THE SECRETARIAT
ARCHBISHOP’S HOUSE
P.O. BOX 82, BAMENDA
NORTH WEST REGION
C A M E R O O N
BAPEC/PRES/2016/30
22 December 2016
*MEMORANDUM PRESENTED TO THE HEAD OF STATE, HIS EXCELLENCY
PRESIDENT PAUL BIYA, BY THE BISHOPS OF THE ECCLESIASTICAL PROVINCE OF BAMENDA
ON THE CURRENT SITUATION OF UNREST IN THE NORTHWEST AND SOUTHWEST REGIONS OF
CAMEROON*
Your Excellency,
For almost one month now
there has been a series of unrests and violence in some towns of the Northwest
and Southwest Regions(1) of Cameroon occasioned by the strike of the Anglophone
Lawyers and of the Teachers’ Trade Unions of the English Sub-system of
Education. These have led to the loss of human life and to the destruction of
property of some of our citizens. There have been flagrant abuses of human
rights, as demonstrated by credible eyewitness accounts and by pictures on
local television channels and social media. This has led to a premature end to
the first term of the school year and paralysed the court system in these
regions to the detriment of school children, students, parents and the
administration of justice. At the moment, it seems that the government and the
striking groups have reached an impasse and it is not likely that the schools
are going to open even when the second term begins for the rest of the country.
These unrests are symptomatic of a deeper unease among the inhabitants of this
geographical circumscription of our nation.
We, the Bishops of the
Ecclesiastical Province of Bamenda, which is coterminous with the Northwest and
Southwest Regions, where we hold responsibility as Shepherds, cannot remain
indifferent to this situation. The Church, in this season, celebrates the birth
of Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace. She has as mandate to proclaim the
message of peace (Luke 10:5; Matthew 5:9), and has always stood for justice and
peace, and worked for the attainment of the common good of society. Because of
her role and competence, the Church is not identified in any way with the
political community nor bound to any political system (2). This places her in a
uniquely privileged position to provide a balanced perspective on the current
problem between the government of Cameroon and the population of significant
segments of the Northwest and Southwest Regions of Cameroon. It is for this
reason that we have presumed to seize the moment and to make the following
submission, with a view to assisting the government to seek a lasting solution
to this problem and enable its citizens to live in peace and harmony.
Historical Background of
the Problem
Most of the territory
known today as the Republic of Cameroon was a German protectorate from 1884.
However, German Kamerun also included British Northern Cameroons, which elected
to become part of Nigeria in the plebiscite of 1961. This protectorate was
divided into British and French Cameroons in 1916 and confirmed, with some
slight modifications, by the Milner-Simon Agreement of 10 July 1919. British
Cameroons, which was comprised of Northern and Southern Cameroons, was one
fifth and French Cameroun was four-fifths of the entire territory. They were
Class B Mandated Territories of the League of Nations until 1946 when they
became United Nations Trust Territories.
British Cameroons and
French Cameroun were separate legal and political entities and historians have
postulated that although this partition was said to be temporary Britain and
France instituted two different administrative styles and systems which were to
impact on any subsequent movement towards eradicating the provisional nature of
the partition and facilitating reunification.(3) After the Second World War,
the United Nations (Article 76, b) explicitly called on the British and French
to administer their respective spheres of Cameroon towards self-government. It
called on the Administering Authorities to “promote the political, economic,
social and educational advancement of the inhabitants of the Trust Territories,
and their progressive development towards self-government or independence as
may be appropriate to the particular circumstances of each territory and its
peoples…”
Before the London
Constitutional Conferences of 1957 and 1958, three political options had
emerged in British Southern Cameroons, namely independence as a separate
political entity, independence in association with Nigeria, and independence by
reuniting with French Cameroun. The Mamfe Conference of August 1959, which was
called to hammer out consensus among Southern Cameroonians on one of the
options, did not succeed to arrive at a consensus. The three political options
persisted, with the most popular being independence as a separate political
entity, the next being association with Nigeria and the least popular being
reunification with French Cameroun.
