More Historical Claims on Bakassi emerging (UPDATE)

Hi Prof Carlson,
 
thanks for the below comment. Unlike what you read from the purported new evidence from these Nigerian Professors, I do not think they are repeating their arguments in new clothing. I think their approach is different this time but whether they will succeed or not is another issue.
 
The Nigerians know that a treaty based title claim is superior to a title based on affectivities and historical consolidation. The ICJ stated clearly in its judgment that the concept of historical consolidation is not well established in international law and even if it did, some odd 50 years of cohabitation is too short to establish historical consolidation. Nigeria knows that and the Professors are not saying that.
 
The Professors also know that the argument of affectivities will not hold hence they are not talking of who built the post office in Bakassi, who carried out census there, who built the health centre, schools, clinics, who has administrative infrastructure there. They are not talking of these anymore. They know this argument will not hold either.
 
So what are the Professors desperately trying to say or do?. Based on my reading of their purported new evidence, their approach is a 2 prong approach;
 
1) Impugn the 1913 treaty and claim that it is based on mistakes and that based on these purported new revelations, the treaty is dead and not enforceable.
2) Impugn the interpretation of the 1913 treaty itself by claiming that there is some material misunderstanding of its provisions.
 
The Professors claim that mistakenly or by some intentional trick, the boundaries in the 1913 treaty are different from the boundaries accepted by the League of Nations and perhaps one party signed without realising the material change ( some form of "Non est factum" idea. Here, I am not going into the legal consequences of signing a document without realising a material mistake in them if there was any at all).
 
The Professors are claiming some distinction between what is meant by "opening into the sea", whether it means a river or the high seas and all those distinctions.
 
In summary, my point here is that the Nigerian vultures are circling but we MUST not underestimate them. They are not after historical consolidation since this legal concept has been rejected by the ICJ, they are not after affectivities since a treaty based title claim will easily be considered a superior claim. THEY ARE NOW AFTER THE 1913 TREATY ITSELF TO IMPUGN ITS VALIDITY OR ITS INTERPRETATION.
 
Nigeria tried impugning the 1913 treaty in the ICJ by saying that it was not ratified by the German Parliament but failed. They did not realise the importance of this treaty and that the Bakassi will stand or fall on this treaty hence did not concentrate their efforts on the treaty. Now they know better and are sharpening their legal and historical armada/arsenal against the treaty. Only time will tell how far they can go but we must check and re-check any purported new historical fact they bring that has or can have any bearing whatsover on the 1913 treaty.
 
Regards
 
 
Tumasang
 

---

Date: Wed, 3 Oct 2012 09:46:24 -0700
From: carlany2001@yahoo.com
Subject: Re: More Historical Claims on Bakassi emerging
To: ambasbay@googlegroups.com

