Domestic Politics

President Paul Biya and his party, the ‘Rassemblement Démocratique du Peuple Camerounais’ (RDPC), which celebrated its 20th anniversary on 23 March, dominated domes-tic politics during the year. Their hold on power had been strengthened in the recent elections. However, several RDPC leaders expressed fears that a possible departure of the 72-year-old president from the political scene in the coming years could lead to a struggle for power, thus posing a serious threat to political stability and party unity. To forestall any possible splits within the party and to maintain power in the hands of the Beti ethnic group, some RDPC militants from the president's native South Province called on 13 April for a constitutional amendment to allow the president to stand for a third term. This call was echoed by some of the party's leaders, including Ferdinand Oyono, minister of culture and close confidant of the president. Although the state media did not report on the matter, the opposition took it seriously enough to issue statements condemning what they considered to be an attempt to transform Biya into a president for life.

The opposition parties showed signs of disorientation after their failure to form a united bloc in the lead-up to the October 2004 presidential elections and the subsequent electoral debacle. Moreover, they were weakened by internal conflicts and defections to the ruling party. John Fru Ndi, the chairman of the major opposition party, the Social Democratic Front (SDF), came under attack for his autocratic style of leadership and he had difficulty holding together competing factions in the party. Divisions within the party grew when one of Fru Ndi's most faithful followers, the SDF parliamentarian Emmanuel Yoyo, proposed a motion on 12 July calling for an amendment to the party constitution. This amendment aimed at extending the chairman's powers by giving him sole responsibility for appointing the members of the party's governing body, the National Executive Committee (NEC). On 1 October, the secretary-general of the party, Azoacha Asonganyi, was dismissed during an NEC meeting in Bamenda and replaced by Michael Ndobegang, a former SDF parliamentarian belonging to the same ethnic group (Bangwa) as his predecessor. Asonganyi was accused of having embarrassed the party at a press conference in Yaoundé on 27 September. On that occasion, he had indicated that he would not be seeking re-election during the next party convention in May 2006, citing differences with the party's chairman and other senior officials. He also denounced the “personality cult” in the SDF and “the circulation of secret funds” for the purpose of co-opting the party into the regime.

Soon after his appointment in a major cabinet reshuffle on 8 December 2004, the new prime minister, Ephraim Inoni (the third consecutive Anglophone head of government since 1992), launched a campaign to reduce corruption and improve governance. He considered this crusade as one of the essential conditions for the realisation of the policy of “great ambitions” outlined by President Biya in his inaugural address. However, the results of his campaign remained limited. Although it uncovered some fraudulent practices in the civil service, the country, according to Transparency International (TI), continued to be one of the most corrupt in the world. The 2005 TI report ranked Cameroon 137th in a survey of 159 countries, with a score of 2.2 out of 10 on its corruption perception index. On 7 July, the Inoni government launched the second phase of the National Governance Programme (NGP) (2005–08) with support of the UNDP. It aimed at speeding up reforms in public administration and finance as well as in the judiciary and national and local governance.

One of the continuing worries of the Biya regime was the existence of a secessionist movement in Anglophone Cameroon, the former Southern Cameroons. In the course of the year, several Southern Cameroons National Council (SCNC) activists were arbitrarily arrested and harassed by security forces for allegedly holding illegal meetings. On 15 January, for instance, ex-ambassador Henry Fossung, leader of one of the SCNC factions, and a number of his loyalists were brutalised by the police in his residence in Buea and subsequently imprisoned. Some weeks before 1 October – the date on which the SCNC used to commemorate the end of British trusteeship in the Southern Cameroons on 1 October 1961 by organising rallies and hoisting the Southern Cameroons flag – the government had already begun to adopt more repressive tactics. In an effort to quash any celebration of the anniversary, the government sent a delegation to Anglophone Cameroon composed of high-ranking Anglophone government officials and led by Philemon Yang, assistant secretary-general in the presidency. The delegation held public meetings in Buea and Bamenda on 18 and 20 September respectively to caution the population against the SCNC, dismissing it as illegal and warning that its actions could lead to civil war. Despite the massive deployment of troops in Anglophone Cameroon on 1 October, SCNC activists succeeded in hoisting the Southern Cameroons flag in Kumba and Bamenda during the anniversary celebrations. Since then, the government has intensified its campaign against the SCNC. The national chairman of the SCNC, Chief Ette Otun Ayamba, was arrested on 26 October after organising a peaceful march to protest the inhuman treatment of some 40 SCNC members detained in Mamfe since 22 October. He was granted bail on 27 October, but was re-arrested on 31 October, most probably because of SCNC's successful attempt the previous day to launch its own ‘Free Southern Cameroons’ radio station. SCNC also presented its case on the international stage. Using the Unrepresented Nations' and People's Organisation (UNPO) as its intermediary, it lodged complaints with the UN about its continuing repression at the hands of the Cameroonian state. In addition, it delegated some members to represent its case to the African Commission on People's and Human Rights in Banjul. However, the SCNC's influence in the Anglophone community was uncertain and its credibility was undermined by internal conflicts and the many different factions competing for attention.

