The Chia Report

Head and Neck Cancer – My Story with Cancer

Intro by Innocent F Chia

As my right hand was clenching my left wrist under the piercing lights and high-pitched sound of the drill that my dentist was maneuvering to prep and fill those cavities, it dawned on me that I had broken a promise... Over a month ago in April, my colleague and cube mate at IBM shared this one-of-a-kind story that I intended to publish for internal consumption only. But her narrative was so potent, as you hopefully will share, I felt it in my gut that even one person benefiting from it on this blog would be tremendous. It is a story to make you to appreciate your dentist more and shove the drill phobia where it belongs...

SOS - Rev. Sister Kah Mufut is in danger of losing her life

By Lambert Mbom

What started off as a simple pain in the arm of Rev Sr Kah Mufut morphed into cancer of the lungs diagnosed at an advanced stage. It has affected her brain and her spine among others. She has had radiation and then decided to pursue alternative therapy. Sr. Kah is a religious nun with the order of the sisters of St Therese of the child Jesus whose motherhouse is in Kumba town. By virtue of their consecrated life, they profess and live the vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. They live in communities and do not own personal property. 

Unlike Franciscan Sisters in Shisong who have international affiliations just as do the Holy Rosary Sisters, the Sisters of St Therese are only in Cameroon.

Pressmen To Rekindle The Gwellem Flame

Monday, June 03, 2013
By Francis Tim Mbom

CameroonPostline.com -- May 5, 2013, marked, exactly 10 years since the Journalism icon, Arthur Jerome Fultang Gwellem, passed away. He was brutally crushed to death by a reckless motorist, in Yaounde. Late Gwellem had left Limbe early that same day to Yaounde to attend a National Communications Council, NCC, meeting that was billed for the following day.

It was at the backdrop of the transition of this fallen Journalism Great and a line of others like Tataw Obenson, David Achidi Diffang, Wem Mwambo, Vincent Nchami, Thomas Abanda, Liga Sam, Jenkins Mote, S.N. Tita, Martin Yai, Chief Epie and Big Ben, to name but these few, that a coterie of journalists, made up, mostly, of his products and some of his peers who had worked with him, gathered in Limbe on Sunday, May 26, to pay tribute to J. F. Gwellem as he was fondly called. 

After 50 Years of the OAU-AU: Time to Strengthen the Conflict Intervention Framework

Julius Agbor and Tatah Mentan 

Published by Brookings.edu / May 22, 2013 4:19pm

2013 marks 50 years since the birth of the Organization of African Unity (OAU), which became the African Union (AU) in 2002. This week, as the continent’s leaders and other Africanists meet to commemorate this special occasion, it is also the appropriate time to reflect on some of the principles, successes and shortcomings of the organization. In particular, we would like to consider why the organization has been particularly slow in intervening in situations where the “responsibility to protect” is clearly mandated. The “responsibility to protect” is a United Nations (U.N.) principle endorsed by the AU (in what has come to be known as the “Ezulwini Consensus”) and represents the right to intervene in a member states’ internal affairs in situations where citizens’ welfare has been significantly undermined.

Cameroon shuts down station over secessionist interview

New York, May 13, 2013--The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the closure of an independent radio station on April 22 in retaliation for its broadcast of an interview that authorities said incited secessionism.

Local officials in the northwestern city of Bamenda indefinitely shut down the studios of private station Foundation Radio, local journalists and news reports said. The injunction, which was signed by Felix Nguele Nguele, the top official in Bamenda, and originated from the Cameroonian minister of communications, ordered the station to be shut down because of its repeated broadcasts that "incited secessionism," according to CPJ's review of the document.

Fighting back against Sickle Cell in Cameroon - Will you Join?

