As regional and international partners focus on countering Boko Haram in West Africa’s Lake Chad Region, another crisis is playing out in southern Cameroon, where the armed conflict between the government and separatists has killed more than 3,000 and displaced close to 600,000. After nearly two years of violence, the two sides are at a stalemate, even with sustained Swiss-led efforts to broker peace. Despite stalled progress, there are further steps that regional governments, France, and the United States can take now to facilitate a peaceful transition and post-conflict recovery.

To maximize the probability of success, however, these disparate actions must be guided by a political strategy for stabilizing southern Cameroon. The United States can play a lead role in defining this strategy and supporting the lead actors to implement it.

Three core pillars, in particular, should comprise the strategy in order to resolve the crisis: conflict prevention and mitigation to protect civilians, investigate extra-judicial killings, and help stabilize conflict-affected areas; preparation for potential dialogue between the government and separatists; and, pending those talks, a framework for an inclusive political transition that respects core tenets of democracy and governance.

Central to all of these must be a focus on democracy and governance to address the democratic deficits underlying the broader crisis. The U.S. government should make strategic short-term investments to increase citizen participation in local governance, while supporting long-term stabilization and redress of political and security grievances. Below, we outline these democratic deficits and ways to address them.

HISTORIC ROOTS OF A DEMOCRATIC CRISIS

The ongoing crisis began in 2017 when Anglophone teachers and lawyers in the northwest and southwest regions mobilized protests in opposition to perceived discrimination by the Francophone government in Yaoundé. The government crackdown on protesters, and exacerbation of long-standing grievances, led aggrieved communities to create a separatist movement and declare independence for “Ambazonia.” Parliamentary and municipal elections were held February 9 amid an opposition boycott, low voter turnout fueled by apathy and separatist intimidation, and the prospect of violence from Boko Haram. President Paul Biya’s ruling party won in a landslide. The contests did little to quell grievances in conflict-affected areas, which are rooted in long-standing historical divides.

Anglophone Cameroonians often articulate their grievances through the lens of World War I. The 1919 partition of the former German colony Kamerun into British and French Cameroons created two separate polities with distinct political hierarchies and governance systems. Independence in 1961 brought British Southern Cameroonians a narrow choice through a plebiscite: assimilation into either French Cameroon or neighboring Nigeria, but not independence in their own right. Despite widespread discontentment during the vote, Southern Cameroonians chose to join French Cameroon as part of a federation between the two states.

After independence, Cameroon’s first president, Ahmadou Ahidjo, employed an assimilation policy to administratively and linguistically merge the Southern Cameroons with Francophone Cameroon in order to maintain access to its natural resources. President Ahidjo completed the assimilation process in 1972 with a unilateral referendum that replaced the federal state with a unitary state and increased executive power. Southern Cameroons lost its autonomous status and became the Northwest Region and the Southwest Region of the Republic of Cameroon. The democratic closing in the early 1990s further exacerbated Anglophone Cameroon’s political marginalization: The resulting electoral constraints combined with President Paul Biya’s increasingly autocratic leadership created an uneven playing field for Anglophone politicians to compete in national elections.

WHY DEMOCRACY, RIGHTS, AND GOVERNANCE ARE CENTRAL TO A STABLE AND INCLUSIVE TRANSITION

Grievances thus persist because the deep roots of the Anglophone crisis lie in Cameroon’s outstanding democratic deficits. Any political strategy to stabilize the country’s conflict-affected regions must account for these deficits and include tactics to address them.

First, Anglophone Cameroonians remember the disenfranchisement of two separate referenda, with people perceiving the results to have inaccurately represented popular political preferences. This legacy casts immediate suspicion on any deal forged between Anglophone leaders, separatists, and the Cameroonian government in Yaoundé. Ahead of any peace negotiations, domestic and international stakeholders must adopt a citizen-centric approach to drafting a settlement to end the crisis. Community consultations with Anglophone citizens living in and outside the country remain essential for establishing citizen buy-in and restoring the region’s trust in the political process. Any future national dialogue processes or peace negotiations should involve groups of Anglophone citizens displaced internally and internationally by the crisis as advisory bodies to the negotiations.

The second democratic deficit is Cameroon’s persistent centralization of power. While Cameroon decentralized through a 1996 amendment to the constitution and a 2004 Orientation of Decentralization Law, administrative bottlenecks and political interference prevent the country’s 360 municipal councils from carrying out their responsibility to lead development in areas such as healthcare, education, and social welfare. Just five years ago, Cameroon’s ministries devolved operations to the municipal level, but ministers regularly impose conditions on the use of funds. Persistent blockages to creating an autonomous, functional infrastructure for subnational governance continue to exacerbate present grievances and hinder progress toward a government structure that maintains Cameroon’s territorial integrity while vastly increasing its responsiveness to citizen needs.

The international community needs to make targeted investments to improve the collaboration between local elected officials and civil society organizations. Technical support from other constitutionally devolved African nations like Kenya can help Cameroon creatively troubleshoot political and bureaucratic blockages in the decentralization process. This approach needs to be grounded in improving and expanding the existing efforts of committed nonpartisan civil society organizations to hold municipal councils accountable. In the long run, the international community needs to support Cameroonian political leaders, civil society members, and citizens develop and execute a plan for the country’s federalization that is embedded in a negotiated settlement.

The third democratic deficit is the closed space in which civil society operates. Under President Biya, Cameroon has been a closed space for civil society and political activists challenging the government’s authority. Rights-based organizations in Cameroon are routinely persecuted for exercising their oversight role and exposing human rights violations committed by the government. The government, however, allows civil society organizations to work on issues that are not considered a threat to its control, such as women’s and children’s rights and service delivery. Though, due to the closed political space, many organizations in Cameroon, especially those located outside of the main city centers, cannot readily access technical assistance or resources that would strengthen their engagement with the government and contribute to policy reforms on low-risk issues.

In the midst of the crisis, local civil society organizations — particularly those led by women — and community leaders like religious authorities and traditional chiefs are filling service delivery vacuums left by ineffective governance. Not only do these civil society leaders provide socioeconomic relief to Anglophones in the form of locally-sourced humanitarian assistance and psychosocial support to bereaved citizens, but they also act as back-channel negotiators to incentivize separatist family and friends to consider non-violent approaches to address their grievances. The international community should continue to voice support for civil society leaders on the front lines of the crisis and apply public pressure to the Cameroonian government should they continue to repress these actors. Since the Cameroonian government applies less pressure to apolitical social welfare organizations, international partners should also increase assistance activities to civil society leaders working directly with internally-displaced Cameroonians to increase their service coverage and build their legitimacy as neutral humanitarian actors.

THE WAY AHEAD

Cameroon’s long-term stabilization starts now. While a negotiated settlement between the Cameroonian government and the armed Anglophone groups is the only pathway for sustainable peace, the country’s local governance infrastructure — particularly its municipal councils — requires immediate technical and financial support to capably carry out its decentralized functions and serve the needs of a population in crisis. Social welfare-focused civil society organizations and community leaders are crucial neutral actors whose contributions to humanitarian assistance and peace efforts will only increase once negotiations progress. In the aftermath of a deal, these local governments structures and civil society leaders will provide crucial support for the resettlement of displaced populations, the reintegration of former combatants, and the settlement of wartime grievances. The international community should support decentralized local government structures and civil society leaders now to provide immediate stabilization assistance and to increase the chances of societal recovery after the parties reach an agreement.

Culled from Brookings.edu

French Cameroun’s war on Southern Cameroons is the murkiest stain on Biya’s hard-earned, blood-spattered and blemished reputation. For sure, he will go down in history as a man who inherited a peaceful and progressive nation but conspired to leave it in disarray and divided. It’s impossible for the people of French Cameroun not to feel disillusioned about his leadership. They are facing the worst political and public health emergency to hit them in generations, but are led by a calamity of a leader. Combing through the history of the great continent of Africa, it’s hard to find a political failure that rivals Paul Biya.

If there is a sluggish leader at the head of any organisation, it spells problems but Paul Biya of French Cameroun is a calamity. In the midst of a global pandemic, all heads of states are busy setting structures, policy and building makeshift hospitals to keep their populations safe, the butcher of Mvomeka is in political reclusiveness. Reclusiveness is his natural political habitat and somehow his nation has learned to accept it. There was a remarkable video last night of the Nigerian government building a makeshift hospital in Lagos with hundreds of beds in anticipation of the peak of the coronavirus pandemic over the next few weeks. In French Cameroun, no such preparation is being made. Cameroon Concord News Group understands that the country’s understaffed, ill-equipped and under-resourced health sector has already collapsed after ninety-one people tested positive for the coronavirus. We, of this media outlet consider it criminal that a government could be so negligent about the lives of its citizens. 

