By Elah Geoffrey Mbongale
Dr. Simon Munzu and a group of Anglophone intellectuals at home and abroad, morphed under an informal group christened The Anglophone Dialogue Forum (ADF) are pushing the President of the republic to call for a true and meaningful dialogue that would bring lasting solutions and put an end to the current socio-political strife rocking the English speaking regions of the country.
The group aims to push the people’s natural representatives; Members of parliament and senators as well as traditional rulers to hold President Biya to his word when on December 31, 2016 during his end-of-year address to the nation, he repeatedly stated that ‘frank dialogue’ was the appropriate way to find lasting solutions to these issues. Speaking generally, the President invited Cameroonians to ‘listen to each other’ and to ‘remain open to constructive ideas’.
Dr. Simon Munzu says the Anglophone Dialogue Forum was born due to the apparent leadership vacuum after the Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium was banned and its leaders thrown in jail, other members are either in hiding or have fled from the country.
In a press release dated March 23, 2017, The Anglophone Dialogue Forum called on the people’s representatives in parliament (members of the Senate and of the National Assembly) and the people’s natural rulers (traditional chiefs and fons) of the Northwest and Southwest regions, acting together in the interest of the people that they represent and/or rule, irrespective of party or other political affiliation, to take on the important role to seek and obtain from the President of the Republic the holding of the ‘frank dialogue’ that he strongly advocated in his Message to the Nation on 31 December 2016.
They also called on them to also convene an inter-regional Anglophone conference to prepare for the dialogue with the President of the Republic and his Government. In addition, they urged the people’s representatives in parliament and their natural rulers to initiate two regional preparatory meetings, one for the Southwest region (to be convened by the region’s parliamentarians and traditional rulers) and the other for the Northwest region (to be convened by the region’s parliamentarians and traditional rulers), to be held ahead of the inter-regional Anglophone conference.
ANGLOPHONE DIALOGUE FORUM (ADF)
FRANK AND COMPREHENSIVE DIALOGUE IS THE ONLY PATH TO A PEACEFUL AND LASTING RESOLUTION OF THE ANGLOPHONE PROBLEM
The Anglophone Dialogue Forum (ADF) is an informal discussion group of individuals and organisations in Cameroon and the diaspora committed to promoting the peaceful and durable resolution of the ‘Anglophone Problem’ through a frank and comprehensive dialogue based on truth, our communal experiences, tolerance and mutual respect. Membership of the Forum is voluntary and open to Anglophone Cameroonian men, women and youth from all social, professional, religious, cultural and political backgrounds living in Cameroon or abroad and to Anglophone Cameroonian organisations at home and abroad.
The ADF believes that the socio-political crisis currently prevailing in Cameroon offers an opportunity for the President of the Republic and Head of State, the people of the Northwest and Southwest Regions and the Cameroonian people in general to examine the Anglophone problem in all its dimensions during a frank and comprehensive dialogue that ought to be held, preferably, at the beginning of the month of May 2017. The aim of such a dialogue should be to find a peaceful, consensual, comprehensive and lasting solution to the Anglophone problem.
Dialogue remains the preferred way out of the on-going crisis that has lasted for too long and ought to be resolved now. Schools, universities and other higher education institutions in the Anglophone regions cannot remain closed forever. All pupils and students in these regions should regain their right to education as soon as possible. ‘Ghost towns’ have a crippling and disruptive effect on the economy and on social life; they cannot be observed in the Northwest and Southwest regions for an indefinite period. The protracted Government-ordered suspension of internet services in these same regions has devastating economic and social consequences that outstrip those of the ‘ghost towns’; it should end now. All persons arrested in relation to the on-going socio-political crisis who are currently held in pre-trial detention in Yaounde and other localities should be released forthwith. Those who have disappeared should be accounted for. A frank and comprehensive national dialogue would lead us to these outcomes.
Since 21 November 2016, the people of the Southwest and Northwest Regions of Cameroon have waged a non-violent but very effective ‘stay-at-home’ campaign in support of striking Anglophone teachers’ unions and common law lawyers who form the ‘Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium’. Throughout these two regions, pre-nursery, nursery, primary and secondary schools as well as universities and other higher education institutions run by the State, the churches and private providers of educational services have remained closed during the past three to four months. Parents have kept their children at home; pupils and students have stayed away from class, defying multiple calls from some sub-divisional, divisional, regional and national government officials, parliamentarians and traditional rulers for schools to re-open. Furthermore, since 9 January 2017, every Monday and Tuesday, the population has rigorously observed a total ‘ghost town’ throughout the same territory, during which business and economic activities have been completely shut down in the cities, towns and villages of the two regions between 6:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m.
