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"GO BACK TO AFRICA" - NO LONGER A DREAM BUT A REALITY FOR BLACKS IN AMERICA
By Justice Chief Frederick Alobwede Ebong,
President of the Federal Democratic Republic of the Southern Cameroons, and
SCNC Leader in Exile.
AN ADDRESS TO THE PEOPLES OF
THE FEDERAL DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF SOUTHERN CAMEROONS
Peoples of the Southern Cameroons-on-Ambas,
Fellow Southern Cameroonians,
GREETINGS!!!
Almost two years have rolled by since I addressed you on the struggle for our inalienable right for self-determination. There is a lot to be said for our motto, “THE FORCE OF ARGUMENT, NOT THE ARGUMENT OF FORCE”. All the same, it is a good thing to look around from time to time and take stock, and certainly our struggle for self-determination has prospered in several directions during these last almost two years, far better than most of us would have ventured to hope. We stood our ground and faced the neo-colonialist in the hour of what seemed their overwhelming triumph, and we have shown ourselves capable, so far, of standing up against them.
Let me draw your attention to an Article entitled, “Des Independentistes Actifs” in
La Lettre du Continent No. 322 of February 4, 1999. In this Article, it is evident that while we are still thinking that the United Nations Organization can solve our autonomy problem by preventive diplomacy, the regime of La Republique du Cameroun is preparing to use any pretext to engage us in another fratricidal war of genocide in order to trump-up charges against the SCNC and give a dog a bad name and hang it. They forced me into exile in Nigeria, but whatever they do to us, the international community does not seem to care! But they do. We took some missteps but we have tried to correct those false moves. In our eagerness to move the struggle forward, we chose to ignore our first option, diplomacy, which is also the cornerstone of our motto, “the Force of Argument”. But the wheel of diplomacy turns rather slowly but surely especially in these turbulent times.
The apparent intention is to transform the Southern Cameroons again into a vast Nazi concentration camp in order to violate our human rights and basic freedoms with impunity because the United Nations Organization imposed upon us a Federal Union without any measures of protection, let alone any institution of arbitration to resolve disputes arising between the States in the union. Because of this, we have lost our identity and a say in the conduct of our own affairs. We have been regularly, systematically and progressively subjected to extra-judicial executions, false imprisonment and perpetual detentions without trial, death threats, torture and illegal arrests, searches without warrants and wanton destruction of our property, and the unspeakable rape of our women and our natural resources.
We hold the United Nations Organization, our Supervisory Authority and the United Kingdom, the Administering Power (Trustee) responsible for our plight and fate. Had Article 76(b) of the Charter of the United Nations not been violated by the conspiracy to grant the Southern Cameroons “Independence by Joining”, terribly inconsistent with the Charter of the United Nations, La Republique du Cameroun would have had nothing to do with us. We would not today be 6.5 million victims of brutal repression, neo-colonisation and annexation.
The United Kingdom, our Trustee, is held responsible for our unacceptable situation because of the dubious concealing manner in which she retired from the Trust till date despite repeated appeals or requests to let us know, as the beneficiaries of the Trust which the United Kingdom voluntarily and freely accepted and assumed its sacred obligations. How she retired from the Trust she continues to conceal everything from us. This can only suggest, and very much so, that there was a hidden agenda and/or fraud involved. We have been grievously injured as a consequence.
We hold the United Nations Organization, our Supervisory Authority responsible for our untold sufferings and the loss of our identity and, along with it, our sovereignty, because of its conspiratorial silence in the face of all this. We had thought and believed that this World Body would explode with anger, shock, and utter embarrassment, and a very ready disposition to prevent the situation from becoming another serious threat to world peace and security in Africa, by commanding strict and immediate compliance with the provisions of its Charter, especially Article 76(b), which has been violated with flagrant impunity.
Instead, the United Kingdom and the United Nations Organization treat us as chattels by ceding the Southern Cameroons clandestinely as “a small gift from the Queen” and without a treaty to a fellow trust territory wantonly in the guise of a fake self-determination. Yet they very well know that by forcing us, in utter lack of status and capacity and without a modicum of worthwhile and suitable help from them, help which we need most, to unite with another former trust territory which out-numbers us by 4 to 1 and already independent and a member of the United Nations Organisation, and which enjoys continued control and guidance from their former trustee existing cooperation agreements, La France, we were being deprived of our sovereignty, identity, international personality and a say in the conduct of our own affairs.
