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Why has it been so difficult to unite the rather divided Southern Cameroons movements and why are there so many movements fighting for the same cause?

The reason is that those fighting occupation hardly ever do so under one constituted organization or structure. Ideology, tactics and strategy dictate this course. In the anti-Apartheid movement in South Africa, there was the African National Congress, the United Democratic Front, COSATU, Black Consciousness Movement, Pan-Africanist Congress of Azania, Inkhata Freedom Movement, Black Sash etc. In Zimbabwe, there was ZANU and ZAPU amongst the most prominent. In Angola there was MPLA, UNITA , etc. The story was the same for Mozambique, Eritrea, East Timor, and so on. In Palestine, there is Hamas and the PLO. All these groups do constitute one Liberation Movement for their various peoples.

The Southern Cameroons is no exception. There is one Southern Cameroons Liberation Movement that is fighting for the sovereign independence of the former British Southern Cameroons. And yes, there are several groups such as the Southern Cameroons National Council (SCNC), the Southern Cameroons Youth League (SCYL), the Southern Cameroons People Organization (SCAPO) and other groups that have been formed by fighters for freedom that are all are united in purpose for the common cause of freedom from colonial captivity. I would be surprised if you do not know that the occupying state, République du Cameroun expends a lot of time and huge sums of money on what are demonstrably futile efforts to scuttle our national liberation struggle: rented groups and paid individuals (including some of its own citizens) are deployed to cause confusion, diversion and give the perception of division. These are ancient but familiar and ineffectual rearguard actions of all colonial occupiers. No one has ever been fooled, and we are not.

To continue, click: Carlson Anyangwe Interview at CAMACDA

But as the cases in the report reflect, the objective of the vast majority of tainted money transfers is the self-enrichment of corrupt officials who’ve pilfered public funds, not terrorism. And that’s clear outside the U.S., as well. In France, Transparency International has brought a case against three African leaders — Congo’s Denis Sassou Nguesso, Equatorial Guinea’s Obiang and Bongo’s estate in Gabon — claiming they allegedly used public funds to purchase around $200 million in French properties for themselves. A group of Cameroonian nationals based in France has also lodged a lawsuit in Paris accusing Cameroon President Paul Biya of buying French homes worth hundreds of millions of dollars with taxpayer funds. The three surviving leaders have rejected all accusations of corruption levied against them.

By Bruce Crumley

In the wake of the 9/11 attacks, the West moved quickly to crack down on the money laundering and secret banking systems that fund much of the terrorism in the world. But as evidence in both the U.S. and Europe suggests, illicit finances continue to circulate around the globe — and quite often the money has nothing to do with violence, but plain greed. Indeed, a new report released by the U.S. Senate this month cites cases of huge volumes of suspect cash being moved from Africa to the U.S. for no other reason than to fatten the bank accounts of crooked leaders, shady arms dealers and conniving middlemen. And experts warn that if these people can still shuttle suspected corruption money across borders for personal gain, similar methods remain open to terrorists, too. (See pictures of a jihadist’s journey.)

“As long as mass corruption, dirty money and banking secrecy are not eradicated together as a single priority, you’ll never defeat the sub-activity within that funding terrorism,” says Jacques Valerian, head of private sector programs at the Berlin-based anti-corruption organization Transparency International. “Western nations recognize the urgency to treat this problem when it involves terrorism, but they become more pragmatic when it’s in the form of ordinary corruption bleeding entire countries dry.”

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The government of West Cameroon and that of East Cameroon, headed then by primary school teachers with only elementary certificates, saw so much wisdom in giving scholarships to the present learned idiots ruling Cameroon to study abroad. Most came back with fabulous certificates and were integrated at the highest levels of policy. The very system that nurtured and groomed them is today being destroyed through their conspiracy.

By Christopher Fon Achobang*
Original Publication: Southern Cameroons Yahoo Group

When I passed my Advanced Levels in 1987, I was excited to enroll in the University of Yaounde, Ngoaekelle. I hadn’t the faintest idea how I was going to raise the money to live in Yaounde and attend lectures. My mother had labored so hard making garri (dried manioc flour) which she sold at Tad Market to sponsor me through secondary school. Garri in the 1970’s was not the gold it is today. Eni, my mother sold 30 cups of garri at only FCFA 100 then. She needed two basins of garri every market day to be sure of a weekly income of FCFA 2,000. This financial insecurity, notwithstanding, I reassured Eni I will make it through University.

