The Ambazonia leader President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe was right to appoint a vice president in the person of Comrade Dabney Yerima to take over the leadership of the Southern Cameroons Interim Government. Cameroon Concord News Group had made an honest observation about how the Ambazonia Interim Government had to contend with nasty characters within its ranks immediately after the Berlin forum.

Frankly speaking, no profound and popular governing body in all history has function without its share of filth, adventurers and rogues including boastful and noisy elements such as Samuel Ikome Sako, Chris Anu and Mr Kometa passing for front line leaders of the Southern Cameroons struggle and quest for independence.

Many senior Southern Cameroons political elites both in Ground Zero and in the diaspora have suggested that given the inevitability of corrosive elements in the likes of Sako, Anu and Kometa claiming to own the Ambazonia Interim Government, there was an urgent need for the leadership of Vice President Dabney Yerima to simply ignore the failed and disgraced leaders and work towards ensuring that the noble values and norms of the founding fathers remained the defining features of the Interim Government.

We of the Concord Group agree and are moving a step further to say continuous revolutionary and political education of Southern Cameroonians is the solution.

Ambazonians following the resistance are now too anxious both in Ground Zero and in the diaspora. Sadly, not because we are actually heading to Buea but awaiting outcomes were Biya and French Cameroun would triumph with their Special Status. In the United States and the Scandinavia countries, it is whether or not one of the chief rogues namely Sako, Anu, Kometa or Ayaba would emerge victorious.  

Not much has been done by these so-called front liners to show that they are serious in rooting the French Cameroun military and its civil administrators out of Southern Cameroons territory. Watching some of these former Interim Government comedians recently on social media, it was evident that these adventurers, rogues, boastful elements are presently making a mockery of the Southern Cameroons struggle. These fraudsters haven’t just claimed a share of the Ambazonia Interim Government. They are increasingly pushing the international community away from the suffering people of Southern Cameroons.

It will not be too long from now that the Southern Cameroons diaspora will abandon the struggle as these corrupt individuals continue to promote themselves as being in the heart of the governing Interim Government structure.

In fact, not only did the Interim Government under Sako and Chris Anu attracted nasty elements; it was also breeding and transforming them into heartless individuals who enjoyed looting from the poor donations while concocting fake armed resistance photos and coining slogans allegedly to address the problems faced by our people in Ground Zero.

Today in the US, even Southern Cameroonians who escaped from Cameroon under life threatening conditions, lost a number of their family members in the struggle for freedom and emerged with terrible scars, have somehow metamorphosed into corrupt tax-in-transit kingpins. They have dealt a heavy blow to the Dabney Yerima administration, rendering it woefully incapable of mounting a response to the numerous French Cameroun government attacks on the people of Southern Cameroons.

The situation is very disturbing and like one of our desk editors recently observed Cameroon Concord News Group was  either too optimistic or naïve in thinking that education is the solution to the Southern Cameroons leadership problem. How would you teach cash strapped fake men of God like Sako and Chris Anu to respect public donations? The solution really is rallying behind the jailed leader President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe and by extrapolation, Vice President Dabney Yerima who are putting in place a credible Amba Bonds Project system via the Bank of Ambazonia that flushes out from the Interim Government’s body politic the malignant cancer of corruption.

Southern Cameroons is not short of elites. We have a very vibrant diaspora with the power of the purse. We have competent men and women with military experience in the UK and the United States. But we are expecting Sisiku Ayuk Tabe and Dabney Yerima to do it for us while pretending to be responding to distractions coming from Sako and his comedians.

While our Ambazonia politics has served to disable the revolution, the corrupt have been able to create an ecosystem of interdependence with other equally filthy elements selling a controversial and non productive Swiss Peace Initiative.  

At a time when you expect Southern Cameroonians to use their strength in the West to achieve complete and total independence from French Cameroun, they are busy thinking that moving away from rogues could cause a domino whose ultimate direction is unknown.

How else can we explain the failure to shame people who have evidently stolen Ambazonian money? Ikome Sako, the disgraced former Acting President and his associates are still walking free, enjoying their loot despite countless revelations of corruption that should be in every Southern Cameroonian home both in Ground Zero and in the diaspora.   

Our failure or delay in naming and shaming Sako, Anu and Kometa for obvious crimes is a threat to our Southern Cameroons struggle and quest for an independent state.  It will continue to make it impossible in the future for Southern Cameroonians to donate to the resistance.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

For more than three years, Cameroon has been in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons. The country, which was once considered as an oasis of peace in a desert of chaos, finally stole the show from its chaotic neighbors in 2016 following protests by English-speaking lawyers and teachers against years of marginalization and discrimination.  

The government’s response to the protests was at best barbaric. Indeed, it made things worse as it caused the population of the two English-speaking regions to join the protests which really turned ugly in 2017. Students, mechanics, nurses, doctors and other socio-professional bodies joined the protests without invitation. A sign that the frustration really ran deep.