They knew that the two legal and administrative systems were obnoxiously opposed to each other. For example, in La Republique du Cameroun, a man comes before the law, whereas in the Southern Cameroons, the rule of law precedes man. This explains the wanton impunity with which our human rights and basic freedoms are violated. We suffer many injuries and prejudices in tears and in utter helplessness. The United Nations Organization seems always very ready to please La Republique du Cameroun by allowing the Southern Cameroonians to be victimized by La Republique du Cameroun, or why should we not construe and regard the United Nations Organization’s embarrassing silence as an invitation to war which is only the language the World Body is awfully interested in only its ugly consequences - refugee crises, famine and starvation, and the attendant epidemics of disease. As the beneficiaries of the United Nations’ Trust in such helpless situation and who had enjoyed international citizenship during the periods of the mandate and the trust, we wonder aloud what the trust meant to the peoples of the Southern Cameroons. Could the basic objective of the United Nations’ Charter, Article 76, reduce the Southern Cameroons from the status of self-governing State to a mere object of International Law without violating it?
But it must be noted that “Any arrangement inconsistent with the Charter is null and void” (Article 103 of the Charter). An illegal act cannot create any legal effects intended by it! The peoples of the Southern Cameroons are now aware through the declassification of the Secret Files in London in accordance with the “British Official Secrets Act”, that on the 19th April 1961 at 3.15pm the United Nations General Assembly took up the case of the separate independence for the Southern Cameroons, and that a total of 50 (fifty) Nations voted YES for Southern Cameroons Independence. The Chairman was, Adam Pachachi (Iraq), Vice Chairman: Miss Silvia Shelton Vilallon (Cuba), Rapporteur: Eamon L. Kennedy (Ireland). This was the 15th Session of the United Nations General Assembly and they met on a Wednesday at 3.15pm where they pronounced that 1st October is Southern Cameroons Independence Day, not 1st January; and certainly not May 20th. May 20th is a provocation!
The United Nations General Assembly voting was 50 Yes votes, 2 against and 9 abstentions. This validated the Independence of the Southern Cameroons: these being a historical fact, unimpeachable and historical facts, the results having been kept secret from the people of the Southern Cameroons until the expiry date of the “British Official Secret Acts” being made public is a systematic and progressive denial of the right of equal belonging to a union we voted for under agreed terms, the denial of those rights prescribed by the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the optional protocol too; we peoples of the Southern Cameroons are made to toil for the francophone majority to reap the fruits while we fight and blackmail one another for the crumbs. This is totally unacceptable; it is cruel; and is inhuman. In fact, it is camouflaged slavery at the dawn of the 3rd millennium.
The Fresh Thrust:in the Struggle:
We now also know that UN Resolution 1608 (XV), paragraph 5, of 21 April 1961, required that a “TREATY of UNION” between the Governments of the Southern Cameroons and La Republique du Cameroun, with the United Kingdom as Administering Authority of the Southern Cameroons Trust Territory, be worked out before 1st October 1961. The TREATY was to protect the interests of both the Southern Cameroons and La Republique du Cameroun.
The worked out TREATY would have been ratified by the Southern Cameroons Territorial Assembly and the Parliament of La Republique du Cameroun. The Treaty should have been registered and a copy deposited at the Secretariat of the Secretary General of the United Nations Organisation in application of Article 102 (1) of the Charter of the United Nations which states: ”Every Treaty and every international agreement entered into by any member of the United Nations after the present Charter comes into force shall as soon as possible be registered with the Secretariat and published by it”
Fortunately for the long term interests of the Southern Cameroons, none of these was ever done. It is today manifestly clear that a combination of providential commissions and omissions resulted in this outcome. The UN Secretary General, who should have ensured that UN Resolution 1608 (XV), paragraph 5, of 21 April 1961, was implemented, His Excellency Dag Hammarksjold, died in a plane crash in Africa in September 1961. His successor, His Excellency U Thant, was appointed Acting Secretary General in November 1961. And he was only appointed substantive Secretary General in November 1962. And so, from September 1961 to October 1962, there was no substantive Secretary General of the United Nations Organisation who could have ensured the full and legal implementation of UN Resolution 1608 (XV), paragraph 5, of 21 April 1961, on the Future of the Southern Cameroons.
Because of these acts of commission and omission, the United Kingdom and France took advantage of this loophole to hand the Southern Cameroons over to La Republique du Cameroun for subtle annexation, while the United Nations turned a blind eye. HRH Fon Gorji Dinka of the Ambazonia Movement has described the conspiracy as “The Most Sophisticated Slave Trade Deal Under United Nations Cover”. As a consequence of these providential commissions and omissions to implement UN Resolution 1608 (XV), paragraph 5, of 21 April 1961, the following administrative acts were null and void, ab initio, in international law.
