Cameroun

CAMEROUN shapes up at first glance as a poor model for African unity. For almost ten years, a brutal though little-known civil war, stoked by the Chinese Communists, has ravaged parts of the countryside. One province of the country lives in constant fear that its traditions and culture will soon be engulfed by those of the rest of the country. But despite the terror and the fear, the turmoil and division, Cameroun plays a unique role in today’s Africa.

History gives Cameroun its position. This land by the equatorial coast under the hump of West Africa once was the pride of Bismarck’s German empire, grabbed hastily by Germany near the close of the nineteenth century’s scramble for Africa. But Germany lost the colony during World War I, and for almost fifty years, Britain and France divided the area and ruled it under League of Nation mandates and as United Nations trust territories.

In 1960 at independence, most of the former British territory joined the former French territory in a reunited Cameroun. So far it is Africa’s only example of a federation of English-speaking and French-speaking states. Its leaders say they want to prove that the European powers, in their cynical carving up of colonial spoils, did not divide Africa forever — that Africa, despite its colonial past, can unite.

Cameroun, three fourths the size of Texas, with a population of four million, has compounded its problem of unity with a civil war. Many thousands of people some reports say 30,000, some 70,000 — have died in the guerrilla fighting that erupted in 1956, mainly in the cool and verdant hills of the northwest.

French colonialism was the original target of the militant nationalists who began the struggle. They demanded popular elections, independence, and reunification with British Cameroons. The French reacted with bitter repression. This repression drove the nationalists to guerrilla warfare. But the rebels did not win support from all Africans. The African leaders who held high positions during those colonial days of some self-government joined the French in hammering at the rebels. These Africans in the colonial administration reacted so fiercely to the rebellion that they soon lost any hold on the electorate. A new leader, Ahmadou Ahidjo, more moderate though still tied to the French, came to power in 1958.

Cameroun’s first president

Ahidjo, a young Muslim Fulani from the north, offered an amnesty for those who would lay down their arms. When the goal of independence was reached in 1960, some rebels did give up the battle. But others maintained that Ahidjo, who became independent Cameroun’s first president by vote of the National Assembly in 1960, was a French stooge. The war continued, with Chinese Communist money and guns now aiding the rebels.

During his seven years in power, the now forty-one-year-old Ahidjo has succeeded in muting much of the rebellion. One rebel leader was killed in battle. Another was murdered in exile in Switzerland. Then Chou En-lai, in his famous tour of Africa last year, decided that, at least in Cameroun’s case, China would show more wisdom by helping the government rather than the maquis. He cut off aid to the rebels.

But the trouble has not vanished. Any visitor can find that out quickly. French and African soldiers still walk about the capital, Yaoundé, in camouflage dress. Soldiers undergo guerrilla training at the airport in Douala. Only last year the government displayed the heads of four guerrilla rebels on stakes by the side of the road. A few months ago, someone rushed into a gendarme post and called for help. Four gendarmes followed the man outside. He scampered away. The gendarmes were ambushed and beheaded.

British legacy: West Cameroun

By and large, Ahidjo has quieted the rebellion. But the years of war and the measures used to suppress the fighting have made him unpopular in some areas. Even if he keeps his hold on Frenchspeaking Cameroun, he still must face the problem of proving that his bilingual federation can work. In 1961 the United Nations supervised a plebiscite in the British Cameroun to see whether the people wanted to unite with an independent Nigeria or an independent Cameroun. The northern half of the British territory decided to stay with Nigeria, but the southern half, tired of a half century of rule as a stepchild under British Nigerian administration, voted to join the new republic as the province of West Cameroon.

West Camcroun can never play a dominant role in the federation. It has less than a million people, one fourth of the country’s total population, and it covers less than a tenth of Cameroun’s total area. West Cameroun suffers from other disadvantages. While the British neglected their province, relegating it to a kind of punishment post in the colonial service, the French looked on East Cameroun as a prize.

This history shows. In West Cameroun, roads rank among the most horrendous in Africa, guaranteed to shake up and wiggle the most stiff-necked passengers, whereas in the East, vehicles speed over tarmac roads. Even the capital of the West, Buea, is no more than a country village tucked away in some hills. Buea has no industry, no traffic, and no modern stores. In the East, the capital, Yaoundé, and the port, Douala, are bustling cities lined with French shops. They steam with people and blast with automobile horns. All in all, the West seems no more than a poor relation of the sophisticated East.

The growth of French culture

The constitution has guarantees to protect the West against the East. The ten deputies from the West may veto legislation approved by the forty deputies from the East. The West also has an important voice in the federal capital because its Prime Minister, John Foncha, serves as Vice President of the republic.

