Dibussi Tande: Scribbles from the Den

Memory Lane (March 16, 1962): President Ahidjo Receives Honorary Doctorate in New York

At 4 P.M. President Ahidjo was the guest of Long Island University [New York] which conferred upon him the degree Doctor of Laws Honoris Causa.

Citation:
Mr. President: I have the privilege of presenting to you His Excellency Ahmadou Ahidjo, President of the Federal Republic of Cameroun.

Born to the respected Fulani of northern Cameroun, he came south to study in the capital Yaounde, and here he was soon drawn into the swift political eddies of a people aspiring to independence. In 1947, when his country was yet a United Nations trust territory administered by the French, he won his first elected office, a seat in the Representative Assembly. He was then 23 years old. Sagacious beyond his years, quick-witted and persuasive in debate, he rose to become Prime Minister in 1958 and from this high office, guided his country to independence on the first day of January 1960.

Memory Lane Video (March 13, 1962): President Ahidjo Visits the United States

Motion picture covering the official state visit of President Ahmadou Ahidjo of Cameroon to the United States, including welcoming ceremonies with President John F. Kennedy and a visit to the White House, other stops in Washington, D.C., and a visit to New York City and the United Nations (UN) headquarters.

Source: United States Information Agency (USIA), received from Paul Fisher, White House, 9/18/64. Presented by: United States Information Service (USIS). Produced by: Thomas Craven Film Corporation Productions.

Why Cameroon Does Not Have a Two-round Presidential Election System

Or how the parliamentary opposition shot itself in the foot in 1992...

By Dibussi Tande

The Republic of Senegal has a new president following run-off elections which resulted in the defeat of outgoing President Abdoulaye Wade by Macky Sall, his one-time protégé and former Prime Minister. One of the main reasons for Macky's victory is Senegal’s two-round electoral system, which calls for a second round of voting if no candidate obtains more that 50% of votes cast. This is unlike countries such as Cameroon which have a one-round/first-past-the-post electoral system.

In 1992, Cameroon's National Assembly failed to vote on a motion instituting the 2-round system.

In the first round of voting, President Wade obtained 34.81% of votes cast while Sall obtained 26.58%. If this had been the first-past-the-post system practiced in Cameroon, Wade would still be President of Senegal...

Memory Lane (15 June 1991): Opposition Parties Issue Yaounde Plan of Action, Paralyze Nation

By Dibussi Tande

On June 15, 1991, delegates from the 30 political parties and 10 associations that made up the National Coordination of Opposition Parties and Associations (NCOPA) held their first ever rally and meeting in Yaounde.

Leaders of the NCOPA  in the streets of Yaounde on June 15, 1991

They insisted that the national conference was “incontournable” (unavoidable), and unveiled the “Yaounde Plan of Action” aimed at paralyzing the country indefinitely until a Sovereign National Conference was convened.

Memory Lane (May 16 – 17, 1991): Opposition Parties Launch “Operation Ghost Town”

By Dibussi Tande

On May 12, 1991, 22 political parties and 10 human rights associations, including the Yaounde University Students' Parliament, met in Bamenda to discuss the political situation in the country. In their final communiqué, they gave  President Biya 14 days to reconsider his stand on the National Conference, and issued the Bamenda Plan of Action which announced a two-day nationwide Ghost Town campaign (also known as operation dead cities) on May 16 and 17.

Memory Lane (May 6, 1991): Bloody Crackdown on the University of Yaounde Student Movement

By Dibussi Tande

"In the days following the military crackdown, reports began to emerge of widespread looting and rape by soldiers, and of students killed and either dumped in a lake near the university or buried in mass graves outside of Yaounde."

20 years ago today, on May 6, 1991, elements from the Cameroonian security forces launched a brutal assault on the University of Yaounde student residential area called Bonamoussadi to decapitate the Parlement student movement.
 

The May 6 assault was the bloody culmination of a month-long confrontation between University of Yaoundé students and the Biya regime which quickly spread beyond the gates of the University, transforming itself into a nationwide civil disobedience campaign which was anything but civil.

Poetry - The Citadel (Commemorating the 20th Anniversary of the Yaounde University Students' Uprising)

By Dibussi Tande

Memory Lane: 20 years ago on April 2, 1991, the Yaounde University students' uprising began. Find below a commemorative poem..

I
The Mobilization:
The fiery speeches
The protest marches
The huge rallies
The call to arms

The angry cries:
la conférence nationale
il y'aura !!
Fait quoi fait quoi
il y'aura !!
Ça gâte, ça gâte !!
Campus Mort!!!

