May 25, 2007

Southern Cameroons: UK Demonstration


Whilst Cameroon celebrated the unification of East and West Cameroon, a delegation of the Southern Cameroons National Council staged a demonstration in front of the British Prime Minister’s office.

Whilst Cameroon celebrated the unification of East and West Cameroon, a delegation of the Southern Cameroons National Council staged a demonstration in front of the British Prime Minister’s office.

Below are extracts from an article written by Walter Wilson Nana & Olive Ejang Tebug Ngoh and published by All Africa.com:

While fanfare, colour and banquets marked the commemoration of the 35th anniversary of the reunification of East and West Cameroon on Sunday, May 20, members of the Southern Cameroons National Council, SCNC, based in the UK staged a demonstration in front of the British Prime Minister's office in 10 Downing Street, London.

The Coordinator of SCNC Northampton branch and leader of the protest march, Daniel Galabe, enjoined all Southern Cameroonians not to give up the struggle for self-determination.

"Let the agents of La République du Cameroun in the UK carry the message to Mr. Biya that no amount of arrest, physical and psychological torture, ill-treatment and killing will stop us," Galabe fumed.

[…]

The Chairperson SCNC-UK, George Ekontang, who handed a petition to a staff at 10 Downing Street in the absence of British Premier, Tony Blair, said Southern Cameroons will be free.

[…]

Galabe also read an address to Southern Cameroonians on that May 20, written by Chief Ayamba Ette Otun, National Chairman of SCNC."By violating the international boundary established by colonial treaties, the foundation of modern African nation states, Yaounde declared itself an expansionist and aggressor state with Southern Cameroons being the first victim.

But we know annexation and acquisition of foreign territory by use of threat or force; the UN has declared illegal, a crime against humanity and threat to world peace," Chief Ayamba wrote.

[…]

In a related development, activists of the Southern Cameroons National Council, SCNC, May 20, sallied out in their numbers dressed in black to mourn what they termed the annexation and occupation of Southern Cameroons.

[…]

"No one in his senses, no people in search of their true identity can celebrate the day they were made slaves. It is a day we should be in sack clothes and ashes to draw the attention of the democratic world, defenders of the right to self-determination of all nations and peoples, to our plight under foreign domination and alien rule of La République du Cameroun," Taku lamented.

[…]