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RAMBLE in the JUNGLE · Textbook · Unit 3: The Cameroons: History, Freedom and Institutions

Issue 3.4

Should the Cameroons Hold a Truth Commission?

YESWanaku Verdzekov, from Truth Commission in the Cameroons? (2014)
NOEditorial counterpoint, Truth Can Wait (written for this book)

Learning outcomes

After reading this issue, you should be able to:

Explain what a truth commission is and give at least two examples from other countries.
Identify the main claims, reasons and evidence in each reading.
Distinguish between disagreements about facts and disagreements about timing and values.
Evaluate whether truth, justice and reconciliation can be pursued at the same time.
Write a short argument that takes a position and responds to the strongest point on the other side.

Introduction

When a country has lived through years of violence or repression, its people often disagree about what happened, who was responsible and how to move on. One tool that many countries have used is a truth commission: an official, temporary body that investigates a pattern of past abuses, listens to victims and witnesses, and publishes a report. More than forty truth commissions have been set up around the world since the 1970s. The best known is South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, created in 1995 after the end of apartheid. It held public hearings from 1996, published its main report in 1998, and could grant amnesty to people who fully confessed to politically motivated crimes. Other commissions have worked in Chile, Sierra Leone, Liberia and, more recently, The Gambia. Supporters say commissions give victims a voice and a nation a shared record. Critics say they can trade justice for storytelling, or be controlled by the powerful.

The author of the YES reading writes about Cameroon (see Appendix A for a timeline). The country became independent in 1960 and joined with the former Southern British Cameroons in a federation in 1961, which was replaced by a unitary state in 1972. It has had two presidents: Ahmadou Ahidjo (1960–1982) and Paul Biya (since 1982). From 1966 until 1990 it was a one-party state; multiparty politics returned in 1990. Its early years included a violent conflict between the government, backed by France, and the outlawed Union of the Peoples of Cameroon (UPC).

The author wrote this essay in December 2014, two years before protests by lawyers and teachers in the English-speaking North-West and South-West regions (late 2016) grew into an armed conflict between separatist groups and government forces. UN agencies and human-rights organizations have since reported thousands of deaths and hundreds of thousands of people displaced. The government has responded with a Commission for the Promotion of Bilingualism and Multiculturalism (2017), a Major National Dialogue (2019) and a "special status" for the two regions (2019); critics, including the author, argue that these do not address the root of the problem. No national truth commission has been set up.

As you read, ask: Does the question change depending on whether a conflict is over or still going on? Can a country pursue truth, justice and peace all at once, or must it choose an order?

YES

Truth Commission in the Cameroons?

By Wanaku Verdzekov

There is no way to hide more than half a century (from the 1960s until today) of politically motivated extrajudicial killings, disappearances of citizens, and all the voodoo accounting that takes place at the highest levels of governance in the Cameroons. The global community now knows that, apart from football, the Cameroons is an icon of corruption in this African sub-region.

The question children ask in this part of the world is: "Agreed, there is corruption here (among other ills), but how do we move forward from where we are?"

Which nation? Where is the Cameroons?

Google "Cameroon" and you will find where it is on the map. The real question is: where are the citizens of this place called the Cameroons on the path of development?

It could be a simple question to answer, since decolonization in the 1960s this sub-region has been "governed" by only two individuals, one literally handing power over to the other. So (if you ask me), realistically speaking, there has NOT BEEN A DEMOCRATICALLY ELECTED LEADER IN THE CAMEROONS SINCE DECOLONIZATION. I hope that did not come as a surprise to you. If it did, take it as Truth Number One.

Belong to the party, or head for the door

When the first Cameroons leader handed power to the current one, the significant thing was the handover of leadership of the only political party in the country: the one party with a central political bureau (similar to the central committee of a communist party), to which every member of government had to belong, or else head for the door.

There was a kind of tussle between the former leader and the current one over leadership of the party. Some say there might have been an arrangement where the former would remain leader of the party and the current one president of the country. But who knows the details of that argument? The former never became leader of the party. In fact, he went into exile in Senegal, where he later died, and he was buried in Senegal too. A truth commission should be able to bring out more details.

After taking over this power from the first president (president of the Cameroons, and leader of the only political party, with a central committee under his thumb), all the next man did was window-dress it: a new name, new party uniforms, new catchphrases, and a pipe dream of a vision that, 35 years later, has come to nothing. Unsurprising (to me, at least).

Why?

Because trying to build something on a bed of lies is a waste of time. It is like trying to grow an iroko tree in the sands of Timbuktu. It won't happen.

