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 KevinMgwanga 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.
IG President Marianta Njomia addressed Ambazonian citizens and other stakeholders on Friday 19th May 2023, considering many of the current issues and ideas in circulation in the Ambazonian sphere.
She commended the resolve and determination of the Ambazonian Restoration Forces and Civilians on Ground zero, calling for the Diaspora to complement those Ground Zero efforts by making their own sacrifices in finance and other resources.
She acknowledged the efforts of many Diaspora Ambazonian stakeholders in sensitizing and discussing possible negotiation routes toward the resolution of the Ambazonian Liberation Struggle, routes which would carry the merit of saving lives. She urged Ambazonian stakeholders to have as wide a view as possible as she cautioned that every route out of the conflict that involved negotiation or other parties would depend on some action or agreement by LRC or her allies. Thus far, no signs have emerged that LRC would volunteer any such actions and, in fact, LRC’s previous limited and shy movements have all been prompted by the pain of the action that the ARF’s have produced.
This logic left only the one option for how Ambazonians should proceed, regardless of whether they hope for dialogue and negotiations or ground victory, as long as they wanted to achieve an independent state of Ambazonia and that is to “massively empower the ARF’s”.
The President pointed out that dialogue with La République du Cameroun has a big obstacle in the knowledge that La République du Cameroun prefers to talk in a perspective of “Anglophone Crisis” where the Ambazonian Liberation Struggle would be considered and treated as an internal conflict, whereas every Ambazonian group aims for Total and Unconditional Independence for Ambazonia. This obstacle dictates that “Action on the ground” has a more urgent role to play to shift LRC away from such a position. In that case, she asked, “Could the Resources being deployed to convene and run conferences to discuss negotiation strategies be more effective deployed on Ground Zero Empowerment?”
Below is a text of the address:
My dear distinguished Ambazonian brothers and sisters,
Patriots of our God ordained Ambazonian Liberation Struggle,
The Ambazonia Restoration Forces and all Ambazonian Liberation Fighters,
The Interim Government Cabinet, County Chairs and LGA Chairs,
Most reputable international socio-political exponents and institutions,
I greet you all in the name of our Ancestors and the Custodians of the Ambazonian Territory.
Tomorrow will be 20th May 2023.
In Ambazonia there may be a few people attempting to persuade our citizens that they should march in commemoration of “unity” between the “neighbouring” people of the Former UN Trust Territory of French Cameroon and we The people of Former UN Trust Territory of British Southern Cameroons.
Let me resound this once again that LA RÉPUBLIQUE DU CAMEROUN gained her independence on 1st January 1960 from France and acquired an internationally recognised boundary and territory with the name “La République du Cameroun” and membership of the UN.
For over a year after LA RÉPUBLIQUE DU CAMEROUN was established, British Southern Cameroons, now Ambazonia, was negotiating her own independence modalities with various international partners and holding a vibrant and informed debate on the territory. There were views expressed on the nature of the Association with La République du Cameroun including a range from “loose federation” verging on a confederation to “reunification”, though both ends of the spectrum remained based on a federation.
History lead to the Federal Republic of Cameroon in 1961 on the basis of two states of equal status, the equal status being deliberately safeguarded due to the known imbalance in terms of demography and geography of the two states.
A succession of subsequent acts, which have since been established to be illegal, were perpetuated by the East Cameroon dominated government and eventually resulted in La Republic du Cameroun being reasserted in 1984. The rights or wrongs of those acts notwithstanding, the effect was to revive the two pre-plebiscite states. Recall that La République du Cameroun was a recognised UN member with a defined territory and international borders. This revival of La Republique du Cameroun was judged in the Bamenda High Court ruling HCB 28/92 as a secession from the “Union” whose effect was to reassert the sovereignty and territory of British Southern Cameroons, called Ambazonia. The legal inference and written article of the judgement included the conclusion that La Republique was illegally and forcibly occupying Southern Cameroons. To date that rulling and all its conclusions have not been called into question or challenged.
LA RÉPUBLIQUE DU CAMEROUN’s military and administrative presence in Ambazonia has therefore been an illegal INVASION since 1961.
The discussion on this legal background explains why the Ambazonian Liberation Struggle can not be solved unilaterally within La République du Cameroun.
We Thank the all Ambazonian Restoration Forces and fighters, members of civil society and all civilians on ground zero for their resilience over the past seven years and beyond.
