Douala Visiting the members of our affiliates in the villages along the plantations where they lived in Koungue and Mbambou was always going to be a highlight of this Organizers’ Forum and ACORN International dialogue in Cameroon, but I had not realized as fully until we left the paved road and entered the water-filled potholes of the endless orange-clay dirt track how much our delegation was going to get a sense of being in the very footsteps of the daily experience of our organizers working with the chapters, village to village, trying to win justice from Scofin-Bollore and its palm oil plantation land grabbing.
After we squeezed 16 people into the allegedly 19-person van about 45 minutes late from Douala, we were on our way, but of course that basically meant we puttered into the morning traffic jam of the city for more than an hour. As uncomfortable and close-quartered as the van was, it might still have been a step up from the normal way the organizers when to the field. Their trips involved a moto ride on the rear end of a motorcycle from the city to the river off-road, then a boat across the river before picking up a second moto ride to the villages. It was quicker that way than the way we were going, but it had a separate set of risks and challenges obviously.
We are in the rainy season. Everyone it seemed had heard the huge crack of thunder in the middle of the night and then the monsoon-level downpour for more than an hour. It rained intermittently throughout our day along the palm oil plantations and villages in-between, making the road slow going as we bounced along.
Our first meetings in Koungue found a crowd waiting for us in the front room of our leader’s house there, even though we were an hour late. We waited for the chief to begin. Working with the local village chiefs, some of whom are elected, while others are hereditary, and some are in dispute, is one of the challenges, since the company tries to force the organization and any individual dispute through the local chief, some of whom they have played strong roles in electing. In the meeting we heard what is becoming the usual litany of complaints. More broken promises. More bad faith meetings and constant delays.
Members and leaders were caught in a tactical bind. Socfin-Bollore only responded to direct action, but each action involved risks, and even when producing more negotiations, simply led to more broken promises. The original negotiations had come after hundreds of members blockaded the roads not allowing the company trucks to pass. Police had threatened leaders since then with arrest and endless jail sentences. This company was committed to exploitation, and seemed to believe as long as it could keep the disputes out in the countryside where it was just their iron fists against the villagers’ solidarity, they could continue to operate with impunity, including polluting the streams and rivers, promising to deliver potable water and fix water pumps, and not following through on these promises either.
Our day was destined to be one of stops-and-starts, anxious meetings filled with frustration, anger, and hope coupled with long drives between villages and visits. Lunch with one of the members became dinner, and as we left in a drizzling rain once again, it seemed our long day was ending, and our jobs had been done for another day.
But, welcome to organizing and Africa, the trailing car suddenly lost power along the starlit road. Attempts at repair were futile. A moto driver found a rope up the road and after it broke several times, the van was able to pull it the 5 miles or so to the highway over the rough terrain. We couldn’t abandon the car, because all of the locals were convinced the driver would be robbed, beaten, and possibly killed, and the car stripped. After more disputes over pay, somehow miraculously on the highway, squeezed between passing 18-wheelers, the van was able to get the car to a service station he trusted another 5 miles down the road. The battery had now lost its charge in the car, so a makeshift set of cables was fashioned on the parking lot to enable the windows to be closed, and a bunch of our guys pushed the car to a hiding place.
After a day that began at 7am, we pulled into the hotel finally at 10:45 pm, after another amazing day of exhilaration, anger, hope, waiting, and traveling to meet our members near and far.