Firewood, coal kill 1.5 million worldwide yearly

WHO proposes a shift towards ‘cleaner, more modern fuels’ that are unfortunately beyond the reach of pauperized majority of Third World dwellers

By Ntaryike Divine, Jr. in Douala

A recent WHO report warned that primitive methods of cooking and heating were tacitly snuffing some 1.5 million lives yearly, and mostly in the Third World.

The report, published last year, additionally indicated that more than 3 billion people worldwide
depended on solid fuels like firewood, dung, crop residues and coal for cooking and heating purposes. Such reliance, it said, caused indoor pollution which in turn provoked diseases like pneumonia and chronic respiratory complications affecting mostly women and kids.

Solid fuel dependence and subsequent indoor pollution accounts for 5 per cent of all deaths and diseases in the 21 most-affected countries named in the report which are Afghanistan, Angola, Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Chad, DR Congo, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Pakistan, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Togo and Uganda.

After noting that solid fuel usage has become one of the ten most significant menaces to public health worldwide, the WHO is proposing a drift from the primitive and polluting heating and cooking methods to more contemporary, safer and cleaner fuels like biogas and kerosene. In fact, energy and environment ministers from some of the concerned countries met in New York late April within the scope of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development.

Their intention was to settle on whether or not to rank indoor pollution on country policy agendas. If that were to be the case, it would imply that strides be engaged towards reining in dependence on solid fuels especially in the worst-affected countries. The same countries would also imperatively have to ensure that costs of contemporary fuels like the aforementioned biogas and kerosene are slashed.

That is already almost unimaginable in a country like Cameroon where despite its poise as an oil-producing nation, fuel prices have galloped steadily over the past couple of years. Kerosine currently costs almost 500 FCFA (about 1 USD) while the cost of a 12-kg bottle of cooking gas skyrocketed to 6.500 FCFA.

Even in the urban areas where dependence on solid fuels was relatively low compared to the rural parts of the country, households have returned wholesale to solid fuels, disconnecting gas bottles and depending on candles for lighting amidst frequent power cuts, and firewood for cooking.

Cameroon’s suspension is long overdue: Open letter to Commonwealth Secretary-General, Kamalesh Sharma

Yours sincerely,
Boniface Forbin
Publisher/Editor

Relations between Cameroon and the Commonwealth are anything but good. Paul Biya has refused to undertake the reforms that he promised as a condition of membership since 1995. That neglect has not been helped by the unprincipled approach by the
Commonwealth secretariat. Failure in Cameroon and lapses elsewhere do not portray the Commonwealth as a strong and effective organisation. The task before Kamalesh Sharma, the new secretary-general, is to review the organisation and make it more useful and effective. But the suspension and punishment of
Cameroon is overdue.

Dear Secretary Sharma,

It behoves us at this newspaper to write to you at this time and to extend you our warmest congratulations on your successful election to the very distinguished office of secretary-general of the
Commonwealth. We want to assure you of our best wishes for a successful tenure. Since you only just assumed office last month, we imagine it would take you a little while to feel your way through to the case of the disturbingly irregular membership of Cameroon. We write to already draw your attention to it.

Cameroon’s is the very strange case of a country that was admitted unqualified on the condition that it should proceed vigorously to fulfil the good governance requirements enshrined in the Harare
Declaration. But this has not been so, to say the least.

Thirteen years into membership and there isn’t any significant step taken so far towards good governance reforms. What is worse, the country is now decidedly headed towards a future of political uncertainty.

Power alternation has been rendered impossible since 1992 because of a history of flawed elections. The recent manipulation of the constitution to cut out the term limit is intended to keep Paul Biya in office for as long as he chooses.

The Malborough House administration under your predecessor, Don Mackinnon, has practically been on its knees in vain to urge Biya to fulfil the conditions of membership which he pledged to do.

That membership is a veritable tale of deceit, abuse and broken promises. How Cameroon could remain a bona fide member of a self-respecting multilateral body like the Commonwealth under such conditions, is a question repeatedly raised in Cameroon.

The Yaounde authorities have often found it burdensome receiving all those unending missions from Malborough House pressing for promised reforms which the government has manifestly been unwilling to undertake.


Clearly embarrassed, Paul Biya has on several occasions tried to avoid receiving Malborough House envoys, even on appointment! The government would rather be comforted with the suspension of Cameroon, so it seems.

We appreciate Mackinnon’s patience and tenacity. But his total inability to secure anything meaningful from Biya in ten years leaves the observer with the sad feeling that he was helpless and did not work from a position of strength. That does absolutely no good to
the image of the Commonwealth.

We believe there is a strong case for suspension. If it came now it would weaken the government’s present resolve to drag Cameroon into uncertainty. You must know that Biya’s desire to continue in power beyond the statutory 2011 instantly implies the will to flaw
future elections.

Could the Commonwealth that is founded on the heritage of good governance values stand that?

Secretary Sharma might want to know that Cameroon’s desire for membership was not in the least inspired by the desire to share in the values that bind member countries.

The government was desperate for legitimacy following an election that was anything but one. Commonwealth membership seemed to be the perfect answer.

Opposition spokesmen cried frantically that the application should be a golden opportunity to force the government, whose resistance to democratic change was already well-known, to concede some key reforms.

Sorry, the opportunity was thrown away! Government spokesmen carried the day. It was believed that once in, Cameroon would readily yield to the pressure inside. That did not happen!

Biya began with truancy. He kept away from his first CHOGM in 1997 in Edinburgh where he was to render account of his efforts at reforms as promised at Oakland, New Zealand. He has since been a permanent absentee at the biennial summits.

The demands on Biya were reduced to four key ones viz: free and fair elections; better human rights, independence of the judiciary and the rule of law; and decentralisation of the administration.

It is hard to say in which of these four key areas Biya has willingly made a significant concession.

But it is in the conduct of elections that the Biya regime has earned its worst name. Three presidential and four legislative elections in sixteen years – all of them were ‘elections designed to fail.’

The rudest twist in the election saga came more recently. The government made a sudden u-turn on a much advertised project for the creation of an independent election organ for which it had
Commonwealth funding and expertise.

Before such criminal betrayal at the highest level the Commonwealth shocked Cameroonians by still pledging to continue to work with the government on election matters! What disappointment!

Cameroonians are now finding it difficult to respect the Commonwealth. The feeling is that the organisation has acted without integrity in pursuing a member state to live up to principle. What a shame!

We have no need to appear critical. But these lapses as well as others observed elsewhere in recent times incline the observer to ask if the Commonwealth remains truly well adapted to its objectives.

We have already mentioned the conditioned admission of Cameroon. That was surely a monumental error. Also, it is a pity that Malborough House has related to Cameroon from a position of weakness.

Further afield, we note Helen Clark’s pain with your predecessor for authorising the military leader of Fiji, suspended from the Commonwealth, not only to be invited, but to be given a red carpet at the Port Moresby sub-regional summit. The New Zealand PM was
simply scandalised by that violation of principle.