Memory Lane (October 1992): A Tale of Two Presidents – Paul Biya and John Fru Ndi

By Dibussi Tande

"I have accepted the verdict of my people and I declare myself ready to assume the mission of President of the Republic that they have just confided in me" – John Fru Ndi, October 21, 1992

"I am and will remain the president of all Cameroonians without exception, and the great winner in these elections is democracy" – Paul Biya, October 23, 1992

 
The West African nation of Cote d’Ivoire is once again caught up in a political maelstrom following the controversial second round presidential elections which ended with the two contenders, Laurent Gbagbo, the outgoing President, and Alassane Ouattara, the country’s leading opposition figure and former Prime Minister, both being declared the winners.

Memory Lane: June 28, 1990 - Biya Accepts “Eventual Competition”

"But, dear comrades, it should also be observed that one man's meat is another man's poison. It should also be considered that other reference values can exist... Our party is strong no doubt, but henceforth, it must be prepared to face possible competition." Paul Biya, CPDM Congress, June 28, 1990 

Exactly 20 years ago, on June 28, 1990, President Biya, in a memorable address to militants of the ruling party who were holding out against the reinstitution of multiparty politics in Cameroon, asked them to be ready for “eventual competition.” This was the culmination of a multiparty debate which began early that year with the Yondo affair, and reached its violent apogee with the death of six teenagers who were “trampled by bullets” in Bamenda during the launching of the Social Democratic Front (SDF).  After the May 26 launching of the SDF and the subsequent smear campaign against the party and its sympathizers, Cameroon seemed to be on the verge of a major conflagration which had been looming in the horizon since the Yondo affair.

Remembering the "Miracle of Milan": How Cameroon Beat Argentina and Changed the Face of World Football

By Dibussi Tande

This was supposed to be a vultures' banquet for world champion Argentina, feasting on the prime rack of Cameroon, but the curtain-raiser to Italia `90 World Cup produced arguably the greatest upset in soccer history with Cameroon absolutely deserving winners. Sun Sentinel - Fort Lauderdale June 10, 1990

Omam Biyik Scores his historic goal against world champions Argentina

Exactly 20 years ago on June 8, 1990 at the Giuseppe Maezza Stadium in Milan, Italy, the Indomitable Lions of Cameroon, “a humble team with an insignificant past” to quote the Miami Herald, defeated Argentina, the star-studded defending World Champions led by Diego Armando Maradona, in a thrilling Italia ’90 World Cup opening game that came to be known as the “Miracle of Milan.”

Memory Lane (19 February 1990): The Yondo Black Affair Revisited

Culled from Reform and Repression in Cameroon: A Chronicle of the Smoldering Years (1990-1992) by Dibussi Tande (Forthcoming).

On February 19, 1990, officers from the CENER, Cameroon’s national intelligence service, raided the law office of Yondo Mandengue Black in the city of Douala. They demanded that Black, a former President of the Cameroon Bar Association (CBA), hand over the bylaws and program of the political party that he was in the process of creating.  After a search of the office yielded nothing incriminating, Black took the officers to his residence where he handed over a draft document titled “Coordination Nationale pour la démocratie et le multipartisme” (National Coordination for Democracy and Multipartyism).

Addressed to the Cameroonian people, the document criticized the one party system and the Biya regime, lamented about the worsening economic situation in Cameroon, and called for the reinstitution of multiparty politics in the country:

Memory Lane - January 1971) The Bishop Ndongmo Affair

"Yaounde, Cameroon: A military tribunal Wednesday sentenced a black Roman Cathloc bishop to death before a firing squad for his alleged role in a plot to assassinate the Cameroon president. The Vatican expressed 'extreme suffering' over the verdict and appealed for clemency." Sarasota Herald Tribune, Jan 7, 1971

Culled from Gifford, Paul. 1998. African Christianity: its public role. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, pp.253-256

Albert Ndongmo was the first local bishop of Nkongsamba, appointed in 1964. At this time, the diocese of Nkongsamba covered all the Bamileke area. Beginning in the 1950s, the UPC conducted an armed uprising against the French, from whom it elicited a brutal response. -it was the era of the uprising in Algeria, and the French were in no mood to compromise. But even after Cameroon's independence, the UPC continued its revolt against Ahidjo, whom it regarded as a usurper, left by the French to perpetuate French control. Ndongmo claimed that he was asked by Ahidjo in 1965 to see if he could mediate with Ouandie, the last rebel leader still at large, in an attempt to conclude hostilities. His instructions were uttered in front of witnesses, important functionaries who he named.

