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The Southern Cameroons has a surface area of 43,000 sq. km and a current population of about 6 million people. It is thus demographically bigger than at least 60 UN and 18 AU Member States, and spatially
bigger than at least 30 UN and 12 AU Member States. Located in the ‘armpit’ of Africa, it is sandwiched between Nigeria and Republique du Cameroun like a wedge between West Africa and what in effect is
still French Equatorial Africa. It has frontiers to the west and north with Nigeria, to the east with Republique du Cameroun, and to the south with the Equatorial Guinean Island of Bioko. The borders are
well attested by international boundary treaties. The natural resources of the Southern Cameroons include oil, gas, timber, coffee, cocoa, tea, bananas, oil palm, rubber, wildlife, fish, medicinal plants,
waterfalls and a wide variety of fruit and agricultural produce.
80 years of British Connection
The territory later identified as the Southern Cameroons was originally British from 1858-1887. It was ceded to Germany and subsequently incorporated into the contiguous German protectorate of Kamerun, which
had been acquired earlier in 1884. A 1913 Anglo-German Treaty respecting the settlement of the frontier between the British territory of Nigeria and the German territory of Kamerun from Lake Chad to the sea.
That territorially grounded treaty has remained the instrument defining the international boundary between Nigeria and the Southern Cameroons. Moreover, a 1954 British Order in Council (Definition of Boundaries
Proclamation) defined the boundary between the Eastern Region of Nigeria and the Southern Cameroons. The same territory that had been ceded in 1887 by Britain to Germany was captured by British forces in September
1914 soon after the outbreak of World War I. It later became known as the British Cameroons, consisting of two separate parts, the Southern Cameroons and the Northern Cameroons.
Germany held on to its original Kamerun protectorate until 1916 when Anglo-French forces captured it. France took possession of the territory and it became known as French Cameroun. In 1916 therefore, Germany
ceased to exercise any territorial authority (sovereignty) over Kamerun. The utter defeat of Germany entailed the loss of its colonial territory. Under Articles 118 and 119 of the 1919 Versailles Treaties
Germany renounced and relinquished all rights in and title to all its overseas possessions, including her Kamerun territory. An Anglo-French treaty of 1916 (the Milner-Simon Declaration) defined the international
boundary between the British Cameroons and French Cameroun. This territorial delimitation was confirmed by the League of Nations in 1922 when the two territories were separately placed under the Mandates System.
The territorial alignment was further confirmed by the Anglo-French Treaty of 9 January 1931, signed by the Governor-General of Nigeria and the Governor of French Cameroun. The Southern Cameroons was thus under
British rule from 1858 to 1887, and then from 1915 to 1961, a total period of nearly 80 years. That long British connection left an indelible mark on the territory, bequeathing to it an Anglo-Saxon heritage.
The territory’s official language is English. Its educational, legal, administrative, political, governance and institutional culture and value systems are all English-derived.
International tutelage
The Southern Cameroons was under international tutelage with the status of a class ‘B’ territory, first as a British-Mandated Territory of the League of Nations from 1922-1945, and then as a British-administered
United Nations Trust Territory from 1946 to 1961.
Under Article 22 of the Treaties of Versailles the Mandatory Power accepted and undertook to apply “the principle that the well-being and development of [the inhabitants of the territories concerned] form a sacred
trust of civilization.” At the end of World War II the international mandates system was transmuted to the international trusteeship system under chapters XII and XIII of the UN Charter. By Article 73 of that Charter
the Administering Power “recognize the principle that the interests of the inhabitants of [territories whose peoples have not yet attained a measure of self-government] are paramount, and accept as a sacred trust the
obligation to promote to the utmost, within the system of international peace and security established by the present Charter, the wellbeing of the inhabitants of those territories.” One of the basic objectives of the
international trusteeship system, as stated in Article 76 b of the Charter, is “to promote the political, economic, social, and educational advancement of the inhabitants of the trust territories, and their progressive
development towards self-government or independence as may be appropriate to the particular circumstances of each territory and its peoples and the freely expressed wishes of the peoples concerned, and as may be provided
by the terms of each trusteeship agreement.
Up to 1960, the Southern Cameroons though under international tutelage was administered by Britain as part of her contiguous colonial territory of Nigeria. But its distinct identity and personality, separate from Nigeria,
remained unassailable. UN Resolution 224 (III) of 18 November 1948 protected the Trust Territory from annexation by any colonial-minded neighbour. While acknowledging that the Trusteeship Agreement makes allowance for
‘administrative union’, the Resolution provides that “Such a union must remain strictly administrative in its nature and scope, and its operation must not have the effect of creating any conditions which will obstruct the
separate development of the Trust Territory, in the fields of political, economic, social and educational advancement, as a distinct entity.”
Self-government
In 1954 the Southern Cameroons became a self-governing region within Nigeria and gradually asserted its distinct identity and its aspiration to statehood through increased political and institutional autonomy. In 1958 the
British Government stated at the UN that the Southern Cameroons was expected to achieve in 1960 the objectives set forth in Article 76 b of the UN Charter. Since the Southern Cameroons had already attained self-government
status four years earlier in 1954, the objective to be attained in 1960 could only have been full independence. General Assembly Resolution 1282 (XIII) of 5 December 1958 took note of the British statement. The people of
the Southern Cameroons therefore legitimately expected to be granted full independence in 1960 given that their country had been self-governing since 1954.
Basic self-government institutions were in place: a Government headed by the Premier as Leader of Government business; a bicameral parliament consisting of a House of Assembly and a House of Chiefs; an Official Opposition
in parliament; a Judiciary headed by a Chief Justice; a Civil Service; and a police force. The system in place was a democratic and accountable dispensation; a Westminster-type parliamentary democracy. In 1959 when the term
of office of the incumbent Premier came to an end peaceful free, fair and transparent elections were organized. The opposition won and there was an orderly transfer of power to the in-coming Premier. Consistently with the
parliamentary system of government the out-going Premier became Leader of the Opposition in parliament.
On 1 October 1960 the Southern Cameroons was separated from Nigeria. The Southern Cameroons Constitution Order in Council came into force. By 1960 the Southern Cameroons had attained a full measure of self-government. Indeed,
from 1 October 1960 up to 30 September 1961 it was a full self-governing territory fully responsible for all its internal affairs, except for defense over which matter, along with foreign affairs, Britain continued to exercise
jurisdiction. Quite apart from the fact that the territory had international personality by virtue of its status as an international trust territory, the Southern Cameroons was a state in the process of being born and was known
by the sovereign name of Government of the Southern Cameroons. Its sovereignty was in abeyance waiting to emerge at the moment of its expected independence.
French Cameroun achieves independence as Republique du Cameroun
On 1 January 1960, the contiguous territory of French Cameroun, also a class B trust territory, achieved independence from France, the chronic on-going anarchy and terrorism there notwithstanding. The French had decided that 1960
was to be the year of ‘independence’ for its African colonies. French Cameroun achieved independence under the name and style of Republique du Cameroun with Mr. Ahmadou Ahidjo as its President. It was admitted to membership of the
United Nations on 20 September 1960.
The name ‘Republique du Cameroun’ is variously translated into English as ‘Republic of Cameroun’ or ‘Republic of Cameroon’ or sometimes simply as ‘Cameroon’. However; prudence and clarity dictate that one sticks to the official name
in the language in which it is expressed. Accordingly, for the avoidance of confusion, that country (the Respondent State in this matter) shall, throughout these proceedings be referred to by its official denomination ‘Republique du
Cameroun’ except where the context dictates otherwise.
