African Geostregy Lesson n° 70 - Part 1/2 THIS IS WHY FRANCE CANNOT WIN IN THE EVENT OF A DIRECT MILITARY WITH CAMEROON, IN CAMEROON. By Jean-Paul Pougala Étienne de La Boétie, the French renaissance thinker was only eighteen years old when, in 1549, in his first book entitled Discourse on Voluntary Servitude, he states: One never regrets what one never had.” A people cannot regret what they’ve never known. Five centuries of enslavement of Africans by Europeans were very long, too long. Ive often wondered how it was possible that the Europeans were able to hold Africans captive over such a long period of time. And it was Boétie who gave me an answer. Indeed, on closer look, when the first generations of Africans were defeated and enslaved, it is natural that the second they were born, have grew up and have died in slavery. They had no way regret freedom or anything other than their servitude, their only reality. And so, after a number of generations, they stopped fighting back. Why would they? For what purpose? Since they wouldn’t even know that they were enslaved? According to La Boétie, it is quite natural that people who have never known anything but slavery serve voluntarily without regret and continue doing what their fathers would have only done under duress. And so the first reason why these men serve voluntary and that they are born serfs and are raised as such. These were the words of a 18 year-old teenager in 1549. Compare them with those of a 54 year-old French MP (Thierry Mariani) on May 6, 2014 about the kidnapping by the millenarian Islamic sect Boko Haram, about the 200 Nigerian schoolgirls and the threat of selling them; this is proof that Africans did not learn to practice slavery from Europeans. What we have here, is proof positive that, the level of intelligence of Europeans who reduced us to slavery was certainly higher than that of our ancestors who were therefore unable to defend themselves properly before the hosts’ ruse. Over time, we can also see that this level of French intelligence has deteriorated sharply if we compare La Boetie to an official of the French Republic such as Thierry Mariani, or even the head of the French state, Francois Hollande who confiscated the Embassy of the Republic of Syria in Paris, expelled the ambassador and handed it over to the Jihadists who had interrupted his holiday but now comes and promise us he’ll fight them in Iraq. Its the same man who will triumphantly announce he’ll punish Russia with economic sanctions, before discovering a month later that in Russia, no one was aware of his sanctions, among French farmers, they all can tell from the pinch in their pocketbooks that Russian President had imposed those sanctions. Over time, therefore, we can see that the European standard of reasoning is declining, while that of the African is growing by leaps and bounds even without this resulting in their genuine self-determination. But why? I had announced the title of this lesson in December 2013; I waited five long months to give this lecture at a ISMA class and 8 months to make it public. These eight months have helped me to study the impact of Voluntary Servitude to France on the population of Cameroon. The title was obvious: Cameroon would beat France in the event of a military confrontation. Over those eight months, I received countless letters mostly asking me to confirm whether it was just a joke or a provocation. In any case, all those who wrote to me were rather stunned in disbelief, confused, or curious to see by what miracle Cameroon would be able to beat France militarily. As you can see, none of these commentators will disagree that I might be right if I told them that in the age of cyber wars, a small country can bring a bigger one to its knees. Or as with the example of Afghanistan, the stronger nation isn’t always guaranteed to prevail over the weaker one. For these individuals, it is taken for granted that France would defeat Cameroon, whatever the conditions. We can therefore safely say that the real triumph that France has today on Cameroon is that psychological Cameroonians remain mentally enslaved, subjugated since birth to obeying French commands, to French order and to its laws. This validates the arguments of the Swiss philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau who wrote this in his book The Social Contract”: « The strongest is never strong enough to be always the master unless he transforms strength into right, and obedience into duty. ». Today, this right is called the Francophonie, or French school before which most of Cameroon’s intellectual elite who can afford to school their children in France stand jostling for positions. This highly successful strategy (for France) prepares the way for voluntary obedience by future generations of Cameroonian intellectuals, who, like their parents before them, cuddling a French diploma, from a prestigious school in France, will return to Cameroon and continue to perpetrate the French force in universal law and obedience to France as an absolute duty. That today, is the sad reality of voluntary servitude