Speech at lunch for the President of the Cameroons (Paul Biya)

Paul BiyaMr. President, Madame Biya, Your Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen.

Welcome

Let me start, Mr. President by saying how delighted we all are that you accepted our invitation to make this official visit to Britain.

We extend to you and your whole delegation a very warm welcome.

We take it as a particular compliment that Madame Biya has accompanied you.

We are very family-minded in Britain and I am sure you have discovered, as I have, that overseas visits where husband and wife can travel together are very often the most [end p1] successful.

We want you to enjoy your time in Britain.

You already know our country well—although I have the feeling that you know Scotland rather better than you know England: something to do with a game called golf, so my husband tells me. “He who would England win, must with Scotland first begin” .

Historical Associations

We welcome you, Mr. President, as the Leader of a people with whom Britain's connections go back a long time, back indeed to the days when our Royal Navy ships came to your waters to suppress the slave trade. [end p2]

And after a period in which our missionaries and our traders were active we came to administer what are now your north-west and south-west provinces, as a result of which one-fifth of your people traditionally speak English.

Support for English Language

And now with your policy of bilingualism, which you have been explaining to me, the other four-fifths of your people are learning English, too.

We welcome this and shall assist you with as far as we are able.

I know that you yourself have set your [end p3] people a good example Mr. President, and that your recent speeches in English have been very well received.

Falklands

May I say how very much we welcomed one particular demonstration of your friendship and fairmindedness, and that is your country's decision to abstain at the United Nations on the question of the Falklands.

The principle of self-determination, the right of a people to choose their future is one which both Britain and Cameroon have reason to cherish: and we hope that you will [end p4] continue to do everything possible to sustain those principles.

Success of Cameroon's Economic Development

We welcome you, too, as President of a stable and prosperous nation whose great natural resources are being used carefully to promote development and a better standard of living for all your people, without taking on too many foreign debts.

Cameroon has won the respect of the international economic community, and has achieved a very good credit rating in the market-place.

We particularly admire your success in making [end p5] Cameroon entirely self-sufficient in food: that is a claim which very few nations throughout the developing world can make.

Contacts with Britain

We welcome you, too, as a leader seeking to diversify and to develop contacts with the Western nations, with Britain in the forefront.

After your independence Britain seemed to withdraw from centre stage and take a place in the wings.

Now we want to come back onto the stage and are grateful for the encouragement which you have given us. [end p6]

We know, Mr. President, that you are anxious to strengthen further Cameroon's democratic institutions, and we applaud that objective. We should like to see more contacts between our two Parliaments, and I hope that this is something which can be pursued during your visit.

Trade Links

We also want to see more trade.

This is the message which our Minister of Trade, Paul Channon, took to Yaounde and to Bamenda a few months ago, as did Lynda Chalker when she also visited you.

We want to play a bigger part in your [end p7] Economic Development and we have a great deal to offer.

I hear that 25 British firms have already opened offices in your country: that is a sign that we are ready to go out and get business.

Peroration

Mr. President, your visit is a very important step in relations between Britain and Cameroon.

We want it to be a success: indeed I believe that we can both say, on the basis of your talks today and this friendly lunch, that it is a success for both our countries—a success which we want to see reflected in [end p8] practical terms by increased contacts, increased trade, the wider use of the English language and more active working together between our two governments.

I ask you to drink a toast to the President of the Republic of Cameroon and to the friendship of our two peoples.