The people of the Northwest and Southwest Regions have steadfastly adhered to the ‘ghost town-and-no school’ campaign even after the Government banned the activities of the Southern Cameroons National Council and the Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium on 17 January 2017, arrested leaders of the Consortium on 18 January and ordered the suspension of internet services in the two regions on the same day. By so doing, they have unequivocally conveyed to the President of the Republic and the Government their collective discontent as well as their sense of the gravity, profoundness and multidimensional nature of the ‘Anglophone problem’.
The scope of this problem goes beyond issues relating to bilingualism, multiculturalism, the Anglophone sub-system of education and the Anglophone ‘common law’ system of justice. It embraces a host of grievances felt by the Anglophone community in Cameroon that have arisen, over several decades, from the institutional mismanagement and dismantling of the political, administrative, infrastructural, economic and cultural heritage that Southern Cameroons brought into its union with Republic of Cameroun on 1 October 1961 that gave birth to a new State, the Federal Republic of Cameroon. Over the past 55 years, successive regimes in Yaounde have progressively dismantled the Anglophone heritage in all spheres and systematically extended the corresponding Francophone heritage to the Southwest and Northwest regions, without consultation with, and the consent of, the people of these two regions. Over the years, this has created in these people the sentiment that their territory has been progressively annexed and that they are being systematically marginalised and dominated, making them at worst a colonised people, and at best second class citizens, in their own country. In the five-and-a half decades since the reunification of the two territories in October 1961, the marginalisation and domination of Anglophone Cameroon by Francophone Cameroon has deepened and manifested itself in various ways.
At various times over the past five decades, many Anglophones acting individually or as groups, most of them moderate, have desperately appealed to the authorities in Yaounde to address the ‘Anglophone problem’. They include politicians, elder statesmen, founding fathers and architects of Reunification such as the late John Ngu Foncha and the late Solomon Tandeng Muna; eminent clerics and religious leaders such as His Eminence Christian Cardinal Tumi, the Bishops of the Ecclesiastical Province of Bamenda, successive Moderators of the Presbyterian Church in Cameroon and the Executive President of the Cameroon Baptist Convention; intellectuals, educationists, essayists, poets, dramatists and novelists such as the late Professor Bernard Fonlon, the late Professor Bole Butake, the late Bate Besong, Simon Munzu, Sam Ekontang Elad, Carlson Anyangwe, Andrew Azong-Wara, George Ngwane, Victor Epie Ngome and Godfrey Tangwa (Rotcod Gobata); political activists and party leaders such as the late Albert Mukong, Fon Fogum Gorji Dinka, Ni John Fru Ndi, Mola Njoh Litumbe and Ambassador Henry Fossung; eminent traditional rulers such as Nfon Victor E. Mukete; and civil society groups such as the Cameroon Anglophone Movement, the Free West Cameroon Movement and the Southern Cameroons National Council. All appeals from all these people were systematically ignored by the authorities in Yaounde to whom they were addressed.
On 2 and 3 April 1993, over 5,000 (five thousand) Anglophones of all social categories from all the thirteen divisions of the Northwest and Southwest provinces (as today’s ‘regions’ were then called) held the first ‘All Anglophone Conference’ in Buea. At the end of two days of deliberations, they adopted the ‘Buea Declaration’, a common platform that presented major issues of concern to Anglophones which they wanted to be addressed within the framework of a constitutional reform process that President Paul Biya launched in the wake of the Yaounde Tripartite Conference of November 1992. The following year, in May 1994, the same people held the second ‘All Anglophone Conference’ in Bamenda at the end of which they adopted the ‘Bamenda Proclamation’ in which, once again, they called for the immediate resolution of the ‘Anglophone problem’. Both the ‘Buea Declaration’ and the ‘Bamenda Proclamation’ were, as usual, totally ignored by the authorities in Yaounde.
The above-mentioned Yaounde Tripartite Conference established a Technical Committee to draft a new constitution for Cameroon. Of the Committee’s 11 members, four were Anglophone while seven were Francophone. In keeping with the aspirations of the Anglophone community as expressed during the discussions in plenary sessions of the Tripartite Conference, the Anglophone members of the Technical Committee submitted proposals aimed at addressing the ‘Anglophone problem’ through appropriate provisions in the new draft constitution. To this end, they prepared, submitted and released for general public discussion by the general public a document entitled ‘Draft Constitution of the Federal Republic of Cameroon’. Their proposals, including those contained in the ‘Draft Constitution’, were totally ignored.
The ‘Anglophone problem’ was the subject of a proceeding instituted by a group of Anglophone activists against the Government of Cameroon before the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights. In its decision issued in 2009, the Commission made recommendations to the Government of Cameroon aimed at addressing the Anglophone problem. Eight years later, none of these recommendations has been implemented.
