'Cameroon is Cameroon'

Cameroon's government, jittery about the role of social media in revolutions in North Africa, last week suspended Twitter SMS on a local cellphone network. Not everyone are convinced social media will play a decisive role in any opposition movement against President Paul Biya's 28-year regime. Instead they cite the regime's ability to divide and buy off opposition figures, police repression, his overseas PR (see the picture above also),  and the opposition's tendency to handicap itself, as more important factors. Observers (I asked around and checked out Cameroon-themed blogs and news sites for the last two weeks) point to the February 23 national day of protest. Biya's government has failed its citizens (40% of Cameroonians live on less than 1$ per day; half of the country's people do not have access to drinking water, 50% have no access to electricity or to a flush toilet), and they expected thousands to turn up in major cities. Only a handful turned up in the capital Yaoundé. They were clearly outnumbered by police. Police reserved their abuse for opposition leader Kah Walla (see video footage and images taken with a cellphone camera) who they singled out for a vicious beating with batons, kicked around, and then sprayed with a water canon from an armoured vehicle.  The protests were handicapped from the start. The two largest opposition parties did not endorse the protests, distrust Kah Walla (she used to the party secretary general of one of these parties before she challenged the octogenarian leader John Fru Ndi); one leader calling her a "young lady" (just what Biaya prefers). Regional politics also play a role: most English speakers see no part in reform politics. There is consensus that Kah Walla is not as embedded as the traditional opposition; nevertheless, most observers praised her courage and defiance.