* President Ahmadou Ahidjo’s Federal Constitution of 1 October 1961 on the Southern Cameroons Territory was a violation of paragraph 5 of UN Resolution 1608 (XV) of 21 April 1961 for a “Treaty of Union” to be worked out between the Southern Cameroons Territory and La Republique du Cameroun.
* The United Kingdom signed an EDICT on 27 September 1961 ending its administration of the Southern Cameroons Trust Territory without ensuring that a “Treaty of Union” had been worked out between the Southern Cameroons and La Republique du Cameroun in execution of both the above UN Resolution and the Trusteeship Agreement signed on 13 December 1946 with the United Nations Organisation in New York.
* In consequence thereof, President Ahmadou Ahidjo’s extension of his administration to the Southern Cameroons Territory was from the onset – 1 October 1961 – illegal and illegitimate in international law. It was an invasion of the Southern Cameroons Territory. It was a violation of the Southern Cameroons’ right of self-determination and independence. And so also, the present administration of President Paul Biya on the Southern Cameroons Territory is still Illegal and Illegitimate in International law.
The Non-Execution of UN Resolution 1608 (XV), paragraph 5, of 21 April 1961, on the Future of the UN Trust Territory of the Southern Cameroons – for a “Treaty of Union” to be worked out between the Government of the Southern Cameroons and La Republique du Cameroun in the presence of the then Administering Authority of the Southern Cameroons, the United Kingdom - meant strictly speaking in International Law that the UN Trust Territory of the Southern Cameroons became and remained a United Nations Territory.
Consequently, the UN should have been, indeed should be, Administering the Territory. The UN Flag should be flying on that Territory to prepare it for full Self-Determination and Independence since 1 October 1961. UN values (Respect for Human Rights, the Rule of Law, Democracy, Good Governance, Equality, Liberty and other basic Freedoms) should be respected on the Territory of the Southern Cameroons.
Our Way Forward Today.
The quest for Self-determination and Independence of the peoples and Territory of the Southern Cameroons is an incontrovertible and a burning issue. The UN should ensure that Self-determination and Independence of the Peoples and Territory of the Southern Cameroons is Rectified and Regularised in accordance with Article 76, paragraph b, of the Charter of the United Nations.
The present on-going Nigeria/La Republique du Cameroun Mixed Commission on their border problems provides an opportunity for the Southern Cameroons independence issue to be raised and regularized. Why? Because since UN Resolution 1608 (XV), paragraph 5, of 21 April 1961, was not implemented according to international law, La Republique du Cameroun had, and has, no legal right to claim Sovereignty over the Bakassi Peninsula of the Southern Cameroons. This is in accordance with Article 102 (2) of the Charter of the United Nations which states:
”No party to any such Treaty or International Agreement which has not been registered in accordance with the provisions of paragraph 1 of this Article may invoke that treaty or agreement before any organ of the United Nations”.
La Republique du Cameroun should withdraw its illegal and illegitimate administration from the Southern Cameroons Territory immediately and progressively. It should also encourage the peoples of the Southern Cameroons to continue to work for their sovereign self-determination and independence through the United Nations Organisation to ensure international peace and security.
Exiled Southern Cameroons citizens should be called back home. All SCNC political prisoners too should be released. And damages be paid to their families i.e. of those dead. This means that a UN Transitional Administration should takeover the Territory of the Southern Cameroons to ensure that the peoples of the Southern Cameroons prepare themselves for their Independence and Future Government and Administration of their Territory. The presence of the UN Administration on the Territory of the Southern Cameroons will not only ensure international peace and security in the Southern Cameroons, but will also reduce the unnecessary tensions between the peoples of the Southern Cameroons and La Republique du Cameroun. Legitimacy and legality of Southern Cameroons independence will be endorsed. Indonesia annexed East Timor in exactly the same way that La republique du Cameroun and France annexed the Southern Cameroons: East Timor became independent recently in June 1999. A war can be avoided.
We have requested the UN Secretary General, through the UN network, to make use of his “good offices”- drawing upon his stature and impartiality - in the interests of “preventive diplomacy” - to bring to the attention of the Security Council and the United Nations General Assembly:
1. The non-implementation of UN Resolution 1608 (XV), paragraph 5, of 21 April 1961, on the Future of the Southern Cameroons.
2. The urgent Rectification and Regularisation of the Self-determination and Independence of the Territory of the Southern Cameroons in application of the UN Resolution 1514 (XV) of 14 December 1960 Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples.
3. The Admission of the Southern Cameroons State after independence to the United Nations Organisation as a full Member in application of Article 4 of the Charter of the United Nations.