As the government sought to restore order, it unleashed its forces of law (lessness) and (dis) order on the people of Southern Cameroons and in the process, these unprofessional “dogs of war” committed despicable atrocities. They killed thousands of innocent civilians, burnt down more than 250 villages and roasted some old and disabled people who could run away for their dear lives.

The military really ran amok in the region and it has continued to do even after the much-touted Major National Dialogue that has not earned the recognition of major countries like the United States, Canada, Germany and the United Kingdom.

The sex-starved and alcohol-inflamed soldiers demonstrated how evil humans could be if given the opportunity.  The evil they unleashed on innocent civilians only made it possible for them to incur the wrath of the Southern Cameroonian Diaspora which quickly took over things and manufactured a nightmare for a government whose barks are more dangerous than its bites.

The old tactics, which were used on East Cameroonians in the 1960s, failed to produce the desired effects in Southern Cameroons. The world has walked away from many outdated ways, but the Yaounde gerontocracy is still stuck in the past. It felt old methods would deliver fast results. Its failure to see the writing on the wall turned out be its greatest undoing.

The 4-million-strong Southern Cameroonian Diaspora’s entry into the situation was a clear game-changer. The Diaspora has the financial resources to make a huge difference and it has successfully made that difference. It has been holding the government by its balls and this is really hurting. Cameroon will never be the same.

 The government has woken up to the realization that it cannot control its Diaspora. If it needs the Diaspora to support its development efforts, it must prioritize dialogue over brutality. It must also rethink its 1968 law on dual nationality.

The fighting in the two English-speaking regions of the country has caused the country’s economy to take a nosedive. Major state corporations such the CDC, PAMOL and SONARA have been pushed into bankruptcy. Rebuilding these companies will require a lot of money and even the American Federal Reserve many not be big enough to solve Cameroon’s economic and financial problems.  

 The Diaspora’s successful professionals living in countries such as Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, and the United States have organized themselves and they are doing a great job to draw the world’s attention to a case of legendary incompetence, devilishness and corruption. And countries such as America and Canada have noticed them and are prepared to mount pressure on the Yaounde government that is already cracking.

The Diaspora has huge and genuine grudges against a government that is averse to dialogue. Its ideal conflict management tools have remained intimidation and corruption which have, unfortunately, left it with a huge crisis on its hands. The Diaspora wants change in Cameroon, and it knows that will not come through the ballot boxes. It is therefore using its financial and political leverage abroad to keep the Yaounde government awake all night.

 The Yaounde government is not popular among Southern Cameroonians, especially those in the Diaspora who blame their long exile on a regime that has failed to work in the interest of the people and the country, and this has caused a lot of distrust in the country. Any statement from the government is taken with a pinch of salt.

The international community is also aware of the confidence deficit in Cameroon. After 37 years of dismal economic and political performance, it is but normal to be suspicious of a government that has been manufacturing figures at every election.

Despite the government’s inability to inspire confidence both at home and abroad, the international community still wants to work with it to resolve the Southern Cameroons crisis which is in its fourth year and has resulted in more than 3,000 deaths and the displacement of more than a million people.

The international community has been calling for an inclusive dialogue for years as a sure means of peacefully addressing a conflict that has the potential of spilling into neighboring countries. But the manipulative government has instead come up with a major national dialogue which has not delivered any meaningful results.

The national dialogue, a product of the ruling CPDM, was chaired and micro-managed by the president’s henchmen who did all they could to control everything. Government allies were invited to the dialogue while the real people who should have attended the event were tactfully kept out. Separatists, the enterprising Diaspora and top-notch professionals never got invited and this simply voided whatever recommendations and resolutions that were taken during the dialogue.

The government, noted for its manipulation, produced its own Diaspora and manufactured separatist fighters from among its prisoners. These prisoners were made to spew out whatever the government wanted to hear. But those who took the risk of openly aligning with the government knew they were running a huge risk.

Ambazonians and their fighters are not people who should be taken lightly. They had disapproved of the sham called national dialogue. Everybody knew that those who had attended the dialogue were doing so at their own.

The Yaounde government is not noted for protecting those who help it to stage its drama. And a few days later, some of those who passed off as Ambazonian fighters were targeted and killed. The government has once more proven that it does not care about the lives of those who come to help it achieve its unrealistic goals. It simply dumped them like used Kleenex tissues after the so-called national dialogue.  

Today, it has come up with something new to distract the population. In Yaounde, the noise is about “Special Status” for Southern Cameroonians. Some government officials now sell it as a mark of the president’s magnanimity and determination to solve a problem he never acknowledged that it existed.

But the 1996 constitution clearly speaks about special status for some regions if the need arises. This article of the country’s constitution should simply be applied without any CPDM comedy. Today, there are delegations being rushed to Southern Cameroons to sensitize the population on the so-called special status.

