Saturday, January 27, 2018

QUESTIONS FOR TCHIROMA, By Atemnkeng

QUESTIONS FOR TCHIROMA, 

LA REPUBLIQUE DU CAMEROUN (LRC) MINISTER OF COMMUNICATION, AND LRC ITSELF





1. What makes you think that Ambazonians should not rule themselves within their own internationally defined territory?
2. If LRC claims the right to govern itself within its own territory, why should Ambazonians not govern themselves within their own territory?
3. Is there anyone or any people, including LRC, who can claim a greater right to the territory and resources of the Southern Cameroons than the people of the Southern Cameroons themselves?
4. African tribes and human beings all over the world have often gone to war to defend their territory. Why do you think Ambazonians should not defend their own? Are Ambazonians right to defend their territory against the imperialism of LRC? Or is LRC right to claim the territory of Ambazonia?
5. You allege that Ambazonia is a part of La Republique du Cameroun. Do you have any treaty of Union or any instrument of Union between Ambazonia and La Republique du Cameroun (LRC)? Can you show the world that instrument?
6. Ambazonians are not contesting the territory of LRC, why is LRC contesting the territory of Ambazonia?
7. Cameroun quotes the fact that the Southern Cameroons (Ambazonia) and LRC were formerly parts of one German Kamerun. Yes, that is right. Who gave LRC the purported right to inherit the former territories of German Kamerun? Under what law is LRC pretending to do that? There are currently parts of German Kamerun in Nigeria, in Chad, in Central African Republic. Why is LRC not claiming those parts? France and Britain were parts of one Roman Empire. Should Britain claim the territory of France or France claim the territory of Britain on that account? Should Rwanda claim Burundi because they were formerly one country? Is Cameroun’s argument not a betrayal of its imperialism? Who said that territories that formerly belonged to one country or imperial power cannot become separate countries? The Soviet Union has become several countries; so has former Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Sudan, etc. How can LRC justify its colonial ambitions?
8. Cameroun has often also quoted the UN-organised plebiscite of 1961 as the alleged source of the purported union. Was Cameroon a party to the Plebiscite? How could a response made to a question posed by the UN to the people of the Southern Cameroons become some kind of contract with LRC? Was the Plebiscite an act by which the territory of the Southern Cameroons and its people were surrendered to LRC or made a free gift to it? Was the Plebiscite not about Southern Cameroons’ independence and only secondarily joining with LRC? How is it that Cameroun is interpreting the Plebiscite as the act by which it got possession of the Southern Cameroons or by which a free gift was made of the people of the Southern Cameroons and their territory to Cameroun?
9. If the plebiscite was about Southern Cameroons independence, which the UN actually followed up and voted overwhelmingly to grant in Res. 1608(XV), where is the independence today?
10. Even, grant the Plebiscite (which we do not), should the territory of the Southern Cameroons become that of LRC? Is Cameroun not using the Plebiscite only as a ploy to colonise and annex the Southern Cameroons? When did the people of the Southern Cameroons cede their territory and life to LRC?
11. You claim the existence of a union between Ambazonia and LRC, where are the instruments of union? What are the terms of your alleged union? Do you admit that only the relation between a master and slave has no terms?
12. Cameroun in one breath claims there was a union; then in another claims that Ambazonians have no right to speak of their own state which purportedly joined LRC; it denies the people of Ambazonia the right to question the fate of their own state in the pretended Union; it takes all steps to delete from the memory of the people of Ambazonia everything about their own state and history; it imposes its own language on the people of Ambazonia; it refuses to accept English as the official language in Ambazonia; it jails all Ambazonians who question the jurisdiction of LRC within Ambazonia. Do all these evils not continually prove beyond all doubts that LRC now treats Ambazonia and its people as a colony? That it has annexed and subjugated Ambazonia?
13. If LRC alleges a union, why does it refuse the people of Ambazonia from speaking as the other party to the Union you claim to exist? Should Ambazonians not be able to speak as the other party to the alleged union? Can you allege a union and at the same time claim that only LRC has the right to decide everything and to own everything in the so-called union?
14. What will you call an alleged union in which the other party is denied the right to speak, to assemble, to withdraw, to question anything about the union; in which there are no terms and no treaty of union; in which one of the parties has no rights; in which one party confiscates the territory of the other and has the right of life and death over the other? How is such a so-called union different from imperialism, colonisation and annexation?
15. Can you cite one single article of the AU Constitutive Act or the UN Charter which gives LRC jurisdiction over Ambazonian territory?
16. The principle is firmly established in international law that the boundaries of every state are confined to the boundaries it inherited on its day of independence (Art. 4(b) of the African Union Constitutive Act). Should this principle apply to the boundaries of LRC?
17. There is an international boundary that separates the territory of Ambazonia from the territory of LRC. That boundary was established between France, whose territory LRC inherited and Britain, whose territory the Southern Cameroons inherited. France never contested the boundary, why should LRC contest it? Is there any other treaty that has changed that boundary?
18. LRC has been speaking without citing a single principle of international law which gives it jurisdiction over the Southern Cameroons territory. Ambazonians base all their arguments on the principles of international law, especially the AU Constitutive Act, the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights and the UN Charter. Why has Cameroun been unable, even once, to cite one single principle to substantiate its claims?
19. Is Cameroun willing to accept dialogue based on international law or under international auspices? Or is Cameroun so terrified of the truth that it wants to continue to live through the gun and propaganda alone? Is this not armed robbery?
20. Your former President, Ahidjo, repeatedly vowed to the UN that Cameroun was not annexationist and would not use its size to annex the Southern Cameroons. Why has Cameroun annexed the Southern Cameroons? If you deny annexation, how then has a state which had its own Prime Minister, Civil Service, state institutions, suddenly ceased to exist?
21. Are you aware that Res. 1608(XV) of 21 April 1961 whose implementation would have led to a valid legal union between the Southern Cameroons and LRC was never implemented?
22. Are you aware that LRC voted against union with the Southern Cameroons in Res. 1608(XV) of 21 April 1961?
23. Are you aware that according to Article 102(1) of the UN Charter any alleged union between a member of the UN and another territory or any alleged treaty whatsoever that is not reduced into writing and filed at the UN Secretariat is null and void?
24. Don’t you realize that the methods LRC is using today against Ambazonians: those of violence, killings, abductions, terror, rape, intimidation, torture, burning of homes and mass killings have failed very where, including even in Nazi Germany? What makes you think that they will succeed because Cameroun is using them when they have never succeeded anywhere?
25. We have heard so much from the Cameroun government telling the world that only a small fraction of Ambazonians want independence; that the majority want to stay with Cameroun. What makes Cameroun believe that it has the right to speak for Ambazonians? Is Cameroun willing to accept a referendum organized and supervised by the United Nations to determine what the people of Ambazonia want? Is the fact that Cameroun is purporting to speak for Ambazonians more proof of its subjugation of the people of AMBAZONIA?

By Atemnkeng

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