VZCZCXRO0171
OO RUEHBZ RUEHDU RUEHGI RUEHJO RUEHMA RUEHMR RUEHPA RUEHRN RUEHTRO
DE RUEHYD #1033/01 2950641
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
O 210641Z OCT 08
FM AMEMBASSY YAOUNDE
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 9352
INFO RUEHZO/AFRICAN UNION COLLECTIVE 0227
RUCPDOC/DEPT OF COMMERCE WASHDC
RUEATRS/DEPT OF TREASURY WASHDC

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 YAOUNDE 001033 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPARTMENT FOR AF/C, AF/EPS AND EEB 
PARIS AND LONDON FOR AFRICA WATCHERS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV PHUM EMIN ECON ELAB CM
SUBJECT: CAMEROON:  EXPECTATIONS FROM MINING INVESTMENTS FUEL 
TENSIONS IN EAST AND NORTH 
 
¶1.  (SBU)  Summary:  Facing sluggish economic growth, declining oil 
reserves and under- and unemployment that have rendered the 
population volatile, the Government of Cameroon (GRC) has hitched 
its economic development to a series of ambitious mining projects. 
Recent visits to the East, Adamaoua, and North provinces revealed 
impatience and frustration from exactly those populations that have 
the most at stake from the promised development.  Inhabitants of the 
East and North provinces especially have grown impatient with 
repeated promises of jobs and investment with negligible tangible 
follow up, a resentment exacerbated by significant migration of 
job-seekers from other provinces, fanning local resentment and 
ethnic tensions.  The GRC and its partners, including American 
entities Geovic and Hydromine, will need to improve their outreach 
or risk inviting negative blowback.  End summary. 
 
¶2.  (U)  Emboffs recently traveled to the East, Adamoua, and North 
Provinces to learn how realities on the ground matched the GRC's 
call for more investments in the mineral sector and especially to 
see how local populations were reacting to these upcoming economic 
changes. 
 
The East Province: Locals 
Impatient with American Geovic 
------------------------------- 
 
 
¶3.  (U)  Emboffs met with a number of government officials and other 
observers in Cameroon's East Province, where a consortium led by 
American company Geovic is planning to mine cobalt (for use in 
rechargeable batteries, airplane parts and other industrial 
processes).  Cameroon has no industrial mining; among the half-dozen 
mining projects on the GRC's drawing board, Geovic is the most 
advanced, by at least two to three years. 
 
¶4.  (SBU)  Adolphe Lele Afrique, the Governor of the East Province, 
bemoaned the province's poverty, which has persisted despite 
repeated promises of development and a wealth of natural resources, 
including gold, nickel, cobalt, manganese, iron, rutile and bauxite. 
 Many of Cameroon's most ambitious projects--including the 
construction of the Lom Pangar dam, the mining projects of Ngaoundal 
and Lomie--are situated in the East Province, but the population is 
too poor and uneducated to take advantage of the skilled jobs that 
might be created, leading to resentment of the better-positioned 
economic migrants from other provinces (and ethnic groups). 
 
¶5.  (U)  The East Province's economic backwardness is evident in the 
artisanal mining sector.  Local populations, including the Bayas and 
Kakas, and migrants from Cameroon's North, practice dangerous and 
difficult artisanal gold mining.  The GRC has tried to bring some 
regulation to the sector, issuing special identity cards for the 
mining work force and creating, with funds from multilateral debt 
relief, the Small Scale Mining Support Mechanism (known as CAPAM, 
its French acronym).  CAPAM is a government agency charged with 
disseminating information on administrative resources, technical 
training, and the commercialization of outputs.  CAPAM has succeeded 
in organizing mine workers to form common initiative groups known as 
"gicamines."  Each year, CAPAM provides the gicamines with shovels, 
crowbars, wheelbarrows and motor pumps.  The mining is still 
dangerous and relatively unregulated--children are often used to 
descend into the pits--but CAPAM has made some efforts to improve 
conditions, providing funding for a primary school, for example.  In 
a sign of the GRC's ambition to enhance mining activity, the 
Ministry of Mines and Industrial Development recently granted the 
Korean-Cameroon Mining Corporation (KOCAM) a license in early 2008 
to dig and start semi-industrial mining. 
 
