Cameroonian Diaspora and by the regime’s brazen attempt to stifle online speech with the Twitter ban, these were just the latest in a series of actions and statements targeting the Diaspora and the Internet going back nearly a decade. In fact, demonizing the Diaspora is a longstanding tradition of Cameroonian authorities beginning with the Ahidjo regime which made it a national hobby of lashing out at "anti- nationalists" and "subversives" abroad.

Click here to continue reading the article on Scribbles from the Den

Cote D’Ivoire - Weeping With Every Tear in My Body

A Guest Post by Georges Njamkepo (Originally published on Scribbles from the Den)

"In Mr. Gbagbo's look, I saw the depths of his introspection into the recent history of his country; I saw the regret of having started this conflict, but most of all, for having accepted to play the escalation game which Africans have mastered so well..."

Poetry - The Citadel (Commemorating the 20th Anniversary of the Yaounde University Students' Uprising)

By Dibussi Tande

Memory Lane: 20 years ago on April 2, 1991, the Yaounde University students' uprising began. Find below a commemorative poem..

I
The Mobilization:
The fiery speeches
The protest marches
The huge rallies
The call to arms

The angry cries:
la conférence nationale
il y'aura !!
Fait quoi fait quoi
il y'aura !!
Ça gâte, ça gâte !!
Campus Mort!!!

The Digital Disconnect and Misconceptions about "Revolution 2.0"

By Dibussi Tande

Since the mass protests that led to the toppling of authoritarian regimes in Tunisia and Egypt, there has been lots of conjecture and discussion about the probability of similar protest movements spreading to sub-Saharan Africa.

(c) everyday ritual

There has also been a lot of hand-wringing over the fact that it may be difficult for these protest movement to catch on in this region with its fair share of sclerotic regimes that have long gone past their expiration date.

In fact, since the Egyptian and Tunisian uprisings, activists and politicians in a number of sub-Saharan African countries (Gabon, Cameroon…), have tried to replicate the Maghrebian model with little success. Undaunted, others are still planning to give it shot (Angola, The Gambia, Senegal, Uganda etc.) in the near future. In the case of Cameroon, activists, mainly in the Diaspora, used social media sites to try and nudge Cameroonians towards an Egypt-type uprising against the 29- year old regime of President Paul Biya. February 23, the third anniversary of the 2008 protests, was selected as the beginning of this protest movement. In the weeks leading up to that date, dozens of “Biya Must go” or similarly named groups and pages were created on Facebook.

In the end, the February 23 protests produced nothing but whimper to the dismay of activists who could not understand why their calls for mobilization on social media sites largely went unheeded to, and did not translate into mass mobilization on the ground in Cameroon. 

Click here to continue reading article on Scribbles from the Den

Cameroon Bans Twitter Via SMS to Insulate Itself Against Digital Activists

By Dibussi Tande

In a bid to insulate Cameroon against popular uprisings similar to those that have toppled regimes in Tunisia and Egypt in recent months, the government of Cameroon has forced mobile operator MTN end its five-month old partnership with the microblogging giant Twitter, and to discontinue its Twitter short code service.
 

This service allowed MTN subscribers to receive tweets for free and send tweets at the standard SMS rates.

In should be recalled that during his press conference of February 22, 2010, Cameroon’s Minister of Communications and regime spokesperson had lashed out at Cameroonians in the Diaspora who were using Facebook and Twitter to try and launch Egypt-type protests in Cameroon. And, during the February 23 protests , the international media relied primarily on Tweets for information on what was going on in the country.

Obviously, the government has failed to learn the lesson from North Africa, particularly in Tunisia where the Ben Ali regime was still toppled even though it had banned all social media sites for years and had engaged in a sophisticated cyber-war with Tunisian digital activists.

Click here to continue reading this article on Scribbles from the Den.

Kah Walla In Her Own Words: "We Now Have Extreme Clarity on the Absolute Need for Change"

Hello all,

The good news is: all who marched today are stronger morally and mentally than when we started the day.  In addition, there are no broken bones, or grave injuries. 
 
Kah Walla gives victory sign at police truck firing a water cannon

Most of the people participating in the protest were doing so for their first time.  In spite of the extreme and completely unnecessary brutality exhibited by the police, all of us feel stronger than ever in our resolve to bring about change in Cameroon.  We are also confirmed in our strategy of non-violence in spite of having very violent forces of law and (dis)order before us. 

So what happened?

 Click here to continue reading at Scribbles from the Den

February 23 Protests: Rapid Intervention Unit Brutalizers Demonstrators

The BIR at work again...

 
More images of police brutality on presidential aspirant Kah Wallah available on The Chia Report.

The Army As The Central Factor In The Succes of "Street Revolutions"

By Dibussi Tande

In  a recent article on why the streets in sub-Saharan Africa have remained silent while massive anti-regime protests rock North Africa, the Christian Science Monitor posits that this is due to weak civil society organizations:
 

"Regime change is common in Africa, but it tends to come from the barrel of a gun and not because of street demonstrations, says Achille Mbembe, an historian at Witwatersrand University in Johannesburg. This means there are few organizations with the power to challenge the authority of rulers, to organize dissenters, and to articulate alternative ideas of government that ordinary people would be willing to give their lives for.