Having been elected at the Uganda CHOGM, Secretary Sharma is certainly aware of the furious debate that took place over the democratic credentials of that country. Many Ugandans believed that the Kampala summit was a regrettable endorsement of what they considered to be the doubtful election of Yoweri Museveni in office for a third term.

These cases, to keep them to those, obviously raise questions about the integrity of the Commonwealth, and eventually of its usefulness.

In a world subject to continuous changes the assumptions and values of yesterday are in constant challenge. For instance, of what real substance is membership of the Commonwealth? What does a member really lose for being suspended or expelled?

In eight years of Perez Musharraf, Pakistan has been out and in twice. It was first suspended because of military rule, but its membership was re-instated while military rule was still on!

Also, Zimbabwe is the case of a former bona fide member who decided to defy the Commonwealth and walk out on it! What does suspension or expulsion do to a member who cannot feel the organisation’s hold on him?

We believe that Secretary Sharma must himself have contemplated these issues of the Commonwealth’s relevance and effectiveness in a changing world. You might take comfort in the fact that similar questions have been asked of the World Bank and the IMF.

For poor African members like Cameroon, membership of the Commonwealth should offer a highly attractive and much treasured boost to their development and welfare as a way of encouraging good governance.

Correspondingly, suspension should be tied up with strong deterrent measures.

Tor Gesdal, one of the earlier directors-general of UNESCO once observed: a tool is only as good and effective as the skill of its user.

We close this letter, Secretary Sharma, by wishing you again our very best in the courageous enterprise of reviewing and operating the Commonwealth in a creative and more effective manner.

National Day: Tracking the road to 20 May re-unification

Ahidjo advanced many reasons for the establishment of a unitary system of government

By Elangwe Esino Evaristus, Yaounde

When on 11 February 1961, the former British Southern Cameroonians voted in a plebiscite in favour of the independent Republic of Cameroon against the Federal Republic of Nigeria, it was clear indication of their commitment to the idea of a Cameroon nation as it existed under German rule, astonishing the British authorities and the northern regional government in Kaduna.

A federal system of government was born after the two entities came together. Unfortunately, this federation lasted only 10 years 8 months. For, from the creation of the Cameroon federation, late President Ahmadou Ahidjo was never a federalist. He found all means and ways to dismantle the federal system.

In 1961, he carved out six inspectorates for the Cameroon Federation to be manned by inspectors who were direct representatives of the federal president. He went on to facilitate the formation of a unitary State by the merger of all political parties in 1966 to form the Cameroon National Union party (CNU).

On 9 May 1972, Ahidjo informed an emergency session of the Federal National Assembly of his plan to ask Cameroonians whether they approved or rejected the institution of a one and indivisible United Republic of Cameroon.

The intensive campaigns in both West and East Cameroon resulted in an overwhelming vote in support of the creation of a unitary State. The reasons put up by Ahidjo for the dismantling of the federal system of government were convincing and the unitary constitution had numerous effects.

The people of Cameroon had to maintain four Assemblies, namely the Federal Assembly, the East Cameroon Assembly, the West Cameroon Assembly and the West Cameroon house of chiefs. The maintaince of the posts of president, vice president and two State prime
ministers. To Ahidjo this drained billions of FCFA, which could be channeled to other developmental programmes, from the country’s coffers.

From the issue to consolidate national unity, to the inability of the state of West Cameroon to balance its budget, Ahidjo had the desire to assimilate the Anglophones whose Anglo-Saxon democratic tendencies were a nuisance to his desired centralised system of government. He was afraid that West Cameroon might follow the attempt of the Biafrans to secede since a number of West Cameroonians sympathized with the Biafran cowrse. It was also feared that West Cameroon would secede from the federation since huge oil reserves were discovered in the area, which pointed to the viability of the area to stand on its own.

The date therefore for the referendum was 20 May 1972. The electorate had to vote “Yes” or “No” to the question:

“Do you approve, with a view to consolidating national unity and accelerating the economic, social and cultural development of the nation, the draft constitution submitted to the people of Cameroon by the president of the Federal Republic of Cameroon and instituting a republic, one and indivisible to be styled the United Republic of Cameroon?”

The above question is clearly lopsided. The merits of the federal system of government were not proposed. Again, time was not given for Cameroonians to discuss the advantages and disadvantages. Many Cameroonians voted without knowing the political implications of
the change of system of government.

However, there is no turning back. The next National Day is just around the corner. Speeches will be made but the dichotomy of Anglophone and Francophone, South West and North West, first class and second class citizens, Christians and Moslems, Oroko, Bulu, Maka, Bakweri or Meta difference remains. The question of who is more Cameroonian follows us daily. Happy Nation
Day 2008!

The Intrigues of Privatisation and the Stalemate at CAMAIR

By Nfamewih Aseh*

The law of neo-liberalism states that “government is a bad manager”; that business men and women were more transparent and accountable and were thus better able to manage corporate business within the framework of the private corporate sector than the state; that this business men and women should either be white or have a white backing. Most importantly, that the white control of the corporate private sector is the foundation for “good governance”, hence the need for privatisation.

Neo-liberalism by definition would refer to that period in Africa, in the late 1980s, when the white man countries returned to reclaim the economy, towards the end of the cold war, and after the end of the independent struggles of the 1940s and 1950s. And one way of achieving that goal was by making sure that the structure of the state “adjusted” to accommodate the private corporate capital; by taking away the corporate sector from the state and handing it over to the private business men and women, in this case whites whose economic activities would bring about “good governance”. It thus became imperative for the United Nations to commission its specialised organs such as the World Bank and the IMF to come up with a strategy of achieving that goal.

They did and that strategy was embodied in the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) which had privatisation and liberalisation as main items on the grand agenda and targeted thirty seven African countries including Cameroon. Like any other agenda
that is set by the West destined for Africa, the announcement for the coming of SAP in June 1987 raised the hopes of Cameroonians who believed in the daydream of private business coming to rescue Cameroon’s economy from the state, the “bad manager”, and bring
to about “good governance”.

All the noise about liberalisation, democratisation, and privatisation as antidotes for an economy in crisis; as pre-conditions for “good governance”, turned out to be a doom, an eyewash, a cover-up; a butterfly chase that kept Cameroonians dreaming of a
pie in the sky. Even the political liberalisation only successfully liberalised the political sphere achieving only the creation of “opposition” political parties whose duty has only been to check the
mismanagement antics of the state, also turned out to be hogwash. Before long, even the “Good Governance” singsong went into a tail spin while the white man, acting through local allies, were all over the place buying up everything under SAP with the state told to
hands off the provision of social services.

In Zimbabwe, the imposition of ESAP (Economic Structural Adjustment Programme) in 1989 by the very Bretton Woods twins (World Bank/IMF), being the Zimbabwean version of SAP, brought back the descendants of the Rhodesian rump capital from
Johannesburg with a mission to wrest power from the state on behalf of Britain and the USA. It also selected from among the urban “jobless” elite Morgan Tsvangirai to, in collaboration with the white
business class, fight Mugabe on the ticket of Britain and the USA whose political agenda was to wring power from Mugabe and reclaim the economy of Zimbabwe and overrun the entire Southern African sub-region. Unlike the case of Zimbabwe which is a revolutionary state under a nationalist president, the state in Cameroon is rather a contrivance for political cover-up for economic crimes under a collaborating stratum over which is a President.

