FIFTH ORDINARY NATIONAL CONVENTION
OF THE SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC FRONT
YAOUNDE APRIL 16 – 20, 1999.
POLICY SPEECH BY THE NATIONAL CHAIRMAN, NI JOHN FRU NDI.
Your Excellencies, Members of the Diplomatic Corps,
Distinguished Invited Guests,
Leaders and Representatives of Sister-Parties of the Socialist International and Other Friendly Political Parties,
Members and Sympathisers of the Social Democratic Front,
Ladies and Gentlemen.
About two years four months ago, we were in Buea for the Fourth Ordinary Convention of our Party. Normally our policy speech today should cover the period between the Buea Convention and this one. But this being an Election Convention, it will also be a stock taking speech of our mandate. So, we will give you a bird’s eye view as to how the National Executive Committee sees Cameroon today. Then, we shall share with you what we think should be our course of action for the future.
On the First of January 1960, French Cameroon obtained nominal "independence" and became a Republic with Ahmadou Ahidjo as its President. First of October 1961 Southern Cameroons then under British trusteeship and led by Dr. John Ngu Foncha, the Prime Minister joined The Republic of Cameroon to give birth to the Federal Republic of Cameroon with Ahmadou Ahidjo as its first President and Dr. John Ngu Foncha as vice President.
In September 1966 all the political Parties in the two Federated states were forced into fusion to create the CNU. Cameroon from that moment became a one-party state. This state of affairs was consolidated in May 1972 when the Federal system was suppressed and a United Republic of Cameroon formed. The post of Vice President was suppressed and Ahidjo ruled single handily.
In 1992 exits Ahidjo. Comes in Biya who raises hopes. Cameroon National Party CNU becomes Cameroon People Democratic Movement, CPDM. Communal Liberalism, which propounds a new type of society, is published. By 1989 there was total disenchantment, because of all the promises made by Biya, none had materialised.
On the 26th of May 1990, out of defiance, we launched the Social Democratic Front. On that day we promised to usher in a" new, healthy, bright and democratic era" for our country.
We did acknowledge that "Democracy has never been handed over to a people on a platter of gold" and we vowed that the struggle for it would continue and shall only stop when all the people participate in their own government. We therefore advocated the total liberation of the Cameroonian people from the one party system, which was identified with the state.
The Regime rightly viewing the Social Democratic Front as its fatal enemy, and like Herod in his own time, went all out to crush it to no avail.
THE SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC OPTION.
We opted for Social Democracy, which to us meant the creation of a society in which all individuals live and work together in Equality, Freedom and Solidarity. It also meant the guarantee of a humane livelihood and equal opportunities for all to be realised through the organisation of the societal structure and the equitable distribution of the national cake.
When we adopted this concept of democratic socialism we envisaged it to be a means of furthering the individual’s right to self-determination at all levels, eliminating dictatorship and catalysing autonomy. But self-determination according to our own belief could only be achieved through solidarity.
We believe that the only way by which the poor or the economically weak members of our Nation who are in the immense majority can achieve Liberty and Freedom from the Biya autocratic regime, is to develop a spirit of solidarity and to adopt the habit of mutual assistance as a permanent and integral part of daily existence.
We must therefore eradicate the ruthless struggle of one Cameroonian against all other Cameroonians; of each tribe against all other tribes; of a few powerful and privileged members of our Nation dominating the rest of Cameroonians.
It is when each and every one of us shows a sense of responsibility for others in our attempts to improve our conditions of life; it is only when each one of us acts according to our individual free will, shall we be able to attain Freedom and Equality for all.
But political Liberty, Freedom and Equality cannot improve the quality of life of every Cameroonian if there exists economic inequality, for what drives us to seek these values of Democracy, Liberty, Freedom, Equal Rights and Equal Opportunity for all, is the prospect of securing economic independence.
The spirit of solidarity amongst us therefore plays a crucial role in our struggle for total liberation.
We therefore mapped out our course of action from the day our party was launched to consist of the aspiration:
- To equal liberty for Cameroonians of all walks of life and the fair distribution of the common cake to be achieved through an ever-increasing solidarity amongst Cameroonians and the establishment of a more humane social organisation of the state;
- To a democratised state with social responsibility for the Cameroonian society;
- To the rights of Cameroonians to participate on an equal basis in decision-making at their private, public or state job-sites;
- To the social co-ordination of our economic development.
We believe that the implementation of this policy or program, which to us means Social Democracy, calls for three things: - The organisation of a political party as the main instrument for the reform of the basic elements of our political environment and this is why the SDF was born.
- The establishment of Unions to give workers in every sphere of economic and industrial activity power to negotiate and improve their working conditions;
- The establishment of Common Initiative Groups, Producer and Consumer Co-operatives to advance and enhance solidarity and mutual assistance.
We preached this message. We preached it at public meetings, at gatherings and at party rallies, against all odds: intimidation, harassment, arrests, torture, bans, assassinations, murder attempts, corporal attacks and aggressions. Our message continued to spread. It galvanised the people of Cameroon from all corners of our National Territory.
The regime became more ruthless and decided to dilute the message. So came the 1990 liberty laws of 1990, which introduced only an administrative multipartism, which it branded to the world as proof of Democracy. It allowed the proliferation of newspapers, while refusing up to date to put into application the law on Social Communication.