“Civil society organizations are often weak because they are divided along ethnic lines, and many nongovernmental organizations are simply revenue-generating activities, so they are not very helpful in building the values of a deep civil society,” says Mr. Mbembe".

Mbembe is correct about the absence of viable CSOs in most of sub-Saharan Africa that can to take control of, and organize sustained mass protest movements. However, this only partially explains the inability to ovethrow dictatorial regimes through street protests. The fact that street demonstrations don’t generally result in regime change in Sub-Saharan Africa is due in large part to the role of the military than anything else. 

Introducing "Cameroon on Twitter Daily" - An Online Newspaper

Cameroon on Twitter Daily is a collection of links to all Cameroon-related stories shared on Twitter which are then published daily in an easy to read newspaper-style format. Click here to read or subscribe to the daily newspaper.

Related articles

• Uphill battle against poaching in Cameroon (theworld.org)

Focus on Africa Magazine (With Special Report on Cameroon) Now On Sale

The January-March 2011 issue of the BBC's Focus on Africa Magazine is now on sale worldwide.

 
This issue has a special report on Cameroon, which according to the magazine's Twitter page, covers issues such as the country's the current leadership, the fight against corruption, Pentecostal churches and how they are affected by Biya's leadership, etc. Among the articles in the magazine is one by Up Station contributor, Dibussi Tande, who writes about the government of Cameroon's reation to, and its attempts to control online dissent.

Get your copy now!

An Afternoon with FW De Klerk: A Talk About The Tansformative Power of Change

By Dibussi Tande

Last Friday, December 10, 2010, I had the privilege of listening to a talk by former South African President Frederick W De Klerk about the transformative power of change.


The former president had been invited to Chicago to talk about “the important lessons of negotiation, management of change, and leadership that led to the peaceful end of apartheid under his leadership,” with a focus “on the risks and sometimes leaps of faith involved in this fundamental agreement to bring lasting peace,” and “how his success can be translated into any organization's business model.”

De Klerk began his talk by emphasizing that the ability to adapt to change was one of the key distinguishing features of humans. He said that when humans or institutions are confronted with change, they deal with it in three ways. They can resist change, let themselves be swept away by that change, or accept the change and harness its transformative power. He said these were the choices that South Africa faced when he took office in 1989; the country was isolated internationally, was facing a downward spiral of violence and repression, and its economy was going downhill. The Apartheid regime therefore had to decide which of the three options it would adopt.

Click here to continue reading the article on Scribbles from the Den.

Related articles

• Embassy cables reveal Nelson Mandela release plan (guardian.co.uk)
• US embassy cables: Essa Moosa talks about Mandela and other topics (guardian.co.uk)
• Cape Town to finally honour Mandela (guardian.co.uk)
• US embassy cables: Giving Jacob Zuma the benefit of the doubt (guardian.co.uk)
• us embassy cables - jacobs zuma life & times part 3 (propagandapress.wordpress.com)

Memory Lane (October 1992): A Tale of Two Presidents – Paul Biya and John Fru Ndi

By Dibussi Tande

"I have accepted the verdict of my people and I declare myself ready to assume the mission of President of the Republic that they have just confided in me" – John Fru Ndi, October 21, 1992

"I am and will remain the president of all Cameroonians without exception, and the great winner in these elections is democracy" – Paul Biya, October 23, 1992

 
The West African nation of Cote d’Ivoire is once again caught up in a political maelstrom following the controversial second round presidential elections which ended with the two contenders, Laurent Gbagbo, the outgoing President, and Alassane Ouattara, the country’s leading opposition figure and former Prime Minister, both being declared the winners.

Click here to read the rest of the article on Scribbles from the Den

 

Twitter Partners With MTN to Establish an SMS Shortcode in Cameroon

Originally published on Scribbles from the Den

Thanks to a partnership between the microblogging platform, Twitter, and MTN Cameroon, MTN subscribers in Cameroon can now send tweets from any mobile phone. To get started, they simply  text "START" to 8711.  Using this shortcode means not having to pay international SMS charges when using Twitter from Cameroon - standard messaging rates apply, but receiving tweets is free.

For details watch the following interview with Jessica Verrilli, Director of Strategic Initiatives & Corporate Development at Twitter. Interview conducted by Edouard Tamba during the Africa Media Leaders Forum in Yaoundé.

Note: Short codes (also known as short numbers) are special telephone numbers, significantly shorter than full telephone numbers, that can be used to address SMS and MMS messages from mobile phones or fixed phones (Wikipedia)

 

 

 

Paul Biya: 28 Years of High Expectations, Abandoned Visions, and Dashed Dreams

By Dibussi Tande (Originally published on Scribbles from the Den in 2007)

When Paul Biya became president on November 6, 1982, he  seemed determined to  break away from, and put an end to the clientelist policies of the Ahidjo era; to establish a more humane nationalist agenda that respected ethnic and linguistic diversity but frowned on tribalism; encourage state decentralization; and introduce grassroots democracy within the single party. These ideas formed the bedrock of Paul Biya's "New Deal" philosophy which he articulated during the first five years of his rule, and whose basic principles were later published in a 1987 political manifesto titled Communal Liberalism.