Your World of Legal Intelligence
 United Kingdom | +44 (0) 20 7284 8080

The Cameroon ‘Anglophone Question’ in International Law

Document Cited in Related
Vincent
Published date01 June 2014
Date01 June 2014
AuthorNchotu Veraline Nchang Epse Minang,E. H. Nfobin
Pages234-257
DOI10.3366/ajicl.2014.0091
BACKGROUND TO THE ‘ANGLOPHONE QUESTION’

The Republic of Cameroon sprang from a partial reconstitution of the German protectorate of Kamerun created in 1884 and dissolved with the defeat of the Germans at the end of World War I. The Treaty of Versailles split the territory into two halves. The larger one went to France and was rechristened French Cameroon, and the smaller one was taken over by Great Britain to be known as the British Cameroons, made up of the Southern and Northern Cameroons and run as an integral part of the Federation of Nigeria. Both became League of Nations mandates from 1920 and were transformed into UN trust territories in 1945. The aim was to prepare them for independence. However, forty years of a separate existence broke the unity of the territory. It was no longer the inhabitants of the German protectorate of Kamerun that called for independence in the 1960s, but French- and English-speaking Cameroonians. While there were those that advocated independence as part of the Federation of Nigeria on the English-speaking side, there were equally French-speaking Cameroonians who were eager to avoid the complications of coexisting with a minority, if the British Cameroonians returned to the fold after four decades of life out of the motherland. From these conflicting views developed a third opinion, the Kamerun idea1

See E. Ardener, ‘The Kamerun Idea’, West Africa, 7 June 1958, p. 583.

advocated by nationalist intellectuals on both sides of the colonial divide. It stood for the restoration of the territory on the boundaries of the defunct German protectorate. The argument was that a Cameroon nationhood had been hewn out of the German presence from 1884 to 1920 and not even the forty years of separation instituted by the Treaty of Versailles interfered with this state of affairs. The ‘Kamerun people’ remained unmarred. The bonds developed from the German protectorate survived the interlude of the partition between Britain and France. There was even a fourth view that the territory of British Cameroons be granted independence. It, however, was never given the time to come full cycle. This was the Cameroon dilemma in the 1950s

In 1960, Nigeria and the Republic of Cameroon acceded to independence while the British Cameroons question was put on hold to be resolved by a UN-sponsored plebiscite. The voter at the plebiscite of 11 February 1961 had to choose between independence by remaining in the Federation of Nigeria or breaking off therefrom to achieve independence by reunification with the already independent République du Cameroun. Both sides, to woo the inhabitants of the territory, offered them protection from domination within a federal structure of government. This means that the fear of domination was already looming large in 1961. The question was, which side was more dangerous? The vote tally indicated a sharp contrast between the Northern Cameroons, which chose to remain in Nigeria, and the Southern Cameroons, which opted for independence by joining the French-speaking République du Cameroun. Had the votes been joined, Northern Cameroons would have followed the south into the Republic of Cameroon, which unsuccessfully contested the separate counting at the International Court of Justice.2

See Case concerning the Northern Cameroons (Cameroon v The United Kingdom), Preliminary Objections, Judgment of 2 December 1963, ICJ Reports 1963, p. 15.

That is how the Northern Cameroons came to be fused into the Federation of Nigeria. The Southern Cameroons, for its part, joined the Republic of Cameroon with openly declared promises of protection within a federation. The intention was reaffirmed in the joint communiqué of 4 March 1961 marking the visit of Prime Minister John Ngu Foncha of the Southern Cameroons to President Ahmadou Ahidjo in Yaoundé. Commenting on the communiqué, the government newspaper La Presse du Cameroun reported that ‘on the occasion, they solemnly reaffirmed what had already been decided in their previous talks, namely that reunification shall take place on a federal basis’.3

6 March 1961.

 It was honoured by the Federal Constitution of 1 September 1961.4

Article 1 states: ‘The Federal Republic of Cameroon is formed, as from 1st October 1961, of the Territory of the Republic of Cameroon, henceforth called East Cameroon, and the Territory of the Southern Cameroons formerly under United Kingdom administration, henceforth called West Cameroon.’ For the purposes of the constitution, the population of East Cameroon was put at 3,200,000 and that of West Cameroon at 800,000, based on United Nations statistics. Today, the two communities give the bilingual Republic of Cameroon a population of about 20,000,000. Of this number, about 6,000,000 are English-speaking.

