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Geopolitics

In Cameroon, A Journalist's Murder May Trigger The Last Demise Of A 40-Year Regime

The central African nation has been run by the same man, Paul Biya, for decades. But as the 89-year-old fades from public view, high-stakes maneuvering is underway, which may have led to the brutal murder and mutilation of a well-known journalist.

In Cameroon, A Journalist's Murder May Trigger The Last Demise Of A 40-Year Regime

President Paul Biya has been at the helm of Cameroon since 1982

Pierre Haski

-Analysis-

PARIS — Martinez Zogo was a journalist at Amplitude FM, an independent radio station in Cameroon's capital, Yaoundé — and he became well-known for denouncing corruption. On Jan. 22, Zogo was found dead at the age of 51 — his body was severely mutilated.

From the moment the killing was reported, this central African nation of 27 million has been plunged into fear and a deep, potentially fatal regime crisis.

On Monday, one of Cameroon's most prominent businessmen, Jean-Pierre Amougou-Belinga, was arrested at his home by about 100 security agents, who first had to neutralize his ten or so bodyguards. Amougou-Belinga is suspected of being the mastermind behind the journalist's murder.


But that was just one in a series of arrests made in recent days, including the head of Cameroon's counterintelligence service, as well as several members of the intelligence services. Reporters Without Borders, which has been investigating the case, reports that it has seen the statement of the Director of Special Operations of the counterintelligence service, Justin Danwe, who acknowledges his involvement. The Paris-based organization for the protection of journalists thus issued a statement that Zogo's murder was a crime of the state.

Other journalists were reportedly threatened, including Haman Mana, director of the daily newspaper Le Jour, whom Martinez Zogo had visited a few days before his disappearance and who'd been told he would be next "on the list."

Threat of instability in a key African country

If this were only a matter of settling scores over corruption, it would already be quite sordid; but everything seems to indicate that it goes far beyond that, that we instead are witnessing the war of political succession taking place in Cameroon.

The country’s President, Paul Biya, who will soon be celebrating his 90th birthday, has run the country for more than 40 years — a record! For a long time now, he has been an "interim" president, passing lengthy stays in Switzerland, meeting only once or twice a year with the Council of Ministers.

The country could be one of the continent's engines of growth.

This transition has thus left a lot of room for officials to compete for influence, including the all-powerful Secretary General of the Presidency, Ferdinand Ngoh Ngoh. It is still too early to know how this murder and subsequent arrests fit into these maneuverings, but it appears that the stakes are clearly high enough to kill, denounce and betray.

Cameroon is a key country in central Africa, and it is in no one's interest to see it sink into even greater instability as the end of Biya's long reign continues to drag out.

Photo of a man walking past a poster of a memorial for slain journalist Martinez Zogo

At a memorial for slain journalist Martinez Zogo

Le Pigeon Voyageur via Instagram

Boko Haram and oligarchs

The northern part of the nation, bordering Lake Chad, continues to face the threat of Boko Haram jihadists. The English-speaking West is in the grip of a civil war that has been going on for years, due to failures by the central government to keep its promises. All the while, much of Cameroon's wealth is being captured by a predatory oligarchy.

And yet, it is an oil-rich, agricultural and modestly industrial country that could be one of the continent's engines of growth. Its fate is of sufficient concern to its partners that French President Emmanuel Macron went there last summer, at the risk of appearing to support Biya, whom he has also criticized on repeated occasions.

Last week, several Cameroonian personalities from the diaspora as well as from within the country called for a national dialogue in an article in the French daily Le Monde before, they said, "a catastrophe occurs." With the latest news, one wonders if the catastrophe has not already begun.

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FOCUS: Russia-Ukraine War

Kids In The Crossfire — A Village School's Bittersweet Return After Russian Occupation

Almost one year after being occupied, a village near Kyiv is being rebuilt as locals try to piece their lives back together.

Photo of two women walking down a school hall in Novyi Bykiv, Ukraine

School life restarting in Novyi Bykiv, Ukraine

Iryna Andreytsiv

NOVYI BYKIV — In this village east of Kyiv, when the invasion began last Feb. 24, the local school became a prime flashpoint — it was at the school that the Russian occupiers would wind up setting up their main base of operations.

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Natalia Vovk, the director of the school for Staryi and Novyi Bykiv, two halves of one village separated by a river, remembers that day well. She says after hearing the first explosions from her house at 6:30 a.m. on Feb. 24, and soon after ordered the students to stay at home and told any staff who had arrived to leave.

And soon enough, locals began to receive reports that a Russian column was heading toward them. “I didn’t think they would stay here for 33 days," says the school's deputy director Natalia Samson. "I thought we were not their concern.”

The occupation was more brutal and damaging than they could have imagined. Now, almost one year later, local residents are trying to piece their lives together. Rebuilding the local school destroyed under occupation has become a crucial project for the town.

When military equipment started entering the village 80 kilometers (50 miles) last February, residents were left without electricity, gas, and communications. The local Territorial Defense forces tried to do something, but there is little you can do against military machines. On the first day, six boys were killed.

“They were lying at the entrance to the village for about a week,” recalls Natalia.

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