Paradoxically, the UN
General Assembly Resolution 1352 (xiv) on the British Cameroons’ Plebiscite of
1961, clearly ruled out the separate independence of Southern Cameroons (4),
the most popular of the three options. This was thanks to the British who tactfully
blocked every chance of the Southern Cameroonians voting for independence as a
separate entity, convincing the United Nations that Southern Cameroon was not
economically viable and could only survive by leaning on Nigeria or the
Republic of Cameroon, and recklessly steering the Mamfe All Party Conference of
August 1959 to ensure that the parties did not achieve consensus (5). In fact,
the British wanted Southern Cameroons to gain independence in association with
Nigeria. Consequently, the two questions adopted for the plebiscite were:
1. Do you wish to achieve
independence by joining the independent Federation of Nigeria?
OR
2. Do you wish to achieve
independence by joining the independent Republic of Cameroun?
Southern Cameroonians
were apprehensive of this move and put pressure on John Ngu Foncha to lead a
delegation to London in November 1960 to include the option of independence as
a separate political entity. The request was rejected. Nevertheless, according
to United Nations Resolution 1541(XV) Principles VII and VIII, Southern
Cameroons was qualified to achieve independence either through association or
integration which “should be on the basis of complete equality between the
peoples of the erstwhile Non-Self-Governing Territory and those of the
independent country with which it is integrated. The peoples of both
territories should have equal status and rights”. It was with this
understanding that on the 11th of February 1961 British Southern Cameroons
voted to join French Cameroun while British Northern Cameroons voted to join
the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
The Foumban Conference of
17th- 21st July 1961 agreed broadly what the “marriage” between the two
Cameroons was going to look like. The Yaoundé Tripartite Conference of 2nd-7th
August 1961 put this agreement in legal form. Worthy of note here is the fact
that the draft 1961 Constitution was never presented to the Southern Cameroons
House of Chiefs (SCHC) and the Southern Cameroons House of Assembly(SCHA) for
deliberation and approval as should have been the case. Further, it was signed
by President Ahidjo on the 1st of September 1961 as President of the
Republic of Cameroon when the Federal Republic of Cameroon had not yet come
into existence. Be it as it may, the two territories came together in this
union as a Federation of East Cameroon and West Cameroon (1961 Constitution,
Article 1-1).(6)
In September 1966,
all the political parties went into dissolution to form one party in the Federal
Republic of Cameroon (the Cameroon National Union), giving birth to one party
rule. In 1968, Honourable Solomon Tandeng Muna was appointed to replace
Honourable Augustine Ngom Jua without the required Parliamentary endorsement
and in contravention of the law which did not permit Muna to handle the posts
of Federal Vice President and Prime Minister of the State of West Cameroon
concomitantly. Southern Cameroonians saw these moves as dictatorial and
undemocratic. They had come from a multi-party democratic society where free
debate, alliances, consensus, and respect for the Constitution were the
accepted modus operandi.
Referendum of 20th May
1972
While West Cameroonians
were still bracing themselves for life in a political dispensation which they
regarded as imposed on them by circumstances beyond their control and
struggling to cope with the manoeuvres of President Ahmadou Ahidjo, he proposed
a Constitution that would make the Federal Republic a unitary state, the United
Republic of Cameroon. As we all know, in those days it was politically unwise
and even unsafe to hold and express views different from those of the President
on any issue, and so there was no public debate on the constitution. This
constitution was voted on in a national referendum organized and conducted by
the Cameroon National Union (CNU), by now the sole political party in the
Republic. The results show that the overwhelming majority of the electors in
East and West Cameroon voted in favour of a unitary state. Looking back at what
happened, many Anglophone Cameroonians now believe that this was the high-water
mark of Ahidjo’s deceit and manipulation of West Cameroonians, and some have
linked the birth of separatist movements in Anglophone Cameroon to this
referendum.
Subsequent Constitutional
Amendments
Three years later, the
Constitution was amended to include the post of Prime Minister, appointed by
the President. Following another amendment in 1979 the Prime Minister would be
the constitutional successor of the President of the Republic. In 1984, a
constitutional amendment changed the country’s name from the United Republic of
Cameroon to the Republic of Cameroon. In the eyes of West Cameroonians, Law No
84-1 of 4 February 1984, was incontrovertible evidence that the original intentions
of our Francophone brothers and sisters were to absorb Southern Cameroon and
not to treat with it as equals. After thirty-three years of union, we had all
ended up as citizens of the Republic of Cameroon or East Cameroon.
