President Biya has signed a decree appointing members into the National Commission for the Promotion of Bilingualism and Multiculturalism. A move interpreted by some pro Biya comedians as a government plan to open talks with Southern Cameroonians.

As the Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium continues to cripple key educational and economic installations in the West Cameroon region, Paul Biya reportedly appointed a team to begin promoting bilingualism and multiculturalism with “everyone involved” in the Anglophone situation. But the Francophone army and police would not scale back the hunt for Southern Cameroons activists all over the world.

The Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium has installed a very efficient civil disobedience campaign and plans are underway for economic sanctions and boycott of La Republique.  The Consortium is demanding an independent state for Southern Cameroons.

In this revival of Francophone dominance whose military have launched attacks on many towns and cities in West Cameroon, Mr. Paul Biya has appointed Anglophone traitors and CPDM militants into his so-called National Commission for the Promotion of Bilingualism and Multiculturalism in Cameroon. We of the Cameroon Concord News Group call them known traitors and CPDM militants because their DNA indicates so.

George Ngwane was the first Southern Cameroonian to congratulate President Biya immediately after he created the commission. Noted for crafting numerous anti-North West press releases in the good old days of the South West Elites Association, Mwalimu Ngwane remains a diehard member of the ruling CPDM crime syndicate.

For the records, Barrister Halle Nico has always been a CPDM person though pretending to be neutral in difficult situations. Halle Nico enjoys full Francophone government support and constantly receives sinecures from the regime on the Southern Cameroons crisis. This is also true of former Minister Ama Tutu Muna who described Biya during a trip to the UK as her own god.

By appointing Peter Mafany Musonge to head the commission, it is evidently clear that Biya’s does not intend to solve the Anglophone problem but to destroy the Southern Cameroons identity and dignity. Musonge is the leader of the CPDM Senate group and hates North Westerners.

Frankly speaking, the Biya commission is a CPDM affair and has no independent personality and by extrapolation, no credibility. Justice Itoe Benjamin worked with the detained Chairman of the Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium, Barrister Agbor Balla at the UN in Sierra Leone. It is shameful, disgusting and disgraceful for him to be seen as betraying a young man who constantly referred to him as “Dad’.

The inclusion of former governor David Abouem a Tchoy will change nothing as the commission has been designed to function like ELECAM. It is another ELECAM and Biya is indeed not prepared to negotiate with the Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium. The members of the commission are predominantly known Anglophones traitors who have promised to make Southern Cameroonians suffer.

This group of known Anglophone traitors favors personal interest over those of the Southern Cameroons people. The group has never worked to ensure that the man on the street in Southern Cameroons receives the benefit from all that is available in West Cameroon.

The 12 other members include: Angouing née Ndanga Françoise, Djenabou Bakary, Mbappè née Tiki Ngonde Ndjo’o Agnès, Abbé Jean-Marie Bodo, Abouem à Tchoyi David, Ahmadou Mohamadou Baba, Efoua Mbozo’o Samuel, Halle Nicodemus Ndessi, Itoe Mutanga Benjamin, Mbafor Jean-Marc Afessi, Ngambo Fondjo Pierre Vincent and Ngwane George Essambe.

The National Commission on Bilingualism and Multiculturalism was created on January 23, 2017 following the inception of the Anglophone crisis.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

The Anglophone crisis that has rattled the government to its core seems to be a nightmare that will not go away anytime soon. The desperate government that has been accused by the country’s English-speaking minority of marginalization and total neglect of the English-speaking region has been scrambling for solutions to douse the fire that many believe could bring down the house of cards that has resisted for well over five decades. Different strategies and policy options have been employed to wean the determined people of Southern Cameroons from their decision to question the government’s commitment to the notion of national integration. The crisis was triggered by Anglophone lawyers who, prior to their demonstration in November 2016, had in several memoranda to the minister of justice, called for the creation of a Common Law Bar, a law school for Anglophones, a common law bench at the country’s Supreme Court and the translation of key legal documents into English. Faithful to its colonial oppression strategy, the government instead dispatched heavily armed policemen to read the riot act to these legal minds whose cardinal objective was to draw the attention of the public and international community to their sorry plight.