Despite some progress, the human rights situation in the country remained a matter of concern. Renewed instances of grave human rights abuses by the security forces were reported in the 2005 Amnesty International report and in the Cameroonian media, including excessive use of force, torture and even extra-judicial executions. Members of the security forces were still rarely prosecuted for such crimes. The country's judiciary continued to be subjected to political influence and plagued by corruption and inefficiency. According to the London-based International Centre for Prison Studies, Cameroon had the second-highest prison occupancy rate in sub-Saharan Africa, with almost 80% of its inmates awaiting trial. On 13 January, prisoners in the New Bell maximum security prison in Douala staged a riot to protest poor prison conditions and harsh treatment by prison guards, leading to five deaths and several wounded prisoners. Soon after the incident, the government replaced the director of the New Bell prison and announced plans to build new prisons. It also transferred the running of the prisons from the ministry of territorial administration and decentralisation to the ministry of justice, hoping thereby to speed up the trial of detainees and encourage better respect for their rights. Other events also held out hope for gradual improvement in Cameroon's flawed human rights record. On 14 February, parliament lifted the immunity of Doh Gah Gwanyim, a traditional chief and the sole RDPC parliamentarian in the North West Province, thereby enabling his prosecution for allegedly ordering the murder of John Kohtem, an SDF party official, in August 2004. In its July session, the National Assembly passed a bill to harmonise the criminal code in the French- and English-speaking parts of Cameroon. The harmonised code was expected to afford better protection for human rights during criminal proceedings, curb judicial delay and ensure the rapid execution of judgements. Nevertheless, the code still had a number of shortcomings, such as its failure to address reforms to the security forces, something that most observers consider to be crucial to eliminating abuses and corruption in the legal system.

One of the new characteristics on the media scene was the proliferation of privately owned radio and television stations. However, government still appeared to grant licences selectively so as to prevent opponents of the regime from owning such stations. It was only after considerable international pressure that Radio Freedom FM was finally launched in Douala on 12 July. This station, owned by Pius Njawe, publisher of the newspaper ‘Le Messager’ and a well-known critic of the regime, had been prevented from broadcasting since 23 May 2003. Faced with growing competition from privately owned stations, the state-owned Cameroon Radio-Television Corporation (CRTV) that once monopolised radio and television programmes in the country underwent some profound changes. On 26 January, its general director, Gervais Mendo Ze, who had ruled the CRTV as his little kingdom for almost 17 years, was replaced by Ahmadou Vamoulké, a former journalist and minister. Vamoulké presented a new organisational chart on 17 May, followed by the appointment of new directors in November. Despite the absence of official censorship in Cameroon, journalists who wrote stories critical of the president and senior government officials tended to be intimidated, arrested and mistreated. Cameroon was ranked joint 145th of 194 countries in the 2005 Freedom House report ‘Freedom of the Press’, well within the ‘Not Free’ category, and was joint 32nd (with Ethiopia) out of 48 sub-Saharan countries. The press had to operate under the threat of prosecution for defamation, which was once again used as a method of muzzling it. On 15 July, for instance, the editor of a local newspaper, ‘Le Front’, was arrested after he had published a series of reports on corruption in the Cameroon postal services.