¶6.  (SBU)  Jean-Edouard Massamah, a Lomie municipal official, vented 
to Emboffs his frustration with Geovic's project, which he derided 
as a "hoax."  He complained that nothing had been done in more than 
a decade while the CAMIRON [Australian-led] iron ore project at 
Mbalam had moved further in just a few years.   Comment:  As Emboffs 
countered, the comparison between CAMIRON and Geovic is inaccurate. 
Geovic is widely viewed as having blazed the regulatory trail that 
CAMIRON and others are now following.  Far from a "hoax," Geovic is 
Cameroon's best hope for industrial mining in the near future and a 
project that has earned the confidence of institutional investors 
like Citigroup.  End comment.  Massamah admitted that his 
frustration, shared by the local population, is based on his 
experience with logging projects, where operations and payoffs to 
the local community begin immediately.  In the mining sector, by 
contrast, the need for long-term planning and new infrastructure 
delays the return to the local community. 
 
The North Province: Uranium 
Projects Yet to Materialize 
--------------------------- 
 
YAOUNDE 00001033  002 OF 002 
 
 
 
¶7.  (SBU)  In Cameroon's North Province, a long-promised project to 
develop uranium deposits in the Faro Division region of Poli has 
been the subject of speculation since at least the early 1970s.  A 
Canadian mining operation, Nu Energy, has been replaced (in a 
hostile and opaque series of maneuvers) by Mega Uranium, a 
Cameroonian entity recently awarded a five year exploration permit 
from the Ministry of Mines and Industrial Development.  The 
population is particularly sensitive to the risks of uranium, and 
the Catholic NGO "Justice and Peace" moderated a May 2008 town hall 
meeting to discuss the proposed development as well as rumors of 
contamination of local lands and populations. 
 
Adamaoua Province: American-led 
Hydromine Faces Skeptical Population 
------------------------------------ 
 
¶8.  (SBU) Similar events are unfolding in Adamaoua Province, where 
the US-led Hydromine consortium announced the development of a large 
bauxite mining operation that promised jobs and increased 
development.  In September, Hydromine obtained a long-sought 18 
month extension on its exploration license.  However, in a recent 
meeting with the Ambassador, Adamoua Governor Enow Abrams Egbe 
emphasized the growing hostility by the local population towards 
Hydromine.  A lack of information on the part of the consortium, 
paired with a lack of perceived progress is increasing frustration 
while further reducing the credibility of investors and of the 
regional government. He stressed the necessity for more open 
communication between the operation, the populace, and the local 
authorities. 
 
Internal Migration and Ethnic Tensions 
-------------------------------------- 
 
¶9.  (U)  In all of these regions, the "buzz" about mining projects 
has attracted people from other regions of Cameroon.  Adolphe Lele 
Afrique, the Governor of East Province who previously served as 
Prefet of Benoue Division in the North Province, told Embassy staff 
that migration was linked to the anticipated economic development 
that mining industries would generate soon.  He added that this made 
the situation potentially explosive in all the regions being 
considered for mining investments. 
 
¶10.  (U)  In Lomie, for example, the project attracted migrants from 
the Center and West Provinces of Cameroon.  Geovic's preliminary 
hiring, which favored the better educated, often better qualified 
migrants from the West Province, led some local elites to criticize 
publicly the migrants, which added to the tensions.  The Sous-Prefet 
of Lomie, Bitounou Owona, deplored the difficult coordination among 
local elites and told Poloff the government would be watching the 
situation carefully. 
 
¶11.  (SBU)  In Poli, the migrants mostly came from the Far North 
Province.  According to Prefet Mbiwan Nchaffu the composition of the 
population of the Division has drastically changed in the last ten 
years, growing to a point where migrants outnumbered locals.  He was 
concerned for the implication on local job prospects since people 
from the Far North are seen as hard workers and better educated.  He 
and others commented that the imbalance in the population is 
starting to create ethnic tensions which could exacerbate when job 
recruitment begins. 
 
¶12.  (SBU)  Comment:  The frustration expressed by the populations 
we visited is disquieting, but not surprising or unique; no region 
of Cameroon can be said to be "developed," and impatience is running 
high around the nation.  The bitter nativism of local communities is 
unjustified (the jobs should be offered to the most qualified 
candidates, regardless of ethnicity), but understandable; with so 
few opportunities for work, it is unsurprising that local 
communities would feel protective.  Foreign companies make an easy 
target for frustrated local populations who, in today's Cameroon, 
have very low expectations that government will provide solutions or 
create jobs.  Potential investors would be wise to enhance their 
communication and outreach with the local populations (and we will 
reiterate as much with Geovic, Hydromine and other American 
projects) because they run the risk of incurring the population's 
wrath.  However, the responsibility also rests with the GRC, which 
has yet to prove it is capable of facilitating an industrial mining 
project. 
 
GARVEY.