In Mintom (Cameroon) he lives a community of 2,500 Bakas pigmes disseminated in multiple villages
Mintom is besieged by an exuberant tropical jungle, more and more threatened and exploited by mining and wood industry. In this town in southern Cameroon, Pigmeas Bakas communities, pushed to leave the jungle, try to adapt at the edges of roads and roads to a new context where coexistence is not always easy with its Bantú neighbors and state institutions.
As canned sardines, eight adults traveled through the jungle in a rampant and old Toyota Corolla. An hour was enough to travel the 83 kilometers that separate the city of Djoum from the town of Mintom thanks to the recklessness of our driver, but above all to the magnificent state of the road, marked, painted and without a single bump, something very rare in the African tropical jungle and even more in that little populated corner of southern Cameroon.
I understood that this careful road had not been built with the only and main objective of improving the mobility of the inhabitants of the area, but to facilitate the sea out of the wood of the jungles of Cameroon and the Republic of the Congo. During the four days I was in Mintom, the passage of trucks loaded with gigantic trunks was constant, day and night, without any of the people I spoke to explain exactly the origin of the wood, its destination, its value in The market or the people who were benefiting with their exploitation, among which, of course, were not the Bakas pigments I was going to visit.
In Cameroon, four Pygmean subgroups inhabit: Bakolas, Bagyelis, Medzam and Bakas, the most numerous with about 40,000 members throughout the country. First inhabitants of the tropical jungle and its authentic guardians and protectors, the arrival of the so -called “progress” and the discovery of the economic potentialities of their natural habitat have led them to sedentary and leave behind their traditional seminomated life. Although the Cameroonian government never signed a law or decree to expel the bakas of the jungle, the strong pressure of mining and timber companies – and even of some environmental associations that did not understand that the Bakas did not pose any danger to the jungle -, They pushed them to settle on the roads.
Coexistence with Bantú
The town of Mintom and its surroundings, in the department of DJA et Lobo, has a population of about 12,000 inhabitants, mostly bantu of different ethnic groups that use the FAG and French as vehicular languages. This group shares spaces and life with a community of about 2,500 Pigmeans Baka, which have their own language although, according to them, “increasingly contaminated with words from fang.”
Mintom’s urban core is extensive, with single -plant houses, but the Bakas live in the villages located along three main axes, the two marked by the road in both directions and the axis of Bemba. In 2001, the Spanish NGO Zerca and far accounted for 53 Bakas towns, which currently have been reduced to 15. Some have disappeared and others, such as Zoébefam, Zoulabot or Nkolemboula, have lost their autonomy by being annexed by the Bantú villages, which, which They have given them their names and they manage and control. Only the Baka de Assok town exists for the Cameroonian state, while the other 14 have not been administratively recognized.
Poverty
The Bakas are the last on the social scale of Mintom. His economic situation is disastrous and after decades at the edge of the roads in difficult coexistence with the Bantu, they find many difficulties to adapt to the new situation that, irreversibly, must face. When he reached Mintom, Zerca and far found many cases of malnutrition in Bakas children. Francis Zock Messe, the only person of the Spanish NGO who continues to work in the area, recalls that then «The Bakas diet was lower in protein than when they lived in the jungle, so we started agricultural projects to teach them to cultivate beans , cassava and other products that will compensate for their lack of nutrients. Today the problem is not fully solved, because lately in the axis of Bemba many cases of malnutrition are detected ».
There is no alternative, the Bakas have to cultivate the earth if they want to survive, no matter how foreign this activity is for their culture. They must also learn to manage in the endless administrative procedures of an omnipresent state that wants to control everything and that is very complicated for them. They had never needed papers or documents before having the things that the jungle offered them for free, but now without those documents are evicted from their lands.
Far away is their ancestral lifestyle, when they moved freely through the jungle, collecting the fruits and the wild honey they needed, hunting and fishing only what they could eat, using to heal plants and medicinal cortes respecting the trees, inhabited in singles Mungús Facts of branches and leaves, living in solidarity communities without walls or private property. The cultural jump facing the Bakas is tremendous because, in addition, they must face it without significant aid of the Cameroonian state, which to date has not developed an effective repair and insertion plan for the Bakas peoples that left the jungle.

