Since their ouster from the government on March 2, several indiscretions announce that former ministers Mebe Ngo'o and Atangana Kouna could suffer the same fate as the former Secretary General of the Presidency of the Republic Atangana Mebara.
After several years in the service of Paul Biya, the former SGPR found himself in the sights of Operation Sparrowhawk who led him behind bars.
An experience that he traced in the form of advice to all "Eperviables" in his work "Letters from elsewhere: Preliminary exposures of a catch of the" Sparrowhawk "of Cameroon. Extract ...
First of all, the physical environment: as our amusing saying, (and for that reason no doubt also well-liked) Minister of Communication, ISSA TCHIROMA BAKARY told ITB, "Kondengui prison, it is not a five-star hotel ".
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| From Her Cell, Atangana Mebara Sends A Strong Message to Mebe Ngo'o |
It is therefore necessary to prepare, to mitigate the shock at your entrance. So, first of all, I would like you to have a little idea of what is waiting for you through this summary description.
After crossing the heavy and huge portal of the prison, which separates you from freedom, you find yourself in a large courtyard, called Cour d'honneur; I never knew why it's so called. The floor is all reinforced concrete. On either side of this courtyard are the offices of the main officials of Kondengui Central Prison.
On your right, turning your back to the entrance gate, there is the secretariat, then the office of the Regisseur (this is the Patron of places); then follow the office of the deputy heads of department (there are two), the office of the chief of office of the accounting-materials; at the bottom of this row there is a room, narrow, and generally occupied by the non-commissioned officers, called intendants. On your left is the office of the Chief of the Department of Discipline and Socio-Cultural Activities, commonly known as SEDASCE; it is one of the most comfortable offices of the Administration, after that of the Regisseur; then always come to your left, the office of the registry of the prison, then that of the Chief of the Administrative and Financial Service, called Chief SAF.
After the stewards' office, there is a room with a small table and a camp bed to allow NCOs and officers to rest when on duty. It is in this room that you undergo your entrance search, body search and your backpack; and that's where you are told what is forbidden and what is allowed.
I remember that it was here that a steward (Mr. MEPOUI) had taken my card game away, telling me that it was forbidden (yet he pillaged it in all the quarters of the prison). After that, you are cared for by one or more guards who will drive you to what will become your new home, your "neighborhood"; the "commander" of this district is also often there to welcome you.
To get there, you cross the "gate", it is a kind of checkpoint where five to six guards are busy searching (body search and search packages and luggage) all visitors, women and men, who enter in prison, to meet relatives, to perform work, to perform some spiritual or material service; it is also the way in which prisoners are allowed to pass, who are summoned by an official of the Administration. It is a sad and unpleasant place to watch.
After the "grid", you are taken either directly to your district of assignment, or in what is called "the cell of passage"; this is Ward 4, where all inmates are usually temporarily assigned to await final transfer to a suitable neighborhood. VIP inmates rarely visit this cell. They are directed to one of the so-called "special" neighborhoods; these are neighborhoods 7, 11, 12 and 13 bis. Neighborhoods 1 and 3 are neighborhoods of average standing, for middle-class inmates, or for those who may have been in the special neighborhoods but who are provisionally affected, pending further information on their case. Ward 2 is reserved for the sick, especially for patients with contagious diseases (tuberculosis, skin diseases, etc.).
Ward 5 is for female inmates. Regarding this neighborhood, make sure, if you are a man, that you do not have a feminine given name on your identity card, because you could be assigned to it because of that name, as happened in the past. a doctor, named Therese. He would have looked a little effeminate that he would probably have stayed a few minutes in this neighborhood! Ward 6 is that of those sentenced to death; yes, there are still some!
It is good to know that this is one of the neighborhoods, with the 2nd and the 13th (minors), which benefit from more solicitude and support from the NGOs that intervene here. Quarters 8 and 9 constitute what is called KOSOVO; these are the most overcrowded neighborhoods: besides these two neighborhoods contain more than 3/4 of the prison population of Kondengui Prison, (between 2500 and 3000 for a prison built for about 800 inmates), it is also in these areas neighborhoods that you find what are called "dormiterre", those who sleep on the floor, often more numerous than those who sleep (in pairs) on a bed in a given cell; each cell counts here between 40 and 80 prisoners, sentenced or awaiting judgment. In the other neighborhoods (1 and 3), detainees are between 10 and 30 per cell. Ward 10 is reserved for inmates with serious, occasional or permanent mental disorders; he can often count between one and two tens of prisoners. District 13 is that of minors, those under the age of 18; there are many young children from 14 to 16 years old.