The Professor says nothing new, except for his polemical claim that Bakassi had at all times been in Nigeria and his evidently self-interested interpretation of the documents he refers to. . If Bakassi was part of Nigeria which gained independence well before the plebiscite how come Bakassi even by UN accounts became part of the Southern Cameroons in 1961? And can the learned Professor produce the boundary treaties delimiting the boundaries of Nigeria at independence? By consistently using the term "cede" these Nigerians have at least been taken in by their own deception. The territorial boundary alignment between Nigeria and the Southern Cameroons has always located Bakassi within the Southern Cameroons. So at no time was Bakassi ceded by Nigeria. The truth is that Nigeria tried to wrestle Bakassi by force and failed. Now it is trying to rewrite a bit of history, trying to bend it in its favour. It will not work. Our professor should read and reread the Eastern Nigeria Boundaries (Definition) Order-in-Council, 1954. During the pleadings in the Bakassi Case counsel referred to this document and tendered it in evidence as proof of the fact that Bakassi is located within the Southern Cameroons. The Nigerian side was unable and could not assail it. Bakassi is firmly located with the Southern Cameroons. The tale about the Southern Cameroons economy being linked more to Germany than to Nigeria is a veritable myth. The complete rebuttal of that myth is Sir Phillipson's Report on the Economic Viability of the Southern Cameroons, a report written when the Southern Cameroons was still linked to Nigeria. The man says Bakassi is physically separated from the Southern Cameroons but he does not say what he understands by "physical separation". If one looks at Portugal and Spain, for example, onel sees that parts of their territory are located a distance from the mainland. Indonesia comprises hundreds of islands. In law the territory of a state need not be one continuous mass of terra firma. In any case if Bakassi is "physically separated" from the Southern Cameroons, then a fortiori from Nigeria. At the end of the day the Professor's exertions are an exercise in futility.   CA --- On Wed, 10/3/12, Efasamoto@aol.com <Efasamoto@aol.com> wrote: From: Efasamoto@aol.com <Efasamoto@aol.com> Subject: Re: More Historical Claims on Bakassi emerging To: ambasbay@googlegroups.com, camnetwork@yahoogroups.com, cameroon_politics@yahoogroups.com Date: Wednesday, October 3, 2012, 7:17 AM In my opinion these are issues that our black leg historians, such as Konde  and the Southern Cameroons liberation expert turn CPDM  presidential aspirant Dr. Suzungi might excel in. Lets give them a chance to take a crack at this Bakassi issue. Here is where we need them, not fighting with our people who are hungry for some direction to free themselves from a catastrophic regime holding them in pure colonial terms.    In a message dated 10/3/2012 12:32:23 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time, tumasangm@hotmail.com writes: Dear All, any historian in the house to check below new claims?   BAKASSI: Peninsula not in 26 districts plebiscite of southern Cameroun On October 3, 2012 · In Special Report 1:41 am Continues from yesterday THE Milner/Simone Declaration which showed the partition of Cameroon between Britain and France was not the work of the League. The British and French powers partitioned Cameroons to their satisfaction before they presented it to the League for the Mandate Signature. Prof. Walter Ofonagoro…Bakassi is in Nigeria That Partition Boundary became the boundary between British and French Cameroons, as contained in the Declaration of July 10, 1919, which Milner and Simone signed. It had nothing to do with the old Anglo-German line of 1914. American insistence on studying the terms of the Mandate Treaties delayed the signing of the Cameroons Mandates until July 20, 1922. The Americans had hoped that they could persuade their European Allies to abandon the quest for colonies, or for making secret deals among themselves against their enemies. They were wrong. The United States left the League in 1920, disappointed, and by 1922, refused to sign either the League Treaty, or the Treaty of Versailles. Russia, had made her own separate peace with Germany at Brest-Litovsk in 1918, and withdrew from European affairs, to face the challenges of the Bolshevik Revolution at home. So the Great powers left at the League were mainly Britain and France, from 1922. In 1923, a British Order-in-Council made permanent arrangements through which the various parts of the Mandate Territory, under her, were run. In Nigeria, Bakassi continued to remain under British rule. Professor Gardinier of Yale University, further stated at the Yale University Conference, that Britain pursued different policies in different parts of her Cameroon Mandates. (1) She never set up any administrative link between Northern Cameroons and Southern Cameroons. (2) Northern Cameroons was fully integrated into Northern Nigeria, economically, administratively and in every other respect making it impossible to separate Northern Cameroon mandated territory from Northern Nigeria. (3) With Southern Cameroon, it was different. Southern Cameroon was never integrated with Nigeria. It had its own separate Province, the "Cameroons Province" of Southern Nigeria, which eventually became the Southern Cameroons" Mandated Region in the Nigerian Federation from 1954, with its own legislature, parliament, and constitution by 1960. (4) "The economy of Southern Cameroon was never integrated with Nigeria's, but was linked directly with that of overseas nations, above all Germany's." Significantly, Great Britain never integrated Bakassi either administratively or economically with Southern Cameroon, throughout the period, 1922-1960, and never included her in the 26 