A truth commission

Anyone informed about the situation in the Cameroons (and there is a lot to be informed about) concludes that it is complex to resolve. But here is a starting point: spell out the truth, and let the chips fall where they may. For this to happen, we need people of impeccable, upright character, with experience of running truth sessions and of putting together well-documented reports that can stand the truth test at any time, now and in the future.

The people always want to know the truth

How possible is that? Well, for one thing, you cannot tell the truth about now without knowing how "now" came to be. So an exercise of this kind will take time: time that is also valuable for the citizens of this sub-region to learn the facts that make up the truth of who they really are, from past to present. It could also be therapeutic, easing the distress of a people traumatized by a post-colonial history that is turbulent, continuously unsettling, and does not help citizens focus their efforts on a positive vision of the future.

Simply throwing out the past and thinking that blindly forging ahead will lead to… whatever it is citizens are looking for is like saying "no matter how much experience you have, it makes no difference to your current or future actions". Well, experience DOES make a difference. And as a people, the populations of the Cameroons have "experienced" some things they need to reflect on. Hence, a truth commission.

200+ tribes and languages?

A truth commission in the Cameroons should be independent of any government interference. It should record its work and make its final report publicly available to all citizens, in as many languages and versions as required, not just English and French, which are foreign languages in this context.

For everyone to buy into the idea, there should be a guarantee that a citizen who only understands a tribal language (there are over 200) can have their say before the commission, and that what they say will also be heard and understood by other citizens in their own languages.

Ahem!

A truth commission will reset the socio-political landscape and let future generations see it as a landmark: the departure point from the mistakes of the past towards the successes of the future. What a truth commission will NOT do is create or spread more lies.

A national conference? It won't happen.

There was a push for a similar exercise called a "National Conference" (a sort of national discussion of the nation's problems, and how to move on). It never happened. If you ask me, the main reason is that before holding a "national" conference, you have to be sure the "nation" exists. If it really does, what reason under the sun could there be for NOT being ABLE to hold a national conference?

That's another question for the truth commission, among the many that the children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren of citizens who were disappeared, killed, tortured, imprisoned without trial or exiled will be asking. That's the least they need to move on… into a future of hope and promise.

A note on the name

The use of the word "Cameroons" instead of "Cameroon" or "Cameroun" is intentional. The name comes from the Portuguese os camarões, which means "prawns" or "shrimps". Please don't call me a shrimp. Thank you.

PS: Someone at L'Effort Camerounais was inspired by the same idea of a truth and reconciliation commission, on the South African model, in a 2012 article.

— Wanaku Verdzekov

Written in December 2014; lightly edited for this book. Headings are from the original.

Truth Can Wait

Editorial counterpoint Written for this book, not by Wanaku Verdzekov.

This essay was written for this textbook to present the opposing side fairly. It is not by Wanaku Verdzekov.

We should begin by admitting what the case for a truth commission gets right. Families who have lost sons, daughters and parents deserve to know what happened to them. A country cannot build trust on silence, and no one should have to pretend that the killings, disappearances and abuses of the past never took place. The question is not whether the truth matters. It is whether a truth commission, set up now, is the right way to reach it. There are good reasons to think it is not.

A commission needs the fighting to stop first

Almost every truth commission that is remembered as a success began after a conflict ended. South Africa's commission started work after apartheid was over and a new, elected government was in place. Sierra Leone's began after its civil war had ended. There is a reason for this. A commission depends on witnesses who are willing to stand up in public and say what they saw. While armed groups and security forces are still active, a witness who speaks may be putting their family in danger. A victim's story told in 2016 could become a target list in 2017. Until people feel safe, a commission is likely to hear only from those who have nothing to fear, and that is not the whole truth.

Who would control it?

The author rightly insists that a commission must be "independent of any government interference". But who would create it? In practice, commissions are set up by governments, by peace agreements, or by international bodies. If a government that is itself accused of abuses appoints the commissioners, many citizens will not trust the result. If one side of a conflict appoints them, the other side will call it a trial by its enemies. A commission that half the country rejects does not heal a nation; it gives each side a new grievance. Independence is easy to demand and very hard to build.

Truth is not the same as justice

Even the famous South African commission left many victims unsatisfied. It offered amnesty to people who confessed in full, and some families watched the killers of their relatives walk free after telling their story. For those families, truth without punishment felt like a second injury. In a country where people are still grieving, a commission that trades amnesty for testimony may deepen anger instead of calming it. Some victims want courts, compensation and the removal of abusers from office. A commission can distract from these harder demands by offering hearings instead of consequences.