By Seth Vignes - Culled from http://www.gofundme.com/SCDinCameroon

Bringing a Novel, Low-Cost Diagnostic Test for Sickle Cell Disease to Bamenda, Cameroon

Each year over 200,000 infants are born with Sickle Cell Disease (SCD) on the African continent. A vast majority of them are not properly diagnosed at birth, or during their lifetime, because of the prohibitive cost of laboratory tests required for a definitive diagnosis (e.g. hemoglobin electrophoresis or genetic screening). Within West Africa, 9% of these infants will die before reaching adulthood due to complications arising from their disease (primarily infections) – most of these deaths can be prevented through administration of prophylactic antibiotics, folic acid, fluid therapy and lifestyle adjustments, if SCD is properly diagnosed early in life.

Time to show tough love to Fru Ndi

Boh Herbert on 4/26/13

Sometime in the coming day or two, the Supreme Court will rule on the senatorial (s)elections of last April 14. Whatever the outcome, not much will change. The CPDM will stay firmly in charge. Dictatorship would have won another battle.

 It is no surprise.

Not much was expected to change. At least, not with the die-hard, "come no go" CPDM so firmly committed to sabotaging the will of the people. Not after the SDF crawled into bed with the CPDM. Now we must deal with the by-product of this act of political incest.

 

For Peace, for Freedom, for Justice, for Prosperity - Boycott Cameroon's Senatorial Masquarade

By Kenedy Ejacha
A look into the history of the nations where people are enjoying relatively the full benefits of liberty, freedom, and justice, confirms an inescapable consensus: none of them started up by being free. Their freedom is a result of the boldness of a generation to accept the challenges of confronting the conquerable hell of despotism and mental enslavement in the hope of winning the battle for the unstoppable prosperity that liberty, freedom, and justice promises. The resistance movements of these nations were influenced more by the hopes in the great promises of the future that could be theirs following the annihilation of their oppressors, than in the despair of their past or present predicaments. It is past time for the present generation of Cameroonian resistance movements for freedom, liberty, and justice to seize this opportunity and squash the dictatorial system that has held the overwhelming bulk in poverty and enslavement for more than a century now.

Is Cameroon next target for French military offensive?

By Hinsley Njila
A few weeks ago I wrote an article asking questions about the wisdom of the French invasion of Northern Mali on January 11th, 2013. In just over a month since the war began, almost everything we were promised by defense minister Le Drian and President Hollande (both of whom never served in the military) have proved to be wishful at best.  As it turns out, we now have more French forces on the ground than we were initially led to believe would be involved; the African military contingent is largely unprepared for command responsibilities, largely unprofessional,  completely inept or simply allegedly committing war crimes. Even with strength in numbers, Mr. Hollande is still not being honest about how close they are to releasing the 7 French hostages that were captured by Islamists long before the war, or the whereabouts of the intelligence officer they had attempted to rescue.

 

Calling a dog a bad name to hang it - The War in Mali

By Hinsley Njila – Intro by Innocent Chia
It is not only the secrecy with which the French are fighting the “rebels and AlQaeda” in Mali that is raising eyebrows. The Committee to Protect Journalists is decrying a 21st century war that is being fought “without images and without facts”. Observers are also befuddled by the amount of pledge of €50 million ($67 million) to support a contingent of African-led troops by a visibly beleaguered European Union (EU). Not only is this amount paltry when compared to the cost per day for either wars in Afghanistan or Iraq that the American tax payers are footing, the amount underscores the type of commitment of the International Community and the results aimed at. Another frightening thought is that Nationalists who are not on the coattails of American and European powers will be branded by their opponents in government as AlQaeda cells… As one who has been to the theater of war and actually fought for something much bigger than his life, Hinsley Njila brings unique perspective to the unfolding drama in Mali.

Plans to slaughter Anglophone Cameroonians!!!?

