Cameroon: Biya's Liberticidal Cruelty and his Free and Fair Election of 9 October 2011

5 October 2011

Patrick Sianne

While Mr. Biya has been always saying that he would like to be remembered the days after his too long a one-man show and reign over Cameroon to be remembered as the man who brought democracy in Cameroon he and his boys do all before and behind the scenes to kill the very freedoms he purported to want to nurture and culture. 


Some sort of democratic representation and representative is the ploy in play here, like any other system or policy that Mr. Biya has said he is instituting in Cameroon since November 6, 1982 that he took over from El Hadj Ahmadou Ahidjo as second present of the Second Republic of Cameroon.

Now that the English speakers of the Third Republic are staking their calim to a moral imperative to take the helm from Biya and preach by example by being the real purveyor belt for sustainable democratic institutions and traditions in Cameroon wth courageous woman and men like Kah Walla, Fru Ndi, Ayah Paul, Ben Muna and George Nyamndi, the Biya Boys are behind the scene wanting to thwart all the forces for change that is surfacing at the bud stage wherever and whenever they germinate or attempt to burst out.

Here is a new case arising in where the wonder lads of the very combative, radical Mboua Massock Movement have been picked up and put under keys at a gendarme jailroon somewhere in Bonanjo, Douala, as per this missive I just received via facebook from a trustworthy source.

This group of 17 were manhandled and taken off the street for nuisance, just because they were trying to say it loud, to speak like James Brown in his hit song of the sixties or seventies, tittled Say it Loud, I'm Black and Proud.

These proud and promissory and patriotic Cameroonian's were in the streets distributing flyers announcing a show-down with dictator Biya come October six, tomorrow Thursday, when the police visited with them unceremoniously and took them away against their basic human rights, not without a bare-arms resistance.

This other Douala public and unconstitutional cruelty by these forces of everything else but Law and order comes on the of the heavy crack down that is still to settle in Buea after the actvists of the Southern Cameroons National Council were prevented to hold their 50th anniversary commemorative grand rally by the same Biya liberticidal forces.

In Buea, the heavy arms used in the sweep was indiscriminate, catching even the watch-dogs of society, protectors and defenders of freedom of expression that are journalist in their noble role of news gathering and dissemination.

Patrick Sianne, Elvis Tah and Adams Bouddih, of The Post newspaper and Solomon Amabo of Equinoxe television are four of the know reporters impolitely accosted, violently molested and humiliated and then whisked of for detention and questioning and intimidation, just for being at the right place at the right time and attempting to do their job, provider of their daily living, how it is supposed to be ina real democracy, and not the simulacrum Paul Biya wants to seal and sell for real, this new election season again, as he has done to bag one genration of dilly-dallying at the head of the state. This callously executed political cacophony and buffoonery must come to nought this yea by any means necessary, see Malcolm X. It is the opinion of Libertas - Veritas - Probitas that the battle should leave the mainstreet to the mean street, where we the people can in quick shift respond to fire by fire, bully for bully, tit for tat.

Paul Biya of Cameroon: Dictator of the month

26 September 2011

David Wallechinsky

On October 9, the nation of Cameroon in west-central Africa will hold a presidential election. There will be 23 candidates, but there isn’t much doubt which one will win…78-year-old Paul Biya, who has ruled Cameroon for 29 years. In fact, Biya is a specialist in creative rigging of elections. Once he even hired his own set of American election observers to report that an election he won was free and democratic (see below). This time around he has come up with a novel method of making sure that the outside world will be impressed by his defeat of a large number of opponents.

To run for president, a politician must put up 5 million Central African Francs (CFAs). He then receives 25 million CFAs to run his campaign. According to Cameroonian journalist Ntemfac Ofege, “All the candidates have to do is rush to the nearest bank, microfinance institution, credit union or whatever, and demand a short term loan of 5 million CFA. They collect 25 million CFA from the state; pay back their short-term loan and report a profit of at least 15 million CFA.”In my book Tyrants: The World’s 20 Worst Living Dictators, I included a chapter about Biya, which I present here.

