STRUCTURAL VIOLENCE AND THE URGENCY OF SELF-GOVERNMENT: My 2014 Challenge on Southern Cameroons

Cameroon: Anglophones Feel Like a Subjugated People
By Ngala Killian Chimtom, 26 January 2012
Yaounde — When Cameroon's President Paul Biya announced that the 50th
anniversary of the reunification of French and British Cameroon will
take place later this year, it resurrected bitter feelings among
Anglophone Cameroonians who say they do not feel like equal partners
with their Francophone counterparts.
Jannette Ngum, a primary school teacher from the English-speaking
Northwest Province, said she would love to never have anything more to
do with Francophones in Cameroon. In this West African nation,
Anglophones make up a minority, about 20 percent of the country's 20
million people, and most live in the country's two English-speaking
regions, Southwest and Northwest Provinces.
Ngum's frustration comes after the shabby treatment she received at
the Ministry of Public Service and Administrative Reform when she went
to Yaoundé to follow up on her job application to the public service.
"When I spoke in English the lady frowned and said 'Je ne connais pas
votre patois -la', which literary translates into 'I don't understand
that dialect of yours."'
"Instead of serving me, she continued playing cards on her computer.
But when a colleague of mine came in and spoke in French, he got what
he wanted in seconds. Yet the constitution clearly states that English
and French are the official languages in Cameroon, and therefore equal
in status," she told IPS.
But Ngum's experience is a common one among Anglophone Cameroonians.
Michael Ndobegang, a history lecturer in the University of Yaoundé,
said that Anglophones in Cameroon feel "reduced from partners of equal
status to a subjugated people."
According to Ndobegang, Anglophones have been systematically removed
from the centres of power, with unwritten laws making it impossible
for them to hold certain key government positions. Since independence,
no Anglophone has ever been a Minister of Defense, Finance, Education
or even Foreign Affairs.
"Anglophones have been appointed mainly into subordinate positions to
assist Francophones, even where the latter have been less qualified or
incompetent. This is the dilemma of the Anglophone in Cameroon",
Ndobegang told IPS.
In June 1990, J.N.Foncha, the main architect of the federal state,
resigned from government saying that "the constitutional provisions
which protected the Anglophone minority have been suppressed, their
voice drowned..."
Economically, Anglophones also feel exploited. "Cameroon's oil comes
from the Southwest Provincce. How come the road network in the region
has been abandoned?" Fru Ndi, the Anglophone opposition leader of the
Social Democratic Front (SDF), asked during a rally in Buea, in the
run-up to the October 2011 presidential election in Cameroon.
He also blasted successive Francophone administrations for killing the
vibrant economy of the British Cameroons. "Small- and medium-sized
enterprises in the region, such as the West Cameroon Development
Agency, Power CAM, and the West Cameroon Marketing Board have been
destroyed," he told his supporters during the rally.
Ndi, initially opposed to the idea of secession from Francophone
Cameroon, seems to have changed his mind. "If the SDF is again denied
victory during this year's parliamentary elections, then I will be
left with no other option than to join the SCNC," Ndi told members of
the SDF's National Executive Committee on Jan. 19. The SCNC or
Southern Cameroons National Council is a secessionist movement.
Anglophones are also at odds with what they perceive as discriminatory
practices when it comes to recruitment into the civil service.
The historians, Nantang Jua and Piet Konnings, said that in "February
2003, it was announced that there were only 57 Anglophone youths among
the more than 5,000 new recruits into police academies. The next
month, records show that there were only 12 Anglophones among the 172
recruits into the customs department."
Years later, not much has changed. Statistics from the Ministry of
Public Service and Administration Reform indicate that of the 25,000
young certificate holders recruited into the public service last year,
less than 2,000 were Anglophones.
This, the authors say, has created an Anglophone consciousness of "the
feeling of being re-colonised and marginalised in all spheres of
public life and thus being second-class citizens in their own
country." Government though denies the fact that there is an
Anglophone problem in Cameroon. Instead, its strategy has been to use
state violence against secessionist groups. And some of the Anglophone
elite have been co-opted into government to down play the existence of
a problem.
But Cameroon's scholar and political scientist, Emmanuel Tatah Mentan,
has described such elite as "impostors, unrecognised leaders and
emissaries of "La Republique du Cameroun."
Meanwhile, the celebration of the 50th anniversary of Cameroon's
reunification will take place in Buea, the capital of the southwest
region.
"It is just natural; it is true to the history of this country," says
Mbella Moki Charles, the Mayor of Buea, of the celebration that will
be hosted by his town. But the national communication secretary for
the SCNC has said that Biya will be attending the celebrations in Buea
as a foreign head of state. "We have been inviting other heads of
state and Biya, the president of La Republique du Cameroun, is also
invited," he told IPS.
Political Punch, a regional newsletter with SCNC sympathies, has
called for the president to apologise to Southern Cameroonians before
going to Buea.
"For the past 20 years, over 700 Southern Cameroonians have been
arrested, dragged to court and charged for secession for simply
honoring the date of Oct. 1 as a historic and most important date in
this country," the publication said, revealing that over 100 lives
have been lost in the process.
Tagged: Cameroon, Central Africa, Governance, Human Rights, West Africa