My mami and my papa them, I salute wona all. I thank wona for wona perseverance and tie heart for this time wey LA RÉPUBLIQUE DU CAMEROUN di burn wona houses them, kill weer pickin them. Wona don show them say Ambazonia na we own country wey we go do weti wey ee correct for we and we pickin them. I di thank all for how wey wona don respect this first day for lockdown this 20th May
As LA RÉPUBLIQUE DU CAMEROUN prepare to rub our noses in it again on 20th May we continue to shun and reject this grotesque charade. Dancing on graves has never been more literal!
Our outrage and grief are huge and well known even if we limit our view to the current round of crises.
We, all the Ambazonians need to own the sovereignty that HCB28/92 established in the restoration of our statehood. Yes, we own the right to our existence, inheritance, and destiny; The right to our external self-determination as a people.
While the best peace through justice solution to the Struggle would be a negotiated political settlement with LA RÉPUBLIQUE DU CAMEROUN, we must be clear that it is no longer possible to address the root causes, never mind solve it unilaterally within LA RÉPUBLIQUE DU CAMEROUN. It is understood that LA RÉPUBLIQUE DU CAMEROUN still hangs on to the hope that the Struggle is an “Anglophone Crisis” and that explains their inconsistent diplomacy in flip-flopping on negotiations and burning bridges on at least the lst two attempts by international partners, viz Switzerland and Canada.
LA RÉPUBLIQUE DU CAMEROUN is an external state as per the 1st January 1960 borders and territory and therefore does not dispose of the sovereignty to “grant” a “special status” or “administer” any part of Ambazonia without the consent of us, the people of Ambazonia, who hereby notify the international community and the UN that our consent has been actively withdrawn through our people’s resolute observance of abstention from LA RÉPUBLIQUE DU CAMEROUN control through the seven years + of regular Monday ghost towns -“country Sundays” throughout the Ambazonian territory and other spontaneous instances, to withdraw our consent variously for “11th February” and “20th May” celebrations on our streets or anywhere on our territory.
We have further resolved to assert our dignity and sovereignty through our own community schools and education and call on the international community to help our citizens to activate their decolonisation and self-determination by running our own education system to ensure the development of our children and future generations, without the control of LA RÉPUBLIQUE DU CAMEROUN.
“To you the people of Ambazonia”
As a peace-loving people we look forward to a future where we are able to co-exists as neighbours in our two distinct sovereign states of Ambazonia and LA RÉPUBLIQUE DU CAMEROUN, with the acceptance that we do not have to be in the same state be it unitary or federal. We are very confident that our people would overwhelmingly choose to chart our own path if the international community would seek our sovereign voice, the WILL of the Ambazonian people, in a vote, say in a future referendum. We believe that such a vote could save a lot of lives and livelihoods but we have proved that we are not just relying on the legal righteousness of our cause but will keep mobilizing our people to exercise our right to self-defence. We firmly hold the moral high ground.
Our forefathers had good faith and sought to live with a “brother” people. They were not mistaken, as we have established that there was informed debate about how the “Federation” would play out, nor, therefore, were they unaware! It was the “brothers” duplicity that crashed the federation and left the relationship in ruins.
Even so, having learnt from the errors of the past, we propose to take our destiny and future into our own hands with new hope and excitement at forging our own future, drawing the benefits of our own effort and mitigating the pitfalls of our mistakes.
In either case, our growth is our prerogative.
To the diaspora…
It is clear that LA RÉPUBLIQUE DU CAMEROUN is not seeking to negotiate anytime soon, as it is clear that they would have to first accept us a separate legal state due to their own secession in 1984 as per HCB 28/92. Regardless of our good intentions in seeking a negotiation we must be realistic that a negotiation is very unlikely in the present circumstances as LA RÉPUBLIQUE DU CAMEROUN would have to own up and negotiate from a 1960-61 perspective, when we were separate international entities.
We commend the new found urge to hold conferences and we urge our compatriots of fellow stakeholders to have a wider outlook in all their deliberations in these conferences. Better still we should think long and hard about the resources we are deploying to organise and run these multiple conferences with redundant subjects and consider how much more effective they would be if deployed on the ground.
When it comes to LA RÉPUBLIQUE DU CAMEROUN we all know that their track record means they have nothing to offer our people except marginalisation, corruption, and bleak future with no prospect of socio-economic progression.
We must retain our openness to a sensible peace through justice solution to end the war with a sovereign Ambazonia, but we must be aware that we need a strong position and that this position could be made even stronger and better, but it is not as bad as some would make-believe in the mistaken and futile effort to lure us back to servitude in a corrupt LA RÉPUBLIQUE DU CAMEROUN. Our people are the ones who need to live those lives!
