The people of Cameroon have continued to protest against President Paul Biya who has ruled the country for 35 years.
Cameroonian President, Paul Biya
Cameroonian dictator, Paul Biya, who has been in power for 35 years
since 1982, has turned his terribly underdeveloped country into another
banana republic in Africa.
He has sent policemen and soldiers to shoot at protesters in the
Southwest and Northwest and ordered the arrest of a Supreme Court judge
in Yaounde on Saturday night without any warrant of arrest. He has
banned protests and curtailed the freedom of association and of speech.
He is known for spending months abroad relaxing in luxury hotels
while his countrymen struggle at home. He is accountable to no one but
himself.
Cameroonian dictator, Paul Biya, who has been in power for 35 years
since 1982, has turned his terribly underdeveloped country into another
banana republic in Africa.
He has sent policemen and soldiers to shoot at protesters in the
Southwest and Northwest and ordered the arrest of a Supreme Court judge
in Yaounde on Saturday night without any warrant of arrest. He has
banned protests and curtailed the freedom of association and of speech.
He is known for spending months abroad relaxing in luxury hotels while
his countrymen struggle at home with empty stomachs. He is accountable
to no one but himself, and maybe Paris.
At almost 83 years old, Mr. Biya and his cabal have grown
increasingly uncomfortable, especially, with developments in Ghana and
Gambia, where sitting Presidents were defeated in the last presidential
elections and had to go.
In the Northwest and Southwest, where residents are mainly English
speakers, protests went on for months by lawyers and lecturers demanding
justice and equality in a country where President Biya has spoken
French for more than three decades and Anglophones feel left behind in
many economic and political areas in Cameroon.
Mr. Biya reacted by sending trucks of policemen and soldiers to
shoot at and suppress the protesters. Many were arrested, including
students who were bundled into dirty trucks and sent to various
tribunals for phony judgments.
If Angophones feel marginalised by the Biya government, the
situation is not any better in any part of Cameroon. In the far north
where Boko Haram has been bombing, shooting and killing for years, Mr.
Biya has not visited to comfort the citizens or encourage soldiers
fighting and dying in ambushes. And when the corpses of 38 killed
soldiers were brought to Yaounde for burial, Mr. Biya did not even
attend the event.
The level of poverty in the north is so appalling that most people
are now used to living in squalor and hunger and do not know any other
way. It is the same situation in the eastern part of the country where
basic infrastructure such as roads, hospitals and electricity are rare
to find.
Even in the capital, Yaounde, the underdevelopment and unemployment
are palpable everywhere. Dusty roads and scattered houses in an
unplanned city can be seen here and there.
The entire country is in a state of chaos where basic laws are not respected and protests are met with excessive force.
The international community should call the despotic leader to
order and not allow him go down with the entire country in flames.
-by Simon Ateba
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