Foreign Affairs

Relations between Cameroon and Nigeria were strained because of Nigeria's apparent refusal to comply with the October 2002 verdict of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) that acknowledged Cameroon's claim to sovereignty over the oil-rich Bakassi peninsula. Nigeria's failure to respect the 15 September 2004 deadline for the withdrawal of its administration and troops led to a complete standstill in bilateral negotiations within the Cameroon-Nigeria mixed commission – a body set up by the UN to implement the ICJ verdict. It took the intervention of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to bring the presidents of both countries together on 11 May in Geneva, where they reaffirmed their willingness to resolve the dispute through peaceful means and requested the mixed commission to resume negotiations “as soon as possible”. However, renewed acts of aggression by the Nigerian army at Bakassi on 5, 17, 18 and 21 June, which left one Cameroonian corporal dead, endangered the resumption of talks, and the Cameroonian government announced on 23 June that it would lodge a complaint with the UN Security Council. It was only after successful mediation by Ahmadou Ould-Abdallah, the UN special representative for West Africa and chairman of the Cameroon-Nigeria mixed commission, that bilateral negotiations were resumed. Relations between Cameroon and Nigeria improved following the meeting of the mixed commission in Abuja on 13–14 October, which produced a draft agreement on a new timetable for the withdrawal of Nigeria's troops and administration. A final resolution was expected at the next session of the mixed commission in January 2006, although it will require endorsement by the countries' presidents and parliaments, as well as the UN, which has been overseeing the mediation process. In the meantime, a sub-committee started marking out the boundary between Nigeria and Cameroon with funds from the European Union, amounting to $ 4.7 m.

Relations between Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea remained cool following allegations of the mistreatment of Cameroonian migrants. On 7 February, 12 Cameroonians who were responsible for compiling an inventory of the national forest reserves along the border with Equatorial Guinea were captured by security forces from that country, incarcerated and subjected to forced labour for several weeks. Relations were also affected by Equatorial Guinea's continuing support for Nigeria in the border dispute with Cameroon.

Cameroon's relations with regional and continental organisations in Africa continued to be marked by the absence of active diplomatic initiatives. President Biya was once again conspicuously absent at AU and CEMAC summits. Cameroon, nevertheless, supported attempts to revitalise the process of integration within the sub-region. During its November-December session, parliament approved four bills authorising the president of the republic to ratify certain CEMAC conventions. These included a convention governing the CEMAC parliament; a non-aggression, solidarity and mutual assistance pact between member states; as well as an extradition agreement and a judicial cooperation agreement between member states.

Cameroon's relations with Western countries, the major donors to its development programmes, were generally good. Most Western donors continued to believe that they could through cooperation exert a positive influence in favour of good governance and democratic reforms. For the third consecutive time the existing friendship between Cameroon and Europe was celebrated in Yaoundé on 14 and 15 December, an event organised by the ministry of external relations and the European diplomatic corps. France remained Cameroon's foremost ally in the West, but there was a remarkable improvement in Cameroon's relations with the US. In the early 1990s, the US repeatedly criticised Biya for his lack of commitment to democratic reform and good governance. Of late, however, it has become more and more inclined to support him, seeing him as a reliable ally in its search for oil reserves in the region and its war against terror. The American ambassador to Cameroon, Neils Marquardt, regularly praised President Biya for progress along the road to democracy and good governance. During a diplomatic mission to the US, Prime Minister Ephraim Inoni met with US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice in the state department on 15 July. According to media reports, he asked the US to exert pressure on Nigeria to withdraw from the Bakassi peninsula and to assist Cameroon in its efforts to overcome its current economic crisis.

During the official visits of the secretary-generals of the ‘Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie’ (OIF) and the Commonwealth to the country between 11 and 15 October, government officials repeatedly stressed that Cameroon was one of the few states in the world that could claim membership of both organisations because of “the bilingual nature of the country”. Compared to the OIF, the Commonwealth was more inclined to bring regular pressure to bear on the Biya regime to implement essential political reforms in the form of credible elections, a free judiciary, better human rights and decentralisation. Such issues were again discussed during the fourth session of the Cameroon-Commonwealth commission on 17–18 May. The Commonwealth report on the 11 October 2004 presidential elections was highly critical of the regime. President Biya's decision not to attend the Commonwealth heads of state and government meeting in Valetta, Malta on 25 November was seen by observers as evidence of strain in the relations between Cameroon and the Commonwealth secretariat.