The political ineptitude from Yaoundé is loud and obvious with a Prime Minster who is woefully out of his depth leading the government’s lackadaisical efforts. The messages from the government are mixed, confusing and inadequate. The streets of French Cameroun are filled with bike-taxis and hawkers with little or no public health messages. There are little or no state resources available to fight the pandemic as the embezzlement epidemic has crippled the economy. Cameroon Concord News Group considers last week’s decision to shut all borders and ground flights without proper consultations, preparation and professional advice as an attempt by the government to take its begging bowl to the WHO and IMF. Unfortunately, these organisations have wised up to the old man’s tricks.

French Cameroonians are paying the price for their lack of vision and courage which has kept Biya in power for thirty-eight years. Many of his citizens believed erroneously that his lack of compassion was only extended to the Southern Cameroons. They thought his capacity to be unmoved by the loss of others was only confined to Ambazonians but they are about to find out that they were sadly mistaken. They are about to experience this silent killer which will ravage and kill many innocent souls as their government does nothing to prevent or contain its spread. They are at the mercy of this invincible and potent killer due to a lack of preparedness, a culture of underinvestment in public services and a philosophy of exaggerated theft of public funds under the leadership of Paul Biya. All this is about to happen with an absentee head of state, who himself at 87 years of age is petrified of this invincible killer.

Cameroon Concord News Group believes that Mr Biya’s government isn’t taking the threat of this coronavirus seriously and the responsibility lies at the helm. Mr Biya has demonstrated over the years that he is ruthless when dealing with political opponents but the time has come when his compatriots need him to show this trait in dealing with this pandemic. His legacy as a political failure is unblemished but he could at least do it some good if he enacts any policy that saves some lives in his desperate and anxious nation.

Isong Asu, London Bureau Chief, Cameroon Concord News Group

In 2017…people from the grassroots decided to stick together to say “enough is enough”. They are asking for their freedom from this modern day slavery in the grip of the government of the Republic of Cameroon. This was triggered by the Teachers’ and Lawyers’ strikes at the close of 2016… As this stalemate continues, popular opinion on the streets of Southern Cameroons is tilting in favour of outright separation.

…A day of joy for one and a moment of pain and regret for the other.

I.

A King and his Queen had a quarrel on their 56th wedding anniversary, on the 11th of February. Below is an excerpt of what ensued:

King: Happy anniversary.

Queen: What is happy about this anniversary?

King: Dress-up, let’s go and celebrate our wedding anniversary.

Queen: You rejoice today because it is day that you discovered milk and honey in your neighbour’s land, got it for free, claimed it and made it yours. This day reminds me all of our biggest error. Henceforth on every 11th February, starting from today, Saturday 11th February 2017, I will join my children, we will dress in black, we will start the day in prayer, we will pray until noon, have lunch and get back to prayer from 2:00pm until 6:00pm. My people and I have declared this “the day of indoor mourning and prayer”. We mourn the death of a romance which never was and we pray to God to get us out of this marriage. I want a divorce. I have already filed for this divorce. Today, my people and I will remain indoors because we do not want to get out of our houses and be beaten, raped, tortured and killed.

King: Shall we go and join the celebrations?

Queen: What is there to celebrate?

King: Why are you dressed in black and holding a prayer book?

Queen: I am dressed in black because I am mourning.

King: Why are you mourning?

Queen: Because you are killing my people. You are raping our girls, maiming and torturing us. Why are you committing these atrocities on our people?

King: The people that are being tortured, killed, raped and maimed are not my people; they are your people. Don’t you see how determined they are to force the school year 2016/2017 to be cancelled by UNESCO? I cannot let that happen under my watch.

Queen: Is that why you got your CRTV to announce over the weekend that schools will reopen on Monday? Look at how you are embarrassing yourself and those of my people that you appointed. Most of them have not done anything for their people for years. They watched your ill-treatment of their brothers and sisters but they accepted it because you have transformed them into house-slaves. God is watching. He will lead us out like He did the people of Israel out of Egypt.

King: But they asked to be treated as such. I wonder why these young ones now refuse to be cajoled to my side. They are resisting every attempt to bribe them, so that they can bring this strike to an end. I need schools to resume. I cannot have an academic year cancelled in this country, especially after winning AFCON 2017.

Queen: Why don’t you release all the students who were arrested in Buea and Bamenda so that the Consortium will come back to the negotiating table? By the way, why did you outlaw the Consortium, days after failed negotiations with them? You turned around and arrested its members, to the point where some are now hiding in a Western embassy in Yaoundé? Do you think that anyone would believe your sincerity when you call for negotiations again?

King: I cannot release all the students because I do not have all of them to release.

Queen: What do you mean by that? Where are my peoples’ children?

King: Some have died.

Queen: We hear that you approved of their murders and that they be buried in mass graves.

King: I did not kill your people. It was done by the police, gendarmes, and soldiers, especially those called BIR. These my forces of repression have been ordered to ensure that schools reopen and that the courts restart, at all cost. I guess some of them would go beyond the call of duty to satisfy me.

Queen: Why have you cut off the Internet to the people living in my land since the 17th of January 2017?

King: So that anything I do there will not be seen by the rest of the world. I will not have these Google-generation children dictate how I run my country.

Queen: If I knew then what I know today, I surely will not have gone into this marriage.

King: Why would you not have gone into this marriage?

Queen: Because over the years, you have changed the marriage from a “monogamy with separate properties” into a “polygamy with all properties belonging to the King”.

King: Well, this is to show that we are all one and indivisible and you have never complained about anything.

Queen: When I complain, you pretend not to hear. When my people ask loudly, you term them extremists. For years I have tried to make this work, pretending that these things are not happening. However, the more I try to make it work, the more you take advantage of me.

King: But why are you complaining now after 56 years?

Queen: Whenever I try to tell you that you are unfair, you come down on me and my people with force. You have taken away our education system, you have imposed the French civil law on my people, replacing our British common law. You have brought your people to rule over my people in our land, and in your language. You now treat us as second class citizens and increasingly we see ourselves as your slaves.

King: When did you notice this?

Queen: Over the years. Each time I watched as you gradually but surely eroded all signs of my peoples’ identity from the face of the earth. You have even placed road signs in our land in your language. The police, gendarme and army speak your language when they are sent to work in my land.

King: Is that why you are grumbling? I have created a commission of bilingualism and multi-culturalism to take care of that.

Queen: You decreed decentralisation in 1996 and not much has happened on that front since.

King: I signed that to please your people and some of my people. I really did not intend to implement it.

Queen: I have been sad and sickened all these 56 years.

King: But you have never complained.

Queen: Whenever my people do, your forces of repression kill our children, rape our girls, torture our people and declare some of them wanted. They have become slaves in their own land. This is killing me but to you it is all a game. You are playing with the future of my people and to you it is only a game. Let’s look at this sector-by-sector:

II.

On Resources

Queen: About 90 percent of the oil of this nation comes from my land but all its revenue are paid into your land. Almost all the workers at the refinery, from those at the gate to the Managing Director, are people from your land. The refinery is on my land but the depots are on your land.

King: This is the life-wire of the nation’s economy, so I have to personally keep an eye on it.

Queen: What about the gold, bauxite, iron ore, coal and granites in my land?

King: I am yet to access these and other resources of the land. When I do, I will naturally manage them as I manage SONARA.

Queen: What about the timber, as you are deforesting our land?

King: The same thing, I am not answerable to anyone in this country.

Queen: What about the agricultural produce that are mostly from my land?

King: Are you seriously asking me to explain this?

Queen: Why have you abandoned the natural waterfall in my land that can produce electric power for the entire West Africa?

King: Because I want you to remain in this marriage. That is also why I carried all the thermal generators away from your region, so that I can decide to switch you off.

Queen: Is that why you have switched off Internet from my region?

King: I do not want the world to see what atrocities I am doing to your people. If your people do not get back subserviently into this union, I will charge them with treason, judge them in a military tribunal and sentence them to death or life imprisonment.

Queen: I want a divorce.

King: You cannot have a divorce. We are one and indivisible and this marriage will remain for ever.

Queen: What is happening to CDC and PAMOL?

King: I am planning to move their HQs to my land.

III.

On Education

Queen: What have you done with the report from the Cameroon Education Forum (CEF) of January 2016? It contained 17 recommendations to address the Anglophone education sub-system.

