African Unification Front
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CAMEROON: A CASE STUDY
THE ORIGINS & AFTERMATH OF AN AFRICAN COUP ATTEMPT
Fako division, home of the Bakweri community, is located in the Southwest Province of the Republic of Cameroon. Its divisional boundaries stretch from the Lower Mungo river estuary to the East, to the Southeastern and eastern axis of Mount Fako, passing through the Tiko creeks and the coast of Ngeme. Fako division, which was known as Victoria division during the British colonial era, is dominated by the towering Fako mountain (also known as Mount Cameroon), the highest peak in West Africa (13,353 ft - 4072 m).
The Germans occupied Fako in 1884. Plantation agriculture, began in 1885, when the two leading German firms in Kamerun, Woerman and Jantzen und Thormalen founded two plantation companies. The massive expropriation by these two firms campaign altered the sociology and history of the various Bakweri clans. German companies exploited the traditional landownership norms of the Bakweri to their advantage. They also forced, threatened, and tricked members of the Bakweri community into thumb-printing fraudulent land sales contracts.
These acts of duplicity were so rampant that that an 1888 law stipulated that the prior consent of government was required before the acquisition of any native land. Later in 1910, an Ordinance regulating land deals between the Bakweri and strangers was signed. One of its clauses made room for the appointment of a “guardian” to act as an intermediary in land deals.
These laws were not passed because of sympathy with the indigenous population. They were promulgated primarily to placate the missionary community, particularly the Basel Mission, which had been unrelenting in its criticism of the shady land acquisitions and the horrendous brutality of the German government in dealing with the Bakweri. In fact, in 1896 the government passed the Crown Lands Act that declared all “unoccupied” lands. Given the very self-serving German interpretation of the concept of “unoccupied lands” and given the fact that the Bakweri could not possibly have effective occupation of all of their indigenous lands, virtually the entire Fako division officially became the property of the colonial government. Another land law in 1903 authorized the colonial government to expropriate land as it saw fit whenever such an expropriation was deemed to be for purposes of public interest.
Thus through the use of coercion, brute force, and a series of laws, the German government was able to force local indigenous communities to give up vast expanses of native lands without compensation.
To further create more “unoccupied land” for plantation agriculture the German government also implemented a dastardly Native Reserves policy that involved concentrating the Bakweri into inaccessible, disease infested and inhospitable Native Reserves. Hundreds of thousands of Bakweri were forcefully displaced from their homes and herded off onto strange and unfriendly patches of lands around the plantations.
The Germans made timid attempts in the 1900s at ceding insignificant parcels of lands to a few native reserves, but this did little to improve the general situation of the Bakweri who continued their downward psychological, material, moral and cultural spiral. They had been, according to W. M. Bridges, a British Senior Divisional Officer after the Second World War, “deprived of all incentives and relapsed into what is still an indolent state of mind.” Even the birth rate among the Bakweri reduced at an alarming rate, with some observers even predicting an early extinction of the Bakweri group.
On Jan 15, 1913, that the Germans signed a decree expropriating the Bell Dynasty from its land.
In total, the Germans alienated about 400 square miles of the most fertile land around the Mount Fako area alone, and stripped the Bakweri of over 200,000 acres of their most fertile lands all over Fako division. With no organized groups or leaders yet emerging to defend the rights of the Bakweri, this disheartening situation continued until the First World War, which ended with the defeat of the Germans and their replacement in the Western part of Kamerun by the British.
At the end of WWI the defeated Germany was forced to give up its occupied lands in Africa. The lands were then given over to the Allied powers as a mandate. By the end of the First World War, the reservations had become so over-crowded that the natives had no choice but to encroach on neighboring plantation lands. The British were shocked to discover in one instance that 34 Bakweri villages were inhabiting reserves which were completely hemmed in by adjacent West African Plantations Victoria, WAPV (German plantation companies had been allowed to continue to operate in the territory under British supervision).
