The African Union (AU) Commission has welcomed the latest call by Cameroon’s President Paul Biya to hold a national dialogue to resolve a crisis buffeting the country’s two Anglophone regions.

AU Commission Chairperson Moussa Faki Mahamat “welcomes the commitment of the President of the Republic of Cameroon, Paul Biya, to organize a national dialogue for a way out of the crisis in the two English-speaking regions of the country,” said an AU statement issued late Thursday.

Faki also encouraged and called on “all Cameroonian actors, including the diaspora and armed groups, to take part in this national dialogue and seize this opportunity to discuss the root causes of this crisis,” the statement said.

He reiterated the AU Commission’s willingness to support the west African nation’s endeavor as it seeks a consensual and sustainable solution to preserve its unity and territorial integrity.

In a rare address to the nation on Tuesday evening, Biya said planned dialogue will be held by the end of September, and will focus on “ways and means of meeting the high aspirations of the people of the Northwest and Southwest regions.”

Cameroonian Prime Minister Joseph Dion Ngute would chair the dialogue, which would bring together government officials and representatives of armed separatist groups.

Government forces and armed separatists have been clashing in the Northwest and Southwest regions since 2017, after separatists declared “independence” of the two English-speaking regions from the largely French-speaking Cameroon.

Source: Xinhuanet

Consultations have begun in Cameroon ahead of a national dialogue ordered by president Paul Biya. Civil society groups and opposition political parties are calling for the unconditional release of Anglophone separatist leaders and other political prisoners before discussions begin.

Cameroon Prime Minister Joseph Dion Ngute began consultations with political party leaders, civil society activists, opinion leaders, traditional rulers, lawmakers and clergy on September 11, one day after President Paul Biya called for a national dialogue to solve the separatist crisis rocking his country.

Prince Ekosso, president of the United Socialist Democratic Party, says among the recommendations they are strongly making for the announced dialogue to be successful are the unconditional release of all people he says are illegally held in prisons and detention centers and an end to the separatist war in the English-speaking regions of Cameroon.

“Mr. Biya should call for a cease-fire. He was the one who declared war against the separatists. Release all those who are political prisoners in Cameroon including Maurice Kamto and Tabe Ayuk Sisseku [Julius Ayuk Tabe], and he should create a situation where all Cameroonians can express their will,” said Ekosso.

Biya declared war on the Anglophone separatists in November 2017 and said he would crush them if they did not surrender.

In August, the Yaounde military tribunal gave life sentences to Julius Ayuk Tabe, the leader of the separatist movement, and nine others it said had been found guilty of secession, terrorism and hostility against the state.

Opposition leader Maurice Kamto, who came in second in the October presidential election, but claims to have won, is on trial with dozens of others in a military tribunal on insurrection charges.

Biya has insisted that he will maintain Cameroon as one nation and indivisible. Justin Roger Ndah, assistant secretary-general of the opposition MRC party says they are urging the government to accept discussions on the form of the state.

He says Paul Biya should not think that speaking about the form of the state during the expected national dialogue is a taboo subject and an indication of his weakness. He says it is fundamental for all issues disturbing Cameroon to be brought to the discussion table and required constitutional amendments be made when the time comes.

Siddi Haman, a senior official of Biya’s CPDM party says people should see in the expected dialogue the president’s true will to bring peace to the country.

He says all Cameroonians should have confidence in Biya, who, as the father of the nation, has called for the dialogue. He says after the dialogue the president can use his constitutional power to grant the desires of the people, as the most important thing he is asking for before he leaves power is to maintain Cameroon as a peaceful, one and indivisible state with every one living in harmony.

The conflict in Cameroon’s English-speaking regions has killed more than 2,000 people, internally displaced more than 500,000 and caused more than 50,000 Cameroonians to seek refuge in Nigeria, according to the United Nations.

Source: VOA

Key leaders of Southern Cameroon, who are fighting to become a sovereign country to be known as Ambazonia Republic, have rejected the olive branch extended by President Paul Biya of Cameroun. Biya is asking them to put an end to the ongoing insurrection. President Biya made the call few days ago in Cameroon following the resumption of hostilities as a result of the life jail slammed on Mr Sisiku Ayuk Tabe, the leader of the Ambazonian struggle, alongside nine others by government.

 The 10 men were reported to have been forcibly taken last year from Abuja in Nigeria after they won a High Court case supposedly against the Biya government for detention in Cameroon.  A number of people spoken to in Calabar, where a good number of Southern Cameroonians are living as refugees said, they were not going to dialogue with Biya and called on him to release the movement’s leaders as they would be the ones to dialogue with him, if there was need.

 Two of the leaders, including the coordinator of the Cameroonian refugees in Cross River State, Pastor Tabichou Afangha and a renowned medical doctor, George Geh, insisted on their independence, which they claimed they got in October 1961. Afangha said, “The call for dialogue by Biya is a big joke; it is madness. The essence of the dialogue has been grossly abused. Who is he calling to dialogue with? We are Ambazonians? “We only gained the status of Cameroun when we united with the other parts of the country after the fake union put together at the Fouban conference in East Cameroun.

 Biya later dissolved that union when he enacted law number 84/01 of February 4, 1984.  What we are asking Mr Biya is to implement his own law, the restoration law, which dissolved the illegal merger between La Republique du Cameroon and Southern Cameroon, now Ambazonia. “Could there have been eruption of violence, killings and destructions if Biya had respected his own law?  When he has given life jail to our leaders he wants to dialogue with foes? In Ambazonia we have always been a peaceful people, but he unleashed wanton violence on us,’’ Afangha added.

 Also speaking on Saturday, Dr Geh, who has worked as a medical consultant for different state governments in Nigeria said, “We will not dialogue with Biya. He is extremely dangerous and untrustworthy. We want our independence, which we won in 1961.’’ He said the system in Cameroon was repulsive, repressive and brutish, maintaining that they had suffered suppression and intimidation under the French-controlled region for too long. “All the schools in Southern Cameroon, an English-speaking territory, are taught in French language or pidgin English and administered by Frenchmen.  In the judiciary, they apply French/Napoleon aw instead of the Common Law. The French law states that one is guilty before he is proven otherwise. If you don’t speak French you cannot win any case in Southern Cameroon.’’ Geh disclosed that when they had a plebiscite on whether to join Cameroon or Nigeria, they would have preferred to remain in Nigeria but they feared that the Igbo, who were already domineering, would continue to enslave them; hence they opted for Cameroon. He further explained that it was the United Nations resolution 1608 that granted them independence in 1961. He added that Britain tricked them. “We were a trusteeship territory managed by Britons, who were supposed to sit with East Cameroun and ensure that our independence was guaranteed. There were three options, but Britain rather said we should decide whether to join other parts. They left out the third option, which was to choose to become an independent country. Britain did not want to lose its investments. France gave them £20million and took over our territory and Britain vamoosed without any preparation for our independence,’’ he alleged.

 A female leader who refused to give her name said President Biya should account for her children and siblings who were allegedly slaughtered by forces loyal to him before any form of dialogue. She said the international community should prevail on the Biya government to stop the killing of her people, adding that Ambazonia should be actualised in her lifetime. But Bishop Nicholas Nyemeck Biten expressed a contrary opinion, saying, “It is a welcome approach to bring back all the people together. It is a long time both national and international press waited for this moment. Now, it is left to know the blueprint of the programme as he said he had given a mandate to the prime minister to meet with all those concerned for a large debate.’’

www.dailytrust.com.ng