AMBACIDE: The Genocide and Extermination Reminiscent of Extermination of Jews Holocaust... by Adolf Hitler 9956552488, 9789956552481

Table of contents :
Cover
Title page
Copyright page
Dedication
Contents
List of Illustrations
List of Acronyms
Preface
Introduction

Chapter One - Southern British Cameroons and Methodology of Analysis
A Chronology
The Bakassi ICJ Ruling
Why study Raging Genocide in Southern British Cameroons or Ambazonia?
Methodology of Analysis-Historical Political Economy
Why Historical Political Economy?
Conception of Economy
Ontology
Epistemology
Methodology
Ideology & Political Goals
References

Chapter Two - Deconstructing the Theory of Genocide according to Raphael Lemkin
Overview
Introduction
The Theory of Genocide by Raphael Lemkin
Explanatory Faultlines in the Lemkin Genocide Convention Model
War and Genocide: A Sociological Approach
Genocide and the Imperial State
Loss of connection between War and Genocide
Connections of context and causality
Connections of meaning
Changing structures of warfare and contemporary genocide
Lemkin and “New Justice” for Victims of Genocide
Decolonizing Genocide
References

Chapter Three - Understanding the Root Causes of the Raging Genocide in Former British Southern Cameroons*
Overview
“Anglophone Crisis” as Misguided Theorizing and Application
“Anglophone Crisis?”
Explaining the Underlying Concept of Genocide
Cameroon: Back to the Future
“Independence” of Ambazonia as Military Occupation, Annexation and Re-colonization
“One Kamerun” Myth as Instrument of Annexation and Recolonization of Ambazonia by La République du Cameroun
Violation of Law of Armed Conflict (LOAC) by La République du Cameroun in Ambazonia
Summary
Conclusion
Way Forward
References

Chapter Four - Dissecting the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide
Overview
Introduction
The Genocide Convention
Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide
Revisiting the Origin of the Term Genocide
History of the Crime of Genocide
Historical Flashback on Genocide
Genocide as a Historico-Sociological Concept
What is the Crime of Genocide in the Convention?
Jurisdiction over the Crime of Genocide in the Convention
Limitations of the Convention
References

Chapter Five - Structural Violence: Pacesetter for Ambacide
Overview
Introduction
Background
Significance of Structural Violence
Theorizing Structural Violence
Causes of and Conditions for Genocide and Extermination
Causes of and Conditions for developing Ambacide
Genocides Are Preventable
References

Chapter Six - Historico-Legal Path to Genocide and Extermination of Ambazonians
Introduction
The Doctrine of Pacta Sunt Servanda
Decolonization Difficulties and the Violations of International Law
The United Nations Resolution 1608 of April 21, 1961
Difficulties in Implementing Resolution 1608
The Law of Treaties
The Ahidjo Regime’s Military Assault on Southern Cameroons
Jacobinist Gaullist Rule of Ahidjo-Biya
Southern Cameroons Anglophone Grievances
Broken Promises
Decentralisation as the Start of a Sustainable Solution
Econocide in Southern Cameroons
Neocolonialism Then: From Occupation, Annexation, Colonization, Assimilation to Econocide
Biya as a Totalitarian Sociopath in Cameroun
References

Chapter Seven - The Slippery Identity Road to Genocide and Extermination
Overview
Colonial Roots of Anglophone-Francophone Identity Conflict
Identity as a Knife-Colonial Past and Present Identity Frictions
Lost territories
Marginalization
Language and identity politics
Count Down to Genocide and Extermination (Ambacide)
Indifference by International Community
Uncertainties in Intervention in Cameroun
Cameroun’s Strategies and Tactics of Genocide and Extermination of Ambazonians
Collective Colonial Imperialism
Mediated Mind Control
Posters– Using Symbolic Imagery
Election Reality
Anglophobia – Scapegoating of Ambazonians
Controlling mass media for brainwashing
Mythologizing the CPDM party
Minimizing Dust Clouds: Understanding the Purpose of La République du Cameroun Scorched-earth Warfare
The Hard Reality in Cameroun
Demonizing the Political Opposition of Ambazonians
Dehumanizing Ambazonians
Prejudice
“The Anglophone Identity Crisis”
Persecution
Cordon, Search, Loot, and Kill
References

Chapter Eight - President Paul Biya Blows the Whistle for His ‘Final Solution’
Overview
Introduction
Failed Peaceful Attempts to Resolve Colonization of Ambazonia
Political and Geographical Annihilation
Quest for Restoration of Statehood Trashed
Biya’s Final Solution Visited on Ambazonia
Raiding of Homes and Streets
Minimizing Dust Clouds of Siege Warfare
Psychological Warfare
Three Shades of Propaganda
Rape as War Weapon against Ambazonian Women
Motivation: Why Are Ambazonian Women Targeted?
Aftermath of Rape
Democide
Ecocide as War Weapon
Beheading as War Weapon
Hundreds of Villages Burnt
Torture as War Weapon
Psychological Warfare as a Weapon of State Terror
Menticide
The Role of Traditional Authority
The Enigma of Coexistence
French Colonial Policy imposed on Southern Cameroonians
Politicide
Political Conditioning
State Policy
French Defence and Security for Africa
Economic Relations of Colonial Imperialism
A history of Violence and Repression as a Power Factor
The ‘diabolical mechanism’ of CFA franc as pillar of French Dispossession
Barrier to development
An unsustainable status quo
Automatic confiscation of national reserves
Cultural “Cooperation”
French as culturcide in Cameroun
Mental Coercion and Enemy Occupation in Ambazonia
Françafrique
Cameroun Independence as Colonization
Broken Silence
References

Chapter Nine - From the Anger of Despair to Resistance and Self-Defence*
Introduction
Understanding Anger and Resistance: A Theoretical Perspective
Defining Anger
Violent Resistance as a Duty?
Background to Cameroon Colonial History
The Trouble with Cameroon
Aborted Demands for Political Decentralization, Equity and Fairness in Governance
The Responsibility to Protect and the International Media Silence
Anger, Resistance, and Self-Defense
Self-defence, States’ Silence, and the Security Council: Examining Acquiescence Concerns and UN Article 51 Reports
Self-Defense and Defense of Vulnerable Ambazonian Others
Self-Defense and the UN Charter
References

Chapter Ten - Epilogue
Theoretical Reprise
Summary
Conclusion
Decolonizing Genocide and Extermination (Ambacide)
References

Back cover

Citation preview

Finally, Professor Tatah Mentan concludes that the pandemic genocide and extermination of Ambazonians by La République du Cameroun génocidaires can only be peacefully resolved by an internationally negotiated separation of both warring Former UN Category B Trust Territories. Tatah Mentan is an Independent Researcher, Member of the Political Commission for Nations and States under colonial rule, pacifist and engaged peace activist. He is a Theodore Lentz Peace and Security Studies Fellow, and Professor of Political Science.

Langaa Research & Publishing Common Initiative Group P.O. Box 902 Mankon Bamenda North West Region Cameroon

Tatah Mentan

Professor Tatah Mentan argues that the bloodbath was designed with a clear kinetic theological foundation as its centrepiece. The theologians of the genocide were ironically not clerics. They were rather journalists and sycophantic proregime intellectuals who apparently served as the echo chamber of the Biya genocidal regime for his Hitler-like “Final Solution” to crush and assimilate “Anglophones” – the “rats”, “cockroaches”, “secessionists”, “separatists”, or “microbes” as they were stigmatised. The suffering inflicted by Hitler on Jews fell outside the realm of expression. Often depicted as the savage lunatic who plunged the world into World War II, Adolf Hitler’s name has been on the tongues of historians, psychologists, economists, and laymen for ages. Similarly, President Paul Biya like Hitler the Monster is being depicted as the epitome of Lucifer himself.

AMBACIDE

Taking a look at the internet blackouts, the militarisation of towns and cities all across Southern Cameroons (Ambazonia), the indiscriminate torching of hundreds of villages, schools and health centres, the rampant gang rape of females by HIV-infected troops, mass killings of civilians, burning of innocent civilians in their sleep, disembowelling pregnant women and slaughtering them and their unborn babies, arbitrary arrests and detentions, dehumanising raids of residential areas in search of “Anglophones”, mindless torture, extortions, and looting by La République du Cameroun troops, the genocide and extermination were well planned in advance.

The Genocide and Extermination Reminiscent of Extermination of Jews (Holocaust) by Adolf Hitler

Genocide and extermination are no longer mere words, promises, hopes, etc. These acts are already a law which can be enforced. In practical terms, this law means no more extermination, no more mass killings, no more concentration camps, no more sterilisations, no more wanton rapes, no more killings and burning of people to conceal evidence, no more torching of habitats, no more breaking up of families. The call to stop genocide is often presented as the paramount moral obligation in contemporary global politics. The ‘Never Again’ refrain and the consistent references to the ethical value of Responsibility to Protect genocide stand as calls for urgent political mobilisation.

AMBACIDE

The Genocide and Extermination Reminiscent of Extermination of Jews (Holocaust) by Adolf Hitler

- Tatah Mentan -

AMBACIDE:

The Genocide and Extermination Reminiscent of Extermination of Jews (Holocaust) by Adolf Hitler

Tatah Mentan

Langaa Research & Publishing CIG Mankon, Bamenda

Publisher:

Langaa RPCIG Langaa Research & Publishing Common Initiative Group P.O. Box 902 Mankon Bamenda North West Region Cameroon [email protected] www.langaa-rpcig.net

Distributed in and outside N. America by African Books Collective [email protected] www.africanbookscollective.com

ISBN-10: 9956-552-48-8 ISBN-13: 978-9956-552-48-1

© Tatah Mentan 2021

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical or electronic, including photocopying and recording, or be stored in any information storage or retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher

Dedication

Charity, Ruth, Kkeleghai, Ntsondeh, Kefeyin, and Berinyuy, and other victims of Genocide and Extermination that has been raging in Ambazonia for decades.

Table of Contents Preface ............................................................................... xi Introduction ...................................................................... xxi Prof. Fonkem Achankeng I Chapter One Chronology of Southern British Cameroons and Methodology of An analysis .............................................1 Chapter Two Deconstructing the Theory of Genocide according to Raphael Lemkin........................................... 29 Chapter Three The Root Causes of the Raging Genocide in Ambazonia .................................................... 55 Chapter Four UN Convention on the Punishment and Prevention of Genocide ..................................................... 109 Chapter Five Structural Violence as a Cause of and Conditions for Genocide and Extermination in Ambazonia ............................................ 147 Chapter Six Historico-Legal Path to Genocide and Extermination of Ambazonians ................................. 183 Chapter Seven The Slippery Identity Road to Genocide and Extermination ............................................................ 209 v

Chapter Eight President Biya Blows the Whistle for His ‘Final Solution’ ...................................................... 255 Chapter Nine From the Anger of Despair to Resistance and Self-Defence ............................................................... 331 Chapter Ten Epilogue ............................................................................ 371

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List of Illustrations Maps Map 1: Southern British Cameroons ............................................ 1 Map 2: Southern Cameroons and La Republique States ....................................................................... 216 Tables Table 1: Template used by Republic of Cameroun in Ambazonia ............................................................... 168 Table 2: Number of Coups in Africa by country........................ 297 Pictures Picture 1: Anti-marginalization protests....................................... 216 Picture 2: Biya depicted as Liberating Choice (Hero) of Cameroun ....................................................................... 235 Picture 3: Deceitful Propaganda Banners by CPDM Militants in French ....................................................... 237 Picture 4: Projection of President Biya as Charismatic Nationalist .............................................................. 241 Picture 5: Ambazonian, Civilians Raided, Tortured and Humiliated by the Military ..................................... 249 Picture 6: Displaced Ambazonian Families ................................. 257 Picture 7: Police Alleged to have Raped Nursing Teenage Mother in Bamenda......................................................... 268 Picture 8: The Military Massacre of Civilians in Ngarbuh ........ 273 Picture 9: Civilians Massacred and incinerated by the Cameroon Military .............................................................. 275 Picture 10: The Handicapped Mr. Chiabah before his Beheading....................................................................... 277 Picture 11: Pictures of Villages Burned to ashes ........................ 278 Picture 12: University of Buea Students Abducted for Torture ..................................................................... 279 Picture 13: Arrested Civilian Students under Torture ................ 280 Picture 14: Queen Elizabeth and Southern British Cameroons Traditional Leaders ....................................... 288 vii

Picture 15: Two Maps of Southern Cameroons and La Republique du Cameroun presented to President Biya on May 20, 2010 .................................................... 351 Picture 16: Ten Stages of Genocide ............................................. 373

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List of Acronyms ADF AGC APLM ARC ARCC ASC AU BIR CDC CENC CNDDR

EU GICAM ICC IG MORISC MRC NPMB PWD

Ambazonia Defence Forces Ambazonia Governing Council Ambazonia People’s Liberation Movement Ambazonia Restoration Council Ambazonia Recognition Collaboration Council Ambazonia Security Council African Union Bataillon d’intervention rapide/Rapid Intervention Battalion Cameroon Development Corporation Conférence Episcopale Nationale du Cameroun/National Episcopal Conference Comité National de Désarmement, de Démobilisation et de Réintégration/National Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration Committee European Union Groupement Inter-Patronal du Cameroun/Cameroon Employers’ Association International Criminal Court Interim Government of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia Movement for Independence and Restoration of Southern Cameroons Mouvement pour la Renaissance du Cameroun/Cameroon Renaissance Movement National Produce Marketing Board Public Works Department

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RDPC/CPDM SCACUF SCAPO SCARM SCCOP SCNC SCYL SDF SNWOT SOCADEF UPC UN

Rassemblement Démocratique du Peuple Camerounais/Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement Southern Cameroons Consortium Southern Cameroons People’s Organization Southern Cameroons Restoration Movement Southern Cameroons Congress of People Southern Cameroons National Council Southern Cameroons Youth League Social Democratic Front South West and North West Women’s Task Force Southern Cameroons Defence Forces Union des Populations du Cameroun United Nations

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Preface This book introduces the concept of Ambacide: an intentionally arranged genocide and extermination of people of Southern British Cameroons descent by La République du Cameroun. The volume analyses the decisions that go into any systematic mobilization of resources and the design patterns for the interactions that make use of these resources to perpetrate genocide and extermination despite “Never Again” posturing by the international community (see my book The United Nations Organization: (In)Securing Global Peace and Security). Yet the monsters Ahidjo and Biya, murderers of hundreds of thousands of Southern British Cameroonians, masters of destruction and organized insanity, did not come into the world as monsters. They were not sent to earth by the devil, as some people think, nor were they sent by heaven to “bring law and order” to Cameroons, to give the country the autobahn and rescue it from its economic crisis, as many others could wrongly believe. Human destructiveness is never inborn, and inherited traits are neither good nor evil. How these traits develop depends on one’s character, which is formed In the course of one’s life, and the nature of which it depends on. The experiences one has in childhood and adolescence, and on the decisions one makes as an adult. In order not to die, all the mistreated Southern British Cameroonians tended to totally repress the mistreatment for decades, deprivation, and bewilderment they have undergone because otherwise their organisms couldn't cope with the magnitude of the pain suffered. Only after decades did they have possibilities for dealing with their feelings. If they didn’t make use of these possibilities, then what was once the life-saving function of repression could be transformed into a dangerous destructive and self-destructive force? In the careers of despots such as Ahidjo and Biya, their suppressed fantasies of revenge can lead to indescribable atrocities. This phenomenon doesn’t exist anywhere in the entire animal kingdom. For no animal is trained by its parents to deny its nature xi

completely in order to become a “well-behaved” animal - only human beings act in such a destructive way. According to the reports of Camerounese criminals (and also of soldiers who volunteered to fight for the Ahidjo-Biya despots), their unconscious programming to be violent began in every case with a brutal upbringing that demanded absolute obedience and expressed total contempt for the Southern British Cameroonian. I know of no example of this which is so well-documented and which demonstrates so clearly the consequences of the psychological murder of humanity - bringing along with it a form of collective blindness - than the fateful success of the German Monster Adolf Hitler that has become a playbook in Southern British Cameroons. The UN General Assembly adopted a Declaration on the Inadmissibility of Intervention and Interference in the Domestic Affairs of States (UNGA resolution 2131 (XX) 1965). The International Court was in no doubt about the existence of the principle in the Nicaragua case. However, whether the principle was reflected in the practice of States remains irrelevant when imperialist interests are concerned. The United Nations flushed Iraqi troops from occupation of Kuwait in the early 1990s. Allied forces stormed Iraq, assassinated Sadam Hussein and are still there today. Is this quietism a doctrine of Christian spirituality that, in general, holds that perfection consists in passivity (quiet) of the soul, in the suppression of human effort so that divine action may have full play? No! Is it racism? Or, why should the international community only act when it comes to Kosovo? Is the quietism intended to protect imperialist resource interests? Else, why did intervention in Libya come so handy? In the case of Iraq, was international intervention merely to garrison oil fields? Former French President Francois Mitterrand had made it clear that genocide in Africa should not be a problem! Really? The “heavy and damning responsibilities” by the French in the Rwandan genocide is eloquent testimony. With this callous indifference to Ambacide by the international community, Satan on his throne in Hell, seems a saint.

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The issue of intervention in the domestic affairs of independent countries by other independent nation(s) is therefore one of the biggest challenges bedevilling international law at the moment. This is because the need for the respect of human rights has been emphasized in recent years while, on the other hand, international law has firmly held the idea of sovereignty and its prime feature, the policy of non-interference in high regard. Indeed, sovereignty has been regarded as the foundation of modern international relations. However, the doctrine of unilateral humanitarian interventions gives state(s) powers to get involved in a countries’ affairs if there are cases of massive violation of human rights. These violations can be in the form of genocide or mass killings as it is the case in Southern British Cameroons (Ambazonia). In this manner, the doctrine of humanitarian intervention can be seen and evoked by the insensitive international community to be an affront to the principle of “non-interference” and as a result its validity has been questioned in recent times, even by the United Nations secretariat and uncaring Veto Powers. The knowledge on the concept of unilateral humanitarian intervention is significant in our modern era in that it is immoral to allow people to suffer under the guise of legal assumptions and theories. It is important to think of knowledge in a given field like genocide as consisting of three layers. First, there are the primary studies that researchers conduct and publish. Second, there are the reviews of those studies that summarize and offer new interpretations built from and often extending beyond the primary studies. Third, there are the perceptions, conclusions, opinion, and interpretations that are shared informally that become part of the lore of field. In this book, I have used a number of approaches. 1. Argumentative An argument takes a stand on an issue. In this volume On Ambacide, I examine literature in order to support or refute an argument, deeply imbedded assumption, or philosophical problem already established in the literature on issues like national sovereignty, territorial integrity, etc. The purpose is to develop a body of literature that establishes a contrarian viewpoint. Given the value-laden nature of rationalizations on issues of non-interference xiii

in internal affairs, I discuss the hypocrisy involved in unilateral intervention in Kosovo and Libya. 2. Integrative Considered a form of research that reviews, critiques, and synthesizes representative literature on alike genocide in an integrated way such that new frameworks and perspectives on the topic are generated. The body of literature includes all studies that address related or identical hypotheses or research problems like the Geneva Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. The aim was to offer a well-done integrative review to meet the same standards as primary research in regard to clarity, rigor, and replication. 3. Historical Historical evidence can take a variety of forms among the most important types of historical evidence are primary sources such as original documents, artifacts, or other pieces of information that are created as Ambacide rages. So, if we are studying World War II, primary sources would include everything government documents to photographs to physical uniforms and equipment. Primary sources here are wide-ranging. Battlefield pictures of villages burnt is a primary source because it was taken right then and there, at that moment in history. Secondary sources contain useful information, but typically involve an analysis of primary source material. I wish to note here that history is more complex than many people realize. It is so much more than memorizing names, dates, and places. History is very much ‘scientific.’ It involves critical thinking. It involves formulating hypotheses based on evidence and testing them. That is what this book is about by tracing the systematic genocide and extermination of Southern British Cameroonians by personalist predatory President Ahmadou Ahidjo to the totalitarian sociopath President Paul Biya. 4. Methodological A review does not always focus on what someone said [findings], but how they came about saying what they say (method of analysis). Reviewing methods of analysis provides a framework of understanding at different levels (i.e. those of theory, substantive fields, research approaches, and data collection and analysis techniques), how researchers draw upon a wide variety of knowledge ranging from the conceptual level to practical xiv

documents for use in the areas of ontological and epistemological consideration, quantitative and qualitative integration, data collection, and data analysis. This approach helps highlight ethical issues like stigmatisation of target groups (Ambazonians) for extermination. 5. Systematic This form consists of an overview of existing evidence pertinent to a clearly formulated research question, which uses pre-specified and standardized methods to identify and critically appraise relevant research, and to collect, report, and analyse data from the studies that are included in the review. The goal is to deliberately document, critically evaluate, and summarize scientifically all of the research about a clearly defined research problem like genocide. Typically, it focuses on a very specific empirical question, often posed in a cause-and-effect form, such as “To what extent does A (Hate speech) contribute to B (genocide)?” 6. Theoretical The purpose of this form is to examine the corpus of theory that has accumulated in regard to an issue, concept, theory, phenomena like genocide. The theoretical literature review by Raphael Lemkin helps to establish what theories already exist, the relationships between them, to what degree the existing theories have been investigated, and to develop new hypotheses to be tested. This form is used to help establish a lack of appropriate theories or reveal that current theories are inadequate for explaining new or emerging research problems in genocide studies. The unit of analysis in genocide studies must focus on a theoretical concept or a whole theory or framework based on imperialism. The Westphalian narrative has been the compass of International Relations (IR). It sustains a Eurocentric hegemony in IR theory – ascribing to itself the nucleus of the international system. Indeed, international relations theory acts as a tool that legitimizes AngloAmerican imperialism in international studies. For instance, colonization in Africa entails the force-feeding of African materials into the Western-centric structures. This phenomenon produced a distinct (hybrid) system with exotic challenges in Africa. The manifestation of these challenges in the decolonization process is often ignored in the neo-liberal, neo-realist and structural theories. xv

This suggests a gap in the existing literature, especially in the area of conceptualizing Statehood, sovereignty, power, border, and security. This book canvasses interdisciplinary approach to the subject matter. It argues that the Westphalia narrative lacks the understanding of the dynamics of contemporary African societies, and concludes by examining alternative pathways that can promote global understanding of genocide and extermination called Ambacide. Everyone is born curious. But only some retain the habits of exploring, learning, and discovering as they grow older. Those who do so tend to be smarter, more creative, and more successful. But at the very moment when the rewards of curiosity have never been higher, it is misunderstood and undervalued, and increasingly monopolized by the cognitive elite. A “curiosity divide” has been opening up and this volume is intended to resurrect that spirit of curiosity to show how propaganda about humanitarianism is becoming meaningless in the face of vested interests in the international system. The atrocity crimes in Southern British Cameroons are spiralling out of control. This is exactly the kind of catastrophe that the African Union was designed to address. The organization’s constitution was specifically written to allow it to step in where its widely discredited predecessor – the Organization of African Unity – had failed to act. As its constitution puts it, the African Union can directly intervene in a member state in: “… grave circumstances, namely war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity.” This was introduced to ensure that Africa’s senior organization would never again allow itself to stand idly by, as it had done during the Rwandan genocide of 1994. Or so we thought. Given the severity of the crisis in the Central African Republic one might expect a clarion call for action from the head of the African Union Commission. Visiting the African Union’s own website there are no appeals for troops to be rushed to Buea by the AU leadership as indicated by “Speeches of the Chairperson of the Commission.” The African Standby Force has gone the way of so many other initiatives. While African leaders have plenty of funds to lavish on their cars, palaces and planes, they deprive their military of the resources they need to do the job. As an American citizen, I have xvi

witnessed troops being trained by United States Marines overjoyed to be given even small quantities of ammunition to practice live firing. Their own government refused to supply more than a handful of rounds; for fear that they would be used to stage a coup. This is all very depressing, but hardly surprising. Ambazonians have been slaughtered massively over the decades by successive Camerounese regimes from Ahmadou Ahidjo to Paul Biya. Tyranny, one may say in this case, is colour-blind and is no less reprehensible when it is committed by an African dictator. One would ask: does the African Union (AU) embody the aspirations, togetherness, and determination of the African people, especially in relation to advancing peace, prosperity, human rights and freedoms for the inhabitants of the African continent? In this regard, an objective of the AU, articulated in its Constitutive Act is to “promote peace, security, and stability on the Continent.” In realizing this objective, the AU established the Peace and Security Council (PSC) to, inter alia, promote peace, security and stability in Africa and undertake Peace Support Operations (PSOs) in accordance with Article 4(h) and (j) of the AU Constitutive Act. Recognizing the need to adopt African solutions to African problems is therefore mere shop talk. It is the past, rather than some evolutionary dynamics, which has shaped the unenviable present in Ambazonia. History leaves its mark on society. Of course, this does not mean that the legacies of history do not leave their trace on people and societies, sometimes long after a series of events or institutional arrangements of the past. The Tombel massacres of 1966 and the Lake Nyos “natural gas” slaughter of tens of thousands of villagers in their sleep cannot escape historical sight. We understand Francophone tribalistic privilege to be the systemic extension to Francophones of comparatively greater access to power and resources than people from Southern Cameroons ethnic groups in the same situation. The marginalization of Anglophone linguistic groups in the distribution of ministerial portfolios is not new. It is both unconsciously enjoyed and consciously perpetuated; it is a combination of seen and unseen, conscious and unconscious acts inseparable from Francophone-Anglophone inequities in Cameroun. xvii

Linguistic French structural, institutional and systemic discrimination broadly refer to the system of structures that have procedures or processes that disadvantage Anglophones in Cameroun. Discrimination is a socially structured action that is unfair or unjustified and harms individuals and groups. It can be attributed to social interactions that occur to protect more powerful and privileged Francophone groups at the detriment of “Anglophone” groups. The deprivation due to institutional, structural and systemic linguistic (French-English) must be seen as neither accidental phenomena nor a moment of madness but a deliberate, enduring and well-planned political construction of the early 1960s that sort to establish Cameroun republic whose aim was to manage Southern Cameroonians. Francophone linguistic tribalism and bias have played an important role in the perpetuation of privilege; thus, it is critical that we understand what the two terms mean. Tribalism refers to individual (or group) level processes and structures that enable the reproduction of inequality. Systemic tribalism occurs when these structures or processes are carried out by groups with power, such as governments or businesses. The confiscation of wealth of the West Cameroon state and individual businessmen like Menyoli, Nanga, Neba, Che, Forjindam, etc.by Cameroun remain treasured in our minds. The impact of discrimination occurs at both structural and individual levels. Structural discrimination refers to macro-level conditions that limit “opportunities, resources, and well-being of less privileged groups. Individual discrimination refers to negative interactions between individuals in their institutional roles or as public or private individuals based on individual characteristics (e.g., language, etc.). Individual and structural discrimination can cause either intentional or unintentional harm, whether or not it is perceived by the individual. Discrimination can be understood as a social stressor that has a physiological effect on individuals (e.g., irregular heartbeat, anxiety, heartburn) that can be compounded over time and can lead to long-term negative health outcomes. We can therefore best define linguistic Francophone privilege as an institutional (rather than personal) set of benefits granted to xviii

individuals or groups who, on nothing else but tribe alone, are linked to the ethnic Francophone people who dominate powerful positions in Cameroun’s social, political and economic institutions. In other words, purely on the basis of French linguistic connectivity, opportunity doors are open to Francophones that are not open to people from Anglophone ethnic groups. In conclusion, Ambazonia has been a massive killing field, as both the Yaounde genocidal government and colonized Ambazonians look helplessly. A thick and suffocating cloud of desperation, despondency, desolation, gloom and misery hangs in hot air over Ambaland. In international law, the principle of nonintervention includes, but is not limited to, the prohibition of the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state (Article 2.4 of the Charter). There is no doubt that the principle of non-intervention remains a wellestablished part of international law. The prohibition of intervention “is a corollary of every state’s right to sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence.” The Friendly Relations Declaration, UNGA res. 2625(XXV 1970, includes a whole section on ‘The principle concerning the duty not to intervene in matters within the domestic jurisdiction of any State, in accordance with the Charter.’ The UN General Assembly adopted a Declaration on the Inadmissibility of Intervention and Interference in the Domestic Affairs of States (UNGA resolution 2131 (XX) 1965). The International Court was in no doubt about the existence of the principle in the Nicaragua case. But whether the principle was reflected in the practice of States remains doubtful when imperialist interests are concerned. Was it illegal in Kuwait or Kosovo? The relevant factors for any analysis of genocide and extermination must therefore include the general context, systematically perpetrating culpable acts against a target group, the scale of atrocities, and the repetition of destructive and discriminatory acts. It also means the existence of a plan or policy, a perpetrator’s display of his intent through public speeches or meetings with others that may also support an inference of the required genocidal intent. xix

I wish to emphasize to our readers that the names Southern British Cameroons, Southern Cameroons are rebaptized as Ambazonia. All are therefore used interchangeably. In paying my huge debt of gratitude, I wish to round up this Preface by thanking scholars in the field of genocide and human annihilation whose works I have used extensively. Despite benefitting elaborately from these scholars, the faults in this book are all mine. I take full responsibility for any of these shortcomings. I also owe a huge debt of gratitude to my wife and children who did all humanly possible to ensure that I survived my health challenges that could have stopped this work in mid-passage. Tatah Mentan Minnesota, 2021

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Introduction We suffocate among people who think they are absolutely right, whether in their machines or in their ideas. And for all who can live only in an atmosphere of human dialogue and sociability, this silence is the end of the world. (Albert Camus, Neither Victims Nor Executioners)

Interest in the subject of genocide is increasing in postcolonial states where ruling regimes engage in abducting, disappearing, shooting, torturing, burning, crushing, raping, or killing in any other of the myriad ways governments have inflicted death on unarmed helpless citizens (Rummel, 1994). Scholars of ‘postcolonialism’ want to document and understand genocides and how to prevent them especially after the 1994 case in Rwanda where the world community led out a cry of ‘Never Again.’ How did the genocide on Southern British Cameroons aka Ambazonia come about and how is it sustained amidst an African and global culture of inhumanity and silence? Tatah Mentan’s Ambacide (the genocide on Ambazonia), is a pointer to a world of an unsuspecting people who became the victims of genocide they neither sought nor created. The following words were written about the territory in 1958 by J. O. Field, British Commissioner of Southern Cameroons in the concluding summary of his book, Introducing the Southern Cameroons. “A modern state is in the making, and today, one hundred years after the founding of Victoria, Southern Cameroons can look back with pride on its achievements and look forward to its approaching independence with quiet confidence.” This is who and where the people of the Southern British Cameroons people were before 1960, the year of African independence. As a UN Trust Territory, independence was the logical step in the life of the territory. Considering the territory’s achievements in political structures and economic potentials before 1960, independence was also the only logical next step for the people. Gardinier’s 1963 Survey Report on the territory provides ample illustration of the viable economy of the xxi

territory in 1960, which we generally consider as the year of Africa’s independence. Yet, the independence of Southern British Cameroons so loftily anticipated did not come. It continued to elude the people of the Southern British Cameroons who now wish to be known and called Ambazonia. The reason is that the people and their territory of Southern British Cameroons were rather transferred by the United Kingdom (trustee) and the United Nations (trustor) to a new colonial master, who proceeded to annex and colonially occupy the territory. In place of the independence of the territory as was the case with other British and French colonies inherited from Germany after World War I – French Cameroon, French Togoland, Tangayika, Rwanda, Burundi, etc. Southern British Cameroons became annexed and recolonized by former French Cameroon. In a nutshell, rather than the independence foreseen in 1958 by J.O. Field and awaited by the people, the territory and her people reaped genocide, the subject of this book. As the subject of this book and the plight of the people of Southern British Cameroons do not come up in the evening news, the reader may want to locate this territory and the people identified and targeted for extermination in a situation imposed on them colonially. The Southern British Cameroons is found in the Gulf of Guinea and precisely on the Bay of Ambas. The territory lies between the Federal Republic of Nigeria and Republique du Cameroun at the point where the West Africa Coastline turns southward to the Congo and Angola. From 1858 when Alfred Saker and the London Baptist Missionaries landed in Bimbia and named the town, Victoria, the territory was later transferred to the Germans at the Berlin Conference of 1884-85 before being returned to the British following World War I. Then it was placed as a Mandated Territory of the League of Nations from 1919 and as a UN Trust Territory after World War II. With a surface area of 16, 364 sq miles, the territory had a population of approximately 8 million people in 2017 according to estimates by the Southern Cameroons National Council (SCNC) when the current genocide began. Anyangwe (2005), a Constitutional Law expert and scholar pointed out that Southern British Cameroons aka Ambazonia is “…demographically bigger that at least 60 UN and xxii

18 AU Member States, and spatially bigger than at least 30 UN and 12 AU member States,” including, for instance, British Honduras and Fiji, the Gambia, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, Djbouti, Burundi, and Guinea Bissau. Anyone would ask why independence was not granted the territory? Prior to 1961 when the people and the territory expected full independence in accordance with UN Charter (Art. 76b), the Trusteeship Agreement, and UNGA Resolution 1514 on the independence of all colonial countries and peoples, the people were already self-governing with recognized and marked international boundaries. They were evolving a multiparty democracy with a full functioning executive, legislature, and judiciary and had organized free and democratic elections and effected a peaceful transfer of power in 1959. The territory’s economy was not only flourishing, its communication infrastructure, included a seaport in Victoria, a Wharf in Tiko on the Atlantic coast, and a river port on the Cross River in Mamfe on the border with Nigeria in the West. The territory and people also had a hydroelectric power station in Yoke, an international airport in Tiko, and other airports in Bali and Besongabang near Mamfe. This economic infrastructure, including industries in Santa, Ombe, and Moliwe, banking, air transport company, marketing board and thriving enterprises were all destroyed by the new colonizers. That destruction was part of a grand design by the new colonizers to render the territory and her people increasingly dependent on the new colonizers in order that the people would see themselves as helpless without the colonizers. Such a colonial situation calls to mind, the O’ Henry tale, “Supply and Demand.” As the tale goes, a big white man goes down to a certain place and uses force and his wits to turn the native communities into slaves. The white man, it is said, sets himself up as king, takes the biggest house in the communities for himself, and has the natives wash the streams for gold dust that they bring only to him. To keep the colonized political economy going, the white man king gives the natives a weekly sermon in the council-house (he is the council) on the law of supply and demand. He teaches the natives not to desire anything beyond their simplest needs. They bring him all the gold and remain contented on a bit of mutton, cocoa, and fruit xxiii

…All goes well or seemingly so until the natives rise against their ruler and genocide begins. The reader may substitute the natives in the tale with the people of the Southern British Cameroons who “looked forward to independence with quiet confidence” but received news of a notion called “independence by joining.” Taken unaware and without any prior suspicion, the people found themselves in the confusion posed by the Hobson choice before them. Abumbi, their real king cried out for the people, but the choice remained imposed on them. They would soon realize that they were not just “expendable” for Britain, they would become “dogs” for Republique du Cameroun fit for extermination for daring to stand up to reclaim their rightful independence as a people so recognized in history and international law. It is the pain of this situation that Tatah Mentan sees in the people of the territory going ‘from the anger of despair to resistance and self-defence.’ What is conceived beautifully in the genocide case by this author is the colonial strategy of the master using the same people of the territory as a front in killing the people. These same people only front as the ones authorising the genocide on their people because truly even those fronting are not the same people making and evaluating the genocidal policies. The custom comes with appointments! It began with Olokobi, the General of Manyu origin, who was the first general commander sent to start and oversee the genocide nowhere else than in his native Manyu. Then followed the great Prime Ministers in name only and the first ever ‘Anglophone’ Minister of Territorial Administration, who considered the ‘Anglophone Problem’ first as non-existent and then as 90% resolved by his appointment, etc. In this colonial scheme captured in Ambacide, we have officials with very high-sounding titles, placed in positions of some authority as the massacres of their people are carried out. A relative of one of the highly placed officials described the situation of his brother in a private conversation as “a trap.” The truth in every colonial setting is that the system wills simultaneously the death and the multiplication of victims… Whether the colonized are assimilated or massacred, … the onerous engine suspends between life and

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death, and always closer to death, those who are compelled to drive it (Sartre, 1957). It was Alessandro Portelli (1991, p. viii) who affirmed in Form and meaning in history that “there is more to history than presidents and generals,” and that history may occasionally be less welcome in some circles because “it has disarranged many accepted truths.” Otherwise, how did the people of British Southern Cameroons aka Ambazonia ever imagine they would find themselves in a situation of genocide? The narratives of the people of the territory provide a basis to question the historical circumstances that brought together the territory and Republique du Cameroun, two separate UN Class B Trust Territories previously under different colonial powers. And those are the kinds of questions that led Rodcod Gobata (1996), another scholar on the political history of the territory to sum up the difficult questions as “Ironies of the history of the people of British Southern Cameroons” just like the reflections in What god put asunder by Victor Epie Ngome (1992), another Southern Cameroons’ writer. Amidst the daily killings of the people of Ambazonia, the only language anyone hears or reads from those who bothered to write or talk about the genocide was that the people targeted were “terrorists,” “secessionists” or “bandits” labelled “dogs.” Stated differently, all we hear or read on the genocide on the people of this territory is that the colonizers alone qualify to speak of the situation in the colony. The rest of the people of the colony do not have the colonizers’ experience, so they are to view the many killings of their people and the burning down of their territory only through the eyes of the colonizers, which eyes only show the smoke as Sartre once put it. Four years into the genocidal war, I was writing this Introduction in my room at the 20th Africa International Conference, when leading African scholar and conference convener, Toyin Falola, asked aloud what it would take to end the losing of many lives in Cameroon. To his question, I thought it would take telling the true story of the genocidal war and its causes which the French colonizers were working assiduously to obfuscate. From that standpoint, Tatah Mentan’s Ambacide is one of those attempts by native Ambazonian scholars to tell the genocide story of Ambazonia from the perspective

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of the victims, who neither sought, created, nor desired the situation in which they found themselves at independence. Ambacide is a kind of anti-climax in the lived experiences of the people of Southern British Cameroons renamed Ambazonia. The author takes a people, who from a dream near heaven on earth at the dusk of European colonialism to pitch hellish darkness half a century later, where the people go from the dream of independence anticipated by J. O. Field to a genocidal war waged to exterminate them after obliterating the territory and its history from the map of West Africa. Ambacide, a concept Professor Tatah Mentan coins to title his book, analyses of the pandemic genocide and extermination of Ambazonians by République du Cameroungénocidaires. Like Abumbi earlier, Tatah Mentan cries out in agreement with Jean Paul Sartre (1957) that “Terror and exploitation dehumanize, and the exploiter authorizes himself with that dehumanization to carry his exploitation further.” In this nine-chapter book, this author chronicles the Southern British Cameroons and the methodology of analysis in Chapter One and deconstructs the theory of genocide in Chapter Two. He traces the roots of the raging genocide in Chapter Three and sheds light on the UN Convention on the Punishment and Prevention in Chapter Four. In Chapter Five, he discusses structural violence as a cause of and condition for genocide and extermination in Ambazonia. The author reviews the historico-legal path to genocide and the extermination of Ambazonians in Chapter Six. In Chapter Seven he explores the slippery road to genocide and extermination which he terms Ambacide. He focuses on President Biya blowing the whistle for his ‘final solution’ in Chapter Eight and closes in Chapter Nine titled, From the anger of despair to resistance and self-defence. In the book, the author uses specific approaches to achieve different goals. For example, the author uses argument, integration, history, methodology, systematic evidence and theory to raise and discuss the hypocrisy of the international community in addressing cases of similar conflicts; generate new frameworks and perspectives on the topic; analyse the sources that touch on the complexity of the genocide issues in the case study; highlight ethical issues and provide a framework of understanding at different levels; identify and xxvi

critically appraise relevant research, and finally, examine the corpus of theory that has accumulated in regard to the issue, concept, theory, and the genocide phenomenon. Because I have had a good deal of exposure to other writings by Tatah Mentan, I am confident that what the reader has in this book is fresh and enlightening. Knowing him as one of those who would rather struggle for the truth, for justice, for an end to oppression without worrying so much about what might happen to him. Knowing the author as one worried more about what continues to happen to his people collectively if nothing gets done, I hope Tatah Mentan’s reader will calmly examine the genocide on Ambazonia with the concern the situation deserves. The issue remains whether such coexistence as intended for the Southern British Cameroons in 1961 ought to be based on genocidal force rather than on the much-trumpeted Western concepts of the democratic freedom of peoples and nations? In this connection, one continues to wonder why the architects of state formation failed to implement the warnings proffered by Woodrow Wilson (1919) and other incompatibility theorists, including Claude (1969), Mill (1972), Schermerhorn (1978),Walzer (1982), Furnivall (1986), Smith (1986)and others. These theorists always noted the need for “care to be taken to respect the natural dispositions and peculiar characteristics of peoples and races to guard against the folly of trying to unite in any one state (…) people whose differences of temperament or diversity of language, law, and tradition are so great as to be incompatible.” In the specific case of the Southern British Cameroons’ joining Republique du Cameroun in 1961, Dag Hammarskjold, UN Secretary General (1953-1961), warned that “Uniting the Southern Cameroons to the Cameroon Republique[was] like forcing a balloon under the sea. One day, it will come out.” It finally came out as predicted, and the response was genocide on the people. Like the errors of the makers of postcolonial states who lumped together in one state disparate peoples resulting in genocides, managers of many postcolonial states also continued to make several similar errors that end up leading to the failure of plural states as experienced in the former Yugoslavia and Sudan, to name just two examples. Two final questions that arise from an understanding of the genocide on Ambazonia aka Ambacide are the xxvii

following: Why do powerful states continue to use recognition to honour or violate territorial entities, according recognition to the people and nations they want and refusing it to those they do not favour? In a Brexit era, how do some continue to consider it their exclusive right and power to grant self-determination to others? Professor Fonkem Achankeng I Hubert H. Humphrey International Fellow University of Wisconsin Oshkosh References Anyangwe, C. (2005). Introduction to human rights and international humanitarian law Camus, A. (2008). Neither Victims nor Executioners: An Ethic Superior to Murder. Wipf and Stock; 2nd ed. edition (July 15) Claude, I. L.(1969). National minorities: an international problem. Greenwood, Westport: Reprint of the 1955 edition Epie-Ngome, V. (1992). What god put asunder. Yaounde: Pitcher Books Field, J. O. (1958). Introducing the Southern Cameroons. Lagos: Federal Information Service Furnivall, J. S. (1986).Colonial policy and practice, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Gardinier, D. E. (1963). Cameroon: United Nations challenge to French policy. London, England: Oxford University Press Gobata, R. (1996). The ironies of our history. In I spit on their graves. Bellingham, WA: Kola Tree Press O’ Henry, (2017). Supply and demand. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform; Ntb edition (August 2,) Mill, J. S. (1972). Politics in plural societies: A theory of democratic instability. New York: Pearson Portelli, A. (1991). The death of Luigi Trastulli and other stories: form and meaning in oral history, Albany, NY: State University of New York Press

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Rummel, R. J. (1994). Death by government: The state as terrorist. New Brunswick, NJ.: Transaction Books Sartre, J. P. (1957). Introduction. The colonizer and the colonized by Albert Memmi. Boston: Beacon Press. Schermerhorn, R. A. (1978), Comparative ethnic relations: A framework for theory and research. University of Chicago Press. Smith, A. D. (1986). The ethnic origins of nations. Oxford: Basil Blackwell Walzer, M. (1982). The moral standing of states: A response to four critics, Philosophy & Public Affairs 9, no. 3 (1982), pp. 209–29, reprinted in Michael Walzer, Thinking Politically: Essays in Political Theory, ed. David Miller (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2007), pp. 219–36. Woodrow Wilson (1919). The Presidency: Woodrow Wilson's Second Term (See Professor Margaret MacMillan’s Talk on CSpan.

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Chapter One Southern British Cameroons and Methodology of Analysis A Chronology The concept of historical chronology of Southern British Cameroons plays a fundamental role in human thought. It invokes notions of human agency, change, the role of material circumstances in human affairs, and the putative meaning of historical events. It raises the possibility of “learning from history.” And it suggests the possibility of better understanding ourselves in the present, by understanding the forces, choices, and circumstances that brought us to our current situation. Map 1:Southern British Cameroons

Source: Archives of British Southern Cameroons

1

Humans have always been interested in their origins, but historians have been reluctant to write about the long stretches of time before the invention of writing. In fact, the deep past was left out of most historical writing almost as soon as it was discovered. This breakthrough book, as important for readers interested in the present as in the past, brings science into historical chronology of the plight of Southern British Cameroons (hereunder, Ambazonia to offer a dazzling new vision of humanity under occupation, annihilation, and colonization across time. Chronology is the arrangement of events by time. In literature, most authors write their story as a sequence of events—when you use this method, arranging events in the order in which they occurred in time, it’s called putting them in “chronological order.” Sticking with a chronological timeline is the easiest way for audiences to follow what happens and is generally the best way to show cause and effect. My aim of presenting Southern British Cameroons chronologically is not to abbreviate the reading of this book. It is rather to call on my readers to understand that the chronological arrangement of events is just the skeleton. Readers should now look for the meat to dress the skeleton in the chapters that follow. 1. Southern British Cameroons was part of the United Nations Trust Territory of the Cameroons under United Kingdom’s Administration. The Trusteeship Agreement between the United Nations and the United Kingdom was signed on 13 December 1946. 2. The name, Southern British Cameroons, comes from the fact that the British Administering Authority had divided the Trust Territory into a Southern and Northern part, even while the territory was still a League of Nations mandated territory. Southern British Cameroons was created by the British Order in Council of June 26, 1923. By this act of the colonial authority, the Southern British Cameroons became a distinct territory from Northern British Cameroons within the international system, and a unit of self-determination. 3. Southern British Cameroons therefore does not refer to the Southern part of the Republic of Cameroun, but the Southern part of the British Cameroons. 4. French Cameroun was a United Nations Trust Territory under France. 2

5. French Cameroun and British Cameroons were separate UN Trust Territories with separate agreements, and each governed separately by Article 76(b) of the United Nations Charter. Apart from the fact that they were former parts of an ephemeral German Kamerun that lasted just 30 years and which was formally dismembered by the Versailles Treaty of 1919, there was no other link between them, either in language, administration, culture, politically or otherwise. Each was being prepared for its own selfdetermination as per Article 76(b) of the UN Charter. 6. British Cameroons was ruled from Nigeria until 1954, when members of the Southern British Cameroons in the Nigerian Eastern House of Assembly walked out and returned to Buea, capital of Southern British Cameroons, where they formed a thriving parliamentary democracy which lasted until 1961. From 1954 then, the Southern British Cameroons was self-governing, with its government, Prime Minister, parliament, judiciary and House of Chiefs. It conducted its first free and fair election in which power changed hands peacefully in 1959. 7. On 1 January 1960, in application of Article 76(b) of the UN Charter, French Cameroun gained independence from France and became known as La Republique du Cameroun. 8. On 1 October 1960, Nigeria, from which Southern British Cameroons was still being ruled to some degree, also achieved independence. Since Southern British Cameroons was not a part of Nigeria, it became necessary to sort out the Southern British Cameroons situation with urgency. 9. The Administering Authority, with the pretext that Southern British Cameroons was small and not economically viable, illegally proposed what was known as “independence by joining” for the Southern British Cameroons. Under this idea of “independence by joining”, the Southern British Cameroons was going to achieve independence either by joining the Federation of Nigeria, or by joining the independent Republic of Cameroun. Independence by joining was itself a violation of UNGA Resolution 1514 of 1960 affirming that independence was the inherent and inalienable right of all colonies and trust territories as a guarantee for their enjoyment of complete freedom. 10. In pursuance of this illegal idea of “independence by joining”, a UN-organized Plebiscite was held in the Southern British Cameroons on 11 February 1961 in which the following questions were put to the people of Southern British Cameroons: “Do you wish to achieve independence by joining the independent 3

Federation of Nigeria?” or “Do you wish to achieve independence by joining the independent Republic of Cameroon?” 11. The People of Southern British Cameroons voted to “achieve independence by joining the French Republic of Cameroun”. 12. Of course, the Plebiscite was merely a mechanism used by the United Nations to discover the intention of the People of Southern British Cameroons. The proposed partners for joining, Nigeria and Republic of Cameroun, were not part of this consultation and quite clearly also, the determination of this choice by the UN could not be the implementation of the choice. The plebiscite was therefore not an agreement at all with the Republic of Cameroun; it was not also the joining contemplated in the Plebiscite questions. It was simply a question and answer session between the United Nations and the People of Southern British Cameroons, with no one else being party to it. It created no obligations for the People of Southern British Cameroons towards any third party. Only after the implementation of the intention expressed in the Plebiscite could any obligations be created. 13. As is always the case with the joining of two international territories or subjects of international law, certain due procedures had to be observed, to ensure valid legal union and safeguard the rights of all parties. 14. The terms of this “independence by joining” were governed by two important United Nations Resolutions, and the bilateral agreements between the proposed partners for the joining. Both Nigeria and the Republic of Cameroun had made promises as to what the nature of the joining between them would be. 15. The pertinent Resolutions concerned are: (1) Resolution 1541 of 15 December 1960 laying down the conditions under which a non-self-governing territory could be said to have achieved full self-government, and (2) Resolution 1608(XV) of 21 April 1961 which was adopted following the UN-organized Plebiscite in the Southern British Cameroons. 16. After the Plebiscite in which the People of the Southern British Cameroons made their choice and intention known, the UN adopted Resolution 1608(XV) on 21 April 1961 in which it endorsed the results of the Plebiscite, conducted a vote on the joining and in paragraph 5, called for the implementation of the policies reached between the parties. 17. During the vote in Resolution 1608(XV), the Republic of Cameroun voted “NO”, i.e., against union with the 4

Southern British Cameroons. This “NO” vote was instigated by France which led all the then-independent former French colonies in Africa, except Mali, to also vote “NO”. 18. The present case of the People of the Southern British Cameroons is that despite the Plebiscite and despite Resolutions 1541 and 1608(XV), the Republic of Cameroon simply ignored all the Resolutions and agreements reached and illegally occupied the Southern British Cameroons. Not one of the terms of the pertinent United Nations Resolutions was respected, nor the promises made by the Republic of Cameroon herself. 19. The People of the Southern British Cameroons are backing up their claim by challenging the Republic of Cameroun to produce the treaty of Union between them or any valid instrument of international law giving it jurisdiction over the Southern British Cameroons or a treaty in conformity with Article 102(1) of the United Nations Charter requiring all Member States to register any treaty entered into with the Secretariat of the United Nations. 20. Consequently, the current entity styling itself variously as “the Republic of Cameroun”, “Cameroon”, “the State of Cameroon” or “La Republique du Cameroun” is actually two territories separated by an international boundary. These territories are French Cameroun which achieved independence on 1 January 1960 as Republic of Cameroun, and the Southern British Cameroons presently under the illegal occupation and annexation of that French Cameroun which achieved independence from France on 1 January 1960. 21. It is within this context of the illegal occupation of their territory that the People of the Southern British Cameroons have submitted, to the AU Border Programme and all stakeholders, their border maps and the international treaties that established them, and are urging the AU and Member States to ensure that the boundaries claimed by the Republic of Cameroun in particular, comply with Article 4(b) of the African Union Constitutive Act, Article 102(1) of the UN Charter and all AU and UN principles in general. 22. In sum, the People of the Southern British Cameroons are calling for the urgent withdrawal of the forces and the administration of the Republic of Cameroon from the territory of the Southern British Cameroons and the peaceful separation of the two countries. 5

The Bakassi ICJ Ruling: 23. The People of the Southern British Cameroons are also pointing out that The Bakassi Ruling cannot serve as an international legal instrument which gives the Republic of Cameroun jurisdiction over the Southern British Cameroons, because that ruling: (i)demarcated only the boundary between the Federal Republic of Nigeria and the two Cameroons (Former French Camerouns plus occupied Southern British Cameroons subsumed under one title, “Cameroon”); (ii)it did not examine the pretended claim of Former French Cameroun over the Southern British Cameroons, because the matter was never put before it; (iii)it did not address the issue of the boundary between Former French Cameroun and the Southern British Cameroons, because the matter was never put before it; (iv)it did not examine the boundaries inherited by Former French Cameroun on its day of independence, 1 January 1960, because the matter was never put before it; (v)it cannot therefore be used as an instrument through which the Republic of Cameroun can be said to have “inherited” the territory of the Southern British Cameroons close to 57 years after its independence on 1 January 1960; (vi)it cannot be used, contrary to Article 4(b) of the African Union Constitutive Act, to invent two separate dates of independence for Former French Cameroun; (vii)it cannot enable Former French Cameroun to illegally acquire territory outside of the territories it inherited at independence, namely, French Cameroun; (viii)it cannot be used as a union treaty between the Southern British Cameroons and Former French Cameroun, because it is not a treaty; and finally (ix)by virtue of Article 59 of the ICJ statutes which state that ICJ rulings are binding only between the parties, the Bakassi Ruling cannot be taken to be a ruling on the boundary dispute between the Southern British Cameroons and Former French Cameroun. The question remains unresolved. 24. It is worthy of note that the ICJ made the observation, a geographical fact, that the Bakassi Peninsula (located some 350 kilometres from the western maritime frontier of Former French Cameroun) is firmly within the Southern British Cameroons. 6

Why study Raging Genocide in Southern British Cameroons or Ambazonia? What are the lessons for us to study genocide today? Can we somehow hope that the conditions that led to the Holocaust are now well and truly behind us, that such a catastrophe could never happen again and, that whatever problems it confronts, humanity will somehow muddle through? Hardly! The intent to commit genocide in Ambazonia by the Republic of Cameroun is obviously the most difficult element to determine. To constitute genocide, there must be a proven intent on the part of perpetrators to physically destroy a national, ethnical, racial or religious group. Cultural destruction or assimilation does not suffice, nor does an intention to simply disperse a group. It is this special intent, or dolus specialis, that makes the crime of genocide so unique. In addition, case law has associated intent with the existence of a State or organizational plan or policy, even if the definition of genocide in international law does not include that element. Importantly, the victims of genocide are deliberately targeted—not randomly—because of their real or perceived membership of one of the four groups protected under the Convention (which excludes political groups, for example). This means that the target of destruction must be the group, as such, and not its members as individuals. Genocide can also be committed against only a part of the group, as long as that part is identifiable (including within a geographically limited area) and “substantial.” Indeed, genocide is a multifaceted issue often occurring as a result of social, psychological, criminological, and economic factors. Most theorists of genocide agree that no single theory could explain the complex nature that leads to the world’s most heinous crime. Theorizing on genocide is a relatively recent academic endeavour. Research on the Holocaust was sparked in the 1960s, but examining genocide as a phenomenon beyond the Holocaust did not begin until the early 1990s. In the past decades much has been written about genocide and its effects on victims, perpetrators, society, and beyond. Multiple theories have been developed to help explain how and why certain situations end in the attempted annihilation of a group of people. No theory has been able to encompass the entirety of the topic and offer an explanation that fits each possible example of genocide. Into this field comes Bradley Campbell (2015) and his theory on the geometry of genocide. As a contribution to our 7

understanding of genocide, the geometry of genocide is a new way of thinking about genocide, and processing it. Any study of genocide must begin with defining the concept to be examined. There are myriad definitions of genocide, especially when one enters the social science field. The legal definition of genocide offered by the United Nations and used by most countries is “any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: (a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.” The main elements of this definition include the fact that genocide is limited to groups based on nationality, ethnicity, race, or religion. This means groups targeted due to politics or gender are not considered acts of genocide. Also, genocide includes acts of killing, acts that cause serious bodily harm, acts intended to prevent birth, and moving children from one group to another. These acts are all designed to weaken or destroy a group of people by removing them completely (killing), by removing the capacity to grow (prevent birth), or by removing future generations (moving children). This definition has not pleased everyone since its inception in 1949. Many social scientists have expanded the definition to include political groups, gender, and other minority categories. There are a number of things to note about these acts. (1) The perpetrator is not necessarily a state’s government or its military, but may be an international organization, such as a UN peacekeeping one, NATO, or a terrorist or guerrilla organization, among others. (2) Regardless of under what authority genocide is done, it is formulated, planned, and conducted by individuals, and it is individuals that the ICC will prosecute for the crime of genocide. Unlike the International Court of Justice that only adjudicates disputes between states, the ICC is a criminal tribunal that will indict individuals, issue international warrants for their arrest, try, and punish them. This is made explicit in Article 27: “This Statute shall apply equally to all persons without distinction based on official capacity. In particular, official capacity as head of state or government, a member of a government or parliament, an elected 8

representative or a government official shall in no case exempt a person from criminal responsibility under this statute, nor shall it, in and of itself, constitute a ground for reduction of sentence.” (3) The perpetrator’s intent (purpose, goal, aim) is critical. According to the Report of the Preparatory Commission for the International Criminal Court (PCICC), the ICC may infer such from “conduct took place in the context of a manifest pattern of similar conduct directed against that group or was conduct that could itself effect such destruction,” (Article 6a) including “the initial acts in an emerging pattern” (Article 6 Introduction). (4) The limitation of genocide to only national, ethnical, racial or religious groups is to groups that one is born into. These may be called indelible groups. In the case of a religious group, while one may choose to leave a religious group as an adult, it is rarely done and one may nonetheless remain identified with the religious group by virtue of physical characteristics, as for Jews. The crime of genocide does not apply to the intent to destroy political, ideological, economic, military, professional, or other groups. Thus, the mass murder of perhaps a million or more “capitalist roaders,” “rightists,” and counterrevolutionaries during the Chinese Cultural Revolution (1966-69) would not be genocide. Neither would the systematic murder of tens of thousands of communists and leftists by death squads in Latin America during the 1960s to 80s. The rational often given for excluding such groups is that one joins or becomes a member of them as a matter of choice, and the nature and membership in such groups is not as clear as it is for indelible groups. (5) In the definition of genocide, the term “as such” is important. It means that the defined groups are by intention explicitly targeted for destruction, and such destruction is not the unintended outcome, by-product, or spill over of the intent to achieve some other goal, such as in defensive operations of attacks on military targets during a war or rebellion. (6) Also critical is the word “destroy.” The acts that are carried out with this intent are carefully defined in (a) to (e), above. They exclude attempts, for example, to eliminate an indelible group from a territory by ethnic cleansing (that which involves their forced or coerced removal), or the destruction of the culture of a group, as by forced education of their children in a different language and customs. While “culture” is unmentioned in the articles of the ICC’s Statute and the Report of the PCICC, and may well be included as the case law of genocide develops, “ethnic cleansing” 9

would seem to be a crime against humanity in the Statute. Under Article 7.1.d, it is unlawful to deport of forcibly transfer a population. (7) The “in whole or in part” means that there is no lower limit to the number of people on which these acts may be committed. It is genocide even any of the Acts (a)-(e) are on one person with the intent described. (8) Genocide is generally believed to involve the murder of indelible group members. But the crime does not. Acts (b)-(e) make clear genocide may also involve the intent to destroy a group by means other than killing one or more of its members. (9) In Act (b) “serious bodily or mental harm” may include acts of torture, rape, sexual slavery, apartheid, or other inhuman or degrading treatment. (PCICC, ft. 3) That these inhumane acts, among others, were explicitly included in the ICC Statute is a major advance in genocide criminal law. (10) In Act (c) “conditions of life” may include “deliberate deprivation of resources indispensable for survival, such as food or medical services, or systematic expulsion from homes.” (PCICC ft. 4) (11) The term “forcibly” in Act (e), “is not restricted to physical force, but may include threat of force or coercion, such as that caused by fear of violence, duress, detention, psychological oppression or abuse of power; or taking advantage of a coercive environment.” (PCICC ft. 5). (12) Finally, it must be noted that there are many other crimes that do not fall under the definition of the crime of genocide that are also subject to prosecution by the ICC. Under Article 7 such are systematic murder, extermination of civilians, enslavement, torture, rape, forced pregnancy, political persecution, and forced disappearances. The crux of the geometry of genocide is to be found in pure sociology. As explained by the author, pure sociology focuses only on the social, and excludes other variables like psychology. “Pure sociology explains human behaviour with its social geometry: its location and direction in social space and social time” (Ibid: 8). Social space refers to the way in which people relate to one another; people can be intimates or strangers based on their social space. A change in social time is a social change like an increase or decrease in intimacy. Taken together, changes in social space and social time explain the occurrence of genocide. 10

The root causes of genocide according to Campbell lie in either overdiversity or under-stratification and social distance. In social time, overdiversity occurs when ethnic groups that were previously separated come into contact with each other leading to ethnic conflict and possibly genocide. Under-stratification occurs when a high status group is threatened or a low status group experiences a rise in status. In social space, the greater the social distance the greater the likelihood of genocide, because the victims and perpetrators lack similarities and interdependence. When overdiversity or under-stratification and social distance increase, the possibility of genocide increases too. Campbell then proceeds to apply his theory to several case studies of genocide in an attempt to highlight how his theory works in practice. The case studies include massacres against Native Americans in California, specifically the Yuki and Yana tribes; Muslims and Hindus in India, specifically in Gujarat; Muslims in Bosnia; Tutsis in Rwanda, specifically in Nyakizu prefecture; and finally, Jews during the Holocaust, specifically in Lithuania. While Campbell is able to overlay his theory onto each of these case studies, it seems that he misses the forest for the trees. His analysis is so focused on specific sub-parts of an overall genocide that the macro understanding of the genocide as a whole is missed. Some examples will be important. When discussing the Rwandan genocide, Campbell focuses on the Nyakizu prefecture. But by doing so it is not clear that his theory would apply to the entire Rwandan genocide, or merely this one sub-set of the genocide. Is he explaining the Rwandan genocide or how the genocide occurred in Nyakizu? Similarly, when discussing the Holocaust persecution of Jewish people, Campbell focuses on the situation in Lithuania. Is he trying to explain the Holocaust or how the massacres occurred in Lithuania? With all of the literature on the Holocaust it is difficult to believe that Campbell is trying to explain the entire genocide, but is indeed only focusing on one area where his theory appears to fit. Though one still has questions about the fit, when he tells the story of one Lithuanian Jew who was not murdered because he was close to the potential perpetrator. The evidence of closeness was though only that the Jewish man spoke fluent Lithuanian. This seems like a tenuous thread on which to hang such a momentous decision as whether or not to kill this man. It also raises questions about other Jews who spoke fluent Polish or German or French, and why that was not enough to save them. 11

This area of study is more preoccupied than most with definitional issues. Lemkin 1944 originally proposed that genocide was the multimethod destruction of the social as well as physical existence of national groups, but this understanding has been modified in various ways. The 1948 UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (see United Nations 2000) maintained the core of this broad approach, slightly enlarging the range of groups while listing killing as only one of five types of genocidal acts. This became the legal and political standard of genocide, and it has sometimes been used as a benchmark in academic studies. However, it has been criticized both for omitting political groups and social classes from the list of groups and for omitting specific mention of the forcible removal of populations, historically the main method through which population groups have been destroyed. After the early academic synthesis of Kuper in 1981, writers in the emerging field of genocide studies widened the range of protected groups, either by adding to the UN list or by adopting more generic definitions (e.g., Fein 1990, Chalk and Jonassohn, 1990), and the edited volume Andreopoulos (1994). Schabas (2000), however, resists this approach. These writers simultaneously narrowed genocide to physical and biological destruction, or “mass murder,” an approach maintained in Sémelin (2007). More recently, however, there has been a return to Lemkin’s broad definition of “destruction,” and Shaw (2007) proposes a sociological restatement of this idea of “destruction.” Methodology of Analysis-Historical Political Economy “The value of history is, indeed, not (only) scientific but moral: by liberalizing the mind, by deepening the sympathies, by fortifying the will, it enables us to control, not society, but ourselves -- a much more important thing; it prepares us to live more humanely in the present and to meet rather than to foretell the future” (Carl Becker, 1873-1945, U.S. historian). History is more complex than many people realize. No, for real! It is so much more than memorizing names, dates, and places. History is very much ‘scientific.’ It involves critical thinking. It involves formulating hypotheses based on evidence and testing them. That is what this lesson is about. Historical methodology is the process by which historians gather evidence and formulate ideas about the past. It is the framework through which an account of the past is constructed. In this 12

analysis, we shall combine the historical method with that of political economy to thread out state-society relations that have condemned Southern Cameroons to betrayed servitude. History is the source of all the problems that confront it. History is, at the same time, the source of their resolution. The struggle for socialism, for instance, cannot be resolved via utopian schemes, which presumably somehow fire the imagination of the oppressed. Rather, the Marxist movement seeks to analyse the historical experiences through which it has passed, drawing out, above all, the problems of working class leadership (Callinicos, 2001). I wish to note that political economy approaches highlighted the centrality of power relations to the composition and well-being of the rural population. While the class-based analysis of access to rural resources contributed to an understanding of rural residents' personal power (especially financial but also in terms of status), the wider discussion of the structures and operation of power prompted researchers to explore the relationship between the state and the rural community (Little, 2001). Importantly, this work drew on urban-based debates on the nature of the local state and on the changing mechanisms and practices of central government. At a time when the developed economies, particular the USA and Britain, were seeing attempts by the centre to curtail the responsibilities of the local state, rural research began to investigate the implications for rural areas and to document the localized power struggles and resistance that accompanied the changing balance of power. This approach has five important broad features: (1) Social phenomena exist, and can be understood, only in their historical context. For Marx (1845), societies are organized by different modes of production and structured by different class relations. It should be noted here that underdeveloped societies are not clinically divided on class basis. But the structures of domination and exploitation are built on the inherited colonial state. Thus, class analysis offers a clear insight into the internal structure, the mechanisms of power and contradictions of a capitalist society; (2) Theory loses its validity if pushed beyond its historical and social limits which means that concepts and theories are always constructed to address a particular society and historical moment; (3) Marx’s analysis is structured by the relations between theory and history. 13

For him, the historical analysis belongs within the method of the study, which contributes to understanding the past and present, but cannot be used to predict the future; (4) Dialectical materialism informs and defines the key concepts, structures, relationships and levels of analysis required to explain the concrete or complex outcomes. Marx uses dialectical materialism in Capital to understand and determine the essential features of capitalism and their contradictions, to explain the structure and dynamics of this mode of production, and to locate the potential sources of historical change; (5) Marx’s method is focused on historical change. For Marx, there is an interdependent and mutual relationship between the structures of production, the social relations and historical change. These influences are always determined by the mode of social organisation. Why Historical Political Economy? I want to begin by discussing the significance of studying the history of political economy, particularly the question of what such a study can clarify. The reason is that without understanding this point a person might end up missing the forest for the trees. A history of political economy requires above all a correct understanding of past economic and political theories. However, even if questions regarding who, when, and what are elaborated, and we gain a correct overall understanding of what has been written about various problems, this will at best amount to a collection of facts, not living knowledge or science in the true sense of the word. Political economy approaches to central–local relations provide a framework for the investigation of power in a variety of ways. Studies focused on inter agency relations, the changing role of the private sector, and the role of key actors, elites, and institutions within the policymaking process. An area of particular attention, (especially within British rural geography), was that of town and country planning, and a number of studies on the negotiation and distributional consequence of planning decisions contributed to the wider understanding of power relations and political control within the regulatory process in the countryside. One particular strand of such research sought to highlight the role and status of environmental pressure groups in an examination of the priorities of the dominant interests in the countryside. Much of this work revolved around a discussion of the changing status and power of 14

agriculture and raised questions concerning the position of farmers and landowners in relation to other interests within both urban and rural communities. Modern ‘political economy’ explores relationships among economic and political organizations, institutions, policies, and outcomes. There has never been a consensus on the theories and methods that should structure the exploration of these relationships and the debate over how best to understand these matters has evolved over time. The interpretation offered here simplifies both of these dimensions of difference. It distinguishes two periods of post-war history—the Fordist and Neo-liberal eras—based on the dominant paradigm of economic organization prevailing in the rich capitalist democracies of the global North. For each period, the most important theoretical approaches to political economy, the regions of the world to which they were applied, and the social science departments in which they were based are identified. It is argued that, in the second or neo-liberal era, political economy analyses can be broadly grouped into those that took a critical stance on existing economic paradigms, institutions and policies, and those which accepted the core assumptions of neo-classical economics and the neo-liberal policies and institutions that this approach to economics has legitimated. The relationship between area and international studies and political economy varies, both by period and, to some degree, by the type of political economy in question. Political economy analyses can also provide a platform for dialogue among stakeholders. Marxist Political Economy (MPE) denotes a range of political economy perspectives that are broadly connected to and in the tradition of the writings (notably The Communist Manifesto, Grundrisse and Capital) and insights of Karl Marx. Although this research tradition is very diverse and heterogeneous, it is nevertheless possible to identify some common key tenets. Generally, MPE comprises an integrative analysis of the economy, society and politics. These three fields are not considered as isolated but as interdependent structures that evolved historically. The analysis of class struggle, involving the exploitation of labour by capital within the capitalist mode of production, is fundamental to the understanding of dynamics within this analysis. From this perspective, capital and labour represent two antagonistic classes. The former is primarily characterized by ownership of the means of production, while the latter comprises free wage labourers in a double sense. They are free 15

from control over the means of production and free – compared with the feudal system – to sell their labour power. Capital is central to this and is primarily organized to ensure the profitability of invested money. This is why the famous notion of capital as money which begets money is formalized as M–C–M’. An integrative economic analysis, in this context, involves moving beyond a sole focus on the functioning of the economy. Thus, under capitalist conditions, labour is not only exploited but also faces alienation. This means that wage labourers are not the directors of their own work. Instead, s/he is employed in the capitalist mode of production, performing specialized tasks in commodity production, without owning the products. Moreover, the capitalist mode of production is not limited to an isolated sphere in society but structures the latter in various ways. For example, through the process of commodification, social relations that were formerly untainted by market logic, are transformed into commercial relationships, relationships of exchange, and relationships of buying and selling. MPE has the explicit aim to change the current state of economic and societal organization, with an emancipatory perspective to establish a more just society by overcoming capitalism. Although this school of thought is generally marginalized in economics faculties at large, it has gained renewed attention over the past decade. Much of the interest is due to Marx’s analysis being relevant to the analysis and explanation of the global financial crisis of 2007/2008; it has also been relevant to various other crisis movements that are linked to the economic system and seem to converge with it, e.g. the climate crisis. Moreover, new forms of protests and social movements, and intensifying social conflicts in the presence of crisis, have also created both a need and a challenge for radical academic analysis. Conception of Economy “Fundamental to any Marxist analysis is its understanding of the economy, how capital is reproduced, how profitability is maintained, and how crises develop.”(Gamble 2000:140).

