'Four Dead' In Bamenda, Cameroon City Protests

The violence rocked Bamenda on Tuesday. AP

Lawyers and teachers are opposing the influence exerted by Francophone speakers in their lives in a country that is officially bilingual.

BBC 

BBC News report continues:

The opposition Social Democratic Front, whose leader John Fru Ndi hails from the north-west, says four people have been killed in the teachers protests.

John Fru Ndi is a long-standing campaigner for the rights of the English-speaking population. AFP

The clashes erupted after the Cameroon Teacher's Trade Union called a strike to protest "against the dominance of their Francophone colleagues" in the education sector.

The union's secretary-general, Tassang Wilfred, told Radio France Internationale why they were protesting:  

For years, until now, we have unsuccessfully tried to bring the government to respond to our grievances.

At the heart of the problem is the deployment of Francophone teachers in Anglophone schools. The government, due to tribalism and nepotism, even recruited Francophones to teach English to Francophone children. This is scandalous."

The tension between the Anglophone and Francophone parts of the country has also seen lawyers calling for the translation of legal texts into English.

On 22 November, the police dispersed lawyers who were demonstrating in front of the court of appeal in Bamenda, the main English-speaking city.

During the protests they announced the formation of a new bar for Anglophones, Cameroon-Info.net reported on 23 November.

The lawyers, who comprise about one third of Cameroon's bar, have been on an indefinite strike since 11 October to protest against what they say is the government's preference for the use of French in the courts. 

Cameroon has two legal systems founded on French civil law and English common law.

Anglophone speakers make up a minority in Cameroon - about 20% of the country’s 22 million people, and most live in the country’s two English-speaking regions, the Southwest and Northwest provinces.

The strike action has been supported by the outlawed Southern Cameroons National Council, which advocates for the secession of the two provinces.

In a statement published in the English language Cameroon Daily Journal on 22 November, it said:

We wholeheartedly salute the common law lawyers and the teachers who as custodians respectively of the common law heritage and the Anglo-Saxon educational system have dutifully risen to combat assimilation and the annihilation of our core values and identity by the neo-coloniser la Republique du Cameroun. But the problem is far larger than meets the bird’s eye view."

Cameroon City Hit By Language-Related Protest 'Tense'

Thousand of youths took to the streets on Tuesday. AP

It is a tense morning in Bamenda, the main city in English-speaking north-western Cameroon. 

Most shops are still closed, but women are buying food this morning and hurrying back home should violence erupt again.

One person was reported to have been killed yesterday as anger over the imposition of French in schools in Anglophone parts of the country came to a head.

Security forces fired tear gas and live bullets at anti-government protesters, who accuse the authorities of marginalizing English-speaking areas. Most of Cameroon is Francophone.

Eyewitnesses described people being beaten, kicked and dragged away by the military. 

On Monday, demonstrators carried white coffins and green branches through the streets, demanding more rights for English-speakers. 

Yesterday's incidents also included an opposition party leader demonstrating at a police station after his home was teargassed and protesters attacking the city council leader and vandalizing council premises, blaming him for what they saw as bad policies.

Strike leaders yesterday boycotted a meeting by the minister of justice, saying he must meet them in Bamenda for any meaningful negotiation to take place. 

Striking teachers have set out exactly the same demands. The regional governor is holding meetings with the teachers' representatives to seek a solution.

Lawyers have been on strike for two months after being ordered to use French in legal proceedings.

Cameroon was a German colony, partitioned by France and Britain after the First World War. It united as a federal republic after independence, but deep divisions remain.