Is Cameroon’s Peace Stable and Sustainable or Fragile and Quizzical?
When Cameroon’s taxi and transport drivers syndicate launched a strike on the Monday 25th February 2008 to express their discontent and call for an immediate dwindling of the hike in the price of fuel at the pump stations, many people thought it was to be transient and that activities had to continue normally the next day. This was not the situation for it was just a trigger move than span to provide an avenue for the mass of Cameroonians that live in misery, marginalization and all forms of injustice to go down the streets with much anger to exhume their discontent with the present regimes ill management of the state.

The youths that formed the majority of the discontented population were visibly seen with many very violent in destroying some public utilities that represent to them symbols of the corrupt and spoilt regime in place. Unofficial sources say more than 100 people lost their lives in clashes between demonstrators and police in Cameroon during the strike that ran from the 25th to the 29th February 2008. This strike against a rise in fuel prices and protests at a general high cost of essential products (rice,

flour, cooking oil a few to cite) happen together with political opposition to a proposal that would enable President Paul Biya, in power since 1982, to run for another term in 2011. In one incident, a group of demonstrators were trapped on the Wouri Bridge (in Douala) between security forces stationed at both ends. Many people leapt into the water. Eighteen bodies have been recovered. But fishermen have been threatened, if they talk.

Cameroon has experienced peace for a considerably long period (about 17years). But this peace and stability that has been a good reference for other countries in Africa and the world is becoming fragile at the real look of things. Such a situation could be accounted for by the existing undemocratic and corrupt machinery at the heart of the regime in place. Greed overrides common interest in Cameroon. We have handful cobalt of persons that live in enormous wealth and happiness at the expense of the masses who live in abject penury and no hope. This cobalt put everything in place to maintain the regime so as to continuously profit while giving the impression to the president that all is well with Cameroon.

The truth is that Mr. Paul Biya does not know his people, how they subsist. In fact, he is far from where the shoe is pinching them. Today Cameroon’s peace is very quizzical if something is not done to improve on the lives of Cameroonians and the youths that have been totally left out and abandoned. In Cameroon there is nothing that covers youth empowerment in Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper. (PRSP). There is no youth policy in place. This strike, many youths say is just a tip of an iceberg. So let us commonly work for peace. Christian Phuebong T.