MPE perceives the economy as a continual process of transformation of nature and society by production. The mode of production is the historical form in which the two core dimensions of any economic organization of society are united. These two 16

central elements are the productive forces – phenomena that enable production, like technology and infrastructure—and the relations of production, referring to the class-based organization of production, distribution and consumption in society. Accordingly, MPE argues that the socio-economic character of different societies in history is characterized by the specific mode of production, like slavery, feudalism or capitalism. The historical configuration of productive forces and relations of production is a crucial point of departure for MPE. Particular emphasis is given to the analysis of class struggles and the different forms of exploitation of labour power, as well as to contradictions and crisis. Thus, the economy is not conceived as a neutral platform of exchange and cooperation, but as historical and political constitution primarily characterized by asymmetric power relations, ideology and social conflicts. To understand the contemporary world economy, proponents of MPE claim that Marx’s core analysis of the capitalist mode of production in the eighteenth and nineteenth century remains a useful starting point. ‘Commodities’ are at the core of Marx’s analysis of the capitalist mode of production; they are defined as products or services sold on markets and produced by human labour power. The peculiar characteristic of commodities is their dual character—they exhibit both use value and exchange value. The capitalist mode of production is primarily defined by the neglect of the use value, while the exchange value—potentially translating into higher return on investments – is paramount. Thus, capitalist societies do not primarily produce for the needs of the population but for the sake of realizing a high exchange value—simply put, profit. MPE argues that this profit is rooted in the exploitation of labour power, more specifically the wage labourer. Capitalists only pay the workers the wage they need to reproduce their labour power even if workers generate a higher value. This surplus value is then appropriated by capitalists and then reinvested. The amassing of money as capital in the hands of the capitalist class is also defined as capital accumulation. It presents the core dynamic of the capitalist mode of production and thus implies a structural imperative of the capitalist economy to grow. Yet, as was mentioned above, the capitalist mode of production is not free from contradictions and from an MPE perspective crisis play a prominent role as recurrent patterns in capitalist development. Generally speaking, crises emerge from various contradictions that exist in the basic constitution of the 17

capitalist mode of production, but more specifically consist of a specific conjuncture of tendencies and triggers. Thus, each economic or financial crisis has links to the general contradictions of capital and to specific political, ideological and cultural circumstances. Different lineages of MPE also stress the importance of different aspects of contradictions and many argue for multiple causation, including, for example, credit insufficiency, scarcities of or political difficulties with labour supply, resistance or inefficiencies in the labour process, excess capital and wages squeezing profits. Currently, many MPE scholars argue that the tendency of the over-accumulation of capital since the 1970s is key to understanding the various financial and economic crises of the past decades throughout the globe. In this situation too much money capital is searching for profitable investment opportunities. Since investments in financial assets have become increasingly profitable in the past decades, money capital is disproportionately subtracted from industrial production and employed as fictitious capital. This form of money capital is fictitious because it is without any material basis in commodities or productive activities. Although not generating any surplus value in the labour process, fictitious capital can reproduce itself (M–M') through the representation of a claim on the realization of future surplus value. While these investments may be profitable for some money holders, the general economy suffers from rising economic inequality, lack of effective demand (which is temporarily supported by credit-funded consumption), and recurring inflation of asset prices that translate into ‘bursting bubbles’. A prime example for this process is the global financial crisis of 2007–2008 which was triggered by excessive derivatives trading (fictitious capital) in subprime mortgages. Ontology The central problem addressed by MPE is the exploitation of workers by capital, i.e. the dominance between classes and the power of capital. Thus, the unit of analysis is classes, not individuals and collective interests are determined within classes rather than between individuals. This does not mean that individuals are unable to make their own choices. However, within a certain mode of production there are powerful material and social structures (e.g. competition) that induce people to behave accordingly. Hence, MPE does not propose a universalist view of 18

humans as being necessarily competitive or collaborative but emphasizes the effects of the historically specific mode of production on the way humans behave. Within a certain mode of production, MPE historically has sought to isolate some tendencies and laws of motion in the economic, the social and the political spheres. In the capitalist mode of production, examples would be the increasing accumulation of capital and its concentration, as well as the recurring crises of capitalist production. These laws of motion are thought to be ontologically real and some MPE scholars have argued that the laws determine the behaviour of societies. Some strands of MPE have however put emphasis on over-determination, highlighting that even though laws of motion can be discerned, their interconnectedness and multiplicity makes it more difficult to make accurate statements about the behaviour of human societies. Theorizing in the field of Critical Political Economy has emphasized the concept of hegemony, stressing the historical nature of processes of societal change and the constant struggle of ideas and movements (the war of position in the words of Antonio Gramsci) for temporal and spatial dominance. According to these theorists the laws of societies and economies are more dependent on historical and cultural junctures, thus making a case against determining theorizing. A possible bridge between these two traditions is offered by critical realist theorists: they assume a real world, both in the natural and the social world, but this is subject to changes and actualizations that can originate in the actions of historical and spatially confined actors. With Marx one could restate that: Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past. (Marx 1852)

Notwithstanding these theoretical differences, MPE theories do generally agree that the world is not made out of particulars that can be isolated for the purpose of analysis. Instead entities like classes, firms, states, and institutions exist within a context, which is essential to their existence. By disaggregating these bigger components to their constituent part, one cannot do justice to their real nature, since at each stratum or level of organization (from subatomic particles to complex systems such as human societies) 19

there are emergent powers that are ontologically real in their own right (Sayer 1992, 119). Also, MPE gives importance to dynamic processes like e.g. class conflict or accumulation that are historically embedded and change over time. An important aspect of MPE is furthermore that Capital is not defined ontologically as a material asset (like money, machinery, etc.) but as a social relation and hence only acquires ontological existence and significance in the capitalist mode of production and the corresponding class relationships. Epistemology MPE theories do explicitly identify themselves as normative and performative and regard the positivist position of descriptive and value-free science as false and ideologically motivated. Hence, the goal of scientific analysis is to create knowledge that fosters the emancipation of those who are dominated and oppressed. According to Andrew Sayer, many proponents of critical social science (of which MPE forms part) conceive emancipation as proceeding in the following manner (Sayer 1997: 474): 1. Identify problems, unmet needs, suffering and false beliefs 2. Identify the sources or causes of these, i.e. a particular form of domination 3. Pass a negative judgement of these sources of illusion and oppression 4. Favour (ceteris paribus) actions that remove these sources As Sayer notes, there are, however, some problems with this linear progression from the scientific identification of problems towards the conclusions, particularly with respect to what constitutes emancipatory practice and which values and norms can be considered better than others, since they are backed by scientific evidence. Sayer’s critique specifically points to the need for concrete and feasible alternatives (in general terms or as thought experiments, not as detailed blueprints), which are necessary for evaluating whether a removal of a problem and replacement by something else would indeed mean an improvement or an emancipation for a certain group. Secondly, he problematizes the new emergent interrelationships that might arise once a practice is 20

replaced by another and hence emancipatory practice in one part of society might lead to repression in another. For example, Western women integrating into the paid workforce by contracting reproductive labour to women from the global south; and workers taking over a coal mine that otherwise would have to be closed might emancipate themselves but this can have negative repercussions on the environment or other communities inhabiting the area, as these may be negatively affected by pollution. MPE theorizing that operates in the philosophical tradition of critical realism holds that the link between the real world and scientific inquiry is not straightforward. They reject positivism and ‘naïve’ empiricism, which argues that the real world speaks to the scientist, who then without intermediation can represent it. Strong constructivism, the view that the scientist makes the real world by coming up with conceptions or by self-referentially talking in ways that previous scientists have come up with, is also rejected. Instead, the fallible nature of science as well as its theory-laden and standpoint-dependent character is acknowledged but still, judging whether the theory is good or bad is considered to be possible by reference to the real world. This means that social science research can be diverse, depending on the theory applied as well as the personal biography and biases (e.g. class, gender, habitus) of the researcher. Still, a judgement as to whether a particular piece of research draws valid conclusions is possible and as such objective statements about the causal mechanisms that were responsible for concrete social phenomena are feasible. The test for what is a true statement in critical realism is however somewhat more complicated than in other traditions. Given the emphasis on causal mechanisms rather than on regularities and correlations, simple statistical testing will not suffice to establish the validity of a hypothesis. Instead, from the observational evidence, abstractions have to be made in order to check the validity of a supposed causal mechanism. As such, for example, counterfactual case studies or thought experiments might have to be performed in order to check the explanatory power of a hypothesis. On the other hand, with regards to theory validation, there is great scepticism towards prediction. This is because, in over-determined and evolving open-systems conditions, for mechanisms to work as theorized they might change during the process and hence new mechanisms might emerge. 21

Methodology MPE neither works deductively nor inductively but assumes that there are multiple causalities and thus multiple ways of undertaking research. These depend on the situation, for example, the particular point of capitalist development. A central element of Marxist analysis is dialectics. Dialectics claims to transcend the classical logic of direct causation and linear relationships and replaces it with a dynamic understanding of processes as well as with different categories that would sometimes be considered to be contradictory in classical terms. An example of dialectical reasoning is given in Figure 1 (Sayer 1992:141), where simple and abstract concepts are combined with the complex, specific and contingent characteristics of a concrete situation. Regarding a typical research method, MPE theories are quite eclectic: • Mathematical models exist (e.g. the Temporal Single System Interpretation (TSSI) of Marxian value theory) alongside • discourse analysis (e.g. Hay’s 1996 analysis of the British media’s construction of the ‘winter of discontent,’ which paved the way for Thatcher’s union busting) and • detailed case studies (e.g. Jessop’s 2014 historical analysis of the Eurozone and the Euro Crisis). Since a lot of research in MPE often makes reference to abstract concepts such as financialized capitalism or accumulation regimes, these conceptualizations have to be meaningful and justified by having analytical value rather than being ad hoc. As a negative example of bad or chaotic concepts, Sayer refers to the aggregate concept of the ‘service sector’, which throws together economic activities as unrelated as street cleaning, computer programming, and financial accounting. As such, statements attributing causal powers to the service sector (e.g. ‘a service-sectordominated economy contributes to x’ or ‘a drop in service-sector productivity affects y’) appears rather nonsensical. As to whether the theoretical perspective or the research object drive research within MPE, historically the theoretical perspective has been more important. Thus, the object (e.g. different societies, economies, and economic sectors) has been analysed from the theoretical perspective of, for example, the labour theory of value, theories of power and hegemony or dialectical materialism. For those working in the tradition of critical realism, this reliance on 22

methods is however somewhat less pronounced since critical realism claims that different layers or strata are ontologically existent and hence have to be identified by different branches of science. Hence each object – for example, ‘the economic,’ ‘the cultural,’ or ‘the biological’ – would require a distinct scientific approach, thus giving more prominence to object-driven research vis a vis method-driven. Figure 1. An Example of Dialectical Reasoning

Ideology & Political Goals Marxist political economists have the explicit aims to first critique and second transform society. It can be conceived as performative and reflexive. Thus, it is not only the aim to describe, but to transform society. The role of critique is central to this. After all, Marx’s critique of political economy was as much a 23

critique of classical political economy as it was a critique of the existing economic and social conditions. This emancipatory perspective aims at a more just society that combats dominance, exploitation and inequality, and hence aims to radically reform or overcome capitalism. Emancipation does not only concern inequality in terms of income, property or alienation, but also concerns gendered or racial dominance. Income and wealth distribution are structurally unequally due to the capital–labour relations. Yet, although distributional equality and capital are incompatible, different capitalist phases were characterized by different degrees of inequality. For example, the post-World War II era was characterized by a more equal distribution of income and wealth in industrial economies, whereas since the 1980s/1990s economic inequality has massively risen across the globe. In contrast to Keynesian approaches, MPE does not stress the need to go back to ‘the golden age’ through reducing income and wealth disparities by means of the state (e.g. through taxation). Rather, it suggests tackling inequality at its roots. Thus, worker-control initiatives, solidarity economies and communitarian and cooperative structures of production are frequently promoted, because they alter the very conditions of productions which are foundational to existing inequalities (see also Harvey 2014, 164–181). For instance, in the aftermath of the financial crisis, the concept of the Commons –the communal organization and use of goods and resources – was highly debated within social movements (see e.g. Federici 2011). The Commons are considered as a way to encounter consequences of alienation, land grabbing, property and income inequality and the marketization of life and knowledge and build on movements especially from Latin America. Like the Commons, most of these ambitions are not political goals set in party platforms, but rather are formulated as claims by various social movements or put into praxis by existing alternatives. Perhaps one of the most extensive practical alternatives in this sense is the autonomous region controlled by the Zapatistas in Southern Mexico. Another powerful normative motif for MPE’s critique of capitalism is constituted by the alienation that is experienced by wage labourers in a capitalist economy. The capitalist structure of production – in which the organization and type of economic activity is determined by the holders of capital by separating workers from the decisions how to put their productive energy into use – contributes to a psychological condition in which workers are 24

deprived of the meaning of their labour and reduced to nothing more than an instrument in the production process. This dire condition, alongside the tendency to create poverty and huge inequalities in spite of the huge potentials of production unlocked by capitalism, provides (amongst others) a rationale for the Marxist argument that capitalism is something that has to be overcome. This science of Political Economy rests upon a few notions of an apparently simple character. Utility, wealth, value, commodity, labour, land, capital, are the elements of the subject; and whoever has a thorough comprehension of their nature must possess or be soon able to acquire a knowledge of the whole science. As almost every economic writer has remarked, it is in treating the simple elements that we require the most care and precision, since the least error of conception must vitiate all our deductions. Accordingly, I have devoted the following pages to an investigation of the conditions and relations of the above-named notions. I have also factored the concept of international political economy into our study because it encompasses the intersection of politics and economics as goods, services, money, people, and ideas move across borders at global level. Conflict always has many effects on the society economically and also socially, and the major effect being great loss of human life that brings a big demographic change on a population. Some of the economic problems facing the world are due to cost incurred in genocide activities, because a country in conflict stops production activities and instead concentrates on spending on arms, resettlement of the displaced and also trial for the perpetrators of the event. Genocide is an operation planned and executed on a group of people belonging to a certain race, religion, ethnic group or religion with the intent to kill them. Genocide classifies people into groups like ‘Anglophones’, dehumanizes them using hateful symbols and languages like ‘Anglofoous’, stereotypes, and it is always organized. In fact, globalization has created an environment for wars in which neo –nationalisms develop and create instability in weak nations and religions hence creating conditions for social fragmentation fuelling conditions for cleavage and conflict. It has been noted that in all genocides that have happened the international organizations and world powers always intervene when it is already too late to salvage the situation.

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References Alex Callinicos.(2001).”Plumbing the Depths: Marxism and the Holocaust” in The Yale Journal of Criticism, Vol.14, No. 2 Andreopoulos, G. J., ed. .(1994). Genocide: Conceptual and historical dimensions. Philadelphia: Univ. of Pennsylvania Press. E-mail Citation » This volume gathered essays by most of the early scholars of genocide, providing an entry point to the definitional debate in that period. Campbell, B. (2015). The Geometry of Genocide: A Study in Pure Sociology.: Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press. Chalk, F., and K. Jonassohn. (1990). The history and sociology of genocide: Analyses and case studies. New Haven, CT: Yale Univ. Press. E-mail Citation » An ambitious early synthesis of the conceptual and historical issues, noteworthy for its definition, which emphasized that target groups are not defined objectively, but subjectively by the perpetrators. Fein, H. (1990). Genocide: A sociological perspective. Current Sociology 38.1: 1–126. E-mail Citation » In the course of the first general review of the literature on genocide, Fein proposed a sociological reworking of the UN definition, reinterpreting “intentional” as “sustained purposive action” and reinterpreting the protected groups as “basic kinds, classes, or sub-families of humanity, persisting units of society.” Federici, S. (2011). Feminism and the Politics of the Commons. Published on The Commoner, 24.01.2011. http://www.commoner.org.uk/?p=113. Accessed 2/10, 2021. Galtung, Johan .(1969). “Violence, Peace and Peace Research”. Journal of Peace Research. 6 (3): 167– 191. doi:10.1177/002234336900600301. S2CID 143440399 accessed 01/2021 Gamble, A. (1999). Marxism after communism: beyond realism and historicism. Review of International Studies, 25, 127-144. Harvey, D.(2014).Seventeen Contradictions and the End of Capitalism. London: Profile Books. Hay, C.(1996). Narrating crisis: the discursive construction of the winter of discontent'. Sociology 30.2, 253-277. Kuper, L. (1981). Genocide. Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin. E-mail Citation » 26

This historically wide-ranging book was the first major academic work on the history and sociology of genocide, notable for its emphasis on colonialism as a context of genocide and for introducing the concept of “genocidal massacre.” Lemkin, R. (1944). Axis rule in occupied Europe. New York: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. E-mail Citation » In this volume on destructive Nazi occupation policies during the Second World War, Raphael Lemkin coined the term “genocide,” giving it a broad definition as “the destruction of a nation or of an ethnic group” through a coordinated attack on its social and cultural as well as physical existence. Little, J.(2001).in International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, 2001. Marx, Karl (1845). The German Ideology. www.marxists.org. Retrieved 5 March 2019. Marx, K. (1885).Der achtzehnte Brumaire des Louis Bonaparte. O. Meissner Sayer Andrew.(1997). “Critical Realism and the Limits to Critical Social Science.” Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour. Vol. 27, no.4, 473–486. Schabas, W. A. (2000). Genocide in international law. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press. E-mail Citation » The most comprehensive treatment of genocide from a legal point of view, and a careful guide to the issues. Sémelin, J. (2007). Purify and destroy. London: Hurst. E-mail Citation »An ambitious and wide-ranging study, upholding a narrow definition of genocide as the “total eradication” or mass murder of a group, and making a clear distinction between genocide and massacres. Shaw, M. (2007). What is genocide? Cambridge, UK, and Malden, MA: Polity. E-mail Citation » A sociological restatement of Lemkin’s original broad concept of genocide, which criticizes the “Holocaust standard” for genocide and the idea that “ethnic cleansing” can be clearly distinguished from genocide.

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Chapter Two Deconstructing the Theory of Genocide according to Raphael Lemkin Overview State-sponsored murderers often ask, “Why study genocide theories?” “What is the purpose?” “If we like a theory of genocide, do we have to use all of the theory?” What we glean from this questioning is that the most frequent controversial issue is how to use a particular theory in a practical way. In the quest for these answers, the public begins to realize that there are no completely right theories. This realization is the exciting part about studying and analysing theories. However, we learn that a “theory” is an orderly, integrated set of statements that describes and predicts behaviour. Theories are influenced directly by cultural values and belief systems of their times. Theories are vital: They guide and give meaning to what we see. When a researcher investigates and collects information through observation, the investigator needs a clear idea of what information is important to collect. Thus, valid theory like that explaining genocide is validated by research and is a sound basis for practical action. In this chapter, the theory of genocide by Raphael Lemkin is analysed. We conclude with several important points for discussion: (1) Is this theory of genocide extreme in nature; (2) Should we use a combination of theories in this research of genocide and extermination in Ambazonia; (3) The theory gets issues and concerns on the table for discussion in terms of historical epochs; (4) Genocide theory serves an important purpose; and (5) Research, resulting in theory of genocide, should not govern everything we do in life; there is a time that common sense and gut instinct should override any theory. The open-minded individual therefore considers a theory in all its dimensions!

Introduction Explaining how genocide works is important, and not only for the sake of knowledge itself. Explanations can lead to solutions. You can’t fix something if you don’t understand what’s gone wrong. You can’t prevent cancer cells from madly multiplying if you don’t know how and why they started to madly multiply in the first place. 29

To interfere in the process, you have to understand the process, in all its overwhelming complexity. So is it with the cancer called genocide. Today genocide is understood as a major type of collective violence, with a distinctive place in the spectrum of political violence, armed conflict, and war, of which it is usually seen as a part. However, the idea of genocide dates only from the 1940s, when in the space of four years after its introduction (in a critique of Nazi occupation policies during the Second World War), it became the subject of a major international convention. The concept quickly become central to political and cultural discourses about violence, but the developed academic study of the phenomenon took some decades to develop, before finally taking off around the end of the Cold War. The rapidly expanding field is interdisciplinary, with major contributions from historians, sociologists, political scientists, anthropologists, legal scholars, and others. It has highly contested parameters, including the definition of the phenomenon, the universe of cases, the appropriate explanatory frameworks, and so on. It is also considerably politicized, with significant disagreements over how the academic study of genocide should be related to the development of international policies for its prevention. The field’s growth came initially through the extension of understandings of the Nazi genocide of the Jews, which by the late 20th century was known as “the Holocaust,” to other cases, both historic (such as the Ottoman extermination of the Armenians) and contemporary (such as the Cambodian and Rwandan genocides). However, it has since expanded to consider phenomena quite different from the Holocaust in scale and form, such as the diverse and long-drawn-out pattern of genocide during European colonization of the non-Western world. At the same time, the transformations of political violence and war in the post–Cold War world have led to new divergences over the applicability of the genocide idea to recent events. Recent cases, such as the former Yugoslavia, have raised questions about the relationships of population removal and extended to sexual violence and genocide. Because of these tensions, the growth of the field has been accompanied by theoretical, paradigmatic, and political differences. This chapter attempts to capture these features of a fast-moving academic field and to provide the reader with a way to explore its essential literature. 30

The Theory of Genocide by Raphael Lemkin Dadrian, Vahakn N. in “The Naim-Andonian Documents on the World War I Destruction of Ottoman Armenians: The Anatomy of a Genocide.” International Journal of Middle East Studies 18, no. 3 (1896): 311-360 states, Genocide contains the portents of the kind of destruction that can erase past and present. For the Armenian population of the former Ottoman Empire, it meant the loss of homeland and heritage, and dispersion to the four corners of the earth. It also meant bearing the stigma of the statelessness. At a time when global issues dominate the political agenda of most nations, the Armenian genocide underlines the grave risks of overlooking the problems of small peoples. We cannot ignore the cumulative effect of allowing state after state to resort to the brutal resolution of disagreements with their ethnic minorities. That the world chose to forget the Armenian genocide is also evidence of a serious defect in the system of nation-states which needs to be rectified. In this respect, the continued effort to cover up the Armenian genocide may hold the most important lesson of all. With the passage of time, memory fades. Because of a campaign of denial, distortion, and cover-up, the seeds of doubt are planted, and the meaning of the past is questioned and its lessons for the present are lost.

This quotation brings out in full perspective the vacillations and hesitations by nation-states in the international system to confront genocide with all the attention it deserves. In other words, incidents of genocide are not unique to the modern era; however, ideas of Enlightenment have led to humans’ wish to continually improve their societies. If a certain group is seen as standing between the population and this goal, it can be seen as “rational” and legitimate to rid oneself of that group. The chances of genocide occurring against an out-group that is perceived as standing between society and utopia is more likely during times of hardship, such as those of war and economic crises. Humans feel the need to blame an out-group and eliminate that threat to society. Being part of a genocidal squad may give them the desired feeling of security during those times of instability. It is therefore imperative to monitor situations in countries like, especially those 31

where grievances against an out-group already exist, and to step in as soon as the country experiences changes in welfare. Genocide is not inevitable and the international community should never again fail to prevent it. In 1944, Raphael Lemkin coined the term “genocide” to describe a foreign occupation that destroys or permanently cripples a subject population. In this tradition, Empire, Colony, Genocide embeds genocide in the epochal geopolitical transformations of the past 500 years: the European colonization of the globe, the rise and fall of the continental land empires, violent decolonization, and the formation of nation states. This description thereby challenges the customary focus on twentieth-century mass crimes and shows that genocide and “ethnic cleansing” have been intrinsic to imperial expansion. The complexity of the colonial encounter is reflected in the contrast between the insurgent identities and genocidal strategies that subaltern peoples sometimes developed to expel the occupiers and those local elites and creole groups that the occupiers sought either to co-opt or exterminate. The word “genocide” was first coined by Polish lawyer Raphäel Lemkin in 1944 in his book Axis Rule in Occupied Europe. It consists of the Greek prefix genos, meaning race or tribe, and the Latin suffix cide, meaning killing. Lemkin developed the term partly in response to the Nazi policies of systematic murder of Jewish people during the Holocaust, but also in response to previous instances in history of targeted actions aimed at the destruction of particular groups of people. Later on, Raphäel Lemkin led the campaign to have genocide recognized and codified as an international crime. Genocide was first recognized as a crime under international law in 1946 by the United Nations General Assembly (A/RES/96I). It was codified as an independent crime in the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (the Genocide Convention). The Convention has been ratified by 149 States (as of January 2018). The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has repeatedly stated that the Convention embodies principles that are part of general customary international law. This means that whether or not states have ratified the Genocide Convention, they are all bound as a matter of law by the principle that genocide is a crime prohibited under international law. The ICJ has also stated that the prohibition of genocide is a peremptory norm of international law (or ius cogens) and consequently, no derogation from it is allowed. 32

Genocide is now understood as a major type of collective violence, with a distinctive place in the spectrum of political violence, armed conflict, and war, of which it is usually seen as a part. However, the idea of genocide dates only from the 1940s, when in the space of four years after its introduction (in a critique of Nazi occupation policies during the Second World War), it became the subject of a major international convention. The concept quickly became central to political and cultural discourses about violence, but the developed academic study of the phenomenon took some decades to develop, before finally taking off around the end of the Cold War. The rapidly expanding field is interdisciplinary, with major contributions from historians, sociologists, political scientists, anthropologists, legal scholars, and others. It has highly contested parameters, including the definition of the phenomenon, the universe of cases, the appropriate explanatory frameworks, and so on. It is also considerably politicized, with significant disagreements over how the academic study of genocide should be related to the development of international policies for its prevention. The field’s growth came initially through the extension of understandings of the Nazi genocide of the Jews, which by the late 20th century was known as “the Holocaust,” to other cases, both historic (such as the Ottoman extermination of the Armenians) and contemporary (such as the Cambodian and Rwandan genocides). However, it has since expanded to consider phenomena quite different from the Holocaust in scale and form, such as the diverse and long-drawnout pattern of genocide during European colonization of the nonWestern world. At the same time, the transformations of political violence and war in the post–Cold War world have led to new divergences over the applicability of the genocide idea to recent events. Recent cases, such as the former Yugoslavia, have raised questions about the relationships of population removal and sexual violence to genocide. Because of these tensions, the growth of the field has been accompanied by theoretical, paradigmatic, and political differences. This bibliography attempts to capture these features of a fast-moving academic field and to provide the reader with a way to explore its essential literature. The idea of genocide is more preoccupied than most with definitional issues. Lemkin (1944) originally proposed that genocide was the multimethod destruction of the social as well as physical existence of national groups, but this understanding has been modified in various ways. The 1948 UN Convention on the 33

Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (see United Nations 2000) maintained the core of this broad approach, slightly enlarging the range of groups while listing killing as only one of five types of genocidal act. This became the legal and political standard of genocide, and it has sometimes been used as a benchmark in academic studies. However, it has been criticized both for omitting political groups and social classes from the list of groups and for omitting specific mention of the forcible removal of populations, historically the main method through which population groups have been destroyed. After the early academic synthesis of Kuper (1981), writers in the emerging field of genocide studies widened the range of protected groups, either by adding to the UN list or by adopting more generic definitions (e.g., Fein 1990, Chalk and Jonassohn, 1990, and the edited volume Andreopoulos, 1994). Schabas (2000), however, resists this approach. These writers simultaneously narrowed genocide to physical and biological destruction, or “mass murder,” an approach maintained in Sémelin (2007). More recently, however, there has been a return to Lemkin’s broad definition of “destruction,” and Shaw (2007) proposes a sociological restatement of this idea. Presenting case studies on the Americas, Australia, Africa, Asia, the Ottoman Empire, Imperial Russia, and the Nazi “Third Reich”, leading authorities examine the colonial dimension of the genocide concept as well as the imperial systems and discourses that enabled conquest. Raphael Lemkin minted the word “genocide.” In 1943, as an act of pro-Allied academic war propaganda he spliced together a Greek prefix and a Latin suffix to coin the word which would be incanted on behalf of hyperstatism for the next 40 years. The term was the Aladdin’s Lamp which held together a cloud of fog oft-confused for powerful djinn and so worshipped in the halls of the United Nations, half the world’s parliaments, and a near majority of the United States Senate. The breadth and complexity of the definition of “genocide” results from several influences during the time Lemkin developed the concept. One of them is a belief that Nazi Germany was engineering a demographic revolution that would leave Germany predominant in Europe regardless of the outcome of the military conflict. This notion facilitated the assumption of a coherent cynical motivation behind disparate policies, laws, and decrees. Second, Lemkin’s daily work for the U.S. Government reinforced his focus on economic and legal matters and helps to 34

explain why they occupy such a prominent place in his book Axis Rule. His job provided Lemkin with good access to information and encouraged a detailed analysis of Nazi occupation techniques, but it prioritized economic exploitation over atrocities, with a view to restitution after the liberation of the occupied territories. Third, Lemkin’s strong focus on the law and his belief in the curative effect of law, although already evident before the war, was reinforced by his desire to prove German violations to a hesitant American public and by his hope to contribute to a legal condemnation of genocide in all of its forms after the war. This focus favoured Nazi violations of international law that could be proven through legal texts and therefore led to a broad definition of genocidal acts while obscuring the most heinous crime scenes during the time he developed the concept. One of them is a belief that Nazi Germany was engineering a demographic revolution that would leave Germany predominant in Europe regardless of the outcome of the his focus on economic and legal matters and helps to explain why they occupy such a prominent place in his book Axis Rule. His job provided occupation techniques, but it prioritized economic exploitation over atrocities, with a view to restitution after the liberation of the occupied strong focus on the law and his belief in the curative effect of law, although already evident before the war, was reinforced by his desire to prove German violations to a hesitant American public and by his hope to contribute to a legal condemnation of genocide in all of its forms after the war. This focus favoured Nazi violations of international law that could be proven through legal texts and therefore led to a broad definition of genocidal acts while obscuring the most heinous crimes. Raphaël Lemkin (1900-1959) coined the word “genocide” in the winter of 1942 and led a movement in the United Nations to outlaw the crime, setting his sights on reimagining human rights institutions and humanitarian law after World War II. After the UN adopted the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in 1948, Lemkin slipped into obscurity and within a few short years many of the same governments that had agreed to outlaw genocide and draft a Universal Declaration of Human Rights tried to undermine these principles. This intellectual biography of one of the twentieth century’s most influential theorists and human rights figures sheds new light on the origins of the concept and word “genocide,” contextualizing Lemkin’s intellectual development in interwar Poland and exploring 35

the evolving connection between his philosophical writings, juridical works, and politics over the following decades. Revealing what the word “genocide” meant to people in the wake of World War II—as the USSR and Western powers sought to undermine the Genocide Convention at the UN, while delegations from small states and former colonies became the strongest supporters of Lemkin’s law—Raphaël Lemkin and the Concept of Genocide examines how the meaning of genocide changed over the decades and highlights the relevance of Lemkin's thought to our own time. In other words, Lemkin’s thinking cannot be reduced to his experiences of any particular historical event or ethnicity. Within genocide studies, this claim is controversial. The Holocaust, the Armenian Genocide, the Ukrainian Great Famine, and European settler colonialism have all been offered up as the cases Lemkin intended the word “genocide” to signify. Seeking a form of equality that allowed for difference, Lemkin was representative of a common Jewish experience in his milieu, which “straddles the interstices of universal identifications and particular attachments.” The values necessary for creating a world without genocide, Lemkin unfortunately believed, could be translated into practice through social institutions such as the law—or through poetry, art, in college classrooms, in political movements, and in the stories parents told to their children. In this context, Lemkin saw international affairs, war, and peace not as the abstract relations between states but as social and political processes driven by individuals whose actions were determined by their values, sentiments, and ethics. To him, governments today could manage human life “like currency in a bank” because people did not believe that it was wrong to do so. The study of genocide has therefore generally been framed by legal and historical, rather than sociological perspectives. Law provided the impetus to the definition of the crime, through the pioneering efforts of Raphael Lemkin and the drafters of the United Nations Convention; it has continued to provide much of the drive towards recognition of recent genocides, in the work of the international criminal tribunals for former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. Historical studies account for the vast majority of genocide research, and have provided the main foundations for our knowledge. Yet law often provides too narrow a focus, separating genocide from the “crimes against humanity” and “war crimes” with which it is intimately linked, and concerned with individual criminal responsibility rather than explanation. And historical 36

studies tend to highlight the particularity of certain events rather than the commonalities that lead us to define a range of actions, by collective actors in situations separated by time and space, as “genocide.” Indeed, the majority of historical studies deal with a particular episode, the Holocaust, whose commonality with other genocides is often questioned by historians. Genocide studies, therefore, require a sociological framework specifying that genocide is a type of social action and social relationship and explains its typical connections with other types of social action and structure (Shaw 2003 and 2006). Explanatory Faultlines in the Lemkin Genocide Convention Model What is it precisely that the Genocide Convention Model cannot explain? Ultimately, it cannot account satisfactorily for why genocides occur. Its theory that genocidal elites perpetrate them in the name of a social utopia begs the question of the origin of such elites, why they are possessed by certain ideologies, and the nature of the crises that call them forth? The problem with the literature is that it takes too much for granted: revolution, expansion, and genocide are presented as givens in the context of which the real action takes place. For example, Weitz speculates that genocides in the twentieth century became so extensive and systematic because regimes engaged in massive social projects of mobilization for mass activities, like the construction of dams and population purges (2003: 15). That observation is fine as far as it goes, but the real question surely is why such regimes feel compelled to engage in them? What drives them? The same objection can be made to Kiernan’s point that his nostalgic cults of antiquity and agriculture are responses to modernization crises. The liberal method posits ideology as the prime mover of nefarious policies, but is it? The same question can be posed of ideology: what is the origin of expansionist or redemptive ideologies and what function do they serve? Likewise, if even ideology needs to be mediated by crisis to result in genocide, why focus on the contents of ideology as the independent variable instead of on the crisis? It is necessary, then, to account for the crises that have punctuated European, and indeed world history, for centuries. Naimark, Weitz, and Kiernan mention many conjunctures and hint at deeper processes, but the liberal method to which they subscribe means that they remain under-illuminated. 37

There are far-reaching consequences if we did study them, for we would need to revise the determination about genocide’s contingency. This reasoning leads me to conclude that in order to understand the genesis of genocide we need to revise the dominant, liberal methodology. Rather than look within the empire or nationstate alone—the endogenetic bias of nomothetic social science and comparative historiography—we need to cast our gaze beyond it to the global context in which they have to compete for survival. It is time to consider the proposition that the missing variable in the equation is the exogenous pressure of the international state and economic system; and to try to imagine the genocides of modernity as part of a single process rather than merely in comparative (and competitive) terms. War and Genocide: A Sociological Approach The inability of Genocide Studies to predict or interdict genocides is a problem (Moses, 2006), and it is worthwhile considering why. Constituted mainly by social scientists from North America, the field has been dominated by the nomothetic approach that seeks hard knowledge in the form of universal laws with predictive potential. The idiographic approach of historians has not prevailed. Above all, it sought to elucidate a general theory of genocide by identifying the central elements in a genocidal conjuncture in the manner of a mathematical equation. The study of genocide has therefore generally been framed by legal and historical, rather than sociological perspectives. Law provided the impetus to the definition of the crime, through the pioneering efforts of Raphael Lemkin and the drafters of the United Nations Convention; it has continued to provide much of the drive towards recognition of recent genocides, in the work of the international criminal tribunals for former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. Historical studies account for the vast majority of genocide research, and have provided the main foundations for our knowledge. Yet law often provides too narrow a focus, separating genocide from the “crimes against humanity” and “war crimes” with which it is intimately linked, and concerned with individual criminal responsibility rather than explanation. And historical studies tend to highlight the particularity of certain events rather than the commonalities that lead us to define a range of actions, by collective actors in situations separated by time and space, as “genocide.” Indeed, the majority of historical studies deal with a 38

particular episode, the Holocaust, whose commonality with other genocides is often questioned by historians. Genocide studies, therefore, require a sociological framework specifying that genocide is a type of social action and social relationship and explains its typical connections with other types of social action and structure. In recent books (Shaw 2003 and 2006), I have outlined a framework for understanding these two central and inter-related questions. My approach links genocide closely to war and it is this connection that is the primary focus of this article. Genocide and the Imperial State Some scholars have examined Nazi ideology and policies towards Eastern Europe within the context of imperialism and colonialism. • Imperialism is a state’s extension of power over lands or peoples beyond its borders, including through conquest, acquisition, or the extension of political or economic control. • Colonialism is a form of imperialism in which a state establishes control over a territory by settling it with people from outside the territory.

Historically the following twentieth century cases of atrocity have been labelled as genocide by many scholars of genocide (Totten et al, 2004): genocide of the Hereros; the Armenian genocide; the Soviet man-made famine in Ukraine; the Nazi genocide of Jew, Gypsies, Russians, disabled persons and homosexuals; the Indonesian massacres of suspected Communists; the genocide in East Timor; the Bangladesh genocide; the genocide of the Hutu in Burundi; the Cambodian genocide; the Iraqi genocide of the Kurds in the late 1980s; the 1994 Rwandan genocide; the genocide perpetrated in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s; the genocide in Sudan. However, few of the foregoing cases are definable as genocide in terms of article II of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide (1948). Even if one was to refer solely to those cases deemed to constitute genocide in terms of the UNGC , there is still no crime in the twentieth century that has been more costly, more devastating, and more global in its impact. Genocide undoubtedly presents one of the most complete and conspicuous illustrations of state crime in violation of international criminal law. 39

In the modern era, many states have pursued policies of imperialism and colonialism that were based in part on racist or ethnic assumptions about the indigenous people they sought to control. For example, Adolf Hitler maintained that the German Volk (a national or ethnic group defined by its supposed race) was destined to control Eastern Europe. He saw parts of Eastern Europe as the German people’s rightful Lebensraum (“living space”). Hitler’s goal was not only to conquer Eastern Europe. He also sought to replace most of its “inferior” indigenous population with Germans and those considered to have “Germanic blood.” Nazi racist imperialism led Germany to pursue very different occupation policies in Eastern Europe than in Western and Southern Europe. Under Article 2 of the 1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, genocide is legally defined as “any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life, calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; [and] forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.” The historical relationship between imperialism and genocide is vast and well-established. This relationship is generally understood to be rooted in acts of physical violence perpetrated by imperial powers in the processes of conquest and territorial expansion. What is less understood is the connection between imperialism and genocide found in indirect physical violence and other forms of violence carried out by settler-colonial regimes and the colonial powers. There is a reason for this. The imperial and colonial powers actively worked to ensure that the legal definition of genocide codified in the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948; abbreviated to Genocide Convention from this point forward) did not contain elements that would implicate them in the commission of genocide. Indeed, genocidal practice has been inherent to imperial powers from the earliest times. While most empires have been consciously multicultural, they are all established and maintained by violence, a class of which is designed to eliminate particularly recalcitrant opponents in order both to prevent further resistance and also to terrorize the remainder into acquiescence. The Persians destroyed 40

Miletus during the Ionian Revolts; Alexander obliterated the city of Plataea; the Romans targeted and sought to eliminate the Druids; in the fourteenth century Timur (Tamerlane) established an empire across Eurasia based upon the terror inspired by genocide. In his campaigns in India, he slew all of the inhabitants of Batnir and Meerut, marking his progress with vast pyramids of heads. He marked his 1399 capture of Delhi with four of these, at each corner of the city. He punished the rebellion of Isfahan in 1387 by massacre, and a tower of seventy thousand skulls was piled up. Genocidal massacres were also employed in his capture, variously, of Baghdad, Damascus, and Tiflis (Katz 1994: 94). The impact of the imperial encounter between the Old World and the New was immediately genocidal. In 1519, Hernan Cortes slaughtered or deported all of the inhabitants of the town of Cholula, and in 1521, he marked his recapture of the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan by the massacre of its surviving inhabitants, in the course of which an estimated 100,000 people were slain (Churchill 1997, 98). The muskets and cannon of the conquistadors were accompanied by the smallpox pathogen. While there is some (relatively late) evidence of the deliberate infection of indigenous people with smallpox in North America, such an act was largely unnecessary. Smallpox, typhus, and other imported diseases wrought havoc among the indigenous peoples, leading within a few decades to unsustainable population levels (Stannard 1992, 102– 112; Churchill 1997, 129–157). In respect to the European discovery of the New World, particularly the confrontation with its indigenous peoples, it has been argued that “the sixteenth century perpetrated the greatest genocide in human history” (Todorov 1984, 5). Loss of connection between War and Genocide It is evident that genocide was first recognized in the context of war: the word was invented by Lemkin to describe atrocities against civilians under Axis Rule in Occupied Europe (the title of his foundational 1944 book). As he described it, genocide was “a concentrated and coordinated attack upon all the elements of nationhood” among the various occupied peoples. Genocide was a warlike campaign, occurring in the context of war, but fundamentally opposed to legitimate warfare:

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Genocide is the antithesis of the ... doctrine (…) [which] holds that war is directed against sovereigns and armies, not against subjects and civilians. In its modern application in civilized society, the doctrine means that war is conducted against states and armed forces and not against populations. It required a long period of evolution in civilized society to mark the way from wars of extermination, which occurred in ancient times and in the Middle Ages, to the conception of wars as being essentially limited to activities against armies and states. (Lemkin, 1944:80)

This seminal statement pinpointed the fact that identifying genocide as a criminal activity distinct from war still depended on the modern distinction between “civilized” and “uncivilized” warfare. Only by distinguishing between “sovereigns and armies” on the one hand, and “subjects and civilians” on the other, could genocide be differentiated from war. Although genocide should be defined as a crime sui generis, which might occur at least exceptionally in “peacetime” outside the context of more conventional warfare, it was in effect a new, modern form of the historic “wars of extermination.” These connections of genocide with war, in terms of context and meaning, remained central to the first legal uses of the idea. Only because genocide occurred in the context of an aggressive war did the United Nations consider themselves entitled to prosecute Nazi leaders for it at Nuremberg. Yet in the subsequent definition of genocide as the supreme international crime, the UN separated it from war. Thus, Resolution 96(I) of the General Assembly, adopted unanimously on 11 December 1946, defined genocide as “a denial of the right of existence of entire human groups, as homicide is the denial of the right to live of individual human beings.” As William Schabas (2000:46) commented, this formulation eliminated “any nexus between genocide and armed conflict”; for him this was “the unfortunate legacy of the Nuremberg jurisprudence.” However, there is reason to question whether this was such a fortunate move. Although it was certainly important to emphasize the fundamental difference of genocide from legitimate war, and the difference between a deliberate attack on a civilian population as such and crimes (against civilians or soldiers) committed in the course of otherwise legitimate war, these formulations, culminating in the 1948 Genocide Convention, also mitigated understanding of the deep connections between these different types of action. 42

Connections of context and causality Lemkin’s concept of genocide was “the culmination of a long tradition of European legal and political critique of imperialism and warfare against civilians. All of the instances about which he wrote for his projected world history of genocide occurred in imperial contexts,” such as the destruction of Carthage, the Crusades, massacres of the Herero, and genocides under Ottoman rule, or involved deliberate attacks on civilian populations in warfare (Moses 2010: 25). These connections can be defined as ones of context, and therefore causality; but also, more deeply, of meaning. The contextualization of genocide by war is manifest in most historical studies. Beginning with Nazism, it is evident how fundamentally this genocidal movement was defined by the experience of war and militaristic ideology. From its earliest street-fighting days the Nazi party defined political and social groups—Communists, Jews, homosexuals—as enemies linked in gigantic geopolitical conspiracies, to be “destroyed” in a quasi-military sense. Although genocidal policies began as the Nazi regime consolidated its control over German society, it was only as it moved into aggressive war that the most generally murderous phases began. Only with the launching of war did the regime feel able to coolly terminate the lives of disabled Germans, freeing up hospital capacity for others deemed more essential to the fight. Only then, too, did Nazism gain a hold over large numbers of Poles, whom it regarded as inferior, and with them the largest Jewish populations in Europe. Under the cover of aggression and large military movements it was possible to destroy historic communities, herding Poles eastwards and Jews into ghettos. And only as total war became ever more extreme, in the invasion of the Soviet Union, did Nazi policy move towards physical extermination of enemies such as Communists, Gypsies and above all Jews. Similar contexts apply in other major genocidal episodes. The Young Turk regime in the Ottoman Empire targeted the Armenians during the First World War, seeing them both as potential allies of the Russian enemy and as obstacles to the kind of Turkish nation they wanted to create. The Soviet regime destroyed the Chechen and Volga German peoples during the Second World War, seeing them as potential allies of the Nazi enemy. The Khmer Rouge concluded their war against the US-backed Lon No.1 regime by instituting the first phase of genocide against urban and educated 43

sections of the population, together with ethnic and national minorities. More recently, Serbian nationalists launched their wars in the former Yugoslavia by destroying Croat and Bosnian Muslim communities. Rwandan Hutu nationalists launched their genocide of the opposition and the Tutsi population while their regime was facing successful armed incursions by the Rwandan Patriotic Front. Serbia launched its destruction of the Kosovo Albanian community in response to Kosovo Liberation Army attacks, and especially NATO’s bombing. These examples and others support the idea of close links between genocide and war. Certainly, genocidal episodes do occur outside the context of conventional war, although even these tend to be directed by militaristic regimes, such as the campaigns of Stalin’s Russia and Mao’s China against peasants and national minorities. These regimes had recent histories of civil war and viewed social groups in the fashion of armed enemies. However, these examples caution against any simple idea of “war” itself as a cause of genocide; indeed, the many cases of genocide in wartime do not tell us why some wars see genocides and some parties in wars commit genocide, and others do not. All that these many cases do is to point overwhelmingly to the centrality of these linkages, underlining the misconception involved in trying to separate genocide from war, conceptually or causally, in any definitive way. Connections of meaning If it is not “war” itself that is causal, nevertheless, ideas of war are important in the production of genocide. It occurs when an organized, armed collective actor comes to define a social group or population as an enemy, not merely in a political but in an essentially military sense, i.e. as an enemy to be destroyed. Hence the continuing relevance of Lemkin’s early formulation of genocide as illegitimate war, and the significance of the common element of destruction in the definitions of war and of genocide. War, following Clausewitz, is the destruction by one armed actor of an armed enemy, its power and its will to resist. Genocide is the destruction by an armed actor of an unarmed social group, its power and its will to resist. Hence the significance for understanding genocide of the distinctions (drawn from the law, philosophy and theory of war) between armed and unarmed (civilians), between organized military power and (militarily unorganized) social and cultural power, and between conventional military resistance and civilian resistance. 44

Genocide as action means something very similar to war, except that it is directed by one type of actor at another very different type - whereas in “normal” war the opposed actors are of the same organized military type, however else they may differ. But just as war is not merely something that one actor does to another, so genocide involves relationships between the armed and unarmed actors. Genocide is often thought of as something “perpetrators” do to “victims,” but in reality it is also a form of social conflict, however unequal and distorted, so that perpetrators must take account of victims’ responses, and vice versa. The idea of genocide without resistance of any kind, if only in the minds of “helpless” victims or through proxies, is absurd, a reductio ad absurdam of the “one-sided” character of genocide. Changing structures of warfare and contemporary genocide If we can map - with crucial differences - the ideas of war on to the forms of genocidal action and conflict, then clearly we must explore the ways in which specific forms of warfare, in different periods, are instrumental in creating possibilities of genocide. Moving from the meaning of genocide to its causality, the structures of war will be central. Except in the case of the most highly militarized regimes, and indeed often even in those cases, the operational destruction of a social group rarely takes place, or at least does not reach its most extreme phases, until the perpetrator state or movement is engaged in extensive armed conflict. Where armed forces, whether conventional or party/movement-based, are already mobilized and using violence, it is easier to re-direct them against civilians. Indeed, where armed men are already using violence against civilians in the pursuit of more or less conventional war against other armed forces, it is easier to mobilize them against particular civilian groups as such. Historically this has suggested, of course, that modern total warfare, developed in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries through extensive physical, economic, social, cultural and ideological mobilization of populations, particularly facilitated genocide. Although, as Lemkin noted, the idea of a “war of extermination” has longer historical antecedents, modern genocide is the product of modern war. Although not all sides in all wars have practiced genocide, of course, the common structure of total warfare, in which mobilizing whole populations leads to these populations becoming targets, makes it easier for genocidal States 45

and movements, in their ideologies, to designate specific groups of civilian populations as enemies in themselves. Recognizing this important structural feature of twentiethcentury warfare naturally leads to asking whether and how, as warfare has changed, patterns of genocide have also been modified. The decline of total-war mobilization in advanced industrial states, and indeed of war itself between major states in the international system, as well as the disappearance of classically totalitarian states, all appear to be associated with a decline in large-scale, ideologically intensive and multi-targeted genocidal episodes. On the other hand, the fragmentation of old empires into larger numbers of nation-states has been associated with an extension of the long-standing trend towards ethnic homogenization, so that genocidal expulsion (often recognized under the euphemistic label ‘ethnic cleansing’) may actually have become more widespread. The emergence of global surveillance warfare (Shaw 2005:Chapter 3) means that local States and armed movements have to engage with extensive international political, legal and media monitoring of their activities, but so far this has stimulated new practices of manipulation and denial by genocidal political forces, rather than any general inhibition of genocide. For example, the normalization of electoral democracy in the global order has generated an incentive to murderous expulsion, as regimes have sought to homogenize their electorates. Likewise, the global media impact of spectacular terrorist atrocities against unarmed populations has encouraged relatively weak armed networks to make civilians their prime targets, thus pushing contemporary forms of guerrilla warfare in ever-more genocidal directions. Lemkin and “New Justice” for Victims of Genocide It was not until the 1990s that international humanitarian law (IHL), which is considered as part of the laws or war and armed conflict, began to be considered a part of the human rights movement. Certainly, the human rights and IHL movements drew on the same political and philosophical traditions, many of which can be found universally throughout human history. Yet, the two traditions developed distinctly. Human rights emerged most directly from the traditions of the Rights of Man and civil rights— movements that sought to uphold individual rights through a relationship of duties and obligations between the state and the citizen. In the eighteenth century, liberal revolutions in the United 46

States, France, and Haiti, among others, deployed this conception of rights to try and limit the reach of church and state, to mitigate their arbitrary exercise of power and their use of prejudice and traditions to justify social misery. Rights took their form in the concept of citizenship, which invigorated the concept of democracy and demanded a vision of equality and tolerance that would allow public life to be shaped by the will of people, while safeguarding the private sphere to allow individuals to freely exercise their subjectivity. The nineteenth century saw the rise of the abolition of slavery and universal suffrage movements. This was followed by socialist movements in industrializing societies that argued that economic inequality was making the promise of democracy hollow and that sought to expand the principles of democracy by means of free public education, women's legal and economic empowerment, workplace labour laws, child labour laws, free and clean public parks, and food purity laws. All of these movements held that the state had a duty to extend citizenship rights to more and more of its population, to protect the well-being of citizens, and to ensure that all citizens could reasonably expect to be treated equally and enjoy equal representation and participation in the political, social, and economic spheres. In contrast to the emerging tradition of human rights broadly defined, international law in the eighteenth century took shape as a system of treaties between the governments of sovereign states concerning matters that ranged from which side of channels ships could sail on to the protocols for establishing foreign embassies and the conduct of armies in war. The categories of actors at the heart of international law—the war criminal and the terrorist—originated from the concept of the pirate, a category of actor who was presented as a violator of the laws of nations, an apolitical and antisocial figure who threatened the welfare of states but acted without the sanction of a sovereign state and was, therefore, susceptible to prosecution by any state in the world. By the nineteenth century, IHL emerged within the laws of war, and articulated an assumption first outlined by Jean-Jacques Rousseau in The Social Contract, that war was a relationship between states, not peoples. The people who tried to kill each other on the battlefield were not seen as engaging in hostilities toward each other as individuals. The Hague Regulations of 1899 codified the Rousseau-Portalis Doctrine of 1801, which sought to protect civilians and society from the excesses of warfare between the armies of states. Humanitarian protections entered into the law in 47

the form of provisions protecting populations and societies from conflicts between states. These provisions included treaties to ensure armed combatants did not torture each other after being captured, that gruesome weaponry should be outlawed, and that civilians should be protected during armed conflict. Legal protections for individuals did not enter into IHL as a way to protect individuals' rights but as a way for protecting society and populations. Wartime rape, for example, was outlawed under the laws of war, not because it violated the rights of a woman as an individual but because it violated a woman’s dignity and “family honour,” which threatened the well-being of a society; likewise, young women were not to be killed, not because they had a right to life but because they could be nursing mothers whose death would harm the long-term welfare of a population. The point when the human rights, the humanitarian intervention, and the IHL movements eventually overlapped was when they claimed that states had a responsibility to provide for the safety and welfare of their own populations as a criteria of individual rights. International law is not a neutral undertaking, but enmeshed in international politics and developed through ideological debates. Governments seek to use international law for political gains or to establish the legitimacy of favourable regimes. International courts are effective tools for shaping interpretations of history to further these ends. That international law and justice are political endeavours does not rule out the possibility that they can play a normative or pedagogical role in societies. Nor does it negate the fact that the creation of international laws and the application of international justice were honest attempts to deal with historical crises by repairing the fabric of societies and altering political systems to prevent the recurrence of atrocities. The “new justice” that European jurists pursued after the Paris Peace Conference until the 1950s, Mark Lewis writes, coalesced around a cluster of interrelated ideas that sought lasting social and political change in world society by amending the tradition of IHL to secure peace in an era with historical conditions that were fundamentally different from the previous century. This “new justice” included the idea that individual criminal liability for violations of international law was valid; that prosecuting a head of state, government official, or military officer was legitimate; that a state should extradite certain perpetrators of international crimes if it wanted to return to a community of nations; that international tribunals offered distinct advantages over national tribunals, in terms of greater legitimacy 48

and greater ability to shape normative beliefs throughout the world against certain types of offenses that no single state was capable of handling on its own; and that international law could be altered according to new social and political contexts that revealed deficiencies within previous laws and legal systems, without any prior positive basis to do so. Lemkin was very much part of this “new justice” movement during the interwar years. He arrived at the conclusion that war in the twentieth century was not only being waged by armies against armies to gain control of territories but by states against populations to shape the identities of people living within state borders for material or political interests, both perceived and real. For Lemkin, if IHL was to be a source of peace in the new century, it had to evolve along with these changing historical realities to recognize the changing nature of conflict, while embracing individual rights. Lemkin's goal was not to use the law to create a world that would give groups a right to exist. He wanted, instead, to use the law to try and create a world in which people did not attempt to destroy entire groups. In his social scientific writings, Lemkin railed against organic nationalism because it denied that nations and cultures were always changing, and it denied that an individual could belong to more than one nation or culture. Genocide had existed throughout history, Lemkin wrote, but it found an extreme articulation the twentieth century's organic nationalist movements, which applied military force against entire populations for no other reason than to destroy entire social groups as organic entities. Even if these movements did not manifest in genocides, Lemkin argued, allowing them flourish would lead to a world in which diversity and pluralism were not seen as positive forces that allowed individuals to enrich their lives through new subjective experiences. The purpose of outlawing genocide was not to protect groups as organic entities, Lemkin felt. The purpose of outlawing genocide was to prevent people from justifying misery and oppression on the grounds of the victims' subjective identity, or any other arbitrary criterion such as race or religion. In such a way, the law against genocide, for Lemkin, belonged to this new category of crimes against humanity, safeguarding an individual's right to belong to whichever (and however many) nations she wanted to belong to and express the national identities she wished to express. Lemkin's argument was very much a communitarian argument, but one that he pended on individualist grounds while insisting that no individual could be reduced to any one group. 49

Thus, my approach to genocide, informed by social theory, understands it as a fundamentally illegitimate variant of warfare directed against civilian social groups as such rather than armed enemies, that most often takes place in contexts of more generalized, more conventional warfare. While it is true that genocide, once unleashed, often requires anti-genocidal military action to halt it, it follows that more profound policies to prevent and inhibit genocide must be closely linked with policies to reduce the possibilities of war in global society. This approach entails the decolonization of genocide. Decolonizing Genocide Decolonizing genocide requires the reinstitution of a Lemkinian concept of genocide that explicitly reconnects genocide to imperialism in both its historic forms, including conquest, territorial expansion, settler colonialism, and colonization and colonialism, and its more modern iterations, such as wars of aggression, including in some cases “humanitarian intervention,” neocolonialism, economic and cultural imperialism, and structural violence. Decolonizing genocide also requires the inclusion of the voices of victims and survivors – the voices of resistance – and not on the terms of the states that have committed genocide and colonized the Genocide Convention but rather on the terms of the affected peoples. Decolonization cannot take place when the colonizer dictates the terms. If we are to have a concept of genocide for the twenty-first century, one that reflects the realities of group-based violence – cultural, physical, and structural – that threaten the survival of peoples as such, it must incorporate the lived experiences of those who have been targeted with such violence. Anything less is an abdication of control over defining genocide to the very powers that have benefitted the most historically from the original drafting and negotiating processes and will gladly continue to reap the benefits in the future. Finally, decolonizing genocide requires that past genocides not be left in the past, including those that preceded the adoption and entry into force of the Genocide Convention and those that do not fit neatly under the legal definition codified within. Perpetrators of genocide must not be permitted to ignore and whitewash their histories on founding myths, revolutionary ideologies, and claims of 50

benevolence under pretexts of defending territorial integrity and national sovereignty. Territories under colonial control that would later gain their independence were denied the right to participate in the drafting of the Genocide Convention, its negotiating process, and in voting to determine whether it would become open for ratification in the form it ultimately took. Furthermore, it is doubtful that it would have taken its final form had formerly colonized territories and representatives of indigenous groups been permitted to participate in the drafting and negotiating processes. Related to this latter point, Haiti—itself made up of people who had to utilize extreme violence to gain their independence—proposed at the Sixth Committee that members of groups affected by genocide have legal standing to call upon the United Nations for their own protection. Haiti argued that if only states were able to report genocide, and not the members of victimized groups, the possibility remained that a state could be both the perpetrator of genocide and the only organ with the authority to initiate protective proceedings (Abtahi and Webb, 2008). Haiti’s proposal failed to elicit any debate. Hence, there must be redress for past, as well as present and future, acts of genocide. I cannot conclude this literature review without drawing our readers’ attention to structural and systemic violence. Structural violence is a term commonly ascribed to Johan Galtung, which he introduced in the article “Violence, Peace, and Peace Research” (1969). It refers to a form of violence wherein some social structure or social institution may harm people by preventing them from meeting their basic needs. Institutionalized adultism, ageism, classism, elitism, ethnocentrism, nationalism, speciesism, racism, and sexism are some examples of structural violence as proposed by Galtung. According to Galtung, rather than conveying a physical image, structural violence is an “avoidable impairment of fundamental human needs”. As it is avoidable, structural violence and systemic are a high cause of premature death and unnecessary disability in Ambazonia from 1960 till today in the Republic of Cameroun. Because structural violence affects people differently in various social structures, it is very closely linked to social injustice. Structural violence and direct violence are highly interdependent, including family violence, gender violence, hate crimes, racial violence, police, gendarme, bureaucratic, and military violence, state violence, terrorism, and war. 51

References Abtahi, H., & Webb, P. (2008). The genocide convention: The Travaux Préparatoires. Boston: Martinus Nijhoff. See also, Ad Hoc Committee Draft of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. (1948). Available at www.preventgenocide.org/law/convention/drafts/. Accessed 1 May 2016. Andreopoulos, G. J., ed. (1994). Genocide: Conceptual and historical dimensions. Philadelphia: Univ. of Pennsylvania Press. E-mail Citation » This volume gathered essays by most of the early scholars of genocide, providing an entry point to the definitional debate in that period. Chalk, F., and K. Jonassohn. (1990). The history and sociology of genocide: Analyses and case studies. New Haven, CT: Yale Univ. Press. E-mail Citation » An ambitious early synthesis of the conceptual and historical issues, noteworthy for its definition, which emphasized that target groups are not defined objectively, but subjectively by the perpetrators. Fein, H. (1990). Genocide: A sociological perspective. Current Sociology 38.1: 1–126. E-mail Citation » In the course of the first general review of the literature on genocide, Fein proposed a sociological reworking of the UN definition, reinterpreting “intentional” as “sustained purposive action” and reinterpreting the protected groups as “basic kinds, classes, or sub-families of humanity, persisting units of society.” Galtung, J. (1969). Violence, Peace, and Peace Research . Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 6, No. 3 (1969), pp. 167-191 Katz, S.T. (1994). The Holocaust in historical context: Vol 1. The Holocaust and mass death before the modern age. New York: Oxford University Press. Kuper, L. (1981). Genocide: Its political use in the twentieth century. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Kuper, L. (1981). Genocide. Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin. E-mail Citation » This historically wide-ranging book was the first major academic work on the history and sociology of genocide, notable for its emphasis on colonialism as a context of genocide and for introducing the concept of “genocidal massacre.” 52

Lemkin, R.(1944). Axis Rule in Occupied Europe: Laws of Occupation, Analysis of Government, Proposals for Redress, Washington: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Department of International Law. Marx, Karl. (1967) [1876], Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, edited by Friedrich Engels, New York: International Press. Marx, Karl 1993 [1857–8/1939], Grundrisse: Foundations of the Critique of Political Economy (Rough Draft),translated by Martin Nicolaus, Harmondsworth: Penguin. Marx, Karl.(1994, Selected Writings, edited by Lawrence H. Simon, Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing. Marx, Karl and Frederick Engels.(2004) [1846/1932], The German Ideology. Part One, with Selections from Parts Two and Three and Supplementary Texts, edited by C.J. Arthur, New York: International Publishers. Schabas, W., (2000).Genocide in International Law, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Moses, A. Dirk. (2008). “Genocide and Modernity,” in Dan Stone, ed., The Historiography of Genocide. Houndmills: Palgrave, MacMillan, 156-93. Moses, A. D. (2010). Raphael Lemkin, culture, and the concept of genocide. In D. Bloxham & A. D. Moses (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of genocide studies (pp. 19–41). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sémelin, J. (2007). Purify and destroy. London: Hurst. E-mail Citation » An ambitious and wide-ranging study, upholding a narrow definition of genocide as the “total eradication” or mass murder of a group, and making a clear distinction between genocide and massacres. Shaw, M.(2003). War and Genocide, Cambridge: Polity. Shaw, M,(2005). The New Western Way of War, Cambridge: Polity. Shaw, M. (2007). What Is Genocide?, Cambridge: Polity. Stannard, D. (1992). American Holocaust: The conquest of the New World. New York: Oxford University Press. Totten, S., Parsons, W.S., and Charny, I.W., (2004), Century of Genocide: Critical Essays and Eyewitness Accounts, New York, Routledge United Nations. (2000). 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. In Documents on the laws of war. 3d ed. Edited by A. Roberts and R. Guelff, 181–194. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press. 53

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Chapter Three Understanding the Root Causes of the Raging Genocide in Former British Southern Cameroons* Overview The twenty first century is experiencing its first genocide in human history. It is playing out in the former UN Trust Territory of the Southern Cameroons (Ambazonia, hereunder) despite the global “Never Again” pronouncements against genocide. Thus, genocide is not as easy to prevent, stop and eradicate as originally thought. One of the main issues related to the prevention of genocide is its definition. Since Raphael Lemkin (1946) first coined the term in 1944, genocide has been understood differently by different people. This paper attempts to bring out the root causes of the ongoing genocide in Ambazonia that has emerged as President Paul Biya’s greatest security debacle in nearly four decades in power (Reuters, 2018). The findings suggest at least five origins or root causes of the ongoing genocide in Ambazonia namely: (a) aborted decolonization; (b) annexation and attendant re-colonization; (c) natural resources; (d) ambiguities in defining sovereignty and human rights; and, (e) confusion between interference in internal affairs and saving mankind from the “scourge of war.”