Our position is certainly not so bad that we would revert to the erstwhile posture of second-class citizens.
We must commend our effort and resolve in the last 7 years as they have lead to LA RÉPUBLIQUE DU CAMEROUN tentatively consenting to steps to solve the Struggle through dialogue and negotiation. First they tried the Swiss process even though they were not convinced our cohesion would hold, hoping instead that the talk of dialogue would divert our attention from the ground action and dissipate the momentum of our RF’s and civilians. That did not work out for them as they continued to suffer and feel the pain of our efforts.
They tried terminating the Swiss process, probably after concluding that the effect of it was rather to maintain some level of communication and collaboration among our various groups and show up their [LA RÉPUBLIQUE DU CAMEROUN’s] unreliability as a diplomatic partner.
They then tried one last bid in the Canadian Pre-talks, this time sending actual representatives who only managed to betray their expectation and hope that our cohesion would not hold.
Ironically, we benefitted from a combination of the COHESION of our participating stakeholders in Canada AND the CONSISTENCY of both those participating stakeholders and more distant stakeholders as both continued to make the single and simply point that they were focused on the Total and Unconditional Independence of Ambazonia. The attempted divide and rule had once again only demonstrated the collective, even if separate resolve of our diverse Independentist Groups. Our Ambazonian Liberation Struggle proved itself, once again to be God-ordained!
When LA RÉPUBLIQUE DU CAMEROUN gave up again frustration, this time setting fire to diplomatic bridges in public, a wider range of international partners must have realised that their route to solving the conflict and security in the Gulf of Guinea lies in relying on the Ambazonian side. To be fair to LA RÉPUBLIQUE DU CAMEROUN, they have been clear throughout that they preferred any dialogue to be an extension of their infamous “Grand National Dialogue”, or more simply, that the Ambazonia Liberation Struggle should be cast as an internal crisis within LA RÉPUBLIQUE DU CAMEROUN.
In all these aborted attempts it is important to realise we cannot overstate the importance of the resilience and firm resolve of our ARFs and civilians as they continued to hold the fort where it mattered the most. We keep saying 21 gun salute until it sounds cliched but we must take this opportunity to underline, if they did not know it, that they are literally bearing our homeland with their blood and determination. We must find a way to say more than 21 gun salute. Maybe that way is to stop saying and do with our complementary commitment – make our financial commitment more reliable so that we can complement this colossal effort of our RFs and civilians in the face of LA RÉPUBLIQUE DU CAMEROUN military’s intimidation.
We should now consider why, apart from the option of review of the failed UN decolonisation process of the Southern Cameroons, 3 most significant options through which the Ambazonian Liberation Struggle would end in our favour.
1. LITIGATION: We could win a case in the international court of justice – on the basis of the various and numerous breaches by LA RÉPUBLIQUE DU CAMEROUN since our fore-fathers took the leap of faith to throw in their lot with LA RÉPUBLIQUE DU CAMEROUN.
2. REFERENDUM: We could win a referendum – the international community could supervise a referendum, which we are confident we would win. This option would appear to be much-talked about as international partners continue to make up their minds on the evidence of LA RÉPUBLIQUE DU CAMEROUN’s behaviour in the diplomatic arena.
3. RESISTANCE non-stop: We could intensify our effort on the ground and compel LA RÉPUBLIQUE DU CAMEROUN to admit defeat and withdraw (hence self-decolonisation) or agree to either the LITIGATION or REFERENDUM options.
The resistance option, unlike the litigation and referendum options, depends solely on us and is an indispensable catalyst to the Arbitration and Referendum options
The IG there recognizes all three potential options but reiterates the DUAL strength of the Resistance option, as both a solution option to end the war and an indispensable catalyst for adoption of the other two options – Litigation and Referendum.
The IG will prioritize on RESISTANCE as the most determinant solution option per our FUND-FIGHT-FREE vision rather than over preaching on solution options that might rather delay our journey to Buea or nurse false hopes that the war has come to an end, hence detailing our commitment to be CONSISTRENTLY resourceful towards sustaining the RESISTANCE until external self-determination is attained.
We have a very small extra step to take, but time is of the essence, and we must take it.
It is our duty to empower our RFs and civilians to actualise our dignity and sovereignty by decolonising not only education as they are through Community Education and other sectors but increase our economic independence by abstaining from LA RÉPUBLIQUE DU CAMEROUN control in many more ways.
International partners must be clear that we are ready to go for it alone.