The government also intended to establish closer relations with emerging regional powers outside Africa, all characterised by fast-growing economies. On 10 April, the Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio ‘Lula’ da Silva, visited Cameroon for the first time, initiating a new era of cooperation between both countries. As a result of this visit, the Brazilian diplomatic mission, closed in 1999, is soon to be reopened. In sharp contrast to its relations with Brazil, Cameroon had already built up a variety of diplomatic and economic relations with China. On 15 October, there was a meeting of the Cameroon-China mixed commission to discuss future forms of cooperation. As elsewhere in Africa, China's influence in Cameroon has grown rapidly. China's trading volume with Cameroon has increased almost nine-fold since 1994. In fact, imports from China were seen as a major threat by manufacturers in Cameroon, who alleged that many Chinese imports were entering the country illegally.

Socioeconomic Developments

The government was focused on concluding a new Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility (PRGF) programme with the IMF, which would ultimately lead to a gradual cancellation of Cameroon's external debt under the HIPC initiative. Cameroon's last PRGF was suspended in August 2004 after the IMF declared it off-track. Following the government's satisfactory implementation of a six-month IMF staff-monitored economic programme between January and July, on 24 October the IMF approved a new three-year $ 26.8 m PRGF arrangement for Cameroon, running from 1 July 2005 to 30 June 2008. The successful implementation of the new PRGF for one year should allow Cameroon to reach the completion point under the HIPC initiative by mid-2006, a major policy objective that would lead to the gradual cancellation of its estimated external debt of $ 6.9 bn. It would also give rise to a resumption of French cooperation in the form of a ‘contract of debt relief and development’ (C2D), entailing an annual amount of € 100 m for a period of 15 years.

The key objectives of the new PRGF are to consolidate fiscal performance and to invigorate structural reforms in order to enhance growth and reduce poverty. Reform priorities include strengthening non-oil revenue to compensate for the anticipated decline in oil production, boosting public investment in infrastructure, improving transparency in financial management (notably in the oil sector) and removing obstacles to private-sector activity. The persistently unfavourable environment for private investment in the country was reflected in a recent publication by the World Bank and the International Finance Corporation, “Doing Business in 2006”, which ranked Cameroon 130th of 155 countries for ease of doing business. Cameroon scored particularly poorly on criteria such as the time it took to secure an operating licence, investors' ability to enforce contracts and the cost of property registration. The government also committed itself to accelerating the pace of the privatisation programme for state enterprises in order to reduce the fiscal burden on government finances, improve service delivery and make public enterprises more attractive to private investors with a view to their eventual privatisation. Set for rapid restructuring and privatisation were the national airline (CAMAIR), the national telephone company, ‘Cameroun Télecommunications’ (CAMTEL), the national water utility, ‘Société Nationale des Eaux du Cameroun’ (SNEC), the Cameroon Postal Company (CAMPOST), the oil refinery, ‘Société Nationale de Raffinage’ (SONARA) and two huge agro-industrial enterprises, the Cameroon Development Corporation (CDC) and the ‘Société de Développement du Cotton’ (SODECOTON).

In its memorandum of economic and financial policies approved by the IMF on 14 October, the government itself recognised that its tight fiscal policies had a negative effect on economic growth. Cameroon's growth rate, which a few years ago hovered around 5%, had fallen from 3.5% in 2004 to 2.8% in 2005. On various occasions, the main association of businessmen and manufacturers, the ‘Groupement Interpatronal du Cameroun’ (GICAM), protested against the heavy tax burden in the 2005 budget, including an increase in value added tax from 17% to 17.5%. On 23 February, for instance, in a meeting with the new minister of economy and finance, Polycarpe Abah Abah, its leadership complained that it had not been consulted on these budget measures, which it alleged would discourage private investment and consumer demand.

On 12 December, parliament approved the budget for 2006, amounting to CFAfr 1,861 bn. The budget sought to consolidate government's fiscal policies as stipulated in the new three-year PRGF arrangement. In an effort to raise non-oil revenues, it proposed the removal of government subsidies on petrol and increased taxes on enterprises in the formal and informal sectors as well as on a number of commodities such as water, soft drinks, agricultural inputs and products, vehicles, sawn timber and land. As a result of these budget measures, the living standard of ordinary Cameroonians was bound to decline even further. Cameroon's ranking on the Human Development Index (HDI) published by the UNDP in its ‘Human Development Report 2005’ worsened, dropping seven places to 148th out of 177 countries. Cameroon was one of only 20 countries whose HDI score fell between 1990 and 2005. According the UNDP report, 40.2% of Cameroonians could be classified as poor, with 50% of its population surviving on less than $ 2 per day and 17% on less than $ 1 per day. Although the government was officially committed to a programme of poverty reduction, increases in public expenditure on social sectors failed to make a significant impact on poverty, while bureaucratic inefficiencies prevented the funds released through interim debt relief under the HIPC initiative from being channelled towards priority social sectors.

