Pepperdine Global Justice Program

Cameroon: The United States supporting Human Rights in Cameroon

The Global Network for Good Governance (GNGG) is a homegrown Cameroonian NGO fighting for human rights and against corruption.  The fact this organization was created by Cameroonians was one of the things that drew me to them in the first place.   It is one thing for an international organization to drop in and try to tell people what their problems are and how they should fix them, but I think it is much more important that a people take a stand for themselves.  But as such, GNGG's resources are extremely limited and they need all the support they can get.  So, I thought it a good idea that we get in touch with the largest and most powerful supporter of human rights and good governance in the world, the United States government. 

I contacted the Embassy and arranged for us to have a meeting with members of the Political and Public Affairs Sections' staff.  On Tuesday, we made the 5 hour trip from the English-speaking South West Province to the French-speaking capital of Yaounde to spend the night in preparation for our Weds. morning meeting.  On the trip, I got my first look at the main urban areas of Cameroon, Douala and Yaounde.  Urbanization is becoming a large problem for Africa as young men leave the rural areas for the cities looking for better opportunities which often aren’t there, leaving them living packed together in slums.  Parts of Douala in particular were unlike anything I’ve ever seen.

On Weds. morning we made our way to Avenue Rosa Parks and the U.S. Embassy.  The meeting went pretty much as I expected.  We met with the Deputy Chief for the Political Section and the Information Officer.  Secretary General of GNGG, Magistrate Justice Mukete Tahle Itoe introduced us and the work of GNGG.  I then made a presentation of my good governance and anti-corruption education program.  After which, the Embassy staff expressed their full support for our efforts and encouraged us to keep fighting.

I never expected the Embassy was going to be prepared to support any of our programs financially, but we did put GNGG more on their radar.  The organization is now a part of the Embassy’s official network of NGO’s.  I think in the future, as more project funding becomes available, GNGG will have an excellent shot at being rewarded.

The Embassy was particularly interested in the fact that I was from Pepperdine.  There is almost zero U.S. legal presence and plenty of need for a whole host of issues: child labor and trafficking, U.S. asylum law, female genital mutilation, to simple advisement on the American legal system.  The Embassy expressed a great deal of interest and support for a continued relationship with Pepperdine in Cameroon.  I hope that this is something that I can help facilitate as Cameroon and GNGG offer a wide range of issues for Pepperdine students to work through.  I hope that my coming here will be the beginning of a lasting partnership between Pepperdine, GNGG and the United States.  To Change the World, You Start with One Step. 

- Joe Groff

Cameroon: the Youth need Empowerment

 

The date is Monday April 27th, the date of my first school visit to hold a lecture/discussion on good governance and the fight against corruption.  I started out in a familiar location, a school in my home base town of Tiko, Cameroon.  The proprietor of the school is my roommate and colleague's landlord, neighbor and friend, Mr. Mbu Steven or "PaMbu".  The Imperial Academy of Arts and Sciences (IMPAAS) is right around the corner from where we live and I see the students pass every day after class lets out.  Monday was the first time I would address them.

I didn't know what to expect for this first session.  Would the students listen?  Would they care? Would the even be able to understand the words coming out of my mouth?  I walked into an amphitheather setting.  Much larger than I would have expected.  Students were milling about.  Some were already seated, but spread out and high up towards the back.  I took a little while for one of the administrators to round them up.  I told them I wouldn't bite and asked that they bring it in closer.  My colleague Prince Fotabong Christian, "Chris",  introduced us and our organization and handed it over to me.  The students were a bit restless and chatty. 

I tried to start, but there was a lot of whispering and giggling.  I later learned that for most of them, I was the first white they had ever seen in person.  One said to "Chris" that I needed an interpreter.  I am now worried that this could be a huge problem for my entire education program.  I slowed it down and spoke as simply and clearly as I could.  I began to reel them in.  I engaged them with simple questions.  "Who loves Cameroon? Who is proud to be from Cameroon?"  They all responded resoundingly in the affirmative.  I told them how happy I was to be there and how wonderful everyone has been to me since I arrived.  I asked them to identify the problems in their country.  The first was unemployment.  The rest were all forms of corruption.  This was my point exactly.  Corruption is at the core of all of Cameroon's troubles. 

