ACHPR: Communication 266/2003
THE AFRICAN COMMISSION ON HUMAN AND PEOPLES’ RIGHTS COMMUNICATION 266/2003
Submission by the Representatives of the People of the former United Nations Trust Territory of the Southern Cameroons under United Kingdom Administration.
Prepared by Professor Carlson Anyangwe, PhD
Attorney General
Southern Cameroons Interim Government-in-Exile
EXCERPTS:
Onset of the armed occupation of the Southern Cameroons54. 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.
EXCERPTS CONTINUED:
55. 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.
56. 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.