However, ten years later, President Ahmadou Ahidjo executed an about-face, and in a memorable presentation before the Federal National Assembly in 1972,5

6 May 1972 before the Federal House of Assembly.

proposed to hold a referendum on the question of the maintenance of the federation or a shift to a unitary system of government. The outcome of the referendum of 20 May that same year commandingly confirmed the president's ambition to switch to a unitary system.6

99.9 per cent yes and 176 dissenters. See T. Eyongetah and R. Brain, A History of the Cameroon, Longman (1974), p. 178.

 However, francophone and anglophone Cameroonians still remain divided over the question to this day. ‘It is a matter of finishing off a cycle of national history, that which from independence through reunification was to take us to the pinnacle of total unity,’ declared President Ahidjo even before the vote.7

Address of 6 May before the Federal House of Assembly.

 ‘The attainment of the unitary state is the pinnacle of total national unity which we have so longed for,’ declared some militants of the then ruling Cameroon National Union.8

Motion of support from the Wouri militants of the CNU. See La Presse du Cameroun, 10 May 1972.

 It was a peaceful revolution,9

See E. Belinga, Cameroun. La Révolution Pacifique du 20 mai, Lamaro (1975).

 ‘a major act of political transformation by which the two federal republics of West (Anglophone) and East (Francophone) Cameroon freely constituted a single entity’, wrote Blaise-Pascal Talla.10

B.-P. Talla, ‘Lettre ouverte aux Anglophones’, 356 Jeune Afrique Economie (August 2004): 62–7.

These remarks on the events of 1972 are typically francophone. At the other end of the spectrum (mostly made up of anglophones), the remarks are not as tender. The dissident barrister, Gorji Dinka, in his New Social Order, a document addressed to President Paul Biya in 1985, alternatively referred to it as ‘Ahidjo's coup d’état’, ‘secession and annexation’. Also, a tract of an authorship unknown to this day referred to it as ‘the inglorious contract of 1972’.11

See A.W. Mukong (ed.), The Case for the Southern Cameroons, CAMFECO (1990), pp. 95–9.

The Southern Cameroonian activist Albert W. Mukong wrote that ‘Ahidjo's referendum was illegal’.12

Ibid., p. 17.

 The First All Anglophone Conference (AAC1) in the Buea Declaration of 2–3 April 1993 called it ‘a ploy by Francophones to use their overwhelming majority to alter the basis of reunification’, adding that it was ‘unconstitutional, illegal and a breach of faith’. It concluded that ‘the only redress adequate to right the wrongs done to Anglophone Cameroon and its people since the imposition of the unitary state is a return to the original form of government of the reunified Cameroon’.13

All Anglophone Conference, The Buea Declaration, 2–3 April 1993, Nooremac Press (1993).

 Nfor Ngala Nfor, national Vice-Chairman of the Southern Cameroons National Council, said, ‘20th May is Southern Cameroons’ day of annexation and assimilation. It is a day of national mourning. No one celebrates the day he was captured as a slave.’14

N. N. Nfor, in an SCNC/SCAPO tract, No 266/2003.

 This is the nub of the anglophone question or problem articulated in the Buea Declaration in fiery terms

With the apparent deadlock within, the question has often been raised as to whether the maintenance of the federation was an obligation of international concern. Southern Cameroonian activists think so, quoting the fact that they have exhausted all local remedies. The petition addressed to the Chairman of the United Nations Sub-Commission on the Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities for and on behalf of the English-speaking Cameroonians or the former Southern Cameroons under United Kingdom Trusteeship by Albert W. Mukong in July 1990, as well as that of 2 October 1990 by the same author to the Secretary-General of the United Nations, brought the question into sharp focus.15

Other petitions addressed to world leaders cannot be examined here because they are predicated more on political clout than on legal force.

In 1995, a delegation of the Second All Anglophone Conference (AAC2), including two former prime ministers of the Southern Cameroons who both served the Federation in the capacity of vice-president at different times,16

Dr John Ngu Foncha and Honourable Solomon Tandeng Muna.

 arrived in the UK and at the UN to apply for the separation of the territory from the rest of Cameroon. They contended that the terms of reunification guaranteed by the UN in 1961 have been violated and that the only remedy available was the ‘Zero option’ following the elapse of the time frame for negotiation adopted in 1993 at the AAC1

In another rueful letter of 30 December 1998, Dr John Ngu Foncha requested, through the UK, to address the United Nations on the annexation of the Southern Cameroons by the Republic of Cameroon, one of the partners of the defunct federation. He urged Her Majesty's Government to ‘direct its UN Mission to ensure that the agenda of the next UN General Assembly includes an item on the annexation of the former UN Trust Territory of the British Southern Cameroons by La République du...

To continue reading

Request your trial

VLEX uses login cookies to provide you with a better browsing experience. If you click on 'Accept' or continue browsing this site we consider that you accept our cookie policy. ACCEPT