The Southern Cameroons Story, In Simple Terms

There are many people who have not understood the Southern Cameroons/Ambazonia story, because it involves too many facts. Some have asked the question whether Ambazonians want to split Cameroon; others have asked why Africa is coming together and Ambazonians are fighting to separate, and so on. Some have even invoked African integration as a reason not to support Ambazonia.

These questions show only that the story is not yet clear to many people. They also show that many people take African integration to be a dissolution of African boundaries or forced marriages, and so many other confused ideas.

It is our hope that this small paper will make the Southern Cameroons/Ambazonia story clear once and for all. It is presented in such a way that we neither need to be legal minds nor know the history to be able to grasp the story. It is written in simple clear terms that everyone can understand.

Throughout this article, the Southern Cameroons means Ambazonia and Ambazonia means the Southern Cameroons. We continue to use the name Southern Cameroons because that is the name in United Nations records. But the name introduces confusion because many people think it is the south of the Republic of Cameroon, when in fact, it is the South of British Cameroons!

The Southern Cameroons story, in summary, amounts to the following:

1. Cameroon is claiming, without proof, the territory that belongs to Ambazonia: violation of international boundaries.
2. Cameroon is claiming the right of superior human beings to impose its will on the people of Ambazonia: external subjugation and imperialism.
3. Cameroon is claiming, without proof, that Ambazonia made a free gift of its territory, people, government, state structures and all it had to Cameroon and to become Cameroon’s slaves: massive fraud!
4. Cameroon is claiming that it has a greater right to the territory of Ambazonia than the people of Ambazonia themselves, the true owners of the land!
5. Not one single claim of Cameroon concerning the Southern Cameroons can be substantiated. It is counting only on the silence of the rest of the world and on brute force to impose its will!

As a human being, have you ever seen any living person who decided to make a free gift of his house, wife, children and property to a neighbor to then become the slave of the neighbor? Have you seen anyone who said to his neighbor: “we love ourselves so much, let us break down the fence that separates our two houses so that you can take over my own”?

Well, Dear reader, these are all the outrageous and fantastic claims of Cameroon on the people of Ambazonia!

If you are an African, ask yourself why the whole of Africa, which is one continent is not one country. Ask yourself why the Gambia had to end the Senegambia federation; why Eritrea had to separate itself from Ethiopia; why South Sudan had to separate itself from Sudan; why Czechoslovakia had to break up into the Czech and Slovak Republics; why the Soviet Union had to break up, why the one and indivisible Yugoslavia also broke up, and so on. Until you know why the African continent is not one country and why not all human beings can share the same house or the same territory, you cannot understand why the people of the Southern Cameroons are in conflict with the government of Cameroon. The number of independent states in the world is constantly growing and will never decrease, not because people hate living together, but because the rights of one people cannot be suppressed by another people! As President Julius Nyerere of blessed memory said: “No nation has a right to make decision for another nation; no people for another people”. And you will understand why more independent states do not make the world less united, but more united, because conflicts do not unite the world, they divide the world.

SIMPLE QUESTIONS TO MAKE IT ALL CLEAR

Let us ask you a few questions:

1. Will you accept that your country should be taken over by a neighbouring country? Why not?
2. Do you accept the idea that some people have a right to rule themselves within their own territory but other people who also have their own territory with international boundaries are not fit to rule themselves and should only obey orders from these superior foreigners?
3. Do you believe that a people can make a free gift of themselves, their elected government, their resources, their territory, state and posterity to another people? If someone were to tell you that South Africa, for example, decided to make a free gift of its territory, government and people to Namibia and to become Namibia’s obedient servants, can you believe that? In return for what can such a gift be made?
4. Do you accept the idea that some foreigners can come into your country and claim a greater right to your territory than the natives of your own country, the true owners of the land?
5. Do you accept the principle of double standards in the world, that international law should apply to some people and not to others?

These are the fraudulent claims Cameroon is trying to make on the people of Ambazonia!

