A crowd of about 200 pro CPDM young teachers have rallied in front of the Ministry of Finance in Yaoundé in a government teleguided protest demanding salary arrears of up to sixty months. The teachers carry placards indicating that they have been working for several months without pay. Most of the teachers who graduated from the Higher Teachers Training College some four years ago say their names have not been entered into government’s payroll.

The Yaounde regime positioned the striking teachers in the main entrance of the Ministry in the early hours of Monday 27th March 2017 and without police intervention and brutality, the Minister of Finance opened discussions with representatives of the protesting teachers while others waited patiently for the outcome of the discussions outside the ministerial building. The regime orchestrated the protest to misinform the international community that Cameroon is a country that allows for freedom of associations and protest.

The teachers according to state radio and television were former students of the Higher Teachers Training College and the Higher Technical Teachers Training Colleges who graduated from 2012 up to 2016. The over 200 CPDM teachers who turned out at the esplanade of the Ministry of Finance were asking for the payment of their salary arrears of up to 60 months, and the suspension of other documents that make administrative procedures cumbersome.

The striking teachers betrayed their links with the Biya Francophone regime as they foolishly dressed in graduation robes, matched round the ministerial building with placards, the national flag stating that Cameroon was one and indivisible-a rhetoric often used by the 84 year old dictator and a banner bearing their main grievances. They were later offered lunch in a five star restaurant in Yaounde.  Contrary to what was reported by state-owned media outlets, the Yaounde strike had no linked to that of Anglophone teachers that has paralyzed schooling in the North West and South West regions of the country.

By Rita Akana with files from CRTV