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His
Excellency,
President
Paul Biya,
Unity
Palace,
Yaounde
Republic
of Cameroon
Your
Excellency Mr. President,
Subject: YOUR PLAN
TO CELEBRATE 1ST OCTOBER AS RE-UNIFICATION DAY
The Southern Cameroons People’s
Organization (SCAPO) is a political Party in Southern Cameroons working to end
the annexation and foreign occupation of Southern Cameroons since 1961.
Your plan to celebrate 1st
October 2012 as Re-Unification Day and to do so in Buea capital of
Southern Cameroons takes many people in Southern Cameroon by surprise. Many do not know the reason behind the
elaborate plans about this celebration which has not happened in the last fifty
years. Your answers to the following questions will clear the air about this
new plan for celebration in Buea:
-
Why do you want to celebrate an event that
did not take place?
-
Why a celebration when your country voted at
the United Nations in 1961 that they did not want Union with Southern
Cameroons?
-
Why this celebration after your government
(for 50 years) carried out yearly harassment and arrests of Southern
Cameroonians on every 1st October for celebrating their independence
day?
-
Why do you call the event Re-Unification?
-
Why a celebration after evading the dialogue
proposal made by the African Commission to be held between your country and the
State of Southern Cameroons?
Permit us to
draw your attention to the following:
1) That you are planning to celebrate an
event that did not take place. In 1961
the people of Southern Cameroon voted in a UN plebiscite to join with their
brothers in the Republic of Cameroon.
After that plebiscite, instead of engaging in negotiation in good faith
for that union to succeed in accordance with UN principles and Resolutions,
YOUR Country chose the path of annexation and today Southern Cameroon is two
provinces of your Country that was supposed to be a partner in a Federation of
two States both equal in status.
2) Mr. President, you will recall that on
April 21, 1961 when the UN proposed that Southern Cameroon joins your country
(UN Resolution 1608X V paragraph 4b) your country joined the rest of French
Speaking Africa to vote “NO” to that UN proposal and Resolution. Your country has since never apologised to
the people of Southern Cameroon for that position on Union with Southern
Cameroons. Your Country’s U-turn after
this stand AGAINST Union with
Southern Cameroons can only be explained in the light of the subsequent
annexation of Southern Cameroon by your country in utter disregard of mutually
agreed terms for the union and in defiance of international law.
3) That for 51 years now your government has
harassed arrested and detained Southern Cameroonians each year on 1st
October for celebrating a day which was named by the Trusteeship Council of the
United Nations as Independence Day for Southern Cameroon. Your present U-turn is therefore surprising
(as surprising as the dramatic U-turn and ambivalence of the Republic of
Cameroon about union with Southern Cameroon in 1961 at the UN).
4) It will be recalled that your predecessor
Amadou Ahidjo told the 13th session of the U.N.O on 25th
of February 1959, “I
should not like the firmness and clarity of our stand to be interpreted as a
desire for integration on my part which would sound the death knell to the
hopes of our brothers in the zone under British Administration”.
“We do not wish to bring the weight of our
population to bear on our British brothers.
We are not annexationists”.
“In other words, if our brothers of the
British zone wish to unite with an independent Cameroun, we are ready to
discuss the matter with them, but we will discuss it on a footing of equality”.
So what
happened afterwards that your country went back on these declarations and used
“the weight” of your population in 1972 to reverse the vote of the people of
Southern Cameroons people for a Federal Union? What happened afterwards that
your country became “annexationists”?
5) Mr President, you and your predecessor have
insisted that in the plebiscite in 1961 Southern Cameroons voted to join what you claim to be the mother-country
which historically was German Kamerun. You therefore call the event
RE-UNIFICATION. Unless this wrong information is calculated to achieve some
hidden agenda, we are sure that your lawyers and historians would tell you that
the United Nations plebiscite did not set out to reconstitute German Kamerun in
1961 and that Germany renounced all her overseas colonies at the end of world
war I (Treaty of Versailles) . They would tell you that when the former UN
Trust Territory of French Cameroun achieved independence on January 1st
1960 there was no statute at the UN or anywhere in the world appointing your
new country as successor to German Kamerun. They would tell you that your
country can rightly claim to be successor to the former UN Trust Territory of
French Cameroun and not German Kamerun. Your theory of a mother-country and of
Re-Unification are both wrong and unacceptable because they are a threat to the
stability of the entire sub-region because there are portions of German Kamerun
in what is today Chad, Gabon, Congo, Central African Republic, and Nigeria. It is therefore
unacceptable that your country’s pro-consuls are erecting structures within
Southern Cameroons called “RE-UNIFICATION MONUMENTS” while you are
planning a big Re-Unification celebration on 1st October.
6) Mr.
