The territory of the Southern Cameroons The Southern Cameroons has a surface area of 43,000 sq. km and a current population of about 6 million people. It is thus demographically bigger than at least 60 UN and 18 AU Member States, and spatially bigger than at least 30 UN and 12 AU Member States. Located in the ‘armpit’ of Africa, it is sandwiched between Nigeria and Republique du Cameroun like a wedge between West Africa and what in effect is still French Equatorial Africa. It has frontiers to the west and north with Nigeria, to the east with Republique du Cameroun, and to the south with the Equatorial Guinean Island of Bioko. The borders are well attested by international boundary treaties. The natural resources of the Southern Cameroons include oil, gas, timber, coffee, cocoa, tea, bananas, oil palm, rubber, wildlife, fish, medicinal plants, waterfalls and a wide variety of fruit and agricultural produce. 80 years of British Connection The territory later identified as the Southern Cameroons was originally British from 1858-1887. It was ceded to Germany and subsequently incorporated into the contiguous German protectorate of Kamerun, which had been acquired earlier in 1884. A 1913 Anglo-German Treaty respecting the settlement of the frontier between the British territory of Nigeria and the German territory of Kamerun from Lake Chad to the sea. That territorially grounded treaty has remained the instrument defining the international boundary between Nigeria and the Southern Cameroons. Moreover, a 1954 British Order in Council (Definition of Boundaries Proclamation) defined the boundary between the Eastern Region of Nigeria and the Southern Cameroons. The same territory that had been ceded in 1887 by Britain to Germany was captured by British forces in September 1914 soon after the outbreak of World War I. It later became known as the British Cameroons, consisting of two separate parts, the Southern Cameroons and the Northern Cameroons. Germany held on to its original Kamerun protectorate until 1916 when Anglo-French forces captured it. France took possession of the territory and it became known as French Cameroun. In 1916 therefore, Germany ceased to exercise any territorial authority (sovereignty) over Kamerun. The utter defeat of Germany entailed the loss of its colonial territory. Under Articles 118 and 119 of the 1919 Versailles Treaties Germany renounced and relinquished all rights in and title to all its overseas possessions, including her Kamerun territory. An Anglo-French treaty of 1916 (the Milner-Simon Declaration) defined the international boundary between the British Cameroons and French Cameroun. This territorial delimitation was confirmed by the League of Nations in 1922 when the two territories were separately placed under the Mandates System. The territorial alignment was further confirmed by the Anglo-French Treaty of 9 January 1931, signed by the Governor-General of Nigeria and the Governor of French Cameroun. The Southern Cameroons was thus under British rule from 1858 to 1887, and then from 1915 to 1961, a total period of nearly 80 years. That long British connection left an indelible mark on the territory, bequeathing to it an Anglo-Saxon heritage. The territory’s official language is English. Its educational, legal, administrative, political, governance and institutional culture and value systems are all English-derived. International tutelage The Southern Cameroons was under international tutelage with the status of a class ‘B’ territory, first as a British-Mandated Territory of the League of Nations from 1922-1945, and then as a British- administered United Nations Trust Territory from 1946 to 1961. Under Article 22 of the Treaties of Versailles the Mandatory Power accepted and undertook to apply “the principle that the well-being and development of [the inhabitants of the territories concerned] form a sacred trust of civilization.” At the end of World War II the international mandates system was transmuted to the international trusteeship system under chapters XII and XIII of the UN Charter. By Article 73 of that Charter the Administering Power “recognize the principle that the interests of the inhabitants of [territories whose peoples have not yet attained a measure of self-government] are paramount, and accept as a sacred trust the obligation to promote to the utmost, within the system of international peace and security established by the present Charter, the wellbeing of the inhabitants of those territories.” One of the basic objectives of the international trusteeship system, as stated in Article 76 b of the Charter, is “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 and the freely expressed wishes of the peoples concerned, and as may be provided by the terms of each trusteeship agreement. Up to 1960, the Southern Cameroons though under international tutelage was administered by Britain as part of her contiguous colonial territory of Nigeria. But its distinct identity and personality, separate from Nigeria, remained unassailable. UN Resolution 224 (III) of 18 November 1948 protected the Trust Territory from annexation by