“Anglophone Crisis” as Misguided Theorizing and Application Cameroon, a country once considered to be a harmonious state and a “safe haven” amongst turmoil in Central Africa, is now at the brink of a “full-blown revolt” (Dominion Post 2018), as the Anglophone problem (JUA, 2003) has escalated into an intractable genocide (Chalk and Jonassohn, 1990: 44). After several decades of increasing political asphyxiation, economic and social marginalization or exclusion, peaceful Ambazonian protests against the government of Cameroon have erupted into overt violence and calls for restoration of statehood. Over 2018 in particular, tension and violence has escalated significantly and has grabbed international media attention. With increasing unrest and exposure, the Francophone-majority government is both internally and externally attempting to conceal the gravity of the crisis and punish 55

defectors. Recent theatrical “dialogue” has not led to de-escalation or conflict management as the region propels further towards civil war and genocide, with no peaceful resolution in sight. “Anglophone Crisis?” The mist and veil of word- “Anglophone” (Atanga, 2011) is vital to understanding issues of the raging genocide. The powers and abilities conferred by the use of language entail cognitive successes of various kinds (Wolf, 2006). But language may also be the source of cognitive failures, of course. The idea that language is potentially misleading is familiar from many practical contexts, perhaps especially politics. The same danger exists everywhere, however, including in scholarly and scientific research. In scriptural interpretation, for example, it is imperative to distinguish true interpretations of a text from false ones; this in turn requires thinking about the stability of linguistic meaning and about the use of analogy, metaphor, and allegory in textual analysis. Often the danger is less that meanings may be misidentified than that the text may be misconceived through alien categories entrenched (and thus unnoticed) in the scholar’s own language (Ernest and Smith, 2008). The same worries apply to the interpretation of works of literature, legal documents, and scientific treatises. In fact, language is a central component of human existence. This platitude gives rise to at least two motivations to study the philosophy of language. The first is to better understand how language fits into other human activities, such as communication and the transmission of knowledge (rather than merely the transmission of belief) and the ways speech acts can be used to accomplish a number of different aims. Misidentification has thus tortured the explanation of what is really going on in Former UN Trust Territory of the Southern Cameroons (Ambazonia). Despite persistent denial of the Anglophone problem by majority-led Francophone government leaders (Konings and Nyamnjoh, 1997), growing discontent persists amongst Anglophones, both young and old, as to how Anglophones are treated. Both scholars argue that the political agenda in Cameroon has become increasingly dominated by what is known as the ‘Anglophone problem’ (JUA, 2003), which poses a major challenge to the efforts of the “post-colonial state” to forge national unity and integration, and has led to the reintroduction of forceful arguments and actions in favour of ‘federalism’ or even ‘secession.’ It is noteworthy that 56

federalism and secession are not alternative forms of state. The former is but the latter is not a form of state. Further, federalism and secession are not mutually exclusive in this context, in the sense that secession could well lead to federalism as a form of state. Some of the specific signals that may come into play in the misrepresented “Anglophone Crisis” include: (a) ongoing civil and human rights violations, particularly those that target specific groups of people (as was common during the Nazi reign of reign of terror during the Holocaust years); (b) newspaper articles or radio commentaries that systematically disparage, malign, or attempt to ostracize a particular group (again, this use of media for organized propaganda was common during the Holocaust); (c) radio reports that incite violence against a particular group of people (as happened in Rwanda during the 1994 genocide); (d) sporadic and violent attacks against a particular group of people by government or government-sponsored forces; and (e) “ethnic cleansing,” wherein a targeted group is forced en masse from their homes, communities, and region (as has been taking place in the Former Southern British Cameroons or the United Nations Trust Territory of the Ambazonia since President Paul Biya declared war against those people” (victims of genocide) on November 30th, 2017. Ironically, many continue to claim and attribute the on-going carnage in Ambazonia to a language problem or linguistic differences (Niying, 2016). Really? Strangely, Francophone Cameroonian scholars and politicians have been inclined to perceive Anglophone nationalism as an unexpected, recent invention (Donfack 1998; Menthong 1998). They appear to have been convinced that the post-colonial state’s imposition of a project of nationalisme upon the existing ethnic and national identities had effectively wiped out most traces of “Anglophoneness”, or what Edwin Ardener (1967: 292) referred to as a “distinctively British Cameroonian way of life”, from the public space. This is evidenced by a recent statement from the former Vice-Prime Minister in charge of Housing and Town Planning, Hamadou Mustapha: ”À un moment donné effectivement, on a commencé à oublier que les Anglophones étaient là; on a eu l’impression que les Anglophones s’étaient déjà francophonisés”(At a certain time people started forgetting the presence of Anglophones, my translation). Francophone scholars and politicians also tend to attribute the emergence of Anglophone nationalism in the public space mainly to the mobilization efforts of a few discontented elites who were denied a place at the “dining table” during political liberalization 57

(Sindjoun, 1995; Nkoum-Me-Ntseny, 1996; Menthong, 1998). Their explanation in terms of opportunistic entrepreneurs in search of a political market comes close to the government position on Anglophone nationalism. Probably on the assumption that government strategies of control, notably the frequent use of state violence, divide-and-rule tactics, and the co-optation of some Anglophone elites into the regime, would be effective, they wrongly claimed that Anglophone nationalism would never witness an exponential growth in the public arena (Sindjoun, 1995: 114). All these excuses notwithstanding, it is commonplace that most responsible world leaders decry the act of genocide. The problem is that they seem to do so after the fact, that is, after an act of genocide has been committed and members of the targeted group are lying dead in the tens to hundreds of thousands, if not millions. Indeed, during those periods when genocide is actually being carried out, it almost seems as if world leaders—including those at the United Nations—are time and again playing out a deadly and scurrilous game of “see no evil, hear no evil.” Undoubtedly, there are numerous reasons why world leaders, both individually and collectively, persistently ignore both the early warning signs of an impending genocide as well as the actual genocidal events. These include, but are not limited to, the following: (a) the concept of so-called “internal affairs” and the related issue of the primacy of national sovereignty, which causes many nations to hesitate before becoming involved in another nation’s internal affairs; (b) the hesitancy to commit one’s troops to a dangerous situation; (c) the lack of care regarding the problems of a nation whose geopolitical status is deemed “insignificant”; (d) the wariness of many nations at entering into agreements that could, at some point, subordinate national sovereignty to international will; and (e) a myriad of other reasons related directly to the concept of realpolitik. Not surprisingly, the issue of “internal affairs” is often used by genocidal nations to keep “outsiders” at bay, and “bystander” nations as an excuse for not acting to prevent the genocide. In effect, the group perpetrating genocide is asserting, “This is our business, not yours (e.g., the international community’s), and we will handle our problems as we wish.” Conversely, and while possibly sickened by the actions of the genocidal state, the onlooker nations are, in effect, saying, “As disturbing as the situation is, it (the perpetration of genocide) is their problem, not ours.” Left unsaid but subsumed under the latter is the notion that “We don’t 58

want other nations poking their noses in our business, and thus we won’t poke our nose in theirs.” There is no doubt that the principle of non-intervention remains a well-established part of international law. The prohibition of intervention “is a corollary of every state’s right to sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence” (Oppenheim’s International Law, p 428). The Friendly Relations Declaration (UNGA res. 2625(XXV) 1970) includes a whole section on ‘The principle concerning the duty not to intervene in matters within the domestic jurisdiction of any State, in accordance with the Charter.’ The UN General Assembly adopted a Declaration on the Inadmissibility of Intervention and Interference in the Domestic Affairs of States (UNGA resolution 2131 (XX) 1965). The case of La République du Cameroun and Ambazonia is different. Both are independent states sanctioned by the United Nations and subsequently fused together but with no treaty of union. The trouble with this attitude concerning non-interference is that it ignores the central tenet of the Genocide Convention that genocide is a crime under international law. More specifically, Article 1 of the Convention states: “The Contracting Parties confirm that genocide, whether committed in time of peace or in time of war, is a crime under international law which they undertake to prevent and to punish.” The problem, as Kuper notes, is that “The doctrine of humanitarian intervention, [which] may be defined as ‘the right of one nation to use force against another nation for the purpose of protecting the inhabitants of that other nation from inhumane treatment by their governing sovereign,’ is clearly in conflict with the cardinal principles of respect for national unit, territorial integrity, and political independence” (1981: 29). In the context of Cameroon, two writers captured the point very eloquently. One, Victor Epie Ngome, using a Biblical analogy, titled his work of fiction, “What god put asunder.” The second writer, Rotcod Gobata (2011) in his article, “The Ironies of Our History”, observed that the “English and the French belong to one common stock and are next door neighbours…they have lived for millennia without ever attempting direct mixing because their respective cultures and ways of thinking are too divergent.” He concluded that “the case was not different for the Cameroons on whom the respective cultures and languages of Britain and France were foisted by historical circumstances.” We can therefore trace this conflict to a flawed decolonization of the territory, the political marginalization and economic strangulation of the people and 59

territory since 1961, and the government’s assimilationist agenda cloaked as ‘national integration.’ For a clearer understanding of the conflicts in the region and the dynamics, we may borrow from historical, political, and legal accounts on the postcolonial nationstate of Cameroon. In an article in the East Oregonian of June 6, 2010, Harriet Isom, US Ambassador to Cameroon from 1993-1996 observed that “the dichotomy between the former British part of Cameroon and the larger, dominant, former French colonial part still exists.” Subscribing to this viewpoint, Yaounde University political historian, Verkijika Fanso (2017) affirmed that “Tensions between English-speaking Cameroonians (Anglophones) and the WestCentral African nation’s French-speaking government stretch back to the end of colonial rule nearly 60 years ago.” At the heart of the tension, Fanso contends, is the desire of Anglophones to form their own independent state, called Ambazonia. Until this thorny issue is resolved, the intervention of outside nations to prevent genocide is bound to remain problematic. Hence, hesitancy on the part of a nation to commit its own troops to a dangerous situation (e.g., where genocide is taking place in another nation) also acts as a deterrent vis-a-vis intervention. My argument in this paper is therefore that the root cause of the ongoing genocide in Ambazonia is: (a) aborted decolonization; (b) annexation and attendant re-colonization; (c) natural resources; (d) ambiguities in defining sovereignty and human rights; and, (e) confusion between interference in internal affairs and saving mankind from the “scourge of war.” Explaining the Underlying Concept of Genocide Why should “indiscriminate and systematic destruction of members of a group because they belong to that group” make genocide the gravest crime? The killing of members of a group as such is not just barbaric, but also an irrational manner of killing which has a tendency to result in enormous loss of life for many reasons. First, it generalizes the culpability of members of the victim group, mixing real with perceived threats. By associating the innocents with the real enemies, it dehumanizes all members of the group which, in Chalk and Jonassohn’s view, is one necessary precondition of genocide (Chalk and Jonassohn, op. cit.: 27). Second this manner of killing has the potential to proliferate and become uncontrollable as the very ideology or reasoning which 60

supports such killing can easily be interpreted in killing an entire group or later be used against other groups. The Khmer Rouge originally planned to execute all Lon Nol officials and civil servants, but later urban people were targeted, then they purged their own cadres. Power quotes Galbraith’s realization of the proliferation effect of the indiscriminate killing of the Kurds in Iraq under the Anfal campaign: These things accelerate…. Hitler when he took power in 1933, did not have a plan to exterminate all the Jews in Europe. Evil begets evil…. While at that time the extermination campaign was focused on Kurds in rural areas and small towns, I thought that the logic of his program could culminate in the elimination of the entire Kurdish population of Iraq” (Power, 2002: 203). Power wrote that “the link between Hitler’s Final Solution and Lemkin’s hybrid term would cause endless confusion for policymakers and ordinary people who assumed that genocide occurred only where the perpetrator of atrocity could be shown, like Hitler, to possess an intent to exterminate every last member of an ethnic, national, or religious group (Ibid.:43).

Third, left unchecked, killing people has the effect of desensitizing members of the perpetrating community, making a full-scale genocide more likely given the right opportunity. This is different from a soldier who might be desensitized to kill other soldiers after being on the battlefield for a long time. Desensitized genocidal perpetrators would not hesitate to kill women and children of the victim groups. An example can be drawn from the suicide bombers who blow up Israeli gatherings. The desensitizing effect can also be noted in the statement of the new Iranian president, Mohammad Khatami, who spoke of wiping Israel from the map. A large number of Iranians supported his speech. In fact, a suicide bombing campaign would fall under this paper’s definition of genocide (See “Iranian Leader Rebuts Critics over Israel Remarks: Thousands of Iranians Stage Anti-Israel Demonstrations,” accessed on 10/28/2005 at http://cnn.worldnews.printthis.clickability.com/pt/cpt?action=cpt &title=cnn.com. Accessed 12/09/2019).

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Cameroon: Back to the Future For decades, nonviolent protests were a recurrent phenomenon in the political life of the postcolonial state of Cameroon in terms of the intractable identity conflict between the Government of Cameroon and Anglophone nationalists. Such protests re-occurring yearly around historical dates like February 11 (Plebiscite Day), May 20 (United Republic Day) and October 1 (Independence Day of exBritish Southern Cameroons) were generally met with violent repression in the form of arrests, torture, incarcerations, and killings. From October 2016, some media outlets in the West have reported that “violence was hitting Cameroon over English versus French” (Kindzeka, 2016). According to the few news reports in the Western media, “several people were killed and hundreds more were arrested or missing in the Northwest and Southwest regions of Cameroon in violence that followed rallies by the country’s Englishspeaking minority” (Kindzeka, 2016: 1). The genocidal war that is raging in Ambazonia is difficult to understand without first grasping the territory’s jurisdictional status after World War I. Like all German- or Ottoman-controlled colonies—for example, Syria, Lebanon, Togo and RuandaUrundi—”Kamerun” conquered by the Germans in the early twentieth century, became an internationally mandated territory after 1918. The League of Nations entrusted four-fifths of the country to France to administer and the remaining part to the United Kingdom. British Cameroon and French Cameroon were not colonial territories, but rather territories under international supervision. In exchange for administrative control, the French and British promised to work for the “well-being” of those who were then still classified as “natives” (indigènes). The situation continued after World War II. The newly formed United Nations (UN) kept British and French territories of Cameroon under “international trusteeship,” authorizing London and Paris to carry out administrative tasks for the purpose of preparing the territories for self-government. The British and French had to sign Trusteeship Agreements which legally bound them to adhere to the UN charter on trusteeship territories, which called on them 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.” 62

This hybrid jurisdictional status paradoxically inflamed the situation: on paper, the Cameroonians were promised political and civil rights while, in practice, the European administrators could find easy ways to ignore them. Clashing interpretations of the international texts thus exacerbated the social conflicts that characterize all colonial societies. In trying to empty the UN’s documents of substance in the trust territory of French Cameroon, French administering authorities violated the terms of international trusteeship, while Cameroonians, knowing their legal and political arguments to be sound, cited them as justifying their claim to political subjectivity and legal and human rights. European authorities quickly realized that the trusteeship system weakened the imperial edifice. If the Cameroonians managed to assert the rights the United Nations legally upheld, the wind of decolonization, already blowing in Asia, would arrive in Africa, causing surrounding colonies to crumble by contagion and destroying what remained of empire. For the French, who controlled the major part of the country, it became urgent to halt the growing liberation movement. Paris watched with concern as a powerful independence movement emerged. The Union of the Populations of Cameroon (UPC), founded in April 1948, centred the independence movement, which was gaining in popularity daily. Particularly wellstructured and led by some remarkable militants, the UPC rapidly extended its influence and began to undermine the administering authorities, not only in the urban centres of Yaoundé, Douala, Dschang, and Édéa, but also in the countryside. Ever-larger crowds gathered to listen to speeches from UPC secretary general Ruben Um Nyobè, President Félix Moumié, and Vice Presidents Abel Kingue and Ernest Ouandié. Even more worrying for the French, the UPC leaders managed to make themselves heard outside the country—in France, but also in New York, where Um Nyobè travelled on three occasions to make the case for Cameroonian independence before the United Nations. Each time he returned to Cameroon, those who openly defied the French regime eagerly welcomed him. His moderate and determined speeches to the Trusteeship Council and the General Assembly were duplicated and distributed throughout the country. His message impacted every corner of the country—farmers dispossessed by colonial enterprises, unemployed youths from Douala’s or Yaoundé’s working-class neighbourhoods, low-level government employees sickened by their French superiors’ conduct, 63

veterans held in contempt even though they had fought for France in World War II, and women seeking to empower themselves both politically and economically. Tens of thousands of letters and petitions were sent to the United Nations to convey the UPC’s watchwords: social justice, an end to racial discrimination, total independence, and reunification—slogans that echoed the promise of the UN charter itself. The French authorities not only wanted to keep Cameroon out of the hands of its people, but also out of international competition. The Soviets, suspected of trying to spread “world revolution,” were often accused of directing African independence movements from afar. After all, had not certain leading UPC figures been to Eastern Europe and even China at the invitation of the communists? The fallacious red-baiting was not only intended to discredit the independence movement internally; it also aimed to convince American and British authorities of nationalism’s dangers. Parisian elites feared that Washington and London might look to benefit from the independence promised to the Cameroonian people. The British, who controlled the western part of Cameroon, were subject to intense suspicion by the French in the mid-1950s, as Paris struggled to decipher London’s colonial policy. In Kenya in 1952, the British had bloodily repressed the Land and Freedom Army—which they pejoratively called “Mau Mau”— and seemed determined to maintain their grip on that country. Elsewhere, however, their strategy appeared to diverge. In the Gold Coast (now Ghana), London seemed prepared to negotiate independence with the nationalist movement lead by Kwame Nkrumah. Such weakness scandalized some French observers of colonial affairs. The British were going to give away their empire and abandon the unfinished work of colonialism! And all for the benefit of a handful of radicalized Africans who would inevitably deliver the continent to the communists. The more aware French administrators, however, held a different view. Aware that traditional colonialism was done for, they saw Britain’s apparent laxness in the Gold Coast and elsewhere as a subtle way of controlling their colonies’ inevitable independence. According to this analysis, London was trying to reproduce in Africa what Washington and Moscow had realized in Latin America and Eastern Europe: converting these countries into vassal states by leaning on local elites as their collaborators and intermediaries. In fact, this kind of colonial reform was also ongoing in France. A new piece of legislation, prepared as soon as 1954 and adopted 64

two years later under the name of the “Defferre loi cadre,” or framework law, entrusted certain responsibilities to handpicked African elites who would keep the colonies within the French fold. By giving local autonomy and limited power to local leaders, this particularly perverse outsourcing of the state’s domestic administration undermined its full sovereignty. Accompanied by development schemes supposed to ameliorate the fate of the population, this “neo-colonial mystification”—as Jean-Paul Sartre would call it—was gradually instilled in numerous places. In Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal, and elsewhere, African politicians cynically accepted French authorities’ assistance in establishing themselves in positions of responsibility that were, in reality, closely supervised. In Cameroon, however, the operation proved more difficult to carry out: UPC leaders refused to betray the political aims and popular aspirations they had upheld for years. As they continued the work of political mobilization within and beyond Cameroon’s borders, Paris decided to employ strong-arm tactics. Two high commissioners were appointed to implement this policy. The first, Roland Pré, arrived in Yaoundé in December 1954. Fascinated by the United States and an obsessive anticommunist, his key role in the war is now forgotten. After bloodily repressing mass protests in May 1955, he used those riots to outlaw the UPC — accused of instigation — removing it from the political scene. Banned by the French government on July 13, 1955, Um Nyobè’s party had to continue its struggle underground. The second high commissioner, Pierre Messmer, replaced Pré in 1956. He is better known today because, under French president Charles de Gaulle, he became the minister of the armed forces from 1960 to 1969, and then served as prime minister of France from 1972 to 1974. In late trusteeship-era French Cameroon, Messmer’s mission was to keep the UPC underground and groom a local ruling class that could continue to favour French interests after independence. As he explicitly wrote in his memoirs, the idea was to give “independence to those who called for it the least, having eliminated politically and militarily those who had called for it most intransigently.” Besides a visceral anticommunism, the two top French administrators in Cameroon had a shared interest in counterinsurgency. In part inspired by the psychological warfare developed in the United States and by British techniques used in various colonial arenas, a line of French officers during the 1946– 1954 Indochina war elaborated the French counterrevolutionary 65

war doctrine. Claiming that the Vietminh were using “totalitarian methods” to involve Vietnamese civilians in the struggle, these officers tried to convince the French army to adopt similar techniques. Considering every civilian a potential combatant and believing that the line between peace and war had disappeared, this doctrine aimed to install civilian-military structures capable of leading the masses physically and psychologically. France’s stinging defeat at Dien Bien Phu in 1954 seemed to confirm these officers’ analyses, and they convinced their superiors and the government to put their theories into practice. The counterrevolutionary doctrine was exported simultaneously to two territories under French rule — Algeria, shaken by the National Liberation Front (FLN) movement, and Cameroon, where French officialdom described the UPC as a sort of African Vietminh. Smarting from Indochina, these officers arrived in Cameroon in 1955 with the firm intention of scouring out “communist subversion.” But in reality, what happened in Cameroon was closer to preventive vengeance. The accusations made against the UPC were quite absurd; all observers, including those in the French administration, knew the party was committed to legal means. Law—international law, as well as the concept of a universal Fourth Republic French law—was its weapon of choice. But French propaganda took its toll. Forced underground, with some driven to the British Cameroons, a number of UPC figures realized that they had no choice but to change methods. December 1956 marked a major turning point. Pierre Messmer organized elections in which the outlawed UPC could not participate. This way, the high commissioner could validate the elimination of the main Cameroonian party and appoint “democratically elected” candidates better disposed to France. To prevent this, the nationalists organized resistance fighters through the National Organization Committee (CNO), headquartered in the Sanaga-Maritime, Um Nyobè’s home region and where he was clandestinely living. The French reaction became so violent that tens of thousands of families left their villages to take refuge in the surrounding forests and put themselves under the protection of the CNO maquis. Other armed organizations joined the fight, attempting, with varying degrees of success, to coordinate with the UPC. The suppression of the UPC and its militia turned into open war. The military authorities deployed various large-scale military 66

measures—like the Pacification Zone (ZOPAC) set up in SanagaMaritime at the end of 1957—against the nationalists. Like the British in Malaya and Kenya and like the Americans later in Vietnam, the French began a process of so-called villagization. Security forces under French command mercilessly hunted down all those who refused to join military regroupement camps. The French army and its affiliated militias burned illegal villages and summarily executed outlaws extrajudicially. Those who joined the regroupement camps, willingly or not, had to experience the army’s total surveillance apparatus, endure endless screening sessions, and take part in countless psychological rehabilitation schemes. The Cameroonian war also played out on the international stage—in particular at the United Nations. Immediately after Um Nyobè’s death, the French authorities announced the country’s imminent independence and offered to examine the best way forward. Presented as an act of generosity, independence in fact perfectly suited the French war plan. From the Cameroonian perspective, the scheme had two obvious defects. For one, it called for independence prior to an election. For another, the Cameroonian leaders whom French authorities co-opted as allies had to sign a series of bilateral accords with Paris, some of them secret, that would legalize French control over the new state’s commercial, monetary, military, cultural, and diplomatic policies. This was, then, an illusory independence—the Cameroonian people were deprived of sovereignty, and their leaders remained under France’s supervision. Nevertheless, the United Nations accepted the French plan in March 1959 thanks to the willing compliance of Washington and London— quite happy to keep this part of the French empire in the Western fold—and of Moscow— in a period of “peaceful coexistence” and not much concerned about Cameroonian communists. This controlled independence had numerous advantages for the French. Apart from defusing the real Cameroonian independence movement’s message, it allowed the French authorities to put an end to the international trusteeship system and shed UN oversight. Also, independence would accelerate British Cameroon’s emancipation, and Paris assumed the two parts of the country would quickly reunite. The latter aim was only half achieved — the northern half of British Cameroon joined Nigeria. Surely the most important outcome of Cameroon’s independence was that it freed France to repress movements deemed subversive as it wished. From the moment independence was proclaimed, France 67

intensified its war effort. The Sanaga-Maritime had been, in large part, purged between 1957 and 1959, and the conflict escalated in Wouri, Mungo, and the Bamileke region, where the Kamerunian National Liberation Army (ALNK) had been established in 1959. The French army repeated its villagization policy, set up militias, and disappeared prisoners. It added a vast campaign of aerial bombardment to its repertoire. The population endured intense psychological campaigns — torture was systematized, public executions proliferated, and the severed heads of alleged rebels were displayed at markets and public squares. In parallel, France intensified its hunt for exiled enemies. Félix Moumié, for instance, died in November 1960 after being poisoned in Geneva by an agent of the French secret services. This policy of terror continued for a decade. Under the leadership of Ernest Ouandié—who returned to Cameroon after Moumié’s assassination—the ALNK displayed astonishing fighting spirit in spite of incredible material difficulties. The ferocious repression guided secretly by France started to bear fruit in 1962– 63. The nationalist underground became more and more restricted, but did not disappear completely. It was only when Ouandié was arrested in 1970 and publicly executed in January 1971 that the nationalists accepted that armed struggle had definitively failed. Over the course of the war, the government began routinely practicing the counterinsurgency methods innovated in the 1950s. Supervised by French advisers, Cameroonian president Ahmadou Ahidjo—installed in 1958—transformed his regime into a dictatorship. Well aware that he owed his power to France, he suppressed all civil liberties and progressively established a oneparty system. Under the pretext of fighting “subversion,” he surrounded the Cameroonian people with a wall of silence. With its omnipresent army, brutal political police, and administrative detention camps, the regime became one of the most repressive in Africa to the benefit of the local apparatchiks and French businesses, who shared in the profits from the country’s economic exploitation. The French government was so satisfied by the result that it granted independence to its other African colonies along the same lines. Like Ahidjo, the leaders of these new, nearly all pro-France countries signed bilateral agreements drastically limiting their sovereignty and transformed their regimes into dictatorships. Those who refused were severely brought to task or eliminated, as in the case of the Togolese Sylvanus Olympio—assassinated in 1963 by 68

French-trained putschists. Thus “Françafrique” was born—the French version of neocolonialism, which allowed Paris to maintain its former African colonies not in spite of independence but, in fact, thanks to it. The Cameroonian war also played out on the international stage—in particular at the United Nations. Immediately after Um Nyobè’s death, the French authorities announced the country’s imminent independence and offered to examine the best way forward. Presented as an act of generosity, independence in fact perfectly suited the French war plan. From the Cameroonian perspective, the scheme had two obvious defects. For one, it called for independence prior to an election. For another, the Cameroonian leaders whom French authorities co-opted as allies had to sign a series of bilateral accords with Paris, some of them secret, that would legalize French control over the new state’s commercial, monetary, military, cultural, and diplomatic policies. This was, then, an illusory independence—the Cameroonian people were deprived of sovereignty, and their leaders remained under France’s supervision. Nevertheless, the United Nations accepted the French plan in March 1959 thanks to the willing compliance of Washington and London—quite happy to keep this part of the French empire in the Western fold—and of Moscow— in a period of “peaceful coexistence” and not much concerned about Cameroonian communists. This controlled independence had numerous advantages for the French. Apart from defusing the real Cameroonian independence movement’s message, it allowed the French authorities to put an end to the international trusteeship system and shed UN oversight. Also, independence would accelerate British Cameroon’s emancipation, and Paris assumed the two parts of the country would quickly reunite. The latter aim was only half achieved—the northern half of British Cameroon joined Nigeria. Surely the most important outcome of Cameroon’s independence was that it freed France to repress movements deemed subversive as it wished. From the moment independence was proclaimed, France intensified its war effort. The Sanaga-Maritime had been, in large part, purged between 1957 and 1959, and the conflict escalated in Wouri, Mungo, and the Bamileke region, where the Kamerunian National Liberation Army (ALNK) had been established in 1959. The French army repeated its villagization policy, set up militias, and disappeared prisoners. It added a vast campaign of aerial 69

bombardment to its repertoire. The population endured intense psychological campaigns—torture was systematized, public executions proliferated, and the severed heads of alleged rebels were displayed at markets and public squares. In parallel, France intensified its hunt for exiled enemies. Félix Moumié, for instance, died in November 1960 after being poisoned in Geneva by an agent of the French secret services. “Independence” of Ambazonia as Military Occupation, Annexation and Re-colonization The name ‘Southern British Cameroons’ is often written in abbreviated form as ‘Ambazonia’, shorn of the qualifier ‘British’. This abbreviated form shall be used throughout the rest of this paper. The Ambazonia is not the southern or any part of French Cameroun/Republic of Cameroun. The name Ambazonia comes from the fact that the British Order in Council of 26 June 1923 divided the Mandated Territory of the British Cameroons into two parts, a southern part known as the Ambazonia and a northern part known as the Northern Cameroons. Each part was tagged on to Nigeria in an administrative union and administered as though it formed an integral part of Nigeria. By this act of the Administering Authority, the Southern British Cameroons became a distinct territory from the Northern British Cameroons within the international system and a distinct unit of self-determination. From 1962-1972 the Territory was confusingly also known as West Cameroon. To confound matters further, in 1972 it was split by Republic of Cameroun into two parts denoted as North West & South West provinces. The Territory’s definitive geographical indication or name, Ambazonia, envisaged by the national liberation forces speaks to the very critical matters of sovereign branding, identity, specificity and territorial integrity, and seeks to end the name confusion. I would argue here that Ambazonia has never been and is not a part of La République du Cameroun. It is simply occupied through fraud, violence, intimidation and suppression by La République du Cameroun. The name Ambazonia does not refer in any way or manner to the southern part of La République du Cameroun. It refers only to the southern part of the Cameroons under United Kingdom’s Administration, since Britain had divided the Cameroons under UK administration into a northern and southern part. The territory of Ambazonia begins at the Atlantic coast in the 70

Gulf of Guinea. It has about 200 km of coastline and stretches approximately 550 kilometres inland. It is sandwiched between Nigeria to the west and Republic of Cameroun to the east. Its frontiers with the Republic of Cameroun are firmly secured by the following international boundary treaties: i. the Milner-Simon Declaration of 10th July 1919 respecting the Frontier between the British Cameroons and French Cameroun, more elaborately defined in 1928 in a joint declaration by the Governor of the Colony and Protectorate of Nigeria and the Governor of French Cameroun and approved in an Exchange of Notes between the British and French Governments on 9th January 1931; and, ii. the Declaration made by the Governor of the Colony and Protectorate of Nigeria and the Governor of the French Cameroun determining the Frontier between British Cameroons and French Cameroun, 9th January 1931. Likewise, its frontiers with Nigeria are secured by the following boundary treaties: (a)Agreement of 11th March 1913 between Great Britain and Germany respecting the Settlement of the Frontier between Nigeria and the Cameroons, from Yola to the Sea; and the Regulation of Navigation on the cross River; and, (b) Agreement concerning the Demarcation of the AngloGerman Boundary between Nigeria and the Cameroons from Yola to the Cross River, 12th April 1913. The conflicts and crisis in Ambazonia are between the part of the territory that was once governed by the British (1916-1961), and the larger part once ruled by the French (1918-1960), which were foreseen in the decolonization of colonial countries, peoples, and territories. The warnings on the political future of the people of Ambazonia were ignored in favour of the geo-politics of the West during the Cold War. Before 1960, often referred to as the year of African independence, the people of ex-British Southern Cameroons were self-governing with functioning democratic institutions. They also had internationally recognized boundaries. Possibly speaking from the unstable experience of plural societies, United States Ambassador Clement J. Zabloiski warned at the 896th General Assembly meeting that “the results of a hurried choice 71

imposed on the population of the Trust Territory of British Cameroons would be catastrophic for their political future.” Krishna Mennon, Ambassador of India, expressed similar concerns that his “delegation (saw) no reason why Ambazonia (should) not achieve independence on the same date as Nigeria and Northern Cameroons.” In Britain, Hon. G. M. Thompson (M.P. Dundee East) addressing the British House of Commons on the poor handling of the case said: “The problem of uniting these two territories would in any event be difficult. They are two territories of completely different cultures with different political systems – there are extremely complex problems in bringing these two countries together within one national state.” By compelling the British Southern Cameroons to achieve “independence by joining”, the United Kingdom and the United Nations were in effect ignoring these warnings as well as arguments of incompatibility theorists of multinational states. After strenuously refusing to grant sovereign independence to the territory, Britain forced an illegal Plebiscite on the people, asking them whether they wished to achieve independence by joining the Republic of Nigeria or La République du Cameroun. The vote went in favour of achieving independence by joining Cameroon. The United Nations General Assembly followed up the vote to pass the Resolution 1608(XV) of 21 April 1961 to grant the British Southern Cameroons independence in association with Cameroon. Atemnkeng (2014) has argued that by this Plebiscite, Britain had already sealed the fate of the people by forcing them, whether they wanted it or not, to choose only between some form of association with Nigeria or Cameroon. The British Southern Cameroons’ joining the Cameroon Republic on October 1, 1961 was on the understanding of an equal partner situation in the Federal Republic of Cameroon. However, as Fanso (2014) suggests, the first President of Cameroon had started “confiscating the independence of British Southern Cameroons even before it was accorded at the joining.” In the President’s mind, the joining merely signified the accommodation of British Southern Cameroons as the western part of German Kamerun. Yet Britain, who claimed she would not transfer the British Southern Cameroons as a dependent territory to La République du Cameroun, looked on with no objection although the British always knew La République du Cameroun and British Southern Cameroons were not a Franco-British Condominium, that is, a house jointly managed by two equal masters. The Anglophone 72

people are also faulting the United Nations for failing, as trustor, to implement UN principles in regard to self-determination and selfrule. They argue that the forceful suppression of Ambazonian institutions by La République du Cameroun constitutes a breach of international peace and is incompatible with international instruments. Notwithstanding Article 47 of the Federal Constitution, which was categorically against the abridgement of the federal system, the Federal Republic of Cameroon lasted only ten years six months and was dismantled in May 1972. The Anglophone region was then annexed into a United Republic, and in 1984, the word “united” was scrapped (Anyangwe, 2018). The country became known as the Republic of Cameroon, which was the original name of the former French colonial Cameroon at independence. The English-speaking regions were then progressively assimilated into the French-speaking area. By considering British Southern Cameroons merely as part of German Kamerun that returned ‘home,’ the authorities of the Cameroon Republic refused to view the national and cultural differences between the two territories as a source of national strength. Rather, they viewed the differences as a danger to nation building and opted for a policy of national integration, which only sought to dismiss, repudiate, and systematically obliterate former British Southern Cameroons by imposing French values and ways of life on the people. For more than half a century, the people of the region have accepted all acts of constitutional law, civil law, criminal law, and administrative law imposed on them by the authorities as acts which one does not like but has to tolerate them in order to survive (Yongbang, 2014: 235). Narratives of the people of the Anglophone region demonstrate that the two groups do not have much in common except at the surface if we consider their different worldviews about education, law and order, governance, conduct of elections, the dignity of the human person, and other aspects of a nation’s life. From his many experiences living in Yaounde for many decades and his knowledge of the situation, Fanso (1999: 10) concluded that “Anglophones and Francophones are still strange bedfellows.” There is evidence that the people of the Cameroon Anglophone region have long complained that their language and culture were marginalized as a result of annexation and colonial occupation by La République du Cameroun (Nfor, 2000; Anyangwe, 2014). Fanso (2017) observed that “The dignity and statehood of the Anglophone region was systematically destroyed by the government 73

led and dominated by Francophones.” By October 2018, the people of the Anglophone region continued to decry the steps taken by the government to completely ‘Frenchify’ everything Anglo-Saxon in Cameroon. Some of these are the recent inclusion of the soccer leagues of the region in those of the adjacent French-speaking regions of West and Littoral; the dissolution of the General Certificate of Education Board into a parastatal with officials exclusively appointed by the government per decree No 2018/514 of 22 October 2018 to reorganize the GCE Board, and the exclusive use of the French language in some major areas of national life in a supposedly bilingual country. Existing in the margins of Cameroon’s political and economic life and feeling the loss of their identity in the postcolonial country, the people of the Anglophone region sought an end to annexation and assimilation, and their own independent state as voted for in the United Nations in April 1961 (UNGA Resolution 1608 (XV). In the current war of extermination waged by La République du Cameroun on Ambazonia, the civilians, who are victims have been expecting both the African Union and the United Nations to uphold and enforce their own principles and laws. They expect these organizations to take effective measures to mediate the full implementation of the 1960 Declaration on the Granting of Independence (UNGA Res. 1514 (XV) relating to the region, and to uphold her territorial integrity. As well, they expect the African Union to uphold, respect, honour, and enforce the provision of its own constitutional text, Article 4 (b) of the Constitutive Act, which reaffirms the principle of intangibility of borders of each African country as inherited at independence. On October 4, 2017, the Chairperson of the African Union Commission issued a statement reaffirming the commitment of the African Union to promote peace “in line with the principle of the intangibility of African Borders as they existed at independence.” The people of the Anglophone region expect the African Union to go beyond the rhetoric by giving teeth to its commitment to this founding principle of the continental organization. The people also call on the United Kingdom and the United Nations to return to fix the problems they created for the territory and her people. The other side, the Government, uses the power and advantage of a sovereign nation-state with the backing of the same United Nations to avoid dialogue and a negotiated settlement of the conflict. In lieu of initiating a dialogue, the Government of Cameroon has instead 74

been escalating the conflict by waging war under the guise of fighting “secession” and “terrorism” within the nation-state. As the people of the region wait in expectation, the world continues to watch as a fratricidal war unfolds in Cameroon between the two former UN Trust Territories of British and French trusteeships put together within one postcolonial state against the principle underlying the theory of incompatibility of plural states. In characterizing the conflict as intractable from the perspective of incompatibility theorists, the analysis of the conflict should get beyond the discussion of culture and language analysis by Gobata (2011) and others to an understanding of the issue of the inalienable right of the British Southern Cameroons’ people to selfdetermination or sovereign independence. As have been indicated elsewhere within the larger framework of the aspirations and universal rights of the people of this former UN trust territory, this understanding becomes more compelling than the cultural and language framework espoused by Gobata and others (Fonkem, 2013). As a people recognized in international law per, the 2009 ruling of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights in Communication 266/2003 on the conflict; the people of ex-British Ambazonia have the right to aspire for sovereign independence. As a self-governing people from 1954 with full functioning state institutions, the people of the region were the first in Sub-Sahara Africa to organize free, fair, and transparent multiparty elections in 1959 and to peacefully and democratically transfer power from a governing party to La République du Cameroun. United Nations General Assembly Resolution 1608 (XV) of 21 April 1961 resolved that the Trust Territory of the Southern British Cameroons shall achieve independence on 1 October 1961. It also resolved that on the same date trusteeship shall end and Ambazonia should freely associate with Republic of Cameroun in a federation of two states, equal in status. Trusteeship was indeed terminated on the appointed date. But independence was not achieved. Free association did not take place. Rather, on 1 September 1961, the National Assembly of La République du Cameroun passed an annexation law illegally asserting territorial claim to Ambazonia. One month later, on 30 September 1961 the Administering Authority invited to the Trust Territory a foreign Head of State, the President of La République du Cameroun, transferred power over Ambazonia to La République du Cameroun in violation of international law and left. In violation of international law as well, Republic of Cameroun physically occupied Ambazonia and has 75

remained in colonial occupation of the territory to this day. Ambazonia thus passed from British to Republic of Cameroun colonial rule. More than 55 years on, the former United Nations Trust Territory of the Southern British Cameroons is still languishing under the yoke of colonial domination and oppression by the Republic of Cameroun. The Territory continues to cry out for freedom and independence as genocide has been unleashed on its people. Why? The reasons are not far to seek. The year 1858 marked the onset of foreign control over the territory that became known as the Southern British Cameroons. The year 2019 marked over one century and a half of unbroken alien domination of that territory: British from 1858 until date, German from 1888 to 1914, British again from 1914 to 1961, and Republic of Cameroun from 1961 to date. This is a unique concatenation in Africa and the rest of the world. The British established a foothold in the armpit of Africa as far back as 1847. In 1858 they took over an English missionary settlement at Ambas Bay in the Gulf of Guinea and named the British colony Victoria, after Queen Victoria. Thirty years later, in 1887, Britain transferred the settlement to Germany. Four years earlier, in 1884, Germany had proclaimed a protectorate over a mudflat area some 100 miles to the east. Following the British cession, Germany from 1888 onwards slowly extended its imperial control from its original Kamerun protectorate to the contiguous territory that would later be known as the Southern British Cameroons. At the onset of the First World War in 1914, however, British-led forces from neighbouring Nigeria to the west overran areas that included the Victoria settlement which Britain had ceded to Germany in 1887. A major consequence of her defeat in World War I was that Germany, as provided in the Treaties of Versailles 1919, renounced and relinquished title and right to all her colonial possessions. The possessions in question included the Kamerun territory which had been seized in 1916 by Britain and France as war booty according to the Laws of War at the time. The territory was partitioned between the two powers along what became known as the MilnerSimon Line. Britain retained the whole area it had overran in 1914 at the onset of the War and it became known as the British Cameroons. To sooth French pain and humiliation resulting from the crushing defeat of France by Germany in the Franco-Prussian war in 1870, France was allowed to take the original German Kamerun protectorate proclaimed in 1884, naming it French Cameroun. 76

Out of the extinct German colony emerged two separate and distinct legal and political entities, British Cameroons and French Cameroun. Each of these two political entities was placed under the mandate system, the goal being ultimate independence of the natives of each mandated territory. In 1922 the League of Nations granted to Britain a mandate over the British Cameroons and a mandate to France over French Cameroun. In doing so the League confirmed the 1916 Anglo-French partition put in treaty form in the 1919 Anglo-French boundary treaty between the British Cameroons and French Cameroun (Milner-Simon Declaration). The frontier alignment between the British Cameroons and French Cameroun, as defined by the 1919 boundary treaty, was more particularly determined in the 1931 Anglo-French boundary treaty (Graeme-Marchand Declaration) and confirmed once again in 1946 by the United Nations in the Trusteeship Agreement relative to the British Cameroons and the one relative to French Cameroun. The British Cameroons and French Cameroun were thus separate, new, legal and political entities created in 1922 by the political force represented by the mandate system. The juridical basis of their respective existence and the international basis of the frontier between the two countries are the mandate system, transmuted into the trusteeship system after World War Two. France granted independence to French Cameroun on 1st January 1960 and sponsored the new state’s admission to membership of the United Nations in September that year. The United Kingdom, by contrast, dilly-dallied, spoke with a forked tongue on the subject of independence for the Southern British Cameroons, and actively opposed independence for the Trust Territory (Anyangwe, (2010). “One Kamerun” Myth as Instrument of Annexation and Recolonization of Ambazonia by La République du Cameroun The past and history are different things. People have always used the past to explain the origins and purpose of human life, to sanctify government institutions, to validate class structure, to provide moral example. It is this myth that La République du Cameroun is using to sell its annexation and colonization of Ambazonia. As already argued in preceding sections of this paper, La République du Cameroun’s policy of annexation and assimilation of Ambazonia is based on the premise that Ambazonia was originally part of German Kamerun, in defiance of palpable 77

historical evidence, notably, the fact that the territory of Ambazonia had existed prior to the introduction of foreign control in 1858. The British established a foothold in the armpit of Africa as far back as 1847. In 1858 they took over an English missionary settlement at Ambas Bay in the Gulf of Guinea and named the British colony Victoria, after Queen Victoria. Thirty years later, in 1887, Britain transferred the settlement to Germany. Four years earlier, in 1884, Germany had proclaimed a protectorate over a mudflat area some 100 miles to the east. Following the British cession, Germany from 1888 onwards slowly extended its imperial control from its original Kamerun protectorate to the contiguous territory that would later be known as the Southern British Cameroons. At the onset of the First World War in 1914, however, British-led forces from neighbouring Nigeria to the west overran areas that included the Victoria settlement which Britain had ceded to Germany in 1887. A major consequence of her defeat in World War I was that Germany, as provided in the Treaties of Versailles 1919, renounced and relinquished title and right to all her colonial possessions. The possessions in question included the Kamerun territory which had been seized in 1916 by Britain and France as war booty according to the Laws of War at the time. The territory was partitioned between the two Powers along what became known as the MilnerSimon Line. Britain retained the whole area it had overran in 1914 at the onset of the War and it became known as the British Cameroons. To sooth French pain and humiliation resulting from the crushing defeat of France by Germany in the Franco-Prussian war in 1870, France was allowed to take the original German Kamerun protectorate proclaimed in 1884, naming it French Cameroun. Out of the extinct German colony emerged two separate and distinct legal and political entities, British Cameroons and French Cameroun. Each of these two political entities was placed under the mandate system, the goal being ultimate independence of the natives of each mandated territory. In 1922 the League of Nations granted to Britain a mandate over the British Cameroons and a mandate to France over French Cameroun. In doing so the League confirmed the 1916 Anglo-French partition put in treaty form in the 1919 Anglo-French boundary treaty between the British Cameroons and French Cameroun (Milner-Simon Declaration). The frontier alignment between the British Cameroons and French Cameroun, as defined by the 1919 boundary treaty, was more 78

particularly determined in the 1931 Anglo-French boundary treaty (Graeme-Marchand Declaration) and confirmed once again in 1946 by the United Nations in the Trusteeship Agreement relative to the British Cameroons and the one relative to French Cameroun (Litumbe, 2012). The British Cameroons and French Cameroun were thus separate, new, legal and political entities created in 1922 by the political force represented by the mandate system. The juridical basis of their respective existence and the international basis of the frontier between the two countries are the mandate system, transmuted into the trusteeship system after World War Two. France granted independence to French Cameroun on 1st January 1960 and sponsored the new state’s admission to membership of the United Nations in September that year. The United Kingdom, by contrast, dilly-dallied, spoke with a forked tongue on the subject of independence for the Southern British Cameroons, and actively opposed independence for the Trust Territory (Anyangwe, (2010). However, Ambazonia’s decolonization woes began in 1959. In that year, the United Nations stampeded the Trust Territory into a plebiscite with dead-end alternatives. By General Assembly resolution 1352 (XIV) of 16 October 1959, the United Nations decided that a plebiscite must be held in the Territory. This decision was taken in the teeth of strong objections by the political leadership of the Territory. The imposed plebiscite questions formulated by the United Nations read: “Do you wish to achieve independence by joining the independent Republic of Cameroun?” “Do you wish to achieve independence by joining the independent Republic of Nigeria?” This was a Hobson’s choice. It ignored the people’s ventilated bewilderment and frustration. It also ignored the strident demand for outright independence. That demand came from elected Ambazonia Ministers, two political parties in the territory, and the majority of the people. The demand was consistent with Article 76 b of the Charter of the United Nations and binding United Nations General Assembly Resolution 1514 (XV) of 14 December 1960: the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples. In framing the plebiscite questions the promoters of the plebiscite used the nebulous term ‘joining’. There was a real possibility of a subsequent dispute over its interpretation or application. In order to obviate that eventuality, in October 1960 the Premier of the Ambazonia sought from the Administering Authority the interpretation of that term in relation to La 79

République du Cameroun. The British Government solemnly stated that ‘joining Republic of Cameroun’ was to be understood as meaning that the Ambazonia would achieve independence and associate with Republic of Cameroun in a federation of two states, equal in status. This interpretation was accepted by the Ambazonia. It was subsequently also accepted by Republic of Cameroun which went further to confirm the same in its Note Verbale of 24 December 1960 to the United Kingdom as Administering Authority. Significantly, that Note came two weeks after the General Assembly had authoritatively clarified the concept of free association or achieving independence by joining an independent state. Principle VII of United Nations General Assembly Resolution 1541(XV) of 15 December 1960 enunciates the concept in these terms: (a) Free association should be the result of a free and voluntary choice by the peoples of the territory concerned expressed through informed and democratic process. It should be one, which respects the individuality and cultural characteristics of the territory and its peoples, and retains for the peoples of the territory which is associated with an independent State the freedom to modify the status of that territory through the expression of their will by democratic means and through constitutional processes. The Ambazonia and La République du Cameroun each had a separate date of independence, determined by United Nations Resolutions. La République du Cameroun’s date of independence was 1 January 1960 and that of the Ambazonia was 1 October 1961, but it never achieved independence, due to the illegal occupation and annexation. (b)The associated territory should have the right to determine its internal constitution without outside interference, in accordance with due constitutional processes and the freely expressed wishes of the people. This does not preclude consultations as appropriate or necessary under the terms of the free association agreed upon. It is clear from this resolution that if the envisaged and valid political association between the Ambazonia and Republic of Cameroun had taken place (rather than annexation and colonial occupation), the Ambazonia would have had to retain its individuality and cultural characteristics, retain the right to 80

determine its internal constitution without outside interference and retain the right to modify the status of its territory, possibly towards complete independence in pursuance of perfecting its selfdetermination. The political party that campaigned for political association with La République du Cameroun did so on the clear understanding that if the vote went in favour of that proposition the Ambazonia and Republic of Cameroun would form an enduring federation of two states, equal in status and underpinned by a lasting constitution, the fruit of common bargain. Non-implementation of UNGA Resolution 1608 (XV) The Ambazonia was fully self-governing from 1954 to 1961. It was a thriving constitutional democracy operating a parliamentary system of government modelled after that of the British. During that period, it had two free and fair elections, a peaceful regime change, and a Constitution (the Ambazonia Constitution Order-inCouncil 1960) based on values of democracy, the rule of law, an independent judiciary, an open society, a free press, freedom of expression and movement, human rights and accountability. It had international personality and international status, first as a League of Nations Mandate and secondly as a United Nations Trust Territory. By dint of this international personality and international status, it was a qualified subject of international law. After seven years of full self-government, the Ambazonia was poised for sovereign statehood as provided in Article 76 b of the UN Charter and the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples (UNGA Resolution 1514 (XV) of 14 December 1960). Rather than grant independence outright to the Ambazonia, the United Nations and the United Kingdom as Administering Authority contrived to organize a questionable plebiscite in the Territory. The Ambazonia gained autonomy as a self-governing territory under Britain from 1954 to 1961. It had its own constitution (The Southern Cameroons Constitutional Order in Council); a Premier; National Assembly, Judiciary, House of Chiefs, Civil service, multiparty political system, and a thriving democracy. Soon after the plebiscite results were announced La République du Cameroun started plotting secretly on annexing Ambazonia. And yet, in 1959 the President of Republic of Cameroun had gone to the United Nations and given the solemn assurance that it had no expansionist ambitions and that it would not annex Ambazonia. 81

“We are not annexationists,” he declared to the World Body, stating that The Republic of Cameroun is prepared to form a political association with Ambazonia “on a footing of equality.” On 21 April 1961 the General Assembly of the United Nations met to consider the results of the plebiscite. It took two separate roll-call votes on those results. The first roll-call vote endorsed the decision of the people of the Trust Territory to achieve independence. The second roll-call vote acknowledged the matter of political association with Republic of Cameroun in a federation of two states, equal in status. In Resolution 1608 (XV) of that date, the results of these two separate roll-call votes were infelicitously conflated in one sentence thus: “endorsed the results of the plebiscite that the people of the Southern Cameroons decided to achieve independence by joining Republic of Cameroun.” In that resolution the United Nations went on to appoint 1st October 1961 as the effective date of independence of the Ambazonia concomitant with the termination of the Trusteeship Agreement “in accordance with Article 76 b of the Charter of the United Nations.” In rather ambiguous phraseology, the world body further decided on the termination of the Trusteeship Agreement “upon the Southern Cameroons joining the Republic of Cameroun.” Untidily, all three events, namely, independence, termination of trusteeship, and ‘joining’, were enjoined to take place on the same date. ‘Joining’ was however made conditional upon the Southern Cameroons, Britain and La République du Cameroun finalizing the manner of implementation of the federal set-up agreed upon by the Southern Cameroons and La République du Cameroun before the plebiscite. On this specific point the United Nations in that same resolution invited: “the Government of the Southern Cameroons, the United Kingdom, and La République du 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.” By the time the Ambazonia was illegally occupied, annexed and recolonized by La République du Cameroun, the Southern Cameroons had had two governments: the first Premier was E.M.L Endeley and the second was John Ngu Foncha who defeated Endeley in a peaceful elections in 1959. It was understood by all concerned that the United Nations would be associated with these “urgent discussions” contemplated by Resolution 1608. This understanding comes from the solemn assurance given by the United Kingdom Government during 82

Anglo-Ambazonia talks in London in October 1960. During those talks, the British Secretary of State for the Colonies informed the anxious Southern Cameroons delegation that: A vote for attaining independence by joining the Republic of Cameroun would mean that, by an early date to be decided by the United Nations after consultation with the Government of the Southern Cameroons, the Cameroun Republic, and the United Kingdom as Administering Authority, the Southern Cameroons and Cameroun Republic would unite in a Federal United Cameroon Republic. The arrangements would be worked out after the plebiscite by a conference consisting of representative delegations of equal status from the Republic of Cameroun and the Southern Cameroons. The United Nations and the United Kingdom would also be associated with this conference.

La République du Cameroun voted against Resolution 1608 (XV). By that act it rejected political association with the Southern Cameroons and maintained its frontiers with the Territory as unchanged. The instruments attesting to its independence and international boundaries deposited with and duly recorded at the United Nations when it was admitted to membership of the Organization remain unchanged. By July 1961 Republic of Cameroun started speaking expansionist language. It asserted claim to the territory of the Southern Cameroons. The envisaged Four-Party post-plebiscite conference failed to take place, resulting in the non-implementation of the outcome of the plebiscite. In fact, after adopting Resolution 1608 (XV) of 21 April 1961 the United Nations simply washed its hands off the Southern Cameroons. And yet the trusteeship still had at least six months to run since the United Nations itself had set 1 October 1961 as the end date of the trusteeship. The United Nations did not monitor post-plebiscite developments in the Trust Territory. It did not require the Administering Authority to submit a report on developments leading up to termination of trusteeship. It made no efforts to ensure the effective implementation of its own resolution. La République du Cameroun cashed in on this serious dereliction of responsibility by the United Nations. It carried out military incursions deep into the Southern Cameroons. On 1 September 1961, its Assembly passed a law amending its Constitution by providing for the annexation of the Southern Cameroons. In that law and in policy statements made afterwards Republic of 83

Cameroun stated that the Trust Territory of the Southern British Cameroons is part of its territory returned to her by the United Nations and the United Kingdom. In the same month of September 1961, French-led forces of Republic of Cameroun marched into the Southern Cameroons, physically occupied the territory with the acquiescence of the Administering Authority, and began enforcing an unwarranted state of emergency declared over the peaceful Territory. The annexation and occupation of the Southern Cameroons took place while the United Nations and the Administering Authority passed ‘on the other side’ like the biblical priest and the Levite. Tragically, the Southern Cameroons did not achieve independence promised by the Charter of the United Nations and the plebiscite. Nor was there a valid political association of the Southern Cameroons and Republic of Cameroun. Republic of Cameroun occupies the territory and administers it with an iron fist as its colonial dependency. The Southern Cameroons was ruled as a separate part of the British colony of Nigeria from after WWII until 1961 when it was illegally occupied and colonized by La République du Cameroun on 1 October 1961. Abuse by the Administering Authority The plebiscite in the Southern Cameroons was an unwarranted imposition. Neither the British Government nor the United Nations acted in the best interest of the people of the Southern Cameroons over whom they had voluntarily assumed a ‘sacred trust of civilization.’ The purpose of the plebiscite as stated in General Assembly resolution 1350 (XIII) of 13 March 1959 was “to ascertain the wishes of the people of the territory concerning their future”. But strangely, the future of the people was then narrowly confined to that of being a dependent people of either Nigeria or Republic of Cameroun. The all-important self-determination status option of sovereign statehood was unjustifiably withheld. The policy of the British Government of the day was to yoke the Southern Cameroons to Nigeria as can be seen from this sample of policy statements by the Administering Authority between 1952 and 1961: The British view is that … the progressive development of the inhabitants [of the Southern Cameroons] towards self-government or independence must … be promoted in association with the socially advanced protectorate of Nigeria. The British delegation has

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impressed this view with consistent firmness and frankness upon the Trusteeship Council and the Council has been obliged to accept it grudgingly … qualified by a natural and legitimate anxiety that our policy should be accompanied by adequate measures to preserve the identity of the Trust Territory.” (British Consul General in Brazzaville, January 1952); “Many of the best friends of the Southern Cameroons do not foresee a destiny more likely to promote her happiness and prosperity than in continued association with Nigeria.” (Alan Lennox-Boyd, British Secretary of State for the Colonies, June 1957); “An independent Southern Cameroons would not be economically viable.” (Andrew Cohen, UK Ambassador to the UN repeating the disputed conclusion in a report by Sir Phillipson on the economic viability of an independent Southern Cameroons, October 1959); “The Southern Cameroons and its inhabitants are expendable.”(Lord Perth, British Minister of State at the Colonial Office, January 1960). We are not attracted to the idea of an independent Southern Cameroons … We cannot expect to get any advantage from being foster mother to an independent Southern Cameroons and it is clear that it would have to be fostered by somebody … In fact, the sooner we can … wash our hands off the Southern Cameroons, the more pleased we shall be. (Boothby, British Foreign Office, June 1960). I believe a firm attitude on this now may save us a great deal of trouble later and I think that H.M.G.’s position should be made abundantly clear to Foncha [the Premier of the Southern Cameroons] in an effort to scotch tendencies towards the third question on sovereign independence. … The policy of H.M.G. [Her Majesty’s Government] is to discourage any tendency towards a third question very strongly. (Andrew Cohen, UK Ambassador to the UN, June 1960). If the plebiscite went in favour of joining Cameroun Republic, arrangements would have to be made for the early termination of Trusteeship, and the transfer of sovereignty to the Republic of Cameroun. (Iain Macleod, British Secretary of State for the Colonies, October 1960) Nigeria was kept fully informed of every move in the discussion of the hand-over of the Southern Cameroons to the Cameroun Republic. (Colonial Office, March 1961)

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The Southern Cameroons had already been transferred to Mr Ahidjo of Cameroun Republic. (Hugh Fraser, British Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies, October 1961).

Annexation and Re-colonization rather than Decolonization As saltwater or white colonization in Africa was retreating, sadly a new and dangerous situation of black-on-black colonization was emerging in parts of the continent. Some states, themselves beneficiaries of the right to self-determination, soon became latterday colonizers of less fortunate peoples in countries that happen to be their neighbours. Eritrea and Namibia secured their independence through armed struggle. In other cases, territorial claims were later abandoned by the states asserting them. Somalia gave up its claim to Northern Kenya and the Ogaden region in Ethiopia. Libya gave up its claim to the Aouzou strip in Chad. Following the ICJ ruling in Case Concerning Land and Maritime Boundary (Cameroun v Nigeria) Nigeria gave up its claim to the Bakassi Peninsula which has always been firmly in the territory of the Ambazonia. That leaves two re-colonization cases in the continent, the colonial occupation of the Western Sahara by Morocco and the colonial occupation of Ambazonia by La République du Cameroun. Both cases portend violent confrontation, especially in the face of a Yaoundé-Rabat entente to support each other in their respective territorial aggrandizement claims. Morocco’s occupation of the Western Sahara has received extensive international attention. But so far and strangely, the annexation and colonial occupation of Ambazonia for over 55 years already has largely escaped African and international notice and concern. Many reasons account for this situation. Firstly, the United Nations, creator and supervisor of the international trusteeship system, and the United Kingdom, trustee power for Ambazonia for half a century, in effect aborted the process of decolonization they had set in motion, denying Ambazonia sovereign statehood. Secondly, the colonial takeover of the Ambazonia by La République du Cameroun was surreptitious. It was covert, using political subterfuge and outright fraud. It was not overt and flamboyantly dramatic like Morocco’s seizure of the Western Sahara. Thirdly, an armed anti-colonial national liberation struggle has yet not been launched, efforts still being concentrated on exhausting peaceful intervention and strategic litigation. Britain, based on the idea that Ambazonia was poor and should not depend on the British purse, refused to grant the majority 86

opinion on the territory for sovereign independence. Instead, Britain came up with the idea that Ambazonia must achieve independence either by joining Nigeria or by joining La République du Cameroun. How could independence be achieved by being an appendage of some other country? Nevertheless, Britain got the UN to organize a Plebiscite on 11 February 1961 asking the people of Ambazonia whether they wished to achieve independence by joining the federation of Nigeria or by joining La République du Cameroun. The vote went in favour of achieving independence by joining La République du Cameroun. This was quite understandable. There was a civil war raging in La République du Cameroun, which drove hundreds of thousands of its people to take shelter in Ambazonia. When they saw the liberty there, they started drumming up ideas of unity and even joined Ambazonia political parties for that purpose. On the other hand, Southern Cameroonians felt oppressed in Nigeria. Without the choice of sovereign independence, they voted to achieve independence by joining La République du Cameroun. Furthermore, over the years Republic of Cameroun has developed and implemented policies designed to conceal from the world its annexation and colonial occupation of Ambazonia. It has rolled out several policies to this end, taking a multi-pronged approach. The policies include: active international isolation of Ambazonia, especially from the English-speaking world, so that few outside are aware of the existential threat faced by its people; deliberate misinformation and disinformation that Ambazonia is the southern part of French Cameroun/Republic of Cameroun seeking to secede therefrom; purposeful pauperization of the people, ghettoization of the Territory’s human habitat, and spoliation of the Territory’s wealth and natural resources; militarization of Ambazonia and the periodical unleashing of violence against the people to impress upon them their situation of utter vulnerability; terrorization of the people of Ambazonia by an occupying force with license to do as it sees fit as a means of enforcing colonial occupation, securing submission to it and preventing revolt against colonial oppression; creeping population transfer as well as various attempts to modify the well-attested frontier alignment between Ambazonia and Republic of Cameroun; and implementation of various ploys designed to end the use of the English language in Ambazonia, and equally sustained actions to obliterate the Englishbased legal system and educational and social culture of Ambazonia. 87

These policies aim at denying the people of Ambazonia the right to exist and the right to cultural development - language, education, law and tradition. They aim at destroying their identity, their specificity and their individuality as distinct English-speakers with a well-defined territory attested by international boundary treaties. La République du Cameroun hoped thereby to completely extinguish the identity of the people of Ambazonia and detrimentally change their way of life and the physical character of their environment, irretrievably altering the fundamental aspects of the Territory. This is an odious scheme of genocidal proportions. La République du Cameroun’s functionaries, civil-police-military, have taken total control of Ambazonia in every aspect. Republic of Cameroun occasionally makes token and decorative appointments of some citizens of Ambazonia in its colonial administration and even in its government and administration. This is copied French colonial practice. The purpose of this ploy, which is euphemistically denoted as ‘national integration’, is to ensure the systematic Frenchification of the people of Ambazonia and to eventually sink them in the French-derived world of La République du Cameroun. The people of Ambazonia do not make the charge of colonization lightly. It is said that the person who wears the shoes knows where it pinches. The occupying State does not deny that it is in complete and asphyxiating control and domination of Ambazonia actively pursuing a policy of Frenchification and oppression of its people. Ambazonia sovereign statehood question is a case of a legal and historical injustice crying out to be set right, a case of cultural genocide and a case of an existential threat. The people of Ambazonia seek sovereign rights to which they are legitimately due. They seek the independence, national life, and territorial integrity which they have been forcibly deprived of by La République du Cameroun annexation, colonization and oppression. It should be noted that the terms of the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Peoples and Countries indicate that a situation may properly be classified as colonial when the acts of a State have the cumulative outcome that it annexes or otherwise unlawfully retains control over territory and thus aims permanently to deny its people the exercise of its right to selfdetermination. In a 1980 study on the subject prepared by Hector Gros Espiell, the UN Special Rapporteur of the Sub Commission on the Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities, authoritatively states that: 88

...the right of peoples to self- determination exists as such in modern international law, with all the consequences that flow therefrom, where a people is subject to any form or type of colonial and alien domination of any nature whatsoever. … (T)he notion of colonial and alien domination is broader than - though it includes the notion of foreign occupation, and hence the right of peoples to self-determination may arise and be typified in other situations in addition to those where there is merely foreign occupation.