The role of this collaborating stratum is to prove as much as possible that, truly, the state is a “bad manager” to ensure the successful implementation of SAP; to ensure that SAP reaches its “completion point”. In that case, both the numerous opposition
political parties that sprouted in Cameroon in the 1990s following the wind of liberalisation that was blowing from the East, the state bureaucrats and managers of state corporations were struggling to
achieve the same goal: to prove as much as possible that the neo-colonial state is a “bad manager”. While the hardcore opposition political parties were busy counting the failures of the state, state bureaucrats and managers of state para-statals, for their part,
were busy “mismanaging” state affairs, all of which brought ample evidence against the state as a “bad manager” and validated the neo-liberal law of which corruption and embezzlement can be understood in that light.

For example, before CamPost was sold to a Canadian firm, Tescult International Ltd, on February 26, 2007, over FCFA 50 billion of Cameroonian’s savings were deliberately stolen from that corporation which was then used as good reason to sell it to a white man’s corporation on the grounds that the black man cannot manage a corporation; that “the neo-colonial state is a bad manager”, which is actually what prompted the IMF/World Bank joint delegation to Cameroon in September 2007, whose intention was to hasten up the privatisation process; to quickly reclaim the economic
sector from a “bad manager”. And almost all the para-statals that have been privatised in Cameroon have gone through this experience.

The case of the Cameroon Electricity Corporation (SONEL) offers another perspective of understanding the neo-liberal law in which “government is a bad manager”. After the sale of that corporation to a USA company, AES-SIROCO, in 2002, the country was immediately plunged into fits of incessant darkness with the idea being to prove that the Americans had inherited a corporation in a very bad state from a “bad manager” and so was putting in “expert” knowledge to revive it. That was also a public relation stunt
for AES-SONEL, which was intended to win the confidence of the Cameroonian public into believing that the Americans were bringing magical solutions to Cameroon’s electricity problems; to do what the “bad manager” could not do. The case of Cameroon Airlines,
which also shows how government officials deliberately swindle funds from state para-statals to justify the idea that “government is a bad manager” so as to justify the sales of such outfits to white man companies, is another case in point.

Although the headaches of the Cameroon Airline company, as a purely indigenous airline company, created by former President Ahmadou Ahidjo who jolted out of the French controlled Air Afrique and created CAMAIR on July 26, 1971 with government owning over 96 % shares in it and which made its inaugural flight on
November 1, 1971 from Douala to Yaoundé, was initially that of victimisation by the French civil aviation authority, which on September 16, 2005 on all CAMAIR flights to France for an indefinite period on grounds that the company did not meet several international as well as transportation norms, leading to serious
revenue losses for the airline company whose activities were finally grounded in March 2008, there was also the problem of negligence on the part of government appointees in the management of the affairs of CAMAIR whose intention was to validate the
neo-liberal law that “government is a bad manager”.

Between 2001 and 2006, the state of Cameroon spent over FCFA 200 billion, in the form of subvention, on CAMAIR but before the end of 2006 CAMAIR was in deep crisis, unable to pay its workers. Even the 433 workers that were retrenched could not be paid their dues, leading to protestations and sit in strikes by
the ex-workers. Before the Belgian consortium was called in to resurrect CAMAIR, the sum of about FCFA 8 billion, being the salary of the 433 ex-workers of CAMAIR, disbursed for payment by the then Minister of Economy and Finance, Polycarpe Abah Abah, by
Ministerial Decision N0 1/D/MINEFI/DGB/PC/BR of October 17, 2006, paid into the CAMAIR account number 2015421-R at CBC Bank Douala, could not be found one year afterwards and the 433 protesting ex-workers had not yet received their pay. Yet accounts showed that they have actually been paid.

Yet still, CAMAIR, in the course of 2006 and 2007, realised FCFA 52 billion plus state subvention of about FCFA 65 billion, making a total of FCFA 117 billion in two years, but was still unable to pay
workers’ salaries. Compounded by the ban by the French civil aviation authority, the crisis of CAMAIR deepened and in conformity with the neo-liberal law in which white man companies are expert managers, SN Airholding, the parent company of SN Brussels
Airlines, was called in to restart CAMAIR to no avail, leading to its grounding in March 2008. Unfortunately for CAMAIR, government being a “bad manager” could not manage it and as an indigenous company, created and run by a “bad manager”, it was not worthy to be bought by a white man company, which could explain why the
attempt to privatise CAMAIR resulted in a stalemate.

Besides, the entire privatisation process, including that of CAMAIR, has remained a shady (“black market”) deal between the state and foreign companies whose only mission is to take total control of all the strategic economic sectors of Cameroon while the
state, the “bad manager”, should content itself with the “fight against poverty”. And that has been the intrigues of the white man against Africans, against Black people, for the last 500 years, since July 1472 in the case of Cameroon. And the fault is with us that, for all these years, we have not yet realised the wickedness of the white man against us; we still see the white man, who operates through proxies, as God.

Cameroonians die attempting to cross to Europe

They perished in their quest for pastures green alongside other African nationals when their boat ran out of fuel

By Ntaryike Divine, Jr. in Douala

Several Cameroonians are now known to have perished in an umpteenth futile attempt to sneak into Europe from North Africa . A Tunisian daily said Monday that in all 50 people including other African nationals died.

The exact number of Cameroonians involved in the incident was not known. The Tunisian Arab language daily, Assabah Ousbouii said 16 people out of a total of 66 survived.

According to details of the story that shocked the world Monday, 12 May, the illegal immigrants including “mostly Cameroonians, Nigerians, Kenyans, Tunisians and Moroccans” embarked on the perilous journey from the Tunisian coast. The 66 traveled aboard a
5-metre-long boat.

Unfortunately for them, the boat soon ran out of fuel on the high seas some 400km off the coasts of Libya and several nautical miles from the nearest Italian island. They floated without direction for five days. Assabah Ousbouii reported that initially, some 47 of
the passengers died of hunger, thirst or just froze to death.

Unable to bear the stench, the surviving passengers flung the dead into the sea. The boat apparently drifted back to starting point. It was discovered on a Tunisian beach around Monastir with three cadavers and sixteen people dangling between life and death.

Western Diplomats must Review their attitude toward the Biya Regime!

Source;The Herald Cameroon

Western diplomats in Yaounde surely disagree with the manoeuvring of the regime. They once issued a strong statement indicting the government. What is surprising is how they could so easily and comfortably resume business as usual with the same regime. This is a contradiction difficult to explain. Far from criticising our western friends, this essay is an appeal to them to review their posture. If they find they cannot summon the bravery it takes to challenge the regime, let them give up all talk about good governance and focus on giving Cameroon more economic
aid. China and Japan are good examples for them to follow.

