For six decades it appears La République du Cameroun has had one idea and scheme where Southern Cameroons is concerned. For a country plagued by corruption, incompetence and lack of commitment to the extent that “Le Cameroun c’est le Cameroun” has become a proverb it is remarkable how fixed and committed they appear to be on the idea of dominating and colonising Southern Cameroons.
Many episodes have cropped up to remind and dictate “logical adjustments” but every one of them has been batted away even when they could improve the prosperity of La République du Cameroun.
One such episode was the ruling of the African Commission in 2009 in the “Southern Cameroons Vs La République du Cameroun” following Kevin Mgwanga Gumne et al vs. Republic of Cameroon.
The commission went out of its way to make sure La Republique du Cameroun knew that the complainant’s case was sound. They accepted all the accounts of domination, colonisation, marginalisation and discrimination, only citing their [the Commission’s] lack of competence as a reason for not issuing sanctions.
Even so they issued a range of recommendations for La République du Cameroun to implement to solve the established problems.
The African Commission’s [water under the bridge by now] Recommendations to LRC:
- Abolish all discriminatory practices against people of Northwest and Southwest Cameroon, including equal usage of the English language in business transactions;
- Stop the transfer of accused persons from the Anglophone provinces for trial in the Francophone provinces;
- Ensure that every person facing criminal charges be tried under the language he/she understands. In the alternative, the Respondent State must ensure that interpreters are employed in Courts to avoid jeopardising the rights of accused persons;
- Locate national projects, equitably throughout the country, including Northwest and Southwest Cameroon, in accordance with economic viability as well as regional balance;
- Pay compensation to companies in Northwest and Southwest Cameroon, which suffered as a result of discriminatory treatment by banks;
- Enter into constructive dialogue with the Complainants, and in particular, SCNC and SCAPO to resolve the constitutional issues, as well as grievances which could threaten national unity; and
- Reform the Higher Judicial Council, by ensuring that it is composed of personalities other than the President of the Republic, the Minister for Justice and other members of the Executive Branch.
It goes without saying that La République du Cameroun not only ignored the recommendations but sought to characterise the ruling as a victory over secession even though the complainants had not intended or expected such an outcome from the case.
As “Le Cameroun c’est le Cameroun” they ignored the “warning signs” of having moved the complainants enough to undertake to bring the case and continued on their ill-fated course to self-destruction.
In a world where trade is easier in English as “Le Cameroun c’est le Cameroun”, they decided that English should be expunged so that a small group of incompetents could continue to go to Europe for health care.
Maybe it has just been incompetence all these decades. They couldn’t have actively made any of these choices, could they? They would need a base of some competence.
Given that “Le Cameroun c’est le Cameroun”, Ambazonia cannot afford to make any decisions that rely on La République du Cameroun’s competent choice, certainly no dependence or reliance on any action in LRC’s sole hands.
Download the complete Banjul ruling from here