January 8, 2009
My fellow Citizens of the Southern Cameroons:
As we speak to you the colonizer is tightening his asphyxiating grip around our neck. He wants to choke the life out of our collective existence as a people. Today, therefore, more than ever before the time has come for more action than words. Nevertheless, as a responsible government we propose to give an account of our one-year stewardship and our perspective on the enormous challenge of national liberation in the course of this year.
In all great endeavors the breakthrough that produces success always inevitably comes from the least expected source. This is true in the field of scientific achievements, political milestones, and military conquests. It is true with the unexpected circumstances that forced European colonizers to relinquish their hold on Africa in the 1960s. It is true with the unexpected circumstances that led to the election of Barack Obama as President of the USA.
It is under similar unexpected circumstances that the Restoration Government came into being. It came from the least expected source. And it drew uninformed and inflamed attacks from some quarters, in some cases by those unable to move from the personal to the principled. The task of conducting the affairs of the Government in the wider context of the national liberation struggle was thrust upon us. Despite the unusual circumstances under which the Government was created, we hit the ground running. We dared to hope that by today we would be speaking to you in completely different circumstance. The realization of that dream has regrettably been deferred to the day after.
The first thing we attended to was reordering of the Government. It was critical to provide it with a mean and lean structure for the purpose of quick and decisive thinking and action. It was in this spirit that appointments were made regarding defense, natural resources, foreign affairs, justice, communication, and homeland safety and security. Further, in May 2008, the office of national treasurer was created and a capable citizen appointed national treasurer.
In August 2008, we spent five weeks meeting US Diaspora citizens of the Southern Cameroons in six states – from Maryland, to New York, Massachusetts, California, Arizona and Minnesota. In each state we stressed the importance of a united and materially committed front against the colonial occupier of our Homeland. In Maryland we tried but sadly failed to get a Washington-based SCNC faction to align itself with the national SCNC. Happily, cordial and fruitful discussions were held with the SCYL leadership. In New York, we were granted private audience at the United Nations. In Boston, we had fruitful exchanges with a cross-section of the Southern Cameroons leadership there. In California, we were welcomed by cultural and religious organizations, and met with a select group of Southern Cameroons dignitaries. In Arizona, we honored an invitation to give a lecture at Arizona State University on the state of the Southern Cameroons struggle. In Minnesota, we met and exchanged views with a cross-section of the Southern Cameroons community. We are happy to report that in all these meetings the conversation with our people was fraternal, frank and open, and resulted in consensus-building.
We continued to work on key tasks aimed at moving the struggle forward in another critical way, the psychological. Among them was the completion and submission for review of a draft constitution for Independent Southern Cameroons. The first draft of the Economic master plan was also completed and submitted to the Cabinet for input. The final draft is expected to be released in the course of this year. Other accomplished tasks included the finalization of state symbols, including our national seal, flag, state house letterhead, national anthem. Winning our just struggle for freedom will inexorably bring about peace in the Gulf of Guinea and freedom from fear and want. That is why plans must be made and action taken in advance if the end of our national liberation struggle is not to find us unprepared. This is what informed the finalization of the symbols of our statehood and the ongoing work on a proposed Independent constitution and socio-economic framework for our nation. However, it is with sadness that we report that the issue of a sovereign name for our nation remains elusive. We shall continue to work on this very central issue. We call on our people to speak clearly and decisively on this matter without further delay.
Throughout the year we made sure our struggle remained in the public domain as the focal subject of public conversation. We issued statements on key issues. We broadcast to the nation via Internet video exposing the lies and manipulations of the colonizer. We restated our cause boldly and unequivocally in a long interview granted to La Nouvelle Expression.
On the diplomatic front, we issued a statement clarifying our position on the political status of erstwhile Northern Cameroons. We opened up contact with a number of countries, largely through their embassies. Diplomatic overtures were also made to regional and international organizations. We believe we are poised to reap the fruits of these contacts in the course of the year when our national liberation struggle gathers decisive momentum.
At the end of the year, we took energetic joint action with the national SCNC led by Chief Ayamba and with SCAPO. This was at the November 2008 session of the African Human Rights Commission in Abuja, Nigeria. As you are already aware, the RG, SCAPO and SCNC at a joint meeting at home took the decision to count primarily on our people at home. Though reduced to destitution by colonial deprivation and terror our people at home remain the backbone of the bitter struggle we are waging. They continue to make patriotic sacrifices for the cause of our national freedom. Actions aimed at the actualization of the decision we took are on course and will be vigorously pursued in the coming weeks.
At the moment, the RG, SCAPO and SCNC are in the thick of a very important initiative which you will know only in the weeks ahead. Together we have also taken and are undertaking a number of other initiatives, both at home and abroad, which you will certainly not expect us to specify. The RG-SCAPO-SCNC troika shall continue with and reinforce this spirit of unity, brotherhood and collective action as we confront the colonizer head-on.
In just one year, we have succeeded legally and diplomatically in putting the colonial oppressor on the defensive.
But the challenge we face remains a Herculean task. Let us be clear on this struggle. Fifty years on the colonization and armed occupation of the Southern Cameroons by Republique du Cameroun remains as crude, oppressive, rapacious and exploitative as ever. Let no one make any mistake about it. This colonization is not an aberrant act. It is not a random act. It is not the product of particular local circumstances in our Homeland. It is something that was programmed long ago, taking unconscionable advantage of our democratic culture, our openness and hospitality, our God-fearing nature and our goodwill. It has a purpose. The goal is to gain access to our country’s oil, gas, mineral and other natural resources. To achieve this goal the colonizer programmed wiping out our Homeland as a political and legal expression and exterminating us culturally. These barbaric ideas begot the equally barbaric acts by the colonizer in our territory these several decades. With a callous indifference the colonizer murders, maims, tortures, disappears and imprisons countless numbers of our people. He has extended his terror structures and networks all over our land. And he continues with his sickening propaganda designed to keep us captives for ever.
