Searching for Ways of Settling Land Conflicts by Peaceful Means in Cameroon: A Critical Analysis of the Peacemaking Role of the ‘Land Consultative Board’

Abstract

The regulation of Land tenure systems is one of the main sources of conflicts in Africa and one of the continent’s most difficult realities to pin down. In its 1974 land reform, the Cameroonian legislature sought to strike a balance between traditional norms and modern instruments, between administrative, judicial and customary authorities, in order to establish an inclusive, democratic and peaceful system of land tenure. The establishment of the Land Consultative Board as the regulatory instrument the state planned to use in land matters was projected as the answer to this quest. While the original intention remains laudable - to enable the state, guarantor of the general interest to acquire a local instrument with the appropriate legitimacy and capable of ensuring the peaceful regulation of land tenure. It has to be said that, almost 50 years later, this ambition has not been achieved. The recurrence of land conflicts and the density of disputes reflect the inadequacy of the rules governing land tenure in Cameroon, depriving the board of any real regulatory authority. The central argument of this paper is that the legislator's ambition was not sincere because of the precedence of the administrative authority to the detriment of other actors. The choice of evaluating this working assumption through the theory of the instrumentation of public action is therefore essential. It makes it possible not only to determine the legislator's intention through textual and contextual analysis, but also to observe the interplay of actors around this regulatory instrument through an interdisciplinary approach. Between its structural inability to acquire real autonomy and the barely concealed desire to downgrade custom, its role has steadily diminished along with its influence, though without disappearing. It remains, however, the institutional relic where the philosophy of the “palaver tree,” supported by the practice of non-violence and democratic dialogue, can still survive, as well as the keystone of the entire land tenure system of the country. The analysis of the consultative Board’s peacemaking role through its instrumentation (or its instrumentalisation) opens up new perspectives for understanding the regulation of public action in our so-called Southern countries, especially for decision-makers, donors and any actor interested in the thorny issue of land tenure insecurity.