The Anglophone Problem
It should be clear, from
the brief historical sketch presented above, what the crux of the so-called
Anglophone Problem is. No matter what some self-appointed elite and
spokespersons for Anglophone Cameroonians as well as government Ministers say
in public, the participation of various strata of the population and the
growing popularity of separatist movements among young and older members of the
Anglophone community demonstrates that there is an Anglophone Problem.
There is a consciousness among Anglophone Cameroonians that all is not
well and something needs to be done about their plight.
What it is:
The Anglophone Problem is:
i. The failure of
successive governments of Cameroon, since 1961, to respect and implement the
articles of the Constitution that uphold and safeguard what British Southern
Cameroons brought along to the Union in 1961.
ii. The flagrant
disregard for the Constitution, demonstrated by the dissolution of political
parties and the formation of one political party in 1966, the sacking of Jua
and the appointment of Muna in 1968 as the Prime Minister of West Cameroon, and
other such acts judged by West Cameroonians to be unconstitutional and
undemocratic
iii. The cavalier
management of the 1972 Referendum which took out the foundational element
(Federalism) of the 1961 Constitution.
iv. The 1984 Law amending
the Constitution, which gave the country the original East Cameroon name (The
Republic of Cameroon) and thereby erased the identity of the West Cameroonians
from the original union. West Cameroon, which had entered the union as an equal
partner, effectively ceased to exist.
v. The deliberate and
systematic erosion of the West Cameroon cultural identity which the 1961
Constitution sought to preserve and protect by providing for a bi-cultural federation.
The Management of the
Anglophone Problem
It is our conviction that
the Anglophone Problem would have been solved, or at least mitigated, if it had
been well managed by those concerned. A lack of proper management seems to be
what has aggravated the problem.
The Government and
Government Ministers
It is unfortunate to note
that the government of Cameroon seems to have made every attempt to downplay or
even deny the existence of an Anglophone Problem. Government Ministers (even
those of former West Cameroon extraction) have denied the existence of any such
problem in the media and in public speeches. Furthermore, it is widely believed
in Anglophone Cameroon that government has consciously created divisions among
the English-speaking elite, remunerating some allies with prestigious positions
in the state apparatus previously reserved for Francophones only, and
repressing all actions designed to improve on the status of Anglophone
Cameroonians in the union. This seems to have been proven true in the recent
unrests by the utterances of government Ministers in the Press Conference on
CRTV, in the dispatch of an Anglophone Elite delegation to the Northwest
Region, and in the brutal suppression of protests by certain professional
groups and sections of the Northwest and Southwest Regions.
Secessionist Groups
In the face of this
denial of the existence of an Anglophone Problem by government and the
consequent deafening silence from the government to the cries and protests of
Anglophone Cameroonians, certain groups have emerged in Anglophone Cameroon
that call for the secession of Anglophone from Francophone Cameroon. The
Southern Cameroons Youth League, the Southern Cameroons National Council, and
the Ambazonia Movement are some of the most strident of these groups and are
currently members of the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organisation (UNPO)
in The Hague.
Federalists
There are different forms
of federalism, and federalists in Anglophone Cameroon will differ as to the
specific nature of the federal state they would want. However, they are all
agreed that they do require a federation which recognises and preserves the
region’s peculiarity, as did the 1961 Federal Constitution.
Unitarists
Successive amendments to
the Constitution up to and including the Amendments of 1996 insist on the fact
that Cameroon is one and indivisible (Article 1-2, 1996). Cameroon is described
as a decentralised unitary state. Unitarists believe that everything must be
done to avoid federalism or secession. However, even the decentralisation
announced by the 1996 Constitution has not been implemented, and government and
administration have been highly centralised.
