The strike now in my country Cameroon is not just about fuel hikes per say, it is the first reaction from a desperate people under the bondage of a dictatorial regime. TOUCH NOT OUR CONSTITUTION MR. BIYA.

It's a pity a blessed country like Cameroon now finds itself in such a desperate situation. The regime in power for over 25 years now has impoverished the people, looted the public treasury, virtually bringing the country to its knees. How can a land endowed with significant natural and human resources be considered a Heavily Indebted Poor Country? Western nations should avoid playing games with millions of people around the world and cut off dealings with dictatorial regimes that stifle their populations flushing them down the abyss of despair. Enough is enough!!!

Cameroon today is going through the "breakest" period of its history. Our internal and external values have been put under jeopardy by the aggressive neo-colonial govrenment of the self declared monarch,Paul Biya.Internally, our norms, traditions,cultures,customs are at the verge of extinction as the monarch wrestles with divinity to destroy our ancestral values in alliance with the (C.P.D.M.) domestic political elites. They are the real enemies of our state. The ruling party is a farce, as its corruption machine have consciously rendered the Cameroonian people miserable and vulnerable to this epidemic of fraud at its best. The economic hardship created by the Biya's agents of this epidemic of fraud and corruption have completly destroyed our daily lives. Life today in our CAMEROON OF YESTERDAY IS A DECLARATION OF WAR ON OUR FAMILIES by the greedy and selfish clique that claims to govern us.In short,our daily lives have been condemned to... i.e.survival of the fittest. Externally,our diplomacy in context and texture, is permanently dead. OUR SOCIETY NEEDS a wholistic transformation from the ashes of the disfunctional regime of emperor Paul Biya.

My beloved fatherland Cameroon is en route to a Kenya-like situation and what i dont understand is why the rest of the world is sitting and folding their hands.I now know that the US who is the self-imposed enforcer of so-to-speak world peace has got no interest in Cameroon otherwise they would have intervened.Now the French who are our so called colonial masters and who have milked us dry of all our resources too are staying apart and watching.I want to know if this so called internatial diplomacy stipulates that the western leaders have a feeling for the president of a country or for its people?

Dear cLovis,

I do not agree with your "cri de detresse", pointing that The US or another country should come and solve our problems say the ongoing riots. I think and I hope Mr Biya, as well as all the so called political leaders in Cameroun could find a solution of that crisis. So let be adult and take care of our domestic matters before it worsen

I think everyone here has good points. There are several countries around the world that make a buck off of Cameroons renewable and non-renewable resources. THose big businesses that are profiting from the unfair leasing off of land by Paul Biya, should be offering some assistance. The citizens are right about their constitution. For a country to live free they must fight. America fought Britian several hundred years ago for their freedom. Ireland fought Britian for theirs. The world fought against the Germans and the Japanese against communism and dictatorship. Many Cameroonians have been unhappy about the current party leadership and their leader. People cannot be oppressed forever. You cannot complain about something unless you plan to solve that something. I applaud the citizens of Cameroon for standing up for themselves, but i beg you to STOP HURTING EACHOTHER! IT is not the citizens who have oppressed you. It is not the women in the Market or the other workers trying to get to work, who have oppressed you. My wife is Cameroonian and our son is only 4 months. I fear for their safety. She works at a school which harbors orphans and disabled children. She harms no one. She is innocent and people just like her are being harmed in Yaounde. I am American but i love your Country. It is beautiful and pure, despite the bad apple there. YOur country has the ability to be great. You dont need Tropicana or British American Tobacco or any oil people. Learn to refine your own oil. Work with Nigeria to help them build refineries. Work with the Gas Stations in your country to find a partnership with Taxi Drivers. There is money and if it is shared, no one should go hungry.

God Bless your Country and all its beautiful Children.

An American Friend of Cameroon

Dear Cameroonians

DOUALA, 25 February 2008 (IRIN) - Residents of Douala awoke to heavy gunfire on 25 February. Columns of thick black smoke rose over the city as youths burned buses, cars and tyres, blocking off major arteries in the city.

There were also reports of widespread looting.

“We can’t leave our homes,” a man in Akwa, an area in the city centre, told IRIN. “I live near a school and can see teachers sending home all students that arrive. Rioters are occupying other schools in the area."

At least two dead bodies have arrived at the city morgue with gunshot wounds to the head, a journalist told IRIN.

IRIN also saw people with serious gunshot wounds being carried to a hospital.

The rioting appears to have been sparked off by a taxi strike planned for 25 February. Many people say they are sympathetic with drivers’ complaints of rising fuel prices and the cost of living.

IRIN saw no vehicles in the city centre other than those belonging to security forces.