In 1922 the British Annual Report to the League of Nations stated that; “uprooted from the homes of their forebears, settled willy-nilly on strange soil, deprived of their old-time hunting grounds, and fishing rights, the Bakweri have retained but a small sense of tribal unity or cohesion.”
In 1926, the WAPV issued eviction notices to the Bakweri "squatters". A commission of inquiry was set up by the Colonial Government to look into the matter and consequently a land exchange agreement was reached whereby the WAPV was given lands in Kumba in exchange for land required by the Bakweri in Victoria division. In 1931, following negotiations with other companies, another 410 hectares was set aside for the reservations in Moliwe. In spite of this enlargement of some reserves, population increases and the growth of awareness among the natives of how they had been robbed of their land kept the problem at the forefront of Bakweri-British relations.
No serious attempt was made to return the confiscated Bakweri lands to the Bakweri. The argument put forth was by Mr. H.C. Morehouse, Lieutenant Governor of Southern Nigeria was that; “It was impractical to divide the plantations into smaller plots for the natives who had no capital or experience to manage them.” Thus, as improbable as it seemed, these lands were returned to their pre-World War I German owners, particularly since other European and British nationals were not enthusiastic about purchasing the plantations.
By 1938, land alienated in the division had amounted to 376 square miles out of a total area of the division at the time of 11,166 square miles. Although this seemed like a balanced distribution, the reality was quite a different story; out of the 800 square miles set aside as “native land”, 600 square miles consisted of mangrove swamps and mountainous uplands, which could not be cultivated. The other 200 square miles (14.5 of which had been granted by the governor to “strangers”), was crowded into by the native population. The total alienated land in Victoria ivision during this period accounted for one-third of the division’s land area. The situation would remain unchanged until after the Second World War.
At the end of the Second World War, the British Cameroons became a United Nations Trust Territory. Article 8 of the Trusteeship Agreements on Cameroon, which were approved by the U.N. General Assembly on 13th December 1946 and 1st November 1947, unequivocally stated that: “In framing laws relating to the transfer of land and natural resources, the administering authority shall take into consideration native laws and customs, and shall respect the rights and safeguard the interest, both present and future, of the native population.”
To this end the Nigerian legislature passed two ordinances in December 1946 that dealt with the German-owned Lands. the first Ordinance, The Ex-Enemy Lands (Cameroons) Ordinance, 1946 (No.38 of 1946), empowered the governor to purchase the lands in Cameroon previously owned by German citizens and German companies, and, which the British had sequestrated during the war. These lands were declared “Native Lands”, to be held in trust for the natives, and which the Governor was empowered to lease out on Certificates of Occupancy, so as to ensure their continued development.
The second Ordinance, the Cameroons Development Corporation Ordinance, 1946 (No. 39 of 1946), created the Cameroon Development Corporation (CDC) to take over and exploit the ex-German plantations. The CDC came into existence on January 1, 1947. The ex-enemy plantations were leased to the CDC on Certificates of Occupancy for sixty years, during which these lands would be developed for the benefit of the people.
A a reaction to the creation of the CDC (a mean for the British to purchase "German-owned" lands, the Bakweri created the “Bakweri Land Committee” (BLC). The goal of BLC, as stated by Chief Endeley of Buea was, to take “charge of all the land in Victoria division which virtually belongs to the natives.” It was the Chief’s fervent wish at the time that the Committee would continue to exist as “long as the Bakweri people live.”
In August 1946, DAVID ENDELEY, Honorary Secretary of the Bakweri Land Committee addressed two petitions to the British on behalf of the BLC. The first one was addressed to the Chief Secretary of the Eastern Province of Nigeria, and demanded that the plantation land be returned to the natives, together with a financial compensation commensurate to the years of exploitation of Bakweri lands. The second petition, co-signed by 25 prominent Bakweris, was addressed to the British Secretary of State for Colonies, Arthur Creech Jones, who received the letter about a year later, long after the CDC had been formed and gone operational.
