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Biya deigns to receive Djotodia envoy after chaos on CAR border

By Tengwan Ambe Frederick in Yaounde

The president of the republic, Paul Biya, has at last stooped low enough to receive an envoy from the Central African president, Michel Djotodia, last Monday July 29, 2013. Biya’s guest, Arnaud Djoubaye Abazene, is his country’s minister of transport and civil aviation and the first guest from his country to be received publicly by Biya, since the new strongman of the CAR Michel Djotodia seized power in early this year,  Minister Djoubaye’s visit is significant in that it comes against a backdrop of snobbism which the Cameroon president has always shown Djotodia, who was conspicuously absent from the maritime security summit which gathered CEMAC heads of state among others in Yaounde last June.  But in a move reminiscent of French president, Francois Hollande, sending his foreign relation’s minister to Yaounde to help negotiate the release of the French subjects kidnapped by Boko Haram just days after he scorned Biya during his France visit,  Biya has had to swallow the bitter pill of playing host to those he scorned just  yesterday.

Speaking to pressmen at the gates of the presidency after a 30-minute audience with the head of state, the CAR minister of transport declared that “It is a message from one head of state to another. I cannot therefore unravel the content”. He was addressing questions on the content of their discussions. The presidency was however less secretive as it revealed on the head of state’s Facebook account that the two statesmen delved on cooperation between the two countries. It should be recalled that this cooperation had hit the rocks since Francois Bozizé, whom Biya’s heart is reputed to have taken after, was chased from his Bangui palace into Biya’s courtyard by Djotodia and his men.

Biya, who presidency sources say abhors military coups, reason why he takes all the pains to nurse the Cameroon army like a queen bee, is said to have taken exception to Djotodia’s insistence that Bozize leaves Yaounde where he had escaped to after the SELECA coup. Pundits further believe that it is for the same reason that Djotodia was never invited to the Yaounde summit, putting Cameroon – CAR relations at their ebb.

If this is the case, it is not from the CAR envoy that confirmation will be gotten.  Djoubaye Azabene insisted to reporters that “there has never been any friction between our two countries. The authorities are working in close collaboration to eradicate insecurity phenomena along our common border. Everything is going on well”.

Neither Biya nor Djotodia’s envoy could, however, hide the fact that the Cameroon head of state has been compelled to swallow his pride and receive the Central African upstarts because of events along this border. Last July 26, residents of Gari-Gombo, a border town in the Boumba and Ngoko division of the east province, rose as one man and burnt down the border police post and gate, driving all the police at the border and calling for the departure of the chief of post. Such unity in rebellion has rarely been seen in Cameroon since the February 2008 nationwide upheaval.

 Insecurity has been rife in this area even before chaos took over the CAR and reports of armed gangs crossing from the CAR into Cameroon to terrorize and rob peaceful citizens are rife. But in their characteristic unimaginative fashion, Cameroonian authorities simply ordered the border closed, remaining blatantly inadvertent of the livelihood of hundreds of Cameroonians who depend on the border trade for their daily bread. And apparently confirming predictions that Biya’s doom will come from the brainwashed products from ENAM to whom he entrusts state business, the “chefs de terre” and champions of “commandement” aggravated the situation out of their desire to force a hasty solution to the border security problem, thus forcing even their own population to rebel.  Faced with such an unprecedented rebellion and insecurity in the East region which prides itself in being the most loyal to Biya, Cameroon was forced to go to the negotiating table.