CAMEROON:OPEN LETTER TO THE SOUTHERN CAMEROONS LAWYERS ASSOCISATION BY THOMAS N. NWACHA

NJOBE NGORAN TIMOTHY
Jan 31, 2016
8 min read

CAMEROON:OPEN LETTER TO THE SOUTHERN CAMEROONS LAWYERS ASSOCISATION BY THOMAS N. NWACHAN

photo of Southern Cameroons lawyers

OPEN LETTER TO THE SOUTHERN CAMEROONS LAWYERS ASSOCISATION

Ladies and gentlemen of the Noble Profession,

The end of October 2015 marked the dead-line of your 6-month ultimatum to the Francophone government of the Republic of Cameroun.

Four months on, I expect that you may be holding your next meeting any time from now. So I feel obliged to draw your individual and collective attention to certain pitfalls which could plunge your Association into deeper crisis.

They could as well inflict more damage of tighter annexation on the People of Southern Cameroons at large than the errors of our predecessors in 1961.

The first pitfall

I exhort you to watch out for the name of “Common Law Lawyers” which you chose for your Association

This name is a cultural appellation, whereas there is no Association of Lawyers anywhere in the world identified culturally. In addition, you are not Britons to honour their Common Law tradition to the extent of bearing it as the name of your Association.

Ladies and gentlemen, you would bear with me that throughout the world all Bar Associations are named after the Country in which they are based. So there are the Nigerian, South African, Kenyan, and Ghanaian Bar Associations etc., and none as a “Common Law Lawyers Association”.

It is for this reason that I am suggesting the more suitable title of SOUTHERN CAMEROONS LAW ASSOCIATION, since for obvious reasons you cannot be registered by the Republic of Cameroun as a Bar Association under the Southern Cameroons identity. The advantages of this title cannot be over-emphasized.

If accepted, the name based on your country of Southern Cameroons would render you invincible. In other words, you would become undefeatable, when faced with whatever new assimilative provocations of the Francophone regime, which are sure to continue arising.

· The territorially-based name would provide you with the background of a STATE, on which to firmly stand your arguments; · The International Community would readily understand complaints arising within the crisis context of a State, which is in the process of renaissance, than a Trade Union whom you are, no matter your 850 member size. · Once you identify yourselves with your country as the reasons you and your people are being mistreated, the Republic of Cameroun will be terribly frightened by the prospect of your linking up with the Southern Cameroons National Council.

Ladies and gentlemen, may it be understood that all our Trade Unions, whether lawyers, teachers, drivers, motorcycle-riders, doctors, nurses, farmers etc, are undeniably suffering from one problem or the other, none of whose problem is less important. It is not strange that none of these problems can be solved in isolation, except it were articulated on the platform of the State of Southern Cameroons, the only force that now haunts and is dreaded by the Francophone regime.

In effect, the essence of what is happening is not yet visible to most of us. The fundamental problem of all of us is the quest by the Republic of Cameroun to annex our separately Independent State and erase the distinct identity of our statehood.

It should not take the stretch of imagination for even the youngest among you to sense the current influx of francophone citizens to all levels of national life in the Southern Cameroons.

Experientially, wherever across the world brazen annexation has occurred, the citizens of the victim state are bound to suffer the indignities of our Trade Unions. And we are only at the beginning; the worst is yet to come.

Analogically, there is no way a pregnant woman can be dying while the fetus inside her is all right. If we permit the demise of Southern Cameroons so shall we all slide into annihilation, the mockery of the world, and the condemnation of history and posterity!

So, I beseech your Association to promptly rise up to this reality, in order to awaken our people to the unquenchable TRUTH of giving urgent re-birth by peaceful means to the separate sovereign State of Southern Cameroons.

Ladies and gentlemen, to those of you who still doubt the separate Independence and Statehood of Southern Cameroons, the SCNC disposes of 72 scientific arguments to this effect. But it suffices me to cite you only the most elementary five that do not require lengthy explanations. · Firstly, there are two Independence statues in Mamfe and Buea bearing the inscription of “Built in Commemoration of West Cameroon Independence and Re-Unification of Cameroon, 1st October 1961”.

· Secondly, there is an official photograph in SCNC keeping bearing the inscription of “ President AHMADOU AHIDJO inspecting Guard of Honour, during Independence Day Celebrations of former Southern Cameroons” THOMAS N. NWACHAN In the meantime and in the interest of easier understanding, let us conceive the names of West Cameroon and Southern Cameroons as mutually complementary and exchangeable.

· Thirdly, the initial purported Federal flag carried two stars, one of which represented the Southern Cameroons as one of the two independent States of the supposed “Aggregative Federation”.

Universally, the presence of a star on a flag signifies that the states being represented were separately independent. That is why the Nigerian flag of 36 “federal states” does not carry any stars, while the American counterpart of 52 “federated states” bears 52 stars.

· Fourthly, in 1972 Cameroun consciously replaced the prefix of “Federal” in “Federal Republic of Cameroun” with “United” in “United Republic of Cameroon”. The word “Federal” invariably points to the structure of a Republic based on states, without defining whether the component states were “federal” of the Nigerian brand or “federated” of the American model.

Meanwhile the terminology of “United” was re-introduced in tacit acknowledgement that the two states making up the supposed Federation were separately independent, otherwise it would have been preposterous for the Republic of Cameroun to claim being “united” with itself,

· Fifthly, during the recent purported re-unification anniversary in Buea Mr. Biya in his speech made two significant admissions when he said, “History cannot forget that Buea was once the headquarters of West Cameroon”, and “History cannot also forget that Buea was once the capital of Southern Cameroons”.