The BLC’s best chance to at least gain some concessions from the British came in late 1947 when it was granted an oral hearing at the United Nations headquarters. Dr. E. M. L. Endeley was selected to go to the U.N. to present the Bakweri case. The Committee was however unable to raise £400.00 needed to finance the trip, and this golden opportunity was lost. Thereafter, the committee never had another chance to present its case directly to the UN, although it met with various delegations from the United Nations Trusteeship Council that visited the Southern Cameroons.
Thereafter, the British made proposals for reforms, the majority of which were never implemented by the time the British left Cameroon in 1961
The December 31, 1960 agreements that legalized the secession of Southern Cameroons from the newly independent Federal Republic of Nigeria, provided the that:
The leases granted to the CDC under the Nigerian Government be surrendered to the government of Southern Cameroon. The new leases of all lands issued to the CDC be for a period of ninety-nine years beginning January 1, 1960. By the deed of surrender, the CDC surrendered to the government of Southern Cameroons all its rights, titles and interests under the previous leases and certificates of occupancy. By the same deed, the government of Southern Cameroons agreed to lease to the CDC all those lands for a period of ninety-nine years with effect from January 1, 1960. These rights were surrendered to the government of West Cameroon. At the end of that period (ninety-nine years) both the government and the CDC lease expire and reversed to surrender the lands to the legitimate owners. In spite of some symbolic concessions on the part of the British, the Land Problem remained largely unresolved when the British left the territory on October 1, 1961
After the unification of the British and French Cameroons, the Bakweri Land Problem was pushed into the background as Cameroonian political leaders turned their backs on “regional and parochial issues” in their pursuit of what was known as the “Kamerun Idea”. After the dissolution of the federal system in 1972, the issues of the periphery were pushed even further from the national agenda, among them, the Bakweri Land Problem.
In 1974 the Government of the United Republic of Cameroon promulgated Law no. 74-1 of 6 July 1974 that laid down the rules governing land tenure in Cameroon. This law was no different from the 1896 law gave a thin veneer of legality to the German expropriation campaign. The 1974 law made the Cameroon government the “guardian of all lands” in the country, and gave it the power to take over any land “…in the imperative interest of defence or the economic policies of the nation.”
This law, which made a distinction between Private and National Lands, would later serve as the basis for rejecting prior Bakweri claims to the CDC lands on grounds that the CDC lands were “National lands”… a clear violation of the United Nations-sanctioned 1947 ordinance creating the CDC, and of the 1960 agreements between the CDC and the Government of Southern Cameroons.
This rather bold repudiation of previous laws was however, largely unchallenged because by this time, the autocratic climate under president Ahmadou Ahidjo had stifled all organizations that were not under government control; the BLC had virtually died a natural death, although there were the occasional memos from some of its most dedicated members. However, to the indigenous peoples of Fako, the land issue simply refused to go away, especially as the Yaounde-based government began its own form of plunder by expropriating more and more native lands in the division for “government use.”
The Cameroon government would learn the hard way, exactly 20 years later that, the BLC like the legendary Phoenix was merely lying in wait, to rise again at the appropriate moment.
On Thursday July 15, 1994, President Paul Biya signed decree No. 94/125 announcing the privatization of the CDC. There was an instant wave of anger across Anglophone Cameroon, particularly in Fako division where the indigenous population had not been informed of the planned privatization. As soon as the decree was made public Bakweri political, traditional and other leaders mobilized to revive the moribund BLC and to adopt a common position with regards to the privatization, which had planned without the slightest consideration to the Bakweri land problem.
On July 23, a crisis meeting chaired by Paramount Chief S.M.L. Endeley of Buea and Paramount Chief F. Bille Manga Williams of Victoria was held in Buea. The meeting, which brought together 150 representatives of the Bakweri, Mungo and Isubu clans, convened to discuss the implications of the decree. At the end of this historic reunion an ad hoc Committee was appointed by the assembly with the objective of working with the Bakweri Land Claims committee to prepare a detailed memorandum on the Bakweri position, and "to pursue relentlessly at all levels this matter of privatization or sale of the CDC".