In the long and troubled quest for democracy in Cameroon there once was a time when opposition leaders sincerely believed that powerful western governments could simply descend upon Yaounde and literally dethrone Paul Biya.

To keep that hope alive opposition leaders courted Yaounde diplomats desperately. There was such high traffic to western chancelleries that government spokesmen referred cynically to as “opposition embassies.”

It since came home rather painfully disappointingly that the opposition had been naïve. They made many more mistakes and squandered their huge early advantage.

Paul Biya has grown from strength to strength. Now his appetite for power is seemingly insatiable. To feed and sustain it, Biya is now poised to drag Cameroon to ruin.

Cameroonians are in shock, and their political heart is bleeding. Alvin Toffler, the sociological futurist, and author of the 1970 best-seller Future Shock, predicted the coming shock of humanity due to the many unexpected social changes he foresaw. That book could easily have referred to Cameroon, seeing the horrible man-made changes taking place here since some time.

This shock is partly due to the absence of any force that can stop Biya in his steps. The opposition is irretrievably compromised; the civil society is weak, and the intellectual class is non-existent. The church that once spoke up for the people is now more of an ally of the government.

Foreign partners

This is the context in which, in their helplessness, Cameroonians often count on the support of their foreign partners, who they believe have the lever to influence things for the better.

Diplomats are their accredited liaison officials. Imbued with first hand knowledge of developments in Cameroon, diplomats can be powerful instruments of good responsible government, especially so if their countries give themselves that objective, as we know western countries do.

We beg to observe, regrettably, that western embassies in Yaounde have not always played that role well enough. Once a long, long while there emerges a man or woman of character who rattles the Yaounde establishment or a statement is issued that causes the government to tremble in self-doubt.

But occasional threats, powerful though, have not gone far enough to discourage the Yaounde autocrats. In the meantime the country is gathering momentum on its descent into the abyss.

Would western diplomats rather wait until the damage is all done? How would they explain it to their consciences, their home governments and peoples that they watched it all happen, and lacked the guts to challenge it?

These thoughts are not, of course, addressed to non-western diplomats. The Chinese, everyone knows, are unconcerned with good governance issues in their relations with African countries which they keep strictly to economic matters. The Japanese also limit themselves to socioeconomic aid. Africans are totally out of consideration - for obvious reasons.

In their ongoing concern for good governance in Cameroon, three western missions jointly issued a strong statement last year dismissing the July legislative election as a missed opportunity for
democratic advance. The statement was a devastating indictment of the regime that put the government on the defensive.

It received much public applause and instantly raised expectation of a follow-up. Then there was a let-down. The assembly for which the electoral farce was organised has since been constituted, and also since voted the constitutional amendment authorizing Biya to reverse the course of democracy in Cameroon.

Business as usual

What is surprising is the ease and comfort with which the same western chancelleries since returned to business as usual with the same government as if nothing had happened at all.

However it is explained, this posture of contradiction is profoundly disturbing to Cameroonians, to say the very least. And, with due respect to our western friends, that sermonising on corruption, human rights or press freedom which is, ab initio, of no consequence to the government, only highlights this contradiction.

Let us admit, none of that can ever make up for diplomats’ inability to face up to the regime. What it takes is a sense of purpose and character.

Where are the Cooks and the Marquardts? Where are the Edwin Snows, the British diplomat who in recent years put the Kenyan government on the defensive over corruption? Must we conclude that Yaounde is short of diplomats of enterprise to rise up to the situation that Yaounde presents?

Yet, apart from the military, diplomacy is that other public career with vast opportunities for initiative and bravery in service to humanity since the diplomat in his different assignment faces ever new, unforeseen and constantly changing challenges.

Two years ago a ceremony took place in Washington to mark the release of postage stamps honouring six extraordinary diplomats. In her citation, Condoleezza Rice said the six diplomats “made their mark on history as trailblazers, as strategic thinkers, as peacemakers and humanitarians.”

One remarkable case was Hiram Bingham who served as vice-consul at the US consulate in Marseilles, France, during World War II. Bingham did the unusual. He violated US policy by issuing visas that saved the lives of more than 2000 Jews and other refugees. He was honoured for “constructive dissent.”

Many diplomats have shaped their government’s policies by advising different, more adapted approaches to the problems they encounter.

Marshall Plan

Isn’t it a great credit to diplomats that the huge and very influential post-war European Recovery Programme is better known as the Marshall Plan after its originator, George Marshall?

Henry Kissinger, the man who raised shuttle diplomacy to its height, formulated and implemented US policy in-between flights. A recent book has drawn attention to the terrible conflicts and mutual suspicions that existed between him and Richard Nixon because of the diplomat’s unilateral policy initiatives.

Nixon enjoyed a strong foreign policy much of which was the work of Kissinger. So he couldn’t afford to send off the creative and enterprising diplomat.

Going by these standards it is difficult to understand the indifference of the diplomats of Yaounde before the challenge they live with. Yes, there are risks; but what truly worthy endeavour is risk-free.

After the well-known position of Washington, the EU, Britain and France, on Cameroon, would the queen of the fortress of Rosa Parks Avenue still consider it so dangerous a risk to face up to the arrogance of Yaounde?

Is that what also explains the timidity of the men of Churchill Avenue, and others? Don’t they know that the Yaounde regime also acts in fear? The cowardliness of its adversaries only strengthens and furthers it!

We sincerely urge our western friends to review their attitude. But if after a sincere review they cannot bring themselves to challenge the regime in a more meaningful way, we would understand them. In that case we suggest two things.

There should be no more reason for western diplomats to make advocacy speeches for good governance, human rights, corruption and the rest which is all hogwash anyway.

Secondly, if politics is too risky and life-threatening, our western friends must then consider giving us a lot more bilateral economic aid which so far comes in trickles. Cameroon is awfully
wanting in socioeconomic infrastructure.

China and Japan are good examples to follow. They give big, meaningfully, and with surprisingly less noise to go with all that. Journalism and other seminars by our western friends are welcome but they are better quieter.

Again, this essay must not be taken in the spirit of criticism, but rather as an expression of the bleeding political soul of Cameroonians calling out to western diplomats to break free of their lethargy and help. And, we know they can.

Cameroon: Moving forward to 2011!

With all the distractions around us, like selective arrest of embezzlers of State funds, noises about impending big projects, pompous declarations about the food crisis and more, we should not lose sight of the momentous 2011 that is approaching at a gallop

By Tazoacha Asonganyi,Yaounde

It is of historical interest that once in a while, extraordinary human beings that stand out head and shoulders above all others appear on the scene. We all had this in mind when we embarked on the politics of change with the return of multi-party politics in the early ‘90s. This was especially so because experience from South East Asia had taught us that one commanding personality could change a country in a generation…Such a personality gets thrust up by forces under the surface and they alter the direction of the forces in their poor, underdeveloped countries and make their life a legend, like Mao, Park Chung Hee and others...

