Debating Ideas reflects the values and editorial ethos of the African Arguments book series, publishing engaged, often radical, scholarship, original and activist writing from within the African continent and beyond. It offers debates and engagements, contexts and controversies, and reviews and responses flowing from the African Arguments books. It is edited and managed by the International African Institute, hosted at SOAS University of London, the owners of the book series of the same name.
Lotsmart Fonjong is a development specialist, scholar and consultant with a rich multidisciplinary academic background. He studied geography, development studies, international human rights and humanitarian assistance and cooperation. In the last 20 years, he has taught as a tenured professor in Cameroon and as an adjunct professor in the United States. He has authored over three dozen peer-reviewed articles, six books and many scientific conference papers on gender, environment and development issues in Africa. He recently wrote a WILPF research report titled Evolving Alliances: Men and Women - Access to Land, Gender Relations and Conflict in Anglophone Cameroon as part of WILPF's initiative on Mobilising Men for Feminist Peace (MMFP).
Interviewed by Dean Peacock*
This interview with Dr. Lotsmart Fonjong is part of series of interviews by WILPF to reflect on the original research produced by the Mobilising Men for Feminist Peace initiative which works through research, alliance and capacity-building, a podcast and artistic means to work with male allies for feminist and equitable peace.
Dean Peacock (DP): Tell us how you came to be focused on land possession and rural women's efforts to defend communal land? What was your experience growing up in Cameroon? And how has this informed your work, specifically your interest in land rights?
Lotsmart Fonjong (LF): I grew up in a rural area where, like most rural areas in Cameroon, people depend on land. But as I grew up, I saw a clear gender division of labour. The men, like my father and his brothers and those around us, did not usually go to the farm to cultivate food. They were at home either taking care of the animals, or preparing palm wine, that's what they were more concerned with. So my mother and the rest of the women always looked after the farm, and when I got home from school I would either join my father while my sisters would encourage us to check with my mother on the farm, carrying the loads they had. But the men were mostly not there.
Our small village always had land disputes with the neighbouring village, and often the women would be beaten on their farms. The women were the ones to protest but the meetings that were held to discuss issues of land would be attended by my father and the other men. I saw this repeatedly and grew up with a desire to understand the dynamics in which women were the ones protesting against land encroachment by our neighbours while men took the decision alone. Our land was not fertile and so, the village practised shifting cultivation. The decision on where the women should cultivate was that of men. I can still vividly see the various hills where they were farming. Every few years, a messenger beating a drum would run round the village almost every season, after a meeting of men in the palace crying at the top of his voice " the Chief has decided that next year the women should farm on Mboh hill". This scenario of men deciding on land access while women undertook the labour became a puzzle I wanted to understand.
Dean Peacock (DP): Your research has explored how collusion and corrupt relationships between the central government transnational companies and traditional leaders have facilitated the dispossession of land in rural communities where communal ownership under the custodian of traditional leaders has previously been the norm. Can you tell us a bit more about the relationship between land theft and conflict?
Lotsmart Fonjong (LF): The first thing is to understand how the customary land system conflicted with the statutory land system in Cameroon. Cameroon has a very funny land system. It is informed by the central government's efforts to appease the traditional leaders for political ends. So in most African countries before colonisation, land was owned by the community. The Chiefs held the land in trust as well as shared it on behalf of families. Land was never bought and sold, so it was not a commodity as we have it today.
At the end of colonisation, the colonial powers introduced this notion of land ownership and registration. But when Cameroon became independent, it was difficult for the government to completely kick the Chiefs off the land in the name of land nationalisation. This was a strategic decision not to alienate the Chiefs whom the new state needed to govern the various ethnic people. So the government adopted a complicated process where the Chiefs were the custodians of the land, but the state was the owner. That was the beginning of the erosion of traditional land ownership. In 1974, the Cameroon government introduced a Land Act, which classified land into three kinds. There was national land, with the Chiefs as custodians on behalf of the community. Those on national land had users' rights but no right to ownership. Then there was private land backed by a land title. Lastly, there was state land, owned by the government.