But will that address any issue? Southern Cameroonians do not want anything short of federalism. Though many would opt for a complete separation from East Cameroon if given the opportunity, they will however settle for a full-blown federation that will enable them to take ownership of their own systems and institutions like they did before reunification in 1972.

The special status may instead infuriate many in the two regions and all those sent to sensitize the population are people who have already been rejected by the angry population. The government believes that it is doing the people a favor, but it fails to understand that its so-called special status might only trigger a new cycle of violence in the region. Those heading to the region to sell a product whose contents have already been rejected know that they will not be able to convince anybody. The project is clearly dead on arrival.

While seeking to sell this “poisoned gift”, the government is also preparing for parliamentary and municipal elections. How can such elections take place in a region that is awash with guns and soldiers are still killing innocent people?

Why can the government not wait to see if its poisoned gift would be accepted by the population before calling for elections? Has it forgotten that Ambazonian fighters would not tolerate any elections in their regions? Has it forgotten that the ruling CPDM has been outlawed in Southern Cameroons and its supporters such as Prof. Elvis Ngolle Ngolle, Prime Minister Yang Philemon, Prime Minister Dion Ngute, Senator Tabetando and many others have been sent into exile by their people for their questionable behavior?

The government should engineer new ways of communicating with the people if it really wants to sell its poisoned gift. Those taking that message to the people may not return to Yaounde in one piece as the population has rejected them and the Ambazonian fighters are seeking to make an example of them if caught.

The government should instead focus on the Canada-sponsored Swiss initiative that has been endorsed by many of the warring factions in Southern Cameroons. The preliminary meetings held in the Swiss capital went on well and many groups accepted the terms and conditions. Even human rights groups that attended the meetings hold that the Swiss initiative holds out more hope than the hastily assembled major national dialogue that leaves much to be desired. If the fire must be doused, the government must embrace news ways. Old ways will not deliver the right results. They clearly belong to the past.

By Kingsley Betek in Yaounde and Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai in the United Kingdom  

French Cameroun is a sinking ship that will never submerge unless some very young and intelligent military officers decide to take some bold actions.  With Southern Cameroons already gone out of the one and indivisible unitary state, French Cameroun appears now like a ship that is sinking faster than many political commentators had envisaged.

There is evidence that French Cameroun is sinking entirely. Mr. Biya was caught shuffling along in France like a stalling car clearly showing signs of senile decay. For many decades, the country has been caught up in a downward political and economic spiral.

The country’s unemployment rate has remained stubbornly high and crippling taxes have taken the wind out of the sails of many small businesses. The situation in French Cameroun has been likened to that of passengers on the Titanic, the cruise ship that sank in 1912 and corruption and mismanagement is escalating ever since Prime Minister Dion Ngute took over office as the so-called head of government.

French Camerounians have been scared of pouring into the streets to confront a government that has made corruption and nepotism its hallmarks. Investors in the world have very low appetite for country’s debt. The corruption for which the Biya CPDM regime is known is making it hard for foreign money to make its way into the country’s economy.

Many EU countries are insisting on Yaoundé calling for an inclusive dialogue with the Ambazonia Interim Government that will help normalize things in both Cameroons. But Yaoundé has been indifferent to those calls. President Donald Trump’s determination and his ability to mobilize other countries, including some of Cameroons neighbors have rattled the Biya Francophone regime and its supporters.

French Cameroun regime supporters, including the Speaker of the House and the Senate President have been shouting from rooftops that there is a global conspiracy to destabilize the country. They blame this on Southern Cameroonians.

To be sure, no political understandings will ever take place under the current leadership involving French Cameroun political parties and even the Ambazonia Interim Government. Biya and his gang have no agenda to help to calm down the streets.

Since the last counterfeit presidential election, pro Maurice Kamto supporters have held nationwide rallies, expressing discontent with what they view as the government’s failure to find solutions for the country’s economic and political woes.

The Ministry of Finance is hiding figures related to French Cameroun’s national debt with more than 85% of the French Camerounians living in poverty.

In the meantime, the United States government has ended Cameroon’s preferential trade benefits citing what the Trump administration called the country’s “persistent gross violations of internationally recognized human rights.”

By Kingsley Betek in Yaounde

Three years ago, Cardinal Christian Tumi revealed how a French diplomat unknowingly hinted him in Rome Italy that France was championing the process of assimilation of British Southern Cameroonians by the French speaking majority in Cameroon.

The French diplomat thought wrongfully that the only Cameroonian Roman Catholic cardinal hailed from French Cameroun. The Cardinal was addressing a small forum summoned by the French embassy in Rome using the French language when the French diplomat added that the skillful change of name from the Federal Republic of Cameroon to Republic of Cameroon is one of the hallmarks of the process of assimilation teleguided from Paris.

Many Southern Cameroons media organizations published their first bombshell story based on Cardinal Tumi’s leaked top-secret showing that the French government was directly behind the evil perpetuated on Southern Cameroonians by French Cameroun political elites including the current genocidal campaign against the Ambazonia people.

