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HUMAN RIGHTS
Opponents have filed a complaint in Belgium against President Biya, accusing him of crimes involving torture and arbitrary arrests. Is this a nasty game?
On 18 December 2001, opponents belonging to the National Collective against Impunity (CNI), filed a complaint in Brussels, Belgium, against the President of the Republic of Cameroon, Paul Biya, and eleven leading figures in the country, accusing them of crimes involving torture and arbitrary arrests.
The complaint, filed by Mr Dominique Djeukam Tchameni as chairperson of the CNI, includes among other things the following counts: Crimes against humanity, crimes of torture, acts of barbarism and arbitrary arrests. One extract from the charge states: «This charge specifies the exactions, and in particular the extrajudicial executions that have taken place in Douala, Coastal Province, for which the security service known as «Operational Command» is responsible. It also applies to similar acts committed in the far-Northern provinces by another agency, the Multi-Purpose Police Response Team, operating in the same way and using the same methods of violent and arbitrary repression».
Lawyer Henri-Georges Beauthier, the Belgian lawyer for the Cameroonian plaintiff, explains: «The charges against Mr Biya are, that he formed and established agencies for arbitrary repression, targeting a significant part of the civil population. He is also accused of having encouraged these agencies, by direct order or by failure to monitor their activities, to commit oppressive acts whose outcome was the deaths of thousands of civilian victims. These facts, indeed, constitute a crime against humanity, since this is a generalised, systematic attack against the civilian population, characterised by actions such as murders, imprisonments, torture, rape and so on».
Disillusionment
While the CNI was impatiently awaiting the outcome, two events caused doubts to arise over the eventual success of its case.
First of all, despite the astonishment and unease the complaint aroused in the corridors of power, the Cameroonian government made no official comment, and has not attempted any public defence against the serious accusations levelled against the president. However the reaction of the Yaoundé authorities was discreet and efficient. On 12 January 2002, to general astonishment, the CNI‘s chairperson, Djeukam Tchameni, was deposed after an extraordinary general meeting of the association, and replaced by Mr Sani Alhadji. The charge was his over-personalisation of the movement. His removal was followed by publication in the privately-owned national press, of secret letters sent by him to the Cabinet, asking to meet President Biya to discuss with him the possibility of withdrawing the complaint lodged in Belgium, in order to avoid dragging national sovereignty through the mud.
Secondly, the International Court of Justice at The Hague ruled on 14 February 2002, limiting the options for bringing officials in a country’s executive branch of the administration, to justice, even for crimes against humanity. This decision followed a request from Congo RDC, relating to an international arrest warrant issued in Belgium against the former Congolese Foreign Minister, Yerodia Ndombasi. Disappointed, Lawyer Beauthier gave his opinion: «Truth requires me to say that, since the International Court of Justice’s ruling, there will be problems for complaints lodged against dictators in office. It must be said that this ruling seems to be unacceptable and retrograde. We will find arguments in national and international procedures to counter this ruling with reasonable and equitable methods. One of our options is to recall that immunity only applies to the actual Office. This means that you cannot do what you like with the Office, and I think that being President doesn’t mean you can simply kill on a grand scale».
Blackmail
This charge against President Paul Biya divided opinion in Cameroon. Some moderate-minded citizens consider that the CNI is guilty of a serious mistake. Using a foreign court to judge the President of the Republic, has shown contempt for the Cameroonian people and their national institutions. On the other hand, opponents of the regime are claiming victory. This is, in their view, the culmination of a long struggle which could only result, in reality, in the fall of the ruling power.
A bland statement from Dr Kaptue Tabwe, head of the CNI‘s secretariat, demonstrated some contradictions in this association, apparently devoted to the defence of human rights: «We chose this legal and peaceful method of action, since it seems to be the last chance to avert the country’s descent into the spiral of civil war, to which President Biya and his gang wish to drag us, by preventing any possibility of changing the situation at the ballot box».
Far from fighting for the restoration of the rule of law in Cameroon, there seems to be a hidden agenda going the rounds, especially in the accusation filed in Brussels. The CNI has slipped on a humanitarian mask to serve a political cause, whose strings are pulled in the wings by powerful lobbies leading a merciless war to take power in Cameroon. The Cameroon people have therefore seen through the trick. In reality, the accusation made against President Biya is a means of blackmailing him, and the CNI wants to get what they can out of this, thus carving for themselves, their place in the sun.
Studying the accusation with greater clarity, making connections with recent events occurring in Cameroon, it is easy to understand the nasty game being played by these associations who pretend to defend human rights in Cameroon. They are in fact, very small groups, who through their activism, abuse the international organisations, collect bribes all over the world, and pretend to international opinion, that Cameroon is on the brink of chaos. The international community must be careful about information coming out of Cameroon. Although the country is not a paradise, nor is it the hell being crudely depicted to the world.
However, even though there may be no final outcome, the accusation does have the merit of forcing the Cameroonian authorities to examine their consciences and reflect on the need to lay the foundations of a society in which the basic human rights of its citizens are respected. It once more highlights the barbarity of some elements in the forces of law and order, as well as the difficulty and trouble felt by the military leaders in punishing their men, in order to discourage this gratuitous violence that so much tarnishes Cameroon’s image.
Diversion
The CNI does not give up, and lodges more and more diversionary statements, in order to redeem itself in public opinion. Its leaders believe that «these systematic and planned violations of human rights, these inhuman practices, would not be repeated if the authors of the crimes became convinced that they would have to answer for their actions in the courts. Not to bring the authors of these crimes to justice and punishment is simply to encourage them».
What will happen to the complaint lodged in Brussels? The CNI‘s legal counsel has repeatedly asked its representatives to continue calmly with the case. But no one believes in it any longer. The CNI has mistaken Cameroon’s people. Its members are both as guilty and blameworthy as those they accuse. They seem to be accomplices of those who are violating human rights in Cameroon, since they help to clear their names with fictitious charges. They have destroyed the expectations of a people who believed that something could change vis à vis human rights, so that all could live in a State with a human face.
- Sylv. Ndoumou Ntonga, Cameroon, May 2002 — © Reproduction authorised, with usual acknowledgment
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PeaceLink 2002 - Reproduction authorised, with usual acknowledgement