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STUDENT ORGANIZATION THE PARLIAMENT CAMEROON(1990-1997)

The student organization the parliament was founded on the Yaounde university(Cameroon)campus by young opposition leaders most originally from the western provinces of Cameroon.Relations between Anglophone students and government and university authorities rapidly deteriorated from the early 1990s onwards. On 26 May 1990, a group of students, most of them Anglophones, marched in support of launching the SDF in Bamenda and the introduction of multipartyism in the country. The government press accused them of singing the Nigerian national anthem. The implication of this false claim was that Anglophones did not see themselves as Cameroonians but rather as Nigerians or – even more common in government discourse – secessionist Biafrans. Subsequently, the gendarmes harassed and brutalised the demonstrators, looted their property and arrested about three hundred of them. This march by Anglophone students incited disaffection and resentment among the autochthonous Beti population on and off campus, which tended to support the ruling CPDM party led by President Biya, who was himself a Beti.12 Some Beti landlords even threatened to remove Anglophone students from their houses. To forestall any further student protests, the regime stationed gendarmes permanently on campuses. The political liberalisation process that started in December 1990 not only created space for students to organise in defence of their interests but also tended to encourage a further polarisation among student factions along party and ethno-regional lines. On the one hand, there emerged what was initially called the National Coordination of Cameroon Students that later changed its name to the Students’ Parliament or simply ‘Parliament’. It was by far the largest student union on campus. The core of its membership and leadership was formed by Anglophone and Bamileke students who, in common parlance, are often referred to as ‘Anglo-Bami’ students. Parliament soon came under the influence of the opposition parties, notably the SDF. It agreed with the opposition that the regime had to be overthrown in order to bring about real change in society at large and within the university in particular. Anglophone members also participated in the Anglophone struggles. Following AAC I and the Buea Declaration in 1993, they created the Cameroon Anglophone Students’ Association (CANSA), which operated under the umbrella of the SCNC and participated in various actions undertaken by the SCNC. Parliament members often presented themselves as revolutionaries who were prepared to use all the means at their disposal, including demonstrations, strikes and acts of vandalism, should the regime and the university authorities fail to listen to or give in to their demands. On the other hand, a Committee for Self-Defence, a vigilante group or militia, was set up by the regime to counteract the actions of Parliament. Its membership and leadership was mainly made up of Beti students. Nevertheless, some students from other ethnic groups were also part of the Self-Defence group. For example, a few of its leaders were Anglophone and Bamileke students. They and other non-Beti members were recruited by the regime to give the public the impression that the Self-Defence group was not an exclusively Beti affair but an organisation of responsible students who were prevented from peacefully continuing their studies by the political actions of Parliament ‘rebels’ and ‘vandals’. The Self-Defence group was well rewarded for its services: its members were given cash and, in some cases, free accommodation. A few leaders were even given lucrative jobs after graduation despite the freeze on public-sector employment. Since the Committee for Self-Defence was made up of only a small minority of students, they were allowed to carry weapons – clubs, knives and pistols – to attack Parliament members and sympathisers. It usually worked closely with other, even more extremist, Beti vigilante groups on campus, particularly the self-styled Direct Action group that openly declared that the University of Yaoundé was on Beti land and thus should fall under Beti control. It declared that the Anglo-Bami students should either recognise Beti control or ‘go home’. Following the formation of the Committee for Self-Defence and the Beti vigilante groups, which received logistic support from the forces of law and order, Parliament created its own commandos to fight these hostile groups and to protect its members. The University of Yaoundé barely functioned from 1990 to 1996, with university life being repeatedly paralysed by student protests and unprecedented violent confrontations between the two camps. I mention here only the three most important confrontations. The first occurred in 1991 when Parliament members marched in support of the opposition parties’ call for the holding of a sovereign national conference and an unconditional general amnesty for political prisoners and exiles. The second took place in 1993 after Parliament’s protest against the introduction of university tuition fees and the third occurred in 1996 following Parliament’s resistance to the university authorities’ imposition of special levies on students in addition to tuition fees. The Parliament was declared illegal in 1997 and most of its members went to exile.