Many pro French Cameroun and CPDM Southern Cameroons comedians such as Ministers Paul Atanga Nji, Victor Mengot, Paul Tasong and Paul Elung Che dismissed the Cardinal Tumi’s revelation as fake news.  Then recently in Paris, the truth surprisingly came out from a celebrated French surrogate: His name Paul Biya.

In one of the most outrageous and dangerous statements ever from a leader sitting in a peace conference that held from the 11-13 November 2019 in Paris, French Cameroun head of state Paul Biya claimed that German Kamerun was his country that was divided into the British and French trusteeships. The 86 year old leader noted that he has tried to assimilate and dissolve the English 20% into the French 80% but failed and wants to give a special status to the English 20%, but keep them within one country. It is based on this claim to German Kamerun being his country, which the French government of President Emmanuel Macron think, that Paul Biya and French Cameroun have the duty to kill Ambazonians to force them to belong.

When asked if more revelations were in the pipeline, the Ambazonia Vice President Dabney Yerima said on Sunday that “Even the late President Ahmadou Ahidjo will be telling these truths, with shame and regrets in his grave. Many more were coming including from the double player and tribal thug Fru Ndi and his SDF party, who not long ago dissociated from and smeared Hon Wirba for telling those truths in their terrorist chamber called national assembly.”

So the greatest story in the British Southern Cameroons political story from Cardinal Tumi revealed that France had been providing French Cameroun with virtually all political, financial and military apparatus and engineering to assimilate and marginalize the people of Southern Cameroons.

The Cardinal Tumi revelation remains the most insightful, frank and thoughtful key to understanding why France has kept the AU, EU and the UN away from the killings going on in Southern Cameroons.

The uproar caused by the Tumi story led President Biya of French Cameroun to embark on his first international journey of many dangers which saw him humiliated by business tycoon Mo Ibrahim. Nobody in Paris or Yaounde has attempted to deny any knowledge of what Cardinal Tumi said after Biya’s poor outing in Paris.

By Asu Isong in London

The report documents gross human rights abuses that have been committed during the conflict in the North West and South West regions of Cameroon since 2016. These regions are predominantly English-speaking, in a country that has a majority French-speaking population. The North West and South West regions, known as the anglophone regions, were formerly the colonial territory of Britain from the end of the First World War to the attainment of independence by Cameroon in 1960/61. The conflict involves tensions between the minority anglophone populations of Cameroon and the majority francophone populations, and has thus been termed the ‘Anglophone Crisis’. Crucially, the Report situates the recent crimes in the sociolegal and historical context of the longstanding ‘Anglophone Problem’ in Cameroon.

The recent violence in anglophone Cameroon began with strikes by anglophone lawyers and teachers in protest to perceived government-backed attempts to marginalise traditional practices within anglophone courts and schools. In response to the unrest, the Cameroonian Government was recorded to use coercion and force, which led to an escalation of tensions and demands. Since the 2016 protests, the conflict has become increasingly violent, and crimes have been committed by multiple parties. The Report provides a comprehensive analysis of alleged human rights abuses committed to date and recommends actions.

The current violence in Cameroon cannot be properly comprehended outside of the historical context in which it has arisen. The report accordingly begins with a historical overview of the Anglophone Problem, which is rooted in a land boundary implemented by British and French colonial forces. The analysis then moves on to show how the border complexities have carried over into independence from colonial rule, which is examined through the anglophone independence plebiscite. Various issues of contention have arisen in relation to this vote because the option of secession, for which many anglophone stakeholders campaigned, was denied to the people. Consequently, the reunification of the anglophone regions to Cameroon has never been fully accepted by all. Despite vociferous frustrations expressed by anglophone stakeholders since this time, these grievances have yet to be addressed by the Cameroon State and the international community.

The Report then moves on to consider evidence of human rights abuses that have been committed by the Cameroonian State forces and by separatist groups in the anglophone regions. Suspected human rights violations include extra-judicial killings, torture, destruction of property, fair trial violations, and inhumane and degrading conditions of detention. These violations breach both Cameroonian national laws and international human rights laws that bind Cameroon.

The Report also documents and analyses photographic and video-graphic media material received via the messaging service WhatsApp between August 2018 and up to October 2019, material which is logged in Appendix A. The Report further reviews reporting on the human rights abuses by international organisations, non-governmental organisations and reports by mainstream news media.

Analysis of primary and secondary human rights data leads to the research team to identify a range of pressing concerns, which include: the continued escalation of the conflict; the complexity of issues fueling the conflict, which stretch beyond a simple francophone/anglophone divide; the inadequacy of the Cameroonian government organised dialogue of September 2019; the lack of accountability for human rights abuses; the absence of remedies of human rights violations; and the wider implications of the conflict on peace in the broader Sahel Region.