in almost all so-called Francophone Africa, as if marked by an indelible stamp; the submission to their master has become an integral part of Contemporary African identity. In February 2014, I was unpleasantly surprised in my meetings with the Cameroonian community at restaurants in the Château rouge district of Paris and discovering that there was one magic word on the lips of each Cameroonian counterpart who wanted to impress me or show that they amounted to something; they’d use the phrase: I have an appointment at the Elysee. For these people, the issue was never raised as to their contributions towards the policies or the economy ofr the country where they pay taxes, France. It was simply important to have attended a gala or a meeting at the Presidency of the French Republic. And French presidents did not deny them this privilege. This best explains the air of arrogance in their remarks and the condescension when they talked about Africa. The latest to date was May 11, 2014, when President Holland, speaking from Baku in the Caucasus where he was on official visit, stated that as a solution to the Boko Haram problem in Nigeria, he issued a press release offering a forum with African Heads of State to be held in Paris next Saturday or May 17, 2014, to discuss security in Africa. No sooner said than done. But, I spent hours trying to find the link between his proposal and the kidnapping of 200 high school students from Nigeria, for whom he had convened the seminar, and I have found none. Regardless, he himself knew that there was no connection, but those inviting African presidents to Paris, it was more chic and they would certainly come running, not even looking back, as we say in Cameroon. And not surprisingly, they all answered Yes sir!, like elementary school children. I began wondering if at the Elysee candy was handed out to these African pupils. President Hollande had done the same thing in December 2013 and they all came, without contributing in anyway whatsoever to preventing these security developments in Nigeria. But all that doesn’t matter, the master spoke. The same shameful scenario plays out annually to humiliate them at the G8 Summits –now G7 , and on cue, they run without looking back. This is only because someone generically promised to solve all their problems without them ever stopping to ask themselves whether the persons making those promises had successfully applied their schemes at home and help themselves in the first place. WHAT EXPLAINS THE CHILDISH SUBSERVIENCE OF SOME AFRICAN PRESIDENTS TO FRANCE? To this question, you will find none of the answers in any history book, because everything is secret, confidential. So we must use one foolproof technique historians use widely to uncover State secrets. And it works every time. This technique involves watching for the memoirs of those involved in the events in question. And luck has it that in 2004, a book was published by Editions du Seuil in Paris, with a very evocative title: Minister of Africa, by one Robert Maurice. To recognize that this is a book of the utmost importance, we must first know who this Maurice Robert was. He is a former head of SDECEE-Africa, the French secret service, and this book is not a fictional novel, but his memoirs recounting historical facts. We discover in this book how African Heads of State are controlled by France and are by no means left any elbow room. To achieve this, Robert describes his own professional life as a spy in Africa monitoring African Heads of State. He explains in his book how he succeeded: he first creates a network which he nicknamed PLR for Poste de Liaison et de Renseignement. The PLR has two functions: to train African spies in the countries where he’s assigned, but it was its secondary role that interests us, to monitor the activities of the local President of the Republic, to whom he has 24/7 access. The mere fact of having 24/7 access to African Head of State by a French spy is evidence that these leaders can under no circumstances, deviate from the line of the administration he’s beholden to in Paris or in London, since the British use the same systems to control the leaders of their former African colonies. Its also proof positive that talk about democracy in Africa is a real lure and all these debates and tensions between the ruling party and the opposition are all well orchestrated circus where everyone screams to decibels which France or the United Kingdom have approved for them beforehand. All this with its accompaniments of journalists and pseudo experts to boot explaining the elections two years before they are held as the miracle which will change everything and continuing to explain two years after the outcome that appointing this or that person to some ministerial post would delight all citizens. The French spy Robert, the real director of this entire comedy, explains in his book that he’d already decided on the outcome and that the gibberish you see all day long on television shows talking about Africa is just noise to fill airtime. Robert goes further. He explains that the operations of the