It is true that the opposition figures that emerged on the stage in the early ‘90s were products of different backgrounds: some were realists, others were idealists, but they seemed to be all aware of the weak foundation on which the country stood. They also seemed to be aware of the forces under the surface that had brought the country to its knees. All of them had one thing in common: each behaved like a star. It was not long before we became aware of the dangers that had been cast on the struggle by these “shining” stars. Since great stars are only happy in their own
unimpeded orbits, it was difficult to put them in one orbit! Each time they were “forced” together, it was more a partnership of circumstances and convenience, than of friendship and cooperation. And so under our eyes, the mission of the struggle whittled down and was departed from. In their dazzling, competitive orbits, they developed “strategies” that were more shell than kernel... As years went by, each developed the myopia of old men that it is difficult to imagine a satisfactory younger successor!

So what was the challenge the emergent leaders were bound to meet? Nobel laureate Wangari Maathai has responded with a question: “...why is Africa one of the richest continents on the planet, endowed with oil, precious stones, forests, water, wildlife, soil, land, agricultural products, and millions of women and men, and yet most of Africa’s people remain impoverished?” The simple reason is the lack of serious leaders with vision like Mao Tse-tung (for China) and Park Chung Hee (for South Korea) that truly emanate from within the society to create the appropriate environment for their countries to emerge from poverty, underdevelopment and helplessness.

Africa’s false step was taken by the leaders that took over African countries following independence, because of their “limited and conditioned vision”. Although they were colonised and abused, they identified with the colonial forces that denied them what they dreamt to become.

Since the coloniser had inspired “admiration”, being like the coloniser would also inspire “admiration”! Consequently, the opportunity to rule was confuse with oppression; they imitated the use of power and authority by colonisers and ruled their people in the manner of the colonialist they had just replaced.

Unfortunately, those who succeeded to replace these “strongmen” or “fathers of the nation”, continued in the imitation. Therefore the mission that faced the “new” opposition parties that emerged in the early ‘90s was to end this sterile imitation by providing appropriate leadership to lead our country out of the stalemate of underdevelopment and poverty. As would be realised later, the leaders did not seem to have a single grain of conviction, except in the hope that by some luck, they could grab the country and commandeer it in the image of those they were fighting to replace. Their political attitudes seemed to be dictated by opportunism, rather than by any coherent corpus of belief. “Democracy” was always their pet slogan, and they invariably included it in the names of their parties, although they had very little idea of what it meant. It was like a password for self-preservation and self-promotion…

Most of the “leaders” spent precious time uprooting plants from the gardens of ideological certainties and replanting them in the gardens of the outfits they had set up as political parties; giving them funny names like rigour and moralisation, new deal, grands ambitions, power to the people, equal opportunity, republican ethics... and even creating “shadows” that fell into desuetude upon their creation... As expected, the gardens became more and more barren with passing years… and the hungry and expectant people became more and more restive!

After Ahidjo’s 22 years at the helm, it seems the only ambition of the present man at the top in our country is to be remembered for having blown out the highest number of candles in the presidential palace. As we move forward to 2011, the various “stars” circling their individual orbits leave us only to hope that the year will mark our own “once in a while” when, from relative obscurity, an extraordinary human being with vision and patriotism will emerge on the scene.

Mbanga Pongo crash: Kenya Airways anxious to know crash cause

Airliner officials have begun urging the Kenyan and US governments to mount
pressure on Yaounde authorities to release a report on the cause of the crash

By Ntaryike Divine, Jr. in Douala

Almost a year since a Kenya Airways plane hurtled into jungle marshes at Mbanga Pongo seconds after take-off from the Douala airport, protracting information blackout on the exact cause of the crash has compelled the airliner to direct pressure on Cameroon authorities.

Kenya Airways CEO, Titus Naikuni, said earlier this week that his company was seeking the intervention of the Kenyan and US governments to oblige Yaounde authorities to release the report. All 114 passengers and crew members aboard perished when KQ flight 507
nosed-dived amidst violent nocturnal storms last 5 May.

A flurry of aviation experts from within and without Cameroon attempted hypothetical explanations on the cause of the crash in the weeks that followed. Some blamed Cameroon for her blatant lack of flight control radars that stalled a search and rescue operation for over 48 hours. Others pinned blame for the disaster on violent night storms.

At term, the wrecked craft’s black boxes were retrieved from the marshy crash site after days of a
daunting search and ferried to Canada for analyses. Cameroon authorities announced amidst sweeping grief at home and abroad that the crash cause report would be available in a year. In the interlude, Kenya Airways began paying indemnities to kin of deceased passengers, as DNA tests conducted at a Bosnian laboratory enabled the identification and restitution of corpses [mostly as body parts] to relatives.

Kenya Airways officials have said the crash significantly burdened the national carrier which has
been grappling to regain its once enviable poise in air transport in Africa. Speaking recently at the
carrier’s headquarters in Embakasi , Kenya , CEO Titus Naikuni said Kenya Airways is facing huge challenges in the aftermath of the disaster. He named shortage of aircraft following the loss of the Boeing 767-800 in the Douala crash and the ongoing unparalleled hikes in fuel prices as major sources of concern.

He however said Kenya Airways is acquiring more planes to inter alia, fill the shortfall from the Douala crash, but also noted that the delivery of new craft had been delayed by Boeing manufacturers for reasons he did not state. He even hinted that the airliner may be obliged to raise fares in two months time, in order to cater for unprecedented increase in fuel prices and
the continued weakening of the dollar that has continued to eat into its profits.

Fear of another uprising: Biya orders Russian helicopters to shoot demonstrators, rioters!

The government is deeply apprehensive of the state of national security. The unpopularity of the recent amendment of the constitution and the ever-rising prices of food and essential commodities have combined to create a sense of nervousness among the masses which could easily find expression in a popular uprising. Rather than address the issues, Paul Biya has opted for the use of brutality

By Ntaryike Divine Jr. in Douala

President Paul Biya seems determined to have his way at all cost; and to use as much brutality as is necessary which is already the hallmark of his 25-year regime. To cope with the simmering tension in Cameroon following popular disapproval of the recent amendment of the constitution permitting him to stay in office beyond 2011, the government has placed armed troops across towns in Cameroon.

This is to forestall a poplar uprising similar if not worse than that of February.
Apart from popular anger over the amendment of the constitution, the hardship of the masses caused by ever-increasing food prices provides yet another reason for a real possibility of problems for the authorities.

Intelligence sources have told The Herald that the government is not taking the situation lying low.

In addition to the already announced intention of the government to recruit at least a thousand more hands
into the army, The Herald has learned that Russian war helicopters are on order to strengthen the government’s already heavy hand in dealing with any possible uprising.

The helicopters which are said to be nine in number and ordered through a private Swiss supplier will be used to shoot gatherings of rioters, our sources say.

The government’s fear of a possible uprising is so real that a fortnight ago President Paul Biya called off a journey abroad at the last minute.

A government decision last month to reduce the price of foodstuffs and essential commodities which received wide public approval has proved a failure. Not only is the public disenchanted, retailers are gradually being turned against the government because of the hard measures of authorities of the Ministry of Trade which
include locking up shops, seizing wares of recalcitrant traders and forcing down unacceptable
reductions on retailers.