The ad hoc Committee comprised of Dr. S. N. Lyonga as Chairman; Professor Ndiva Kofele-Kale as Secretary; and Mr. G. B. Mbua Mofoke, Mr. Mokake Elali, and Chief Mbella Sone Dipoko.
In a resolution published at the end of the meeting, the Bakweri challenged the planned privatization and stated that “ the land and natural resources being exploited by the CDC belong to the indigenes of Fako and cannot therefore be alienated and/or transferred to non-natives”.
On August 4, 1994, over 500 sons and daughters of Fako gathered in Buea for the presentation of the memorandum to the public, and to the Governor of the Southwest Province for onward transmission to the President of the Republic. In the memorandum, the Bakweri argued that if privatization had to take place at all cost it had to be on the basis of “a creative and enlightened partnership between the owners of the land on which the corporation operates and the providers of finance capital without which it would not be possible to run a modern, technologically-sophisticated agro-commercial complex like the CDC.” They insisted that any privatization plan should be based on “terms which recognise the ownership of land as a distinct variable which together with the cash make plantation agriculture possible. Therefore, landowners deserve ground rent compensation in much the same way as the CDC was liable to pay ground rents for the use of the land.”
At the end of the historic Bakweri meeting, Professor Ndiva Kofele-Kale, secretary of the ad hoc Committee, was designated counsel for the Bakweri people with instructions to present their case before the United Nations and other international fora.
The Bakweri 1994 protest and memorandum was followed by a six year war of attrition between the BLC that stuck its grounds, and the Cameroon government that was reluctant to give any credence to the Bakweri demands, at least publicly. Government ministers trying to convince the local population that privatization was actually in their best interest broke this public stalemate in 1999 with another tour of Fako division. This flurry of governmental activity was followed by another widely distributed BLC memo in which the Committee reaffirmed the private nature of the Bakweri lands under CDC control; reiterated its earlier demands for the payment of land rents owed to a Bakweri Land Trust Fund, and the direct involvement of the Bakweri in privatization talks.
This memorandum was followed by a high profile BLC Public Relations campaign that involved an extensive sensitization of national and international opinion through newspaper articles and the Internet.
Government discomfiture in the face of relentless BLC pressure that had led to the internationalization of the struggle was best manifested in the inexplicable ban of a planned BLC General Assembly meeting in Buea in March 2000, and by a letter from the Senior Divisional Officer for Fako, Jean Robert Mengue Meka, dated June 6, 2000, in which he enjoined the leadership of the half a century-old BLC "to put an end with immediate effect, to all activities of this illegal committee"— a series of radical, and desperate measures that even the British colonial masters never dared to take...
The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank urged the Cameroon government to complete the privatization of the CDC by the end of the year 2000. Uncertainity and distrust of the government of Cameroon's intentions regarding Bakweri claims resulted in a lot of tension.
Bakweri elite throughout the world called on 'men and women of good will' to help them in their fight for the protection of the Bakweri people's interest whenever the Cameroon Development Corporation (CDC) which occupies much of their land is being privatised.
The call was made in a letter to Cameroon Actualite signed by 139 Bakweri elite in the Diaspora, titled 'Western Multi-national Corporations Vie to Acquire African Agro-industrial Company founded on Land grabbed by colonial Power from Natives. World Bank and IMF give Blessings to deal.'
After giving a brief situation of the privatisation process of the CDC, the elite said their request in support of that of the Bakweri Land Claim Committee (BLCC) to President Paul Biya requesting that they be included in the CDC privatisation negotiations since much of the CDC land was theirs have been ignored.