King: I have kept in where I always keep recommendations that challenge my thinking, like the memorandum presented by the Bishops of the Ecclesiastical Province of Bamenda in December 2016 – in the trash.

Queen: Why are you sending your people to my land to teach children history, geography, chemistry, physics, etc. in your language?

King: Because you and your people accept it and because your people are not admitted into the teachers’ training schools, so they are not qualified.

Queen: Why don’t you admit them into those schools. My people are about eight million of this country’s 28 million, yet you admit two students out of 132 into the School of Sports, even though the school is situated in my land. Less than 30 of the 250 students in the School of Engineering in my land are my people.

King: Because you and your people accept it.

Queen: Why do the Vice Chancellors of Buea and Bamenda allow forces of repression to enter their universities, rape girls, torture students and even kill some?

King: I appointed them to follow in the footsteps of Dorothy because when a woman decides to be mean, she forgets that every child is born of a woman like her. The forces of repression were invited into each school by the individual VC. In this case, they have to take their responsibility. You should ask them and not even my minister of higher education, talk less of me.

Queen: We hear that your people are bribing newly self-appointed leaders of the teachers’ trade union to call of the strike. Do you realise that it is not working?

King: I now realise that the people are bent on waiting for the leaders of the Consortium before they can listen to anyone, even to me. I tried to appease them with the commission of bilingualism and multi-culturalism but no one seems to be swayed by it. Your people are still bent on their strike and the ghost towns. These ghost towns are making me sick.

IV.

On Law

Queen: Why do you place Magistrates and State Councils trained in the Civil Law in courts in my land to judge my people. Our lawyers and people follow the Common Law system. You should know that the Civil Law is diametrically different from the Common Law in principle.

King: Because the two legal systems are diametrically opposed, I have decided that the entire country will apply the civil law system in all courts.

Queen: So you see nothing wrong in the demands of the lawyers?

King: The OHADA law code has been translated into your language.

Queen: Why did your forces of repression arrest Justice Ayah Paul, a Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, from his home without a warrant of arrest?

King: Because he is stubborn and I want him and all of you to know that I dictate the law in this country. I am the law in this land.

Queen: Is that why they are taking Barrister Nkongho Bala, Dr. Fontem Neba, Mancho Bibixy and all our freedom fighters to your military tribunal?

King: In this country, I decide which court tries whoever, regardless of what the international human rights laws say.

Queen: Is it true that you allowed the arrest of 90 year old Mola Njoh Litumbe?

King: I am yet to confirm where that old man is, at the moment, but he was trying to reveal the truth of what happened in the beginning.

Queen: And what is wrong in what he did or incorrect in what he said?

King: Now woman! it is either my way or the high way to death.

V.

On Governance

Queen: This our marriage is actually “njomba marriage”. Are you taking advantage of us because this our “come we stay marriage” in which the King refused or neglected to do traditional, civil status or even church blessing is something that was always going to fail?

King: I have always prepared myself for the worst in this relationship.

Queen: When we started you agreed that both our peoples will always be represented in the first two positions in this nation. Today my person is the fourth authority in this country.

King: I understand this lame point of yours but you see, when I took the position of prime minister from the North and gave your people, I had to compensate them with the speaker of the Assembly. By the time I approved the Senate, the Bamelikis were becoming restive and I decided to offer them that one. Things just happened that way!

Queen: While we are in parliament, where is Hon. Wirba Joseph? Rumour has it that you have arrested him. Is it because of the speech that he made at the House of Assembly last year? Are you saying that even with his parliamentary immunity you still arrested him?

King: He is at large. We will arrest him on sight. Do you know that he stubbornly organised a rally in his place on Saturday January 14, 2017?

Queen: When will you ever appoint an ambassador form my land to represent us at the United Nations?

King: Never. Your people will go and dig out our marriage files, if they exist, and expose us.

Queen: What about sending any of my people to represent us in the USA?

King: Never, that country is too big and important.

Queen: To France?

King: I will not. On second thought, I might because when such a person gets to France, s/he will know who my mentor is.

Queen: To Nigeria?

King: Never, too near and could let your people back in, then I might lose Bakassi.

Queen: Since you mentioned it, what have you done to the people of Bakassi, since they joined us from Nigeria?

King: The treatment that is being given to you is the same which we are dishing out to them: Bring them in, get authority over their oil and abandon them.

Queen: Is that fair?

King: The world is not fair. If you want something, you have to fight for it.

Queen: When will you appoint a person from my land as minister of Finance?

King: Never. I give you the director of customs and impose high targets so that he can collect the money, which the minister then makes available to me.

Queen: What about the armed forces?

King: Never. Even the few of your people who I appoint as Generals, in return for some huge service rendered, I am now watching very closely. If any of them is sympathetic with this your peoples’ silly cry, I will lock him up.

Queen: What happened to the Two State Federation that we agreed upon?

King: I am now considering a Ten State Federation, just to please your people because even I acknowledge that there is a problem in this country. Contrary to some of my over-ambitious people, some from your land, I now agree that there is an Anglophone problem.

Queen: What is going to be different now compared to all the other times that you have signed your degrees? Ten State Federation is worse than the situation we found ourselves in 1961. That is why I am now filing for divorce.

VI.

On Transportation and Tourism

Queen: What happened to the Tiko and Bamenda international airports, in my land? What about our airstrips in Besongabang, Bali, Wum, Kumbo and Nkambe?

King: I abandoned them so you won’t fly away.

Queen: What happened to the railways from Kumba to Muyuka to Buea to Tiko to Victoria?

King: The same as above – abandoned.

Queen: What happened to the river ports in Ekondo Titi, Mamfe and Abongshe?

King: Same as above – abandoned.

Queen: Why have you abandoned the natural deep sea port in my land and we are paying millions to dredge a man-made seaport in your land?

King: Because I do not want to develop your region. I am the King. Enough! forget about these complains and let’s celebrate our wedding anniversary on the 11th of February.

Queen: I told you before. Let me say it again, you rejoice today because it is day that you discovered milk and honey in your neighbour’s land, got it for free, claimed it and made it yours. This day reminds me of all of our biggest error. Henceforth on every 11th day of February, starting from today, Saturday February 2017, I will join my children, we will dress in black, we will start the day in prayer, we will pray until noon, have lunch and get back to prayer until 6:00pm. I have declared this “the day of indoor mourning and prayer”. We mourn the death of a romance which never was and we pray to God to get us out of this marriage. I want a divorce. I have already filed for this divorce. Today, me and my people will remain indoors because we do not want to get out of our houses and be beaten, raped, tortured and killed.

VII.

The foregoing speaks to the story of the wealthy region known as Southern Cameroons, sandwiched between Nigeria to the west and the Republic of Cameroun to the east. After World War I, this nation was given to Britain. During the years of independence, it was considered too small and unsustainable to be an independent country, in spite of its institutions that had already been setup (the legislative, executive and judiciary) as early as 1954. On February 11, 1961, in a well choreographed referendum, in which only two options were presented to her people (be independent by joining Nigeria or by joining the Republic of Cameroon), 60 percent of her people voted to join the Republic of Cameroun.

In the last fifty-six years, the people of Southern Cameroons have watched in dismay, shock and horror how their value systems have been eroded, their culture assimilated and their way of life abused. In 2017, their people from the grassroots decided to stick together to say “enough is enough”. They are asking for their freedom from this modern day slavery in the grip of the government of the Republic of Cameroon. This was triggered by the Teachers’ and Lawyers’ strikes at the close of 2016. Negotiations by the striking workers and government failed on Friday January 13th. On Tuesday January 17th, the Consortium through which the government was negotiating was banned and the arrests of its leaders started. On the same day, Internet access was suspended throughout that region of the country and the stalemate persists till this day. As this stalemate continues, popular opinion on the streets of Southern Cameroons is tilting in favour of outright separation. The more arrests and torture of their people, the stronger their resolve to go all the way to achieve what they want. They are vowing to keep up resisting until the government truly realises their plight, releases their leaders and all those arrested in the course of this struggle so far. They are reminded and fortified by the fact that blacks in America boycotted public buses in Montgomery for 381 days to end segregation in public transport. Ironically the road on which the American Embassy is built in the Republic of Cameroon is named “Avenue Rosa Parks”.

VIII.