These developments only add to the existing state of mass youth unemployment, which prepare the ground for a possible people’s uprising.

The civil society has also warned the government to try to act quickly and adequately to provide solutions to the crisis in which people live.

Closing a recent meeting of the Catholic Episcopal Conference, Archbishop Samuel Kleda who chaired the meeting warned the government that unless it acted in time it should be ready for another uprising which will embrace the whole of Cameroon and render last February’s riots a child’s play.

The government appears rather to be preparing for the use of brutal and excessive force instead of turning
the same resources towards lasting solutions.

86bn French debt relief funds lying fallow at BEAC!

The funds accruing from debt relief granted Cameroon in 2006 by the French government, following the attainment of the HIPC completion point, are intended to finance development projects in the country

By Ojong Steven Ayuk in Yaounde

The funds already accruing from debt relief following Cameroons attainment of the completion point of the HIPC initiative are quite enormous and are destined for the financing of urgent development projects in the country.

But in spite of the market under-development of the country and the abject poverty to which the masses have been subjected over the past two decades, government still seems short of ideas as to what viable projects could consume the money and better the lives of Cameroonians.

And because of this, over 86 billion FCFA of the nearly 160 billion FCFA so far deposited in accounts at the Central Bank, BEAC, thanks to debt relief granted Cameroon by the French government following a contract signed between the two countries on 22 June 2006, is still waiting to be used, and this until the government presents viable projects.

So far the government has only been able to withdraw close to 80 billion FCFA to finance mostly
rehabilitation works in Yaounde and Douala, and a smaller part to pay salaries of contract teachers. In fact, over 11 billion FCFA (8 billion in 2007 and 3 billion in the first half of 2008) has been used for payment of contract teachers’ salaries.

Following the 2006 contract for debt relief with the French government, money intended for servicing of debts owed France is deposited in two accounts at BEAC. This money is ploughed back into the economy to finance development projects under the HIPC-C2D programme.
At a press briefing here on 15 April, the Director of the French Development Agency, Pascal Collange, said that by the end of the first part of the C2D programme that ends in 2011, Cameroon would have benefited some 352 billion FCFA from France.

Pascal Collange said Cameroon has so far respected deadlines for the servicing of her debts, to the tune of 70 billion FCFA a year.

He said through an agreement between the two governments, the civil society has been brought in to contribute in the follow-up of the execution of projects under the C2D programme. This to ensure adequate use of the funds and proper execution of projects.

According to Marc Bikoko, president of the syndicate of public servants (CSP), the role of the civil
society is to identify problems with the execution of the projects and ensure that corrective measures are taken.

FEICOM case appeal: Ondo Ndong now to serve 20 years after Biya pardons 30

Using his overwhelming powers that put the courts under his control, Paul Biya reconsidered the
punishment meted out to his friend and ally who claimed that it was Biya who ordered him to abuse
FEICOM’s funds

By Roland Akong Wuwih in Yaounde

After much consideration President Paul Biya has softened towards Emmanuel Gérard Ondo Ndong, a close
ally and former FEICOM general manager who was given a 50-year jail sentence a year ago.

When the case came up on appeal, the president instructed the court to knock off 30 years. Ondo Ndong
will now serve only 20.

The former FEICOM GM will also pay 25.8 billion FCFA along with several other colleagues of his who were
jailed.

Ondo Ndong had given evidence during his High Court trial that much of the 52 billion FCFA that he was
accused of both embezzling and misappropriating had, in fact, been the result of telephone directives by
the Head of State, Paul Biya, as well as generous contributions to the CPDM and friends of the party
some of whom were directed to him by Paul Biya.

While on preventive detention during the trial that lasted about a year, Ondo Ndong often questioned in
shock if indeed Paul Biya knew of his arrest and trial.

It seems that Biya had now acted in due recognition of the many unwritten directives to spend FEICOM’s funds
abusively.

As a prisoner of the president, the courts normally refer their decisions to the president to obtain
approval before applying them.

The constitution forbids any clemency or other pardon even by the president to prisoners serving corruption
terms. Ondon Ndong who had been sure to end the rest of his life in prison now has hopes to be out in his
mid 70s given Paul Biya’s 30-year pardon.

13 suspects jailed, 4 acquitted

The Yaounde Appeal Court passed its verdict on Wednesday after a seven-month long hearing

It was a big surprise to many at the Yaounde Appeal Court Wednesday, 16 April when the presiding judge of
the Special Support Fund (FEICOM) declared some 13 suspects who were earlier freed by the Mfoundi High
Court in June 2007 guilty, and sentenced them to various jail terms.

They were involved, according to the court verdict, in the embezzlement of 29 billion FCFA at FEICOM during
the management of former FEICOM general manager, Emmanuel Gérard Ondo Ndong, whose prison term was
dropped from 50 to 20 years. According to the judgement some of his confiscated properties will be
refunded including two houses, jewelleries he bought for his wives, amongst others.

The prison terms of the other 12 FEICOM convicts were also reduced.

Four other suspects were found not guilty and acquitted.

The relatives and friends of the sentenced victims burst into tears when security operatives transported
them to the Kodengui Central Prison on Wednesday.

Those who had their prison sentences reduced expressed joy although their lawyers hinted of further appeals.

Yaounde Appeal court
Ondo Ndong – 50 years - 20 years
Moise Mbella – 48 years - 15 years
Dieudonne Nguema Ondong – 48 years - 15 years
Jean Bessala Nsana – 48 years - 15 years
Charles Ketchami – 35 years - 10 yrs
Roselyne-bi Ebanga – 20 years - 10 years
Justin Ze Ze – 30 years 10 years
Leonie Angue (on the run) – 25 years - 10 years
Oblavie Omballa – 10 years - 10 years
Eto’o Alain Monebam – 30 years - 10 years
Peh Daniel – 40 years - 10 years
Raymond Aaron – 20 years - 10 years
Bonaventure Ndema – 25 years - 10 years

Those acquitted earlier but condemned again
Grace Ellesa Soppo – 20 years
Laurentine Ngo Bayanak – 10 years
Berthe Kooh - 10 years
Ngot Cho Nyamsi - 10 years
Marie Carine Edjang - 10 years
Ruben Abel Ze - 10 years
Olinga Mvogo - 10 years
Venceslas Ndjomo - 10 years
Pierre Ndoukam - 10 years
Celestin Mibe - 10 years
Marie Gabrielle Etoga - 10 years
Ndode Jermiah - 10 years
Edmond Medjo - 10 years

Those freed
Tchuente Namtchueng
Janvier Onana
Evina Bidoung
Luc Albert Ekomessa

CAMAIR excluded from air transport association

The image-tarnishing ejection has been tagged to the ailing company’s lengthening failure to step up
security and allow independent operations auditing

By Ntaryike Divine, Jr. in Douala

Barely a month after new managers were designated at the befuddled national carrier CAMAIR, the company
that is yet to resume flights has been dealt a damaging blow. The International Air Transport Association, IATA, has excluded CAMAIR from its list of members.