Plebiscite recommended by UN
On 13 March 1959 the General Assembly adopted Resolution 1350 (XIII) recommending a plebiscite in the Southern Cameroons instead of the granting of independence right away. This was followed by another General Assembly resolution,
1352 (XIV) of 16 October 1959, ordering a plebiscite to be held in the Southern Cameroons “not later than March 1961”. The people of the Southern Cameroons were to pronounce themselves on ‘achieving independence’ by the two dead-end
alternatives of ‘joining’ Nigeria or Republique du Cameroun.
‘We are not annexationists’
In 1959 some perceptive minds in the Trusteeship Council expressed concerns that after attaining independence on 1 January 1960 Republique du Cameroun could try to annex the Southern Cameroons. The Premier of French Cameroun, Mr.
Ahidjo, denied any such intention or the possibility of any such action on the part of independent Republique du Cameroun. At the 849th meeting of the Fourth Committee of the UN, Mr. Ahidjo took the floor and gave the UN the solemn
assurance that Republique du Cameroun is not annexationist. He declared: “We are not annexationists. … If our brothers of the British zone wish to unite with independent Cameroun, we are ready to discuss the matter with them, but we
will do so on a footing of equality.” In June 1960 he told the ‘Agence Presse Camerounaise’: “I have said and repeated, in the name of the Government [of Republique du Cameroun], that we do not have any annexationist design.” In July
the same year he again reassured the international community through the same press: “For us, there can be no question of annexation of the Southern Cameroons. We have envisaged a flexible form of union, a federal form.” Later events
were to show that he took the UN, the international community and the Southern Cameroons for a ride.
Plebiscite process set in motion
On 31 March 1960 the Trusteeship Council adopted Resolution 2013 (XXVI) requesting the UK Government “to take appropriate steps, in consultation with the authorities concerned, to ensure that the people of the Territory are fully
informed, before the plebiscite, of the constitutional arrangements that would have to be made, at the appropriate time, for the implementation of the decisions taken at the plebiscite.”
Resolution 2013 saddled the UK Government with a duty to ascertain from both Nigeria and Republique du Cameroun the terms and conditions under which the Southern Cameroons might be expected to ‘join’ either of them. After making the
ascertainment Britain was duty bound to inform the people of the Southern Cameroons, well before the plebiscite, of the conditions of ‘joining’ offered by each of the two concerned States.
Given the artful dilatoriness of the UK Government on this issue the Southern Cameroons entered into direct talks with Republique du Cameroun. Several rounds of talks were held between August and December 1960. These talks resulted in
an Agreement (expressed in the form of Joint Declarations and Joint Communiqués) signed by Mr. JN Foncha and Mr. Ahmadou Ahidjo, the respective political leaders of the two countries, and published. In the meantime also, in early October
1960, the British Secretary of State for the Colonies held talks in London with a delegation of Southern Cameroons Ministers and members of the Opposition. The aims of the talks included elucidating the meaning of the phrase ‘to achieve
independence by joining Republique du Cameroun’.
The Secretary of State put forward the following interpretation as consistent with the plebiscite alternative of ‘joining’ Republique du Cameroun: “the Southern Cameroons and the Cameroun Republic would unite in a Federal United Cameroon
Republic. The arrangements [for the union] would be worked out after the plebiscite by a conference consisting of representative delegations of equal status from the Republic and the Southern Cameroons. The United Nations and the United
Kingdom would also be associated with this conference.” Both the Southern Cameroons and Republique du Cameroun agreed to this interpretation.
Pre-Plebiscite Agreement
The signed and published Agreement between the Southern Cameroons and Republique du Cameroun provided that in the event of the plebiscite vote going in favour of “achieving independence by joining” Republique du Cameroun, the following
would be the broad terms of the ‘joining’:
The Southern Cameroons and Republique du Cameroun would unite to create a Federal State to be called the ‘Federal United Cameroon Republic’, outside the British
Commonwealth and the French Community;
The component states of the Federation would be the Southern Cameroons and
Republique du Cameroun, legally equal in status;
Each federated state would continue to conduct its affairs consistently with its colonially inherited state-culture, with only a limited number of subject matters conceded to the Union government;
Nationals of the federated states would enjoy Federal Cameroon nationality;
The Federation would have a bicameral Parliament consisting of a Federal Senate and a Federal National Assembly; and federal laws will only be enacted in such a way that no measures contrary to the interests of one state will be imposed
upon it by the majority.
The Agreement also stipulated as follows:
Constitutional arrangements would be worked out after the plebiscite by a post plebiscite conference comprising representative delegations of equal status from the
Southern Cameroons and Republique du Cameroun, in association with the United
Kingdom Government and the United Nations;
The post-plebiscite conference would have as its goal the fixing of time limits and conditions for the transfer of sovereignty powers to an organization representing the future federation;
Those entrusted with the affairs of the united Cameroon would put the would-be federal constitution to the people of the Southern Cameroons and Republique du Cameroun to pronounce themselves on it; and until constitutional arrangements were
worked out, the United Kingdom would continue to fulfill her responsibility under the Trusteeship Agreement regarding the Southern Cameroons.
On December 24, 1960, Republique du Cameroun sent a Note Verbale to the British Government reiterating its commitment to this Agreement and reconfirming its desire for union with the Southern Cameroons “on the basis of a Federation”. The
Agreement between the Southern Cameroons and Republique du Cameroun was made available to the UN and the UK Government. The representations therein contained were reproduced in ‘The Two Alternatives’, a booklet prepared by the United Kingdom
Government, published and widely circulated in the Southern Cameroons in pursuance of Resolution 2013 with a view to informing the Southern Cameroons electorate of the constitutional implications of the alternatives offered in the plebiscite.
Also reproduced in ‘The Two Alternatives’ was the interpretation of the ‘alternative’ of ‘joining’ Republique du Cameroun put forward by the British Secretary of State for the Colonies and concurred with by both the Southern Cameroons
Government and Republique du Cameroun. The booklet was widely used during the plebiscite enlightenment campaigns.
The phrase “to achieve independence by joining Republique du Cameroun” was therefore clearly understood by all concerned (the UN, the UK Government, the Southern Cameroons Government, and the Republique du Cameroun Government) to mean that the
Southern Cameroons would attain independence and then form, on the footing of legal equality, a federal union with Republique du Cameroun under an agreed federal constitution. On 11 February 1961 the UN-supervised limited plebiscite took place
in the Southern Cameroons. The vote was a plebiscite on political status to enable the people of the Southern Cameroons progress from full measure of self-government to national independence. The vote went in favour of achieving independence
‘by joining’ Republique du Cameroun rather than Nigeria.
UN Resolution 1608
Two months after the plebiscite vote, on 21 April 1961, the UN General Assembly adopted Resolution 1608 (XV) to give effect to the intention expressed by the people of the Southern Cameroons at the plebiscite. Republique du Cameroun, through
its Foreign Affairs Minister, Mr. Charles Okala, made a vain vociferous and pathetic protest against the taking of a vote on the independence of the Southern Cameroons and then voted against Resolution 1608. It speaks volumes that the overwhelming
UN vote on the independence of the Southern Cameroons did not go down well with Republique du Cameroun.
