Yesterday, a political refugee (I’ll refer to him as Z) from Cameroon who was sponsored by my wife and has been living with us since February, was granted political asylum in the United States following several months of opposition by the federal government. I felt that this is worth posting here because it is a poignant story, and I see parallels between Z’s plight in Cameroon and what is going on in this country (which is one reason why we were interested in sponsoring him).
Z’s StoryZ is currently a 38 year old English speaking male who was born and raised in Cameroon and who practiced law there for several years.
In the early 1990’s he began to engage in political protests (non-violent, except for government action against the protesters) against the corruption of the Cameroonian government, especially involving its human rights abuses. His leadership in these activities, including his founding of a non-governmental organization, led to his arrest and imprisonment on at least ten occasions over the next ten years, prior to 2002. During many of these imprisonments he underwent daily torture.
In 2002 he traveled to the United States to attend an International Peace training conference/workshop. During this conference he became good friends with one of the conference leaders, a former U.S. Ambassador (I’ll call him R), who was deeply impressed with Z’s leadership abilities and skills.
Following the conference he returned to Cameroon and continued his leadership of government opposition activities. As the 2004 elections approached, President Paul Biya had been
in power for 22 years, and all indications were that the 2004 elections would be no more free of fraud than previous elections during Biya’s tenure. Consequently, government repression of opposition groups intensified, so Z began to experience more and more pressure. It became so bad that in the fall of 2004 he had his wife and three children move out of his house for safety reasons.
One month later, as he returned from work and was about to enter his home, a fire bomb went off inside the home, destroying his house and almost all of his worldly possessions and cash. This near brush with death was the final straw that broke the camel’s back for Z, and he immediately began to make plans to flee the country. With the help of his church he was hidden until he could be spirited away on a plane for the United States, where upon his arrival he was imprisoned for lack of the necessary travel documents.
While imprisoned in Virginia, Z came to the attention of a human rights organization, which put him in touch with his friend R, who helped Z obtain the services of a law firm, which took on Z’s case on a pro bono basis. He remained in prison until his lawyers were able to obtain a sponsor for him and complete all the necessary formalities, after which he came to live with us in early February of this year, pending the results of his asylum hearing.
The HearingsFollowing numerous bureaucratic obstacles, the initial hearing was set for early July. Before the hearing could begin, the government lawyer alleged that Z had lied about a peripherally related matter involving an alleged brother. I won’t bore you with all the details, but in order to defend himself against the allegations Z had to produce the “brother”, which he couldn’t do because he had no idea where this person was, and in any event it was unlikely that he really was Z’s brother. The judge gave the court a sanctimonious lecture about how common it is for asylum seekers to lie, and how none of Z’s testimony could be given credence if he wouldn’t “come clean” about his brother. The hearing was then postponed until October to give Z a chance to produce the “brother”. I thought at that time that there was no way this judge would ever grant asylum to Z.
Eventually, however, after numerous attempts by Z to find his missing “brother”, the matter was cleared up when the judge finally read the case documents which had been presented to him by Z’s lawyers.
The actual hearing finally transpired yesterday, October 17th. Z’s lawyers presented four witnesses: Depositions by two physicians, and two live witnesses, including Z himself, and his friend R, the former Ambassador. The two physicians testified in their depositions that they found upon thorough physical and psychological examination of Z, their findings were completely consistent with Z’s allegations of torture.
Z’s testimony included the story noted above, but in much more detail. He then underwent a lengthy cross-examination by the government lawyer, who failed to make any dents in Z’s direct testimony.
R then testified to the following: that during Z’s attendance at the 2002 training conference he exhibited exceptional leadership skills; that Z could have, at that point, sought asylum in the United States or simply left the conference and blended into the U.S. population, but instead he decided to return to Cameroon to continue his fight and thus face grave dangers; and, that continuing e-mail correspondence with Z after his return to Cameroon was entirely consistent with Z’s stated reasons for seeking asylum in the United States.
Having failed to put a dent in Z’s testimony during cross-examination, and not eager to take on the testimony of a former U.S. Ambassador, the government lawyer resorted to impugning Z’s testimony with the following arguments: 1) It was unlikely that Z’s house was fire bombed because he could find no public record of that event; 2) The whole story was implausible because the Cambodian government surely could have found a quieter and surer way to kill Z; 3) Z’s story was also implausible because there was no good reason for the fire bombing of his house to scare him enough to flee to the United States, given that he had endured numerous imprisonments with torture without seeking asylum earlier.
The judge’s reaction to all this was to tell the government lawyer that in order for him (the judge) to justify a denial of asylum he would have to make the case that he believed that a former U.S. Ambassador was either lying or completely fooled by a 3rd world refugee. Was the lawyer asking him to believe that? The lawyer responded by saying that, no, he was saying that R was lying or gullible, only that he was overly compassionate.
The government lawyer also asked the judge to consider denying asylum on the basis that Z was a bigamist because, in addition to his real wife, he also admitted to having what is known as a “traditional” wife, which according to some African tribal customs is the status given to the widow of the oldest surviving son when the father dies. That was just too much for the judge, who exploded at that government lawyer for suggesting this, considering that no testimony had been given during the hearing that suggested a sexual or any kind of relationship between Z and his “traditional” wife that resembles what we think of as a marital arrangement in the U.S.
And with that, Z was granted asylum.
Some CommentsThe first time that I believed that Z was going to win this case was when the judge tipped his hand by describing how difficult it would be to impugn the testimony of a former U.S. Ambassador. That of course begs the question of how this case would have turned out if Z hadn’t had such a high ranking person to testify on his behalf. I am very far from convinced that he would have won.
Another thought that I had while watching this hearing was that this apparently very conservative judge just might consider the fact that Z was a human rights and election reform activist to be huge minus rather than a plus. After all, the human rights and election integrity record of our current Administration (and increasing portions of our Federal Judiciary) isn’t exactly stellar. And once Z completes his legal training at George Washington Law School he just might (hopefully) become active in protesting against this government.
Not that I’m suggesting that this government would consider engaging in torture or election fraud :sarcasm:. But certainly, because of the somewhat solid (though fading, I’m afraid) culture of Democracy in our country, the Bush Administration must be at least somewhat more subtle than the Cameroonian government in its repressive efforts. Fire bombing a political opponent’s house would probably be considered over the top here (if reported by the MSM). But on the other hand: When the hostile Bush biographer J. Hatfield dies of
“suicide”; or when Paul Wellstone, who was the most likely of all U.S. Senators to pursue an aggressive Senatorial investigation of the circumstances surrounding 9-11 dies in a
helicopter crash just as he is about to be re-elected; or when chemical weapons expert David Kelly commits
“suicide” just as the Bush Administration is desperately hanging onto its lies about the reasons for going to war in Iraq; or when Raymond Lemming commits
”suicide” shortly after acknowledging that he has tracked election fraud “all the way to the top” – how much publicity are those things given by our mainstream news media in this country? More than Michael Jackson’s alleged pedophilia? Or Bill Clinton’s sexual indiscretions?
So these are some of the parallels that I see between Z’s experience in Cameroon and our current experience. As I opined a month or two ago, the biggest difference between the Bush regime’s grab for ever increasing power and Hitler’s may be a matter of
opportunity rather than intention. So I think that we need to do what we can to make sure that the opportunity for this regime is limited.
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