The meaning of the Plebiscite must however be clearly understood. The Plebiscite was neither a promise made by the people of Ambazonia to La République du Cameroun nor the act of joining. It created no bond with La République du Cameroun and gave her no rights over Ambazonia. The Plebiscite was simply a mechanism used by the UN to discover the intention of the people of Ambazonia. It was a mere declaration of intention. La République du Cameroun, as well as Nigeria, were third parties to the process. The Plebiscite consultation was exclusively between the UN and the peoples of Ambazonia. Only after knowing the intention of the people of Ambazonia through the Plebiscite process, could the UN and UK now take measures to effect the joining, following due process laid down by the UN Charter. As a follow-up to the Plebiscite, the UN met on 21 April 1961 to adopt Resolution 1608(XV), the resolution on Ambazonia independence and subsequent joining with La République du Cameroun. The General Assembly voted overwhelmingly for Ambazonia to achieve independence on 1 October 1961. But surprisingly, La République du Cameroun, the proposed party to the joining, voted against Ambazonia’ independence and by implication against union. Paragraph 5 of Resolution 1608(XV) specifically called for a post-plebiscite conference between the UK, Ambazonia and La République du Cameroun for the purpose of implementing the policies agreed upon by the two parties. Paragraph 5 reads: ”Invites the Administering Authority, the Government of the Southern Cameroon and La République du Cameroun to immediately engage in talks in view of taking, before 1 October 1961, necessary measures for the implementation of policies agreed on and declared by the parties concerned.” This was the paragraph whose implementation would have led to a valid legal union between the Ambazonia and La République du Cameroun, in accordance with Article 102(1) of the UN Charter. Unfortunately, it was never implemented and is still awaiting implementation up till today. In the absence of a Union Treaty, we 89

are faced with the reversal of the decolonization process in the Ambazonia. Despite this failure to implement the pertinent UN resolution on union, and despite La République du Cameroun’s rejection of Ambazonia’ independence and joining with itself in Resolution 1608(XV), on 30 September 1961, at the termination of the Trust over the Ambazonia on 1 October 1961, Britain betrayed the Ambazonia! Instead of handing power to the duly elected and functional government of the Ambazonia under Premier Dr. John Ngu Foncha, Britain, the Administering Authority, handed sovereignty illegally, in violation of all UNGA Resolutions, particularly Res. 1608(XV) of 21 April 1961, to La République du Cameroun! La République du Cameroun is therefore holding Ambazonia simply as what is known in the Law of Trust as an Executor de son Tort, a person who holds trust property illegally. The facts of Ambazonian story of how its statehood came to be suppressed are therefore clear and straightforward. The violence, the massacres, the intimidation, kidnappings, torture, wanton arrests and lawlessness which have been exercised by the annexationist colonial government in Yaounde against the people of Ambazonia, in order to suppress and hide the facts, stand on their own as separate crimes. Unfortunately, in the case of Ambazonia today, its people have no control over their territory. They have been deprived of basic human rights and of self-government, all of which they enjoyed even while as a Trust Territory. They cannot freely determine their political status. They cannot freely pursue their economic and social development according to the policy they ought freely to choose. They cannot exercise the right to their economic, social and cultural development. Political and economic self-determination are completely out of reach. The Territory is under occupation and administered as an adjunct of La République du Cameroun. That country has completely subordinated and subsumed the territory and economy of Ambazonia to its own. The result is that the people have been totally deprived of the capacity to govern themselves and order their economic affairs. Their right to economic self-determination has thus also been suppressed. La République du Cameroun is in breach of the principle of permanent sovereignty over natural resources in relation to Ambazonia. The right of permanent sovereignty over natural resources entitles a people to freely dispose of their wealth and natural resources and in no case shall they be deprived of it. Oil, timber, gas, gold, diamond, bauxite, iron and other mineral and cash and food crop resources are looted from occupied Ambazonia for 90

the almost exclusive development of Republic of Cameroun. These natural resources are accounted on paper as from Republic of Cameroun. This practice has been going on for half a century. La République du Cameroun actively continues to deny the people of Ambazonia the right freely to express, develop and practice their culture. Its practices privilege the French language, the French legal system, the French administrative system, the French educational system and its French-based cultural referents. These practices and the active pursuit of its Frenchification agenda materially and purposefully prevent the inherited cultural development and expression of the people of Ambazonia. Republic of Cameroun’s unwarranted assumption of sovereignty as successor colonialist in Ambaland and the pursuit of inimical policies to destroy Ambazonia culturally, historically, economically, socially, and as a legal and political expression are cumulatively indistinguishable from cultural genocide and strongly raise identity, dignity, and existential issues. Ambazonia as a self-governing country and a qualified subject of international law was tyrannically decreed out of existence by La République du Cameroun. Ambazonia’ government, parliament, civil service, police force, and system and method of public administration, in existence since 1954, were also despotically abolished by La République du Cameroun. Its judicial and legal systems have been mangled, mutilated beyond recognition. Its education system is under siege. French has since been imposed as the primary language of all public administration in the Ambazonia. Republic of Cameroun’s domination and oppression of the people of Ambazonia is total: political, administrative, power relations, economic, social and cultural. La République du Cameroun exploits the huge resources of Ambazonia essentially for its benefit. The exploitation is reckless and at an alarming rate. This would suggest an intention to rapidly deplete the resources of Ambazonia. It is truly a case of spoliation of the wealth and natural resources of Ambazonia. The people of Ambazonia enjoy not even a modicum of self-government. This is the harsh, bitter, lamentable, untenable and intolerable lived reality in Ambazonia since 1961. Case Firmly Anchored in Law The entitlement of the people of Ambazonia to the continuing right of self-determination is firmly anchored in law. Ambazonia is not and has never been part either of French Cameroun or of La République du Cameroun. The Ambazonia sovereign statehood 91

question therefore raises no issue of secession from, or violation of the territorial integrity of, La République du Cameroun, the annexationist colonial occupier. The latter’s spatial configuration does not, has never, and will never, include the territory of Ambazonia. The international boundaries of Republic of Cameroun as they were on the date of its achievement of independence from France were frozen on that date. The territory of the Ambazonia does not fall within those boundaries which therefore are in no way affected by Southern Cameroon’s achievement of independence. The principle of uti possidetis juris and the principle of respect for borders existing on the date of independence apply. Article 4(b) of the African Union Constitutive Act ordains that AU Member States are under treaty obligation to respect their respective state borders existing on the date of their achievement of national independence. The jurisprudence of the International Court of Justice emphasizes the need for decolonized states to respect the principle of intangibility of colonial borders as at the moment of independence. It is thus an impossibility, legal and factual, for a decolonized territory such as Republic of Cameroun to succeed at independence not to the territory of the immediate but to that of some remote predecessor state. The plebiscite in Ambazonia was a complete refutation and rejection of the averment that Ambazonia was at some point in time part of Republic of Cameroun or of French Cameroun. If Ambazonia had at some point in time been a part of that country (the existence of which dates only as from 1916 at best) the plebiscite would have been redundant. The territory would simply have been returned to La République du Cameroun like the one handed over to Morocco by Spain, Hong Kong to China by Britain and Walvis Bay to Namibia by South Africa. Claimed historical consolidation, historical connection, or mere geographical propinquity cannot give La République du Cameroun title over the territory of the Ambazonia. The law is not that stupid as to give title to territory based on mere historical connection or geographical contiguity because that would put most countries in the world at the mercy of an expansionist-minded neighbour, resulting in the dismantling of the Westphalian state system. Even the ruling of the International Court of Justice in the ‘Bakassi case’ cannot possibly be taken as having decided that Ambazonia is part of the territory of Republic of Cameroun. The international boundaries of the Ambazonia and the question of sovereignty over the Ambazonia were not issues put and pleaded before the Court. It is elementary that a court of law does not 92

decide matters not put before it and argued by the parties. Further, the ICJ is not a territorial sovereign. It does not have territory with which to assuage the colonial cravings of expansionist states. Sovereignty over the Ambazonia unquestionably vests in the people of Ambazonia but for the time being remains in abeyance until the moment of achievement of independence when it will then vest in the nascent state. La République du Cameroun’s annexation and occupation of Ambazonia is adverse to the undisputed title of the people of Ambazonia to their territory. That occupation cannot vest title in La République du Cameroun. Ambazonia could not have absurdly voted for the extinguishment of its territory, its identity, its self-government, and the absorption of its people as a dependent people of Republic of Cameroun. That would have been an act contrary to human nature. People do not opt for a detrimental change in their station in life. Ambazonia had nothing whatsoever to gain by an act of collective political, economic, social and cultural suicide. The same Ambazonia that fought doggedly for almost half a century to maintain its identity when it was administered as part of Nigeria could not possibly have made a volte-face overnight and opted for the destruction of its identity, its freedom and its legal and democratic culture. It could not have voted to become extinct. It is worth noting here that President Ahidjo stood before the UN and promised the world that the association with Ambazonia will be on the basis of TWO STATES FEDERATION; with equal status and thus it’s on this basis that a UN plebiscite was held on the 11th of February 1961 whereby the people of Ambazonia were given two choices: Association with La République du Cameroun or the Federal Republic of Nigeria. There wasn't a third option; which according to the UN charter could have been for Ambazonia to vote for an independent state. At this juncture, the people of Ambazonia thought it would be much better to be integrated with their French compatriots where their identity, cultural heritages and way of governance would be maintained. The people spoke but since 1961 La République du Cameroun had never kept her words. Though the Ambazonia delegation went to the Foumbam Conference of July 1961 which was highly unconstitutional with no representation from the UN, they never had appropriate time to go through President Ahmado Ahidjo’s La République du Cameroun proposed plan of federal constitution as most were seeing it for the first time. However, the delegation from Ambazonia headed by Prime Minister John Ngu Foncha proposed a loosed form of 93

federalism. Worthy of note is that the Foumban conference promised to meet after to formalize the agreement but never met till date. President Ahidjo went ahead to promulgate the Federal Constitution in La Republic Assembly with the backing of France. This was highly against the spirit and letter of the so-called Foumban conference. The people of the Southern British Cameroons voted for independence on 11 February 1961. That decision to achieve independence was endorsed on 21 April 1961 by the United Nations. The World Body set 1 October 1961 as the effective date of independence and the concomitant termination of trusteeship. But La République du Cameroun unlawfully repressed that independence. Independence therefore failed to materialize. Trusteeship was indeed terminated but independence was suppressed. The envisaged free association between Ambazonia and La République du Cameroun never took place. Instead, Ambazonia was annexed by Republic of Cameroun and subjected to bitter colonial administration by La République du Cameroun. A month before the UN-appointed independence date of 1 October 1961 Republic of Cameroun illegally assumed jurisdiction over Ambazonia by performing acts of sovereignty in the territory. On 1st September 1961 the parliament of La République du Cameroun passed an annexation law deceptively dressed as an amendment of its Constitution of 4 March 1960. In a labelling trick, the document was denoted as a so-called ‘federal constitution’. In that annexation law Republic of Cameroun formally laid claim to and asserted jurisdiction over Ambazonia baselessly saying it is part of its territory returned to it by the United Nations and Britain. The territorial integrity of Ambazonia was infringed when, in that same month, the French-led troops of Republic of Cameroun entered Ambazonia and committed acts of cold-blooded massacre. A state of emergency was declared over the Territory. Terror was unleashed. Repression by way of brutal and brutalizing periodic cordon and search operations (‘ratissage’) by the military are periodically carried out to elicit submission to the new colonial ruler. This method of repression is copied from the French who used it as a tool of colonial repression in former North Vietnam, in Algeria and in French Cameroun. The UK was still the Administering Authority when Republic of Cameroun troops entered Ambazonia but it designedly chose to look the other way. And when the British colonial authorities left the territory on the 30th of September 1961, violence, terrorization and deprivation by 94

La République du Cameroun simply intensified and have not abated ever since. The ending of United Nations trusteeship over Ambazonia was on 1st October 1961. But the independence promised by the United Nations in terms of Article 76 b of its Charter, the independence for which the people voted for, and the effective date of which the United Nations set for 1st October 1961 was suppressed. When leaving Ambazonia the British handed power over the territory, not to the elected Government of Ambazonia as it should legally have done, but to the Head of State of a foreign country, namely, the President of Republic of Cameroun. That act was contrary to the letter and spirit of the Charter of the United Nations and the United Nations Declaration on Decolonization. Upon the departure of the British Commissioner of the Ambazonia, Republic of Cameroun appointed one of its citizens to take charge of the overall administration of the Territory as the new colonial governor, stepping into the shoes of the departed British Commissioner. The repeated propaganda by Republic of Cameroun about a so-called ‘reunification’ that supposedly took place, is a mere fiction. It is an imaginary ‘reunification’, a ruse and a fat lie to hoodwink the world. It is mere window dressing to camouflage annexation and colonial occupation and bondage. La République du Cameroun’s suppression of the right to selfdetermination of the people of the Ambazonia constitutes a denial of human rights. It is contrary to the Charter of the United Nations. It is an impediment to the promotion of world peace and cooperation in the Gulf of Guinea. Moreover, acts of Republic of Cameroun as successor colonialist in Ambazonia constitute delicta juris gentium in the following two forms involving the principle of self-determination. Republic of Cameroun’s continuing attempt at genocide in Ambazonia and its suppression of the right of the people of Ambazonia to self-determination constitute high illegality or breach of jus cogens. Republic of Cameroun’s infringement of principles of law creating rights the beneficiaries of which are dependent peoples such as the dependent people of Ambazonia and who therefore do not presently have effective means of protecting their rights, also constitute a breach of the law of nations. Intolerable Colonial Acts of La République du Cameroun Intolerable or coercive acts imposed on Ambazonians by La République du Cameroun to punish dissenters were both 95

provocation and aggravated the situation. For instance, on May 6th, 1972, President Ahmadou Ahidjo announced the transformation from the Federal Republic into a Unitary state to be determined through a fraudulent “OUI-YES” Referendum held on the 20th of May. This was and is illegal as it rescinded clause 1 of article 47 of the Federal Constitution which states that ”Proposals for revision shall be adopted by a simple majority vote of members of the Federal Assembly; provided that such a majority includes a majority of the representatives of each Federates state”. Again, it is highly contested that, it was Ambazonia who voted to join the Union and thus organizing a Referendum which involved the entire country was highly illegal. Ambazonia Parliament in Buea did not approve of such referendum. If anything should have been changed on the 20th May 1972, only the people of Ambazonia should have voted. This was not the case. In 1984, the name was officially changed by President Paul Biya from The United Republic of Cameroon back to La République du Cameroun amid strong criticisms from Ambazonia. The two (2) stars representing both identities was tampered with--that of Ambazonia stripped off the flag. Also, the changing of names unilaterally by President Biya indicated that La Republic had seceded from the so called Union. Many Ambazonian organizations argued that changing the name would have meant equity of opportunities for both citizens of La Republic Du Cameroun and Ambazonia. This was/is far from it. Some of the shortcomings of the current system to Ambazonia include: the imposition of French as the working language in purely common law courts in the very heart of Ambazonia; the recognition and reduction of Ambazonia to an ethnic groups such as the Doualas, Bulus, Betis etc. rather than a state; the policy closure of booming Ambazonia economic structures to increase dependence on Yaounde such as Powercam, Tiko Airport, etc ; the Assimilation of Ambazonia; the House of Chiefs which was a Southern Cameroon heritage- has been destroyed. Kings, Fons and Chiefs are now diminished to royal beggars as our cultural values have been fundamentally eroded and continue to; the marginalization of Anglophones in military appointments with only 2 Anglophones Generals out of more than 25;I; inequality in the allocation of industries and educational establishment within the national territory; discrepancy in wages between state workers from La Republic and SCs (with same or similar qualification and/or job experience.);and use of the French language in government publications/announcements and other organizations within Ambazonia. Most, if not all public exams are 96

written in French and a few with the English version attached to it; often appalling and incomprehensible. Whereas, institutions in Ambazonia are compelled to submit public exams in both languages. A pertinent concern however remains unanswered. France, whose territory of French Cameroons La République du Cameroun inherited at independence, never contested the boundary with Ambazonia. Instead, she entered into treaties with Britain to mark and demarcate that boundary. On what basis then is La République du Cameroun, successor state to French Cameroons, contesting that boundary? Effectively, Ambazonia was therefore never decolonized. It is still a colonial territory seeking decolonization. The United Nations and the conscientious world have unfinished decolonization business in Ambazonia. For, the territory moved from colonial rule by Britain to colonial rule by La République du Cameroun; one colonial ruler withdrew, another took over. As recently as 2010 the Government of La République du Cameroun reiterated its earlier statement that 1st January 1960 is the only date recorded at the United Nations as that of the independence of Republic of Cameroun. This truthful statement concedes that Ambazonia over which Republic of Cameroun is exercising illegal authority did not achieve independence as promised by the UN and is still a dependent territory. In his widely acclaimed Textbook on International Human Rights (2nd ed., 2005) RKM Smith states at page 275 in respect of Ambazonia as follows: Under the auspices of the United Nations itself, a number of plebiscites have been held, including West Irian and Togo. However, the United Nations does not have an entirely unblemished record visà-vis self-determination. In some instances, it has been argued that the United Nations has compromised the doctrine of selfdetermination. For example, the people of the former Trust territories of the North and South Cameroons were given only two choices: independence as part of Nigeria, or independence as part of the former French Cameroons. Becoming an independent State was not one of the proffered options. Consequently, the people of the North and South Cameroons once again found themselves under foreign rule. Recolonization rather than decolonization was the result.

On 24th October 1970 the United Nations General Assembly adopted by consensus the Declaration on Principles of International Law Concerning Friendly Relations and Co-Operation 97

Among States in Accordance with the Charter of the United Nations (UNGA Resolution 2625 (XXV)). The Declaration is emphatic that the “subjection of peoples to alien subjugation, domination and exploitation constitutes a violation of the principle of [equal rights and self-determination of peoples], as well as a denial of fundamental human rights, and is contrary to the Charter [of the United Nations].” It is also emphatic that the territory of a colony or other dependent Territory has, under the Charter, “a status separate and distinct from the territory of the State administering it” and that “such separate and distinct status … shall exist until the people of the (dependent) Territory have exercised their right of self-determination.” Who knew a row over common law and school curriculum could contribute to the establishment of the first 21st century genocide? Ambazonians were tired of being seen as inferior and wanted to have the rights of full citizen in their free nation, but more importantly, they wanted the rights of a human being, not “dogs”, “roaches”,. They also felt they should not be made to pay for LRC’s debt resulting from the years of French colonization. With the restoration of Independence on October 1, 2017, Ambazonians wanted to be allowed to embark on their “pursuit of happiness” and realize their goals. They could shape their society in whichever way they saw fit. Oh, and they had the freedom to interact peacefully with any other nations in the world they chose. Ordinary violence of LRC under Ahidjo and Biya in Ambazonia analyses the system of political confinement and, more broadly, its effects on the recolonized society, revealing the centrality of political violence to Fascist rule. The fascist LRC state ruled violently, projecting its coercive power deeply and diffusely into Ambazonian society through confinement, imprisonment, low-level physical assaults, economic deprivations, intimidation, discrimination, and other quotidian forms of coercion. Moreover, by promoting denunciatory practices, La République du Cameroun regime cemented the loyalties of Ambazonian “upstanding” citizens while suppressing opponents, dissenters, and social outsiders. La République du Cameroun fascist repression was thus more intense and ideological than previously thought and even shared some important similarities with Nazi and Soviet terror. In more than half a century La République du Cameroun’s fascist dictatorship manipulated the system’s appearance by assigning prominent antifascists to relatively hospitable torture centres. Meanwhile, militiamen abused the detainees; less fortunate 98

victims, mainly poor Ambazonians, languished in decrepit communal barracks; and the detainees’ families suffered economically. Finally, the regime relied on an array of more subtle yet insidious sanctions, which exerted pressure on vast segments of the Ambazonian population to conform politically. Second, the majority of victims were not antifascist militants but, rather, “politically compromised” individuals, “social outsiders”, and “ordinary Ambazonians.” Violation of Law of Armed Conflict (LOAC) by La République du Cameroun in Ambazonia An international armed conflict occurs when one or more States have recourse to armed force against another state, regardless of the reasons or the intensity of this confrontation. No formal declaration of war or recognition of the situation is required. The existence of an international armed conflict, and as a consequence, the possibility to apply International Humanitarian Law to this situation, depends on what actually happens on the ground. It is based on factual conditions. Apart from regular, inter-state armed conflicts, Additional Protocol I extends the definition of international armed conflicts to include armed conflicts in which peoples are fighting against colonial domination, alien occupation or racist regimes in the exercise of their right to self-determination. The LOAC arises from a desire among civilized nations to prevent unnecessary suffering and destruction while not impeding the effective waging of war. A part of public international law, LOAC regulates the conduct of armed hostilities. It also aims to protect civilians, prisoners of war, the wounded, sick, and shipwrecked. LOAC applies to international armed conflicts and in the conduct of military operations and related activities in armed conflict, however such conflicts are characterized. After World War II, the Geneva Convention created a treaty among nation states to abide by in the event of future conflicts. There have been numerous conflicts since 1949 with many crimes of war being prosecuted. The rules that are to be followed are called the Law of Armed Conflict, or Law of War, and covers everything from treating prisoners of war to rules of engagement of military forces. But the most important principles of the Law of Armed Conflict you should know are the following: 1) Fight only Enemy Combatants; 2) Do not Harm Enemies who Surrender; Disarm Them and Turn Them Over to Your Superiors; 3) Do Not Kill or 99

Torture Prisoners; 4) Collect and Care for the Wounded, whether Friend or Foe; 5) Do Not Attack Medical Personnel, Facilities, or Equipment; 6) Destroy No More than the Mission Requires; 7) Treat All Civilians Humanely; 8) Do Not Steal; Respect Private Property and Possessions; and, 9) Do Your Best to Prevent Violations of the Law of War; Report All Violations to Your Superiors. Following the declaration of war by President Paul Biya on November 30, 2017, Defence Minister Joseph Beti Assomo said on Saturday that “measures will be taken immediately” to “eradicate this inconvenient situation” Since then, more than 400 Ambazonians villages, schools, hospitals, and people in their sleep have been burnt to ashes, girls raped and some infected with HIV, looting, torture, extortion, armed robbery, abductions for ransom, destroying crops in farms, and information manipulation to cover up the atrocities committed by the “professional” army of La République du Cameroun. Fortunately, the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) is responding to the crisis. Working with partners such as local NGOs and local churches, NRC identifies displaced people in both regions and their surroundings, and assists them by distributing kits containing household items, as well as shelter and hygiene packs. NRC has distributed 3,918 Shelter and non-food item kits and has reached 23,912 persons through non-food item distributions and hygiene promotion sessions since the beginning of 2018. As more people flee their homes and thousands more are in dire need of aid, we are working to reach as many people as possible with assistance. Historically, it is not strange that the “Anglophone elites” in La République du Cameroun always took their case to the international community (Nfor, 2000), since this was a strategy that they employed during the British colonial period. A number of petitions and constant visits were made to the United Nations (UN) by Anglophone elites concerning British neglect of their territory (Postwatch, October, 1, 2005). These petitions were made in the form of presentations before the United Nations in New York or whenever there was a visiting UN mission to the trust territory. Nonetheless, since the early 1990s, the pattern of petitions has changed drastically. Petitions against the new state are different from those earlier petitions against colonialism. The aim of the petitions against the new state has been to draw the attention of the UN and the international community to the injustices inflicted upon minority English-speaking Cameroonians by the ruling government. 100

The “Anglophone elites” believed that, by making their plight known to the international community, the latter might intervene to restore the statehood of Ambazonia. In sum, theoretically, the claim to self-determination often encapsulates the hopes of ethnic peoples and other groups for freedom and independence. It provides a powerful focus for nationalist fervour, and it offers a convenient tool for ethnic entrepreneurs seeking to mobilize populations and fighters in pursuit of a secessionist cause. Indeed, self-determination conflicts are among the most persistent and destructive forms of warfare. Given the structural inequality between an armed self-determination movement and the opposing central government, self-styled ‘national liberation movements’ will at times resort to irregular methods of warfare, possibly including terrorist tactics. Such a campaign may trigger a disproportionate response by the government, at times putting in danger the populations of entire regions. This may lead to profound destabilization of societies placed at risk of disintegration, as can be seen in Sri Lanka or Sudan. And, due to the doctrine of non-intervention, international actors are traditionally hesitant to involve themselves in attempts to bring about a settlement of the conflict. Even in relation to such traditional colonies, the right to selfdetermination can be exercised only within the boundaries established by the colonial power – in that way the application of the right does not overcome the effects of colonialism by restoring the pre-existing situation, but the self-determination entity itself is defined by it. Furthermore, the right is of singular application. As soon as a colony has gained independence, it will itself start defending its own territorial integrity with utmost vigour. There is no secession from secession. And, when armed self-determination conflicts break out outside the colonial context, a legal inequality with significant practical consequences emerges. Colonial self-determination movements are entitled to establish national liberation movements, and the international system is twisted in their favour, to help them overcome the last vestiges of colonialism. Other rebel movements hiding in the deserts and jungles of the world will inevitably also lay claim to the label of ‘national liberation’. However, in their case, the self-determination privilege does not apply. Instead, the international system is structured in such a way as to help the central state ensure their defeat. However, committed their cause, groups fighting on behalf of peoples outside the colonial context are classified as secessionist 101

rebels and, potentially, terrorists. Hence, they can be engaged with minimum international legal restraint, under the very legal order of the state from which they seek to escape. This restrictive doctrine of self-determination leaves unaddressed three principal types of cases: Cases arising outside the colonial context (for example, Chechnya, Corsica, the Basque Country, Kosovo, etc.). These are cases where the concept of self-determination in the sense of secession does not apply at all, given the lack of a colonial nexus; Challenges to the territorial definition of former colonial entities (for example, Bougainville, Sri Lanka, Philippines, Burma, India in relation to tribal peoples). These are cases where a former colony exercised the right to self-determination, but ethnic movements emerging within the newly independent state seek separation; Challenges to the implementation of colonial self-determination (for example, Ambazonia, Eritrea, Somaliland, Kashmir, perhaps Southern Sudan and the Comoros and Mayotte). These are cases where it is argued that the doctrine of uti possidetis was wrongly applied at the point of decolonization, or that an entity was wrongfully incorporated into the newly independent state at that moment. Overall, the all-or-nothing game of self-determination has helped to sustain conflicts, rather than resolve them. Self-styled selfdetermination movements see no alternative to an armed struggle or the resort to terrorist strategies in order to achieve their aims. Central governments see little alternative to violent repression. Generally, self-determination conflicts will therefore terminate only once the government has won a decisive victory against the secessionist entity, as was the case, for instance, in relation to Katanga and Biafra in 1963 and 1969 respectively. Summary The root causes of the raging genocide in Ambazonia derive from the fact that the people of the Ambazonia have challenged La Republique du Cameroun to produce the slightest proof of how, when and by what instruments of international law, it lays claim to the territory of the Ambazonia. La Republique du Cameroun is called upon to show cause why the people of the Ambazonia, who were self-governing from 1954, should surrender their territory to be ruled by foreigners from Republique du Cameroun or show cause why the Ambazonia should not be ruled by Southern Cameroonians but by foreigners as if they were mere inanimate fixtures in their own territory. The Ambazonia case is not a 102

question of propaganda and narration, but of concrete proof that meets the standards of international law. Boundary disputes cannot be settled by mere narration or genocide, but by providing the proofs that meet the standards required under Article 102(1) of the UN Charter. Indeed, Ambazonia’s case for the restoration of its statehood and sovereign independence is founded on solid legal grounds, namely, the United Nations Charter: Articles 76(b) and 102(1); United Nations General Assembly Resolutions: Res. 1514 of December 14 1960; 1541 of 15 December 1960; 1608(XV) of April 21 1960), 2625 (XXV) of 24 October 1970; OAU (Organization of African Unity) Charter: Article 2, the abolition of colonization in all its forms on the African continent; the African Union Constitutive Act: Article4(b), respect of boundaries acquired at independence; the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights: Articles 19, 20(1), 20(2); principles of general international law, particular the principle of uti possedetis juris, which consecrates the principle that the boundaries of every state are the boundaries it inherited at independence and the OAU Cairo Declaration of 1964, stating that: ”…Africans are virtually unanimous in their agreement that only by acceptance of the frontiers bequeathed to them by the colonialists can permanent peace reign on our continent”. Conclusion It is simple logic that colonialism is no less reprehensible because the colonizer is of the same race as the colonized. Colonization is slavery, a form of terrorism and a threat to international peace and security. Article 20 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights emphatically rejects it. The African Union in the preamble to that Charter strongly denounces it. The existence of colonialism in any form or manifestation, including economic exploitation, is thus incompatible with the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights. It is moreover also incompatible with the United Nations Charter, the United Nations Declaration on Decolonization and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The United Nations, the African Union and the international community as agents of negotiation are therefore dutybound to affirm their support for the legitimate aspiration of the people of Ambazonia to be free from La République du Cameroun re-colonial bondage and to establish an independent sovereign state. 103

Way Forward Ambazonia is an international territory; a former Trust Territory of the United Nations, demarcated by international boundaries and protected by international treaties. The treaties marking the Eastern border of the Ambazonia (the boundary which separates it from La République du Cameroun) were concluded between Britain and France; France, whose territory of French Cameroons LRC inherited at independence. These treaties are the Milner-Simon Declaration of 10th July 1919 and the Franco-British Treaty of 9 January 1931. The premise of national conflict in La Republique du Cameroun-Ambazonia war is fundamentally flawed, and, therefore, reaching a settlement based on “national dialogue” or (“Special Status”) reconciliation–is becoming increasingly unlikely (Berger, 2005). A new paradigm (in the Ambazonian sense) is needed that applies a settler-colonial framework to the conflict while also taking into consideration the national component. Reconciliation or negotiated separation with the United Nations as agent in this conflict is conceived as decolonization within a transitional justice framework. The USA Congressional Letter dated December 12, 2019 to President Paul Biya for an inclusive dialogue without any preconditions is a good starting point. This UN negotiated separation approach overcomes major pitfalls in the hegemonic discourse (Foucault, 1980) on reconciliation in this conflict, including the symmetrical analysis and psychologizing the process. This approach also overcomes major pitfalls in the name of empty slogans like “national dialogue” (Mahamat, 2017). References Anyangwe, C.(2010). The Secrets of an Aborted Decolonisation. The Declassified British Secret Files on the Ambazonia . Langaa. RPCIG. Anyangwe, E. (2018). Cameroon’s heartbreaking struggles are a relic of British colonialism. The Guardian, Jan, 12. Anyangwe, C. (2014). A country decolonized becomes colonizer: Republique du Cameroun’s colonial occupation of the Ambazonia (Ambazonia). In Fonkem Achankeng (Ed.). British Ambazonia: Nationalism & Conflict in Postcolonial Africa. Victoria, BC, Canada: FriesenPress, pp. 1-11 104

Ardener, E.(1967).”The Nature of the Reunification of Cameroon”, in A. Hazelwood (ed.), African Integration and Disintegration (Oxford: Oxford University Press): 285-237. Atanga, Mufor. 2011. The Anglophone Cameroon Predicament. Bamenda, Cameroon: Langaa RPCIG. Atemnkeng, D. (2014). British Ambazonia’ nationalism and the African unity argument. In Fonkem A. (Ed.). British Ambazonia: Nationalism & conflict in postcolonial Africa. Victoria, BC, Canada: FriesenPress Berger, B (2005) Power over, power with, and power to relations: Critical reflections on public relations, the dominant coalition, and activism. Journal of Public Relations Research 17(1): 5–28. Chalk, Frank and Kurt Jonassohn, The History and Sociology of Genocide: Analysis and Case Studies (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1990), p. 44. Donfack, L. (1998)”Le renouveau de la question fédérale au Cameroun”, Penant, 108 (826): 30-61. Epie Ngome, V. (1992). What god put asunder. Yaounde: Pitcher Books Ernest, Lepore and Barry C. Smith, eds. (2008). The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Language. New York: Oxford University Press. Eyoh, D. (1998).”Conflicting Narratives of Anglophone Protest and the Politics of Identity in Cameroon”, Journal of Contemporary African Studies, 16 (2): 249-276. DOI: 10.1080/02589009808729630. Fanso, V. G. (2017). History explains why Cameroon is at war with itself over language and culture. The Conversation, Oct. 15. Fanso, V. G. (2014). British Ambazonia’ independence by joining. In Fonkem A. (Ed.). British Ambazonia: Nationalism & conflict in postcolonial Africa. Victoria, BC, Canada: FriesenPress. Fanso, V. G. (2017). History explains why Cameroon is at war with itself over language and culture. The Conversation, Oct. 15. Fonkem, A. (2013). De facto association, forced assimilation and a nationalist conflict in the Cameroons: perspective from the incompatibility theory. Journal of International Studies and Development. Vol. 3, spring, pp. 142-168. Fossung, H. (2004). The UN and the decolonization process in Africa: Case for Ambazonia’ restoration of statehood. African Orbit (African Leaders’ Lecture Series). 1(1). Foucault, M. (1980). Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews & Other Writings. New York: Pantheon Books. 105

Gobata, R. (2011). The ironies of our history. In I spit on their graves. Bellingham, WA: Kola Tree Press Jua, N.(2003).”Anglophone Political Struggles and State Responses”, in J. G. GROS (ed.), Cameroon: Politics and Society in Critical Perspectives (Lanham: University Press of America): 87110. Kindzeka, E. M. (Dec. 9, 2016). Violence hits Cameroon over English vs French. VOA. Konings, P. and Nyamnjoh, F.B. (1997).”The Anglophone Problem in Cameroon”, The Journal of Modern African Studies, 35 (2): 207229. ---(2000).”Construction and Deconstruction: Anglophones or Autochtones?”, The African Anthropologist, 7,(1):5-32. ---(2003). Negotiating an Anglophone Identity: A Study of the Politics of Recognition and Representation in Cameroon (Leiden: Brill). Kuper, Leo. (1981). Genocide: Its Political Use in the Twentieth Century. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. Lemkin, R. (1946). “Genocide”, American Scholar, 15 (2): 227–230 Litumbe, Njoh (2012). Case of the Annexation of the UN British Administered Territory of Ambazonia. The recorder. Retrieved on May 6, 2012 from http://recorderline.blogspot.com/2011/06/cameroonnjoh-litumbe-84-publishes-book.html Mahamat, M. F. (2017). The African Union urges for restraint and dialogue to resolve the situation in the North West and South West of Cameroon. Addis Ababa. Retrieved October 29, 2018. http://www.peaceau.org/en/article/the-african-union-urgesfor-restraint-and-dialogue-to-resolve-the-situation-in-the-northwest-and-south-west-of-cameroon Menthong, H.L.(1998).”La question locale dans le débat constitutionnel au Cameroun: chassé-croisé entre unité et pluralisme”, Africa Development, 23 (1): 5-40. Nfor, Ngala N. (2000). A memorandum presented to H.E. Kofi Annan, Secretary General of the United Nations by the constituent assembly of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia regarding the restoration of the independence and sovereignty of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia (formerly the UN trust territory of the British Ambazonia), Buea, May.2000. Niying Roger Mbihbiih, ‘Europhone divide in Cameroon: constraining nation-building and democratisation in the postcolony’, International Journal of Advances in Social Science and Humanities, vol 6, no 12, Vadodara (India), February 2016. 106

NKOUM-ME-NTSENY,L.-M.M. (1996).”Dynamique de positionnement anglophone et libéralisation politique au Cameroun: De l’identité à l’identification”, Polis: Cameroonian Political Science Review, 1: 68-100. Power, Samantha . (2002).A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide (New York: Basic Books, 2002), p. 43. SINDJOUN, L.(1995).”Mobilisation politique du pluralisme culturel et crise de l’État-nation au Cameroun”, in I. MANE (dir.), État, démocratie, sociétés et culture en Afrique (Dakar: Éditions Démocraties Africaines): 87-115. Wolf, Michael P. (2006). “Philosophy of Language.” In Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Edited by James Fieser and Bradley Dowden. Yongbang, A. B. (2014). Independence for the British Ambazonia: legal argument in international law. In Fonkem A. (Ed.). British Ambazonia: Nationalism & conflict in postcolonial Africa. Victoria, BC, Canada: FriesenPress. *This revised paper was published by Pan-African Visions in 2019.

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Chapter Four Dissecting the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide Overview The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide was unanimously adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 9 December 1948 as General Assembly Resolution 260. The Convention entered into force on 12 January 1951. It defines genocide in legal terms, and is the culmination of years of campaigning by lawyer Raphael Lemkin. All participating countries are advised to prevent and punish actions of genocide in war and in peacetime. As of May 2019, 152 states have ratified or acceded to the treaty, most recently Mauritius on 8 July 2019. One state, the Dominican Republic, has signed but not ratified the treaty (See UN Documents, 2018-2020). The call to stop genocide is often presented as the paramount moral obligation in contemporary global politics. From the ’Never Again’ refrain to the consistent references to the ethical value of the Responsibility to Protect, genocide stands as an object calling for urgent political mobilization. Importantly, the Convention establishes on State Parties the obligation to take measures to prevent and to punish the crime of genocide, including by enacting relevant legislation and punishing perpetrators, “whether they are constitutionally responsible rulers, public officials or private individuals” (Article IV). That obligation, in addition to the prohibition not to commit genocide, have been considered as norms of international customary law and therefore, binding on all States, whether or not they have ratified the Genocide Convention.

Introduction The United Nations has been widely criticized for acting inadequately, too slowly, or not at all in cases of genocide. Since its establishment in 1948, the UN’s success rate at preventing genocide has been very low, as evidenced by the large number of mass atrocities that have occurred in the past half-century that might fall under the UN definition of genocide, but the fact that only a few cases have been legally established as constituting genocide and 109

prosecuted as such. The UN faces a number of challenges in acting to prevent and intervene in cases of genocide. First, the fact that individual member states compose both the UN General Assembly and the UN Security Council means that humanitarian goals become secondary to national political goals and pressures, as member states pursue their own interests. Vetoes or threats of vetoes by one of the Permanent Five members of the UN Security Council have often paralyzed the UN Security Council. For example, the United States and the Soviet Union virtually prevented the United Nations from approving humanitarian interventions in any areas they deemed to be of strategic significance during the Cold War. An exception was the “Korean Police Action” when the Uniting for Peace Resolution, United Nations General Assembly Resolution 377 passed during a Soviet walk-out from the Security Council, allowed the UN General Assembly to authorize the use of force. Uniting for Peace has been used thirteen times by the General Assembly, but it is now avoided by all of the Permanent Five members of the Security Council because in the General Assembly they lack any veto power. Additionally, despite the Responsibility to Protect, many states still argue in favour of the protection of state sovereignty over intervention, even in the face of potential mass killing. Another significant barrier to action on genocidal violence is the reticence to officially invoke the term “genocide,” as it appears to be applied narrowly over the objections of lawyers and governments that want to avoid action, and much too slowly in cases of mass atrocities. Instead euphemisms such as “ethnic cleansing” are substituted, even though there are no international treaties prohibiting “ethnic cleansing.” Genocide is generally considered one of the worst moral crimes a government (meaning any ruling authority, including that of a guerrilla group, a quasi-state, a Soviet, a terrorist organization, or an occupation authority) can commit against its citizens or those it controls. The major reason for this is what the world learned about the Holocaust, the systematic attempt of German authorities during World War II to kill all and every Jew no matter where found-to destroy Jews as a group. This murder of between 5 to 6 million Jews became the paradigm case of genocide and underlies the word's origin. As the world also learned about other genocides, there was an international attempt through the United Nations to make genocide an international crime and to bring its perpetrators to justice. Thus in 1948 it approved and proposed the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (UHCG), and 110

most recently states signed into being the International Criminal Court (ICC). As a crime, the UHCG defined genocide as the intention to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such. The ICC accepts this definition, further elaborates it, provides broader jurisdiction, and can subject individuals regardless or status or rank to prosecution. Noteworthy is the fact that the ICC now covers not only genocide, but crimes against humanity that include, aside from genocide, government murder, extermination campaigns, enslavement, deportation, torture, rape, sexual slavery, enforced disappearance, and apartheid. The Genocide Convention The United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide was the product of the balance of power between political interests and exhaustive work of the term’s inventor, Raphael Lemkin (1900–1959), who tirelessly attempted to retain as much of his original conception as possible. During the UN drafting debates the protection of “cultural” groups was consigned to conventions on human rights and minority rights. However, for Lemkin it was cultural identity that animated the genos in genocide. Consequently, the final text of the UN Convention, and many subsequent definitions, are at odds with Lemkin’s own formulation and conceptually incoherent. Too often genocide is equated with mass murder, while “cultural genocide,” or “ethnocide” as it is often called in error, is seen as a lesser form of genocide. A conceptually coherent understanding of genocide views “cultural” destruction as a key method, or technique, of genocidal practice, rather than a lesser form. Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide Although preventing atrocity crimes is far preferable to responding when the crimes are ongoing or after they have been committed, there are times when prevention has failed. The brutal legacy of the twentieth century, marred as it was by the Holocaust, the killing fields of Cambodia, the genocide in Rwanda and in Srebrenica and other events, underlined the profound failure of individual States to live up to their responsibilities and obligations under international law, as well as the collective inadequacies of international institutions. These tragedies pressed the need for a 111

collective response that would protect populations by either stopping the escalation of on-going atrocities, or accelerating or prompting their termination. Though the responsibility to protect populations against genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity lies primarily with individual States, the principle also underlines the responsibility of the international community to take collective action, in a “timely and decisive manner”, to protect populations from those crimes when States “manifestly fail” in their responsibilities. In these cases, responses to atrocity crimes can take the form of peaceful means under Chapters VI ad VIII of the United Nations Charter, or take the form of coercive means, including those foreseen in Chapter VII of the Charter. Some may consider that prevention and response are at opposite ends of the spectrum. In practice, however, the two often merge. Putting an end to ongoing atrocity crimes in a particular situation should mark the beginning of a period of social renewal and institutional capacity-building aimed at making future violence less likely. In this way, an informed and calibrated response to atrocity crimes also serves prevention goals. In addition, it may not always be possible to clearly determine whether an activity falls exclusively under a preventive or a responsive approach. In fact, a State’s responsibility to protect its populations from atrocity crimes, as well as the commitment of the international community to assist States in that responsibility, both entail elements of prevention and response, sometimes even at the same time. For instance, international assistance in the form of an international commission of inquiry to establish the facts and to identify the perpetrators of crimes and violations relating to the responsibility to protect can also constitute a timely and decisive response. At the same time, dispatching an international commission of inquiry can, through its mere presence in the State concerned, contribute to the prevention of further crimes and violations and thus serve as an international assistance preventive measure. Genocide is a curious anomaly in the post-war regime of international humanitarian law, which is dominated by the discourse of human rights with its emphasis on individuals. It embodies the social ontology of ‘groupism’, because genocide is about the destruction of groups per se, not individuals per se. Wars of extermination have marked human society from antiquity until the religious conflagrations of early modern Europe, after which the 112

doctrine that dominated was that war should be conducted against states rather than populations. Given that forty-nine members of his family died in the Holocaust, Lemkin's ecumenical approach to human suffering is at once astonishing and exemplary. Raphaël Lemkin (1900-1959) coined the word “genocide” in the winter of 1942 and led a movement in the United Nations to outlaw the crime, setting his sights on reimagining human rights institutions and humanitarian law after World War II. After the UN adopted the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in 1948, Lemkin slipped into obscurity, and within a few short years many of the same governments that had agreed to outlaw genocide and draft a Universal Declaration of Human Rights tried to undermine these principles. Genocide is commonly deemed to be either unthinkable and consequently inexplicable or the result of special hatreds. I argue instead that genocide is an extreme result of normal identity processes. Four overlapping phases are proposed. (1) Dichotomization elevates one dimension of identity over others and, within that dimension, sharply distinguishes two categories: us and them. This may lead to (2) dehumanization, in which “they” come to be seen not just as different from “us” but as outside the human universe of moral obligation. (3) Destruction may result, accompanied and followed by processes of (4) denial that enable the perpetrators to maintain their moral self-conceptions. These phases are illustrated with examples from Ambacide. That is why the United Nations General Assembly adopted Resolution 260 (III) 9 December 1948 to punish the crime of genocide and extermination. Article 1 The Contracting Parties confirm that genocide, whether committed in time of peace or in time of war, is a crime under international law which they undertake to prevent and to punish. Article 2 In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: • (a) Killing members of the group; • (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

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• (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; • (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; • (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

Article 3 The following acts shall be punishable: • (a) Genocide; • (b) Conspiracy to commit genocide; • (c) Direct and public incitement to commit genocide; • (d) Attempt to commit genocide; • (e) Complicity in genocide. Article 4 Persons committing genocide or any of the other acts enumerated in Article 3 shall be punished, whether they are constitutionally responsible rulers, public officials or private individuals. Article 5 The Contracting Parties undertake to enact, in accordance with their respective Constitutions, the necessary legislation to give effect to the provisions of the present Convention and, in particular, to provide effective penalties for persons guilty of genocide or any of the other acts enumerated in Article 3. Article 6 Persons charged with genocide or any of the other acts enumerated in Article 3 shall be tried by a competent tribunal of the State in the territory of which the act was committed, or by such international penal tribunal as may have jurisdiction with respect to those Contracting Parties which shall have accepted its jurisdiction. Article 7 Genocide and the other acts enumerated in Article 3 shall not be considered as political crimes for the purpose of extradition. The Contracting Parties pledge themselves in such cases to grant extradition in accordance with their laws and treaties in force. 114

Article 8 Any Contracting Party may call upon the competent organs of the United Nations to take such action under the Charter of the United Nations as they consider appropriate for the prevention and suppression of acts of genocide or any of the other acts enumerated in Article 3. Article 9 Disputes between the Contracting Parties relating to the interpretation, application or fulfilment of the present Convention, including those relating to the responsibility of a State for genocide or any of the other acts enumerated in Article 3, shall be submitted to the International Court of Justice at the request of any of the parties to the dispute. Article 10 The present Convention, of which the Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish texts are equally authentic, shall bear the date of 9 December 1948. Article 11 The present Convention shall be open until 31 December 1949 for signature on behalf of any Member of the United Nations and of any non-member State to which an invitation to sign has been addressed by the General Assembly. The present Convention shall be ratified, and the instruments of ratification shall be deposited with the Secretary-General of the United Nations. After 1 January 1950, the present Convention may be acceded to on behalf of any Member of the United Nations and of any nonmember State which has received an invitation as aforesaid. Instruments of accession shall be deposited with the SecretaryGeneral of the United Nations. Article 12 Any Contracting Party may at any time, by notification addressed to the Secretary-General of the United Nations, extend the application of the present Convention to all or any of the territories for the conduct of whose foreign relations that Contracting Party is responsible.

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Article 13 On the day when the first twenty instruments of ratification or accession have been deposited, the Secretary-General shall draw up a proces-verbal and transmit a copy of it to each Member of the United Nations and to each of the non-member States contemplated in Article 11. The present Convention shall come into force on the ninetieth day following the date of deposit of the twentieth instrument of ratification or accession. Any ratification or accession effected subsequent to the latter date shall become effective on the ninetieth day following the deposit of the instrument of ratification or accession. Article 14 The present Convention shall remain in effect for a period of ten years as from the date of its coming into force. It shall thereafter remain in force for successive periods of five years for such Contracting Parties as have not denounced it at least six months before the expiration of the current period. Denunciation shall be effected by a written notification addressed to the Secretary-General of the United Nations. Article 15 If, as a result of denunciations, the number of Parties to the present Convention should become less than sixteen, the Convention shall cease to be in force as from the date on which the last of these denunciations shall become effective. Article 16 A request for the revision of the present Convention may be made at any time by any Contracting Party by means of a notification in writing addressed to the Secretary-General. The General Assembly shall decide upon the steps, if any, to be taken in respect of such request. Article 17 The Secretary-General of the United Nations shall notify all Members of the United Nations and the non-member States contemplated in Article 11 of the following: (a) Signatures, ratifications and accessions received in accordance with Article 11; (b) Notifications received in accordance with Article 12; 116

(c) The date upon which the present Convention comes into force in accordance with Article 13; (d) Denunciations received in accordance with Article 14; (e) The abrogation of the Convention in accordance with Article 15; (f) Notifications received in accordance with Article 16. Article 18 The original of the present Convention shall be deposited in the archives of the United Nations. A certified copy of the Convention shall be transmitted to all Members of the United Nations and to the non-member States contemplated in Article 11. Article 19 The present Convention shall be registered by the SecretaryGeneral of the United Nations on the date of its coming into force. Let us note here that Article 7 of a 1994 draft of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples used the phrase “cultural genocide” but did not define what it meant. The Draft United Nations declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples drafted by The Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities Recalling resolutions 1985/22 of 29 August 1985, 1991/30 of 29 August 1991, 1992/33 of 27 August 1992, 1993/46 of 26 August 1993, was presented to the Commission on Human Rights and the Economic and Social Council at 36th meeting 26 August 1994 and adopted without a vote. The complete article in the draft read as follows: Indigenous peoples have the collective and individual right not to be subjected to ethnocide and cultural genocide, including prevention of and redress for: (a) Any action which has the aim or effect of depriving them of their integrity as distinct peoples, or of their cultural values or ethnic identities;(b) Any action which has the aim or effect of dispossessing them of their lands, territories or resources;(c) Any form of population transfer which has the aim or effect of violating or undermining any of their rights;(d) Any form of assimilation or integration by other cultures or ways of life imposed on them by legislative, administrative or other measures;(e) Any form of propaganda directed against them.

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“This wording only appeared in a draft. The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly during its 62nd session at UN Headquarters in New York City on 13 September 2007, but only mentions ‘genocide, or any other act of violence’ in Article 7 (the only reference to genocide in the document). The concept of ‘ethnocide’ and ‘cultural genocide’ was removed in the version adopted by the General Assembly, but the sub-points noted above from the draft were retained (with slightly expanded wording) in Article 8 that speaks to ‘the right not to be subject to forced assimilation’.”’ (See the United Nations Declaration on Rights of Indigenous Peoples” (PDF). United Nations. 13 September 2007. p. 5. Retrieved 9 June 2015). Revisiting the Origin of the Term Genocide The root causes of genocide according to Campbell lie in either overdiversity or under-stratification and social distance. In social time, overdiversity occurs when ethnic groups that were previously separated come into contact with each other leading to ethnic conflict and possibly genocide. Under-stratification occurs when a high-status group is threatened or a low status group experiences a rise in status. In social space, the greater the social distance the greater the likelihood of genocide, because the victims and perpetrators lack similarities and interdependence. When overdiversity or under-stratification and social distance increase, the possibility of genocide increases too. While attempts to destroy groups has been very much a part of human history, such were usually identified, if at all, either as by a description of the action (“Jinghiz Khan set out to wholly destroy the Tanguts in china in 1226-1233”) or by subsuming the act under some very general concept, such as massacres, mass murder, put to the sword, barbarism, or inhumanity. Even the attempts by the international community to develop humanitarian law during the 19th and early 20th Centuries wholly focused on war crimes and crimes against humanity during war. Various Hague treaties and the Geneva Conventions, for example, made it an international crime to murder POWs, indiscriminately kill or target non-combatants, sink unarmed passenger ships, and the like. Moreover, there were occasions when states applied pressure or threatened military actions against other nations to stop massacring their nationals or coreligionists, as when the major European Powers in the late 19th 118

Century threatened action against the Ottoman Empire because of its massacres of Christians. None of the Hague treaties or Geneva conventions mentioned genocide, nor were the massacres the Powers tried to prevent called genocide. There was a simple reason for this that was recognized by Winston Churchill, Prime Minister of Great Britain. During World War II, when the horrible scope of the Nazi extermination of the Jews became known, Churchill recognized that this was “a crime that has no name.” The jurist Raphael Lemkin, a Polish scholar of international law, coined the legal concept in 1944. He fled the German occupation of Poland in 1939 for Sweden, and at the end of World War II, he moved to New York to lobby the United Nations for an international genocide convention. He subsequently taught law at Duke and Yale Universities and was nominated four times for the Nobel Peace Prize. In 1933 Lemkin delivered a paper at an international meeting in Madrid in which he focused on the historical destruction of racial, religious or other social groups. He called for an international convention that like that against slavery and piracy would make international crimes out of the destruction of groups, which lacking a better term, he called “Acts of Barbarity.” He was not satisfied with this very broad term, and it went nowhere in subsequent international law. Then, years later he came upon Plato’s use of the Greek word genos for a “race,” or “tribe.” The idea naturally occurred to Lemkin to add the Latin -cide, which means “killer” or “act of killing” in Latin, as in homicide or suicide. Thus, was born “genocide.” At the height of Holocaust, and with that in mind, Lemkin wrote his 1944 book on, Axis Rule in Occupied Europe, which was the first public articulation of the concept. In it he proposed the international regulation of genocide-the “practice of extermination of nations and ethnic groups.” Lemkin played an important role in the Nuremberg International Military Tribunal trials of Nazi war criminals. He also lobbied at the UN during its debate on genocide, which concluded with the General Assembly resolution that “genocide is a crime under international law which the civilized world condemns, and for the commission of which principals and accomplices are punishable.”

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History of the Crime of Genocide The legal application of the term genocide first occurred in the indictment of the Nazi war criminals in the 1945-46 Nuremburg Tribunal. They were indicted for “War Crimes” (Count Three), which included the “deliberate and systematic genocide; viz., the extermination of racial and national groups, against the civilian population of certain occupied territories in order to destroy particular races and classes of people, and national, racial, or religious groups, particularly Jews, Poles, and Gypsies.” Following the aforementioned UN resolution of genocide, the question of an international genocide convention was referred to the UN Economic and Social Council. Their debate and deliberation ended in the 1948 UNCG, which came into force in 1951, and since then has been ratified by 133 states. The UN discussion and debate on genocide and final consideration of its definition focused on the horrors of the Holocaust, and in preventing or punishing future Holocaust like occurrences. For this reason, infused as it is with the memory of piles of corpses, gas ovens, and helpless men, women, and children in long lines being led to gas ovens or to face machine guns, genocide has been considered among the worst international crimes. The UNCG’s definition of genocide is the same as the ICC’s Acts (a)-(e), above, although the clarifications and elements added to the definition by the PCICC have gone far to clarify what the crime means in practice. For example, as mentioned, even if the act involves one person it is genocide, and torture, rape, and sexual violence are explicitly genocide if involving the intent to destroy an indelible group in whole or in part. Only states may be parties to the UNCG and a tribunal may hold trials for the crime of genocide (Article 6) in the state in which genocide was committed, “or by such international penal tribunal as may have jurisdiction with respect to those contracting parties which have accepted its jurisdiction.” Only parties to the UNCG may initiate cases of genocide under the UNCG. When such cases are left up to states, international and domestic politics play a prime role. And for this reason, there has been no case of genocide initiated under the UNCG by a State Party, even though there are many possible cases, such as by Burundi (1972), Cambodian Khmer Rouge (1975-79), Iraq (1963-), Myanmar (1962-), Nigeria (1967-70), Rwanda (1994), Serbia (1990s), Sudan (1956-), and many others. 120

Moreover, many cases of genocide have been committed by nonparties, or before they ratified the UNCG, such as by Angola, China, Congo (Kinshasa), Indonesia, Pakistan, Paraguay, and Sierra Leone. In order to deal with the glaring cases of genocide and war crimes, the United Nations has resorted to setting up ad hoc Tribunals. So far only two are in existence, one the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) for the Rwandan genocide of 1994. It has been successful in finding Mayor Jean-Paul Akayesu, former Prime Minister Jean Kambanda, and businessman and militia leader Omar Serushago, guilty of genocide, among other crimes. Kambanda has been found guilty of genocide and crimes against humanity and sentenced to life imprisonment. Moreover, many other high officials have been detained and are on trial, including the former ministers of education, health, information, foreign affairs, civil service, and commerce and industry. Since this was an internal domestic matter, a crime committed against their own people during a domestic conflict, their prosecution sets an important precedent for the application of international humanitarian law. Moreover, many states cooperated with the ICTR, including complying with ICTR arrest warrants, thus setting additional precedents. The other tribunal is The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), which was established in 1993 with regard to serious violations of humanitarian law. Genocide is among the crimes it has authority to persecute. Seven individuals are now serving sentences, and three have completed their sentence and ten have been provisionally released. In 1999 the Tribunal issues a warrant for the arrest of Slobodan Milosevic, former President of Yugoslavia, and four of his associates for genocide and crimes against humanity. Milosevic is now standing trial before the Tribunal. The United Nations had also made attempts to set up similar tribunals for the Cambodian Khmer Rouge genocide and other crimes against humanity, and similarly for genocide and other crimes against humanity of Sierra Leone’s Revolutionary United Front, among other groups, and Indonesia's genocide in former East Timor (1975- 98). For one reason or another these have either been unsuccessful or partially successful, as in the hybrid nationalinternational Special Court for Sierra Leone. In effect, the UNCG has now been replaced by the ICC’s Statute. 121

Historical Flashback on Genocide Throughout history hundreds of millions of people have been so murdered by their governments or rulers. This because they were hated; the wrong ethnic group, race, religion, or nationality; got in the way; were perceived a threat or enemy; on a whim; or for no reason at all. A conservative accounting would put the murdered as around 133 million, a number whose size was only limited by the small population of the world. By contrast, pre-20th Century war dead may have been about 40 million; the Black Plagues during the fifth to the 20th Century may have killed 102 million. Just a few examples will have to suffice. In China as one emperor succeeded another and as one imperial war devastated the population, tens of millions were murdered. In the Taiping Rebellion (1851-64) alone, upwards of forty million were killed, the vast majority likely murdered. The Mongols, Jinghiz Khan a particular ruthless killer among them, devastated large sections of Persia, the Middle East, Eastern Europe, Russia and China-perhaps murdering through the 14-15th Centuries as many as 30 million people (about 13 percent of the world's population). Then, of course, there was slavery which may have accounted for the murder of about 17 million African blacks; and the murder of the Indians of the Americas, another 13 or so million. These are just the most notorious examples, but then there were the less deadly only in their lesser number of victims, such as in the murder of Christians by the Romans, the Christian Crusades, the Aztec sacrifices, the Spanish Inquisition, the witch hunts, the frequent anti-Jewish pogroms throughout Europe, and so on. By the 20th Century the human population had multiplied. At the time of the Mongols the world population was about 400 million. In 1900 it was about 1.2 billion, which rose to 6.1 billion by mid-2001. With many more people to kill, governments murdered many more people. In the 20th Century alone, the toll probably exceeded all those murdered before, likely an incredible 174 million. Possibly even around 340 million. For perspective on this, it is as though the world suffered a catastrophic nuclear war in slow motion. The conservative count of 174 million murdered is four times the number killed in combat in all domestic and foreign wars during the century, including World Wars I and II. This many corpses placed head to toe would ring the earth about four times. The worst murdering government was that of the Soviet Union, where Lenin, Stalin, and their successor may have killed around 62 122

million citizens and foreigners. Beginning in 1923, the Communist Party of China under Mao Tse-tung and his successors may have accounted for 39 million Chinese. The Nazis under Hitler carried out the Holocaust against the Jews, which everyone knows about, but lesser known is their other murders, which including the Jews amount to about 21 million murdered. Virtually unknown is that the Chinese Nationalist government, while in power from 1928 to 1949 under Chiang Kai-shek, murdered some 10 million Chinese. There were lesser murdering governments that while they killed a million or more people, managed to keep the total under 10 million. Just to name them, with the years and approximate millions murdered in parenthesis: Japan (1937-45: 6), Cambodia Khmer Rouge (1975-79: 2), Turkey (1909-18: 1.9), Vietnam (1945-87: 1.7), North Korea (1948-2002: over 2), Poland (1945-48: 1.6), Pakistan (1958-87: 1.5), Mexico (1900-20: 1.4), Russia (1900-17: 1.1), and Yugoslavia under Tito (1944-87:1). Well over a hundred other governments murdered their share in the tens or hundreds of thousands in this 20th century blood bath. All of this killing would now be a crime under the ICC, How much of this is the crime of genocide, however? Those cases that most clearly would be such crimes are the Holocaust costing 5-6 million Jews killed, of course. Both the UN Tribunals for Rwanda (overall about, 500-750 thousand Tutsi killed in 1994) and Yugoslavia (about 25,000-100,000 murdered in BosniaHerzegovina) have found that genocide had occurred and have meted out punishment. Some other major cases the fit or come close, with murdered in parenthesis) are the 1909-23 mass murder of Armenians, Greeks, and other Christians by the Turkish regimes (about 2.1 million Armenians and 347 thousand Greeks), Cambodian Khmer Rouge 1975-79 murder of Buddhist monks, Cambodian-Vietnamese, Muslims, and other minorities (541,000); 1904-07 German murder of Hereros, Hottentots, and BergDamaras of Namibia (72,000), 1967-87 Burundi murder of Hutus (150,000), World War II Croatia's murder of Serbs and Jews (655,000), Iraq’s 1966-88 murder of Kurds and southern Shiites (over 100,000). If we use the common definition of genocide, then there are many more cases that added to those that fit the legal definition, may amount to around eighty million murdered by governments. Some of the major cases would by Stalin’s forced 1932-33 famine in Ukraine that murdered about 5 million; Communist China murder of 375,000 Tibetans, Sinkiang Muslims, and other minorities; West Pakistan’s 1971 mass murder of over a million Bengalis and Hindus 123

in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh); Indonesia’s 1965 mass murder of 509,000 communists and ethnic Chinese and 1975-98 murders of over 150,000 in East Timor; Sudan’s continuing murder since 1955 of Southern Christians and Black, now totalling over 1 million killed; and throughout the world the mass murder of tens of millions of indigenous people and colonial natives. Genocide as a Historico-Sociological Concept Aside from it being a crime, genocide is a subject of research by social scientists and scholars. They ask such questions as to the history of genocide, its dynamics and stages, and its conditions and causes. If we are to eradicate or reduce genocide in the world, such research is essential. It is not enough to try to deter it by legal punishment. We must also understand why it occurs. However, the legal definition of genocide in the UNCG and ICC is too broad in including very different kinds of behaviour, such as murder, mental damage, preventing births, removing children from a group, and so on. The genocide of the Jews and the establishment of Auschwitz came out of the drive by the Nazi regime to establish a German empire in Europe. A key component of this perspective was the removal of Jews from the areas of German domination as they were regarded, by their very existence, as being a potential source of opposition. Auschwitz was a product of the drive for Lebensraum or living space. Lebensraum had very definite economic motivations that were rooted in the crisis confronting German capitalism as it sought to overcome the collapse of the world market and the rise of American economic domination. Winston Churchill (2004: 161), who took part in the slaughter, both as a soldier and journalist, later wrote that it was “the most signal triumph ever gained by the arms of science over barbarians.” “Within the space of five hours the strongest and best-armed savage army yet arrayed against a modern European Power had been destroyed and dispersed, with hardly any difficulty, and comparatively small risk, and insignificant loss to the victors.” The bringing together of racialist ideology and bureaucracy also did not begin with Hitler. As Hannah Arendt(1979:185)noted: “Two new devices for political organization and rule over foreign peoples were discovered during the first decades of imperialism. One was race as a principle of the body politic, and the other bureaucracy as a principle of foreign domination.” In Hitler’s 124

regime, the Ministry for the East in Berlin was said to be modelled on the British India Office. History is the source of all the problems that confront it. History is, at the same time, the source of their resolution. The struggle for socialism cannot be resolved via utopian schemes, which presumably somehow fire the imagination of the oppressed. Rather, the Marxist movement seeks to analyse the historical experiences through which it has passed, drawing out, above all, the problems of working class leadership. It is here, in studying the history of the twentieth century—the ways in which the political conflicts were fought out—and seeking to extract the necessary lessons, that attention must be directed. History shows that there were such conditions—the period that opened with the Russian Revolution in 1917 and continued until the aborted “German October” in 1923, the series of upheavals in the 1930s, the high point of which was the Spanish Revolution 1936-39, the post-World War II upsurge, and the series of potentially revolutionary struggles that began with the May-June 1968 events in France and continued until 1975. A study of this history shows that the objective conditions were certainly present for the seizure of power by the working class and that what was lacking was the necessary revolutionary leadership. But “modern society” has a social structure, it is a class society. Under the social relations of capitalism—in which the producers must sell their labour power to the owners of the means of production in order to live—human beings are treated as a means to an end—the accumulation of surplus value in the labour process. Capitalism is based on a system of social relations in which production—necessary for the maintenance of human life and civilization—is not carried out in the interests of human need but according to the logic of capital itself. Capital dominates over human beings, who are cut off from the means of production, and, should the logic of capital demand it, from life itself. Irrationality is built into the very structure of the profit system itself. For example, under this system, an increase in the productivity of labour—the basis of all human progress—can produce a decline in the rate of profit, resulting in an economic crisis leading to recession, unemployment and ultimately to war. Yet, the legal definition also is too narrow in another way. It does not include the intent to destroy political, economic, and other non-indelible groups. Much killing by governments has been for to destroy other than indelible groups. It has been manifestly murder, 125

and the intent to commit murder is inherent in the act itself. For example, soldiers lining up civilians against a wall and shooting them to death without a fair trial is manifestly government murder. Such has been the mass murder of hostages by the Nazis, the murder of Kulaks during Stalin's collectivization campaign in the 1930s, Mao’s killing of “counterrevolutionaries in the 1950s and 60s,” the forced disappearance of leftists by death squads in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, El Salvador, and Honduras, among others in the 1970s and 80s; and the Cambodian Khmer Rouge’s mass murder of former government military officers and officials from 1975 to 1979. The progress of our knowledge of genocide depends fundamentally on the clarity and significance of our concepts. Especially, these concepts should refer to real world behaviour and events that can be clearly and similarly discriminated regardless of the observers and their prejudices. For if any area of social study is laden with predispositions and biases, it surely has to do with the who, why, when, and how of government murder. For these reasons, genocide scholars have tried to develop their own definitions of genocide that would better fit their understanding of such government murder. Below are four definitions that have a following among researchers. “Genocide is a form of one-sided mass killing in which a state or other authority intends to destroy a group, as that group and membership in it are defined by the perpetrator.” (Frank Chalk and Kurt Jonassohn, 1990). “Genocide in the generic sense is the mass killing of substantial numbers of human beings, when not in the course of military forces of an avowed enemy, under conditions of the essential defencelessness and helplessness of the victims.” (Israel W. Charny,1994). “Genocide is sustained purposeful action by a perpetrator to physically destroy a collectivity directly or indirectly, through interdiction of the biological and social reproduction of group members, sustained regardless of the surrender or lack of threat offered by the victim.” (Helen Fein, 1993). The “concept of genocide applies only when there is an actualized intent, however successfully carried out, to physically destroy an entire group (as such a group is defined by the perpetrators).” (Steven T. Katz, 1994). Across the law oriented and scholarly literature, genocide is defined explicitly or implicitly in three ways.