PLR is overseen by a French lawyer under the cover of legal counsel to the African leader. In fact, according to Robert, his true role is to provide all appropriate legal smoke-screens with language that will preoccupy and enliven the political scene and rhythm of the African country in question. And with all this in play, how could Cameroon beat France militarily? In 2008, something happened that changed things, and this event was the economic and financial crisis. In the balance of power between the European and Africa countries, which seemed frozen between masters and slaves, the economic crisis of the 2008/2009 had the positive effect of helping to give some African countries what they lacked in courage to seize their true independence. It is in this context that Cameroon strategists would take advantage of a France weakened by the economic crisis to score points towards Cameroon’s irreversible independence from France. Their actions will lead us to truncate the quote by Rousseau to earlier on by half leaving us with the first part, that is to say: « The strongest is never strong enough to be always the master ». Through the following analyses, I will show that, between Cameroon and France, looks can be deceiving, since Cameroon’s strategists did not rest on their laurels after the first part of the quote from Rousseau. They went further and, for me, the one who epitomizes this course of action is British renaissance thinker Hobbes (1588-1679) who wrote the following in 1651 in his book on the theory of sovereignty, The Leviathan: « The weakest has strength enough to kill the strongest ». The story begins in 2007, when on May 6th , Nicolas Sarkozy came to power in France. He promised all-out to nip the Françafrique system at the bud. He went on to deliver a speech in Dakar on July 26, 2007 which would change everything. For Africans, this speech was an insult. But for many African strategists, it is rather a very good thing. And they would not miss such an opportunity. They all knew that Nicolas Sarkozy’s comments in Dakar were a misstep. And in attempts to justify himself, he was showing signs of weakness. Worse, to prove that he has been misunderstood in Dakar, the French President will multiply actions and statements to make peace with Africans. No, things would never be the same. And, paradoxically, it was this speech that would eventually be the starting point of a new liberation of Africa. Indeed, after the French president understood that he’d made arguably the biggest misstep of his political career, he will try to be more humanistic than ever towards Africans. Needless nice messages to Africa would abound: « I know that Africans despise lessons on morality.» « France does not play a watchdog role in Africa (...) I am going to revise defense agreements with Africa so they are no longer secretive ». It was that last sentence which set off warning lights in Yaoundé and Mr Sarkozy will be taken at his word. This situation of great weakness became for President Paul Biya what President Gorbachev in the Soviet Union was for Americans. The more Gorbachev wanted to prove to the Americans that he was a Democrat, the more Americans took the opportunity to weaken him until part of his country was dismantled. Mr. Biya has quickly seen that with Sarkozy, his time had come and he could eventually become a real president of Cameroon. But how? Since he had promised not to run for another term? Regardless, we go for broke. In October 2007, broadcast on French public radio RFI, he swore that a constitutional amendment [in Cameroon] was not in the agenda. But with Nicolas Sarkozy help, events would speed-up in Yaoundé. Thus, on December 31, 2007, during the televised New Years greetings to the nation, President Biya said the following: Article 6.2, which limits presidential terms to two, is a limitation on the popular will that is not consistent with the very idea of democratic choice (...) So, with this in mind, were going to review the provisions of our Constitution which should be harmonized with the recent advances in our democratic system to meet the expectations of the vast majority of our population” With that single sentence, the constitution would be amended to allow Biya to run for another 7 year term. It is the American ambassador in Yaoundé Janet Garvey who was first to decry her opposition to this possibility. It was the cables released by Wikileaks which revealed that Mrs. Garvey has spent all of 2007 and the beginning of the year 2008 at a meeting by a member of the Cameroon government to probe and ask the same question about the political succession of Mr. Biya. This clearly showed her preoccupation that Paul Biya would change the constitution and run again. Why would a so-called friendly country be so concerned about who will govern Cameroon? Regardless, the tunes had been struck and the players take to the stage and dance to the Democracy song intoned by the American ambassador in Yaoundé. Now, it was Cameroonians of all stripes who took to the streets, and, including artists who would perform the music of the American