The rainforests of the Congo Basin stretch over some 200 million hectares (494 million acres) and six central African states. Only the Amazon has a larger tropical forest area. But if current trends continue, about 70 percent of these forests may be gone by 2040, says the global conservation group WWF, which is behind several big projects to protect the area.

On 9 February 2005, the Douala Appeals Court granted a provisional release to Jules Koum Koum, editor-in-chief of the independent bi-weekly "Le Jeune Observateur". The journalist has spent the past month in very harsh conditions in New Bell prison, serving a six-month sentence for libel. He is expected to be released as soon as the legal formalities are completed. (French version available)

Cameroon said it was suspending tests of a controversial antiretroviral HIV/AIDS drug on prostitutes in Douala, the west African country's economic capital, citing failings in their implementation. The clinical trial was to determine whether Tenofovir, a drug sold under the name Viread by the US drug manufacturer Gilead, can prevent the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) or AIDS.

In a 21 January 2005 letter to President Paul Biya, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) expressed deep concern over the recent jailing of Jules Koum Koum, publication director of the private bimonthly "Le Jeune Observateur", on criminal defamation charges. Two journalists are now imprisoned in Cameroon for their work.

Cameroon's new government this week published the names of 73 top civil servants accused of embezzling public funds in local newspapers to spotlight a sudden anti-corruption drive. Most of the doctors, prison directors and other eminent officials said to have pocketed sums ranging from a modest 80,000 CFA francs (US $158) to 42 million CFA francs (US $83,000) - as well as equipment totalling 126 million CFA francs (US $249,000) - are being sacked. Some are to face criminal charges and all have been ordered to return the missing cash and state property.

In 1993, the government of Cameroon passed a law allowing private tertiary education institutions to be established in the country. Now, almost a decade later, is this decision still viewed as the right one? That depends on who you ask. For Sammy Beban Chumbow, rector of the government-run University of Yaoundé I, certain private institutions "present a distinct threat to public universities".

Paul Biya, Cameroon’s president for 22 years and fresh from re-election, has named a trusty aide as the new prime minister and brought a few new faces into government. Ephraim Inoni, a 57-year-old English-speaking financier who has served as a top presidential aide for the last ten years, was appointed to take over as premier from fellow anglophone, Peter Mafany Musonge, national radio announced last week.

Amid the forest greenery and yellow and purple flowers near Nkol-Ntara, central Cameroon, the scene is disturbed by a sign a few feet high showing an oil derrick and petrol pump . It reads: "Caution: oil pipeline." The notice gives instructions to call a number in case of emergency or before starting to dig. This in a country where the World Bank estimates 30 per cent of adults are illiterate and there is less than one telephone for every 20 people. As attention focuses on the fate of Chad's oil money, however, Cameroonian activists are critical of what they say are double standards in the World Bank - allowing the government to remain opaque and unaccountable despite Cameroon's reputation for corruption.

Indigenous Baka number 30-40,000 and live in the southern and southeastern areas of Cameroon. They are associated with, among other local communities the Bagando Bakwele, Knonbemebe, Vonvo, Zime and Dabjui farmers.

About 4,000 Bagyeli and Bakola live in the southwest, and are associated with Bulu, Ngoumba, Fang and Bassa. Most Baka, Bagyeli and Bakola still rely on hunting and gathering to secure their livelihoods, and the majority still rely on the forests. Baka, Bagyeli and Bakola in general retain many aspects of their forest-based culture, including non-hierarchical social structures coupled with community recognition for individuals' special skills, relatively small communities, an aversion to social conflict, proximate planning horizons and, to those from "outside", an opportunistic circumspection.

For almost all Baka, Bagyeli and Bakola, their forest is their ancestral home, their reliable grocery, the root of their existence, and their customary right, and forests throughout Cameroon's southern forest zone are dotted with their favoured hunting and gathering grounds and their hidden sacred places. Their primarily hunting and gathering lifestyle combined with subsistence trade is associated with high physical mobility, which means that they can be difficult to locate at certain times of year, and their places of work and home are rarely accurately recorded - most are literally off the map.

Cameroon's indigenous forest communities' geographical and social isolation has enabled many of them to retain their forest-based culture since pre-colonial times, while the world around the forest has undergone radical changes. The same applies to indigenous hunter-gatherer communities who have established permanent villages for cultivation outside forests, since the vast majority of them are also completely marginalised from civic and government structures in Cameroon.

This socio-political marginalisation reflects the gross discrimination that Baka, Bagyeli and Bakola face when they leave the security of their forest and communities, where they are powerful and relatively secure, for the amenities of the roadside or neighbouring local villages, where they may be mocked, cheated, and unfairly treated by government and civic authorities. This unsavoury treatment means that many Baka, Bagyeli and Bakola prefer to stay in the security of their forest community and to remain uninvolved in the "affairs of the village."

Indigenous forest peoples' isolation also means that most of them still have almost no access to modern health care, or formal education, and most are unable to speak and read French, the official language that dominates the forest zone in Cameroon. Until recent moves by the Cameroon government and NGOs to enable formal registration few of these people had their own identity cards, and almost all were absent from official census data and electoral lists. Thus they have been unable to stand up to powerful outsiders who sought to abuse their rights and the forest remains an important refuge.