In general, detainees are not allowed to visit from one neighborhood to another. But on the occasion of a demonstration or a religious ceremony, access to other neighborhoods is easy. Do not miss the opportunity to see in what conditions live the children of men! The only time I was able to go to the miners' quarters and KOSOVO, during the procession of the Feast of the Most Blessed Sacrament, I came out of it, psychologically and humanely. One of my companions could not hold back his tears.
I wondered if those who decide to place young men in pretrial detention really know what they mean to these people, some of whom will be found innocent a few months or years later. It is difficult not to realize, after a few weeks of stay here, that the regime of detention of women is much more severe than that of men, without the reasons being clear.
First, there is no special ward for women, which means that former ministers and senior executives in the public and private sectors share the same reduced environment and amenities as inmates with cultural, educational, and cultural backgrounds. and different professionals. Then the common areas like the library, the parlor of the lawyers, the inner court are practically forbidden to them.
The only places they can frequent in the company of men are the places of worship, or places of training of religious choirs. Sometimes the youngest are allowed to play handball on the court once or twice a week. In case of delivery, it is common to see the young mother return to the prison the same day, with her baby, supported by one or two prison guards; Fortunately, women's solidarity in this kind of situation is proverbial.
Arrived in your neighborhood, the Commander and other inmates welcome you, each in his own way: those who know you before give themselves an air of sincere compassion, others borrow the air pained. You are then presented with your diaper, which is called here "mandate"; the regulatory mandate represents a species of box 1m90 long, 90 cm wide, 1m high.
You must quickly install your mattress, as well as your small toiletries and possibly first medical emergency. Your co-detainees help you settle down, for example by covering your mattress with a sheet, yours if you have one. We also advise you to wait until morning to open your suitcase or to undo your backpack. In fact, the installation is done almost the next morning.
After your first night, rarely relaxing, you are struck awakening by the sounds of the doors being opened, the screams of people who bicker, or calls from other inmates, "the corvéeables", those who are allowed to get out of the prison each morning to do chores outside and only come back at the end of the day (usually inmates at the end of the sentence).
What catches your attention the most is the environment in which you end up and in which you have to spend your next months and maybe next years. If you are assigned to one of the "special neighborhoods", you must consider that your new environment is far better than other neighborhoods; in reality, it is only less bad.
After the opening of the offices, you are invited, usually a little after nine (9) hours, to complete the formalities of "entry", or more officially of setting in nut. You go first to the registry office of the prison; you are asked questions about your identity; then we take you to the board, and you open your file of incarceration.
Then, after the office of the registry, you must go to the prison doctor. This one will take you the main parameters, weight, blood pressure, pulse; he will then ask you if you follow a special treatment and for what affection. It is better, vis-à-vis this practitioner, to be sincere and true; because, in case of aggravation of your condition, his opinion will be decisive for the diligences to be undertaken at your place. It must be recognized that Dr. NDI Francis Norbert has shown himself to be very professional with us, capable of both discretion and availability in case of need.
Between your neighborhood, your place of residence and the places of these administrative formalities, you discover the prison, its population, its dispositions and physical characteristics. The things that strike you first are on the one hand the crowd of young people who look at you strangely (in any case it is the feeling that you have), on the other hand the smells; all sorts of smells, foul smells of dirty toilets, next to smells of fries or food that "butlers" warm up; smells of donuts, smells of people who took their last shower a few weeks ago ...
There was one day, in our special district 7, a fight between a young Cameroonian prisoner, André, and a Belgian, Philippe, of a certain age; the reason for the fight was that the young Cameroonian prisoner required his neighbor to bed that he was washing, because the smells he emitted, after several days or weeks without a shower, the indisposed and prevented him from sleeping ( that is to say that we can find in these special areas, all kinds of individuals).
But we discover a few days later that the most aggressive odors are those of septic tanks, when they are full, and especially when they are emptied. I never imagined that we can drain a septic tank by hand. And yet it is a common sight in this prison, to see young detainees, shirtless and bare-hands, wearing a little shorts or faded trousers often falling on the buttocks, tap into the eyes of the pit, with various utensils in the form of seals, then pour the contents of their bolées in the concrete channel, opened, starting from quarters 1 and 3, and passing in front of the entrance of quarter 5, and behind the shed where is the exit of the channel, through which is poured into nature, outside the enclosure of the prison, all that is emptied in this channel.
The waste from the pits is expelled to the outlet by pouring water seals that other inmates draw from the available water supplies. Some of these young men, armed with shovels and hard-handled brushes, are in charge of pushing the rebel waste towards the exit. The first time, it is an unbearable spectacle: these young people without mask, without any protection and obliged to fulfill this task, so degrading, so inhuman!
After a few sessions of this show, you are surprised to pass by just covering your nose, and avoiding to look. It is these same young people, generally newly arrived, who also take care of cleaning, every evening, around 17 hours, the different public spaces of the prison.
