Christopher Lamora must present his credentials to President Paul Biya. The diplomat arrives in the Cameroonian capital more than a year and a half after the departure of his predecessor.
Christopher John Lamora is a career diplomat. This is his first post as an ambassador, but not his first time in Cameroon. In the early 1990s, he worked for the United States Consulate in Douala. And he describes this first stay as his first crush on the continent.
Since then, his career has taken him – among other places – to Bangui in the Central African Republic, to Accra in Ghana and even to Malabo in Equatorial Guinea. US President Joe Biden nominated him in April last year. The Senate confirmed him in the post only in December and he was sworn in in Washington last month.
An appointment that took time, since in the United States, the senator republican Ted Cruz blocked for months last year the confirmation of several dozen officials appointed by Joe Biden, president from the Democratic camp. A way for the elected representative of Texas to oppose the opening of a gas pipeline linking Russia to Germany.
The Anglophone crisis, a priority
During his hearing in the Senate, before the Committee on Foreign Affairs in June, Christopher John Lamora made the crisis in the English-speaking majority regions of the country his first concern. ” Working on its resolution will be our priority “, did he declare.
The designation of Christopher Lamora has also aroused some hostile comments in the press, because of his private life. He is married to a man and he therefore settles in a country which, in its texts, penalizes relations between people of the same sex.