If your answer to these basic questions is in the negative, then you have understood why Ambazonians are fighting.

The people of Ambazonia are fighting because Cameroon has officially declared war against Ambazonians, in an attempt to completely annihilate them. They are fighting because Cameroon has taken over their own country; they are fighting because Cameroon is claiming that the people of Ambazonia made a free gift of their territory, their people, their resources, their government and all what they had to Cameroon, to then become Cameroon’s obedient slaves; they are fighting because Cameroon is claiming that it has a greater right to the Ambazonian territory than the people of Ambazonia themselves, the true owners of the territory; they are fighting because the Cameroon government is claiming to be superior human beings to Ambazonians and have the right to rule their own territory and cross their international and legal boundaries into Ambazonia to impose their will on the people of Ambazonia, who they say are not fit to govern themselves. They are fit only to obey foreign orders and be slaves to Cameroon! Tell the story in any way you like, it amounts to the above facts. They are fighting because Cameroon says Ambazonians cannot think, speak, have or acquire anything unless Cameroon gives them permission to think and to speak. The Cameroon government has made itself a god over the people of Ambazonia! They are fighting because they have no legal protection in Cameroon; Cameroon denies them the most basic human rights; Cameroon denies them the right to use their own language, legal system and educational system; it denies them the right to question the terms on which Cameroon is ruling their country; it denies them the right to assemble as a people; it denies them the right to expression as a people. They are fighting because Cameroon is committing the worst atrocities against the people of Ambazonia: more than 106 settlements have been burnt down and their inhabitants chased into the bushes; rape, abductions, mass murders of civilians, burning alive of the handicapped in their hospital beds; dragging of people from the hospital and shooting them; burning down of schools and tortures of the worst kind has become the order of the day in Ambazonia by Cameroon forces.

FAILED DECOLONIZATION AND ANNEXATION OF AMBAZONIA

So you may ask yourself: if Ambazonia is a completely different country, how did these two countries come into contact?

Ambazonia was the country which hosted millions of refugees from Cameroon fleeing the civil war raging in that country in the late 1950s. They came and were surprised at the level of freedom and democracy in Ambazonia. And so started a campaign about one German Kamerun. Through this influence, in 1961, the United Nations attempted to join the two countries in what it called a “federation of two states equal in status” but the attempt failed, as no agreement was ever reached, not even a shred of paper signed. Britain which was the administering authority over the UN Trust Territory of the Southern Cameroons treacherously, in connivance with France, handed over the instruments of power to the foreign country of Cameroon and hurriedly left. This was all European conspiracy of trading Africans like chattel and cattle! Cameroon moved in with its troops and forcefully occupied the territory of Ambazonia, which had an elected government, a multi-party system, a parliament, a House of Chiefs, a Constitution, a civil service and all state structures and was governing itself. Cameroon veiled its occupation with an imposed federation unilaterally declared by its president, Amadou Ahidjo. Since then, Ambazonians have been fighting to assert their right over their own space of existence on earth, the Ambazonian territory.

Why did you not hear the struggle before now? Because Cameroon has been spending millions and paying international news media to hide the story; because there was no social media; because it takes time to conscientise the people; to mobilise the people and develop their awareness, just as it took time for Africans to muster the courage to oppose the Whiteman and for the apartheid struggle to grain traction; just as it took time to overthrow slave trade!

NO DOUBLE STANDARDS
The same tokens by which Cameroon claims the right to be a sovereign state and to govern itself are the same tokens by which Ambazonia claims the right to be a sovereign state and to govern itself. They are the same tokens by which every African state claims sovereignty. These tokens are: international boundaries and a population and then subsequently upon its freedom, a government of its own.