The existing laws on subversion were dissimulated in the Penal Code, and the most repressive of them which were only within the authority of the Minister of Territorial Administration were now delegated to Governors, Senior Divisional Officers, Divisional Officers and District Heads. All these did not deter us.
However, by December 1991, through the Tripartite talks the Regime succeeded in taking us off the streets. Came the second phase of our struggle: trying to bring Change through the Institutions. So in 1992, we tried our hands at the presidential election after having boycotted the March 1992 Legislative elections. We won convincingly but our victory was stolen and we became prisoners. In 1996 we filed in for two hundred and forty-three (243) Councils. The regime only allowed us to run for 105. We won in 97 councils. They decided to give us 62.
We still persevered and went in for the Legislative elections in May 1997. We contested in 178 constituencies. We were finally attributed 43 seats by the Supreme Court of Cameroon. During these elections the fraud was so massive and pervasive that the people warned us never to come back to them to ask for their votes under the present electoral dispensation.
As a result, we boycotted the 11th October 1997 Presidential election. We had gone full circle.
Meanwhile, in an ever-untiring effort to seek solutions to the political problems of our country we came out with lofty programs in all domains of our national life:
THE STATE. Restructuring
As far back as September 1991, we put out a proposal on the "Devolution of Powers." We had been living witnesses to the manner in which our nation had been structured and administered since independence, which resulted in over-centralisation breading social injustice, corruption, clienteles on discrimination, and above all, tyranny.
Our proposal was not only meant to simplify the governmental structures and thus render them more efficient and effective but also to get the common people directly involved in their own governance;
In 1993 at the Bafoussam Convention we put out a full blown Constitutional proposal for Cameroon which developed in depth the principle of the Devolution of Power as Federalism
The Regime, realising that the People of Cameroon adopted our program in this respect and having opposed it in vain, resolved to bastardise it in its 1996 Constitution which it wrote single-handily and made a joke of the concept by transforming our ten provinces into theoretical regions that three years after the promulgation of that Constitution, have not seen the light of day.
Local Government
The politics of devolution of powers in a Federation makes local government the focal point of the development of the people. A Local Government Area is supposed to be governed by elected Councillors with the Chief Executive being a Mayor elected from among the councillors. Local Governments are supposed to have jurisdiction over matters that include local revenue and taxes, council treasuries, markets and motor parks among many others.
Although the Biya Constitution of 1996 states in section 55 clearly that councils are governed freely by elected Councillors, the CPDM government has violated this provision and appointed Government Delegates and now Town Delegates to interfere with the constitutional right of Councillors to freely administer the council areas. Worst still, local revenue and taxes and council treasuries are not under the control of the Chief Executive (the Mayor) but under an appointee of the Minister of Finance.
Furthermore, the 1974 law on Councils and the 1977 law that determines the powers of administrative authorities over Councils were meant for a one party regime. Most of their provisions are repugnant to section 55 of the Biya 1990 Constitution. These have been implicitly abrogated by section 68 of the same Constitution but they continue to be in application. The poor performance of some SDF Mayors is due as much to the stifling effect of these obnoxious laws.
The problems of transparency and accountability are dear to the SDF. We have always guarded against allowing our members in the various centres of power from substituting themselves for the control structures of the state. Even when we find some of our Mayors and Councillors not acting in accordance with our code of ethics, the regime prevents us from disciplining them. The end result is that we have been unable to execute our programs in the Councils.
Things have gone so bad in the Councils that today we need foreign aid and on-the-spot supervision by the Ambassadors of donor countries to clean the gutters of our towns.
Sovereignty
The SDF holds as sacred, the preservation of our territorial integrity and the protection of our national interest. As a matter of fact, the regime in place claims it had the same goals in this respect. Today, we are only talking about Bakassi, Yet, all our border towns and villages have been abandoned to our neighbours. Cameroonians are being expelled from all over the world and extremely annoying is the fact that some West African countries which, some two decades ago, almost " worshipped" us, are today looking at us as pariah.
Defence
In our 1990 manifesto, we promised the Cameroonian People that the SDF shall ensure that the armed forces remain a non-political and neutral national institution; that we shall improve the working and living conditions of all its members; ameliorate retirement conditions; ensure its productivity and provide it with the necessary capabilities to defend our fatherland.
What we see today is that our armed forces are not neutral and are forced to pay allegiance to and enforce the will of the regime. Not only are the police and the gendarmes set against their own people but even the army is used to fight its own citizens which is contrary to its fundamental role of defending the nation from foreign aggression.
Whereas, the cruel lack of means renders their personal conditions unacceptably deplorable: no barracks; no uniforms; no equipment; no respect of grade during appointments and promotions. etc, etc. The result is total anarchy and insecurity perpetrated mostly by tenants of the regime notably some traditional rulers who have the cover of the regime.
The government
Cameroon is notorious for its one-man rule. Whereas, our constitutional thought is built on the principle of separation of powers among the three arms of government, namely, the Legislative, the Executive and the Judiciary and through the in-built complementary roles they play, the independence of each being guaranteed for the efficient functioning of the system. Each is a watchdog and a check on the other, and so a system of checks and balances is provided.