I proceeded through my presentation with the passionate and attentive eyes of the majority of them watching me.  We discussed the forms of corruption, identified all of its consequences from the loss of billions of Central African Francs a year, to the loss of foreign investment and the jobs it would bring, to the simple social consequence of not being able to trust your countrymen.  They told me it makes them sad, and you can see it in their eyes, the frustration, the hopelessness. 

That is why at the core of my presentation is the simple motivation and reason why I chose to address students, that they are the next generation of leaders and it is up to them to stop the madness.  They need to feel empowered.  Right now, they feel powerless to change anything.  I tell them that they need to erase the words "I can't" from their vocabulary.  If you say "I can't" then you won't.  The most important thing for them is to keep that spirit that they can affect change and to never give up.  To have the determination to try and try again.  "You only fail, when you fail to try".  If one door closes, try another.  All basic lessons in positive attitude, determination and hard work.  But no one else tells them this.

At the end of the program, after a lot of talk about corruption, I did Q&A.  At the end, one girl was shaking her head.  She said its useless, she "can't" do anything about this.  I was pleased when many of her colleagues were upset by this comment.  They knew what I was going to say because I had said it at the beginning.  I said again, if you say you "can't" then you won't.  Nothing will change.  The world's problems may seem impossible, too big for any one person to do anything about.  But we have to try and keep trying until we achieve the results we want. We must unite.  We will never achieve anything unless we try.  To Change the World, you Start with One Step. 

- Joe Groff

Cameroon: Lessons in Human Rights and Good Governance

My name is Joe Groff and I am a 3L at Pepperdine University’s  School of Law.  I am currently in the African country of Cameroon working with a human rights and democracy organization called the Global Network for Good Governance (GNGG).  We are based in the seaside town of Limbe in the English-speaking South West Province.  I wanted to take this opportunity to share some basic information about Cameroonand the reasons why I chose to come and volunteer for five weeks. 

Cameroon was initially colonized by the Germans in the late 19^th century, but was almost immediately conceded to the Western powers at the end of the first World War.  The majority of the country became a French colony, while the two provinces that form Southern Cameroons fell under a British protectorate.  They remained this way until 1960 when the Republic of Cameroon declared independence from France, followed shortly thereafter by Southern Cameroons in 1961 when the two united and federated under the name the United Republic of Cameroon.  The government has since been transformed into a unitary democracy, dominated by one political party, the predominately Francophone, Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement (CPDM), led by President Paul Biya, who has held the post for the last 27 years. 

But Cameroon is hardly democratic.  Pres. Biya has virtually full control of every organ of the state, including the Election Commission (ELECAM).  Politics are dominated by the Francophone population to the exclusion of the Muslim North and the Anglophone NW and SW provinces.  Corruption is rife throughout every level of government and government owned businesses, of which there are plenty.   Bribery is a fact of life here if you want anything that requires government documentation to get done.

Top Five Fun Facts about Cameroonian government:

1) Pres. Biya spends the majority of the year outside of Cameroon (200-250 days), primarily in France.  So much so, that the French one year warned him that if he didn’t go back within the week that he was going to constitutionally lose the presidency.

2) Biya has the discretion to determine how many members of Parliament will represent certain areas of the country.  His home region of about 330,000 people is represented by 11 members of Parliament.  The entire Anglophone South West Province, population 3.4m, has 9 members.  For those of you doing the math, that is 10x as many people and 2 less representatives. 

3) To change the Cameroon Constitution to allow him to run for another 7-year term of office in 2011, he merely had to have Parliamentary approval.  Those would be the same folks that he gerrymandered into office. 

4) Election officials have changed the results of elections right in front of opposition candidates.