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a) The legal definition That of the UBCG and ICC, as clarified in the report of the PCICC, and given above by Acts (a) - (e). b) The Common Definition The intentional killing (murder) by government of people because of their group identity. Regardless of the legal definition and doubtlessly influenced by the Holocaust, ordinary usage and that by some researchers have tended to wholly equate it with the murder and only the murder by government of people due to their specified or perceived group membership, which for some researchers may include political and other groups. This way of viewing genocide has become so ingrained in the public mind that it seems utterly false to claim genocide for nonlethal mental or physical conditions imposed on a group. Note that by this definition, the destruction of the group need not be intended. To kill Jews en masse because they are Jews, Christians because they are Christians, Chinese because they are Chinese would by this common definition be genocide. On this there is confusion, however, for while researchers may mention in their explicit definition that the destruction of the group is intended, in actual application they often include as genocide cases for which this intention is not made explicit (such as for the Stalin made Ukrainian famine and deportation of minority groups, Indonesia's mass murder in East Timor, and the killing fields of Khmer Rouge Cambodia), while the murder of people by virtue of group membership is clear. c) General Definition Any intentional killing (murder) of unarmed and helpless people by government. In some usage and especially among some researchers (see Charny's definition, above), genocide has been so defined to fill a void in the legal and common definitions. They mean it to cover the mass murder of people for reasons other than their group membership, such as the mass murder of POWs, political critics, and violators of draconian rules; that during rape or sexual enslavement; that in the process of ideological purification; or that in order to simply fulfil a government death quota (as in the Soviet Union under Stalin in the 1930s, or by North Vietnam in the 1950s). None of such murders are genocide according the legal and common meanings. 127

The problem with the generalized meaning of genocide is that to fill one void it creates another. For if genocide refers to all government murder, there is then no name for the murder of people because of their group membership, or the intent to destroy a group in whole or in part? It is precisely because of this conceptual problem that the new term democide (from the Greek demos for “people”) is useful. It means murder by government or ruling authorities, and replaces the generalized definition of genocide, thus leaving the sociological concept of genocide to specifically refer to the murder of people because of their group membership. One of the great advances in international and humanitarian law of the ICC Statute is that it now explicitly defines murder and extermination as international crimes, whether in time of war or peace. Article 7.1 of the Statute includes the intentional “murder” and “extermination” of one or more persons as “’crime[s] against humanity’ when part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack.” Of special importance, “extermination includes the intentional infliction of conditions of life, inter alia the deprivation of access to food and medicine, calculated to bring about the destruction of part of a population.” (Article 7.2.b) Murder and extermination by governments are within the general definition of genocide-democide. Therefore, the ICC Statute meets the extensive criticism of the UNCG that it was too narrow and should have included the murder or extermination of people for reasons other than the attempt to destroy indelible groups, although not under the crime of genocide. In effect, the ICC now covers almost all cases of democide, with the exception of the murder of political opponents or others (such as that of a pesky reporter) that is not part of the widespread or systematic attack on the population. What is the Crime of Genocide in the Convention? Genocide is a multifaceted issue often occurring as a result of social, psychological, criminological, and economic factors. Most theorists of genocide agree that no single theory could explain the complex nature that leads to the world’s most heinous crime. Theorizing on genocide is a relatively recent academic endeavour. Research on the Holocaust was sparked in the 1960s, but examining 128

genocide as a phenomenon beyond the Holocaust did not begin until the early 1990s. Genocide is foremost an international crime for which individuals, no matter how high in authority, may be indicted, tried, and punished by the International Criminal Court (ICC). According to Article 6 of the ICC Statute, This crime involves, “any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: (a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.” There are a number of things to note about these acts. (1) The perpetrator is not necessarily a state’s government or its military, but may be an international organization, such as a UN peacekeeping one, NATO, or a terrorist or guerrilla organization, among others. (2) Regardless of under what authority genocide is done, it is formulated, planned, and conducted by individuals, and it is individuals that the ICC will prosecute for the crime of genocide. Unlike the International Court of Justice that only adjudicates disputes between states, the ICC is a criminal tribunal that will indict individuals, issue international warrants for their arrest, try, and punish them. This is made explicit in Article 27: “This Statute shall apply equally to all persons without distinction based on official capacity. In particular, official capacity as head of state or government, a member of a government or parliament, an elected representative or a government official shall in no case exempt a person from criminal responsibility under this statute, nor shall it, in and of itself, constitute a ground for reduction of sentence.” (3) The perpetrator’s intent (purpose, goal, aim) is critical. According to the Report of the Preparatory Commission for the International Criminal Court (PCICC), the ICC may infer such from “conduct took place in the context of a manifest pattern of similar 129

conduct directed against that group or was conduct that could itself effect such destruction,” (Article 6a) including “the initial acts in an emerging pattern” (Article 6 Introduction). (4) The limitation of genocide to only national, ethnical, racial or religious groups is to groups that one is born into. These may be called indelible groups. In the case of a religious group, while one may choose to leave a religious group as an adult, it is rarely done and one may nonetheless remain identified with the religious group by virtue of physical characteristics, as for Jews. The crime of genocide does not apply to the intent to destroy political, ideological, economic, military, professional, or other groups. Thus, the mass murder of perhaps a million or more “capitalist roaders,” “rightists,” and counterrevolutionaries during the Chinese Cultural Revolution (1966-69) would not be genocide. Neither would the systematic murder of tens of thousands of communists and leftists by death squads in Latin American during the 1960s to 80s. The rational often given for excluding such groups is that one joins or becomes a member of them as a matter of choice, and the nature and membership in such groups is not as clear as it is for indelible groups. (5) In the definition of genocide, the term “as such” is important. It means that the defined groups are by intention explicitly targeted for destruction, and such destruction is not the unintended outcome, by-product, or spill over of the intent to achieve some other goal, such as in defensive operations of attacks on military targets during a war or rebellion. (6) Also critical is the word “destroy.” The acts that are carried out with this intent are carefully defined in (a) to (e), above. They exclude attempts, for example, to eliminate an indelible group from a territory by ethnic cleansing (that which involves their forced or coerced removal), or the destruction of the culture of a group, as by forced education of their children in a different language and customs. While “culture” is unmentioned in the articles of the ICC's Statute and the Report of the PCICC, and may well be included as the case law of genocide develops, “ethnic cleansing” would seem to be a crime against humanity in the Statute. Under Article 7.1.d, it is unlawful to deport of forcibly transfer a population. (7) The “in whole or in part” means that there is no lower limit to the number of people on which these acts may be committed. It is genocide even any of the Acts (a)-(e) are on one person with the intent described. 130

(8) Genocide is generally believed to involve the murder of indelible group members. But the crime does not. Acts (b)-(e) make clear genocide may also involve the intent to destroy a group by means other than killing one or more of its members. (9) In Act (b) “serious bodily or mental harm” may include acts of torture, rape, sexual slavery, apartheid, or other inhuman or degrading treatment. (PCICC, ft. 3) That these inhumane acts, among others, were explicitly included in the ICC Statute is a major advance in genocide criminal law. (10) In Act (c) “conditions of life” may include “deliberate deprivation of resources indispensable for survival, such as food or medical services, or systematic expulsion from homes (PCICC ft. 4).” (11) The term “forcibly” in Act (e), “is not restricted to physical force, but may include threat of force or coercion, such as that caused by fear of violence, duress, detention, psychological oppression or abuse of power; or taking advantage of a coercive environment” (PCICC ft. 5).” (12) Finally, it must be noted that there are many other crimes that do not fall under the definition of the crime of genocide that are also subject to prosecution by the ICC. Under Article 7 such are systematic murder, extermination of civilians, enslavement, torture, rape, forced pregnancy, political persecution, and forced disappearances. Genocide, then, is explained not by recourse to cultural or political contingencies endogenous to specific nation states, although the cultural perception of their elites remains important, but by the pressure that a competitive, indeed Darwinistic, system of state economies places on national leaderships to establish and maintain sovereign viability. In some cases, usually among the second tier late-comer states (postcolonial) to the club established by Westerners, desperate shortcuts had been taken to accelerate and institutional modernization: by exterminating a native people who live in an area desired for economic exploitation, or by exterminating a minority associated with an external enemy that is held responsible for endangering the nation in a security crisis, or holding back the country’s independent development by effectively representing the interests of a competitor. Thus, under stable conditions, the empires of Eurasian tectonic plate could accommodate considerable national/ethnic diversity, but not when placed under geopolitical pressure by the West. Nor when it 131

favoured minorities like the Armbazonians, who now, in the eyes of the Republic of Cameroun, have become disloyal, indeed, dangerous and “feared” subjects to the interest of France and her local conveyor belts of genocidal rule. But why the fear in the first place? Here Semelin has recourse to the Italian psychologist Franco Fornani, who applies Kleinian psychoanalytical categories to warfare. The origin of paranoia lies in the universal experience of childhood, when the binary categories of good/bad and friend/enemy develop, and during which the infant worries, in certain circumstances, that it can only survive by destroying the threatening other. This is the famous “paranoidschizoid position” of Melanie Klein, a theory put to good use by many scholars interested in political paranoia, whether of the political leader (Sagan, 1991) or the terrorist (Robins, 1986; Robins and Post, 1997; Bohleber, 2003, Young, 2003). A society regresses to this position in times of war when its leaders convince the population that national survival depends on the destruction of the (often fantasized) enemy. And such anxieties are fuelled by these leaders—”identity entrepreneurs,” if you like—who believe that they are “victims of History,” humiliated by rival powers, resentful at their subordinate status, and determined to defeat their enemies, including one’s “own” people who are “traitors” and “betrayers” (Semelin: 2007, 24-32, 54). Semelin thus links psychology to politics: such leaders are given opportunities to purvey their delusional fantasies during moments of genuine social and political crisis when they have a ready audience (cf. Ferguson, 2006). Jurisdiction over the Crime of Genocide in the Convention The ethical and political commitments that underlie scholarship on the prevention of genocide are more obvious than in other fields. Indeed, the concept of genocide was invented as part of Raphael Lemkin’s ambitious project (1933 and 1944) to criminalize a general class of destructive actions against population groups. Since Lemkin’s campaign was extraordinarily successful, for over sixty years genocide has been defined as an international crime. The United Nations, together with the majority of the world’s states who have ratified the 1948 UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, are legally bound to ‘prevent and punish’ the acts that have been defined as genocide. We know, however, that this obligation has hardly been fulfilled. Genocide has remained a huge problem of human society during 132

the last sixty years, as the names of countries like Cambodia, Bosnia and Rwanda remind us. While the twentieth century has been called the ‘century of genocide’ (Weitz, 2005), there are those who foresee that the twenty-first century may be just as marred by it (Levene, 2005and 2010). In 1998, 120 countries voted to adopt the treaty establishing the ICC. With its Statute signed by 139 states and ratified by 76, the ICC formally came into existence on July 1, 2002 at The Hague, in the Netherlands. It is a permanent court, independent of the United Nations, and intended to cover the world. In the Preamble to the Statute the State Parties agreed to the Statute, while: Affirming that the most serious crimes of concern to the international community as a whole must not go unpunished and that their effective prosecution must be ensured by taking measures at the national level and by enhancing international cooperation, . . . Determined to put an end to impunity for the perpetrators of these crimes and thus to contribute to the prevention of such crimes, … Recalling that it is the duty of every State to exercise its criminal jurisdiction over those responsible for international crimes, … Determined to these ends and for the sake of present and future generations, to establish an independent permanent International Criminal Court in relationship with the United Nations system, with jurisdiction over the most serious crimes of concern to the international community as a whole …

This shows a clear international desire that the crime of genocide not go unpunished regardless of where it occurs. When fully organized in 2003 the ICC will comprise eighteen judges and a prosecutor selected by the State Parties to the Statute. Cases may be brought before the court by the parties, by the Security Council of the United Nations, or by the prosecutor. The prosecutor cannot undertake an investigation on his own without the agreement of two judges of a three judge ICC panel. Such as investigation can be based on information from any reliable source, including individuals. The ICC has automatic jurisdiction over the nationals of State Parties, and over nationals of countries that are not parties to the Statute “if either the state of the territory where the crime was committed or the state of nationality of the accused consents.” Thus, the nationals of states that are not parties to the Stature and

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who committed genocide on the territory of states that are also not parties to the Statute may go unpunished. Limitations of the Convention After ‘the blackest day of (his) life’, on which the International Military Tribunal limited its judgment to consider genocide as a war crime only, Raphael Lemkin made it his life ambition to see genocide condemned as an international crime by the United Nations (Korey et.al., 2001:25). In 1948, the Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (hereinafter the Convention) was unanimously adopted by the United Nations General Assembly. Setting a benchmark for human rights protection by the codification of the right to life and the protection of ethnic, religious, racial and national minorities, the Convention established important principles for prevention and prosecution, and reflects the values and standards of its time (Schabas, 2012). This entailed recognizing ‘the crime of all crimes’ as an international crime, but it also set a hierarchy with regards to crimes against humanity and excluded cultural genocide from its definition, and political groups from protection ((Shaw, 2008). As famously noted by Schwarzenberger (1957: 143), the Convention seems ‘unnecessary when applicable, and inapplicable when necessary’ as the scope is both wide and narrow in serving its mission. Chuter remarks that the Convention is becoming increasingly meaningless and calls it ‘the nuclear weapon of the human rights and international humanitarian law lobbies,’ because it is a codification of a phenomenological understanding of genocide (op.cit.). Research on the politics of international public policy should compellingly emphasize the historical development of class relations. Policy and capital relations are the result of constantly evolving historical relationships (Isenberg 2000). As such, research should analyse the historical development of critical aspects of AU, UN, EU, US, UK, France, China, Russia international public policy including intervention to prevent the crime of genocide, the antiwarfare counter movement and neoliberalism in their political considerations. There is reason for such thinking. Actually, behind the ineffective visible response to genocide, there is a hidden plan. The UN has established a massive, worldwide, inter-agency program of “prevention.” Through the coordinated efforts of UNESCO, The World Health Organization, The World Bank and countless other UN agencies, it’s effectively 134

transforming not only beliefs and values everywhere, but also schools, churches, communities and nations. For the war and genocide “crises” have been used for more than fifty years to persuade the world to participate in “peace-building” ventures that strive to create a “climate of prevention” everywhere—a cultural atmosphere defined by UN declarations such as UNESCO’s Declaration on Tolerance and Declaration of Principles on Religion in a Culture of Peace. It requires “cradle-to-grave” learning, relearning, group-learning and service-learning along with continual assessments and monitoring for compliance with new global standards for human resource development. All minds must be moulded to fit the utopian vision for the 21st century community. Here lies the limitations to the preventive measures in the Convention. First, jurisdiction is a clear limitation. The trial by domestic courts for genocide takes precedence if carried out in good faith (the domestic criminal law of over 70 states, with some modifications of the definition, make genocide a domestic crime). And prosecution of genocide in domestic courts is becoming more frequent. Therefore, although the scope of the ICC is far reaching, it still has limited jurisdiction. Clear cases of genocide may go untried and unpunished, as it did under the Genocide Convention of 1948 for Saddam Hussein’s systematic destruction of the Iraqi Kurd minority in 1988, during which he used poison gas on them. Secondly, the “responsibility to protect” (R2P) doctrine outlines the conditions in which the international community is obligated to intervene in another country, militarily if necessary, to prevent genocide, ethnic cleansing, and other atrocities. Despite its noble goals, the United Nations and the rest of the international community treat the R2P doctrine with extreme caution. Why? Despite the articulation of the R2P doctrine, its implementation remains problematic and needs revision to enhance human security around the world. Armed conflict and mass atrocities continue to cause tens of thousands of deaths each year and adversely impact the lives of millions of innocent civilians. The international community has not yet been able to come up with an effective mechanism to prevent large-scale massacres and atrocities against ordinary citizens. The horrors of the two World Wars, the genocidal violence carried out by authoritarian regimes in Ethiopia, Cambodia and Indonesia, and the ethnic violence unleashed in Rwanda, Yugoslavia and today Ambazonia automatically compels the international 135

community to legally articulate the notion of R2P. The R2P doctrine obligates individual states and the international community to protect populations from mass atrocities. It is based on the idea that sovereignty is not a privilege, but a responsibility instead. It was universally endorsed at the 2005 World Summit, and has now become a part of the international vocabulary in discussing genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity. R2P has three basic pillars. Pillar 1 entrusts states with the responsibility to protect their own citizens against atrocities. Pillar 2 requires the wider international community to encourage and assist individual states in meeting their responsibility to protect their citizens. If a state is failing to protect its populations, Pillar 3 requires the international community to take appropriate collective action, according to the UN Charter, to protect ordinary people from mass atrocities. While the three pillars of R2P seem to provide a comprehensive framework for preventing atrocities, the implementation of these pillars remains problematic. The inherent tensions between its pillars can lead to international inaction. Consider, for instance, the case of Syria, where Russia and China claim that they are furthering pillar 2 of the R2P doctrine by enabling he Syrian regime to provide protection to its citizens. Despite the rest of the international community pointing out the Assad regime's atrocities against its own citizens, they remain reluctant to do much about it. In 2011, the UN Resolution 1973 evoked the language of R2P to allow UN members states to intervene and protect civilians and civilian-populated areas under threat of attacks in the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya. Members of the NATO-led coalition that intervened in Libya, however, did not implement R2P protocols, as their mission drifted to toppling the Ghaddafi regime, after which they did not take adequate steps to prevent the subsequent chaos within the country, and atrocities against ordinary citizens. Pessimistic assessments of the R2P vision see it being used to effectively normalize extreme violence through the very effort to contain it when used to garrison oil fields like in the case of Libya. Atrocity-focused R2P, like the ‘Just War’ criteria, can even become an enabler of war as it gives the false impression that war can be humanized and its worst excesses prevented. War is, after all, an inherently destructive activity, whether rules of war are followed, or not. An atrocity-based focus can create a false distinction between war and war crimes, rendering invisible harm 136

which takes place within the laws of war as is the case with the never-ending war in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Thirdly, many questions have been raised as to why the international community has been surprisingly indifferent to the atrocious crimes being meted out to Ambazonians daily and nightly by the “professional army” of the Republic of Cameroun (Akbar NasirKhan, 2011). It has become very clear that succession of states is one of the most complex, challenging and politicized problems in international law. Attempts by the International Law Commission to codify it in the dying days of decolonization produced two treaties, neither of which has attracted broad participation or proved to be particularly influential on subsequent practice. As in the first great wave of succession practice in decolonization (1950– 1974), the second great wave of ‘desovietization’ at the end of the Cold War (1990–1996) featured reactive solutions purporting to apply principles whose authority, content and theoretical underpinnings were unsettled. This explains why recent practice supports the hypothesis that codification of a ‘law of state succession’—whose very existence has long been contentious—is a futile endeavour as in the cases of South Sudan and Scotland, historical backdrops of codification with reference to their key issues of succession. It is noteworthy that in his 1996 book Sovereignty as Responsibility: Conflict Management in Africa, Deng and his colleagues wrote that the only states exempt from potential intervention are those with governments that “under normal circumstances, strive to ensure for their people an effective governance that guarantees a just system of law and order, democratic freedoms, respect for fundamental rights, and general welfare.” In the early 1990s, French diplomat Bernard Kouchner and his colleagues coined the term “le droit d’ingérence,” which aimed to establish a principle that France has a right to support its nongovernmental entities in their attempts to end atrocities (Deng, Ibid.: xvii). It is perhaps on the basis of this French inclination to protect its vassal states like the Republic of Cameroun that the international community is reluctant to intervene to stop the genocide and extermination in Ambazonia. Fourthly, we are saddled with the perils of formalism in a geopolitical environment in which political independence and territorial ownership are increasingly constrained by transnational economic pressures. The Republic of Cameroon is the fifth largest oil producer in Sub-Saharan Africa producing 100,000 barrels per 137

day (1999). The country has gas reserves, estimated at 110 billion cubic metres (bcm), that are still unexploited. The upstream oil industry is an important part of Cameroon’s economy. The upstream oil industry is a key element in the economy of Cameroon. It has estimated reserves of 740 million barrels of oil and 3.9 Tcf of gas. In 1999, it is estimated that crude oil production averaged at 100,000 bpd. Oil exports for mid-1990’s accounted for nearly half of total exports. While Cameroon is currently a net exporter of crude oil, output has been falling by between 6% and 12% in recent years as oil terms offered by the government have not been sufficiently attractive to encourage new exploration activity. There are three significant hydrocarbon basins in Cameroon. There is the offshore Rio del Rey Basin on the Niger Delta; the offshore Douala / Kribi-Camp Basin and in the north of the country is the Logone Birni Basin. The government is offering acreage both offshore and onshore in a licensing bid from September 1999 to June 2000 in which four offshore and six onshore blocks are being made available. The main companies involved in the upstream industry in Cameroon include Elf, Perenco, and Pecten International. Other companies include CMS Nomeco, Phillips Petroleum, Trophy Petroleum, Euroil Cameroon, Mobil Producing Cameroon, Globex, UK New Age Energy, Russian Lukoil and Kelt Cameroon. Corporate Capitalism can be said to be crimogenic in three major ways: 1. Capitalism encourages individuals to pursue selfinterest rather than public duty; 2. Capitalism encourages individuals to be materialistic consumers, making us aspire to an unrealistic and often unattainable lifestyle, and, 3. Capitalism in its wake generates massive inequality and poverty, conditions which are correlated with higher crime rates. The Republic of Cameroun has used corporate capitalism to consolidate its senile and savage colonization and colonialism in Ambazonia by sharing the spoils of the natural resources of the occupied territory with avaricious capitalists. This is the strategy of collective corporate colonization engendered by the Republic of Cameroun in Ambazonia. Finally, the protection of national sovereignty betrays the hypocrisy in numerous treaties being signed against genocide by member states of the United Nations. In his address to the UN on 22 September 2011, British Prime Minister David Cameron urged more intervention, emphasizing the moral imperative: 138

You can sign every human rights declaration in the world, but if you stand by and watch people being slaughtered in their own country when you could act, then what are those signatures really worth? Article 4.h of the African Union Constitutive Act is a template for African nations explicitly agreeing to permit violation of their sovereignty in the circumstances of genocide envisaged. It is suggested the UN Charter should be amended along similar lines, through the mechanism provided in articles 108 and 109 in order to remove “legalistic manoeuvring”. In the case of Cameroun, a crime of genocide and extermination of Ambazonians by the Republic of Cameroun exposes intentional destruction of a national, ethnic, racial and religious group, in whole or in part by (a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group. The tragedy of Rwanda and East Timor, coming so soon after that of Kosovo, has focused attention once again on the need for timely intervention by the international community when death and suffering are being inflicted on large numbers of people, and when the state nominally in charge is unable or unwilling to stop it. Why has the international community failed to intervene to stop the genocide and extermination going on in Ambazonia? The international community has saddled the world with an incomprehensible network of rules that conflict with the will to intervene to save mankind from the crimes committed by vicious regimes. I am listing them here for readers to see how many countries betray even wars of self-determination against the crime of colonization in the name of national sovereignty. They are as follows : Peaceful and Neighbourly Relations among States, UN Doc. A/1236 (XII) (1957); Declaration on the Inadmissibility of Intervention in the Domestic Affairs of States and the Protection of their Independence and Sovereignty, UN Doc. A/2131 (XX) (1965 Declaration); Status of the Implementation of the Declaration on the Inadmissibility of Intervention in the Domestic Affairs of States and the Protection of their Independence and Security, UN Doc. A/Res/2225 (XXI) (1966); Declaration on Principles of International Law concerning Friendly Relations and Cooperation 139

among States in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations, UN Doc. A/Res/2625(XXV) (1970); Charter of Economic Rights and Duties of States, UN Doc. A/Res/3281(XXIX) (1970); Declaration on the Establishment of the New International Economic Order, UN Doc. A/Res/3201 (S-VI) (1974); Noninterference in the Internal Affairs of States, UN Doc. A/Res/31/91 (1976 Declaration); Non-interference in the Internal Affairs of States, UN Docs. A/Res/32/153 (1977), A/Res/33/74 (1978), A/Res/34/101 (1979), A/Res/35/159 (1980); Declaration on the Inadmissibility of Intervention and Interference in the Internal Affairs of States, UN Doc. A/Res/36/103 (1981 Declaration); Solemn Appeal to States in Conflict to Cease Armed Action Forthwith and to Settle Disputes between Them through Negotiations, and to States Members of the United Nations to Undertake to Solve Situations of Tension and Conflict and Existing Disputes by Political Means and to Refrain from the Threat or Use of Force and from any Intervention in the Internal Affairs of Other States, UN Doc. A/Res/40/9 (1985); Economic Measures as a Means of Political and Economic Coercion against Developing Countries, UN Docs. A/Res/39/210 (1984), A/Res/40/185 (1985), A/Res/41/165 (1986), A/Res/42/173 (1987), A/Res/44/215 (1989), A/Res/46/210 (1991), A/Res/48/168, (1993); Unilateral Economic Measures as a Means of Political and Economic Coercion against Developing Countries, UN Docs. A/Res/52/181 (1997), A/Res/54/200 (1999), A/Res/56/179 (2001), A/Res/58/198 (2003), A/Res/60/185 (2005), A/Res/62/183 (2007); Respect for the Principles of National Sovereignty and Non-interference in the Internal Affairs of States in Electoral Processes, UN Docs. A/RES/44/147 (1989), A/RES/45/151 (1990), A/RES/46/130 (1991), A/RES/47/130 (1992), A/RES/48/124 (1993), A/RES/50/172 (1995), A/Res/52/119 (1997), A/RES/54/168 (1999); Respect for the Principles of National Sovereignty and Non-interference in the Internal Affairs of States in Electoral Processes as an Important Element for the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights, UN Doc. A/Res/56/154 (2001). The principle of non-intervention continues to be referred to in resolutions of the UN General Assembly, for example in the annual resolution on the US embargo against Cuba. See, e.g., UN Doc. A/RES/62/3, 30 October 2007, which was adopted by 184 votes to 4 (Israel, Marshall Islands, Palau, United States), with 1 abstention (Federated States of Micronesia) and three states absent (Albania, El Salvador, Iraq). For 140

the debate see A/62/PV.38. The Security Council has also affirmed the importance of non-interference in internal affairs: Resolution 1790 (2007). Even the doctrine of “humanitarian intervention” has long been a controversial subject, both in law and in international relations, and remains so today. Given that by no means all States accept the principle involved, there is no generally accepted definition of “humanitarian intervention”. The ICRC’s position on “humanitarian intervention”, by Anne Ryniker: IRRC June 2001 Vol. 83 No 842, at p.527. In fact, “Leading public international law scholars and the great majority of states – including states that have engaged in humanitarian intervention – refuse to endorse the legality of HI for fear of its abuse as a pretext.” See: Ryan Goodman, Humanitarian Intervention And Pretexts For War, American Journal of International Law, January 2006. In sum, State sovereignty, in its most basic sense, is being redefined—not least by the forces of globalization and international co-operation. States are now widely understood to be instruments at the service of their peoples, and not vice versa. At the same time individual sovereignty—by which I mean the fundamental freedom of each individual, enshrined in the charter of the UN and subsequent international treaties—has been enhanced by a renewed and spreading consciousness of individual rights. When we read the charter today, we are more than ever conscious that its aim is to protect individual human beings, not to protect those who abuse them. These changes in the world do not make hard political choices any easier. But they do oblige us to think anew about such questions as how the UN responds to humanitarian crises; and why states are willing to act in some areas of conflict, but not in others where the daily toll of death and suffering is as bad or worse. From Sierra Leone to Sudan, from Angola to Afghanistan, from Rwanda to Ambazonia there are people who need more than words of sympathy. They need a real and sustained commitment to help end their cycles of violence, and give them a new chance to achieve peace and prosperity. The genocide in Rwanda and Ambazonia show us how terrible the consequences of inaction can be in the face of mass murder. The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide was unanimously adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 9 December 1948 as General Assembly Resolution 260. The Convention entered into force on 12 141

January 1951. It defines genocide in legal terms, and is the culmination of years of campaigning by lawyer Raphael Lemkin. All participating countries are advised to prevent and punish actions of genocide in war and in peacetime. As of May 2019 , 152 states had ratified. But why has the world failed to prevent genocide? When Genocide Watch and the Alliance Against Genocide were founded in 1999, there were no international organizations or international coalitions dedicated solely to the prevention of genocide. The UN Security Council marked the 70th anniversary of the Geneva Conventions in 2019 without ending its catastrophic failure to protect millions of civilians around the world whose lives and livelihoods are routinely ravaged by violations of the laws of war, Amnesty International confessed. In sum, since it came into force in 1951, the United Nations’ Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, a document created with the explicit purpose of “liberat[ing] mankind from such an odious scourge,” has largely failed to deliver on the promises it enshrined. The twentieth century bore witness to an increasing frequency of genocides, a pattern which is continuing into the twenty-first century with the outbreak of arguably genocidal violence in Darfur in 2003, and more recently, the Central African Republic (CAR) in 2014. When it comes to targeting the Cameroun government, Western Powers’ resistance to International Law is even more appalling. There are now several million Ambazonian children at risk of dying from the international conflict, poverty, hunger, and disease. The Deep State in the West seems insensitive to these children and their long-suffering families, particularly those in refugee camps in Nigeria, for example. The West is comfortably ignoring this grim reality and escalating the conflict anyhow by deeming it an internal rather than an international war of aggression and territorial aggrandizement. But that’s just a fool’s rant. In essence, the West’s doctrine on Cameroun is a short-sighted, cruel, and ultimately self-defeating shell game, subject to no effective oversight by anyone other than itself and its enablers. Under the nose of the United Nations and aid agencies, the Camerounese warmongers continue to produce more anarchy than order, more terror than tranquillity, more oppression than democratization, and more blowback than security and peace in the Central African region. In recent years alone, Amnesty International has documented a blatant disregard for civilian protection and international 142

humanitarian law in armed conflicts where four of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council are parties– Russia, the USA, the UK and France. China, has actively shielded neighbouring Myanmar as it carried out war crimes, crimes against humanity and possibly genocide. The disastrous failure to protect civilians has been evident in the US-led Coalition’s blitzing of Raqqa, Syria, that left more than 1,600 civilians dead; in Russian and Syrian forces’ wanton destruction of civilian infrastructure and lives in Aleppo, Idlib and elsewhere – forcing mass displacement of millions and amounting to war crimes and crimes against humanity; and in the war in Yemen where the Saudi Arabia/UAE-led coalition, backed by Western arms, has killed and injured thousands of civilians in unlawful attacks and fuelled one of the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. Somalia remains another of the world’s worst human rights and humanitarian crises. All parties to the conflict, including the USA, have violated both international human rights and humanitarian law. Despite ramping up air strikes in its secretive war in Somalia over the past decades, the USA failed to admit a single civilian casualty until an Amnesty International investigation prompted it to. References Akbar Nasir Khan. (2011). “Legality of Targeted Killings by Drone Attacks in Pakistan,” Pak Institute for Peace Studies. Bohleber, Werner.(2003). “Collective Phantasms, Destructiveness, and Terrorism,” in Sverre Varvin and Vamik D. Vokan, eds., Violence or Dialogue? Psychoanalytic Insights on Terror and Terrorism. London: International Psychoanalytic Association, 111-31. Chalk, F., and K. Jonassohn. (1990).The History and Sociology of Genocide: Analysis and Case Studies, New Haven Charny. W. (Ed.). (1994). The Widening Circle of Genocide: Genocide: A Critical Bibliographic Review, Vol. 3, New Brunswick, New Jersey. Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide at: Convention. Chuter, David. (2003). War Crimes: Confronting Atrocity in the Modern World. Lynne Rienner Publishers. Fein, H.(1993). Genocide: A Sociological Perspective, Newbury Park, California. Ferguson, R. Brian.(2006). “‘Ethnic”, and Global Wars,” in Mari Fitzduff and Chris E. Stout, eds., The Psychology of Resolving Global 143

Conflicts: From War to Peace, vol. 1, Nature v. Nurture, Westport, Conn., and London: Praeger Security International, 41-69. Francis Deng et al. (1996).Sovereignty as Responsibility: Conflict Management in Africa (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, p. xvi. Hannah Arendt. (1979). The Origins of Totalitarianism (Harcourt Brace and Company. Isenberg, Dorene. (2000). “The Political Economy of Financial Reform: The Origins of the US Deregulation of 1980 and 1982.” Pp. 247–269 in Capitalism, Socialism, and Radical Political Economy, edited by Robert Pollin. Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar. Katz, S. T.(1994). The Holocaust in Historical Perspective: The Holocaust and Mass Death before the Modern Age, New York. Korey, William, and Stephen Steinlight. (2001). An Epitaph for Raphael Lemkin. Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement Human Rights, of the American Jewish Committee, 2001. Levene, M. (2005). Genocide in the Age of the Nation State, 2 vols (London: I. B. Tauris). Levene, M. (2010). ‘From Past to Future: Prospects for Genocide and its Avoidance in the Twenty-First Century’, in D. Bloxham and A. D. Moses (eds), Oxford Handbook of Genocide Studies (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Robins, Robert S. (1986). “Paranoid Ideation and Charismatic Leadership,” Psychohistory Review, 5, 15-55. Robins, Robert S., and Post, Jerrold M. (1997).Political Paranoia: the Psychopolitics of Hatred. New Haven: Yale University Press. Sagan, Eli.(1991).The Honey and the Hemlock: Democracy and Paranoia in Ancient Athens and Modern America. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Schabas, William. (2012). “1. Genocide and Crimes against Humanity: Clarifying the Relationship.” In The Genocide Convention: The Legacy of 60 Years, edited by Wilt, H. G. Van Der, Harmen van der Wilt, and Jeroen Vervliet, 3-14. Leiden, the Netherlands: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. Semelin, Jacques.(2007).Purify and Destroy: The Political Uses of Massacre and Genocide. New York: Columbia University Press. United Nations Documents. (2020).“Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide”(PDF). United Nations Audiovisual Library of International Law. Retrieved 5 January 2020;“Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide”. 144

United Nations Treaty Series. (2012). Retrieved 30 May 2013;Auron, Yair, The Banality of Denial, (Transaction Publishers, 2004), 9;“United Nations Treaty Collection”. Retrieved 16 January 2018. Weitz, E. (2005).A Century of Genocide: Utopias of Race and Nation (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press). Winston Churchill.(2004). The River War. These issues have lost none of their contemporary relevance. If you go to Amazon.com you will find a review of Churchill’s book by Newt Gingrich, written on July 22, 2002, that is, between the invasion of Afghanistan and the launching of the war against Iraq. Gingrich writes that it is a “very useful book as we think about the complexities of the 21st century third world and its problems of poverty, violence, disorganization and ruthless petty tyrants.”

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Chapter Five Structural Violence: Pacesetter for Ambacide Overview Structural violence in Cameroun, until recently, was subtle, often invisible, and often has no one specific person who can (or will) be held responsible (in contrast to behavioural violence). However, behavioural violence and structural violence can intertwine—some of the easiest examples of structural violence involve police, military, or other state powers committing violent acts against Ambazonians. Indeed, there is a common denominator among their reasons. Simply put, while the genesis of Ambacide is rooted in the troubled political history of the Republic of Cameroun during that time period, it cannot be denied that the justification for the systematic mass genocide of Ambazonians since 1960 lies in, not the sociopathic behaviour of the oppressors, but the simple stereotyping of the oppressed: anti-Ambazonianism. Else, why do human beings, in certain historical circumstances, commit acts of genocide? Are the perpetrators a selection of individuals or entire social groups? Are all of us potentially capable of genocide? What is the relationship between the social and the psychological causes of history’s greatest crimes against (Ambazonian) humanity?

Introduction One of the most common problems in helping readers to become thoughtful of historical narratives is the compulsory one right answer, the one essential fact, the one authoritative interpretation. “Am I on the right track?” “Is this what you want?” they ask. Or, worse yet, they rush to closure, reporting back as self-evident truths the facts or conclusions presented in the document or text. These problems are deeply rooted in the conventional ways in which textbooks have presented history: a succession of facts marching straight to a settled outcome. To overcome these problems requires the use of more than a single source: of history books other than textbooks and of a rich variety of historical documents and artifacts that present alternative voices, accounts, and interpretations or perspectives on the past. 147

Readers need to realize that historians may differ on the facts they incorporate in the development of their narratives and disagree as well on how those facts are to be interpreted. Thus, “history” is usually taken to mean what happened in the past; but written history is a dialogue among historians, not only about what happened but about why and how events unfolded. The study of history is not only remembering answers. It requires following and evaluating arguments and arriving at usable, even if tentative, conclusions based on the available evidence. To engage in historical analysis and interpretation readers must draw upon their skills of historical comprehension. In fact, there is no sharp line separating the two categories. Certain of the skills involved in comprehension overlap the skills involved in analysis and are essential to it. For example, identifying the author or source of a historical document or narrative and assessing its credibility (comprehension) is prerequisite to comparing competing historical narratives (analysis). Analysis builds upon the skills of comprehension; it obliges the student to assess the evidence on which the historian has drawn and determine the soundness of interpretations created from that evidence. It goes without saying that in acquiring these analytical skills students must develop the ability to differentiate between expressions of opinion, no matter how passionately delivered, and informed hypotheses grounded in historical evidence. Well-written historical narrative has the power to promote students’ analysis of historical causality–of how change occurs in society, of how human intentions matter, and how ends are influenced by the means of carrying them out, in what has been called the tangle of process and outcomes. Few challenges can be more fascinating to students than unravelling the often dramatic complications of cause. And nothing is more dangerous than a simple, monocausal explanation of past experiences and present problems. Finally, well-written historical narratives can also alert readers to the traps of linearity and inevitability. Readers must understand the relevance of the past to their own times, but they need also to avoid the trap of linearity, of drawing straight lines between past and present, as though earlier movements were being propelled teleologically toward some rendezvous with destiny in the late 20th century. A related trap is that of thinking that events have unfolded inevitably–that the way things are is the way they had to be and thus 148

that individuals lack free will and the capacity for making choices. Unless students can conceive that history could have turned out differently, they may unconsciously accept the notion that the future is also inevitable or predetermined, and that human agency and individual action count for nothing. No attitude is more likely to feed civic apathy, cynicism, and resignation–precisely what we hope the study of history will fend off. Whether in dealing with the main narrative or with a topic in depth, we must always try, in one historian’s words, to “restore to the past the options it once had.” Therefore, the reader is able to: •

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Compare and contrast differing sets of ideas, values, personalities, behaviours, and institutions by identifying likenesses and differences. Consider multiple perspectives of various peoples in the past by demonstrating their differing motives, beliefs, interests, hopes, and fears. Analyse cause-and-effect relationships bearing in mind multiple causation including (a) the importance of the individual in history; (b) the influence of ideas, human interests, and beliefs; and (c) the role of chance, the accidental and the irrational. Draw comparisons across eras and regions in order to define enduring issues as well as large-scale or long-term developments that transcend regional and temporal boundaries. Distinguish between unsupported expressions of opinion and informed hypotheses grounded in historical evidence. Compare competing historical narratives. Challenge arguments of historical inevitability by formulating examples of historical contingency, of how different choices could have led to different consequences. Hold interpretations of history as tentative, subject to changes as new information is uncovered, new voices heard, and new interpretations broached. Evaluate major debates among historians concerning alternative interpretations of the past. Hypothesize the influence of the past, including both the limitations and opportunities made possible by past decisions. 149

Structural violence refers to any scenario in which a social structure perpetuates inequity, thus causing preventable suffering. When studying structural violence, we examine the ways that social structures (economic, political, medical, and legal systems) can have a disproportionately negative impact on particular groups and communities. The concept of structural violence therefore gives us a way to consider how and in what forms these negative impacts occur, as well as what can be done to curtail such harm. Background The term structural violence was coined by Johan Galtung, a Norwegian sociologist. In his 1969 article, “Violence, Peace, and Peace Research,” Galtung argued that structural violence explained the negative power of social institutions and systems of social organization among marginalized communities. It is important to distinguish Galtung’s concept of violence from the term as it is traditionally defined (physical violence of war or crime). Galtung defined structural violence as the root cause of the differences between people’s potential reality and their actual circumstances. For example, potential life expectancy in the general population might be significantly longer than the actual life expectancy for members of disadvantaged groups, due to factors like racism, economic inequality, or sexism. In this example, the discrepancy between the potential and the actual life expectancy results from structural violence. Significance of Structural Violence Structural violence enables more nuanced analyses of the social, cultural, political, economic, and historical forces that shape inequality and suffering. It creates an opportunity to consider seriously the role of different types of marginalization—such as sexism, racism, ableism, ageism, homophobia, and/or poverty—in creating lived experiences that are fundamentally less equal. Structural violence helps explain the multiple and often intersecting forces that create and perpetuate inequality on multiple levels, both for individuals and communities. Structural violence also highlights the historical roots of modern inequality. The inequities and suffering of our time often unfold within a broader history of marginalization, and this framework provides a critical context for understanding the present in terms of 150

its relationship to the past. For instance, marginalization in postcolonial countries often connects closely with their colonial histories, just as inequality in the U.S. must be considered with respect to complex histories of slavery, immigration, and policy. Theorizing Structural Violence Social epidemiologic approaches capture the dynamic and reciprocal relationships of individual-environment interactions in the production and reduction of risk. This presents considerable methodological, theoretical and disciplinary challenges. Here we simply put forward the linked concepts of “structural violence” as a building block for a theory-informed social epidemiology of genocide and extermination of the marginalized Ambazonian populations. Structural violence is a form of violence that arises in a society out of indirect participation of every individual within that particular social setting. Structural violence arises out of individual praise or blame of certain aspects in a society. Structural violence and physical violence are similar in that in both scenarios an individual is assaulted both physically and in terms of self-respect and personhood. However, structural violence is different in one respect—it leads to social oppression as well. In this regard, structural violence is connected to social structure because oppression in any given society does not just happen; it arises out of an inter-connection of many attributes in the society like historical memories that in actual sense are nobody’s fault. Structural violence is a useful concept in some scenarios while in others, it might not be adequately developed to address the required problem (Farmer, 2004). One of the cases in which structural violence is practically useful is when it is used to point to the perennial limitations of a cultural anthropology that regularly neglect material factors of biomedical research. In particular, structural violence can be useful both politically and analytically if used to reflect the heterogeneous, complex, and contradicting lives of the poor and the disenfranchised in the society. The usefulness of structural violence will be determined by development of anthropology of disorder that moves from local to large scale. Such an approach can tie together the shallow and deep causes of poverty and inequality in the society. The large and distant causes of suffering in Haiti are among others, slave trade, slavery, and colonialism. From a critical 151

analysis, these practices have led to racism, socioeconomic and cultural oppression in the Haitian society. In the United States today, structural violence is exhibited in a large number of intermediaries who lack purchasing power in the contemporary United States economic landscape (Farmer, 2004). Structural violence has been a major factor in numerous internal or regional conflicts. The genocide in Rwanda and the Maoists Movement in Nepal are examples of structural violence that has led to an internal conflict. Another example is the Chinese suppression of the Tibetan peoples. Any attempts by the Tibetans to protest or challenge the rule of the Chinese in an attempt to gain independence from Chinese rule is met with swift violent retaliation. (Walsh, J. 2007) The two truly international conflicts were not started by a system of structured violence, but by deliberate planned actions of countries and their leaders to go to war. As a result of these wars systems were put in place that were structural and designed to suppress and repress social groups as well as the wholesale murder of people. Although conflicts between neighbouring countries are considered international conflicts, I have classified these as regional conflicts and used the First and Second World wars as examples of truly international conflicts. Structural violence was a term first banded around in the 1960s by liberation theologians and in particular by Johan Galtung, who used it to describe social, economic, political, legal, religious and cultural structures that stop individuals, groups and societies from reaching their full potential. (Farmer, P, 2006) goes further when he explains that “Structural violence is violence that does not hurt or kill through fists or guns or nuclear bombs, but through social structures that produce poverty, death and enormous suffering. Structural violence may be political, repressive, economic and exploitative; it occurs when the social order directly or indirectly causes human suffering and death’. (Staugstad, A. 2001) These are two examples of the definition of structural violence. To better understand we need to dissect the term “structural violence” into its two separate parts. In this context the word “structured” relates to the social structures that are imposed on peoples, societies, religious groups and others causing them to be discriminated against and forced to live as second-class human beings. These structures can take many forms but all suppress one particular group, for example a religious group, an ethnic group, or a group based on gender or sexual orientation. (Israel, W, 1994) 152

The word violence when used in this context does not mean a physical form of violence but describes the imposition of rules and regulations and social structures that lead to all forms of abuse and poverty which in turn can lead to humiliation and death. Structural violence is systemic, it is not directly violent yet imposes such discriminatory rules and regulations that forces people into poverty and lives of extreme hardship, which can lead to death. Sometimes the social structures that are the root cause of structural violence can be age old traditions or rules or acts of legislation that when introduced may not have been seen as harmful by those who imposed them except to maintain control over the populace. When they were introduced those, who imposed the legislation had ultimate control or power over the peoples through various means, such as slavery, bonded labour, debt, and education to name a few. (Gilman, R. 1983) Structural violence can also be viewed in two different ways, both vertical (political repression and economic exploitation) as well as horizontally (distance and alienation). The institutionalized structures of a country can enforce structural violence, by causing a gap between those that have or hold power over others and those that do not, as well as a social structure (classism) that separates the groups and creates a social distancing. This social distancing maybe because of economic separation, religious, ethnic or cultural, all of these factors create or reinforce structural violence. (Galtung, J. 1995) The vertical aspect of structural violence highlights those political policies such as segregation which lead to repressive measures designed to force a group in society to become second class citizens. Economic exploitation works hand in hand with political repression when certain social groups are barred from holding jobs of influence and status. I intend to break “Structural Violence” down into component parts and explain each one and how they have the potential to lead to conflict. Racism is an example of “structural violence” as it can be the result of discriminatory practices and entrenched legislation that place one segment of the population as a lower class citizen than the others and enforces rules and regulations on them to ensure that they stay as second class citizens. One of the most visible faces of racism was in the United States where until 1866 slavery was an accepted way of doing business for a large portion of the population. This racism was not only confined to the enslaving of Black Africans but also included discriminatory practices against the native American Indians, African Americans (slaves or 153

decedents of) Asians, Italians and Mexicans to name a few. The 1964 Civil Rights Act made racial discrimination in public places, such as theatres, restaurants and hotels, illegal. It also required employers to provide equal employment opportunities. Projects involving federal funds could now be cut off if there was evidence of discriminated based on colour, race or national origin. This Act was the cornerstone of the bid to completely eliminate segregation and other discriminatory practices in public places. (United States Department of Justice, 1964). Although the Civil Rights movement who were advocating for a change in the law which would allow equal rights to all, was at times violent it never evolved into fully fletched internal conflict. This example shows that policies in place at the time contributed to structural violence, however as large as the problem was it never expanded to an international level of conflict, the conflict remained low level and internal. South Africa is another and more visible country to be recognised for its racist policies. Laws were introduced in 1948 which segregated inhabitants into four racial groups, white, blacks, coloured and Indian Residential areas were segregated, a segregation which at times was achieved by forced removals of non-whites. From 1958, Blacks were deprived of their citizenship of South Africa, legally becoming citizens of one of ten tribally based selfgoverning homelands called Bantustans, four of which became nominally independent states. The government also segregated education, medical care, and other public services, and provided black people with services inferior to those of whites. South Africa used harsh measures to suppress the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa with the police and the armed forces in an armed struggle with movements such as the African National Congress (ANC) as they tried to enforce and maintain white supremacy in South Africa. (Fredrickson, G. 2003) The South African military were also prominent in several neighbouring countries trying to fight the spread of communism in Angola, which was another example of structural violence where conflicts arose due to political ideologies. Although at times the racial tensions created by the practice of apartheid were extremely violent the, conflicts were internal or confined to small scale regional conflicts. They never developed into a wider international conflict. Although the antiapartheid movement had a huge global following which used actions such as trade embargos to try to pressure the South African government into ending its apartheid regime. It was not until 1994 that an open election was held that allowed all South Africans to 154

vote regardless or colour, or race. The legacy of the apartheid period still influences South Africa today especially in the areas of economics and trade. (Thompson, L. 1996) Another example of structural violence that is not as visible and recognised is the “caste system” found in several East Asian countries like India, Pakistan and Nepal. The caste system was described in Hinduism’s ancient sacred text, the Rig Veda, as a social order intended to maintain harmony in society. “It divides people into four main castes, but there also are those outside the system, the “untouchables,” who now call themselves “Dalits,” literally “broken people.”’ (George, N. 2010) Though discrimination based on caste has been outlawed since India’s constitution was adopted in 1950, the practice pervades society today. The caste system is an example of your place of birth dictating your social and economic standing. The caste system segregates a section of society from other and denies people their rights to be treated as equals in all areas of life. However, although in the countries mentioned above racism and discrimination have led to violence and internal confrontation and conflict, it has not been influential in creating an international level conflict. Galtung defines “cultural violence as being “those aspects of culture, the symbolic sphere of our existence, exemplified by religion, ideology, language, art and empirical science”. (Galtung, 1990: 291) He goes on to explain that these structures can be used to justify direct and structural violence. Galtung tries to illustrate that society’s norms of behaviour can be used as structured violence. Things that are seen as wrong can be “coloured” to make them look normal or socially acceptable in that society. He uses a mathematical formula to demonstrate that the higher your social status the greater your life expectancy, the lower your social status the shorter your life expectancy will be. In most cases this is because the structure is weighted in favour of one particular race or group of peoples. Because of this those that have greater access will benefit from the services that the social structure provides (affluent) where-as those that do not enjoy such access are not able to benefit and there-by suffer. This suffering leads to poverty and suffering which brings with it the potential for diseases and other problems that affect the poor or repressed. When conditions like this exist it then leads to disharmony amongst the repressed and becomes the breeding ground for 155

dissent and resentment of those who are seen as benefiting from the social structures. (Galtung, 1969) An example of this can be seen in those post-colonial countries such as Sierra Leone and Liberia, where once the slaves were returned to these countries from the USA and Great Britain and told they are now free, set up cultures and structures where they were the masters. They copied what they had only ever seen which was the way their masters had lived and ruled the freed slaves copied these ways and adopted them as their own. These returned slaves were on the whole not from either of these countries and both countries had existing indigenous populations, whom were force to accept these freed slaves into their country. As they were not from either of these two countries they bought with them their own beliefs and culture that differed from that of the indigenous population. This imposition of outside cultures and beliefs only adds to any resentment held by the indigenous peoples. As mention above the freed slaves copied the ways they had observed from their masters and began to see that this way of living and doing things was the norm or accepted way (affluent). This in turn caused friction with the indigenous population, (repressed) which after a period of time led to small scale conflict and later to a larger internal conflict which have until recently was still being fought. (History World, 2010) Although the USA and Great Britain had good intentions, when they repatriated ex – slaves the consequences have been terrible for both countries. It also highlights what Galtung was eluding to when he wrote about cultural violence as a form of structural violence. The freed slaves took on the role of master in both countries and the indigenous population became the repressed citizens in their own country. This led to discontent and finally to conflict. The conflict in each country was internal to both countries with limited involvement from neighbouring countries, and although humanitarian support was provided by the international community the conflict remained localized. In recent years “food security” has been identified as a potential flashpoint for conflict. When he wrote in the Journal of Peace Research in 1990, Galtung introduced the topic of violence against nature as a form of structural violence. He may have been musing about the future, however twenty years later the structured systems of countries that have seen vast tracts of land slashed and burned in the name of “sustainable economic growth” (Galtung, 1990: 294) has caused the depletion of non-renewable resources. Large areas of 156

land are stripped of vegetation to allow for the expansion of agricultural land and for mineral resources such as timber, oil and gas. These actions by governments have marginalized those groups who have traditionally worked these lands or lived in the forest areas. These groups are now forced to abandon their traditional ways and be moved into makeshift towns where they are denied their rights to hunt and fish on their ancestral lands. An example of this is in Brazil and other countries where the Amazon forest stretches across their borders. This forest is rapidly being cut down to make way for mineral exploration and the expansion of agricultural land. By doing this the government are forcing the indigenous peoples to withdraw further into the forests or forcing them to live in makeshift shanty towns which impose on them a lifestyle they are not used to or adapted for. Because of the size of the Amazon forest and its influence on the global environmental system, any interference with the forest will have environmental effects globally. This combined with at times contested idea that global pollution has influenced the global weather patterns and led to “global warming”. This global warming has interfered with the traditional weather systems and affected crops and animal production to such as extent that it has created a whole new group of disadvantaged peoples. (Rainforest Action Network, 2007) When examined what is happening as a result of planned government and global initiatives in industry and in the name of “sustained economic growth” is a form of structured violence. This can be further explain at country level as well, with those countries that have mineral wealth or those countries that are able to afford to access to the mineral wealth and those countries that cannot afford access to minerals or as a result of exploitation are drifting further into poverty and deprivation. Galtung’s observation twenty years ago has proven to be valid today and could possibly be the catalyst for conflict in the future. If we examine the origins of the only two truly international conflicts the First and Second World Wars we will see that it was not the due to systematic structural violence. The events that led to the commencement of international conflict were not as a direct result of structural violence. In the case of the First World War, an assassination of an heir to the throne of the Austria-Hungary empire by a group of student idealists whom at the time of the actual assassination not intending to kill the Archduke Ferdinand, but were instead more focused on the assassination of Governor Potiorek and only at the last moment 157

did the target switch to the Archduke. (Sowards, S.1996) Although the assassination was politically motivated it was perpetrated by a small group of idealist young men. The months between the assassination of the Archduke and the declaration of hostilities which led to a rapid chain reaction of events as countries were drawn into the conflict through existing alliances. (FirstWorldWar.com) This lapse in time shows that it was a more deliberate action to go to war, than an immediate reaction to the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand. (Sowards, 1996) The event that sparked the start of the Second World War was the German invasion of Poland, whom was an ally of both Britain and France. Prior to the invasion of Poland, Hitler and the Nazis had for many years previously articulated in speeches and propaganda of the need for ‘race and space’ These concerns centred on the importance of racial purity (Aryan race) and on the need for a nation to be prepared to compete with its neighbours in a brutal, uncompromising and ceaseless struggle to survive and to expand. (Henig, R. 1997) Why Hitler hated the Jewish population so much still remains a mystery. What led him to order the extermination of millions of Jews is still open to debate. Hitler and the Nazis were racists and persecuted many different groups in societies such as homosexuals, which led to the killing of homosexuals regardless of their race or origins. The drive for a pure Aryan race was before the war only rhetoric, it was not until the war started that structures were put in place to suppress and kill millions of Jews and others. It was not structured violence that led to the Second World War, as the structures were put in place as the war started. (Minorityrights.com). As horrific as these wars were they were not started as a direct of structural violence, however when conflict started the policies and regimes that were put in place ensured that millions suffered. These events are examples of structural violence. Structural violence as has been indicated above has been and is still a major part of today’s societies. Not all structural violence ends up in conflict, such as the rules in countries such as Saudi Arabia, where it is forbidden for women to drive a car. This type of entrenched structural violence continues today in many different parts of the world. Racism and Cultural violence are two of the more visible forms of structural violence we see or hear about. These forms of structural violence have their roots in the past in areas such as slavery and ethnic divisions. A new area of structural violence offered by Galtung was that of the structural violence against nature or the environment. This 158

concept although new has gained new importance in the modern era when areas such as food security and environmental degradation are gaining global importance. Although environmental structural violence has not led to global conflict it is responsible for many small internal conflicts as the indigenous inhabitants of the lands or forests fight to keep their lands and waters from being taken from them in the name sustainable economic growth. As demonstrated above structural violence has led to many internal or regional conflicts, but has not been directly responsible for the starting of major international conflicts such as the First and Second World Wars. The extent that structural violence has had on international conflict is small. Structural violence is responsible for many internal or regional based conflicts, but they have not spread to a truly international conflict. Causes of and Conditions for Genocide and Extermination Genocide cannot be committed by an individual or small group; rather, it takes the cooperation of a large number of people and the state. The genocidal process starts with prejudice that continues to grow. For genocide to occur, people must “create an enemy, exploit the enemy, and destroy that enemy.” Systematic prejudicial treatment of Ambazonian people is based on their membership in a particular communal group (i.e. the target group-Former British Southern Cameroons) in a way that is worse than the treatment given to members of the Francophone Cameroun majority or non-targeted group. This places target group members in a position where they are seen as undesirable members of society who are undeserving of equal treatment, thus setting them up to be dehumanized, or sub-human. In practical terms, discrimination serves to limit the life opportunities of target group members and transforms them into second-class citizens. Discrimination may be either official, as the result of formal state policies, or unofficial, as a result of commonly held attitudes in a given society. The word “violence” rightly conveys the implication of the harm caused. Gunshot wounds (including suicides) kill about 30,000 Americans every year, and a substantial portion of our society would like to limit gun access, or even outlaw guns entirely, yet how loud are the voices against a violence that kills—in just one example above—at least three times as many Americans every year? This is why I think it’s important to speak of structural violence. 159

There are many political groups that campaign to reduce the murder rate within the US for instance, yet I know of no group committed to reducing our infant mortality rate. Most of these infant deaths are from causes I would ascribe to structural violence. The debate on armed conflict presents genocide and extermination broadly as the activity of identity-based mass murder. The image of genocide transforms genocide into an unethical implication of the developments of warfare. Then there are the stages through which the causes and conditions for genocide develop and gradually end in manifest genocide and extermination of human beings. As the Genocide Convention of 1948 states, “at all periods of history genocide has inflicted great losses on humanity” (Kaye and Stråth 2000: 24). Nevertheless, the twentieth century was termed the “century of genocide” because of the high number of cases of genocide during that time period (Bartrop 2002: 522). For the purpose of this chapter, the definition of genocide will be taken from the Genocide Convention, which defines genocide as “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group”. The genocide of the Armenians, the Holocaust and the genocide in Rwanda are the three genocides of the twentieth century that fit that definition (Destexhe 1994: 4-5). Social scientists and scholars have generally organized their understanding of genocide in terms of the political structure within which it takes place, the context in which genocide occurs, the motives of the perpetrator, the nature of the victims, and the stages through which genocide passes. a) Institutions of Governance Existential risks (x-risks) are disastrous because they lock humanity into a single fate, like the permanent collapse of civilization or the extinction of our species. These catastrophes can have natural causes, like an asteroid impact or a super volcano, or be human-made from sources like nuclear war or climate change. Allowing one to happen would be “an abject end to the human story” and would let down the hundreds of generations that came before us. This is where the “world in chains” scenario comes in. If a malevolent group or government suddenly gained worlddominating power through technology, and there was nothing to stand in its way, it could lead to an extended period of abject suffering and subjugation. This explains why institutions of governance must be democratic with checks and balances. 160

It is clear that democide, including genocide (however defined), are facets of totalitarian systems, and to a lesser extent of authoritarian ones. The degree to which people are not democratically free increases the likelihood of some kind of domestic genocide or democide, as in totalitarian Stalin’s Soviet Union, Hitler’s Germany, and Mao’s Communist China; or fascist Chiang Kai-shek’s China, Franco's Spain, and Admiral Miklos Horthy’s Hungary; or dictator Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, Idi Amin’s Uganda, and Mustafa Kemal Ataturk’s Turkey. Those governments that commit virtually no domestic genocide, or other government domestic murder or extermination campaigns, are the modern democracies that recognize civil liberties and political rights. To predict where genocide is likely to occur, look first at the totalitarian governments, and next at the authoritarian ones. b) Context Whatever the political institutions of a governance, the possibility of genocide sharply increases when it is involved in international or domestic wars. The Holocaust is one clear example. There was the mass murder of Jews before 1939, but not as a government policy to murder all Jews wherever they were or came under German control. That policy did not come into existence until Germany was well into World War II. Similarly, with the mass murder of Armenians by the Young Turk government. During World War I, the Turk’s alliance with Germany and the Russian invasion of Eastern Turkey provided the Young Turks with the excuse to purify Turkey of Armenians and Christians once and for all. Similarly, with Stalin’s deportation of ethnic/national minorities, such as Germans, Greeks, Meskhetians, Tartars, Ukrainians, and others during World War II that caused the death of around 750,000 of them. Perhaps a million or more were thus murdered during the Mexican Revolution from 1910-20. And other examples of genocide being executed during military incursions, civil wars, or the fight for independence are the genocides by Angola, Burma, Chile, both Congos, Colombia, El Salvador, Indonesia, Iran, Iran, Lebanon, Myanmar, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sudan, Syria, Yugoslavia (Serbia and Croatia), and so on for many others. War has always been an excuse, cover, or stimulus for genocide and mass murder. c) Motives 161

It is often assumed that genocide must be caused by extraordinary psychological processes – processes that are outside of or defy the logic of normal human functioning and that cannot be easily understood. However, while it is certainly beyond our imagination what it means to experience, witness, or perpetrate genocide, the psychological processes that lead up to that point and enable people to engage in “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group” (as genocide is defined in Article II 1948 UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide) are not. Rather, the processes that enable genocide include many mundane, ordinary social psychological phenomena that also apply in times of relative peace–or what we may consider as such – and explain how individuals and groups can engage in structural and direct violence against others. There has been considerable research on why a perpetrator should want to destroy a group or, if not destroy the group as such, murder people because of their group membership. Motives are often complex and intertwined, but one can usually pull out among the mix a major motive. One such motive is to destroy a group that is perceived as a threat to the ruling power. Such, for example, was the 1970 parliamentary elections in Pakistan that showed the political power of East Pakistan and threatened the control over it by West Pakistan, and the power of the military government. They thus militarily seized East Pakistan and murdered over a million Bengali leaders, intellectuals, professionals, and any Hindus that the military were able to capture. Such was also the case with the strong resistance of the Ukrainian farmer to Stalin's program of collectivization in 1931-32 coupled with the threat of Ukrainian nationalism to communist control. So, when what would have been a mild famine hit the region in 1932, Stalin magnified the famine many fold by seizing food and its sources (livestock, pets, seed grain, shooting birds in the trees, etc.) and boycotting the import of food to Ukraine. Even visitors to Ukraine were searched and food taken away from them before they entered the Soviet Republic. About 5 million Ukrainians were starved to death. And such was the case when the Rwandan Hutu majority government undertook to murder all Tutsi within their reach at the time when there was turmoil resulting from a major 1991 incursion of the Tutsi expatriate Rwandan Patriotic Front in the northern part of the country. 162

A second motive is deeply emotional and involves the destruction of those who are hated, despised, or conversely are envied or resented. The genocide of Jews throughout history and in particular the Holocaust was fundamentally an act of religious and ethnic hatred mixed with envy and resentment over their disproportionate economic and professional achievements. Similarly, with the genocide of the Armenians in Turkey, 1915-18, where Armenians enjoyed wealth and professional status far beyond their numbers, but also were hated as Christians in a Moslem society. A third motive for genocide is the pursuit of an ideological transformation of society. Such have been the genocides and democides carried out by communist societies, for example, where those resisting or perceived to be enemies of the ideology are murdered, such as landlords, Kulaks, nationalists, “right-wingers,” and “counterrevolutionaries.” A fourth motive is purification, or the attempt to eliminate from society perceived alien beliefs, cultures, practices, and ethnic groups. Culture is a broad subject matter as it can be formed from many aspects of a person’s surroundings. Things such as home environment, overall environment, religion, beliefs, attitudes, money, customs and traditions, as well as, location can have drastic impacts on a person and what is “normal” living to them and therefore what type of counselling they may need or so desire. Refugees have usually undergone tremendous ordeals, thus gaining refugee statuses in foreign lands. Everything they know is no longer part of their lives, so as one can imagine it is a rough and challenging time. The environment in which we live has a keen effect on our customs, values, traditions, and social norms. To be stripped of all the environmental influence we once had can most certainly affect an individual psychologically and socially. If we take into account Bandura’s social learning theory and apply it to refugees, chances are within a period of time the refugees would adapt their behaviour to their surroundings through the observation of other’s behaviour and attitudes. It may not be their innate desire to conform to the behaviours of other citizens of their host country, but fitting in is often a large driving force. “Ethnic cleansing,” “waste disposal,” or “prophylaxis,” are terms for this. Examples are the systematic attempt of Mao Tsetung and Stalin to eliminate disbelievers from their communist societies; the attempt to do the same by Christianity during the Middle Ages; the elimination of Christian groups and Moslem 163

“blasphemers” in many current Islamic countries such as in Iran and Saudi Arabia; the ethnic cleansing that the Serbians practiced in Bosnia-Herzegovina in the 1990s; and the war that the Myanmar (Burmese) military have been carrying out against the Karen and other ethnic groups. And a fifth motive is that of economic gain. Thus, rapacious colonial powers or individuals (as of Belgium King Leopold who personally owned the Congo Free State) mass murdered tens of millions in their colonies who got in the way, resisted the rape of the colony's wealth, or were worked to death; and similarly for the mass murder of Indians in the Americas that continues to this day. And thus, many millions were so murdered in the process of capturing, transporting, and maintaining slavery, There are various reasons why genocide and extermination are occurring in Ambazonia and it is often a combination of circumstances that leads to genocide. We are investigating the underlying conditions that made genocide possible in Ambazonia, while leaving out catalytic events that may trigger genocide. The correlations between war and economic crises will be subject to analysis. Finally, the creation of out-groups and in-groups in the Republic of Cameroun will be explored. While these are certainly not the only causes of genocide, they may be deemed to be preconditions. Causes of and Conditions for developing Ambacide The Biya regime has been implementing a series of four specific steps designed to result in the complete and total dehumanization (Kershaw, 1999-2000) of Ambazonian population: 1. Prejudice In like manner that the holocaust was influenced by hate the raging genocide and mass atrocities continue to be an enormous challenge influenced by hate. The Biya government actually fostered and promoted prejudice against Southern Cameroons Anglophones. According to the dictionary definition, prejudice is comprised of “unreasonable feelings, opinions, or attitudes, especially of a hostile nature, regarding an ethnic, racial, social or religious group.” 2. Scapegoating Almost everyone uses scapegoats. It is in our fabric. The word “scapegoat” has come to mean a person, often innocent, who is 164

blamed and punished for the sins, crimes, or sufferings of others, generally as a way of distracting attention from the real causes. It is a potent human disposition to blame others for our failings. The most notorious person who blamed the Jews as scapegoats was the Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. In his famous book Mein Kampf (My Struggle ), Hitler blamed the plight of Germany at the end of World War I on an international Jewish conspiracy and used terms such as “extirpation” and “extermination” in relation to the Jews. Unfortunately, we have seen in recent years the emergence of a number of such assaults against Southern Cameroonians. The Biya surrogates scapegoat Southern Cameroonians, blaming them for every societal problem in Cameroun society. They published an enormous quantity of propaganda that blamed the Ambazonians for the wrongdoings, mistakes, or faults that plagued “civilization;” and declared them and others untermenschen, or “sub-human,” in the words of Professor Messanga Nyamding. The case of Ambazonians, the Biya regime’s prejudice against them made them easy to scapegoat. This naturally led to discriminatory laws by the government, and caused violent acts against them that individuals could perpetrate with impunity. 3. Discrimination The discrimination of Ambazonians has been prevalent in Cameroun since 1961. In like manner that the Nazis and other Germans made 1,448 laws, policies, and decrees designed to remove Jews from the country’s political, economic, and cultural life, the anti-Anglophone laws speak volumes about discrimination. For example, though Anglophones make up roughly twenty percent of the country, they feel cheated out of key ministerial positions such as defence, finance, public service, external relations, and director of civil cabinet at the presidency. They feel cheated out of major positions such as general manager in parastatal companies (Anyefru 2017; Mbipgo 2016; Takougang and Amin 2018). Moreover, even though since 1992 the prime minister has typically come from the Anglophone region, he is not next in command; the next in command is the president of the Senate (Achimbe 2018). In short, Anglophones feel left out of the vital center of power in Cameroon.

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4. Persecution Persecution of minorities isn’t new. The persecution of the Christians by the Romans is one example, and another glaring case in point is the current situation of the Baha’is in Iran. But the system created and utilized by the Biya regime against the Ambazonians is likely the most organized and efficient one in history. The following declarations of the Biya and his lackeys (translated into English by Ntemfac Ofege) are indicative. 1. Paul Biya: “La Forme De L'état Est Non Négociable”. The nature of the state is non-negotiable. “Le Cameroun Est Un Et Indivisible.”( Cameroon is one and indivisible). 2. Laurent Esso: « Quand les avocats auront faim, ils reviendront devant les tribunaux ». When the lawyers will get hungry they will return to court (halt their strike) (Octobre 2016). « Lorsque le consortium S'effondrera, ils nous prieront » (When the Consortium will crumble, they will come begging. (Janvier 2017) 3. Issa Tchiroma Bakary: « Les anglophones sont une minorité insignifiante » (anglophones are an insignifiant minority. « Force reviendra à la loi ! » (The rule of law will prevail). « On ne dialogue pas avec les terroristes sécessionnistes » (We will not dialogue with terrorists and secessionists”.« Si une chaîne de télévision camerounaise donne la parole aux sécessionnistes, nous allons la fermer ». (Novembre 2016) We will shut down any tv station that offers airtime to the secessionists. 4. Paul Atanga Nji: « La common-law n'a pas de place au Cameroun » Common-law has no place in Cameroon) « Les anglophones n'ont aucun problème » anglophones do not have any problem. 5. Amadou Ali : « Nous n'avons jamais demandé, aux anglophones, de nous rejoindre, c'était leur choix de nous rejoindre » We did not ask the anglophones to join us. They chose to join us. « Les anglophones ne gouverneront jamais le Cameroun » (anglophones will never rule Cameroon). 6. Jacques Fame Ndongo: « Vous allez faire quoi ? »(What will you do…if we annex your territory). « Les anglophones sont 2 cubes de sucre dans une bassine d'eau » anglophones are two cubes of sugar in a basin of water. 7. Okalia Bilai: « Arrêtez vos chiens car s'ils sortent on va tous les abattre » (Tie your dogs (picketing Anglophone children) or they will be shot dead. 8. Mathias Eric Owona Nguini: « Ce ne sont pas des anglophones mais des piginophones.» They are not anglophones. They are pidginophones. That is, they do not speak English. They speak 166

Pidgin English. « Il n'y a pas de problème anglophone au Cameroun il y'a plutôt un problème camerounais » There is no Anglophone problem in Cameroon, there is rather a Cameroon problem. « Je mangerais la chair d’Ayuk Tabe dans mon ero » (I will eat Ayuk Tabe with my Eru (local vegetable common with the Bayangi, home of Separatist leader Sisiku Ayuk Tabe. “la crise anglophone est une insurrection armée contre le régime, on doit la combattre militairement jusqu'à son éradication. En quelques semaines, l'armée va écraser ces Anglophones” (The Anglophone Crisis is a military uprising against the regime, it has to be fought militarily until its eradication. The army will crush these anglophones in a few weeks.) 9. Jean Jacques Ze: « L'armée doit dératiser ces deux zones anglophones » The army should de-ratisize the Anglophone regions. 10. Samuel Obam Assam: « J'ai demandé à mon fils colonel dans les zones anglophones de tuer au moins 30 anglophones j'ai les moyens pour le défendre au tribunal militaire » I told my son who is a colonel deployed to the Anglophone regions to kill at least 30 anglophones. I have the means (cash to defend him at the Military Tribunal. 11. Ernest Obama: « Le gouvernement est trop doux avec ces gens » Government is even treating these people (anglophones) with kid gloves. « Interpol va traquer tous ceux qui parlent de l’ambazonie » (Interpol will arrest all those who talk about Ambazonia. Mr. Obama also suggested that villagers be paid off in the Englishspeaking regions and their villages erased from the face of the earth. 12. Abel Elimbi Lobe : « Si j’étais BIYA je ferais exactement la même chose » !(If I were Biya, I would have done the same thing i.e. declare war on the anglophones 13. Mbapou Herve, Sismondi Barlev Bidjoka, Michel Owona, Patrick Duprix Mani : (Apologie du génocide anglophones).Justified genocide against the Anglophones Other notables included a Banda Kani who told Afrimedia TV that: «Paul Biya est même trop gentil avec les anglophones ; la constitution lui donne le droit de tuer tout le monde pour préserver l'unité du pays » (Biya is very lenient with the anglophones. The constitution gives him the right to kill everybody to keep the country united.) Banda Kani also called for the assassination of the American Ambassador, declaring that the Ambassador was to leave Cameroun in a coffin. He called Christian Cardinal Tumi a thug («voyou » in French). Essomba Bengono a dit « Est ce que vous savez le nombre que Dieu le créateur a rasé l'espèce humaine pour constituer un peuple. 167

Nous ne comptons pas les morts, nous comptons les camerounais actifs. » (Do you know that the Lord God erased the human race in order to constitute a people? We do not count the dead, we count only those Camerounians who are alive.) Mir Bengono’s insinuation is that the number of anglophones killed did not matter. Let us note in passing that not all genocides are the same. Some are carried out in a matter of days or weeks; others can take decades. Some involve millions of people; others thousands. Some are highly centralized; others more decentralized and sporadic. Every case of genocide is in some ways unique, but it is also true that they can be grouped spatially and temporally into more or less similar kinds of murderous events. Historical periods do make a difference in the types and character of the killing involved. Still, there is a remarkable–indeed, frightening–similarity in genocidal violence over the past three millennia in human history. Armies of men kill identifiable groups of human beings, including women, children, and non-combatants, at the command of their political leaders, who often invoke ideologies, gods, and God in their arguments for destruction. The killing is intentional, total, and eliminationist. The government of the Republic of Cameroun moved from being Ahidjo’s authoritarian to Biya’s totalitarian rule, plotting stages of Ambacide classified by Ntemfac Ofege as follows. Table 1: Template used by Republic of Cameroun in Ambazonia 1.

Classification

2.

Symbolization

People are divided into “them and us.” People are typed, categorized, and classified into different groups, such as whites, blacks, Asians; or into Christians and Jews; or into communists, leftists, or rightists. Francophones versus Anglophones is the classification. “When combined with hatred, symbols

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The divide between Ambazonians and French Camerounians is now crystal clear. Ambazonians are typed, categorized, and classified into different groups, such as West Cameroonians, Anglophones, North West and South West, Biafrans, Anglofools, etc. Violent hate speech is rife. French –speaking

may be forced upon unwilling members of pariah groups...”

3.

Discrimination

A dominant group uses law, custom, and political power to deny the rights of other groups. The powerless group may not be given full civil rights or even citizenship. Examples include the Nuremberg Laws of 1935 in Nazi Germany, which stripped Jews of their German citizenship, and prohibited their employment by the government and by universities. Prevention against discrimination means full political empowerment and citizenship rights for all groups in a society. Discrimination on the basis of nationality, ethnicity, race or religion should be outlawed. Individuals should have the right

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Camerounians have always coded Ambazonians as Ambazozos, anglophones, Biafra, Bamenda, separatists, terrorist, extremist, etc; Not to be outdone, Ambazonians refer to French Camerounians as Frogs etc. In 1993, Ambazonians gathered in Buea (All Anglophone Conference) to collate a near-endless list of instances of discrimination and marginalisation against them as practised by successive colonial regimes in Yaounde. The list was tabled to President Biya who probably threw it into the dustbin. Years later, in 2003, a more elaborate list (301 paragraphs strong Communication 266/2003) was tabled to the African Commission on Human and Peoples Rights in Banjul. This petition listed all items of marginalisation of Ambazonians by French Cameroun

4.

Dehumanization

to sue the state, corporations, and other individuals if their rights are violated. “One group denies the humanity of the other group. Members of it are equated with animals, vermin, insects, or diseases.”

5. Organization

“Genocide is always organized... Special army units or militias are often trained and armed...”

6. Polarization

“Hate groups broadcast polarizing

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and traced its origins to the annexation and colonisation of Southern Cameroons by French Cameroun. This is verifiable. President Biya himself called all anglophones “terroristssecessionists.” The governor of the Southwest region referred to Anglophone protesters as “Dogs.” Even journalists on a local TV station have in a generalised manner called anglophones as “rats”; In Cameroon, the Brigade d’Intevention Rapide, the body most directly responsible for mass killings in Ambazonia, is a specialised ethnic unit directly controlled by the president and his tribesmen. Trained and equipped by the Israelites and US governments respectively. We have seen anti-terrorism equipment given by the US used on armless civilians in the Anglophone regions. The government broadcast propaganda

propaganda...”

7. Preparation

“Victims are identified and separated out because of their ethnic or religious identity...”

8. Persecution

Victims are identified and separated out because of their ethnic or religious identity. Death lists are drawn up. In state

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to turn the population against anglophones. This is very particular of state television CRTV and Vision 4 television where Francophones are invited to debate about the “Anglophone Problem’. The obvious is that they rain insults and derogatory statements towards anglophones with impunity. Private radio stations like Equinox radio and television deploys reporters who frequently call anglophones terroristssecessionists. They often use euphemisms to cloak their intentions, such as referring to their goals as “counterterrorism.” They have built armies, bought weapons and trained their troops and militias to fight “Terrorists”.

9. Extermination

sponsored genocide, members of victim groups may be forced to wear identifying symbols. Their property is often confiscated. Sometimes they are even segregated into ghettoes, deported into concentration camps, or confined to a famine-struck region and starved. Genocidal massacres begin. They are acts of genocide because they intentionally destroy part of a group. At this stage, a Genocide Emergency must be declared. If the political will of the great powers, regional alliances, or the U.N. Security Council can be mobilized, armed international intervention should be prepared, or heavy assistance provided to the victim group to prepare for its selfdefence. Humanitarian assistance should be organized by the U.N. and private relief groups for the inevitable tide of refugees to come. “It is 'extermination'

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When it is sponsored

to the killers because they do not believe their victims to be fully human.”

10. Denial

“The perpetrators... deny that they committed any crimes...” but blame the victim.

