Le régime juridique des étrangers au Cameroun

2) The Conference of the Heads of States of the CEMAC

Article 2 of the treaty instituting the CEMAC creates the Conference of the Heads of State, supreme body whose mission consists in determining the objectives of the community. In fact, this institution must support the sous-régionale integration of the people. In other words, it has the obligation to take care of the protection of the basic rights of the Community nationals, in particular, when they are found in a State left of which they are not the nationals.

We note however that, until now, the Conference did not carry out this objective because of the many disagreements between its members. On a purely illustrative basis, we will quote the persistence of the tensions between Guinea Equatoriale and Cameroun since 2004 ; Cameroun was shown to want to destabilize Guinea ; thereafter, in March of the same year, Guinea expelled more than 1500 clandestine originating in Cameroun^170(*). Such an attitude is however contrary with the principle of the prohibition of collective expulsions from abroad. We notice besides that the sad situation from abroad hardly improved in the sous-régional territory. Indeed, at the time of the diplomatic Forum of the Institute of the International relations of Cameroun (IRIC) held in January 2005 in Yaounde^171(*), the negative assessment of the results of the CEMAC was drawn up. The bitter report of the governor of the Bank of the States of Africa Centrale (BEAC) reveals that « central Africa has badly with its integration ; the movement of the people within space CEMAC always has unsuspected problems. The nullity of certain lawful texts with Community gasoline, before their effective application, complicates the construction of sous-régionale integration more. It is thus supposed passport CEMAC to facilitate the movement of the people within the community ; passport CEMAC is today to redefine or reconsider (...) ; in addition to all that, it is necessary to see the brittleness of the community because of the interetatic quarrels of leadership (...) ».

Such as the governor of the BEAC shows it, incomprehension between the Heads of State delay the effective existence of the Community passport ; this situation largely limits the implementation of the agreements^172(*) which they signed. Moreover, it is a genuine tool having to facilitate sous-régionaux displacements insofar as certain countries like Gabon and Guinea Equatoriale still imposes visas of entry to the nationals of the other Member States. All this puts forward the failure of the integration and the guarantee of the personal freedoms of the Community nationals. Consequently, it is thus not astonishing that Cameroun does not imply itself fully in the protection of the non-national ones, in fact, those which are originating in the other Member States of the CEMAC.

The weaknesses of the African Commission of the humans right and of the people can also be likely to limit considerably the protection of the immigrant in Africa.

* ¹⁷⁰ BEAUTIFUL DOO (Jacques), «  Tensions between Equatorial Guinea and Cameroun about the expulsion of more than 1500 Cameronian illegal immigrants  » IN  The Messenger, Douala, April 02, 2004. ( http://www.cameroon-info.net/cmi_show_news.php?id=14448).

* ¹⁷¹ Conclusions of the diplomatic Forum of the IRIC, January 2005, IN the Messenger, January 17, 2005.

* ¹⁷² These agreements were defined in the First Part, Chapitre 1, Section 1, Paragraphe the 2 «foreigners in sous-régional space  »