Up Station Mountain Club

African Media Leadership Conference, Lagos, Nigeria

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Biya's Anniversary Letter: A Failure's Incantation

Published with permission of Nebafuh.com
By Neba-Fuh
In a letter to a nation, one would expect a 77 year old man who has
ruled  for 27years, to present a platter of  human and social
developmental strides that have marked his tenure this far at the helm
of the nation.  and how these achievements can be preserved by future
generations.  But Paul Biya - ruler of the Republic Of Cameroon is no
porter of a platter of any kind, after spearheading the plunge of this 
great nation to the abyss of poverty. No doubt his 27th Anniversary
letter to the nation carried a barrage of the  futuristic phrase ``I
will...`` , just like the fool at forty who is vowing not to be a fool
forever.

How Things Sometimes Work in Cameroon

By Njei Moses Timah (Originally published on Njei's Website)

...my parcel took 4 days to cover a distance of about 13,700 kilometers from Mumbai to Douala, while it took 5 days from Douala Airport to my place in Bonaberi - a distance of less than 20 kilometers.

It may help you to better understand how Cameroon functions if you follow the journey of this parcel sent to me recently from Mumbai, India. It was sent through DHL and I thus used the tracking number to follow the journey of the parcel online. The Parcel left Mumbai (India) on the 8th of October shortly before 1 a.m and arrived New Delhi (India) at about 7.30am that morning. It departed from New Delhi at about 1 pm on that 8th and arrived at Leipzig (Germany) at about 7pm. The parcel then left Leipzig shortly before 4.am on the 9th of October for Brussels (Belgium) from where it left at around 6.am on that same day for Lagos (Nigeria). It arrived Lagos at Midday on the 9th and left the following day 10th October shortly after 4pm for Libreville (Gabon)—arriving there shortly before 6pm. It finally left Libreville before 6pm on the 11th and arrived at Douala (Cameroon) that Sunday evening.

Democracy Now: Huge Land Sales to Foreign Corporations by African Countries

Democracy Now anchor, Amy Goodman interviews award-winning Indian journalist and activist, Devinda Sharma about the new phenomenon of companies buying up or leasing vast tracts of land in African countries. He believes it will cause starvation and loss of food independence in those countries. There are 8,000 companies vying for land in Ethiopia alone and the government is cooperating. What is the situation in Cameroon with regards to this global trend? Disclosure is in order. Give Your Kids What they Need, a Strong Education
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How Did Biya Manage to Make a Devastating Defeat in Banjul Look Like a Stunning Success

By Moy Manyi Eyong

For two weeks I have watched in total amazement how the Cameroon regime succeeded to use a single paragraph from the 42 page verdict of the African Commission on Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR) on the case between Cameroon and SCNC&SCAPO to temporarily shut the SCNC&SCAPO up.

I am sure in the future, this will be a great case study in the use of political psychology as a tactical weapon.

In the 42-page verdict the Commission got Cameroon to accept a guilty verdict for committing some of the most outrageous crimes of the 21st century--using  torture, cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment and treatment. The Commission found it offensive that the Cameroon regime attempted to justify these crimes on the grounds of fighting alleged terrorism.

It seemed a grave mistake in more ways than one for the Cameroon government to call attention to a document any concerned citizen could read online and see how the Commission hammered her; until the SCNC & SCAPO actually bought Cameroon's interpretation of the verdict (after having made the earlier mistake of not publishing that verdict themselves sooner). And when the African Development Bank announced their grant approval for Cameroon (reported by reuters in this October 5 article) a few days after the start of Cameroon's media blitz following their publishing of the one paragraph from the ACHPR verdict, it became clear that something calculated was going on.

Afrocentricity: Toward a New Understanding of African Thought in the World

By Dr. Molefi Kete Asante

Africa has been betrayed by international commerce and trade.

Africa has been often betrayed by the new science of the genetics of food, and the unequal distribution of resources.

