The Washington Diplomat - VOLUME 17, NUMBER 07. July 2010
“It’s not my official residence on Normanstone Drive, I can tell you that...I’m in a room built for 12 people, with three bunk beds, one on top of the other. For the time being, there are six or seven of us here. We have three boxes for showering and three toilets — one normal Western-style and two Turkish squat toilets.” Jerome Mendouga
After serving for 15 years as Cameroon’s ambassador to the United States, Jerome Mendouga has traded in the comfort of Embassy Row for the confines of Cameroon’s most notorious jail, as he fights to prove his innocence in a domestic scandal that has become the proverbial albatross around the disgraced diplomat’s neck.
Foreign ambassadors, once they finish their tours of duty in Wash ington, often go back home and write books or become private consultants. Others join the faculty of prestigious universities. If they’ve had an especially distinguished track record, they might be named foreign ministers by their country’s president, and — in a few cases — they end up as presidents themselves. Jerome Mendouga’s career took a very different path — taking him all the way
from the comfort of Washington’s Embassy Row to the squalor of Cameroon’s most notorious slammer.













32-year old Ebenizer Folefack Sontsa, the Cameroonian national whose violent repatriation caused a mini revolt last Saturday on a Brussels Airline flight to Douala and led to

"From one West African visionary and leader to another, I would like to extend my congratulations to you for your achievements in academia... As a person of African descent in the U.S., you have shown our continental compatriots here and abroad that hard work and dedication do pay off. Your passion and professional contributions to scholarly work focused on international human rights and the rule of law are indeed an asset to the entire University. The nation of Cameroon will undoubtedly boast of your achievements as a child of their soil."
Spring, Maryland apartment of Mr. Ignatius Foncham, killing all three of his daughters (aged 4 years, 2 years and just 4 months old). The mother of the children survived the fire in critical condition, but unfortunately succumbed to the cold hands of death about two weeks later on July 12th, 2007. Within the span of two weeks, Mr. Foncham’s life was turned upside down. It is impossible to imagine how one can recover from such a catastrophic loss. In light of this, it is even more devastating to consider that the loss of all of Mr. Foncham’s children happened in his absence, as he was then being detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. 


The cover story of the September issue of
As we saw in the first part of this article, globalization has dramatically altered the dual citizenship debate in many countries. The political reasons that were once used to reject dual citizenship in the 20th century are today steadily giving way to powerful economic and cultural arguments in favor of dual citizenship.
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.
The Global Night Commute is a worldwide event organized by the Invincible Children Inc. organization. It will take place on April 29, 2006, and feature people from around the world converging on urban centers in solidarity with displaced Ugandan children attempting to avoid capture by the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA). The night commute will involve the trek of thousands of men, women and children from around the world into major cities where they will mimic the nightly commute of the Ugandan children by marching en masse from one point to another and sleeping at their final destination for the entire night. The commute is scheduled to occur in most major cities in the United States. The goal of the movement is to raise awareness and ultimately end Africa's longest running conflict by facilitating a change in the policies of the United States Government in regard to the situation.


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