This is contrary to the practice of the CPDM regime that has made Parliament an arm of the Executive. The Biya Constitution of 1996 makes him the sole legislator in Cameroon. Even though it is provided that private members’ bills could be tabled by Members of Parliament, experience by our Parliamentarians has shown that this is not possible and that even if one such bill were to be adopted by Parliament, Biya could refuse promulgation into law.
If a courageous Speaker of the National Assembly were to promulgate the bill into law as provided by that constitution, this very constitution gives power to Biya to refer it to the constitutional council which is the Supreme Court and when he does so, he doubles the composition of that Supreme Court by people of his choice. Obviously the law will be struck down.
Mr. Biya, is the guarantor of the Independence of the Judiciary, the first Magistrate and the Head of the Higher Judicial Council. He appoints and dismisses, promotes and demotes at will. The Judiciary in Cameroon is not independent and is wholly subjugated to political influence, suffers from corruption and is inherently inefficient. In fact, it is at the beck and call of the Regime.
That is why it was possible in 1992 for our victory to be stolen with the active participation of the highest Court of the land. This is true also for council and legislative elections. It is also true with regards to the swindling of foreign investors by cronies of the Biya regime.
Furthermore, the Party at the helm of this Country since 1966 has remained in the saddle and frustrated political choice such that no president has ever been removed from office through an election,
Finally, the existing Constitution of 1996 fixed the President’s term of office at seven (7) years with the possibility of Biya running for a fifth consecutive term thereby making him the life President of Cameroon. Consequently, by the present constitutional dispensation, political alternation is impossible.
The Economy
In May 1995, at the Maroua Convention and in anticipation of the presentation of the basic tenets of our economic program, your humble servant said; and I quote from the policy speech of that Convention:
"You need to know the hopeless economic situation of these provinces, with the gross mismanagement of enterprises like SODEBLE, SEMRY, SODECOTON and the scandalously under-exploited LAGDO dam, which glaringly show how the region has been deliberately submitted to under-development".
This was a simple way of illustrating the fate of the whole Cameroon to our People of the Northern Provinces. And at this Convention we saw the first draft of our economic policy.
In 1996 at the Buea Convention, we launched our economic policy NESPROG. It has been widely read, reviewed and the social policy developed to complement it will be presented to you at this Convention.
We advocated privatisation, the regime took it up and used it as a pretext to give away our national patrimony including strategic and sovereign sectors such as water, electricity, communication, transport, the Cameroon Development Corporation, CDC, SODECOTON, etc, etc in exchange for support to remain in power.
The idea of Toll Gates as conceived by the SDF was intended to generate revenue to maintain existing roads and build new ones. But the regime is using it to sustain its political clientele. Taxation has been transformed into a tool to punish opposition members and sympathisers.
The government and the financial institutions are telling us that there is a 5% economic growth. This has not been reflected in the purchasing power of the Cameroonian, the internal debt has not been paid, arrears of salaries for civil servants have not been paid, pensions are not being paid, etc, etc. Yet, according to a recent UNDP report, over 51% of Cameroonians live below the poverty line.
The fact is that the whole fabric of our economy has been destroyed and we are rated today as the number one corrupt country in the world as highlighted by Transparency International. Official corruption is theft from the nation and theft from the nation is always theft from the poor, the old, the disabled, the sick, the children, the new-borns" the weakest. Corruption has eaten into the fabric of the Cameroonian society.
Corruption has blocked the equality of opportunities in our society and does not give any one of us the chance to give to our country the gift of our energy, our ideas, our hopes and our talents. The tragedy is that corruption is promoted at the highest echelon of the CPDM regime. This is why the CPDM government has refused to implement section 68 of the Constitution which requires that persons elected or appointed to high offices of responsibility should declare their assets before they take up their offices.
No matter how much investment and trade flows into a country and no matter how fast the economy is growing, economic stability cannot take root in an environment subverted by corruption.
For foreign consumption Prime Minister Mr Peter Mafany Musonge, launched a media campaign against corruption. It lasted barely one month. Nobody has heard of it ever since. Then in the same vein he launched another one against poverty. There is every likelihood that he alone understands what that means because till date no concrete sign of any action having been taken, is not seen.
Foreign Policy
In the area of foreign policy, the SDF carried out an active diplomatic presence. We did this within the framework of the Organisations of the Socialist International Movement, the Commonwealth of Nations, the Francophonie, institutions and countries sympathetic tour cause.
Since Buea, we have received most of the Ambassadors accredited to Cameroon and have visited many countries in Africa, Europe and North America. We have also enjoyed the confidence, the sponsor and the co-operation of many person and international organisations. Just to name a few, we would mention the following: - Attendance of the Socialist International Council Meeting in Geneva and with patriotic patronage of Dr. Sigam and Aloys Fonje.
- We addressed the Cameroon, African and Swiss Communities at the University Centre Fear Development in Geneva;
- The attendance of the Socialist International African Regional Meeting in Dakar Senegal;
On the European Front, our relations with the Socialist Democratic Party of Germany and its Friedrich Ebert Foundation, the Labour Party of Britain, the Socialist Party of France and its Jean Jaures foundation have continued to grow and the SDF has benefited a lot from these fraternal relations.
