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What Fate Awaits Bakassi People?

Vanguard (Lagos)
NEWS
November 11, 2004
Posted to the web November 11, 2004

By George Onah
Calabar
A Federal Express courier parcel, FedEx, from the United States of America
arrived Vanguard Office in Calabar two weeks ago. It was addressed to this
writer. The mail aroused some curiosity because the source of the mail
(Chicago) was strange. The curiosity heightened because of the content: A video
cassette and a bound 17-page document were neatly tucked in the parcel.
The document has a bold heading: "The re-colonization of the Southern Cameroons
by France masquerading as La Republique du Cameroun."
An unknown man who said he was "FDRSC Peoples Forum Moderator, media and
communication department, southern Cameroons interim government, Roseville, MN
55113, USA, signed a personal letter to the parcel. The gentleman who would,
for this purpose, be addressed as Foncha said FDRSC stands for Federal
Democratic Republic of Southern Cameroons. In the opening paragraph of his
letter, Foncha drew attention to the fact that the world was silent to an
"unreported injustice and de-humanization of the native inhabitants of one of
the first truly embryonic democratic states in Africa.
The striking aspect of his letter is the picture he paints of the gory
experience of the southern Cameroonians in that country and a situation "whose
realities the people of Bakassi and Nigeria will be confronted with before too
long. It also presents the Nigerian federation with maybe the greatest
opportunity for her to do good for the sake of justice in this part of the
world." The theme of his letter unites the plight of the southern Cameroonians
with the Bakassi cause.
To Foncha, the story of these two peoples (Southern Cameroon and Bakassi) is
"with international reach and implications for it confronts the very basis of
the UN charter's core principle and values on self determination, citizenship
and nationality. But this story has also been kept under wraps through a policy
of state-sponsored terror by the colonial authority (France) in the Southern
Cameroons; and abroad by isolating us from international exposure via
diplomatic misinformation, outright lies and corruption" he wrote.
In his first sentence of the letter, he said he was writing on behalf of the
Southern Cameroons Interim Government in exile, adding, "my collegues,
countrymen, women and I are avid readers of you and your paper Vanguard, that
we do via internet. As one who frequently reports on matters concerning the
Bakassi palava, I thought you would be the best person to handle this story
that may be of interest to the Nigerian public and the world" the man wrote.
Foncha is particularly worried that in spite of the ICJ ruling, the Bakassi
people, if handed over to Cameroon, would prove a fatal error and monumental
disaster.
In the 17-page document, the government in exile of Southern Cameroon
chronicled the historical facts that led to the emasculation of that region by
the colonial lords and their abettors. "The Southern Cameroons is the territory
formerly known as the British Southern Cameroons. Naturally, its official
language, and its educational and legal systems are English. It is bordered to
the West and North by the Federal Republic of Nigeria; to the East by La
Republique du Cameroon, and to the South by the Atlantic Ocean and Equatorial
Guinea. The British ruled the Southern Cameroons from 1858 to 1888 when it was
ceded to Germany and incorporated into German's colonial territory of Kamerun.
Soon after the outbreak of World War I in 1914, Southern Cameroons again fell
to Britain and soon became known as "the British Southern Cameroons.
"Britain administered the territory as conquered enemy territory until 1922
when it was placed under the League of Nation's Mandates System, and
subsequently, the UN Trusteeship system in 1946. The British Cameroons in fact
comprised two separately administered parts, the British Northern Cameroons and
the British Southern Cameroons. It was in respect of the British Southern
Cameroons that the de-colonization process was deeply flawed resulting in a
denial of the right to independence, thanks to a serious miscarriage of
justice, and an ongoing great historical wrong.
"Both Southern Cameroons and La Republique du Cameroon were therefore former
league of Nations Mandated Territories carved out of the former German Kamerun
at the end of the first world war. German Kamerun itself included what are now
parts of Chad, Central African Republic, Northern Nigeria, the Congo and
Equatorial Guinea. By the Treaty of Versailles, Germany renounced all rights to
her former territories and they became a Sacred Trust to be given a new destiny
by the Allied Powers.
"Towards the late 1959s, agitation for independence in Africa intensified.
French Cameroons achieved 'independence' on 1st January 1969 and assumed the
name La Republique du Cameroun (LRC)/The Republic of Cameroon. Ahmadou Ahidjo
became its first President in May 1960. On October 1, 1960, Nigeria attained
independence. The Southern Cameroons, hitherto administered by Britain as part
of Nigeria, 'for administrative convenience', separated from that country.
Having gained self-governing status since 1954, Southern Cameroons became the
