A Diplomatic Incident: The Ambassadorgate Affair

Louis Egbe Mbua

A diplomatic incident in Washington DC has taken an unexpectedly dramatic turn. Civil war erupted in the CPDM Party civil community in America as the Ambassadorgate affair degenerated into a political fist fight. There have been claims and counter claims, claims and reclaims, denunciations and counter denunciations, renouncement and counter-renouncement; proclamations and counter-proclamations, incantations and counter-incantations; coups and counter-coups, thunder and lightning that concluded with an alleged live punch and counter punch. It has all the trappings of a classic Hollywood movie drama cast complete with characters in a tragic-comedy of Shakespearean proportions.

As each opposing camp after another attempts, albeit pitifully, to extricate themselves from the unexpected and sudden quagmire, Cameroonians and indeed the entire civil community, the world over, watch the unfolding spectacle from the sidelines with undisguised glee and amusement as the antics of what looks like comedians-turned-politicians or the converse are fed to the public needle-drip by needle- drip; and drop after drop.

The entire Junta, in Cameroon, and its dependencies in the Diaspora have been thrown into complete disarray equal to an irreversible political melt-down.

It is unclear how it all began but it seems there are reliable reports, by from the local news agency NBCWashington.com, of a fracas that seemingly came to blows between the Cameroon ambassador in Washington and a group of demonstrators allegedly protesting against embezzlement within or for their payments by the Cameroon Embassy in Washington.
In the ensuing confusion, others within the Cameroon community in America allege that the leader of the protest, Mr. Mpeck, received a powerfully blinding punch from the ambassador while an innocent female on-looker, not involved in the troubles, was allegedly pushed and then rugby-tackled onto the ground by the ambassador or his minders as the story goes: depending on who you believe. To add more confusion to the story, a Cameroonian living in America claimed in the Cameroonian discussion e-group, camnetwork, that he booked an appointment with the Ambassador so as to get a gist of his own side of the story. Accordingly, the source claimed, the Ambassador claimed that he was not involved in a fight; and that he was attacked by the protesters as he left his car to enter the Cameroon Embassy grounds.

Another source claims that the Ambassador left his office to discuss with the protesters as to assuage their grievances but was greeted immediately with a barrage of well aimed stunning blows. Whoever is right or wrong in this instance is beyond one’s contemplation but the whole incident looks like a diplomatic upper-cut against the Cameroon regime and the CPDM party in the USA. How a high-ranking diplomat could have allowed himself to be dragged into a petty street fight is beyond comprehension.

Others proclaim that the Cameroon Ambassador, H.E. Foe Atangana, is a good man with impeccable diplomatic credentials and track record. They cited the Bakassi crisis saying that he was instrumental in this “success”; but then added with a bitter touch of irony and fierce humour that perhaps he honed his “fighting” skills while negotiating the “peaceful” settlement of the Bakassi confrontation between Nigeria and the Republic of Cameroon.

Whatever view is true or false in this unfortunate incident, the fact of the matter is that the Cameroon Consulates the world over have been hijacked by the ruling CPDM party who appear to believe in a strange kind of out-dated philosophy rather reminiscent of the old totalitarian Soviet Communist’s dictatorship of the proletariat: that the CPDM party is supreme, and that the Cameroon nation is second -- a normal diplomatic procedure according to this questionable ideology. The Cameroonian people, on the other hand, see it differently: that the embassy is to serve, with equity and fairness, all Cameroonians including those with dual nationality; and that the Foreign Service should not be politicised – a right judgment. So, when the ensuing imbroglio took a scandalous turn, it rapidly transformed into an acrimoniously reverting partisan quarrel; and later, a means by which the purported CPDM leaders could defend the Ambassador or the “fatherland” from this imminent disgrace from “outsiders”; as well as to save their own skin from the wrath of the concerned and angry Cameroon people.

First, there was Mrs Patience Tamfu, President of the women’s wing of the ruling CPDM ruling party in the USA, who threw the first political punch in a series of classic tactical political blunders. She came out fighting; claiming that the CPDM party is “behind” the Ambassador; thus, reinforcing the long held belief that the embassy is an appendage of the ruling CPDM junta in Cameroon; and as though to say that if a person is a member of the CPDM, he or she has the right to engage in a boxing match in the streets – a flawed mentality. To make matters worse, she went on air and evolved a faceless video with a blushingly ungrammatically ineloquent semi-marathon rant, the incantation of which could easily be identified as that of an all assuming old-guard soviet party apparatchik; and then displaying the kind of tyranny that exists in Cameroon: “warning” her imagined “liar, traitor, thief” not to be “messing around with the wrong person”; and that she is not into the “foolish nonsense”.