The Jean-Jaures Foundation sponsored our first ever Parliamentary and Mayors seminars and the launching of our National Economic Salvation Program (NESPROG). This same organisation is now preparing to sponsor an international seminar for African Women in Politics and our next grassroots visit to the French Socialist Party Councils and structures.
The Friedrich Ebert Foundation sponsored our second Parliamentary seminar; has provided us with free literature on Social Democracy, and undertook to publish both the works of the First Parliamentary Seminar sponsored by the Jean Jaures foundation and those of the second Parliamentary seminar sponsored by it. Indeed, we wish to extend our sincere thanks to the Cameroon Representative and staff of this foundation for its total commitment in advising and supporting us in our endeavour to grasp the basic tenets of Social Democracy. We sincerely, wish that this foundation continues to do more to help us in the task of building a viable Social Democratic Party.
Meanwhile we have attended the Ruling British Labour Party Annual Conferences. We also wish to extend our sincere thanks to this Party which provided us with duplicating machines that now in use by our structures.
We also attended the Socialist International Council Meetings in Rome, Oslo, Dakar, Bamako.
In contacts with our International Friends and Organisations we made sure we presented the programs that would buttress our democratisation struggle. Among these are our draft Federal Constitution, the National Economic Salvation Program (NESPROG), the Independent Electoral Commission. Etc, etc. We solicited their support and they accepted to lend us a helping hand. Also, in the course of these contacts, visits and discussions with the diplomatic communities at home and abroad we arrived at certain observations related to Cameroon Diplomatic Missions, some of which are:
- The deployment and staffing of our embassies are illogical, arbitrary, and despotic, with little and no regard to the requirements of national domestic political and cultural complexity.
- That the Economic Community of Central African States (CEAC), contrary to the Economic Community of West African States (CEAO) is carrying little or no economic activity within itself;
- That Cameroon as a state is virtually absent in the peace-making arena for troubled people of Central, West and the Hon of African Sub-Regions;
- That Cameroon is maintaining a master-servant relationship with certain diplomatic partners.
- And for these reasons, its diplomacy has gone from:
- grandeur and prestige to shame and dishonour;
- From presence to notorious absenteeism;
- From participation to non-participation;
- From prompt to absurd late coming to international meetings and conferences;
- From loyalty to the U.N. and O.A.U to characterised irresponsible lip-service;
- From the pursuit of peace through dialogue and concertation to recklessness and irresponsibility;
- From the defence of our national interest to the auctioning of our National Patrimony through rigged privatisation.
This is the bleak picture we will attempt to transform in the policies that follow and because the above shows that the Biya Regime failed lamentably in its attempt to manage the transition from one party dictatorship to multiparty Democracy in Cameroon.
The SDF recognises that the task of nation building requires the full participation of all Nationals, be they at home or abroad. Cameroonians in the Diaspora shall take part in all National Elections by voting in the Cameroonian chancelleries of their respective countries.
The SDF will give a sense of direction and effectiveness to our foreign policy for the next millennium, to overhaul our diplomatic machinery; to revive the relationship between Cameroon and our foreign partners. The SDF will use all Cameroonian skills to generate all the international investment and acquire the needed foreign technologies for our development.
Education
SDF Educational Policy provides full-scale universal primary education program, which will permit all Cameroon citizens up to the age of 16 to obtain basic knowledge capable of fighting poverty. The state will provide free education through the institution of a special education tax levied to facilitate and to guarantee public, nursery, primary, secondary, higher education and research.
Today our educational system is in total decay, schools without infrastructures; overcrowded classrooms; classrooms without teachers especially in the countryside; teachers without salaries. All training schools are marketable; you buy to get in; you buy to be taught; you buy to qualify; you buy to be posted. And once posted you tax to recover your money. A flourishing business indeed!
Sports
Cameroon, known to the world through its prowess in sports is today in shambles. Our sportsmen and women, most often than not, cannot take part in international competitions because of lack of foresight and political will on the side of the Government. Even when they do attend, they are either driven from hotels because of unpaid bills or abandoned at airports because of lack of transport fares.
They are used and abused. Late Mbappe Lepe and Joseph Bessala are glaring examples of the neglect our sportsmen go through. No sporting infrastructure that conforms to international standards. On the other hand there can be no financial scandal in International Sports without Cameroon being mentioned.
At home the feud raging between the Ministry of Youth and Sports and various sporting organisations are eloquent enough to show the lust for grabbing money which is meant for sportsmen and sports infrastructures to put in private pockets. As a result, the dream of any Cameroonian Youth interested in sports is to get out of Cameroon as soon as possible. This only throws them as easy preys to unscrupulous "managers" who in Europe have instituted a sort of "slave trade" of African sportsmen.
Health
The SDF recognises good health as a basic human right but under the present regime health services are most expensive. Today the Public Health Institutions of our Country are death traps and Public Health personnel are abused. According to the UNDP report, vaccination rate has dropped and vaccination is often ignored; the monitoring of epidemics abandoned; aids, meningitis, cholera etc, etc are having a field day. This is of no particular concern to the stalwarts of the regime who will take the next flight to a European capital to treat a flue. All this with the taxpayer’s money.