refusal. Some will even sit in the entrance of the Embassy of the United States in a hunger strike and seconding the American ambassador and calling on President Biya not to run for another term. On 23 February 2008, the main opposition party organized a protest against changing the constitution to allow Mr. Biya to stand for the Presidency of the Republic. Until February 29, the grumbling would sweep across the whole country, but this time because of a 1% increase in fuel prices. What the protesters did not know in those days was that the future of Paul Biya and of Cameroon as a whole was beginning to play out a few thousand miles farther south. On Feb. 28, 2008, before the South African Parliament in Cape Town, French President Nicolas Sarkozy made a speech before the South African Parliament where he officially announced the revision of France’s military agreements in so-called Francophone Africa. He would recite his catchphrase: « France does not play a watchdog role in Africa (...) I am going to revise defense agreements with Africa so they are no longer secretive ». His South African counterpart, President Thabo Mbeki, nearing his term in office, would welcome his announcement warmly, but would add a killer sentence to that comment: Its part of the result of the decolonization process in Africa.A statement which reveals that African countries, despite having gained independence in the 1960s, have never really been so. And well see why later. But why can such an announcement change the future of Cameroon? And what would strategists in Yaoundé do? To answer these questions, lets look at history. THE MILITARY DEFENSE AGREEMENTS BETWEEN FRANCE AND CAMEROON In his book The Bamileke in Cameroon: Ostracism and Underdevelopment on page 159, Thomas Tchatchoua paints a very tragic setup, rich in detail, though sad, in which Amadou Ahidjo signed all post-independence agreements with France, including the famous military agreements. This only happened after all Cameroonians who were with Ahidjo had been sidelined; all the advisers involved in negotiating the agreements with France were French. So, according to this source, the defense agreements between Cameroon and France had been negotiated, on the Cameroonian side, by two Frenchmen: Jacques Rousseau and Georges Becquey. That is to say France negotiated the future of Cameroon with 2 Frenchmen representing Cameroon. A veritable circus. And what do these confidential defense agreements between Cameroon and France stipulate? Under these agreements, in exchange for military protection by France, it was imposed that Cameroon must follow some of these guidelines: a) Inform France about what policies Cameroon politicians intend to follow with regard to raw materials and strategic products, as well as measures they propose to take for the implementation of this policy; b) Facilitate, for the benefit of the French armed forces, storage of raw materials and strategic products; and when the defense interests require, restrict or prohibit their export to other countries; c) Cameroon must prioritize the sale of its strategic raw materials and products to the French Republic, after meeting the needs of domestic consumption, and also purchase any supplies primarily from France, etc. These confidential agreements even mention a list of so-called strategic raw materials which would defacto belong to France if they are discovered in the ground under Cameroon, including: liquid and gaseous hydrocarbons, uranium, thorium, lithium, beryllium, helium, etc. Fearing that in the future science might identify certain minerals that were not on the list, France was careful to indicate that this list could go on and on without much complication, adding that: changes to this list will be through exchange of letters between the contracting parties. Put simply, with these agreements signed by two Frenchmen under President Amadou Ahidjo in 1960 and renewed in 1974, the sub-oil of Cameroon belonged to France. It will be understood only much later that even what was above ground also belonged to France, such as plantations of coffee and cocoa, where the risk of imprisonment for anyone who tried to cut these plants to replace them with something more profitable. And it wasn’t until 2009, after the signing of new agreements that Cameroonians have become free to rid themselves of these unnecessary and unprofitable plantations are coffee, cocoa and cotton. NEW DEFENSE PARTNERSHIP ACCORDS OR DIVORCE PAPERS The Constitution of Cameroon was amended in March 2008 and Biya could run again. But at the same time, he would swear to his French and American counterparts who want his departure that he will no longer seek another term in office. All he wanted now was the abolition of the defense agreements with France. On May 21, 2009, bingo! It was done. In was via a press release that we were informed of the signing in Yaoundé between the President of Cameroon, Paul Biya, and French Prime Minister Francois Fillon an agreement establishing a “defense partnership. It is a text composed of 28 articles and an annex of 11 articles. When we compare