Dibussi Tande: Scribbles from the Den

Revisiting The Legacy of Dr. EML Endeley

By Dibussi Tande (Originally posted on the CAMNET discussion forum in 1998 on the 10th anniversary of EML's Death)

Had he not by accident of birth come from a minority tribe, monuments would have been raised to his honour in the Cameroons, for his thirty-seven years of counsel and vision to his people. N.N Mbile

Ten years have gone by since Dr. Emmanuel Mbella Lifafe (EML) Endeley, the first Premier of the British Southern Cameroons, passed away on June 29, 1988. Over the years, much has been said about and against him, particularly by a younger generation of Anglophone Cameroonians who still do not understand his naive romanticizing of the Nigerian option during the 1961 plebiscite, and his lukewarm attitude towards the so-called Third Option (i.e., the school of thought defended by P.M. Kale, that called for the complete independence of Southern Cameroons from both the Nigerian federation and La Republique du Cameroun).

Movie Review: Cameroun - Autopsy of a Bungled Independence

Gaëlle Le Roy et Valérie Osouf Cameroun. Autopsie d’une Indépendance. France 5, 2008.

Early this week, the French TV network, France 5, broadcast a fascinating documentary on France’s macabre role in the violent decolonization of the French Cameroons. Using archival footage, most of which is being made public for the first time, the documentary shows how the French crushed the UPC armed insurgency. More extensive than Frank Garbely's equally compelling documentary on the assassination of Felix Moumie, autopsie covers the period from the 1944 Brazzaville conference to the 1971 execution of Ernest Ouandie, the last historic leader of the UPC.

The documentary includes revealing interviews with some of key actors from that period such as the infamous Governor of Cameroun, Pierre Messmer, who died last year. Defiant to the end, Messmer, insists that the UPC was a terrorist organization and its leader, Ruben Um Nyobe, an outlaw who deserved to die. The filmmakers also achieve the improbable feat of finally getting General Pierre Semengue to talk about his role in crushing of the UPC insurgency.

Cameroun - Autopsie d'une Indépendance

Gaëlle Le Roy et Valérie Osouf Cameroun. Autopsie d’une Indépendance. France 5, 2008.

Here is the documentary on the decolonization of the French Cameroons in its entirety. Enjoy!

Cameroon: Brain Drain Hampers Public Services

UN Integrated Regional Information Networks

Yaounde: Highly qualified Cameroonian graduates are leaving for Europe and North Africa in unprecedented numbers, and unlike in the past no longer feel compelled to return, starving the professional classes of qualified workers, according to experts.

"We have shifted from having a spirit of national solidarity to one of individualism," said a university student. "It used to be inconceivable that a student would leave for abroad and not return to apply their skills to serve their country, but that is no longer the case."

CNN's "Cameroon’s 'Cursed' Children" Report - A Rebuttal by a Cameroonian Medical Doctor

By Valentine NGWA, St. James University Hospital - Leeds, UK

I have read with keen interest, Dr Sanjay Gupta’s take on various health related issues in the rural parts of Cameroon, initially wondering what his real intentions were. One could easily misconstrue his intentions as being Information, Education/Entertainment and Communication (IEC), which I believe are those of a genuine journalist. However, I finally realised Sanjay Gupta’s primary assignment is that of portraying Cameroon/Africa as  the origin of many of the world’s diseases; as a land where diseases easily spread from animals to man due to their supposedly close co-habitation.

Nowhere is this truer than in this article on Buruli ulcer in Akonolinga, Cameroon in which Medical science has been totally insulted;  an article which should cause anyone calling himself a trained medical doctor to bow his head in shame. And I will go on to tell you why I think so.

Cameroon’s “Cursed” Children

Dr. Sanjay Gupta - CNN Chief Medical Correspondent (Originally posted on AC360°)

In a small town called Akonolinga, which is approximately an hour outside Yaounde, the capital of Cameroon, there is a strange disease going around that primarily affects children. It starts as an ulcer on the skin that quickly spreads.

