[governance] Fwd: [cameroon_politics] Urgent Request for UN Peacekeeping force in the former British Southern Cameroons

Fri Feb 3 06:18:55 EST 2017

Hi all

Read this to know what is happening in Cameroon.

If Janvier Gnoulaye (PHD, IT teacher at the University) has any rebuttals,
he can freely come out

Urgent Request for UN Peacekeeping force in the former British Southern
Cameroons

Urgent Request for UN Peacekeeping force in the former British Southern
Cameroons
posted by Akene Jude <http://www.alafnet.com/author/akene-jude/> February
3, 2017 Africa <http://www.alafnet.com/category/africa/>, News in English
from Southern Cameroon
<http://www.alafnet.com/category/west-cameroon/english/>, politics
<http://www.alafnet.com/category/home/politics/>, West Cameroon
<http://www.alafnet.com/category/west-cameroon/>, World
<http://www.alafnet.com/category/world/>
UN Secretary General
Part I: Background to the Crisis
1. Permit me to congratulate you on behalf of the people of the former
British Southern Cameroons for your recent election to the post of
Secretary General of the United Nations. I have the honor, as the external
representative of the Consortium of civil society of the English speaking
Cameroons, to write to you in order to brief you on the disturbing
situation which is developing in the former British Southern Cameroons
which are currently designated today as the “Northwest and Southwest
Regions” of the Republic of Cameroon. It is because of the wider potential
regional ramifications of what is happening that we believe that the United
Nations should be informed on a timely basis so that it can take urgent
action.