A Brief History of Southern Cameroons

Southern Cameroons has always had international legal status:

• It had a British Mandate under the League of Nations in 1922;

• It became British Trust Territory under UNO in October 1947;

• It attained self government with an Assembly and a Premier in September 1954;

• The UNO Plebiscite on February 11, 1961 voted 60 percent to 40 percent to gain independence by joining La Republique du Cameroun;

• It gained independence through the United Nations Organisation General Assembly Resolution 1608 (21/04/1961) on the independence and union with La Republique du Cameroun;

• Annexed by Republique du Cameroun on the September 30, 1961;

• The Referendum of 1972 dismantled the Federal character of the form of the state in violation of art 47(1) of the Federal constitution, to the United Republic of Cameroun;

• In 1984, through Law No. 84/01, the United Republic reverted to Republique du Cameroun;

• In 1993, the Southern Cameroons National Council (SCNC) was formed. There are other groups such as the Southern Cameroons Peoples Organisation (SCAPO) that have been seeking the separation of the Southern Cameroons from the Republique du Cameroun;

• Since it is not yet a member of the United Nations, Southern Cameroons cannot report a case for deliberation in the floor of the UN General Assembly. Therefore, they could pass through a third country. SCAPO has sued at the Abuja High Court. The court ruled in favour of the Southern Cameroons;

• In 2003, SCAPO sued La Republique du Cameroun to the African Commission on Peoples and Human Rights at Banjul. The court ruled in favour of the Southern Cameroons and called them “a people with right of self-determination different from the people of La Republique). The ruling recommended dialogue.

Sisiku AyukTabe is the President of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia

“The struggle in Cameroon by the people of Southern Cameroons is not only because the other side is not recognising her system and abiding by the cohabitation principles laid out in 1961, but is also due to the fact that the Republic of Cameroun is completely annexing the British Southern Cameroons, wiping away all signs of its heritage and forcing its people to become the people of the Republic of Cameroun”.

I was going to title this article “What Do Anglophone Cameroonians Want?” To avoid any confusion of identity with those who simplify being Anglophone in Cameroon as being able to speak English, I want to be clear that the claims in Cameroon centre around a people who originate from a specific geographical region known as British Southern Cameroons. In this article, any further mention of Anglophone should be related to people from the then British Southern Cameroons or from West Cameroon, as opposed to anyone from the Republic of Cameroon who can express himself or herself in English. The identity issue is foremost in this struggle. Identity is far more than language. With Identity comes language, values, governance, culture and a way of life. In these aspects, the two peoples in today’s Republic of Cameroon (British Southern Cameroons and the Republic of Cameroun) have fundamental differences. The struggle in Cameroon by the people of Southern Cameroons is not only because the other side is not recognising her system and abiding by the cohabitation principles laid out in 1961, but is also due to the fact that the Republic of Cameroun is completely annexing the British Southern Cameroons, wiping away all signs of its heritage and forcing its people to become the people of the Republic of Cameroun.

2017 offers us a ray of hope, beckoning in the horizon. Our people now have another golden opportunity to decide on divorce from the Republic of Cameroun or to stay in this marriage of convenience and keep complaining. Insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results. If we do today what our leaders did in 1961 and 1972, then our children, grand children and great-grand children will most likely get in 2083 and 2100 what we have now. The opportunity of this critical juncture cannot be missed!

The world is silent as the time-bomb in Cameroon is ticking to the point of explosion. Even people in neighbouring Nigeria do not seem to know what is happening next door. Hardly does one turn on the TV or the pages of Nigerian newspapers and hear or read anything about Cameroon, in spite of the over 1500 kilometres land border that the two countries share. Nigeria has an embassy and two Consular Offices in Cameroon (Yaoundé, Douala and Buea). Similarly, Cameroon has an embassy in Abuja, a consular office in Lagos and another in Calabar. Estimates put the number of Nigerians living in Cameroon at around two million. What happens in Nigeria has a direct or indirect impact in Cameroon and vice versa. The case of Boko Haram is glaring for all to see. For many people in the world, Cameroon is a country in peace. We should note that peace is not the absence of war. Behind the seeming peace in Cameroon is a growing Anglophone problem; discrimination, marginalisation and almost outright enslavement. This is happening while the world watches in silence. Unfortunately, such problems only come to the limelight when there are strikes, riots and killings.

Recently, the situation in the English speaking part of Cameroon (British Southern Cameroons) could only be described as having been totally dead. The entire Anglophone Cameroon was like a ghost-town. Reports that reached us said that from Ekok and Otu at the southern border with Nigeria, to Afab, Ewelle, Kembong, Mamfe, Batchuo, Bakebe, Tinto, Sumbe, Kumba, Ekondo-titi, Mundemba, Muyuka, Buea, Limbe (Victoria), Tiko, Bamenda, Bali, Wum, Ndop, Kumbo, Nkambe and Menchum, everything was at a standstill. There were no movements, either of people, bikes or vehicles. This was in complete obedience to a sit-in strike called by the Teachers’ Trade Union and the Common-Law Lawyers, following an impasse at the close of last year. The response was even more significant considering the fact that the government of Cameroon deployed ministers and senior administrators to the region, to meet with chiefs and other stakeholders to lobby for the strike not to be adhered to.

In their “quiet” action, the Anglophones had spoken clearly and loudly to the authorities in Yaoundé. There is an Anglophone problem in Cameroon. It should be looked into very carefully and profound solutions sought to it or the people would be left with no alternative than to go their own way. If a marriage cannot work, then divorce becomes the only solution.

Today in Cameroon, we have a situation where teachers of French origin and expression are transferred to the English-speaking part of the country to teach subjects like Biology, Chemistry, Geography, History and Physics. When I was a kid, the only French teachers we had taught us French as a language, which we reluctantly learned. Today, students who study technical education in secondary schools are taught a curriculum that is fundamentally French in nature. As if this is not bad enough, when they complete their studies and have to write the final exams, they write exams set in French. After complaining for many years, the government decided to translate the exams into English and we have ended up now with a situation where a student of Mechanics could see a question set in French as “Quel est le rôle de la bougie dans une voiture?” translated as “what is the role of a candle in a car?” While this translation is correct in verbatim, it is nonsensical in context because of the wrong use of the word “candle” as a translation of “bougie”. The correct translation would have had “spark-plug” instead of “candle”. Little wonder then that Anglophone students are failing exams even before they leave the hall because the right questions were never asked.

The French Law system (Civil Law) is fundamentally different from the British one (Common Law). The educational system in Cameroon today is such that students who go to university to study Law can either end up with a degree in Civil Law or in Common Law. However, there is only one school in Cameroon that trains magistrates and the curriculum of that school is based on the French Civil Law system. What this means is that all the magistrates in Cameroon have been prepared through the French Civil Law system and are expected to go to the English-speaking parts of the nation and adjudicate cases based on the British Common Law order.

There is no Anglophone in any key position in the Supreme Court of the nation. Of the 38 ministers with portfolios in Cameroon, only one (1) is Anglophone. Today, there is no airport in Anglophone Cameroon, but there were three airstrips in this region in 1982. The natural deep-sea port in Cameroon is in Victoria, in the Anglophone region. It has literally been abandoned in preference for the one in Douala, in the Francophone part, which has to be dredged continuously. The only oil refinery in Cameroon is located in the Anglophone part but its taxes are paid to a region in the Francophone part. Over 90 percent of the workers at the oil refinery, from the guards at the gate to the General Manager are Francophones. After a lot of pressure from the Anglophones, the government has been reluctantly creating tertiary education centres in the Anglophone region, but fills them with students of Francophone origin. The latest instance was the admissions into the School of Sports of the University of Bamenda, in the Anglophone part, to which less than five percent of the students are Anglophones. In a class of about 250 students in the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Buea, less than 50 are Anglophones. The situation in the Faculty of Health Sciences at this university is even worse.

To better understand what the Anglophone Cameroonians want, let us take a walk down memory lane and see where they are coming from, why they are here, and where they are going to. The unfortunate situation of Cameroon started in 1919 at the end of World War 1. Before 1919, Kamerun, as it was known, was a German territory. After the war in which the French, British and Belgian forces defeated the Germans, the spoils of war were shared between France and Britain. This was ratified in the Treaty of Versailles. In that agreement, Eastern Cameroon was given to France and Western Cameroon was given to Britain, as Trust Territories. The British government took their part, known as the British Cameroons, and added it to the Republic of Nigeria. Before being attached to Nigeria, Western Cameroon was further divided for administrative convenience into two; Northern British Cameroons and Southern British Cameroons. The Northern British Cameroons was administered as part of Northern Nigeria and the Southern British Cameroons as part of Southern Nigeria.