Then, enters Lady Kate Atabong Njeuma, also a “Big Hitter” of the CPDM-USA, who gave a rather eloquent and well-crafted “political” statement in camnetwork insinuating that the Ambassador has put in place a “strong team of lawyers”, almost certainly referring to the fighting incident. Again, her conclusions are that the Ambassador must be defended since he is of the CPDM party. In doing so, she unwittingly admits that the Ambassador was involved in the alleged altercation as reported by the local news agency NBCWashington.com. While the writer believes this to be a wise move, it again enters the mind that; had the Ambassador been an independent Cameroonian or an opposition member or a SCNC-SCAPO activist, he would have been left to hang out to dry as the CPDM has been doing to the Cameroon people for almost three decades.

And there is Dr. Emmanuel Konde, a CPDM “strategist”, who appears to be confused and almost certainly overtaken by the events, and who went on air in camnetwork blaming Cameroonians of the North West region, denouncing them as “unpatriotic” to the “fatherland”. Nobody quite understands why he did this; as no one could find a relation between the people of this part of Cameroon and the fighting incident. How he reached this unenviable misguided conclusion is any one’s guess but he appeared to claim to be a “social philosopher” in which case he had “seen” (probably by some kind of magical incantation which we do not understand) that the North west region people want to “dominate” Cameroon, and that this, clearly, is the reason they are blaming the Ambassador for involving himself in the daylight unranked boxing match in the open. Seeing that the tide is turning against the party, he quickly had the good sense to back-track, contradicted or disowned or renounced his former stance, repositioned himself, and then gave another oration blaming the CPDM party for the imbroglio. Meanwhile, he never mentioned the Ambassadorial boxing-cum-wrestling match as though he knows not why he writes.

Enter Mr. Jackson Nanje, The Publicity and Education Secretary of the CPDM USA. Interestingly, at first glance, he denounced all who condemned the incident with all kinds of words; apparently, denying that nothing happened at the Cameroon Embassy grounds in Washington, and asking readers, with unbridled confidence that: “Where you there?” When he later got the itch that he was fighting a losing uphill battle, he also went the same way as his partisan colleagues. He back-pedalled, contradicted his former pronouncements, apparently renounced his former position, and then made a dramatic U-turn to score a spectacular own-goal: penning a long-winding irrelevant and unsubstantiated expose about corruption in the CPDM , and blaming the Chairman of CPDM USA, Mr. Joe Mbu, for this confusion and corruption; and that there is tribalism within the leaders of the CPDM. Which brings us to the ultimate question: Did Mr. Joe Mbu ask the Ambassador or the protesters to exchange blows? Reading from the unfolding drama, the answer is a resounding No:

Round and around,
The doubters deep
Into the round
And swirling pond

So, let justice takes its natural course in this unfortunate and shameful affair because it is unfair to judge a man without due process.

It should be recalled that, over the years, the two gentlemen mentioned [Dr. Konde Emmanuel and Mr. Jackson Nanje] have been the chief protagonists of the oppressive regime in Cameroon; a junta that has tormented and tortured Cameroonians in this day and age. In their sayings, they have always defended the atrocities of the regime against Cameroonians – more specifically the killings of young people in the country during the February 2008 general strike; and the extra-judicial shootings of unarmed students at the Buea University demonstrations in 2005 and 2006.

More importantly, they have always called for the elimination of the SCNC, SCAPO and others who oppose the subjugation of Southern Cameroonians and the open discrimination; human rights violation and theft of their lands and resources by the Republic of Cameroon. One is pleased that they have at least acknowledged the deficiencies of the present system of government in Cameroon; and that they should join hands in making a success of the forth coming negotiations between the Republic of Cameroon and the Southern Cameroons for constitutional changes and freedom in Cameroon; and the freedom of Southern Cameroonians from the vice-grip of corrupt leadership and tyranny. Progress can only be attained when those in the dark begin to see the light at the end of the bottomless dungeon. Within light we are all free; and in darkness we are all lost.