Is it Cameroon’s turn to be suspended from US trade pact with Africa?
- Regis Simo
Cameroon has been a member of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) initiative since it was launched in 2000.
AGOA is a preferential trade programme which allows a set of eligible products from designated African countries into the US market.
Its main objective is to promote economic development through increased trade and investment between the US and sub-Saharan Africa. Cameroon has benefited a great deal. In 2015, it made USD$133 million in overall export trade. Cameroon’s main exports to the US include petroleum, cocoa, rubber, timber, and coffee, while its main imports from the US include machinery, vehicles and chemicals.
But AGOA is not just a trade pact. It’s also a way of promoting democracy. It comes with strict eligibility criteria which require that countries maintain the rule of law. Countries must also commit to political pluralism, the right to due process, fair trial, and equal protection under the law. They must also cooperate in international efforts to eliminate human rights violations.
The AGOA legislation empowers the American president annually to determine which countries are still eligible for its benefits. If he determines that a country is not making progress towards meeting the criteria he can decide to suspend it from the agreement.
The history of AGOA is replete with cases of ejections and re-admissions. These have often been based on human rights and democracy related issues. For instance, in 2016 former US President Barack Obama ejected Burundi from the AGOA family.
He did this on grounds that the country had failed to establish the rule of law. His reasons included the continuing crackdown on opposition members, assassinations, extra-judicial killings, arbitrary arrests and torture.
South Sudan and The Gambia have also had their memberships terminated. The Democratic Republic of Congo and Swaziland too. Mali, Guinea Bissau and Cote d’Ivoire were ejected and re-admitted after making efforts to strengthen the rule of law.
So far Cameroon has had a stellar record. But given recent developments questions are being asked about whether or not it should still benefit from the scheme.
Troubles in Cameroon
Over the past year Cameroon has been engulfed in a crisis that has pitted the Anglophone part of the country against the central government whose policies are decried to favour its Francophone regions. The Anglophone regions to the west are former British mandated territories, while the Francophone regions in the east are former French mandated territories.
The unrest began in October 2016 with a protest against the overwhelming use of French in a country where French and English have equal status under the constitution.
What began as a disagreement over the use of language in courts and in the design of school curricula has slowly became a political battle for Anglophone secession. The calls for secession have been met with brutal repression by state security forces. Whenever the state and the secessionists have clashed state agents have used excessive force.
Multiple human rights abuses have been committed against unarmed civilian populations including killings, mass arrests and detention. Some pro-Anglophone Cameroonians have sought refuge in neighbouring Nigeria while others have been arrested and detained pending prosecution.
In January, the government shut down the internet