Environment
Straddling the equator on the western coast of Africa, Cameroon shares a long north-western border with Nigeria, a north-eastern border with Chad, an eastern border with the Central African Republic, a south-eastern border with the Republic of Congo (Congo-Brazzaville), and southern borders with Gabon and Equatorial Guinea. The western coastal plain receives heavy rainfall and is heavily forested. Mt Cameroon, an active volcano, is the highest point in West Africa and lies along the northern coast. Other highlands extend from there, along the Nigerian border and into northern Cameroon. Central plateaus are savannah grasslands. Large areas of Cameroon have fertile soils exploited for farming and the country has modest oil reserves.
History
The first inhabitants of Cameroon were hunter-gatherer groups such as the Ba’Aka. Bantu speaking groups followed. Peuhl moved into the north of present-day Cameroon beginning late in the 18th century. The Peuhl captured many Kirdi for sale through the trans-Saharan slave trade and introduced Islam.
Europeans first arrived in the south in the 16th century, establishing trading posts along the coast and sending southerners into slavery across the Atlantic.
Germany established a protectorate of Kamerun in 1884, sparking resistance from many local peoples. The territory was divided between Britain and France after Germany’s defeat in World War I under the auspices of the League of Nations. British Cameroon, in the north, was ruled from Lagos, Nigeria, while French Cameroon, which made up 80 per cent of the territory, was divided among other French colonies, with a remnant ruled from today’s capital, Yaoundé. Britain abolished forced labour, but France continued to use forced labour for the production of cash crops until after World War II.
An armed rebellion against French rule, espousing Marxist ideology, erupted in 1955. The Bamiléké and Bassa ethnic groups were at the centre of the Union of the Peoples of Cameroon (UPC). The conflict continued into the post-independence era and cost many thousands of lives.
French Cameroon gained independence in 1960 as the Republic of Cameroon. The following year, the people in the northern part of British Cameroon, mostly Muslims, voted to join Nigeria in a referendum sponsored by the United Nations. The southern part of British Cameroon, home to mostly Christians, opted to join Cameroon, now called the Federal Republic of Cameroon. Under the 24-year rule of the country’s first president, Ahmadou Ahidjo, a Peuhl from the north, various ethnic groups vied for power through his patronage network. Ahidjo established one-party rule in 1966, and put down the last of the UPC rebellion by 1970. A constitutional amendment in 1972 ended the federal system and renamed the country the ‘United Republic of Cameroon’.
Ahidjo resigned in 1982, handing power to his prime minister, Paul Biya – an ethnic Bulu. However, Ahidjo loyalists attempted a coup two years later, and its failure led him to flee the country. In 1984, Biya changed the name of the country back to ‘Republic of Cameroon’ and won elections in which he was the only candidate. He has remained in power ever since. In 2008, the Cameroon parliament passed a controversial constitutional amendment removing the previous two-term limit, allowing Biya to run for a third term in 2011. While he has received over 70 per cent of the vote in the last several elections, the opposition and international observers have alleged widespread irregularities. Biya has maintained close ties with France.
President Biya’s ethnic group, the Bulu, has dominated politics and the military. Beyond the exclusion of other ethnic groups, Biya has favoured Francophones over Anglophones. In the 1990s, in the face of increasing hostility and repression by central government, Anglophone pressure groups persisted in challenging their second-class status and calling for greater regional autonomy. A group called the Southern Cameroon National Council even called for the secession of the country’s two southern, English-speaking provinces, and was promptly banned.
Governance
Cameroon has been run by two presidents and a single party since independence. President Paul Biya, in power for over thirty years, was most recently elected in 2011; his party retained a majority of seats in the last legislative elections, held in 2013. The President appoints governors, local officials, judges and over 60 cabinet ministers. He also oversees other elements of a vast patronage network, appointing and firing the heads of over 100 large state companies. The National Assembly has no authority, and the judiciary is subject to orders from the President’s Ministry of Justice. Cameroon is reportedly greatly affected by corruption and there are no reliable guarantees of civil liberties.
The oil-rich Bakassi peninsula has long been a source of conflict with neighbouring Nigeria. In 2002 the International Court of Justice recognized Cameroonian sovereignty there, but Nigerian troops continued to occupy it until 2006.
Ahead of legislative elections in April 2013, Mbororo and traditional forest-dwelling groups as well as members of the Montagnard (also known as ‘Kirdi’) minorities from the northern highlands reportedly criticized political parties for not honouring previous commitments to field minority candidates. They urged the President, who has the right to appoint some legislators, to name minority representatives.
An official study aimed at specifying criteria for identifying indigenous peoples in Cameroon is underway, but criticisms around its lack of involvement with the communities themselves have been repeatedly raised.