When the multinationals come looking for land, they can easily get access to the national land, which represents about 70% of the country's land. So the collusion and corruption began at the point when multinationals would negotiate the land with the government and not with the Chiefs who oversee the land day-to-day. Once the government signs a land contract, the multinationals must make an agreement with the custodians, the Chiefs. However, in a centralised state, the Chiefs rarely go against the government, although some are strong, very principled and may try, it's rare. The Chiefs are supposed to make their decision based on "community's approval" but this rarely happens and they will often receive "kickbacks" and move on without true consultation. The political elites will also benefit from the bribe, at the expense of the entire village. In exchange the communities receive food rations (rice and meat from the multinationals, of which the Chief and elites still get the lion's share). So at first the people are happy, only to realise the consequences when they see the barbed wire or guards around the land they now have no access to. This process which dispossesses village communities from their land has a bearing on the escalation of the Anglophone crisis.
Dean Peacock (DP): Please elaborate further...
Lotsmart Fonjong (LF): This is the case in Ndian and Kupe Manenguba Divisions where SGC-SOC, a subsidiary of US-based Herakles Farms, grabbed over 100,000 hectares of local land. Local pressure pushed the state of Cameroon to reduce what was initially acquired by SG-SOC to less than 20,000 hectares and the rest receded to the population.[1]
Historically, the crisis is the result of the failure of subsequent Francophone-led governments to respect the reunification accord, and the fact that Anglophones feel marginalised as a result of government policies. For example, the government wanted to "C both the legal and the education system which the Anglophones opposed. They want to introduce teachers and magistrates from the Francophone part of the country into the regions where the Anglophones are in the majority. Anglophones believed that Francophones being allowed to teach in the Anglophone region in a language they haven't mastered, was an attempt to destroy the Anglophone educational system, and similarly objected to Francophone judges in common law courts when they are not the product of the Common Law legal system. So although land grabbing is a nationwide issue, it has become a more powerful issue in some Anglophone regions, because Anglophones regard it as an extension of the central government policies in their region, and not something that is happening all over the country.
Dean Peacock (DP): You have written extensively on the role that International Financial Institutions have played in generating conditions that have led to conflict. Can you say a little about the IMF and the World Bank structural adjustment policies and how they've contributed to Cameroon's conflict?
Lotsmart Fonjong (LF): The late 1980s economic crisis pushed many African countries, and developing countries elsewhere, to turn to the IMF/World Bank for financial assistance. However, there were stringent conditions put in place. The borrowers needed to restructure their economies, accept devaluation, downsize public services and public sector employment, accept privatisation of some public companies and even stop subsidising agriculture, education, health, and other social services that were considered by the Brettonwood institutions as a "burden" to the economy. This meant charges for health and education fell on the population, while other countries like Canada, the UK or Scandinavian countries were offering these services for free to their people. Farming became more expensive because farmers no longer had subsidised products while their counterparts in the USA did. Food prices were no longer stable. With privatisation the farmers were exposed to market fluctuations; this in addition to the fact that they were already less competitive in the market as a result of structural adjustment policies.
In Cameroon, the general population was suffering too because they saw their relatives retrenched from the public service, the country's biggest employer. Prices went up because of the end of subsidies. Cameroonians for the first time had to pay for public schools. When I went to school and university we did not pay fees. University education was free for everybody until structural adjustment was introduced. SAP therefore inflamed public anger in the country. That's why in the 1990s you saw many students and the wider population taking part in protests and demonstrations. How would this have affected the Anglophones? Wherever there is poverty, there's disgruntlement, so you're just waiting for a spark. So rather than people saying there is a problem in the world market, people will look at the government. During the 2008 food crisis, rather than seeing it as a global problem, many Anglophones would say the situation had arisen because the government had forfeited their land and given it to multinationals. When the Anglophone teachers' union and the lawyers initially conceived the Anglophone problem as that of marginalisation, many in the population identified with this position. Farmers, students, and graduates thought they were being marginalised. Many jobless youths and low income earners like taxi drivers thought the same. There are professional schools in Cameroon, where when you graduate you automatically get a government job, and there is a quota system for each region. So, when children could not gain admissions into these schools, it was easy for some people to attribute it to the marginalisation of Anglophones, rather than the fact that the quota has been reached. In fact, the Anglophone problem in Cameroon is as old as "the Anglophones themselves".
