We need to encourage our army

Fonka Muta Beau-Bernard

- Fonka Muta Beau-Bernard, journalist (CRTV)
What significance do you give to this demonstration today?
Our objective was simply to bring Cameroonians both old and young, from North, South, East and West together, to express solidarity with the soldiers and pay tribute to them for the sacrifices they are making dying on the battle field for our sake, as they resist the Boko Haram insurgency in the Far North. We felt that if we don’t do something to show our appreciation for the sacrifices they are making it would be ingratitude on our part and we will not be encouraging them to do even more. Our objective was also to boost their morale; to make them know that the whole country is behind them. It was our own way of rallying Cameroonians to say thank you to our defence forces.

Some commentators said the journalists’ role is to report the war, to inform and create awareness among the citizens and not to organize public demonstrations as you have done today. How do you react to thus?

Those who say so may have a point. But they should also know that the journalist is also a citizen and as citizens we have to be patriotic to our country and its institutions. Most of the organizers of this demonstration are reporters; and whenever we go to the battle front to cover the war we put on our caps as journalists and put aside all else. We report the facts as they are, without bias and without any influence from politics or whatever. But we realised that the civil society in our country is not playing its role adequately; we thought that the civil society needed some kind of push. It is that push that we tried to give today, and you can see that the mobilization was fantastic; the objective was attained.

Some others said the march was a way of getting Cameroonians to plebiscite President Paul Biya as the man for the Boko Haram situation?
Well, fortunately or unfortunately for Cameroonians, President Paul Biya is the commander-in-chief of the armed forces at this time of the Boko Haram war, and whether we like it or not he is the guy calling the shots. In fact he is truly the man for the moment. But that was not the point we wanted to make in our demonstration. If you observed and listened well you realized that we never intoned songs that projected the name of any particular person; we chanted songs that were typical of Cameroon as a nation; songs that could serve as a moral booster to the armed forces. I think plebisciting the head of state who is also the commander of the armed forces is not a wrong thing to do. But we did not do that during our march. We were out only to encourage our soldiers on the war front and we did only that.

Were you satisfied after the march? he Did you meet your set target especially in terms of popular participation?
I hasten to say yes. We are very satisfied. You could see the enthusiasm of the crowds that came out to march; you saw how they scrambled for T-shirts and other gadgets that we provided. In fact we were simply overwhelmed. It is true we could not provide T-shirts and other gadgets for every body that came. But judging from the diversity of the participants, judging from their enthusiasm and their great numbers we really think that the objective was attained. True, it could have been better organized. But you know that we are only journalists and we are not experts in organizing public demonstrations. But I think this first try was not a bad try.