Land/Boundary Conflict in Africa: The Case of the Former British Colonial Bamenda, Present-Day North-West Province of the Republic of Cameroon, 1916–1996 (review)

This study explores land and boundary disputes in Africa at the national and (to some extent) the international levels; its particular focus is the northwest region of Cameroon. The originality of the work resides in its neat distinction between rural boundary conflicts and international boundary conflicts, both in their dynamics and in the attempts made to resolve them.

While ethnicity remains as an underlying cause of rural land/boundary conflicts within African states, contemporary international boundary disputes between states are more about economic and national interests and concerns. In fact, the desire of ethnic groups to retain exclusive rights of exploitation over specific territories constitutes one of the most potent and divisive elements in ethnotribal relations, dating back to the precolonial period. But according to the author, precolonial and colonial rural boundary disputes were not beset with the type of violence that has characterized those of the postcolonial period. This is because ethnicity has been shaped by some important factors, such as the experience of colonial rule—and for administrative, labor, and taxation purposes, a colonial political policy of divide and rule was developed. By amplifying the power and authority of favored groups over less fortunate ones, this reinforced ethnotribal animosities, reflected very often in land/boundary conflicts.

In the Bamenda region for example, disruptive boundaries were demarcated without full consideration of sociocultural realities; as a result, conflict emerged between groups that hitherto had been free of conflict. In addition, economic practices (such as the many contradictory uses to which land has been subjected) had been designed to benefit colonial rule; many of these have persisted into recent times and have exacerbated land conflicts between groups. In addition, some land/boundary problems were introduced during the process of drawing the international boundary between French and British spheres in Cameroon from 1916 to 1922.

Ethnotribal awareness has also increased because of economic-induced rural conflict, the persistent economic and political crises, and the fact that postcolonial state politicians and elites side with favored groups in most areas of the continent. This situation has transformed the potential for violence into an unending nightmare.

This said, the British colonial approach to reducing boundary disputes in Bamenda was a practical one, and as a result it had greater success than the efforts in French-administered areas. Yet despite these successes, and because of various factors, the British failed to introduce and sustain permanent solutions to the numerous rural land/boundary conflicts in the region. With independence (and its unification with former French Cameroon) in 1961, the now-defunct West Cameroon government established a system for settling rural land disputes that reduced these conflicts. Unfortunately, the reunification of the former British and French Cameroons in 1972 brought the approach to settling these disputes to an abrupt end.

All this is spelled out, but the rhetoric of the book becomes ideological and less objective when the author locates the roots of this failure in "the appointment of corrupt francophone officials, who have a different cultural upbriging as well as language difficulties to serve as administrators in the Bamenda region" (5). Behind this statement lurks the vision of "the Anglophone problem." Meanwhile it is necessary to inquire into the history of relations among the region's different communities.

Shaped today by globalization, such relations have led to greater identity awareness; and that, in turn, has awakened some formerly dormant conflicts.