The Report draws attention to the distinctive moral responsibility of the British government to respond to these concerns, which arises on at least three grounds: 1) Cameroon as a former colony of the British state; 2) The role of the British government in the creation of the Anglophone Problem; and 3) The prolonged and substantial presence of the British state in Cameroon through its developmental organisation, Voluntary Services Overseas, from pre-independence in 1958 until withdrawal in 2014.

In light of the evidence considered, the Report makes the following specific recommendations to the British government:

Support efforts to stop the violence

Support conflict resolution

Support the initiatives of peacebuilders

Ensure a return to the rule of law

Monitor detention conditions.

Precise ways that these recommendations might be achieved are suggested.

Culled from Oxford Human Rights Hub

A majority of Southern Cameroonians living abroad including those in Ground Zero are of the opinion that the Ambazonia Interim Government (IG) post the disgraced Dr Ikome Sako and Chris Anu era still has a lot of work to do in the territory now occupied by French Cameroun troops and Biya-backed armed militia. They are right.

From London to Atlanta, from Berlin to Oslo and from Pretoria to Paris, the story is the same! Ambazonians are disappointed with the management of the funds that was raised for My Trip To Buea and French Cameroun is reportedly gaining from the fabricated divisions in the Interim Government and the failure of other sub groups to join the majority following of the IG.

With the dust now settled, Southern Cameroonians can see clearly and of course the Southern Cameroons elites have themselves to blame for shying away from leadership and allowing cash strapped men and women to take over control of leadership.

Vice President Dabney Yerima and his war cabinet still have a lot of work to do if the Federal Republic of Ambazonia is to become a reality, as there is a large number of Southern Cameroons successful elites in the West, who are willing to donate money for the struggle but need to start seeing some properly coordinated actions in Ground Zero.

We of the Cameroon Concord News Group are hoping that the Vice President’s announced tour for the struggle would be successful. We understand that many objectives have been reached and the French Cameroun leader Paul Biya and his ruling CPDM crime syndicate are crumbling at catastrophic rapidity.  But not every objective!

We expect right thinking Southern Cameroonians to ignore the negative distractions coming from the disgraced Sako Ikome and Chris Anu and help Vice President Dabney Yerima and his team to manage to mitigate the situation in Ground Zero, establish good ties between the Ambazonia Interim Government and other sub groups, and reach decisive general solutions which would appease donors in Europe, the US and South Africa for Southern Cameroonians to completely regain their territorial integrity.

Our chief intelligence officers in Ground Zero are reporting that things are moving back to normal and French Cameroun agents are planning to stage elections next year in the territory. This is happening because it has been extremely difficult for Southern Cameroonians to switch off tribal loyalty and pursue the bigger picture.

Day-by-day, Sako Ikome and his acolyte Chris Anu are sending conflicting signals to the international community and Southern Cameroonians in Ground Zero all in a bid to give the impression that it is either them at the head or no one else. This is now their trade mark.

However, many successful Ambazonian elites in the diaspora are aware that Sako and Chris Anu can no longer be one entity with the Southern Cameroons quest and struggle for independence and are running away from them.

French Cameroun head of state, Paul Biya has now made it crystal clear that there was a policy put in place to assimilate the people of Southern Cameroons which have failed. Not donating to the Ambazonian struggle, not investing in the Amba Bonds Project is tantamount to accepting the so-called Special Status that will continue to keep Southern Cameroonians as slaves and second class citizens of the One and Indivisible Cameroon.

The world needs to see Ambazonians waging a war of liberation void of any distraction from failed and corrupt leaders.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

For 37 years, the French Cameroun head of state Paul Biya has demonstrated that his CPDM regime has a long-term plan for the ethnic cleansing of the people of Southern Cameroonians.

A Southern Cameroonian commenting on Mr Biya’s recent outing in France opined that during the Conference, Biya said German Kamerun was his country that was divided into the British and French trusteeships.

The 86 year old dictator furthered that he has tried to assimilate and dissolve the English 20% into the French 80% but failed and wants to give a special status to the English 20%, but keep them within one country.

It is based on this claim to German Kamerun being Biya’s country, that Southern Cameroonians think, the French Cameroun leader believes he has a duty to kill Ambazonians to force them to belong to his vision of a one and indivisible Cameroun.

Southern Cameroons political analyst Denis Atemnkeng observed that Biya’s take on the crisis in Ambazonia is the most outrageous and dangerous statement from a man sitting in a peace conference.

A cream of Ambazonia political elites in the United Kingdom observed on Wednesday in London that the French Cameroun regime backed by France is moving toward a greater plan which is a kind of scorch-the-earth policy.

Troops loyal to the Biya regime in Yaoundé have burnt down more than 280 Southern Cameroons villages with Biya claiming that the soldiers were fighting Ambazonia separatists operating in those areas.