A good idea that is hard to deliver

The author's wish that every citizen be heard in one of more than 200 languages shows real respect for ordinary people. It also shows the scale of the task. Interpreters, safe hearing venues, secure record-keeping, investigators and years of work all cost a great deal of money, in a country where many schools and clinics are already short of resources. A commission that runs out of money halfway, or produces a report that no one reads, can leave people more cynical than before.

Other roads to the truth

There are other ways to build the record the author wants. Courts can try the most serious crimes one case at a time, with evidence and a right of reply. Human-rights organizations and journalists already document abuses. Local traditions of reconciliation, led by elders, chiefs and religious leaders, can repair relationships in a village long before a national report is written. Reforms such as fair elections, an independent judiciary and real local government can prevent new abuses, which matters as much as recording old ones. When peace is secure, a commission may then have the trust and the safety it needs to work.

Conclusion

The author asks us to "spell out the truth, and let the chips fall where they may". That is a worthy goal. But a truth commission is a tool, and tools must fit the moment. Launched too early, controlled by the wrong people or starved of money, a commission can reopen wounds without closing them. Truth should not be abandoned; it should be pursued in the right order. First safety, then trust, then the truth commission. For now, the truth can wait a little longer, so that when it finally comes, everyone can afford to hear it.

— Editorial counterpoint

Vocabulary

Word or phrase	Meaning in the readings
truth commission	an official, temporary body that investigates past abuses and publishes a report
extrajudicial	outside the law, without a trial
decolonization	the process by which colonies became independent
central committee	the top decision-making body of a single ruling party
window-dress	to make something look better without really changing it
impeccable	without fault
therapeutic	helping to heal
traumatized	deeply hurt by a shocking experience
amnesty	an official pardon for crimes
grievance	a complaint about something felt to be unfair
cynical	believing that people act only for their own interest; distrustful
judiciary	the system of courts and judges
reconciliation	restoring friendly relations after conflict
sequence (verb)	to put things in a particular order

Comprehension questions

Literal (find it in the text)

According to the YES reading, what abuses cannot be hidden?
Who does the YES reading say should lead a truth commission?
In which languages does the YES reading want the commission's report to be available?
According to the NO reading, when did most successful truth commissions begin?
What did South Africa's commission offer to people who confessed in full?
Name two "other roads to the truth" suggested in the NO reading.

Inferential (read between the lines)

Why does the YES writer describe the Cameroons as an "icon of corruption", and what does this suggest about the writer's tone?
The YES writer says a truth commission could be "therapeutic". Why might telling the truth heal a society?
The NO writer says a victim's story "could become a target list". What is the writer worried about?
Both writers use images from nature (an iroko tree in the desert; tools that must "fit the moment"). What does each image suggest about their argument?

Critical (evaluate and respond)

Do the two writers disagree mainly about whether the truth matters, or about when and how to find it? Use evidence from both readings.
The YES reading was written in 2014, before the armed conflict began; the NO reading was written knowing about it. Does this difference make one argument stronger today? Explain.
Which is more important after a conflict: truth, justice or peace? Can a country have all three? Defend your answer.

Is there common ground?

The two writers agree on more than it first appears. Both say that victims deserve to know what happened, that silence and lies weaken a nation, and that any truth-seeking body must be independent and trusted. Both value ordinary people's voices: the YES writer wants testimony in all of the country's languages; the NO writer wants witnesses to be safe enough to speak.

Their real disagreement is about order and conditions. The YES writer sees truth as the foundation that must come first, because nothing lasting can be built "on a bed of lies". The NO writer sees safety and trust as the foundation, with truth following once people can speak without fear.

A middle path might combine both: begin now to collect and protect evidence (through human-rights groups, archives and journalists), so that the truth is not lost, while waiting to hold public hearings until the fighting stops and an independent body can be agreed. Some countries have also used local, community-level reconciliation alongside national processes. As you think about common ground, ask which of these steps could start today, and who should lead them.

Debate and writing prompt

Debate motion: This house believes that the Cameroons should establish a truth commission now.

Divide the class into proposition and opposition. Each side must use at least two pieces of evidence from its reading and answer the other side's strongest point.
After the debate, hold a vote, then discuss which arguments changed minds.

Writing task (400–600 words): Imagine you have been asked to advise your country's parliament on how to deal with a painful period in its past (real or imagined). Write a letter that recommends one approach (a truth commission, trials, local reconciliation, or a combination) and explains the order in which things should happen. Your letter must:

state your recommendation clearly in the first paragraph;
give at least two reasons, supported by evidence from this issue;
respond fairly to one objection;
end with a practical first step.