(Memory Lane - January 1 1960) African Leaders at Independence Ceremonies for Cameroon

 Cameroon's Premier Ahmadou Ahidjo, right, chats with France's delegate to the Independence ceremonies Minister of State Louis Jacquinot, during the parade in this biggest port city of the new African Independent State.

Ceremonies and festivities were staged in the country 1st January to celebrate the independence of Kamerun, a former French protectorate. Violence broke out the day before between government forces and rebels, but no outbreak marred the ceremonies themselves.

(c) Corbis

( Memory Lane 1 January 1960 ) CAMEROON: Another New Flag

Time Magazine Monday, Jan. 11, 1960

The first of Africa's six new nations to get its independence in 1960 celebrated its beginnings last week with half the country in a state of emergency.

On the morning of the first day of independence, terrorists killed five people in the capital of Yaounde, and the foreign dignitaries who streamed in by air at Douala the day before could see the ruins of the control tower ransacked by another insurgent gang. In six months of struggle 22 whites have died—more than were killed in a similar period during the Mau Mau war in Kenya—and 500 or more Africans.

(Video) La Republique Du Cameroun - The Birth of a Nation (January 1, 1960)

A brief report and rare archival footage on the independence of the French Cameroons (La Republique du Cameroun) on January 1, 1960 (including Ahamadou Ahidjo's historic speech announcing independence (in French). 
 

 

(Music) "Independance Cha Cha" - The African Independence Anthem

Composed in 1960 by Joseph Kabasele Tshamala (Grand Kalle), the father of Congolese music, Independance Cha cha, became the anthem of not only the nationalist movement in the Belgian Congo, but also the newly independent states of Africa. The song was was first played at the Hotel Plaza in Brussels on January 27 1960 during the round table talks that set the date for Congolose independence.

 Today we can opnly look back wistfully and that golden age of buoyant optimism and hope of a better future for Africa...

Indépendance cha cha tozui e
Oh! Kimpuanza cha cha tubakidi
Oh! Table Ronde cha cha ba gagné o
Oh! Dipanda cha cha tozui e

(Independence cha cha, we've won it
Oh! Independence cha cha, we've achieved it
Oh! The round table cha cha, we've pulled it off
Oh! Independence cha cha, we've won it)

Memory Lane: Remembering the Collapse of the Berlin Wall 20 Years After

Dibussi Tande

This week was the 20th anniversary of the collapse of the Berlin Wall, an event which symbolically marked the end of the cold war. Today, the memory of that event has faded, becoming a blur even to those who witnessed it. To my generation, the collapse of the wall was a momentous event, some would even say the most momentous one. In fact, it is easy to make a distinction between the world BEFORE and AFTER the wall;

Memory Lane Video (February 11, 1961): The British Cameroons Plebiscite

UPDATE: Click here to watch video. (Youtube video embed not working)
Video erroneously labeled as 20th May 1972 West Cameroon plebiscite...

CAMEROON: Independence plebiscite

Reuters - 15 February 1961: A West African country divided in two..... this is likely to be the result of a plebiscite held in the Cameroons, on Feb. 11 and 12. Final results have yet to be announced, but in Northern Cameroons there is already an unbeatable majority in favour of union with Nigeria, while in the Southern Cameroons, it is reported that a final majority in favour of union with the Cameroon Republic is already certain.

Memory Lane Video (Buea, May 17 1958): Dr. EML Endeley at the Governor's Lodge

Scenes from Buea, Southern Cameroons, as new House of Assembly set to open.

UPDATE: Click here to watch video on youtube (Video embed no longer working)

Description of video

 1.
 Inside Secretariat, Buea - "Berlin" nameplate on safe door
 
 2.
 Bismarck on Buea fountain. Shots 1 & 2 to emphasise remnants of German influence still remain (Cameroons was German colony until First World War). Shot 7 also.

(Memory Lane - May 26, 1990): The Launching of the SDF

Culled from Reform and Repression in Cameroon: A Chronicle of the Smoldering Years (1990-1992), a forthcoming book by Dibussi Tande commemorating the 20th anniversary of the beginning of Cameroon’s tumultuous democratization process.

On March 16, 1990, barely six days after the Biya regime insisted that multipartyism was not illegal in Cameroon, John Fru Ndi, a Bamenda-based bookseller, and Dr. Siga Assanga, a lecturer at the University of Yaounde, submitted an application with the Mezam divisional office seeking authorization for a political party called the Social Democratic Front (SDF).

Although the application was in direct response to the government’s declaration that multipartyism was not prohibited in Cameroon, the SDF had actually been in gestation months before the Yondo affair...
[...]