Nkendem Forbinake
8 March 2004
President Biya and wife will be among the select guests at a multi-faith service today at the Westminster Abbey.
President Paul Biya and First Lady Chantal Biya arrived in London yesterday evening at 17:30 p.m. British time and 18:30 p.m. Cameroon time to begin a three-day event-packed stay in the UK at the invitation of Her Majesty's government. London's unpredictable weather was rather clement yesterday putting this visit in rather good auspices from the very beginning.
Informed observers here see the visit as a material expression of recognition, by the UK side, of all that has been done in the process of democratization and political reform in Cameroon.
After working for days, diplomats from the two countries finally settled for "a guest of government official working visit" formula to describe the visit to vindicate the desire of the two sides to incorporate all that it takes to stress the business-like posture of the visit. As explains Cameroon's High Commissioner Samuel Libock Mbei, British public opinion would never have understood that a visit is simply a working one when the government guest is received by the Prime Minister and the Queen as is going to be the case for President and Mrs Biya.
Today March 8 is Commonwealth Day and as a member of the prestigious club, the Presidential couple could only have felt much obliged to be fitted into the London programme of the Commonwealth Day events.
President and Chantal Biya will be among the select guests at a multi-faith service today at the Westminster Abbey. The 45-minute worship will bring together representatives of the various faiths across the Commonwealth: Catholic and Protestant Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs as well as adepts of traditional African religions. The service will be followed by a reception offered by the Secretary General of the Commonwealth, Don Mckinnon. At the two events, President Biya will share the company of the Queen and some members of the Royal family such as Prince Charles and celebrities from Commonwealth countries such as the Anglican Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town, South Africa and Nobel Peace laureate, Desmond Tutu, well-known in Cameroon for his efforts in attempting to broker peace in the infamous heydays of political violence of the early 90s and for the role he played at about the same time when Cameroon was seeking membership of the Commonwealth.
Official
Tuesday is being set aside for official government contacts. The President begins his working day at 10, Downing Street where he is expected to confer with Prime Minister Tony Blair. Later in the Day, he and his wife will be received by Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace. Other meetings with ranking members of the British government are also on schedule before and after these important meetings with the Prime Minister and the Queen.
The U.K. generally gives great credit for, and recognizes all that has been done in the process of democratization and political reform in Cameroon. It is expected that talks between British officials and the President will enable the former to make known their appreciation of the process item by item, ranging from the electoral process through freedom of the press to the respect of human rights. It is notably in these domains that home-based tabloids and internet postings have had a field day mudslinging the government and its agents. On the other side of the table they should expect a Cameroonian President wont on leaving a legacy of "one who brought democracy to Cameroon" as he has emphatically stated in the past.
The President last visited the U.K in 1985 at the time of Lady Thatcher's premiership. There is no doubt that a lot of water has gone under the bridge since then. Contacts have however been lively through diplomatic channels and Commonwealth Summits.
No real reason to worry. The Comte de Bussy-Rabutin, writing in "Histire Amoureuse des Gaulles " in 1665 aptly put it: "absence to love in what the wind is to fire; it extinguishes the small, it kindles the great".
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