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by the state, the armed forces often work with militias to do the killing. Sometimes the genocide results in revenge killings by groups against each other, creating the downward whirlpoollike cycle of bilateral genocide (as in Burundi). Already dead bodies are dismembered; rape is used as a tool of war to genetically alter and eradicate the other group. Destruction of cultural and religious property is employed to annihilate the group’s existence from history. This is the case of the over 87 villages burnt down with ancestral and sacred places destroyed. We have seen images of the military killing and displaying human remains as a sign of victory as to say, we have killed the animals. Cameroon, several credible international organisations and the international community are still in

denial of what is happening. It is worth recalling that the government of Cameroon has refused to provide access to the UNHCR for investigations and Red Cross. It is among the surest indicators of further genocidal massacres. Alleged mass graves have been discovered in many localities in the Anglophone Regions (Tinto, Kwakwa, Mbonge, Lebialem, Munyenge, Batibo, Bali etc). The recent killings of 34 in Santa (Menka-Pinyin) is a crystal example where every person on the scene was killed and the only survivor who was later taken to the hospital due to bullet wounds was pulled out of hospital by the military with his two brothers and executed. Leaving no trace of what happened.

1. Classification: People are typified, categorized, and classified into different groups, such as whites, blacks, Asians; or into Christians and Jews; or into communists, leftists, Ambazonians, or rightists. 174

2. Symbolization: Different groups are given names, such as Chinese, Jews, Hindus, or Marxists. Particular clothes, (like a Turban), food eaten (like rice), physical characteristic (like long noses), or behaviour (like inscrutable) may become ways of stereotyping the group’s members. Classification and symbolization are common to all societies and while necessary for genocide to occur, do not foretell that it will; or that the next stages will follow. 3. Dehumanization: There is no disputing the fact that dehumanization and atrocity often go hand in hand. But what about indifference to atrocity? Might not dehumanization be implicated in this as well? The philosopher Richard Rorty thought so. In a paper written in 1992, when Serbian forces were engaged in the ethnic cleansing of Bosnia, Rorty (2007) argued that those of us who are safely cocooned in affluent Western democracies tend to dehumanize both the perpetrators and the victims of genocide. “We think of Serbs or Nazis as animals,” “because ravenous beasts of prey are animals. We think of Muslims or Jews being herded into concentration camps as animals, because cattle are animals. Neither sort of animal is very much like us, and there seems to be no point in human beings being involved in quarrels between animals.” Members of the out-groups are dehumanized, as in calling them apes, monkeys, cockroaches, parasites, rats, vermin, and the like. In this way, members of the out-group are made to appear clearly outside of “our” moral universe. As vermin and such, members of the out-group have been stripped of the moral in-group protection against extermination. 4. Organization: Officials, sympathetic in-group leaders, and intellectuals organize to repress, murder out-group members, or entirely destroy the dehumanized group. Weapons are stacked or handed out; militia, security forces, or military are selected and trained; preliminary plans are made. 5. Polarization: Officials, extremists, propagandists, or demagogues undertake a systematic campaign to maximize the social, psychological, and moral distance between “us” and “them.” In this stage, moderate intellectuals and leaders are silenced either through intimidation, beatings, arrests, and outright assassination. 6. Preparation: All is ready for genocide and the final step is to tag those to be killed. They may be forced to wear identifying clothing, symbols on their clothing, or be segregated in ghettos. Lists of those to be killed may be prepared for killing squads, and the out-group may be systematically deprived by law and weapon 175

roundups of any weapons. Those who might lead the resistance to genocide, such as young males, may be conscripted into the military and segregated for subsequent execution, or simply jailed. 7. Genocide: For whatever motive, the final decision is made to attack and destroy those in the out-group, or to destroy the group as such. It may be justified as a righteous campaign to exterminate vermin or cleanse the society of filth, to recover ancient greatness or save the nation's race, to revenge past wrongs, and so on. 8 Denial. The final stage is the perpetrator’s denial of their genocide. They destroy or hide the relevant official evidence, burn bodies, leave unmarked graves, or invent a reasonable rational for the killing (“they were in rebellion,” “were killed during the civil war,” or “were helpmates to our enemies”). Moreover, the perpetrators may harass those who claim that a genocide occurred. The most coherent and far reaching official denial today is that of the Turkish government that the murder of over a million Armenians during World War I was genocide. According to the Turks, they died as a result of a civil war, an invasion by Russia, and the attempt of the Young Turk government to deport potential and actual hostile Armenians to a different part of the country for their own protection. Genocides Are Preventable Early warning is considered one of the most effective ways of preventing genocide and from a social psychological perspective early warning should include seemingly ordinary processes of exclusion and normalization of violence that may still seem “below the threshold” of concern to many. Leaders of two Buea-based political parties, the Social Liberal Congress, SLC, and the Liberal Democratic Alliance, LDA, called on President Paul Biya to enter into negotiations with the Southern Cameroons National Council, SCNC, the group fighting for the secession of former British Cameroons. Mola Njoh Litumbe, putative Chairman of the LDA and the snazzy Dr. George Nyamndi of the SLC were speaking during a joint press conference held in the LDA headquarters in Bokwango, Buea, on Tuesday, October 18. The two leaders said time was running out and Biya must act fast in order to pre-empt a tragedy. “It has been said that some human tragedies could be averted if only good men and women 176

speak up when the dark clouds before the storm appear in the sky,” Litumbe stated in his opening remarks. He said, “recent events in Cameroon during the few weeks prior to October 2005 are sufficiently indicative that there is indeed a gathering storm.” Recalling the campaigns government launched prior to October to dissuade Southern Cameroonians from supporting the SCNC, Litumbe said, “there was no valid reason for the harassment of citizens who wished to exercise their rights to celebrate a major historic event.” Litumbe said the creation of a Federal government in 1961 was no more than a smokescreen to be blown off as the years progressed. He said the constitution that was used was prepared in September 1961, one month before the independence of the Southern Cameroons. “This constitution was signed by Ahidjo and therefore, was the Constitution of La République du Cameroun.” The elderly statesman said Ahidjo merely “changed the name of his country from La République Du Cameroun to the Federal Republic of Southern Cameroons. And then he said he was going to include the state of Southern Cameroons to be part of this country.” He said in spite of the reference of Southern Cameroons as a state in article 56 of the 1961 Federal Constitution, “there is little doubt that if the terms of joining was the total absorption or osmosis of the Southern Cameroons into La République du Cameroun, with its cultural heritage of language, institutions and system of public administration, there would have been no need to create a semblance of a federation from the outset of the marriage.” Litumbe noted that the UN passed a resolution stating that on October 1, 1961, Southern Cameroons should be independent by joining La République. “This did not seem to have taken place because the constitution was an instrument of La République, which thereby colonised the Southern Cameroons, because the UN had not formally given independence.” He said in 1961, Southern Cameroons stood as a beautiful girl that was being courted by Nigeria and La République du Cameroun but the marriage was just a temporary affair (com we stay). Indeed, genocide discussed above could be preventable by heeding warning signs and taking early action. Individuals and governments can therefore save lives. At each stage, preventive measures can stop it. The process is not linear. Stages may occur simultaneously. Logically, later stages must be preceded by earlier stages. But all stages continue to operate throughout the process. 177

1. Classification The main preventive measure at this early stage is to develop universalistic institutions that transcend ethnic or racial divisions, that actively promote tolerance and understanding, and that promote classifications that transcend the divisions. The Roman Catholic Church could have played this role in Rwanda, had it not been riven by the same ethnic cleavages as Rwandan society. Promotion of a common language in countries like Tanzania has also promoted transcendent national identity. This search for common ground is vital to early prevention of genocide. 2. Symbolization To combat symbolization, hate symbols can be legally forbidden (swastikas in Germany) as can hate speech. Group marking like gang clothing or tribal scarring can be outlawed, as well. The problem is that legal limitations will fail if unsupported by popular cultural enforcement. Though Hutu and Tutsi were forbidden words in Burundi until the 1980’s, code words replaced them. If widely supported, however, denial of symbolization can be powerful, as it was in Bulgaria, where the government refused to supply enough yellow badges and at least eighty percent of Jews did not wear them, depriving the yellow star of its significance as a Nazi symbol for Jews. 3. Discrimination Prevention against discrimination means full political empowerment and citizenship rights for all groups in a society. Discrimination on the basis of nationality, ethnicity, race or religion should be outlawed. Individuals should have the right to sue the state, corporations, and other individuals if their rights are violated. 4. Dehumanization To combat dehumanization, incitement to genocide should not be confused with protected speech. Genocidal societies lack constitutional protection for countervailing speech, and should be treated differently than democracies. Local and international leaders should condemn the use of hate speech and make it culturally unacceptable. Leaders who incite genocide should be banned from international travel and have their foreign finances frozen. Hate radio stations should be jammed or shut down, and hate propaganda banned. Hate crimes and atrocities should be promptly punished. 178

5. Organization To combat this stage, membership in genocidal militias should be outlawed. Their leaders should be denied visas for foreign travel and their foreign assets frozen. The UN should impose arms embargoes on governments and citizens of countries involved in genocidal massacres, and create commissions to investigate violations, as was done in post-genocide Rwanda, and use national legal systems to prosecute those who violate such embargos. 6. Polarization Prevention may mean security protection for moderate leaders or assistance to human rights groups. Assets of extremists may be seized, and visas for international travel denied to them. Coups d’état by extremists should be opposed by international sanctions. Vigorous objections should be raised to disarmament of opposition groups. If necessary they should be armed to defend themselves. 7. Preparation Prevention of preparation may include arms embargos and commissions to enforce them. It should include prosecution of incitement and conspiracy to commit genocide, both crimes under Article 3 of the Genocide Convention. 8. Persecution At this stage, a Genocide Emergency must be declared. If the political will of the great powers, regional alliances, or U.N. Security Council or the U.N. General Assembly can be mobilized, armed international intervention should be prepared, or heavy assistance provided to the victim group to prepare for its self-defence. Humanitarian assistance should be organized by the U.N. and private relief groups for the inevitable tide of refugees to come. 9. Extermination At this stage, only rapid and overwhelming armed intervention can stop genocide. Real safe areas or refugee escape corridors should be established with heavily armed international protection. (An unsafe “safe” area is worse than none at all.) The U.N. Standing High Readiness Brigade, EU Rapid Response Force, or regional forces—should be authorized to act by the U.N. Security Council if the genocide is small. For larger interventions, a multilateral force authorized by the U.N. should intervene. If the 179

U.N. Security Council is paralyzed, regional alliances must act anyway under Chapter VIII of the U.N. Charter or the UN General Assembly should authorize action under the Uniting for Peace Resolution GARes. 330 (1950), which has been used 13 times for such armed intervention. Since 2005, the international responsibility to protect transcends the narrow interests of individual nation states. If strong nations will not provide troops to intervene directly, they should provide the airlift, equipment, and financial means necessary for regional states to intervene. 10. Denial The best response to denial is punishment by an international tribunal or national courts. There the evidence can be heard, and the perpetrators punished. Tribunals like the Yugoslav, Rwanda or Sierra Leone Tribunals, the tribunal to try the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, or the International Criminal Court may not deter the worst genocidal killers. But with the political will to arrest and prosecute them, some may be brought to justice. When possible, local proceedings should provide forums for hearings of the evidence against perpetrators who were not the main leaders and planners of genocide, with opportunities for restitution and reconciliation. The Rwandan gaçaça trials are one example. Justice should be accompanied by education in schools and the media about the facts of a genocide, the suffering it caused its victims, the motivations of its perpetrators, and the need for restoration of the rights of its victims. References Achimbe, Eric A. (2018). “The Roots of the Anglophone Problem: Language and Politics in Cameroon.” Current History 117 (799) (May): 169–74. Accessed March 5, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1525/curh.2018.117.799.169. Amin, Julius A., and Joseph Takougang. (2018). “Conclusion: The Endless Protest.” In Postcolonial Cameroon: Politics, Economy, and Society, edited by Joseph Takougang and Julius Amin. 393–404. New York: Lexington. Anyefru, Emmanuel. (2017). “Cameroon: The Continuous Search for National Integration.” Journal of Global South Studies 34 (1): 96–118. 180

Farmer, Paul. (2005) Pathologies of Power (Berkeley: University of California Press. Farmer, Paul E.; Nizeye Bruce; Stulac Sara; Keshavjee Salmaan (October 24, 2006). ”Structural Violence and Clinical Medicine.” PLOS Medicine. 3 (10): 1686– Fredrickson, B. L. (2001). The role of positive emotions in positive psychology: The broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions. American Psychologist, 56, 218-226. Fredrickson, B. L. & Losada, M. F. (2005). Positive affect and the complex dynamics of human flourishing. American Psychologist, 60, 678–686. Galtung, Johan.(1969). “Violence, Peace, and Peace Research.” Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 6, No. 3, pp. 167–191’ Galtung, Johan. (1990). “Cultural Violence,” Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 27, No. 3 , pp. 291–305 Galtung, Johan. (1969). Violence, Peace and Peace Research. Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 6, No. 3 (1969), pp. 167-191 Galtung, Johan. (1990). Cultural Violence. Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 27, No. 3, pp. 291-305 ---, ‘Violence, Peace, Peace Research. (1969). 6.3 Journal of Peace Research 167-191. ---, ‘Violence, War and their impact’ 2004 Polylog: Forum for Intercultural Philosophy 5 Available at: http://them.polylog.org/5/fgj-en.htm. Last accessed 20 Nov. 2006. George, Susan. (1990). A fate worse than debt. Grove Weidnfeld, New York. Heng, Geraldine.(2018). The Invention of Race in the European Middle Ages (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2018), p. xiii. Israel.(1994). ‘Toward a Generic Definition of Genocide’, in Georg e J. Andreopoulos (ed.) Genocide: Conceptual and historical Dimensions. Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania Pr ess. Kershaw, Ian. (1998). Hitler, 1889-1945 (London : Allen Lane, 19982000). Mbipgo, Kristian Ngah Christian. (2016). “Anglophone teachers, lawyers’ strike: Deadlock persists as dialogue collapses!” The Guardian Post, December 30, 2016: 1–3. —. (2017). “The Anglophone Problem from A–Z.” The Guardian Post, January 5, 2017: 1– 2. Richards, Paul. (2011). A Systematic Approach to Cultural Explanations of War: Tracing Causal Processes in Two West 181

African Insurgencies. World Development Vol. 39, No. 2, pp. 212– 220 Gilman, Robert. (1983) “Structural violence. Can we find genuine peace in a world with inequitable distribution of wealth among nations?” Rorty, Richard (November 2007). “The Fire of Life.” Poetry Magazine. Thompson, Liz.(2008). “Ballard and the meaning of life.” BookBrunch. Archived from the original on 25 April 2009. Retrieved 20 April 2009. Walsh, James Igoe. (2007). Do States Play Signalling Games? Cooperation and Conflict 42:4, pp. 441-459. Walsh, James Igoe. (2007). Defection and Hierarchy in International Intelligence Sharing. Journal of Public Policy 27:2, pp. 151-181.

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Chapter Six Historico-Legal Path to Genocide and Extermination of Ambazonians “You are the child of my makers, inheritor of all they left behind. You are Forerunner… but this ring is mine.” Posted on October 30, 2017 by haruspis

Introduction In 1916 the Armies of France, Britain and Belgium jointly defeated the Germans in the Kamerun and took over the territory, sharing it between France and Britain. The arrangement was made law by the Anglo-French Treaty of that same year. The Paris Peace recognized these arrangements, followed by the League of Nations in 1922 and then the United Nations in 1945. Both the League and the United Nations operated systems that protected former German territories as well as other territories not directly under the colonial authority of any superpower as Mandated Territories and Trust Territories respectively. Thus, when it came to decolonization that is, granting self-government or independence to these territories the United Nations did make several blunders concerning German Kamerun, which by 1960 was represented as British Cameroons (Northern Cameroons and Southern Cameroons) and French Cameroun following the Anglo-French Treaty of 1916. However, prior to decolonization, France had taken portions of Kamerun which it had ceded to Germany before the war and reunited them to French Equatorial Africa, leaving Cameroun as the biggest territory that was once under German Kamerun. While the territories reunited with French Equatorial Africa are not the subject of this paper, the British Cameroons, specifically Southern Cameroons and Cameroun are, because during the separation from 1916-1960 both territories underwent different political orientations which effectively gave them different cultures, educational and legal systems - and so it became important that if the two were to be reunited again, they had to be under some form of a loose Federation which effectively preserved their various sovereignties and hence, colonial heritage. The arrangements for the Federation 183

were made under the direct supervision of the United Nations Trusteeship Council, which supervised the Trust Territories and reported to the United Nations General Assembly, and in preparing them for self-government or independence. What has come under scrutiny in this paper is the fact that the United Nations sponsored Plebiscite Treaty and subsequent United Nations Resolution 1608 of April 21, 1961, which demanded that contracting parties honour the results of the said plebiscite. The plebiscite was to decide the fate of the British Cameroons--the one part, Northern Cameroons that voted to join Nigeria as part of the Nigerian Federation, and the Southern Cameroons, which voted to join Cameroun in the loose Cameroon Federation. But ever since, the fate of the British Cameroons and the UN Resolution 1608 has been in violation by Cameroun, France, Britain and the United Nations itself now for forty years. This paper is written on with the assumption that the international legal instruments that created and paved the way for the Kamerun Federation amount to an international treaty, and that these instruments have collectively been violated by all parties, with the exception to the British Southern Cameroons. The British Southern Cameroons has invoked international law to reinstate its sovereignty, citing “a material breach of Treaty.” The Doctrine of Pacta Sunt Servanda: In international law, the doctrine of Pacta Sunt Servanda (see Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, Article 26) is the guarding angel of all treaties, agreements, declarations and conventions. It demands that all parties who contract them respect all such embodiments of treaties. In other words, all treaties are binding upon the contractors, unless they were mere “gentleman’s agreement.” This same guarding angel can become a premise where we can begin understanding why parties involved in the 1961 United Nations-sponsored Plebiscite have not honoured the treaty, and then use our deductions to make a solid case for the total independence of British Southern Cameroons in the name of the Republic of Ambazonia, now and as peacefully as possible before it is too late. To understand the deceit that is characteristic of the illusion of Cameroun as a unitary state or as a Federation that never was, we ought to understand the said UN Resolution properly. Looking at the treaty (my use of treaty instead of stated resolutions and pacts is because it is more encompassing, given the string of international 184

legal instruments involved in building the framework for the UN Plebiscite of February 11, 1961), we observe the following: 1) Cameroun, a Trust Territory in equal status with the British Southern Cameroons, voted against the Resolution; 2) France, the colonial master and administering authority of the French Cameroun equally voted against the Resolution; 3) All of French Speaking West Africa and Equatorial Africa, with the exception of Mali, voted against the resolution; 4) Cameroun was decolonized separately from the British Cameroons when it effectively gained independence on January 1, 1960, and so began exercising its right as a nation with a seat at the UN without Southern Cameroons or Northern Cameroons having attained the same status. The United Nations Sponsored Plebiscite of February 11, 1961 was organized to determine the constitutional future of the British Cameroons--British Southern Cameroons and British Northern Cameroons, and in fulfilment of the provisions of the League of Nations and hence United Nations concerning Trust Territories. These territories had to, like other colonial and other peoples without representation, be led to the attainment of either “SelfGovernment” or “independence”, in fulfilment of the aspirations and wishes of the peoples (see also the General Assembly Declaration Granting Self-Government or independence to Colonial and Other Peoples of 1960. This Declaration was a final pledge by various leaders of nations to liberate humanity from the malpractice of colonialism (decolonization). What is important here is the fact that the right to self-determination became equated with other inalienable rights, including the right to exercise sovereignty. Concerning the Trust Territories of the British Southern Cameroons and Northern Cameroons, the inalienable rights of the masses were protected in that they were given the free will, though with limited choices, to determine their future based in some part, on their affiliations with the neighbouring territories and the historic evolution of the African peoples as a whole. However, a proper examination of the plebiscite arrangements would reveal just why the contracting parties failed to carry through with the resolution, and so in the end, have created more problems for the peoples of British Southern Cameroons than decolonize the territory. In this regard, the plebiscite was arranged in violation of the instruments that constitute international law, from the League 185

through to the independence.

declaration

granting

self-government

or

Decolonization Difficulties and the Violations of International Law Firstly, and in accordance with the Covenant of the League, the United Nations Charter and the aspirations of humanity in time scheduled preferences; the Plebiscite was in violation of both the Covenant and the Charter. The League Covenant had warned that no clauses of the Mandate System, which was later to become the Trusteeship, should be violated by any nation or group of nations. It warned, and it was according to such warning that Namibia was freed from the illegal grip or attempts at annexation by South Africa (See ICJ Advisory Opinion on Namibia), when South Africa was threatened with sanctions and or expulsion from the United Nations should it annex Namibia. Concerning Namibia, the Court had warned that “a material breach” of treaty (see Article 60 of Vienna Convention, 1969/1980) occurred in relation for the mandate for Namibia (South West Africa), regarded as an international Treaty, and that South Africa had repudiated the treaty (R. Shabtai, 1985, Breach of Treaty). On Namibia, the General Assembly noted: The Resolution in question is therefore to be viewed as the exercise of the right to terminate a relationship in case of a deliberate and persistent violation of obligations which destroy the very objective and purpose for that relationship (ICJ Report, 1971, p.16 at 47, Para. 94-95).

More specifically, the Charter went further to uphold and safeguard the warnings of the Covenant when in Article 76 (b) as in part in 73 (b) when it stated that the basis objective of the Trusteeship System was: (b) to promote the political, economic, social and educational advancement of the inhabitants of 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 its peoples concerned, and as may be provided by the terms of each trusteeship agreement.

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Concerning the British Southern Cameroons, others, especially historians of French Cameroun who have re-written and distorted the history of British Southern Cameroons, have argued that when we consult UN Article 76, we should not only read portions of 76b, but also read the entire article. In doing so, they argue, we will understand properly why Cameroun had to use all means possible to accommodate Southern Cameroons. But even when we do so, (76a stresses that the trusteeship agreements should conform to Article 1 of the UN Charter, and (c) encourages respect for human rights which would encourage interdependence, while (d) stresses equal treatment without prejudice!), the case of the British Southern Cameroons against Cameroun recolonization and the failure of the entire Trusteeship System to stand to the task assigned them becomes even stronger, as nothing in the forty years of Camerounisation (an ill-attempt by a former French Colony, Cameroun, to assimilate the people of British Southern Cameroons by tormenting them in order to force them to forget their AngloSaxon orientation) has been out to promote love, unity or respect for human rights, let alone, self-government or independence. The conclusion of this first instance of violation of the Covenant of the League and the Charter of the United Nations suggests that the UN had no mandate to organize the said plebiscite. Secondly, the United Nations failed to take into consideration the facts of the history of the territories that once constituted German Kamerun. For instance, if we went as far back as 1916 when the Anglo-French Treaty divided the Kamerun after the joint defeat of Germany by the Anglo-French-Belgium trio, we observe that the treaty not only come under fire when the League still recognized portions and all of the territory as separate entities not constituting or accorded the same rights as former colonies of these colonial masters. By so doing, German Kamerun was effectively, though as separate territories, placed under the Mandate System! What this means is that when we apply decolonization to the territories that once constituted Kamerun, we ought to have decolonized them as a unit not as separate entities. If we had to ask foolish question of “either” “or,” and only to the British Cameroons, we were effectively giving legitimacy to French Breach of the Mandate System and Trusteeship Laws by taking portions of German Kamerun and uniting them at their will, with French Equatorial African territories. Effectively, the selective application of the principles of decolonization were bias--against all Kamerun and against the 187

British Cameroons especially, and are in themselves a cause of the troubles of the present aspirations of the peoples of British Southern Cameroons and their demands for total independence. The mistake the UN made was that German Kamerun was never decolonized as a single entity, (even if we were to put aside the highly skewed argument that the Franco-German treaty which ceded portions of the German West Africa territory of Western Sahara (to Morocco) and in East Africa to the French in exchange for those France reunited with Equatorial Africa had collapsed, because the French defeated the Germans in World War I). This argument does not hold well with international law for the simple reason that those conquered territories of World War I did not effectively become part of the original empire of the conquering nations. Conquest was already being effectively resisted as a legal means of acquiring rights or title to territory, as can be seen by the fact that these territories were considered “Mandated” or eventually as “Trust Territories!” Thirdly, the United Nations failed to give the people of British Cameroons a third option--that of total independence from either Nigeria or Cameroun. This was a mistake since a trust territory could not have attained either “self-government” or “independence” by joining another trust territory or another independent nation: Independence ought to be independence, no less and no more. The United Nations Resolution 1608 of April 21, 1961 This resolution was approved to put effect to the plebiscite results, which made Northern Cameroons part of the Nigerian Federation and would have made Southern Cameroons part of the Cameroon Federation. While Nigeria did not have any difficulties implementing this resolution, Cameroun did for the reasons we already advanced at the beginning of this essay. Cameroun and all of French Africa, with the exception of Mali, voted against the United Nations Resolution 1608. Paragraph 5 of the resolution demanded that the contracting parties, that is Cameroun, Southern Cameroons, Britain and France should convene urgent talks, which would be supervised by the United Nations Trusteeship Council, to ensure that an agreement of the Cameroon Federation was reached before the termination of the Trusteeship of the Southern Cameroons. 188

Secondly, Cameroun had problems implementing the Resolution because an alien state was being injected into the French Empire. Southern Cameroons was Anglo-Saxon and Cameroun was Napoleonic or Gaullist. This means that they both had differences in legal, educational, and linguistic matters besides many others, which even the running of Federation sanctioned by the UN was close to being an impossibility unless both states safeguarded their individual sovereignties. Such arguments may equally be advanced by Cameroun in defence of its ways of attempting to make Southern Cameroons part of its territorial jurisdiction, but this will not hold well with legal arguments because they hold more for reasons to have given Southern Cameroons separate independence regardless of any other arguments to the contrary. However, several factors have contributed to making the implementation of UN Resolution 1608 totally impossible. Difficulties in Implementing Resolution 1608 1) The United Nations representatives (of the Trusteeship Council) were absent at Foumban Constitutional Talks to formalize the Cameroon Federation. 2) The Administering authority, the British, were equally absent at Foumban Constitutional Talks, leaving the British Southern Cameroons at the mercy of French Technical Advisers and Cameroun crude politicians. 3) French Technical advisers, eager to maintain treaties signed with Cameroun at independence which rendered Cameroun’s independent null and void (since France controlled Cameroun, defence, economy, currency, imports and exports, etc.), did all they could to ensure that the French policy of assimilation became the goal of the Cameroun politicians since an effective Federation would have given Ten deputies of the Southern Cameroons (West Cameroon) powers that would have automatically made Cameroun a democratic Federation and so difficult for the French to push around with their treaties. Besides, an effective Federation would have meant effect abrogation of those treaties since the succeeding State (Cameroon Federation) had to debated and renegotiated those agreements signed by the previous two states (Cameroun and Southern Cameroons). 4) The Ahidjo-Foncha Accord at Foumban that adjourned the Constitutional talks was equally violated since Ahidjo did not honour it. Ahidjo and the Southern Cameroons delegation had 189

agreed that amendments were to be made on the Cameroun Constitution, which will effectively serve the Federation purpose, and that Ahidjo’s government shall send the draft to the Southern Cameroons House of Assembly and the Cameroun National Assembly for deliberations that could lead to the adoption of the Federal Constitution. This did not happen because Ahidjo, shortly after, issued a Presidential Decree, which made the Constitution of Cameroun the law of the so-called Federation. This immediately gave birth to the Southern Cameroons resistance, which has now materialized in the Republic of Ambazonia, following Biya’s great blunder, which returned the Federal or unity system to the Cameroun Identity at independence with a similar Presidential decree in January 1984. The Law of Treaties An understanding of what international law has to say on matters of breach of treaty can be easily found by examining the Vienna Convention on the law of Treaties, done at Vienna on May 23, 1969 and entered into force on January 27, 1980. It is important that we examine relevant portions of this legal instrument so as to have a better grasp of the conclusions that may arise from them. Since disputes of sovereignty are very common in escalating into armed conflicts, it is especially important that we understand the provisions of the Vienna Convention as they apply to the situation in the Cameroons and why, besides demanding a peaceful separation, it is equally important that Ambazonia continues to demand that Cameroun honour the terms of the Plebiscite Treaty. The Vienna Convention defines a treaty as “an agreement concluded between States in written form and governed by international law, whether embodied in a single instrument or in two or more related instruments and whatever its particular designation.” [Article 1, (a)]. The Convention defines ratification or acceptance, or approval, or accession--in relation to the international act so named as a situation whereby a state establishes on the international plane its consent to be bound by a treaty. The current bloodletting, repression, protests and resistance by the Anglophones of Cameroon is due to a planned, systemic, intended, and deliberate genocide that is being visited on them by the Regime of Paul Biya (1982 to present), following in the footsteps of the Ahidjo regime (1961 to 1982). The Southern Cameroons, a U.N. Trust territory under Britain, voted in a United 190

Nations organized plebiscite on February 11th, 1961 to join the Republic of Cameroon towards forming the Federal Republic of Cameroon based on agreed articles to be incorporated in the Federal Constitution of the country after a Treaty of Union. The Treaty of Union, mandated by the United Nations resolutions 1352 and 1608 (XV) of April 21st 1961 was to be crafted by the two entities following the plebiscite vote and ratified by the respective parliaments of the Southern Cameroons (West Cameroon) and of the Republic of Cameroon (East Cameroon). These agreed upon “Treaty of Union” as required by U.N. Resolution 1608 were never voted upon by the respective parliaments, nor signed by the existing heads of governments of the respective states (John Ngu Foncha for West Cameroon and Amahdou Ahidjo for East Cameroon). The Ahidjo Regime’s Military Assault on Southern Cameroons Military power was the primary factor in territorial occupation of Southern Cameroons by the Republic of Cameroun. In the stead of these legal frameworks, Ahidjo, emanating from the larger of the two entities, moved in with a military occupation force on September 30th, 1961 to occupy and annex the Southern Cameroons in violation of the aforementioned U.N. Resolutions. This violation of U.N. mandates by Ahidjo led to the ultimate overthrow of Southern Cameroons duly elected Prime Minister, Augustine Ngom Jua in 1968. In replacing Jua with ST. Muna, Ahidjo speeded up the colonization of the Southern Cameroons. In Albert Mukong’s “Prisoner without a crime” we can find both details of attempts by Southern Cameroonians to resist Ahidjo’s machinations and brutal repressions marginalization and even exclusion from the economic and political process that befell them. This marginalization and cancerous repression of the Anglophones in Cameroon is currently being manifested in teachers from the French section of the country (East Cameroon) being sent to teach students of the English speaking Provinces (West Cameroon), in the French language, and court magistrates from the French system, versed in civil law being sent to rule over courts in the English speaking provinces who practice common law. Furthermore, these magistrates do not speak English, the language of the lawyers and litigants of the English speaking provinces, nor are they studied in, or procedurally versed with the common law system. 191

Colonialism of Southern Cameroons by the Republic of Cameroun is a topic that should never be forgotten. It is critical that we never forget what happened so that we may understand the hardships of genocide and extermination ongoing in the territory today and not repeat the tragedies brought upon the victims. The so-called “reunification” in 1961 between Southern Cameroons and the Republic of Cameroun turned from a great idea for countries to explore a bilingual French-English experiment to a nightmare and imperialistic rule that led to economic spoliation to political oppression. Among the other compounding issues is that all the governors, divisional officers (administrative officers), police and military heads in the English speaking provinces (Southern Cameroons) are conversant only in the French language, and are from the French speaking provinces of the country. With this historical backdrop, and in light of the ongoing strife in Cameroon, I will advance twelve reasons why Cameroon’s President Paul Biya does not want to rescind his colonial purpose and grant the requested Federation to the country; its only legal framework per international law backed by United Resolutions, pending a Treaty of Union. Given these legal issues, Biya opted for the genocide and extermination of Ambazonians to achieve his “one and indivisible Republic of Cameroun. Jacobinist Gaullist Rule of Ahidjo-Biya The resurgence of violence demonstrates that the roots of this raging genocide and extermination run deep, as detailed in the recent report from International Crisis Group, and that the measures taken by the government so far have failed to address grievances. By jailing the legitimate representatives of the Anglophone movement back in January 2017, the government may have even played into the hands of the more radical elements. Southern Cameroons Anglophone Grievances Cameroon’s Anglophones make up 20% of the population. Most live in former British territories in the North-West and SouthWest regions. Their anger was sparked off in 2016 by the government’s refusal to respond to Anglophone lawyers who were aggrieved at the nomination of magistrates who neither spoke English well enough nor were trained in British common law. 192

After demonstrations were met with sometimes brutal force, teachers and students joined the growing movement, adding similar concerns about a way of life being progressively taken over by Francophone practices. At least nine people have now died in subsequent violence, and militants have frequently used sabotage and arson. After negotiations broke down in January 2017, the government imprisoned the most prominent Anglophone activists alongside many others caught up in protests. They also cut off the internet in Anglophone areas for three months, causing huge damage to the economy. Broken Promises Southern Cameroons Anglophones feel marginalized and often humiliated in their own country. Many look back to the independence era. In February 1961, Anglophone Cameroonians, then under British rule, voted in a controversial UN-organized referendum to re-join francophone Cameroon. For the previous 40 years, they had been ruled by the British following the defeat of Germany, the first colonial power of all of Cameroon, in the First World War. The constitutional conference which followed in July 1961 was hopelessly one-sided. A weak Southern Cameroons Anglophone negotiating team sparred with a Francophone side which had already gained independence and had strong support from its former colonial power, France. The result was a series of vague promises that Cameroon would be an “equal federation” in which the English language and customs derived from British rule would carry equal weight at the federal level. The reality was strange. First, in October 1961, only weeks after Anglophone Cameroon joined the federation, President Ahmadou Ahidjo (a Francophone who enjoyed very close ties to France) reorganized the country from two federal states to six regions. With the regions’ powers unclear, this move deliberately introduced confusion into local governance that has remained to this day. Ahidjo then named federal inspectors in each region, who enjoyed more power than locally elected politicians. In 1965, he banned opposition parties, forcing all political aspirants, including Anglophones, into his orbit. At the same time, he chipped away at customs and institutions the Anglophones had inherited: their currency was discarded; membership of the British Commonwealth 193

was not considered; imperial weights and measures were dispensed with. In 1971, through a national referendum, Ahidjo abolished federalism altogether, crushing the now fading Anglophone hope that they could enjoy a partnership of equals. For three decades, Anglophones, like many of their Francophone compatriots, cowed by the brutal civil war that had raged in Francophone Cameroon in the 1960s, more or less accepted their lot. But in the 1990s, political freedoms blossomed again, and Anglophones were encouraged by the fact that the most important opposition party to emerge at the time, the Social Democratic Front, had one foot, if not two, firmly planted in the Anglophone region. But as President Paul Biya, in power since 1984, slowly crushed hopes of pluralism and freedom, Anglophone frustrations grew again. Movements calling for a return to federalism, and even outright secession, proliferated. For many years these groups were largely based in the diaspora, hence the anger seen in Western capitals. But the movement of 2016 and 2017 has more domestic roots, based on widespread anger on the ground. Decentralisation as the Start of a Sustainable Solution After repressing the movement at the start of the year, the government made some concessions, most notably restoring the internet in April and allowing the release of some (but not all) detained activists in August. But Yaoundé continued to treat the Anglophone movement as subversive and illegitimate. Militants were imprisoned in January for publicly discussing federalism, a discussion which should be perfectly allowable. The government refused to acknowledge widespread feelings of marginalization and humiliation. To reach a sustainable solution, especially important with national elections looming next autumn, the government must start by acknowledging the well-founded grievances of Cameroon’s Anglophone regions. For trust to be re-built and maintained, concrete actions needed to be taken. Decentralization is the most promising and is set out in the new constitution of 1996 and in laws of 2004. Since then, mayors and local councils were elected, and the law stipulated that they should have their own budget and be responsible for local public services. But even these vague legal texts–for example the percentage of locally raised taxes to be devolved to local government is not specified–are not respected in practice. 194

Regional councils, led by elected regional presidents, are foreseen in the constitution, but have not been created 21 years on. Shortly after creating local councils, the government created its own delegates nominated by the president and accountable only to him. In day to day matters, the delegate has far more power than their elected counterparts, even those from the ruling party. The problem of partial decentralization is a frustration in all parts of the country. Improving it countrywide would have the distinct advantage of appealing to the Anglophones without seeming to give them special treatment. Regional councils should be created, or else a national debate started on whether they are needed. Local councils should have the powers over public services foreseen in the law and autonomy over their budgets. Improved decentralization would, if handled properly, have reassured Anglophones that they have control over their own legal and educational system, rather than feeling that any gain they make is subject to the whims of central government. Of course, administrators in Yaoundé, and President Biya himself, who has created one of the world’s most centralized decision-making machineries, would lose some of their discretion. But the upside would be significant: a reinvigorated sense of “national purpose” and cohesiveness and less risk of renewed violence in Anglophone areas. Econocide in Southern Cameroons Once in a while in the sea of intellectual discourse a term surfaces that resonates, that galvanizes the historical moment that has gravitas. Stokely Carmichael’s “Black Power” was one of those terms. Betty Friedan’s “problem with no name” another. “Econocide” is now one of those terms. It was certainly the case in West Cameroon. And I am not talking about econocide’s lure as a term bandied about by academics; not when West Cameroon was bled dry in the 1960s. The ways human society comes to grasp these arresting times is not an academic question, but a matter of survival. Neocolonialism Then: From Occupation, Annexation, Colonization, Assimilation to Econocide The Ahmadou Ahidjo neocolonial agenda was to establish a compliant political class: 1) to transform the economic power of the state into East Cameroon neocolonial capitalism; 2). to tokenize the 195

leaders and, 3). to “ease French corporate penetration of West Cameroon communities and facilitate corporate planning and programming of the markets and the human resources in those communities. No, this was an intentional, revengeful or revanchist French engineered East Cameroon policy where the active defence of privilege and class was predicated upon the denial and removal of the dispossessed poor. Barely one year into this experience and without prior consultation with the government in Buea, the first act of brutal rape took place. In 1962, Ahmadou Ahidjo unilaterally ordered our people to surrender their stronger currency, the Pound Sterling, in exchange for the Franc. The exchange rate was not negotiated and agreed upon; the people were not sensitized, neither was sufficient time given them to engage the process. The outcome was that our economy was robbed and despoiled of its power. As one would expect from the predatory regime in Yaoundé, Southern Cameroons was short-changed in the process as she lost 25% of their currency’s worth where the rate fixed by Yaoundé was respected. Most people in the hinterlands were outrightly stolen from. In Bafut, a man was deceived into exchanging £100 for 100Frs, losing over 10,000% of his lifelong savings in the process. Many more did not even get to hear about the currency exchange before the deadline expired, and because no deadline extension was given by the wicked regime in Yaoundé, all their worth in pounds, shillings and pennies accumulated after years of hard work became useless. Weakened and devastated, Southern Cameroons was basically reduced to a man whose homestead and harvest had been raised down to ashes by fire. In our (African) culture, neighbours would come together to help him restart life with a minimum, but it was not so with the Southern Cameroons. The international community watched this happen with total indifference. The outcome of the 1972 referendum that followed was that it gave the central predating government in Yaoundé complete access to whatever the Southern Cameroons brought into the union as infrastructure and equipment. To make sure that development was driven on the reverse gear on our territory, Yaoundé proceeded in the name of unity, to dismantle the West Cameroon hydro power plant at Yoke in Muyuka, carted away the road maintenance equipment poll to Yaoundé. Rapidly, institutions like the Wum Area Development Authority (WADA) and the Upper Noun Valley Development Authority (UNVDA) were rapidly managed to their 196

ruin from Yaoundé. The Tiko Warf, the Victoria Port and the Mamfe River Port were neglected and commercial activities (import/export) transferred to Douala; the Cameroons Air Transport, CAT disappeared as did the Tiko, Besongabang and Bali airports. To make matters worse, Yaoundé transformed the people's well managed farmer's economic survival scheme, the Produce Marketing Board (PMB) into a national corporation and moved the headquarters thereof from Kumba to Douala. In less than five years, the PMB's buffer stock of cash reserves estimated at over CFA150 billions in 1986, was completely depleted. To crown it all, the only surviving financial institution initiated by West Cameroon, the only in the country at the time able to give out credit lines to businesses and individuals above CFA 500,000 was rapidly ambushed and devastated by Yaoundé. Darkness had fallen over the people of the former Southern Cameroons and this, at midday, under the watchful eyes of the international community that brought this unsavoury marriage about. More recently, the heavy hand of Yaoundé has made sure that all financial start-ups by our people are quickly brought to ruin before they become too vibrant. This was the fate Amity Bank PLC, and others. A microfinance scheme, CAMTESCOS, initiated by the teacher’s trade union (CATTU) in Bamenda since 2010 got stifled by Yaoundé in spite of the fact that all requirements were met. Having achieved the above infrastructural and economic ruin, Yaoundé had taken away from our people all corporate possibilities of economic/industrial and infrastructural advancement. Not satisfied with corporate destruction, Yaoundé moved on to stifle private initiatives, small, medium and big. Having withdrawn taxation and excise duties from Buea to the central government, the Yaoundé regime proceeded manu militari, to inflict heavy taxes and duties on Southern Cameroons indigenous businesses and enterprises. Companies, supermarkets and shops were targeted. Where taxes failed to yield the expected ruin, the Yaoundé regime cornered private endeavours such as Nanga Company Ltd, Longla Company Ltd, Neba Automobiles Company Ltd to name but these few, into doing massive construction works for the state, or as in the case of Neba Automobiles, into importing and supplying hundreds of vehicles to the state, for which Yaoundé would either not pay or refuse to collect upon importation. While Nanga Company built many federal infrastructure including the residential quarters at the national refinery, SONARA, in Victoria, Longla Company built the staff residential quarters at the Etoudi palace. 197

Yaoundé is still owing these companies trillions worth of pre-1994 devalued CFA francs. These enterprises long worn up out of debts, their proprietors out of frustration died, and thousands of families became destitute. Can there be a visitation more wicked than what Yaoundé has brought upon the peace loving people of the Southern Cameroons Ambazonia? Without a viable economy and any hope to develop one, the future became bleak. Stemming from Appadurai’s (2006) statement about arranging disappearances is a question of political capacity to resist those processes. In other words, as undesirables are being erased, pushed aside, idled, made to disappear, are there countervailing forces at play to resist? You have to wonder about the role of the West Cameroon state under conditions of econocide. To what extent did the state have the capacity then to be inclusive, to build or even promote a veritable public realm? There is something worse that actually being exploited and that is no longer to be even worth exploiting.” In the words of Zizek (2009),”There is nothing more private than an (East Cameroon) state community which perceives the excluded(West Cameroon) as a threat and worries how to keep them at a proper distance.” In sum, this was a colonialism of a different colour, one not so interested merely in penetrating existing West Cameroon human resources or extracting labour from a dispossessed population. This is not about harnessing a left-behind, ghetto population as a labour force to be exploited or setting up the neocolonial infrastructure to oversee that exploitation and extract resources. The policy was intended to make sure that West Cameroon citizens did slide from helplessness to hopelessness to nothingness. Biya as a Totalitarian Sociopath in Cameroun A sociopath can be a bit of an enigma, for he’s someone who stands out in a rather obvious way or he hides deceptively, right out in the open. Despite his confusing nature, there are sociopath traits and characteristics of a sociopath that help people recognize the sociopathic personality. Sociopathic personality traits and characteristics are sometimes subtle aspects of her character that drive what she does. Together, they form a persistent and pervasive pattern that define a sociopath. They are consistent over time and are part of all aspects of her life. A sociopath test may or may not reveal a person’s true nature (take 198

the sociopath test, Am I A Sociopath? screening to understand what traits and characteristics of a sociopath the tests measure). Sociopath Traits Delineated The characteristics of a sociopath make up who he is. Sociopathic traits influence what he does. A sociopath is a cold, callus, and calculating individual who has a pattern of: • • • •

Lying Irresponsibility Manipulation Lack of emotion

Some famous sociopaths have stories that illustrate the depravity of a sociopath in a way four bullet points cannot. Untrustworthiness as a Sociopath Trait Never trust a sociopath. He's a liar. He lies to get his way, he lies to hurt, and sometimes he lies just for his own amusement. A sociopath is extremely skilled at lying, so much so that it always seems as though he's telling the truth. As a pathological liar, a sociopath constantly makes up stories so captivating that people easily believe them. A sociopath lies with natural deftness. Stories are compelling and believable, and he tells them so very well. A sign of a sociopath is the ability to maintain eye contact. He does so even while lying. An underhanded trait of a sociopath is the ability to control people through his presence and communication style. He makes eye contact, smiles sincerely and confidently. He is magnetic and draws in his audience whether it's a crowd of one or one hundred or more. The sociopath is that charismatic. If you come across a narcissistic sociopath, beware of his sense of entitlement. If you don't worship him, you will pay. A characteristic of a sociopath is that he is so charming, so personable, that you want to believe him. Many people do believe him, which is why he gets away with it. Don’t believe him. A Trait of a Sociopath: Irresponsibility Sociopaths can be incredibly successful, excelling in powerful careers. A sociopath characteristic is that her motivation differs drastically from everyone else's. She can be responsible in the way that the world defines responsibility if it suits her whim; that is if it 199

helps her or hurts someone she wants to hurt. Otherwise, a sociopath doesn’t care about conforming to someone else’s definition of responsibility. This irresponsibility includes a complete refusal to take ownership of her actions. Denial and blame are prominent sociopath traits. Sociopaths can hurt someone and feel nothing. When accused of anything, the sociopath shrugs it off in cool denial. She is acutely aware of her actions and has neither shame nor remorse for what she has done. She just won't take responsibility, ever, because she genuinely believes her actions are always justified. Victims deserve what they get, thinks the sociopath. Manipulation, No Emotion: Chilling Sociopath Traits To a sociopath, people are toys or pawns to mess with and manipulate. The world is but a circus, and the sociopath is the ringmaster. He manipulates and controls who he wants, how he wants, and whenever he wants. He plays the game of life for fun and personal gain. Perhaps one single trait of a sociopath allows all of the others to exist. This one trait leads to the other characteristics of a sociopath. The sociopath feels no empathy, no emotion. The sociopath is unencumbered by feelings such as fear, anxiety, stress, depression, remorse, guilt, caring, and love (Do Sociopaths Cry or Even Have Feelings?). The answer is NO. This allows him to move through life freely, doing what profits and amuses him. When he tires of one circus, he closes it down and, feeling nothing about the destruction he leaves behind, he sets out to create a new one. I wish to say here that any colonial system, as an infernal machine which develops its own contradictions right up to a final explosion, corresponds to the objective needs of the colonizing capitalists (French) in general, but contradicts many particular interests. If it was to be imposed and set in motion, it had to be promoted; and the transition from objective interest, as an empty exigency, to the construction of the system is produced by a common practice, and corresponds historically to a real, organized dialectic linking a number of financial groups, statesmen and theoreticians in one organized task. Given these legal issues, Biya opted for the genocide and extermination of Ambazonians to achieve his “one and indivisible Republic of Cameroun” typical of his character as a hypocrite as exemplified by this cartoon. What is important to us here are the two following aspects of colonial praxis: 200

First, the praxis of oppression which we have just described complements the process of exploitation and merges into it. By ‘process of exploitation’ I mean the practico-inert functioning of the system once it has been installed: strictly speaking, the big (colonialist) landowner does not–at least in Algeria–force the natives to work for him for starvation wages; the deceptive system of free contract on which the capitalist process is based has been acclimatised in Algeria, or so it seems. In fact, demographic pressure is producing an under-nourished population, in a state of chronic unemployment (or semi-unemployment) and the natives come to offer themselves to the employers, poverty creating a competitive antagonism which forces them to accept, or even propose, the lowest wages. Owing to poor industrial development– which is also characteristic of the colonial system–this mainly agricultural sub-proletariat cannot overcome these antagonisms in a unity of demands. Working-class emancipation goes hand in hand with industrial concentration: in a colonized country, the pauperization of the masses destroyed the structures of the old society, and removed the means for reconstituting another, based on different structures and on different relations of sociality. Secondly, this brings us to our second observation: the relations between oppressing groups are always the conditioned conditions of serialities of series, that is to say, of the inert gathering of the ‘occupants’ (capitalist sharks). It should be noted, in fact, that they are aimed at a certain common objective through the various practices and in accordance with different assessments of the natural resources situation in Southern Cameroons. Their xenophobia–though all of them are based equally on the subhumanity of Southern Cameroonians are nevertheless divergent. The extremism of some–which arises from adopted function can be contrasted with the apparent moderation of others (of the officers, or of some of them) which, apart from periods of disturbance and repression, appears as a quiet strength which is put on display so that it need not be used. On the other hand, the officers need not be ‘colonials’; and if they are, they are not necessarily connected to any particular area. Lastly, they are functionaries of the metropolitan power rather than landowners or shopkeepers who are established in Cameroun. For centuries, philosophers, politicians, and social scientists have explored and commented on the nature of power. Pittacus (c. 640–568 B.C.E.) opined, “The measure of a man is what he does with power,” and Lord Acton perhaps more famously asserted, 201

“Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely” (1887). Indeed, the concept of power can have decidedly negative connotations, and the term itself is difficult to define. Under these circumstances the character of the estate manager, President Paul Biya becomes decisive in handling the rich colonial terrain for capitalist plunder. 1). Mr. Biya and his core coterie are annexationist and assimilationist. This is very transparent in that Biya, less than two years in power signed bill No. 84-001 of 4/2/1984, unilaterally changing the name of the country from United Republic of Cameroon to Republic of Cameroon. Mr. Biya who studied law, is mindful of the clause in the 1961 plebiscite agreements stating that “Nothing should be done by any party to the agreements to change the Federal character of Cameroon”. Mr. Biya also knows that the Southern Cameroons delegation to the Foumban conference (July 21st to 23rd 1961) clearly rejected and stroke off the word “Indivisible” as a reference to the planned, though ultimately upended Constitution/Treaty of Union. He very well knew that the signing of bill No. 84-001 of 4/2/1984 was to: •

•

• •

•

Continue the attempt to legitimize the 1961 plebiscite, a mandate that could only be legalized by a Treaty of Union and ratified by the parliament of the two entities. Enhance the fraudulent, coerced and unconstitutional referendum of 1972, giving rise to the illegitimate United Republic of Cameroon, from the Federal Republic of Cameroon. Wipe out any historical footprint of a Federal Cameroon. Eviscerate the cultural, political, social and historical identity of the Southern Cameroons (Anglophones), a contravention of the 1946 United Nations resolution on genocide which Cameroon is a signatory. Maintain and contain the Southern Cameroonians as a forcefully annexed, enslaved and marginalized people in “La Republique du Cameroon”.

2). The 1996 Constitution negotiated on the heels of a 1992 presidential election which Biya stole (after it was won by the SDF’s John Fru Ndi (an Anglophone), resulted to a castrated and bastardized form of a Federation called decentralization. If after 20 years Biya cannot institute this decentralization, it is farfetched that 202

he will be reasonable, with good faith, of purposeful intent, law abiding and accommodating enough to grant a Federation. 3). Oil rich Bakassi and Ndian Division all in the Southern Cameroons are indispensable to the viability of La Republique du Cameroon, or so they think. The lazy and inept coterie around Biya are used to an excessively corrupt, amoral, luxurious and unearned lifestyle which will be gone with better resource oversight within a Federal structure. Add state taxes from oil exploration being paid to the South West Province, municipality taxes being paid to Limbe (the rightful jurisdiction) instead of Douala and you realize that it is impossible for Biya and most of La Republique to swallow the loss of these ill-gotten gains. 4). Biya is a pathetic combination of intelligence, laziness and weakness. He is an intelligent man, but equally very lazy. As a certified and an experienced Project Manager, I as well as any administrator is aware that “if you fail to plan, you plan to fail”. One of the basic requisites of administration or management is meeting with your team. It is openly known in Cameroon that Mr. Biya goes for over a year at times without convening a meeting of his cabinet. With such qualities, Biya is as uncompetitive as they come, and thus can neither be a messenger, nor an initiator of value added development. The Anglophones (Southern Cameroonians) despite their marginalization have made great strides in Cameroon, specifically in the private sector. Bamenda that was an abandoned ghost town in the nineties is now the 3rd largest city in Cameroun. In a Federation, his lackeys (partly because they’ve been trained to loot state resources) will neither be able to compete, nor retain the loot that is unparalleled of any people in Cameroon’s history. Their uncircumcised option is to hang onto power in an illegitimate unitary state where they can leach on everything and everyone else forever. 5). Mr. Biya just doesn’t care. Due to the fact that Biya is lazy and weak, though intelligent, it sums up to him being pregnant with an excessive dose of apathy. Prior to Biya, the now defunct Cameroon Airlines had weekly flights to Baffousam, Tiko, Bali, Ngaoundere, between Yaounde and Douala, a dreaded National Team, corruption way below any threshold level, etc. Cameroon has tumbled several decades backwards on every comparable indices; of course, except in corruption. Despite these, Mr. Biya is primarily consumed with spending months vacationing in Europe. I will not put a dime that Biya has an inkling of a Mandela in him to put 203

Cameroon on the right track by way of a Federation. Ain’t gonna happen! 6). The Unitary State (with the Anglophones firmly hemmed in, suppressed and assimilated) is Biya’s wannabe signature achievement. Asking him to undo it peacefully is like asking Obama to undo Obamacare, Dick Cheney to undo the Patriot Act, or Mandela to undo the Freedom Charter. My apologies for mentioning Mandela, Obama and Biya in the same sentence. In short, it will be like asking a Zebra to un-stripe itself. No way Hozey! 7). The man is Godless and very insecure. Biya’s best use of state power is to coerce, subdue, and neutralize anything that threatens his convenience and stay in power. Ask Fon Forgum Gorji Dinka who was tried for treason, acquitted by Biya’s own military tribunal and re-arrested until he escaped to Nigeria and ultimately to England. The agony that was visited on Gorji Dinka was simply because he wrote suggestions for reforms in Cameroon contained in “The New Social Order”, “Diffuse the Time Bomb” and “Letter to the Cameroon Etat Major” in the mid-eighties. As a secondary school student of Cameroon Protestant College, Bali, Cameroon, I and a host of others were arrested by Biya’s gendarmes and detained for a month in the fall of 1985 for protesting for the release of Gorji Dinka and against attempts to thwart the Anglophone Education system. Ask Albert Mukong, Yondo Black, Nfor Ngala Nfor. Ask Titus Edzoa, Biya’s own friend, medical doctor and confidant who aspired to one day be President of Cameroon, and ended up spending 17 years in jail as a consequence. Ask Marafa, Inoni, Mebara, Fodjindam all former ministers of his, and the host of the other G11 members in jail and I wouldn’t have to explain. Without God’s conviction in a leader’s heart, possessions and un-Godly exercise of power become the leaders only refuge. 8). Biya’s misperception of military power. Biya fails to see the limits of military power in keeping Slovenia, Croatia, BosniaHerzegovina, the Republic of Macedonia, and Montenegro hemmed to Yugoslavia, South Sudan hemmed to the North, or Eritrea hemmed to Ethiopia. The Southern Cameroons has a stronger case than the mentioned breakaway states because we it was a self-governing entity backed by U.N. Resolutions 224, 1282 (X111), 1350 (XIV), 1352 (XIV) 1608 (XV), recognized by the United Nations from 1953 to 1961. Often overlooked is the fact that the United Nations did vote for the Independence of the 204

Southern Cameroons on April 21st 1961. With Mr. Biya’s private army (BIR) firmly trained, he thinks their military readiness can be the ultimate and only answer to the Southern Cameroons issue, if they rise up. To him, “might makes right”. Little does he know that the Southern Cameroons a.k.a Ambazonia has not risen yet. Mr. Biya’s repressive army thinks that going to Bamenda, Buea, Kumba, Kumbo and shooting unarmed civilians (crimes which can and will be prosecuted under the ICC statutes) is being in battle. If they push the Southern Cameroons to fight for its freedom, as Barrister Nkongho Agbor Balla puts it, “they will be asking for a Federation and it will no longer be on the table”. 9). France. La Republic du Cameroun signed enslaving treaties with France in 1958 when the Southern Cameroons was a democratic self-governing entity. Those agreements were in contravention of the U.N. General Assembly Resolution 1514– (XIV) of 14 December, 1960 mandating the de-colonization of all territories, were unbeknownst to the Southern Cameroons and have no legal locus with the Southern Cameroons, a.k.a Ambazonia. I personally do not believe France can unilaterally stop the Southern Cameroons from gaining its independence. More often than not, Africans make their former colonial powers, convenient scapegoats for their inability to employ the necessary means to liberate and emancipate themselves politically and economically from the yoke of neo-colonialism. 10). The General Malaise of Francophone Cameroonese in accepting dictatorship unto themselves and injustice against indigenes of the Southern Cameroons. It is evident that so long as those West of the Mungo are being marginalized, brutalized and suppressed, the francophone public will be in accord with it, so long as they are the beneficiaries of the regime’s leftovers. How else would you explain populist democratic movements in Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, Senegal, etc. (all Francophone countries), but the opposition to Biya’s brutal dictatorship from the Francophone public in Cameroon is a mere whimper. Apart from a few isolated cases, their passive collaboration with Ahidjo, and now Biya in an obstinate refusal to adhere with the 1961 Plebiscite agreements has been consistent. 11). Biya and other Narrow Minded Francophones claim Federation is a Pretext for Secession by the Anglophones. Why wouldn’t the Biya regime think that when there has been systemic discrimination, dehumanization, marginalization of Anglophone Cameroon? When Southern Cameroonians (Anglophones) are 25% 205

of the population and out of 34 Ministers of Government, only 2 are Anglophones, out of 34 Secretary Generals, only two are Anglophones, out of 64 Senior Divisional Officers, only 6 are Anglophones, out of 280 Divisional Officers, only 12 are Anglophones, out of 26 Army Generals, only 1 (who saved Biya’s life in 1984) is an Anglophone, out of 32 Director Generals, zero is an Anglophone, out of 34 Ambassadors, only 3 are Anglophones, out of 8000 police recruited, only 60 are Anglophones, etc. Why wouldn’t Biya think that when the roads and general infrastructure in the Southern Cameroons are in utter dis-repair, when 70% of the revenues are derived from the Southern Cameroons territory (North West and South West Provinces), but they get only 5.4 percent from the national budget? When industries located in the Southern Cameroons are forced to pay city council taxes in cities located in Francophone Cameroon? Need I continue? Really, why wouldn’t Biya think that when Anglophones are shot and killed, brutalized, raped, jailed with no due process, have their properties destroyed just for expressing their civil rights for peaceful protests. When they are turned into “Yes-Men and Women” in a nation in which they are repeatedly treated as “Les enemies dans la mason” (the enemies in the house)? These feeble minds in power fail to understand that doing the right and just thing towards any people in a nation is a force multiplier towards national unity, economic development, patriotism, and all the relevant elements towards building a competitive nation in this 21st century. 12). Biya is too ordinary a human to do anything that is bigger than who he is. To transform the dysfunctional, compassless, uninspiring and under-achieving nation called Cameroon into a prosperous Federation with a breathing constitution, robust branches of government, active civic society as well as a State and Federal system that has some semblance to the United States, the Federation of Germany or Nigeria, you need a wise, inspiring and transformative leader. It has been historically proven that a vast majority of humans will become wise only when they have exhausted all other options. This is more so in the case of injustice when you are the beneficiary of the unjust status quo. Paul Biya has not demonstrated that kind of transformative leadership, nor that indispensable wisdom. His trademark acts of brutal repression, bribery, coercion, lawlessness and corrupt coterie will hamper him from becoming wise; even when these options are exhausted. It is foolish for anyone to expect him to be any different. 206

References Appadurai, Arjun. (2006). Fear of Small Numbers: An Essay on the Geography of Anger (Durham and London: Duke University Press). Bartrop, Paul. (2002). ‘The relationship between war and genocide in the twentieth century: A consideration’. Journal of Genocide Research 4(4): 519-532. Destexhe, Alain. (1994). ‘The Third Genocide’. Foreign Policy (97): 317. Kaye, James and Bo Stråth, eds. (2000). Enlightenment and Genocide, Contradictions of Modernity. Bruxelles: P.I.E.-Peter Lang. Zizek, Slavoj. (2009. “How to Begin from the Beginning.” New Left Reviewhttps://newleftreview.org/II/57/slavoj-zizek-how-tobegin-from-the-beginning, Assessed September 17, 2020.

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Chapter Seven The Slippery Identity Road to Genocide and Extermination Overview Ambacide resulted from the culmination of conflicts over identity birthed by military occupation, administrative and political annexation, colonization and aborted assimilation. Nowadays calling for the murder and extermination of Ambazonians has become more commonplace in Cameroun. Campaigning for the mass murder is often done in the name of “law and order,” “territorial integrity,” etc. without specific reference to genocide. The leadership of the Camerounese regime, with President Biya as Messiah, has encouraged a Francophone identity culture that stimulates calls for genocide. Ambacide justification consists of “explaining” that Southern Cameroonians caused their enemies’ angst and therefore are responsible for their own wanton destruction and extermination. Since political extremism and violence can signal resolve and commitment to a group cause, Francophone moderates give way to hard-liners. Sycophantic spoilers, who believe that peace undermines their interests and power, also play a key role in the dynamics of identity conflicts.

Colonial Roots of Anglophone-Francophone Identity Conflict The term ‘identity’ tends to have positive connotations. This chapter presents an example of a lethal form of identity politics, where self-expression is not possible for victims or victimizers. The seeming intractability of identity and the national question provokes a series of questions such as: Does identity in itself represent an obstacle to building a viable and stable political system? How do we manage the seemingly intractable conflicts generated by cultural identity? How can we build a unified nation for peaceful coexistence in a multi-cultural society? This chapter argues that while it is possible for identity to truncate socio-political and economic development in a multi-cultural state, the recognition of every cultural group that they belong to a nationality and not a particular cultural group may reduce the negative impacts of identity conflicts. 209

The tensions experienced in the occupied, annexed, and colonized Southern Cameroons by the Republic of Cameroun emerged from an intricate and highly contested process of decolonization. Unfortunately for Southern Cameroons, independence meant that they either accepted joining Nigeria (integration) or Cameroun in a united federal state, without the right of gaining full independence as spelled out in United Nations Resolution 1514. This option was operationalized during UNimposed illegal plebiscite in February 11, 1961, that established the basis of the Union between the two Category B United Nations Trust Territories. According to Konings (2005), the decision by Southern Cameroonians to vote in favour of establishing a union with the French Cameroon during the 1961 plebiscite was because of the prevailing discontentment of the people toward the British indirect administrative system and the influence of Nigerians in the region. The British had serious oversight for failing to take into consideration the territorial boundaries between Nigeria that was under their complete sphere of influence and Cameroon. This led to conflicts of interests between Nigerians and Southern Cameroonians as it facilitated the dominant Igbo tribe from Nigeria to easily migrate into Southern Cameroon, develop enterprises, and impose themselves as the key actors in various sectors of the economy through trading in goods such as palm oil and transportation (Delancey 1974). By the 1950s, the Igbo from Nigeria were the leading economic actors in towns such as Kumba, Tiko, and Limbe, and worked in important institutions such as the Cameroon Development Cooperation (Konings 2005). Additionally, they constituted approximately 30% of the total population in Southern Cameroon and 80% of the entire work force in the region. The increasing domination by the Igbo from Nigeria led to the emergence of marginalization sentiments by indigenous Southern Cameroonians who accused the British administration in Nigeria for being behind their economic and political marginalization (Konings 2005: 8). They demanded for more political representation in the Nigerian administration that seemed a more important colony to the British and succeeded in this endeavour by attaining regional status in the Nigerian Federation even though the autonomy was limited. The favouritism of Nigeria by the British at the expense of the Southern Cameroonians established an Anglophone Cameroon nationalistic consciousness that was 210

exemplified by their decision to vote in favour of forming a union with the French Cameroun as a possible means to regain their sovereignty in 1961 (Tiewa and Vudo, 2015). Northern Cameroons however voted to remain with Nigeria. While this was a strategic move at the time, it has proven to be a precursor of today’s Anglophone problems in Cameroon. What had appeared to be a big success for the Southern Anglophone Cameroons toward increasing their sovereignty turned out to be a “trap” because their emancipation for federalism did not account for their differences of cultural identity that was more oriented with the English. Instead, this merger became a transitional process in which the region became integrated into a highly centralized unitary state where they became a minority (Ebune, 1992). The failure to grant independence to Southern Cameroon and a forced plebiscite to choose whether to either join Nigeria or French Cameroun solidified grounds for further marginalization of the Anglophone Southern Cameroonians. This gradually established a strong sense of Anglophone consciousness; sentiments of being economically, culturally, and politically marginalized; and a sense of being dominated by the Francophone-hegemonic state. According to a column published in the East Oregonian (6th June 2010), these sentiments and the recognition of the cultural dichotomy between Anglophone and Francophone Cameroun continues to exist and has often led to tensions. The popular sentiment among Southern Cameroonians led by the pro-independence nationalists maintains that the decolonization process did not offer them a meaningful opportunity to determine their destiny through independence. This is because the federal arrangement that was provided for during independence was unconstitutionally abolished by the Francophone-dominated central government (Konings and Nyamnjoh 1997: 196). Anglophone Cameroonians therefore developed the feeling of being marginalized not only economically but also in other key sectors of the society such as education and in judicial processes. Moreover, despite the substantive oil reserves that were discovered in the regions dominated by the Anglophone Cameroonians, they did not benefit from the natural resource. The 1990s became a significant time frame in as far as the Anglophone conflict in Cameroon is concerned. While Africa was experiencing the wind of political liberalization in the 1990s, Cameroon was not left behind. Specifically, the region dominated by Anglophone Southern Cameroonians witnessed the emergence 211

of political parties and movements that became the avenues through which a rejuvenated push for national independence of the region was advanced. In 1990, the Social Democratic Party was established in the Anglophone region and received significant support of 86.3% in Northwest and 51.6% in Southwest during the 1992 presidential elections (Chereji and Lohkoko, 2012: 14). Even though the party did not register overall presidential electoral vote victory that declared in favour of the CPDM, the Anglophone regions contested the results as having been rigged (Gwaibi, 2018: 12). The violent protests led to the declaration of a state of emergency by President Paul Biya in 1992 for 3 months with the opposition leaders from the Anglophone areas placed under house surveillance (Cameroon Tribune, 26 October 1992). While these acts were condemned by USA, Germany, and European Union with threats of cutting down foreign aid, France continued to provide assistance to the Biya regime to safeguard French interests in Cameroon. According to Konings (1997), this period also saw the emergence of radical groups such as the Ambazonia movement that pushed for secession, and other groups such as the All Anglophone Congress (AAC) and the Cameroon Anglophone Movement (CAM) that pushed for federalism (Nkwi and Nyamnjoh 2011: 295). While the popularity of the Social Democratic Party was dwindling among the Anglophone Southern Cameroonians because it had evolved into a national party drawing support even among the Francophone Cameroonians, new groups mounted pressure for political autonomy (Konings and Nyamnjoh 1997: 216). These other political formations such as the Ambazonia movement and the Cameroon Anglophone Movement organized demonstrations and other forms of civil disobedience against the Francophonedominated central government. These included boycott of national days of celebrations such as the national feast day on 20th May which they declared as a day of mourning and shame (Nkwi and Nyamnjoh, 2011: 217). Instead they rallied the Anglophone Southern Cameroonians to celebrate the “day of independence” on 1st October and the “day of the plebiscite” on the 11th February. It is widely argued that the re-emergence of the Anglophone Southern Cameroons consciousness after independence is influenced by four fundamental issues that have remained unsolved. These include communal stratification, economic exploitation, political subordination, and a clash of cultural identity. 212

One, the communal stratification that emerged from the partition of Southern Cameroons into culturally distinctive administrative territories after independence has only acted to further deepen the existing differences. While the Anglophone regions were allocated two political “representative” territories, the centralization of power and violation of constitutional provisions by the Francophone Camerounese have only increased the desire for the regions to actively demand for secession or self-determination. According to Ladson-Billings (1995), this communal stratification only reminds the Anglophone Southern Cameroonians of their identity and emphasizes their perceptions of being different from the Francophones. Indeed, it is these feelings of indifference that have solidified the collective Anglophonic consciousness. Two, economic marginalization continues to be a significant driving factor for the call to secession of Ambazonia. The residents of Anglophone Cameroon singled out the absence of significant development projects in the region such as good schools, hospitals, accessible roads, or market centres despite the region being a key contributor to the Cameroonian economy through the oil wells under government control in their region. The SONARA oil refinery with an estimated annual output of 2.1 million tonnes of crude oil (Reuters 2019) has been cited by Anglophone Cameroonians as one among other state-owned companies in which they are marginalized in terms of employment. Another source of economic grievance is imbalance in allocation of opportunities. According to Chereji and Lohkoko (2012), highranking officials in the corporation are from Francophone regions while Anglophones have relegated to lower employment cadres to work as security guards and drivers. Additionally, in another major factory called the CDC Banana Plantation in Tiko, the top management is drawn entirely from the Francophone regions while the Anglophone Cameroonians are relegated to work as manual laborers with low remuneration and very poor working conditions (Chereji and Lohkoko, 2012). In other parts of the country, Anglophones also cite very low chances to gain employment as was witnessed in 2011 when the graduate recruitment program targeting 25,000 graduates in Cameroon only absorbed 1000 Anglophones in low clerical positions. Three, political exclusion and subordination underlies the continued struggle for separation by Ambazonia. Having been dominated by the British during the colonial times and the Francophone Camerounese after independence, the Anglophones 213

Southern Cameroonians continue to feel colonized in their own homeland. The successive regimes of Cameroun reneged on the reunification agreement that granted some degree of political autonomy to the Anglophones through the federal system. When Paul Biya took over power in 1982, all influential administrative positions in the national government were reserved for the Francophone Camerounese. According to Takougang (1993), the President, Speaker of the National Assembly, Minister for Justice and Legal Affairs, Keeper of the Seal, the Chief Justice, and the Minister of Finance were all Francophone Cameroounese. Finally, clash of cultural identity also plays a significant role in fuelling the restorationist consciousness by the Anglophone Southern Cameroonians. According to Reader (2009: 31), identity can lead to conflict when there is pursuit of competing needs and values within different groups or identities. Nfor (2000) and Anyangwe (2014) argue that residents of Southern Cameroons Anglophones have protested against the attempt by the central government to marginalize their language and culture. They pointed out government measures such as transformation of the General Certificate of Education Board into a parasitical with its management exclusively appointed by the presidency; exclusive use of French language in public offices, whereas the country is bilingual. Identity as a Knife-Colonial Past and Present Identity Frictions Cameroon’s two English speaking regions – Southern Zone and Northern Zone in today’s parlance - are long-time bastions of opposition to Biya. In Cameroon, there has been a surge in protests by the English speaking minority against the dominance of the francophone majority. Understanding the country’s colonial past helps explain the depth of this animosity. The area around Mount Fako, an active volcano some 4,000 meters (13,000 feet ) above sea level, was known to the Carthaginians, the foes of ancient Rome, long before Portuguese explorers navigated the estuary of the Wouri river in 1472. Spotting mud lobsters in the waters, the explorers named them Rio dos Camaroes, Portuguese for River of Prawns. The name Cameroon was born. The Portuguese were followed by Dutch, French, Spanish and British explorers who traded salt, fabrics, liquor and firearms in 214

exchange for palm oil, fish and slaves. German traders first arrived 1862 and in 1884 the German Empire signed an agreement with Kings Bell and Akwa under which Kamerun, German for Cameroon, became a German protectorate. In 1884, Cameroon was claimed by the Berlin Conference to be German Colony although the Germans singed agreements only with Kings Bell and Akwa in Douala. The so-called German Kamerun was not directly governed over, due in large part for its thick natural forests and high mountains making it impossible for both armies and traders to make significant inroads into the hinterland. For Bismarck, Kamerun was only a marginal investment (Ardener, 1962). Therefore, governance was largely left up to local administration of various chiefdoms. Lost territories Germany lost her colonies during the First World War (19141918) and Kamerun ceased to be a German possession in 1916. In 1919, the country was given the status of a League of Nations mandate administered by Britain and France. There were also differences between the two new colonial powers themselves. The British colonial system was what they call indirect rule, the French system was more direct rule. The colonial structures in the French part were - and still are - perceived as “harder” than those in the English part. By the time independence arrived for British Southern Cameroons in 1961, the French territory was more economically developed than its British counterpart. Two unequal former colonies became an asymmetrical federal state; the disparities between the two were not addressed. Anglophone Cameroonians felt they were politically and economically at a disadvantage, and the tensions with their francophone compatriots rose during the 1990s. Marginalization There are two English-speaking regions in Cameroun, but eight French-speaking ones. Anglophone Southern Cameroonians complain in protest to this day that English speakers are underrepresented in key government positions and that ordinary people are marginalized because they lack a good command of the French language. 215

Map 2: Southern Cameroons and LA Republique States

Source: Wikipedia.

