Building a Global Conscience

December 11, 2007

Global Conscience Initiative organized a one-day workshop on December 10, 2007, to commemorate the 59^th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. About thirty persons drawn from various backgrounds in Kumba assemble in the Global Conscience conference hall and for close to five hours brainstormed on articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the new Cameroon Criminal Procedure Code in the areas of arrest, detention and bail.

Opening the workshop, Global Conscience Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Samba Churchill said Global Conscience was joining the world in commemorating the anniversary of the UDHR for the first time, and that, regrettably, situations of human rights violations such as of arbitrary arrests and detentions, and of extortions in the name of bail fee were too rampant in Kumba. He lamented that one year after the introduction of the new CPC guaranteeing various rights enshrined in the UDHR, law enforcement authorities continue to violate human rights with impunity, especially with the complacency and lack luster attitude of the Department of Public Prosecution. The CEO observed that Kumba was like an island in Cameroon and reports the worst forms of human rights abuses in the Country. He asked aloud why the CPC was not being respected in Kumba.

Picking the cue, Hon. Mbile Norbert of the National Commission of Human Rights and Freedoms said ignorance on the part of the public was most responsible for the numerous cases of abuses in Kumba. He called for a broad educational campaign by all human rights and related groups and associations, and further urged that for better results, the groups and associations must work collectively, and in partnership with the legal department and the local administration.

Mr. Njaru Philip of Friends of the Press Network,  A Kumba-based Human Rights out fit, explained the difficulties human rights activist face in their attempt to work with local authorities, especially the Department of public prosecution. Innocent Yuh, a Journalist of the Ocean City Radio in Kumba also reported cases of threats on the life of human rights defenders by the authorities.

Speaker after speaker spoke of various forms of human rights abuses in Kumba including the deplorable condition of police/gendarmerie cells, harassment of foreigners especially Nigerians, corruption, detention of juveniles with old and sometimes very hardened criminals, the lack of medical personnel in the Kumba prisons, medical neglect, abuse of prisoners’ rights to visitation, etc.

Mr. Tansa John, Coordinator of the Organisation for Sustainable Rural Infrastructure (OSRI) and the newly elected President of the Nigerian Union in Kumba, lauded the initiative of Global Conscience to organize the workshop. They expressed the wish for many more regular exchanges, broader publicity of the events, and the involvement of grassroots organisations such as cultural and women’s groups, drivers associations, churches and others.

The Deputy Mayor of Kumba I Council, A representative of the Police, Journalists of the print and audio media in Kumba, business men and women, aspiring lawyers and many others attended the workshop.

The workshop ended with the formation of a resolutions committee and light refreshments. Global Conscience wholly funded the workshop with little donations from a few members of the public.

Resolutions of the workshop

A six-man committee sitting after the open workshop took the following resolutions:

1.      The workshop frowned at the non attendance of some key invitees, and urged that subsequent workshops and seminars should be given the widest publicity

2.      The creation of a civil society forum bringing together leaders of Associations, NGOs, CBOs, Churches, cultural groups, unions, etc.

3.      The created civil society forum should meet and dialogue with local administration and the Department of Public prosecution on the role of civil society organisations in the promotion and protection of human rights and democracy.

4.      That the forum should organize regular visits to cells and prisons to assess their conditions and that of inmates.

5.      That the forum should organize and raise funds to assist sick inmates in cells and prisons, and provide legal assistance to poor victims of arbitrary arrests and detentions.

6.      That the forum should organize more training workshop and seminars at grassroots levels especially at the level of communities, grassroots and cultural associations and schools.

7.      That the forum should also organize training for police, gendarmes and prison officials with the full participation of the national human rights commission and local administration.

8.      That the forum should facilitate trainings for the local media practitioners to assume their fore role in the promotion of human rights.

9.      That the forum should liaise with local administration for the creation of a more conducive and fear-free working environment for Journalists, and press for more job security for practitioners.

10.  That the Nigerian Union should play a fore role in the defense of the rights of Nigerians in Kumba, and sensitize Nigerians on the need to regularize their residence in Cameroon.

11.  That a follow up workshop should be organized on January 4, 2008.

Kumba, December 4, 2007,

Global Conscience Initiative has expressed serious disappointed with the declaration of the Meme Administration to traditional rulers of the division that striking students in Kumba were shot and killed by bandits.

The First Deputy Chief Executive for Meme thunderstruck Southwest Chiefs, during their recent assembly, and challenged them to prove that the students were shot and killed by police and gendarmes.

Global Conscience Chief Executive, Samba Churchill has said the challenging declaration of the administrator is bad-mannered, most provocative and intended to ridicule the Chiefs, who are very aware about what happened, and adds insult to their injuries.