Symptoms of Discontent
What some people mistake
for the Anglophone Problem are just symptoms pointing to the fact that an
overwhelming majority of Anglophone Cameroonians are not happy in the union
which they entered with East Cameroon in 1961. They have complained against
widespread and systematic marginalisation in various areas of public life which
point to the existence of a huge problem. Some of these symptoms include the
following:
Marginalisation in Human
Resource Development and Deployment
i. Anglophone
Cameroonians have complained about the fact that National Entrance Examinations
into Schools that develop the human resources of this country are set per the
French Subsystem of Education which makes it very difficult for Anglophones and
Francophones to compete on a level playing field. Majority of the membership of
these Examination Boards are Francophone so that the interests of Anglophone
candidates are hardly, if ever, protected.
ii. Out of the five
Ministries concerned with Education, which is the means of the transmission of
culture, none of the Minsters is Anglophone and none even qualifies to be a
deputy or Secretary of State. This gives the impression of a calculated attempt
to kill Anglophone culture.
iii. In human resource
deployment, there is a gaping inequality in the distribution of posts of
responsibility between Anglophones and Francophones. Of the 36 Ministers who
defended the budgets for the Ministries last month, only one was Anglophone. In
addition, there seem to be key ministries that have been reserved for
Francophone Ministers only and Anglophones do not even qualify to be Secretaries
of State under them. These include, but are not limited to, Defence, Finance,
Territorial Administration, and Economy.
iv. In the 1961
Constitution, the Vice President was the second most important personality in
state protocol. Today, the Prime Minister (appointed Anglophone) is the fourth
most important person in State Protocol, after the President of the Senate and
the President of the National Assembly. Even so, Anglophone Cameroonians
believe that he wields no real authority and, like was the case with J. N.
Foncha as First National Vice President of the CPDM, finds it “impossible to
use [his] exalted position to help in any way shape or influence the policies
of the party and nation.”(7) There are clearly Francophone ministers who
wield more power than he does. This seems to have been proven true in the last
Teachers’ strike. When the Prime Minister was in Bamenda negotiating with the
Teachers’ Union Leaders, a group of Francophone Ministers were giving a Press
Conference in Yaoundé on the same issue, giving the impression that the
negotiations of the PM in Bamenda were of no consequence.
The Treatment of the
English Language
There have been
widespread protests about the way the English Language has been treated in the
public life of the nation.
i. State institutions
produce documents and public notices in French, with no English translation,
and expect English speaking Cameroonians to read and understand them.
ii. National Entrance
Examinations into some professional schools are set in French only and
Anglophone candidates are expected to answer them. Sometimes this happens even
in the English-speaking regions.
iii. Visitors and clients
to government offices are expected to express themselves in French, even in the
English-speaking regions, since most of the bosses in the offices speak French
and make no effort to speak English.
iv. Most Senior
Administrators and members of the Forces of Law and Order in the Northwest and
Southwest Regions are French-speaking and make no effort to understand the
cultures and customs of the people they are appointed to govern.
v. Members of Inspection
Teams, Missions and Facilitators for Seminars sent from the Ministries in
Yaoundé to the English-speaking Regions are generally predominantly French
speaking, and expect to be understood by audiences which are predominantly
English speaking.
vi. The Military
Tribunals in the Northwest and Southwest Regions are basically French courts.
vii. Basic Finance
documents which businesses and other institutions are expected to work with are
all in French. Examples include the COBAC Code, the CIMA Code and the OHADA
Code.
The Flooding of
Anglophone Cameroon with Francophone Administrators and Workers
Apart from the fact that
Ministers, Directors General, Heads of Parastatals, Senior Divisional Officers,
Heads of Law Enforcement Institutions, etc. are disproportionately Francophone,
there seems to have been a conscious effort made to flood the Northwest and
Southwest Regions with Francophone Heads of Service.
i. The Magistrates in
these Regions are disproportionately Francophone. So are the Senior Divisional
Officers, the Divisional Officers, Commissioners, and Commandants. In the
educational sectors, there are increasingly Francophone principals posted to
Anglophone schools. Personnel in Hospitals, Banks and Mobile Telephone
Companies (even those which originate from Anglophone countries), are
predominantly Francophone. And this extends to even non-expert workers in
petrol stations.
ii. The situation is
aggravated by the fact that these Francophone administrators are often
overbearing, very arrogant and treat people as if they were second-class
citizens, and have no iota of respect for the dignity of the human person.
