By Jude Abanseka
Some thirty journalists in Bamenda have been urged to pay more attention on humanitarian response during the ongoing Anglophone crisis in Cameroon in order to give it more coverage than it is already being done.
The CEO of Martin Luther King Jr Memorial Foundation aka LUKMEF, Christian Tanyi made the call Tuesday December 10, 2019 while facilitating a training of the journalists. Organized by LUKMEF, The main objective of the one-day training was to build the capacity of journalists in the North West Region on principled reporting of humanitarian need/response. This was done taking into consideration that the said crisis has reached the response phase yet very little was being done about it in terms of media coverage.
The training of
the selected media personalities was within the framework of the UNICEF Child
protection project titled “strengthening
community-based mechanisms for the prevention and response to child protection
and sexual gender-based violence risk for children and adolescents in the North
West and South West Regions of Cameroon” which LUKMEF is implementing. To
achieve this, participants were given lessons on the core humanitarian
principles, the humanitarian response and the role of media persons/NGOs on
principled reporting. Christian Tanyi,
who was the main facilitator at the training opined that understanding and applying the core humanitarian principles of humanity, impartiality, independence
and neutrality was not an optional issue.
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| A cross-section of participants |
Among several
things, Christian Tanyi in his capacity as the co-chair of the UN working group
on Communication, noted that the current crisis in Cameroon is very unique in
nature. Whereas in other countries going through a crisis situation, it is
possible to easily detect where to find the different warring factions involved
in an armed conflict, the case of the Anglophone crisis is complicated. Both
the state and non-state actors involved in the Anglophone crisis are found in
all the conflict areas as there is no area that is 100% under the control of
one of the factions.
LUKMEF’s CEO noted
that what guarantees a journalist’s safety in war areas is objectivity in
their reporting. Besides being killed by a crossfire, Christian Tanyi stressed
that failure to report objectively will most likely send a reporter to their
early grave. He thus admonished the media personalities to understand, rehearse
and apply the International Humanitarian Law and the core humanitarian
principles of Humanity, Neutrality, Impartiality and operational independence. Added to these he said, Journalists should
have their own SMART principle. By this, they should endeavor to know when it is
safe to be where and when. “In an active crisis take all rumors seriously, better
safe than sorry”, he noted. Sometimes journalists get killed because they do
not respect protocols. It is good to establish good staff safety protocols,
Christian Tanyi stressed.
Another module at
the training concerned the role of media persons/NGOs on principled reporting.
The facilitator started off by trying to get participants to explain why they
think they should as journalists in a crisis setting. He went on to explain
that the contribution of the media towards aiding suffering people in crisis
situations does not mean journalists should provide bags of rice victims. What
is needed to bring the plight of a people to the limelight is only the
journalistic skill, he added. Here he stressed that if journalists are
consistent in this action, they will cause their audience to act towards
assisting needy people. “Asking yourself how your story can influence change
should be your focus”, the LUKMEF CEO went on. Here, the trainer stressed on
the need to check/investigate before writing reports.
According to the
CEO of LUKMEF, the current Southern Cameroon crisis is the least reported. This
explains why it is referred to as the “forgotten crisis”. Christian Tanyi
explained that each time there is a crisis it is the state authority that is
supposed to highlight the situation on the ground as it is. Unfortunately, he
added, the Cameroon government keeps telling the international community that
everything is under control all because it is a political crisis. It is for
this reason that the facilitator insisted that the media needs to put it right
by reporting the facts as they are especially the situation of victims. This is
more so because Cameroon is already in crisis level 3, he added. Citing
current statistics he said that, only 20% of the needs of the victims are being
addressed by all humanitarian actions put together as at the time of the
training.
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| Participants pose for a group photo at the end of the workshop |
In conclusion,
Christian Tanyi lent the participants some pieces of advice as they go about
their profession with regard to the crisis. He noted that as a journalist the
best thing to do is to communicate for access so that humanitarian aid can
reach the beneficiaries. He exhorted the journalists to do all to have a
knowledge of the humanitarian architecture (a simple system that tells who is
doing what where and when) and act on it. He called on the journalists to ask
themselves daily if the media is playing its role as far as a humanitarian
response is concerned. Lastly, he urged them to make it a duty to report on the humanitarian crisis.
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