In Resolution 1608 (XV) the General Assembly:
Endorsed the results of the plebiscite that “the people of the Southern Cameroons … decided to achieve independence by joining the independent Republic of Cameroun”;
Considered that “the decision made by them through a democratic process under the supervision of the United Nations should be immediately implemented”;
Decided that “the Trusteeship Agreement of 13 December 1946 concerning the
Cameroons under United Kingdom administration … be terminated, in accordance with Article 76 b of the Charter of the United Nations … with respect to the Southern
Cameroons, on 1 October 1961, upon its joining the Republic of Cameroun”; and
Invited “the Administering Authority, the Government of the Southern Cameroons and the Republic of Cameroun to initiate urgent discussions with a view to finalizing before 1 October 1961 the arrangements by which the agreed and declared policies of
the parties concerned will be implemented.”
“The agreed and declared policies of the parties concerned” referred to in the Resolution were the contents of the signed and published pre-plebiscite Agreement between the Southern Cameroons and Republique du Cameroun reproduced in the plebiscite
enlightenment campaign booklet entitled ‘The Two Alternatives’. The said ‘agreed and declared policies’ were not and have never been finalized.
Foumban and the de facto federation
From the 17th to the 21st of July 1961 the Southern Cameroons and Republique du Cameroun held talks in the town of Foumban in Republique du Cameroun with a view to fleshing up the outline of the federal constitution (agreed upon before the plebiscite)
and to finalize the same. The talks ended inconclusively as a result of the duplicitous conduct and manifest bad faith of Republique du Cameroun, aided and abetted in this by the French who would later claim that the Southern Cameroons was “un petit
cadeaux de la reine d’Angleterre” (“a little gift from the English Queen”). The press in Republique du Cameroun has recently revealed that at Foumban Republique du Cameroun, acting in pursuance of a premeditated plan, fraudulently and corruptly deflected
the Southern Cameroons delegation from the serious business at hand and thereby scuttled the Foumban talks. Even the agreement to resume talks at a latter date on the would-be federal constitution was ignored by Republique du Cameroun despite repeated
reminders by the Southern Cameroons.
Without the process of negotiating the terms of the agreed federal union having been completed, without any federal constituent assembly having met, without any draft federal constitution having been established, Republique du Cameroun unilaterally drafted
a document which that country’s Assembly, meeting without any Southern Cameroons participation, enacted into ‘law’ on 1 September 1961 as ‘the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Cameroon’ to enter into force on 1 October 1961. The component states of
the federation were identified as Republique du Cameroun (to be called East Cameroun) and the Southern Cameroons (to be called West Cameroon). Strangely, the long title of the ‘constitution’ characterized the document as a revision of the 1960 Constitution
of Republique du Cameroun necessitated by the need to facilitate the return of a part of the territory of Republique du Cameroun. The document was thus in the nature of an annexation law thinly disguised as a ‘federal constitution’. For, Republique du
Cameroun could not at one and the same breadth be one of two component states of a federation and yet absorb the other component state, the Southern Cameroons. Nor can the legislature of a future component of a yet-to-be federation validly act as the
legislature of that merely contemplated federation.
In September 1961 the Trusteeship regarding the Southern Cameroons had not yet been terminated and Republique du Cameroun has always been a foreign State in regard to the Southern Cameroons. Republique du Cameroun had no jurisdiction whatsoever over the Southern
Cameroons and could thus not validly exercise constituent powers over the territory. Neither the legislature nor the executive of Republique du Cameroun could validly legislate for the contemplated federation. Republique du Cameroun’s unilateral ‘federal
constitution’ was never submitted for endorsement to and was never endorsed by the people or the parliament or the Government of the Southern Cameroons.
The Ebubu and Santa slaughters
In the same month of September 1961 a platoon of Republique du Cameroon soldiers crossed the border into the Southern Cameroons at Ebubu village near Tombel and massacred thirteen CDC workers in cold blood. No explanation or apology was offered by Republique du
Cameroun to the Government of the Southern Cameroons. Further north, in the village of Santa near Bamenda, marauding soldiers from Republique du Cameroun crossed the Southern Cameroons border into the village of Santa near Bamenda, killed a number of people and
destroyed property. They were eventually flushed out by a company of British soldiers. But once again Republique du Cameroun offered neither explanation nor apology for yet another armed violation of the territorial integrity of the Southern Cameroons. In 1962
Mr. Zachariah Abendong MP in the Southern Cameroons parliament was brutally murdered in the vicinity of Kekem in Republique du Cameroun. In the same year a Camerounese gendarme murdered in cold blood two Southern Cameroons youths arbitrarily detained by the very
gendarmes in the Southern Cameroons town of Bota. There was never any inquiry into the circumstances of these murders and the soldiers who carried out those extra-judicial killings were never brought to book.
Onset of the armed occupation of the Southern Cameroons
On 25 September 1961 the British Queen issued a proclamation declaring that the British Government “shall as from the first day of October 1961 cease to be responsible for the administration of the Southern Cameroons.” The British Government then began to withdraw
its personnel from the territory, culminating in the departure of its troops on September 30th 1961. The territory was left defenseless as it had no military force of its own. Republique du Cameroun moved in its military forces without the concurrence of the Government
of the Southern Cameroons. Those forces occupied the territory and have remained in occupation since then, a situation indistinguishable from belligerent occupation. On 1 October 1961 the British Government and the UN washed their hands off the Southern Cameroons,
leaving the political status of the territory and the fate of its people in limbo. The British Government declared that “the Southern Cameroons and its inhabitants were expendable.” (Declassified Secret Files on the Southern Cameroons, P.R.O., London) The attitude
of the UN is all the more surprising when it is recalled that the World Body had drafted constitutions for the Ethiopia/Eritrea federation and also for what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo. On that same day a de facto Cameroon Federation came into existence.
Sovereignty over the Southern Cameroons that had supposedly achieved independence on that day was never handed over to the Government of the Southern Cameroons (which would then have handed it to a legitimate federal government) but apparently to Mr. Ahidjo, President
of Republique du Cameroun, and the self-declared head of a yet-to-be-formed federal government.
Revealing provisions of de facto federal constitution
The ‘Federal Constitution’ unilaterally drafted and enacted by Republique du Cameroun contained some revealing provisions. The President of Republique du Cameroun gave himself absolute powers under Article 50 to rule by decree during the first six months of the federation.
Article 54 made provision for the composition of federal parliamentarians in proportion to the number of inhabitants of each Federated State in the ratio of one parliamentarian to 80,000 inhabitants. The constitution put the population of the Southern Cameroons at 800, 000
and that of Republique du Cameroun at 3, 200, 000, thus yielding 10 parliamentarians for the Southern Cameroons and 40 for Republique du Cameroun, in the Federal National Assembly. This inconsequential ‘representation’ was designed to ensure that the Southern Cameroons
influenced neither legislation nor policy in the federation.
Article 56 enacted that “on 1 October 1961 the Government of the Republic of Southern Cameroon … and the Government of the Republic of Cameroun shall become the Governments of the two Federated States respectively.” Article 59 stated that the French text of the constitution
was the authoritative version. These telling provisions were later expunged from the constitution but without in fact changing the factual situation created by them. Conspicuously absent from the document were certain key matters the Southern Cameroons had insisted on during
pre- and post-plebiscite talks with Republique du Cameroun: robust state autonomy, a constitutional Bill of Rights, a Federal Senate and judicial independence.
However, there was no provision in the document to the effect that the Southern Cameroons and Republique du Cameroun shall be united in one sovereign Republic; no provision to the effect that the federation was ‘one and indivisible’; and no claim that the document represented
consensus ad idem of the Southern Cameroons and Republique du Cameroun. The political authorities of Republique du Cameroun were and remained in the driver’s seat of the de facto federation. Aware that the federation lacked a legally valid founding document and that it had a
mere de facto existence, those authorities never applied for UN membership of the federation and so the federation was never a member of the UN.