any colonial-minded neighbour. While acknowledging that the Trusteeship Agreement makes allowance for ‘administrative union’, the Resolution provides that “Such a union must remain strictly administrative in its nature and scope, and its operation must not have the effect of creating any conditions which will obstruct the separate development of the Trust Territory, in the fields of political, economic, social and educational advancement, as a distinct entity.” Self-government In 1954 the Southern Cameroons became a self- governing region within Nigeria and gradually asserted its distinct identity and its aspiration to statehood through increased political and institutional autonomy. In 1958 the British Government stated at the UN that the Southern Cameroons was expected to achieve in 1960 the objectives set forth in Article 76 b of the UN Charter. Since the Southern Cameroons had already attained self-government status four years earlier in 1954, the objective to be attained in 1960 could only have been full independence. General Assembly Resolution 1282 (XIII) of 5 December 1958 took note of the British statement. The people of the Southern Cameroons therefore legitimately expected to be granted full independence in 1960 given that their country had been self-governing since 1954. Basic self-government institutions were in place: a Government headed by the Premier as Leader of Government business; a bicameral parliament consisting of a House of Assembly and a House of Chiefs; an Official Opposition in parliament; a Judiciary headed by a Chief Justice; a Civil Service; and a police force. The system in place was a democratic and accountable dispensation; a Westminster-type parliamentary democracy. In 1959 when the term of office of the incumbent Premier came to an end peaceful free, fair and transparent elections were organized. The opposition won and there was an orderly transfer of power to the in-coming Premier. Consistently with the parliamentary system of government the out-going Premier became Leader of the Opposition in parliament. On 1 October 1960 the Southern Cameroons was separated from Nigeria. The Southern Cameroons Constitution Order in Council came into force. By 1960 the Southern Cameroons had attained a full measure of self-government. Indeed, from 1 October 1960 up to 30 September 1961 it was a full self-governing territory fully responsible for all its internal affairs, except for defense over which matter, along with foreign affairs, Britain continued to exercise jurisdiction. Quite apart from the fact that the territory had international personality by virtue of its status as an international trust territory, the Southern Cameroons was a state in the process of being born and was known by the sovereign name of Government of the Southern Cameroons. Its sovereignty was in abeyance waiting to emerge at the moment of its expected independence. French Cameroun achieves independence as Republique du Cameroun On 1 January 1960, the contiguous territory of French Cameroun, also a class B trust territory, achieved independence from France, the chronic on-going anarchy and terrorism there notwithstanding. The French had decided that 1960 was to be the year of ‘independence’ for its African colonies. French Cameroun achieved independence under the name and style of Republique du Cameroun with Mr. Ahmadou Ahidjo as its President. It was admitted to membership of the United Nations on 20 September 1960. The name ‘Republique du Cameroun’ is variously translated into English as ‘Republic of Cameroun’ or ‘Republic of Cameroon’ or sometimes simply as ‘Cameroon’. However; prudence and clarity dictate that one sticks to the official name in the language in which it is expressed. Accordingly, for the avoidance of confusion, that country (the Respondent State in this matter) shall, throughout these proceedings be referred to by its official denomination ‘Republique du Cameroun’ except where the context dictates otherwise. Plebiscite recommended by UN On 13 March 1959 the General Assembly adopted Resolution 1350 (XIII) recommending a plebiscite in the Southern Cameroons instead of the granting of independence right away. This was followed by another General Assembly resolution, 1352 (XIV) of 16 October 1959, ordering a plebiscite to be held in the Southern Cameroons “not later than March 1961”. The people of the Southern Cameroons were to pronounce themselves on ‘achieving independence’ by the two dead-end alternatives of ‘joining’ Nigeria or Republique du Cameroun. ‘We are not annexationists’ In 1959 some perceptive minds in the Trusteeship Council expressed concerns that after attaining independence on 1 January 1960 Republique du Cameroun could try to annex the Southern Cameroons. The Premier of French Cameroun, Mr. Ahidjo, denied any such intention or the possibility of any such action on the part of independent Republique du Cameroun. At the 849th meeting of the Fourth Committee of the UN, Mr. Ahidjo took the floor and gave the UN the solemn assurance that Republique du Cameroun is not annexationist. He declared: “We are not annexationists. … If our brothers