Reasons for the image-tarnishing ejection pronounced last week have been hinged on prolonged security
lapses and other pitfalls in the administrative management of the ailing company. Concretely, IATA
blamed CAMAIR for the inexistence of viable accounts and reluctance to conduct an independent audit of its
operations over the last four years.

It also expressed worry over maintenance and the ageing nature of craft used by the company. The IATA
decision indicates the association is keen on shedding blame in the event of an accident suffered by CAMAIR.
The association advocates meticulous respect of air transport standards. Statistics hold that while air
transport in Africa represents a meagre 4 percent of worldwide figures, the continent.

In 2006, CAMAIR appeared on a blacklist of 92 airliners barred from European skies. Thanks to
vigorous negotiations, the government overturned the ban. But observers say last week’s ejection of CAMAIR
from the IATA membership list reiterates the lack of real political will to overhaul the carrier whose
planned privatization has snail-paced endlessly.

On the back of an IMF mission to Cameroon last month, CAMAIR’s three-year-serving provisional ambassador,
Paul Ngamo Hamani was fired in a terse presidential decree. The company activities were grounded for over
a week and upon his appointment as director-delegate, Adolphe Sammet Bell announced resumption of operations beginning with domestic flights two days later. But CAMAIR planes are yet to take to the air since
mid-March.

The IATA decision thus adds to customers’ waning confidence in the 37-year-old airliner drenched in
debts valued at over 70-billion-FCFA. The company that costs the state some 3 billion FCFA monthly to manage
also lacks craft of its own. It has still not cleared outstanding fuel debts valued at some 2 billion FCFA.
Only last February, Total Cameroun and Shell fuel suppliers refused to serve the company from unpaid
bills obliging the grounding of craft for several days.

Camair And The New Deal

Prof. Tazoacha Asonganyi, Yaounde

The fate of Cameroon Airlines (Camair) today reinforces the idea that ownership by the state is
ownership by an impersonal entity which amounts to control by politicians and civil servants.

The aim of the privatisation process started a long time ago was to sell off public enterprises in order to shift the balance from the inefficient, unaccountable state to the more efficient private
business.

It was supposed to introduce popular capitalism by ensuring the widest ownership of shares by members of the public, to reduce the power of the State and enhance the power of the people. In State-owned structures like Camair, targets are set, new management appointed, performance monitored, warnings given; but these never work like in private business because it is the State that accounts for weaknesses to the State, not management to shareholders.

Crony-run public corporations like Camair have since discredited the public sector that dominated left wing and third world economies, because they allowed too much borrowing and expansion without due regard for adequate returns. The corporations were bossed by inexperienced civil servants and shielded from the discipline of the market, so they were run on unprofitable bases and created no wealth.

This failure of State-run services contributed to the convergence of certain economic views between the socialists and capitalists and led to the resurrection of the market in all modern democracies - whether they were run by the left or the right.

This is why with the collapse of Soviet communism and the re-emergence of Russia, the Russian republic launched a grand privatisation programme. By the end of 1993, some 6.5 million State-owned apartments (about 20 percent of total) had been privatised.

By 1994, more than 139 million Russians had invested their government-issued privatisation vouchers, a participation rate of 94 percent; 70 percent of Russian industry (20.000 of the 28.000 large or medium sized industrial enterprises and 90.000 small firms) had been sold off.
Indeed, by July 1994, cash in-flow into Russia was around $500 million a month due to the explosive growth in stock prices!

Within this backdrop, how did Camair get to where it is today? Following the collapse of Air Afrique, Camair was established on July 26, 1971, as the national airline of Cameroon, a company owned by the Cameroon Government, 96.43 percent, and Air France, 3.57 percent.

In June 2000, probably to catch-up with new economic exigencies, Yves Fotso took up duties as
"Administrateur Directeur Général". He was later replaced by Dakayi Kamga, and then by Paul Ngamo Hamani who was appointed provisional administrator in February 2005 to prepare for
"privatisation/liquidation".

In 2006, the Cameroon government reached an agreement with SN Airholding, the mother company of SN Brussels Airlines to revive the airline, without much effect. Then a Presidential decree created a new company known as Cameroon Airlines Corporation, CAMAIR Co, to
replace Camair.

On 14 March 2008, government sacked Paul Ngamo Hamani and the Minister of Finance extended the mandate of the Liquidator of Camair by 12 months, with a co-liquidator, who would handle judicial matters about the privatisation...

To understand the present fate of Camair, it would be appropriate to examine the situation of other airlines related to it in one way or the other. Kenya Airways is said to have expressed interest in the privatisation of Camair. Kenya Airways was established in February 1977, after the demise of East African Airways and was wholly owned by the Kenyan government until April 1996.

As far back as 1986, the Kenyan government expressed the need to privatise the airline, "in line with the country's need for economic development and growth". The government named a Board Chairman in 1991 with specific orders to privatise the airline. In 1992, government set the privatisation of the airline as top priority.

In 1994 the International Financial Corporation (IFC) was appointed to provide assistance in the
privatisation process which ended in KLM buying 26 percent of the shares in 1997 and becoming the largest single shareholder. The shares were floated to the public and the airline started trading on the Nairobi Stock Exchange. Presently, it is owned by individual Kenyan shareholders (30.94 percent), KLM (now Air France-KLM) (26 percent), Kenyan government (23 percent), Kenyan institutional investorsCorporate-Governance-Ira-Millstein (14.2 percent), foreign institutional investors (4.47 percent) and individual foreign investors (1.39percent).

Kenya Airways has won the 'African Airline of the Year' award five times in seven years. In 2007,
SkyTeam, the second-largest airline alliance in the world, welcomed Kenya Airways as one of the first official SkyTeam Associate Airlines.

What of Air France, a partner of Camair at birth? In September 2003, Air France and KLM Royal Dutch Airlines merged to form Air France-KLM. With the merger, Air France shareholders owned 81 percent of the new firm, (44 percent owned by the French State, 37 percent by private shareholders), former KLM shareholders the rest.

By reducing the French government shares from 54.4 percent to 44 of the newly created Air France-KLM Group, the airline was effectively privatised. In December 2004 the State sold 18.4 percent of its equity in Air France-KLM to own less than 20 percent of the shares. Air France-KLM is the largest airline in the world in terms of operating revenue and third-largest (largest in Europe) in passenger kilometres.

These are examples of success, while Camair moved from failure to failure. So, why have others worked these "miracles" of success while our own national airline continued to move from crisis to crisis? Why is the "transformative intelligence", other people use to bring prosperity to their countries, absent in Cameroon?

Why are others busy putting into practice the knowledge they got from the schools we all attended together while we in Cameroon are busy celebrating the certificates and bathing in cronyism, tribalism, corruption and other unpatriotic ills? Why is the government stock with the privatisation of Camair?

Central to using "transformative intelligence" to conquer underdevelopment and mass poverty and generate economic development is the ability of the individual citizen not only to form and hold conceptions of excellence but to realise them. This is only possible with "free", happy individuals! Such individuals are a product of the rule of law, checks and balances, strong social contracts and the attendant universal rights of the human being.