Training schools in this domain have been closed and the few remaining are marketable just as in the case of the Educational Training Institutions.
The fact is that the Biya Regime has failed in its singsong program of Health for all in the year 2000.
Social Welfare
Beggars, madmen and the disabled room the streets. The massive retrenchment of workers due to liquidation or the restructuring Public Corporations, the unprecedented unemployment rate, the exodus from the village to the towns because of ridiculously low prices for export agricultural crops, thousands of pensioners without pensions because of the bankruptcy of the National Social Insurance Fund, the sorry state of streets and houses of our big towns, the break down of the garbage removal system, the lack of entertainment facilities except for drinking and gambling places, makes life particularly repulsive in our cities. Promiscuity, disease, epidemics, prostitution and more and more child prostitution, drugs, crime, misery on the daily list of our town dwellers.
That is the picture of the Cameroon society today. The only cocks to crow in town are either cronies of the regime or "feymen", the new world for rich men, who generally amass wealth through laundering, drug pushing, swindling and mafia crimes. True to its ideology of Social Democracy, the SDF has conceived policies and principles for the management of the disabled in their various forms.
Protection of the Environment
The greatest calamity that has befallen our nation is the destruction of its tropical forest without any concrete measures for re-forestation. Moreover, the benefits from the wood exportation only go to enrich private pockets. The SDF has a policy on sustainable environmental management, a policy whereby the forests are exploited with concurrent rejuvenation and the safeguard of the progress of the desert southwards.
It is scandalous to note that in the Eastern province where wanton destruction of our forest is carried out at a maddening speed, the local people do not have the right to pick up the fallen branches and use as firewood. One would have thought that, for example, those branches and the storms of felled trees could be gathered, transformed into charcoal and sent to the people of the Northern Provinces to use as fuel, thus preventing them from cutting down the meagre trees as firewood.
The mistle-toe is a tree parasite, some sort of cancer. It is a plant that germinates and grows on the branches of other trees and finally absorbs all the food from the tree to feed itself. Then the tree dies and dies with it. There is no single region of Cameroon that its trees are free from this disease. The Biya Government has not taken note of this destructive phenomena. It has destroyed our mango trees, plumb trees, orange trees. In fact, it attacks all fruit trees including cocoa and coffee trees.
A couple of Weeks ago the Heads of States of the Central African Sub-Region met in this Congress Centre to talk and take decisions concerning the preservation of our Forests and the measures necessary to ensure rational exploitation of our wood. Not a single one of them made allusion to this disastrous tree cancer.
Whereas some two years ago we of the SDF launched a special Campaign against it and your humble Servant that I am undertook a tour of the whole Country explaining at public rallies the devastating effects of this tree cancer disease.
Today, as we have brought to the lime-light the dangers posed by the measles-toe, we have no doubt that the Biya Regime will get hold of it, make political capital out of it and go round the world to seek financial aid and loans on the pretext that there is a tree-cancer in Cameroon.
Whereas all that is necessary to destroy it is to prone to cut it off the branch on which it has perched.
The Buea Mountain is irrupting. It is a real natural disaster. From Nyos, through Nsam, we have landed in Buea. One of the responsibilities of government is to provide security and protection to citizens and property. These holds true for zones where there is a clear possibility of natural disasters (like in Nyos and Buea) or man-made disasters (like in Nsam).
As it has often been said, there are no African values that clash with the universal tenets of democracy or with respect for Human Rights. This is also absolutely true in respect of science and technology.
The utterances, attitudes and behaviours that have resulted from the eruption of mount Cameroon have sent false messages about African and indeed, Cameroonian culture. Barely months to the dawn of the next millennium, science and technology should be at the centre of our thinking, policy making and actions. Science and technology should be our greatest asset as a nation. They should be the only tools that allow us to face the hazards of our environment, not rituals and pretentious prayers.
The misfortune of our country is that the CPDM government is clearly incapable of protecting us from natural and man-made disasters. All that they do each time is make unrealistic political capital out of disasters and the resultant suffering of the population.
Agriculture
More than 80% of Cameroonians earn their living from the agricultural sector. Therefore any policy made to govern this sector will, unavoidably affect the majority of Cameroonians.
The place given to agriculture by the present regime is one of lip service. Our farmers work like busy bees to feed the entire nation but their economic situation remains precarious. The fruits of their labour are harvested by intermediary buyam sellers and foreign buyers who determine what price to pay. They work under outdated methods of farming imposed on them by the lack of modern farming tools.
Because of no farm-to market roads their products cannot be evacuated. They have to transform themselves into beasts of burden to carry the products on their heads to population centres and sell them at give-away prices that cannot enable them buy basic necessities like soap, salt, medicines and other manufactured goods and products, not to talk of sending the children to school and buying books for them.
This is the state of our agriculture and this is the fate of our farmers today.
An SDF Agricultural Policy is crafted to provide our farmers with better and more appropriate working conditions. It seeks to simplify their daily tasks by improving their farming methods.
It will put better and higher yielding planting material at their disposal. It will improve farm to market roads and put credit facilities at their disposal to enable them acquire needed imputes such as fertilisers at reasonable prices. It will teach them to use natural organic manure and better soil conservation methods to increase yield and save farmland for future generations.