He continues to purchase willing bondsmen, hirelings and collaborators from among our people. We know for a fact that some of our people have sold their souls to the colonizer and have, through their conspiracies, actions and pronouncements, elevated themselves to the same level as the Nazi collaborators. They collaborate with the colonial oppressor. They are willing and ready to sell their Homeland and their families for thirty pieces of copper. Whether we bring these collaborators to justice or bring justice to them, justice will eventually be done. Having made their choice our Quislings must share in the historical fate of all collaborators. Every adult citizen of the Southern Cameroons, wherever they may be must now decide where they stand. Either you are with the anti-colonial forces fighting for the national liberation of our Homeland, or you are with the colonizer collaborating with him in his continuing efforts to completely destroy us as a people, make us ‘ningas’ and continue to plunder our resources. From this day forward any citizen of age who gives aid and comfort to the colonizer writes his/her name in the book of traitorous rogues.
The colonizer has taken from us our whole political and economic existence. He has deprived us of our means of moral and material happiness. Now he seeks to deprive us of our history and of our educational, legal and administrative culture. He thinks he can obliterate our frontier to the east. He considers our Homeland a vacant land to be plundered of its resources. We are for him mere slaves. He orders our repression and oppression. By horse whip, he compels us to submit to his colonial servants, agents, edicts and structures. To prevent any revolt, he daily terrorizes us, annually offers bribes to our religious and traditional rulers, and buys as collaborators whoever he can, including criminals. Millions of our people now live in abject poverty and misery. Our Homeland has become a land of despair; a politically, economically, socially, culturally and infrastructurally desolate country. In our Homeland the colonizer is the master and we his slaves or ‘ningas’. We have insider intelligence on further evil schemes by the colonizer.
That is the colonial reality in our Homeland. That is what we are up to. For decades we have sought an amicable and peaceful settlement, in accordance with right and justice. We have done so through legitimate politics, humble deputations and the power of debate. But it has all been in vain. Basking in delusions of might and power, the colonizer would have none of this. In the face of the dire circumstance imposed upon us, we cannot avoid accepting the arbitrament of national liberation struggle. We enter it with a clear conscience. We enter it with the full support of our people at home and everywhere in the world, including those residing in Republique du Cameroun itself. We enter it with the unswerving firmness and faith of our afflicted people. We enter it with faith in the legitimacy and righteousness of our struggle. We enter it with the enduring conviction that we shall overcome. We enter it with the moral approval of Africa and the rest of the conscientious world all made sick by Republique du Cameroun’s colonial appetite when everybody thought colonialism was a thing of the past. We stand at the bar of history knowing that the responsibility for this is squarely on the shoulders of the ruler of Republique du Cameroun, a man who has never hesitated to unleash terror, murder, desolation and plunder in our Homeland to serve his senseless ambitions.
We have said it before that we have no quarrel with the people of Republique du Cameroun, except that they allow themselves to be governed by a vile and despotic oligarchy and have done nothing to end their country’s original sin of colonialism. As long as that Nazi-like regime exists and pursues its sickening methods and techniques in furtherance of its colonial aggression there will be no peace in the Gulf of Guinea. This struggle, it must be understood, is not just a fight by us the colonized to expel the colonizer from our Homeland. It is a fight for our future, our values and our way of life as a people. It is a fight for our children. It is a fight for our very existence as a people. It is a fight to secure international peace and security in the Gulf of Guinea, thereby serving the larger interest of world peace.
We need the wherewithal to prosecute this struggle to its victorious conclusion. Enormous difficulties lie ahead. Today, as before, we accept them. Today, as before, it is clear as the sun that colonialism will be vanquished, as it always has. The ruler of Cameroun Republic and his UNC-RDPC instrument of darkness, terror and colonialism are now running in every direction. There is no hope for them. Their days are numbered. Mene, Mene, Tekel.
As a political instrument the RG is determined to rally the people’s masses, to rally our people and conduct them, together with SCAPO and SCNC, into the arduous battles ahead of us. The people of the Southern Cameroons and all the churches in the Southern Cameroons – the Catholic Church, the Presbyterian Church, and the Baptist Church – must continue in their earnest daily prayers to God that He may guide and direct us in our struggle to free ourselves from colonial slavery.
Working together with SCAPO and SCNC, our action henceforth shall be under the banner of activism. We shall mobilize. We shall prepare our people. We shall goad them to action; youths, women and men, in the towns and in the villages, in the hills and valleys, in the forests, in the mangrove swamps.
Have we renounced the argument of force? La Nouvelle Expression newspaper asked us that question. We made it clear that we cannot renounce the argument of force because no right thinking people can suffer aggression without fighting back in self defense. How can we be expected to sit back and fold our arms and accept colonial bondage? We cannot! We have already served notice to the international community that the continuing threat to international peace and security in the Gulf of Guinea is the result of the colonial adventure of the Yaounde despotic regime in colonizing the Southern Cameroons and that that danger will only cease when Republique du Cameroun must have ended its colonial rule in the Southern Cameroons and withdrawn from our Homeland.
We will continue to work on all fronts – diplomatic, political, regional, international and otherwise – for our freedom. We welcome our people’s continuing spiritual, material and intellectual commitment. The road to freedom is steep, but with iron will and determination, we will climb it. Our people must remain vigilant and monitor very closely every movement and activity in our Homeland by any agent or servant of the colonizer.
May God watch over us, bless, guide and direct us in this our struggle for survival and human dignity. It shall be well with us!
Carlson Anyangwe
Head, Restoration Government