No tuition was paid in Yaounde University from its creation in 1963. When I enrolled in the Faculty of Laws and Economic Sciences in 1987, it was in the hopes of benefitting from the university bursaries (EPSI) graciously distributed then. EPSI ranged from FCFA 25,000 to FCFA 80,000 a month. Even the undeserving students collected bursaries for 10 months in a year. Those who were not lucky to benefit from the welfare state from the beginning of the year were given ‘EPSI pitié’ (solidarity financial assistance) of a flat FCFA 100,000 at the end of the year. The university restaurant was doling out good quality food, by today’s standards, at FCFA 55 a meal. “Yaounde fine,” we used to say.

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What is LRC’s business celebrating 11 February, the memorable PLEBISCITE anniversary of British Southern Cameroons, and faking it as Youth Day? Youth Day, in commemoration of what outstanding achievement of LRC’s youth on the 11 February and of which year? What is the justification? Isn’t it simply one of those insidious methods usually employed to obliterate important landmarks in the history of Southern Cameroons? 1 October and 20 May, are progressions from 11 February. And like 11 February, there is no justification for celebrating them because none of them is LRC’s independence anniversary or National Day, None of them is significant in the history of their evolution. 1 January 1960, is the date the French handed down Independence, within the French Union, to French Cameroun with the new name of La Republique du Cameroun(LRC). The Independence was ratified by the United Nations on the 20 September 1960, on the Republic’s accession to membership of the United Nations.

By Vincent N. Feko
Civil Society Senior Citizen, Human Rights Defender, Group Leader

In his End of Year State of the Nation Address, 31 December 2009, President Paul BIYA, said, inter alia: “My dear Compatriots, the fiftieth anniversary of independence in 2010 is a prelude to the fiftieth anniversary of Reunification which we will be celebrating in 2011.” This sounds like the rejuvenation of Reunification in 2011. What an after thought!

Regardless of the distortion and obliteration of British Cameroons history by the word: Reunification, an inquisitive mind would like to know the circumstances of the afterthought. For example, the thirtieth independence anniversary was celebrated with fanfare on 1 January 1990. It was not celebrated as a prelude to the thirtieth anniversary of Reunification which should have been celebrated in 1991. And as if these state issues are as complex to understand as the management of the oil revenue according to ASSOUMOU, the governor, who has the monopoly of understanding in this domain and is accountable to the governed, has not considered an explanation to the latter as a necessity. That thirtieth independence anniversary celebration was closed with the issuing of commemorative postage stamps with LRC’s map at independence, when it acceded to full-fledged membership of the United Nations on 20 September 1960 as a sovereign state.

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“No pompous military parade or dances, but a symposium. Symposiums to which I’ll invite the representatives of all the African countries that obtained their independence in 1960, so that we can reflect on this past half century and on the fifty years to come.”
Ivorian president, Laurent Gbagbo, on how he’ll commemorate the 50th anniversary of his country’s independence.

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The ACHPR has said that the right to self-determination can be exercised in other ways than through the creation of an independent state. But that is only their opinion. They cannot tell the Southern Cameroons how to exercise this right. They cannot tell the people of the Southern Cameroons to go and form political parties in République du Cameroun. When the Southern Cameroons gets to Banjul, my hope and expectation is that it will be to tell the ACHPR and République du Cameroun how the people want to exercise that right to self-determination which has been acknowledged by the Commission. This promises to be very dramatic.

By Dr. Nfor Susungi

The idea of forming political parties under the jurisdiction of LRC is jumping the gun and most certainly suicidal. Many people were grossly mistaken when they said that the Banjul Verdict was not favorable to the Plaintives. Although the African Commission of Human and Peoples Rights (ACHPR) could not come out and declare that the Southern Cameroons has the right to self-determination, the key element of the Banjul ruling which we should grab and hang on to for now for now, like a good running back, is where it says:

“Southern Cameroonians are a People recognized as such in international law.”