By Boh Herbert: Time To bring Criminal Charges against PAt & Co

You may not be aware, but many of those who championed the genocide on Rwanda's Radio Mille Collines, on television, in newspapers, in some churches, at village, community and ethnic meetings, used a lot less of the blood-thirsty, criminal, call-to-genocidelanguage that you relish and have made your trademark on this forum. Those who issued those calls for hate crimes, ethnic cleansing, mass slaughter and crimes against humanity leading ultimately to genocide in Rwanda have, for the most part, faced the music. You will, too, PAT. It is a promise.
In Rwanda, the call was for Tutsis and moderate Hutus to be happy with second class citizenship or to go elsewhere. The PATs of Rwanda asked them to leave voluntarily or risked being sent via the river (dead) to another land/country. Those were not mere threats, as the genocide proved.

Fixing what is wrong with what is right with Cameroon

Book Review by Boh Herbert

My Faith:  A Cameroon to be renewed. By Christian Cardinal Tumi, Editions Veritas; 304 pages; $30.

A long time ago, the boy Christian Tumi found himself crying in a dream. The tears were out of fear. In the dream, the young Christian Tumi had accepted the sacrament of matrimony and had come face-to-face with his worst nightmare: he would be passed off for the priesthood. It was only a dream.

Several decades on, the 82-year-old has realized more than he dreamt for… He never married, of course. He was ordained priest in April 1966, consecrated bishop in January 1980 and created cardinal in June 1988. Since November 2010, he is the Archbishop Emeritus of Douala and an author in his spare time.

His latest book (My Faith: A Cameroon to be renewed) depicts the “old Cameroon” (of “garish injustice”; a country where “detention is the rule and liberty the exception”). Like the prophet Ezekiel, the Cardinal uses the book to announce his mission to the people of God in Cameroon. It advocates the “new Cameroon” of Cardinal Tumi’s dreams and faith; a Cameroon where “man is capable of God” and where all, including prisoners are respected, rehabilitated, and no longer have to face the death penalty.

Losing Naomi While Finding a Vital Missing Link to Save Others

Culled from Edweek.org with consent of the writer Marilyn Rhames ***

A friend named Mick sent me an email last week about what happened to his friend Christopher's three-year-old daughter. The child got very sick, but he couldn't take her to the doctor immediately because he didn't have the money.  Where he lives, the doctors require their basic examination fee paid in full up front, and Christopher had less than a dollar to his name. 

By the time he was able to scrape up the money, he hired a taxi to take his daughter to the hospital. But the child was too far gone, and she died within 10 hours. Still, her medical treatment was more than the initial fee, so the hospital would not allow Christopher to leave.  Instead, he had to put his dead little girl on the back seat of a taxi—without a box or special wrapping—and send her home.  He spent one devastating night alone in the hospital until friends came up with enough money to pay the balance.

Why more African Presidents are dying in Europe

Since 2010 Africa has lost ten heads of state, with all dying abroad. Are healthcare services too bad in Africa that leaders are justified in receiving their healthcare abroad? This tantalizing question is the subject of a sizzling conversation brilliantly coordinated on VoxAfrica by Akintayo, host of Hotseat. Invited panelists to the discussion include Dr Jesse Mashate - Journalist / Communications Policy Consultant in the UK - James Schneider is Editor-in-Chief of Think Africa Press and yours truly, Innocent Chia. I will be remiss if I do not acknowledge George Tah Meh, Producer of Hotseat.

Please follow these links for the broadast -  part 1 and 2

http://www.voxafrica.co.uk/hotseat/?v=0_0ba1ncid

http://www.voxafrica.co.uk/hotseat/?v=0_e9282p7t&p=1

 

GREEN wins RIO recipe for sustainable development in Cameroon & ...

A  New Pragmatic Approach to achieving Sustainability in Cameroon and elsewhere in Africa
By Richard Munang (PhD) for www.chiareport.com

On June 20-22 global leaders gathered in Rio de Janeiro for the Rio+20 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development to discuss the future of our planet, society and environment. The outcome document entitled The Future We Want(TFWW), represents an important shift in the global approach to development.  At Rio+20, governments and businesses, for the first time, explicitly recognized that natural capital is the core element of sustainable development and identified “green economy in the context of sustainable development and eradication of poverty” as the approach that will strengthen our relationship with ecosystems and move us toward a more sustainable economic development path.
This is an important change in mindset that moves the environment from a marginal issue to a central component of future development strategies, and centralizes the economy and business as key tools to build environmental value. It also marks a shift in the dominant perspective. 

