The Bush administration pompously received President Paul Biya of Cameroon last week. “Cameroon is an island of stability in that area of Africa,” the US Secretary of State General Colin Powell declared after a meeting with Paul Biya. “The United States government will make all possible to strengthen M. Biya’s government,” he added, promising to help Cameroon’s economy as well as “their efforts to fight terror”.
These statements from the one the musician Belafonte recently referred to as a “house nigger”, a White House nigger, amply show how far the US Secretary of State is ignorant of the realities in Cameroon.
However, it is doubtful that Powell is ignorant of Cameroon’s realities since one can read the following in the US department of State website (http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2001/af/8285.htm) in reference to Cameroon Country Reports on Human Rights Practices – 2001:
“Cameroon is a republic dominated by a strong presidency. Since independence a single party, now called the Cameroon People's Democratic Movement (CPDM), has remained in power. In 1997 CPDM leader Paul Biya won reelection as President in an election boycotted by the three main opposition parties, marred by a wide range of procedural flaws, and generally considered by observers not to be free and fair. The 1997 legislative elections, which were dominated by the CPDM, were flawed by numerous irregularities and generally considered not free nor fair by international and local observers. The President retains the power to control legislation or to rule by decree. In the National Assembly, government bills take precedence over other bills, and no bills other than government bills have been enacted since 1991, although the Assembly sometimes has not enacted legislation proposed by the Government. The President has used his control of the legislature to change the Constitution. The 1996 Constitution lengthened the President's term of office to 7 years, while continuing to allow Biya to run for a fourth consecutive term in 1997 and making him eligible to run for one more 7-year term in 2004. In 2000 the Government began discussion on an action plan to create the decentralized institutions envisioned in the 1996 Constitution, such as a partially elected senate, elected regional councils, and a more independent judiciary; however, none of the plans had been executed by year's end.”
This is what the US Secretary of State calls “island of stability”.
The same report from the Department of State headed by Colin Powell, about human rights abuses, states: “The [Cameroonean] Government's human rights record remained generally poor, and it continued to commit numerous serious abuses. Citizens' ability to change their government remained limited. Security forces committed numerous extrajudicial killings and were responsible for disappearances, some of which may have been motivated politically. They also tortured, beat, and otherwise abused detainees and prisoners, generally with impunity.”
It is clear that the US Department of State agrees that the price to pay to attain the objective of “stability” dear to the US administration is human rights violation.
In Cameroon, those human rights violations are what maintains the Biya government in capacity. There is stability in Cameroon because the Biya regime terrorizes its populations.
The individual President Bush received so pompously to diner is the leader to whom Transparency International gave the award of most corrupted government in Earth for the last two years.
The US Department of State report best describes how the Biya government terrorizes its populations as follows:
“The security forces continued to use excessive, lethal force against private citizens and committed numerous extrajudicial killings. On January 24, the Douala Operational Command arrested nine youths, later known as the Bepanda 9, who were suspected of stealing a gas canister in the Bepanda District of Douala (see Section 1.b.). The young men have not been seen since immediately following their arrests, and all sources believe that they were executed by members of the Command. In addition to the Bepanda 9, there were reports that the Douala Operational Command committed numerous summary executions. Conservative estimates place the number killed in the hundreds, but Cardinal Tumi, the Archbishop of Douala, believes the number may range as high as 1,000. There were reports that some persons were tortured before they were killed”.
After the international outcry about the Bepanda 9, Biya ordered the arrest of the military authors of the killings. The lawsuit lasted two years, the time necessary for the public anger to cool down, then a military court released them.
Impunity is the main means to make Camerooneans resign themselves to government terror.
Cameroon is a military regime headed by a puppet of civilian president. Paul Biya is the only president in this world who consistently cuts all public servants’ salaries by as far as 70 percent, while he increases armed forces salaries by 500 percent.
Police and army officers head strongly armed gangs of robbers and of alleged self-defense militia. These gangs terrorize any deviants and opponents to the CPDM regime.
But yet, the Bush administration is going to support the terrorist Biya regime in “their efforts to fight terror”.
What is the difference between Paul Biya and Saddam Hussein?
Ndzana Seme
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