4. Just as UN Resolution 1349 (XIII), paragraphs 1, 2, and 3 of 13 March 1959 gave independence to the State of La Republique du Cameroun on 1 January 1960 and an Assembly elections were conducted and it (Resolution) recommended that La Republique du Cameroun be admitted as a member of the United Nations Organisation in application of Article 4 of the Charter of the United Nations, so too the peoples of the Southern Cameroons today want a UN Resolution Granting them Independence and Admission as a Member to the United Nations Organisation in application of Article 4 of the Charter of the United Nations.
This Fresh Thrust requires that all our Activities should be buttressed by the following slogans:
* Because of the Non-Execution of UN Resolution 1608 (XV), para.5, of 21 April 1961, on the Future of the Southern Cameroons Under United Kingdom Administration, the Southern Cameroons remains a UN Territory.
* No UNION TREATY was worked out between, and ratified by, the Southern Cameroons and La Republique du Cameroun in 1961 as required by UN Resolution 1608 (XV), paragraph 5, of 21 April 1961, of the 994th Plenary Session of the UN General Assembly.
* La Republique du Cameroun’s administration in the Southern Cameroons is illegal and illegitimate.
* The continued presence of La Republique du Cameroun’s forces of occupation in the Territory is ANNEXATION, punishable in International Law.
* La Republique du Cameroun should withdraw its illegal and illegitimate administration from the Southern Cameroons Territory immediately.
* The UN should appoint an Administrator for the Territory with immediate effect so as to encourage the peoples of the Territory to continue to work for their full Sovereign Self-Determination and Independence, and ensure international peace and security from marauding occupation forces.
* NO! To the continuing and progressive Human Rights Abuses in the Southern Cameroons by La Republique du Cameroun’s forces of occupation and their proconsuls.
* NO! To the THEFT of Southern Cameroons Resources by La Republique du Cameroun and France.
* Exiled stateless Southern Cameroons citizens should be recalled back home.
* La Republique du Cameroun should immediately release All Southern Cameroons political prisoners in their maximum security prisons and/or concentration camps.
* The SCNC should hold its meetings under the protective cover of the UN Flag.
* East Timor, which was similarly annexed by Indonesia, became independent recently.
* War can be avoided.
* The Bakassi Peninsula is Southern Cameroons Territory.
* International bodies to be targeted for maximum impact are:
- All United Nations Organs, such as, UN offices and United Nations Universities,
UNESCO;
- United Kingdom Missions;
- Africa Union offices.
- The Nigeria Mission should also be reminded to implement the Abuja High Court
Ruling of 5 March 2002.
President Paul Biya is fully aware of this new state of affairs. any further attacks on any citizen of the Southern Cameroons will be regarded as an attack on the Southern Cameroons Nation for which he will be held personally accountable at the bar not only of the African Court of Human and Peoples Rights but also at that of the International Court of Human Rights.
The people of La Republique du Cameroun were misled into believing that there is only one Cameroun, but the 19 April 1961 UN General Assembly vote tells the lie to La Republique’s position. By the United Nations General Assembly vote:
Fifty (50) Nations voted YES: these were: Afghanistan, Albania, Australia, Belarusian, Bolivia, Bulgaria, Burma, Canada, Ceylon, Chile, Costa-Rica, Cuba, Cyprus, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ethiopia, Finland, Ghana, Honduras, Hungaria, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Japan, Jordan, Lebanon, Lybia, Mali, Mexico, Nepal, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Pakistan, Philippines, Poland, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Sweden, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey, Ukraine, Union of South Africa, Union of Soviet Socialist Republic, United States of America, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Venezuela, Yemen. Only 2 (Two) Nations Voted No: these were: Luxemburg and Paraguay. Nine nations abstained: these were: Portugal, Spain, Togo, Argentina, Brazil, Cambodia, Greece, Haiti and Italy.
Those who officiated at this 15th session of the United Nations General Assembly where: the Chairman, Adam Panchachi (Iraq), Vice Chairman: Miss Silvia Shelton Vilallon (Cuba), and the Repporteur: Eamon 2 Kennedy (Ireland).
