Public and Private Press in Cameroon
From Freedom of the Press to a Cameroon Prison Cell
By Terry Maguire, April 1998
Douala, CAMEROON -- I saw it in their faces. I heard it in their voices.
The people of Douala adore Pius NJAWE and his newspaper.
The faces that told the story best were those of his wife and six children. (A seventh child, Justice, was still born in early January.) What could be more difficult than having to visit your father in prison?
How do you explain to a six or seven year old that his and her father is in jail for "nothing" and for everything?
Pius NJAWE, 39, sits and walks and talks in the New Bell central prison of Douala. He has been there for over 100 days and nights since his Christmas eve arrest at home.
Normally, Pius would be greeting his family each morning, and then heading off to his office at Le Messager, a thrice weekly newspaper. (Le Messager is only a few pages each issue, and the printing quality is not very good, but it has become the most respected newspaper in Cameroon.)
Instead, he wakes to greet the other 1,567 inmates in the prison. For many of them, and the guards who involuntarily and unhappily are forced to keep him confined, Pius is a beacon of hope. This remarkable man maintains his good cheer despite conditions that most Americans will never know.
Sometimes the press in the U.S. and elsewhere complain loudly about infringements on press freedom. Often, the points made, and the restrictions suffered, are important. Or at least they have seemed so each time.
But understand what this man has done.
His correspondent in the country's capitol, Yaounde, called him in Douala last December to say that he had some news to report. The President of Cameroon, Paul BIYA, had apparently fallen ill during a soccer match. It was most unusual for the President to miss so much of the game.
Pius decided to investigate. At least two calls to members of the President's inner circle confirmed the story, and these sources did so without knowing what the other sources had said. The President had apparently suffered a heart attack of some sort.
So Pius decided to go with the story - 22 December. He felt, as ordinary Cameroonians reinforced to me everywhere, that the people of Cameroon had a right to know about the health of their president.
He realized this was an important and -- as the public prosecutor has since argued -- a "sensitive" story. Despite sources that he trusted -- the sort of sources one would expect the New York Times or other newspapers to use -- Pius chose to report the matter in what has been called a "conditional" manner. Virtually the entire article, based on fact as best a good journalist cold determine it, was a question mark. Most all of the facts were presented as questions in order to allow future reporting to come up with definitive answers.
A few days later the President's office issued a denial. What did Le Messager do with the statement? It printed what the President said, a practice that any good newspaper likely would follow.
Pius was not able to buy a copy of his newspaper to read the presidential reaction story. A copy had to be smuggled into him at the place he still calls home.
On Christmas eve, Pius was hauled off to jail. It was 26 December when the President's response appeared.
For days - weeks - no one knew what charges were being brought against Pius. It was not until 13 January that his case came before a trial court. All the time, he remained in jail or prison.
Tell me about American prisons, Pius' wife asked me. She has traveled to the U.S. and has seen Washington, D.C., Detroit, and Chicago. A visit to check out the local prisons was probably not on her tour itinerary at the time.
She, in effect, was asking me if visitors to American jails have to walk across a latrine to get to the front door, if prisons in the U.S. put 100 people in the same cell, if diabetics (Pius is one) were entitled to medication, if blood tests were frequently lost, if lawyers were routinely denied access to the prison for purely technical reasons (this happened to me twice, once with the encouragement of very threatening guns), and if it was so hot in the prisons that sweat rolled off the faces of everyone all the time, and if the food was so bad that bringing one's own was the only way to prevent sickness or poisoning.
What resulted from that courtroom in the Palais de la Justice of Douala on 13 January is not to believed. Pius was confronted with an allegation that he had disseminated "false news", a crime in Cameroon. And he was convicted by the trial judge.
In a judgment issued only 2 weeks ago, the judge concluded that Pius had published false information that was damaging to the interests of the country and that he did it intentionally.
The judge fined him 500,000 CFA (approximately 1,000 USD). That would have been bad enough - for this "offense", but instead of allowing him to pay the fine and go free, Pius NJAWE was sentenced to two years in prison without possibility of parole.
He and his very competent local lawyers appealed the decision. And so did the public prosecutor. He thought three years was needed to punish this heinous crime against the state.
Some justice was served last week in that it appears that the judge has ruled the prosecutor's appeal to have been filed one day too late under local rules and so it seems to have been dismissed.
Pius NJAWE has been in prison previously. His "crimes" are all in the same category as this one that puts him behind lock and key today. They all involve him doing something that the government did not like.
As I sat writing this in the lobby of the nicest hotel in Douala, I was filled with guilt. The music I heard from the piano in the lobby was full of life and vitality. Pius was across a very poor town in terrible conditions that he accepts with as much good will as the piano player. And now as I finish the piece in Cork, Ireland, the guilt continues. How can this happen?
