By DOH JAMES SONKEY IN YAOUNDE
Cameroon government through the Minister of Arts and Culture, Prof Narcisse Mouelle Kombi has embarked on an offensive lobbying campaign to get the Bimbia historic slave trade site in the Limbe III municipality, Fako Division of the South West Region added to the World Heritage List of the United Nations, Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, UNESCO.
The Arts and Culture Minister took the lobbying campaign to its apex last June 20 to 25, 2017 at the National Museum in Yaoundé as he brought together local population, national and international scientific communities, African Diaspora, students, pupils, artists, economic operators, cultural entrepreneurs, tourists etc to brainstorm at an international symposium on Slave trade and slavery in Cameroon under the theme “Bimbia, a Place of Slavery and Memorial of Humanity.”
The international symposium that ended with the Yaoundé Declaration requesting UNESCO to lift the status of Bimbia in Cameroon, crowned a similar exercise organized at the Cameroon Embassy where the Head Quarter of UNESCO is in Paris, France last June 7 to 23, 2017.
Speaking both at the opening and closing ceremonies, Minister Mouelle Kombi underlined that “the Bimbia agenda falls in line with the political orientations of the President of the Republic, H.E Paul Biya who intends to make culture, a spring board of development and regional integration and to develop a culture industry geared towards the quantitative and qualitative amelioration of the offer of goods and services. These events in Paris and Yaoundé fall in line with government’s option of rehabilitating places of memory so as to reconcile our fellow citizens with their history and to project Cameroon into the world arena, by establishing linkages with the Diaspora, as well as continue her ambition of better living together. ”
In a chat with reporters, Arts and Culture Minister, Prof Narcisse Mouelle Kombi explained that “The importance of this international symposium is linked to the importance of Bimbia which is our common heritage given that it is not only common heritage for Cameroon and Africa but also for the international community since it served as a slavery port. Bimbia ought therefore to be integrated into the international agenda because it was a site with international implication within the framework of the transatlantic slave trade involving African countries, the Europeans and America.”
During the symposium, participants brainstormed on five sub themes namely; slave trade in Cameroon and its transatlantic and trans Saharan connections, perspectives in terms of development: how can the memorial sites be developed,? Bimbia: historical truth, the present state of knowledge, slave trade in Africa and the Diaspora: what type of cooperation and lastly, which funding will be appropriate for research on the restoration of and the development of memory sites?
In his speech, French Ambassador to Cameroon, H.E Gilles Thibault acknowledged that though much seems to have been written on slave trade in the world, very little is said on Cameroon.
The Ambassador stressed that the preservation and valorization of world patrimony sites help to make sure that slave trade memories are not wiped off people’s memory so that the world can use the sad reality to build a better future.
An expert confided in The SUN that if Bimbia is internationally recognized by UNESCO as wished, tourists will troop in from all corners of the world to visit this historic slave trade site thereby projecting the image of Cameroon and generating resources for the local community and the country.