Ah, now I remember I assumed the libraries liber*** were used as dynamic ones (brave, isn't it?) and so I did not need to compile and install them. Thus, I assumed further, for building ctb binary it would be sufficient to make .h files discoverable.
Anyways, I'm stuck because of not knowing how to make the things a correct way. Is it true I should first call autoconfigure in the package folder and then .configure etc? At least configure.ac hints this. But then on "autoconfigure --add-missing" I get smth like ... AC_PROG_INTLTOOL not found ... I do have intltool installed.
Having Makefile.am makes me suspect I'd need to use automake.
Sooo, to stop this mess in my steps is the ultimate goal of the question. Please excuse a java/C developer