President Marianta Njomia is scheduled to address the Ambazonians on the eve of another La Republique du Cameroun charade.
The substance of the message is unlikely to change much with the consistent theme to encourage Ambazonian citizens to own their dignity and destiny.
Over the years LRC has held superficial celebratory marches akin to eastern European spectacles of the past, with much the same substance.
The president is also likely, Ambazonia News hopes, to be tackling the tricky subject of La Republique du Cameroun’s habit of chickening out of every opportunity for meaningful negotiations to resolve the Ambazonian Liberation Struggle. This will be important given the new debate on a referendum, among other methods to proceed.
For a long time Ambazonia News has advocated collaboration as the way to speed up the Ambazonian Liberation Struggle. That is still true but it now seems a few questions would not be amiss.
It has come to the attention of Amazonia News that the Canadian Pre-talks Facilitation, and before that, the Swiss Process, has succumbed to La Republique du Cameroun’s preference to “solve” the Amazonian Liberation Struggle through the implementation of their “GDN resolutions”.
AAAC1 Aarschot 2023 towards collaboration
In conjunction with La Republique du Cameroun’s announcement dismissing Canada as would-be mediators the forgoing preference would militate against the current clamour for “collaboration” in the Ambazonian stakeholders ranks, especially with the avowed objective of “preparing for negotiation” or a “referendum”. Neither of these are about to happen given La Republique du Cameroun’s stance and maybe the stakeholders doing the rounds to promote conferences should expound on their logic and apparent optimism. Are there any secret signs that the suspected distraction, not to say misuse of resources, of such conferences would suddenly bring La Republique to the table? At Ambazonia News we suspect a little stroking by the International Community has proved enough flattery for some Ambazonian leaders. We would be first to admit to being mistaken but logic points nothing else.
Now the questions to address:
Who is the collaboration for?
What is the collaboration for?
Who wants or benefits from collaboration?
Do we know what collaboration is?
Ambazonia News cannot presume to answer the question? These, and many other questions, must be pondered by stakeholders as a way to refine the process and to ensure it works for the purpose and is adapted and adaptable to dribble some of the fringe.
The fringe would be the “unionist” “Ambazonian”. A paradox if ever one existed. Some well-meaning and valid stakeholders have “explained” that the stalled Canadian process involved a “commitment to bring in all Ambazonians including, unionists, federalists and independentists”, Ambazonia News extrapolates, “to prove to the international community how inclusive our Liberation Struggle is”. For the purpose of avoiding blame, Ambazonia News is not naming any of the stakeholders who seek to promote that level of “inclusiveness”. Ambazonia News does not see any malice in those pronouncements but rather a certain naive fall to the simple flattery if being addressed by the international community. Instead Ambazonia News simply calls on all stakeholders to consider the role of the “unionist fringe” that would be invited to “contribute” to the “All Ambazonian Conference” for Ambazonia News fears they would be defending, not to say promoting, La Republique du Cameroun’s position as they (LRC) might, say in a negotiation.
That would leave Ambazonian stakeholders “negotiating” even before LRC has agreed to negotiate and possibly making concessions to LRC in their absence! Given that LRC has distanced themselves from any negotiation process should Ambazonia be “negotiating” and entertaining people we might call “enablers and blacklegs”? Do we need to desperately “prove” our “inclusiveness”? Is that how we got to a state where LRC deemed necessary to tentatively come to the table? Do we actually think that?
Ambazonia News is of the view that that came about as a result of the hostility LRC faced rather than the international community realising our “inclusiveness”.
Are “unionists” “Ambazonian”? No. In a sense this is a non-issue as it would be really odd and incongruous for anyone who professes “unionism” to figure in an All-Ambazonian Conference. The bigger deal is that this clamour is yet another potential distraction that could lessen the momentum of the Liberation Struggle, to the advantage of LRC. Of course there are a number of high profile figures with the dry-eye to unfurl their carpet bags at AAC if we keep pounding the idea of such inclusivity especially if these figures think we are seeking to impress the international partners. Some have been to Swiss … As this op-ed is committed one outing, more on which later, by Dr Munzu, is doing the rounds as if to make the point of this post.
Ambazonia News would not see the “AAC” clamour as the right collaboration for it would not work for Ambazonia, even if it “works” for the “international community”.
Instead the collaboration that would survive and not succumb to illogic of the “inclusive” collaboration would be the collaboration of independentists. It is self evident what makes any stakeholder an independentist. While this might not necessarily “work” for the international community, we should not be so sure that it wouldn’t. Logic says that that is actually what moved the international partners who have so far been moved to break cover and approach LRC even in the timid steps. Those approaches would not have accrued any outcomes had LRC not also experienced the “hostile” environment that a collaboration of independentists would only intensify.
