African Activist Sylvie Bello Fears Being Arrested By Cameroon Government
Being an outspoken community leader is a dangerous job
Sylvie Bello, founder of the Cameroon American Council (CAC) discussed her work in the African community on a video call with me a couple weeks ago, December 13th 2019. She highlighted some of her achievements including an award from President Obama during the Ebola outbreak. During the devastating Ebola outbreak, Bello and her team parsed the Obamacare eligibility and realized it did not address healthcare coverage for U.S based immigrant Africans who originated from high risk African regions. CAC raised public concerns about this and fought to integrate eligibility for immigrant West African diasporans. Their work gained Bello’s organization a White House invitation and a Washington Post write up.
The mission of Cameroon American Council is to build Capacity, Relevance and Visibility for Cameroons in the diaspora. Occasionally they lobby for foreign aid but most of their work is based on the needs of Cameroonians and other immigrant Africans living in the U.S.
During our conversation Bello revealed her resistance of traveling back to Cameroon as much as she’d like. She pointed to the imprisonment of outspoken community leaders Omoyele Sowore of Sahara Reporters and Patrice Nganang, an author and literature professor at Stony Brook. Both were jailed for speaking out against their native governments. Sowore jailed by Nigerian officials in October of this year. Patrice Nganang jailed in Cameroon back in 2017. Both men have since been released.
Being an outspoken community leader, or a journalist with anti-government stories could be a dangerous job. Cameroon, Nigeria and other African countries aren’t the only governments silencing and detaining outspoken leaders. This practice happens worldwide. According to Statista, as of December 1st 2019, China arrested 48 journalists this year, most of all countries globally. Cameroon arrested 7. Nigeria doesn’t show on this list. The only other sub-Saharan African country on this top ten list is Eritrea with 16 arrests.
See my conversation with Sylvie Bello below on her credible fears of being arrested by the Cameroonian government.
For more on CAC contact: Email -camerooon.american.council@gmail.com |Twitter @camamercouncil
