Southern Cameroons Interim Government

Desperation in the Southern Cameroons

RESEARCH BUREAU

It comes as no surprise in normal and natural societies that the people are governed by those they’ve elected. The elected governors at all levels of the society are men and women who more or less have lived amongst those they’ve been elevated by local suffrage to guide their collective destiny as a community or people; and are naturally accountable and answerable to them. They speak in similar manner, speak the same language, and share the same values, hopes and anxieties. In the elected governor, the sanctity of the person and home of the governed is safeguarded. They are a people, one people; just as in the rallying cry of the University of Buea students, “One for all, all for one.”

France and the Frenchification of the Southern Cameroons

Following events in the Southern Cameroons territory of Bakassi in the month of June, the Minister of Communications of La Republique du Cameroun on June 23, 2005 put out a Press Release that did not sit well with some members of the Camerounese political class. The Press Release said in part: “The Government of Cameroun wishes to inform the national and international opinion that serious incidents occurred in the Bakassi Peninsula on Camerounian territory on 5, 17, 18 and 21 June 2005, following repeated acts of aggression by the Nigerian armed forces on Camerounian  positions. These incidents caused the death of a Camerounian soldier, serious injuries and material damage. This constitutes a flagrant violation of the 10 October 2002 ruling of the International Court of Justice, which recognizes the Bakassi Peninsula as Camerounian territory…”

Bakassi Arising

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.