During speeches on Labour Day in Yaoundé on 1 May, a number of trade union leaders condemned the tax burden on workers. Several strikes in the industrial and transport sectors were a manifestation of the growing dissatisfaction of workers with their deteriorating living and working conditions. The most important strike action, however, occurred in the universities. Students at five of Cameroon's six state universities went on a protracted strike in April, which led to some violent confrontations with the security forces. The strike began at the University of Yaoundé I on 20 April and was initiated by a group of students calling themselves the ‘Association pour la Défense des Droits des Étudiants du Cameroun’ (ADDEC). Some members of this group had been on a hunger strike a week prior to the strike and had presented a list of grievances arising from students' appalling living and working conditions. Their demands focused on scrapping the CFAfr 50,000 registration fee instituted in 1993, but also included the abolition of the system of political appointments in universities, better equipped libraries and lecture halls, research grants for students, improved services at university canteens, more toilet facilities on campuses and better maintenance of halls of residence. The strike rapidly spread to the universities of Yaoundé II, Douala, Buea and Dschang. While ADDEC leaders preached non-violence, students at the University of Buea engaged in extremely violent battles with security forces, leading to the killing of two students and the destruction of university and other property. In the course of the strike, the government changed tactics. Initially, it employed excessive force, claiming that the strike was initiated either by non-students or by opposition parties. Gradually, it resorted to more peaceful means to end the strike. It started to negotiate with student leaders and university authorities, and it eventually agreed to introduce a number of reforms, including the payment of registration fees in two instalments. President Biya added another CFAfr 5 bn to the budget of the state universities and set up a commission on 13 May to investigate conditions on the campuses. Classes gradually resumed about three weeks after the outbreak of the strike, but students at the University of Buea carried on for several more weeks, demanding the dismissal of the vice chancellor. On 10 September, the government replaced the rectors of three of the universities that had been at the centre of the protests and introduced administrative boards in all state universities, chaired by ex-ministers. On 29 November, students of the University of Yaoundé I again went on strike, demanding the total cancellation of the registration fee. Following serious confrontations with security forces, 24 students were arrested, including some ADDEC leaders.

Continuing high oil prices, combined with strong world prices for the country's other major exports, in particular cocoa, coffee, rubber, bananas, aluminium and sawn timber, did much to offset falling oil production. However, food production in the country's northern provinces was badly affected by drought and locust invasion. This prompted a food-relief operation in May–June supported by donors, especially the UN World Food Programme.

On 16 September, the French authorities temporarily withdrew permission for Cameroon's national airline, CAMAIR, to use French airspace, after its aircraft failed to meet international safety standards. With over three-quarters of its turnover coming from its Paris route, the suspension threatened to push the debt-laden airline into bankruptcy and provoked a furious response from its workers, whose employment was jeopardised by the French decision.

Following a documentary film on French television on 17 January, the local media commented extensively on a clinical trial carried out in Douala to determine the effectiveness against AIDS of tenofovir, a drug sold as Viread by Gilead Sciences, a US pharmaceuticals manufacturer. According to these reports, Viread was given to prostitutes who were asked to have unprotected sex, and when some of the women became infected they were abandoned without any form of medical assistance. The media storm embarrassed the minister of health, who had authorised the experiment, and he was forced after further medical investigations to suspend the trial. However, the tenofovir case did not deter the government from continuing its campaign against HIV/AIDS. About 6.9% of the Cameroonian population below 50 is HIV positive.

A Greenpeace report in 2005 revealed a number of illegal practices by Cameroonian timber companies, with the complicity of certain European companies. Some foreign NGOs, such as Global Witness and Global Forest Watch, tried to promote responsible forest exploitation in the country and were supported by the government and international donors. Their major objectives were to provide access to better information on logging activities and their environmental impact as well as to monitor the implementation of forest stewardship laws and regulations.

A growing number of Nigerian migrants were determined to leave Cameroon as soon as possible because of their inability to absorb the costs of a resident permit and of persistent police extortion and harassment. In the face of the Cameroonian government's reluctance to reduce the residence permit rate, the first contingent of 3,000 migrants left on 12 November on a ship put at their disposal by the Nigerian government, which welcomed their repatriation.