The Nation

As a political entity, the West African nation of Cameroon was patched together by European colonial powers. The population of more than 16 million speaks 279 languages. Slightly more than half of Cameroonians are Christians, a quarter follow traditional belief systems, and about 22% are Muslims. There are approximately 260 distinct ethnic groups. Since a chi eving independence in 1960, Cameroon has been ruled by one party and only two presidents. Cameroon is Africa ’s largest producer of timber and it is the world’s fifth-largest producer of the cocoa that goes into making chocolate. The nation has the reputation of being one of the most corrupt countries in the world and actually earned Transparency International’s number-one ranking as corruption champion two years in a row, in 1998 and 1999.

Pre - Biya

The Germans claimed Cameroon as a colony in 1884. Following World War I, the Treaty of Versailles divided the colony between France and Great Britain . The French granted East Cameroon independence on January 1, 1960. On October 1, 1961, the British gave up control of West Cameroon and it joined East Cameroon to form a single country. French-educated Ahmadou Ahidjo, a Muslim from the north, took over as president and stayed in power for twenty-two years until he unexpectedly resigned on November 6, 1982, apparently because his French doctors told him that he had a terminal disease. Ahidjo did retain his position as head of Cameroon ’s lone political party. He was replaced as president by the prime minister, Paul Biya, a Roman Catholic from the Beti ethnic group in the south. Ahidjo did not have a terminal illness, but by the time he realized this, Biya had squeezed him out of the party leadership and forced him to flee the country. Ahidjo eventually died in Senegal in 1989.

The man

Born February 13, 1933, Biya studied in Paris and received a degree in public law. After working for two years in the presidential palace, he became director of the office of the minister of education and then moved up to secretary-general of the Education Ministry. After serving as secretary-general of the presidency, Biya was named prime minister by Ahidjo in June 1975.

At the time that Biya assumed office in 1992, Cameroon enjoyed a booming economy with solid exports of cocoa, timber, and coffee and a growing petroleum industry. Thanks to corruption and ethnic cronyism, Biya destroyed the economy. While Biya and his friends grew rich on oil money, the Cameroonian economy shrank for nine straight years beginning in 1987.

In January 1984, Biya stood for election for president and managed to win 99.98% of the vote. It is not known what happened to the two-hundredths of one percent of the voters who managed to vote against him. To be on the safe side, Biya eliminated the position of prime minister so that no rival politician could create his own power base. Three months after the election, he put down a mutiny by the mostly Islamic Republican Guard, which he blamed on Ahidjo, who was condemned to death in absentia. To demonstrate that he was not a dictator, Biya changed the name of the only legal political party from the National Cameroonian Union to the Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement (RDPC). In 1988, he was reelected president, although his vote percentage slipped to only 98.75%.

Controlling the opposition

Under pressure at home and from abroad, Biya legalized opposition parties in 1990, but strikes and pro-democracy protests in 1991 left more than 100 dead. Forty-eight parties took part in March 1992 legislative elections. The RDPC won 88 of the 180 seats and, with the help of sympathetic small parties, cobbled together a working majority. Presidential elections had been scheduled for a year later, but Biya moved them up to October 1992 to give the opposition less time to organize. The U.S.-based National Democratic Institute for International Affairs arrived in Cameroon to help train election officials, but stayed to observe the election and to watch in dismay as the government ignored normal democratic procedures. “It would not be an exaggeration,” the observers would later report, “to suggest that this election system was designed to fail.” The government-controlled television gave Biya 142 minutes of time to present his case, while allowing the opposition parties a combined total of 12 minutes. Names of eligible voters were crossed off the registry and there were widespread reports of multiple voting and voting by underage residents. In some areas known to be anti-Biya, polling sites were moved without warning to reduce turnout. The territory of Rey-Bouba in the district of Mayo Rey blocked all political party pollwatchers from entering. Results by polling site were never published.

The election took place on October 11. A week later, George Achu Mofor, the governor of East Province , resigned to protest the way the central government had forced him to use any means necessary to ensure a Biya victory in his province. The election results were announced on October 23. Biya won with 39.9% of the vote. John Fru Ndi, the English-speaking head of the Social Democratic Front, was given 35.9%, an affront which landed him in house arrest; and a third major candidate, former prime minister Bello Bouba Maigari, won 19.2%. Demonstrations in English-speaking Western Cameroon were so large that Biya imposed a state of emergency in the region and ordered mass arrests of opposition supporters. Despite the dubious aspects of the election, the French government congratulated Biya on his victory. At the time, the French oil company Elf Aquitaine monopolized oil exploration off the coast of Cameroon .

