The Case for the "New Cameroon" and the "New Africa"

Paul Biya of Cameroon is regarded in many patriotic circles as an “SOB” for exploiting and allowing his country to be exploited by foreign interests in such a detached manner, leaving Cameroon today as a beggar nation, but he is France’s “Son of a B....” all right, and one accepted by France’s political allies and the economic powers that be in Africa. Unlike Gadhafi who was not the “Son of B…” of any of the world powers, and so was expendable---given the resources that Libya had; Biya and the system his masters put in place with the tacit or open support of western powers will be defended by France. The worst that the French can do is ease him out of power as they did to his predecessor Ahmadou Ahidjo, and then put in place another puppet that would sustain the six-decade old system they put in place in Cameroon.

As Howard W. French wrote in an article published in February 28, 1995, Herman Cohen, a former Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs stated that, "The U.S. policy was very explicit, giving major responsibility for Africa in global terms to the major metropolitan powers…The problem with the French, is that they never believed it, because they extended the Gaullist vision of the U.S. as an imperialist power in Europe into Africa."

Howard W. French, the author of  "A Continent for the Taking: The Tragedy and Hope of Africa"  wrote in the article that “…For most of the period from the dawn of African independence in the late 1950's to the end of the cold war, the United States gave assurances that it was content to see France govern over the affairs of its former colonies as part of a sort of division of labour between Western allies that was aimed at minimizing Soviet advances in the third world…”

Today, Africa, Anglophone Africa especially, and Francophone Africa increasingly, is becoming an arena that is no longer a privilege given to the former colonial masters by an America that was contented to see Britain and France hold sway in the continent; today Africa is being increasingly scrambled for by resources-hungry China and a USA that does not want to lose out to the new scramble for Africa that the former colonial powers are powerless to prevent.

This development is something that must not be overlooked by the African civic-nationalists who understand that Africa and Africans must secure the continent’s interest so that its human and material resources gets exploited in a rational manner that ensures the development of the land and the progress and wellbeing of Africans.

Janvier Tchouteu                                                                2011

Janvier Tchouteu is the author of “FALLEN HEROES: African Leaders Whose Assassinations Disarrayed the Continent and Benefitted Foreign Interests”

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