These concepts we parrot everyday were conquered through serious struggles in history to put the individual citizen as the centrepiece of the modern political and legal systems. The individual citizen is protected and glorified by the universal declaration of human rights and freedoms
and the African charter on human and peoples' rights, and highly valued and respected in their countries because all "transformative intelligence" is the product of the human mind.

Indeed, the material culture that defines much of what we call "development" flows from the minds of individual citizens. This is why it is usually said that the individual citizen represents the hen that lays the "golden egg" of development for a country, and so must be provided the environment to mature the eggs! The individual citizen has a lively, fertile mind full of ingenuity, imagination and creativity, but it all depends on nurture.

When the appropriate environment exists, the individual citizen meets the challenge of laying the
golden eggs everyday; when it is absent the eggs dry up! The chaos, injustice, corruption, favouritism, tribalism, immorality and deprivation in our society are the causes of the sickness that is weighing down Camair. Camair is a mirror that reflects the nakedness of the New Deal regime.

Catholic bishops warn Biya: Address youth problems quickly or face another strike!

Meeting for the first time since the social strike of February, the Catholic bishops took the opportunity to tell the president that the explosion of last February was the result of the failures of his polices. And it is in correcting them that he could avoid a repeat
experience

By Roland Akong Wuwih in Yaounde

A three-day meeting in Yaounde of the Episcopal Conference of Cameroon, the executive organ of the Catholic Church in Cameroon, has called on President Paul Biya to pay even greater attention to the social problems of Cameroon and particularly of its youth.

A keynote address made at the opening of a three-day conference that ends in Yaounde today warned the president that unless he addresses these issues with a measure of urgency there would be another social crisis before long.

The speaker was Bishop Samuel Kleda, co-adjutor of the Douala diocese, who chaired the meeting as its vice president in the absence of Victor Tonye Bakot, the archbishop of Yaounde, who is in France for medical reasons.

During the meeting the bishops also discussed how to get the youths of Cameroon join in the world Catholic Youth Day.

It was disclosed that of 400 Catholic youths sent to participate in this event in Italy in 2002 only 30 returned to Cameroon, while the rest used the opportunity to migrate, one reason why the Catholic
Church is concerned about the government resolving the issue of youth unemployment.

Last February, a transporters’ strike instantly became a welcome opportunity for the wide public to express their dissatisfaction with the policies of President Paul Biya that have over the years visited poverty and other economic hardships on the people.

The strike was accompanied by rioting, looting and extensive damage of public and private properties.

More than 100 youths were killed, most of them by live bullets in clashes with armed law enforcement agents.

Empty Blood Bank in Cameroon Hospitals Health minister begs community for Donation

By Harry Ndienla Yemti

Though there has been persistent reports on acute shortages of blood in the banks of major hospitals in Cameroon; that of the Laquintinie hospital, one of the biggest hospitals in the country is today practically empty.

So empty that the country’s minister of health, Mama Fouda, was taken aback during a recent visit to the hospital. On this score, the minister who was on a field visit to evaluate the capacity of hospitals to intervene and handle emergency situations especially
those which did so during the recent upheaval in the country, launched a fervent appeal on the community to rescue the blood bank of hospitals and particularly that of Laquintinie

While emphasizing the importance of the Laquintinie hospital, which is situated in the heart of the economic capital of Douala, the minister said the emptiness of the blood bank calls for emergency reason why he called on the media to inform all and sundry to
save the situation of the hospital.

Situated in Douala, where the recent strike was violent the blood bank of Laquintinie hospital was unfilled by victims who suffered serious casualties and were rushed there

Unlike the Laquintinie hospital, the blood banks of other hospitals are being affected by donors’ inability to go for HIV/AIDS test before donation.

Minister Mama Fouda, also visited other hospitals which handle emergency cases like the Provincial Hospital of Nkongsamba, St. Jean de Malt hospital, which is located in an accident prone zone of Njombe, the Mbanga District Hospital, the CEBEC and Bonasama
Hospitals in Bonaberi-Douala.

At each of the Hospitals visited, the minister’s message was clear and simple; to better organize, encourage and empower staff, boost the capacity of hospitals in handling emergency cases such as road
accidents and epidemics amongst others.

He lauded the efforts of St. Jean de Malte hospital, in their handling of emergencies, particularly the October, 2007 accident along the Njombe-Penja high way which claimed 28 lives and other cases of epidemics like cholera outbreak. While commending the fruitful
relation between the Order of Malte and Cameroon, Minister Fouda, made it clear that his country has benefited enormously from the order in the fight against HIV/AIDS, Cancer in Children amongst others.

Meantime, as he made visits to the various services of the different hospitals the minister handed cartoons of consignment of drugs, an ambulance amongst others. He equally gave words of consolation to some of the strike victims who were still undergoing treatment.

As he sought to answer a few needs the minister also made promises like the recruitment of staff as well the creation of an emergency fund to handle emergency cases.

Anti-Biya life presidency coalition on offensive trip to US

By Harry Ndienla Yemti

The civil society platform against the institution of a life presidency for President Paul Biya of Cameroon, has embarked on an offensive visit to the US to acquaint various authorities with current attempts in Cameroon to institute a monarchy and kill democracy.

Upon their arrival in the US recently, the group which has been pressing US authorities to put pressure on President Biya to abandon his unpopular life-presidency adventure, was received at the US state Department by under-secretary of state for Africa, Jendayi Frazer.
Although much is yet to be gotten from their meetings, officials of the civil society platform in Yaounde told local newspapers that the US state Department was disturbed by reports that Cameroonians who are opposed to the life presidency project are not allowed to peacefully assemble freely and express their opinions. US ambassador to Cameroon, Janet Garvey, had already expressed her government’s position on the life presidency issue when she told journalists that the United States is opposed to self-seeking constitutional revisions.

She recently remarked “we have constantly spoken out against changing executive term limits in other countries, such as in Nigeria, and we would recommend against an effort to amend the constitution when such a move could be perceived as being for the benefit of one
individual or group,” Garvey told journalists in Yaounde, Cameroon.

She said while constitutional changes are themselves not bad, alternation of power is important. “The United States’ position is clear-as I have said already –we acknowledge that every country’s right to change its constitution and in our experience, term limits and periodic leadership change-at least every decade-are healthy for democracy,” said Garvey.

It is probably for that reason that various US institutions and organizations programmed working
sessions with the powerful delegation lead by Hilaire Kamga, of Nouveax droits de l’homme. They include the Congressional Black Caucus, the National Governors’ Association, Freedom House, National Democratic Institute, and National Endowment for Democracy, Open Society, Global Rights and the Voice of America.

The Civil Society Coalition announced in January that it was engaging in actions to put pressure on the Biya regime to abandon its announced plans to convert Cameroon to a de facto monarchy by revising the two-term limit clause in the constitution.

If the constitution is revised to allow for unlimited presidential terms, Paul Biya will almost certainly cling to power for life, as elections, which his agents control, are manipulated to ensure that he wins by a predetermined score