Untreated, it can start to affect the bones and eventually even get into the bloodstream. If it gets to that point, there is little that can be done, and the child will often succumb to the disease. They try everything in this small village town to not let it get to that bad. They scrape away the skin, cutting out the diseased areas.

Postcard from Yaounde: Navigating a Real Oil Shock

By Vivienne Walt (Originally published in Time Magazine)

Americans wincing over paying four dollars a gallon at the gas pump ought to meet John Gwat. The taxi driver in Cameroon's capital is paying six dollars a gallon, but in a country where the average monthly wage is about $180 — approximately one-tenth of the average American income.


And like American consumers, there's precious little that Gwat and other taxi drivers here can do about the gas prices at the gas pumps. "At the end of the month about a quarter of the cars are just parked on the streets, because no one has the money to buy fuel," he says. Then, when Cameroonians (at least those with jobs) receive their salaries at the end of the month, Yaoundé's streets are once again jammed with traffic.

Book Review: The 1961 Cameroon Plebiscite: Choice or Betrayal (An Eyewitness Account of a UN Plebiscite Officer)

John Percival. The 1961 Cameroon Plebiscite: Choice or Betrayal. Langaa Publishers, 2008. Available on Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, African Books Collective and Michigan State University Press.

The United Nations-organised plebiscite on 11 February 1961 was one of the most significant events in the history of the southern and northern parts of the British-administered trust territory in Cameroon. John Percival was sent by the then Colonial Office as part of the team to oversee the process.

This book captures the story of the plebiscite in all its dimensions and intricacies and celebrates the author’s admiration for things African through a series of reminiscences of what life was like in the 1960s, both for the Africans themselves and for John Percival as a very young man. The complex story is also a series of reflections about the effect of the modern world on Africa. It is a thorough, insightful, rich and enlightening first-hand source on a political landmark that has never been told before in this way.

Memory Lane (1987): Cameroon Battles Against Bureaucracy

By James Brooke (Originally published in the New York Times)

September 7, 1987

They are called ''Pajero-crats'' - a proud caste of bureaucrats who ride around town in luxurious Jeep-like vans made by Japanese auto makers.

In Cameroon's oil boom years of the early 1980's, these enterprising public servants borrowed small fleets of Government-owned Mitsubishis and put them to use as inter-city taxis. It was hard to lose money: Government chauffeurs drove Government cars fueled by Government-issued gasoline coupons.

Epic Struggle Ends With Victory for Obama

Originally published in The Independent

After an epic five-month battle that has transformed American politics, Barack Obama claimed the Democratic nomination last night, continuing his extraordinary quest to become the first African-American president in his country's history.

It was the most important milestone yet, in the meteoric political journey of Mr Obama, the son of a black intellectual from Kenya and a white anthropologist from Kansas who only four years ago was an almost unknown state senator from Illinois.

Barack Obama Democratic Nomination Victory Speech

Cameroon: Sun, Surf and Burnt Tyres

By Matthew Green ( Originally published in the Financial Times - London, May 31, 2008)

West Africa isn’t widely known for its seaside resorts but Limbe, on Cameroon’s coast, would do any tourist brochure proud. Atlantic surf roars over beaches formed from volcanic rock, the fish is fresh, the beer cold. It is, in essence, an ideal place to be trapped.

In early March, I checked in at the Fini Hotel, overlooking the shoreline. A US Navy warship was silhouetted off the coast, its grey hull spectral in the haze. The Calypso Bar was deserted, even the karaoke man gone, but I found a more makeshift affair set up with lawn furniture outside the hotel. Two middle-aged businessmen named Larry and Theodore were sipping Guinness and discussing the country’s ongoing riots. “They’ve looted a brewery,” Larry said, with a trace of glee. “And handed out the crates.”