Far from producing the desired effect, the brutality that the lawyers suffered in the hands of the forces of law (lessness) and (dis)order instead emboldened the lawyers. They were later joined by Anglophone teachers who, themselves, had a long list of grievances that had not been addressed by the government for years. But the matter came to a head when students of the University of Buea, an Anglo-Saxon university, boycotted lectures and called on their authorities to repeal a CFAF 10,000 charge for any late payment of fees. The students had designed their strike to be peaceful, and instead of meeting the students to discuss their grievances, the university vice-chancellor, Prof. NalovaLyonga, instead ordered troops into the university to brutalize unarmed students who simply wanted to address their issues in a peaceful manner. The police did not only brutalize the students, they also obliged some of them to roll in raw sewage. Girls were raped and many students, some of whom did not even participate in the strike, were arrested and taken to unknown destinations. It is rumored that some of the students have died as a result of the torture and deplorable detention conditions. The government’s Kafkaesque intimidation tactics have unfortunately been counter-productive, as the strike has spread to all Anglophone cities and the entire region has been radicalized. Farmers, bricklayer, mechanics, traders, students and other socio-professional groups have all happily joined the strike and their participation in ghost town operations called by the outlawed Consortium, an umbrella organization for all Anglophone organizations fighting against the English-speaking region’s marginalization, has been amazing.

As the crisis continued to play out and spread throughout the region, the government felt it was time to change strategy. Ferocious brutality had failed to dissuade the people and their leaders. Money had to come in. The carrot and stick approach had to be used to nip the revolution in the bud. The country’s government has always used money to buy over its opponents, especially in the early nineties when there were calls for multiparty democracy in Cameroon and, in this case, it thought money could cause the ringleaders of the revolution to flip. But the government, made up of old and tired personalities who have been in the political scene for more than 50 years, simply failed to have a good read of the situation. There were lots of players in the game. The old political dispensation had hurt many people, sending thousands of Anglophones into exile. These people have been very bitter and will stop at nothing to upset the current political arrangement that has favored a few to the detriment of the majority.

Whatever the outcome of this unfortunate situation, the Anglophone Diaspora has become a formidable political force in Cameroon, albeit from a distance. The Anglophone Diaspora, born out of marginalization, has driven the revolution and has the resources to cause the government to lose sleep for many more months. It jumped into the fray to take over the leadership of the revolution, especially when the government made the grave error of arresting Consortium leaders and Paul Ayah, a prominent Supreme Court judge of Anglophone extraction. The Anglophone Diaspora, numbering about one million, with huge concentrations in the United States, Nigeria, South Africa, Canada and United Kingdom, has been instrumental in reducing government authority in the English-speaking region and cutting down government ministers to normal human proportions. The Diaspora is rich and it includes some of the finest professionals the country can boast of. Engineers, translators, interpreters, economists, journalists, medical doctors, nurses, computer scientists and finance experts, many of whom are responsible for the wellbeing of their families back home. They are the ones paying the piper, so they are clearly calling the tune. They are therefore capable of making the region ungovernable. The events of the last three months stand to testify to this assertion.

The challenge is enormous and new to the government. Its strategies have not produced the desired effect. Despite missions by the prime minister and the Anglophone elite to the English-speaking region to talk parents into letting their children go to school, schools in West Cameroon are currently not in session. The heavy deployment of troops in West Cameroon has not helped matters. Things have taken a turn for the worse as even children now understand that the government has never been there for them. Anglophones are clearly sick and tired of a system that has reduced them to second-class citizens. Their way of life has been trampled upon and the arrogance of Francophone administrators in the Anglophone zone has embittered many English-speaking Cameroonians who are now calling for a restoration of statehood. Of more annoyance is the fact that even corporations in Anglophone Cameroon are being headed by Francophones and many arrogantly refuse to speak English, a language understood by the local population. Many Anglophones point to the national oil refinery known by its French acronym as SONARA located in Limbe, the Southwest region’s port city, and whose staff is predominantly Francophone. While the locals are living in grinding poverty, Francophones are earning astronomical salaries from the refinery and treating the locals with disdain. The government has a hot potatoes on its hands. Addressing these grievances is key to the restoration of confidence and the people have lost trust in a government that hardly keeps its own promises.