It was at this 15th session on Wednesday, 19 April 1961 at 3.15pm that it was declared that 1st October is Southern Cameroons Independence Day, not January 1st, and not 20th May. Let Mr. Paul Biya know this together with La Republiqued du Cameroun. Let Paul Biya know that they have annexed, oppressed, exploited, brutalised, subjugated, discriminated and abused the peoples of the Southern Camerouns for 43 years under the very eyes and nose of the United Nations Organization and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. But we want to make them know now that what they had hidden for more than 45 years has at last been revealed. No citizen of the Southern Cameroons again will accept that our natural resources be plundered. Enough is indeed enough! Let every citizen of the Southern Cameroons come out and tell Paul Biya that Paul Biya and his Frenchmen should know that freedom is not a cherished goal only for the French and La Republique du Cameroun, but for all mankind. They should know that the reason that led to the storming of the Bastille in 1789 is the same reason that is pushing the peoples the Southern Cameroons to seek Freedom, Liberty and Equality. The time has come for the United Nations to prove to the world and the people of the Federal Democratic Republic of the Southern Cameroons their readiness to achieve, World Peace and Democracy in keeping with the millennium goals of the United Nations Organisation. Let us give His Excellency, Kofi Atah Annan, the Secretary-General of the United Nations Organisation who is currently presiding over these millennium goals set by the United Nations General Assembly during its millennium summit, the opportunity to rectify and regularise our situation by cleaning up the mess that the United Nations itself inflicted on an innocent, trusting and hapless nation and peoples of the Southern Cameroons 43 long weary years ago.
In light of the realisation that the Southern Cameroons is still a United Nations Territory by virtue of the non-implementation in legal terms of the UN Resolution 1608 (XV) paragraph 5 of 21 April 1961 on the Southern Cameroons Future, I call on all citizens of the Southern Cameroons who presently find themselves as refugees in the free world to register at once as stateless people with the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) in the countries where they may find themselves so as to distinguish themselves from the economic refugees of La Republique du Cameroun. That way they will be accorded the protection of the United Nations Organisation while they hold themselves in readiness to return to their homeland to participate in the re-building of our nation as soon as the UN Secretary-General appoints a United Nations Administrator for our territory. Our territory is endowed with an abundance of natural and human resources as well as with food self-sufficiency: we would not be roaming the streets of the countries of the free world as refugees if we had been allowed to manage our own affairs in a free and independent country. Democracy in Africa started in the British Southern Cameroons with the first free and fair elections in 1954. We are not amateurs in the art of nation-building, nor in the practice of democracy and good governance. The concept of universal human values is therefore not strange to us. We shall overcome the present orchestrated divisions that have been injected into our body politic by La Republique du Cameroun and France to divide and better colonise and subjugate us.
The International Community may seem to believe that before a people are emancipated there must be bloodshed, the peoples of the Southern Cameroons are now not for appeasement but should put on their armours for good or for bad in the self-defence of their territory, patrimony and peoples; because every one day we live in bondage, complicates further the dignity of our future generations. I know that a wounded buffalo can charge even onto the rocks as it is running to its death. The deviant actions of La Republique du Cameroun cannot consume our identities. They will only strengthen and harden the resolve of our peoples for a good fight. Our defeat can only mean a defeat when the peoples of the Federal Democratic Republic of the Southern Cameroons accept their defeat permanently. But TRUTH and JUSTICE can never be defeated. Our cause is just and the facts of our nationhood are compelling. Let us harness our energies and resources as we stride forward in unison to victory, freedom and independence.
I call on the home front to rally behind the indefatigable leadership of Nwachan N. Thomas, the Vice National Chairman. I equally call on the leadership of the Ambazonia Movement in exile to join hands with the SCNC in the final push to liberate our homeland. I also call on the SCYL, the fighting force of our nation, to close ranks in these turbulent days with the SCNC in this fresh thrust to freedom and independence. To SCARM, under the hardline leadership of Dr. Arnold Boh Yongbang, I urge you not to relent in your watchdog role in the struggle: it is thanks to that role that the struggle has survived thus far. To our compatriots in the Diaspora, your contribution to the success of the struggle on the home front is crucial, but do not presume to dictate to, let alone impose on, the home front without first discussing your ideas and strategies with them as you have tried to do in the past. It will not work. Woe to the hungry agents of La Republique du Cameroun operating in sheep’s skin among us and working over time to negotiate with La Republique! Can anyone in his/her right mind negotiate his/her God-given, inherent and inalienable right of self-determination and independence for crumbs falling from the oppressor’s table? They cannot stop our onward march to freedom and independence. Be on your guard constantly.
God bless you all.
Long live the Southern Cameroons National Council!
Long live the Peoples of the Southern Cameroons-on-Ambas!
Long live the Federal Democratic Republic of the Southern Cameroons!
Done in Abuja this 16th Day of May in the Year of Our Lord, 2004.
JUSTICE CHIEF FREDERICK ALOBWEDE EBONG,
President of the Federal Democratic Republic of the Southern Cameroons, and
SCNC Leader in Exile.
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