There is a ray of hope. The matter rests squarely with a single judge. His name is MINKO and he will issue his opinion on the appeal of Pius' conviction on 14 April. Does this judge believe in the principle of free expression? Does he believe in the fundamental right of newspapers to report what they learn? Does he believe that the government has proven the guilt of Pius NJAWE?
Only a few more days will tell us the answers to these questions.
The court argument last Thursday, 2 April, in Douala's Court of Appeals was unforgettable. Some 500 people - perhaps more - crowded the court house to hear some of the proceeding. They were respectful of the court, but determined to show their solidarity.
A dozen of us lawyers took the defense. Eleven Cameroonians and I.
We sat on wooden benches. The temperature rose to over 100 degrees and the humidity to 100% very quickly, and seemed to go far beyond.
The first order of business was the move of the assistant public prosecutor to bar me from participating in the hearing. He had found a provision in the Cameroon code limiting out-of-country lawyers to French only. Irish-Americans were not welcome. And he insisted. Rather than turn the proceeding into a hearing on my participation, we accepted the objection; I would not have wanted to contribute one more hour to Pius's incarceration. But the judge ruled I could remain with the other lawyers so I was able to be a part of the team even though I could not speak. In a case about freedom of expression, this has a chilling irony about it.
The prosecutor began to lecture Pius on responsible journalism, but kept saying the case was not about journalism; it was about a crime against the state. Despite requests from the defense lawyers, the prosecutor refused to put forward the proof required by the statute. As awful as the law of "false news" is, the government refused to prove its case; it rested only on the trial court decision.
That's because, we are all convinced, there is no proof to be had. In fact, more information has emerged to support the original story and nothing has been produced to support the government's claim.
This was all quite brilliantly related to the court as each Cameroon member of the defense team summed up his and her arguments to the court.
After six and one-half hours, the judge announced that he would render a decision on 14 April.
Judge MINKO bears a very heavy load. He is supposed to be independent and I saw every reason in the court to believe that he is. Yet everyone, and I mean everyone, with whom I spoke believes that he takes his orders from somewhere else.
If you were he, what would you do? Would you take the kind of risks that have landed Pius NJAWE in prison because he believes so strongly in principles? Would you defy any who might disagree, look carefully at the facts and the law and come the inescapable conclusion that Pius must go free?
Or will you timidly confirm the belief of those who believe that this case has nothing to do with the law and everything to do with politics? Will you decide that the flimsy, almost non-existent, case of the government should be affirmed?
Having met with this judge, and seen him in action, I believe that he has the ability and the determination to do the right thing. The world of those interested in, and committed to, freedom of expression will be waiting for him on 14 April.
For if this conviction is not overturned, the Government of Cameroon is likely to face a life at least as difficult as that of Pius NJAWE. The government will enter into the prison of public condemnation, and the sentence will be ostracism from investors, from tourists and from the civilized world.
I hope the judge sleeps soundly these next days. His potential moment of genuine glory awaits him very shortly.
A few final thoughts....
How does one explain the reaction of people in various walks of life, some in the uniform of a private organization, some in everyday clothes, some in the uniform of the state? How can one not feel something very special when a waiter in a hotel says that he supports Pius NJAWE because he tells the truth? Or a bell man who says Le Messager believes that the people should know? Or an immigration inspector at the airport who smiles happily when I tell him I will return when Pius NJAWE is a free man? Or the bartender who says he likes one beer and I probably like another; our ability to say so is the way he sees this case?
Before leaving Cameroon, I wrote a note to Pius to be delivered to him surreptitiously on Monday, 6 April. The note said "you are we." Each person here in Ireland who goes to bed tonight knowing that they will awake tomorrow as a free person able to read the fruits of a free press over breakfast and dinner needs, I would argue, to think about Pius NJAWE rising in prison because he exercised the rights we all so often take for granted.
Pius NJAWE is the best ambassador Cameroon has ever had. I am proud and honored to call him friend. What I want to do most is call him free.
---- Examiner Publications of Cork, the publisher of the Examiner, joined more than a dozen other press groups in signing a legal brief filed with Judge MINKO. Why did they do this? "Because," said chief executive Alan G. CROSBIE. "Pius NJAWE stands for what we believe but rarely have to prove." "Preserving a free press everywhere is the best way of protecting it at home," CROSBIE added.
---- If you care about the situation in which Pius NJAWE finds himself, then use this wonderful technology to tell him so. Although the connection on their end is a little cumbersome, I can tell you that support means everything. Send an e-mail message to lemessager@camnet.cm. French or English is fine; they will be delighted to receive your message in any language.
---- Copyright 1998 Terry MAGUIRE. All Rights Reserved for the Benefit of the Pius NJAWE Defense
Terry MAGUIRE is a Washington, D.C. lawyer, a member of the Pius NJAWE defense team, and he prepared the legal brief file in this case on behalf of many press groups. He is also an Irish citizen.