Yet the West feels a growing encroachment by the East and by French culture. All cars now drive on the right side of the road in the West. African francs have replaced the pound and shilling. French stores and French goods have made heavy inroads into marketing. Schools use the metric system. French-speaking gendarmes strut about. There are no parallel signs of English culture in the East. In fact, few Easterners realize that there is a West.

This steady growth of French culture has disturbed many West Camerounians, who fear that the French system of centralization and Ahidjo’s use of repressive measures will destroy the spirit of free expression and free movement in the West.

One recent incident in Buea demonstrates this fear. The federal government completed a palace in the provincial capital, and a federal representative of the President prepared to move in. The West Camerounians looked on this as the first step toward federal control of the province. They feared the representative would take the role of a governor, and the officials stopped him from moving into the palace. It now stands idle in Buea. The federal government accepted the stubbornness of the West and officially dubbed the building “the President’s Palace in Buea.” Ahidjo, when he visits Buea once or twice a year, can spend the night there. But his federal representative must live in less exalted quarters during the year, some distance from the empty palace.

The odds mount against West Cameroun in its efforts to preserve its own culture in this overwhelmingly French-influenced country. In fact, the main force that prevents the East from overwhelming the West is the idea of federation itself. “To allow one culture to oust the rest would be to mar an historic chance, to wreck the noble mission that Cameroun has been called upon to fulfill in the name of all Africa,” writes Bernard Fonlon, a West Camerounian who is deputy foreign minister of the federal government.

Fonlon’s argument may not persuade the East very long, but at the moment, Ahidjo realizes that it is the only claim Cameroun has for attention on the African continent. He enjoys the benefits and publicity of a UNESCO continually doting over the bilingual state. And he also realizes that he already has trouble enough with the guerrillas.

French subsidies

Like most African leaders, President Ahidjo must deal with wearisome economic problems. Economic life revolves around agriculture, and the country produces coffee, cocoa, bananas, and peanuts for export— all crops in surplus on the world market. Only favors and subsidies from France keep the economy going. France takes a good percentage of the exports at inflated prices.

Cameroun has little industry. An aluminum plant uses the power from Edea Falls to produce 45,000 tons of aluminum ingots a year, but the bauxite must be imported from Guinea. Other enterprises include a cigarette factory, a bicycle assembly plant, and the usual brewery. The most important plan for the future is the construction of a railway. It will connect the bustling south with Ahidjo’s home base of the conservative north, and should help to spur the economy and unite the country. The United States has loaned Cameroun $9.2 million to help build the railway, about a third of the total construction cost.

France’s hold on the economy and administration of the country is a strong one. France gives Cameroun $40 million to $50 million a year in economic and military assistance, buys 65 percent of Cameroun’s exports, and sells 60 percent of all imports bought by Cameroun. In exchange for its aid, France receives a privileged position in the Camerounian market, and French goods stock the shelves of the French shops throughout the country.

The French government pays for the East Camerounian school system and therefore staffs it and runs it. French principals jealously guard their enclaves of French culture against any invasion of foreign culture, whether American, British, or African. French advisers can — and there is evidence that they do — overrule Camerounian ministers on important policy decisions.

This French influence creates one of Ahidjo’s most delicate problems. The young elite bemoan this dependence on France, this neocolonialism. The dissatisfaction of the educated young people tends to move the government slowly leftward and away from France. Yet Ahidjo, while loosening French ties to placate the young, must not loosen them so much that he falls from power. Without France, he might not have enough strength to cope with the problems in the south, in the rebellious Bamilëkë tribal area, and in West Cameroun.

The first election

More insight into Ahidjo’s strength may come this year when Cameroun has its First direct national election. Ahidjo is not expected to have serious opposition. East Cameroun, as run by Ahidjo’s Union Camerounaise, is basically a oneparty state. West Cameroun’s ruling party, the Kamerun National Democratic Party, is not likely to antagonize Ahidjo by opposing him. The party of the rebels will be banned, and Ahidjo will control the election machinery. But even a rigged election can reveal clues about the size of Ahidjo’s strength.

The election also may offer more insight into the fate of the bilingual federation. Under the constitution, Foncha no longer will be allowed to serve both as Vice President of the federation and Prime Minister of West Cameroun. He has decided to give up his job as Prime Minister and to run for Vice President. This is a remarkable show of faith in the federation. Without the post of Prime Minister, he loses his home political base.

Foncha’s move strengthens the idea of federation in principle, but it also may weaken it in practice. Foncha’s likely successor as Prime Minister of West Cameroun will be Ngom Augustine Jua, a politician who has never shown much enthusiasm for his compatriots in East Cameroun. Jua, if he flaunts too much regional pride, could destroy the federation. In short, more difficulties may lie ahead for this new country trying to find its way under the glare of pan-Africanism.