Disorder in the House

Not long ago I wrote about the post-election violence in Kenya, arguing that what the outside world often perceives as "stability" in Africa (the absence of immediate, ongoing violence basically) automatically means that the society is basically healthy and calm and people get along. Everyone was so shocked at the violence because everyone "knew" Kenya was "stable."

I went on to say that many of the same frustrations driving the violence in Kenya were simmering away here in Cameroon, and that at some point it wouldn't surprise me if Cameroon experienced a similar meltdown.

Well, as if on cue, Cameroon just had an ugly round of civil disorder some of you may have heard about. While it was not a prominent story in the US, I heard from people back home that it did make a few papers and websites.

The trouble started around the 23rd or 24th of February. Over that weekend taxi drivers in Douala, Cameroon's largest city and economic capital, went on strike to protest gas price increases. As oil and other commodity prices rise Cameroon is getting hit with the same inflation that seems to be affecting the rest of the world now to varying degrees. And of course, new jobs are not appearing and salaries are stagnant, so people here are suffering.

Aside from economic anxiety, people are becoming increasingly frustrated with a government that does not appear to do much about any of these problems, other than steal everything that isn't nailed down. I mean, you should at least be able to get a job or some cheap gas for your bribes right?

This frustration has grown in recent months after President Biya announced that Cameroon needed to amend the constitution so he could run for another term as President. Under the current rules his presidency will end in 2011. Now it appears he's going to lift the limit (which he can easily do since the national assembly more or less does his bidding) so he can stay in power til he dies. Common pattern in Africa unfortunately. I guess the 25 years he's already been President weren't enough.

So, what started as a strike quickly merged with political frustration and turned on the regime. The strikes spread rapidly from Douala to other towns and cities and almost immediately turned violent. In Yaoundé and Douala and other areas people were burning cars, looting, breaking windows, and torching government buildings. Most of the violence appeared to be committed by unemployed young men. The government responded with a heavy hand, flooding affected areas with police and soldiers to reimpose order. I'm told that the army adopted a shoot on sight policy for rioters: no arrest, just a bullet. An unknown number of people were shot in the bigger towns.

Fortunately, it doesn't sound like the violence was ethnically motivated. Nor was it organized - just mob mentality taking over and angry people going nuts in the streets.

This continued for several days with the worst of the violence occurring on Wednesday the 26th and Thursday the 27th. Things began calming down on Friday, the 29th. The weekend was quiet, but tense, with rumors the strikes would resume the following Monday.

My village remained quiet, but some volunteers had the bad luck to be in areas that saw a good deal of rioting. Volunteer Bill has written a bit about what he saw in Buea during the riots on his blog, here, here, and here.

Naturally, Peace Corps became very concerned about this and almost immediately put us on alert. As the violence escalated, we were put on what they call "Standfast", which means pack a bag and be ready to evacuate if the situation deteriorates further. Volunteers in the Northwest province (where some of the worst violence took place) and several other areas were brought to Yaoundé to stay at the Peace Corps compound as a precaution. So, with all of us a bit nervous, we waited out a long, tense weekend. My Cameroonian friends all assured me that the violence would not resume because "Cameroonians are peaceful." As they promised though, Monday came and nothing happened.

Since then things have been pretty quiet. The soldiers have returned to their barracks and life looks pretty much like it did before the riots. Of course, the riots didn't really change anything, so who knows how "stable" this situation is.

For the moment we appear to have dodged a bullet. Let's hope we don't have to duck again.