THE HIGH STAKES OF A CRUCIAL ELECTORAL YEAR
Memorandum Handed by CODE (A group including the undersigned democratic, patriotic and human rights advocating organizations of Cameroon) to Koffi Annan, Secretary-General of the United Nations Organization
An important presidential election will be held this year in Cameroon. The exact date remains unknown, as the reigning head of State has made it a habit not to publicize the national electoral agenda timely. In this crucial year, the situation in Cameroon remains precarious and uncertain. It may well be the case that the country finds itself desperately descending into chaos should President Paul Biya stage a scam presidential election
CAMEROON IS SINKING INTO EXTREME POVERTY
The incumbent president, Paul Biya, has been in office for 22 years now. Over the course of his tenure, Cameroon’s economic and social decline coincided substantially with Biya’s consolidation of power and with the country sinking into corruption. The GDP per capita continually dropped from $749 in 1980 to $650 in 1995 and $570 in 2000. A stark descent into poverty stands as the bleakest accomplishment of Paul Biya. According to the World Development Report 2002, 40% of Cameroonian population lives below poverty line, with a labor participation rate of 41% in 2000 versus 42% in 1980.
A KNAVE-LED MACHINE OF TERROR SUBSTITUTED FOR THE REPUBLICAN STATE
Cameroon is a country characterized by an outrageous absence of public goods and services, such as roads, city public works, social services, social security, public transportation, public education, public health care, public libraries, public security, foreseeable laws, or programs to foster entrepreneurship and business. A total absence of State thus characterizes what is still called a republic. But yet inhabitants are forced by the Mafia-like administration and its terrorist armed forces to pay various tributes to Paul Biya and his ruling clan. The clan uses the taxpayers’ money thus snatched out to build its private wealth and authority, and to corrupt the few who help them defraud elections and terrorize opponents and critics. The latest embezzlement event was the unpunished stripping of about $4 million of small savers’ money, solved simply with the closure of the Postal Savings Fund by Paul Biya, who recently used the stolen taxpayer money to buy a new private Boeing 767 plane.
One of the main State instruments of terror is the ministry of territorial administration (Minat) that segments the territory into provinces ruled by governors, into regions ruled by prefets (region sub-governors), and into sub-regions ruled by sous-prefets (sub-region sub-sub-governors). All these different governors are appointed by the head of State and are in charge of organizing, monitoring and proclaiming results of elections. Since the country’s independences in 1960 the Minat’s mission is to rigging elections, often by resorting to State armed forces (army, gendarmerie and police) under their command and to armed, government-sponsored militia to intimidate and terrorize opponents and critics, so that the incumbent president would always be “the winner”.
A CULTURE OF HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES
Various agencies have recently drawn a dismal picture of the political situation in Cameroon. Amnesty International suggests in its 2002 annual report that security forces in Cameroon remain excessively violent. Human rights activists, independent journalists, and political opponents are continuously harassed, persecuted or killed. Likewise, the US Department of State suggests in its 2003 Country Report on Human Rights Practices in Cameroon that a strong executive largely unconstrained dominates the country. While Cameroon is nominally a multiparty political system, “the president retains the power to control legislation or to rule by decree and has used his legislative control to change the Constitution and extent the term lengths of the presidency,” (the U.S. Department Country Report on Cameroon, 2003). As a result, a malevolent autocrat who is hastily setting the stage for an additional 7-year term could remain in power and cause more economic damage and social despair.
CAMEROON HAS BECOME WORLD MOST CORRUPTED NATION
Since 1999, Transparency International, a credible non-governmental organization frequently cites Cameroon among the world most corrupt countries. Indeed, in the past five years, the International Index of Corruption even placed Cameroon dead last among the ninety-nine countries evaluated in terms of their resolve to curb corruption. Yet the worst may still be to come if fair and free elections are not held this year. Concerned that ripped off elections may destabilize Cameroon or plunge it into a large scale domestic war with potentially disastrous consequences for neighboring countries, the Commonwealth mobilized donors on 31 October, 2003 to convince Biya and his political affiliates to implement significant reforms to prevent the chaos. But Biya’s government is stubborn in keeping the status quo, as the Minat recently rejected the British offer of 10,000 transparent ballot boxes.
RISK OF DEGENERATION INTO WAR
In Cameroon, highly respected civil society leaders publicly call the regime to end the repression of political opponents and consent to free and fair elections under the supervision of an autonomous observatory commission. In an unprecedented move, Cardinal Christian Tumi, leader of the Roman Catholic Church, along with the Conference of Archbishops of Cameroon publicly warned that failure to hold fairly arbitrated elections might result in a civil war. Such a warning should not be taken lightly as an increasing proportion of English-speaking citizens, who feel politically, culturally, and economically marginalized and deprived of the proceeds of the natural resources extracted from their regions, are now publicly calling for secession on the grounds that the union between francophone and Anglophone Cameroon has broken down beyond repair. The other most dreadful danger is ignition of ethnic clashes as Biya and his ruling clan had sowed ethnic hatred and germs of conflicts since 1990, maintained by words such as “non-native” (“allogène”) and “autocthon” (“autochtone”) introduced in his Constitution of 1996, years before the civil war in Cote d’Ivoire which was ignited because of a similar fueling of ethnic conflicts by incumbent government to keep power.
In this crucial electoral year, it is particularly important for the United Nations to avoid playing the physician after the death, by taking the necessary steps to persuade the incumbent long standing autocratic government of Cameroon to consent to fair elections and prevent growing tensions and fear of chaotic descent into political unrest in a highly ethnically fractionalized country where ripped off elections may trigger uncertainty and dangerously destabilize Cameroon.
We trust that you can make use of all your influence over the permanent members of the Security Counsel of the United Nations to obtain from President Paul Biya and his government that the Ministry of Territorial Administration as well as any other governmental organization be totally and unconditionally excluded from any involvement in the electoral process.
We trust that you can obtain from Paul Biya that be created a completely independent electoral commission, only representative of the Cameroonian People and its interests, endowed with full power over the organization of voter lists, the free supervisory of the electoral process, and the proclamation of results.
We request that you use all resources in your power to prevent a chaos in Cameroon. You should prevent Paul Biya from pushing the Cameroonian People into desperate, violent solutions, such as civil war, just because Biya and his clan would have ripped off the People’s sovereignty for the fifth time in 2004.
Have signed this Nineteenth day of May, 2004
- For ACTE (Association of Cameroonians for a Total Emancipation of Cameroon)
Michel Bondoa
Président
- For CNR/MUN (Conseil National de la Résistance – Mouvement Um-Nyobiste)
Raymond Tagnidoung
Secrétaire Général, pi
- For AIA (Action against Impunity in Africa Inc.)
Leon Tuam
Secrétaire Général
- « Fanon » Ngomo
- For Manidem (African Movement For New Independence and Democracy)
Marcel Sime
Président USA Section
- For UDC (Union pour la Démocratie au Cameroun)
Patrick Tchokokam
Représentant aux USA
- For UFDC (Union des Forces Démocratiques du Cameroun)
Jules Francois Ngadeu Kontchou
President USA Section
- Josue Tongtong