In 1996, students at the University of Cameroon ’s Yaounde 1 campus boycotted classes to protest a hike in fees that was so broad that it included usage charges both for the library and for toilets. When the strike spread to other campuses, the government sent in troops who beat a student to death. By the time of the 1997 parliamentary elections, Biya had learned his lesson. His party manipulated the voting much more efficiently and gained a clear majority of the seats. In the presidential election later that year, Biya claimed to win 92.6% of the votes.

By this same time, Biya was cracking down on privately owned newspapers, arresting and imprisoning journalists. In one particularly notorious case, Pius Njame, the editor of an independent French-language newspaper, reported that Biya had suffered a “malaise” and a possible heart attack while attending the 1997 Cameroon Cup soccer final. Njame was convicted of “spreading false news” and served ten months in prison.

The Pipeline

Although Cameroon attracted the attention of the oil industry, its reserves were relatively limited. But the industry had other plans for Cameroon . Northeast of Cameroon , the landlocked nation of Chad was found to have plenty of oil. A consortium of ExxonMobil, Royal Dutch Shell, and Elf Aquitaine drew up plans for a $3.7 billion project that would sink 300 wells in Chad and run the oil to the Atlantic coast via a 665-mile-long pipeline they would build across Cameroon . Because the regimes of both Biya and Chad ’s Idriss Déby were notorious abusers of human rights, and because of the high potential for environmental degradation, Shell and Elf pulled out of the project. With billions of dollars of profits on the line, ExxonMobil found two new partners, Chevron and Petronas of Malaysia, and plunged ahead in promoting the plan. Construction of the pipeline, which began in October 2000, threatened the destruction of the lives of 100,000 Bagyeli Pygmies living in the region and in some cases their eviction. The World Bank backed the project, making it the bank’s single-largest investment in sub-Saharan Africa , and the pipeline was completed in July 2003.

Meanwhile, human rights groups were reporting systemic torture, the kidnapping and disappearance of political dissidents, and a legal code that permitted forced female genital mutilation and allowed rapists to avoid prosecution if they marry their victims. Biya keeps such tight control over the country that his office approves all public appointments all the way down to village police officers.

In the words of lawyer Charles Taku, “To get such a job or a business license…you have to show that you support the president actively, that you love him and his party.”

Human rights, the vanishing Act

In 2002, Paul Biya caught a break. Cameroon happened to be serving a two-year term as a member of the United Nations Security Council when U.S. president George W. Bush decided to invade Iraq and needed the support of Security Council members. Biya, a longtime friend of France ’s president, Jacques Chirac, found himself being wooed by Bush and visited him in the White House the day that the U.S. began its bombing of Baghdad . U.S. secretary of state Colin Powell praised Cameroon as “a place of stability” and promised that “we will do everything we can to strengthen the government.” The criticisms of Biya’s human rights record, which had been catalogued in the reports of Powell’s own State Department, were swept aside as if they had never happened.

Creative election rigging

In 2004, Biya faced a new presidential election and came up with a new and novel tactic in the world of rigged elections. In previous elections he had perfected the arts of suppressing opposition campaigning and stacking the voter rolls. But he faced criticism from international election-monitoring groups. In July 2004, he signed a $400,000 deal with the Washington, D.C., law and lobbying firm of Patton Boggs to improve Cameroonian ties with the United States at a time when the State Department had said that Biya’s security forces had “committed numerous unlawful killings and were responsible for torture, beatings and other abuses,” and that the government “continued to arrest and detain arbitrarily various opposition politicians.” One of the Patton Boggs lobbyists, former U.S. Representative Greg Laughlin, a Texas Democrat, put together a bipartisan observer group called the U.S. Association of Former Members of Congress. With Biya’s government covering the bills, the Association flew in six ex-congressmen, who observed the October 11 presidential election in which Biya claimed a 71% landslide, declared it a free election, and flew home.

One of the former congressmen, Ronnie Shows, a Democrat from Mississippi , enthused, “This is what democracy is about.” Another observer group from the Commonwealth nations, led by former Canadian prime minister Joe Clark, saw the election process differently. They said that the registration process, which the U.S. group had arrived too late to observe, had “missed a considerable portion of the voting-age population of Cameroon .” “We ran into swarms of people who had been declared ineligible to vote,” said Clark . The Catholic Bishop’s Conference of Cameroon also accused Biya’s government of vote-rigging.

