CAMEROON’S OPERATION EPERVIER IS A MISCARRIAGE OF JUSTICE

In the face of rampant corruption, attaining the status of a legal tender within the Cameroonian society, the government has resorted to desperate tactics to contain the phenomenon. The reactionary measures range from denying the reality of corruption, justifying corrupt practices, and attempting to combat individuals who have installed bastions of corruption within different spheres of national life.

By SNOWSEL ANO-EBIE

One of the most publicized and most heralded reactions to corruption, particularly the mismanagement and embezzlement of public funds in Cameroon is referred to as “Opération Epervier”. The “épervier” is a sparrow hawk, scientifically known as Accipiter nisus, a bird which preys on other birds. The “Opération Epervier” so describes the attitude of the sparrow hawk when it stalks and snatches its victims. In “Opération Epervier”, individuals who are alleged to have embezzled public funds are monitored and arrested in a similar way. The “justice man” identifies his target and “comes like a thief in the night”.

Keen observers of the Cameroonian society have applauded the operation as a tangible proof of the unimpeachable willingness to combat embezzlement, and stamp out corruption. The head of state is portrayed as a patriotic nationalist who will encourage the arrests of his own kinsmen, members of his party, and particularly pillars of his regime in the quest to bring back sanity to the management of public affairs in the country. Citizens from different grids on the geo-ethno-political spectrum contend that if the operation continues the widespread and arrogant way in which some individuals swindle common wealth at the detriment of the common good, will soon be a thing of the past. Proof is the fact that thanks to this “Opération Epervier”, many managers and directors generals of state corporations now think twice before they do not fidget with the national cake.

Critical observers of Cameroon ’s power dynamics however look beyond the manifest functions and dysfunctions of “Opération Epervier”. They see the “justice man” playing to the gallery. They too give credit to the head of state, who like in the case of appointments, is discretionary in choosing and humiliating the épervier victims. The Vice Prime Minister, Minister of Justice is said to have the dirty files of all those who have embezzled. And like the famous FBI director in the USA , J. Edgar Hoover, the Minister knows who will next be arrested and detained for embezzlement. Some newspaper editors even play John the Baptist or the Bab, prophesying and publishing the names of the ministers or top government officials who will next be apprehended by the sparrow hawk. The presidency or executive is seen as a puppet master tele-guiding the judiciary as it metes out justice “a la téte du client”.

One cannot ignore a desperate attempt to give corruption a national coloration. Just because so many people have been arrested from a particular region or ethnic group it becomes imperative to arrest people from other regions of the country. This way corruption is seen as an ill that affects all tribes and ethnic groups not only those who have confiscated power, and imposed a reign of “it is our own turn to squander”. Somebody somewhere desperately tries to fight corruption with the policy of “regional balance”. And the cells where the épervier victims are detained are made to look like a national assembly where all the regions are represented. These geo-ethnic calculations in the entire process completely take away all sincerity in the quest for justice and accountability.

At the end of the day, the critical question is whether the spectacular and selective way of bringing down top government officials really brings justice to the Cameroonian people. When people are arrested, tried, found guilty, and detained without the money they have embezzled being recovered, has justice been done? When other people are arrested and detained for long without trial, has justice been done? And this is the intriguing one, when in the same country, some barons of the regime are found guilty of embezzlement by the Supreme State Control and asked to pay meager fines of two million CFA francs, while others are humiliated by police officers and paraded in front of television cameras, has justice been done?

Whether one chooses to identify with those who applaud or sympathize with those who have been vomited by a system they participated actively in perpetuating, one will be better off living in a country where the laws are just and justice is real. And justice is only justice when it upholds the sociological notions of equity, impartiality and equality. If we hold any truths to be evident that all humans were created equal, then we should implore a society with a judicial system where equals are treated equally.