efforts to secure the release of yaounde 11 hampered by lack of human rights movement

By Esau Mathope

August 17, 2005: The situation of the 11 men arrested at a Yaounde bar on charges of homosexuality is deteriorating as they still haven't been charged. And attempts to find a human rights lawyer willing to take on the case from a moral and civil liberties perspective had drawn nil due to little or no human rights movement in Cameroon.

The Yaounde 11, languishing in jail for a fourth month in running, were arrested in a bar in the Cameroonian capital after a fight broke out between two female lovers in the same spot. The two women have since been granted bail. Now human rights activists on the continent and abroad fear that the more the matter is dragged without formal charges being brought against the group, the higher the chances are for them becoming targets of sexual assault.

Currently, a lobbying group consisting of NGO and human rights organisations is faced with a conundrum: pay for legal fees of an attorney (likely to be high and going against the grain of international human rights practices) or ask mainstream international organizations to adopt the group as "prisoners of conscience" (not guaranteed to expedite speedy release).

Although several informers and activists were proactive in "breaking the story", it now appears that attempts to draw attention to the gross human rights violation of the group, who some believe might be held without trial for a number of years, is losing momentum. The main stumbling block, at least from English speaking world, is communication in French with Cameroonian counterparts as well as fear of reprisal by Cameroonian contacts.

A number of weeks ago BtM itself, fell victim to a false alarm when a Nigerian-based Cameroonian correspondent reported that the group has been freed. The Cameroonian media, besides having reported about the story against a backdrop of fear and intimidation when it first broke, has since stopped giving the Yaounde 11 any prominent coverage.

BtM can place it on record that gay and lesbian human rights cases north of the Equator, particularly French speaking West and "Arabic" Africa, are precarious to resolve and that expedient lobbying usually takes place in Western Europe before the sub-continent itself acknowledge the urgency of the cases. At the time of going on-line, they were several efforts to upscale lobbying efforts to exert pressure on Cameroon authorities to release the group.