God the Politician

20. Bloody Universities

142 20
Bloody Universities he main reason why most dictators cling to power when they know the majority of their subjects are yearning to see their retreating back is the conviction that they can always wriggle their way out of difficult situations using force or sophisms. They believe, as Adolph Hitler did, that all they need do to make a lie sound like the truth is to repeat it loudly. When a dictator’s mind has reached this advanced state of decay, he even believes the lies he himself tells. Since the Biya regime successfully used brute force and outlandish tricks in the early 1990s to quell a student uprising at Yaoundé University, it thought these methods and not dialogue were the best way to resolve all uprisings of the same kind. The regime’s methods suffered a serious setback in 2005, especially at the University of Buea, fondly called ‘UB’ and that was set up in the Anglo-Saxon tradition .Though there had been upheavals at the university before, none of them reached the scale of the two strikes that rocked the school in 2005 and 2006. In each of these upheavals, two students were killed, both from the Northwest Province. No such thing had happened at Yaoundé University 1 where strike actions had also taken place. The declarations of the various vice chancellors that ruled the school could help to ascertain where the blame lay. This is not to say that no violent reprisals characterized strike action in Yaoundé. The 2005 strike action at the University of Buea began on 27 April, exactly a week after a similar uprising had begun in Yaoundé. Perhaps that in Buea took a violent turn because the authorities had treated each previous student protest as a mere storm in a teacup. The students started the 2005 strike action by marching to the main road near the entrance to the university, mounting barricades using telephone call boxes and newspaper stands and thus obstructing traffic. The confrontation began when the police, who had watched the action for some time, approached and tried to stop the protesters by firing teargas. Instead of running away, the students responded by throwing stones. When the canisters of tear gas were finished, the police were reduced to stone throwing to disperse the irate students. But because of T 143 the numerical strength of the students, the police had to beat a retreat but not without taking a few captives. The protesters were forced to halt their actions and assume a more humble approach by going to the police post and requesting the release of their comrades. Some of them were set free but the rest were transferred to the mobile intervention unit, known in French as the GMI. This provoked an influx of students whose numbers were so overwhelming that the Southwest administration had to seek reinforcement from Douala. A water cannon soon arrived with a contingent of policemen but before they arrived on campus and succeeded in breaking the strike, the students had gone haywire destroying the staff canteen. They then invaded the student restaurant. After gulping down all the drinks in the freezers, they mustered enough Dutch courage to attack the building housing the University of Buea administration. Before doing so, they let down the tires of some of the staff vehicles and overturned others as well as the trash can standing nearby. They also shattered the shutters on the windows .The Faculty of Arts was worst hit as the recently published results were torn off the notice board. The looting of computers and printers in offices followed. The striking students shouted slogans and carried placards condemning the vice chancellor, Dr Dorothy Njeuma, and some of her staff, ‘UB is not Njeuma’s house’; ‘UB must change’ etc. There was an immediate reaction by the police to all the actions by the students. They hit the students with all the force they could muster and, not satisfied, broke into the students’ hostels located on University Street. They seized the students’ mobile phones and money and poured water on the floor and ordered students to lie on it. After giving them this VIP (Very Inferior Personality) treatment, the police bundled some of them, with bleeding arms, elbows and knees, into the police van and took them away. The police finally took control of the university campus. In a bid to enable peace to reign on campus, the university administration invited students to a crisis meeting which was attended...