Southern Cameroons Interim Government

Carlson Anyangwe-The Champion Newspaper Interview, January 10, 2010.

January 11, 2010

QUESTIONS FROM THE CHAMPION NEWSPAPER

RESPONDENT: Carlson Anyangwe

1.   Recently, gendarmes from Cameroun invaded homes of Nigerians resident in Bakassi. This is beginning to heighten diplomatic tensions between both countries. How do you view this act of provocation by the Camerounian government?

   

What you call an act of provocation is the stock-in-trade of that country and part of its policy. It is a policy that might well not be too far removed from state sponsored terrorism. The goal of terrorization is to procure submission to colonial occupation. République du Cameroun knows very well that its presence in the Southern Cameroons, including Bakassi of course, is legally untenable. So it seeks to impose a reign of terror in Bakassi in particular, and in the Southern Cameroons in general, in hopes that it can possibly limit the growing widespread and active opposition to the colonial occupation of our homeland. 

Regarding the other aspect of your question, I fear there might be a perception in certain quarters that Nigeria could just be playing to the gallery and deceiving the Nigerians settled in the Bakassi Peninsula. There are two credible, peaceful and meaningful actions Nigeria could take to put an end to République du Cameroun’s continuing armed provocations: set up a committee in parliament to ascertain and report back whether there is any instrument of international law that fixes the boundary of République du Cameroun at the Bakassi Peninsula, and, secondly, execute the Abuja High Court Ruling on the Southern Cameroons. If your paper were to challenge the Federal Government to these specific actions, you may be surprised at the endless excuses it will give.

The only way the government can show seriousness is to address the Bakassi issue from its root cause, which is that République du Cameroun has no boundary with Nigeria at the Bakassi Peninsula. Handing over Bakassi to République du Cameroun was like Mauritania’s purported handing over of the southern part of the Western Sahara to Morocco. In handing over Bakassi Nigeria was in breach of the same international law it claimed to uphold because Nigeria did not only have to respect its boundaries acquired at independence; it is also bound, as a credible member of the international community, to insist on respect of the same principle by République du Cameroun. The principle of international law obliging countries to respect boundaries acquired at independence imposes a concomitant duty on states not to recognize any claim by a state to territory not included in that state’s territory at independence or not acquired by means recognized under international law. Bakassi Peninsula has never been part of the territory of République du Cameroun either before or at its independence, and no new frontier arrangement has ever been made to warrant a change in this territorial state of affairs.

 2.   Will Nigeria be wrong to seek to respond in equal measure against the Camerounian government?

 

Download Nigerian Interview-Published in Sunday Champion, Sunday January 10, 2010-Pages 32-33

Southern Cameroons Youth League (SCYL) 2010 Address

January 04, 2010

EXCERPTS

My fellow compatriots

In the past 5 years, we have been thinking of making this address. It has been a thought locked in the inter-phase of contemplation in which several factors had to be carefully considered. We have weighed the options and decided it was time to speak directly and frankly to our people about the difficulties ahead and the opportunities our resilience can bear for a long time coming.

This message is not impregnated with pleasantries or gloom. It is one from a generation most affected by fifty years of occupation. Fifty years of occupation that has created antipathy, morally bankrupted a huge section of our populace, breadth naivety but has also produce a generation of men and women who have refused to settle for anything less than total victory against the dark forces of occupation.

... As for dialogue or negotiations with Yaounde, the SCYL’s position remains unchanged. We will not talk with butchers who continue to detain, arrest, torture and murder our people. It is not an act of intransigence; but one borne of experience and careful analysis of the regime that has been in Yaoundé for 27 years. Yaoundé does not understand negotiations. It equates it to capitulation and legitimisation.

... We congratulate SCNC and SCAPO for this victory. It couldn’t have been  possible without the brilliance of Prof Carlson Anyangwe. Those who made their widows mite donations were also part of this victory. The SCYL has maintained from the moment we received the verdict that SCAPO and the SCNC alone will decide what to do with the victory. It can learn from the lessons of the Bamenda High Court victory by Ambazonia, the Abuja federal High court victory and the admission of the Southern Camerooninto UNPO. There are valuable lessons it can draw from these victories.But any decision SCAPO, SCNC and its allies take, they should understand  that it will only make sense on the ground and those who will decide how that ground is shaped are the ordinary patriot volunteers.

... As far as the SCYL is concerned, we are bent on victory. Yaoundé must release unconditionally all Southern Cameroonians captives especially; Justice Mbuh, Edwin Jumven, Ngek Simon and all the others in its jails. We will not sit with annexationist under an agenda, the African commission calls constitutional talks and that equates independence to autonomy. We have been treated for fifty years like scams and beggars; we have been disenfranchised and traumatised that sharing a common territorial area with these butchers is a source of unending conflict.

Fellow compatriots,

The SCYL has declared that Paul Biya should be charged for Crimes against humanity for ordering, condoning, abetteing and aiding the commission of systemic torture in our land and in advancing its policy of territorial aggrandisement.

 

Download Southern Cameroons Youth League (SCYL) 2010 Address