Picture 1: Anti-marginalization protests

Source: Ambazonia genocide website

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In 1995, the Southern Cameroons National Council (SCNC) came to fore with the demand for the creation of an independent state called Southern Cameroons. That was the term for the southern part of British Cameroons. A government crackdown on the SCNC ensued. In one incident, Amnesty International reported in 2002 that six members of the SCNC had been detained without charge at Mamfe Gendarmerie station in South West Cameroons and were at risk of being tortured or illtreated. Language and identity politics For decades, Cameroun has been locked into numerous, heated debates on how both English and French-speaking cultures and languages can be more equitably represented in public spaces. In identity research, scientists usually have different foci. Some examine the structure of identity and describe different facets (e.g., cultural, religious, gender identity), others concentrate on the question how individuals arrive at this structure, which underlies constant change. This commentary shows how conceptual clarifications can assist in understanding developmental processes of identity. Facets or voices (as they are called in dialogical selfresearch) that are closely intertwined in one cultural context can be less so in others. Based on these conceptual clarifications and additional cultural dimensions, Skandrani, Taïeb and Moro’s (2011) interpretations leading to hybrid identity formation and conflicting voices are contrasted with alternative viewpoints. It is suggested that the cultural setting demands—as well as allows—agency that can lead to the development of new voices and protection strategies that do not necessarily depict conflict. Culture is therefore a broad subject matter as it can be formed from many aspects of a person’s surroundings. Things such as home environment, overall environment, religion, beliefs, attitudes, money, customs and traditions, as well as, location can have drastic impacts on a person and what is “normal” living to them and therefore what type of counselling they may need or so desire. Refugees have usually undergone tremendous ordeals, thus gaining refugee statuses in foreign lands. Everything they know is no longer part of their lives, so as one can imagine it is a rough and challenging time. 217

The environment in which we live has a keen effect on our customs, values, traditions, and social norms. To be stripped of all the environmental influence we once had can most certainly affect an individual psychologically and socially. Historical hindsight instructs us that French Cameroun attained its independence in 1961 as La Republique du Cameroun and British Southern Cameroons voted to join the republic to form the two-state Federal Republic of Cameroon in 1961. Nevertheless, the first President of Cameroon Ahmadou Ahidjo, who ruled from 1961 to 1982, unilaterally dissolved the federal system in 1972. The result is 10 regions comprising Cameroun today, with eight French-speaking and two English-speaking regions. Often we get official documents from federations in French. When my English colleagues ask why it is like that, most French colleagues hit back, saying tu dois etre bilingue (‘you need to be bilingual’) – le Cameroun est bilingue (‘Cameroon is bilingual’). The funniest thing is that they can’t even read documents in English. We will quarrel and even lose track of the essence of the document at times – that’s how English journalists struggle for their identity in this country. Lawmakers in Cameroon pushed for a bill to reinforce the equal use of English and French as seen in Article 1(3) of the country’s constitution. According to the law, court orders can be rendered in either of Cameroon’s two official languages, English and French,— subject to the choice of actors involved. But some English-speaking lawyers fear this may lead to assimilation. Instead, Anglophone citizens want English in Common Law courts across their regions. When Anglophones initially took to the streets in 2016, talk of independence for Southern Cameroon’s Anglophone regions was limited. Protesters were driven by a range of everyday grievances. They were frustrated with the inflexible school curriculum that privileged Cameroon’s French-speaking majority and kept English speakers at a disadvantage, and they were tired of a legal system that made justice harder to get for English speakers because it was dominated by Francophones. That changed in late 2017, when President Paul Biya’s government responded to nonviolent protests with force. Cameroonian security forces fired live ammunition from low-flying helicopters into crowds, and videos circulated of them beating demonstrators on the ground. The signal was clear: the government in Yaounde had no intention of entertaining Anglophone demands. 218

In 2017, some firebrands started agitating for restoration of the statehood of the Southern Cameroons from francophone Cameroun. The government of 83-year-old President Paul Biya is not prepared to countenance the one nor the other. Biya, who has been in power since 1982, has declared the SCNC an illegal organization. The surge in protests by the anglophone minority, which began as lawyers and teachers strikes in October 2016, is an expression of perceived economic injustice as well as cultural and linguistic discrimination. Cameroon is rich in oil and is among the most prosperous countries in sub-Saharan Africa, but the Englishspeaking community complains that the wealth hasn’t been shared out fairly. Count Down to Genocide and Extermination (Ambacide) Taking a look at the internet blackouts, the militarization of towns and cities all across Southern Cameroons, the arsons, the rampant rape cases, indiscriminate killings, burning of innocent civilians in their sleep, arbitrary arrests and detentions, raids, torture and looting by French Cameroun troops, one would conclude that a would be genocide was well planned in advance. The genocide and extermination was designed with a clear kinetic theological foundation as its centrepiece. The theologians of the Anglocide were not clerics. They were rather journalists who apparently served as the echo chamber of the Biya regime for his Hitler-like “Final Solution” to crush and assimilate Anglophones. I wish to note here that Anglophone is used here not as a linguistic definition but as a people with a sovereign territorial integrity formerly called British Southern Cameroons that became independent on October1, 1961. “Anglocide” therefore means the barbaric genocide and extermination of Southern Cameroonians. In this study it is a synonym of Ambacide. The “Anglophone crisis” took another turn as more developing controversies set in following Jean-Jacques Ze’s declaration on air via Vision 4 TV. In his Chronicle program, he declared that the campaign to arrest Anglophones was just as eliminating rats. As a matter of fact, Ze had more to say about hellfire and damnation than almost any other biblical concept. Matthew 13:41-42 is a good example: “The Son of Man (President Paul Biya) will send out His angels (French Cameroun troops), and they will gather out of His kingdom (Republic of Cameroun) all things (Anglophones) that offend, and those who practice lawlessness, and will cast them into 219

the furnace of fire. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” Clearly, the God of Jesus is a God who does not tolerate sin and who is capable of executing fierce judgment upon the wicked. The theological outings went further to liken French Cameroonians to conquering Jews and Anglophones to biblical Canaanites, drawing from the book of Joshua 6:20-21. It reads: 20When the trumpets sounded, the army shouted, and at the sound of the trumpet, when the men gave a loud shout, the wall collapsed; so, everyone charged straight in, and they took the city. 21They devoted the city to the LORD (meaning President Paul Biya) and destroyed with the sword every living thing in it-men and women, young and old, cattle, sheep and donkeys. President Paul Biya sounded the trumpet on November 30, 2017, by declaring war against Anglophones at Nsimalen International Airport. Following these historical events, it was normal for Anglophones to openly rebuke Jean-Jacques Ze and Ernest Obama, for reducing humans to mere animals who could be slaughtered indiscriminately. This was a glaring example of segregating Anglophones. Taking a look at the current situation; the internet blackouts, the militarization of towns and cities all across West Cameroon, the rape cases, indiscriminate killings, arbitrary arrests and detentions, one would conclude that tendencies of the genocide had been well packaged and only needed a trigger. This animal attribute met great criticisms from Anglophones who openly rebuked the journalist for degrading them to mere “rats”. According to the Consortium, “these are avenues for the preparation of genocide against West Cameroonians”. This is inarguably true following the numerous abductions, arbitrary arrests, and detention of Anglophones. Worst still is the fact that communication was halted following a government decree that shut down the internet all over Anglophone territory. On October 2, 2017, some Anglophone Journalists from Television, Radio, Newspaper and Online, over 40 in number, also petitioned the National Communication Council, NCC, over a series of outings by a certain Ernest Obama, Journalist working with VISION 4, a Yaounde based Television channel. In a strongly worded letter to Peter Essoka, President of the Council, the Journalists denounced hate speech against Anglophones propagated by the Journalist in several of his Television appearances. The Journalists called on Peter Essoka to take such a hate speech with seriousness and hit the nail while it was still hot. “The vitriolic vituperation he is pouring (notably through a program 220

called ‘Tour d’Horizon’) on Anglophones who are only fighting for genuine reforms for a country we all want to see prosper in peace and unity, together with his francophone supremacist narrative, are all things your office cannot sit and remain indifferent to, given the danger they portend for our national wellbeing.” In the same way, the Anglophone Consortium strongly and fully condemned this statement from Mr. Jean-Jacques Ze. According to the Consortium, like Gaddafi’s, the statement is meant to inflict hatred and lay grounds for an eventual genocide against a peaceful people. The Consortium lamented by adding that, they are officially requesting Vision 4 management to sack the said journalist and hand him over to the police. The Consortium went further to call on all Anglophones to condemn Jean-Jacques Ze. The devastations and carnage exacted by the army of French Cameroun testify to the well-orchestrated extermination of the Anglophones- “rats” and “cockroaches.” History tells us that the “rat” attribute was used by Libya’s hard-line leader Gaddafi in 2011. His 41-year leadership led to anti-government protests that swept across the country. In response, Gaddafi sent his forces to crush the protesters. Gaddafi openly told the public to “capture the rats” which apparently he was referring to anti-government demonstrators. He further referred to them as “cockroaches” and enemies of Libya who deserved nothing less than death. Libya ended a war-torn country and Gaddafi himself was instead crushed like a rat. What did President Paul Biya do? President Paul Biya refused to act once the extermination of “rats” and “cockroaches” was under way and finally abandoned Anglophones when they most needed protection. Long ruled by a vicious, malicious and a sadist passing for a Roman Catholic Christian , Cameroon was put in the hands of a military thug who was more in tune with French Cameroun’s overwhelmingly young population currently hostile towards Anglophones for their lack of understanding of the political history and reunification agreements that were signed in 1961. The young man in question is a Beti-Ewondo army colonel (Beti Assomo), whose role in the brutal massacre of hundreds of Anglophones following the peaceful restoration of the independence of Southern Cameroons proclaimed by then Interim President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe on October 1, 2017, was highly appreciated by many French Cameroun political elites. From his Intercontinental hotel apartment in Geneva, Biya ousted the vastly more experienced Anglophone military officials 221

from command operations including Brigadier General Elokobi Daniel Njock, General Ivo Yenwo and the newly appointed General Ekongwese, all of whom had good working relations with then powerful Minister of Territorial Administration and Decentralization, Rene Sadi. The move laid the foundation for the genocide currently going on in Southern Cameroons and ended a period of uncertainty within the Anglophone military top brass. It also raised questions about the wisdom of empowering an inexperienced army colonel so quickly when General Rene Meka was still in control. In some ways, the decision was to assist the youthful defence minister, Joseph Beti Assomo who had major difficulties dealing with the old guards in the army hierarchy. Roughly 80 percent of senior French Cameroun military officers were then above the age of 70 and there was no one among them who had cultivated an image as a dynamic leader, keen to take a dying nation into the modern era. These tactics devised by the government of President Paul Biya were a way of compelling Anglophones to keep dancing their rhythm. It was a way to sabotage the Anglophone struggle. The big questions now are: will Anglophones backout? Will they continue to peacefully resist colonization, colonialism, and mindless oppression? And would the government finally heed the call to return to meaningful dialogue with the real Anglophone people? Reactions of Anglophones have undoubtedly proven that they can stand and will continue to stand their grounds no matter the level of repression and democide. They say no more to subjugation. So far, their aspirations are materializing following their non-violent revolutionary, self-defence, and level of solidarity approaches. Indifference by International Community A video that has gone viral online speaks to the accusation that the Yaounde government is committing gross human rights violations in the country’s English-speaking regions. The video, which has shocked many across the globe, is being documented as evidence of human rights abuse by many rights groups which have been seeking to draw the world’s attention to the genocide that is unfolding in Cameroon’s English-speaking regions. Preventing atrocity crimes like genocide and extermination of human lives should be a priority for everyone. First and foremost, prevention is the only way to avoid the loss of human life, trauma 222

and physical injury. However, there are also other significant reasons to focus on prevention. The United Nations Security Council has stated in several of its resolutions that serious and gross breaches of international human rights and humanitarian law constitute threats to international peace and security. Therefore, prevention not only contributes to national peace and stability, it also serves the broader regional and international peace and stability agenda. Prevention of atrocity crimes is also much less costly than intervening to halt these crimes, or dealing with their aftermath. Finally, by taking measures to prevent atrocity crimes and fulfilling their primary responsibility to protect, States reinforce their sovereignty and reduce the need for more intrusive forms of response from other States or international actors. To those for whom the Kosovo action heralded a new era when states and groups of states can take military action outside the established mechanisms for enforcing international law, one might equally ask: Is there not a danger of such interventions undermining the imperfect, yet resilient, security system created after the second world war, and of setting dangerous precedents for future interventions without a clear criterion to decide who might invoke these precedents and in what circumstances? Nothing in the UN charter precludes a recognition that there are rights beyond borders. What the charter does say is that “armed force shall not be used, save in the common interest.” But the most challenging thing is the silence of the international community. Despite the daily killings taking place in many towns in Southern Cameroons, the international community has sunk into a deafening silence that is worrying to many people across the globe. Some analysts argue that the international community has entered into a pact with the Cameroon government. The international community has been looking the other way while the Cameroon government is mowing down its own people. Despite calls to the global body by rights groups such as the International Crisis Group and Amnesty International for a direct intervention, the UN has continued to display a form of indifference that is more unsettling than reassuring. Even the illegal arrest and extradition of Southern Cameroonian leaders did not shock the international community. The United Nations, in particular, seems to be playing ball with the Cameroon government and this is causing many people to hold that most of the military violence taking place in the English-speaking regions of the country has received the blessing of a United Nations that is 223

more interested in keeping the country together than in the methods that are being used to keep the country one and indivisible. So far, the international community has been turning a blind eye to the death and destruction that army soldiers have been spreading in the two English-speaking regions of the country. In a note responding to questions from journalists, Stéphane Dujarric said the UN chief is concerned about persistent violence in the North-West and South-West regions, mainly affecting civilians. “He takes note of the willingness of the Government of Cameroon to launch an investigation into the 10 January incident in Mautu (in the South-West) that reportedly left at least 10 civilians dead”, said the statement. The Secretary-General also condemned an attack on the convoy of the prefect of Momo department in North-West Region which occurred last week. Mr. Guterres extended his deepest condolences to the families of the victims and wished a speedy recovery to the wounded. “The Secretary-General urges the Cameroonian authorities to take all necessary measures to swiftly bring the perpetrators of both attacks to justice and enhance the protection of civilians”, the note said. What could be the meaning of such indifference or mutism? But what is that common interest in the use of arms ? Who shall define it? Who shall defend it? Under whose authority? And with what means of intervention? In seeking answers to these monumental questions, I see four aspects of intervention which need to be considered with special care. First, “intervention” should not be understood as referring only to the use of force. A tragic irony of many of the crises that go unnoticed or unchallenged in the world today is that they could be dealt with by far less perilous acts of intervention than the one we saw this year in Yugoslavia. And yet the commitment of the world to peacekeeping, to humanitarian assistance, to rehabilitation and reconstruction varies greatly from region to region, and crisis to crisis. If the new commitment to humanitarian action is to retain the support of the world’s peoples, it must be—and must be seen to be—universal, irrespective of region or nation. Humanity, after all, is indivisible. Second, it is clear that traditional notions of sovereignty alone are not the only obstacle to effective action in humanitarian crises. No less significant are the ways in which states define their national interests. The world has changed in profound ways since the end of the cold war, but I fear our conceptions of national interest have 224

failed to follow suit. A new, broader definition of national interest is needed in the new century, which would induce states to find greater unity in the pursuit of common goals and values. In the context of many of the challenges facing humanity today, the collective interest is the national interest. Third, in cases where forceful intervention does become necessary, the Security Council—the body charged with authorizing the use of force under international law—must be able to rise to the challenge. The choice must not be between council unity and inaction in the face of genocide—as in the case of Rwanda—and council division, but regional action, as in the case of Kosovo. In both cases, the UN should have been able to find common ground in upholding the principles of the charter, and acting in defence of our common humanity. As important as the council’s enforcement power is its deterrent power, and unless it is able to assert itself collectively where the cause is just and the means available, its credibility in the eyes of the world may well suffer. If states bent on criminal behaviour know that frontiers are not an absolute defence—that the council will take action to halt the gravest crimes against humanity—then they will not embark on such a course assuming they can get away with it. The charter requires the council to be the defender of the “common interest”. Unless it is seen to be so—in an era of human rights, interdependence and globalization—there is a danger that others will seek to take its place. Fourth, when fighting stops, the international commitment to peace must be just as strong as was the commitment to war. In this situation, too, consistency is essential. Just as our commitment to humanitarian action must be universal if it is to be legitimate, so our commitment to peace cannot end as soon as there is a ceasefire. The aftermath of war requires no less skill, no less sacrifice, no fewer resources than the war itself, if lasting peace is to be secured. This developing international norm in favour of intervention to protect civilians from wholesale slaughter will no doubt continue to pose profound challenges to the international community. In some quarters it will arouse distrust, scepticism, even hostility. But I believe on balance we should welcome it. Why? Because, despite all the difficulties of putting it into practice, it does show that humankind today is less willing than in the past to tolerate suffering in its midst, and more willing to do something about it.

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Uncertainties in Intervention in Cameroun The international atmosphere in the last decade and a half has been one characterized by uncertainty. While leading global powers have continued to be preoccupied by the pursuit of national security interests, there has been a shift in domestic politics. Far-right and far-left parties have emerged and foreign policies of countries to a large extent have shifted significantly to one that is focused on national instead of collective global peace and security. Moreover, the decade has also witnessed other massive security issues such as the Syrian conflict that displaced more than five million, South Sudan civil conflict, the threat of ISIS, and Boko Haram and AlShaabab terrorist groups. The nature of these conflicts that claimed hundreds of thousands of lives therefore side-lines other conflicts such as the Anglophone conflict that has been ongoing for several decades leading to minimal international attention until the conflict began escalating in 2017. Due to the fact that this conflict has a colonial background, members of the Anglophone diaspora in the UK have often petitioned the British government to take a lead in resolving the conflict due to its status as a former colonial power of the region and purposely a guarantor of peace and security to the Anglophone Cameroonians. However, according to a briefing report to the House of Commons (2019), successive administrations in the UK have called for dialogue but stayed away from providing a stand on the ideal institutional arrangement that can address the concerns of both Anglophone and Francophone Cameroon. While the UK has claimed its willingness to mediate in the conflict, they have insisted that the invitation has to come from the government of Cameroon. When the UK’s Minister for Africa visited Cameroon between 14th and 16th February 2018 after the re-election of Paul Biya, he said: The UK congratulates President Paul Biya on his re-election. We remain deeply concerned about the deteriorating situation in the Anglophone regions, which continue to suffer from high levels of violence and human rights abuses perpetrated by both security forces and armed separatists. The UK calls on the Government of Cameroon to now take urgent action to address the crisis in the Anglophone regions. We hope that President Biya will reach out to all sections of Cameroonian society and work to build confidence and trust. It is crucial for all parties to engage in a peaceful and structured process 226

leading to constitutional reforms, as previously set out by the President, and avoid excessive use of force. The UK is concerned at the worsening humanitarian situation in the Anglophone regions and the impact this is having on the lives of ordinary people. We call on all parties to grant full and unhindered humanitarian access to the affected population. The UK will continue to work alongside the international community to encourage and support efforts to resolve the Anglophone crisis. It is vital that all parties now work together to secure a peaceful future for all Cameroonians. (UK Government 2018). The United States has also increasingly issued out public statements including condemning the government of Cameroon for alleged “targeted killings” and violation of human rights and freedoms of the people in Anglophone Cameroon. Additionally, the US Ambassador to Cameroon condemned extreme violence by the separatists (Reuters, 18th May 2018). In 2019, the United States that has been providing support to the Cameroonian government in the fight against Boko Haram Terrorist group announced the cancellation of the military aid amounting to $17 million (New York Times, 7th February 2019). Additionally, the US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Tibor Nagy made calls for the release of political prisoners and urged both the “separatists” and the government to find an amicable solution to the conflict. Other countries such as Canada and Germany have also condemned the “separatists” and security forces for use of violence and called for dialogue. The German national assembly (Bundestag) has held several discussions with some deputies calling for the suspension of economic ties should there be further violations of human rights and freedoms of Anglophone regions (German Parliament, 27 June 2018). France which has a stronger clout on the Cameroon government and perhaps has been supporting the government’s approach has also advocated for a political solution and encouraged the convention of Anglophone General Conference. However, according to Crisis Group (2018), France privately supports decentralization (federalism) as the political solution to the Anglophone conflict. Moreover, France presents itself as a protector to the Cameroonian government against pressure from the international community, and this has enabled it to acquire some concessions such as the release of the 289 Anglophone detainees in November 2018 (Crisis Group 2019). On the multilateral front, the United Nations has stressed the need for both the government and the separatists to ensure that 227

there is uninterrupted access to regions that are in need of humanitarian assistance, and that both sides come to an amicable agreement that will bring to a stop the ongoing conflict. Notably, the Anglophone conflict is yet to be given the adequate attention by the international body. Efforts by the Netherlands and Norway to introduce it as an agenda in the Security Council has often faced challenges failing to garner the minimum votes needed (9/15). China, Russia, France, Ethiopia, Equatorial Guinea, and Cote d’Ivoire voted against it (Crisis Group, June 2018). The African Union has not so far put adequate pressure on Cameroon for the resolution of the conflict that is worsening further and has remained rather discreet. The African Commission of Human and People’s Rights has only issued statements condemning the government and separatist groups for the human rights violations without any concrete measures to follow-up. Egypt, which holds the chairmanship of the African Union, has reiterated that it is not the responsibility of the African Union to be engaged in the internal affairs of states. The European Union on the other hand despite being the key trading partner and contributor of foreign aid has been unable to mediate in the conflict decisively. Nonetheless, the community has taken measures including a vote by the European parliament in April 2019 calling for the release of political detainees and the opposition leader Maurice Kamto and that a peaceful solution to the conflict be pursued (European Parliament, 18 April 2019). In sum, accustomed to the crime of genocide the first world bathes in comparative luxury while its rulers inch closer and closer to the first strikes or threat of first strike, to rid the world of opposing ideologies and the people who support them. Poor people will either be drawn to ideologies which oppose their oppressors, or enslaved. Publishers and news media do not represent markets for liberation. It becomes difficult to write about the crime of genocide, or note warnings except those warnings comfortable with government policy. From inception the crimes are perceptionmanaged so that the victims may be aware but the general populations of the aggressor countries are not. These crimes and their lack of prosecution enforce a mind control that moves the crime of genocide toward being awful but acceptable. It is not acceptable. The world is living amid monstrous crimes which they know are crimes, yet the international community governments and media are accepting these as normal. This “normal” will not let humanity survive. 228

Cameroun’s Strategies and Tactics of Genocide and Extermination of Ambazonians Let us start with the definition of our key concepts used by Lenin. Strategy, guided by the program, and based on a calculation of the contending forces, internal (national) and international, defines the general route, the general direction, in which the revolutionary proletarian movement must be guided with a view to achieving the greatest results under the incipient and developing relation of forces. In conformity with this it outlines a plan of the disposition of the forces of the proletariat and of its allies on the social front (general disposition). “Outlining a plan of the disposition of forces” must not be confused with the actual (concrete and practical) operation of disposing, allocating the forces, which is carried out jointly by tactics and strategy. That does not mean that strategy is limited to defining the route and outlining a plan of the disposition of the fighting forces in the proletarian camp; on the contrary, it directs the struggle and introduces corrections in current tactics during the whole period of a turn, making skilful use of the available reserves, and manoeuvring with the object of supporting the tactics. Tactics, guided by strategy and by the experience of the revolutionary movement at home and in neighbouring countries, taking into account at every given moment the state of forces within the proletariat and its allies (higher or lower level of culture, higher or lower degree of organisation and political consciousness, existing traditions, forms of the movement, forms of organisation, main and auxiliary), and also in the enemy's camp, taking advantage of disharmony or any confusion in the enemy's camp—indicate such definite ways of winning the broad masses to the side of the revolutionary proletariat and of placing them in their fighting positions on the social front (in fulfilment of the plan for the disposition of forces outlined in the strategic plan) as will most surely prepare the success of strategy. In conformity with this, they issue or change the Party’s slogans and directives. Strategy alters at turns, radical changes, in history; it embraces the period from one turn (radical change) to another. Hence, it directs the movement towards the general objective that covers the interests of the proletariat during the whole of this period. Its aim is to win the war of classes that is waged during the whole of this period and, therefore, it remains unchanged during this period. 229

Tactics, on the other hand, are determined by the flows and ebbs on the basis of the given turn, the given strategic period, by the relation of the contending forces, by the forms of the struggle (movement), by the tempo of the movement, by the arena of the struggle at each given moment, in each given district. And since these factors change in conformity with the conditions of place and time during the period from one turn to another, tactics, which do not cover the whole war, but only individual battles, that lead to the winning or loss of the war, change (may change) several times in the course of the strategic period. A strategic period is longer than a tactical period. Tactics are subordinate to the interests of strategy. Speaking generally, tactical successes prepare for strategic successes. The function of tactics is to lead the masses into the struggle in such a way, to issue such slogans, to lead the masses to new positions in such a way, that the struggle should, in sum, result in the winning of the war, i.e., in strategic success. But cases occur when a tactical success frustrates, or postpones, strategic success. In view of this, it is necessary, in such cases, to forgo tactical successes. Collective Colonial Imperialism Imperialism in this context is conceived as the policy or act of extending a country’s power into other territories or by gaining some kind of control over another country’s politics or economic resources. Exploitation colonial imperialism is therefore the national economic policy of conquering a country to exploit its population as labour and its natural resources as raw material. Cameroun has invited all members of the United Nations with veto powers to engage in collective colonial imperialism in Ambazonia. Cameroun’s market-based, diversified economy features oil and gas, timber, aluminium, agriculture, mining and the service sector. Oil remains Cameroon’s main export commodity, and despite falling global oil prices, still accounts for nearly 40% of exports. Explicitly, Cameroun and its oil producers do have other options. Government and private foreign producers have joined forces to expand crude refining capacity at the country’s only oil refinery in Sonara. The facility currently processes 60,000 barrels a day, up from 45,000 last year, with plans to increase capacity to 100,000 barrels a day by 2017. The Cameroonian government is also working with Russian engineering firm Rusgaz to open a second refinery in the southern city of Kribi, potentially doubling Cameroon's refining capacity. With those facilities fully operational, 230

Cameroon will have the capacity to refine excess crude from neighbours like Angola and Nigeria, exporting it to end-markets and shifting Cameroon’s position along the value chain. Another option has also revealed itself. The discovery of 212 billion cubic meters of natural gas reserves in the Logbaba field has spurred Britain’s Victoria Oil & Gas to open the LogbabaNdogpassi natural gas treatment plant. The plant now services 28 companies in and around Douala, Cameroon's economic capital. According to a source at Cameroon's state oil company, the National Society of Hydrocarbons (SNH), as first reported by McGraw Hill Financial, the SNH is now “focusing more on gas, and it is the future in the hydrocarbon industry. In other words, Russian Lukoil, Chinese Addax, French Total, American ExonMobile, British New Age Energy are partners in the collective colonial imperialism in Ambazonia signed by the never-ending Biya regime. Energy security has two components. The first is the exercise of market power by international oil companies. The second component is macroeconomic disruptions arising from oil price instability. These disruptions became a concern during the 1970s, when oil price shocks were followed by economic downturns and inflation in the industrialized countries. Among the causes of oil price shocks are unexpected supply reductions by individual oil suppliers or suppliers as a group. The implication of energy security is that efforts to secure oil and natural gas to meet growing energy demand are contributing to massive human rights violations in Cameroun. Failure to address these matters encourage other parties seeking scarce energy supplies to take similar compromises on human rights as they court questionable oil regimes like Cameroun, a development that would be detrimental to international peace and security due to the ongoing genocide in Ambazonia. Complicity in colonial oil exploitation imperialism presents a dark time for human rights in Cameroun. Yet while the Cameroun autocrats and rights abusers capture the headlines, the defenders of human rights, democracy, and the rule of law are also losing strength. The same populists who are spreading hatred and intolerance are spawning a resistance that keeps winning its share of battles. Victory in any given case is never assured, but it has occurred often enough to suggest that the excesses of autocratic rule are fuelling a powerful counterattack from the oppressed domestic population. 231

The Cameroun regime pursues a two-step strategy for undermining democracy: first, scapegoat and demonize vulnerable minorities like Ambazonians to build popular support; then, weaken the checks and balances on government power needed to preserve human rights and the rule of law, such as an independent judiciary, a free media, and vigorous civic groups. Even the world’s established democracies have shown themselves vulnerable to this demagoguery and manipulation by the Biya regime because of considerations of energy security. Autocratic leaders generally rarely solve the problems that they cite to justify their rise to power, but they do create their own legacy of abuse. At home, the unaccountable government that they lead becomes prone to repression, corruption, and mismanagement. Some claim that autocrats are better at getting things done, but as they prioritize perpetuating their own power, the human cost is enormous, such as the hyperinflation and economic devastation in once oil-rich Cameroun, the spree of extrajudicial killings as part of the consolidation of repressive control. Because they dislike human rights scrutiny, Cameroun autocratic leaders also tend to retreat from the defence of human rights beyond their borders. This retrenchment has made it easier for the brutal leaders to get away with large-scale atrocities, such as Cameroun’s war on Ambazonian civilians in areas held by antigovernment forces. In response to these disturbing trends, new alliances of rightsrespecting groups, often prompted and joined by civic groups and the public, have mounted an increasingly effective resistance. Political leaders in Cameroun decide to violate human rights because they see advantages, whether maintaining their grip on power, padding their bank accounts through the corruption industrial complex, or rewarding their cronies. This growing resistance has repeatedly raised the price of those abusive decisions. Because even abusive governments weigh costs and benefits, increasing the cost of abuse is the surest way to change their calculus of repression. Mediated Mind Control The terms “misinformation” and “disinformation” have dominated the political lexicon in recent years. Whereas misinformation merely refers to inaccurate or misleading information, the label of disinformation implies an intent to 232

deceive. Both have served as the source of much consternation and hand-wringing from media figures and politicians alike, with countless articles, press segments, academic papers, and political speeches devoted to solving the problem posed by intentionally false or misleading information and “fake news.” For its part, the Biden administration has characterized disinformation as a “threat to our democracy,” going as far as to lay out a road map for how to combat it. While our inability as a society to agree on basic facts is certainly a problem, what should be self-evident is that misinformation and disinformation naturally abound when there is very little trust in sense-making institutions. If the information sources that are deemed “authoritative” are so often wrong or misleading, and inspire little public confidence, is it any wonder that people turn to alternatives? Misinformation and disinformation are natural consequences of our public institutions’ inconsistency and incompetence. Furthermore, the escalating war on misinformation and disinformation seems to be less concerned with actually trying to establish authoritative sources of truth as it is with marginalizing facts or narratives that don’t suit the establishment agenda. The labels “misinformation” and “disinformation” are liberally and inconsistently applied to silence dissent and promote certain political interests. The war on misinformation and disinformation is more about controlling the political narrative than it is about establishing a consensus on basic facts; narratives that threaten the establishment are banned, and the tyrannical expansion of government power ensues. When you think of mind control techniques, do you envisage some shady government agent in an unknown location, using dodgy methods for evil manipulation? The official media in Cameroun have been using mind control techniques in a number of ways to influence the populace. Think this isn’t happening? Want to gain a political advantage over opponent? Spread some fake news. But we are not talking about a few people telling lies about a few government officials. We live, we’re told, in a post-truth era. The internet has hyped up postmodern relativism, and created a kind of gullible cynicism– ”nothing is true, and who cares anyway?” But the thing that exploits this mindset is what the Russians call dezinformatsiya. Disinformation–strategic deceit–isn’t new, of course. It has played a 233

part in the battle that has raged between mass democracy and its enemies since at least the First World War. As a veteran journalist, I always asked the question: How do the media serve as instruments of mind control? The predominant brain wave frequencies indicate the kind of activity taking place in the brain. There are four basic groups of brain wave frequencies that are associated with most mental activity. The first, beta waves, (13-35 Hertz or pulses per second) are associated with normal activity. The high end of this range is associated with stress or agitated states that can impair thinking and reasoning skills. The second group, alpha waves (8-12 Hertz), can indicate more relaxation. Alpha frequencies are ideal for learning and focused life form energy. The third, theta waves (4-7 Hertz), indicate mental imagery, access to memories and internal mental focus. This state is often associated with young children, behavioural modification and sleep/dream states. The last, ultra-slow, delta waves (.5-3 Hertz), are found when a person is in deep sleep. Consider the possibility of gaining education by the transfer of data directly into the human brain by these new methods rather than the standard methods of learning. A serious consideration in developing these types of memory transfer systems will be the fact that they bypass normal intellectual filters–they are deposited into the brain as fact, without question or careful consideration. Indeed, consciousness training is also a big theme in cults, religious organizations, and others pursuing the “new age.” Science has now gained a greater understanding of how the mind and brain work so that what used to take years, or even decades, to achieve, can now be mastered in weeks, days or even minutes using mediated instruments of mind control. Let us discuss them one by one. Brute force has been the main weapon of the regime in Yaoundé as it has sought to crush growing Southern Cameroons uprising and quest for an independent state, killing thousands of people including women and children and torturing hundreds more. But the entire Cameroon nation has also been besieged by relentless propaganda. For instance, numerous baseball caps, T-shirts and flags are adorned with President Biya’s face. Posters– Using Symbolic Imagery Visual working memory provides an essential link between past and future events. The study of working memory has long been an 234

area of interest for researchers due to its ubiquity in daily life, its close links to many high-level cognitive functions, psychopathologies (Park et al. 2006:139:373–384). In the case of Nazi Germany Hitler and his leaders understood the power of propaganda in conveying the party line, and poster art was often at the heart of the publicity machine. Both at home and in occupied territory, posters were a powerful means to simply communicate the main Nazi policies, through simplified and metaphorical imagery. At home, posters often focused on boosting the morale of production workers, telling them ‘You are the Front!’ Abroad, the posters offered a romanticized ideal of the Nazi Party as a force for good, often employing religious imagery which represented Hitler as a liberating hero. Picture 2: Biya depicted as Liberating Choice (Hero) of Cameroun

Source: Social Media blogger, 2018.

Election Reality Presidential elections in Cameroon are announced only six weeks prior to the election date, with parties having only two weeks to register: a time frame, which was virtually impossible for presidential candidates to prepare and wage political campaigns. “Political parties with resources much less than those of the ruling 235

party, had to prepare within four weeks after registering: to build teams, to run a campaign, and to visit every one of the 10 regions of the country. This is impossible, even in the best of the situations,” said Dibussi Tande. What is more, in Cameroon there is a “decentralized” system for governance and each governor has to do what he has to in order to keep his place. This is done by making sure the president wins. “Even if the president doesn’t go out and say: ‘I want you guys to rig the elections,’ that is what those guys at the local level will go out and do,” added Tande. The financial enticement is also not one to ignore. According to Ntemfac Ofege, a Cameroonian blogger from the Global Voices initiative, Paul Biya’s regime is betting each presidential opponent the equivalent of $50,000 (25 million CFA francs) to present a challenge to his candidacy. The money is not audited, is a good deal, and the government cannot be accused of lack of democracy. Anglophobia – Scapegoating of Ambazonians Following the devastating outcome of WWI and the Wall Street of Crash of 1929, Germany was in a precarious economic position, with hundreds of thousands out of work. To explain this, the Nazis blamed the Jews. The Nazi Party accused them of being a parasitic race that attached itself to capitalist nations to destabilize the economy and culture of their ‘host’ nation. Hitler’s own fanatical anti-Semitism became even more pronounced in party policy after the Nazi’s rise to power in 1933. By blaming a minority racial group for all of the country’s ills, the Nazis created a set of scapegoats who could be blamed at every opportunity for almost anything. In posters, art, cartoons and film, the Jews were equated with rats and caricatured as hook nosed misers, stealing money from the honest ‘Aryan’ German workers. In Cameroun, Ambazonians are scapegoated and ridiculed by Francophones as indicated by the picture stating: Je ne suis pas Anglophone; Je ne suis pas Francophone ( meaning I am not Anglophone. I am not Francophone). These are ruling party militants groomed to mock at “Anglophones” who claim to be different. Ironically, the inscriptions are all in French (since they are neither Anglophones nor Francophones).

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Picture 3: Deceitful Propaganda Banners by CPDM Militants in French

Source: Ntemfac Ofege’s blog, 2020.

Controlling mass media for brainwashing In the case of Natzi Germany, Radio broadcast was recognized by the Nazis as one of the most important propaganda tools in their arsenal. In 1933, their Minister for Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, called radio the ‘eighth great power’ and predicted that it “will be for the 20th century what the press was to the nineteenth.” He initiated a scheme whereby the German government subsidized the production and sale of cheap radio sets–the Volksempfanger, or ‘people’s receiver’–limited in range to local German and Austrian stations. This placed the party’s voice in every home in the country. By the start of the war, nearly the entire nation had fallen under the radio’s spell and was bombarded with speeches and ‘news’ designed to brainwash the population. The governing class in Cameroun is the elite. It comprises of the wealthy, experts, politicians and bureaucrats. Mass media is a way of using knowledge by the elite to control the masses but without physical force. The elite, however, need the consent of the public to accept their agenda, and there are several ways in which they do this: •

They numb people to violence-”repression is for public law and order.”

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• • • •

They make people feel bad about themselves-”you re the creatures of President Paul Biya.” They dumb people down-”the truth comes from above and rumour from below.” They use fake news-” any opposition to President Paul Biya is anti-patriotic.” They distract people-”our economy is based on agriculture, not oil”, while milking the oil wealth and stashing in offshore accounts abroad.

Newspapers have always been a powerful means of influencing thought and opinion. The most notorious of the Nazi newspapers was Der Sturmer (‘The Attacker’). In Cameroun is Cameroon Tribune. It is a major part of the propaganda war. It is tabloid style, rabid anti-Ambazonia and obscene content that makes it win favour with other party officials. President Biya himself praised its effectiveness in speaking to the ‘man on the street’ and is said to ‘read it with pleasure, from first page to last.’ In Cameroun, the General Manager of CRTV says the medium is President Biya’s war “tam tam.” In sum, Radio, TV, the Internet, the power grid, cell systems or any other electromagnetic carrier can be used in Cameroun to carry a signal that will influence the behaviours of most people in close proximity to the signal. What such signals can do is cause a person, for instance, to drop into a light altered state. Mythologizing the CPDM party Mythology and folktales were extremely important to the Nazi’s idea of ‘volk’ and tradition. The party’s views on religion were complex, and in Hitler’s case, fairly confused, but they recognized the power of religious imagery and occultist symbology. Christian imagery was often evoked in the artwork of propaganda, as were Teutonic gods and goddesses. These efforts were intended to reinforce the idea of an ancient German national culture, bolstering the Nazis’ extreme nationalism. More peculiarly, eastern spirituality also interested senior officials, and in 1938 the Nazis made an official visit to Tibet. This may have been prompted by the Nazi’s belief in Thule – a sort of Nazi Atlantis, which was purported to be the starting point for the ‘Aryan’ peoples. One of the most tiresome misconceptions of the cynic in the street is his idea of myth. He uses the word “myth” to mean 238

“useless fairy tale.” A myth is a fantasy, a fable or a fanciful fiction. At best it is a harmless children’s story. It might be a pretend story told for a political or religious purpose or at worst it is an intentional fabrication devised to hoodwink the gullible. The picture below depicts President Paul Biya as the favoured one for Bamenda people. Adolf Hitler began work on his sprawling semi auto-biography Mein Kampf (‘My Struggle’) while imprisoned after the failed Munich Putsch. Combining elements of his own life with political ideology and violent racial arguments, the book was unsurprisingly (and still is) a controversial work. Playing on the death of 16 party members in the failed coup, the Nazis invented a myth around the event which they would continue to play on throughout their time in power. From the publication of Mein Kampf in 1925 and especially during Hitler’s time in power, the book was incredibly successful, and 10 million copies had been produced by the end of the war. However, not everyone was enthused. One of Hitler’s closest foreign political allies, Benito Mussolini, described it as ‘a boring to me that I have never been able to read.’ Cameroun is a one party dominant state with the Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement in power. Opposition parties are allowed, but are widely considered to have no real chance of gaining power. Opposition parties are allowed, but are widely considered to have no real chance of gaining power. Minimizing Dust Clouds: Understanding the Purpose of La République du Cameroun Scorched-earth Warfare What explains Russia’s evident preference for the siege? Would it not make more sense to quickly annihilate Ambazonians? Perhaps! However, the siege’s benefit is its ability to transfer military power into political progress, while obfuscating the associated costs. A rapid, violent, decisive victory in which hundreds of Ambazonian restorationist fighters are killed in a matter of days is counterproductive to LA RÉPUBLIQUE DU CAMEROUN ’s political goals, whereas the incremental use of violence over time accomplishes the same objectives with fewer disturbances to the international community. Imagine a formation of hundreds of LA RÉPUBLIQUE DU CAMEROUN military trucks driving through the forest and dusty roads. They can quickly get to an objective by driving full-throttle, but in doing so they kick up a large amount of mud or dust, making the formation and its 239

direction of travel observable to any onlooker. However, a formation of military trucks moving slowly through the dusty roads produces a much smaller dust signature, making its presence less noticeable and its intentions less discernible. “Dust clouds” on the battlefield are inevitable, but how they are managed in pursuit of political objectives is the essence of good strategy. This is a key consideration in understanding LA RÉPUBLIQUE DU CAMEROUN ’s proclivity for the siege. The Hard Reality in Cameroun In retrospect, on November 4, 1982, Ahidjo resigned and was succeeded by Prime Minister Paul Biya under the constitution; however, Ahidjo remained head of the UNC, the sole political party. Despite Ahidjo’s resignation, he still had expectations of retaining control over the government—intentions that did not sit well with Biya. A confrontation soon followed when Ahidjo tried to assert party domination over the government. The bid was unsuccessful, however, and in August 1983 Ahidjo was forced to resign as head of the party. A minor coup attempt and a subsequent uprising by the Republican Guard on April 6, 1984—perhaps favoured or directed by Ahidjo or his supporters—followed. Biya emerged unscathed, while Ahidjo, who had taken refuge in France, was tried and sentenced in absentia for his role in the plot. What remained of Ahidjo’s UNC was soon restyled as Biya’s Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement (CPDM; Rassemblement Démocratique du Peuple Camerounaise (RDPC). At first Biya had sought the development of a more democratic society. Competitive elections for party offices and the National Assembly were permitted, even though the country was still a single-party state. The conflict with Ahidjo and the 1984 coup attempt, however, brought back some of the restrictions of the Ahidjo era. As the sole candidate for the country’s only legal political party, Biya won uncontested presidential elections in both 1984 and 1988. In the 1990s Biya resisted both domestic and international pressure to democratize. Although he supported legislation in late 1990 that provided for a change to a multiparty political system, he employed a variety of tactics to ensure the status of the CPDM as the dominant party with him as the myth embracing the hopes of all his countrymen.. His Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement (CPDM) has maintained power by rigging elections, using state resources for 240

political patronage, and limiting the activities of opposition parties. Security forces use violence to disperse anti-government protests. The Boko Haram insurgent group continues to attack civilians in northern Cameroon, and security forces responding to the insurgency have been accused of committing human rights violations against civilians. Picture 4: Projection of President Biya as Charismatic Nationalist

Source: Ntemfac Ofege Blog, 1985.

Of all the propaganda weapons that the CPDM holds at their disposal, perhaps the most effective and enduring was the cult of President Paul Biya himself. Praised by contemporaries, allies and foes alike as a charismatic and powerful leader, Biya has an ability to break down arguments to their most simple terms and could move crowds on a level of emotion rather than intellect. He also cultivated his public image to an obsessive degree, ensuring that it lay at the heart of all things in the CPDM state. It is difficult, almost impossible, to imagine the CPDM tragedy without Biya at its core. The Ahidjo-Biya regime has been driven by two goals – domination of Ambazonia and the extermination of Ambazonians. These goals were pursued together. With his economic decline due to mismanagement and pandemic corruption Biya concentrated entirely on eliminating Ambazonians. His strategy now was to hold out at any price to gain the time needed to carry out his intended mass murder, and to hold onto the territories in which he found his victims. Ambazonian families were taken from their homes and 241

hiding places, transported to the Republic of Cameroun and driven naked into the Department of Military Security or Kondengui Maximum Security death factories. Hitler was never in any doubt that the world would be grateful. In his bunker in the final days of the war he reiterated his conviction that he was acting for the benefit of all humanity. ‘People will be eternally grateful to national Socialism’, he said ‘that I have extinguished the Jews in Germany and Central Europe.’ When it came to the choice between his narcissistic fantasy of becoming emperor, and his paranoid fantasy of saving mankind from an imaginary Ambazonian enemy, Biya chose to save his Bulu-Beti-Fang mankind. Demonizing the Political Opposition of Ambazonians The demonization of “Anglophone” political opposition is not news. For instance, all activities, meetings and demonstrations initiated or promoted by the Southern Cameroons National Council (SCNC), the Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium (CACSC), any other related groups with similar objectives or by anyone partisan to these groups, were prohibited all over the national territory in 2017. The Anglophone genocide and extermination in Cameroon is a direct result of colonialism. The effects of the crisis have been devastating. As a case in point, Bamenda is suffering from multiple lock-downs: Electricity lock down (no electricity, poor internet connection), Water lock down; -Road lock down (zero roads), Lock down on machetes, Lock down on Bendskins (bikes), Lock down on taxis and vehicles, Lock down on democracy (only the men in uniform can vote), Lock down on iron rods, Lock down on hunting guns, Lock down on civilian rule (only the military speak these days), Lock down on schools, Lock down on movement. In the final analysis the Republic of Cameroun government via the military is simply occupying the territory and not administering it.

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Dehumanizing Ambazonians Ambacide didn’t occur suddenly or spontaneously—it required a conscious process. If we study the process, we might prevent future genocides. Even before they took power in 1982, Biya and the CNU government set about implementing a series of four specific steps designed to result in the complete and total dehumanization of the Ambazonian population: Prejudice The CNU-CPDM government actually fostered and promoted prejudice. According to the dictionary definition, prejudice is comprised of “unreasonable feelings, opinions, or attitudes, especially of a hostile nature, regarding an ethnic, racial, social or religious group.” Anti-Ambazonianism has been around since the earliest days of the so-called “reunification.” But it reached epic proportions with the attempted to prevent Ambazonians to access power and resources. “The Anglophone Identity Crisis” The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines the word ‘anglophone’ as consisting of an English-speaking population especially in a country where two or more languages are spoken. Considering English is one of the world’s most popular languages, it’s no surprise that there are millions of anglophones in the world — from Cameroon to Kenya to Canada and even as far away as Antarctica. If there’s general agreement on the definition of the word ‘anglophone’, why the fuss about anglophones in Cameroon? Here’s the big deal: there is a disproportionally high correlation between the word ‘anglophone’ and Cameroon. A simple query of the word using any popular internet search engine will return millions of relevant entries. What you may also notice is a recommendation to refine your search by including the keyword ‘Cameroon’. The association between Cameroon and the word ‘anglophone’ gets even more intriguing when you do a keyword analysis using Google’s Trends website. Of all countries in the world, Google Trends reports a 100% correlation between the word ‘anglophone’ and ‘Cameroon’. 243

Google Trends query results showing the popularity of the word ‘anglophone’ for the last 5 years across the world Here’s the question that’s begging to be asked: did Cameroon invent the word ‘anglophone’? Of course, it didn’t. The presentday Republic of Cameroon was formed in October 1961 by the federal union of two territories: the southern half of the Trust Territory of British Cameroons (then known as Southern Cameroons), and the independent Republic of Cameroon. Southern Cameroons became the State of West Cameroon, and the Republic of Cameroon became the State of East Cameroon, all within the then newly formed Federal Republic of Cameroon. The federal constitution of Cameroon conferred Cameroonian citizenship to all its nationals. On the world stage, citizens of the new nation referred to themselves as ‘Cameroonians’ (fr. Camerounais). Within the country’s two states, however, a range of identities of varying strengths and inclinations began to emerge. On the one hand, the muted identity of Southern Cameroons took refuge in a newly-created West Cameroonian identity. The ‘West Cameroon’ identity became so strong that it was being printed on birth certificates and mailing addresses. In contrast, predominantly French-speaking East Cameroon hardly assumed or even acknowledged its newly-created identity in any meaningful way. French-speaking Cameroonians considered themselves usually only as Cameroonians, and certainly, not as East Cameroonians. By all appearances, there was a “West Cameroon” identity on one side, and a “Cameroon” identity on the other. In the early days of the federation, President Ahidjo would refer to the people of the two states as ‘English-speaking Cameroonians’ (fr. Camerounais d’expression anglaise) or ‘Frenchspeaking Cameroonians’ (fr. Camerounais d’expression français). When he abolished the federation in 1972, English-speaking Cameroonians were forced to lose their West Cameroonian identity overnight. Holding onto it could have been interpreted as a rejection of the so-called collective will of the country to more fully “unify. ” In Cameroon in the 1960s, like in many other multilingual countries where English was spoken, the word ‘anglophone’ had begun to creep into peoples’ consciousness and permeate every-day conversations. It had slowly begun to be used to refer to English-speaking people from the State of West Cameroon. With the implicit suppression of West Cameroonian identity in 1972, the word ‘anglophone’ grew in popularity as a way to describe people from 244

the two English-speaking provinces (today, regions). The anglophone identity became so popular and so widely accepted by the people of these two regions that they unofficially adopted the name Anglophone as their alternate identity within the context of Cameroon. English-speaking Cameroonians came to identify so closely with the name Anglophone that they seemed to forget—or chose to ignore—the real meaning of the word: simply anyone who speaks English. President Ahidjo’s strategy of suppressing the Southern Cameroons then West Cameroon identity for a Cameroonian identity had indeed worked—albeit, with an unintended consequence: it had birthed a new and malignant phenomenon: the ‘Anglophone’ identity. As English became more popular across the rest of Cameroon as evidenced by the growing number of (FrenchEnglish) bilingual schools, more French-speaking Cameroonians learned to speak English. They would, however, not refer to or regard themselves as Anglophones although they were anglophone, i.e. could speak English. As such, the word ‘Anglophone’ slowly morphed into an unofficial proxy for geographical origins within the context of Cameroon, rather than as an indicator of whether or not someone could speak English. President Ahidjo’s harmonization strategy of suppressing the Southern Cameroons or West Cameroon identity for a Cameroonian identity had indeed worked — albeit, with an unintended consequence: it had birthed a new and malignant phenomenon: the Anglophone identity. English-speaking Cameroonians did not embrace their Anglophone identity as a rejection of Cameroonian citizenship. They considered themselves just as Cameroonian as anyone from Frenchspeaking Cameroon. Considering they were in the minority, identifying as anglophone— or calling someone an Anglophone— became a convenient proxy to convey kinhood, a sort of “you’re one of us” signal. On the French-speaking side, the Anglophone identity was initially embraced for different but equally useful reasons. The Anglophone identity became a signal to explain why someone who would otherwise be indistinguishable in a crowd could be singled out based on how they dressed, did their hair, talked, expressed themselves in French, or let off some other [awkward] social or visual cue. Having inherited French culture and fashion, French-speaking Cameroonians usually dressed and talked snazzily compared to 245

typically-conservative English-speaking people. This disparity in cultures and trendiness occasionally made Anglophones who lived in predominantly French-speaking towns, stand out and be derided for lacking refinement, elegance, or worse, beauty. A darker side of the romance with the Anglophone identity by French-speaking Cameroonians was the subtle ways in which it had come to be used to convey contempt and disrespect of Englishspeaking Cameroonians. The short form ‘Anglo’, had been coined to deride someone as being dim-witted and socially-awkward, to humiliate and inflict upon them a sense of shame and low selfworth. Apart from serving as a socio-cultural marker, French-speaking Cameroonians welcomed the Anglophone identity because it also served a political purpose. It neatly and unambiguously identified a subsection of Cameroonians who were not supportive of the government’s efforts to harmonize the country’s legal, judicial, educational systems, and whose unhappiness had nursed hopes of secession. “Harmonization” had become the government’s clinical term for the conversion of these core systems (educational, legal & judicial) from Anglo-Saxon traditions to the French way of doing things. The systematic marginalization aimed at restricting longterm access to economic opportunities and the social stigmatization of the English-speaking people came to be called Cameroon’s “Anglophone Problem”. “How could the government say THERE IS NO ANGLOPHONE PROBLEM? How dare they say that!”, Anglophones exclaimed! One of the ministers (Issa Tchiroma) who is from the French-speaking part of Cameroon, explained that his daughter who speaks English is an Anglophone. And that as far as he knew, she did not have an anglophone problem at home or elsewhere. French-speaking Cameroonians chimed in that anglophones are not particular to Cameroon, adding that anglophones exist in many countries in the world, yet those anglophones were not complaining of a collective malaise affecting them as English-speaking people. To Anglophones, that was a slap on the other cheek. Anglophones found themselves simultaneously pinned to the wall and stripped of their cherished Anglophone identity. How could French-speaking people deny Anglophones their identity by claiming that anglophones in Canada or Belgium were not suffering from a common ‘anglophone problem’? “Incredulous!”, they exclaimed! “Worse, 246

how could French-speaking Cameroonians call themselves anglophones?! They simply couldn’t! Only Cameroonians who hail from the two English-speaking regions could claim that word”, or so they incorrectly reasoned. It is noteworthy that both the Catholic Church and the Protestant Churches have acknowledged the existence of the Anglophone problem, requested for a frank an open dialogue, the release of persons arrested, requested for re-installation of internet in Anglophone Regions, and have denounced all forms of violence. Above all, all Christian churches and Muslim are constantly praying for peace and justice in the face of the crisis. The Catholic Church in particular had written a detailed memorandum on the current situation of unrest in the North west and South West regions of Cameroon and presented to the head of state, Paul Biya in December 2016; signed by Bishops in the Anglophone dioceses. Persecution Persecution of minorities isn’t new. The persecution of the Christians by the Romans is one example, and another glaring case in point is the current situation of the Baha’is in Iran. But the system created and utilized by the Nazis against the Jews was likely the most organized and efficient one in history. Anglophones are being forced from their homes, their valuables confiscated, crowded into ghettoes, homes, and businesses looted and burnt. In fact, oppressed English speakers are targeted in escalating Cameroonian conflict In all sincerity, Cameroon is a beautiful country, loving people, wonderful environment, full of resources, rich in cultural diversities yet pruned to the destructive forces of corruption, injustice, centralization, bureaucracy, dictatorship, greed, extortion, discrimination, marginalization perpetuated by a minority class government. Will sanity watch innocent souls and a great nation of hope crash into the helpless space? What an irony? The government of Cameroon sends police to brutalize lawyers who make their voices without violence, the government of Cameroon sends police to pull out university students from their hostels in night gowns, suffocate them in sewage, brutalize them, rape some and jail others because some students non-violently requested for justice in University affairs, the government sends out soldiers to shoot youths who demonstrate that there is an Anglophone problem. Even if the youths were throwing stones (an 247

act I do not support), is the solution terminating lives? Does such a government consider these people human beings or her citizens? The government refuses to dialogue with leaders of trade unions and prefers to molest them, victimize and jail some. The government prefers to shoot and kill a youth for being suspected to have burnt a Cameroon flag and rather organize a national funeral for a burnt flag. Does the state have value for human life? The government prefers to shut down internet and ask universities to function in the non-internet regions; what type of university studies and research can be handled in the 21st century without internet? Are such students and their research worth anything to the State? Above all, the state makes no statement or apologizes for the many armless young Cameroonians killed, or raped or brutalized by her forces. On the contrary: The same state claims to pilot peace crusade in Central Africa, by always going in for dialogue with Boko Haram, the Islamic fundamentalist terrorist group and pay heavy sums of money in exchange for captives (yet the same state refuses dialogue, but rather arrests and even kill her own citizens who request for frank dialogue on visible aspects of injustice). Who then is the state protecting or deceiving? Why? Cordon, Search, Loot, and Kill Commonly known as “CaléCalé”, Cordon and search is a military tactic in which an area is cordoned off and premises are searched for weapons or insurgents. This has permitted the military to fish out some Amba Boys who have been hiding in the midst of the population and launching frequent raids on military positions. The end result of this is that most Amba boys have been forced to retreat to their camps, thereby causing the military to reoccupy the territory that they were fast losing to our boys and turning our camps into soft targets for air raids. The main purpose of the operation is to find personnel to kill or material to loot. It is the search element’s job to do just that. The search element contains an assault team, search team, security team and a support team. The assault team seizes the objective to allow the search team to conduct the search. The security team provides on-location security of the immediate objective area and holds any detainees. The support team provides overwatch in the search area and is prepared to assist the other teams as required. In addition, the search element may use many unique special teams depending on mission requirements. 248

Picture 5: Ambazonian, Civilians Raided, Tortured and Humiliated by the Military

Source: Social Media Blog, 2019

References AFDB (2019) Africa’s macroeconomic performance and prospects. African Development Bank. Accessed from https://www.afdb.org/fileadmin/uploads/afdb/Documents/P ublications/2019AEO/AEO_2019-EN.pdf Allan, S. (2013). Citizen witnessing: Revisioning journalism in times of crisis. London: Polity. Anyangwe, C. (2014). A country decolonised becomes coloniser: Republique du Cameroun’s colonial occupation of the southern Cameroons (Ambazonia). In Fonkem Achankeng F. (Ed.), British Southern Cameroons: Nationalism & Conflict in Postcolonial Africa (pp. 1–11). Victoria BC: FriesenPress. Bayart, J. F. (1973). One-party government and political development in Cameroun. African Affairs, 72(287), 125–144. Ardener, Edwin. “The Political History of Cameroon.” The World Today, vol. 18, no. 8, 1962, pp. 341–350. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40393427. Accessed 14 May 2020. BBC Africa. (2017). Deaths in Cameroon Independence protests. October 2. Retrieved from https://www.bbc.com/news/worldafrica-41461007 249

Chereji, R. C., & Lohkoko, E. A. (2012). Cameroon: The Anglophone problem. Conflict Studies Quarterly, 1, 3–23. Crisis Group interviews, French diplomats, Yaoundé and Paris, March and May 2018. Delancey, M. W. (1974). Changes in social attitudes and political knowledge among migrants to plantations in West Cameroon. Bloomington. Deng, F. M. (1996). Anatomy of conflicts in Africa. In Between development and destruction (pp. 219–236). London: Palgrave Macmillan. Duffield, M. (2014). Global governance and the new wars: The merging of development and security. London: Zed Books. Dupraz, Y. (2019). French and British colonial legacies in education: Evidence from the partition of Cameroon. The Journal of Economic History, 79(3), 628–668. Ebune, J. B. (1992). The growth of political parties in southern Cameroons, 1916–1960. Cameroon: CEPER. European parliament resolution of 18 April 2019 on Cameroon .(2019). /2691 (RSP)), 18 April 2019. Eyoh, D. (1998). Conflicting Narratives of Anglophone Protest and the Politics of Identity in Cameroon. Journal of Contemporary African Studies, 16(2). Fanso, V. G. (1999). Anglophone and francophone nationalisms in Cameroon. The Round Table, 88(350), 281–296. Fanso, V. G. (2017). History explains why Cameroon is at war with itself over language and culture. The Conversation. Accessed from https://theconversation.com/history-explains-why-cameroonis-at-war-with-itself-over-language-and-culture-85401 Gerald J.B.(2019). “Genocide Warnings for Three African States,” J.B. Gerald, September 17, 2019, nightslantern.ca. See also, “Cameroon’s Unfolding Catastrophe, Evidence of Human Rights Violations and Crimes against Humanity,” June 3, 2019, Centre for Human Rights and Democracy in Africa & Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights. Friedrichsmeyer, S., Lennox, S., & Zantop, S. (Eds.). (1998). The imperialist imagination: German colonialism and its legacy. University of Michigan Press. Gardinier, D. E. (1978). Richard A. Joseph. Radical Nationalism in Cameroun: Social Origins of the UPC Rebellion (Oxford Studies in African Affairs). Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1977. Pp. x, 383. $34.50. Global Risk. (2019).Cameroon’s Anglophone Problem Grows into an Armed Conflict. Retrieved from 250

https://www.a2globalrisk.com/analysis/sub-saharanafrica/cameroon-s-Anglophone-problem-grows-into-an-armedconflict. on 26 October 2019. Gwaibi, W. N. (2018). The electoral cycle and grassroots realities in Cameroon: The omnipresent, overbearing and contested political elite. In Election Studies. Intech Open. International Crisis Group. (2017). Cameroon’s Worsening Anglophone Crisis Calls for Strong Measures. ICG Briefing No. 130. Accessed from https://www.crisisgroup.org/africa/centralafrica/cameroon/130-cameroon-worsening-anglophone-crisiscalls-strong-measures International Crisis Group. (2018). Cameroon: The proposed Anglophone general conference deserves national and international support. Accessed from https://www.crisisgroup.org/africa/centralafrica/cameroon/cameroun-la-conference-generaleanglophone-merite-un-soutien-national-et-international International Crisis Group. (2019). A Household Name in Cameroon. ICG Report. Accessed from https://www.crisisgroup.org/africa/centralafrica/cameroon/ho usehold-name-cameroon Jones, D. H. (1965). Victor T. Le Vine: The Cameroons from mandate to independence xvi, 329 pp. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1964. $7.50. (English agents: Cambridge University Press. 60s.). Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 28(3), 689–690. Kacowicz, A. M. (1997). ‘Negative’ international peace and domestic conflicts, West Africa, 1957–96. The Journal of Modern African Studies, 35(3), 367–385. Kaldor, M. (2005). Old wars, cold wars, new wars, and the war on terror. International Politics, 42(4), 491–498. Konings, P., & Nyamnjoh, F. B. (1997). The anglophone problem in Cameroon. The Journal of Modern African Studies, 35(2), 207– 229. Ladson-Billings, G. (1995). Toward a theory of culturally relevant pedagogy. American Educational Research Journal, 32(3), 465– 491.https://doi.org/10.3102/00028312032003465. Mehler, A. (2014). Why federalism did not lead to secession in Cameroon. Ethnopolitics, 13(1), 48–66. Nfor, N.N.(2020). Paradise Lost? A Political History of the British Southern Cameroons. Pan-African University Press: Austin. 251

New York Times. U.S. Reduces Military Aid to Cameroon Over Human Rights Abuses. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/07/world/africa/cameroo n-military-abuses-united-states-aid.html. Accessed on 26 October 2019. Nfor, N. N. (2000). A memorandum presented to H.E. Kofi Annan, Secretary General of the United Nations by the constituent assembly of the Federal Republic of Southern Cameroons regarding the restoration of the independence and sovereignty of the Federal Republic of Southern Cameroons (formerly the UN trust territory of the British Southern Cameroons), Buea, May. Ngange, K., & Tchewo, M. (2017). ICT use in teaching, research and outreach in the University of Buea, Cameroon. In Social media: Culture and identity. Lanham: Lexington Books. Ngoh, V. J. (1987). Cameroon, 1884–1985: A hundred years of history. Yaounde, Cameroon: Navi-Group Publications. Nkwi, P. N., & Nyamnjoh, F. B. (Eds.). (2011). Regional Balance and National Integration in Cameroon: lessons learned and the uncertain future (Vol. 1). African Books Collective. Nyadera, I. N. (2018). South Sudan conflict from 2013 to 2018: Rethinking the causes, situation and solutions. African Journal on Conflict Resolution, 18(2), 59–86. Nyadera, I. N., & Bincof, M. O. (2019). Human security, terrorism, and counterterrorism: Boko haram and the Taliban. International Journal on World Peace, 36(1). Park S, Gibson C, McMichael T. Socioaffective factors modulate working memory in schizophrenia patients. Neuroscience. Reader, A. (2009). Peace studies and conflict resolution in Nigeria. Ibadan: Spectrum Books. Reuters. (2019). ‘Cameroon’s only oil refinery halted, four units damaged after fire’ The Thomson Reuters Trust. Retrieved from https://www.reuters.com/article/cameroonrefinery/cameroons-only-oil-refinery-halted-four-unitsdamaged-after-fire-idUSL8N23A2L7. Skandrani, S, Taïeb, O, Moro, M -R (2011). Transnational practices, intergenerational relations and identity construction in a migratory context: The case of young women of Maghrebine origin in France. Culture & Psychology, 18(1), 76–98. Takougang, J. (1993). Politics: the demise of Biya’s New Deal in Cameroon, 1982–1992. Africa Insight, 23(2), 91–101. Tembon, E. W. (2018). Crisis in the Republic of Cameroon: An overview of the Anglophone crisis, 2016–2018. Cameroon Association for Bible 252

Translation and Literacy Facilitator Platform for Impact. Tiewa, K., & Vubo, E. Y. (2015). Celebrating Unity and Debating Unity in Cameroon’s 2010. Independence Jubilees, the “Cinquantenaire”. Cahiers d’études africaines, (218), 331–358. United Kingdom Government. (2018). Minister for Africa urges restraint and dialogue in Cameroon. Retrieved from https://www.gov.uk/government/news/minister-for-africaurges-restraint-and-dialogue-in-cameroon V.I. Lenin's pamphlet The Immediate Tasks of the Soviet Power (see Works, 4th Russ. ed., Vol. 27, pp. 207-46). Voice of Africa. (2018, 26 May). English speaking activists in Cameroon given jail sentences. Retrieved from, https://www.voanews.com/africa/english-speaking-activistscameroon-given-jail-sentences World Association for Christian Communication (WACC). (2019). Media and conflict in Cameroon today. Retrieved from, http://www.waccglobal.org/articles/media-and-conflict-incameroon-today on 26 October 2019.