The structural adjustment programme also recommended the privatisation of state enterprises. The biggest privatised enterprise in Cameroon, which happens to be the biggest employer after the government, was the Cameroon Development Corporation (CDC) in the Anglophone region. It employed a lot of farmers and Anglophones. So when that corporation was privatised it led the general population to question their right over the land. It was okay for CDC to have the land as long as it was a state corporation. Privatisation of the CDC, thus, raised a lot of issues that led to public demonstrations all over the Anglophone regions.
Privatisation also meant retrenchment. Private sector investors who took over many public corporations restructured the labour force and maintained just those who were essential. But that was not the original purpose of the state enterprises which were also there to cushion the effects of poverty, providing a social function by allowing the government to employ more people than were really needed. But a business will not do that! The business model is strictly for profit. So privatisation of the CDC created harsh conditions and poverty for those who were retrenched, which created problems related to community land rights. The corporation also was not bound to employ only Anglophones, stripping them of the hitherto employment privileges.
Dean Peacock (DP): Can you tell us a bit more about how these multiple drivers of conflict, corruption, distrust in co- opted local leaders, land dispossession and SAPs related austerity have affected women and men in Cameroon?
Lotsmart Fonjong (LF): The first thing we need to understand is that historically men own the land while women work it. And so, in terms of gender relations, the men make the decisions on long term investment, and the women work on the land on a yearly basis, for subsistence. So when there is dispossession of those men from community land, there's already a power question. Often corporations buy more land than needed, so the women end up asking for land access from the company, rather than the men. So now there's a new owner in town and the men's power is eroded. Even the Chief's powers are reduced because they no longer control the land. Moreover, if communities encroach on the company's land, the company will simply destroy women's farms and crops. Activities of agro-companies also disrupt the supply of community water. Water fetching is historically a woman's job and this has created conflict between men and women, with women accusing the men, through the Chiefs, of having sold their land, their right to water, and to food. On top of this there is constant conflict between communities and companies as plantations either pollute or control the sources of water through irrigation. Many agro-companies do not keep to their word. They enter into agreements to provide potable water to local communities as part of the compensation for taking over their land, but sometimes they don't do it creating conflict.
We should also note that not all the multinationals' activities are completely bad. They do provide some kinds of jobs and they pay some taxes to the government. But the point is that the compensation for the land is not equal to the suffering they leave behind. They deprive people of water, deprive the people of their land, men cannot go into the forest or hunt, and of course they were not consulted. To have the right to livelihoods, which land is, stripped away without your consent is a fundamental problem.
Dean Peacock (DP): As the Anglophone conflict enters its seventh year with rampant atrocities still regularly taking place, your research reveals it has profoundly shaped masculinity and gender power relations. Can you explain how?
Lotsmart Fonjong (LF): The first thing is that women think that men's poor leadership is responsible for the crisis, because it is mostly men in power. From a survey conducted for my last paper we found that as a result of the crisis, there is an increase in female-headed households. Because many young men have fled into the forests to fight, and those unwilling to join the armed groups have fled to the cities or other parts of the country, the women left behind are making the decisions. Even the men who owned plantations or worked in them prior to the crisis can no longer earn income, so most women are now heads of the household.