Political tensions have been high in recent days with the government attempting to push through constitutional reforms that would remove restrictions on the number of times that Cameroon’s long-time leader Paul Biya can be re-elected. He has been in power since 1982. An unauthorised demonstration took place on 23 February in Newtown, a suburb near the airport, in which police reportedly fired tear gas and water cannons at a crowd of several hundred people. One protestor was killed, according to government officials, but eye witnesses said at least one other youth also died.

I think we should solve our domestic problem or else................

koulmapek For 25 years we, oh I'm sorry, they in power have not been able to come out with ANY solution. the world today is globalized and what happens in cameroon should concern each responsible authority of this world. Clovis is right by denouncing the US and France for ignoring the current situation in our country: their interests are not at stake.We know the game.Don't even mention the "ne pas s'ingerer dans les affaires internes d'un etat souverain" because that is BS.

It is high time that the world wakes up to the time bomb that is the Biya regime in Cameroun. People are just tired of Biya and all dictators in Africa. The U.S. in particualr should make efforts to have Biya step down, or removed; otherwise we all will have another bleeding and burning nation on our collective hands.

Cameroon needs help. The international community must come to the help of Cameroonians before things get out of hand. The president of Cameroon Paul Biya has been in power for over 25 years and has brought untold suffering and misery to the People of Cameroon. Please, Cameroon needs help and fast without which there will be another Kenya or Rwanda. The US, Britain, France, Canada and rest of the West must act now to avoid blood shed and civil war in Cameroon. God bless Cameroon and the people.

This should be a warning to Dictator Biya............He should have a rethink about th amendment or else...........

All I can say is "It's about time!" And this is no imitation of a Kenya-like situation but an eruption of years of discrimination, abuse, misappropriation, torture, and the resulting frustration of Cameroonians by and large. This may not be the solution but may pave the way to it. When I, as a student in the University of Buea was seriously beaten up by policemen for no apparent reason 2 years ago in the university strike; when students lost their lives in that same strike and nothing seemed to be done about it; when the very things we fought for and took to the streets for seemed to go unattended and unheeded; Cameroonians and the world at large were supposed to take it as a sign of more to come. God only can intervene now because it's too late to stop the pot when it begins to boil; you've already lost some to the atmosphere. We are a people hard-pressed and in bondage by the forces of darkness that manifest themselves in present day politics in Cameroon. We need a mighty intervention of the Almighty right now. It's about time. Christians in Cameroon rise up and pray. The OPPORTUNITY FOR CHANGE is here! Let's not miss out. It still is a LAND OF PROMISE and a LAND OF GLORY!

It's rather sad to note these happenings in Cameroon.The so called super powers and industrialised nations are there just watching. They are praying and even fanning the flames so that they will sell their weapons.

The US invaded Iraq on grounds that Saddam Hussien was dictatorial to his subjects and suspected him of being in possesion of weapons of mass destruction. If really what they claimed was true, are there no other dictators still on the earth? Why didn'tr they super power attack North Korea which openly aknowledged and defied these giants that it possed nuclear weapons? (After all no crude oil in Korea), Just to site this one example.

Now Presidents Biya ,Bongo O'biang Nguema, Ghaddaffi hav been in power for atleast 20 years each. The people have always cried foul but trhe governments continue to exist. Why? They loot from poor Africa to replenish your banks which are alwaysfull with liquidity from corrupt African leaders.

Pesident Mugabe who refused these approaches and wanted to do it the African way ,has now been looked up in the west as the worst dictator in Africa. Worse than Biya? I see the rason why terrorism is at times the only solution to the helpless masses. You want a war in Cameroon then ,you come with aid.Of which it surfices to just give Biya and co a stern warning and things will come back to normalcy. Please spare us this,I forsee disaster in Cameroon because Biya has created alot of hatred among the tribes. (to be continued)

Well until now i was convinced that cameroon was a country enjoying a phenomenal peaceful climate, regardless of misery, corruption, bad governance, fund embezzelment and rigged elections."le cameroun est un ilot de paix...". Recent events prove this wrong. as we know, you can fool some people all the time, you can sometimes fool all the people but you cannot fool all the people all the time. i had always wondered how long it will take before the people cry out "enough". So this is it! it might even be only part of it.My trip in cameroon last august made me cry, literally; my question each time was"comment faites vous pour survivre"? Peuple camerounais vous avez un tel courage et une telle perseverance. And Paul Biya, all he could deliver as a revolutionary democrate is a message of repression. You use the army to shoot and kill hungry citizens? What a shame.You hang on to power even after 25 years? The people are saying" we want change". this riot is not political, c'est le resultat d'un malaise social. Personne n'instrumentalise but you. So shame on to you, because you have failed the cameroon peole. SHAME