of the British zone wish to unite with independent Cameroun, we are ready to discuss the matter with them, but we will do so on a footing of equality.” In June 1960 he told the ‘Agence Presse Camerounaise’: “I have said and repeated, in the name of the Government [of Republique du Cameroun], that we do not have any annexationist design.” In July the same year he again reassured the international community through the same press: “For us, there can be no question of annexation of the Southern Cameroons. We have envisaged a flexible form of union, a federal form.” Later events were to show that he took the UN, the international community and the Southern Cameroons for a ride. Plebiscite process set in motion On 31 March 1960 the Trusteeship Council adopted Resolution 2013 (XXVI) requesting the UK Government “to take appropriate steps, in consultation with the authorities concerned, to ensure that the people of the Territory are fully informed, before the plebiscite, of the constitutional arrangements that would have to be made, at the appropriate time, for the implementation of the decisions taken at the plebiscite.” Resolution 2013 saddled the UK Government with a duty to ascertain from both Nigeria and Republique du Cameroun the terms and conditions under which the Southern Cameroons might be expected to ‘join’ either of them. After making the ascertainment Britain was duty bound to inform the people of the Southern Cameroons, well before the plebiscite, of the conditions of ‘joining’ offered by each of the two concerned States. Given the artful dilatoriness of the UK Government on this issue the Southern Cameroons entered into direct talks with Republique du Cameroun. Several rounds of talks were held between August and December 1960. These talks resulted in an Agreement (expressed in the form of Joint Declarations and Joint Communiqués) signed by Mr. JN Foncha and Mr. Ahmadou Ahidjo, the respective political leaders of the two countries, and published. In the meantime also, in early October 1960, the British Secretary of State for the Colonies held talks in London with a delegation of Southern Cameroons Ministers and members of the Opposition. The aims of the talks included elucidating the meaning of the phrase ‘to achieve independence by joining Republique du Cameroun’. The Secretary of State put forward the following interpretation as consistent with the plebiscite alternative of ‘joining’ Republique du Cameroun: “the Southern Cameroons and the Cameroun Republic would unite in a Federal United Cameroon Republic. The arrangements [for the union] would be worked out after the plebiscite by a conference consisting of representative delegations of equal status from the Republic and the Southern Cameroons. The United Nations and the United Kingdom would also be associated with this conference.” Both the Southern Cameroons and Republique du Cameroun agreed to this interpretation. Pre-Plebiscite Agreement The signed and published Agreement between the Southern Cameroons and Republique du Cameroun provided that in the event of the plebiscite vote going in favour of “achieving independence by joining” Republique du Cameroun, the following would be the broad terms of the ‘joining’: The Southern Cameroons and Republique du Cameroun would unite to create a Federal State to be called the ‘Federal United Cameroon Republic’, outside the British Commonwealth and the French Community; The component states of the Federation would be the Southern Cameroons and Republique du Cameroun, legally equal in status; Each federated state would continue to conduct its affairs consistently with its colonially inherited state-culture, with only a limited number of subject matters conceded to the Union government; Nationals of the federated states would enjoy Federal Cameroon nationality; The Federation would have a bicameral Parliament consisting of a Federal Senate and a Federal National Assembly; and federal laws will only be enacted in such a way that no measures contrary to the interests of one state will be imposed upon it by the majority. The Agreement also stipulated as follows: Constitutional arrangements would be worked out after the plebiscite by a post plebiscite conference comprising representative delegations of equal status from the Southern Cameroons and Republique du Cameroun, in association with the United Kingdom Government and the United Nations; The post-plebiscite conference would have as its goal the fixing of time limits and conditions for the transfer of sovereignty powers to an organization representing the future federation; Those entrusted with the affairs of the united Cameroon would put the would-be federal constitution to the people of the Southern Cameroons and Republique du Cameroun to pronounce themselves on it; and until constitutional arrangements were worked out, the United Kingdom would continue to fulfill her responsibility under the Trusteeship Agreement regarding the Southern Cameroons. On December 24, 1960, Republique du Cameroun sent a Note Verbale to the British Government reiterating its commitment to this Agreement and reconfirming its