14, January 2017
Francophones negotiate in bad faith and then move the goalpost 0
The Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium should be wary of signing agreements with the Biya Francophone Beti Ewondo regime because it has a track record of negotiating in bad faith and then moving the goalpost. Conflicting reports had surfaced that soldiers from the Rapid Intervention Battalion (BIR) were deployed to force the Anglophone leaders to endorse a document putting an end to the strike action. The leaders responded by appealing for calm.
However, the reaction of Southern Cameroonians in Bamenda where the meeting is holding has once again signaled an urgent need for a major Southern Cameroons Conference. It is evidently clear that 99.9 per cent of Southern Cameroonians no longer want any union with La Republique du Cameroun. Our statistics is based on a poll conducted by reporters of the Cameroon Concord News Group throughout Southern Cameroons territory and even beyond.
We understand the Yaoundé regime is still arresting many Southern Cameroon young men and women and detaining them in Francophone prison centers. Paul Biya and his gang of Francophone political elites have lost control of Anglophone Cameroon and are now planning to impose financial sanctions such as salary cuts and summary dismissal of many Anglophone teachers from the public service amid growing tensions.
Judging from what the members of the Ad Hoc Committee have tabled so far in Bamenda, Southern Cameroons will never get what it wants and La Republique will continue to plunder our resources to the benefit of their own children. The general opinion is that Southern Cameroons should be recognized by the United Nations as a member state. What is actually going on in Bamenda now places some restrictions on this demand.
The suggestion from Minister Fame Ndongo that federalism and other Anglophone demands are political and can only be dealt with by the National Assembly it’s just more proof that you can’t trust the Francophone political elites in negotiations. They are not sincere in their dialogue and they don’t want what they say they want. They want to continue to marginalize Southern Cameroonians.
The Ad Hoc Committee is not fighting to reopen schools because Biya and his Francophone regime cares about Anglophone children. They only care about their children studying in Southern Cameroon schools and the billions of FCFA they are making from students coming in from Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Congo, the Central African Republic and Chad to study in the Universities of Buea and Bamenda.
This is absolutely the reason for the creation of the Ad Hoc Committee. Their job description is to negotiate in bad faith, and then move the goalpost. We of the Cameroon Concord News Group think the Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium should be very wary of setting agreements with the Biya Francophone Beti Ewondo regime.
What the Anglophone leaders need to do is to develop more cooperation with the Southern Cameroons Diaspora and proceed with the restoration of West Cameroon political and economic establishments in concert with the African Union, the UN, EU, US and the United Kingdom so that any kinds of financial sanctions such as the one that took Justice Ayah Paul back to La Republique will be toothless as they have been largely with Sudan against South Sudan, and then Southern Cameroonians will be able to free themselves from this kind of Francophone bullying and blackmailing.
By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai
Editor-in-Chief
Cameroon Concord News Group
15, January 2017
Goodbye Fru Ndi, Welcome Wirba Joseph 3
Ni John Fru Ndi has finally twisted SDF policy into an odd shaped pretzel of contradictions, telling an undercover news reporter that the appointment of a Francophone as the party’s Secretary General was a political strategy while informing Southern Cameroonians that the marginalization of Anglophones by La Republique du Cameroun is a violation of basic human rights and the constitution that was adopted in 1961.
To be sure, the most pressing challenge that Ni John Fru Ndi faces at the moment, however, is the threat to his party’s existence and his own identity as a political figure. Fru Ndi has finally revealed himself as a celebrated bribe taker from La Republique and by extrapolation, the French. The SDF Chairman was quick to hold protest rallies in Bamenda and Buea observing that the SDF stand firmly with the Anglophone leaders and the Southern Cameroons people in ensuring that West Cameroonians gain back their legal, educational and political systems.
But some few days later Fru Ndi who had never allowed anyone from East Cameroon to run the secretariat of the so-called main opposition party in Cameroon appointed a Francophone to be the SDF’s new Secretary General. When reminded of the timing of the appointment and that (He) Fru Ndi orchestrated a boycott of French products, Fru Ndi shied away and insulted the journalist.
The recent Fru Ndi telephone conversation has finally betrayed the unprecedented, but fledgling supply of huge financial resources by a cadre of President Biya agents in the political, diplomatic and military sectors of the country to the SDF leadership. So, West Cameroonians are now fully aware that Chairman Ni John Fru Ndi’s peaceful march in Bamenda and Buea were teleguided from Etoudi with the ill-disguised aim to continue to exert enormous pressure on Anglophones to concede to La Republique’s terms.
It is abundantly clear that the current Southern Cameroons crisis is a non-partisan uprising, properly managed by a group of respectable Anglophone scholars experienced in international relations and diplomacy. Yet, Fru Ndi and Justice Ayah Paul have been struggling to make the Southern Cameroons revolution their own and have been pushing the members of the Consortium into a corner where the new generation of Anglophone leaders must accept a bad deal for the Southern Cameroons people. The concession of appointing a Francophone as Secretary General of the SDF and Paul Ayah’s vicious attack on the Consortium are happening because of the growing influence of blood money on the old generation of Southern Cameroons leaders.
Biya has used Fru Ndi to put more pressure on the Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium and it’s very clear the Anglophone leaders have been able to stand up to the pressure. Fru Ndi’s SDF Southern Cameroons policy is racked with incoherence and hypocrisy. It’s very interesting, that as you go around meeting the older generation of Anglophone political elites, you see a double standard.
In other words, what men like Fru Ndi, Ayah Paul and Chief Tabetando are saying is that self determination is a must for citizens in La Republique du Cameroun and for Southern Cameroons, self determination does not apply. Fru Ndi is the leader of the powerful independent lobby that drives La Republiques activities in Southern Cameroons. But the new Anglophone nationalism has put an end to Fru Ndi’s political career. The Chairman should hand over to Hon. Wirba now. Our understanding is that the SDF MP has the charisma to drive the party into the new emerging West Cameroon political structure as will be defined by the Consortium. Good bye Fru Ndi, welcome Wirba.
By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai
Cameroon Concord News Group