The ectoplasm

Biya’s first wife, Jeanne-Irene, died in 1992, leaving behind two sons and a daughter. Two years later the sixty-one-year-old Biya married a twenty-four-year-old named Chantal and began spending an increasing amount of time on vacation. Cameroon ’s leading novelist, the late Mongo Beti, once described Biya as an “ectoplasm” and another time as a “zombie.” Because Beti also had harsh words for John Fru Ndi, Biya let him get away with it, although Beti was roughed up by police at demonstrations.

Cameroon: How Paul Biya Treats Unarmed Civilian Protestors

27 July 2011

Juliette Abandokwe

The video below, which was made on February 23rd of this year, shows how Cameroonian police and armed forces behave towards unarmed civilian protestors. 

It particularly indicates with which brutality Paul Biya, who has been the President of Cameroon for 29 years now, is treating those people of his who have been "democratically and freely" electing him for the past 3 decades. 

This years' general election is taking place on the October 9th. 

Paul Biya, having manipulated the Constitution in December 2007, removing the terms' limit, which allows him to present himself for as many terms that he wishes, declared himself the candidate of the ruling RDPC (sarcastically, the Democratic Reassembly of the Cameroonian People) only a couple of weeks ago. 

Widespread repression has been occurring since February, with extensive intimidation methods as well as unarmed civilians being brutalized, imprisoned and tortured, together with systematically molested and house arrested opposition leaders. 

France, the former colonial power and until present neo-colonial power, which has gigantic commercial interests and contracts in the custody of the Cameroonian government, know exactly, together with the European Union and the rest of the international community, what is going on in Cameroon. Several detailed reports have been issued in the last three years on the absolutely appalling human rights situation. 

Systematic manipulation of the independent electoral commission ELECAM has been going for over a year now, with the choice of its members by Mr. Biya being regularly questioned by civil society and opposition leaders. 

If or when Biya wins the next elections, how far will the international community go to validate the result of the election, and how concerned will they feel the gross human rights violations, and remembering that France and its partners condemned and ousted President Laurent Gbagbo of Ivory Coast out of power for allegedly having rigged and lost the 2010 autumn general elections after 10 years of power, along alleged crimes against humanity. 

Incidentally, it is also to be remembered that France is responsible for extended massacres in Cameroon during the war of independence, where between 300 000 to 400 000 Cameroonians villagers died in the napalm bombings by the French air force. No official history book mentions these events, but many survivors as well has French pilots present at the time, have officially witnessed. 

To what extent is it a crime against humanity for the international community to accept and to validate, even "only" implicitly, an election which is the absolute result of obvious, widespread and systematic fraud, accompanied by a long and very painful history of extremely gross power abuse and basic human rights' violations? 

Why should Gbagbo be removed for those reasons, and to a lesser extent Kadhafi, while people like Paul Biya, Idriss Deby of Tchad, François Bozizé of Central African Republic, the latter two having proclaimed themselves successor to their previous term after systematic and arrogant fraud at the beginning of this year, ar keft in power? 

These questions are obviously linked to the quality of warranty offered by these "democratically and freely" elected "presidents" on the availability of natural resources' contracts and deals in unclear and corrupt conditions. We should therefore ask ourselves to what extent the power of a brutalized and silenced people can be exercised in these different conditions. Although internal interacting factors should also be considered, ranging from longstanding toxic behaviors induced by will-suppressing colonial rule, as well as widespread greed and lack of national conscience, the weight of external validation and acceptance should be considered as overwhelming. 

This video is to show how Biya is intending to continue ruling over his people
 while he is trying very hard to become his own successor at any cost. 

Thousands Protest Against Senegal President

23 July 2011

VOA

Thousands of Senegalese demonstrators have gathered to protest against President Abdoulaye Wade's bid for a third term. Top opposition leaders, including former Prime Minister Macky Sall, were also on hand Saturday at the demonstration in a public square outside the Dakar city center.

