I Spit on their Graves: Testimony Relevant to the Democratization Struggle in Cameroon

A Permanent State of Siege

113 A Permanent State of Siege I f a foreigner were to visit Cameroon at the present moment, he or she would surely think that there is war in the country. The entire armed forces have been let loose on the hapless populations. The game has twin names: forceful collection of taxes and restoring l’autorité de l’état. We have treated these issues before. From the moment Dr. Biya lost and won the October 11th presidential elections, anybody could have predicted the shape of things to come. In October 1992, NO TRIFLING MATTER asked the following hypothetical question: “Suppose Biya takes the courage of the lion without the common sense of the fox and imposes himself on the Cameroonian people (like a jigger stuck in the toe), how does he hope to be able to govern for five years? By ruthless repression?” The hypothetical question was in fact an unwitting prophecy. The consolidation of Biya’s “victory” in the 11 October presidential elections is what is directly responsible for the hell we are all going through now. And the trend will surely continue for the foreseeable future, it seems. All imaginable and even unimaginable gimmicks have been tried. To no avail. But, with the almighty French at hand, there are no limits to try-able options. Our descent into hell is an unstoppable free fall. Have you moved around recently? Even within the city. There are gun-totting members of the armed forces at every street corner, extorting their 500 francs from taxi drivers and private motorists alike. No monkey business. Any attempt to dodge and they open fire. Just like that! 114 Godfrey B. Tangwa (Rotcod Gobata) I recently travelled from Yaounde to Victoria by bus. Before we had done 20 kilometres out of Yaounde, we had been stopped at 8 checkpoints. And they would come up, guns and all, and inspect everybody minutely. If you hadn’t your tax receipts you were just bundled out. At Tiko I saw something. Gendarmes trying to beat a 15 year old boy to death. They had ordered him to roll in murky water. But that was not enough for them. They were beating him with belts and smashing his ribs with their boots. His crime: trying to make a living out of selling funge alias fédérale. Is there any other country on earth where 15 year-olds, instead of hunting lizards or playing in the parks, are constrained to handle such a highly inflammable and dangerous substance as a way of making a living? Is such highly brutal treatment commensurate to the crime, if crime it be? The answers are blowing in the wind. There is a vegetable called Eru which most Cameroonian women, learning from the Bayangis, use to prepare a delicacy. I saw them seizing and destroying sac-loads of Eru which were probably heading for Douala and Yaounde. Is Eru also smuggled in from Nigeria? That is the question that was on my mind. But I later heard that the reason is connected with protection of the environment. Can you beat that? Our forests have been handed over to the French to completely deplete and destroy and carry to France, which is now allegedly recognized in Europe as the greatest exporter of tropical wood. No one thinks, let alone talks, about protection of the environment. Nearly all our cities are drowning under garbage. Environmental protection does not occur to anybody. It is preventing people from eating Eru and water-foofoo that will protect the environment!? Very soon, ordinary pedestrians will be stopped on the streets at gun point and asked to show not only tax receipts but receipts for any items of clothing they happen to be wearing. That is our journey into hell on which we embarked 115 I Spit on their Graves: Testimony Relevant to the Democratization Struggle one fine day in October 1992. The nasty gashes that have been inflicted on our collective psyche in less than a year are such that we would need decades to recover from them. Ten years ago, who would have believed some of the things now happening in Cameroon? Is it so long ago that we used to listen with open-mouthed wonderment at tales of robberies, lynching and senseless murders from other lands? A few days ago, right here in Yaounde, someone cut off a lady’s arm. Well, he didn’t, by...