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Connecticut resident Seme Ndzana is the publisher of AfricanIndependent.com [2], an online publication that serves as a cultural and journalistic resource for the African diaspora.

Ndzana was a journalist and newspaper publisher in his native Cameroon, where he was jailed for writing against the government, according to Paul Bass of the New Haven Independent [3].

Ndzana told EthnicNewz.org that when one of Cameroon's cabinet-level ministers offered him a lucrative partnership to start a media empire in the mid-1990s, their conversation was supposed to be off the record.

But all deals and confidentiality were off the table once the minister revealed plots of murder - which Ndzana promptly described in detail and published, he said.

After Ndzana's third imprisonment, he fled with his pregnant wife to Nigeria, before trekking to Burkina Faso and then arriving in Connecticut as a refugee.

Ndzana spoke to EthnicNewz.org by phone on July 18, 2008. Following is the edited and condensed interview.

At Ndzana's request and for his safety, the exact location of his residency is withheld.

You were a banker in Cameroon before you became a journalist. How did that happen?

In 1989, the bank that employed me was sold by the government to Credit Lyonnais (a French bank). Everyone, including me, was laid off.

I started a business in agricultural farming, in plantations. While doing that, I started sending articles to newspapers.

That was 1990. Cameroon [a former French colony] was thinking at that time: How are we going to change from dictatorship to democracy?

What newspaper published you when you were still a farmer? And when you became a full-time journalist?

The first one was L'Effort Camerounais, a national Catholic newspaper in Cameroon.

Afterwards, I became a full-time journalist for La Nouvelle Expression, starting in December 1992, I think. I was there for about one year.

Why did you want to launch your own newspaper? What happened at La Nouvelle Expression?

Eventually I noticed that La Nouvelle Expression didn't want me to publish investigative articles about people who were backing them financially, the advertisers.

That was how I came up with the idea of creating my own newspaper, which I started in May 1993.

What was unique about your articles?

I quickly specialized in some issues that we (in Cameroon) were not used to (reporting on or reading).

Ordinarily reporters would report on just facts, such as when covering a demonstration.

But my articles had a lot of analysis - they talked about political, economic and social aspects of problems.

My articles were strong, and readers (all over the country) starting loving that.

Which articles of yours stirred the most controversy?

In one article, I questioned the French companies who did business in Cameroon and were backing Paul Biya (the president of Cameroon).

I told people (readers) to look around and see if they could find any buildings that the French companies had built themselves for the benefit of Cameroonians (such as schools and hospitals).

I told the readers that they would be disappointed. The French companies were corrupt and not leaving anything for the Camerooonians.

A boycott of French good started in Cameroon. It lasted, I think, three to five months.

Another article of mine exposed the CEO of a national airline company. He quit after my investigation.

Your articles were truly investigative journalism? They didn't become opinion or commentary?

Yes (they were investigative journalism). I was backing everything with facts and records.

What was the media industry like in Cameroon when you were a journalist there, starting in 1993?

Radio or private TV channels didn't exist; only national (government-controlled) TV did.

Newspapers existed and were national (in circulation, not ownership).

What was the reaction of the TV industry, which the government ran, to your rising popularity as a investigative journalist?

They (the TV industry) could not avoid me! The government would say that what I published was not true.

They would have to come to me sometimes. I would speak on TV

If the government didn't like you, and the government controlled TV, how were you able to speak on TV?

The Cameroonian minister of communication invited La Nouvelle Expression to appear on TV. But instead of the director of the publication appearing, I did.

Did you cause trouble during your appearance on TV with the minister of communication?

I started questioning him in a way that no journalist ever did (dare). I showed that he was LYING to the people!

For example - this is just one story - he was saying that the (Cameroonian) people loved him, that he was so popular. (The truth is that) even the people in his own village didn't like him. They were ashamed of him!

Tune in later this week for Part II of this conversation with Seme Ndzana, the publisher of African Independent.com [4].

Learn about his three prison sentences - including one in which he says he was tortured - and about his life on the lam from the Cameroonian government.

source: EthnicNewz.org

Copyright 2008 New England Ethnic News, EthnicNewz.org. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the express permission of the news source. Contact Newz for more information.

Map of Cameroon, below, from Apple (computer) Dictionary

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