It will create both industrial and cottage transformation units to add value to their products and improve their conservation. It will regulate and improve internal and external commercialisation channels through good legislation, internal and sub-regional good road network and market research.
Finally, it will encourage better and varied food preparation methods to stimulate consumption and improve the nutritional status of the population.
Culture and Media
Our culture is in shambles. All our artists who want to succeed have to emigrate. Cultural festivals organised by the Minister of Culture suffer from improvisation. Foreign music overshadows local production. The National Museum exists only in paper. Our original culture like any other thing in the Nation has been bastardised. Our cultural icons like Anne Marie Ndzie have been shelved. The total monopoly of the communication world by the regime is nauseating and suffocating.
The law on social communication voted by Parliament in 1990 has remained a dead letter. The program opened to political parties represented in Parliament known, as "Expression direct" is actually indirect expression because it is recorded in advance, censored before broadcast. So the audio-visual media is totally confiscated by the Biya Regime.
Besides, programs lavishing praise on "king Biya" for imaginary prowess, the rest of the programs are alienating. Cameroonians in their overwhelming majority does not listen to Cameroon Radio, they no longer watch Cameroon Television. The General manager of CRTV in person has confessed to this fact but things have not improved.
The private press, which the Regime uses to boast of because of the proliferation of publications, is in dire straits. Most of the papers appear very sparingly. Journalists are harassed, intimidated, jailed, and the most talented ones have escaped from the country. In order to survive, the local papers are compelled to publish complaisant articles in exchange for gratification from CPDM stalwarts. The SDF is For Freedom of the Press.
We developed all these lofty programs and did all these things in the hope that change would be attained through peaceful means. Indeed, we had from the beginning, adopted the ballot box as the means by which to achieve political power through the change from one government to another.
All along we pleaded for the institution of an impartial organ for the conduct of elections to no avail. We stretched out our hands for dialogue with the Biya regime but dialogue to it only means getting on to the boat of catastrophe. We called on friendly nations to assist us and they did their best. Again, to no avail. We demonstrated in Cameroon, in all international symposia, seminars and conferences around the world: - That a National Electoral Independent Commission as an extra-administrative organ would constitute a reliable and viable instrument of transition from a highly politicised and partisan administration to one whose fabric has not yet been poisoned by the existing regime or the political party in power.
- That in the monolithic system which Cameroonians have lived through characterised by the primacy of a political party over state institutions, political power was and remains concentrated in the hands of a small minority, with that political party constituting the sole determinant of the material, military and even ethnic interests of the whole nation; the government being subjugated to the will of the "party- state", the administration and, more particularly, territorial administration and all other agents of state being at the service of the ruling party; Governors, Senior Divisional Officers, Sub-Divisional and District Officers being agents of the CPDM before being the agents of the state. Every election in Cameroon has therefore been a mere formality, a "plebiscite" of the one-man in power.
- That the Administration and the Judiciary in Cameroon have become ridiculously inefficient and constitute well-fashioned instruments of fraud at the service of the regime and that this accounted for the arbitrary creation of electoral constituencies, manipulation of electoral registers and cards, confiscation of the public media, utilisation of state personnel and property for campaigns, undue influence and corruption on election day, manipulation of results at the various counting levels, etc, etc
In 1992, at the Bamenda Convention we had put out the basic rudiments of a good electoral Code. This was subsequently beefed up and presented at the famous CPDM-SDF dialogue of January 1998;
In the absence of an independent electoral commission, the SDF in association with the UNDP and the CDU decided to boycott the Presidential election under the slogan " no good laws, no elections ". The SDF initially campaigned for an active boycott of the election. Later, the campaign was transformed into a passive boycott. The result of the boycott was massive.
Over 80 % of voters did not turn up to vote. In spite of this, the CPDM regime came up with cooked up results that over 90% of the electorate voted and Mr. BIYA scored over 92%. This was a glaring demonstration of the omnipotent nature of the fraud machinery that was in place.
Fellow delegates, members of the SDF Family.
As we hold this Convention as we deliberate on the decisions we have to take, and as we meditate on the candidates we will elect to the highest executive organ of our party, we must have behind our minds that this is the state of our country today. All the lofty policies we put forward have been bastardised.
As early as 1992 we had identified the fundamental problem facing our fatherland and at the rally on the Ahmadou Ahidjo stadium esplanade on 2nd February of that year, your humble servant that I am, told you that we were fighting for a second independence. But we were naive in our methods and strategies.
In 1993 at the Bafoussam Convention, we attempted to take stock of the activities of the regime in place and permit me quote from that Convention. We asked ourselves the following questions:
"Is it acceptable that an autocratic regime lacking a clear sense of direction should stifle the will of a people by obstructing the use of the ballot box? Is it acceptable to set up a system based on embezzlement and waste plunging a whole Nation into an economy of excessive indebtedness?"
The answers to these and the many questions we asked ourselves were a resounding "NO".
Again, we set down to work, working hard like Boxer of the animal farm. In 1995 at the Maroua Convention we congratulated ourselves for the implementation of the resolutions we took at the Bafoussam Convention. We noted that and permit me quote:
"The political orientation, which we gave the party in Bafoussam, has stood the test of time. Our option for a federal state structure and our call for a genuine constitutional conference have been definitely endorsed by an overwhelming majority of the Cameroonian people."