In 1954, Southern British Cameroons became a self-governing territory, following her declaration of benevolent neutrality in the Nigerian Eastern House of Assembly. It had a governance structure with a legislature, judiciary, House of Chiefs and an executive branch headed by a prime minister. They built a prime minster’s lodge which still stands tall to this day in Buea. They set up democratic institutions in the region and the people there participated actively in a democratic political system. In 1959, multiparty elections were held in the Southern British Cameroons and the opposition party candidate, John Ngu Foncha won and became prime minister, replacing Dr. EML Endeley. A peaceful democratic transfer of power happened in Africa in 1959. Where did we go wrong?

The Unasked Options That Led To a Very Unhealthy Marriage

On January 1, 1960, French Cameroun got its independence from France and named itself the Republic of Cameroun. On October 1, 1960, ten months after the Republic of Cameroun, Nigeria got its independence from Britain and became the Federal Republic of Nigeria. In February 1961, a plebiscite was organised in which the people of British Cameroons (both South and North) were asked to choose whether they wanted to achieve independence by joining the already independent Republic of Cameroun or join the Federal Republic of Nigeria. The people of Northern British Cameroons (part of North-East Nigeria today) voted overwhelmingly to remain as part of Nigeria, while the majority of the people of Southern British Cameroons (today’s Northwest and Southwest regions of Cameroon) voted to join the Republic of Cameroun in a loose confederation. The unasked option was “whether any of the British Cameroons wanted to be an independent nation”. This option would have been in order, considering that the British Southern Cameroons had a land size of about 43,000 km², slightly larger that the 41,543 km² of the Netherlands, with a population of about eight million, more than that of Paraguay.

From July 17 to 21, 1961, the first president of the Republic of Cameroon, Ahmadou Ahidjo, organised a conference in Foumban to draw up a charter for a Two-State system within a federal political arrangement. After the Foumban conference, on September 30, 1961, President Ahidjo proclaimed into being the Federal Republic of Cameroon, and the two states celebrated unification on October 1, 1961. From thence, Southern Cameroons was named West Cameroon and the Republic of Cameroun named East Cameroun. On May 20, 1972, in another master stroke, President Ahidjo outmanoeuvred the people of Southern Cameroons in a stage-managed referendum and created the United Republic of Cameroon. In doing so, he changed the organisation of the Southern Cameroons organisation was earlier divided into six regions (Mamfe, Kumba, Victoria, Bamenda, Wum and Nkambe) into two Provinces of his United Republic; the “South West” and the “North West” Provinces. He divided East Cameroon into five provinces (Northern, Western, Littoral, Central South and Eastern).

How Long? Too Long!

President Ahidjo ruled the United Republic of Cameroon until November 1982, when it is believed that his French doctor tricked him about his health, making him resign and hand over power to his long-time associate and prime minister, Paul Biya. He remained as the president of the only political party at the time, the Cameroun National Union (CNU). It is also widely believed that in 1983, the two powerful men had a feud that led to the former president going into exile in France. In an earlier twist, in June 1983, there was a coup attempt that was foiled. Ahidjo went into exile in July, and in August he announced that he was no longer the head of the CNU. In February 1984, Ahidjo was sentenced to death in absentia for his alleged participation in the failed coup. In April 1984, another violent coup was foiled and many believed that the former president had his hands in it. Ahidjo denied any involvement in the coup. The death sentence on President Ahidjo was later commuted to life-imprisonment by President Biya. Later on Ahidjo moved to Senegal where, on the November 30, 1989, he died of a heart attack in Dakar. In one of my trips to Senegal, I felt truly sorry on visiting and standing beside the tombstone of the man who always coughed before his radio addresses, with every Cameroonian standing still. I read the inscription on his tomb, which translates to “here lies the remains of Ahmadou Ahidjo, the former President of Cameroon”. How and where the mighty fall!

President Paul Biya has been ruling Cameroon since November 1982. Yes, 18 years before the 21st century, 17 years since, and still counting. In 1984, he changed the name of the country from the “United Republic of Cameroon” back to the “Republic of Cameroon”. In the same stroke, he fractured the Northern province into three (Adamawa, North, and Far North). He met a single party in the country and reluctantly accepted multiparty democracy in the early ‘90s, in which he won elections by just over 52 percent. In the last election in 2011, he won by 78 percent. When he took over power, the presidential term of office was without limit. He changed it to two terms of five years each, not counting all the years he had ruled before that date. He changed it again to two terms of seven years, and in 2008 in another constitutional amendment, he eliminated the term limits altogether, making himself practically president for life.

Over the years, most of the people that the presidents of the Republic of Cameroon have placed in key positions in the world’s greatest organisations are Francophones. These include those appointed to the United Nations and key countries, as Ambassadors and High Commissioners. Until 2008, all the Cameroonian Ambassadors to the UN, USA, UK, Nigeria, France and Germany were Francophones. Till date only one Ambassador to these countries, the Cameroon High Commissioner to the UK, is Anglophone.

Cameroon Ambassadors/ High Commissioners to Nigeria (All French-Speaking Cameroonians):

• M. Haman Dicko – 1960 – 1966

• Hamadou Alim – 1966 – 1975

• Mohaman Yerime Lamine – 1975 – 1984

• Souaibou Hayatou – 1984 – 1988

• Samuel Libock – 1988 – 1994

• Salaheddine Abbas Ibrahima – 2008 to date

Cameroon Ambassadors to the United Nations (All French-Speaking Cameroonians):

• Ferdinand Oyono — 1974 to 1982

• Martin Belinga Eboutou — 1998

• Anatole Marie Nkou — 2007

• Michel Tommo Monthé — 2008

Cameroon Ambassadors to the United States of America (All French-Speaking Cameroonians):

• Jacques Kuoh-Moukouri

• Joseph Owono — from 1970s

• Paul Pondi — from 1982 to 1993

• Joseph Bienvenu Charles Foe-Atangana

• H.E. Étoundi Essomba — the current ambassador

Cameroon High Commissioners to the United Kingdom:

• Paul Pondi — 1977

• Dr. Gibering Bol-alima

*Libock Samuel

• Nkwelle Ekaney – 2008 (A English-Speaking Cameroonian)

Cameroon Ambassadors to France (All French-Speaking Cameroonians):

• Ferdinand Oyono — from 1965 to 1968

• Jacques-Roger Booh-Booh — from 1983

• Lejeune Mbella Mbella — over twenty years

• Samuel Mvondo Ayolo — from October 2015

Cameroon Ambassadors to Germany (All French-Speaking Cameroonians):

• Jean-Baptiste Beleoken — 1970’s

• HE Holger Mahnicke

The Anglophone Cameroon problem is real and must be addressed as a matter of urgency.

Sisiku Ayuk Tabe President of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia

Deutsche Welle: We understand your case at the Yaoundé Court of Appeals opens on Thursday 19th March, What are your expectations?

President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe: While we would not want to comment on a case that is still under adjudication, we recognize that our case is political and so it’s likely there is no justice to be gotten from the courts. The judges we have encountered so far demonstrated that the constitution, the laws, the code of judicial practice are of little or no consideration when it comes to political cases. During our trial, the Tribunal Militaire and the Yaoundé Court of Appeals flagrantly violated our rights as accused persons, to a fair trial. Firstly, our case in which the military tribunal violated all our rights to fair hearing, the mere fact that refugees are smuggled to Cameroun from Nigeria without recourse to the laws governing the refoulement of refugees, the very long arbitrary detention without access to family, Counsel and sunlight is indicative of the prevailing injustice that reigns in the Cameroun system. Secondly, the trial of civilians in a military tribunal is expressly forbidden under international laws. Thirdly, the trial was conducted in French, a language we don’t understand, using civil law procedures, with a bench of all French speaking judges. All the witnesses spoke French and were military personnel wearing the same uniforms and ranks like the presiding judges! The witness testimonies were all of events that happened after January 2018 whereas we were abducted and held incommunicado from the 5^th of January 2018. For accused persons who speak only English and who should be judged under Common Law procedures, this does not have any semblance of justice. Finally, even though we had only our personal belongings at the time of the abduction in Nigeria, the Cameroun government prosecutors presented truckloads of evidence against us at the Tribunal Militaire in Yaounde, which the judges never bothered to examine. The trial proceeded in the absence of defense counsel, yet in his judgment, the judge indicated that, at the end of each witness testimony, counsel for the defense were asked to cross-examine and they said that they had no questions. Still, the judges handed out life sentences and fines of over $400 million in a marathon trial that lasted more than 18 hours, concluding at 5:40 in the morning. It should be noted that5 months earlier, on March 1st, 2019, a federal high court in Abuja, Nigeria had judged as illegal, our abduction and deportation to Cameroun. The court ordered the Government of Nigeria to immediately take us back to Abuja, restore our liberty and pay us compensation for violation of our fundamental human rights. It’s been over a year since that judgment was passed, yet we are still awaiting its execution. We wonder why the international community has remained silent on this issue.