Mismanagement of ‘West
Cameroon’ Patrimony
Apart from neglect of
infrastructure in the Northwest and Southwest Regions of Cameroon and the
mismanagement and ruin of buoyant companies like Cameroon Bank, West Cameroon
Marketing Board, WADA in Wum, West Cameroon Cooperative Movement, etc., oil
revenues are alleged to be used by those in power to feed ‘the bellies’ of
their allies, and to stimulate the economy in other regions. In addition, there
is also great anxiety in Anglophone Cameroon that its major agro-industrial
enterprises, especially the Cameroon Development Corporation (CDC) and
Plantations Pamol du Cameroun Ltd (Pamol), are sold or their headquarters moved
elsewhere.
The ‘Francophonisation’
of the English Educational Subsystem and the Common-Law System
The flooding of state
Anglophone educational and legal institutions with French-trained and French
speaking Cameroonians who understand neither our educational subsystem nor the
English Common Law undermines Anglophone education and legal heritage and
subverts the original intentions of the founders of the nation to build a
bi-cultural nation, respecting the specificity of each region. This is the
cause of the current strikes by common law lawyers and teachers.
Admissions into State
Professional Schools
The exclusion of
qualified Anglophones in admissions into state professional schools (especially
Schools of Administration, Medicine and Medical Sciences and Higher Teacher
Training) even in the Anglophone Regions is a glaring example of
marginalisation which the Teachers Unions cited.
These, and many others,
have led to the unease and discomfort of the people of the Northwest and
Southwest Regions. They perceived this marginalisation as institutionalised as
they have been labelled “Biafrans”, “enemies in the house” and “traitors” by
highly placed government officials and ministers who were never reprimanded for
doing so.
Gradual Erosion of
Anglophone Identity
There has been a
misleading argument from some quarters where some have argued that an
Anglophone is anyone who can speak English, as a way of countering Anglophone
Cameroonians who protest the issues we have enumerated above. It might be
helpful, for the purposes of our presentation and future discourse, to note
here that ‘Anglophonism’ goes beyond the mere ability to speak or understand
the English language. It speaks to a core of values, beliefs, customs, and ways
of relating to the other inherited from the British who ruled this region from
1916 to 1961. ‘Anglophonism’ is a culture, a way of being which cannot be
transmitted by merely learning a language. In fact, as Dr. Anthony Ndi
intimates, Southern Cameroonians had “a distinctive outlook and way of life
that went further than the mere fact that the educated ones among them spoke
the English Language or a version of it. So, therefore, language could not even
be the qualifying factor”.(8) This Anglophone identity is the reason most
Southern Cameroonians who voted to join the Republic of Cameroon in 1961 did
so. It was to preserve their cultural identity as a distinct people.
Anglophone Cameroonians
are slowly being asphyxiated as every element of their culture is
systematically targeted and absorbed into the Francophone Cameroon culture and
way of doing things. These include the language, the educational system, the
system of administration and governance (where appointed leaders are sent to
lord it over people who cherish elected leaders), the legal system, and a
transparent democratic process where elected leaders are answerable to the
electorate who put them there in the first place.
Anglophone Cameroonians
have seen through this and are raising their voices in protest. The two All
Anglophone Conferences (AAC I and II) of the early 1990s, the rise and
popularity of the SCNC and other secessionist voices are born of the
frustration of Anglophone Cameroonians of being ignored and ridiculed for
asking for what they deem to be theirs by right, namely the preservation of
their culture. You would remember that, in his resignation letter from the post
of first Vice President of the CPDM on the 9th of June 1990, J. N. Foncha cited
in point 9 of the letter, as a reason for resigning, the fact that the
constitution was “in many respects being ignored and manipulated”.
