Up Station Mountain Club

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.

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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.

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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. 

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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.

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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.

France’s Dirty War in Cameroon: The Assassination of Félix-Roland Moumié (I)

50 years ago today, Cameroun nationalist leader Félix-Roland Moumié died in Geneva after being poisoned by the French Secret Service. The story of his horibble death by Thallium poisoning...

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

The use of political assassinations against key leaders of liberation movements has had a major impact on the course of history in Africa and the Middle East. Not only have some of the greatest of Third World leaders been killed but so, too, has the hope for political change they embodied - Victoria Brittain [Race & Class, Vol. 48, No. 1, 60-74 (2006)]

Early in October 1960, Dr. Félix-Roland Moumié, the exiled leader of the Camerounian nationalist movement, the Union des Populations du Cameroun (UPC), traveled to Geneva, Switzerland, on a mission. On the eve of his return to Conakry (Guinea) where the UPC had set up its headquarters in exile, he was invited to dinner by an individual whom he had met earlier in July in Accra, Ghana. The individual, 66-year old William Bechtel, claimed to be a journalist interested in the UPC’s armed struggle against the French-backed regime of Ahmadou Ahidjo.

Hanging onto the Lion’s Mane: 50 Years of Anglophone Frustrations with Cameroon’s National Football Team

Culled from Foot for Thought: 50 Years of Football in the Southwest Region & Anglophone Cameroon, forthcoming book by Tanjong Ashuntantang.

The day was Sunday October 1, 1961. The venue was the Hippodrome Stadium in Yaoundé. The event was a football match organized to commemorate the Reunification of the British Southern Cameroons and the French-speaking La République du Cameroun to form the Federal Republic of Cameroon.
Humphrey Mosenge, one of the leading West Cameroon players, greeting President Ahidjo during a match between the Southwest province and Littoral in the 1970s

The game pitted a squad tagged “La selection Nationale” (i.e., the national football team of the new nation) against a selection of Cameroonian nationals based in the Diaspora. The guest of honor was Ahmadou Ahidjo, President of the newly formed Federal Republic of Cameroon.

When the opposing teams lined up before the kickoff, there was no “Southern Cameroonian” on either side. One would have expected that such a game would involve teams from East Cameroon and West Cameroon or at a minimum, that “La Selection Nationale” would also include players from West Cameroon. Alas! This was not the case. This begs the question: Were the East Cameroonians celebrating the conquest of Southern Cameroons or were they celebrating the union of the two Cameroons? If it was the latter, then the absence of “Anglophones” at the Hippodrome that Sunday was akin to preventing a bride from attending her own wedding. Signs of West Cameroon/Anglophone marginalization in the new federation were already emerging…

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Killing Soccer in Cameroon - An Investigative Report

Chief Bisong Etahoben and Franklin Sone Bayen [ Culled from "Killing Soccer in Africa" - FAIR Dossier|September 2010 pp. 7-8]

"Mobile phone company MTN pumped in $600,000 of an $800,000 project to renovate a number of stadiums. The other $200,000 was to come from Fecafoot, but instead, $146,000 ended up in the pockets of the then sports minister... The work never happened. The $600,000 is unaccounted for."

 
Cameroon took part in the World Cup for the sixth time this year making it the only African country to have attained such a feat. It participated in the first tournament in 1982, missed the 1986 games but has qualified for every tournament since then, except the 2006 games. Cameroon is also one of the only three African countries to reach the quarter finals of the World Cup.

It did so in 1990. (The other countries are Senegal which has only qualified for the World Cup once, in 2002, but reached the quarter finals in that tournament. Ghana, which has qualified for the World Cup twice, reached the quarter finals in the just ended World Cup.) Cameroon was the second highest ranked African country just before the tournament. The highest ranked African country was Egypt. But despite this glossy picture,football is dying in Cameroon.

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The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR): Seeking Justice for Victims or Imposing a Victor’s Justice?

The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) in Arusha, Tanzania, is different things to different people. To some, it is merely a tool to assuage Western guilt for not doing enough to stop the 1994 Rwandan genocide; to others, the ICTR is a victor’s court designed to give a veneer of  
legality and legitimacy to the Rwanda Government’s one-sided narrative of the events leading up to and during the genocide – a narrative that makes a black-and-white distinction between the Tutsi victims on the one hand and the Hutu perpetrators on the other; still, there are others who believe that the tribunal’s mandate is a just and necessary one, i.e. to prosecute “persons responsible for genocide and other serious violations of international humanitarian law committed in the territory of Rwanda between 1 January 1994 and 31 December 1994”. And there are yet others who view the court’s mandate and performance thus far in shades of grey.

Whatever their views about the ICTR, most people think of the tribunal in very abstract terms, i.e.,  a faceless and amorphous international bureaucratic behemoth chugging ever so slowly and unemotionally towards the fulfilment of its mission. Even though I have a good number friends, acquaintances and family working in the court as interpreters, translators and legal officers, etc., I must admit that I also viewed the ICTR in these abstract terms, that is, until last week when I had the privilege to visit the Arusha International Conference Center, home of the ICTR.

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Is The Blogosphere The New Public Sphere? Should It Be Subjected To State Control?

