Jul 07, 2006

Southern Cameroons: Secession: New Republic to take off after Nigerias withdrawal


Southern Cameroons and the Bakassi Peninsula reject the New York agreement, made without their consent
CITIZENS of the troubled Bakassi Peninsula and the Southern Cameroons have written President Olusegun Obasanjo, the Secretary General of the United Nations, Mr. Kofi Annan and the President of the Republic of Cameroon, Mr. Paul Biya, stating their resolve to launch a new Republic immediately after the withdrawal of Nigerian troops from the Peninsula.

They also rejected the Greentree Agreement reached on June 12 by Nigeria, the UN Secretary General, and President Paul Biya of Cameroun, which gave effect to the October 2002 ruling of the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

The Southern Cameroons Peoples Organisation (SCAPO), the umbrella body of the agitators, in an open letter to President Olusegun Obasanjo, Biya and Annan on Friday, said that the people of Southern Cameroons and the Bakassi Peninsula rejected the New York agreement, which was done without their consent. SCAPOs Leader, Dr. Kevin Gwang Gumne, who signed the open letter said that the Republic of Ambazania, which would rule over the Southern Cameroons and Bakassi Peninsula, would take off soon as Nigerian troops move out of the troubled territory.

The three of you met in the United States of America and decided that you can seal the fate of the millions of people in Africa, without consulting them.

If your agreement was a transparent transaction, you should have had the courage to submit it to the African Union and then to the UN Security Council for final approval. But you did not follow this procedure because we know that the transaction is not transparent, SCAPO said.

Gumne said that the purpose of his letter was to lay out the chains of events that would follow the pull out of the Nigerian troops from Bakassi, including the declaration of the new Republic.

The organisation stated that the new Republic of Ambazania shall have dominion over Bakassi Peninsula as it remains a country recognised under international laws. It further stated that the ruling of the ICJ did not state which of the Cameroons had control over the disputed territory.

The people of Southern Cameroons believe that the ICJ ruling of October 2002 was correct only in the sense that it determined that the sovereignty over the Bakassi Peninsula does not belong to Nigeria. However in that ruling, the sovereignty belongs to Cameroon, the ICJ failed to specify which Cameroon it was referring to. To the extent that there has never been any formal union between the Southern Cameroons and La Republic du Cameroon, which attained independence on January1 1961 with defined and internationally recognised borders, we believe that the sovereignty over the Peninsula belongs unquestionably to the Southern Cameroons and not the La Republic du Cameroun, SCAPO stated.

The group stated that its claim is strengthened by the fact that no formal agreement exists between the Southern Cameroons and the La Republic du Cameroun.

Besides, the group said that its union with the French-speaking Cameroun has been a forced marriage, where the English-speaking Southern Cameroons were annexed by their French-speaking brothers.

The bid for the self-determination of the Southern Cameroons has been going on for many years. We have based our bid for self-determination on legal grounds, arising from the fact that the UN Resolution 1608 (XV) of April 1961 which enjoined former British Southern Cameroons and French-speaking Republique du Cameroun to form a federal union by October 1, 1961 was never implemented in legal terms.

This is because we discovered that the French Cameroun was more interested in annexing English-speaking Southern Cameroons than in forming a real federal union as required by the UN resolution.

The two sides were supposed to sign a union agreement and have it ratified by legislatures of both sides before October 1, 1961; the ratified instrument was supposed to be sent to the United Nations Secretariat for registration in conformity with article 102 of the UN Charter to serve as proof that UN GA Resolution 1608(XV) had been implemented; but this was never done because the late President Ahidjo thought wrongly that that was not necessary, the organisation said.

It stated that attempts to protest the unwanted marriage have been resisted by the French speaking Camerouns over the years.