However, all hopes are not lost. Though Anglophones have upgraded their demand for a federal system to a restoration of statehood, there is still room for dialogue if the government stops playing possum. The government knows why Anglophones are threatening to walk away from the union that was put together in 1972. The predominantly Francophone government in Yaoundé has not complied with the terms of the Fumban Agreement that was signed in 1972. It has not even lived up to the glorious expectations of the English-speaking minority which voluntarily opted to join French-speaking Cameroon in a free and fair referendum. The people’s grievances are many and challenging, but they could be easily addressed if both parties go to the negotiating table with a high dose of honesty and seriousness.

However, for any talks to take place, the government must show a lot of goodwill. Consortium leaders as well as all those arrested as a result of the revolution must be released as demanded by Anglophones. The current situation is unhealthy and government must understand it can no longer reinstate the status quo ante. The government must recognize that Consortium leaders are the only people mandated by the English-speaking minority to negotiate on its behalf, although these leaders have been charged with terrorism and chaos, charges trumped up to intimidate the English-speaking population of Cameroon. This demand is not hard to meet as many of those detained were not arrested according to the law. Many were simply kidnapped and others have been held in odious detention conditions. It should be recalled that the law was made for man and not man for the law. Sticking to the law in this context simply implies that the government wants the current situation to last for a long time and this is not healthy for a country whose economy has been caught in the throes of a devastating economic crisis. Like Anglophone leaders, the government has to walk away from its position that is rooted in intimidation and violence. The Anglophone region should also be demilitarized and Internet connection restored. Many Anglophones hold that it is preposterous for their children to return to schools that have been militarized and do not have Internet connection. For those demands that can only be addressed over the long term, the government and Anglophone leaders must agree on clear timelines. The dialogue should be moderated by a third neutral party such as the United Nations and/or the African Union. Anglophone leaders must also show a high degree of flexibility. They must understand that all their demands cannot be met in the short term. The country’s government can start using the clergy to set the stage for such dialogue and the Diaspora should be included in the discussions. It is impossible to circumvent the Anglophone Diaspora as it has played a key role in the conflict that has left the government helpless and powerless. If these steps are taken, the stalemate could be defused and Cameroonians will once more work together and look to the future as a strong and united people living happily in a one, indivisible country.

Dr Joachim Arrey

Contributing Editor

Cameroon Concord News Group

About the Author: The author of this piece is a keen observer of Cameroon’s political and economic landscape. He has published extensively on the country’s political and economic development, especially in the early 90s when the wind of change was blowing across the African continent. He has served as a translator, technical writer, journalist and editor for several international organizations and corporations across the globe. He studied communication at the University of Leicester in the United Kingdom and technical writing in George Brown College in Toronto, Canada. He is also a trained translator and holds a Ph.D.

The assimilation of Ambazonia (Southern Cameroons) into Cameroun Republic by France has been the strategy all along. The two state federation that the people of the then Southern Cameroons voted for in the plebiscite that brought the two together has never been in consideration. But assimilation has failed, and separation and restoration of an independent Ambazonia state remains the only resolution to the current crisis with Cameroun Republic.

In a <a href=”http://bareta.press/southern-cameroons-struggle-symptoms-cause-cure”> previous piece</a>, I noted that prior to the infamous Foumban Conference of 1961, French authorities, as was revealed through the pen of one Pierre Messmer(Colonial Administrator in Africa: 1952 -1956; Governor General of Cameroun, 1956,French Minister of Armies: 1960–1969, French Minister of State, Minister of Departments and Overseas Territories: 1971–1972, French Prime Minister: 1972–1974),viewed the then Southern Cameroons as a territory ripe for annexation. It is therefore only logical that as night follows day, pro-active and intensive assimilation had to ensue.