There has also been talk of referendum. Ambazonia News presumes, even understands, that the idea is that the international community would come in and organise such a referendum. Would they (the international community) be able to impose it if LRC refused? Under what conditions would such a referendum be “imposable”? Would an “inclusive” Ambazonian Conference including the fringes induce LRC to yield? Would it persuade the international community to impose a referendum – and impose it if need be? Have they shown any prior willingness to put themselves out to bat for Ambazonia without the discomfort of LRC?
Ambazonia News invites all our groups to consider these questions before they are carry away with the nudges of the international community who may be utterly ambivalent when it comes to the outcome. In fact their implication will often be on condition of neutrality and that belies any belief that the international community is about to come to Ambazonia’s rescue.
Ambazonia News will continue to rely on the Watchman of Nation who has navigated the most improbable tight corners on our behalf even when our own mistakes have threatened. He will guide collaboration when we the time is right and who knows? Maybe this is the time and the clamour to “prepare for negotiation or a referendum” will lead to the real logical collaboration “by mistake”!
IG president Marianta Njomia has spotlighted La Republique du Cameroun’s misuse of the so-called DDR Centres set up to purportedly “reintegrate” former fighters of the Ambazonian Restoration Forces. Evidence is that the victims of these centres are being coerced to side with the genocidal militias they were moved to volunteer to repel when first joining the ARFs.
Examples abound of disappointed “beneficiaries”, the most infamous of whom General Nambere. It is “obvious” that anyone who is targeted by these paradoxical places would have thought long and hard and concluded not only that they had no future with La Republique du Cameroun, but that they could not silently and passively witness the genocide, that, before becoming active in the ARF. Therefore it should not be an issue because nobody should turn from having resolved to join the ARF to believing that they could benefit in any way from the DDR set up by La Republique du Cameroun while their militias are still burning homes and carrying out what are extra-judicial killings if they are simultaneously peddling the idea of DDR!
Nobody should be that gullible! If they were minded to do what they claim the DDR would do, for the former ARF the war would not have started. The protests would not have started because the “marginalisation” would not have started nor gone on for so long! Failing that, they would have heeded the teachers and lawyers and “reformed” rather than resort to the violence and declaration of war!
Could they declare war and then “help” setup it’s reluctant self-defence victims as they claim DDR would? Then why not leave out the war and just respond to the petitions before the protests began … Why not, if they did not get enough time to respond to the petitions, respond more logically to the protests?
If something is illogical it cannot be true no matter how much anyone hopes or wishes it would be. The fate of many inmates of the DDR should serve as a warning to any ARF fighters.
Having once volunteered to risk it all in self defence of our nation how painful must it be to be so easily and obviously “fooled”?
As Ambazonians we continue to hold our heroes in high respect as they strive “to bear the land with their blood” in the most difficult circumstances. Even if they temporarily lose sight we appreciate their least effort and sympathise.
We the Ambazonians must continue to encourage our heroes and make sure we treasure their lives and honour and courage and dignity.
It is patently tough to sustain the effort but our fight is our dignity. It is the dignity of our heroes. It is difficult but there is no choice at this stage. There was no choice even before, and certainly not after joining the ARFs.
The story of Ambazonia is a long sequence of surmounting obstacles in more and more unlikely fashion. The most recent is the fateful declaration of La Republique du Cameroun’s (LRC’s) communication minister on the Canadian Led Facilitation Process. Imagine the fudges being concocted with a selection of Ambazonian stakeholders who seemed determined to let things “progress” and “see what happens”. There were dubious participants but somehow “everyone” trusted the process and “everyone” of the Ambazonian stakeholders declared their objective was the same – total and unconditional independence for Ambazonia. Even so, they were all relaxed to ignore the dubious participants and “see what happens”. They were even relaxed in the contradiction of taking part in a process which attempted to call Ambazonia “the North West and South West Regions of the Republic of Cameroon”!
After the Canadian Communique, the “Leaders” of the Ambazonian side issued their communique and set about batting away any doubts, sometimes with simple dismissal of doubters as “people who have not been in the Struggle for the Thirty years that we have”. It was like literal history repeating itself! A small cohort of selected “leaders” determined to trust that informal dealings with a “brother state” would “turn out fine” and trusting the goodwill and good intensions of Western countries who at once insist they are neutral to the outcome but nudge the dealings towards an already visibly untenable premise.