An estimated 20,000 Southern Cameroonians have been killed, over 120,000 are seeking refuge in Nigeria and, over 1million people are internally displaced or living in bushes and over 3,000 persons incarcerated in prisons and detention facilities. It is also reported that over 4.5. Million people are at risk of famine. This is indeed a recipe for endless war and the ethnic cleansing of Southern Cameroons.

Biya’s special status plan for Ambazonians is pushing the two Cameroons towards endless crisis; and if true, the least the international community can do is to respond to this by saying no and support the Ambazonia nation.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

The Second Paris Peace Forum, 11-13 November 2019, has enabled us to begin to understand Paul Biya’s reasons for his genocidal war against the people of Ambazonia. During the Conference, he claimed that German Kamerun was his country that was divided into the British and French trusteeships! He has tried to assimilate and dissolve the English 20% into the French 80% but failed and wants to give a special status to the English 20%, but keep them within one country. It is based on this claim to German Kamerun being his country, we think, that he believes that he has a duty to kill Ambazonians to force them to belong!

This is the most outrageous and dangerous statement from a man sitting in a peace conference. We now partially know the absurd reasons for his genocide, from his own mouth. Biya’s idea is a rejection of the fundamental principle of the intangibility of frontiers inherited at independence, a principle which underlies the stability of all boundaries in the world. Here is Paul Biya rejecting international law while sitting in a peace conference! These statements go against Cameroun’s voluntary treaty commitments in international law, the UN Charter and the African Union Constitutive Act.

The world now has an obligation to stop this monster; a monster preaching the absurdity that countries need not respect the boundaries they inherited but cross them to occupy weaker neigbhours! These are ideas that are capable of destabilizing the whole world, because every country inherited its boundaries and rejecting those boundaries would create havoc. The OAU and the African Union have repeatedly stressed the importance for all African countries to conform strictly to their inherited boundaries.

Biya’s idea is the same idea that Nazi German pursued! This is a man trying to revive the Roman Empire under one nation; to revive the Ottoman Empire under one nation or German Kamerun under one nation! This monstrous idea goes against the very principles that define the territory over which each country can exercise jurisdiction. It is nothing short of the revival of imperialism in all its forms. It is a return to the dark ages of unilateral boundary assertions!
German Kamerun did not belong to La Republique du Cameroun (LRC); it belonged to the Germans. International title to that territory belonged to the Germans by treaty!

La Republique du Cameroun did not exist during the period of German Kamerun! La Republique du Cameroun did not inherit the territory of German Kamerun; it inherited the territory of French Cameroons. The boundaries of German Kamerun were carved out by the same powers that carved out the boundaries of La Republiqaue du Cameroun and those of the British Southern Cameroons.

Biya cannot pretend to recognise the boundaries of German Kamerun and reject those of La Republique du Cameroun. German Kamerun was not limited to British Southern Cameroons and La Republique du Cameroun. Why is Biya not also laying claim to those parts of German Kamerun that are now in Nigeria, Central African Republic, Chad and so on? He clings convulsively only to the British Southern Cameroons! If Biya were not merely faking reason, he would claim Northern Cameroons that is now in Nigeria, would lay claim to parts of Chad and Central African Republique! But he is fully conscious of his deceit and fraud.

La Republique du Cameroun has a date of birth or date of independence, which is 1 January 1960. Cameroun’s treaty obligations confine Cameroun’s sovereignty to the territory she inherited at her independence. Cameroun cannot lay claim to any territory outside of the territory she inherited on her date of birth. Before La Republique du Cameroun was born on 1 January 1960, German Kamerun had died and been dismembered 48 years back, in the Versailles Treaty! La Republique du Cameroun was one of the products of the dismemberment of German Kamerun, and so too was British Southern Cameroons.

Under the League of Nations and the United Nations, British Southern Cameroons was treated as a separate and distinct territory from French Cameroon. It had its own government; international boundaries; was offered the choice to achieve independence in association with either Nigeria or La Republique du Cameroun. How could what LRC claims to be a part of its country have such a choice; that is, the option not even to associate with LRC?

The boundaries of LRC were inherited, not created! The country from which Cameroun inherited those boundaries, France, never contested the boundaries of neighbouring British Southern Cameroons. Just as La Republique du Cameroun inherited its own boundaries from a dismembered German Kamerun, so too were British Southern Cameroons boundaries inherited from the dismembered German Kamerun.

The Roman Empire is today scores of countries! The boundaries of German Kamerun were not more genuine or authentic than the boundaries of British Southern Cameroons or those of La Republique du Cameroun. They are all based on international treaties! The only thing that is not based on any treaty, any agreement or any notion of law, is Biya’s claim to the Southern Cameroons’ territory!

If LRC claims to have inherited German Kamerun, what are the instruments of that inheritance? Under what law did that inheritance take place? And when did that inheritance begin?

Was there a German title to any territory called “German Kamerun” on the date of LRC’s independence? German Kamerun ceased to exist and was completely dismembered through the Versailles Treaty, more than 48 years before LRC was born. How could LRC inherit a title that did not exist at the time it came into being?

