39 (1946). Although some Cameroonians understand how the settlement works and are, therefore, able to play politics, we do not find evidence that the settlement was consciously planned. In exchange for advancing money, sponsors are promised some plots of land at the end of the process. The Cameroonian state has weakened the Bakweri politically using a divide and rule move that has been rehearsed many times with many groups in Cameroon over many years.95 The architect of the scheme, Peter Mafany Musonge, is both Bakweri and, as Prime Minister, was firmly within the leaders bloc. Each household was given three plots of land. Using this framework entails asking two key questions about our case study: how has the financing of Cameroons political settlement changed over time? Thinking outside clientelism opens this debate to these ideas. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License (. 508525. Moved Permanently. Comments on Twitter by Zubairu Wai @ZubaWai, 19 September 2021. Evidently, the replacement of the Germans by the British after WWI failed to resolve ), The dynamics of power and the rule of law: Essays on Africa and beyond (Lit Verlag, Munster, 2003), pp. Those who do invest in the land (by becoming landlords for example) are commended. Land Restitution and Conflict in Cameroon: the case of The Bakweri Among others, it is marred by corruption, a . 1833. 275294. One unanticipated consequence of the land surrender was a new practice of reviving moribund chieftaincy titles. For example, without the DOs help, the dossier of documents will make no progress between administrative offices. Despite the relative clarity of the formal land surrender process as written in government memoranda, the reality in Fako is disorderly and opaque. In the Bakweri and Bayang societies traditional justice was also used to achieve social justice and inclusion particularly given that there were no formal institutions charged with this responsibility. Most interviews were undertaken in early 2018 with some supplementary interviews in 2020 relating to the impact of the conflict on the land surrender scheme. Kwe people - Wikipedia The village is located on a hilly site in Buea Sub-Division, 2km to the north-east of Molyko a rapidly growing area of Buea. The Chiefs were from: Bokwai, Bonakanda, Wonjia, Lysoka-Wombaki, Wokeka, Woteva, Bova I, Bova II, Ewili, Likoko Membea, Bokwango, Wonyanga, and Upper Bokova. Pala-Pala competition as a vehicle of development and social change Piet Konings, Privatisation and Ethno-Regional Protest in Cameroon, Africa Spectrum 38, 1 (2003), pp. Tim Kelsall, Nicolai Schulz, William D. Ferguson, Matthias vom Hau, Sam Hickey, and Brian Levy, Political settlements and development: theory, evidence, implications (online edition, Oxford Academic, 23 June 2022), (5 September 2022) p. 77. Human and Peoples' Rights, where this matter was heard. The capital provided is less than the market value of the land they are later given. Recovering land in the future that has been legally returned and then legally sold will be challenging. Wesley Lefferts, PhD Once this accumulation process began it became self-reinforcing as the political system adapted to a new source of rents.8, As well as analysing the role of the land restitution scheme in sustaining Cameroons established political arrangements, the article also assesses how those arrangements are interpreted. Voice of America New Africa, Armed Groups attack Cameroon plantation workers, 4 November 2018, (16 July 2022). Some people hold that you should never sell land, and others that it is foolish to waste the land on farming when it could be sold and converted into cash that could then be used for education or a business. Bouddih Adams, University of Buea Land-grabbers in Police Dragnet, The Post Newspaper, No. Ambiguity over who is the recognized Chief is often part of this confusion. However, contrary to the stated ambitions of providing land for new generations of Bakweri farmers, this land surrender process has created a vibrant land market in land in Fako as the Bakweri owners to whom land is surrendered are often keen to sell it. A political settlement is an interdependent combination of a structure of power and institutions at the level of a society that is mutually compatible and also sustainable in terms of economic and political viability.24 The different groups that make up a society reach an agreement to reduce violence by behaving in predictable ways using formal and informal social norms and rules (institutions) in exchange for a share of the material and non-material benefits (rents).25 The agreement to abide by the institutions may be tacit rather than an explicit treaty but in Cameroon those who know the rules of the game are idiomatically described as those who can play politics. However, the ugly stereotype of a demonstration of our existing power." In January 2019, the Minister herself left the government and in May 2019 was ordered not to leave the country pending investigation for corruption in relation to a land deal in Douala.65. PDF Discourses of Cultural Continuity among the Bakweri of Mount - rudit The Post, Chiefs marked for Kondengui accuse colleague of betrayal: Villagers want land grabbing Chiefs jailed, No. Perhaps the subsequent abuses of the scheme could have been predicted, but the initial intention was to help some poorer Cameroonians by giving them access to land to which they had an historic claim, which they could then use as they wish. 95, Effective States and Inclusive Development Research Centre, University of Manchester, 2018). Not all the Cameroonians accepted the German annexation. Ben Page and Emile Sunjo, Africas middle class: building houses and constructing identities in the small town of Buea, Cameroon, Urban Geography 39, 1 (2018), pp. 0399, 26 September 2016, p. 7. Please stay tuned! See also Francis Tim Mbom, Biya urged to punish Chiefs scheming to grab University of Buea land, The Post Newspaper, No. Francis Nyamnjoh, Cameroon: a country united by ethnic ambition and difference, African Affairs 98, 390 (1999), pp.101118. 