The International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling on Bakassi has presented a window of opportunity for the people of the Southern Cameroons in particular, and the region in general, to address in the interest of justice, the decolonization question of the Former United Nations Trust Territory of the Southern Cameroons under United Kingdom Administration. The aborted decolonization of this former UN Trust Territory in 1961 and its subsequent annexation by France masquerading as La République du Cameroun is a threat to peace and security in the region.
We use events in Bakassi in the last weeks of June 2005 (the alleged killing of a Camerounese soldier by Nigerian forces in the Bakassi Peninsula) to address the larger issues surrounding any long term prospects of a just peace in this area of the Gulf of Guinea.