Africa has been betrayed by missionaries and imams who have called our own priests and priestesses false while holding up Africa’s enemies as our saviors.

Africa has been betrayed by education, the Academy, and the structure of knowledge imposed by the Western world

Africa has often been betrayed by its own leaders who have shown a talent for imitating the worst habits and behaviors of Europe.

Africa has often been betrayed by the ignorance of its own people of its past. Africans are, consequently, the most betrayed of contemporary humans.

People so often betrayed must take a serious look at their own approach to phenomena, to life, to existence, to knowledge. The betrayals do not have to continue, nor must we resign Africa to the trash heaps of history as some contemporary Africanists and non Africanists have claimed.

A continent and a people with such incredible potential can rise to meet any challenge, but our thoughts must become truly our own thoughts, separated from the enslaving thoughts of those who have sought racial domination. Of course, when I speak like this, I am speaking of Africa in the context and spirit of Marcus Garvey. I accept that the African world is not merely a geographical entity but a world entity whether by our own making or as is most probable by the making of the assaults and attacks and aggressions against African people. We are found in every continent and we occupy positions of influence in countries as widely separated as Brazil and the United Kingdom.

My aim is to help lay out a plan for the recovery of African place, respectability, accountability, and leadership.

The African Commission on Human and Peoples’s Rights (ACHPR) Delivers a deadly Blow to the French Neo-Colonial Regime in Cameroon

By Moy Manyi Eyong

For a regime built on violence and the threat of violence, the May 13-27, 2009 decision of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’s Rights (ACHPR) can be compared only to driving an aspen, ash or white thorn stake through the heart of a vampire with a single blow.

LIES:

First the Commission took exception to the lies from the Cameroon government in relations to mails sent to them and did spare a second to point out what a dubious bunch they were before getting down to the case proper:

On page 6 paragraphs 28, 30 & 32 the Commission wrote:

“

…28. On 3 October 2003, the Respondent State [Cameroon] informed the Secretariat that it had not received a copy of the communication forwarded to it by DHL on 9th June 2003...

30. On 27 October 2003, the Secretariat transmitted a copy of the Complainant’s submissions on admissibility to the Respondent State and informed the latter that the Secretariat would give the accompanying documents to the delegation of Cameroon attending the 34th Ordinary Session. The Secretariat also informed the Respondent State that the DHL office in Cameroon had confirmed delivery of the communication.”

In other words you lied that you did not receive the mail.

“…32. At its 34th Ordinary Session held from 6th to 20th November 2003 in Banjul, The Gambia, the African Commission examined the matter and decided to defer consideration on admissibility of the matter to the 35th Ordinary Session because the Respondent State claimed that they were unaware of the communication.”

In other words you [Cameroon] lied to the Secretariat and to the full Commission. But that is not all either.

Brain Seek and Brain Chase: an attempt to complete the story of why highly skilled migrants leave their countries and what can be done about it.

Like many of you reading this article, over the years I’ve read a lot of literature and seen a lot being discussed about ‘Brain Drain’ and ‘Brain Gain’ with regards to the movement of highly skilled migrants around the world. Who gains from whom when highly skilled migrants move from one country to another has been well documented and is not the focus of this article.

By Hinsley Njila (Originally Published on Prince report)

ARROGANT CONTEMPT

The containment of bestiality in the man is apprehension of the consequences of wrongful conduct. That is what provoked and promoted the development of the reasoning faculty ending up with peaceful community life. The reverse would have been anarchy with “the survival of the fittest” as the unique crude law governing interactions.

By Hon. Ayah Paul Abine (Originally posted on Prince Report )

Lost Treasures of Timbuctu

By Vivien Walt
Timbuctu
Thursday, Jul. 30 2009

Stepping through a low doorway into his small house, Fida Ag Mohammed sits at a table and pats a pile of books in front of him. Even in the dim light it's clear that these are no ordinary volumes. The books are covered with intricately hand-tooled sheep- or goatskin; inside, hundreds of pages of yellowed paper are filled with Arabic calligraphy — the painstaking penmanship of Mohammed's forebears centuries ago. "One of my ancestors from the 12th century began our family library," Mohammed says. "There are hundreds of collections like this."

