Nomination of Dr. Jacobs Bate Besong for the Scholar Rescue Fund Fellowship

Letter of Support by Chief Charles A. Taku

I have the honor most respectful to nominate Dr Jacobs Bate Besong a citizen of Cameroon and lecturer in the Arts Faculty of The University of Buea, Cameroon for a fall fellowship in your program.

I am an international lawyer currently lead counsel in the trial of senior military officers accused of genocide, crimes against humanity, article three common to the Geneva conventions and additional protocols two and other international violations in the territory of Rwanda and neighboring countries.I am also lead counsel at the Special Court for Sierra Leone defending senior officers of the Revolutionary United Front of Sierra leone. I have practised law for twenty three years and specialise in international humanitarian law and international human rights law.

I am counsel to the Cameroonian association of authors in which Dr Jacobs Bate Besong is a founding member. I have known Dr Jacobs Bate Besong for the past twenty years or more and have represented him in the ever increasing cases and acts of persecution visited on him and his family by the Cameroon government because of his academic publications and social activism on matters of public interest.

Dr Jacobs Bate Besong has in the past been arrested and incarcerated after a public presentation of a popular play "Beasts of No Nation"published, directed and acted by him in the university of Yaounde adjudged critical of the spiralling acts of corruption, dictatorship and state sponsor terrorism of the masses by the government.But for my intervention he would have been killed.

He went for over ten years without being placed on an appropriate salary scale because  his writings portrayed the acts of impunity exhibited by the government and members of the ruling former state politcal party as a crime syndicate because of the systematic and widespread plunder of state
resources to the detriment of the masses.That situation has persisted.

In the university of Buea where he teaches literature,he has lately been harrassed, victimised and threatened with loss of life or limb because  he criticised the university administration for banning the student union, bringing on campus, armed soldiers, police and soldiers to suppress a strike organised by armless students leading to the loss of life of some students and acts of indignity and outrages on female students etc.Ever since, the vice chancellor who is a member of the political Bureau of the ruling CPDM
and a close political ally of the president in concert with the dean of the arts faculty one Victor Ngoh another CPDM party operative have blacklisted him leading to frustrating a fellowship grant in his favor from Elon University in the USA.

Despitethis, Dr Jacobs Bate Besong remains a voice for the voiceless and a leading advoacte of academic freedom.he is at the forefront of those scholars who are presently opposing the transformation
of the un! iversity system in Cameroon into organs of the ruling party in which most university administrators are leading members.

The catalogue of persecutions against him ostensibly because of his academic and intellectual contributions in favour of the masses , the oppressed and the advancement of the human condition have lately reached alarming proportions.

I have a very compelling fear for his life and his family. In support of this application, I wish respectfully to forward to you by separate mail the CV of Mr Jacobs Bate Besong. I should be most obliged and honoured should this nomination be given a favorable contribution.

I will supply further details if you deem it necessary.

Sincerely Yours,

Chief Charles A TAKU

Comments

[Bate AGBOR-BAIYEE]

Dr. Bate Besong is the Cornel West of the Cameroons, my country. He is a truth-teller of the night-side hypocricy dubbed democracy in the Cameroons. He is a one man squad who has declared an all-out intellectual warfare against the macabre socio-economic and political agenda and systems planned and executed by the ruling junta in Cameroon. Bate Besong is the rock to stand or lean on. This man is a good man. He has dodged stones, bullets, his good name has been libelously spoiled through blackmail and he has done time behind bars simply becasue he is telling it like it is. I guess the truth does not set one free in certain instances. He is not going to go to sleep until the so-called goverment in my country stops going to sleep on the proletariat. BB as Dr. Bate Besong is popularly known is going to fight until the last dog dies. The man is simply amazing. A socratic philosopher, Westian (Cornel West) social critic, a Clarke-ian(John Henrik Clarke) historian, an Emmersonian democrat and Tocquevillian politician. This man is most deserving of any fellowship especially as it pertains to any subject area that deals with human behaviours (worth, dignity, upliftment etc). This man is an inconic social scientist and the voice of us the powerless and dispossessed people of the once beautiful land called the Cameroons. Please, strongly consider Dr. Bate Besong for this or any other program like this. He is going to be crushed and garnished like an unwanted an unwanted bag of smelling onions if we do not find a secured place for him outside of the dungeon of the Cameroons. Lets savor and preserve this rich and impeccable mind. We do not have a choice. My opinion and nothing but my opinion.

Very sincerely,

Bate AGBOR-BAIYEE