The House of Commons Debate on Cameroon and Zimbabwe: Part One

By Louis Egbe Mbua

On the 22 of April 2008, the British House of Commons hosted a historic debate on the theme of Elections and Democracy in Africa with particular focus on Cameroon and Zimbabwe at Committee Room 15. The host was Hon. Jeremy Corbyn the Labour Member of Parliament at Westminster in conjunction with Africa Awake, the London Activist group.

After obtaining the news of this debate from well wishers, I was determined to attend and see for myself how democratic debates are conducted in the Mother of all Parliament. On that day, I had finished by professional duties at 4.45 pm and rushed to catch the fast train from Twickenham to Waterloo for the Jubilee line to Westminster. Having missed the 5.23 train I jumped on the 5.28 one arriving at the House of Commons at about time. After the procedural security check and the maze of hallways and corridors I found myself in Committee room 15 with the hall jam-packed. I managed, with the help of Sam the Zimbabwean at the door, to find a back seat next to a young Cameroonian woman who came with her young child of about 9 months old.

Every shade of Cameroonian, Zimbabwean, Ethiopian, British, women, men, a child were there. In all their numbers they came. Francophones, Anglophones, Union des Populations Camerounais (UPC), Liberal Democratic Alliance (LDA), Southern Cameroons Peoples Organisation (SCAPO), Southern Cameroons Youth League (SCYL), Social Democratic Front (SDF), The Cameroon Network, The Zimbabwe African National Union - Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF), The Bakwerilands Claims Committee (BLCC), the Anti-Mugabe camp, well-wishers, Doctorate students from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), Cameroonian refugees, elderly British ladies and concerned Africans were all there to watch and debate the evils of Africa and what solutions that may be offered from this historic meeting.

Having missed the opening speech I watched as Ms Tanje, The Cameroon Network Publicity Secretary took the floor. Her speech was to the point and clear. She outlined the sufferings of the peoples of Cameroon on both sides of the Mungo -- Francophones and Anglophones--and that the international community should be conscious of this evil against the people by the authoritarian regime. She then moved on to the problem of wrongful deportation of Cameroonians by the British immigration authorities. This was much more grave for Southern Cameroonians who are immediately arrested on arrival at the Douala airport, locked up in prison, tortured and beaten by barbarous and cruel gendarmes and Policemen in Cameroon; and that the deportees family who cannot stand their kins being inhumanly maltreated in prison for no obvious reasons have to bribe them out of the torture chambers; causing added and unwanted financial hardship for Cameroonians in general and Southern Cameroonians in particular.

For those who cannot afford the means to bribe so as to secure a release of the deportee, they are left with their own devices in prison where the beatings and torture continues unabated. Her solution, she contends, is for the Home Office to alter their profile of Cameroon because the totalitarian and undemocratic regime of Mr. Paul Biya continues to deceive the world with his fake fight for corruption and that all is socially, economically and politically well. Therefore, the Home Office should not be deporting young Cameroonians to their death.

Author's Comments:

The evil that has visited Africa by her own sons and daughters who have pretentious leadership agendas has now overflowed to a flood. One can cannot actually imagine the feeling of this meeting unless one was actually there. Young and intelligent people, being driven out of their own countries by greedy and wicked leaders, are being given a voice in one of the most advanced countries in the world at the heart of their own institution; and the most prestigious of their own democratic governance and symbol to debate on solutions of the problems of the very nations that drove them out. One does not have to emphasise that these same Africans can never dream of venturing into their own countries' House of Parliament -- if we may call such corrupt institutions parliament- to voice their disapproval of these wicked systems yet they can do so in the UK without fear of being harassed, killed, beaten and tortured. As I turned my thoughts east, west, north and south of the world and pondering on the vicissitudes of what was happening and unfolding before my own eyes; and the unfathomable contrasts and contradictions of the evil in Africa by her leaders against their own people, the small child I sat next to began to cry. My thoughts went into lightning reverse as though struck by a great anger at the same time hope and gladness:

Children of Africa thrown
Out but given a throne:
Westminster broad and wide;
In knowledge good and wise
An experience broad and deep
And makes them glad and weep_

I stopped the song and prepared for the next speaker of the debate on democracy and elections in Africa.