SCPC – What is the common purpose if not independence?

Since Ambazonia News reported the SCPC raised the five initial questions for the groups on the list of participants, two of the signatories of the AAC2023 letter have made it clear they are not in with the current SCPC’s use of that document in the present context. They particularly object and are uneasy about the role of the NGO which is believed to be behind the organisation of the SCPC but seems to keep their name out, and have previously claimed to be neutral, in the Ambazonian Liberation Struggle, at the same time as letting it be said that they are Ambazonian!

In this post Ambazonia News explores the second question which is about the absence of the word “independence” from the SCPC publicity materials on the website. Coincidentally that raises questions about the “neutral” posture mentioned in the last paragraph. In any case Ambazonia News believes the tone and content of the SCPC should belong to the entire organising committee and therefore it is up to them to ensure the publicity material and information all meet their needs.

Common sense would have it that any entities embarking on “creating and demonstrating unity of purpose” in the Ambazonian Liberation Struggle could safely assume that every entity would be for independence. Indeed it would not be an assumption as that was the main established stance in Canada. It, therefore, seems odd that the SCPC is making a concession on Ambazonian aspirations well before La République du Cameroun even enters the scene. Of course it cannot be excluded that this is just an oversight but that would be a big one. Ambazonia News expects that most participating movements or entities would pick up on such details as they tend to build up and before they realise it they have signed up to a watered down project even before La République du Cameroun turns up, if they do!

It goes without saying that what they line up to, be it the publicity of the conference or any resolutions defines their positions for posterity so the organising committee must consider their integrity and ensure that if the conference holds, that it is value for Ambazonia. It would be tragic for any members to cobble together a compromise agenda even before the conference, never mind that the conference itself is several years from any possible negotiations with La République du Cameroun.

Ambazonians need to be confident in the righteousness of their cause and proud to display it openly. The international community does not own our rights and cannot “award” us what we are not confident enough to fund, fight and free our homeland to attain.

The Most High God remains the Watchman of our nation and will guide those taking part with clarity of thought and integrity.

Find Ambazonia News’ introductory comment on the SCPC here

Or Ambazonia News’ look at the opportunity cost of the conference here.

Your comments are welcome.

SCPC Canada – Who pays and is that value for money for the Ambazonian Liberation Struggle?

Ambazonia News is looking at the logic of the unfortunately named Southern Cameroons People’s Conference slated for the first week of October 2023 in Canada.

The first concern is the value of the fares. The website states that there is going to provision for seats at the table for representations from G0, G1 and G2.

One of the first questions raised by Ambazonia News was the source of the funds for fares and costs for the delegates to attend the conference.

Admittedly, the cost is not everything but it has to be clear that the objectives of the conference can be achieved by deploying Ambazonian resources in that way, for at the moment, Ambazonian disposable resources are mainly the financial and material sacrifices that Ambazonians are able to make. So even the delegates paying for themselves are logically deploying those Ambazonian resources.

In that view, it is fair to question whether paying to attend for a week in a conference in Canada will be the best option for the Diaspora’s Complementary Commitment.

There are at least two reasons why it is not.

The first is that La République du Cameroun is not compelled to alter her stance whatever the conference decides. Even if the conference “demonstrates a unity of purpose”, a concept which Ambazonia News does not feel needs to be demonstrated, nor can we identify who it should be demonstrated to, it would not induce La République du Cameroun to make any concessions, never mind moving an inch towards the Ambazonian “purpose”. It is counter-intuitive that having gone to the trouble of committing war-crimes, genocide and diplomatic faux pas just to stop anyone mentioning federation, then La République du Cameroun would tremble at the resolutions of the SCPC. The reality is that La République du Cameroun has been trying to out-wait Ambazonians in the hope that the Liberation Struggle would lose momentum and dissipate. In that case, they [La République du Cameroun] would achieve their objectives quite nicely, thank you. They may not, and would not say so, but everything points to this strategy – and they insisted in Canada that they preferred to treat the “negotiation” as an “internal dialogue” before then disowning it publicly. The effect of those actions was that many “peace-seeking Southern Cameroonians” emerged onto the scene with the plausible “too much suffering argument”. At first, they dangled the idea of a referendum, even though it quickly emerged that a referendum would only happen if La République du Cameroun requested it, even if and only if they felt they could not longer tolerate/afford the war! The logic of this was that La République du Cameroun would need to be pushed to the point of not being able to continue the war – ie, deploying Ambazonian resources towards G0, rather than on diaspora conference/meeting expenses. As any reasonable Ambazonian would expect to win a referendum, it was a nifty way to divert resources. The question now for any SCPC participant is to establish for themselves whether their attendance in Canada in October, even if it managed to establish a “unity of purpose” would advance the Liberation Struggle any. Is that the best way of spending their resources, even if they are “sponsored”? Why don’t the sponsors sponsor action instead until La République du Cameroun is unable to tolerate the cost of the war?
In one of the Southern Cameroons Stake-holder presentations a certain expert explained that the international community would not intervene with La République du Cameroun until they judged that both La République du Cameroun and Ambazonia had reached a Mutually Harmful Stalemate – that is a state where neither party could tolerate the cost of the struggle, where both would be more likely to negotiate and compromise. This removes the idea that “demonstrating a unity of purpose”, Ambazonia News imagines, to the nebulous “international community” would push said “international community to apply any pressure on La République du Cameroun, even if they can see that La République du Cameroun is not at the Mutually Harmful Stalemate! The logic here points to deploying Ambazonian resources towards reaching the Mutually Harmful Stalemate for La République du Cameroun as a better option.

Ambazonia News thinks that if La République du Cameroun had a choice they would prefer Southern Cameroonians to spend their resources going to a conference to demonstrate their unity of purpose, rather than actively demonstrating their unity of purpose by funding the actual Liberation Struggle on G0.

The saying that “Ambazonia is God-ordained” is not idle. Even if the SCPC holds the conference, Ambazonia News expects our Liberation Struggle to survive and thrive. There is no other choice.

It would be very important and critical to establish after the conference that the solution is to pursue the Liberation Struggle through Action and Accountability on the ground. No matter how disheartening it becomes, we the Ambazonians remember:

The school girl shot in Buea
The school girl shot in Bamenda
The Ngarbuh Massacre
The Big Babanki massacre
The hundreds of villages burnt … among so many other cues that we have no choice but to break off from La République du Cameroun and own our destiny and inheritance.

The Most High God continues to be the Watchman of Ambazonia.

SCPC Announces Conference in Canada; questions remain

The SCPC is the “Southern Cameroons People’s Conference”. This first paragraph was meant to read ” …. has announced the Southern Cameroons People’s Conference…”. On reflection there is no “Entity” to fit into that first word/phrase. That does not negate the plausibility of the conference for there is a huge list of groups listed as the Organising Committee. The uncertainty is the origin before those groups joined the Committee. What/who was there?

Ambazonia News is inviting members of the Organising Committee to answer these questions, preferably by commenting on here or by updating their website. If they do choose the latter, please clearly indicate the section, for example by labelling it “updates” so that all can follow it.

The following in the initial set of questions that need to be addressed. Ambazonia news is going to provide some analysis of these questions including ideas from other groups, some of which are cited on the SCPC web-site as having been consulted.

Who is sponsoring the fares and costs for delegates from G0, G1 and G2(?) to travel to Canada?
Why is there no mention of “Independence” anywhere on the website and statements?
Why is **** not on the list?
How will the security of the G0 delegates be assured?
What difference will the conference make? How will conference implement its resolutions?