The plebiscite of the 11th of February 1961 excluded the option of independence for Southern Cameroons, pushing a vibrant multi-party parliamentary system into a union with a proxy dictatorship run remotely by a “secret” colonial master! At the time there was vibrant debate about the type of union to come with a large cross-section “hoping” for a union of equal separate states verging on a confederation.
The leaders “trusted” the union of “brothers” would work. That was in 1961. This is 2023 … and the “leaders” once again trust in the face of similar doubts. It did not work out in 1961. Witness is the current war. It is unlikely to work this time either under the same “trust”. That Canada is in the open on mediation is proof that Southern Cameroons survived the inadequacies, not to say inequities of the plebiscite, hopeless though the situation seemed over the years.
LRC omitted to seal the deal with a treaty – which would have restricted the abilities of the likes of Canada to attempt the mediation they are.
LRC then broke the “understandings” imposed by the Western partners
LRC reduced herself to a failed state unable to command the continued support of international partners when Southern Cameroons woke up again.
During the sixty years Southern Cameroons current position in being up for any form of negotiation was unthinkable but for the series of small negligences and oversteps that kept the friction and discontent and legal righteousness alive. LRC broke “laws” but there would have been zero chance of any meaningful challenge had they not also made the overstretch of attempting to nudge Southern Cameroons into an unnecessarily cruel and exploitative existence. They even saw the need to make the mistake of technically withdrawing from the failed union by reverting to their 1960 name, and therefore international borders and choosing to persist even after realising their mistake! When the protests came, they could have offered to appease before a critical mass assembled and that would have sealed it but a bully is always only ever a bully. They trusted that even their corrupt and incompetent “forces of law and order” could quell the protest using violence. They wanted to be seen to dominate not just win.
Six years later, Ambazonian leaders were edging towards a repeat when LRC shows herself once more to be no match for Ambazonians divine grace and protection. By attempting to rubbish the mediation LRC is giving Ambazonians more time to make the break and establish once and for all that they have no future in any form of association with LRC… the home burnings, the killings of school children, the mass arrests would seem to induce no remorse in LRC’s leaders! How lucky for Ambazonia that, in that frame of mind, LRC is unable to rally to come to the table when they could have secured relatively favourable terms! They misjudged 60 years ago, six years ago and six weeks ago! LRC came close to the Mediation thanks to the tenacity of Ambazonians in carrying the fight. Now that their institutions are imploding and only projected to become more dysfunctional, Ambazonia needs to intensify the expulsion while building the collaboration framework to take our Nation in hand imminently.
The IG, in consultation with other Ambazonian stakeholders and ground restoration forces, has agreed and announced a lockdown as it is anticipated that La Republique du Cameroun might once again seek to dance on the graves of babies Martha, Caroline and others of our children to show their hegemony.
After a long campaign of dignified resistance it is perhaps no longer necessary to enforce a lockdown as our people get to know what the “celebrations” represent.
This year will once more express our rejection of the failed union and continue to invite La Republique du Cameroun to withdraw her militias from our national territory.
THE HARD IDEOLOGY OF WALKING THE TALKS PATRIOTICALLY AND REALISTICALLY TO FAST TRACK YOUR FREEDOM DESPITE THE CURRENT GLOBAL ECONOMIC HARDSHIP.
My Dear Ambazonian Brothers and Sisters, especially to you resident in the diaspora,
We all acknowledge that where there is a will, there is a way.
Our WILL as a people is attaining FREDOM.
The WAY realistically and understandably entails SACRIFICING selflessly in our collective efforts to provide the resources needed now to fund and end decades of bondage on our own people from the invader and oppressor LRC.
Funding Your Freedom Is Understandably Sacrificing Your Hard Earned Resources To Materialize Your Will.
Our collective U-turn towards the ideology of FUNDING OUR FREEDOM will logically and pragmatically equate to ending colonial governance of Ambazonia.
Be a true PATRIOT now for the liberation of your homeland so that together we will render our homeland ungovernable for the colonial invader and oppressor LRC.
BY YOUR WILL, AMBAZONIA WILL BE GOVERNED BY AMBAZONIANS.
28th January 2023 President Marianta Njomia Federal Republic of Ambazonia.
ARFTV is set to return with a regular offering to keep Ambazonia and friends of Ambazonia informed.
The initial guide promises a varied menu to inform, educate and entertain as the IG seeks to consolidate Ambazonian gains and push for the restoration.