Onset of reign of terror in the Southern Cameroons
In his unilateral Federal Constitution the President of Republique du Cameroun declared himself President of the Federation. In early October 1961 he issued a proclamation placing the Southern Cameroons under a state of emergency for six months renewable ad infinitum, a situation
that has more or less remained unchanged to this day. He also issued a decree extending to the Southern Cameroons the pass system in force in Republique du Cameroun. The system required any person intending to travel from one district to another or from one town to another to
obtain a laissez-passer from the military or police authorities and to exhibit the same to those authorities on demand at any checkpoint, under pain of arrest and imprisonment.
Another decree also extended the ‘carte d’identite’ system to the Southern Cameroons. The system requires all persons aged eighteen and above to carry on their person at all times a document called ‘carte d’identite nationale’ and to produce it at any time and place on demand by
the police or military authorities, under pain of arrest and imprisonment. The card contains details about the holder: his names, the names of his father and mother, his date and place of birth, his profession, his place of abode, his thumb print, his signature, and body
identification marks. Other decrees followed notably the 1962 Subversion Ordinance, the 1966 law on press censorship, and the 1967 law proscribing meetings and associations. This latter law effectively outlawed civil society organizations and the formation of political parties.
These laws seriously eroded the civil and political rights the people of the Southern Cameroons were accustomed to enjoying during the period of British colonial rule.
The activities of the sinister Gestapo-modeled secret police in Republique du Cameroun, deceptively named documentation and research centre (first known by the acronym DIRDOC then later SEDOC and finally CND), were extended to the Southern Cameroons together with infamous torture
units called ‘Brigade Mobile Mixtes’ (BMM). These structures tortured or disappeared persons who dared to oppose the political status quo. Among the Southern Cameroonian victims of these structures is Mr. Mukong who miraculously survived twelve years of gruesome detention and torture
and was able, in his book Prisoner Without A Crime, to record in graphic detail for posterity the frightening modus operandi of these outfits.
As early as December 1961 another ordinance extended to the Southern Cameroons the system of civilian-targeted military tribunals existing in Republique du Cameroun, much to the consternation of the people of the territory. A permanent military tribunal was set up in Buea, capital of
the Southern Cameroons. Like those in Republique du Cameroun it was composed of a civilian magistrate and two army officers, citizens of Republique du Cameroun. It had jurisdiction to try civilians for an array of ill-defined offences under the subversion ordinance and other decrees,
such as subversive activities, offences against state security, possession of fire-arms or ammunition, contempt of the President, ridiculing public authority, inciting hatred against the Government, dissemination of false news, and any offence of whatever nature in an area subject to
a state of emergency or other exceptional circumstances (a state of emergency had early been declared over the Southern Cameroons) committed even by civilians.
High profile cases of Southern Cameroonians tried in Buea or Yaoundé (in Republique du Cameroun) include the officer of police, Inspector Ndifor; the 143 Bakossi people arrested in Tombel in 1966; the journalists Martin Yai, J.F Dweller, Martin Che, Peter Etah Oben; and the publisher
SN Tita. In a Cameroon Times publication of February 1970 the journalists expressed the general sentiments of the people of the Southern Cameroons when they observed that the Camerounese forces in the Southern Cameroons were by their conduct indistinguishable from colonial forces of
occupation. The state of emergency provided and continues to provide the ‘legal’ basis for the military forces of Republique du Cameroun to subject the people of the Southern Cameroons to all kinds of abuse, terror and harassment. Taken together, the active enforcement of the state
of emergency, the ubiquity of the ‘force armee et gendarmerie’, the indiscriminate application of the subversion ordinance, and the activities of the military tribunals and the secret police had the effect of unleashing a veritable reign of terror in the Southern Cameroons.
The ‘ratissage’ (cordon and search operation)
A typical method of abuse, torture and other inhuman and degrading treatment is the ‘ratissage’ (or ‘caler-caler’, in the language of those foreign forces). A method of psychological warfare used by the French to enforce their colonial rule in Vietnam, Algeria and French Cameroun,
the ‘ratissage’ is a cordon and search operation, encirclement and dragnet maneuvers, periodically carried out by military forces against the population. This subjugation and terrorization strategy is meant to impress on the people of the Southern Cameroons that they are hopeless,
powerless and that any contemplated resistance to Republique du Cameroun occupation would be futile.
Routinely carried out, the operation followed a fairly standardized pattern. As early as 4 a.m. heavily armed military forces would invade a pre-selected town or village; moving systematically from house to house; breaking in if the occupant hesitated to open at the first command
to do so; moving from street to street, from one locale to another; demanding each person to produce their carte d’identite, ticket d’impot, recepisse, recu, carte du parti, patente, permis de conduire, laissez-passer, carte de sejour, or other ‘pieces’ (documents) the soldiers chose
to ask.
People are forced out of their homes at gunpoint, herded like cattle into an open space, tortured and humiliated. Forms of dehumanization include being forced to sit on wet grass or ground, on mud, on dust, or on dirty water ponds on the roadside, as well as being forced to kneel on
sand, gravel, stones or other road surface facing and looking at the sun. The hapless people are ordered to put their hands on their heads like captured prisoners of war and forced to sing insulting and obscene songs about their spouses and parents, or derogatory songs about God, and
to dance or run around, sometimes naked, to amuse the soldiers. Anyone who failed to comply with any of these commands received the butt of the gun, kicks in the groin, or slaps in the face. As if all this was not enough it was not uncommon for the soldiers involved in this operation
to rape women, steal property, and unlawfully detain people in the ‘commissariat de police’ or ‘brigade de la gendarmerie’ for days and weeks on end without charge.
The confession of a colonialist
Addressing his political party in July 1962, Mr. Ahidjo (self-declared federal President) confessed that Republique du Cameroun had in effect annexed the Southern Cameroons using the ploy of a pretended federation. He said: “The reunification of the Southern Cameroons and Republique du
Cameroun did not necessitate a fundamental change of the constitution of Republique du Cameroun, but only a minor amendment to allow for part of the territory to rejoin the motherland. … It was Republique du Cameroun which had to transform itself into a federation, taking into account
the return to it of a part of its territory, a part possessing certain special characteristics.” There could be no clearer admission of annexation or colonization of the Southern Cameroons by Republique du Cameroun. For, the claim that the territory of the Southern Cameroons was/is a
part of the territory of Republique du Cameroun is an egregious falsehood legally, historically, culturally and politically.
Domination of the people of the Southern Cameroons
The de facto Cameroon Federation lasted a mere ten years. During those years the people of Republique du Cameroun systematically increased their domination of the people of Southern Cameroons. This domination manifested itself in several ways:
The Federal Government was essentially a Republique du Cameroun monopoly.
