A man works at start-ups incubator ActivSpaces in Buea, Cameroon on
September 24, 2019.The separatist conflict in Cameroon's anglophone
region has forced promoters to flee the Silicon Mountain innovation hub
to the port city of Douala set in the French speaking part of the
country. PHOTO | REINNIER KAZE | AFP
Hi-tech promoters had big dreams for Silicon Mountain in
Cameroon, where a broad plateau was seen as perfect for start-up
ventures, but their hopes have been shattered by a separatist struggle.
Entrepreneurs
in the tech village wanted to launch new technologies and make Cameroon
a market player on the model of California, but the bloody insurgency
in the country's English-speaking west has driven many to leave.
"Silicon
Mountain is just about alive," says Valery Colong, one of the workers
in the ActivSpaces area modelled on Silicon Valley at the foot of Mount
Cameroon, but his voice lacks conviction.
The ambitious
Silicon Mountain project bears the economic and social scars of a
conflict that has claimed more than 2,500 lives since 2017, according to
international NGOs. Many of the dead and wounded are civilians.
"The
crisis has badly affected our activities," says Colong, promoter of the
project to make ActivSpaces a key link for business at Silicon
Mountain. The walls at its headquarters are decorated in the colours of
global internet giants.
The hi-tech incubator site is
meant to extend from Buea, the capital of the Southwest Region on the
slopes of the mountain, to the chic seaside resort of Limbe on the Gulf
of Guinea, about 30 kilometres (19 miles) distant by road.
But several promoters have pulled out, while others have taken
their business to Douala, a major port and economic capital of Cameroon,
only 50 kilometres from Buea but set in the majority French-speaking
part of the country.
"Others simply dream of leaving the country," says Colong.
Dialogue gives hope for peace
Residents
of Buea hope for peace to return, but few express any faith in a "Great
National Dialogue" convened by President Paul Biya to begin on Monday,
September 30.
Biya, ruler of the central African nation
for 37 years, has invited representatives of the anglophone Southwest
and Northwest to the capital Yaounde to settle the crisis.
But
most of the separatists, along with a major part of the political
opposition, have decided to boycott the national dialogue for lack of a
ceasefire and until their jailed leaders are released.
"Before
the crisis, there were 10 startups on average in the main hall," Colong
said on the first floor of the ActivSpaces premises in central Buea.
"Today there's just one."
In a corner of the main hall, Nevile Akombo Akwo was working on Digital Renter, a site dealing in property announcements.
"I'm here because I believe in the future. This isn't the time to be discouraged," he said.
"For
the platform to work, we have to go out on the terrain to see the
property owners, but it isn't possible to go everywhere in town," Colong
says.
"It's dangerous to go to difficult zones like the Muea district or Mile 16, the guys are scared of getting shot."
In
the Southwest and Northwest, the demands of English-speakers who feel
that the eight French-speaking regions have taken the lion's share of
social progress and development at their expense, turned violent in the
past three years.
Radical separatist groups have waged
an armed struggle with the security forces sent by Yaounde, where
authorities have remained largely deaf to the issues raised by the
anglophone minority, who make up 16 per cent of the population.
Troops are deployed almost daily to fight scattered radicals fighting for their self-proclaimed independent state of Ambazonia.
Troops are deployed almost daily to fight scattered radicals fighting for their self-proclaimed independent state of Ambazonia.
Both sides have carried out atrocities against civilians and more than 530,000 people have fled their homes.
Cocoa, coffee sectors also ruined
In
2017, the authorities cut internet services in the two regions for
three months, a measure that drove firms from Silicon Mountain to move
close to Douala.
"Our main partner ceased to finance
us," Colong says. ActivSpaces has turned to giving tech training to
young people, taking in 15 of them.
"I've been here for two months, my experience is positive," says Stephen Mbong, during an exercise with a fellow student.
Colong
does not rule out leaving if the situation gets worse but the sector of
new technologies is not the only victim of conflict in anglophone
Cameroon.
Income from national cocoa exports, of which
40 percent come from the Southwest, and from Arabica coffee, of which 75
percent comes from the Northwest, have dropped by 20 percent because of
the conflict, according to the employers' association Gicam.
The
crisis has also sent the unemployment rate in agriculture up to 70
percent, according to the non-profit organisation Human IS Right, based
in Buea.
Building work and public sector projects have come to a standstill on many sites.
Investors
are not keen to put money into a conflict zone, while the expatriate
community has difficulty in transferring funds when the government
suspects the money may be going to armed groups.
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