When LRC joined the United Nations on 20 Sept. 1960, did it not bind itself by the rules governing territoriality? Is LRC bound by the principle of intangibility of frontiers inherited from colonisation? Is LRC bound by the African Union Constitutive Act which she has voluntarily ratified, in particular, Article 4(b) which confines LRC’s sovereignty to the territory she inherited at independence? Under what law would LRC defend its boundaries if encroached upon by a neighbouring country?

It is time for the international community to face these monstrosities! This is not simply a Southern Cameroons/Ambazonia problem, but a great threat to the stability of the world. If countries reject the boundaries they inherited, there is no other principle to safeguard peace in the world! Here is a President who, before the world, rejects the very rules that they themselves have ratified in various treaties and re-affirmed over and over again. He is blinded by his imperialism and self-aggrandizement to stir up conflicts, kill, commit atrocities and yet can put the word “peace” in his mouth. He is counting only on the silence and indifference of the on-looking world. The world can no longer be silent and indifferent to Biya. We call on the world to unite against these evils and put an end to Biya’s war and atrocities in the British Southern Cameroons.

By Denis Atemnkeng

On a plantation in Tiko, in south-west Cameroon, Adeline rubs the gap in her right hand where her index finger used to be. She arrived in the town in July 2018, having fled Ekona, 15 miles away. In that village soldiers terrified civilians by burning houses and shooting indiscriminately as part of a crackdown on militias that want the primarily English-speaking areas of Cameroon to secede from the predominantly Francophone country. Adeline hoped Tiko would prove a sanctuary.

It was anything but. A year ago Adeline was tending to an oil palm in the plantation when about 20 members of a separatist militia grabbed her, stuffed leaves in her mouth and tied her to the tree. They whipped her and cut off her finger. Her apparent crime: working for the Cameroon Development Corporation (cdc), a state-run company. “As I close my eyes I see the boys coming to get me,” says Adeline. “The trauma is still there.”

Cameroon was until recently a stable country in a fragile region. Today it is battling the jihadists of Boko Haram in the north, dealing with an influx of refugees from the Central African Republic in the east—and, most devastatingly, the “Anglophone crisis” in the west. Adeline’s is one of hundreds of thousands of lives ravaged by this conflict over the past three years. Paul Biya, the authoritarian who has ruled Cameroon for 37 years, had hoped that the crisis would prove short-lived. So did foreign powers, which have been largely quiet. Yet the conflict shows no sign of ending.

The origins of the turmoil began a century ago. After the first world war Britain and France took over different parts of the German colony of Cameroon. Upon independence in 1960 and 1961 the larger French territory joined the southern part of the British one to make modern Cameroon.

It quickly became one of the most centralised countries in Africa. Today just 1% of public spending is devolved to local governments, versus more than 50% in Nigeria. The country is officially bilingual, but the roughly 20% of people (4-5m in a country of 24m) who mainly speak English claim decades of marginalisation. Promises of devolution have been broken.

In late 2016 frustrations boiled over. First lawyers went on strike against the erosion of the English-style common-law system. Teachers soon joined the protests, citing, among other things, the appointment of French-only speakers in classrooms. Protest groups organised “ghost towns”: weekly shutdowns of towns such as Buea, the capital of the south-west region, that continue to this day.

The government hit back hard. The internet was shut off for four months. Groups organising the protests were banned and their leaders arrested. In October 2017 separatists responded by proclaiming the independent state of “Ambazonia”, named after Ambas bay in the south-west.

This led to a massive, violent escalation. International ngos estimate that 3,000 people have been killed during the crisis. But aid workers think the true figure is several times higher. Both separatist militias and security forces have committed atrocities, but the Cameroonian army is believed to be behind most of the bloodshed.

Security forces have burned more than 220 villages in the Anglophone region, according to the Centre for Human Rights and Democracy in Africa (chrda) in Buea. One was Ekona. Formerly the site of a bustling market, today it is an eerie place, where the walls of charred houses are pockmarked with bullets.

“It’s like ‘Full Metal Jacket’,” says one aid worker, in reference to trigger-happy soldiers in a film about the Vietnam war. Ayuk, who lived in Ekona for four years before fleeing in April, says he can recall hundreds of incidents where soldiers fired at villagers. In one case his neighbour and two others were shot in their car on their way back from sowing plantain. “We had to bury him quickly,” Ayuk recalls, in case the army shot them as well.

Tah Mai, a journalist, lost two brothers in separate incidents involving the army. In November last year his brother and his wife were shot outside their house in Buea. A few months later his other brother was shot in the back in his home village in the north-west. “Mine is just like the many stories that you haven’t heard,” says Mr Tah.

No refuge

At least 500,000 people have been forced to leave their homes. Tens of thousands have fled to Nigeria, but most are in the bush, making it hard to count them. Even in the forests displaced people can be found by the army. Frida, who was also forced to flee Ekona, describes how she watched soldiers enter her bush camp. They shot two women accused of cooking for separatist fighters. Then they killed the informer who brought them.