The party left Bafoussam more resolved than ever to carry through the struggle. That is why, despite the intensification of repression, despite all the sordid manoeuvres to destroy the opposition in general, and the SDF in particular, despite the wall of silence which the regime built around us, we fought on by organising mammoth rallies throughout the country; we fought on by holding press conferences, we fought! We fought! And we fought on.
Then in 1996 at the Buea convention we entertained an illusion and spoke as though we were already in government. We said:
"We were reconstructing; we were rebuilding a broken down infrastructure, we were jump-starting a stalled economy, we were regaining international legitimacy to our discredited Republican Institutions, we were healing the painful wounds inflicted by six years of bitter and divisive discourse, we were installing a sense of self-confidence in every Cameroonian, we were reconciling, we were….., we were ……, Were ….".
This was some sort of trick we thought could induce this callous regime to change its attitude towards our Party and let democracy flourish. Two years have gone by and experience during the legislative and the boycotted presidential elections have shown that we were not only naive but we were also wrong.
From day to day our party has demonstrated its determination to install a socio-economic environment that will ensure basic necessities for the maximum of Cameroonians. The people of our country have shown clearly that they look on us for the genuine change we promised them since 1990.
Dear Fellow Delegates;
From the foregoing, it is no longer doubtful in our minds that we have done all that we can to cause change through peaceful means. Our people still continue to look on us and trust in us to bring that change. It therefore becomes not only a duty but also an obligation for this great party of ours to cause that change else we shall never be forgiven by posterity. This change, we are today convinced shall not come through joining the Biya Regime.
So, the Cameroon of today is no longer a pleasant place to live in. With its ever degrading economic and social decay; with a total monopoly on State media by the oligarchy; with the persecution of journalists of the free press; with increasing misery, joblessness; more and more children not being able to go school; the total disintegration of health services; coupled with total insecurity, lawlessness, rampant and pervasive corruption, and above all, no hope for change of power under the present constitutional arrangement, the Cameroonian people, are disoriented, confused and subdued.
The Youth in particular see no opening for the future. They scramble to leave the country. Thousands and thousands of them flee the country using all types of roundabout means to get out. Foreign Embassies are virtually besieged by the influx of youths struggling to get entry visas into foreign countries. Those who cannot make it roam the streets, indulge in sex, drugs, gambling and crime. A new class of citizens, the "feymen" is growing rapidly.
The struggle for survival knows no limit. The proliferation of religious sects, the triumphal return of mysticism and esoterism attest to the state of helplessness and confusion of our people. Natural disasters are shrouded in mystery for lack of foresight and adequate preparation.
The regime thrives in this situation and has no shame in turning its criminal insensitivity into magnanimity to be drummed over and over by the public media – remember the Nsam disaster! See how the eruption of Mount Fako is being handled! One needs a lot of courage to talk about these things without flinching.
It is in this context that we are holding this Convention. The Cameroonian political scene has been ridiculed.
There are over two hundred registered Political Parties but only a handful is occasionally heard of. The CPDM regime having failed to woo all the parties into its government in order to finalise the return to one party rule has adopted a strategy of inertia. Its 1996 Constitution is yet to be implemented. No hope of this taking place before the year 2000. All promised projects are shelved. Everything has come to a standstill. The CPDM and its regime believes misery and despair will do the work for them and cow the people into total submission.
The only force remaining is the SDF our party. The going has not been easy with us either. The tough struggle for survival has taken its toll on us too. The paralysis of our Councils, the neutralisation of our Parliamentarians by the blatantly fraudulent CPDM majority and above all the awareness that under the present dispensation, change of power (alternance) cannot come through the ballot box, raised a serious debate within the party and polarized trends of thought:
One school holds that being unable to unseat the regime through the ballot box, we should join the government and see if something could be achieved from within the system. The other school consists of those who maintain that the struggle for Change should continue outside government because according to it, joining government means returning to the de facto one party state which on all accounts will mean the end of the Democratic process. The overwhelming majority of SDF members and sympathisers and in fact of the Cameroonian People belongs to this latter school of thought. This was unequivocally demonstrated during the famous SDF-CPDM Talks.
In November 1997, Mr BIYA declared himself winner of the October 1997 presidential election, which was massively boycotted by the Cameroonian People in response to the call of the SDF, the UNDP and the UDC. The regime invited the SDF for talks. The SDF true to its policy many times reiterated that our party was ready to talk to any body even the devil if it were to discuss the fate of our country, accepted the invitation
At the first meeting of the 2 parties, the CPDM’s main point was to ask the SDF to join the government. The SDF refused to join the government and accepted to discuss any other topic concerning the fate of our nation. At the subsequent meeting, the SDF made its own proposals whose main point was the creation of a National Independent Electoral Commission to handle all future elections in Cameroon. After many fruitless sessions, it was crystal clear that the CPDM was not in any way ready to yield to this legitimate demand which would have solved the problem of alternance once and for all. So the talks failed.