The Southern Cameroons had only a small and token presence in all the three branches of government, executive, legislative, judicial and therefore could not take or influence any policy decision;
The military and police have always been entirely French in training and language and have always been a Republique du Cameroun institution;
Mr. Ahidjo, President of Republique du Cameroun and the self-appointed federal President carved the federation into six administrative regions, each headed by an ‘Inspecteur federal d’administration’ native of Republique du Cameroun, along the ‘constitutionally’ established two constituent
federated states, each headed by a Prime Minister. The Southern Cameroons was decreed an administrative region. Taxonomically this meant it was concurrently a federated state (self-governing) and an administrative region (under Republique du Cameroun tutelage, for the ‘Inspecteur’ was always
a citizen of Republique du Cameroun appointed by Ahidjo and directly answerable to him; and his office was deemed to be super ordinate to that of the Prime Minister of the Southern Cameroons). Ahidjo thus created an administrative system that basically ignored the underlying principle of
federalism. He did this to keep up the fiction that the Southern Cameroons was indeed part of the territory of Republique du Cameroun; Ahidjo gnawed into such powers as the Southern Cameroons had and basically deprived it of revenue-raising powers, thus making it dependent on federal subsidies
grudgingly and erratically allocated. The Southern Cameroons Prime Minister deplored this system of ad hoc subsidies and wondered aloud how a state could develop by itself according to its priorities if it cannot know how much revenue it has at its disposal.
Ahidjo arrogated to himself the power to appoint and dismiss the Prime Minister and Ministers of the Government of the Southern Cameroons notwithstanding the fact that the state operated a parliamentary system of government. The Southern Cameroons was ordered to switch over from left to right
hand driving. The unit of money in the Southern Cameroons had all along been the pound. In 1962 it was abolished. The franc CFA in use in Republique du Cameroun was over-valued in relation to the pound and then extended to the Southern Cameroons with disastrous consequences for the Southern
Cameroons Government and for individuals who had savings.
In 1966 Ahidjo, a consummate manipulator, deceitfully manoeuvered the political parties in the Southern Cameroons and decreed a one-party state, thereby ending multiparty politics in the Southern Cameroons. The stranglehold of Republique du Cameroun over the Southern Cameroons was now virtually
complete. Republique du Cameroun also set about destroying the economic base of the Southern Cameroons. Bananas, exported to Britain under Commonwealth preference tariffs, were a major source of income for the Southern Cameroons Government. By bringing the Southern Cameroons economy within the
customs arrangement of what is in effect still French Equatorial Africa the preferential tariffs were ended. The French preferred to buy bananas from French-owned companies in Republique du Cameroun. The Southern Cameroons could not therefore sell its bananas and suffered a heavy loss of revenue.
The Southern Cameroons’ main agro-industry, the Cameroons Development Corporation (CDC), and private banana farmers abandoned banana farming.
Southern Cameroons’ seaports, Victoria and Tiko were teeming with activities. Victoria was a vibrant commercial city with thriving firms such as John Holt Ltd, Cadbury and Fry, Unilever, UCTC, CCC, and Britind Company Ltd. Kumba district produces abundant foodstuff of various variety, timber,
cocoa and coffee.
In order to induce a dependency syndrome in the Southern Cameroons, Republique du Cameroun constructed from Douala, its main and dredging port, a road linking it to Victoria and a narrow gauge rail line linking the same city to Kumba. The Victoria and Tiko seaports were then decreed closed. The
commercial companies were then forced to relocate to Douala. People now had to travel 80 km all the way to Douala for shopping. Cash crop and food produce harvested from Kumba were henceforth being taken to Douala. A vivid account of the economic strangulation and ruination of the Southern Cameroons
is given in J. Banjamin, Les Camerounais Occidentaux.
The de facto federation was thus not conceived to operate and did not operate in a manner fully consistent with the aspirations of the people of the Southern Cameroons. Republique du Cameroun frustrated the freely expressed wishes of the people of the Southern Cameroons to independence. It set
in motion the process of forcing the people of the Southern Cameroons into Republique du Cameroun mould in a hopeless homogenizing quest designed to result in the complete extinguishment of the separate and distinct identity of the people of the Southern Cameroons.
Early protests to no avail
Resistance by the political elite of the Southern Cameroons to absolutism and “la francisation imposer” (‘imposed Gallic assimilation’) was met with high-handed treatment. For standing up to Republique du Cameroun’s expansionist agenda Prime Minister AN Jua was labeled ‘un autonomiste avant tout’ (‘a
die-hard autonomist’) and dismissed by Ahidjo. Jua would later die in circumstances, which remain suspicious. When Foncha reminded Ahidjo that there was no valid union accord or treaty between the Southern Cameroons and Republique du Cameroun and that it was high time such an accord is concluded between
the two parties, he was shabbily treated and dismissed from his decorative office of Vice President. Dr Fonlon called for an equal quota of cabinet ministers in the Federal Government. He called for the establishment of a Federal Senate with equal representation for the Southern Cameroons and Republique
du Cameroun. He called for meaningful representation for the Southern Cameroons in the Federal Assembly so as to put the Southern Cameroons in a position to influence policies and law making. He called for Southern Cameroons autonomy to enable it to effectively govern itself. He called for an end to the
treatment of the Southern Cameroons as a dependency of Republique du Cameroun. Fonlon was summarily dismissed from his ministerial job. Nzo Ekhah-Nghaky was also labeled an ‘autonomiste’ and was also sacked from his ministerial job.
From the federal period to this day nationals of the Southern Cameroons are appointed, if at all, as a matter of grace, and then to subordinate positions as assistants or deputies to nationals of Republique du Cameroun. Moreover, key ministries (‘ministeres de souverainete’) and offices are, as a matter of
policy, out of bounds to nationals of the Southern Cameroons. These include the republican presidency, secretary general at the presidency, the commander of the armed forces, director-general of the oil industry, the ministry of finance, the ministry of defense, the ministry of the interior, the ministry of
foreign affairs, the ministry of education, the ministry of information and culture, the ministry of economic and industrial development, and ambassadorship to Nigeria, France, Britain, United States and the United Nations.
Unchecked powers conferred on Camerounese pro-consuls
Instead of loosening the stranglehold of Republique du Cameroun over the Southern Cameroons, Ahidjo moved to further strengthen ‘l’administration territoriale’ by giving increased powers to the ‘Inspecteurs feverous d’administration’ (later renamed ‘gouverneurs’) and to the ‘prefets’ in the Napoleon-style
prefect system he had imposed in the Southern Cameroons. They were given absolute and unchecked powers within their administrative areas, including the power to torture, to detain indefinitely, to confiscate property, to control the movement of persons and goods, to censor the press, and to disperse any
assembly, prohibit any meeting, and disband any association. The ‘gouverneur’ and ‘prefet’ continue to exercise these arbitrary powers to this day, unchecked by law or morality.
In 1966 Ahidjo resolved to Balkanize the Southern Cameroons and to fuse the areas thus cut up into contiguous regions in Republique du Cameroun. The objective was to procure the complete extinguishment of the Southern Cameroons both as a political and as a unitary territorial unit. Somehow a Southern
Cameroons journalist, Mr. Emmanuel Epie, got wind of the plan and published the story in the ‘Cameroon Mirror’. The Prime Minister and people of the Southern Cameroons were furious. The Government of the Southern Cameroons issued a press statement stating that such a move would be completely unacceptable.
Ahidjo quickly denied any plans to absorb the Southern Cameroons into Republique du Cameroun.
The Tombel pogrom
In Republique du Cameroun, an insurgency group (variously referred to as ‘les maquisards’, ‘les terroristes’ or ‘la rebellion’) operating since the 1950s had been fighting the French colonial authorities and later the Ahidjo government, in that country. In December 1966, shortly
before Christmas, some members of the terrorist group, natives of the Bamileke tribe, crossed the border into the Southern Cameroons and killed four Bakossi villagers in Tombel for no apparent reason. The Bakossi vented their anger on resident Bamileke tribesmen. (These were among thousands of refugees fleeing
relentless repression in their native Republique du Cameroun, and who had sought asylum in the safety of the Southern Cameroons and were given sanctuary in Bamenda, Kumba, Tiko, Tombel and Victoria as migrants.) The Bakossi retaliation resulted in two or three casualties and the destruction of some property.