Those collections — stashed in libraries, locked away in closets or buried in the desert sands — have been preserved, in large part, by Timbuktu's isolation from the rest of the world. Landing in this blisteringly hot Malian town in the southwestern corner of the Sahara feels a little like arriving at the end of the earth. Dirt tracks melt into the featureless desert sands. Chickens peck in the shade between mud-walled houses. Little wonder that Timbuktu is a byword for remoteness. (Read: "Out of Africa: Saharan Solar Energy".)

But Timbuktu's manuscripts might just change that. The books date from between the 14th and 16th centuries, a time when the town was a thriving trading hub and intellectual center for West Africa. Now, scared that Timbuktu's 50,000 or so surviving books might disintegrate or be sold off to foreign collectors, African and Western organizations are racing to salvage the treasures, preserving them from the ravages of climate, dust and the passage of hundreds of years. Millions of dollars have been spent in laborious conservation and cataloguing of the works. A sleek new museum, completed last April, is scheduled to open to the public in November. The museum will display tens of thousands of Timbuktu's books to the world, and, its backers hope, shatter any lingering notion that Africa has no historic literary tradition of its own. (Read: "The U.N.'s World Digital Library".)

There is a catch, though. As Timbuktu opens to outsiders and word of its treasures spreads, so too does the interest in the books from outside collectors. In some ways, saving these old manuscripts could imperil them further. In decades past only the hardy visited Timbuktu; the journey required days of travel up the malaria-infested Niger River. Today, dozens of tourists arrive several times a week on small commercial planes from Bamako, the capital of the former French colony. Timbuktu has become a favorite jumping-off point to explore the world's biggest desert. As the modern world rushes in, attitudes among Timbuktu's youth — the generation who will take custody of all those precious manuscripts — is changing fast. Entertainment in Timbuktu these days includes sitting under the stars watching European football matches on satellite television. "This generation has the Internet, they see movies, they go away to study," says Mohammed, who is astonished at the changes he has seen in his 42 years. To look after the books "we choose a child who can take care of the manuscripts: someone who's always going to stay here." But kids keep leaving, the world keeps rushing in. Timbuktu's books have survived centuries of isolation. Can they survive their modern-day fame?

READ REST OF ARTICLE ON TIME.COM

Technology: Limbe, the Next Silicon Valley?

The founders of Limbelabs, a technology consultancy and startup incubator, explain why they choose to set up shop in Limbe and not Douala or Yaounde.

Of all the questions we receive about the origins of Limbe Labs, the two we hear most often are, “Why Limbe?” and, occasionally in the same sentence, “Why Cameroon?” Both are entirely valid questions—for Cameroonians, Africans and outsiders alike. Why indeed?

When one thinks about ICT innovation in Sub-Saharan Africa, a short list of emerging and established technology centers often spring to mind. Ask anyone with a passing interest in African tech about the locations of these hubs and you’re likely to hear a familiar list of cities: Nairobi, Accra, Lagos, Kigali, Kampala, Johannesburg and the Silicon Cape, among others.

Of Expensive Holidays And Uncommon Men

The confusion generated by revelations about the holiday transactions of Paul Biya in France and the manner of response of regime insiders only highlighted the sins of hubris, and undermined the decency the sovereign people deserve from their leaders.