The protest had been originally scheduled downtown, but organizers changed the venue in an attempt to comply with a newly-imposed ban on political rallies outside government buildings and several major squares. Wade's Senegalese Democratic Party has also planned a rally Saturday, outside their headquarters.

The demonstrations come one month after the massive June 23 protests and rioting against chronic power shortages and President Wade's bid to change the constitution. Opponents say the changes were aimed at making it easier for the president to be re-elected and for his son, Karim Wade, to succeed him.

After the massive protests, the 85-year-old leader withdrew the proposed amendments.

But Wade has indicated he still plans to run for re-election, despite a constitutional statute that limits the presidency to two terms. Wade's supporters say he is entitled to run again, because the new constitution was not in effect when he was first elected president in 2000.

Some information for this report was provided by AP, AFP and Reuters.

Torture Widespread in Gambia After 17 Years of Jammeh

21 July 2011

Scott Stearns

Gambians on Friday mark 17 years since Yahya. 

Jammeh took power in a military coup. And Amnesty International says Mr. Jammeh's presidency has been marked by enforced disappearances, killings and torture.

Campaigning for reelection this week, President Jammeh told supporters that neither November's vote nor a coup d'etat can remove him from office. Only divine intervention, he said, could end his 17 years as Gambia's leader.

Mr. Jammeh says his fourth term in office is a “foregone conclusion.” Amnesty International Deputy Africa Director Tawanda Hondora says that is because Mr. Jammeh has driven most of his political opponents into exile.

"He has hounded opposition parties from the Gambia. And those that remain in the country face a daily risk of being arrested or being harassed. People are persecuted,” Hondora.

On Friday's anniversary of the coup that brought Mr. Jammeh to power, Amnesty International released a report that says his government “ruthlessly quashes all forms of dissent.”

"Life in the Gambia for people who are perceived to belong to the opposition or journalists who have issued statements that are perceived to be critical of the authorities is quite bad. Most people end up in prison, in Mile Two prison, where they are subjected to torture. A lot of people have to flee the country, and a lot of people are currently living in exile," Hondora said.

President Jammeh has responded to criticism in the past by accusing campaigners for what he calls “so-called human rights” of trying to undermine his government. He has restricted press freedoms, saying Gambia suffers from "too much expression."

Human rights groups have pressed repeatedly for a full investigation into the killing of newspaper editor Deyda Hydara. Amnesty International calls detained journalist Ebirma Manneh a “prisoner of conscience.”

Hondora says those who oppose President Jammeh risk being picked up by security forces and never seen again.

“Some people have ended up disappeared. These are people who are arrested by the security forces and nothing is heard about them. And this extends to journalists, extends to opposition political party supporters or members, and including people in the security forces who are considered to have turned against the regime in Banjul,” Hondora said.

Hondora says the international community must bring pressure to bear on President Jammeh.

"Gambia relies on a lot of aid and does have good bilateral relations with many countries within the EU as well as the United States government. It is imperative that these governments impress upon the authorities in the Gambia to respect the civil and political rights of the citizens,” Hondora said.

Hondora says African leaders must also speak out against human rights abuses in Gambia. President Jammeh angered West African leaders earlier this year by siding with long-time Ivory Coast leader Laurent Gbabgo who was forced from office by a wave of popular unrest.

Mr. Jammeh also has had a series of diplomatic incidents with Senegal and Nigeria over Iranian-made weapons impounded in Nigeria that appear to have been headed for Senegalese rebels who are armed through Gambia.

Niger Delta: Four Local Communities stage Peaceful Protest against Shell

8 July 2011
Environmental Rights Action - ERA


Kolo Creek Logistics base, in the Ogbia Local Government Area of Bayelsa state four communities, Imiringi, Elebele, Otuasega and Oruma communities peacefully protest against Shell lack of respect of agreements.

Four communities where Shell Petroleum Development Company [SPDC] operates in recently issued a 14 days ultimatum to the company, demanding for implementation of agreement reached with the communities in 1999. The communities include: Oruma, Otuasega, Elebele and Imiringi; all Ogbia speaking Ijaw communities in Ogbia Local Government Area of Bayelsa State, few kilometres to President Goodluck Jonathan’s community, Otueke. 