5) Political opponents are jailed on a regular basis, particularly on the day of a planned protest. 

I came across GNGG’s website and was interested in their dual goals of addressing human rights and democratic reform.  They have put together a terrific Human Rights and Democracy Training Manual implemented at a number of  Secondary and High Schools (approx. ages 11-18).  I proposed as a complement to that education program that I would come and try to help them establish a Student Government Program for these same children.  With corruption as systemic and widespread as it is here, I believe the best chance for change is to teach young people how to reject these practices through education and practice.  This program will hopefully inspire a new generation of leaders, active citizens who care about transparency and accountability.  We hope to provide them with a modest budget in order for them to come to a consensus and conduct a community service project.  In addition they will be encouraged to organize student volunteer days and draft resolutions expressing their opinions and concerns regarding public issues and forwarding them on to their public officials. 

Five weeks is such a short time to try to address such a large problem, but we hope to build a sustainable program that can be carried on by the GNGG’s Youth Empowerment Officer.  To Change the World, You Start with One Step. 

 

- Joe Groff

Hoping to See a Free Burma

by Tanya Kiatkulpiboone (JD '10)

While I expected this Spring Break trip to be eye-opening, busy, and worthwhile, I could never have imagined how impactful it would be on my world view or how it would cause me to reflect internally on a daily basis.

Our itinerary seemed endless. I learned something new every day; we attended a Karin church service inside the Mae La refugee camp, took a trip to the Mae Sot provincial dump (where people actually made their homes out of and lived adjacent to the dump), interviewed some detainees at a UNHC holding center, and volunteered at a daycare center for children whose parent(s) were undocumented or worked the red light district. Among all of our experiences, nothing was more vivid to me than our meeting with the underground drafters of a possible new Burma Constitution.

My understanding of Burma was scant, much less any knowledge of a deep Burmese desire for “real” Democracy. When we met the drafters of a prototype New Burma Constitution, they were so excited to share their enthusiasm for the potential it could hold. The drafters had been working on the Constitution for years. They believe that the Constitution will be an essential tool for transitioning their country back to their sustainable and thriving home as it once was, when the military regime falls. When. That is the million dollar question.

Currently, the military regime or SPDC (State Peace and Development Council) wields complete power in Burma; they rule by oppression and destruction of the various ethnic Burmese groups including the Chin, Shan, Kachin, Mo, Karin, and Arakut. The crimes they commit amount to genocide. As a result, many ethnic Burmese have sought asylum in Thailand and abroad. The drafters themselves escaped to Thailand, and while the drafters seemed optimistic that they will see the end of the military regime, it was difficult for them to articulate the steps necessary f6r that outcome. Instead, they chose to focus on their Constitution implementation project; promoting their drafts at ethnic group summits and contemplating how they would distribute underground copies to those who still face daily strife in Burma.

Although a timeframe for action was lacking, the drafters seemed to anticipate upcoming elections. It was clear that the drafters Lu will not formally support any ethnic group nominee for the 2010 Parliamentary Election because it is logistically governed by the SPDC-instituted constitution which is supposedly classified as “democratic” but reservedly so only for Burma Proper. So while they cannot condone any ethnic group candidate(s) who will abide by the rules of a political process put in place by an illegitimate authority, they do recognize that one or a few seats in Parliament could be positive or even helpful. Ultimately, however, they will continue to focus on their primary goal of pre-drafting one federal constitution and multiple ethnic state constitutions for the day Burmese military rule is dismembered. Ideally, these drafters are hopeful that relief to Burma will be manifested in a three-fold approach: (1) international awareness on the Burma situation will grow exponentially, (2) democratic forces within Burma and international entities would work together to bring down the military rule, and (3) the new constitution will already be sanctified by the ethnic groups and ready for implementation.

While the dynamics of the Burma problem are tremendous, through this trip, I came to learn and appreciate the people in various organizations dedicated to the cause of fighting modern era evils. I hope to see a free Burma within my lifetime.