Difficult balance
In Mintom I visited, in the company of Luc Ndeloua (see pp. 6-7), three Bakas villages: Assak, Bemba II and Akom. In addition to the joy and enthusiasm we find in all places, in this last community, where Ndeloua lives, they received me to the rhythm of dances and songs.
The first one I visited was Assok, a privileged town that has a seed bank, is located next to the community forest that has been assigned to them and has launched, with the help of an NGO, the living museum Baka to attract tourists and Get money for the community. However, the town does not escape from misery. In Assak I greeted the one who presented me as his Majesty Abila Martin “of third grade” (sic), the only boss Baka recognized by the Cameroonian state in the area. He does not speak French and delegated to his son Alphonse the presentation of the situation of the community, with problems identical to those that he would later hear in Bemba II and Akom.
As a general guideline, the Bakas complain about the difficulty of obtaining documentation and property titles, of the impediments that put them to access the jungle, education, health problems and the many cases of discrimination that suffer from of the Bantu with whom they live.
Listening to each other, it seems clear that all problems have as a common root the cultural shock. The Bantu have little patience and seem not to want to realize the specific mentality of the Bakas pigmeans, and these have a hard time accepting norms, laws and administrative procedures established by the Cameroonian State. The future of Bakas pigmeans is played in this difficult balance: how to adapt to the new context and preserve, at the same time, the best of their ancestral traditions?

Documentation and land
When asked about thirty adults in AKOM if they had National Identity Document (DNI), only eight people raised their hands, complaining about how onerous and difficult its obtaining is, although the State believes to give facilities for it. According to Maurice Hervé Nteme, an official of the Ministry of Social Affairs and Director of the Baka of Mintom, the Birth Certificate, an essential document to subsequently obtain the ID, “it is delivered free of charge to all children who are registered within the first 90 days of Life, but many Bakas still do not register their children. Once this period has elapsed, a judicial process is necessary that is also funded by the State through the Oenegés. According tome, the Bakas take advantage of the situation and «when the oenegés arrive, they do not say they already have a birth certificate, they say they do not have it to help them. An NGO 150 minutes ago, another 200, and in the end you wonder how this is possible and how many birth certificates each Baka has. We know that there have been double and triple identity cases, ”concludes the official.
The problem is complicated with obtaining property titles, which only granted individuals in possession of the ID and not groups. In the case of the Earth, the State requires that the fields are cultivated and, if it is a plot, that it has a inhabited house. The traditional ones Mungús of the Bakasno have such consideration. Without these conditions and after crossing a long administrative process – not always free – there is no property title, so that the Bantu are gradually occupying neglected land by the Bakas. Something similar happens with community forests, which the forest regime of Cameroon recognizes legally and assigns the native communities to develop their traditional, cultural and economic activities. In return, the State requires administrative procedures and periodic forest management reports that Bakas barely comply with. In the end, these spaces also end up being exploited by the Bantu who come to help them. In the case of Assoumdélé, next to the border with the Republic of Congo, the State assigned a community forest that was already being exploited by the Bantú population. According to Luc Ndelou, “that contentious has not yet been judicially resolved.”
The difficulties are many, but the awareness work of associations such as Abowani and others is producing changes. The Bakas are understanding the importance of registering their children at the time of birth and insist on growing the fields and remaining stable in their villages to obtain the property of those lands. In addition, there is a good regulation that allows Bakas to enter certain places of the jungle to collect fruits, honey, plants and bark.

Education and Health
The Cameroonian state makes no exception with the Bakas, who must pay health and school expenses just like other citizens. However, in Mintom the first institution created throughout the country remains open for the accompaniment of native peoples, a home-residence for Bakas students. This installation was built in 2016 within the framework of the Ngoyla Mintom project, financed by the World Bank. Although it should be managed by Bakas themselves through associations such as Abowani, financing and maintenance problems caused the management very soon to the Ministry of Social Affairs.
The one -floor building has several study rooms, showers and services, dining room, kitchen and ten bedrooms with four beds each. Despite having capacity for 40 students, there have never been more than 30. Six girls and nine boys have occupied facilities. When asking the director of the center, Maurice Nteme, the reason for his underutilization, the answer leaves no doubt: «For lack of inscriptions. We continue waiting. If the Bakas come to register their children will be well received, because that is our work.
New dangers threaten the Bakas, such as alcohol abuse. The small vodka envelopes that are sold for only 100 francs CFA proliferate in Milton, the equivalent of 15 cents, which Bantúes and Bakas buy and consume without being aware of their danger, both for the high concentration of alcohol – even the 43 % – as for the poor distillation with which they have been manufactured. “There have been campaigns such as” Bakas without alcohol “to try to sensitize about this danger and diseases that accompany alcohol abuse. They have managed to moderate consumption, but not suppress it. Maybe you drink because there is nothing to do and the situation is difficult, ”says Francis Zock Messe.
