By Dibussi Tande
Can Cameroon – a country which proudly celebrates its newfound HIPC (Heavily Indebted Poor Country) status - afford a development policy which shuts out some of its most resourceful and skilled citizens on the spurious claim that their patriotism is questionable because they reside abroad and have taken up foreign nationalities, usually for practical reasons?
After Cameroon won the first Afro-Asian football finals against Saudi Arabiain Jeddah in 1985, the Saudis refused to hand over the trophy on grounds that Cameroon had fielded an ineligible French player during the first leg encounter in Yaounde. The player in question was none other than the legendary Roger Milla who had showed up for the game with his French passport.
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Human rights defenders were harassed, assaulted and detained. Individuals were unlawfully detained on account of their sexual orientation. A group of political prisoners, convicted after unfair trials and held in life-threatening conditions that have killed three of their number since 1999, continued to be denied a right of appeal. Investigations were started into a few deaths in police custody that reportedly resulted from torture, but they were not independent or open. Inmates were killed and injured in prison riots stemming from severe overcrowding and harsh discipline.
In his rumination about the significance of Cameroon's May 20th celebrations (the country's “national day”), Nfor Ngala Nfor the SCNC Vice Chair, cites "the Tombel Massacre of 1962" as an example of the atrocities committed by "La Republique du Cameroun" on territory of the ex British Southern Cameroons. At first glance, one gets the impression that Nfor is referring to the alleged massacre of citizens of the then English speaking federated state of West Cameroon - most likely by the marauding trigger-happy Gendarmes from the French speaking federated State of East Cameroon. 
In the English -speaking part of Cameroon between independence and reunification,the administration provided education, health, order and the political atmosphere was liberal. The young administration was moving well. Before reunification, the people felt divided in the two separate administrations of Cameroon that had been one under the Germans. For example, we had two stars on our national flag. I wonder why Britain who defeated the Germans in the First World War did not get all of Cameroon. In the 1972 referendum, we were certainly coming back to what we were under the Germans — that is oneness. Cameroonians longed to live more closely with their brothers as justified by the referendum results. That was natural.
Southern Cameroons is a different and distinct nation. With its own international boundaries defined by international treaties, it is not an integral part of La Republique du Cameroun. Southern Cameroonians are Not citizens of La Republique du Cameroun. They are by culture, history and international law citizens of SOUTHERN CAMEROONS. They are not français Camerounais.
Samuel Eto'o stared anxiously around Madrid's bustling Barajas airport. The dream was not supposed to start like this. Aged 14, without a word of Spanish, he had flown there alone from Cameroon."I was so proud," he says. "I was very small but I had the heart of a lion. My heart was so big I wanted to eat the world." 
On May 1, 2006 the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank confirmed that Cameroon had successfully reached the completion point of the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative. As a result, these institutions cancelled 1,400 billion CFA (2.1 billion euros, 2.7 billion dollars) of Cameroon’s 4,000-billion-CFA external public debt (See 
Politically engaged young writers are supposed to mellow when they grow old. With experience and recognition, you somehow expect them to become more settled in their chosen craft, less fired-up, more removed from the fray. But not Wole Soyinka. Twenty years after winning the Nobel Prize for literature, the first African to do so, he has pitched himself back into the seething politics of Nigeria, “the place I never should have left”. Age, exile and international acclaim have only whettedhis desire for a direct part in events.
The April issue of Les Cahiers Mutations (a spin-off of the French language daily, Quotidiens Mutations), carries a special investigative report on the failed coup attempt against the Biya regime in 1984, parts of which have been published online. 22 years after the coup attempt, the details of that event are beginning to get fuzzy in the minds of many, and stories of the gruesome coup aftermath characterized by indiscriminate arrests and summary executions now sound like urban legends to a generation of Cameroonians who did not live through the experience. In this regard, the Cahiers Mutations special report is a timely one.
One of Africa’s utmost press freedom heroes, Cameroonian journalist Pius Njawe has faced relentless harassment by theauthorities throughout his career. In the past thirty years he has been arrested 126 times and served prison time on three different occasions. Despite ongoing adversities, Njawe continues to publish his newspaper Le Messager. In 1993, he was awarded the WAN Golden Pen of Freedom in recognition of his outstanding contribution to the independent press in his country. Pius wrote this article for the 
I thank God from the bottom of my heart that he has allowed me to spend these 80 years working on sick people. I have been a doctor for over 53 years and during this time I have done many things, including surgery, cancer work in Nigeria and Cameroon. Some have been failures, some have been successes. I thank God for those successes and hope that I will still be able to get more patients treated of cancer, especially. 
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