Throughout the decades during which the people of the Northwest and Southwest Regions have taken steps towards the resolution of the ‘Anglophone problem’, they have proceeded peacefully and without violence, guided by the motto that they adopted at the All Anglophone Conference held in Buea in 1993: ‘The Force of Argument, not the Argument of Force’. Regrettably, at each stage, the response of authorities in Yaounde has been to deny the existence of the ‘Anglophone problem’ and to apply force, repression and violence by armed State agents against peaceful and unarmed Anglophone activists. They have chosen consistently to label persons who openly raise the Anglophone Problem as ‘unpatriotic’, ‘extremists’ and ‘secessionists’. That attitude was exhibited again at the beginning of the current socio-political crisis when the Government chose to ignore the demands of the teachers’ unions and the common law lawyers’ associations and to use violence, arrests and intimidation against teachers, students and lawyers until the remarkable success of the people’s ‘ghost town-and-no school’ campaign forced it to open negotiations with the striking teachers and lawyers.
At the beginning of the current socio-political crisis, several Government ministers publicly expressing themselves on the issue on State radio and television denied the pertinence of the striking teachers’ unions and common law lawyers’ demands. However, in his End-of-Year Message to the Nation on 31 December 2016, the President of the Republic took a different view. He explicitly acknowledged that substantive issues had been raised by the teachers’ unions and lawyers that could not be overlooked. He repeatedly stated that ‘frank dialogue’ was the appropriate way to find lasting solutions to these issues. Speaking generally, the President invited Cameroonians to ‘listen to each other’ and to ‘remain open to constructive ideas’. He declared his willingness to ‘put in place a national entity which will be tasked with proposing solutions aimed at maintaining peace, consolidating our country’s unity and strengthening our resolve, and our day-to-day experiences of LIVING TOGETHER’. On 23 January 2017, the Head of State issued a decree establishing a national Commission for the promotion of bilingualism and multiculturalism. On 15 March, he issued three other decrees appointing members of this new Commission.
The ADF believes that these measures taken by the Head of State are a positive step in the right direction. However, they are not enough, having regard to the multifaceted nature of the ‘Anglophone problem’. These measures alone cannot lead to the achievement of the objectives of ‘maintaining peace, consolidating our country’s unity and strengthening our resolve and our day-to-day experiences of living together’ that the Head of State himself underscored in his 31 December 2016 Message to the Nation. A frank and open dialogue with Anglophones is therefore necessary to determine additional steps and the appropriate mechanisms for achieving these objectives. Such a dialogue would offer the opportunity for Cameroonians to, in the words of the Head of State, ‘listen to each other’ and ‘remain open to constructive ideas’. It would also provide the occasion to review the Government’s handling of the crisis so far, including its arrest, deportation to Yaounde, pre-trial incarceration and arraignment before the Military Court of more than one hundred Anglophones residing in or out of the Southwest and Northwest regions, among whom leading members of the Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium.
It is worth noting that, speaking on the current socio-political crisis in Cameroon, many voices in the international community have also recommended dialogue as the best avenue to a lasting resolution of the Anglophone problem. They include the Secretary-General of the United Nations, the President of the Commission of the African Union, the Secretary-General of the International Francophonie Organisation, the Government of the United States through its Department of State and the Government of Canada through its High Commissioner in Cameroon. This shows that there would be international support for such a dialogue.
Prior to the dialogue with the President of the Republic and the Government, the people of the Northwest and Southwest Regions need to hold a preparatory conference to agree on a common set of issues to be presented for discussion at the dialogue. At a lower level, this inter-regional preparatory conference should be preceded by two separate preparatory meetings, one for the people of the Northwest Region and the other for the people of the Southwest Region.
Since the former federated state of West Cameroon was divided into the Northwest and Southwest provinces (now re-named ‘regions’) following the abolition of the Federal Republic of Cameroon in 1972, there is no institutional or organic structure today with jurisdiction over both Anglophone regions. Consequently, there is no institution or entity with inherent authority to convene a joint conference of the people of the Southwest and Northwest regions. In the context of the prevailing socio-political crisis, the role of convenor of such a conference falls naturally to the Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium whose member organisations commenced the strike action that has received wide popular support at home and abroad. However, since 18 January 2017, in addition to the Government’s banning of activities of the Consortium, its leaders have either been arrested and deported to Yaounde where they have been imprisoned awaiting trial by the Military Tribunal, or been forced into hiding in Cameroon or abroad.
In these circumstances, the people’s representatives in parliament (members of the Senate and of the National Assembly) and the people’s natural rulers (traditional chiefs and fons) of the Northwest and Southwest regions, acting together in the interest of the people that they represent and/or rule, irrespective of party or other political affiliation, should take on this important role. They should seek and obtain from the President of the Republic the holding of the ‘frank dialogue’ that he strongly advocated in his Message to the Nation on 31 December 2016. They should also convene an inter-regional Anglophone conference to prepare for the dialogue with the President of the Republic and his Government. In addition, the people’s representatives in parliament and their natural rulers should initiate two regional preparatory meetings, one for the Southwest region (to be convened by the region’s parliamentarians and traditional rulers) and the other for the Northwest region (to be convened by the region’s parliamentarians and traditional rulers), to be held ahead of the inter-regional Anglophone conference.
