Cameroonian journalist killed in Chesapeake car crash

CHESAPEAKE

The man killed Monday in a car crash on Interstate 664 was a renowned African journalist who spent much of his career fighting for a free press in the small nation of Cameroon.

P ius Njawe, 53, had arrived in the United States just three days before and was traveling from Washington to Chesapeake to visit relatives, State Police Sgt. R.W. Walker said Tuesday.

Njawe was almost there when a tractor-trailer rear-ended the car he was riding in, killing him and critically injuring the car's driver, 29-year-old Eric T. Wande of Washington.

Police believe the car had stopped in the left-center lane of the four-lane highway near the Bowers Hill interchange when it was struck.

"We don't know the reason yet," Walker said. The driver of the car was conscious and talking Monday evening, but he could not recall the accident.

The driver of the tractor-trailer, identified as 64-year-old John Moore Jr. of Chesapeake, suffered injuries not considered life-threatening, police said.

Njawe's relatives in Chesapeake declined to comment Tuesday. But news of his death spread quickly over the Internet.

Njawe was 22 when he founded Cameroon's first independent newspaper 31 years ago and soon raised the ire of the government, said Alison Bethel McKenzie of the International Press Institute.

His paper, The Messenger, was shut down multiple times, and Njawe left the country in 1992 after receiving death threats. He returned a year later to found the Cameroon Organization for Press Freedom, according to a biography of Njawe on the institute's website, www.freemedia.at/.

Njawe was arrested dozens of times for his criticism of Cameroonian leaders, McKenzie said. Officials harassed his staff, took his office equipment and confiscated his newspapers.

Njawe spent 10 months in prison in 1998 for "spreading false news."

"I'm paying for having preferred my independence to compromise," he wrote during his time there, according to the biography.

Njawe was later pardoned.

The International Press Institute referred to him as "Cameroon's most beleaguered journalist and one of Africa's most courageous fighters for press freedom."

The organization named him a World Press Freedom Hero in 2000. Njawe was also a recipient of the International Press Freedom Award from the Committee to Protect Journalists, according to the tribute.

"The African media has lost a truly courageous individual whose bravery in the face of government intimidation served as an inspiration for other journalists in similar circumstances across the continent," the institute's director, David Dadge, is quoted as saying in a tribute on its website.

Njawe's wife was killed in 2002 when the car she was traveling in near their home in Cameroon was side-swiped, McKenzie said. In the aftermath, Njawe founded an organization to promote safe driving.

Kristin Davis, (757) 222-5208, kristin.davis@pilotonline.com