Conference to Build the ASI - Report from Cameroon

Presented by Joseph Tambe

Uhuru, good evening Brothers and Sisters. Thank you very much for giving me this wonderful opportunity to express the situation we have in Cameroon at this time of political turmoil.

Cameroon was colonized by the Germans in 1884 at the Berlin Colonial Conference. The Germans occupied Cameroon for the next four decades or so. During their reign, Cameroon was characterized by violent crimes, torture on Cameroonians, forced labor on men and women of Cameroon, and flogging as well as death by hanging. We have been calling on the German government to pay reparations for the crimes they committed during this colonial era.

When the Germans were defeated in World War I, according to the Versailles Treaty, they had to nominally lose their territories abroad. That was how Britain and France came to take over Cameroon in the 1920s.

The British then came with their machinery of exploitation as well. They occupied the southern part of the country. The French occupied another part of Cameroon. They, as well, made Cameroonians see years of oppression, exploiting all our economic and human resources to rebuild a war torn Europe.

Then, questions started coming up. "Why can’t we rule ourselves?" "Must we be ruled from Europe?" That was when the so-called wind of change began to blow across the African continent in the early 1950s. The Union of the Populations of Cameroon (UPC) formed.

In 1959, French Cameroon attained independence from France. A year later in 1960, British Cameroon achieved independence from the British. This was a method to pretend they were packing their bags and leaving Cameroon. But did they really do that?

Until this day, their presence is still felt in Cameroon. They have continually exploited our resources. For instance, in southern Cameroon, the French own much of the economic resources that are necessary to rebuild the entire country.

If you go to Cameroon, everyday you see truck loads of timber leaving the country for foreign destinations. I do not know where they are going. These same products are being transformed and being resold to us at very high prices. The same goes for the cocoa and coffee. They manufacture chocolates and resell to us at very high prices, which the average Cameroonian cannot afford.

There is an imminent military presence of the French in Cameroon. What they are doing there only God knows.

Corruption has seen very high levels. A few years back, Amnesty International voted Cameroon the most corrupt nation on earth. There is military intimidation as well in the guise of trying to reduce the crime level in the country. This military operation is known as Operation Command.

Many of our compatriots, many of our political activists are in jail today because they dare oppose a government that has nothing to offer to the average Cameroonian.

We have not seen an iota of the independence we have been talking of since the 1950s. Have we been liberated? The answer is no. The European colonialists invaded our backyard and pretended later to give power back to the rightful owners, but this is not what we feel today is happening.

We have oil, cash crops, rubber, you name them. To control this, something definitely must be done. We have to join our forces together and achieve this revolution with the objective of giving back power to the rightful owners. I don’t think we need a Che Guevara to come before we have this revolution. Like the motto says, it is "Touch One, Touch All."

When all this is put in place, our resources put together, then I think we are going to achieve a better and stable society, where most of us Cameroonians, most of us Nigerians or Congolese, Africans in general will not be happy staying out of our motherland anymore. I salute you all. Uhuru!