Rest assured, for the special districts, things go differently: the detainees usually call on the services of one of them, already well known, who has at his disposal a motor pump he provides for the emptying, for a contribution to the related charges, fuel for the motor pump and a small financial "motivation" for the inmates to assist the master-emptying.
Sometimes NGO leaders or nuns working in this prison also call on the detainee and his motor pump to empty the pits of the wards or other prisoners.
After crossing the heavy and huge portal of the prison, which separates you from freedom, you find yourself in a large courtyard, called Cour d'honneur; I never knew why it's so called. The floor is all reinforced concrete. On either side of this courtyard are the offices of the main officials of Kondengui Central Prison.
On your right, turning your back to the entrance gate, there is the secretariat, then the office of the Regisseur (this is the Patron of places); then follow the office of the deputy heads of department (there are two), the office of the chief of office of the accounting-materials; at the bottom of this row there is a room, narrow, and generally occupied by the non-commissioned officers, called intendants. On your left is the office of the Chief of the Department of Discipline and Socio-Cultural Activities, commonly known as SEDASCE; it is one of the most comfortable offices of the Administration, after that of the Regisseur; then always come to your left, the office of the registry of the prison, then that of the Chief of the Administrative and Financial Service, called Chief SAF.
After the stewards' office, there is a room with a small table and a camp bed to allow NCOs and officers to rest when on duty. It is in this room that you undergo your entrance search, body search and your backpack; and that's where you are told what is forbidden and what is allowed.
I remember that it was here that a steward (Mr. MEPOUI) had taken my card game away, telling me that it was forbidden (yet he pillaged it in all the quarters of the prison). After that, you are cared for by one or more guards who will drive you to what will become your new home, your "neighborhood"; the "commander" of this district is also often there to welcome you.
To get there, you cross the "gate", it is a kind of checkpoint where five to six guards are busy searching (body search and search packages and luggage) all visitors, women and men, who enter in prison, to meet relatives, to perform work, to perform some spiritual or material service; it is also the way in which prisoners are allowed to pass, who are summoned by an official of the Administration. It is a sad and unpleasant place to watch.
After the "grid", you are taken either directly to your district of assignment, or in what is called "the cell of passage"; this is Ward 4, where all inmates are usually temporarily assigned to await final transfer to a suitable neighborhood. VIP inmates rarely visit this cell. They are directed to one of the so-called "special" neighborhoods; these are neighborhoods 7, 11, 12 and 13 bis. Neighborhoods 1 and 3 are neighborhoods of average standing, for middle-class inmates, or for those who may have been in the special neighborhoods but who are provisionally affected, pending further information on their case. Ward 2 is reserved for the sick, especially for patients with contagious diseases (tuberculosis, skin diseases, etc.).
Ward 5 is for female inmates. Regarding this neighborhood, make sure, if you are a man, that you do not have a feminine given name on your identity card, because you could be assigned to it because of that name, as happened in the past. a doctor, named Therese. He would have looked a little effeminate that he would probably have stayed a few minutes in this neighborhood! Ward 6 is that of those sentenced to death; yes, there are still some!
It is good to know that this is one of the neighborhoods, with the 2nd and the 13th (minors), which benefit from more solicitude and support from the NGOs that intervene here. Quarters 8 and 9 constitute what is called KOSOVO; these are the most overcrowded neighborhoods: besides these two neighborhoods contain more than 3/4 of the prison population of Kondengui Prison, (between 2500 and 3000 for a prison built for about 800 inmates), it is also in these areas neighborhoods that you find what are called "dormiterre", those who sleep on the floor, often more numerous than those who sleep (in pairs) on a bed in a given cell; each cell counts here between 40 and 80 prisoners, sentenced or awaiting judgment. In the other neighborhoods (1 and 3), detainees are between 10 and 30 per cell. Ward 10 is reserved for inmates with serious, occasional or permanent mental disorders; he can often count between one and two tens of prisoners. District 13 is that of minors, those under the age of 18; there are many young children from 14 to 16 years old.
In general, detainees are not allowed to visit from one neighborhood to another. But on the occasion of a demonstration or a religious ceremony, access to other neighborhoods is easy. Do not miss the opportunity to see in what conditions live the children of men! The only time I was able to go to the miners' quarters and KOSOVO, during the procession of the Feast of the Most Blessed Sacrament, I came out of it, psychologically and humanely. One of my companions could not hold back his tears.
I wondered if those who decide to place young men in pretrial detention really know what they mean to these people, some of whom will be found innocent a few months or years later. It is difficult not to realize, after a few weeks of stay here, that the regime of detention of women is much more severe than that of men, without the reasons being clear.