The support for the SDF position was tremendous nation wide. This was the more so because the other party which was contacted at the same time with the SDF and which was one of the parties which called for the boycott, accepted the CPDM proposal and joined the government.
The success enjoyed by the SDF at the end of the talks infuriated the regime that it went all out for a full-blown destabilisation plan. This was with the help of some well-known Chancelleries in Yaounde. The plot was crushed thanks to the unprecedented mobilisation of all SDF militants, Parliamentarians, Mayors, Councillors and NEC members. Today, when we look back at the way this diabolic plan was crushed, one feels proud being an SDF member! Only posterity will befittingly thank the gallant boys and girls of the SDF who did such a marvellous job.
While this swift action galvanised all SDF militants and sympathisers through out the nation, it sent shock waves down the spines of CPDM stalwarts and they once more went on the offensive. They orchestrated a campaign of intimidation to the extent of making press leaks that prominent SDF Parliamentarians would have their immunity lifted.
We have no objection to the immunity of our Parliamentarians being lifted if they are indicted for criminal offences. But it must not stop at the SDF Parliamentarians. The so-called dignitaries of the state who up till now have been escaping prosecution by hiding behind one immunity or the other should be called to book.
The CPDM nicknamed its invitation to SDF for talks, "Démocratie apaisée". We in the SDF still wonder what that could mean. This is a regime, which refuses the setting up, of a neutral body to control elections, which, in a democracy is the only means by which political power can change hands. Yet it speaks of appeasement. This is preposterous.
By refusing Change through the ballot box, the regime is inexorably pushing the Cameroonian People towards an explosion. It is true that the regime is so imbued with its sense of power that it thinks it can at any time crush an uprising.
For the simple reason that it thinks that all those to whom it has auctioned our national patrimony for almost nothing are there ready to help him and also because by using the abject poverty and misery of the Cameroonian people as a weapon, it believes it has nothing to brother about. How can there be appeasement when people are arrested, jailed and tortured for years without trial?
How can there be appeasement when stalwarts of the regime take the law into their hands and decide at will to imprison, torture or even kill Cameroonian citizens and go free?
How can there be appeasement when, on the eve of the 21st century, there is total monopoly over the public media?
How can there be appeasement when for a regional summit to be held in Yaounde, the town is practically blocked for days?
How can there be appeasement when hawkers, bayam sellams, transporters are harassed daily and ripped of their hard earnings?
How can there be appeasement when economic operators are choking under heavy taxation and a judiciary infeodated to the Regime?
How can there be appeasement when children cannot go to school, those who go to school cannot learn, those who qualify cannot work?
How can there be appeasement when disease is causing havoc in homes while Cameroonians are helpless because of lack of money, or when there is money there are no drugs?
How can there, how can there, how can there… you name it, it could take us one week to go on like this.
Finally how can there be appeasement when in this state of total despair, the Cameroonians can never dream of booting out tomorrow those who are held responsible for the sorry state of the nation?
No! There cannot be any appeasement. Resignation, which is the lot of many Cameroonians today, cannot be called appeasement.
Resilience, which is the characteristic trait of the Cameroonian spirit, cannot be termed appeasement. Pa FONCHA has just died. Years before his death he had been asking to see Mr Biya. He was never received! Now that he is dead Mr. Biya decrees a State Burial Appeasement indeed!
Ahidjo died in exile and despite all the cries, the marches of the Cameroonian people, till today his remains are in Senegal! Appeasement indeed!
Talk of the bodies of our national heroes like Moumie, Abel Kingue etc… Appeasement indeed.
I standing here, your humble servant, who Mr Biya’s regime classified as second to him in 1992, when he took 39 % of the votes for himself and gave me 36 %, I have never met face to face with Mr Biya.
O yes! He did invite me when he was being given an award for Democracy by some French organisation. That day I was in the Yaounde Court of first Instance being sentenced for trumped up charge of defamation because I dared say that a former party official made away with party material and money. All the proofs were there, the finest lawyers of this country made the case tight. To no avail. I was still found guilty. That is appeasement!
That notwithstanding, the SDF is still ready to meet anybody including Mr. Biya to discuss crucial issues pertaining to our country. In our 1999 New Year message, we stated clearly that we were ready to discuss the Cameroonian problem with any Cameroonian, including Mr. BIYA. Thus, the doors of the SDF remained wide open.
But these should be genuine talks, not playing to the gallery to attract foreign aid. In the meantime the SDF shall not fold its arms and wait for Mr. Biya to decide to talk to us. We shall look for other means to force him talk. We have lamented enough, we have complained to our foreign friends enough. We have to do it another way, than mere crying and complaining. We have vowed to bring Change to this country and better the lot of the majority of Cameroonians.
Democracy through the ballot box has been refused us. We must usher in Democracy through other channels. This Convention should give mandate to the new executive it will elect to look for these new channels. Cameroon cannot afford to enter the new millennium with archaic structures.
The SDF whose mission is to change this country cannot stand and watch the people of Cameroon sink every passing day into total despair and helplessness. That is not what we intended when, on a rainy day nine years ago, we launched this Party. So, let us go back to May 1990. Let the combative SDF be reborn with a new dimension, a new perspective.
Long Live The Social Democratic Front;
Long Live Cameroon;
God Bless You.
The end
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