By Benn Bongang (Originally published by the Association of International Studies)
"Biya’s rhetoric on democratization in Cameroon was nothing more that another approach to a long tradition of silencing the media in Cameroon to hold on to political power"
In December 1990, Celestin Monga and Pius Njawe scorned Cameroon President Paul Biya’s ‘paternalistic and condescending’ claims that he brought democracy to Cameroon. Theirs was a frontal attack on the Head of State, fueled by frustration by decades of the government’s firm hand against the press. Until then, journalists who dared to criticize government wrote in disguised prose that often veiled their intentions.
All this changed with Monga’s inflammatory open letter, published by Njawe’s newspaper, Le Messager. It spoke for many who had silently suffered attacks on their freedoms. Le Messager’s edition bearing the ‘bomb’ was hastily nabbed off the newsstands; many made money off photocopies later. It was published days after President Biya promised greater freedoms of expression to Cameroon in a nationally televised address. The President told Cameroonians to express their views without fear. According to him, every Cameroonian had to right to criticize government without fear of reprisals. It was a dawn of a new democratic future for Cameroon.
It was not to be. The Biya regime failed the Monga test. This essay suggests that President Biya’s rhetoric on democratization in Cameroon was nothing more that another approach to a long tradition of silencing the media in Cameroon to hold on to political power. It is a strategy began at independence in 1960 under President Ahmadou Ahidjo and refined under President Paul Biya. Both men, the only Presidents to rule Cameroon since independence, managed this strategy by repression and deception, promises for free expression in the press followed by arrests of journalists. To judge by their over half a century in power, the Ahidjo/Biya strategy to muzzle the media has been ruthlessly efficient.
Monga’s abrasive attack on the President was bold and foolhardy. It is an integral part of the narrative of the reluctant change to multipartism in Cameroon after decades of a ruling one-party system. But it is a story that proves that multipartism does not ensure democracy. It is also a story of how the Biya regime refined its strategy to continue to hold on to power even in the new multiparty context. A democratic government that guarantees freedoms and protects citizens against government may be a long way off in Cameroon, but the purpose of this essay is to recognize the footprints made by the intrepid work of Monga and Njawe: Monga, the brilliant economist who would go on to work for the World Bank in Washington, and Njawe, the indefatigable journalist and publisher of Le Messager, who continued to fight for freedom of expression between sojourns in prison.
About Benn Bongang
Bernard (Benn) Bongang. Dr. Bongang is associate professor of political science at Savannah State University, where he also teaches in the Department of Mass Communication. Born in Cameroon, Benn worked as a Journalist for Radio Cameroon, a Television Producer/Director for the Cameroon Radio and Television Corporation (CRTV), and as station manager for the Eastern Provincial affiliate of CRTV. Cameroonian audiences of Radio and of Television remember him as host and producer of several programs, including “Conversation” on radio and “Tam Tam Weekend” on television. In addition, his television documentary, “Through Northern Eyes,” was acquired and broadcast in Germany by Westdeutscher Rundfunk, of Cologne as “Dallas im Kamerun” in 1987.
Benn was a Hubert H. Humphrey Fellow at Boston University in 1992-93. In the summer of 1993, he worked for the United Nations Radio and the Department of Disarmament Affairs in New York. He was
educated in Cameroon, Canada and the United States, and holds a B.A. in Journalism from the University of Yaounde in Cameroon, a post-graduate diploma in Television production and directing, a M.S. in Journalism from Boston University, an M.A. and a Ph.D in International Studies from the University of South Carolina in Columbia.
Benn Bongang’s first book, The United States and the United Nations: Congressional Funding and United Nations Reform (August 2007) was published by LFB Scholarly of New York.
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