By Divine providence, the session of Parliament currently holding in Yaounde is attended by all Southwest and Northwest members of the Senate and of the National Assembly, including two Senators who are also traditional rulers and currently the Chairman of the Southwest Chiefs Conference and the President-General of the Northwest Fons Union, respectively. They are expected to be together in Yaounde until the end of the parliamentary session around 12 April 2017. This offers them the opportunity to work together to obtain from the President of the Republic the holding of the ‘frank dialogue’ on the Anglophone problem and to agree on modalities for holding the proposed inter-regional dialogue preparatory conference and two regional preparatory meetings.
Having regard to the schedule of the current parliamentary session and the proposal to hold the dialogue with the President of the Republic at the beginning of the month of May 2017, the proposed inter-regional preparatory conference should take place over the weekend of 28 to 30 April in Buea or Bamenda. It should be preceded by the proposed two regional preparatory meetings to be held simultaneously over the weekend of 21 to 23 April in Bamenda and Buea, respectively. Several individuals and organisations, members of the Anglophone Dialogue Forum, stand ready to cooperate with, and assist, the political leaders and traditional rulers of the Northwest and Southwest regions to organise the inter-regional preparatory conference and regional preparatory meetings.
In addition to assurances about the holding of a dialogue on the Anglophone problem, the people’s political leaders and traditional rulers of the Southwest and Northwest regions should also obtain from the President of the Republic a firm commitment to release all persons that have been arrested in relation with the socio-political crisis in these regions and to put an end to the climate of fear, intimidation and arbitrary arrests and detention that currently prevails in them. They should obtain the demilitarisation of, and restoration of internet services in, the two regions. Taken together, these measures would restore trust between the President of the Republic and his Government, on the one hand, and the people of the Northwest and Southwest Regions, on the other hand, and provide a reason to end the ongoing ‘ghost town-and-no school’ campaign.
At the Anglophone Dialogue Forum, we believe that not every Cameroonian of Southwest or Northwest origin at home or in the diaspora would agree with our proposal for a frank and comprehensive dialogue between the President of the Republic and the people of these two regions with a view to ending the current socio-political crisis and finding a lasting solution to the ‘Anglophone problem’. We are aware that there are Anglophone Cameroonians at home and abroad for whom the separation or secession of the Northwest and Southwest regions from the rest of Cameroon would be the only acceptable solution to the ‘Anglophone problem’. In this crisis, they have been very vocal, especially on social media and at Cameroon’s embassies and high commissions in certain countries. We understand their position which is the result of the accumulated bitterness and frustrations which decades of arrogant neglect and dismissive denial of the Anglophone problem by successive regimes in Yaounde have generated among certain Cameroonians of Northwest and Southwest origin at home and abroad. However, these compatriots are few. Unfortunately, the President of the Republic and the Government have tended during the current crisis to use their existence and their separatist or secessionist stance to turn attention away from the real issues raised and the genuine complaints and grievances presented by the people of the Southwest and Northwest regions. These issues, complaints and grievances underlie the massive popular support in the two regions for the strike action initiated by the teachers’ unions and common law lawyers which is now in its fifth month.
The President of the Republic and the Government have sought to impress upon the Cameroonian people – especially our Francophone compatriots – and on international opinion that federalism is the same thing as secession, that federalism as demanded by Anglophones is only a first step towards secession and that only the unitary form of the State can guarantee the ‘oneness’ and ‘indivisibility’ of Cameroon. This is false. The envisaged frank and comprehensive dialogue is needed to clear all confusion and misapprehensions in this regard. The lasting unity, indivisibility and cohesion of the Cameroon Nation ultimately depend on it.
The Anglophone Dialogue Forum (ADF) therefore solemnly calls upon the senators, members of the National Assembly and traditional rulers of the Northwest and Southwest Regions, as political leaders and natural rulers of their people, to step forward, obtain from the Head of State the holding of a dialogue on the Anglophone Problem, convene a meeting of the people of these two regions to prepare for the dialogue with the Head of State and organise two separate regional preparatory meetings ahead of the inter-regional preparatory conference. To this end, members of the ADF stand ready to volunteer their expertise and collaborate with the senators, National Assembly members and traditional rulers to organise the inter-regional preparatory conference and the two regional preparatory meetings. /
Dr Simon Munzu
General Coordinator
Anglophone Dialogue Forum (ADF)