THE GROSS ILLEGALITY AND MISCARRIAGE OF JUSTICE ON THE BAKASSI ISSUE AND RULING
All United Nations Declarations forbid the illegal acquisition of territory. This means that no territory can be accepted as belonging to a country unless it was acquired through internationally recognized norms. The African Union’s Constitutive Act in Article 4(c) (to which la République du Cameroun has acceded) also entrenches the principle of the immutability of frontiers that were acquired at independence. Article 102 (1) of the UN Charter obliges all UN members to deposit any treaties into which they enter, at the secretariat of the United Nations, as soon as possible; and Article 102(2) bars any member of the UN from invoking any treaty to its aid that does not conform to the provisions of Article 102(1).
La République du Cameroun achieved its independence on January 1 1960 within a clearly defined frontier which does not include the Southern Cameroons; that frontier being to the East of the River Mungo which marks the international boundary, as per the 1931 Anglo-French border Treaty, between la République du Cameroun and Southern Cameroons. All maps presented in the Bakassi case between la République du Cameroun and Nigeria show the disputed Bakassi peninsular to be located indisputably within the territory of the Southern Cameroons. The question is this: By what Treaty, international legal instrument or UN Resolution, has the boundary of la République du Cameroun been purportedly recognized, within the United Nations system, as having moved from what it was at the attainment of its independence on January 1 1960, to Bakassi?
Neither the United Nations, the ICJ, Nigeria, la République du Cameroun, or anyone else, can produce any international legally binding instrument, complying with the United Nations Charter and Declarations, by which the internationally recognized boundary of la République du Cameroun has been shifted from East of the Mungo to Bakassi. In view of this incontrovertible fact, the whole basis of the Bakassi dispute and ruling proves to be a gross illegality and miscarriage of justice. La République du Cameroun cannot be proved by anyone to have a boundary with Nigeria on the Bakassi Peninsular! The ICJ and Nigeria simply assumed that it did, and on the basis of this assumption a matter was heard with a party who has no locus whatever in Bakassi! The only people who have a boundary with Nigeria on the Bakassi Peninsular are the people of Southern Cameroons, who have lived in colonization for close to fifty years through the illegal occupation of the territory of Southern Cameroons by la République du Cameroun. The intention of la République du Cameroun in the Bakassi case was to use the United Nations, through fraud and deceit, to legalize it conscious and premeditated colonization of the Southern Cameroons. The United Nations has grossly erred and been misled in the Bakassi issue!
Fortunately, the resolution of the Bakassi Peninsular issue, which necessarily involves the recognition and demarcation of the legal mutual boundaries of la République du Cameroun, those of the Southern Cameroons and those of Nigeria, gives the United Nations a second chance to redeem the mistakes it made in 1961 when it violated its own Charter (Article 76(B)) and instead of granting Southern Cameroons its independence, abandoned it to the colonization of another United Nations Trust Territory (la République du Cameroun) without any safeguards whatsoever. The United Nations is greatly helped in this by the peaceful approach the people of Southern Cameroons have adopted in pursuing the decolonization of their country. It would be a catastrophic mistake for the United Nations to miss this opportunity and plunge the people of Southern Cameroons into a bloody war of independence by handing their country to la République du Cameroun, which has already occupied it illegally and in gross violation of all UN instruments for the last 45 years.
Wherefore we pray the United Nations, and in particular its Secretary General, Mr. Kofi Annan; the international community; the African Union and all interested parties, to speedily rectify the ongoing mistakes on the Bakassi issue and address the matter as it should, by:
1. Recognizing the fact that the only two countries that share a boundary at Bakassi are the Southern Cameroons and Nigeria;
2. Recognizing the separate identity, territory and Statehood of the Southern Cameroons and enforcing the existing boundary treaties between la République du Cameroun and Southern Cameroons and thus putting an end to the continuing illegal occupation;
3. Facilitating the speedy withdrawal of the forces, administration and government of la République du Cameroun from the territory of the Southern Cameroons;
4. Establishing the necessary conditions in the Southern Cameroons for a transitional government upon the withdrawal of la République du Cameroun;
5. Establishing a boundary demarcation commission from the two parties concerned, the Southern Cameroons and the Republic of Nigeria, once a proper government has been established in the Southern Cameroons; and
6. Condemning la République du Cameroun for its long-standing illegal occupation of Southern Cameroons and its attempt to lure the United Nations into the error of confirming such colonization through the Bakassi issue.
On Behalf of the People of the Southern Cameroons
Ayaba Cho Lucas
Secretary General SCYL (Southern Cameroons Youth League)
