ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how a community-based civil militia, named the 'Anti-Gang Movement' (AGM), and the public security institutions could threaten and enfeeble human security, especially in the context of a conflict-prone transition society at a time of political adversity. It provides an elaborate historical background and discusses the nature of domestic politics and state weakness that led to the upsurge of the substitutionary civil forces that emerged in nearly every small community in Cameroon. The chapter aims to find out the reasons, which led to the failure in Cameroon to examine alternative scenarios of security, and the implications of the birth and life of the AGMs. It also analyses the threats to human security that have been brought by AGMs and the national security role of the Cameroonian government. The political deprivation and poverty were a source of antagonism between the government and civil militias, they have created a scenario in which insecurity breeds further insecurity.