this text with that from 1974, and all others signed at the same time or later, between France and other African countries, we can say that it is the official divorce papers between Cameroon and France. It is indeed a very vague text, composed of great principles fits for diplomacy speech craft, repeating essentially the 2007framework agreements for Lisbon between the European Union and the African Union. So what changes between the old and the new agreement? - Before, and for 50 years, it was the defense agreements and technical military cooperation, condemned to remain secret. Now it is shorter, it is the “Defense Partnership Agreements. - Before, the agreements were confidential. Now they are public, simply because it now a real divorce agreement and we will see why. The entire portion of constraints on Cameroon and its so-called strategic commodities automatically allocated French management have simply been excised from the agreements. In the language the Briqueterie neighborhood in Yaounde, this means that it is only since 2009 that Cameroon became truly independent and that Mr. Biya has actually been President of Cameroon and since that year, he could freely disposition minerals under the ground in Cameroonian without prior agreement from France. This is what explains the frenzy of all-out contracts with China, which was simply not possible 10 years ago, when Angola for example taking advantage of the Chinese windfall to boost its economy. A TRUE DIVORCE AGREEMENT In paragraph 2 Article 2, is even stated the maximum number of French military that may be stationed on Cameroonian soil. And that number is 15. The agreement goes further. It even spells out the work of these 15 French soldiers present on the Cameroonian soil: they must only deal with matters of logistics. It is even states that a French soldier stationed in Cameroon to train Cameroonian, he must wear Cameroonian and not French military uniform. One last detail shows that Biya really wanted to do battle with France: the previous agreement had a term of 50 years. Now, the new agreement is only valid for 5 years if renewed. It was ratified by the French parliament in 2012 under Francois Hollande, and therefore, expires in 2017. Question: Why did Nicolas Sarkozy agree to sign such a document which was so unfavorable to France? Answer: Sarkozy until the end of his term did not submit the text to the French parliament and it was not until 2012 with the coming to power of François Hollande, that this could happen. Paul Biya had simply made-believe that he might bow to pressure from Washington and Paris and will not be a candidate for the 2011 presidential elections. The person who would have succeeded him and challenge these agreements, is certainly still waiting in a office, an airport, in a hotel or in a prison somewhere. French media, relayed by their naive Cameroonian counterparts who in turn would bombard the ears of Cameroonians of the exceptionality of the [new] savior of the country, will have to wait until 2017. The only problem is that in 7 years of real freedom of movement Cameroonian leaders the country is being transformed into a real paradise, thanks mainly to the new situation created by Chinese investment. It is for this reason that the decision by Chinese and Cameroonian authorities to inaugurate the construction of the deepwater port of Kribi with the first Chinese envelope 1 billion, the eve of the presidential elections of October 2011 was not a fluke. We will see in the second part how the new shift has enabled Cameroon to link new strategic agreements with Russia and China and how the new military agreements with these two giants will play out in case of a conflict between Cameroon and any country, even France, the confrontation will be a far cry from what we saw previously in Ivory Coast and Libya. And most importantly, no UN resolution could put Cameroon in trouble, since double Russian and Chinese veto would stand in the way. In eastern Ukraine, these days we are experiencing a fore-taste of a likely military confrontation between France and Cameroon, where the central government in Kiev supported by the USA and the EU cannot bring Moscow-backed separatists to keel. (End of Part 1 / 2) To be continued… Jean-Paul Pougala (Ex Moto-boy) Rennes, le 24/08/214 N.B: In the next part 2/2 (available after my vacation), we shall see that changes in the organization of the Cameroonian armed forces as its transforms from an army of numbers into a special corps of elites. It is this special front line against Boko Haram in Northern Cameroon. We will also see how “General Mosquito is an integral part of Cameroonian defense system capable of testing any aggressive force that is not used to the environmental conditions of the forests and swamps of Cameroon. Etc. In this second part, we will see why especially, in the conclusion, why in order to beat Cameroon, France has a weapon that is not military, but food, but also, it can count on many brainwashed Cameroonian, but how?
Posted on: Sun, 24 Aug 2014 08:26:28 +0000
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