According to Mr. Samba, the statement of the first Assistant SDO, speaking on behalf of his boss, must be seriously followed up as it demonstrates, absolutely, the kind of sit-tight, high handed and dictatorial administration we have in Meme Division. He urged the Chiefs to take their responsibilities and press for thorough investigations and sanctioning of the ruthless killings, at least in the interest of posterity. Mr. Samba said the declaration also makes clear whose interest the administration is defending.

The Global Conscience Director also observed that since the shooting of peacefully demonstrating students by forces in Kumba, the Meme administration has been very verbose, threatening parents, and now Chiefs, that the administration knows those of them who incited the students into striking.

The human rights activist, cum Journalist, said the administration has completely failed to manage the students’ crisis and has resulted to witch-hunting to cover-up its ineptitude. He said the administration is continuing to produce more violence in Kumba by its unconsidered and imprudent declarations.

Global Conscience Initiative is therefore calling on Yaounde authorities to intervene to resolve the crises in Kumba, and take well calculated measures to put in the local administration persons worthy enough to conduct unfettered respect for constituted authority.

Gendarmes in Kumba yesterday shot and killed a Form 2 student of Government Technical College Kumba, and wounded several others following clashes between striking students and heavily armed gendarmes and police.

The students from CCAS, GTC and GTHS Kumba had taken to the streets to demand for the unconditional release of about thirty of their colleagues held incommunicado in police and gendarmerie cells.

The marching students were stopped around Alaska Street in Buea Road Kumba by gendarmes in high anti-riot gear, led by Kumba Central Sub Divisional Officer Kouam David. The students then mounted barricades on the main road and brought traffic to a complete halt. They said they have been informed about plans by Meme SDO to move their detained colleagues to Buea, and thus wanted their immediate and unconditional release from the cells.

DO Kouam David called in more police and gendarmes and they used tear-gas to disperse and push back the stone-throwing students. However, DO Kouam and his forces got trapped at the CCAS junction when students surrounded and pelted them with stones. DO Kouam gave the orders and a gendarme officer immediately opened fire. A female police officer followed suite. A bullet got Ngome Nkwele Herbert, 13, in the head. The student dropped dead as his brains poured out on the road.  The others ran in various directions. There was more gun fire and several students dropped.

The forces picked up the death remains of Nkwele and another seemingly death body, dumped them in their pick-up, and covered them with a tarpaulin. The blood flow was too much. They confused retreating forces fought with, this time, very furious regrouping students and maneuvered their pick-up through the quarters before getting to their station. A Kumba District Hospital ambulance finally took the shot students to the hospital.

News spread out wild that two students had gone down. Then more students poured out to the streets targeting the homes and properties of police and gendarmes and AES-Sonel. They students invaded the DO’s office and put it on fire. The town went just crazy and the forces and the DO seemed to have gone under cover. News came then that the Prime Minister had ordered the unconditional release of the students. The students were released immediately, but it was too late as the student criss-crossed the town in their determination to avenge their fallen colleagues.

Then some heavily armed forces Mobile Intervention Unit (GMI) in Buea drafted in to Kumba. There was commotion in every part of Kumba as there fire tear gas at every crowd they suspect to be students, and fired life bullets in the air. Many people closed down their business places and offices and retired home. By 7.00 p.m. Kumba was virtually under a curfew. The forces closed down a few drinking places and then harassed and extorted money from drivers, cyclists, passengers and just any body they spotted. Gun shots rattled the air through out the night.

We have confirmed only one death so far. Another student, Napoleon Mwango, got a bullet in his back but is convalescing in the Kumba District hospital. Another yet, Nchabanu Derrick, Doctors said was in very critical condition, but they said he had not bullet wounds. Two other students are licking bullet wounds in their legs in the Apostolic Health Centre in Banga Bakundu, while many others have consulted in the different clinics in and around Kumba. A few gendarmes and police also suffered minor injuries and received first aid treatment from The Meme Red Cross.

Genesis

The students’ demonstrations in Kumba came on the heal of an AES-Sonel transformer failure on October 29, 2007, that caused electricity outage in three main schools (CCAS, GTHS and GTC) and staff and student residential areas along Buea Road. The student waited in vain for AES-Sonel to correct the situation, and on November 7, 2007, took to the streets in protest against SONEL. They mounted barricades across the road in Buea thus obstructing traffic. Gendarmes and police, on the orders of Meme Senior Divisional Officer Abath Zangwalla Magloire, used tear gas to disperse the angry students. While AES-Sonel only then sent in a team that restored electricity in the area but left out CCAS.

The forces are reported to have besieged students’ hostels, broke into their rooms, beat them up, seized their phones and other items, tormented them in mud, destroyed their books and threw them in wells, before conducting some more arrests.