Another leg of a century-old game – the World versus Southern Cameroons – will be played next week in Canada. The players, referee, line judges, spectators, match delegates, fans, financiers, and victims (over 30,000 slain since November 2017) are the same.
Bloody rounds of the tragic version of this game are being played in Southern Cameroons, to the deafening silence of the international community – unimpressed by genocide. Worse than criminal silence, those who, not so long ago, called for “negotiations without preconditions”, are back to pulling strings, in the shadows and watching the game… in callous indifference. The game prioritizes interests over rights or lives. In it, geopolitics trumps sovereignty rights and sticking with allies, however evil the alliance, is better so long as might makes right.
Activists for an independent Southern Cameroons have been played at this game for over 100 years. It is the vengeance they got served for rejecting a 44-year-old experiment by the United Kingdom to assimilate them into Nigerians. In 1961, the world ganged up to impose more of the same. In a plebiscite supervised by the United Nations (no less!), Southern Cameroonians were forced to choose either what they had earlier rejected – union with Nigeria – or its next worse alternative – union with Cameroun.
Today’s events in Ukraine makes the hypocrisy shouting. Imagine the United Nations and NATO forcing Ukraine (once a part of the defunct Soviet Union) to gain and/or maintain independence either by becoming a part of Russia or by becoming a part of (wild guess) China. Imagine an African country doing what Canada is doing next week: host and moderate an event to tell citizens of Quebec to give up their campaign, not to obtain, but to restore their independence. Imagine South Africa staging a public relations event on behalf of the rest of Canada while the latter’s army slaughters citizens of Quebec. The West is willing to go nuclear in defense of Ukraine, but engages in diplomatic hide-and-seek games if required to decry genocide. It won’t set aside its interests to reaffirm the rights of natives to self-determination, self-rule, and freedom from colonial domination in all its forms. You heard right: “black lives (don’t) matter”.
That’s how genocide is made. Impunity. The kind of impunity that France and Cameroun enjoy in Southern Cameroons under the pretext of fighting “terrorists” and “secessionists”. The insistence to keep Southern Cameroons a part of Cameroun that Nigeria did not have in 1953-54 when Ambazonia broke away and that Russia can’t evoke in dealing with ex-Soviet Ukraine.
Cameroun’s tyrant-for-life, Paul Biya, has confessed that this is about treating other humans as game. “We tried assimilating their system into the majority francophone system but because of identity difference, it failed,” Biya told Sudanese-born telecoms billionaire Mo Ibrahim during an interview in 2019. Cameroun’s failed 61-year-old experiment, like the 44 years of efforts by Nigeria, will never convert Ambazonians into Camerounians. The resolve of this “Never Again Generation” will never be broken. In fact, the monkey games which give Cameroun a pass for engaging but not committing to the Swiss Process or play prolongation time in Canada, pretending to be for mediation, will only persuade movements like mine, MoRISC, to get fully involved with funding self-defense or start an armed wing… because monkey see, monkey do.
Today’s unraveling was both predictable and predicted. Dag Hammarskjold, the UN Secretary General from 1953-1961, warned that “uniting the Southern Cameroons to the Cameroun Republic is like forcing a balloon under the sea. One day, it will come out”. That day broke fast… dawning before Dag Hammarskjold’s tragic loss in a plane crash. In the hope of drowning the Ambazonian independence balloon, the West ignored the overwhelming vote for independence at the Mamfe Conference in 1957. It violated the UN Charter. It looked away in February 1961 as Cameroun (independent on 1st January 1960) adopted a federal constitution under which it effectively annexed Southern Cameroons. This was two months before the 21st April 1961 UN vote for independence and five months before effective independence on 1st October 1961.
France, a veto power-wielding Permanent Member of the Security Council sold all shame to defend its interests, delaying UN resolutions and causing the vote to be taken several times in the forlorn hope that Southern Cameroons would be denied independence. That campaign failed, but the game was only getting started. Since 1961, it’s been played into prolongations. The United Kingdom has swallowed its tongue, seeing no evil, hearing no evil, and saying no evil of its ally, France. London has watched with sealed lips as Paris has led Southern Cameroons, like a sheep from self-government (even under colonial rule back in 1954) to the slaughter house of recolonization. Along with UN officials, the UK declared forfeiture, staying away from the UN-mandated Foumban Conference in July 1961 where France and Cameroun were allowed to snatch victory from the jaws of the bitter defeat they suffered three months earlier at the UN General Assembly.