A civilized government would have called for calm, given police protection to the two communities, established a commission of inquiry, and arrested and prosecuted the culprits. The Yaoundé regime chose to act otherwise.
Ahidjo ordered in his troops and a barbaric act of collective revenge was exacted against the Bakossi people. West Africa Magazine of May 1967 records that 236 Bakossi men, women and children were massacred and Tombel town destroyed. Another 143 Bakossi people were abducted and transported to Yaoundé under inhuman
conditions. They were tried by the Yaoundé military tribunal in a language and under a law they did not comprehend. The charge was subversion. Of the 143 people 17 were sentenced to death and executed by firing squad; 75 were given life sentences in various gendarmerie-run detention camps (in effect to slow death
given the cruel conditions of detainees in those camps); two were sentenced to years imprisonment each; 4 were given a two years’ jail term each; 1 person died during the trial; and 36 persons were discharged. In all about 330 Bakossi people perished at the hands of the Yaoundé authorities. Every Bakossi family
either lost a family member or was affected as a result of the pogrom.
The pretended 1972 ‘referendum’
Given all these events, between 1966 and 1971 there were persistent rumours of the collapse of the de facto Cameroon federation. The 1971 security report from the Southern Cameroons to Ahidjo informed him of the general openly expressed resentment in the Southern Cameroons that the state was being treated as a colony
of Republique du Cameroun and that the Southern Cameroons would be justified in proclaiming its separate independence. The security report also informed Ahidjo that leading Southern Cameroons politicians held a four-day meeting in Kumba during which they decided to form an opposition Christian Democratic Party with
the blessing of the Catholic Church. In early 1972 Ahidjo poured in more troops in the Southern Cameroons to obviate the danger of a generalized revolt. The troops were ordered to systematically terrorize the population as a form of psychological warfare. All movements of key Southern Cameroons politicians were closely
monitored round the clock. Ahidjo then conspired with Paul Biya (incumbent President of Republique du Cameroun since 1982), Charles Onana Awana, Moussa Yaya Sarkifada and Francois Sengat Kuo, all of them citizens of Republique du Cameroun to end the de facto federation and to formally annex the Southern Cameroons to
Republique du Cameroun. This was yet another chapter in the game of constant duplicity and scheming by Republique du Cameroun.
On May 6 1972 Ahidjo mounted the rostrum of the Federal National Assembly and in a periphrastic speech declared to a nonplussed audience: “J’ai decide de mettre fin a la Federation.” (‘I have decided to end the federation’). Then, incongruously, he said he would ‘consult’ the ‘people’ by
referendum two weeks later, on May 20th. It was the people of the Southern Cameroons alone who had voted at the plebiscite. It was they who were going to lose their self-government. One would therefore have thought that Ahidjo would confine his ‘referendum’ to the people of the Southern Cameroons to indicate whether
they wished a detrimental change in their political status. But Ahidjo chose to make his ‘referendum’ a general affair. The ploy was an insurance cover to make sure that even if the people of the Southern Cameroons were to vote ‘no’ that vote was going to be overwhelmed by the crude majoritarian ‘yes’ vote of the people
of Republique du Cameroun who had all along nursed the ambition to absorb the people of the Southern Cameroons.
In any event, throughout his despotic rule Ahidjo’s word was the law and so even as he spoke on that day no one had any illusions about the result of the so-called referendum. In view of the fact that the result of the so-called referendum was a foregone conclusion and that the formal annexation of the Southern Cameroons
would in fact already have been accomplished by the time of the ‘referendum’, the said ‘referendum’ could have been no more than a gimmick for the benefit of the international community. Ahidjo’s speech in effect amounted to a decree sacking the Government of the Southern Cameroons and the overthrow of the federal
government. Ministers and MPs simply packed their personal belongings and scampered away in fright. Neither parliament in the Southern Cameroons nor the federal assembly dared to resume sitting in order to debate Ahidjo’s speech or to dispose of any pending business or to formally dissolve. Ahidjo would later boast that
he had carried out ‘une revolution’. Since the de facto federation was declared ended it was doubtful what entity Ahidjo was President of.
Ahidjo and his confederates secretly drafted a constitution and had it secretly typed by Ahidjo’s tribesman, Ousmane Mey. The French law Professor, Maurice Duverger, was then fetched from Paris to review the document. The political leadership of the Southern Cameroons was not even informed of what was going on. There was
not even the pretence of a public debate on that document. Before ‘voting’ day on May 20th the generality of the people had not even seen less still studied the contents of that document. Yet the long-windy referendum question asked people whether they approved of his unitary constitution instituting what he called ‘la
republique unie du Cameroun’. In a well-choreographed exercise, including ‘motions of support’ usually generated by the Camerounese presidency and ministry of internal affairs (the ministry responsible for organizing ‘elections’ and fixing their results), Ahidjo claimed a 99.999% approval of his coup. Taken completely
unawares, the Southern Cameroons was unable to come up with a response, dismissing the exercise as a charade, saying the choice was between ‘oui’ and ‘yes’.
Destruction and plunder of the Southern Cameroons
Ahidjo gave himself ‘les pleins pouvoirs’ (unlimited powers) for six months to rule as he saw fit. He formally instituted the imperial presidentialism that exists in Republique du Cameroun to this day. In his ‘constitution’ of 2 June 1972 he officially annexed the Southern Cameroons to Republique du Cameroun. He then
embarked on a process of systematically dismantling the political and economic institutions of the Southern Cameroons, plundering its natural resources and under-developing the territory. ! The Southern Cameroons was cut up into two provinces, which have since continued to be administered from Republique du Cameroun
through a hierarchy of colonial-type district commissioners known as ‘sous-prefets’, ‘profits’, ‘governors’’, and ‘commandants des legions’ from Republique du Cameroun as dependencies of that country. These Republique du Cameroun proconsuls, together with the military exercise the amplest of authority over the territory,
operating in a language and apply an administrative system alien to the Southern Cameroons.
Policing in the territory is essentially carried out by the military. Military road checkpoints were instituted every six or seven kilometers. For instance, today from the border at the Mungo River to Buea, a distance of less than thirty kilometers there are six checkpoints. Museum pieces and archival records, including
files in the Southern Cameroons Public Service Commission were either vandalized or carted to Yaoundé where they were subsequently burnt. The schools calendar in the Southern Cameroons was aligned to that in Republique du Cameroun. Teacher training colleges in the Southern Cameroons were closed down, primary education
under-funded and secondary education under constant threat of adulteration. American educational programmes such as ASPAU and AFGRAD provided scholarship to deserving Southern Cameroons students to enable them study in the USA. Republique du Cameroun requested the US to discontinue these programmes. Also requested to be
discontinued was aid provided to Southern Cameroons communities through USAID and British Technical Assistance. The system of local government and community development in the Southern Cameroons was destroyed.