desire for union with the Southern Cameroons “on the basis of a Federation”. The Agreement between the Southern Cameroons and Republique du Cameroun was made available to the UN and the UK Government. The representations therein contained were reproduced in ‘The Two Alternatives’, a booklet prepared by the United Kingdom Government, published and widely circulated in the Southern Cameroons in pursuance of Resolution 2013 with a view to informing the Southern Cameroons electorate of the constitutional implications of the alternatives offered in the plebiscite. Also reproduced in ‘The Two Alternatives’ was the interpretation of the ‘alternative’ of ‘joining’ Republique du Cameroun put forward by the British Secretary of State for the Colonies and concurred with by both the Southern Cameroons Government and Republique du Cameroun. The booklet was widely used during the plebiscite enlightenment campaigns. The phrase “to achieve independence by joining Republique du Cameroun” was therefore clearly understood by all concerned (the UN, the UK Government, the Southern Cameroons Government, and the Republique du Cameroun Government) to mean that the Southern Cameroons would attain independence and then form, on the footing of legal equality, a federal union with Republique du Cameroun under an agreed federal constitution. On 11 February 1961 the UN-supervised limited plebiscite took place in the Southern Cameroons. The vote was a plebiscite on political status to enable the people of the Southern Cameroons progress from full measure of self-government to national independence. The vote went in favour of achieving independence ‘by joining’ Republique du Cameroun rather than Nigeria. UN Resolution 1608 Two months after the plebiscite vote, on 21 April 1961, the UN General Assembly adopted Resolution 1608 (XV) to give effect to the intention expressed by the people of the Southern Cameroons at the plebiscite. Republique du Cameroun, through its Foreign Affairs Minister, Mr. Charles Okala, made a vain vociferous and pathetic protest against the taking of a vote on the independence of the Southern Cameroons and then voted against Resolution 1608. It speaks volumes that the overwhelming UN vote on the independence of the Southern Cameroons did not go down well with Republique du Cameroun. In Resolution 1608 (XV) the General Assembly: Endorsed the results of the plebiscite that “the people of the Southern Cameroons … decided to achieve independence by joining the independent Republic of Cameroun”; Considered that “the decision made by them through a democratic process under the supervision of the United Nations should be immediately implemented”; Decided that “the Trusteeship Agreement of 13 December 1946 concerning the Cameroons under United Kingdom administration … be terminated, in accordance with Article 76 b of the Charter of the United Nations … with respect to the Southern Cameroons, on 1 October 1961, upon its joining the Republic of Cameroun”; and Invited “the Administering Authority, the Government of the Southern Cameroons and the Republic of Cameroun to initiate urgent discussions with a view to finalizing before 1 October 1961 the arrangements by which the agreed and declared policies of the parties concerned will be implemented.” “The agreed and declared policies of the parties concerned” referred to in the Resolution were the contents of the signed and published pre- plebiscite Agreement between the Southern Cameroons and Republique du Cameroun reproduced in the plebiscite enlightenment campaign booklet entitled ‘The Two Alternatives’. The said ‘agreed and declared policies’ were not and have never been finalized. Foumban and the de facto federation From the 17th to the 21st of July 1961 the Southern Cameroons and Republique du Cameroun held talks in the town of Foumban in Republique du Cameroun with a view to fleshing up the outline of the federal constitution (agreed upon before the plebiscite) and to finalize the same. The talks ended inconclusively as a result of the duplicitous conduct and manifest bad faith of Republique du Cameroun, aided and abetted in this by the French who would later claim that the Southern Cameroons was “un petit cadeaux de la reine d’Angleterre” (“a little gift from the English Queen”). The press in Republique du Cameroun has recently revealed that at Foumban Republique du Cameroun, acting in pursuance of a premeditated plan, fraudulently and corruptly deflected the Southern Cameroons delegation from the serious business at hand and thereby scuttled the Foumban talks. Even the agreement to resume talks at a latter date on the would-be federal constitution was ignored by Republique du Cameroun despite repeated reminders by the Southern Cameroons. Without the process of negotiating the terms of the agreed federal union having been completed, without any federal constituent assembly having met, without any draft federal constitution having been established, Republique du Cameroun unilaterally drafted a document which that country’s Assembly, meeting without any Southern Cameroons participation, enacted into ‘law’ on 1 September 1961 as ‘the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Cameroon’ to enter into force on 1 October 1961. The component states of the federation were identified as Republique du Cameroun (to be called East Cameroun) and the Southern Cameroons (to be called West Cameroon). Strangely, the long title of the ‘constitution’ characterized the document as a revision of the 1960 Constitution of Republique du Cameroun necessitated by the need to facilitate the return of a part of the territory of Republique du Cameroun. The document was thus in the nature of an annexation law thinly disguised as a ‘federal constitution’. For, Republique du Cameroun could not at one and the same breadth be one of two component states of a federation and yet absorb the other component state, the Southern Cameroons. Nor can the legislature of a future component of a yet-to-be federation validly act as the legislature of that merely contemplated federation. In September 1961 the Trusteeship regarding the Southern Cameroons had not yet been terminated and Republique du Cameroun has always been a foreign State in regard to the Southern Cameroons. Republique du Cameroun had no jurisdiction whatsoever over the Southern Cameroons and could thus not validly exercise constituent powers over the territory. Neither the legislature nor the executive of Republique du Cameroun could validly legislate for the contemplated federation. Republique du Cameroun’s unilateral ‘federal constitution’ was never submitted for endorsement to and was never endorsed by the people or the parliament or the Government of the Southern Cameroons. The Ebubu and Santa slaughters In the same month of September 1961 a platoon of Republique du Cameroon soldiers crossed the border into the Southern Cameroons at Ebubu village near Tombel and massacred thirteen CDC workers in cold blood. No explanation or apology was offered by Republique du Cameroun to the Government of the Southern Cameroons. Further north, in the village of Santa near Bamenda, marauding soldiers from Republique du Cameroun crossed the Southern Cameroons border into the village of Santa near Bamenda, killed a number of people and destroyed property. They were eventually flushed out by a company of British soldiers. But once again Republique du Cameroun offered neither explanation nor apology for yet another armed violation of the territorial integrity of the Southern Cameroons. In 1962 Mr. Zachariah Abendong MP in the Southern Cameroons parliament was brutally murdered in the vicinity of Kekem in Republique du Cameroun. In the same year a Camerounese gendarme murdered in cold blood two Southern Cameroons youths arbitrarily detained by the very gendarmes in the Southern Cameroons town of Bota. There was never any inquiry into the circumstances of these murders and the soldiers who carried out those extra- judicial killings were never brought to book. Onset of the armed occupation of the Southern Cameroons On 25 September 1961 the British Queen issued a proclamation declaring that the British Government “shall as from the first day of October 1961 cease to be responsible for the administration of the Southern Cameroons.” The British Government then began to withdraw its personnel from the territory, culminating in the departure of its troops on September 30th 1961. The territory was left defenseless as it had no military force of its own. Republique du Cameroun moved in its military forces without the concurrence of the Government of the Southern Cameroons. Those forces occupied the territory and have remained in occupation since then, a situation indistinguishable from belligerent occupation. On 1 October 1961 the British Government and the UN washed their hands off the Southern Cameroons, leaving the political status of the territory and the fate of its people in limbo. The British Government declared that “the Southern Cameroons and its inhabitants were expendable.” (Declassified Secret Files on the Southern Cameroons, P.R.O., London) The attitude of the UN is all the more surprising when it is recalled that the World Body had drafted constitutions for the Ethiopia/Eritrea federation and also for what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo. On that same day a de facto Cameroon Federation came into existence. Sovereignty over the Southern Cameroons that had supposedly achieved independence on that day was never handed over to the Government of the Southern Cameroons (which would then have handed it to a legitimate federal government) but apparently to Mr. Ahidjo, President of Republique du Cameroun, and the self-declared head of a yet-to-be-formed federal government. Revealing provisions of de facto federal constitution The ‘Federal Constitution’ unilaterally drafted and enacted by Republique du Cameroun contained some revealing provisions. The President of Republique du Cameroun gave himself absolute powers under Article 50 to rule by decree during the first six months of the federation. Article 54 made provision for the composition of federal parliamentarians in proportion to the number of inhabitants of each Federated State in the ratio of one