"SOS Cameroon"

Last week I got an email entitled “SOS Cameroon”. It was from a friend I met last summer in Cameroon. She is from the UK but is in setting up an NGO in Cameroon and has been there for the past couple of weeks. She was writing from the North West Province, where she had been stuck inside for the past four days. Her email went on to describe the events that had transpired over the past week...

"[...]a transporters strike which started in the commercial capital of Cameroon Douala, spread to the rest of the country, angry about the rise in petrol, and how this was effecting the prices of basic produce in the country. There was therefore no way to get back to Yaounde as no public transport was moving and people were attacking private vehicles for not showing respect for the strike."

"What people were now calling for was unclear……it could be a number of things, all of which I can kind of sympathize with. I mean we have corruption, unemployment, rising food prices, a not so democratic government, a pretty lame and ignorant President…I could go on. But the problem was that their protest wasn’t organized, didn’t have a clear message, but instead involved burning down building, looting shops and attacking innocent people on the street who tried to go about there daily lives. Where I am stuck in the North West has been in the worst…as this is the focal area of opposition to the Government."

"Today the North West was chaotic, the social unrest continued, and we started to seriously worry was Cameroon going to turn into the same trap as Kenya and Chad. 4 were killed, dozens arrested."

“People always question if civil war could develop in Cameroon, I never believe it could, the opposition is far too fractioned, but now I can’t say no, never, with such conviction.”

As i read her email my heart sank for two reasons: First, the most obvious, because a place that i had fallen in love with was being torn apart by violence. Second, because part of me wasn't all that shocked or surprised. Just another relatively stable, wealthy African country whose fate could change in the blink of an eye by violent government opposition. When did this idea cease to be shocking?

The email continues...

“As I sat listening to guns and teargas be fired yesterday afternoon, drinking tea in a kitchen with my Cameroon colleagues, it struck, that despite all the trails, tribulations, frustrations and fear of the past few weeks I have never wished to leave this country, I enjoy life here, I love the work I am trying to build up and I am lucky to have made some wonderful friends. It is with a little sadness that I make my preparations to leave Cameroon”

BBC has reported on the violent strikes and protests caused by increasing fuel prices:
Deadly Violences Wage in Cameroon (2/29/08) Cameroon head blames opposition (2/29/08)