Despite a long history of trickery and persecution by people entering the forests to extract resources such as rubber, wildlife, timber, minerals, and data on the flora and fauna, Baka, Bagyeli and Bakola in general are very open to outside influences. Their traditional forest coping mechanisms, however, are proving unable to protect them from the increased demands on forests in which they have lived for aeons. Since the introduction in 1994 of Cameroon's new forest law there have been significant investments by donors in Cameroon's protected areas network to support older parks and to establish new conservation "planning regions".

The fact that these communities were "off the map" when the parks were established has led to a situation where their forest rights, and hence their right to isolation are denied through the application of non-discretionary rules to protect endangered flora and fauna. Many of these new rules undermine indigenous peoples' hunting and gathering lifestyles, even though their rights to resources and to "traditional sustainable use" of them are protected by national and international legal provisions, and international agency guidelines. Current plans by Conservation and donors (see http://www.wrm.org.uy/countries/Cameroon/still.html) threaten to widen this pressure to cover huge "landscapes" covering much of the Congo Basin, and this will place further burdens on communities no longer able to isolate themselves.

* Source: World Rainforest Movement Bulletin 87
E-Mail: [email protected]
Web page: http://www.wrm.org.uy

Some seven US ex-Congressmen who passed for observers of the October 11 presidential election in Cameroon have been accused of receiving bribes to the colossal sum of 400.000 US dollars to authenticate the polls in the face of the international community, reports Cameroon journalist Jumkondah Francis Garriba in this www.zmag.org article. The accusation emerged from Cameroon's frontline opposition Social Democratic Front, SDF. According to Mr. Nkemngu Martin, communication officer for the SDF, the so-called US observers were in Cameroon on a rescue mission. Referring to them as hungry con men, Nkemngu said their mission was to rescue "the ailing regime of incumbent president Paul Biya". Mr. Biya has been glued to power since 1982.

President Paul Biya's early lead in Cameroon's presidential election has not come as a surprise. Biya has ruled Cameroon for the past 22 years and opposition parties have accused him of resorting to massive fraud in order to win a further seven-year term. While only 4.6 million of Cameroon's 16 million population made it onto the electoral roll on Monday, there have been numerous reports of individuals casting several votes each.

The Centre for Democracy and Development has published a Cameroon election brief which outlines the current Cameroon political situation and how the October 11 presidential election in Cameroon is a foregone conclusion. President Paul Biya - incumbent since 1982 - will be elected to serve another seven-year term, probably by a substantial majority. Further, this brief compares the different political parties and their prospective leaders.

With the countdown to presidential elections in Cameroon gathering pace, a fierce debate is underway about computerization of the voting process. "We absolutely have to computerize if we want a transparent and credible election. If we can't do that, then the election should be postponed in the interests of the country," says John Fru Ndi, head of the Social Democratic Front (SDF).

The leader of the main Cameroon opposition party has said that next month's elections will not be free and fair without electoral reform. John Fru Ndi told the BBC that his 1992 defeat to President Paul Biya had been due to electoral fraud. Mr Biya, who has been in power for 22 years, has yet to confirm that he will stand for re-election on 11 October.

Some countries have taken major strides to improve the rights and reproductive health of women but more must be done to meet goals set at a U.N. conference a decade ago, according to a report released on Tuesday. Burkina Faso and Cameroon have lost ground, said the report presented at the three-day meeting to assess how much had changed by the 10th anniversary of the Cairo conference.

Cameroonian teachers have decided to go on strike from October 6 to 29, if the government does not ameliorate the status of teachers in the country. This is one of the major declarations made during a press conference, last Friday, in Yaounde.

Combination therapy with three generic antiretroviral drugs in a single tablet has been validated for the first time in an open clinical study in a developing country. Follow-up of 60 patients treated in Yaoundé, Cameroon, has demonstrated the excellent efficacy and safety of a generic fixed-dose combination, says MSF.

The term "blood money" has come to have new meaning in Cameroon, where certain patients and their families complain that a brisk trade in trafficked blood has led to shortages in hospitals. "Getting hold of a pouch of blood for a patient who has urgent need of it can be an experience akin to Calvary," Martin Djomo, the husband of someone who is dependent on blood transfusions, told IPS.

Farouk Chothia and Ange Ngu Thomas, two BBC journalists who were detained last week by Cameroonian soldiers in the disputed Bakassi peninsula and accused of spying, were released without charge on Friday, July 16, according to the BBC and international news reports. Chothia, a producer and South African national based in London, and Thomas, a reporter based in the southwestern Cameroonian city of Douala, were arrested by Cameroonian soldiers on Sunday, July 11.

A three-day training seminar on the eradication of racism and xenophobia in Central Africa was held in Yaounde recently. Organized by the U.N Sub-Regional Centre for Human Rights and Democracy in Central Africa, the seminar was co-chaired by the Director of the Centre, Ambassador Teferra Shiawl, and the Minister Delegate at the Ministry of External Relations in charge of the Commonwealth, Ndion Ngute. Particular emphases were laid on issues of racial discrimination.