Human Rights Abusers Have No Hiding Place

Interviewed By Azore Opio

We are in Cameroon - the home of probably the gentlest people in the world and the only people in the known universe who are so tame and peaceful. But underneath this veneer of tranquillity and peace, Cameroonians have, over the years, been surreptitiously abused, tortured and traumatised with the aid of state apparatus. For most of the time, the forces of law and order have used state powers to punish in excess, defaulting citizens without respect for the law. The tortured and abused, meanwhile, have hardly had recourse to the scale of justice. This amounts to a threnody of grief for the Cameroonian quasi-peace and deceptive tranquillity. However, as the years pass and human rights have been cautiously adumbrated, the delicate moment has arrived to go beyond the nugatory gesture of mere respect of the law. It is in this light that the Centre For Human Rights And Democracy In Africa, CHRDA, under the youthful and visionary leadership of Felix Agbor Nkongho, has put its best foot forward. With offices in Cameroon, Freetown (Sierra Leone) and Atlanta in the US, CHRDA's goal is to be the foremost centre for human rights research in Africa and take it to higher heights. This much and more, was fielded by Nkongho in an exclusive interview with The Post.

The Post: What is Centre for Human Rights and Democracy in Africa all about?

Agbor: Ours is an independent, apolitical and non-profit organisation dedicated to the advancement of human rights and the promotion of democracy in Africa. Our mission and vision stretches beyond the promotion and enforcement of human rights issues to embrace the development of democracy to advance human liberty and prosperity.

What inspired CHRDA?

The idea of promoting human rights began nagging me in the 1990s at Yaounde University where I belonged to Parlement - the students' movement then. I remember observing blatant human rights violations at the launching of the Social Democratic Front, SDF, party - illegal detentions and harassment of law-abiding citizens and even foreigners by police and gendarmes.

Afterwards, the urge to become a human rights activist grew by leaps and bounds until in 1997 when I formed the Committee for the Defence of Human Rights. But I would leave for Belgium in November of that year to pursue an LLM in International and European Comparative Law.

While in Belgium, I was elected the 1st Chairperson of The Southern Cameroons European Coordinating Committee and I led a delegation to the European Union Parliament. Then for four years, I was a doctoral researcher but I dropped that programme and left for the US in August 2005 to pursue a graduate programme at the University of Notre Dame in International Human Rights Law.

That is where I met people like Alfa Sesay, Avitus Agbor, Keribu Okioga (Kenyan), Babafemi Akinrinade (Nigerian) Fred Mulundia (Rwanda) with whom I transformed the Committee for the Defence of Human Rights to the Centre for Human Rights and Democracy in Africa.

What is your target population?

The oppressed and the oppressors. As a vanguard of human rights and the rule of law in Africa, we represent the oppressed so that they can have redress. For the oppressors, we would engage them and dialogue with them. That is why our motto is from human wrongs to human rights.

And how do you plan to execute your good intentions?

We are a pro-active organisation. We won't wait for human rights to be violated first before we step in. We try to prevent human rights violations by educating and training government officials, especially law enforcement officers - the police, gendarmes, the army, customs officials, tax collectors, forest guards and so on - we don't want to cultivate a bellicose situation with the government.

We have written to the Southwest Governor, the Minister Delegate of National Security and the Minister Delegate of Internal Security. The Governor has already responded positively. We also have a library in our office housed in the P&T Credit Union building in Buea, filled with publications on human rights from the Red Cross and the United Nations High Commission for Human Rights.

As for the oppressed, we will go further afield and render, for example, pro bono (free) legal aid for those who have been awaiting trial for too long. In this vein, we have a legal aid group that is building up a database for that purpose. We also plan to come up with a yearly human rights report rather than rely on foreign organisations.

Drawing from a cross-section of your target population, it seems CHRDA is confined to city limits…

No! We are not a city human rights organisation. We are community-based. We will get to the grassroots, sensitise them through their local chiefs, quarter heads and churches. We won't stop there. We will extend our services beyond civil and political rights to promote economic, social, cultural and self-determination rights.

Our plan is not only to educate the rural communities on domestic violence and children's right per se, but to also help them have potable water, good education and so on. We would also render services to other human rights organisations and political parties; train lawyers to follow up violations and write complaints. In short, we render services to just about anybody - teachers, civil servants et cetera.

