Southern Cameroons Crisis: Yerima urges unity to confront French Cameroun’s military ⁰

The Ambazonia Interim Government has warned all pro French Cameroun political elites in Ground Zero against fanning the flames of division after the disgraced 88-year-old President Biya appointed the so-called pioneer independent conciliators to the Federal Republic of Ambazonia.

“The French Cameroun Biya criminal appointments underscores the need for unity among all strata of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia and its Restoration forces to confront the enemy, which is showing no mercy to young men, women and the elderly in our homeland,” Vice President Dabney Yerima said in a statement on Wednesday.

“The atrocities committed against our people in Ground Zero obliges all Southern Cameroonians to engage with the occupiers by any means, especially at all police and gendarmerie checkpoints scattered all over our homeland” Vice President Yerima added.

In a press briefing late on Monday, the exiled Southern Cameroons leader said the occupying French Cameroun army soldiers continue to commit the most heinous crimes against the people of Southern Cameroons-Ambazonia and they are executing young people, women, children and the elderly in cold blood.

“Silence on these crimes is indeed a disgrace to world powers and international bodies that claim to be advocates of human rights, freedom and justice” Yerima opined.

“The blood of all Southern Cameroons martyrs is making Ambazonians more determined to continue the path of resistance until an independent state is gotten” Yerima furthered.

The Southern Cameroons was one of the territories set for decolonization in the context of the UN decolonization agenda. Britain’s devious handling of it and the British wheeling and dealing at the UN in 1959 and 1960 caused a great historical injustice to the people of the Southern Cameroons. That injustice continues to cry out for redress. British action resulted in the unconscionable imposition of an unnecessary and precipitated plebiscite with dead-end alternatives. Speaking through Lord Perth, Britain shamefully said the Southern Cameroons and its people were “expendable”.

The plebiscite was imposed in the teeth of opposition by the leadership of the trust territory. It offered a Hobson’s choice of ‘joining’ either Nigeria or French Cameroun. The internationally-prescribed political status option of sovereign independence was deliberately excluded. There was no good reason for doing so. On 11 February 1961, a skewed plebiscite was foisted on the people of the Southern Cameroons. Faced with the Hobson’s ‘choice’ that was forced down their throat, the people opted for independence in political association with Republique du Cameroun. It was agreed in writing between the two countries and to the knowledge of Britain and the UN, that the political association would take the form of an aggregative federation of two states, equal in status.

By Isong Asu