Following the ultimatum to Shell, leaders of the community had appeared before the Joint Military Task Force [JTF] at the expiration of the time with a view to settle the matter amicably. Unfortunately, Shell could not convince the aggrieved communities that are demanding that the company honour the agreement it reached with them in 1999, and they decided to stage a peaceful protest to the heavily guarded Shell facility, the Kolo Creek Logistic Base.ERA’s field monitor witnessed the protest that took place on the 7th of July 2011 and some of the protesters spoke with him.

Testimonies

We are here for a peaceful protest but if the JTF handles this matter in a violent way we shall only retreat and return in full force. Then it will be too bad for Shell because Shell has cheated us for too long. The Kolo Creek communities have been known to be very peaceful but if the soldiers and Shell take undue advantage of our peaceful disposition today to intimidate us, we shall not take it. If we hear any gun shot or if any of our members is injured here today by the soldiers, the rest of the state and the country will hear our action. All we are demanding for is that Shell should respect the agreement it reached long ago with our people; these four communities. They agreed to extend electricity to our communities but they are not doing so; while benefiting heavily from our oil wells. This is not a fresh demand, it is an agreement reached with us that we are trying to enforce.

Amakiri Joseph, Vice-Chairman of the Community Development Committee [CDC] of Oruma

Because of our present mood I do not have much to say. Shell is wicked. They refused to implement agreements that they entered into with our community leaders some years ago. Have we not been patient enough? Can you imagine a situation where Shell prefers giving light to mosquitoes in the bush than human beings; even when the oil and gas they use on the plant that supplies them light is from our soil. All around their facility, even in the bush, they provide light. In some of these facilities you don’t see people, only mosquitoes; yet there is light there. That is why I said Shell gives light to mosquitoes, but not people in the communities where they operate.

Nothingbad Ada, from Otuasega community

I am here today because I support the demands of the four communities. We are not coming to make new demands from Shell, but that they fulfil the agreement they reached with us. We want our communities to be connected to the source of power that supplies them electricity twenty four hours every day. They cannot be taking the crude oil and gas from our environment and enjoy all the benefits and leave us in pristine condition. We know what is happening in other places where such resources are exploited. Apart from the issue of electricity, we are also demanding for good roads linking our communities. Shell should honour the agreement signed with us; that’s all.

Mrs. Beauty James, women leader of Oruma community

I retired from the Nigerian army and I am getting my pension. I just want to tell you that I am fully in support of what is going on here; the peaceful protest. If Shell is treating us well do you think our people will waste their energy on this kind of thing? There would have been no need, I tell you. The company should change its old tactics of dealing with host communities. Respect is indeed reciprocal. The only thing is, the protest should remain peaceful.Loveday Ada, retired soldier from OtuasegaI have been part of meetings held between the JTF, our communities and Shell in recent times. Those meetings were all related to the issues concerning our demand that Shell should implement the agreement it entered into with our people since 1999. Even after the expiration of the 14 days ultimatum we issued Shell, there have been steps to avoid open confrontation. Shell is fully aware of what we are here for; the company is just trying to see what we can do. Yes, we are a very peaceful people but we are also human beings and have that capacity to behave otherwise when situation demands. We are not joking, Shell should honour the 1999 agreement or else the company is free to leave our environment for us. They should give us light, water, roads and also ensure that their operation within this environment is safe for us and every other living thing in the ecosystem.

Pastor Ranami Afagha, Vice-Chairman of Imiringi community

I want to say that I am aware of what the four communities are doing there at Shell office, the Kolo Creek Logistic Base. It is very sad and unfortunate that the company should allow our people’s simple demand to linger and lead to what you have just observed. We have written several letters and held meetings in relation to an agreement Shell signed with us in 1999 in the Presence of Nigeria’s current President, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan; when he was the Deputy Governor of Bayelsa State. Shell agreed then to connect our communities to the plant supplying electricity to their office/facility here in our environment. Actually there was a time they tried to lay the lines and we were all happy. But the company later abandoned the project. Shell felt the communities should rather be connected to the public power supply grid of Power Holding Company of Nigeria [PHCN]. That was not our agreement. We want to enjoy that electricity the company is getting from our oil and gas twenty four hours daily. Apart from that, since Shell constructed a gas pipeline across the Kolo Creek, the creek has not been properly reopened to allow free flow of water. The creek is still partially blocked. ERA visited during the crossing of the gas pipeline and witnessed how it was then. Not much was done by the company after they crossed the pipeline. This is also part of the protest our people have embarked upon today. If you allow me I will continue to give more reasons why these four communities are annoyed with Shell. As community leaders, we have, however, appealed to the protesters not to take to violence but remain peaceful as they go about the protest.

