By Joe Dinga Pefok
A crowd of commercial motorcycle riders (bendskins) Sunday, December 17, mounted barricades and blocked a major road junction near the main campus of the Douala University to demonstrate solidarity for two students who were expelled from the University recently.
It took anti-riot police some muscle to clear the traffic jam caused by the bendskin barricades. The Minister of Higher Education, Jacques Fame Ndongo, had also barred Jean-Bernard Tientcheu Patipe and Cletus Tse Tabang, President and Vice President respectively of the National Front for the Liberation of Students Consciences, FRONALICE, from studying in all the State universities.
They are now on hunger strike, which they began early on Thursday, December 14, to protest the Minister's decisions.The students pitched camp at one of the entrances into the main campus of the University where they have been lying on two small mattresses and drinking only water.
They have also been spending the nights at the same spot. A large umbrella is the only thing that provides them with some shelter. On the first day, security guards at the University had quickly destroyed the makeshift shelter.
Demands
Tientcheu Patipe and Tse Tabang have vowed to continue with the hunger strike indefinitely until Fame Ndongo annuls his decision barring them from studying in all the State universities and that the Rector of the University of Douala, Prof. Bruno Bekolo Ebe as well as the Minister resign.
By press time, the University of Douala had not made any official statement about the hunger strike or the decision to bar Patipe and Tse Tabang from all the State universities. The authorities had also so far refused to talk to reporters on the issue.
Although the public has shown sympathy for the students, it has, however, expressed disappointment with the reaction of the rest of the students of the University because many of them stop by to sympathise with the duo whose physical conditions are already deteriorating, and then move on to attend their classes.
ADDEC, UBSU Leaders Visit
The Association for the Defence of the Rights of Students, ADDEC, at the University of Yaounde 1, and the University of Buea Students' Union, UBSU, were in Douala on December 16 to visit their two comrades of FRONALICE.
The three-man UBSU delegation which was led by the Union's President, David Abia, concerted with their colleagues of ADDEC, and it was resolved that the two students' unions should quickly send a petition to President Paul Biya against the Minister's decision.
It is also worth noting that some former student leaders like Djountu Mouafo (former President of ADDEC) also travelled to Douala to visit the two students on hunger strike.
I respect the courage of Patipe and Tabang and thank them for standing up for the rights of students in Cameroon. I also thank all those helping to comfort these guys through this very difficult time. I call on other students unions, student associations and civil society groups to organize themselves against this decision so as to pressure the government to annul this illegal decision of the Minister of Higher Education.
PICAM (www.picam.org) has issued a press release on this situation (Minister’s Ban on Students, Illegal and Unacceptable: http://www.picam.org/DEM/demminbanonstudents.htm) as a way of exposing the illegalities of the Cameroonian society. PICAM has equally put up the subject for debate at its web blog (Cameroon Connection: www.picam.org/cameroonconnection). We hope that other civil society organizations will help publicize this case, which may create some pressure and the eventual annulment of the Minister’s decision.
My best wishes to you Patipe and Tabang.
Executive Director, Progressive Initiative for Cameroon – PICAM: www.picam.org.
Posted by: Eric Ngonji Njungwe | Monday, 18 December 2006 at 10:44 PM