The Anglophone crisis and ongoing insecurities in the region have significantly changed gender roles. There are now activities traditionally done by men that have been taken up by women. If you watch the media you see women digging graves to bury the dead which was customarily a man's job. The atrocities happening in the country affect men and women differently. When the armed groups attack, they force the men to join them. When the military patrols, they see men are part of the armed groups, so men have no security either way and are frequently on the run, leaving women behind. Our study showed women are the ones calling emergency village meetings when there are issues/crises in the villages, because the men are no longer there. Women are filling the void, they are "stepping in" and making decisions, but this is not constituted power. Meanwhile, in the urban areas we see men delegating women to the villages because men are more susceptible to being kidnapped. We also found women becoming involved in the conflict as combatants, something we've never seen before in Anglophone Cameroon. We don't know the exact numbers but the dynamics are changing, because he or she who has firearms has power. However at the level of institutional leadership nothing has changed. Our last paper examined the new institutions created by the conflict and the opportunities they opened for women, but we didn't find any significant change. For example, the government opted for regional councils during the last Grand National Dialogue geared towards resolving the Anglophone crisis, but we found the percentage of female representation in these councils to be very, very low.
We found several reasons for this:
1) The conflict is still very violent and politics is considered unsafe for women
2) Women are afraid, having witnessed the danger and risks faced by those already working in such institutions
3) The conflict is still ongoing with so many unknowns that no-one wants to subject his/her family to political danger
4) Most political opportunities are first and foremost reserved for men, because of their perceived role in war politics.
However, post conflict, given that the relationships between men and women are changing, we think there will be more women in these institutions. We've seen women coming together and mobilising for peace. Women's groups are speaking out against the atrocities, against the protracted conflict, against the armed groups, against the government and looking for a middle way. If these women's groups and momentum are sustained we think they will become major players in post-conflict Anglophone Cameroon.
Dean Peacock (DP): We know men are not an homogenous group. Can you help us understand differences amongst men in terms of their response to conflict? What sorts of responses have we seen from men to their rapidly shifting roles amid the changing social and economic structures?
Lotsmart Fonjong (LF): It's important to separate the male politicians and businessmen from ordinary family men. At the beginning of the crisis, Anglophone politicians and businessmen from the ruling party wouldn't accept there was an Anglophone problem. But then some plantation owners started to lose business and because they did not want to appear to oppose the war in public, encouraged the women's groups to keep fighting to bring the conflict to an end as they now had a vested interest in seeing them succeed. Of course there are many other men benefiting from the conflict i.e. from the war economy which is in the hands of men. For the men who were now unemployed, the propaganda from the armed groups was very seductive, promising that independence would be achieved imminently and prompting so many of them to join. Particularly those who had been working in the plantations in the rural areas and now had nothing to do. Because of the high rate of unemployment, the armed groups had fertile ground to recruit from, however we are increasingly seeing the size of these armed groups dwindling, maybe because some are being killed, some defecting while others are escaping to Nigeria since many did not expect this war to last for seven years. People are tired.
Dean Peacock (DP): You have written recently on whether the conflict and the new political structures, put in place to resolve it have created opportunities for increased leadership for women. Can you tell us about what you have found?
Lotsmart Fonjong (LF): As I mentioned, earlier we found opportunities for women in this sphere have not increased. All the new structures created are led by men. For example, the government created a bilingualism commission that is headed by a man. The Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration (DDR) Commission is headed by a man, and so is the Reconstruction Commission. All of the regional councils created have presidents that are men, they created the Houses of Chiefs in Anglophone areas, and they're all headed by men too.
It's different to the situation we saw in Rwanda, Uganda or Liberia where post conflict there was an increase in women's representation. Nevertheless, there are women leaders in the country that are distinguishing themselves. They are gaining more experience, creating their own structures, attending more meetings, participating in international conferences and learning more about conflict and how to enhance the use of their indigenous or local knowledge for peace. We think that at the end of the conflict women will be more prepared to take their place in the political sphere and take on more leadership positions. Worth noting that some women are becoming household names, especially those in civil society. One of the things we are looking at is how women in the Anglophone and Francophone regions are working together. From the outside one might think that the two groups are enemies but it doesn't work like that. It seems the common enemy is the political system. Some Francophone and Anglophone women are working together, protesting together and some are imprisoned together.
Dean Peacock (DP): Your report focuses on land rights in Cameroon and states how the new dynamics and the conflict in Anglophone regions have provided evidence to show that a growing number of men support women's land rights. Can you explain how?
