A Blessing in Disguise: Maritime Insecurity and the Improvement of Cameroon Naval Capabilities
摘要
Since 2008, Cameroon's maritime space has been the site of extra-legal activities such as illegal fishing, kidnapping, fishing with toxic products and dynamite, child trafficking, unlawful and abusive exploitation of mangroves, and spectacular bank robberies in Cameroon's coastal cities. These various threats are challenges to the country, whose economy depends mainly on port activities and revenues from oil exploitation. Maritime insecurity is also a problem for the United States, China, and the European powers since the Gulf of Guinea area has become a strategic space for these powers because of their desire to diversify their sources of energy supply and the tremendous potential of the Gulf of Guinea which Cameroon is part. This chapter focuses on the Cameroonian authorities’ responses to maritime insecurity. After presenting the different security threats on the Cameroonian coast, it will describe and analyze the apparatus to deal with them. It will discuss Cameroon's improved maritime security capabilities, the articulation of the national mechanism with the regional architecture to combat these transnational threats, and the contribution of the international community whose joint exercise “Obangame express” is the best-known expression. This chapter is based on an ethnographic survey conducted on the seafront of Cameroon since March 2009.