The meaning is that when the territory was still un-independent the Buea seat of government was called “Headquarters”. But when the territory acceded to independence on 1st October 1961, the very Buea seat of government transformed into a “capital”.

Even though the term “Re-unification” is inscribed on our Independence statues by the Republic of Cameroun, we should not be fooled by their propaganda that our “independence” was a “Re-unification” with them. Because the United Nations traditionally grants independences and so was ours of 1st October 1961. The World Body never grants –unifications, which is the internal affair of States!

Ladies and gentlemen, the terminology of “re-unification” proceeds from the precursor of “unification” in the same way that “re-application” derives from a prior “application”. Unification is the social amplification of independence and is inherent to every independence.

Therefore re-unification only happens when a given unification breaks down by reason of civil strife, because the independence which occasions unification is a legality that never breaks up.

The best illustration is the 1990 German re-unification resulting from an originally single German state, whose social cohesion broke down in 1945 before the re-unification of 1990. Re-unification is thus not an international affair, but of the integral components of a State.

Similarly, their justification of a re-unification with the Southern Cameroons based on the initial one German KAMERUN is a fallacy. As I have demonstrated herein above, that the phenomenon of unification is inherent to every independence, and so ours sprang up on 1st October 1961, just like theirs on 1st January 1960. But under German KAMERUN we were a colony, so re-unification could never have resulted.

In light of the above, there is no doubt that you are an independent state, when all these proofs were enacted by the Republic of Cameroun themselves.

The second pitfall: The Southern Cameroons law Association, CAN NOT demand to return to the 1961 federation which did not legally exist, in as far as there was no Treaty of Union between the two States. As a general rule in international relations, a Treaty is the ONLY instrument that anchors a Federation of two or more Independent states.

Believe me, without it there is no International Court to which you can table any subsequent abuses to the constitution of a Federation, no matter how professionally it was written. That’s why the people of Southern Cameroons have been helpless in the face of 4 arbitrary changes in the constitution of the Republic of Cameroun.

There is therefore no solution to your problem by any extent of constitutional reform whatsoever, such as our political parties are naively advocating presently.

In fact without a Treaty, the constitution is uniquely theirs, so as an adjunct you have no legal right to cause them to revise it in your favour!

That’s why you are marginalised all-round and stigmatized as “Biafrans”, “Enemies-In-the house”, “Anglophones-Cannot-Be-President”, “Go-Home-To-Fru-Ndi”, “Appointed to sinecure positions” and “ Anglo-fools” etc . Because we have proven too slow to react to this reality!

Ladies and Gentlemen, we cannot now draw up a Treaty with the Republic of Cameroun, because the UN required post-plebiscite International Conference, which failed by them being the principal causal factor, cannot be re-convened while the Foumban Constitutional Conference had failed to meet the criteria.

In consequence whereof, the UN-designated parties to the conference disappeared with the termination of the Trusteeship Agreement at midnight of 31st September, 1961.

In further consequence whereof, no combination of Nationalist movements, Political Parties and Trade Unions in the Territory can arrogate itself to the status of an elected government by universal suffrage to sign a Treaty with whomever on behalf of our beloved country of Southern Cameroons.

Worse still, if the Southern Cameroons government existed, it could through a referendum decide on a Treaty of Union, but the francophone regime itself under the first Republic ransacked our government.

Consequently, there is now no body to talk with on the question of a Treaty, since the Trusteeship Authorities cannot return to the independent state of Southern Cameroons albeit submerged, to conduct a referendum any more than it is they that carried out the Scottish exercise.

Similarly, the Republic of Cameroun as an independent state can not legitimately cross over into the territory of another independent state and conduct a legally acceptable referendum. This explains why after the purported 1972 referendum, they still went ahead to pass a belated ineffectual Referendum Law less than a decade ago.

Finally, 1t is noteworthy that we have had seven practical applications of federalism and 11 demands with the instance of the lawyers being the 18th which respectively either failed or were rebuffed.

Therefore, no Southern Cameroonian in his rightful mind should still request what was repeatedly attempted in vain.

The adventurers to federalism whether it be within the Liberation Movements, the Political Parties, or the Trade Unions, who do not even seem to know the existing types of Federalism, should understand that any recourse to it whether by so-called dialogue or negotiation would, five years down the road, inevitably plunge us all down the deepest abyss in human history.

So we cannot dare make the mistakes of 1961 under the pretext that we are more educated than our predecessors were.

Long Live The Southern Cameroons Lawyers Association (SCLA) Long Live The Southern Cameroons National Council (SCNC) Long Live The looming Separate Sovereign State of Southern Cameroons

Done in Bamenda this 27th day of January 2016 THOMAS N. NWACHAN B.A. Hist., M.A Pol. Sc., M.A Mgt. 1969 combined winner of Fulbright of US Congress, and The Lawrence Wien International Scholarships Through Brandeis University, Mass, USA. National Chairman Formerly the Secretary for Information and Communication, the Executive Secretary General, and the Researcher and Filer of The SCNC current Petition to the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Committee

CC The Secretary General of the United Nations The President of the United States of America The British Prime minister The German Chancellor The President of France President Paul BIYA The President, UN Human Rights Committee, Geneva The Secretary General, AU Addis Ababa The British High Commissioner & the ambassadors US, Germany & France, Yaoundé The UNDP Permanent Representative, Yaoundé The EU Delegate, Yaoundé The President Cameroon Bar Council Amnesty International, London Human Rights Watch, London National Endowment for Democracy, NED, Washington DC Front Line Human Rights Defenders, Dublin The Governors of North West & South West Regions The National Human Rights Committee, Yaoundé The media