This is a very important finding because it automatically entitles the Southern Cameroons to those other rights which are built into the African Charter of Human and Peoples Rights such as Article 20 (1) which states that:

All Peoples shall have the right to existence. They shall have the unquestionable and inalienable right to self- determination. They shall freely determine their political status and shall pursue their economic and social development according to the policy they have freely chosen.”

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Southern Cameroons has defeated la République du Cameroun in Banjul. The African commission on Human and Peoples Right has laid to rest the questionable version of the occupiers’ definition of a people. Does this mean we are independent? Far from it. This means we should double our effort in our struggle to regain our homeland. This will take more than rhetorical commitment.

By Dr. Lawrence Ayamba

In less than 9 weeks, the year 2009 will come to an end. We will welcome 2010, ten years after the new millennium, ten years of extra-ordinary progress in the field of science and a more constricted world in which we are struggling to keep pace with the rapidity of events. 2010 will also be almost 60 years since most countries in Africa evolved from a pure colonial form of rule into neo-colonial outposts where foreign interest and designs have been predominant. Within this period of struggle, Africa’s finest patriots have lost their lives. Those who clamored for complete independence were termed communist and liquidated. Their spirit and the unquestionable loyalty they showed for their compatriots and country is inspiring enough for us to evoke. They laid their lives for Africa, its future and its pride. We must walk in their footsteps. Patrice Lumumba wrote [to his wife]:

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Britain was once in the same situation like the Southern Cameroons as a colony of the Roman Empire; that the United States was once a colony of Great Britain and had to use the argument of force to have her independence; that the Queen of England peddled our territory to France as a “small gift from the Queen” - when in fact the Southern Cameroons was a Trust Territory of the United Nations, and Britain’s task was to prepare her for full independence and not to trade her with France; that Britain could grant independence to small Gambia with less than 5% the resources, size and population of the Southern Cameroons …

By Chief Fuatabong Achaleke Taku and Martin Fon Yembe

Your Excellency, our interests have been greatly aroused by your recent declarations in The Post newspaper especially as concerns the Southern Cameroons. In your posturing, you categorically declare that “Britain recognises the Government of the Republic of Cameroon as the sole authority in Cameroon. That hasn’t changed since 1972…”

Of course, Excellency, we, Southern Cameroonians have always known the position of Britain ever since she began playing games with an entire people from 1960 till date. May we remind your Excellency that Southern Cameroonians have never disputed the authority of the Government of the Republic of Cameroon as the sole authority in their Cameroun? Of course, that should not even arise for we have not raised any counter to that.

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JOINT COMMUNIQUE

We, the Representatives of the Southern Cameroons National Council (SCNC); Southern Cameroons Peoples’ Organisation (SCAPO); the British Southern Cameroons Restoration Government (in Exile) RG, held a synergic meeting in Buea on the 9th of August 2009 and arrived at the following resolutions which we hereby communicate to all Southern Cameroonians and the world at large:

1. That we commit ourselves and our organisations to a renewed and strengthened Unity of Purpose regarding all endeavours geared towards the restoration of the statehood and independence of British Southern Cameroons.

2. That we shall henceforth and on a regular basis concert on all projects and methods of executing them as a means of moving forward with the struggle for the restoration of our beloved fatherland.

3. We call on all other groups in the liberation struggle to close rungs and join the Unity train for the fast and definitive restoration of British Southern Cameroons.

DONE IN BUEA THIS 9th DAY OF AUGUST 2009.

Signed:

Chief Ayamba Ette Otun ( Nationl Chairman,SCNC)
Augustine F. Ndangam (Vice Chairman, SCAPO)
Mola Njoh Litumbe (On behalf of the British Southern Cameroons Restoration Government)
Fidelis Chinkwo S(ecretary General, SCNC)
Martin F. Yembe (Secretary General, SCAPO)
Barrister Harmony Bobga Mbuton, Counsel.

Others Present in the meeting:
Nfor N. Nfor( Vice Chair, SCNC); Ngiewih Asunkwain (Communication Sec., SCNC); Besong M. Arrey ( SCNC); Taku Sylvester (SCNC Zonal Chair, Southern Zone); Madam Francisca Keffie (SCNC); James Sabum (SCNC); Njonhuo Vincent (Financial Secretary, SCNC); Barrister Ajong Stanislau( Lawyer/ Counsel).