NFOR N SUSUNG
*Grievances of Common law lawyers*
2. The UN are certainly aware of the fact that disturbances were triggered
by a strike by English speaking lawyers in Cameroon who have constituted
themselves under a common group known as “Common Law Lawyers”. They have
held long standing grievances against the government of President Paul Biya
for appointing Francophone magistrates and lawyers who are practitioners of
civil law, to preside over the entire judiciary in English speaking regions
which have always operated on the basis of Common law, inherited from the
United Kingdom dating back to the UN Trusteeship Agreement of 1946. The
Common law lawyers have also objected to the imposition by the government
in Yaoundé requiring that Common Law lawyers should submit their legal
briefs to Francophone magistrates in French. This is the recipe for
judicial chaos which sent the Common Law lawyers into the streets.
*Grievances of Teachers Association*
3. The Common Law lawyers were joined in a sympathy strike by the teachers
association in the Anglophone regions of Cameroon due to grievances arising
from the fact that the government of President Paul Biya has been posting
Francophone teachers with very low English language proficiency to
Anglophone schools to teach English speaking Cameroonians. The impact of
this has been to lower the quality of education in the former British
Southern Cameroons. The teachers association went on an indefinite strike
because they could no longer accept the idea that the educational system of
the Anglophone regions should become controlled by members of President
Paul Biya’s government who do not use English as a working language because
the same chaos that has been engendered in the judicial system of the for
British Southern Cameroons has expanded to the education sector as well.
The Frenchification of Anglophones:
4. The steamrolling “Frenchification” of the former British Southern
Cameroons with a total population of around 7 million which constitutes
approximately 25-30 percent of Cameroon has been the long standing goal of
President Paul Biya who himself speaks no English even though he has been
the President of a country which is supposed to be bilingual for nearly 35
years.
5. Your Excellency, French is a beautiful language and French culture is
extremely rich. Only those who have mastered the French language can fully
appreciate the depth of French culture. The youth of the former British
Southern Cameroons aspire to learn French as a second foreign language in
order to have access to education in France as many of them have had in
other EU countries like Germany. But the government of President Paul Biya
has never made any effort to promote such exchanges between France and the
former British Southern Cameroons.
6. But the people of the former British Southern Cameroons, otherwise known
as Anglophones, believe that English is the passport into the modern world.
That is why they no longer accept President Paul Biya’s idea of national
unity based on “harmonization” which implies the eradication of all traces
of English and Anglo-Saxon culture in order to ensure that Cameroon
eventually becomes a 100 percent francophone country with French as the
official language. By depriving them of an educational system based on the
highest standards of English language usage the government of President
Paul Biya is subjecting the children of the former British Southern
Cameroons to collective marginalization.
*The Teachers strike*
7. This is the background to the teacher’s strike which was triggered by
the decision of President Paul Biya to post Francophone teachers with poor
mastery of the English language to teach in English speaking schools and
colleges in the former British Southern Cameroons. The unwillingness of the
government of President Paul Biya to respond constructively to the
grievances of the Anglophone lawyers and teachers is responsible for the
progressive descent to violence and deaths on the streets of towns such as
Bamenda and Kumba in the former British Southern Cameroons. I attach photos
of the killings that took place in the town of Bamenda on 8 December 2016
when President Biya’s troops opened fire on unarmed youth who had to defend
themselves with an improvised giant catapult.
Consortium leaders demand a return to a two-state federation
8. The government initially showed a willingness to negotiate with leaders
of the Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium made up of Barrister
Felix Agbor Balla Nkongho, Dr. Fontem Neba and Mr. Wilfred Tassang and who
held negotiating sessions with members of the government in order to find
common ground that will lead to a resumption of schools throughout the
former British Southern Cameroons. Members of the consortium insisted on
return to a federal system of government which will enable the former
British Southern Cameroons to reacquire its autonomy so as to be able to
run its educational system and its judiciary as they existed prior to the
reunification with French Cameroun in October 1961. However the government
of Mr. Biya has completely rejected any idea about a federal system of
government because it prefers to continue to govern under a totally
centralized form of government which has led to the total marginalization
of the Anglophone regions in all spheres of political life in Cameroon.
*Banning of the Consortium and arrest of its leaders:*
9. In a surprising move the government of Mr. Biya placed a blanket ban on
the Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium and proceeded to arrest
Barrister Felix Agbor Balla Nkongho and Dr. Fontem Neba who were leading
the negotiations with the government. Meanwhile Wilfred Tassang was forced
to seek refuge in a foreign embassy in Yaounde. Also arrested was Justice
Ayah Paul Abine who sits on the Supreme Court of Cameroon and whose only
crime is that he is the lone Anglophone on this judicial organ. This arrest
of a Supreme Court judge was done by unidentified individuals without a
warrant of arrest and with wanton disregard for any idea of due process of
the law. This arrest is adequate proof that Cameroon has descended into
legal chaos under President Paul Biya.
Switching off of internet facilities in the Anglophone region:
10. President Paul Biya further proceeded to selectively switch off
internet infrastructure in the Anglophone regions of Cameroon in order to
prevent the distribution of the images of the carnage and brutality which
his military forces are currently perpetrating in the Anglophone regions of
Cameroon. I attach a document which provides proof of the decision taken at
the highest level of state to switch off the internet in what the
government described as “regions sensibles”. It is quite clear that
following the massive deployment of the armed forces all over the
Anglophone regions, the government wants to grant itself the unlimited
license to commit war crimes without being held accountable for them. It
should be recalled that following the attempted coup d’etat of 1984, the
government of President Biya engaged in an orgy of killing of soldiers and
civilians from the Northern region of Cameroon and many are buried in mass
graves around the town of Mbalmayo south of Yaoundé. Based on its past