'Even as we speak, the multi-national companies (Fruitiers/Dole, Chiquita, Del Monte and others) are making deals with individual government officials in Cameroon to sell all or parts of the Cameroon Development Corporation to the companies at throwaway prices. This lack of consultation, transparency and accountability is tantamount to sowing seeds of yet another African conflict' the elite said in the letter.
In the phase of this, the letter went on, 'we ask all men and women of good will to join in the struggle to protect the interest of ordinary Cameroonians who live in abject poverty and deprivation while their unaccountable leaders and their multi-national corporation partners exploit their heritage before their very eyes.'
They also appended a copy of the letter from the Bakweri around the World to President Paul Biya in support of the Bakweri Land Claim Committee written on October 1, 1999.
The Bakweri people claim that the land used by the CDC in Fako Division was ceased from them by the Germans and want negotiations for compensation should the corporation, which is presently owned by government is sold to private individuals. The government has so far given a deaf ear to the demand despite the fact even Bakweri traditional rulers and elite are behind it.
The remarkable Bakweri 1994 protest and memorandum would be followed by a six year war of attrition between the BLC that stuck its grounds, and the Cameroon government that was reluctant to give any credence to the Bakweri demands, at least publicly. Government ministers trying to convince the local population that privatization was actually in their best interest broke this public stalemate in 1999 with another tour of Fako division. This flurry of governmental activity was followed by another widely distributed BLC memo in which the Committee reaffirmed the private nature of the Bakweri lands under CDC control; reiterated its earlier demands for the payment of land rents owed to a Bakweri Land Trust Fund, and the direct involvement of the Bakweri in privatization talks.
This memorandum was followed by a high profile BLC Public Relations campaign that involved an extensive sensitization of national and international opinion through newspaper articles and the Internet.
On December 30 1999, the radio staion in Buea, the administrtive capital of Fako division was attacked and taken over. The radio then announced the independence of Southern West Cameroon and North West Cameroon (the former German/British mandates) and that they were no longer part of Cameroon. The radio announcer declared that Ebong Subsequently, President Paul Biya authorized military intervention and the leaders of the coup in Buea were arrested.
DEVELOPMENTS AFTER THE COUP ATTEMPT
The two opposing leaders of the Southern Cameroons National Council, (SCNC) have dissociated themselves from an independence declaration forcibly broadcast over CRTV Buea on Dec 30 1999 after an alleged gang of SCNC independence fighters took the radio station and its officials hostage.
In separate declarations after the Buea coup broadcast, which was allegedly signed by Essoka Ndoki Mukete, who is said to have arrogated the post of SCNC chairman, Henry Fossung, the former leader who Ndoki claims to have deposed said he had nothing to do with it claiming that the Southern Cameroons had already got its independence from the United Nations in 1961.
Ndoki Mukete, for his part, condemned the action as destructive to both the Southern Cameroons cause and to his person and consequently announced his resignation from the movement. But Albert Mukong, director of the Human Rights Defense Group thinks the government should have a hand in the incident.
Sources say a group people, alleged to be SCNC independence fighters invaded the CRTV Buea premises on the night of Dec 30, 1999, took the lone policeman on guard hostage alongside all the workers and forced the technician to repeatedly broadcast a message declaring the independence of Southern Cameroons, made up of the South West and North West provinces of Cameroon.
Fossung, who admitted not having heard the declaration, however dissociated himself and the SCNC from the move in a release the next day. Asserting that the problem (of the SCNC) today is no longer that of anything called independence because the UN can not grant independence twice to a trust territory, Fossung said 'the real problem is that La Republic du Cameroun, a dominant component of the UN-imposed federation of 1961 had, by fraud and manipulation killed the federation, assumed its successorship and annexed the Southern Cameroons, the smaller component.' The SCNC struggle, he reiterated, 'is a reassertion of the Southern Cameroons International personality.
After maintaining that he had learnt with 'shock and dismay' that a group of people 'trespassed into the radio house and forced the staff to transmit a message supposedly signed by me declaring the independence of the Anglophone provinces' Ndoki Mukete declared: such illegal actions portray confusion intended to jeopardize the organization, my persons and the lives of my compatriots.'
