if you haven’t heard, students are being killed in Cameroon for going on strike. during a peaceful sit-in against the 100% tuition hike, police and paramilitary forces stormed in firing tear gas, live ammo, and swinging a variey of objects. first ukbekistan and now cameroon. tianneman (sp?) square is becoming popular, huh?

in an attempt to make sense of the chaos in cameroon, i did some research. i knew that cameroon was an oil-rich country, so i started my research there. i found out that exxon and the world bank have been working on an oil pipeling to run from chad, through cameroon, to the coast. scary place to be - on the coast, in the middle of oil fields, in the midst of a global oil “crisis”. world bank loans would certainly explain the government’s desire to increase tuition, but why such violent repression of students? there must be more to it. i’ve begun to see a couple of references to revolutionary groups supporting the student strike. perhaps the government knows something i don’t (and the media won’t tell us). is there revolt brewing in cameroon? i’d be surprised if there wasn’t. for now, i’m trying to figure out how to support the students. there’s always the usual (write letters to the editor, etc). but what else? how can we truly act in solidarity? i’ll keep talking to others to see what we can figure out. if you have any more info, please email me.