Deutsche Welle:  Do you trust in Cameroon’s Justice System?

President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe: The Judiciary is the backbone of any society because it is the regulatory organ or power of state. Once the Judiciary is gagged, the society becomes compromised. We have no reason to trust the judicial system of la  Republique du Cameroun given the poor manner in which our case and those of thousands of Ambazonians is being handled. La Republique du Cameroun is supposed to operate a bijural system of justice in conformity with the bicultural heritage they claim. Under such a system, French Cameroun would operate under Civil Law procedures while Southern Cameroons continue under Common Law procedures that they inherited from the British and implemented jealously after getting quasi autonomy and statehood in 1954 with a bicameral parliamentary setup.

The conflict in the Cameroons escalated in 2016 after Common Law lawyers protested against the posting of Francophone judges and prosecutors trained under Civil Law procedures to courts in common law jurisdictions in Southern Cameroons. Some of these judges and prosecutors spoke little or no English and had no understanding of Common law procedures leading to frequent miscarriages of justice.  Common law lawyers also protested the fact that the code of laws governing the operation of businesses in the Cameroons also known as OHADA was only available in the French language. The Francophone minister of justice either neglected or refused to have the code of laws translated into English to confirm to their assimilationists agenda which was being implemented mutatis mutandis since 1961. The protesting common law lawyers were brutalized and their wigs and gowns confiscated. Casual observers of the Justice system will recognize that, for a very long time now, it’s been practically impossible for Southern Cameroonians to obtain justice in the courts in French Cameroun. Thousands of Ambazonians are arrested from their territory and transported to Bafoussam, Douala or Yaounde for torture and trial in French courts and in the French language and this notwithstanding provisions of various international treaties duly ratified by la Republique du Cameroun. This is exemplified by the hundreds and thousands of our people standing trial in various Tribunal Militaires in Yaounde, Douala, Bafoussam and even Buea and Bamenda for trumped up charges related to terrorism and secession. Both procedural and substantive legislation as well as the UN Charter, the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights, the various conventions on Torture as well as socio economic and political rights, Conventions on Rights of the Child, Conventions on Rights of women …UN CEDAW and even the convention on Rights of Persons with Disabilities are all violated abusively with impunity and wanton disallow. Another case in point is that of three (3) Southern Cameroonian/Ambazonian youths who were arrested for forwarding SMS jokes relating to Boko Haram and were sentenced to 10 years imprisonment by Yaounde Tribunal Militaire having been arrested from Mbengwi, Douala and Victoria. All the francophones arrested with them for the same offence were set free or given symbolic sentences. But these three, because they’re Ambazonian students in High School, were slammed such a heavy prison sentence. With sad precedents like these that we and our people continue to suffer, it is impossible to have any trust in such a Judiciary. We find it impossible to trust a Judiciary wherein people can be dragged to court without any preliminary inquiry by a Magistrate or proper investigations by qualified investigators in the presence of defense Counsel for numerous alleged felonious offences and then the case is heard in the absence of defense Counsel and the judges sit there on the daze and write a judgment and deliver without ever examining the evidence, which in itself was admitted under questionable circumstances. And yet, the judges would proceed to sentencing all accused persons to life jail and to pay over $400m in fines and damages. Such a Judiciary definitely doesn’t deserve our or anyone’s trust.

Deutsche Welle: The Special Status has been conferred on the North West and South West regions, is this what the population wants?

President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe: The Biya regime is in no position to confer special status or any status on any portion of Southern Cameroons. When Southern Cameroonians voted for independence (by joining) during the UN organized plebiscite in 1961, it was never to be conferred with a “special status” as an appendage of another newly independent trust territory called La Republique du Cameroun. The Special Status as conceived by the regime of Cameroun’s president, Mr. Paul Biya, is clearly a joke in very bad taste. The conflict in Southern Cameroons relates to issues of sovereignty brought about by a botched United Nations decolonization of the former trust territory of the Southern Cameroons under United Kingdom administration. Southern Cameroonians are united and determined to right the wrongs of the aborted independence process and restore their sovereignty. This was amply demonstrated by the overwhelming display of protesters/demonstrators on the occasion of the formal declaration of the restoration of Southern Cameroons independence on the 1st of October 2017. The subsequent support for self-defense and ghost towns, boycott of elections in the territory and non-observance of all festivities related to French Cameroun across the territory is further testament of our peoples’ wholesale rejection of the special status.

Deutsche Welle: President Paul Biya says Ambazonian fighters must drop their arms and go to demobilization and reintegration centre. What do you think about that?

President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe: When the conflict escalated in late 2016, Ambazonians came out to demonstrate and protest. They matched the streets holding only peace plants. French Cameroun soldiers opened fire on them, killing many. The Cameroun government also engaged in indiscriminate arrests of protesters, many of whom underwent severe torture. Many more were incarcerated under horrendous conditions. Ambazonians took up arms in 2018 in self-defense, in the face of continuous relentless assault by French Cameroun military who engaged in rapes, looting and razing of entire villages in addition to mass killings of babies, adolescent and teenage boys & girls, pregnant women, the elderly and even disabled persons. The pace, intensity and gruesomeness of killings has accelerated in recent times. The presence of Ambazonian self-defense fighters is the only thing preventing the complete extermination of the civilian population in Southern Cameroons. For the very few self-defense fighters that were foolish enough to heed to Mr. Biya’s call and dropped their weapons, they have been subjected to torture, imprisonment and even summary execution. The bottom line is, Southern Cameroonians started off protesting with peace plants. In the face of brutal assault, self-defense groups sprung up later using only stones and catapults to defend themselves and their communities. They later upgraded to den guns. Now, we hear that they are in possession of more sophisticated weapons, some of them collected from Cameroun soldiers. The self-defense groups seem to have also acquired many additional capabilities and have only grown stronger over time. The government of Mr. Biya cannot, by fiat, compel them to drop their arms after having declared war on them, and without first declaring a ceasefire. There are few people more fearless than young men/women standing between their families and a killing machine. This is who our self-defense brothers/sisters have become.

Deutsche Welle:  Can you accept Federalism as a form of the state?

President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe: In 2017, the People of the Southern Cameroons rose up to say no against annexation by a neighboring nation La Republique du Cameroun. On the 1st of October 2017 they restored their independence. The root causes of the conflict between the Southern Cameroons and La Republique du Cameroun, is not in Cameroun’s form of state but in UN botched decolonization process that violated its own Resolution 1514. The conflict in question is one of sovereignty, nationhood and identity. Federation does not in any way address this problem. It is already too evident that the French and English colonies/mandated territories can’t be yoked together, especially when French is the dominant side.  The case of the 1916 compendium between France and Britain over the German Cameroun which failed woefully is an insight. Any attempt to further keep these two entities together in which ever form of state even if it is a Confederation, is an attempt to keep the crisis much longer. Self-determination is a fundamental right enshrined in the principles of the United Nations. The People of the Southern Cameroons, now known as Ambazonians, should be accorded this right.

Deutsche Welle: Human Right Watch in its latest report accused Ambazonian fighters of kidnapping children and teachers in the restive Anglophone Regions, are you in support of this?

President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe: In an early report this February, Human Right Watch (HRW) alerted the world that the French Cameroun Military is committing Genocide, like in Ngarbuh in the Southern Cameroons, in spite of the world’s promise of Never Again. We do not condone atrocities and human rights abuses of any form, no matter who commits them. We wish to make it clear here that most of the atrocities mentioned as and the ongoing Genocide in the Southern Cameroons are being committed by the French Cameroun Military, the Yaounde regime henchmen’s private militia and thugs. There is increasing suspicion that people like Mr Paul Atanga Nji, Mr Ngala Gerald and many other top officials of the regime have private Militias in the field. These militias pose as Ambazonian Self Defense Restoration Forces and commit various abuses with the objective of giving the true Ambazonian self-defense forces a bad name. The recent case in Ngarbuh where the Cameroun Military accompanied by some Fulani herdsmen and other boys raided the village should reveal the tactics the French Cameroun military is using. HRW, ICG, UN and the Civil Society should be reporting directly from the field but this is not the case because the French Cameroun government blocks access to them. This should be clear enough that the French Cameroun government is trying to hide the fact that its Military and Militias are committing Genocide and other grievous abuses. It is time for the international community to step in to stop the ongoing Genocide in the Southern Cameroons. It will be a shame for the international community to wait and come late as was the case in Rwanda. The International Community should consider the People of the Southern Cameroons as human beings that they are. Southern Cameroonian lives matter.