By Tazoacha Asonganyi  (Originally Published on Prince report)

Paul Biya’s Vacation: An Idea For Obudu Cattle Ranch

By Pius Adesami (Originally published on Nigerian Village Square)

His country is one of the poorest and most corrupt in Africa but he sure can afford an expensive vacation. And the cost of his vacation is beginning to make tongues wag in La Baule”. That was how the news anchor of France 24 cable news station (France started that TV station in the vain hope of catching up with CNN and Al Jazeera) started her 7 p.m. news broadcast on Wednesday September 3, 2009. I hurriedly phoned to announce to some Nigerian and French friends who were waiting for me at a pub around the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris that I would be late. Something just cropped up on TV, bla bla bla. It is my last week in Paris and the friends had organized a beering session at the pub to bid me farewell. Next week, I return to the grind of Canadian academia after two months in France.

Gabon's First Lady Lives on Food Stamps in California

Inge Bongo Went From Luxury to Poverty, Now Wants to be First Lady

By DANA HUGHES

NAIROBI, Kenya, Sept. 8, 2009—

The new president of Gabon, Ali Ben Bongo, is the son of the country's ruler for the last 42 years and a member of one of the wealthiest families in Africa.

Gabon's new first lady is American-born Inge Bongo. But there'll be no inauguration ceremony or redecorating of the presidential palace for her. Inge Bongo lives in California and is on food stamps.

Read Full Article on ABC NEWS

Is the North West Region's Civil Society Abused for Belly Politics?

Originally published on Sherry in Cameroon

With permission from my colleague and friend, Julius Lambi, I have posted an article he wrote about some recent events in the North West Region for this blog entry. I felt he put the issues best and really brings to light some of the local politics, challenges to civil society, development, and democracy in Cameroon. Julius spent four months here with us, as part of his field research for his PhD Thesis, on how the NWR's civil society provides bottom-up pressure to the government of Cameroon. He is now back in Vienna, furiously writing his Thesis. Good Luck Julius... we miss you here and look forward to seeing your final results!

The “Jacobsean Fallacy"

Emmanuel Fru Doh

It is true that the internet is an invaluable source for the acquisition and dissemination of knowledge, yet, regrettably, it lends itself with equal alacrity to abusive and equally destructive use by some. Emmanuel Jacobs’ attack on Peter Vakunta is an example. It is always exciting for anyone who reads and writes, but especially for those in Literary Theory and Criticism, to encounter constructive reactions to theirs and others’ works. Accordingly, it was with a lot of interest that one followed the exchanges between Vakunta and his readers after his article on Pidgin, until Jacobs’ most vitriolic and personal attack.

Of Gramophones and the Talibanization of Government Communication

By Ntemfac Ofege* (originally published on Poswatch Magazine online)

Basic. The prime duty of government is to provide services. Whenever government fails to provide services, the citizenry resorts to all manner of ways including criticisms on radio and in newspapers, uprisings and coup d’états to abrogated predatory and failed governments.

Basic. The gramophone. Described as a willful artifact capable of producing sound of often dubious quality. A trademark of the gramophone: His Master’s voice. Whenever the pin of the gramophone got stuck, the instrument produced plenty of sound and fury, signifying nothing. The production of plenty of sound and fury is called noise. Cameroon’s current Minister of Communications, the esteemed Issa Tchiroma Bakary sounds like the final gramophone.

The Origins of Africom

What is the origin of AFRICOM?

Technical Education West of the Mungo

By Nsom Joseph

 

A CRTV Senior journalist after covering an event in the Government Technical High School Bamenda made this declaration in one of the crtv programmes “The Anglophone parents are not interested in technical education”. This journalist might have been pushed to this conclusion simply by the fact that he observed that there were more francophone children in this institution than Anglophones or that the French language was more commonly used in this institution than the English language. But if he pushed his observation further, he could have seen that there were more Francophone instructors than Anglophones and this could likely explain why there were more francophone students. The Anglophone parents value technical education even more than they do value general education. But they have a problem with the type of technical education that is available for their children.  

Cameroon: Parliament in the News!

Cameroon’s poor score of 5% on the 2008 Open Budget Index shows that the financial activities of public institutions in Cameroon are usually shrouded in secrecy that encourages corrupt practices.