On 12/31/13, Ofege Ntemfac <ntemfacnchwete@gmail.com> wrote:
> Government and governance or governing = the use of commonwealth
> resources to provide basic services unto the governed.
> The governed can only be folks living within their own legit territory
> which territory has recognition under International Law.
> Basic services = schools+hospitals+roads+jobs+the economic wellbeing.
> Government and governance or governing is not about gendarmes+military
> governors+unelected sous prefets and subservience or public order.
> And whenever a government becomes destructive to the provision of
> basic services it behooves upon the citizenry to rise up in MIGHT and
> abrogate that government.
> Especially when the so-called government is nothing but a colonial
> contraption enforcing
> colonisation+neocolonisation+assimilation+anexation+subjugation+slavery
> and enslavement+economic cleansing+structural violence+genocide on
> the annexed and the colonised.
> International Law speaks of self-determination or the right of every
> people to cast out colonissation and modern slavery.
> In that lofty quest for self-gvernment.
> In the picture attached do note that the enslaved children are in BLUE&
> Just as Freedomland is about the blue skies of a FREE and FREED PEOPLE.
>
> On 12/30/13, jtagne <jtagne@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> Massa Agbor
>>
>> More and more interesting. ..Please let him know that again about our
>> unified Cameroon. ..
>>
>> Tell him that in his USA Denver for instance people self govern reason
>> why
>> they can grow and sell their green while in Virginia they can't for now
>> all
>> this in the same country call America.
>>
>> Hahaha I may join your party with my good friend Sam Esale former what so
>> ever of this evil regime of biya paul call cpdm. ..
>>
>>
>> Sent via the Samsung Galaxy Note® II, an AT&T 4G LTE smartphone
>>
>> -------- Original message --------
>> From: Agbor Enow Augustine <Enow007@yahoo.com>
>> Date: 12/30/2013 11:22 (GMT-05:00)
>> To: camnetwork@yahoogroups.com,cameroon_politics@yahoogroups.com
>> Cc: FREE_Ambazonians@yahoogroups.com,Cameroon SDF
>> <cameroons_sdf_party@yahoogroups.com>
>> Subject: Re: [camnetwork] My 2014 Challenge on Southern Cameroons
>>
>>
>> Can you tell this forum why self-rule is bad for Southern Cameroons? I
>> get
>> the argument that other Cameroonians are not better off, but how does
>> that
>> make self-government bad for Southern Cameroonians? How, in the absence
>> of
>> self-rule, is the current situation different from colonization? (Boh
>> Herbert)
>>
>> The so called Southern Cameroons can not talk of self-rule,
>> because it lacks the legitimacy and sovereignty to do so; and would be
>> secessionist movements like the SCNC lacks the mandate from the very
>> people
>> they claim their subversive activities shall benefit. The coalition of
>> the
>> discontent few, who have constituted themselves into would be
>> secessionist
>> movements without followers are anti-nationalist. Their actions do not
>> reduce the capacity of junta Paul Biya's regime to plunder state
>> resources,
>> but in effect sustain the regime by pitting Cameroonians against one
>> another, strengthening the divide-and-rule tactics of the dictator. This
>> distracts attention from the actual problems faced by the people in their
>> daily lives.
>> Former Southern Cameroon has genuine expressions of cultural,
>> economic, and social grievances: Poverty and inequality of opportunities,
>> a
>> situation that affects 100 percent of the country, including the Littoral
>> and Central provinces is one of them. Another is the attempt to make
>> Cameroon a French speaking country, which I have said before will never
>> work.
>> Yes, it is true that the government of junta Biya has
>> deliberately ignored legitimate grievances from minority groups, but who
>> wants to listen to such grievances if the under 500 people behind the so
>> called Anglophone movements propagate callous secessionist claims.
>> We are finalizing the manifesto for the newly constituted
>> Cameroon Peoples Nationalist Alliance and Mr. Boh Herbert will read more
>> about this question. But the Republic of Cameroon remains a unified
>> nation
>> or cultural community with a shared history, languages, religions arts
>> and
>> music etc. The question of whether Southern Cameroons can govern itself is
>> a
>> distraction, because Southern Cameroon died in 1961.
>>
>> Augustine Agbor Enow
>>
>> Founder and Convener
>> Cameroon Peoples Nationalist Alliance (CPNA)
>>
>>
>> The outcome of my life is not more than three lines:
>> I was a raw material
>> I became mature and cooked
>> And I was burned into nothingness.
>> Rumi
>>
>>
>> On Monday, December 30, 2013 7:55 AM, Herbert Boh <herbertboh@yahoo.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>> Happy New Year 2014 to all!!!
>>
>> For years, advocates of self-rule and the restoration of Southern
>> Cameroons
>> have argued the merits of the case they make while opponents have
>> generally
>> said "No", "No Way", "No How".
>>
>> This is my 2014 Challenge for those opposed to self-rule (not
>> decentralization) for any people (in this case, Southern Cameroonians):
>>
>> Can you tell this forum why self-rule is bad for Southern Cameroons? I
>> get
>> the argument that other Cameroonians are not better off, but how does
>> that
>> make self-government bad for Southern Cameroonians? How, in the absence
>> of
>> self-rule, is the current situation different from colonization? Please
>> don't recycle the "Balkanization" argument because Africa was never ONE
>> to
>> start with. Secondly, various countries across the continent did not say
>> "No" to independence (another word for self-government) claiming that
>> African unity will be harmed by piecemeal independence.
>>
>> Opponents of self-rule, please take advantage of this challenge in 2014
>> and
>> let us gear YOUR CASE. Who knows? You just may convince millions of us
>> with
>> your arguments.
>>
>> I will be waiting.
>>
>> Happy New Year 2014 !!!
>>
>> Boh Herbert
>>
>> Sent from my iPhone
>>
>>
>>
>
>
> --
>
>
>
> The thing always happens that you really believe in; and the belief in
> a thing makes it happen.
>


--



The thing always happens that you really believe in; and the belief in
a thing makes it happen.

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