1. Enzalutamide remains the first-line drug for castration-resistant prostate cancer, however, tumors inevitably become resistant to enzalutamide. Consequences of Rebellion - UB Light of Truth 202225. Learning tools, flashcards, and textbook solutions | Quizlet Learning tools, flashcards, and textbook solutions | Quizlet 2019 Ngwoh Venantius Kum The history of Africa in recent years has been marked by instability in the form of separatist movements, agitations for political rights and freedoms as well as open resistance against government action. Antibiotic overuse contributes to antibiotic resistance, which is a threat to public health. However, we would also recognize that from the perspective of an analyst more familiar with a neopatrimonial approach, it is hard to see that much that is new here. Other non-Bwiteva people of Bakweri origin and a few non-Bakweri community members were also allocated land. They are closely related to Cameroon's coastal peoples (the Sawa ), particularly the Duala and Isubu . We are anticipating recruitment beginning in January 2024. In any society it is possible to distinguish between those who accept the agreement (the leaders bloc) and those who do not (the opposition bloc).26 This is known as the horizontal variable. Pala-Pala is one of their traditional events which has over the years been recreational, a uniting and social change factor among the Bakweris. It was intended as a pragmatic attempt to return some land to some Bakweri people without undermining the economic viability of the CDC. The article argues that the original intention of the land restitution scheme may have been to benefit some local communities, but it also reduced effective opposition to the national government by undermining Bakweri institutions and unity. Nicolai Schulz and Tim Kelsall, The Political Settlements dataset: an introduction with illustrative applications (Working Paper No. His forces dissolved without his charismatic leadership, and the General Assembly quickly repealed most of the liberal laws it . As a result, the land surrendered may be miles from the village claiming it. Between 1947 and 2003, several portions of CDC land were surrendered for public purposes.49 For example, the University of Buea is built on 354hectares of land originally surrendered in 1977.50 However, after the new process was introduced in 2003, the scale of surrenders increased dramatically. The National Anti-Corruption Commission (CONAC) was established in March 2006. This has meant that some followers in the periphery have some leverage over the centre as the case of the thirteen Chiefs facing prison showed. Francis Ekongang Nzame, Is the Chief of Ewili, Muea a Bakweri man or Bakossi?, The Star, 21 July 2014; Interview, Molua Patrick, Traditional Council Chairman, Lower Muea, Molyko, 14 April 2018. In contrast to earlier iterations of PS, more recent accounts have drawn attention to an ideological dimension of politics beyond clientelism.27 Initial PS theorizations took the idea that politics in African countries is organized through clientelist networks for granted, but argued that significant differences exist between countries in the way that these networks function, and these differences then shape development outcomes.28 Furthermore, unlike some earlier approaches, PS understood the emergence of clientelism not as a consequence of African culture or individual greed but by locating these practices within the context of specific colonial histories and economic structures.29 More recent elaborations of PS propose going further and suggest that non-clientelist politics informed by ideas, political commitments, and ideologies are also relevant to sustaining a political settlement.30 This dimension matters because marshalling these normative discussions can contribute to a groups capacity to organize, mobilize support, and gain legitimacy either within or against the settlement. Since 2018, the violent conflict in Anglophone Cameroon has intensified significantly, effectively halting the formal land surrender process.66 One key reason for this is that the Bakweri Chiefs, who are crucial actors in the process, have become one of the main targets for Ambazonian fighters.67 This is partly because they are seen as auxiliaries of the state and partly because (as a result of land sales) they are seen as wealthy and therefore capable of paying ransoms. Gray, Understanding and deploying the political settlement framework. We argue that land in Fako becomes incorporated into financing the national political settlement, and we use the horizontal and vertical variables as a way to understand the political effects of the land restitution scheme. PS is interested in the way that these other political debates can contribute to the capacity of some groups within the settlement to organize, mobilize support, and gain legitimacy.100 The Ambazonian conflict will continue because the civilian population, despite its suffering, remains broadly convinced of the legitimacy of the insurgents key idea. Page and Sunjo, Africas middle class; Cynthia Eno and Lawrence Fombe, Development implications of ceded lands by the Cameroon Development Corporation Fako Division South West Region of Cameroon from 1960 to 2010, Advances in Social Sciences Research 3, 11 (2016), pp. However, as the violent conflict in Anglophone Cameroon now shows, for many people the threat of state violence and the promise of some financial reward for accepting the status quo can no longer generate consent. Bakweri people - Bakweri Language and Cultural Center In the process, they founded numerous villages, usually when individual families groups split off. The . Its managerial autonomy has declined since 2016, when it was brought fully under the remit of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.45 The Board of Directors is made up almost entirely of Government appointees, including two from the Presidency. Reciprocally, securing chieftaincy titles requires an individual to align themselves with the existing political establishment. Second, my passion for descriptive linguistics as an essential component of Do umentar in uisti s, an t e assuran e to know more a out t e "m ster " an . Third, the Senior Divisional Officer (SDO) for Fako assembles a Site Board Commission to visit the proposed site and make a recommendation to approve or reject the request, which then passes to MINDCAF in Yaound. From a PS perspective, the story of Bwiteva shows how the horizontal variable in the settlement changes over time because of the land surrender policy. As the custodians of the paramountcy of Buea, we have never sought for land surrender. 