'I insist that I can no longer associate myself with persons whose avowed interest is to bring disorder and a breach of peace in the country' he said, adding that he had resigned as ' SCNC chairman and as member of the said organization which is currently being raped and hijacked by an isolated pocket of dishonest and violent-prone persons.'
But according to Albert Mukong, 'if it is true that Mukete entered the radio station and proclaimed the independence of Southern Cameroons, and was not arrested, then it is certain that the government was behind it.'
Many SCNC leaders have been allegedly interrogated on the issue and the Moungo bridge linking the South West Province and the Littoral and said to have been targeted for bombing by the alleged independent fighters is said to be heavily guarded to prevent such an action.
Government discomfiture in the face of relentless BLC pressure that had led to the internationalization of the struggle was best manifested in the inexplicable ban of a planned BLC General Assembly meeting in Buea in March 2000, and by a letter from the Senior Divisional Officer for Fako, Jean Robert Mengue Meka, dated June 6, 2000, in which he enjoined the leadership of the half a century-old BLC "to put an end with immediate effect, to all activities of this illegal committee".
PRIVATIZATION OF BAKWERI LAND
CDC - Cameroun Development Corporation - in the course of privatization
Nature of the market: privatization
Date from information: 27.02.2001
Source of information: PEE - press
Company of agro State industrial created in 1947.
First industrial agro company of the country, placed under the supervision of the Ministry for Agriculture
Authorized capital: 15,6 mds of FCFA
Distribution of capital: State: 100%
CA 23 mds of FCFA
A number of employees: 13 000, ßt employer of the anglophone zone / 2nd employer of Cameroun, behind the Public office.
Activity: Development and exploitation of banana plantations (2nd national producer 85.481 T produced into 97/98), rubber (ßt national producer 25.538 T), palm trees with oil (the production rose to 19.104 T of raw palm oil and 5.191 T of cabbage trees into 97/98), tea (ßt national producer 4.189 T.) and industrial poivre/Transformation of palm oil rubber and tea.
The process of privatization of the CDC is set up gradually.
The cabinet Coopers & Lybrand began its work in the capacity as consultant in January 98.
The international opinion of prequalification for the privatization of the dies of the CDC was launched in December 98. Seven companies (Fruit-bearing SOFICA Co SOFICA Co Fruit-bearing associated the British bank the Commonwealth Development Corporation, CHIQUITA, LED GOES UP, SOCFINAL SOCFINCO associated with group BOLLORE RIVAUD, GELIBA co. camerounaise interested by the die tea and another company camerounaise) deposited a file of prequalification on April 30 99.
The Interdepartmental Committee which met on September 16 99 decided launching of the AO for the whole of the dies and the idea to carry out the launching of a AO for the only sector banana was thus not retained.
It should be noted that the privatization of the CDC is envisaged with the program concluded with the IMF
October 2000: American LED Goes up and Red French Grounds put forward their proposals for the resumption of the co..
November 2000: the file of AO is available since October 2 (closing date January 2) at Price Watehouse Coopers in Paris, Tel. 01 47 48 68 00. A privatization by "apartment " was decided bearing on the transfer of the mojority of the 4 dies (tea, banana, rubber, palm oil) to a partner stratégique/actionnaire of reference. The grounds (populated by the anglophone éthnie) will not be sold but will not be put under emphyteutic lease.
February 2001: the 2nd prequalification is envisaged in February 2001, revival of the AO, goes back limit to handing-over of the offers on May 7. The percentages of the capital proposed to the employees are 60 à.70% according to dies', the State would preserve 10% of them, the balance will be proposed with paid and with private camerounais.
UPDATE:
The relationship between the people of Southern Cameroon and the government of Cameroon contunie to deteriorate. It is concievable that in the future violence will result from the failure to address the land claims of the Bakweri, the original owners of the land that is being privatized.
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