A Natural Reaction
The reaction of
Anglophone Cameroonians to preserve their culture can only be described as
‘natural’. Is it any surprise that the first Opposition party that forced the
door open for multi-partyism in Cameroon, the Social Democratic Front (SDF),
came from Anglophone Cameroon? Following the formation of the party, the
architect who brought Southern Cameroonians into the union with the Republic of
Cameroon, John Ngu Foncha, resigned in disillusionment as the First
Vice-President of the CPDM. He explained:
The Anglophone
Cameroonians whom I brought into the union have been ridiculed and referred to
as ‘les Biafrians’, ‘les ennemies dans la maison’, ‘les traitres’ etc., and the
constitutional provisions which protected this Anglophone minority have been
suppressed, their voice drowned while the rule of the gun replaced the dialogue
which the Anglophones cherish very much. (9)
This is not to say that
we do not see the other side of the argument. In any polity formed by two or
more ethnic, cultural, religious, or linguistic groups, there is bound to be a
majority versus minority problem. In any such situation, the wise thing to do
would be to make constitutional provisions which would protect and safeguard
the existence and rights of the minority, rather than trample on them. The
Church teaches that “not even the majority of a social body may violate these
rights, by going against the minority, by isolating, oppressing, or exploiting
it, or by attempting to annihilate it.”(10) Cameroon prides itself as a state
of law. In this area, she is at one with the Church which teaches that society
should be organised on the principle of the “rule of law”. This is the
principle “in which the law is sovereign, and not the arbitrary will of
individuals”(11) So, apart from the plethora of issues which enhance Anglophone
disaffection with the union, there is the additional problem that they are a
minority in that union.
Proposed Way Forward
It is not for us to
dictate to the Cameroonian people what form the government of this country should
take or what solutions should be provided for the problems we have highlighted.
The Church respects the legitimate autonomy of the democratic order and is not
entitled to express preferences for this or that institutional or
constitutional solution. Her contribution to the political order is precisely her
vision of the dignity of the person revealed in all its fullness in the mystery
of the Incarnate Word(12). That notwithstanding, we feel obliged in conscience
as the religious and moral leaders in this part of the country, who exercise
care over a people who are hurting, to propose the following lines of action
which, hopefully, should lead to peace and harmony among our people.
Honesty in the face of
the Anglophone Problem
One of the most
disingenuous things any enlightened Cameroonian, talk less of educated
Cameroonian of Anglophone upbringing, can do is to deny that there is an
Anglophone Problem. If former French President, Jacques Chirac, the
Commonwealth, the European Union, and many others have recognised that there is
an Anglophone Problem and advised that the government of Cameroon and the
discontented Anglophones engage in dialogue, how can Cameroonians deny that
there is a problem? To play the ostrich and bury our heads in the sand is to
sow disaster for the future of the nation we all love. It is to give way to
extremist tendencies in the Anglophone community born of frustration at not
being listened to or understood. Is it possible that the government has not
heard the cries of distress of the All Anglophone Conferences which represented
a broad base of Anglophone Cameroonians? Is it possible that the government has
not heard the Parent-Teacher Associations (PTA), the Common-Law Lawyers, the
Teachers’ Trade Unions, Students, and others who are not only uncomfortable but
are choking under the present dispensation?
Is it possible for us to
look this beast in the eye, confront it together and overcome it for the sake
of peace and unity in our country? The government’s continued denial of any
Anglophone Problem, and its determination to defend the unitary state by all
available means, including repression, could lead to an escalation of
Anglophone demands past a point of no return, and this is not something any
responsible citizen would wish for their country.
The All Anglophone Conferences
(AAC) of 1993 and 1994
In May1993, the 65-member
Anglophone Standing Committee established by the AAC submitted a draft
constitution which would provide for major political, financial, and fiscal
autonomy for the two federated states, for the provinces inside both, and for
the communities inside each province. They proposed the usual separation of
powers between the executive, legislative, and judiciary, and a senate and
national assembly for each federated state, as well as a rotating presidency
for the Federal Republic, whereby after at most two consecutive mandates of
five years an Anglophone would succeed a Francophone (or vice versa). This
proposal was even reiterated for each of the federated states to ensure
alternation between the provinces. This would be for us a lasting solution to
the irksome Anglophone Problem, and would be acceptable to the majority of
Anglophone and Francophone Cameroonians.
