Ambassador Mendouga, the Albatross Affair and Life in Kondengui

The Washington Diplomat - VOLUME 17, NUMBER 07. July 2010

“It’s not my official residence on Normanstone Drive, I can tell you that...I’m in a room built for 12 people, with three bunk beds, one on top of the other. For the time being, there are six or seven of us here. We have three boxes for showering and three toilets — one normal Western-style and two Turkish squat toilets.” Jerome Mendouga

After serving for 15 years as Cameroon’s ambassador to the United States, Jerome Mendouga has traded in the comfort of Embassy Row for the confines of Cameroon’s most notorious jail, as he fights to prove his innocence in a domestic scandal that has become the proverbial albatross around the disgraced diplomat’s neck.

Foreign ambassadors, once they finish their tours of duty in Wash ington, often go back home and write books or become private consultants. Others join the faculty of prestigious universities. If they’ve had an especially distinguished track record, they might be named foreign ministers by their country’s president, and — in a few cases — they end up as presidents themselves. Jerome Mendouga’s career took a very different path — taking him all the way from the comfort of Washington’s Embassy Row to the squalor of Cameroon’s most notorious slammer.

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Comments

[Kango Elemu Mimbo]

So many Cameroonians are crooked. It is almost exceptional that he is in this situation. Oga sef doti and mus lock himsef.

[njimaforboy]

What a scary nation. No respect for human rights.

Even if the guy stole money, let him have his day in court.

It is amazing how we take feedom for granted.

Paul Biya will end up in the same dugeon called Kondengui.

We will make sure of that.

[Chief Ayuk Arrey]

The Guy is just unfortunate.Others steal and go unpunished.
Their Grand Master Paul Biya decided to sacrificed him just to claim he's fighting Corruption.

[Burberry Outlet]

YES. many times, but he isn\'t a failure until he begins to blame somebody else.Our destiny offers not the cup of despair, but the chalice of opportunity. So let us seize it, not in fear, but in gladness.