Ambazonia was a self-governing state from 1954, with no contact at all with the Republic of Cameroon. It conducted its first free and fair election in 1959 and power changed hands peacefully, at a time when neighbouring Cameroon had not even had autonomy! It had all its state structures and elected government, until in 1961, Britain conspired with France to commit the treachery of illegally handing the country to neighbouring Cameroon without any agreement of any kind. It has its international boundaries demarcated with international treaties. How can it be subordinated to a foreign country?

FUNDAMENTAL DIFFERENCES WITH CAMEROON

The people of Ambazonia are a separate and foreign people to the people of Cameroon. In fact, Ambazonia was governed together with Nigeria for close to 50 years, and so it has more in common with Nigeria than with Cameroon! They do not have the same educational system; they do not speak the same language; they do not have the same legal system; they do not have the same values, do not have the same colonial history, do not have the same mentality and do not have the same state culture. Yes, colonial history: African official languages, parliaments, court systems, civil service, perceptions, currencies, and governance are all based on our colonial inheritances, not our traditions. It is precisely because Cameroon is unable to abandon its French-inherited traditions that it has imposed assimilation on the people of Ambazonia. Attempts to force the Southern Cameroons to live together with the Republic of Cameroon is like forcing Britain and France into one country. It can simply not work!

LAND MASS AND POPULATION
The Southern Cameroon/Ambazonia has a population of more than 8 million inhabitants and is thus more populated than 60 UN Member States, 30 Commonwealth member nations and 18 African Union (AU) member States. It has a land size of 43,000 sq. km, making it larger in size than 30 UN Member States and 12 AU Member States. You will need to combine two or three currently independent states within the Central African region to get the population of the Southern Cameroons!

AFRICAN INTEGRATION AND AMBAZONIA INDEPENDENCE

African integration is not based on the principle of forced marriages and subjugation of one people by another. Bringing Africa together is not a method to destroy their countries and their territories; it is not a method to impose one people on another; it is not a method to promote colonisation! Wise Africans have understood that the world is not united by holding states indivisible or reducing the number of states in the world, but by reducing the number of conflicts in the world. Resolving conflicts and increasing understanding is the only way to unite the world! Indivisibility of states and conflicts do not unite the world; they divide the world. It is not the number states in the world that divide the world but conflicts in the world! So also Africa is not more united when it is in constant conflict but more divided. It is conflicts that divide Africa, not the number of states that make up Africa! Unity is in the meeting of minds, not the forcing of people into one space of existence! As colonisation, indivisibility of fraudulent states, oppression, subjugation of one people by another are all destructive of understanding and peace, so also are they the causes of disunity in Africa. Until we fully understand the principles of integration, we will continue to believe in the illusion that ending the colonisation of one African country by another is dividing Africa. It is NOT! We divide Africa more and promote injustices and conflicts more by failing to uphold the principles of the African Union in the illusion that we would be dividing Africa. Is it not a great contradiction that the world rejects forced marriages, but Africa continues to promote fraudulent unions of people who do not belong together? We must finally understand that family unity does not depend on the number of children in the family and whether they live in one room, but on peace, justice and understanding that reigns in the family.

The respect of territorial boundaries is a cardinal principle of African integration. The principles of African integration are clear beyond all doubt that the African Union will recognise to every African Union Member State only the boundaries it inherited from colonisation on its day of independence; Cameroon did not achieve independence with Ambazonia being a part of it, and the boundaries it inherited do not include the territory of Ambazonia! Cameroon achieved independence on 1 January 1960. The UN General Assembly voted for Southern Cameroons independence to take effect on 1 October 1961, almost two years later. Article 19 and 20 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights declare that all people under the Charter have a right to external self-determination and the subjugation of one people by another is absolutely forbidden: in 2009, in Comm. 266/2003, the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights declared the People of the Southern Cameroons a People under the Charter. African integration cannot be achieved through territorial theft, armed robbery, colonisation and the subjugation of one people by another or through the apartheid claim of superiority of one people over another. All these evils are destructive of peace and harmony and that is why the wise African leaders laid down these principles to guide integration. Why is the African Union promoting conflicts by its inability to implement these principles of integration? Why is even South Africa not standing up for these principles, given its own history? Has it forgotten so soon?