The Implementation of the
1996 Constitution
We know there is never a
perfect constitution and that is the reason why constitutions are amended to
make them responsive to changes in time and situation. The 1996 Constitution,
even though some have had issues with sections of it, is good enough as an
immediate remedy for the ‘woes’ Anglophones are listing and which make life
together in this nation burdensome to them. As the second-best option, we
recommend an urgent and immediate implementation of the 1996 Constitution. We
recommend that all the institutions created by that constitution be put in
place, and that those put in place be empowered with persons charged with
rendering them functional. This would include the Regions, the Senate and, by
extension, the constitutional council, administrative courts, the minor courts
of accounting/auditing. It is important for Cameroonians, especially those who
seek protection under the ‘rule of law’ and of the Constitution, to know that
the constitution has really been deployed as a means of regulating the
political process in Cameroon. It is our firm belief that if this is done
immediately, it would satisfy the majority of Anglophone Cameroonians and
silence the calls for secession which have characterized this period of
unrest.
Constructive Dialogue and
the Establishment of a Roadmap
In the short term and,
because the Lawyers and Teachers Strikes have paralysed our legal and school
systems, it is imperative for the government to dialogue with the Lawyers and
Teachers as soon as possible and agree a possible roadmap regarding their
legitimate and genuine demands. We cannot solve a problem if we are unwilling
to talk to each other. In the spirit of the African family, we would expect the
father of the family to find out from a hurting (even if errant) child what the
problem is and what they can do to alleviate their pain and suffering. There
are a good number of the problems raised by our lawyers and teachers which can
be solved now and there are others which can be solved later, but we need to
agree a roadmap and respect it. This will enable the Teachers’ Unions to call
off the strike and permit our children, who have already lost four weeks of
schooling, to return to school. Indeed, openness to dialogue and to cooperation
is required of all people of good will, and in particular of individuals and
groups with specific responsibilities in the areas of politics, economics and
social life, at both the national and international levels(13).
Respect for Human Rights
While it is the duty of
administrative and law enforcement officers to maintain peace and order in
their areas of jurisdiction, many of them have been unnecessarily overbearing
and arrogant. Issuing orders and threats for teachers to return to school, for instance,
is not the way to solve their problem. Further, the current unrests have shown
up a very ugly and embarrassing side of our administrators and the forces of
law and order. Without any provocation from the lawyers or students at the
University of Buea (who carried placards saying ‘No to Violence’ and raised
their hands in the air), the forces of law and order brutalized some of them so
badly and so inhumanely that seeing the pictures one would have thought they
came from the Stone Age. It was shameful to see law enforcement officers drag
female students in the mud, spray students’ rooms with tear-gas and
contaminated water, and then lock some up for days just for exercising a basic
human right to make their voices heard in a peaceful manner.
The Church teaches that
“A just society can
become a reality only when it is based on the respect of the transcendent
dignity of the human person... Every political, economic, social, scientific,
and cultural programme must be inspired by the awareness of the primacy of each
human being over society... For this reason, neither his life nor the
development of his thought, nor his good, nor those who are part of his
personal and social activities can be subjected to unjust restrictions in the
exercise of their rights and freedom.”(14)
Our administrators and
the forces of law and order need to be called to order. In the exercise of
their duties for the common good of all citizens, they must never trample on
the rights of those citizens and deal out subhuman treatment to them. Such
behaviour contravenes the law and provides a seedbed for deep resentment which
later manifests itself in very ugly ways.
It is in light of this
that we propose that the government should immediately withdraw the forces of
law and order from the streets of the Anglophone towns to which they have been
deployed, open proper investigations into any abuses of human rights by the
forces of law and order, and release or charge those who have been locked up as
a result of the recent unrests. In this way, we would have a better climate for
the negotiations which have been proposed between the government and the
teachers and lawyers.
Justice for All
Every Anglophone group
that has raised its voice in protest has chronicled a number of perceived
injustices which either the group or the Anglophone community in general
suffers. Again, if the government gives them a listening ear, it would become
clear to all whether these perceived injustices are founded or just imaginary.
As long as these people, rightly or wrongly, continue to feel that they are the
victims of injustice, we cannot build ‘the Island of Peace’ in Central and West
Africa we have been proclaiming that we are, and we cannot develop our country
without this peace either. We do not believe, in conscience, that locking up
people who speak up against injustice (real or imagined) will kill dissent and
bring peace. Maybe some examples will help clarify the point we are making.