President, in this letter we have referred to the people of the Republic of
Cameroon as our brothers. We use these
words responsibly and we mean what we say.
The peoples of the Southern Cameroons and those of the Republic of Cameroon
shared the same political and economic space for 50 years and the relationship
between individual families have become intertwined.
Unfortunately,
the people of Southern Cameroons have lived through situations which convince
them that, even two twins from the same womb have to live separate lives. The people of Southern Cameroons are
convinced that the union with la République du Cameroun failed a long time ago,
indeed, it failed before it started. We
do not see our future as part of the political system which has governed your
country during the last 50 years.
The
people of Southern Cameroons did not vote in the Plebiscite to sell out
themselves, their territory and their political status to become two Provinces
of the Republic of Cameroon. That is the reason why they conducted a signature
referendum in 1995. The response to that
referendum was that they overwhelmingly want a peaceful separation. The plan of SCAPO as a Southern Cameroon
Political Party is to ensure that there is a peaceful separation between the
two Countries. This is the key reason why the people of Southern Cameroons have
just filed a case at the United Nations Security Council. This case gives the Republic of Cameroon the
opportunity of showing the legal basis of their presence in Southern Cameroons,
and of justifying their annexation of a State that was supposed to be a partner
with them in a Federation of two States (both equal in Stations). But which,
they chose to incorporate that state as two of their Provinces.
We
can learn from events elsewhere: When
the people of Czechoslovakia realized that their union was not working, they
voluntarily decided to separate their two peoples into two separate republics
rather than to trigger another war in the middle of Europe. After 75 years, the leaders of the country
agreed to peacefully dissolve their union into a Czech and Slovak Republics on
January 1, 1993. The two countries are
now doing very well as separate states. The proposal for dialogue between
Southern Cameroon and the Republic of Cameroon has been made by the African
Commission for Human and Peoples’ Rights, Banjul and before then by Mr. Kofi
Annan the then Secretary General of the United Nations. Mr. President, we are surprise that you
should brush aside these proposals for dialogue with Southern Cameroon and are planning
a celebration.
Your
Excellency, in working to restore our statehood our purpose is to revive our
own form of democracy in which change was possible. Before coming under
annexation and the suppression of our Statehood the government of the Southern
Cameroons conducted free-and-fair general elections in Southern Cameroons. Dr E.M.L. Endeley the then Prime Minister of the
Southern Cameroons conceded defeat when Mr J.N.Foncha (Leader of the
Opposition) was elected by the people.
There was a peaceful change of government which is rare today in Africa
where incumbents hang
on and on to power claiming popularity but refusing to create credible
Independent Electoral Commissions and where frequent electoral and
post-electoral strife manifest across the continent. For fifty years
under annexation we have become more than convinced that we need to restore our
statehood and revive our cherished democratic values.
Finally
Mr. President, we think that with our Statehood restored we will develop our
country better. We recall that twice under annexation the government of the
Republic of Cameroon has opened the Kumba – Mamfe road (once from the Mamfe end
by your predecessor and at at another time by a high ranking Minister of
Government from the Kumba end of the road) and that these events remain the
exceptional cases in Cameroon when un-tarred roads were ceremonially opened and
tapes cut. You yourself know how many times you have visited Bamenda and told
the people that you will construct the Ring-Road and other times that you will
personally supervise the construction of that road. Still, the construction of
the Ring Road has never taken off and the last we heard concerning the Ring-Road
was from a Minister of your government saying that the Ring-Road was not a
priority for your government. So who is fooling who in all these or in the plan
for a big celebration in Buea on 1st October 2012?
FOR AND ON BEHALF OF
THE SOUTHERN CAMEROONS PEOPLE’S ORGANIZATION
DR. KELVIN NGWANG GUMNE
MR.AUGUSTINE NDANGAM
Copy
to:
The Secretary General of the United Nations.
The President
of the French Republic
The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of
Great Britain and Northern Ireland
The President of the UN Security Council
The Chairman of the African Union
The Chairman of the Peace and Security
Council of the African Union
The President of the Commission of the
African Union
The Chairperson of the African Commission,
Banjul
The Executive Secretary, ECOWAS
The Ambassador, United States Embassy,
Yaoundé
The Canadian High Commission Yaounde
The Ambassador, French Embassy, Yaoundé
The British High Commission, Yaounde
The Ambassador, Russian Embassy, Yaounde
The Ambassador, Embassy of the Peoples
Republic of China, Yaounde
The Nigerian High Commission, Yaounde
All Political Parties with Headquarters in
Southern Cameroons
All Political Parties of the Republic of
Cameroon
All Traditional Rulers of the Southern
Cameroons
All Deputies of Southern Cameroons Origin in
the National Assembly of La République du Cameroun
All Mayors of Southern Cameroons Local
Government Areas.
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