There cannot be peace in Africa or anywhere else in the world until each state respects its boundaries. And until each people cease to claim the right of superiority over others. Animals fight over territory; all tribes fight over territory; all states fight over territory. How do you imagine that the people of Ambazonia will not fight over their own? They must then be lower than animals, according to you!

Ambazonians love their country and territory just as Cameroon loves its own. They want to sing their own anthem, not Cameroon’s own; they want to fly their flag, not the colonial flag of Cameroon; they want to live under their own laws, not the alien laws of Cameroon; they want to speak their own language, not the imposed French of Cameroon. They want Cameroon to withdraw from Ambazonia to its recognized boundaries under the African Union Constitutive Act, Art. 4(b).

The People of Ambazonia continue to challenge the Republic of Cameroon and its supporters to cite one single article of the UN Charter or UNGA resolution or African Union instrument or any instrument of international law that gives Cameroon jurisdiction over the Southern Cameroons territory or which dispossess the people of the Southern Cameroons of the right over their territory and confers that right onto Cameroon!

HOW THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY CAN HELP

If the international community is genuinely interested in solving this problem, it must begin with the application of international law to the problem. It should ask Cameroon to produce its title to the territory; it should ask Cameroon to produce the instrument of international law that gives it jurisdiction over the territory of Ambazonia. If it cannot do so, it should propose the holding of a referendum under United Nations auspices so that at last, the voice of the people of Ambazonia may be heard. It should ask the government of Cameroon to release all political prisoners and abductees; it should talk to the Southern Cameroons liberation and nationalist movements; it should gather the courage to say that the territory is that of the people of the Southern Cameroons. Everything else only comforts Cameroon in its crimes and brazen aggression against a people who only want their space of existence to be left alone by a neighbor whose territory is not being contested.

SOME FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES OF THE AFRICAN UNION

I invite you to see some of the international laws that apply to this case:

• OAU Cairo Declaration 1964: “… Africans are virtually unanimous in their agreement that only by acceptance of the frontiers bequeathed to them by the colonialists can permanent peace reign on our continent”.

· African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights:

· Article 19: All peoples shall be equal; they shall enjoy the same respect and shall have the same rights. Nothing shall justify the domination of a people by another.

• Article 20

2. Colonized or oppressed peoples shall have the right to free themselves from the bonds of domination by resorting to any means recognized by the international community.

• Article 4(b) of the Constitutive Act:

…the respect of borders acquired at independence.

By joining the African Union, Cameroon undertook to confine its claims and sovereignty to the boundaries of the territory it inherited from colonisation. That territory does not include the Southern Cameroons.

• UN General Assembly Res. 1514(XV) of 14 Dec. 1960:

1. "The subjection of peoples to alien subjugation, domination and exploitation constitutes a denial of fundamental human rights, is contrary to the Charter of the United Nations and is an impediment to the promotion of world peace and co-operation.

2. "All PEOPLES have the right to self-determination; by virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development;

3. "Inadequacy of political, economic, social or educational preparedness should never serve as a pretext for delaying independence;

4. "All armed action or repressive measures of all kind directed against dependent peoples shall ease in order to enable them to exercise peacefully and freely their right to complete independence, and the integrity of their national territory shall be respected;

5. "Immediate steps shall be taken in trust territories, non-self-governing territories or all other territories which have not yet attained independence, to transfer al powers to the peoples of those territories without any conditions or reservations in accordance with their freely expressed will and desire without any distinction as to race, creed or color, in order to enable them enjoy complete independence and freedom.”

Julius Nyerere of blessed memory: “No nation has a right to make decision for another nation; no people for another people”. The African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, Article 19 has also absolutely prohibited it: «All peoples shall be equal; they shall enjoy the same respect and have the same rights. Nothing shall justify the domination of a people by another.»

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