Classes resumed the following day and all was well until when the students reportedly learnt that their arrested colleagues would be taken to Buea. They students also learnt that their detained colleagues were being denied visitations even from their family members.

On Friday, November 9, therefore, the students of the three schools mobilized themselves and took to the streets in a solidarity march for their detained colleagues, before running into the bloody confrontation with the no-nonsense mostly French speaking forces.

Observations

1. The high handedness of the Meme and Kumba administration is first of all to blame for the unfortunate crises that has taken a way the life of a student. The administration minimized the students and used shear force, in the place of dialogue, to resolve a matter that never really was. Basically the administration fuelled the students’ anger firstly in ordering forces to raid their hostels and arrest them; in detaining the students, most of them minors, in horrible conditions and with hardened criminals, and then in denying their families and friends access to them. The refusal of the administration to release the students is the bane of the matter.

1. The forces of law and order came in with firearms and combat ready gear for a show down with the armless students. The students left their campuses and marched to where they were confronted by forces with no weapons. Their marching up to that level was non-violent and they carried no weapons on them. They went for stones, sticks, bottles and other weapons after the heavily armed forces confronted them with tear gas. The forces also did not make use of any sound system to try to talk the students into order, nor warned the demonstrating students that they would use force. The forces also arrived the demonstration ground with live ammunitions, apparently after having premeditated that they may need to use them against students. Students started destroying and burning properties only after  the forces shot and killed a student.
2. The Kumba and Meme Administrators and all security bosses are Francophones. About 80 percent of the security forces in Kumba are also Francophones and they express themselves in French all of the time. The use of only French by the forces and the administration as they planned their onslaught on the students was somehow provocative to the students.
3. The students were not organized and had no leaders to coordinate and direct their demonstrations. Most of them were not dressed in their uniforms and their ranks could easily have been penetrated by recalcitrant outside elements.
4. Top Anglophone elites, the Parent Teachers’ Associations of the three schools and religious leaders and school chaplains in the division were visibly absent in the face of the crises. They made no attempts at consulting with the schools’ and Meme administration, and the students, thus the students felt abandoned to fight alone for their fate.
5. Generally, AES-Sonel is notorious for negligence. In this particular case, AES-Sonel failed to realize the high necessity of electricity in this area, and apparently would not have corrected the electrical problem had the students not taken to the streets. The lackluster attitude of AES-Sonel staff is a serious source of worry. AES-Sonel often underestimates the high importance of electricity to customers.
6. The schools’ administrations also apparently failed to sensitize the students about any progresses made in their arrangement with AES-Sonel to correct the electrical fault, as well in their efforts with the Meme administration and the forces of law and order to get the arrested students released and back to class.

Recommendations

1. That the Meme and Kumba Chief Executives be relieved of their functions, while a committee is set up to properly investigate the crises.
2. That at least one Anglophone should be appointed to the top position of the division or subdivisio
3. That government should also relieve the security heads in Kumba and appoint Anglophones to the key positions considering that about eighty percent of the forces are Francophones.
4. That government and other locally based human rights organisations should organize training workshops and seminars for police and gendarmes on the use of firearms, civil disorders and human rights.
5. That the Kumba and Meme Administrations should be more cautious and responsible in managing crises, and show adequate respect for all concerned parties. The administrators should know that violence only begets violence and that no forces can win any war against students.
6. That the administration should encourage people to manifest their grievances peacefully in public and not drive them into the bushes from where they can contemplate primitive and violent means to express their discontent.
7. That a criminal investigation should be carried out in the killing of the student, the molestation, destruction and looting of students properties, and punishment meted out to the culprits. Also the DO of Kumba Central who led the forces and ordered the shootings should bear the full brunt of his action. Responsibility must go to the head.
8. That forces should be stopped from carrying life ammunitions to demonstration grounds, and respect international principles in containing public manifestations of grievances.
9. That although no amount of money can compensate for the lost life, government should identify and compensate the family of the deceased. Any amount would only go to pacify the family in their depression.
10. That government should also foot the medical bills of all wounded students, and compensate the affected families for any losses they may have incurred owing to the crises.
11. That schools’ chaplains, Parent Teachers Associations, Religious leaders and school chaplains as well as elites of Kumba should closely follow and show more interest in the activities of students.
12. That schools and colleges should create students’ unions where in the student can identify and discuss their problems and channel them to the proper authorities. Student Unions would better manage students’ crisis with the assistance of all other actors.
13. That AES-Sonel should handle complaints of power ruptures with the urgencies they deserve and engage in communication with persons suffering outages. AES-Sonel should improve its customer services and especially its rapid intervention units.