The ruthless exploitation of natural resources in the Southern Cameroons such as oil and gas, timber, rubber and palms has continued without any benefit accruing to the Southern Cameroons or its people. Since the abolition of the Southern Cameroons Government there has been little development in the territory. Virtually all
the public structures and facilities in the Southern Cameroons were built in the days of the Germans, British or the Southern Cameroons Government. There are no modern facilities and not even a single three star hotel in the territory. Roads constructed when the British were in charge and also at the time of the Government
of the Southern Cameroons have been allowed to dilapidate for lack of maintenance. A few patches of tarred roads exist here and there, all totaling no more than 150 kilometres. These small stretches of tarred roads have however been done to serve the economic, commercial and security interests of Republique du Cameroun. As
a general rule the Southern Cameroons is a territory where ‘roads’ are no more than dusty/muddy dirt tracks. It takes a robust truck a whole day to do a distance of 60 or 100 km. In many places trekking and head load are still the order of the day. Many areas are unreachable by road or air. Oil comes from Ndian district. But
it has no roads or other infrastructure. In fact the only access to almost all the Southern Cameroons communities along the border with Nigeria are accessible only from Nigeria and many of those communities have access only to Nigerian educational and health facilitates, and use the Nigerian currency in commercial activities.
The Southern Cameroons is purposefully isolated from the rest of the world physically (lack of roads and reliable telecommunication network) and in international relations. The Southern Cameroons cannot enter into any relations of any kind whether with states or non –state entities. It lacks locus standi before the ICJ to
challenge the colonial status imposed on it by Republique du Cameroun. Over the years financial and other establishments set up by the Government of the Southern Cameroons as well as private businesses by Southern Cameroons businessmen have all been purposefully and systematically snuffed out: the Development Agency was
destroyed; the Cameroons Bank (CAMBANK) was moved to Republique du Cameroun, looted and then closed down; the Marketing Board was looted and its financial reserves of over 78 billion cfa francs (approx. USD160 million) misappropriated with impunity; the Electricity Corporation (POWERCAM) was closed down, its assets
confiscated and the hydro-electricity installations in the territory demolished; the Cameroons Timber Company based in Muyuka was closed down and its assets confiscated; Fomenky’s Direct Supplies company, Nixa Automobile company, Nangah company, Kilo Brothers company, Union Profess in Kumba, and Che company were
ordered to relocate in Republique du Cameroun and then were deliberately starved of credit and squeezed out; agro-industrial establishments such as Santa Coffee Estate, Obang Farm Settlement, and Wum Area Development Authority were maliciously closed down; also maliciously closed down were Cameroons Air Transport
(CAT), the Tiko International Airport, the Besongabang Airport, the Bali Airport, the Weh Airstrip, the Victoria deep sea port, the Tiko sea port, the Ndian sea port, and the Mamfe inland port on the Cross River Republique du Cameroun has contrived to grab Southern Cameroon’s only surviving industry, the Cameroons
Development Corporation (CDC), under the thin disguise of privatization. This move has in effect dashed the legitimate expectations of the indigenous owners of the land occupied by the CDC to eventual recover their ancestral lands.
Although oil and gas come from the Southern Cameroons no oil storage facility has been constructed in the territory. Refined petroleum product is taken from the refinery at Victoria by tankers to Republique du Cameroun and from there a little quantity is then brought back to the Southern Cameroons for retail sale at prices
higher than in Republique du Cameroun. All oil revenues go directly to Republique du Cameroun. In fact the oil business is considered a presidential preserve and a secret, and is managed like the private property of the President of Republique du Cameroun. By and large citizens of the Southern Cameroons are not allowed
access to this industry, especially access to key and strategic positions. Foreign investors intending to invest in the Southern Cameroons have always been coerced to invest in Republique du Cameroun instead. For example, the oil company PECTEN and the breweries, GUINNESS and ISENBECK, wanted to set up shop in the Southern
Cameroons but were pressurized to locate in Republique du Cameroun. Official speeches, texts and documents are exclusively in French, with occasional translations, if at all; and often later, care being taken to mention that the French text remains the authoritative version. It is thus not possible to argue a case, make a
political or other point, or claim a right or privilege on the authority of the English version of any document, be it the ‘constitution’.
The Southern Cameroons has a separate and distinct legal system (Common Law system). But it is denied a legislature or other institutional framework to make laws for the peace order and good government of the territory. Nor is there any framework for amending, reforming or updating the body of laws received from Britain.
Republique du Cameroun has always, as in other areas, dominated and controlled the law-making process. It has therefore been applying its invidious policy of systematically repealing the English-derived laws in force in the Southern Cameroons and extending its French derived laws to the territory. The Justice Ministry of
Republique du Cameroun is on record (through its one time Minister Mr. Ngongang Ouandji) as saying the English legal system is no legal system at all.
The most recent example of the extension of French-derived laws to the Southern Cameroons is the imposition on the Southern Cameroons of the French-law inspired ‘Organisation pour l’Harmonisation du Droit des Affaires en Afrique’ (OHANDA) setting the legal framework for the conduct of business in French-speaking African States.
The ‘OHANDA law’ was imposed on the Southern Cameroons even though it is entirely French law derived and even though the official language of the organization is clearly stated to be French. The imposition of that piece of civil law legislation has entailed the repeal of the Companies Act 1948 until now in force in the Southern
Cameroons. It has not been possible to challenge in court this long train of illegalities because Republique du Cameroun has always been under despotic rule. Moreover, that country has never had any credible legal framework within which to seek and obtain redress. It has no credible system of judicial review. It has not properly
incorporated any human rights treaties into its domestic law. It has no constitutional bill of rights. It has never had an independent judiciary. Not long after the de facto federation was ended in 1972, various Southern Cameroons groups began to emerge at home and abroad challenging what was euphemistically referred to as the
‘marginalization’ of the Southern Cameroons, meaning the annexation or colonization of the Southern Cameroons. Students’ groups, cultural groups and individual politicians addressed petitions to the Yaoundé regime to no avail.
The official restoration of the identity of ‘Republique du Cameroun’ and confirmation of the formal colonization of the Southern Cameroons
In February 1984, Mr. Paul Biya (another citizen of Republique du Cameroun who had been picked by Ahidjo and handed the Presidency in 1982) discarded Ahidjo’s ‘republique unie du Cameroun’ contraption. He signed a law formally reverting to the denomination and identity ‘Republique du Cameroun’. That denomination had officially not
been in use since 1 October 1961. That law by Biya also confirmed the formal colonization of the Southern Cameroons. The Constitution of Republique du Cameroun provides in article 1 that “The united republic of Cameroun shall … be denominated Republique du Cameroun.” The Southern Cameroons is nowhere mentioned throughout the
Constitution. English is a language Republique du Cameroun has merely ‘adopted’ as being of the same value as French its actual official language.
Notice on the eventual restoration of the independence and statehood of the Southern Cameroons
The response from Southern Cameroonians was swift. Fon Gorji Dinka, Barrister-at-Law, of Lincoln’s Inn, published a pamphlet called The New Social Order. The booklet detailed the illegalities Republique du Cameroun has been guilty of since 1961and pointed out that no valid constitutional or other legal basis exists either for the
association of the two former trust territories or for the assumption by Republique du Cameroun of jurisdiction over the Southern Cameroons. It informed that the Southern Cameroons shall never accept colonial rule, be it Black. It advised the Yaoundé Government that if Republique du Cameroun desired to associate with the Southern
Cameroons then the two countries had to fully agree on the terms of such association. It argued that the formal revival of Republique du Cameroun ipso jure entailed the formal revival of the Southern Cameroons as well. Barrister Dinka cautioned that if Republique du Cameroun continued to turn a deaf ear; the Southern Cameroons
shall be left with no other option than to proclaim its separate independence under the name and style of ‘Republic of Ambazonia’ to avoid any confusion between the former British-administered UN Trust Territory of the Southern Cameroons with the southern province or region of Republic du Cameroun. Barrister Dinka was immediately
arrested, held in solitary confinement, then transferred to the dreaded BMM, put through the motion of a trial by a military tribunal, and then placed under house arrest from where he managed to escape abroad and still lives in exile in Europe to this day.