plebiscite districts of Southern Cameroon. In fact Bakassi was part of Nigeria at independence, her border on the Rio del Rey defining Nigeria's Eastern border since April 14, 1893. This history of German Cameroon between 1914 and 1939 is completely omitted from the Cameroon Memorandum of Facts. Certainly, the League of Nations accepted the borders of Southern Cameroon, and Northern Cameroon as they were presented by Britain at the time of signing the League Mandate in 1922, and they were not the same as the Borders of German-Cameroon in 1914. The Cameroon Memorandum of Facts also quoted the Nigerian law No. 126 of 1954, as evidence that Bakassi had been ceded to her. That is false. The law in question is the "Northern Region, Western Region, Eastern Region Boundaries (Definition) Order-in-Council, No. 126 of 1954". It defines the boundary between Cameroon and the Eastern Region of Nigeria. In Schedule III, Part I and II, both territories have "the Sea" as their southern border. Some have ignorantly thought that "Sea" meant the point at which the boundary entered the Akwa Yafe River! But Akwa Yafe River was never the Sea boundary of Southern Nigeria. That issue had long been settled in the Anglo-German Agreement of April 14, 1893. It was, in fact, the first Boundary of Nigeria to be settled. The sea in this law, refers to that body of water on the shores of the Bakassi Peninsula, where the sea to land boundary of Nigeria and Cameroons goes ashore through the Rio del Rey eventually making its way to the Akwa Yafe River. Creation of Southern Cameroon Region, 1954 In 1953, the 13 members of the Eastern House of Assembly, representing Southern Cameroon, had requested Britain to give them their own Region. That was done in the Lyttleton Constitution of 1954, which saw Southern Cameroon excised from Eastern Region of Nigeria with a new 26 member legislature and new capital in Buea. Bakassi is separated physically from Southern Cameroon, by the Rio del Rey Creek, which has remained Nigeria's border with Southern Cameroons till date. The Rio Del Rey Port: As a last act to confirm that the Treaty of August 11, 1913, was a dead Treaty, the British Colonial Government of Nigeria passed a law "The Rio Del Rey Port Declaration Order, 1960, L.N. 154 under Article 6 of the Ports Ordinance, 1954". This port was established on September 29, 1960. The Port limits as established in that law are a reassertion that the Rio del Rey border was still the Eastern border of Nigeria, at its point of entry into the sea. In other words, "the Sea", as the Southern border of Nigeria is the sea at Rio Del Rey. There is no sea at Akwa Yafe River where it flows into the Archibong Creek, which in turn flows into the Rio Del Rey to the East. Akwa Yafe is north of Bakassi Peninsula. The Sea is South of Bakassi Peninsula. The Akwa Yafe River reaches the sea through the Rio del Rey Creek. In 1956, four years before Nigerian independence in 1960, oil was discovered at Oloibiri, in the Niger Delta. With known reserves in the Cross River/Bakassi Basin, there was no way the Colonial Government would establish a port there, two days before independence, and assign it a huge port limit of over 36 miles of Rio Del Rey Creek Bakassi Frontage, only to pass it on to French Cameroons. The Port was built on the exact coordinates of the Rio Del Rey Creek, to remind everyone that here was the international border. The Nigerian lawyers at the ICJ mentioned it at Paragraphs 10.107- 10.109 in their counter memorial, as evidence of "effective occupation", and filed a text of the order at Annex NC.M 194, and Atlas Map 37; and were amazed that its limits occupied the entire length of the Nigerian side of the Rio Del Rey, from Cape Bakassi to the head waters of the Rio Del Rey. They were, however, unable to appreciate its evidential value! Please consider its evidential value! The schedule to the Rio Del Rey Port Declaration Order read as follows:"that part of the mainstream of the Rio Del Rey otherwise known as Fiari River bounded in the North by a line drawn in an 0900-2700 direction in latitude 40 45' North and in the South by a line drawn from Erong Point Beacon latitude 40 31' 40" North 80 45' 48"East in a 1800 direction for 16.8 miles thence in an 0900direction for 3.9miles thence in a 0040 direction for 15.7 miles to Cape Bakassi Beacon latitude 4030'30" North 8043'6" East." (Reference: Nigerian Marine Charts: No: 33/10 and 84/10). Now, compare these coordinates with Rio Del Rey Boundary Beacons as established in legal instrument No 260 Agreement of 29 April- 16 June, 1885, confirmed in No 263 of 1886, No 270 of July 1, 1890, and No. 273 of April 14, 1893: With the Boundary, "entering the Sea between longitude 8042' East and 80 46' East", the Rio Del Rey Port limits are a coded message. A rival power with whom Great Britain had fought two World Wars since 1913, could not expect to inherit from the British Crown, a Peninsula that unquestionably belonged to her loyal and faithful subjects who had been with her, throughout the colonial period. Calabar was one of the oldest British Protectorates and had had a resident British Consul since 1870. In fact in 1904, Calabar was declared a Port of Registry for British ships, a status which was upgraded by an Order-in-Council in 1913. The Old Consulate Building in Calabar is still a tourist attraction, and should qualify as a world heritage building, because it was from here that Britain conquered and colonized Southern Nigeria from 1884 to 1918. The Calabar Sea Roads could not be allowed to be turned into an international border, which is what neither the Germans nor the British wanted to do in 1913. In fact, the British Colonial Secretary, Sir Louis Harcourt, stated in Parliament on July 11, 1913, that the British Government would not cede any territory to Germany under the Treaties of 1913 . __,_._,___ =