What do you say about the impunity with which some African leaders have persecuted their citizens? Do you see an end of it in sight?

Impunity is coming to an end. The theory of sovereignty - non-interference in national affairs - that African leaders relied on to purge their 'enemies' has been eroded by developments in International Law. For example, in the present dispensation of International Criminal Justice, torture constitutes a crime against humanity and war crime is now prosecutable - both crimes can be prosecuted anywhere in the world, regardless of national boundaries.

In addition, the fact that Charles Taylor is answering charges of war crimes; that Sudan has been referred to the International Criminal Court, ICC, to investigate its top government officials in regard to Darfur and yet it is not a signatory to the ICC; that ICC is investigating both the Ugandan government and the Lord's Resistance Army; that Hissen Habre might be brought to book sooner or later; that Mengistu was tried and sentenced in absentia, is enough indication that gone are the days of state impunity. African despots should be prepared to face the music.

Would you say Cameroonians in the Diaspora are fully aware of human rights abuses in their country?

Absolutely! I am very impressed with The Post website and Afroinfo. Cameroonians in the Diaspora engage in very fruitful intellectual debates about their country, but amazingly, whenever I come back home and I try to engage people in conversations pertaining to politics, the economy and the society, they simply tell me with a wave of the hand: "You don come again wit dat your whiteman sense!" And the conversation stops there.

It is because of this that CHRDA is organising a symposium on Challenges in the Protection and Prevention of Human Rights on September 7, 2007 at Alliance Franco Camerounaise, Buea, with Dr. Kenneth Nsor, Nigerian Consul General, Buea as keynote speaker on The Role of Diplomacy and Charly Ndi Chia, Editor-in-Chief of The Post Newspaper discussing The Role of the Press/Media. Other topics will include the Role of the Clergy, Media and Judiciary in the Protection and Prevention of Human Rights and Law as Mechanism of Female discrimination.

What is your impression of the Cameroon civil society?

Our civil society is moribund. We need to move a discourse. We need to go beyond partisan. We need visionary leaders - a third voice for the people; not the voice of the oppressor passing for the voice of the people.

There is general apathy and frustration with the political system, the opposition and the political party messiahs. There is no difference between the ruling party and the opposition. We don't need any more messianic leaders.

In fact, the constitution should be amended to reduce the President's mandate to five years, Parliament to five years too - everything should be at par. President Biya could midwife change a la Boris Yeltsin transition to Putin and bring impunity to an end.

Comments

[simplice]

"Absolutely! I am very impressed with The Post website and Afroinfo. Cameroonians in the Diaspora engage in very fruitful intellectual debates about their country" by Agbor of newly founded CHRDA

That was a good point agbor;now let elements of this forum understand it's meaning and vacate the sheild of "barbarism" still "cocooning" them from more mature,pluralistic and diversified debates. Paa Ngembus, take note.

But is Agbor of the SCNC?. Please censure this with me:to use his own words:

"While in Belgium, I was elected the 1st Chairperson of The Southern Cameroons European Coordinating Committee and I led a delegation to the European Union Parliament
"by Agbor of CHRDA

Agbor, what you're doing for Africa and Cameroon is quite great. Please I need your web-site so we can work together.
But yet I have a word of advice. Please make your stance known. Are you an SCNC advocate or not?. For the comment above entitled to your person betrays your identity a great spell. Just a word of advice, if "La Republique" discovers you're out to spread the SCNC gospel, they will cut your wings before you fly.

And if you "were" an SCNC activist,please tell us how you repented from it, as I'm sure Paa Ngembus, Rexon and myself will have a lesson to draw from it.
Please I still insist ,I need your website or e-mail address. We can closely work on Human Rights issues in our fatherland.Use the following e-mail address to get to me: emilygn001@yahoo.com

[Ma Mary]

Simplice, Agborballa is not the only openly Southern Cameroonian human rights lawyer. Chief Charles Taku, Professor Carlson Anyangwe and Barrister Harmony Bobga immediately come to mind. It is very easy to conflate the ex British Cameroons cause with the SCNC. It is a play of words meant to confuse the people about historical truths. Be not deceived.

Here is some nice weekend reading:

READ THIS WITH CARE

Do not rush...