Marafa Overdosing the Despotic Regime of Biya to the Grave

Article by Kenedy Ejacha***
(Former Chief of Cabinet of the Vice-President of the National Assembly of Cameroon)
Edited by Innocent Chia

From time immemorial, the history of humanity is populated with instances where warriors have changed camp and become assets in the championing of causes against which they were ready to lay their lives. Remember Saul to Paul? Winning over these converts is as great a weapon as ever existed in the struggle of the establishment of societies as we know today.

Defectors provide adversaries with the information and or tools to successfully corrode the cohesiveness of the collective's power structure. Jacques Fame Ndongo and his cohorts are all too mindful of this legacy, which is reason enough to explain the ratcheting of the assault against the former top CPDM boabab and Secretary General at the Presidency, Marafa Hamidou Yaya, who is now responsible for feeding them a sample of their feces.

Cameroonian-American Filmmaker Shoots compelling film on Spousal Abuse

Intro by Innocent Chia

Far from the stars and glitz of Hollywood, Victor Viyuoh took another step in his journey some four years ago of making fascinating motion pictures by capturing extraordinary drama in the lives of mundane and uncharacteristic characters. The crisp and dynamite pictures reveal the movie maker's familiarity with a rural/pastoral setting that comes instantly to live in celebration of the simple, the beautiful and the majestic. Yet, in this world, in that world where all seems to be simple, all is simply not well. A storm is about to unleash in the village, pulling down on its way the rooftop of Ninah's house...

The problem is Ninah's Dowry needs to raise funds for the project to be completed.  In a recent email, my friend, classmate and film producer, Victor Viyuoh wrote: "The idea is that many people contributing a little bit of money each can result in a huge sum. The bulk of that many people is family and friends....if there is anyway to get the word out to people you know who could pledge that would be excellent.  People can pledge as little as $10. The more people, the better.  Please, help me get the word out.  It's a worthy project.

You Lazy (Intellectual) African Scum!

Culled from Mind of Malaka (January 18, 2012) and written by Field Ruwe***

They call the Third World the lazy man’s purview; the sluggishly slothful and languorous prefecture. In this realm people are sleepy, dreamy, torpid, lethargic, and therefore indigent—totally penniless, needy, destitute, poverty-stricken, disfavored, and impoverished. In this demesne, as they call it, there are hardly any discoveries, inventions, and innovations. Africa is the trailblazer. Some still call it “the dark continent” for the light that flickers under the tunnel is not that of hope, but an approaching train. And because countless keep waiting in the way of the train, millions die and many more remain decapitated by the day.

Above the Law: Cameroon’s faceoff with the International Criminal Court.

By Honoré A. NGAM* & edited by Innocent Chia
([email protected])

Cameroon has ratified most of the core international human rights treaties such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) and the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights. Cameroon, like much of Africa actively participated in the deliberations and negotiations leading to the creation of the ICC and featured among the first countries to sign the Rome Statute on the International Criminal Court on the 17 July, 1998. Ironically, this early enthusiasm towards the ICC has been blighted by a prolonged reluctance to ratify the ICC statute earning Cameroon the status of an ‘ICC hesitant’ country.

Re-tooling for the food crisis in the Horn of Africa

Article culled from Climate and Development Knowledge Network

Can small-scale adaptation actions address the food crisis in the Horn of Africa?

by: CDKN Global | on: 12pm, November 01, 2011

 Yes, small-scale adaptation actions should be widely adopted as a way of addressing recurring food crises in the Horn of Africa, says Dr. Richard Munang of the UN’s Climate Change Adaptation and Development (CC DARE) programme. Large-scale, top down commercial agriculture fails to build the resilience needed in the Horn of Africa to avoid crisis after crisis.