Lotsmart Fonjong (LF): In Cameroon, land inheritance has always been male but we are increasingly seeing the growth of the nuclear family and men titling or willing their land to their children both male or female. More and more, women are inheriting land. Interestingly, when Ni John Fru Ndi, the chairman of the Social Democratic Front, the main political opposition party in Cameroon, died last year he named his daughter as his next of kin. This is unheard of! He is one of the greatest Anglophone politicians. He has a son, who is a politician so one would naturally think the son would inherit. And his daughter is married. When we did a study on why Anglophone women don't inherit land in Cameroon, one of the key findings was because when women marry they might take the land with them to their matrimonial home.
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It's still quite rare but it's growing. Instances of female children inheriting land is becoming more commonplace. Whereas it was customary for the oldest boy to inherit, now families are giving it to the child they think is most competent, responsible and able to take care of it, be that their son or their daughter. We also find educated men trying to adjudicate cases in favour of women's access to land. For example in disputes between graziers and female farmers, male community leaders would favour women because they don't want women to farm far into the forest where they might encounter armed groups. In issues of land rights we often find ordinary men joining women in demonstrations and protests.
Dean Peacock (DP): How does the research add to our understanding of how best to work with men with influence in the country? For example, traditional leaders, men in the legal profession, men in political office, to help increase women's access to land ownership and pave the way for women's empowerment?
Lotsmart Fonjong (LF): The legal sphere where court decisions are made is very, very important, as is judicial activism. Women don't have the means to follow up injustices in court. Sometimes judges still focus on traditional customs and believe women shouldn't own land, but it is changing. We need more gender aware judges like Justice Vera Ngassa of the Supreme Court of Cameroon, who has done a marvellous job in gendering the legal landscape in Cameroon through her scholarship, commitment to providing legal aid and education to women and women organisations.
There are also an increasing number of female judges, so although some aspects are still very patriarchal, we are seeing the system becoming more gender diverse. Judicial activism that can advance the practice of women owning land in the villages or at the community level is very important to enable women to gain full control. Another of our findings was that some men are advising women about the type of marriage they enter into. In Cameroonian civil courts there is the option to marry according to native law and custom. This means if the marriage is dissolved, the native law which holds that women cannot own land or own property will prevail. So men are working with women to ensure they are empowered and understand the implications of their marriage regime before signing for one.
In the political sphere, we are seeing some men working with female candidates to help push the women's agenda through the national agenda. Some Chiefs are increasingly positive about women owning land and having legal rights over it. During our meetings, traditional leaders of the Northwest during the crisis encouraged families to treat their sons and daughters equally. I have an ongoing project with traditional leaders, women and land contestation in the disputed Anglophone region that is exploring more on this but is being held back by lack of funding. For example, we see brave women being recognised with a piece of land by traditional leaders for outstanding achievements in their villages. With the land allotted to them, these women can become role models for others to look to and fight for their land rights.
End Notes
[1] (Fonjong L. N., Sama-Lang I., Fombe L., Abonge C. (2015, March 23-27). Disenchanting voices from within: Interrogating women's resistance to large-scale agro-investments in Cameroon. Paper presented at the Annual World Bank Conference on Land and Poverty, Washington, DC.)
*Dean Peacock is the project director of the Mobilising Men for Feminist Peace initiative at the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, the world's oldest peace organisation working for a world at permanent and feminist peace. He is also an Honorary Senior Lecturer at the University of Cape Town's School of Public Health, a Visiting Scholar at the University of San Diego's Joan B. Kroc School of Peace Studies, and an Ashoka Changemaker Fellow. He is a co-founder and former Executive Director of Sonke Gender Justice, a multi-award winning South African NGO working across Africa to promote gender transformation, human rights and social justice, and a co-founder of the Global MenEngage Alliance.
Draft and edits; Reem Abbas Communications Coordinator for Mobilising Men for Feminist Peace - Women's International League for Peace and Freedom
Debating Ideas aims to reflect the values and editorial ethos of the African Arguments book series, publishing engaged, often radical, scholarship, original and activist writing from within the African continent and beyond. It offers debates and engagements, contexts and controversies, and reviews and responses flowing from the African Arguments books.