On the 14th of December
1967, Martin Luther King, Jr. made a statement outside a California prison
where Vietnam war protesters were being held. He said: There can be no justice
without peace and there can be no peace without justice. On the World Day for
Peace, 1st January 1972, Pope Paul VI had as theme for his Message: if you want
peace, work for justice. These great crusaders for social justice teach us that
without justice, peace will be an elusive goal.
Of course, you would
remember the Apostolic Visit of Pope St. John Paul II to Cameroon in August
1985. In his Address to the President, Constituted Bodies, and the Members of
the Diplomatic Corps, he said:
« Devant les conflits qui
demeurent ou renaissent, tout le monde doit se poser honnêtement la question de
leurs causes. Les injustices commises par certains régimes, concernant les
droits de l’homme en général ou les revendications légitimes d’une partie de la
population qui se voit refuser la participation aux responsabilités communes,
déclenchent des soulèvements d’une violence regrettable, mais qui ne pourront
être apaisés qu’avec le rétablissement de la justice. »
These examples show that
we need to examine, in a dispassionate manner, the root causes of the unease
and unrest in the Anglophone Region of Cameroon and, if these causes are
connected to injustice in any form, do all we can to root out those injustices.
Conclusion
Your Excellency,
We stated at the
beginning of this Memorandum that it is our bounden duty as Shepherds of the
people in the Northwest and Southwest Regions of Cameroon where there are
unrests and dissatisfaction, to make a contribution to the solution of the
problems that have been posed. We hope that you will find our contribution
helpful as you try to navigate this very sensitive and delicate period in our
nation’s history. We are aware of the gravity of your responsibility before the
people of Cameroon and before History, and that is why we tried to do all we
could to help. In addition, we commend you and the people of Cameroon to God in
prayer, in the belief that He will give you the wisdom you need to carry out
this task. We can only add that in this case, time is of the essence as some of
our children have already missed school for a month.
A certain religious
leader is credited to have said: There really can be no peace without justice.
There can be no justice without truth. And there can be no truth, unless
someone rises up to tell you the truth. What we have set forth here is what we
believe to be the truth, told as part of our prophetic mission, in the hope
that it will bring justice, peace, and harmony to this country which we all
hold dear to our hearts.
May Mary, Queen of Peace,
and Patroness of Cameroon, intercede for us and for our country.
+George Nkuo,
Bishop of Kumbo and
President of BAPEC
+Cornelius Fontem Esua,
Archbishop of Bamenda
+Immanuel Bushu,
Bishop of Buea
+Andrew Nkea,
Bishop of Mamfe
+Agapitus Nfon,
Bishop of Kumba
_________
ENDNOTES
1. The territory which
covers the Northwest and Southwest Regions has been called various names in the
History of Cameroon: British Southern Cameroons, West Cameroon, Anglophone
(English-speaking) Cameroon. These names will be used in this document as
appropriate to the historical period in question.
2. Gaudium et Spes, No.
76
3. Ngoh, J. V., (2011:4),
The Untold Story of Cameroon Reunification: 1955-1961, Limbe, Presprint Plc.
4. Mukete, V. E.,
2013:419, My Odyssey: The Story of Cameroon Reunification With Authentic
Letters of Key Players, Yaounde, Sopecam.
5. Ndi, A., (2013:6)
Southern West Cameroon Revisited (1950-1972): Unveiling Inescapable Traps,
Volume 1, Bamenda, Paul’s Press.
6. Constitution
reproduced in: Ndi, A. (2013), Southern West Cameroon Revisited (1950-1972):
Unveiling Inescapable Traps, Volume 1, Bamenda, Paul’s Press. See Appendix IV
7. J. N. Foncha, 9th June
1990: Letter of Resignation from the CPDM
8. Ndi, A.,
(2005:249-50), Mill Hill Missionaries in Southern West Cameroon (1922-1972):
Prime Partners in Nation Building, Paulines Publications Africa, Nairobi.
9. J. N. Foncha,
9th June 1990: Letter of Resignation from the CPDM
10. John Paul II,
Centissimus Annus, No. 45.
11. John Paul II,
Centissimus Annus, No. 44.
12. John Paul II,
Centissimus Annus, No. 47.
13. John Paul II,
Centissimus Annus, No. 60
14. Pontifical Council
for Justice and Peace, Compendium of the Social Teaching of the Church, Nos
128, 133
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