Deutsche Welle: In a few words, how will you describe your experience in detention?

President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe: From the moment of our abduction on the 5th of January2018, our experience has been nothing short of nightmarish. In Nigeria, we were handcuffed, blindfolded and held in dungeons, three storey underground with no access to sunlight. We never knew what time of day it was and we were blindfolded and manhandled every time we were led out of our cells to interrogation rooms. Twenty days later, we were handcuffed, blindfolded and deported to La Republic du Cameroun in a military cargo jet with makeshift seats, with neither seatbelts nor air-conditioning. Upon arrival in Yaoundé, the handcuffs, blindfolds were fastened tighter with almost all of us bleeding; we were conveyed to the torture centre known as SED where we were held incommunicado for 6months in our cells, without access to sunlight. Apart from these physical tortures, we also witnessed firsthand, the torture of detainees who were chained hands and feet for months and battered with plank search night and early mornings. We have since been moved from SED to Kondegui Principal Prison in Yaounde where conditions of detention are a little better, except that the prison food-ration is inedible. We rely on family and friends for food, drinking water and our welfare. The only drawback is that some of the prison warders take advantage of our predicament to harass and extort our visitors. One specific example is GCMPs Ngue Blande who seems to be on a special mission to embarrass Ambazonian detainees at this prison and harass and extort our visitors.

Deutsche Welle: What according to you is the way out of the current crisis?

President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe: Southern Cameroonians are fighting for total and unconditional independence as opposed to the Independence by joining to which they were lured by the United Nations and the Trusteeship System in1961. Under these circumstances, the only way out of the conflict, is for Mr. Biya of La Republique du Cameroun to end the war he declared on us; withdraw his military from the streets of Southern Cameroons; release all persons detained in connection with this conflict;and engage in UN mediated talks with Southern Cameroonians, in order to address the root causes of this crisis.

Deutsche Welle: What are your thoughts about the Swiss-led dialogue?

President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe:  We have always been opened to dialogue. We have called to no avail on Mr Biya and his regime, to shun violence for a mediated solution. However, the talks we are ready for must be by a mutually agreed credible international mediator, with the UN as a key stakeholder that can implement whatever agreements are arrived at. This is what was obtained in the cases of Namibia and South Africa, Eritrea and Ethiopia, and South Sudan and Sudan among others. The case of Southern Cameroons and La Republique du Cameroun shouldn’t be different. We hope the UN and the rest of the international community is working towards this. Anything short of this may not be a sustainable approach to addressing the root causes of the conflict. On this note we call on all Ambazonians in the homeland and in the diaspora to remain resolute. We also call upon all our people to ensure that they respect the basic medical/hygiene guidelines to keep the Coronavirus (Corvid-19) from spreading among our vulnerable population.

The ruling CPDM party is presently staging a counterfeit rerun of the parliamentary elections in Southern Cameroons. The Biya Francophone regime that has remained defiant to the international community amid scare of the deadly coronavirus opened polls in 10 parliamentary constituencies in the Northern Zone of Ambazonia.

Yaounde banned gatherings of more than 50 persons as part of measures to contain the spread of the coronavirus but used its proxies in Southern Cameroons to queue as potential voters in some polling stations in Bamenda today.

French Cameroun surrogate Paul Atanga Nji who also moonlights as Minister of Territorial Administration and Permanent Secretary of the National Security Council was seen voting at the Regional Delegation of Mines at Up-Station in Bamenda, alongside the Francophone Governor Lele Lafrique Tchoffo Deben Adolphe and Ex-Governor Fai Yengo Francis presently wanted by the Special Criminal Court in Yaounde for financial crimes but who now heads the National Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration Commission for ex-separatist fighters and repentant Boko Haram militants.

To demonstrate French Cameroun military presence in Southern Cameroons, the Commander of the 5th Joint Military Region, Brigadier General Nka Valère and the Commander of the 5th Gendarmerie Region, Brigadier General Ekongwese Divine Nnoko all voted in Bamenda.

“It was indeed a French Cameroun military rerun of the legislative elections in Bamenda” a source at the North West Governor’s Office who sued for anonymity was quoted as saying.

Mbayu Felix, Minister Delegate to the Minister of External Relations in charge of Relations with the Commonwealth was spotted at Old Town Bamenda while another chartered member of the French Cameroun consortium of crime syndicates Fongod Edwin, the Director General of Customs voted in Bali.

After casting his vote, Minister Atanga Nji called on all registered voters to do same and to accept the verdict of the polls.

 Gunshots were heard in Batibo (Momo West) and Mbengwi (Momo East) with Ambazonia Restoration Forces targeting Hon. Joseph Mbah Ndam and other CPDM candidates participating in the elections.

By Rita Akana with additional reporting and editing from Oke Akombi Ayukepi Akap

Joe Biden swept to victory in Florida, Illinois and Arizona on Tuesday, increasingly pulling away with a Democratic presidential primary upended by the coronavirus and building pressure on Bernie Sanders to abandon his campaign.

The former vice president’s third big night in as many weeks came amid tremendous uncertainty as the Democratic contest collides with efforts to slow the spread of the virus that has shut down large swaths of American life. Polls were shuttered in Ohio, and although balloting went ahead as scheduled in the three other states, election workers and voters reported problems.

Still, Biden’s quest for his party’s nomination now seems well within reach. His trio of wins doubled his delegate haul over Sanders, giving the former vice president a nearly insurmountable lead. Top Democratic leaders and donors have also increasingly lined up behind Biden as the best option to square off against President Donald Trump in November.

Using a livestream to address supporters from his home state of Delaware, Biden seemed ready to move past the primary. He paid tribute to the Vermont senator for advancing key issues like affordable health care and combating climate change.

“Sen. Sanders and his supporters have brought a remarkable passion and tenacity to all of these issues. Together they have shifted the fundamental conversation in this country,” Biden said. “So let me say, especially to the young voters who have been inspired by Sen. Sanders, I hear you. I know what’s at stake. I know what we have to do.”

Impact of coronavirus

With the exception of North Dakota and the Northern Mariana Islands, Sanders hasn’t scored a victory since Super Tuesday on March 3. He made no immediate move on Tuesday to contact Biden, according to people familiar with the situation who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak for the candidates. During remarks early in the night, Sanders said little about the future of the race and instead focused on the coronavirus outbreak.

Trump, meanwhile, formally clinched the Republican presidential nomination after facing minimal opposition.

But much of the action was on the Democratic side, where higher vote totals in some key states suggested enthusiasm that even the coronavirus couldn’t contain. Turnout in Florida’s Democratic primary surpassed the 1.7 million who cast ballots four years ago.

Sanders’ path to the nomination is quickly narrowing, and some Democrats are now calling on him to drop out in the name of party unity. Top advisers have said he’s considering whether the political landscape could look different as the virus continues to reshape life across the country.

Still, the race increasingly favors Biden. He maintained strength on Tuesday with African Americans and older voters who have been the hallmark of his campaign. He also appeared to chip away at Sanders’ previous advantage with Hispanics that helped him win Nevada and California early in the race.

In Florida, Latinos made up roughly 20% of Democratic primary voters, and they largely sided with Biden. The former vice president received the support of 62% of Puerto Rican voters and 57% of Cubans, according to AP VoteCast, a broad survey of primary voters.

The public health and economic havoc wreaked by the coronavirus will nonetheless influence how the presidential contest unfolds. Rallies and other big events have been canceled. Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez urged states with upcoming primaries to expand vote-by-mail and absentee balloting, as well as polling station hours — trying to ensure the primary isn’t further hampered going forward.

“The right to vote is the foundation of our democracy, and we must do everything we can to protect and expand that right instead of bringing our democratic process to a halt,” Perez said in a statement.

But the damage may have already happened.

Nowhere for Sanders to gain ground

Four states — Louisiana, Georgia, Kentucky and Maryland — have joined Ohio in moving to push back their upcoming primaries, and others may yet do so. That has left the Democratic primary calendar empty until March 29, when Puerto Rico is scheduled to go to the polls. But island leaders are working to reschedule balloting there, too.

That means there is nowhere for Sanders to gain ground on Biden anytime soon, even if he could find a way to mount a sudden surge.

At least one of Sanders’ top advisers chided party officials for going forward with voting on Tuesday.

