ZONAS MÁS FAVORECIDAS
2.2.11. Origen, usos y conceptos de competencia.
1
Introduction
Conflicting claims of entitlement to land in Cameroon exist at two levels. The first level involves conflicts between the state and society, while the second involves conflicts between indigenous groups and strangers.1 These conflicts and the tensions they engender have historically been heightened in Fako Division, particularly the region occupied by the Bakweri,2 which is home to Mount Cameroon, one of Africa’s three highest peaks.3 Thanks to soil from this volcanically active mountain, the region boasts the best land for agriculture in the nation. German colonial authorities recognised the region’s agricultural potential early in their brief colonial tenure, and hastened to expropriate large tracts of land for plantation agriculture. The concomitant need for labour resulted in an influx of ‘strangers’ to the region, a land shortage for habitation, cultivation and other needs of the Bakweri people.4 The land shortage and the persistent refusal on the part of successive governments in Cameroon to recognise this people’s entitlement to land constitute in essence the Bakweri land problem.
This chapter discusses how the problem has evolved since the German colonial era. It briefly describes the Bakweri and their traditional land tenure system, then reviews the colonial era in Cameroon as a source of the Bakweri land problem. Next, it identifies and discusses major relevant
1 The term ‘strangers’ connotes people living in areas to where they do not trace their
ancestry. Conversely, the term ‘indigenous groups’ encompasses people living in areas of their ancestry.
2 This region lies on the southwestern slopes and foot of Mount Cameroon bordering on
the Atlantic Ocean. The term ‘Bakweri’ in its plural form refers to the indigenous people of this region.
3 The two other high peaks are Kilimanjaro in East Africa and the Atlas Mountains in
North-west Africa.
4 This problem was brought to the attention of the German colonial authorities at an
early date. See CK Meek, Land tenure and administration in Nigeria and the Cameroons
legislation and explores the human rights dimensions of the problem, drawing from the case of the Bakweri Land Claims Committee (BLCC), the accredited agent of the Bakweri, against the Government of Cameroon, which was heard by the African Commission of Human and People’s Rights (ACHPR) in Banjul, Gambia in 2002. The chapter ends with some concluding remarks.
As with other cases of conflicting state-society claims of entitlements to land involving indigenous minorities, such as the Mabo v Queensland5
case in Australia, the Guerin v The Queen6 and the Ogoni people of Nigeria’s Delta region case against the Government of Nigeria,7 the Bakweri case has implications that transcend the socio-economic and politico- administrative frontiers of Cameroon.8
2
The Bakweri in brief
The Bakweri are said to have migrated to their present locale on the slopes and foot of Mount Cameroon from an area east of the mountain in the mid-18th century. By the time the Germans arrived Cameroon in the late- 1800s, the Bakweri were already completely but sparsely settled in the region around the mountain, stretching from its south-western slopes to the creeks by the Atlantic Ocean. The Bakweri population has always been relatively small in comparison to other indigenous Cameroonian groups, and is thinly spread and organised in small clusters over their ancestral lands. At independence, the Bakweri were estimated to be at most 16,000.9 As a polity, the Bakweri were largely fragmentary and acephalous. Thus, unlike some of their hinterland counterparts, pre-colonial Bakweri society was neither centralised nor possessed powerful paramount chiefs.10 Presently, the Bakweri are grouped into sixty-three villages, each headed by an autonomous and independent chief.11
5 Mabo and Others v Queensland (1992) 2HCA 23; Mabo and Others v Queensland (1992) 175
CLR 1.
6 Guerin v the Queen (1984) 2 S.C.R. 335.
7 The Social and Economic Rights Action Center and the Center for Economic and Social Rights
(SERAC) v Nigeria, Communication 155/96 (2001 – 2002).
8 MA Stephenson & SR Stephenson Mabo: A judicial revolution (1993) MM Slaughter
‘American indian tribes: Not as belonging to but as existing within’ (2000); S Motha &
C Perrin ‘Deposing sovereignty after Mabo: Special issue’ (2002) 13(3) Law and Critique
63 - 83.
9 C Fisiy & P Geshier ‘The Bakweri: Nyongo witchcraft and the “Banana Boom”’ trans
D Tande http://www.bakweri.org/files/Bakweri_Nyongo_Witchcraft.pdf (accessed 30 May 2010).
10 It is erroneous to believe that all hinterland polities, particularly those of the country’s
grassfield region are centralised. As anthropologists with research experience in Cameroon have noted, some grassfield polities, such as Meta of the North-West
Region, are acephalous. See R Dillon Ranking and resistance: A precolonial Cameroonian
polity in regional perspective (1990).
11 See Communication 260/2002, BLCC v Cameroon, reply presented by the Government
Like their hinterland counterparts, pre-colonial Bakweri society observed a land tenure system centred on the communal control of land. Members of this society used land in the built-up areas mainly for residential building, food crop cultivation, and the raring of animals. The rest of the land served as hunting grounds and the source of medicinal products such as tree barks, roots and leaves. The pre-colonial Bakweri used rivers and other bodies of water on their ancestral lands for hydrotherapeutic and other rituals designed to positively affect their physical, mental and spiritual health. These bodies of water also served, and continue to serve, as a food source, with fishing the vocation of choice for many Bakweri.
In pre-colonial Bakweri society, communities comprising mainly extended families (as opposed to individuals) controlled land. Such control as was commonplace throughout most of Africa before the European conquest did not imply ownership of any sort. Consequently, it was never permissible for individuals to alienate or transfer land as custom allowed for no more than the privilege to use land. Land therefore had use, as opposed to economic, value in this society, was never viewed as a commodity and therefore could not be sold.12 All living members of pre- colonial Bakweri society viewed themselves as custodians and not proprietors of the land bequeathed from earlier generations: the living had the responsibility of guarding and protecting land for the unborn.