This history is useful in understanding why the West, to this day, plays spectator. Three years ago, when the Swiss Government announced that it had the consent of Cameroun and Southern Cameroons liberation movements to launch a mediation process for “negotiations without preconditions”, the same old games were reactivated. In public, the West blessed the initiative. In the dark, the world – the UN, the African Union, the European Commission, the Commonwealth of Nations, the governments of the United States, the UK and Canada – did little for it to work. Supporting the Swiss in what was the first meaningful opportunity since the Foumban Conference to address the root causes of The Southern Cameroons Problem would have hurt the interests of colonizers – akin to scoring an own diplo-goal.
So, the West pretended to pressure Cameroun. It said all the right things, by day. By night, though, world powers sabotaged the process. After three years of mumbling support for the Swiss-led Process, France has confessed it is as “blind” as it claimed to be during the Rwanda Genocide. Last July, Macron sang from the same hymn book as his “best pupil”, Paul Biya, when he called for a return to the well-documented failed solution known as decentralization. In the shadows, Canada, a major financier of the Swiss Initiative, had already embarked on collaborating with so-called moderates in the Biya regime (if they exist).
Next week, Canada will deliver for Yaounde when it hosts and moderates Cameroun’s Second Grand National Dialogue in Canada. In Canada’s minority French-speaking Quebec Province, where an army of mostly Canada’s majority English-speaking people is not slaughtering those who seek independence for Quebec; in the province which France actively supported to secede from Canada, Ottawa will host what Cameroun dreams could be the first step in Ambazonia’s surrender. Ottawa is open about a few secrets. For the record, it admits this is not Canada initiating another third-party mediation. Please, read: this is Canada playing monkey games at the behest of powerless, spineless “moderates” in the Biya regime. They are at the service of Slave Prime Minister Dion Ngute who claims to have the blessings of Tyrant Biya for this N-th dead-on-arrival effort at reversing the irreversible.
As both umpire and player in Canada – a sharp contrast with its status of “one of two, both equal in status” under the Swiss-led Process – Yaounde cannot wait for kick-off. It has already dispatched three junior level French-speaking staff from Dion Ngute’s office. Nine enablers of Southern Cameroonian descent, most of them civil society representatives based in Southern Cameroons, and two regime apparatchiks (an unelected mayor and the head of the so-called National Youth Council) complete their line-up. These characters will face off against individuals and leaders of organizations supposedly fighting for independence. They are swimming against an irreversible tide. A tsunami of Ambazonians, in their millions, see through these games and, like me, will never attend. Sadly, for a fortnight, I have been horrified to witness people I have considered comrades in the struggle literally beg to be invited to this Camerouno-Camerounian Grand National Dialogue hosted in Canada.
Canada’s role – even as moderator – is less than holy. Ottawa is still one of Yaounde’s arms suppliers – genocide notwithstanding. It believes it needs to babysit Ambazonia, helping hand-pick the enablers who will window-dress as Southern Cameroonians next week. Why stop, right? In supporting the Swiss Process, Canada still funded a certain Coalition for Dialogue and Negotiations – opposed to the Process – reportedly to help coordinate self-defense groups.
Getting next week’s rushed game on the fixtures is no accident. That it comes hard on the heels of the Swiss announcement is intended, not unfortunate. Cameroun badly needs a public relations coup. Even the staunchest of Cameroun supporters were caught off guard by its foot-in-the-mouth decision about no longer being interested in third-party mediation. Beginning next week, Canada’s not-so-good offices can help sanitize Cameroun’s blood-dripping hands. It is an off ramp Yaounde needs to blur the message that its military option is full throttle. The West, which in the 1950s feared that an independent Southern Cameroons would be pro-Moscow, now seeks to placate Yaounde to prevent Russia expanding its influence in Africa.
Next week, Cameroun will begin its abuse of Canada. It is just a matter of time before what it just did to Switzerland is done to Canada. Ottawa seems aware. It admits next week will start small and slow. Why go fast with only tens of thousands of Southern Cameroonians – not Ukrainians and not Quebecois – slaughtered, right? To protect its interests, Canada is throwing a life vest to Cameroun, serving as a Trojan Horse. Next week, the Swiss of Humanitarian Dialogue and UN observers will climb out of the belly of the Ottawa Horse and unadvised spectators at this new/old tragicomedy will be fooled into thinking the Swiss endorse this. To their credit, Canada admits that this effort amounts to throwing as much jelly on the wall to see what will stick. It is, they say, bringing together Southern Cameroonians to sought it out among themselves – in Canada. The late Christian Cardinal Tumi has to be turning in his grave.
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