By Tazoacha Asonganyi

The June session of parliament came to a close some weeks ago. The closure coincided with the much news about what is today known as the UK parliamentary expenses scandal, even if it was drowned by the announcement of a "new" government in Cameroon. Judging by the stir the scandal caused in the UK, it is clear that lack of transparency in the financial management of such institutions invariably leads to the abuse of public money, preventing the institutions from adequately discharging their assigned duties. The scandal led to "diminishing parliamentary and public confidence", and the resignation of the speaker of the UK House of Commons, especially because of his role in the expenses scandal.

Fastening the nuts and bolts of dreams

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."

 

Go and Rest Auntie, Becky Ndive We Will Miss You!

By Mabi Azefor Fominyen (Originally published on Mabi's World)

I barely dried my tears following Michael Jackson's death only to learn about Becky Ndive's passing on!

Devastated!

So I thought: what a cruel world we live in ! Is it so cruel that some "STARS "can no longer bear but pass on to a world beyond? Otherwise, how can Auntie Becky ( like she was fondly called) die when she was always so full of life?

She would weep for others and sympathise with many!
She would visit you if you were sick!
She would cheer you up if you were feeling low!
She would joke even when no one expected her to.

She would tell you to 'keep up the good work and be there for listeners and viewers'
She would make you feel proud of yourself in a 'house' where others hardly did same!

Why did Paul Biya wait until the publication by French-based NGO on his family, collaborators and personal fortunes to announce a new government?

By Tazoacha Asonganyi,

Cameroon has been in suspense for over a year, waiting for a new government. The arguments for a new government were many: the PM seemed to be bugged down by rumours about his involvement in the Presidential plane scandal – the so-called albatross affair – and actually had sessions with the judicial police; rumours about deals in Bakassi that led to the death of many Cameroonian soldiers,  including the DO of Kumbo Abedimo; the helplessness of  government as Limbe was taken control of and ransacked by an armed band that went scot-free; the February 2008 uprisings fuelled by a mixture of anger against constitutional amendments and generalised price hikes...

AIDS in Cameroon: Dying out of Ignorance and Denial

Our cook's daughter, Clementine, came to us last week with what we're assuming was shingles all over her breasts and underarms. Yesterday, she came back non-chalantly with hospital results that we sent her to get in case it was truly serious, not just painful. I told her to get tested for AIDS or I wouldn't authorize the funding of her medical treatment...

So Olivier, our African Director, comes in and shows me Clementine's test results. There it was--HIV POSTIVE.

I took a slow swallow and thought of her daughter, Majoie, for whom we care (her mother's always sick). So as I took in the shock that the strikingly beautiful, young 24-year-old woman in our kitchen has AIDS (full-blown it would seem) I was exposed to an even greater shock.

"She doesn't believe it. She's going to 'the village' to have a witchdoctor 'cure' her. Her Grandmother (our cook) says that it's witchcraft and someone cast a spell on her because they hate her. Clementine is not worried and is not respecting the medical information I'm giving her," Olivier said.

Click here to read the rest of Clementine's story.

A New Gang in the Neighborhood: The Collusions of Neoliberalism and Colonialism in Africa

By Valentine Eben
Originally Published in LeftTurn Magazine

The US is following the leadership of hundreds of years of European colonialism in Africa, using the cover of a worldwide “war on terror” as a smokescreen to assert military dominance in the region, while using sophisticated tools like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank to achieve economic dominance. For US activists, it is important to understand the role of European colonialism in Africa as the US brings its own model to the continent. Below, Valentine Eben brings us a short summary of recent European—and especially French—colonialism in Africa.

Rwandan genocide

The year is 1994. During a period of 90 days from April to July, the French-supported Hutu Militia went on a killing spree with guns and machetes. By the time it was over, 77 percent of the Tutsi population of Rwanda had been slaughtered by the Hutu militia. Thousands of Hutus who rejected the hateful propaganda from the Hutu Militia were also killed, along with their families.