Mass displacement is having grave effects on public health. There are outbreaks of monkey pox and measles, partly because of plummeting vaccination rates. Before the crisis about 70% of women gave birth with medical help in the north-west region. Today 3% do so. The result is more women and babies dying in the course of childbirth. Cecilia Mah, the matron at Mount Mary Hospital in Buea, says that it is hard to run a hospital when soldiers threaten ambulance drivers and seize suspected separatists convalescing in the wards.

The state is, however, not solely responsible for the chaos; separatists share some of the blame. Most of the separatist political groups, such as the Interim Government of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia, and the Ambazonia Governing Council, are based abroad. Their leaders and donors are in America, Germany, Norway and other rich countries. In Cameroon their armed wings control swathes of rural territory. This can lead to surreal moments for aid workers. They may, for example, have to negotiate access to villages not with commanders on the ground but with middle-aged men sitting in living rooms in Washington, Oslo or Dortmund.

Many separatist attacks are aimed at the security forces. But some target Anglophone civilians. “If you disagree with them, they kill you,” says Cardinal Christian Tumi, the archbishop of Douala, Cameroon’s commercial capital. He says that a traditional chief from his home village was “slaughtered like a goat” for allegedly collaborating with the authorities. Like Adeline, many people employed by cdc have been maimed.

Brutality by separatists is likely to increase as armed groups in the country seek their own sources of funding to break away from the patronage of leaders in the diaspora. So-called Amba boys are turning to kidnapping and extortion for funds; other groups are increasingly criminal entities, not political ones. In March the football team of the University of Buea was taken hostage; many parents paid ransoms. Most of the aid groups working on the ground have had workers kidnapped. “I fear we are creating a generation of warlords,” says Felix Agbor Balla, the president of chrda.

While bandits raise cash by extorting, the economy is collapsing. The Anglophone regions contribute about 20% of the country’s gdp. cdc was the second-largest employer in Cameroon, after the state. But most of its rubber and palm-oil plantations, and all of its banana ones, have shut because of attacks. Most workers have lost their jobs. Revenue is 90% lower than before the crisis; cdc has not sold a banana since August 2018. Its leaders get death threats from separatists. Asked how he copes, Franklin Ngoni Njie, cdc’s general manager, says he follows a simple rule: “I pray more. I go out less.”

And yet an even bigger social and economic crisis is looming. Almost 90% of children in the Anglophone regions have not gone to school for three years, a result of forced displacements and the enforcement of a boycott called by separatists who see schools as arms of the state. (According to this twisted logic a six-year-old keen to learn subtraction is a collaborator.) At home-schools set up by brave educators children arrive with homework hidden in their trouser legs, in case they are spotted by Amba boys.

The sabotage of education is one reason why many Anglophones are growing angry at the separatists. Ernest Molua notes that people used to refer to them as “our boys”; now they say “those boys”. The professor at the University of Buea believes that most Anglophones want more autonomy, ideally within a federal Cameroon, not independence. “There remains a strong sense of ‘Cameroonianess’,” he says, emphasising that Anglophones’ grievances are with the government, not their French-speaking compatriots. But Mr Molua worries that “the space for moderates is shrinking”.

Loaded language

Signs of compromise are scant. Separatist groups do not even have a common position among themselves, despite efforts by the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, a Swiss ngo, to help them find one. For his part, President Biya in September raised hopes by announcing a “National Dialogue”. Yet it was a sham. The meeting was not just about the crisis; it gave Cameroonian leaders from all regions a chance to air complaints (and collect per-diems). Many important Anglophones were either not invited or left in prison. “It was not a sincere effort,” says Alice Nkom, a lawyer.

Mr Biya has been aided by a muted international response. Donors have provided just 18% of the funding requested by the un for humanitarian operations in Cameroon’s Anglophone regions for 2019. (The only countries for which the un receives lower shares of support are Venezuela and North Korea.) Diplomatic pressure has been meagre, too. Nigeria wants Mr Biya’s help with Boko Haram and does not want to encourage the hopes of Biafran separatists in its own south-east. China is focused on its economic interests. British diplomats have offered gentle criticism in private but do not want to slam Mr Biya in public. Most importantly of all, France has done little but urge cosmetic concessions.

The only influential country willing to speak out is America. On October 31st it removed Cameroon from a list of African countries that get preferential trade terms, citing “gross violations” of human rights by the government. American diplomats hope the move will send a signal to Mr Biya that he needs to find a political solution.

For now there is only a bloody equilibrium. Separatist militias cannot take the towns; the army cannot take the bush. In the middle are people like Adeline. She says that she feels trapped between the two warring parties. And without a job any more she has no means to escape. So she waits, too weary to talk much about politics. “I just need my peace,” she says. 

Culled from The Economist