If you have time,

READ THIS ONE TOO

Thank you for your time

[Ma Mary]

Simplice, fatherland or Vaterland is a term that the historically astute now avoid to describe their countries, because it is synonymous with the aggressive nationalism of the Nazis. It is also synonymous with the destructive, deceptful nationalism and annexationist tendencies of the francocamerounese. You want to avoid the truth of the annexation of the ex British Cameroons. You want us to repent and to be compliant . Is this some kind of pseudoChristianity with notions of sin?

What and who are you?

There is some reading attached above for those with questioning minds, who can see the lie of the Vaterland in which they are not really citizens but annexed subjects.

[Ambassador]

I was elected into the Southern Cameroons coodinating committee alongside Agbo Felix Nkongho. He vanished after being installed and only resurfaced infront of the European parliament to present a petition he never wrote nor even read. We did the job for him and to us he had left the struggle. Any need trying to pride himself as the first chairman of the committee? I am not agaisnt his campaign against human abuses in africa, but i also think he should directly be concerned about freeing himself and country (Southern Cameroons) from the barbarism of LRC. African dictators as a whole should be the next fight

[Ted]

Cameroon and most of sub-saharan Africa's problems are undereducation, underdevelopment and many others and these problems are not caused by human rights abuse, instead, these problems have caused human rights abuse.

[Legima Doh]

Fellow Comrades and people of the Southern cameroons .
Agbor,that is a very innovative approach.I hope you shall through it,try to address the plight of the Southern cameroons.I say so because I see from your answers to the post interviewer that you are trying to execute under the aegis of members of la republique government.When u name all the human rights abuse in cameroon,it must be borne in mind that it is meted indiscriminately on the Southern cameroonians.I also expected the post to have quizzed Agbor on his stance with freedom fighters in cameroon especially the ScNc activists since he mentioned having been one time president of a branch of it.On the other hand,I also expected Agbor to have said something about the result of his involvement in the ScNc as at now and his stance on it hitherto.He must bear in mind that ,such a vision of eradicating human rights violations must first begin at home,where he stands in the Southern cameroons wherein there is blatant abuse by occupational forces of la republique.All the gendarmes, police,forest guards,tax officials etc who violate the human rights of the people of the Southern cameroons and abuse them are a machinery of the regime in place.The best way to tackle abuse in our motherland is to uproot the deeply seated machinery of the occupational regime, to eject them out of the land they illegally and unjustly occupy, abuse the landowners, leave the land bereft of her resources,rape, maim ,and kill the sons of the land.I really like Agbor's vision but that must go deeply and independently as he claimed.It must be carried out in cameroon independent of the la republique government.

USAfrica,
Comrades Rexon and comrade Legima Doh have not been absented from this forum.Mind you our activism as far as the Scnc course is concerned in unrelenting.Presence in this forum is by either reading or commenting or both.We have been seemingly absent and thanks to that we have learned a whole lot.We have been elated by the stout sensitization campaign that our fellow comrades have put against your ill fate indoctrination about the Scnc course.In this regard I want to salute them with grateful thanks.You have demonstrated lack of strategy as part of your's cos everyday you say philosophies against our course and yet have not even in the brink of an eyelid ever opined anything positive about the course.Remember I told u time ago that a good critic criticizes by acknowledging the strengths of an argument, then presents the weaknesses and then proposes what he thought ought to be done to counter the weaknesses.USAfrica is not this category of a critic.He is all of negativity.
Somebody like Fon is now unblinded by the fact that the SDF is a stark failure.Yes she has failed.But you Fon you continue to propound the issue of participation in the party politics of la republique.You people are calling for a change in the SDF leadership or the creation of a new party.When shall it dawn on you that participation in la republique party politics stalls the Southern Cameroons progress to liberty?Shall we break your heads for you to have insight and foresight about the solution to the plight of our motherland?
USA,you want to stop all your obnoxious campaigns against the true course for liberation.If you have a philosophy,it should be used to give positive contributions towards a plight,that our motherland in this regards.All the sophism you so cherish and pour in this forum is uninteresting.
USAfrica, I say to you FACTA NON VERBUM.

Greetings to fellow comrades Ma Mary,Paa Ngembus,M Nje and the rest.I salute you people with grateful thanks.

Simplice if someone said he repented from the ScNc and is a Southern cameroonian,that means he is a sold out.He is therefore an insult to the Southern cameroons his motherland and I term and declare such a person an Anathema.

Sola Gracia, Sanctum Iesum Christum.

Peace Shall Reign in our Motherland.

Legima Doh,
ScNc