The Southern Cameroons People's Organization-SCAPO has written an open letter to President Paul Biya. The open letter signed by Dr. Gumni and Mr. Ndangam addresses some pertinent issues on the union between Southern Cameroons and La Republique. Here below is the letter in its entirety.
When News Breaks Out, We Break In. Minute by Minute Report on Cameroon and Africa
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.
When News Breaks Out, We Break In. Minute by Minute Report on Cameroon and Africa
4 comments:
Some pertinent questions indeed!
Only people who are idle round the clock have time to sit and write such stupid letters. Just pieces on nonsense and irrelevant facts put together in an attempt to destabilize the country. Cameroon does not need that. Nothing exists today like Southern Cameroons and its statehood, just like any so called annexation. Cameroon is united and one, Cameroonians have been living in peace, harmony and equity just as our forefathers wished and it took guts for statesmen of both Cameroons to sit together and decide to become one. We will continue to live together because we see no inconveniency in it. The so called SCAPO is just a group of malicious individuals seeking for notice and trying to instrumentalise populations to cause unrest in the country
No Cameroonian recognizes the so called SCAPO and we do not want them. Cameroonians of the English speaking part of Cameroon (former Southern Cameroon) have nothing to complain about and have never asked any group of activists suffering from schizophrenia to write any such letters. Your questions have no place and do not make any sense today and thus your letter is just a piece of junk that should be dumped in the right place and has nothing to do in the various destinations listed.
We the people of Southern Cameroon don't have any time to argue with ignorant morons from la republique du Cameroun any where. However i will like to thank SCAPO,SCNC,SCPC,SCYL scarm, For your firm stand in the restoration of our state hood only God would reword you guyz for your endeavours.
Post a Comment