Cameroon: Anti-Globalisation Activists Protest Chicken Imports

UN Integrated Regional Information Networks

In a rare global show of protest in Cameroon, thousands of farmers and anti-globalisation activists from Africa and Europe massed in the capital on Tuesday to demand a halt to frozen chicken imports, which farmers and consumers say threaten health and livelihoods.

About 6,000 people demonstrated in front of the office of the Citizens Association for the Defence of Collective Interest (ACDIC) - which planned the event - after the government at the last minute barred the group from marching downtown.

Demonstrators carried banners saying "Frozen chicken - a catastrophe to Cameroon producers" and "Importing what we produce? What a crime to our local economy!"

The import of frozen chicken was among Africans' grievances at last month's Hong Kong round of world trade talks, where developing countries repeatedly contest agricultural subsidies and other trade policies they say favour the rich industrialised world at poorer countries' expense.

The bank account used to collect revenues from Chad's oil pipeline has been frozen by order of the World Bank.
The closure of the London-based Citibank account is the latest sanction taken by the World Bank, which says Chad has broken a loan agreement.

It is angry at a new law giving Chad's government more access to profits from the pipeline, which takes oil to Cameroon for export.

Some of the profits are meant to be set aside for fighting long-term poverty.

In a statement posted on the Chad government website finance minister Abbas Mahamat Tolli said the World Bank move was "totally unjustified".

"It is unacceptable that a nation should have its access blocked to revenues generated by the sale of its own natural resources.

African countries are fighting hard to claim the top spots in the world as far as corruption is concerned. The latest Global Corruption Report (2005) from Transparency International, the organization that monitors corruption throughout the world shows that African countries claimed eight spot in the top 20 of the most corrupt countries in the world.

Five months ago, Team Cameroon's (Indomitable Lions) equipment supplier (PUMA) introduced a new revolutionary kit at the African Cup of Nations (ACN) that was preceded by a giant marketing and PR  campaign. Team Cameroon wore the controversial kit during the first round of the competition, and Mr. Joseph S. Blatter, FIFA's president rapidly voiced his disapproval of the kit. Mr Blatter claimed that the kit was against the rules of the game, because it was not in separate pieces.. Upon reviewing these rules (Law 4), it appears nowhere that football kits should be in separate pieces. Legally, what is not prohibited is allowed. PUMA  exploited that loophole and brought about this innovative kit, to the dismay of the  conservatives.