Chief Ranami Joseph, Acting Paramount Ruler of Otuasega Community

Observation and conclusion

ERA’s field monitor was at the scene of the protest early enough to witness the first set of protesters as they arrived in two buses and motor bikes. The two buses were loaded with youths and women. Other buses also brought community people from the four protesting communities. When the first two buses drove towards the Shell facility, they were stopped and sent back by soldiers at the JTF check point mounted there. Although the buses turned back, the protesters came down not far from the soldiers’ position. The soldiers were telling them to leave the environment but they were adamant. At about 6:18 am when more protesters had arrived, they started to move towards the JTF check point. By this time, about 12 JTF personnel had taken position to resist the protesters and prevent them from going beyond that check point. 

This was the situation until about 7:00 a.m when some women carried a casket covered with white cloth and forced their way through the JTF check point. This action of the women received the support of some youths when they saw that the military men were trying to prevent the casket and those carrying it from passing that point. At last, after an initial struggle, the way was open for all to get access to Shell’s gate. The military officers were trying to control the situation from developing into violence, while the protesters were eager to see and hear from Shell. This scenario lingered on, when ERA’s field monitor left the environment at about 7:44 A.M. However, before leaving it was observed that though the soldiers appeared provoked, they behaved relatively well.

ERA demands:

1. Shell should respect and implement the agreements in question

2. Other grievances of the protesters should be urgently looked into with a view to responding to them positively by Shell.

3. The authorities, from local to the Federal Government should wade into this matter and ensure that Shell does the right thing by implementing agreements reached with the communities in which they operate to ease escalation of tensions.

4. The communities should continue to press their demands non-violently. 

5. The military should also remain disciplined and avoid taking negative actions against such peaceful protesters.

After South Sudan Who will become Independent?

12 juillet 2011

Scott A Morgan

July 9th has come and gone on the calendar. The Republic of South Sudan has become the newest independent state in Africa. Although the separation was generally peaceful there are underlying tensions that could quickly lead to Armed Conflict. But now there is a question that needs to be asked: Is Southern Sudan going to be the final state to gain independence?

The Short answer has to be No. There are efforts underway in the “Breakaway” region of Somaliland to be recognized as an Independent State. There have been reports that Kenya has done so and there is a push for Britain to do so as well. Several years ago there was an effort by those seeking this to have the US follow along through an attempt to pass legislation in Congress. Officially the position of the United States is that the Administration will wait until the African Union does this. So this means that there is a remote chance that this will happen.

Another Country that may have such a similar effort occur is Nigeria. We all have heard of the situation in the Niger Delta. It generates income coming into the Country with its oil reserves but there is little investment in the infrastructure in the region. A Militant Group the NDLF (Niger Delta Liberation Force) has urged President Jonathan to convene a SNC (Sovereign National Conference) to see if the Niger Delta can have a peaceful separation from the rest of the Country without bloodshed.

Another Potential Flashpoint has to be the Casamance region in Senegal. This has been the scene of an on-again/off-again insurgency against the Wade Regime. This region which lies along the border with the Gambia has had the rebels being supported by Guinea in the past. As long as there is not any resolution in this situation and is allowed to fester than problems could break out in West Africa yet again.

It would be a sin of omission not to discuss the situation in the Eastern DRC. Although it has not advocated Independence from Kinshasa the Central Government has been unable to effectively administer the region due to poor infrastructure, corruption and outside actors. So the Kivus currently operate with little oversight. It is possible to conceive that Rwanda or even Uganda can attempt to either separate territory in order to annex it outright or to create a situation whereupon they can create an “independent buffer state” to enhance their agenda for the region and to gain access to the copious natural resources in these two provinces.This means that the State Department, the Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency will really have to maintain constant vigilance monitoring these situations so that any information can be presented to the President in a quick and timely manner. This has not always been the case in recent months however. But these situations are just the tip of the iceberg.

The Author Comments on US Policy towards Africa and publishes Confused Eagle on the Internet. It can be found at confusedeagle.livejournal.com