Confidential memoranda such as the recently published directive to the French Consul, Mr. Michel Morel, based in Buea and dated August, 1967 evinces the strategy of colonial assimilation. And the native inhabitants and indigenes of Ambazonia are living witnesses to the violence of the brutal tactics of this French directed strategy.

However, after half a century of the employment of relentlessly dehumanizing methods to achieve this goal, Yaoundé, under the colonial tutelage of Paris obviously remains wanting. All of the ‘Grandes Écolesà l’Africaine,’ EMIA, ENAM, IRIC etc., conceived and customized for the tropical periphery in order to mold the loyal and French-fried administrative cadres to serve the Parisian metropolis, have not been able to effectively wipe out that which makes the people of Ambazonia distinct.

Today, these manufactured elites, formatted to deceive, seduce and corrupt are void of any legitimacy in the eyes of those they sought to pacify. The masses have seen them for what they were manufactured and programmed to be: privileged slaves who represent an effete band of self-flagellating empty suits, some of whom have desperately resorted to appeals of base bigotry.

In this enduring crisis, the French traditional instinct on behalf of their Vichy colony, Cameroun Republic, was one of annexation and assimilation while those of the people of the then Southern Cameroons was one of a union with two federated states of equal status. The reasons for failure in co-habitation between these two territories, these two states, these two peoples, are due to the irreconcilable value systems, perspectives of governance and a worldview, which were rooted in, and have rooted distinct traditions. Both peoples being Africans negates not this reality.

Cameroun Republic and Ambazonia have an international boundary not being demarcated today. This boundary makes it clear that they are two separate and distinct countries; it is a matter of genetic geopolitics, which is immutable. It is a similar recognition and pragmatism that has seen the creation of newer states in the European Union in the last generation. Not all peoples are meant to co-habit within the same political and administrative space.

Confronted with unknotting a French mindset that have them tied in colonial bondage, Ambazonians today should not be naïve. But what exactly is this mindset? In Charles Cogan’s study and analysis of the French political tradition and worldview (French Negotiating Behavior: Dealing with La Grande Nation), he quotes Hubert Védrine, a former French Foreign Minister:

“’The ultra-liberal market economy, mistrust of the state, individualism removed from the Republican tradition, the inevitable reinforcement of the universal and ‘indispensable’ role of the United States, common law, the English Language, Anglo-Saxon norms…”

Védrine contrasted this with the French tradition: “Historically, French identity has been defined by and built upon a strong central state, first monarchial, and then republican. It was painstakingly built by jurists and based on the idea that France had a specific political, legal, and cultural role to play in the world” (Emphasis mine).

Cogan called it a “sweeping philippic on globalization.”

Védrine’s philippic reveals the entrenched French mindset and worldview that is at once intensely and instinctively anti Anglo-Saxon and for the hyper-centralization of power and state authority. It is steeped in hundreds if not thousands of years of French authoritarian tradition: “first monarchial, and then republican.”

This is the immutable mindset of the infantilized governing elite in Yaoundé, vetted and approved by the Cellule Africaine of the Élysée Palace in Paris. This is the mindset that allows for a French-fried African to boldly proclaim to fellow Africans that they are cubes of sugar meant for dissolution.

This is the mindset that allows for a French-fried African to tell a representative of his people, “Qu’est-ce que vous allez faire?” in response to the expression of legitimate grievances.

This is the mindset that enables the “epithet” of “Biafra” when such insanity is challenged. This is mindset that allows for our people to be kidnapped and transported across an international boundary for calling for federation.

For those who continue to preach “federation” with Yaoundé as opposed to restoration in Buea at the footsteps of Mount Fako, they are asking Ambazonians to accept unadulterated assimilation even after all the violence of public beatings, kidnappings, rapes and murder of their fellow citizens.

There exists no federal concept of governance in the French tradition and view of political administration. Asking for a federation with a state under the colonial control of France and its policy of monetary slavery, is, to paraphrase Richard Joseph in Gaullist Africa, to accept the principle of free intercourse between wolves and sheep.

Fellow Ambazonians, “you get from this life what you have the courage to ask for.”

Terrence B. Wakai