Dibussi Tande: Scribbles from the Den

Internet Activism: Bloggers are Africa's New Rebels

By Paul Salopek (Originally published in the Chicago Tribune)

The Web has become a powerful tool for democratization.

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia: The man was nervous. He was afraid, he said, of the secret police. So he advised me to hire a random taxi. I was to park at a certain church. And there, I was to wait. A few minutes later he called again, this time on a different cell phone. He gave me directions to a nondescript house with an iron gate.

"Sorry about these procedures," he apologized, tapping away at a laptop in a shuttered room. "But I could spend years in prison for what I do."

Such spy-movie shenanigans in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, weren't required to meet a gangster or terrorist. Instead, Dagem, as he chose to be called, was a new type of African revolutionary: a blogger.

Biyaism Without Biya? The Battle for Regime Change in Cameroon

Dibussi Tande

"Evidently I am for regime change... but I look beyond that change. I sincerely believe that we can have 'Biyaism' without Biya." Celestin Monga.

After close to a year of subtle and not-so-subtle calls by members of the ruling CPDM for an amendment of Article 6(2) of the constitution of Cameroon which imposes presidential term limits, President Paul Biya finally took a stance on the debate last December 31. During his nationwide end-of-year address, Paul Biya backed the opponents of term limits by arguing that: “In fact, there are arguments for a revision, particularly of Article 6 which indeed imposes a limitation of the people’s will, a limitation which is out of tune with the very idea of democratic choice.”

African Nations Cup - Let the Games Begin!

In Africa, "with its density, variety, vivacity, open wounds, illusions, beliefs and battles," once wrote Heidi Hamel of African football magazine, "football is the only opium with which one can keep the withdrawal symptoms at bay. This painful dependency reflects an unavoidable need. Africans love their football to the point of desperation. To the point of madness."

African regimes have understood and appropriated this madness so well, which is why football is a potent tool that these unpopular regimes use not only to get a veneer of legitimacy which they would otherwise not have, but also to stifle opposition. I guess it is a two-way street  after all; the people get their “opium” and the politicians get another day to plunder….

Call cheap use from any phone @ MobileCaller.com.

Memory Lane: January 15, 1971- UPC Leader, Ernest Ouandie, Executed

As soon as the first salvo is fired, he shouts: "Long live Cameroon" and then falls to the ground. A European officer detaches himself from the group of spectators, walks toward the dying man, puts his hand on his holster, leans forward and shoots... [cited in Jean Ziegler, Les Rebelles: Contre l'Ordre du Monde: Mouvements Armes de Liberation Nationale du Tiers Monde]

Ernest Ouandie, the last historic leader of the nationalist Union des Populations du Cameroun (UPC) under heavy guard.

Saturday, January 16, 1971: YAOUNDE. CAMEROON. A firing squad publicly executed three men in a public square in Bafoussam Friday on charges of plotting rebellion against the government. The men had been sentenced to death with Roman Catholic bishop Albert Nkongmo. But the bishop's sentence was commuted to life in prison by President Ahmadou Ahidjo.

Peace Corps Volunteers: Too Many Innocents Abroad

By Robert L. Strauss - Former Cameroon Peace Corps Director (Originally published in the New York Times)

"The Peace Corps has long shipped out well-meaning young people possessing little more than good intentions and a college diploma... In Cameroon, we had many volunteers sent to serve in the agriculture program whose only experience was puttering around in their mom and dad’s backyard during high school."

THE Peace Corps recently began a laudable initiative to increase the number of volunteers who are 50 and older. As the Peace Corps’ country director in Cameroon from 2002 until last February, I observed how many older volunteers brought something to their service that most young volunteers could not: extensive professional and life experience and the ability to mentor younger volunteers.

However, even if the Peace Corps reaches its goal of having 15 percent of its volunteers over 50, the overwhelming majority will remain recently minted college graduates. And too often these young volunteers lack the maturity and professional experience to be effective development workers in the 21st century.

How to Eliminate Presidential Term Limits (Notes from the Biya Playbook)

Dibussi Tande

Term limits are an important instrument of democratization in electoral-authoritarian countries: this is not just because they constrain the power of individual leaders, but also because they tend to promote political party alternation, as in Croatia in 2000 and Kenya in 2002, which in turn fosters democratization. Gideon Maltz

Following the arrest of Yondo Black and nine others in February 1990, the Biya regime insisted that contrary to popular belief, the “Douala 10”, as they came to be known, had been arrested not because they called for the reinstitution of multipartyism, which regime officials pointed out was enshrined in the constitution, but because they had insulted the head of state. Realizing however this statement could open the floodgates of pro-multiparty advocacy in the country, the regime immediately initiated stage-managed a nationwide campaign against “precipitated multipartyism”.

Respecting Presidential Term Limits: The Example of President Festus Mogae of Botswana

"Mr Speaker, in accordance with the Constitution, I will leave the leadership of our country to His Honour the Vice President– a patriot, who I am sure will carry the mantle of leadership with distinction, as he has previously done.” President Festus Mogae.

Festus Gontabanye Mogae, the president of Botswana, will retire from office on March 31, 2008. In doing so, Mogae will not be stepping down voluntarily. He will not be doing so as a favour to his people. He will not be yielding to public pressure. It will not be because he has found a suitable successor or because he has completed all the important work that he started. It certainly will have nothing to do with his age. He is only 68. President Mogae will step down from the presidency because of a very simple reason, one which he stated towards the end of his State of the Nation Address before the Botswana Parliament last Monday. Mogae said: “Mr Speaker, in accordance with the Constitution, I will leave the leadership of our country to His Honour the Vice President– a patriot, who I am sure will carry the mantle of leadership with distinction, as he has previously done.”