Born Free

At the end of October, LAGA (Last Great Ape Organisation in Cameroon) managed to track down an ape dealer who regularly orders apes from hunters and sells them in towns. He was arrested trying to sell a baby chimp in a sack in the Eastern Province of Cameroon. Felix, a promising new recruit of the legal unit has had his baptism with this first operation he had to fight for. He was joined by Julius, head of operations unit in the morning of the operation and the arrest went smoothly as planned.

The problems started when we realized the dealer is well known to the authorities as they tried to help him and sabotage the legal process.  

After a lot of fighting from Felix we managed to fight corruption and put the writing of the complaint report back on track.  Only when Felix and Julius managed to ensure the dealer was locked away could they focus on the health of the baby chimp.

Felix was heart broken, this was the first time he held a chimpanzee and realizing the chimp was very sick he called Ofir at headquarters, alarmed, saying that although he may not have experience with chimps he knew this chimp was terribly wounded. Ofir underestimated the problem and later realized that the wounds on the chimp were not the common wound on the waist caused by ropes – the chimp was in fact burnt – her capturers poured boiled water on her.

Felix tried to feed her and insisted on getting her to a vet, but the authorities took their time.  In between caring for the little chimp, Felix had to ensure that the dealers were not released, and ensured in a two hour meeting with the state attorney that the dealer should not be granted bail.

Felix won the fight of getting the dealer into jail, but lost the first chimp he knew.

When the baby chimp arrived to Dr. Sheri Speede’s chimpanzee shelter – the Sanaga Yong Sanctuary, it was too late. The baby chimp died a few days later as a result of the infection caused by the open burns.

We are all shocked by the extent of cruelty taken against the baby chimp that could have outlived any of us. Vincent and Eric of the media team prepared radio newsflashes explaining the cruelty. They continue to get the message through TV and written press.

Felix will continue to fight for justice for animals and people.

Ofir

UPDATE: 14th NOVEMBER 2008

Felix travelled for 8 hours on dirt roads to the east to fight again in the second court hearing.

He called Ofir last night to say the second court hearing passed well.

His work discussing with the prosecutor on fighting against any release on bail paid off.

The hearing passed as we wanted without opening the debate insuring another month of jail time to the dealer before the next hearing. Felix is staying to make a jail visit and ensure the dealer didn’t bribe the jail wardens to release him as is often happening.

For more information please do not hesitate to visit our website at http://www.laga-enforcement.org/ .

On Tuesday 8th July, we had a successful operation against an ape dealer in a town called Nkoteng. Josias was in charge of this from LAGA, the man at the last moment refused to move the chimp he was trying to sell and became suddenly suspicious. Our surveillance on him allowed us to arrest him in another location. The chimp, around three years old is well. We do not know yet which shelter will provide life time care to this chimp.

The team stayed the next day as it was not clear if the judiciary will take this case seriously. The court’s first reaction was that this case should be “settled” out of court. but after a long day of arguments, phone calls, and as the case was already announced on national radio by our Vincent – we just got the decision of the court to keep the man locked up till the next hearing in August.

We also had another battle in court against two lawyers that tried to get the internet dealer released on bail. This also ended in success as Alain just got their demand rejected by the judge, the internet dealer stays behind bars as well.

Barrister Mbuan managed to block attempts of a dealer to convince the judge he just shot endangered animals by mistake. He crossed examined him proving his bad faith. Mbuan arrived here early morning afte a long ride, he has gone back to see his wife after spending some time with us sharing his hard week.

On 9th July, Josias, who moved over right from one part of the country to the other by train already managed to pull another operation with another investigator. He just managed to get arrested a skin dealer caught with 4 skins of protected species including leopards. he is struggling to insure the dealer ends behind bars.

Horline will move this week to the Standing Committee of CITES as long as she gets her visa on time. She is trying to organize a side event on the illegal trade in great apes now.

On 6th July, the lawyer who has become a part of the LAGA family had a traumatic event. His wife was rushed into a Cesarean surgery. In Cameroon this can be very risky, and many of us held our breath and talked with him on the phone through this experience. In the end his family is safe, his wife is safe a new child is born.

Hi, I am Cynthia Akwen, the Development Office Assistant for the Last Great Ape Organisation (LAGA). We are a small organisation (less than 15 people) based in Yaounde, Cameroon, and we were set up in 2001 by Israeli aventurer and conservationist Ofir Drori who is still our director. Ofir’s goal was to control the rampant illegal trade in wildlife that plagues Cameroon and most of Central Africa. LAGA is the only wildlife law enforcement NGO in Africa and since we started we have helped to bring about more than 200 prosecutions under national wildlife law – before we started there had not been a single one!

Our work includes investigations to identify dealers and set up fake ‘deals’, assisting government operations to catch the crooks red-handed, providing legal advice and support throughout the prosecution process and publicising this crack-down on wildlife crime through all national media. Ofir and myself are looking forward to bringing you the latest news on our achievements in all these areas over the weeks and months that follow. We have had some amazing successes in the past, often in the face of persoanl threats and intense corruption, and we plan to have more…