3854. Funding this consent has not been cheap, but sources have generally been available although they have changed over time. The actors in this case study include all those who have any role in progressing the dossier put together by the Chief. However, any subsequent failure to honour their obligations often led to lawsuits with the sponsors. 01760, 23 September 2016, p. 8). From the foothills, they gradually spread to the coast, and up the Mungo River and the various creeks that empty into it. These political ideas about land and territory may not amount to a coherent ideological political programme, but they are not irrelevant to sustaining the settlement either. The land surrender process is not just an opportunity for corrupt individuals to enrich themselves quickly at a local level, but a story that connects this peripheral land to sustaining the national political system. The land surrender process provided a new injection of assets that opened this politically peripheral space as a source of spoils for supporters of the Government of Cameroon. Prostate cancer threatens the health of men over sixty years old, and its incidence ranks first among all urinary tumors among men. Redirecting to /core/journals/weed-science/article/abs/physiological-consequences-of-mutation-for-alsinhibitor-resistance His sincere aspirations to support some Bakweri communities by returning plantation land to them without crippling the CDC are set against his understanding that such a policy would necessarily also weaken the governments opponents in the BLCC. This study was recently funded by NIH NIHM and will be updated soon! So, the picture is mixed: the distribution of power in Cameroon is concentrated, but not unipolar. He even organized an abortive resistance against the Germans which resulted to an insurrection in December 1884 that was crushed by the German forces. 3584; Jean-Franois Mdard, The Underdeveloped state in Tropical Africa: Political clientelism or neo-patrimonialism?, in Christopher Clapham (ed. Thank you for submitting a comment on this article. Much of this land was swiftly sold to individual developers. 01803, 13 August 2017, p. 6. Materials from the Cameroonian press and official documents from the Ministry of State Property, Surveys and Land Tenure (MINDCAF) support our primary data.12. The political settlements (PS) framework is contrasted with the established approach used in the analysis of Cameroonian politics: neopatrimonialism. Phys. Rev. B 108, 064103 (2023) - Phase coexistence and resistance This distribution of power within the leaders bloc is known as the vertical variable. Government of Cameroon, CONAC, Cameroons 2018 anti-corruption status report, p. 26. Some people are debating the importance of the CDC as a national asset. Contrary to the wider government position on land ownership, the 2018 CONAC report on land grabbing in Fako states Most of the land owned by the natives (the Bakweri) is managed by the CDC, Government of Cameroon CONAC Cameroons 2018 anti-corruption status report, p. 26. If the land allocated was closer to the villages it is allocated to, then selling it would be harder. Global Hand Cameroon : BRIEF HISTORY OF THE BAKWERI PEOPLE - Blogger An investment of 5 million Communaut Financire Africaine franc (CFA) could easily lead to an allocation of five plots and a profit of eight million CFA (10,000) once land is sold. This is when the Fako Land Crisis began: 1884. Yet the idea that stability is a desirable policy outcome is repeated frequently in Cameroon and is being used to justify the sustainability of existing political arrangements. The article proceeds as follows. Interview, Chief Maole Ngale of Mokunda Village, Limbe II, 10 August 2021. The Bakweri led by chief Kuva Likinye cut off the head of The Effects of Resistance Exercise Training on Depressive Symptomology and Cerebral Blood Flow in Adults with Depression. Contrary to widely-held beliefs that the Bakweri made no effort whatsoever to resist the spoliation of their lands by the Germans, they did in fact mount a fierce anti-German campaign, particularly around the slopes of Mount Fako, and successfully inflicted a humiliating defeat on the Germans at Buea in 1891; the first ever German military loss . but how does one compensate for 400 + year of misery, discrimination and injustice. this is a clear case of african land being stolen by europeans of the past for which their present day descendants should by force ( and deemed necessary) be made to return those land or pay compensation. However, since Musonge had previously sparred with Bakweri activists claiming compensation for lost land during his attempts to privatize the CDC in the late 1990s, the wider political effect of the land surrender in weakening Bakweri opposition to the government would also have been known to him.7 In addition, the scheme also opened a space for many individuals to make money in a range of ways money that was often used to reward government allies. [3] Our chance at developing a universal language was greatly hampered by the Caligastia betrayal. Although the land was allocated in 1977, the formal process of securing a legal title began in 1993. That idea of a more mystical meaning for land remains real in Fako, even as land is simultaneously being treated as an economic good. That is the claim that Fako is all indigenous land as recognized by the colonial CDC lease, which should all be returned to the Bakweri people.91 On the one hand, the government can use the surrenders to claim to be giving Bakweri citizens the land that they have been demanding.
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