Centre, South, Littoral regions: Populations say agro-industries causing environmental hazards, endangering survival.

Representatives from the communities found in the Centre, Littoral and South regions, aired their plights during a workshop organised in Yaounde.

The representatives, all women, were partaking in a two-day capacity building on how to defend their rights in the face of the dangers posed by the existence of the agro-industries such as SOSUCAM, HEVECAM, SOCAPALM, and CAMVERT.

The training brought together 27 women leaders drawn from communities in Dibombari, Mbongo, Mbambou and Edea in the Littoral region; Nieté and Kienke in the South; and Mbandjock, Eseka and Nkoteng in the Centre Region. 

According to the women, these large companies in the sugar, rubber and palm oil sectors have monopolised their ancestral land, abused and violated their fundamental rights under the complicit gaze of the powers that be. 

Ngon Bissou Felicité, one of the participants from Edea where the palm plantation, SOCAPALM is established, recounting their ordeal, said “we no longer have access to our lands. We are surrounded by their plantations and they are still in the process of replanting, which takes like 50 years to mature”. 

She further explained that besides them not having access to the palm plantations, their environment is polluted by chemical waste from the industrial factories.  

“We cannot eat the fishes in our rivers because the companies empty their wastes into the waters and killing the fishes. Some fishes have become extinct in the waters. There are some fishes that when we catch, we notice that there are chemicals in their systems,” the Edea inhabitant bemoaned.

When the population fall sick, she said, there are no available health facilities in their localities and they are forced to travel long distances to seek medical services, even without required resources. 

“We are saying no to all these and we want our lands back. If not, there will be casualties and deaths, because we are ready even to be arrested. We are resolute on our decision to oppose these because we are living on our lands like slaves,” she further deplored. 

‘Menace pose by companies becoming severe’

The President of the National Synergy of Peasants and Villagers in Cameroon, SYNAPARCAM, Marie Noelle Etonde, said since privatisation of these agro-industrial companies in the early 2000s, the menace pose by the companies has become severe as they are prohibited from farming in or around the plantations. 

“SOCAPALM was privatised in the 2000, but before that we were working in the backyards of these plantations. But since the privatisation, SOCAPALM has prohibited us from accessing the plantations to farming areas,” she narrated. 

She regretted that they are even unable to feed their families or send their children to school since access to land, which is the main source of their income, has been prohibited.

“Before we could plant our cassava, yam and others and use the money to send our children to school, but now we don’t have that possibility. Even our children have been banned from picking palm nuts and even military officers are sometimes brought to scare our children off”, the SYNAPARCAM leader told reporters. 

Etonde further narrated that: “If you don’t have a means to survive but palm plantations are all around you, what will our children do? If you pick the fruits, you may end up in the cells of gendarmerie brigades and prisons. To come out of detention, bribes have to be given to the gendarmes and police”. 

The populations say they have addressed several letters to the management of the companies, yet nothing has been done. 

Trained to defend their rights

According to Ngobo Marie Cresence, Executive Secretary of Sustainable Development Actors Network known by its French acronym, RADD, the two-day forum was geared towards building the women's capacity to understand and defend their rights in the agro-industry and other project areas in Cameroon.

“We have been working for some years now with these women to tell them that the responsibility to defend their interest around these companies lies on them. At the beginning, they did not believe that they could stand up for their rights, but today they can do it,” RADD Executive Secretary said.  

She added that the training centred on communication modules and strategies to deploy when confronted with the challenges from the industries.  

On her part, Mba Mbia Danielle, workshop facilitator and member of the Green Development Advocate, GDA, clarified that the training was important for the women as they are the ones most affected by the installation of these extractive and agro-industrial companies.

“We have trained these women on their rights to say no. It is a way to mobilise the women in order to be able to defend their rights, because we have noticed that when projects arrive, it is women who are the first to be affected and they are unable to mobilise themselves to defend their rights,” she noted.

Aside defending their rights, the women, after the training, have acquired the capacities to be able to formulate solutions that will better their lives.

The two-day training, jointly organised by RADD, GDA and WoMin African Alliance, was under the theme “right to say no”.