University Crisis and Student Protests in Africa: The 2005 -2006 University Students� Strike in Cameroon

Chapter 6 - Use of Force and Loss of Life and Property at the University of Buea

123 Chapter 6 Use of Force and Loss of Life and Property at the University of Buea Introduction The early introduction of the police and gendarmes into the context of a student strike at the University of Buea quickly bred a dialectic of violence which became the interpretive lens through which actions were viewed by the different collective parties involved. Within the power asymmetries which characterised the opposition of unarmed students against armed police, group think triumphed with both sides claiming victimhood, while accusing the other of violent behaviour. Both students and the local community inhabiting the Molyko area were trapped in the clutch of a rabid police force far more intent on sowing terror than restoring law and order. It is within this storm that two students lost their lives to police bullets; meanwhile no casualties were reported on the part of the police. This was also the asymmetric space within which university property was destroyed when the student protesters went out of control. Given the manner in which the university community fades with the non-university community, this violence gripped the entire Molyko area, ensnaring non-university actors who also fell victim to the harsh beatings of a police force gone awry. Some lost lives, some their dignity, some lost property and business came to a halt. Meanwhile responsibility for personal and communal reconstruction fell on the shoulders of private individuals. The sequence of violence in Buea, even as students sought to pay their last respects to their fallen peers, points to a larger culture of oppression, within which government sought to terrorize protesting students into giving up their demands. Vox populi segments of newspapers capture individual experiences in the eye of the storm. Meanwhile, running commentaries which follow the newspaper clippings are passionate and capture a broad diversity of perspectives on the strike, with an underlying tone of bereavement for the lives lost. 124 Police Kill Two in UB Strike By Pegue Manga Riot Police in Buea have shot two students to death in the on-going Buea University strike. The two boys, Embwam Aloysius, a level 400 Environmental Science student and Gilbert Folem29 , a master’s degree Geology student were shot at different intervals in Molyko between 2:30 and 3:00 pm. Embwam received a bullet on his head while Folem was shot on his chest. The remains of the victims are in the Buea District Hospital Mortuary. The students have continued stoning. They mounted road blocks and burnt tires on the highway. We will update the story as it unfolds. April 28, 2005 at 01:58 PM in Breaking News | Permalink Comments It’s very disappointing that both the Cameroonian ruling party CPDM and the main opposition parties cannot take advantage of this sad students’ strike situation. I see the opportunity that Cameroonians for once must come together, recognise there is a problem in our university system and find adequate ways of fixing them. Until we recognise there is a problem, we will never sit down and address it and until we address the problems of our educational system, we will never fix them. Thanks. Simon Pierre Ateba, Lagos, Nigeria. 29 Full name is actually Nforlem Gilbert Forbi 125 Posted by: Simon Pierre Ateba | April 28, 2005 02:41 PM Maybe this is the God-given time to effect the long-awaited change in Cameroon. The civil society should join in!! The on-going strikes in the different state Universities are not unconnected with the misery lived by the majority of Cameroonians today; the price hikes on basic commodities, the upsurge on the price of fuel, the increment in taxes, etc. have made life to the people meaningless. If taxi drivers and “buyam-sellams” nation-wide should join that may be the beginning of the end of the New Dealist kleptocracy. Posted by: Victor | April 28, 2005 03:01 PM A university is a democratic institution. We should try to reason out the issues. Strikes are a very good way of expressing one’s self when you are in an oppressive regime like Dorothy Njeuma’s. And let the 500frs police officers stay off the issue. Posted by: Ntchanang Mpafe | April 28, 2005 03:14 PM The confrontation did not start because students made “reasonable demands”. It started because Buea students were not mature enough, like their counterparts in Yaoundé, to channel their grievances in a non-violent manner, and they also...