First, there is no special ward for women, which means that former ministers and senior executives in the public and private sectors share the same reduced environment and amenities as inmates with cultural, educational, and cultural backgrounds. and different professionals. Then the common areas like the library, the parlor of the lawyers, the inner court are practically forbidden to them.
The only places they can frequent in the company of men are the places of worship, or places of training of religious choirs. Sometimes the youngest are allowed to play handball on the court once or twice a week. In case of delivery, it is common to see the young mother return to the prison the same day, with her baby, supported by one or two prison guards; Fortunately, women's solidarity in this kind of situation is proverbial.
Arrived in your neighborhood, the Commander and other inmates welcome you, each in his own way: those who know you before give themselves an air of sincere compassion, others borrow the air pained. You are then presented with your diaper, which is called here "mandate"; the regulatory mandate represents a species of box 1m90 long, 90 cm wide, 1m high.
You must quickly install your mattress, as well as your small toiletries and possibly first medical emergency. Your co-detainees help you settle down, for example by covering your mattress with a sheet, yours if you have one. We also advise you to wait until morning to open your suitcase or to undo your backpack. In fact, the installation is done almost the next morning.
After your first night, rarely relaxing, you are struck awakening by the sounds of the doors being opened, the screams of people who bicker, or calls from other inmates, "the corvéeables", those who are allowed to get out of the prison each morning to do chores outside and only come back at the end of the day (usually inmates at the end of the sentence).
What catches your attention the most is the environment in which you end up and in which you have to spend your next months and maybe next years. If you are assigned to one of the "special neighborhoods", you must consider that your new environment is far better than other neighborhoods; in reality, it is only less bad.
After the opening of the offices, you are invited, usually a little after nine (9) hours, to complete the formalities of "entry", or more officially of setting in nut. You go first to the registry office of the prison; you are asked questions about your identity; then we take you to the board, and you open your file of incarceration.
Then, after the office of the registry, you must go to the prison doctor. This one will take you the main parameters, weight, blood pressure, pulse; he will then ask you if you follow a special treatment and for what affection. It is better, vis-à-vis this practitioner, to be sincere and true; because, in case of aggravation of your condition, his opinion will be decisive for the diligences to be undertaken at your place. It must be recognized that Dr. NDI Francis Norbert has shown himself to be very professional with us, capable of both discretion and availability in case of need.
Between your neighborhood, your place of residence and the places of these administrative formalities, you discover the prison, its population, its dispositions and physical characteristics. The things that strike you first are on the one hand the crowd of young people who look at you strangely (in any case it is the feeling that you have), on the other hand the smells; all sorts of smells, foul smells of dirty toilets, next to smells of fries or food that "butlers" warm up; smells of donuts, smells of people who took their last shower a few weeks ago ...
There was one day, in our special district 7, a fight between a young Cameroonian prisoner, André, and a Belgian, Philippe, of a certain age; the reason for the fight was that the young Cameroonian prisoner required his neighbor to bed that he was washing, because the smells he emitted, after several days or weeks without a shower, the indisposed and prevented him from sleeping ( that is to say that we can find in these special areas, all kinds of individuals).
But we discover a few days later that the most aggressive odors are those of septic tanks, when they are full, and especially when they are emptied. I never imagined that we can drain a septic tank by hand. And yet it is a common sight in this prison, to see young detainees, shirtless and bare-hands, wearing a little shorts or faded trousers often falling on the buttocks, tap into the eyes of the pit, with various utensils in the form of seals, then pour the contents of their bolées in the concrete channel, opened, starting from quarters 1 and 3, and passing in front of the entrance of quarter 5, and behind the shed where is the exit of the channel, through which is poured into nature, outside the enclosure of the prison, all that is emptied in this channel.
The waste from the pits is expelled to the outlet by pouring water seals that other inmates draw from the available water supplies. Some of these young men, armed with shovels and hard-handled brushes, are in charge of pushing the rebel waste towards the exit. The first time, it is an unbearable spectacle: these young people without mask, without any protection and obliged to fulfill this task, so degrading, so inhuman!
After a few sessions of this show, you are surprised to pass by just covering your nose, and avoiding to look. It is these same young people, generally newly arrived, who also take care of cleaning, every evening, around 17 hours, the different public spaces of the prison.
Rest assured, for the special districts, things go differently: the detainees usually call on the services of one of them, already well known, who has at his disposal a motor pump he provides for the emptying, for a contribution to the related charges, fuel for the motor pump and a small financial "motivation" for the inmates to assist the master-emptying.
Sometimes NGO leaders or nuns working in this prison also call on the detainee and his motor pump to empty the pits of the wards or other prisoners.
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