“The Democratic Party rightly berates the GOP for ignoring scientists’ warnings about climate change,” David Sirota tweeted. “The same Dem Party just ignored scientists’ warnings & pushed to continue in-person elections during a lethal pandemic, rather than delaying until there is vote by mail.”

There were problems across the country on Tuesday. In Illinois, for instance, there was a push to relocate about 50 Chicago-area polling places after locations canceled at the last minute.

Jim Allen, a spokesman for the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners, said the board asked Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker last week to cancel in-person voting, but the governor refused. Pritzker countered that state law doesn’t give him the authority to make the sweeping changes that elections officials wanted.

“Let me tell you this: It is exactly in times like these when the constitutional boundaries of our democracy should be respected above all else. And if people want to criticize me for that, well, go ahead,” the governor said.

There weren’t problems, everywhere, though. Mel Dockens, a 49-year-old small-business owner, voted in the Phoenix suburb of Glendale and said it was a tough choice. But he went for Biden because he thought Sanders’ progressive views might turn off some Democratic voters.

“It’s all about electability,” Dockens said. “It’s not that I don’t trust Bernie Sanders, but I trust (Biden) a little more.”

(AP)

With 139 of the 167 MPs currently sitting in the National Assembly, the ruling CPDM crime syndicate saw its candidates for the two most important posts in the National Assembly’s bureau reelected unopposed. 

The ailing Cavaye Yeguie Djibril who by some strange happenstance was the only candidate for the post of President, was re-elected for the umpteenth time by his party’s hierarchy, with 147 votes out of 165 cast. Having spent 47 years as a member of parliament and 28 years as speaker, the sick man of the Far North region will therefore continue his lease at the helm of the House of the French Cameroun People.

Correspondingly, the post of first vice-president, only had the outgoing Hilarion Etong again of the ruling CPDM. He too was reelected with 147 votes out of 166.

The election of the other officers of the National Assembly, including the other five Vice-Presidents, four Quaestors and twelve Secretaries were done by acclamation.

By Rita Akana in Yaounde

The Ambazonia Interim Government of Southern Cameroons-controlled English speaking regions have announced a decision to boycott Cameroon’s re-run parliamentary elections to be held from March the 20^th to the 22^nd.     

87 year old President Biya has already called for a re-run of the parliamentary elections, according to a statement issued by the Etoudi presidency.

Speaking to Cameroon Concord News Group, Ambazonia Communications Secretary, Milton Taka said, “The people of Southern Cameroons reject these elections of the French Cameroun parliament and officially declare that they won’t let the elections be held in the Federal Republic of Ambazonia.”

Milton Taka added that since the independence of Southern Cameroons was declared by the Ambazonia leader President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe, the territory now known as the Federal Republic of Ambazonia is out of Mr. Biya’s control and Ambazonians have nothing to do with Biya French Cameroun’s elections.

Additionally, the Southern Cameroons Vice President Dabney Yerima also called for a boycott of the said parliamentary elections re-run.

Vice President Dabney Yerim said, in a statement issued last week that the election boycott comes as the French Cameroun regime is practicing daily killings against the Ambazonian people alongside the continuing campaigns of repression, persecution, arrest, as well as the burning of towns and villages and the demolition of houses belonging to innocent Southern Cameroons civilians.

“The Ambzonia Interim Government announces the boycott (voters and candidates) of the elections scheduled to take place by the dictatorial French Cameroun regime,” the statement said.

For his part, the Southern Cameroons Secretary for Finance, Comrade Tabenyang Brado noted that the French Cameroun regime’s insistence on holding the parliamentary elections re-run is a challenge to the will and efforts of the international community in stopping the ongoing genocide in Ambazonia, and it is a clear attempt by the Biya administration to pervert the course of the Washington Conference on peace negotiations.

This is the third time Southern Cameroonians have boycotted the Biya French Cameroun regime’s elections.

Southern Cameroonians boycotted the presidential elections when Ambazonia Restoration Forces destroyed several ELECAM offices and ballot boxes in Ground Zero.

By Asu Isong in London

The war in Southern Cameroons-Ambazonia has entered its fourth year and a new wave of violence is looming for thousands of civilians in Ground Zero and French speaking Cameroon citizens living around the areas bordering West Cameroon.

Over the last year, the Biya Francophone regime in Yaoundé has seen its grip on the Southern Cameroons territory weakened and President Biya’s position as head of state threatened. All that remains of the Cameroon government in Southern Cameroons is cornered in Buea and Bamenda where two Francophone governors are still posing as administrators with legitimate authority.

And yet in those two cities, a consortium of Ambazonia Restoration Forces showing no regard to the so-called one and indivisible Cameroon are consolidating power, and looking set for a showdown with the Cameroon government army and its French backer. The Cameroon government army says it is responding to an increase in attacks from Ambazonia separatists in the West Region.

After a string of victories against the Cameroon government military, the Ambazonian Vice President Dabney Yerima said recently that Southern Cameroons Restoration Forces now control all border crossings into the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

There are reports that Ambazonia Self Defense groups and armed militia sponsored by the ruling CPDM party have engaged in the same kind of repression that sparked the uprising against the Biya French Cameroun rule four years ago.

Armed militia groups with strong ties to the Cameroon government army have been accused of being behind the assassinations of several well known religious figures, including a cream of Roman Catholic priests and an American missionary.

Thousands of Southern Cameroons civilians have died in Cameroon government army attacks on towns and villages over the past four years, and some 35,000 civilians have fled their homes in to the bushes to escape the fighting.

Southern Cameroons is now home to more than 20 different armed Ambazonia groups and thousands of Cameroon government army soldiers battling for control in a war that has displaced more than half a million people to neighboring Nigeria and to  other parts of French Cameroun. Aid groups on the ground have also witnessed numerous attacks from the Cameroon government army.

Our senior intelligence officer in the chief city of the West Region in Cameroon hinted that there is a huge sense of panic now in Mbouda, Baffoussam and Dschang as more Cameroon government security posts come under attack from Ambazonia fighters.

Health facilities in Southern Cameroons have been forced to close and people are dying or suffering in acute pain because they cannot get the treatment they need in places like Akwaya, Menchum, Bui, Ndian, Batibo and Ndop.

Human Rights Watch reported that it is the beleaguered Southern Cameroons civilians who are finding themselves under attack on all fronts. Charities and Aid organizations are at risk of falling foul of the Yaoundé imposed law if they send aid into Southern Cameroons and many aid workers have been caught up in the fighting.

Celebrations to mark World Women’s Day saw the worst bombing ever since the war started with Ambazonia Restoration Forces targeting the Francophone governor of the North West, Lele Afrique.

Many in Southern Cameroons now fear any Cameroon government offensive.  An international conference in Washington DC that was to discuss the armed conflict in Southern Cameroons was put on hold following the outbreak of the coronavirus.

The UN has warned that continued Cameroon government military assault on Southern Cameroons would create a difficult humanitarian catastrophe in the Sub Saharan region.

Southern Cameroons political elites serving with the ruling CPDM government in Yaoundé are too scared now to speak out against the leadership pattern of the 87 year old President Biya. Any Southern Cameroons prominent figure that speaks against the atrocities being committed by the Cameroon government army soldiers in Southern Cameroons is libeled a secessionist and a criminal.

Receiving a pat on the back earlier this month, the Russian Ambassador to Cameroon supported the Yaounde regime’s handling of the crisis in Southern Cameroons and condemned aid groups helping Southern Cameroons civilians caught in the fighting.

Southern Cameroonians living in Ground Zero are confused and afraid of what will happen next. In many ways, the Federal Republic of Ambazonia has successfully entered its fourth year of war much as it did in the first. Extreme violence and crimes against humanity plagues the entire territory.

Last week, hundreds protested in the city of London, the cradle of the Southern Cameroons Problem against the British Monarchy for its deliberate silence on the genocide going on in Southern Cameroons.

The London protest represented the first Southern Cameroons peaceful demonstration in an event that was attended by Her Majesty the Queen and it came despite little or no action from the Commonwealth.

The Biya Francophone regime reportedly arrested hundreds of formally cleared Ambazonian fighters and civilians with a track record of unarmed opposition activity. This approach led by the Territorial Administration Minister, Paul Atanga Nji has further hampered the Cameroon government’s efforts to retain control over Southern Cameroons.

As long as President Biya remains in power, the situation in Southern Cameroons will not improve. Southern Cameroons refugees and the internally displaced will not return for fear of joblessness, homelessness and arbitrary arrest. The fighting will continue.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai