Arguments in Defense of the US Ambassador
Rather than castigate the US Ambassador for advising Biya
to step down after 36 years in power, Cameroonians should hail Ambassador
Barlerin for speaking truth to power. It’s time for Biya to go.
By Ekinneh Agbaw-Ebai, Boston, USA
 |
| US Ambassador, Peter Henry Barlerin |
If there ever was any doubt about the abysmal level to
which governance or leadership in Cameroon has fallen and how small the minds
are in very high places, the utterly reckless and bizarre response to the US
Ambassador, Peter Henry Barlerin, for advising President Biya to think about
his legacy; a move interpreted by Yaoundé as a call for Biya to step down, is a
melodrama which speaks to the intemperate desperation of Cameroon’s vampire
elite in their quest for Biya to remain in power, and provide cannon fodder for
their bare-face corruption and pillage of the nation’s wealth. In a release
after an audience with President Biya at the Unity Palace last May 17, the US
envoy said: “…the President and I discussed upcoming elections. I suggested to
the President that he should be thinking about his legacy and how he wants to
be remembered in the history books to be read by generations to come, and
proposed that George Washington and Nelson Mandela were excellent models.”
While
lamenting the absence of dialogue which has escalated the Anglophone crisis,
Ambassador Barlerin indicted security forces for “targeted killings, detentions
without access to legal support, family, or the Red Cross, and burning and
looting of villages.”Jolted by self-righteous indignation and a mundane craving
to ingratiate themselves to the corridors of power, gaffing, goofing, dilatory
goons, masquerading as intellectuals and opinion leaders; including fifth
columnists and sundry regime apologists, took to the airwaves to castigate the
Ambassador; casting banal, vituperative aspersions on his person and declaring
him, persona non-grata.
The bile
and vitriol, including the obnoxious threat by one Banda Kani; who on live TV,
said Ambassador Barlerin will return to America in a coffin, is a diplomatic
sacrilege that does not edify Cameroon as a nation. Cameroon deserves better.
The
impropriety of inflaming primordial sentiments against a resident ambassador is
simply mind-boggling and inexcusable. And never again should it happen! The attacks,
like the sycophants behind them, are not only pathetic; they are cheap and only
reinforce Cameroon’s image as a banana republic with highly dysfunctional
institutions where bizarre things can happen. In the event, the civic
callousness by self-seeking morons who plumbed the abyss of diplomatic
rascality and drag the nation to a hitherto unprecedented low; did a great
disservice to the nation. This is a shame and Cameroonians deserve full
explanation for this embarrassment.
On the
face of it, there is nothing the Ambassador said that has not been in the
domain of public discourse. Images of arrests, torture, executions and burning
of Anglophone villages have gone viral on social media. It also does not
require a rocket scientist to figure out that Biya is tired. At 85, Biya is far
on the left side of the average age of African Presidents which is 63; that’s
pension time, or nearing it, in most countries. Put in context, the European
equivalent is 55; which is also the average age of American presidents at their
inauguration. Since taking office in 1982, Biya has seen five French presidents
including Francois Mitterrand, Jacques Chirac, Nicolas Sarkozy, Francois
Hollande and Emmanuel Macron. In the same period, Americans have elected six
different presidents – Ronald Reagan, George H Bush, Bill Clinton, George W
Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump. Biya is also Africa’s oldest president and
the second longest- serving ruler; behind Equatorial Guinea’s Obiang Nguema, in
power for 38 years.
The
president’s frequent trips abroad for medical tourism continue to fuel
speculations about his failing health. Keen observers can determine Biya is
showing more wear and tear mostly in the wrinkles on his face; the
deterioration in his husky voice; the alleged diapers, uncontrollable
flatulence and the declining swagger of his gait as witnessed during official
outings when he can barely walk. Biya now cuts the picture of an isolated man,
frail, distraught, distracted and completely out of touch. Honestly speaking, to
vilify the US Ambassador for advising an 85-year-old president to step down,
after 36 years, is a travesty that insults and diminishes even Biya’s own
person.
Beyond
the specifics of avuncular admonition and verbal castigation, the assault on
Barlerin is nothing more than self-seeking, ignominious, whimsical and
disdainful diplomatic brigandage; more so as it transcends the fine line
between free speech and hate speech. Those sycophants, who saw Barlerin’s
statement as an attack on their power and unearned privileges, must be told in
whatever language they understand that Biya, like every mortal, will eventually
die but Cameroon will continue to exist! They should therefore critically
examine the issue of presidential succession raised rather than waste time
venting needless ad hominems in the public space.
Of
course, the reckless behavior of Cameroon’s ruling elite which caused the US
envoy to speak truth to power as he did, are well known. A gang of tired old
kleptocrats tottering on the borders of senile decay have captured and taken
the nation hostage and are stealing the people blind. Cameroon is about the
only country in the world where noble minds are ruled by ignoble characters;
where thieves get national honors, public servants get paid to steal, and law
enforcement officials are venerated for breaking the law.
Despite
its potential for greatness, Cameroon has aimlessly drifted to become a nation
of unimaginable depravity: a forsaken nation ridden with corruption and
institutionalized banditry, a people dehumanized by widespread poverty and
decrepit infrastructure; and one bedeviled by tribalism, thriving opportunism
and heightened insecurity. At the head of the crime syndicate called CPDM, is
Paul Biya who cares not one whit about the future of the country; he only wants
to be president.
Biya has
denigrated the presidency, transforming it into a clannish swindle and so far
as one can tell, his only visible strategy is just power without a purpose. It
will take a man and half to end the nation’s drift and Biya’s inability to lead
illustrates a poor dimension of presidential stature and the amplification of
the absence of leadership example, from a president who has nothing more to
offer Cameroonians.
The
point must however be made with emphasis that every nation that respects
international law has a duty as well, in its very own interest, to seek the
socio-economic and political stability of its host nation. Unlike
Franco-Cameroon relations with a parasitic reverse umbilical cord, in which the
mother (France) feeds fat on the fetus (Cameroon), US assistance to Cameroon is
a one-way traffic. The US is Cameroon’s leading investor, through the
Chad-Cameroon oil pipeline project. US food assistance since 2016 stands at
over $80 million. From 2015 to present, US military aid to Cameroon is
$192,417,258; (FCFA 110 bn), according to data from Security Assistance
Monitor.
Presently,
there are over 300 American military personnel and civilian contractors in the
Salak military base near Maroua helping the government fight Boko Haram.
Through the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the US
provides millions of dollars for free anti-retroviral drugs for HIV/AIDS
patients. American Peace Corps volunteers leave the comfort of their home
country to work in the most remote hinterlands, where even Cameroonians refuse
to go and work. Cameroon also enjoys preferential trade benefits under the
African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA); exporting goods, tariffs free to the
US market. Certainly, antagonizing the USA is a strategic mistake that cannot
be in the national interest.
While
some will dismiss the odious, desultory and even comical hubris from the
president’s men, the deafening silence of the presidency in the face of the
brazen callousness, audacity and debauchment of the US diplomat is an affront
to the nation and all Cameroonians must hide their heads in shame, even as they
wonder how their government can be so imprudent. If Yaoundé saw anything wrong
with the threats to kill the US ambassador, it has taken them too long to make
this known! The animus and intemperate verbiage reeking of self-righteous
indignation, directed at Ambassador Barlerin, who spoke the minds of a majority
of Cameroonians is not the most ideal way to promote friendly relations, which
is one of the functions of adroit diplomacy.
It has also been reasonably argued that
Barlerin should not have made public his private discussions with Biya, for
doing so suggests bad faith and risked inciting the public against the regime.
But even if Barlerin’s statement amounted to interference, contrary to Article
41(1) of the Vienna Convention, a more dignified and mature response would be
to resolve the issues diplomatically through the Ministry of External
Relations. That is statesmanship.
If Biya
had any sense of patriotism and respect for democracy; if Biya was not so
bereft of integrity as to change the constitution to engender his life
presidency; if Biya had not gone cap in hand begging for handouts from America
and other nations; if Cameroon wasn’t embroiled in governance anomie, surely
there would be no reason for foreigners to define terms on which Cameroon
should be governed.
The fact
that Biya has reduced the Anglophone regions to killing fields challenges our
common humanity and it would have been a dereliction of duty if Ambassador
Barlerin had not called out the Biya regime for the genocide and crimes against
humanity.
Therefore,
rather than waste time hurling insults at the US diplomat for speaking truth to
power, all patriotic Cameroonians should hail Ambassador Barlerin for acting as
a self-imposed moral ombudsman and conscience of a drifting nation. However
ill-conceived the Ambassador’s statement might be in content and delivery, it
is once again another reminder that history is beckoning on Paul Biya and
giving him a chance at winning the battle for both self-redemption and national
rebirth. The choice is patently Biya’s to make.
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