Continuing revolt
Throughout the 1980s the people of the Southern Cameroons, as individuals or as groups, continued to revolt against what was now openly characterized as annexation by Republique du Cameroun. The revolts, especially by parents and school children from primary to University level, intensified when Biya decreed the abolition of the General
Certificate of Education (GCE) examination and thus the English-based educational system in the Southern Cameroons, and substituted for it the French educational and exam system. This was a recipe for disaster for the future of the children of the Southern Cameroons.
Republique du Cameroun had already destroyed the Ombe Trade Centre, a leading technical college established in 1954, and imposed the French technical education system in the Southern Cameroons. The result of this imposition continues to be an unmitigated disaster for Southern Cameroons children opting for technical education. The technical
colleges in the Southern Cameroons are now a mongrel institution. The contents of the courses and the standard of achievement do not meet the technical education requirements in technical colleges in France or in England. Teachers in technical schools are mainly citizens of Republique du Cameroun. They have no mastery of technical English
or of the English language. Examinations are set in French and translated into incomprehensible language. Year in year out the failure rate is in the region of 90%. This is the same failure rate experienced by students from the Southern Cameroons studying in Yaoundé University. More often than not they were made to study and write their
exams in French. At first they were made to spend a period of time studying French before proceeding to enroll for the discipline of their choice. The policy was developed whereby courses taught in French were made core subjects and those in English mere electives. This was designed to ensure that a student, citizen of Republique du
Cameroun could ignore courses taught in English, concentrate only on the courses n French and still pass his exams; while the student who is a citizen of the Southern Cameroons could not possibly pass if he did not concentrate on the subjects in French.
The situation was compounded for the Southern Cameroons student by the fact that as a matter of policy there was no eagerness on the part of the authorities to recruit Southern Cameroons lecturers. Those that were recruited had to submit their degrees obtained from England, USA, Nigeria or other English-speaking country to the Ministry of
Education for an equivalent rating by Camerounese bureaucrats with French educational system degrees being taken as the yardstick. The equivalent rating system applies only in respect of Anglo-Saxon degrees and more often than not those degrees are under-rated. For Southern Cameroons students, studying in Yaoundé University was a big gamble.
The educational difficulties confronting Southern Cameroons children drove thousands to Nigeria, the US and the UK to pursue their studies. They led to an intense long-drawn struggle with the Yaoundé regime for the establishment of a University in the Southern Cameroons to serve the needs of Southern Cameroons children. A University was
eventually established in Buea in 1993 with financial contributions by the people of the Southern Cameroons themselves. The Yaoundé Government has persevered in its policy of under-funding that University.
The Lake Nyos mass deaths
On 21 August 1986 more than 3,000 people and an untold number of livestock and other animals in the vicinity of Lake Nyos perished from inhaling a gas later identified as a mixture of carbon dioxide and hydrogen sulphide. The official line of the Yaoundé regime is that the gas was a gigantic bubble, which had collected below the bed of the
lake and exploded on the night of the fateful day. Many discount this official version saying that the gas was in fact a chemical weapon of mass destruction being tested at night by a foreign power with the complicity of the Yaoundé regime; all the more so as on the day in question masked military personnel of the power in question were
already at the site with scientific and medical equipment. According to this version the remoteness of Nyos with not even a dirt road or other means of communication and the Government attitude that the hapless villagers were expendable made it an ideal testing site.
The Nyos gas killed humans and animals instantly on contact but did not affect the vegetation. No commission of inquiry was ever set up to look into what really happened at Nyos. Scientists, local and foreign held a scientific forum in Yaoundé to determine scientifically the nature and origin of the Lake Nyos gas. After days of work the
scientists could not agree on a theory and the meeting ended inconclusively. Meanwhile, aid (including money) from relief agencies and donors intended for villagers of adjoining villages who had to flee when news of the disaster spread, was plundered in Yaoundé. Only a trickle reached the intended persons. Speaking for the Yaoundé regime,
its interior minister Mr. Mengueme said that those unfortunate people were too primitive to make good use of the aid destined for them. To this day the Nyos victims remain abandoned to their fate. No commission of inquiry was ever set up to investigate the widespread diversion of relief aid by government officials.
The butchery and maiming in Bamenda
By 1989 the choices facing the people of the Southern Cameroons to recover their dignity and self-worth as a sovereign people were limited: a general revolt with the likelihood of a bloody suppression; a war of national liberation entailing a central leadership and a war effort; or defiance of the ban on the formation of political parties
and create a political party to unite the people politically and fight for the peaceful decolonization of the land. The choice fell on the third option and this led to the emergence of the Social Democratic Front (SDF) political party in Bamenda in May 1990. Republique du Cameroun moved an entire battalion of its troops into the city of
Bamenda with a mission to forcibly prevent the launching of the party. On the day of the launch the soldiers shot and killed six people and seriously wounded scores of others. In other parts of the Southern Cameroons several arrests were made and at the University of Yaoundé Southern Cameroons students were rounded up, put through the third
degree, detained and afterwards released. The Yaoundé regime then went on television and told the world a fat lie that those who died or suffered injuries were trampled upon by the crowd at the launch, that those who took part at the launch were Biafrans and not ‘peace loving Camerounians’, and that the leader of the political party, Mr.
Jon Fru Ndi was himself a Biafran who had since fled to Nigeria.
The SDF survived the launch and thanks to external pressure the Yaoundé regime was forced to accept the advent of multi-party politics. In October 1992 the SDF leader contested the presidential elections in Republique du Cameroun and, according to well-informed and dependable sources, won. Mr. Biya stole the victory with the complicity of
the Yaoundé Supreme Court. There were angry demonstrations throughout the Southern Cameroons. Mr. Biya responded once more by a show of military force. More troops were again moved into the Southern Cameroons and a state of emergency was once more imposed on the whole Bamenda area. From Victoria to Bamenda grenades and life bullets were used
against peaceful protesters. Scores of people were killed, maimed or otherwise wounded. John Fru Ndi’s compound, with his family and supporters inside was under military siege for two months with the avowed aim of starving the occupants to death. The local population devised various ingenious methods by which they were able to smuggle food
to the besieged people. They also worked out an ingenious way by which Fru Ndi was able to communicate with the outside world. The siege was only ended following the intervention of Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa, who traveled to Bamenda to secure Fru Ndi’s release.
Even after the end of the siege the military proceeded to arrest key SDF officials, including Mr. Justice Nyo Wakai, a retired Supreme Court Judge and Chief Justice. He was abused and humiliated in front of his wife and children. The persons arrested, more than a hundred of them, men and women, were first taken to the BMM torture centre. After
days of being held incommunicado they were abducted under cover of darkness and under inhuman conditions to Yaoundé where they were imprisoned for weeks. Mr. Biya then constituted what was called a ‘State Security Tribunal’ made up of military officers to try the detainees. As protest intensified in Bamenda the Yaoundé regime announced it was
releasing the detainees ‘sous caution’ and that it was lifting the state of emergency in Bamenda. (Culled from a deposition to the African Human Rights Commission by Professor Carlson Anyangwe, distinguished Law Professor).
Comprehensive On the Yaoundé Government CARNAGE in the UB Recent Students Strike.
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