A presentation by Dibussi Tande at the 2010 Africa Media Leadership Conference (AMLC) in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, Tuesday, September 28, 2010

The Blogosphere The New Public Sphere? What Role for the State If Any?

View more presentations from Dibussi Tande.

Click here to learn more about the Africa Media Leadership Conference

Rosemary Ekosso's "House of Falling Women" Nominated for the Aidoo-Snyder Prize

http://clickserve.cc-dt.com/link/tplimage?lid=41000000028526222&pubid=21000000000258567

House of Falling Women, the debut novel of Cameroonian writer Rosemary Ekosso has been nominated for the Aidoo-Snyder Book Prize.

Other nominees include Kenyan novelist Wambui Githiora for her book Wanjira; Valerie Tagwira of Zimbabwe for The Uncertainty of Hope; Amma Darko of Ghana for Not Without Flowers; Kopano Matlwa of South Africa for Coconut.

The Aidoo-Snyder Book Prize is awarded annually by the Women’s Caucus of the African Studies Association (ASA) for an outstanding book published by a woman that prioritizes African women’s experiences. Named in honor of Ama Ata Aidoo, the celebrated Ghanaian novelist and short-story writer, and Margaret Snyder, the founding Director of UNIFEM, this award will be given during the 2010 ASA annual meetings in San Francisco at the Women’s Caucus Annual Lecture and Luncheon. Every fifth year the prize is given for a creative work, this year the Aidoo-Snyder Book Prize will be awarded for a novel.

Photo Essay: Why Cameroon Shared the Last Place at the 2010 World Cup With North Korea

Dibussi Tande (Originally published on Scribbles from the Den)

A million reasons have been given to explain why Cameroon, supposedly one of the greatest football nations in the world, ended up sharing the last spot at the 2010 World Cup with - Oh! The humiliation! - North Korea. While conflicts within the national team and poor coaching may explain  Cameroon's South African debacle, the problem with the country's football is systemic and structural. Take a hard look at the following pictures; these are some of the stadiums where games for the MTN Elite One league (Cameroon's premier football championship) are played each week.

Cotonsport, Cameroon's Elite One Champions, playing at the Bamendzin "Stadium" in Bafoussam, homeground of Racing Bafoussam FC

Exactly what kind of talent do we expect to emerge from these potato fields? Isn't it time for Cameroon to go back to the basics - developing a coherent national football policy, establishing a credible youth prospection and development program, professionalizing the elite league, training local coaches in modern techniques and tactics, building stadiums that meet minimum FIFA standards, etc. - before aspiring to conquer the the African and world stage? There can be no cutting corners on this one!

Click here to view more pictures of the pitches on which Cameroon's top clubs play

 

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.

Click here to download complete article from Scribbles from the Den.

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Memory Lane: June 28, 1990 - Biya Accepts “Eventual Competition”

"But, dear comrades, it should also be observed that one man's meat is another man's poison. It should also be considered that other reference values can exist... Our party is strong no doubt, but henceforth, it must be prepared to face possible competition." Paul Biya, CPDM Congress, June 28, 1990 

Exactly 20 years ago, on June 28, 1990, President Biya, in a memorable address to militants of the ruling party who were holding out against the reinstitution of multiparty politics in Cameroon, asked them to be ready for “eventual competition.” This was the culmination of a multiparty debate which began early that year with the Yondo affair, and reached its violent apogee with the death of six teenagers who were “trampled by bullets” in Bamenda during the launching of the Social Democratic Front (SDF).  After the May 26 launching of the SDF and the subsequent smear campaign against the party and its sympathizers, Cameroon seemed to be on the verge of a major conflagration which had been looming in the horizon since the Yondo affair.

The Clash between CPDM Conservatives and Progressives

Within the CPDM itself, the battle between conservative and progressive forces which had been brewing for months burst to the surface as the first national congress of the ruling CPDM, which was scheduled for June 28, approached. Pro- and anti-multiparty camps went on the offensive with hopes of influencing the outcome of the multiparty debate which many expected would be high on the congress agenda. 

Click here to read complete story on Scribbles from the Den.

Remembering "The Miracle of Milan": How Cameroon Beat Argentina and Changed the Face of World Football

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

This was supposed to be a vultures' banquet for world champion Argentina, feasting on the prime rack of Cameroon, but the curtain-raiser to Italia `90 World Cup produced arguably the greatest upset in soccer history with Cameroon absolutely deserving winners. Sun Sentinel - Fort Lauderdale June 10, 1990

Omam Biyik Scores his historic goal against world champions Argentina

Exactly 20 years ago on June 8, 1990 at the Giuseppe Maezza Stadium in Milan, Italy, the Indomitable Lions of Cameroon, “a humble team with an insignificant past” to quote the Miami Herald, defeated Argentina, the star-studded defending World Champions led by Diego Armando Maradona, in a thrilling Italia ’90 World Cup opening game that came to be known as the “Miracle of Milan.”

Before the game, the international media, football enthusiasts and bookmakers had written off the Indomitable Lions even though eight years earlier they had exited the Espana ’82 World Cup unbeaten, including a memorable 1-1 tie with eventual World Cup winners Italy.

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