parliamentarian to 80,000 inhabitants. The constitution put the population of the Southern Cameroons at 800, 000 and that of Republique du Cameroun at 3, 200, 000, thus yielding 10 parliamentarians for the Southern Cameroons and 40 for Republique du Cameroun, in the Federal National Assembly. This inconsequential ‘representation’ was designed to ensure that the Southern Cameroons influenced neither legislation nor policy in the federation. Article 56 enacted that “on 1 October 1961 the Government of the Republic of Southern Cameroon … and the Government of the Republic of Cameroun shall become the Governments of the two Federated States respectively.” Article 59 stated that the French text of the constitution was the authoritative version. These telling provisions were later expunged from the constitution but without in fact changing the factual situation created by them. Conspicuously absent from the document were certain key matters the Southern Cameroons had insisted on during pre- and post-plebiscite talks with Republique du Cameroun: robust state autonomy, a constitutional Bill of Rights, a Federal Senate and judicial independence. However, there was no provision in the document to the effect that the Southern Cameroons and Republique du Cameroun shall be united in one sovereign Republic; no provision to the effect that the federation was ‘one and indivisible’; and no claim that the document represented consensus ad idem of the Southern Cameroons and Republique du Cameroun. The political authorities of Republique du Cameroun were and remained in the driver’s seat of the de facto federation. Aware that the federation lacked a legally valid founding document and that it had a mere de facto existence, those authorities never applied for UN membership of the federation and so the federation was never a member of the UN. Onset of reign of terror in the Southern Cameroons In his unilateral Federal Constitution the President of Republique du Cameroun declared himself President of the Federation. In early October 1961 he issued a proclamation placing the Southern Cameroons under a state of emergency for six months renewable ad infinitum, a situation that has more or less remained unchanged to this day. He also issued a decree extending to the Southern Cameroons the pass system in force in Republique du Cameroun. The system required any person intending to travel from one district to another or from one town to another to obtain a laissez- passer from the military or police authorities and to exhibit the same to those authorities on demand at any checkpoint, under pain of arrest and imprisonment. Another decree also extended the ‘carte d’identite’ system to the Southern Cameroons. The system requires all persons aged eighteen and above to carry on their person at all times a document called ‘carte d’identite nationale’ and to produce it at any time and place on demand by the police or military authorities, under pain of arrest and imprisonment. The card contains details about the holder: his names, the names of his father and mother, his date and place of birth, his profession, his place of abode, his thumb print, his signature, and body identification marks. Other decrees followed notably the 1962 Subversion Ordinance, the 1966 law on press censorship, and the 1967 law proscribing meetings and associations. This latter law effectively outlawed civil society organizations and the formation of political parties. These laws seriously eroded the civil and political rights the people of the Southern Cameroons were accustomed to enjoying during the period of British colonial rule. The activities of the sinister Gestapo-modeled secret police in Republique du Cameroun, deceptively named documentation and research centre (first known by the acronym DIRDOC then later SEDOC and finally CND), were extended to the Southern Cameroons together with infamous torture units called ‘Brigade Mobile Mixtes’ (BMM). These structures tortured or disappeared persons who dared to oppose the political status quo. Among the Southern Cameroonian victims of these structures is Mr. Mukong who miraculously survived twelve years of gruesome detention and torture and was able, in his book Prisoner Without A Crime, to record in graphic detail for posterity the frightening modus operandi of these outfits. As early as December 1961 another ordinance extended to the Southern Cameroons the system of civilian-targeted military tribunals existing in Republique du Cameroun, much to the consternation of the people of the territory. A permanent military tribunal was set up in Buea, capital of the Southern Cameroons. Like those in Republique du Cameroun it was composed of a civilian magistrate and two army officers, citizens of Republique du Cameroun. It had jurisdiction to try civilians for an array of ill-defined offences under the subversion ordinance and other decrees, such as subversive activities, offences against state security, possession of fire-arms or ammunition, contempt of the President, ridiculi.
Posted on: Mon, 17 Nov 2014 08:07:18 +0000
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