only territory between Nigeria and La Republique du Cameroun whose independence
remained unresolved.
"In August 1959, the British Administering Authority organized a conference in
Mamfe, at the request of the UN, to get consensus on how the people of Southern
Cameroons wanted to gain independence. The British Commissioner for the
Southern Cameroons invited all opinion leaders in the Southern Cameroons to a
conference in Mamfe. Of 45 attendees at the conference, 11 voted for union with
Nigeria or LRC while 34 voted for independence for the Southern Cameroons. The
British ignored this large majority vote and instead recommended to the UN a
joining of Southern Cameroons with either Nigeria or La Republique du Cameroun.
"On 27 September 1961, without informing the authorities of Southern Cameroons,
there was an exchange of notes between the representative of the United Kingdom
and Mr. Ahidjo providing that the Trusteeship Agreement would terminate at
midnight on September 30th 1961. Also that the Southern Cameroons would join
the Republic of Cameroon on October 1, 1961 with Ahidjo being the President and
Foncha the Vice President.
On the sudden withdrawal of British troops on September 30th 1961, and without
Southern Cameroons' own army to defend its territory, the troops of La
Republique du Cameroun moved in and occupied the territory without the
authority of any union treaty signed or formal arrangement of any kind. The
people of Southern Cameroons thus fell to the French backed Ahidjo occupation."
In the enclosed videocassette, various film clips abound of alleged atrocities
of the gendarmes against the defenseless people of Southern Cameroon. Foncha
said in his letter while justifying the need for the inclusion of the video,
"they represent the facts as they are with no exaggeration or embellishment."
It opens with a pledge by officials of the government in exile to fight for
their land and get independence at all cost. Then series of speeches,
interviews and conferences that spell the determination of the people to
actualize their plans.
Personalities who feature in the presentation include professors in
universities scattered around Europe, Americas, Scandinavia, Africa etc.
The scenes of terrorism in the film by the gendarmes amply recall with horror
and regret the apartheid era in South Africa. It shows where people are hounded
into the bush while women and children are removed from their mothers' backs
and struck on the ground. What gives the film clips credibility is the
originality in name, places and immediacy of the incidents as recorded.
The footage of the film does not only relate the frustration of just women or
youths, but the elderly and weak who, most times, look blankly into the horizon
as if expecting succour or respite from the blues. Before Nigerian troops took
possession of Bakassi in 1995, news filtering into town from the area was that
of de-humanization of the people by the gendarmes.
Children were alleged to have been forcefully taken from their mothers and
thrown into the ocean. Like the children of Israel, their cry soon got to Aso
Rock and Gen. Sani Abacha sent troops to tell the gendarmes to "let my people
go." If the people of Southern Cameroon could gather in far away United States
to scream and call for world attention to their seeming extermination by the
military of Cameroon then the Bakassi people should be bracing up for pogrom
when handed over.
Only recently, voices were raised by the Cameroonian delegation to the UN-
backed mixed Commission of Nigeria and Cameroon in Abuja. The Cameroonians who,
apparently are been propelled by their colonial power, are no longer in the
mood to talk in low tones. The African brotherliness, which existed in the
past, has been drowned at the peninsula. It is time to talk tough, using
straight language that Nigeria should respect the ruling of the ICJ and hand
over Bakassi. The place would have changed hands September 15, 2004.
To set themselves free, however, the people of the Southern Cameroon are asking
the Cameroonian Government and the UN to meet some demands.
These demands would also affect the well-being of the Bakassi people when
implemented because their plights are similar. Consequently, the FDRSC claim
that the people of Southern Cameroons are a separate and distinct people from
the people of LRC. They have a separate colonial history; a separate state-
culture; a separate and different language; a different perception of life; a
different way of life; a separate and distinct territory with internationally
recognized borders; a separate vision of state affairs; a different identity
and consequently a different destiny.
Like all other peoples, the people of Southern Cameroons love their Southern
Cameroons just as much as the people of France/LRC love their own country, and
aspire to safeguard their identity, secure their own space of existence, defend
their territory, develop it, nurse it and bequeath it to their own posterity.
The same tokens by which France/LRC are sovereign states and rule themselves
are exactly, the same by which the Southern Cameroons claims its own suppressed
sovereignty, to rule itself and have its seat among the comity of nations.

   

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