record, we believe that the government of Mr. Biya is capable of anything
in the Anglophone regions under the cover of the internet blackout.
*Crimes against Humanity*
11. Your Excellency, la République du Cameroun which has been run as a
personal fiefdom by President Paul Biya for 35 years, is not a state party
to the International Criminal Court. However the regime is committing acts
against the English speaking minority of the British Southern Cameroons
which are tantamount to crimes against humanity for which it must be held
accountable before the International Criminal Court.
12. Article 7 (1) (h) of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal
Court lists among “Crimes Against Humanity” : « Persecution against any
identifiable group or collectivity on political, racial, national, ethnic,
cultural, religious, gender as defined in paragraph 3, or other grounds
that are universally recognized as impermissible under international law,
in connection with any act referred to in this paragraph or any crime
within the jurisdiction of the Court »
13. In the specific case of a non state party like La République du
Cameroun, the jurisdiction of the court can be exercised under Article 13
of the statute by which : « The Court may exercise its jurisdiction with
respect to a crime referred to in article 5 in accordance with the
provisions of this Statute if a situation in which one or more of such
crimes appears to have been committed is referred to the Prosecutor by the
Security Council acting under Chapter VII of the Charter of the United
Nations.
14. The people of the Southern Cameroons believe that the decision of the
regime of President Paul Biya to selectively place the Southern Cameroons
under an internet blackout is a crime against humanity because it
constitutes persecution consistent with article 7(1)(h) of the Rome
statute. This decision is clearly in violation of the United Nations
resolution A/HRC/32/L.20 which declared that “online freedom” is a “human
right,” and one that must be protected. But this decision raises greater
concerns because its avowed intention is to give the regime of President
Paul Biya the license and the freedom to commit other crimes against the
citizens of the Southern Cameroons under the cover of the internet
blackout. Given the fact that the Conseil National de Communication under
the Chairman Peter Essoka has been shutting down media houses that have
given coverage in the national media to the attrocities that the armed
forces of the Biya regime have been committing in the Southern Cameroons,
it is abundantly clear that the regime is searching for a total media
blackout over the Southern Cameroons. The question is why ?
15. Your Excellency, the prospects for the resumption of classes in the
former British Southern Cameroons are bleak because the streets are now
occupied by the BIR (Brigade d’Intervention Rapide), which is used
primarily to intervene in the case of attacks by armed terrorists. The
demonstrators and protestors in the streets have been angry unarmed
students who cannot accept the use of live ammunition being fired by the
police, the gendarmes and the BIR sent from other towns with instructions
to use deadly force against unarmed students. The attached photos are ample
testimony of what is happening on the streets of the major towns of the
former British Southern Cameroons.
Separation not secession
16. The people of the former British Southern Cameroons have come to the
conclusion that the only permanent solution to the Anglophone problem in
Cameroon, particularly in respect to the protection of their educational
system and the integrity of their judicial system, is total separation from
French Cameroun in like manner to the separation that took place between
Czechs and the Slovaks in Czechoslovakia in January 1993. There is a
fundamental incompatibility between the French and the British way of
thinking which has made it impossible for a highly educated Anglophone
minority of 25-30 percent to find a proper place for itself in a country
which is dominated by the Francophones. The differences between Common Law
which is practised in the British Southern Cameroons and Civil law which is
practised in French Cameroun are so profound that it is impossible for the
two legal systems to coexist in country where political power has been
centralized as it is in Cameroon under a unitary state.
17. In 1964 when Zanzibar and Tanganyika came together to form the United
Republic of Tanzania, there was a signed union treaty and the instruments
of ratification were adopted by the parliament of Tanganyika and Zanzibar
making the union legal under international law and the said instruments
were addressed to the UN Secretariat in accordance with article 102 of the
UN Charter. That is why in the case of Tanzania if Zanzibar wants to leave
that union, it can be called “secession”.
18. The case of Cameroon is different because in 1961, the incompetent
people involved never thought of signing a formal union treaty and sending
the instruments of ratification to the UN Secretariat. That means that for
55 years we have merely engaged in an informal cohabitation. Consequently
the decision of the Southern Cameroons to become independent can be termed
“separation” but not “secession”:
19. This distinction is important because the regime of Paul Biya is
treating the people of the Southern Cameroons as secessionists. We trust
that the UN secretariat will confirm from its archives that no union treaty
has ever been sent to the UN Secretariat as proof that a legal union had
taken place between the Southern Cameroons and the Cameroun Republic in
1961.
20. Your Excellency, as things stand at the moment it is impossible for
parents to send their children back to school because trust between the
armed battalions that have been sent by President Paul Biya and the
population of the former British Southern Cameroons has completely
collapsed. But the most disturbing development is the fact that there is
increasing suspicion that the government has a secret plan to
instrumentalise generalized conflict between Anglophones and Francophones
who have settled amongst each other in large numbers over many years all
over the country. There is reason to believe that the government would like
to instigate attacks against Francophones in the former British Southern
Cameroons in order to use it as a pretext to launch a much wider crackdown
which could take on the proportions of ethnic cleansing and genocide such
as what happened in 1984 when President Paul Biya sent his troops on a
punitive mission to eliminate over 1500 northerners in Mbalmayo who have
never been accounted for following the abortive coup attempt of 1984. If
such a diabolical plan is allowed to materialize, the consequences would be
catastrophic for the whole of Cameroon and for the entire sub region.
Whatever happens in the British Southern Cameroons in the coming months
shall be the result of instructions given by President Paul Biya to his
army.

by NFOR N SUSUNG

__._,_.___
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__,_._,___

-- 
Aaron Agien NYANGKWE
P.O.Box 5213
Douala-Cameroon
Tel. 237 673 42 71 27
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