Open Letter to the International Monetary Fund

Dear Sir/Madam,

I'm particularly concerned with the recent admission of Cameroon to the completion point of HIPC. I am a Cameroonian and a graduate student at Bemidji State University in Minnesota. My fear here is that your institution has been misled into believing that the Biya's regime in Cameroon has satisfied the conditions for debt relief. It's hard to think that students are being killed, raped and tortured in the University of Buea, the only Anglo-Saxon university in the country and no one has been formally charged. Last year, the forces of law and order used excessive force on students who were on strike because the results of the competitive exam into the newly created school of medicine were falsified. The chairman of the commission of inquiry was appointed into a government office before he could publicize the findings of his report thus compromising the veracity of such a report if it will ever be made. Of course, no reports of military excesses in Cameroon are ever made public.

The crisis plaguing our universities and the government reaction to them has become worrisome because of the consecutive brutality of the police and the gendarmes with impunity since 2005. When peaceful demonstrations are organized in Buea tear gas bombs, water canons and life-bullets are used and in the other universities, well, it is a different story. A case in point here was at the University of Douala where the student leaders were expelled and barred from all state university for organizing demonstrations to mourn the slain students in the University of Buea on November 29th 2006 as well as demand the release of students who were arrested arbitrarily. As if this was not enough, Professor Cornelius Lambi, the then Vice Chancellor of the University of Buea was given a verbal lashing by the Minister of Higher Education on national radio and television for telling the truth and then sacked from a position he had only held for a couple of months.

What did the president say about all these happenings? Nothing! He did not as much as mention it in his end of year address. One can infer from such a silence that he ordered and supervised the events. After all, with such a centralized system as that which exists in Cameroon is there anything that happens without the authorization of the head of state? It could also be that he does not know what happened in Buea since the events took place in Anglophone Cameroon and probably the echoes came to him in English which he does not understand or care about. It's worth noting that he has never addressed the nation in English and early this month a government minister banned the use of English during an official press conference.

I actually wonder at the reports that were submitted by government officials to make Cameroon qualify for an especially economic slap on the face as a heavily indebted poor country when the president for his more than two decades in power does not know what is wrong with Cameroon economically. Hear him during his end of year address: "How come our country, which is well endowed by nature and the climate, which has acknowledged human resources and which enjoys peace and stability, is yet to achieve its economic take-off?" What reforms have been carried out by this guy who appears to be so dumb about the affairs that should concern him most?

I wish to remind you that the freedom of association is still to be practiced in Cameroon. There exists at the moment a volatile situation caused by first the failure of the government to acknowledge the presence of an Anglophone problem and second the excessive use of force by the military in subjugating Cameroonians of English expressive, effacing their identity and destroying in totality the Southern Cameroons National Congress (SCNC) with lethal force. An example of such acts of terrorism by Mr Biya is the arrest of Nfor Ngala and Mbinglo Benjamin, leaders of SCNC and forty others during a press conference on the 20th of January, 2007.

I am strongly of the opinion that you’ve been misled by the reports that put Cameroon in her present point with the HIPC initiative. I am ready to work with you in having a clean slate about Cameroon before Mr Biya gets away with the debts he accumulated over the years, without even anything to show for them in terms of development. I wonder how you can do business with this guy! What was done with the initial loans? God! There is no accountability and no structures for that with the present dispensation.

There is no doubt that the Cameroonian people need the intervention of the IMF and World Bank to recover from the recession that has plunged the country into untold misery, hopelessness and shame. I think Cameroonians of good will appreciate a factual account of what is going on before you consummate your present marriage with Mr Biya for it is with him and him alone that you are taking vows and not with the Cameroonian people who lack the peace of mind to enjoy a night’s sleep and must drink to do so.

Sincerely,

Brendan.