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Chapter Eight President Paul Biya Blows the Whistle for His ‘Final Solution’ Overview Taking the cue from the violent tone of Mr. Biya’s November 30, 2017, warfarist discourse and also goaded along by the equally xenophobic qua genocidal proclamations by other francophone natives in the local media and in the streets, the French Cameroun Army marched into Ambazonia bursting heads, breaking limbs, killing peaceful protesters, burning homes and villages, killing innocent civilians, raping women and young girls, looting homes and shops, extra -judicial killings, kidnapping civilians, military high-handedness, extortion, arresting journalists and terrorizing opinion leaders, incinerating people like animals, etc.

Introduction The origin of the “final Solution”, the Natzi plan to exterminate the Jewish people, remains uncertain. What is clear is that the genocide of the Jews was implemented in stages. After the Natzi Party rise to power. state enforced racism resulted in anti-Jewish legislation, boycotts, “Arianization”, and finally the “Night of Broken Glass” program, all of which aimed to remove the Jews from German society. After the beginning of World War II, anti-Jewish policy evolved into a comprehensive plan to concentrate and eventually annihilate European Jewry. In Hitler-like manner President Paul Biya declared war on Ambazonia. 1. The President completely ignored the root causes of the conflict which many sources, particularly in political and legal studies, have traced back to the decolonisation of the British Southern Cameroons territory that is conterminous with the contiguous NWR and SWR and to failed Constitutions since 1961. 2. Biya admonished the separatist fighters and absolved the armed and security forces of any war crimes and crimes against humanity in the NWR and SWR. This is contrary to information from well-informed sources that affirm that the conflict was 255

triggered by violent crackdown on peaceful protests by the Cameroon armed and security forces including pursued burning of villages, killings and maimings. 3. Paul Biya downplayed the historic marginalisation that the Anglophones have suffered in Cameroon which is well documented. It was unfair for the President to suggest to the Anglophones that they should be satisfied with the post of Prime Minister, the fourth personality in the Republic, reserved them whereas the Anglophones have asked for a restoration of their political autonomy as before 1961. 4. Biya insisted on decentralisation, thus suggesting that federalism cannot be part of any resolutions of the national dialogue he has called for. In addition to calling for the arrest of “separatist terrorists” overseas this meant that the dialogue he is announcing is a priori one that has a wide range of conditionalities, contrary to appeals for an all-inclusive dialogue without conditions. 5. President Biya failed to admit that demilitarisation was a very important way of de-escalating tensions whereas many observers had, based on the role of the armed and security forces in the escalation of the conflict, proposed that troops be withdrawn from the NWR and SWR so as to ease tensions. Biya, therefore, appears to pursue a manoeuvre of dictating the terms of conflict resolution. The war has been raging since November, 2017 with a terrifying scorecard. International Crisis Group claimed in 2019, that only 2.000 had died. The figures must be more than that given the atrocious massacres. Presidential candidate and vice Chairman of the Social Democratic Front Joshua Osih told the world that there were about 15.000 dead. Other sources suggest that there may be as many as 20.000 anglophone civilians killed. In May 13, 2019, the U.N. warned that Cameroon had become one of the fastest-growing displacement crises in Africa, and that the security and humanitarian situations are deteriorating and risk spiralling out of control. “Last year, 160,000 people were estimated to need humanitarian assistance in the Northwest and Southwest regions,” U.N. humanitarian chief Mark Lowcock told an informal meeting of the Security Council. “Today, there are not 160,000, but more than 1.3 million people – at least eight times as many in need.” The county’s English-speaking Northwest and Southwest regions have been wracked with instability since fighting broke out in 2017. More than 1,500 people have been killed and a half-million 256

internally

displaced.

Picture 6: Displaced Ambazonian Families

Source: Some of the Displaced Cameroonians.

There are obvious things we need to emphasize about refugees. Refugees are a pretty broad group of people, all sharing similar changes in environment and reasoning’s behind how they became refugees. Refugees come from all over the world and have experienced a tremendous amount of loss, grief and an array of other circumstances that have affected their lives. Today the majority of the refugees are women, children and handicapped people, and most are refugees from Africa, Asia, The Middle East, Central America, Eastern Europe and Russia. Understanding a refugee as opposed to an immigrant is a first step in helping to understand them. A refugee is someone who is forced to leave due to impeding and life threatening situations, whereas an immigrant comes because of their own free will or desire to do so. The next step is to understand the many different nationalities, cultures, religions and so forth these people have derived from or continually practice. Aid workers said Cameroon is edging towards full-blown war, as the country got the crown for harbouring the world’s most neglected displacement crisis, arising from a conflict that has forced half a million people from their homes. Hundreds of villages have been burned, hospitals have been attacked and nearly 800,000 children have seen their schools close, said the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), which compiles the annual ranking. “This culture of paralysis by the international community has to end,” said Jan 257

Egeland, secretary general of the NRC, who recently visited the country. “Every day the conflict is allowed to continue, bitterness is building and the region edges closer towards full-blown war.” The violence has impacted livelihoods, but also left more than 600,000 children out of school and disrupted the health sector, rendering 40% of health facilities not operational in some areas. But in more than three years since the start of the French Cameroun military campaign in Southern Cameroons, but that is unlikely to be an occasion for celebration in Yaoundé. Cameroon Intelligence Report sources have all opined that the war has created several military and CPDM billionaires and is estimated to have cost the Biya Francophone Beti Ewondo regime billions of FCFA. Correspondingly, the Southern Cameroons war has eroded the international image of the so-called one and indivisible Cameroon and failed to achieve its objectives of containing the Ambazonian revolution and quest for an independent state. At the same time, the people of Southern Cameroons have suffered immensely from the French-backed French Cameroun military campaign, which has claimed the lives of some 2000 Southern Cameroonians, destroyed Ambazonian towns and villages and has led to widespread disease and hunger. Biya’s recent trip to Europe offers an opportunity to bring this harmful campaign to an end. For the French government, the newly created Federal Republic of Ambazonia is not only a historical target of influence, but also a critical arena for oil and gas security and stability. Southern Cameroons shares a long and porous border with the Federal Republic of Nigeria and also commands the entrance to the Atlantic Ocean. Consequently, in its onslaught against Southern Cameroons, the French Cameroun government enjoys intelligence and logistical aid from the French government and also from the President Buhari consortium of crime syndicates in Abuja. French Cameroun has one of the largest security budgets in the CEMAC region as well as advanced weaponry at its disposal donated by the French and US governments. Yet, Yaoundé is finding it difficult to defeat a determined enemy. In fact, in addition to holding on to many counties in the Northern and Southern zones, Ambazonia Restoration Forces have killed hundreds of French Cameroun soldiers and have made the entire Southern Cameroons territory ungovernable. Indeed, the gap between French Cameroun investment in the army and military performance ever since the Southern Cameroons war started led the 85 year dictator to replace the top level of the 258

French Cameroun security establishment in Buea that was headed by General Melingui. General Melingui’s replacement was presented as part of a strategic process, but it actually reflects growing frustration in the French Cameroun political elite with the Cameroon government army’s performance. The change has not brought any success or effect on the continued fighting. Failed Peaceful Attempts to Resolve Colonization of Ambazonia The more we tried to make this incestuous relationship work, the worse it became. Nobody can accuse our people of complacency and inaction regarding what was befalling us and has befallen us. We put what resistance we could at the time, but with Yaoundé’s military might, supervised by France, all dissent was quickly mastered. Albert Mukong, the herald of Southern Cameroons nationalism, went to prison several times because he protested. One of the first things that happened when we were moved into this prison facility, from which I am writing, is that the authorities shamelessly, solemnly and proudly presented to us the Wards where this legend and His Majesty Fon Gorji Dinka were caged in, as if to say, this is your lot going forward unless you don't capitulate. Following the 1992 electoral ambush during which one of ours was robbed of victory in open court, and in the presence of the international community, our people finally came to the full realization that we were all but done with if we did not stand up forcefully. In 1993, men and women form the intellectual class, the politically informed gathered in Buea in a conference named the All Anglophone Conference, AAC1. The outcome of this conference was a call made from Mount Mary Buea, to Unity Palace, Yaoundé, for a return to the 1961 federation as an urgent means to avoid disintegration. The Conference proposed a draft federal constitution which was eventually ignored by the 1994 Tripartite Conference. The AAC2 that held later same year in Bamenda gave Yaoundé up to a “reasonable time” to revert to the 1961 federation or we would have no other option than to opt out of this wasteful and wasting union. This was ignored roundly. Rather, Yaoundé multiplied military garrisons all over the territory to the extent that a Gendarmerie Brigade got stationed only a plot away from the residence of the national chairman of the Southern Cameroons 259

National Council, the SCNC, in Ntambessi, an otherwise quiet neighbourhood in Bamenda. Even then, our people continued to seek for ways and means to rescue the country ahead of the elapse of that reasonable time. In 2003 therefore, the SCNC and SCAPO (Southern Cameroons People's Organisation) sued the state of Cameroun at the African Commission at the Banjul, Gambia. The outcome of that matter was a ruling (2009), sustained and upheld by the Conference of Heads of States of the AU, demanding that Yaoundé dialogues with “the people” of the Southern Cameroons through their Representatives as appeared at the Banjul. This recommendation Yaoundé, after requesting and obtaining a little extension to implement, has ignored with impunity. The African Union has since abandoned its own ordinance, leaving our people at the mercy of the genocidal regime in Yaoundé. The more our people made endeavours towards making this illconceived arrangement to work, the more Yaoundé made sure that it only grew worse. In this age and time, education is the only key to any form of advancement. The easiest way to put a people down therefore is to deny them education, or to give them substandard education, slave education as it were. This is what the occupier had, without our knowledge and permission, contrived for our children; that they and their generations become slaves to a culture that we esteem inferior to the values we uphold. In the Summer of 2004, it was brought to the attention of the Cameroon Teacher's Trade Union, CATTU, what English speaking learners pursuing technical education and vocational training were being subjected to. From poorly translated examination question papers, the union discovered that our children were actually taking instructions in a language they did not understand. Ladies and gentlemen, what will a learner say, “are the functions of a candle in the engine of an automobile”, for instance? This was required of students sitting in for the Baccalaureate Technique examinations, Motor Mechanics, in 2004. With this discovery, the teacher's and parent's unions engaged the government through petition writing and street protests to no avail. Rather, the more we protested and sought for redress, the more things grew worse as the system doubled down in its attempts to completely destroy the love in our people for technical education and vocational training; more French speaking teachers were deployed to these schools.

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Political and Geographical Annihilation In the late 1980s, our people decided to initiate political activism that would lead to the return of the 1961 legality, but even this was corrupted and diverted. The outcome of this was the creation of the Social Democratic Front party and the return to multiparty politics in the Cameroons in 1990, at the cost of six Southern Cameroonian lives. In 1992, Chairman Fru Ndi was largely plebiscited by the people as president of Cameroun, but as testified in open court by its president, (Supreme Court) Fru Ndi could not be declared winner because his hands had been tied up (by the French). All of this happened in the presence of the international community represented in Yaoundé. The outcome of the rigging of the people’s will was more carnage, death, house arrest and a wicked state of emergency on the freedom loving people of Bamenda in the Southern Cameroons or Ambazonia. It was at this point actually, that the union got irredeemably ruptured, though we kept pretending we could make it work. The fault will never be ours for not trying therefore; no. Yaoundé, Paris and New York are responsible for the present catastrophe and must therefore help us pack out. Though at every step we tried to make it work, Yaoundé responded with extreme barbarism, making it only possible for the matter to be postponed forward to a later date. Having unconstitutionally suppressed the only safeguard provided our people in the union, the federation, Yaoundé, through a presidential decree in 1984, reverted to the name she had at independence, “La Republique du Cameroun”, thereby deleting the last inference to any existence of the Southern Cameroons. This move was seriously criticised by the then Bar President, His Majesty Fon Gorji Dinka. He later on released what he called the “New Social Order”, and called for the reinstatement of the “Successor State.” The United Nations and the international community watched this happen; the world stood by and watched Gorji Dinka thrown into jail and committed to house arrest and did nothing; you stood by and watched, waiting for the blood of our people to be shed in the quest for identity and survival. Subdued and intimidated, we withdrew into our shelves, hoping that one day, Yaoundé and Paris would realise that the path they had chosen would yield nothing but acrimony and resistance, leading to a national disaster, and repent. Our people also hoped that the United Nations that is responsible for this mess would, 261

realising what she did, go back to the drawing board; but like Yaoundé, the highest global institution for world peace and conflict prevention has in absolute indifference stood by and watched genocide happen, from gestation to execution. Still trying to make things work, the Constitutional Committee of the AAC deposited their Draft Federal Constitution at the 1994 Tripartite Conference. This document was not as much as touched, let alone examining and considering the ideas. Rather, the Constitutional Committee of the Tripartite Conference went ahead to delete all constitutional references to the BICULTURAL, and BIJURAL nature of the country. Things became worse than we could bear. Consequently, our people amidst fire and brimstone, held the second All Anglophone Conference, AAC2 in Bamenda in 1994, issuing the ultimatum for “a reasonable time.” In 1995, a high powered delegation, constituted of our forebears, founding fathers of the “reunification”, the Rt. Hon. Solomon Tandeng Muna, the Rt. Hon. John Ngu Foncha and others, visited the United Nations and officially informed this body that the 1961 contraption had failed woefully and that it was time the UN came in to make things right. What has the United Nations done ever since? We have waited for Godot as it were, waited for Ambacide-genocide and extermination. Quest for Restoration of Statehood Trashed If the Southern Cameroonian could go to court, seek redress and obtain justice, there would have been hope. However, the perverting and corrupting influence of Yaoundé did not spare our legal system. The deleting of all references to the existence of two legal systems in Cameroon in the 1996 constitution laid the groundwork for interference and complete takeover. Gradually, Yaoundé found it convenient to issue legal documents, and to ratify international legal instruments in French only, in total disregard of its bilingual and “BIJURAL” nature. In 2014, the joke was carried forward to a point unimaginably provocative; the President of the Republic appointment Civil Law magistrates to sit on Common Law Benches in Bamenda and Buea. Common Law practitioners in their various associations in the Southern Cameroons came together and protested, gave an ultimatum for a reversal to be effected to no avail. Rather, Yaoundé responded by appointing more francophone Civil Law magistrates. When in 2016, the lawyers took to the streets to protest, they were brutalised and treated worse than rioting 262

elephants in the park. To add salt to injury, the colonial Attorney General in Buea reduced the Common Law system to only “two cubes of sugar in a basin of water.” All of these happened under the watchful eyes of the international community whose envoys were deployed to the field to witness. This treatment greatly irked our people; if those from whose hands we have sought and obtained justice even against the state can be so shabbily treated, what laid in store for the commoner? Yet, even at this time, the lawyers were only asking for the respect of the culture of our people and for a return to the 1961 legality that would provide a minimum guarantee of protection from the marauding legal predators from Yaoundé. In December therefore, another attempt was made by them towards having a solution to the problem; their representatives were invited to a meeting authorised by House Speaker, Cavaye Djibril, to seek a way out of the crisis with our own members of parliament of the ruling CPDM party. When the outcome of that meeting was made public, the executive arm of government bore down on the members of parliament involved, asking to know who authorized them to consult with members of their constituency, in a matter that concerned them. Biya’s Final Solution Visited on Ambazonia The battlefields in Ambazonia represent part of a new era of warfare, or so we are regularly told. Analysts, pundits, and military leaders point to cyber warfare, hybrid warfare, and the grey zone. But look away from these shiny new concepts for a moment, and it becomes clear LA RÉPUBLIQUE DU CAMEROUN war’s conventional character is far from new. It is siege warfare—a taskorganized forces designed to achieve tactical overmatch against Ambazonian opponents—and its organic fires capabilities. The attacks are pre-emptive undertakings against Ambazonian civilians claimed by LA RÉPUBLIQUE DU CAMEROUN military as “separatists or secessionists. Combat vehicles are used to raid homes, destroy hundreds of villages, burn civilians in their sleep, torture them to trauma, loot, rape, etc. Raiding of Homes and Streets Raids during war always have psychological and emotional effects on victims. Throughout history war has had negative 263

psychological implications on those effected. However, there is no greater negative impact of war than the psychological and emotional turmoil that it causes individual victims. This is what has become a frequent military method used in Ambazonia by LA RÉPUBLIQUE DU CAMEROUN troops. It reads: “Some two dozen military lorries now lined between Finance Junction and Mile 2 Nkwen as combat ready fierce looking troops armed to teeth surround Sisia neighbourhoods (including Nkwen Market). From Mile 2 to Finance Junction, any civilian must be in face mask and present their national identity card at no less than seven control posts! Some of the troops are inside the encircled neighbourhood combing houses in ‘Operation Bamenda Clean.’ Booties are either pocketed if financial or looted and taken to waiting lorries to transport to “refuse” disposal site that military barracks here have become for unjustified distribution among themselves!” Here is a narrative of the kind of scene during the raids of homes and streets in Ambazonia wish its attendant psychological and emotional traumas: It also brings out how Ambazonians tend to behave when subjected to raids of homes. And I heard the bang… ‘ouvrez ou je casse’, loud banging, and more banging as if to break the door. It was 5am in the morning. Usually, I would still be sleeping. I jumped up. My body shaking with fright and confusion. Was I dreaming? More banging. ‘Ouvrez’. The French. It could only be the military. Their language is French. Their style is violence. I had to think fast about what to do. Better comply, I thought. So, to sound like a good citizen and not an ‘ambazonian’ I spoke French. ‘C’est qui’? Only more banging came as a response. This time the door was giving way. I rushed and opened it. Halfnaked as I had only my skimpy nightwear on and had no time even to throw over an akaba gown on my body. They bashed into the house, 5 of them in, and about 15 more standing outside, armed to teeth with Kalashnikovs, shields, bulletproof jackets, gas cylinders. I am surprised I noticed these. They jammed me passed into the rooms. Asking ‘qui est la?, sortez.’ Their mission is searching for young men and guns. I had sent my younger brother to Yaoundé, the capital city as I anticipated this search for young people who are branded to be destroyed. When they enter a house, the take all men of military age, from 15 years to about 50 years. They brand them ‘amba boys’ and torture them. Lock them up and some till they die in prison like Pa Tom who was a prisoner without a crime.

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They went from room to room, turning everything upside down. My suitcases, my jewellery cases, my wardrobe, my bed, just everything. In the kitchen, they turned my food boxes inside out as well. Spilling my garri in search of guns or whatever. Some were asking me of receipts of my electronic appliances. Some as old as when I had my first job some 15 years ago. Luckily my daughters were in boarding school so they did not see this kind of trauma and my husband on one of his teaching missions abroad. The trauma was so much, I began to shake. I had not bought my drugs. They got finished when the lockdown was on. No bikes, no cars, no vehicles at all. I am even afraid to go out of the house, and now this. Right inside the house. When they found nothing incriminating, they asked for those receipts which of course I did not have. This was already around 6am. They told me they are hungry and that I should give them something since I don’t have receipts. I offered to make them breakfast which they turned down. I gave them 2000frs CFA and they left. I sat on the couch still shaking from the experience but thankfully I was not hurt. But my heart is pounding. And I have gone for 5 days now without my medication. My blood pressure is beyond normal now. I understand fear and anxiety are not good ingredients for hypertension and here I am, afraid, anxious, and no medication. I go for the digital stethoscope my Ph.D. student brought from the United States as a gift from his fellowship. I look at it and decide I will not measure the blood pressure. It will definitely be very high, and I will panic even more. I decide to rest and calm my nerves. Just when I laid on the couch to relax that the worst is over, I heard a loud bomblike sound, a single cry, and all was silent. #SouthernCameroons #Humanrights abuse #Talks not blood #Silence the guns

Minimizing Dust Clouds of Siege Warfare What explains LA RÉPUBLIQUE DU CAMEROUN ’s evident preference for the siege on Ambazonia? Would it not make more sense to quickly annihilate Ambazonians? Perhaps! However, the siege’s benefit is its ability to transfer military power into political progress, while obfuscating the associated costs. A rapid, violent, decisive victory in which hundreds of Ambazonian restorationist fighters are killed in a matter of days is 265

counterproductive to LA RÉPUBLIQUE DU CAMEROUN ’s political goals, whereas the incremental use of violence over time accomplishes the same objectives with fewer disturbances to the international community. Imagine a formation of hundreds of LA RÉPUBLIQUE DU CAMEROUN military trucks driving through the forest and dusty roads. They can quickly get to an objective by driving full-throttle, but in doing so they kick up a large amount of mud or dust, making the formation and its direction of travel observable to any onlooker. However, a formation of military trucks moving slowly through the dusty roads produces a much smaller dust signature, making its presence less noticeable and its intentions less discernible. “Dust clouds” on the battlefield are inevitable, but how they are managed in pursuit of political objectives is the essence of good strategy. This is a key consideration in understanding LA RÉPUBLIQUE DU CAMEROUN ’s proclivity for the siege. Psychological Warfare Psychological warfare is the planned tactical use of propaganda, threats, and other non-combat techniques during wars, threats of war, or periods of geopolitical unrest to mislead, intimidate, demoralize, or otherwise influence the thinking or behaviour of an enemy. “Drop your weapons or else…” As a non-lethal effort to capture “hearts and minds”, psychological warfare typically employs propaganda to influence the values, beliefs, emotions, reasoning, motives, or behaviour of its targets. The targets of such propaganda campaigns can include governments, political organizations, advocacy groups, military personnel, and civilian individuals. Three Shades of Propaganda In his 1949 book, Psychological Warfare Against Nazi Germany, former OSS (now the CIA) operative Daniel Lerner details the U.S. military’s WWII Skyewar campaign. Lerner separates psychological warfare propaganda into three categories: White propaganda: The information is truthful and only moderately biased. The source of the information is cited. Grey propaganda: The information is mostly truthful and contains no information that can be disproven. However, no sources are cited. 266

Black propaganda: Literally “fake news,” the information is false or deceitful and is attributed to sources not responsible for its creation. While grey and black propaganda campaigns often have the most immediate impact, they also carry the greatest risk. Sooner or later, the target population identifies the information as being false, thus discrediting the source. As Lerner wrote, “Credibility is a condition of persuasion. Before you can make a man do as you say, you must make him believe what you say.” PSYOP in Battle On the actual battlefield, psychological warfare is used to obtain confessions, information, surrender, or defection by breaking the morale of enemy fighters. Some typical tactics of battlefield PSYOP include: • Distribution of pamphlets or flyers encouraging the enemy to surrender and giving instructions on how to surrender safely • The visual “shock and awe” of a massive attack employing vast numbers of troops or technologically advanced weapons • Sleep deprivation through the continual projection of loud, annoying music or sounds toward enemy troops • The threat, whether real or imaginary, of the use of chemical or biological weapons • Radio stations created to broadcast propaganda • Random use of snipers, booby traps, and improvised explosive devices (IEDs) • “False flag” events: attacks or operations designed to convince the enemy that they were carried out by other nations or groups In all cases, the objective of battlefield psychological warfare is to destroy the morale of the Ambazonian enemy leading them to surrender or defect. While it might sound like a modern invention, psychological warfare is as old as war itself. When soldiers the mighty Roman Legions rhythmically beat their swords against their shields they were employing a tactic of shock and awe designed to induce terror in their opponents. The reason is that a fundamental concept behind mind mapping, as argued by Buzan (2003), is what he calls ‘radiant thinking’. This is a term given to the brain’s associative thought processes that derive from a central point, allowing concepts to be integrated and links to be made. Mind 267

mapping is developed as an expression of radiant thinking, and is theoretically therefore a natural technique for maximising the brain’s potential. The brain will then work more effectively by integrating and linking concepts, rather than in traditional lines, as in text (Buzan, 1997). Rape as War Weapon against Ambazonian Women A study in Yaounde confirmed rape had become a weapon of war in Cameroon, and many victims are terminating pregnancies with crude, unsafe abortion techniques. Azefor says a family running from the fighting drove her to Yaounde. There, she met pastor Grace Mbegno of Divine Redemption Ministries, who took her in. As the narrative goes “Two months ago, Azefor gave birth to a baby girl. I gave her the name Gracious because she is all that I have”, Azefor said. “I do not want her to go through what I went through. She will certainly have good education and help others tomorrow. She knows no other father than God who created her.” A Cameroonian non-profit group, the Rural Women Centre for Education and Development, is keeping track of at least 300 school-age girls from the Northwest region who became pregnant as a result of rape, suspected government soldiers. A dramatic case took place at a gas station as reported by Cameroon-Info.Net, BUEA - 23-Jul-2018. The screaming headline is revealative of atrocious genocidal rape. Cameroon - Anglophone Crisis: Picture 7 : Police Alleged to have Raped Nursing Teenage Mother in Bamenda

Source: Police Camerounaise Archives

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A 17-year-old teenager has been allegedly raped by a Police Officer in Bamenda, North West region Monday July 23, 2018.The incident which happened at Veterinary junction in Bamenda has now spread to the whole world in just few minutes. The girl could be seen crying in the video while narrating her ordeal. In her own words “My mother sent me to get watermelon from her store. They took me down behind the petrol station. You know today is ghost town and places are deserted. The police officers asked for my ID card and I told them I didn’t have it on me,” she said amidst uncontrollable tears. “When I moved across to them, I was directed to their ‘big man’ who was standing beside the road. He asked me to meet two of his colleagues the other way. They sent me to meet the patron who asked to see my ID Card. I told him I did not have an ID card. He asked how old I am and I said 17. He asked what I was doing for the moment and I told him I wasn’t doing anything for the moment.” He said, so I am walking along the road without an ID card? I said yes. The other one left and talked with someone in a car. He came back and the big man ordered me to stand where those who don’t have ID Cards stand. “I knelt down and beg but they insisted, saying that I am not the one commanding them. I was begging the police officers and they would not let me go. One of them dragged me and entered inside that petrol station. They said that is where those who don’t have ID cards are made to stand. “There was nobody there. As he dragged me inside, he ordered me to take off my clothes. I told him I am a nursing and breastfeeding mother. He warned that I should not shout at him. He forcefully took off my clothes and raped me. When he finished, he tried to give me transport fare.” The rape survivor narrated to an amateur cameraman who was later threatened by Security forces for sending the video to Social Media. This raises a question : Why Use Rape as War Weapon? The rape of Ambazonian women by LA RÉPUBLIQUE DU CAMEROUN become common knowledge. Indeed, rape was long considered an unfortunate but inevitable accompaniment of war— the result of the prolonged sexual deprivation of troops and insufficient military discipline. In fact, rape is neither incidental nor private. It routinely serves a strategic function in war and acts as an integral tool for achieving particular military objectives. In the late 20th century, in part because of the prevalence of rape in the Balkan and Rwandan conflicts, the international community began to recognize rape as a weapon and strategy of war, and efforts were 269

made to prosecute such acts under existing international law. The primary statute, Article 27 of the Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War (1949), already included language protecting women “against any attack on their honour, in particular against rape, enforced prostitution, or any form of indecent assault”; this protection was extended in an additional protocol adopted in 1977. Motivation: Why Are Ambazonian Women Targeted? LA RÉPUBLIQUE DU CAMEROUN forces are motivated to rape Ambazonian ladies precisely because rape serves the strategic interests. But the fact that it is predominantly men raping women reveals that rape in the war genocide and extermination (Ambacide), like all rape, reflects a gender-based motivation, namely, the assertion by men of their power over women (UN, 1993). Men’s domination of women is often deeply imbedded in societal attitudes, so much so that its role as a motivating factor is not easily discernible in every individual incident of rape. It is therefore difficult to distinguish the gender elements of a rapist’s motivation from the specific political function served by the rape. Aftermath of Rape Some common emotional and psychological effects of rape include: • • • • • • • • • • •

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) – feelings of severe anxiety and stress Depression Flashbacks – memories of rape as if it is taking place again Borderline personality disorder Sleep disorders Eating disorders Dissociative identity disorder Guilt Distrust of others – uneasy in everyday social situations Anger Feelings of personal powerlessness – victims feel the rapist robbed them of control over their bodies

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The aftermath of rape involves a cluster of acute and chronic physical and psychological effects. It's important that victims receive comprehensive care that addresses both the short and longterm effects of rape as they become apparent. Frequently a victim's intimate relationship, if present prior to the assault, disintegrates within one year after the rape. This only adds to the psychological impact of the rape on the victim. Victims of extremely violent rape, or those who were assaulted repeatedly or at a very young age, may need treatment for the rest of their lives. One reason, the mention of which may strike some (erroneously) as flippant, is because they can. By biological lot, men are on average bigger and stronger than women and can overpower them physically. “Anatomy is destiny”, said one Sigmund Freud; and it is indeed grim destiny that a man who wishes to impose his will on a woman often has the means of physical force available to him. The same is not generally true in reverse. This biological fact of nature is not fair. But there is no fairness in nature. There is only nature in nature. Another reason sexual violence is so common is that sex and violence are closely linked in our internal architecture. Psychologically, sex contains violent undertones and vice versa. The link reveals itself both in the language we use to describe sex— conquest, surrender—and in how our words for sex commonly serve double duty as aggressive insults (see under: “F--- you!”). It manifests in how boys of a certain age tease and hit (in the preFacebook sense) those girls they “like.” The link is echoed too in our taste for using violent signifiers such as spanking, biting, choking, scratching, and cuffing as means of sexual arousal. In December,2019, Allegra Baiocchi, coordinator of the U.N. system in Cameroon, called for the protection of women and girls in the war zone and a stop to what she called humiliating practices. “We know that rape is today a weapon of war and many women, thousands of women, have had to flee and are today even more vulnerable to sexual abuse”, she said. A report last year by rights group Amnesty International criticized both the Cameroon military and separatists for abuses of civilians. The government of Cameroon said it had opened investigations into reports of police and soldiers raping teenage girls and young women. As usual, the rhetoric ended fruitlessly because of well-known inaction of the genocidal regime. In sum, impunity for wartime rape must end. The international community’s outrage in response to widespread rape must translate 271

into a commitment to punish rape not only in all conflicts. The international war crimes tribunal must live up to its promise, prosecute rape, and reject the history of neglect of rape and sexual assault as crimes of war. All governments must hold those who commit rape in conflicts accountable and, where necessary, reform their national laws to reflect the substantive nature of the abuse. Cameroun, like Natzi Germany, seeks to eliminate certain human traits by preventing ‘undesirable’ people from reproducing. For Nazi Germany, the people with ‘undesirable’ genetic traits included: mentally and physically disabled people, the Jewish, the Polish, and Slavic people. For instance, the first victims of the Holocaust were mentally and physically disabled German citizens who the Nazi regime considered to be a burden on society. It was the view of Nazi officials that the care for these people was too expensive and they carried genetic traits that weakened the Aryan race. As such, the Nazis created the Euthanasia Program, which was designed to execute many of these people. In the case of Cameroun, the creation of the concentration camps and death camps as special prisons, as part of the genocide and extermination of Ambazonians, is based upon the principles of eugenics because the Biya regime has been exterminating all of the Ambazonian ethnic groups deemed ‘undesirable’. The highly resisted attempts by the Biya regime to force vaccinate Ambazonian girls is a case in point. Democide Democide is the murder of any person or people by their government. It’s an important concept, as it is more expansive than the better-known term genocide. While the largest genocide in history is widely thought to be the Holocaust, Adolf Hitler’s work pales in comparison to that of Josef Stalin or Mao Zedong. In fact, one aspect of Stalin’s terror was the “Holodomor,” the intentional mass starvation of Ukrainians, which killed over seven million victims in less than two years (compared to six million Jews over the four years of the Holocaust). Sometimes democide is ethnically motivated, as in the Holocaust. In other cases, like Stalin’s Great Purge, having the wrong politics is enough to get one killed. In the Ottoman Empire’s persecution of its Greek and Armenian populations, religion was the motivating factor. However, in all of these cases, it’s difficult to 272

ascertain where the political, religious and ethnic motivations begin and end. Rather than splitting hairs, democide is a more inclusive term. Government killings tend to have mixed motivations, as religion, ethnicity and politics often overlap. And, after all, do the motivations even matter? Democide treats all mass killings at the hands of one’s government as a single crime, allowing us to better compare apples to apples. Human Rights Watch found that on February 14, 2020, government forces and armed ethnic Fulani killed at least 21 civilians, including 13 children and 1 pregnant woman, in Ngarbuh, a neighbourhood in the town of Ntumbaw, in Ndu, DongaMantung Division, Northwest Region, Cameroon (Cameroon News Agency, 2020). The government’s news release indicated that the findings by a Joint Commission of Inquiry diverge in significant detail from the facts of the events at Ngarbuh established by Human Rights Watch and corroborated by others, including the UN. Picture 8: The Military Massacre of Civilians in Ngarbuh

Source: Ambazonia Genocide Archives, 2020.

However, it did establish that Cameroonian soldiers attempted to cover up the truth around the killings and included a government pledge to work with human rights organizations. This stands in stark contrast to recent government actions. On April 12, 2019, officials at Douala international airport refused to allow the Human Rights Watch senior researcher on Central Africa to enter the 273

country, even though she had a valid visa. Despite numerous requests for information, no explanation was ever provided for denying her entry. Cameroonian soldiers, gendarmes, and members of the Rapid Intervention Battalion (BIR) carried out a deadly attack on the North-West region village of Meluf on April 4, 2019. Government forces killed five civilian men, including one with a mental disability, and wounded one woman. Three of the bodies were later found mutilated, including one that had been decapitated. Further attacks occurred since the government forces were not reined in. The attack on Meluf occurred as violence by the security forces in and around health centres and against medical workers in the NorthWest is increasing. “Government forces are committing abuses against people living in the Anglophone areas of Cameroon,” said Lewis Mudge, Central Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “Cameroon’s civilian and military authorities should make it clear that these types of abuses will not be tolerated and hold commanders responsible.” Based on interviews with 10 witnesses and residents and review of video and photographic sources, Human Rights Watch found that the victims were either executed or shot as they attempted to flee when the security forces raided their neighbourhood, located near an armed separatists’ camp. One resident of Meluf, a 45-yearold man, said that soldiers broke into his house, shot his aunt, and killed his uncle: “We woke up to the sound of guns. A soldier broke the window, and asked my aunt where the Amba boys ‘separatists’ were hiding. She told him that she didn’t know, so he shot her in the right arm.” Multiple witnesses said that the security forces entered Meluf on foot, and later with military vehicles, including one armoured car with a machine gun mounted on top, at least three military trucks and a bulldozer. The forces forcibly entered at least 80 homes in Meluf, looted some, and burned down seven. Some Bali Nyonga residents spent nights in the bushes due to a heavy military presence in the village and massacre of dozens of civilians and roasted the corpses ad a deterrent. The picture below demonstrates the gruesomeness of the democide. Sincerely, no world leader can claim he is not abreast with happenings around the world. Social media has and is always putting the issues on the table of decision-makers. It is thus left for them to pick and choose which they attend to. For the case of 274

Cameroon, they deliberately ignored thinking the 86-year-old Biya, can kill the minority English-speaking people of Southern Cameroon to victory. Actions that the same world leaders abhor with other non-state actors like ISIS and Boko Haram, were passed on from “state actors”. What a travesty? The lack of mere condemnation from Human Rights Organizations and governments of the utilization of ISIS war tactics by Cameroun military on civilians in British Cameroon enabled the most dreadful civil war in recent African history. Picture 9: Civilians Massacred and incinerated by the Cameroon Military

Source: Mimi Mefo Takambou, October 5, 2019

Late Mr. Chiabah Samuel, popularly known for his jovial nature as Sam Soya, Father of 5, was beheaded in Belo in North West British Southern Cameroon on February 3, 2018 by FrenchCameroun soldiers, trained and equipped by the U.S government and other Western countries like France. The late Mr. Chiabah, at the time was a handicap on crutches, shot on the knee by the same soldiers during a peaceful demonstration 4 months earlier. In the video arrogantly posted by the military, the late handicap is seen denying the charges levelled against him by his killers. Another 275

tortured victim is equally seen claiming the handicapped Mr. Chiabah was behind a recent murder of a security officer, trump up charges the soft-spoken Mr. Chiabah denied. The fake witness who was later killed unconsciously revealed that the soldiers had already killed some other people. Hear him, “those lying outside…”. The gruesome images of a chopped head of Mr. Chiabah and the others were later released by the military with some showing the soldiers hopping on the corpses like a trampoline. These horrible images went viral, and no government, even Human Rights Organizations condemned them nor the actions of a military that received enormous support from the West. The seeds of “everything goes” by the Cameroun military were laid for this bloody conflict, that turned into a genocide after, as evidenced by the French Cameroun military’s horrors that followed the global silence of Mr. Chiabah’s beheading. Ecocide as War Weapon The environment is often a subject of economic, political, and charitable discourse. In recent years, ecological crimes have inspired appeals for a national or global order in which environmental violence could be prevented. A number of studies have shown that Ecocide can be a method of genocide if, for example, environmental destruction results in conditions of life that fundamentally threaten a social group’s cultural and/or physical existence ( Short,2010: 45-48). Beheading as War Weapon The history of warfare is replete with examples of atrocities, and the Ambazonian experience offers no exception. Ambazonians have been the victims of atrocities. Sometimes referred to as war crimes, atrocities have usually involved torture, maiming, or killing of civilians and non-combatants; destruction of nonmilitary targets; maltreatment and killing of wounded and prisoners of war; and use of weapons to cause superfluous damage or injury. Beheading is one of the atrocity crimes committed by the Camerounese military on Ambazonians.

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Picture 10: The Handicapped Mr. Chiabah before his Beheading

Source: Ambazonian Genocide Archives, 2020

Using the ISIS playbook, was just fashionable at this time because the terror group, was doing same in the middle East. A deeper look reveals that never-ending Presidency of Mr. Biya and the French were the first to use beheading as a war tactics in the late 50s and early 60s against their opponents on the eve of FrenchCameroun’s independence when a faction of the country opposed the French dictated terms of independence. Hundreds of Villages Burnt Some 400 communities in the restive Anglophone regions of Cameroon have been transformed into deserts recently after a brutal invasion of government soldiers. Mezam, Boyo, Manyu, Kupe-Muanenguba, Lebialem and Donga Matung are among the Divisions that have been hardest hit with several houses destroyed amid loss of lives.

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Picture 11: Pictures of Villages Burned to ashes

Source: Social Media post, 2019

Source: Social Media, 2019

Torture as War Weapon Cameroon has been rocked by public protests since 21 November 2016 leading to a very fisted an irrational reaction from the military and paramilitary police with the death toll set at over a dozen, many raped, tortured and scores of arrests. Students at the University of Buea and the University of Bamenda are having nightmares remembering their colleagues who were raped and tortured. Students were pulled from their beds and thrown out into 278

the streets where they were paraded as protesters and arraigned in court. Some were raped in their rooms and their property destroyed. Picture 12: University of Buea Students Abducted for Torture

Source: Social Media Post, 2018

The stories are horrible. In the University of Bamenda, Julius Akum was shot and killed. His friend Ndifor Sylvester Junior says the spectacle of his friend in a pool of blood still sends shudders down his spine. “I am not sure I would be comfortable sitting in that same amphitheatre where I used to read with Akum. I am traumatized and have nightmares.” Said Sylvester Junior. Junior’s toe was crushed with the nail pulled out necessitating anaesthesia, antibiotics and pain killers. “I am lucky to have left Bambili alive. It could have been me lying in that pool of blood.” Junior lamented. This is not the first time students have been killed in Cameroonian universities. In 2005 and 2006 student riots were very bloody at the University of Buea. Students had been caught in a web of protests which finally led to the sacking of Dr. Dorothy Limunga Njeuma, the pioneer Vice Chancellor of the University of Buea who had been in the same position for 13 years. Ambouer Gaous and three others were the price the students paid before the government of Cameroun heeded their calls. Before Christmas of 2005, body bags and coffins were sent back to families as Christmas gifts. People lost loved ones, who were executed for committing no crimes. Ndive Elvis still remembers how Ambouer Gaous was shot in front of their house in Molyko where he was washing plates. “Gaous was my schoolmate and childhood pal. He was not even involved in the strike, but was shot. I carried him on my shoulders for more than a 279

kilometre before he died on the way to the hospital. It was a sad day for me. Life has never been the same again. This time, we must drive these barbarians from our country.” Said Elvis. There was outright grief across West Cameroon. The force used to quell the student uprising was too much and did not match the stones from the students. Instead of apologies from Cameroonian authorities, their agents and assigns at the University of Buea organized a press conference at which they compared the stones from the students to the bullets from the soldiers. “David killed Goliath with a stone. The students could have killed the soldiers with stones had luck not been with the soldiers.” Opined Herbert Endeley. Dr. Herbert Endeley then served as Registrar of the University of Buea under the Vice Chancellor, Dorothy Limunga Njeuma. He was part of the crack team put together to justify and normalize the crimes against students in the University of Buea exemplified by the picture below. Picture 13: Arrested Civilian Students under Torture

Source: Social Media Post, 2017

Psychological Warfare as a Weapon of State Terror Every human communication can be either a report of straight facts or an attempt to suggest things and situations as they do not exist. Such distortion and perversion of facts strike at the core of human communication. The verbal battle against man's concept of truth and against his mind seems to be ceaseless. For example, if I can instil in eventual future enemies fear and terror and the 280

suggestion of impending defeat, even before they are willing to fight, my battle is already half won. The strategy of man to use a frightening mask and a loud voice to utter lies in order to manipulate friend and foe is as old as mankind. Primitive people used terror-provoking masks, magic fascination, or self-deceit as much as we use loudly spoken words to convince others or ourselves. They use their magic paints and we our ideologies. Truly, we live in an age of ads, propaganda, and publicity. But only under dictatorial and totalitarian regimes have such human habit formations mushroomed into systematic psychological assault on mankind. The weapons the Cameroun dictator uses against his own people, he may use against the outside world as well. For example, the false confessions that divert the minds of dictator’s subjects from their own real problems have still another effect: they are meant (and sometimes they succeed in their aim) to terrorize or silence the world’s public. By strengthening the myth of the dictator’s omnipotence, such confessions weaken man’s will to resist him. Totalitarian psychological warfare is directed largely toward this end. It is an effort to propagandize and hypnotize the world into submission. As far back as the early nineteenth century, Napoleon organized his Bureau de l'Opinion Publique in order to influence the thinking of the French people. But it fell to the Germans to develop the manipulation of public opinion into a huge, well-organised machine. Their psychological warfare became aggressive strategy in peacetime, the so-called war between wars. It was as a result of the Nazi attack on European morale and the Nazi war of nerves against their neighbours that the other nations of the world began to organize their own psychological forces, but it was only in the second half of the war that they were able to achieve some measure of success. The Germans had a long head start. Hitler’s psychological artillery, for example, was composed primarily of the weapon of fear. He had, for example, a network of fifth columnists whose main job was to sow rumours and suspicions among the citizens of the countries against which he eventually planned to fight. The people were upset not only by the spy system itself, but by the very rumour of spies. These fifth columnists spread slogans of defeat and political confusion: “Why should France die for England?” Fear began to direct people’s actions. Instead of facing the real threat of German invasion, instead of preparing for it, all of Europe shuddered at spies stories, 281

discussed irrelevant problems, argued endlessly about scapegoats and minorities. Thus, Hitler used the rampant, vague fears to becloud the real issues, and by attacking his enemies' will to fight, weakened them. Not content with this strategic attack on the will to defend oneself, Hitler tried to paralyze Europe with the threat of terror, not only the threat of bombing, destruction, and occupation, but also the psychological threat implicit in his own boast of ruthlessness. The fear of an implacable foe makes man more willing to submit even before he has begun to fight. Hitler’s criminal acts at home— the concentration camps, the gas chambers, the mass murders, the atmosphere of terror throughout Germany—were as useful in the service of his fear-instilling propaganda machinery as they were a part of his delusions. There is another important weapon the totalitarians use in their campaign to frighten the world into submission. This is the weapon of psychological shock. Hitler kept his enemies in a state of constant confusion and diplomatic upheaval. They never knew what this unpredictable madman was going to do next. Hitler was never logical because he knew that that was what he was expected to be. Logic can be met with logic, while illogic cannot—it confuses those who think straight. The Big Lie and monotonously repeated nonsense have more emotional appeal in a cold war than logic and reason. While the enemy is still searching for a reasonable counterargument to the first lie, the totalitarians can assault him with another. Strategical mental shocks were the instruments the Nazis used when they entered the Rhineland in 1936 and when they concluded their nonaggression pact with Russia in 1939. Stalin used the same strategy at the time of the Korean invasion in 1950 (which he directed), as did the Chinese and the North Koreans when they accused the United States of bacteriological warfare. By acting in this apparently irrational way, the totalitarians throw their logicminded enemies into confusion. The enemy feels compelled to deny the propagandistic lies or to explain things as they really are, and these actions immediately put him in the weaker defensive position. For the galloping lie can never be overtaken, it can only be overthrown. The technique of psychological shock has still another effect. It may so confuse the mind of the individual citizen that he ceases to make his own evaluations and begins to lean passively on the opinions of others. Hitler’s destruction of Warsaw and 282

Rotterdam—after the armistice in 1940, a complete violation of international law—immobilized France and shook the other democratic nations. Being in a paralysis of moral indignation, they became psychologically ill-equipped to deal with the Nazi horrors. Just as the technological advances of the modern world have refined and perfected the weapons of physical warfare, so the advance in man’s understanding of the manipulation of public opinion have enabled him to refine and perfect the weapons of psychological warfare. The tortures applied to the ‘secessionists’ (as shared by an anonymous victim in SED) included: •

•

•

•

•

•

“Making a prisoner stand at attention or sit with legs outstretched in complete silence from 4:30 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. and constantly waking him during the few hours allowed for sleep.” “Keeping prisoners in solitary confinement in boxes about five by three by two feet.” “Withholding liquids for days 'to help self-reflection.” “Binding a prisoner with a rope passed over a beam, one end fixed as a hangman's noose round his neck and the other end tied to his ankles. He was then told that if he slipped or bent his knees he would be committing suicide.” “Forcing a prisoner to kneel on jagged rocks and hold a large rock over his head with arms extended. It takes a man who had undergone this treatment days to recover the ability to walk.” “At one cell jailers push a pencil like piece of wood or metal through a hole in the cell door and made the prisoner hold the inner end in his teeth. Without warning a sentry would knock the outer end sidewise, breaking the man’s teeth or splitting the sides of his mouth. Sometimes the rod is rammed inward against the back of the mouth or down the throat. “Prisoners are marched barefooted to the frozen tank, water is poured over their feet and they are kept for hours with their feet frozen to the ice to ‘reflect’ on their ‘crimes.’”

Time, fear, and continual pressure are known to create a menticidal hypnosis. The conscious part of the personality no longer takes part in the automatic confessions. The brainwashed lives in a trance, repeating the record grooved into him and by somebody else. Fortunately, this, too, is known: as soon as the 283

victim returns to normal circumstances, the panicky and hypnotic spell evaporates, and he again awakens into reality. The relevance to the ethics of torture should be obvious. If you think that the equivalence between torture and collateral damage does not hold, because torture is up close and personal while stray bombs aren’t, you stand convicted of a failure of imagination on at least two counts: first, a moment’s reflection on the horrors that must have been visited upon innocent university students by torture will reveal that they are on par with those of any dungeon. If intuition about the wrongness of torture is born of an aversion to how people generally behave while being tortured, one should note that this particular infelicity could be circumvented pharmacologically, because paralytic drugs make it unnecessary for screaming ever to be heard or writhing seen. The Cameroon military easily devises methods of torture that would render a torturer as blind to the plight of his victims as a bomber pilot is at thirty thousand feet. Consequently, one’s natural aversion to the sights and sounds of the dungeon provide no foothold for those who would argue against the use of torture. As one would realize from the silence on illegality of torture by the international community, foreign policy is merely an extension of domestic policy. “Legality” means little when the interests of the Franco-Cameroonian bourgeoisie and their carceral state are concerned, both at home and abroad. Like the proverbial leopard, a socio-economic system that gave us Hitler’s SS cannot change its spots. Menticide The concept of “menticide” indicates an organized system of judicial perversion and psychological intervention, in which a powerful tyrant transfers his own thoughts and words into the minds and mouths of the victims he plans to destroy or to use for his own propaganda. Modern psychiatry may deliver him several tools for this perversion. As understanding of the human mind has grown, Meerloo (1951: 595) pointed out, we have come to realise that “this same human mind can be kneaded like putty in the hands of unscrupulous inquisitors”. Such psychological intervention, when it is part of a tyrannical system, may be called ‘menticide’. The Nazis had used it to turn resistance fighters into collaborators, the Communists had used it to break Cardinal Mindszenty (19480. 284

Those were cases of individual menticide, but he argued that there was also the social menticide of propaganda, suggestion and masshypnotism, fields in which Goebbels, for example, was an expert. Both individual and social menticide are difficult to resist. Training in auto-hypnosis might help – he had employed this technique himself when he was interrogated by the Germans Meerloo,1975). Being psychoanalysed could also arm people against menticide, but like auto-hypnosis it was impractical for the vast majority of people. French colonialism has badly affected the Southern Cameroons society culturally, socially, morally, economically and politically. This vividly explains brutal imposition of the use of French in Anglophone courts and in secondary schools, the difficulty Anglophone students face in tertiary level education where French is dominant, and when writing competitive entrance examinations into professional schools, the program of which is French-based. Moral bankruptcy, the francophone corrupt education culture implanted by the francophone colonialist’s rigid bureaucracy and the love of leisure, high consumption of alcohol, copied from the francophone has so negatively ruined the Southern Cameroons society leaving terrible scars that had long begged even for a revolution. Some of the Fons have become real tyrants and are known to have been responsible for the death of their subjects simply for opposing the Yaounde regime. By tradition a Fon is not supposed to do evil, shed blood, and see a corpse. Under the dispensation of Yaounde annexation and colonial rule, and so long as they act to further the interest of Yaounde annexation and colonial rule they are protected. Through the culture of brutal repression, the “balancoire”, the culture of fear has transformed the people into mere shadows of the indigenous personality. The clamour for liberation and restoration of statehood and sovereign independence is to build a vibrant and dynamic culture, Organization, and Political System. As an annexed, colonized and occupied territory, the British Southern Cameroon has no political system that is a true reflection of the legitimate aspirations of the people. The annexationist Yaounde regime has imposed its rigid centralized system, which is characteristically insensitive to the feelings of Southern Cameroonians. To make Southern Cameroons a real colony and an appendage of Yaounde, in 1972 the Southern Cameroon’s government was abrogated and the territory was balkanized into two provinces of La Republique du Cameroun. The two provinces are ruled by two governors appointed by Presidential 285

Decrees and as representatives of the President, each is accountable and responsible to him the President. The two governors, are mostly francophone Camerounese. The imposed administrative system is the Napoleonic Prefectoral system in which the proconsul wields unlimited powers, is law unto himself. Within his area of jurisdiction and above his subjects he is an absolute tyrant. He owes his high position and continuance in that post or rise to a higher post to the absolute President alone. There is an unwritten, but well executed policy in Southern Cameroons; for the proconsul to demonstrate his loyalty to his mentor and account for your stewardship brute force must be used to keep the subjects subservient. As experience has proven it is the most oppressive prefects, governors and uniform personnel that have earned accelerated promotion and appointments to higher position in government. Southern Cameroons has thus become a land of golden opportunities for the most oppressive and exploitative Francophones; indeed, those who slice your throat while smiling with you. So many of the problems that Ambazonian people face in the world today are due to the assault on their minds by those who captured them and removed significant numbers to La République du Cameroun as privileged slaves useful idiots or enablers of colonization. This also included the mind damage caused by the tampering of Ambazonian lands and culture on the territory. The annexation of Southern Cameroons by La Republique du Cameroun is being sold to the domestic and international communities as national consolidation- a sort of mental rape or menticide. Let us note here that The Foumban Constitutional Conference of 1961, which federated Southern Cameroons with La Republique du Cameroun was not in line with what, the UN had envisaged. According to the UN such a conference was to involve the governments of Southern Cameroons, La Republique du Cameroun, United Kingdom as the Administering Authority, and the UN as the Supervisory Authority. Unfortunately, it was held without some of these parties like the UN and Britain. Again, there was no accord signed by the two parties that discussed in Foumban. However, the Federal Republique of Cameroon that emerged from Foumban Talks was made up of two federated states, namely, the State of West Cameroon, made up of Southern Cameroons, and the State of East Cameroon, made of La République du Cameroun. Thus, the disappearance of Southern Cameroons and La République du 286

Cameroun, which respectively became sub nations of the federation with each retaining its inherited territory, colonial political and administrative system, legal, educational, economic and cultural systems. This was eroded in the name of national unity and development in May 1972. The Role of Traditional Authority During the struggle for independence the influence of the Traditional Rulers was very strong and with constitutional evolution the British approved a House of Chiefs, with consultative powers in 1957 thus like the British House of Lords, Southern Cameroons had an upper house. This was a clear recognition of the important role of the Fons and Chiefs. Within the brief period of self-rule Oct. 1954 – Sept. 1961, there was fast development in all sectors of life. Anglo-Saxon culture flourished as democratic political institutions took firm roots in national life. However, the treachery of “independence by joining” reversed the clock of progress. The worst came as from 1972 when French culture, values were imposed with the abolition of the State Government, House of Assembly and House of Chiefs in Buea. The traditional rulers are now auxiliaries of the Yaounde administration whose francophone proconsuls lord it over the traditional rulers. They no longer serve as the embodiment of the culture and tradition of their people. The Fons and Chiefs are the agents of the Yaounde dictator against their people. The Enigma of Coexistence Is it possible to coexist with a totalitarian system that never ceases to use its psychological artillery? Could a free Southern Cameroons democracy be strong enough to tolerate the parasitic intrusion of totalitarianism into its rights and freedoms from La République du Cameroun? History tells us that many opposing and clashing ideologies have been able to coexist under a common law that assured tolerance and justice. In such a situation the church no longer burns its apostates. But in the current dispensation of clashing civil law and common law jurisdictions, the centre cannot hold. Let me be clear. Before the opposites of totalitarianism and free democracy can coexist under the umbrella of supervising law and mutual good will, a great deal more of mutual understanding and 287

tolerance will have to be built up. The actual cold war and psychological warfare certainly do not yet help toward this end. Picture 14: Queen Elizabeth and Southern British Cameroons Traditional Leaders

Source: Queen Elizabeth II is presented to people from the Southern Cameroons at a garden party held in the grounds of Government House in Lagos, Nigeria during a royal tour of Nigeria in February 1956. (Photo by Popperfoto/Getty Images).

To the totalitarian like La République du Cameroun, the word “coexistence” has a different meaning than it has to us. The totalitarian may use it merely as a catch-word or an appeaser. The danger is that the concept of peaceful coexistence may become a disguise, dulling the awareness of inevitable interactions and so profiting the psychologically stronger party. Lenin spoke about the strategic breathing spell (peredyshka) that has to weaken the enemy. Too enthusiastic a peace movement may mean a superficial appeasement of problems. Such an appeal has to be studied and restudied, lest it result in a dangerous let down of defences which have to remain mobilized to face a ruthless enemy. Coexistence may mean a suffocating subordination much like that of prisoners coexisting with their jailers. At its best, it may 288

imitate the intensive symbiotic or ever-parasitic relationship we can see among animals which need each other, or as we see it in the infant in its years of dependency upon its mother. In order to coexist and to cooperate, one must have notions and comparable images of interaction, of a sameness of ideas, of a belonging-together, of an interdependence of the whole human race, in spite of the existence of racial and cultural differences. Otherwise the ideology backed by the greater military strength will strangle the weaker one. Peaceful coexistence presupposes on both sides a high understanding of the problems and complications of simple coexistence, of mutual agreement and limitations, of the diversity of personalities, and especially of the coexistence of contrasting and irreconcilable thoughts and feelings in every individual of the innate ambivalence of man. It demands an understanding of the rights of both the individual and the collectivity. Using coexistence as a catch-word, we may obscure the problems involved, and we may find that we use the word as a flag that covers gradual surrender to the stronger strategist. French Colonial Policy imposed on Southern Cameroonians The French colonial approach or totalitaria fosters the illusion that everyone is part of the government, a voter; no one can be a non-voter or anti-voter. His inner pros and cons and doubts are not private problems of the individual himself anymore; his thoughts belong to the state, the dictator, the ruling circle, the Party. His inner thoughts have to be controlled. Only those in power know what really lies behind national policy. The ordinary citizen becomes as dependent and obedient as a child. In exchange for giving up his individuality, he obtains some special gratifications: the feeling of belonging and of being protected, the sense of relief over losing his personal boundaries and responsibilities, the ecstasy of being taken up and absorbed in wild, uncontrolled collective feelings, the safety of being anonymous, of being merely a cog in the wheel of the all-powerful state. In other words, a) Ostensibly, French colonial administration is usually characterized as more ‘direct rule’ compared to the British; traditional authorities were largely ignored. b).French ideas about colonial policy (as in many things) were divided—assimilation association. Assimilation 289

This approach had its origins in the French revolution— equality, fraternity and freedom should apply to anyone who was French, regardless of race or colour; thus, rights of citizenship, including political rights, had been extended to residents of the cantons of Saint-Louis in Senegal in the 1790s. However, people in the conservative, catholic and monarchist tradition in France were never happy with this; in fact, political rights to people in Senegal became a weathervane of politics in France: when the republicans were dominant and controlled the constitution, the Senegalese had the vote, but when monarchists were dominant, they did not. This approach was never applied anywhere else in Africa, until after 1945. Assimilation was predicated on a presumption of the superiority of French culture and ‘civilisation’. As part of France’s ‘mission civilisatrice’, when confronted by ‘barbarian’ people, it was the duty of France to civilise them and turn them into Frenchmen. While this implied a kind of equality (that Africans were capable of becoming Frenchmen), it also dismissed African culture as nonexistent or at least without value; of course, the French tended to feel that way about almost everyone else too. French culture was the epitome and everything else was at best 2nd or 3rd rate! African society was seen as without history or civilisation, largely in a state of war and flux. ‘Assimilation’ meant different things at different times; Michael Crowder (Senegal , see chap. 1-4) mentions 7 meanings over the history of Senegal. •

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during the revolution, it was the métis population which was assimilated and able to seize opportunities available in the assimilation policy; after the restoration of 1815, the rights of non-white French in Senegal were downgraded. in 1833 (the constitutional monarchy of Louis Philippe), political rights were conferred on all free residents (although slavery had ostensibly been abolished during the revolution, domestic slavery was not finally abolished until 1848); as a result, 12,000 Africans acquired voting rights in addition to whites and métis who already had such rights. also, Senegal got to elect a deputy to the National Assembly and a métis was elected; political rights were withdrawn under the empire of Louis Napoleon in the 1850s and 60s. Governor Faidherbe, during the empire in the 1860s, began the process of conquest and expansion of Senegal; the 290

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pattern in the newly conquered areas set the pattern for France’s African empire; the privileges of the 4 communes of the coast were not extended into the interior and the policy was not assimilationist; here began the distinction between ‘citoyen’ and ‘sujet’ the right to a deputy was regained in 1871 in the 3rd republic; also, an elected body was established in Senegal in 1879, but only for citizens, not subjects. These were the last extensions of political rights in French Africa until 1944, and these rights often had to be fought for because administrators regretted them and wanted to end the restrictions on their authority (the people in the cantons had little interest in expansion into the interior). by 1900, local whites had lost political control in the cantons to the métis; leading up to 1914, there were major attacks on the rights and status of Africans; although their rights to vote were upheld, Africans in the cantons did not get full recognition of their status as ‘citoyen’. in 1912 a law stated that only subjects of West Africa (i.e., not from Indochina or central Africa) could become ‘citoyen’ and set stiff conditions and requirements; as a result, 1914- 1922 only 94 ‘sujets’ became ‘citoyens’; up to 1937, only about 2,000 had managed to do it in all of French West Africa. during WW1, the first African was elected deputy and from that point, both whites and métis had lost political control to Africans in the cantons. thus, assimilation granted rights to Africans and, in theory at least, equality to those few who were considered assimilated; however, from the late 19th C until 1944, it was restricted and under attack.

The great expansion of the French empire in the late 19th C had brought large numbers of Africans under French control and this provoked a far-ranging debate on colonial policy. There was a growing reaction in France against assimilation: some argued on racist grounds that Africans were inferior and thus incapable of full assimilation; others felt that the tremendous educational effort involved in making assimilation a reality was too much and that beyond some 291

arithmetic and minimal literacy, training in agriculture and simple trades was more important. also, in the background was Algeria with a large, influential French settler population pushing for special privileges and rights as compared to the large Moslem population there. however, there was also a growing recognition that Africans had a very different culture. Association The opposing idea was that the relationship between the conqueror and the conquered, of white and black peoples, should be one of ‘association’, not one of identity and merging; it emphasised cooperation between the rulers and the ruled. association was supposed to respect the cultural and political values and institutions of Africans; Africans could not and should not be turned into black French people. like Dual Mandate, it was asserted that economic development was for the mutual advantage of both France and Africans. to some extent, especially after 1918, proponents referred approvingly to the British model of indirect rule and claimed the intention to rule more indirectly, retaining traditional custom and law. Actually, conquering administrators like Faidherbe in Senegal, had done this much earlier and for many of the same reasons as the British—it was cheaper and provoked less resistance. However, in practice, implementation was always a bit superficial; at best, Africans and ‘traditional’ authorities were used only at the very bottom rung of the administration. They were subordinate cogs in the bureaucracy for carrying out policies which were developed by expatriate French officials with no real consultation with Africans. African societies were carved up into ‘cantons’ (districts) and chiefs who were not adequately efficient or subservient were deposed and replaced, often with little regard for traditional status. The Kingdom of Dahomey, which would have been an ideal candidate under the British system of ‘indirect rule’, was completely dismantled and no significant members of the royal family were employed by the colonial administration. Eventually, advisory councils were started in each level of the bureaucracy (supposedly to provide knowledge about African law and custom), but they had no power and not much influence. In effect, there was a dual legal system set up—French law for whites, métis, African residents of 292

Saint-Louis and the few Africans in West Africa who were naturalised ‘citoyens’; ‘sujets’ were subject to a system called justice indigène. In spite of the name it was not a real attempt to preserve or revive African law or justice; instead French administrators, assisted by African assessors, dispensed civil and criminal justice ostensibly according to African law, but mostly according to what the white official decided was African law or more usually, according to what he thought was natural justice. Of course, this produced a great deal of variation in the law and its administration. There was little machinery or penal provisions to curb an administrator; there were few appeals from his decisions except that he could not execute on his own authority (however, he presented the evidence to his superiors so usually he could get his decision confirmed). In addition, there was a system called indigénat which in fact allowed administrative tyranny; governors could define certain offences by decree, and persons could be tried summarily by local administrators Also, very heavy obligations were placed on the African population by the colonial administration: prestation—12 days of free labour (or its money equivalent) for public works and purposes. compulsory or forced labour paid at very low rates (conscription of labour). conscription in wartime. Money taxes (as was frequently the case in Africa) were designed to force Africans to grow export crops or go out to work (we shall return to discuss this further). The gross error that the BBC and VOA have done to Cameroun is to allow state propaganda to be spilled on their network as news. This is due to the ignorance of some Western press organs that confuse state versus public media. While the public media in the West is a people-funded organ that strives for neutrality/objectivity in its reporting and is not controlled by corporate interest as they accept no commercials, the setup is often confused with the state media in most third world countries. No journalist who works for these state media and equally doubles as a foreign correspondent for reputable stations like BBC, VOA etc can be objective or neutral in reporting issues about the same government who pays his bills at the end of the day. It might prevail in other African countries but not in Cameroun where 293

journalists are in jail for doing their job. Others like Wazizi have been executed for reflecting just .01% of that society. In Cameroon peddling falsehood by the media is a critical dimension of the rape of the mind. This French mind control through association with French colonial imperialism was imposed on Southern Cameroonians through the destruction of their political institutions, values and belief systems or what we refer to here as politicide. Politicide Politicide or state annihilation denotes the eradication of the political existence of a group and sabotaging the turning of a community of people into a polity using brute force. Victims of politicide are identified primarily in terms of their political opposition to the regime and dominant groups or in terms of their position within the society (for example, religious or ethnic groups, peasants, intellectuals, etc). Political Conditioning Political conditioning should not be confused with training or persuasion or even indoctrination. It is more than that. It is tampering. It is taking possession of both the simplest and the most complicated nervous patterns of man. It is the battle for the possession of the nerve cells. It is coercion and enforced conversion. Instead of conditioning man to an unbiased facing of reality, the seducer conditions him to catchwords, verbal stereotypes, slogans, formulas, and symbols. Different communities, languages, and cultures are observed in La République du Cameroun. The country is not ethnically homogenous. Hence, an intense sense of national unity has not been developed. Because of this divided nature of La République du Cameroun, it has always been exposed to external influences. The term “Anglophone problem in Cameroon” subsumes the various political, economic, and social problems that the former Southern British Cameroons community in Cameroon has been facing since it acceded to independence by joining Francophone Cameroon in 1961. The origins and evolution of this problem are outlined in works like the following: Konings (2013), Ndi (2014), BAPEC (2017), Dounge (2017), Atanga Mufor (2011), to name only a few. These works have in common the fact that they decry among others, the 294

political marginalization of Anglophones in the country, the dominance of French, generalized poverty since the creation of the unitary state and the domineering behaviour of Francophone administrators posted to Anglophone Cameroon. France has been one of the first countries that has realized this situation. French Politicians think that France-Cameroonian relations have to be kept on the front line in a sustainable way. My understanding of the conditioning process leads us also to an understanding of some of the paradoxical reactions found among victims of concentration camps and other prisoners. Often those with a rigid, simple belief are better able to withstand the continual barrage against their minds than were the flexible, sophisticated ones, full of doubt and inner conflicts. The simple man with deep rooted, freely absorbed religious faith could exert a much greater inner resistance than could the complex, questioning intellectualist. The refined intellectual is much more handicapped by the internal pros and cons. Therefore, close personal ties between the French President and La République du Cameroun leaders come to the forefront at the heart of Franco-Cameroonian relations. Furthermore, military bases have been an important part of France’s Cameroon strategy to garrison oil fields. Economic factors like CFA Franc and natural resources have also deepened the impact. The cultural co-operation through La Francophonie, as well as the contribution of French citizens living in LA RÉPUBLIQUE DU CAMEROUN -Le Patronat Francais, has been important elements in keeping imperialist relations fresh and comprehensive. State Policy Governing elites of La République du Cameroun consider France as their reliable ally that provided economic, political, and technical and, if needed, military support, in a situation in which their hold on power was often fragile. (1). It should be noted here in retrospect that the French administered French Cameroon for the United Nations. It implemented policies of isolation akin to those Biya has put in place for Anglophone Cameroon today. French administrators prevented members and sympathizers of the most popular pro-independence party, the Union of the Populations of Cameroon (UPC), from communicating with the rest of the world: Administrators intercepted mail and telegraph services, and established a cordon sanitaire around the UN Visiting 295

Missions of 1955 and 1958 to keep them away from nationalist demonstrators. In violation of the UN trusteeship agreement requiring France to prepare the territory for self-government, the French administration banned the UPC and its affiliated women’s party, youth party and confederated trade unions. With all avenues to political action closed off, the UPC leadership resorted to violence, implanting maquis (guerrillas) severely lacking in arms and resources throughout the southern regions of the territories. While the world looked the other way, the French unleashed an asymmetrical counterinsurgency, uprooting the maquis and brutally punishing the civilian populations in their vicinity. Interrogation, detention without trial, torture, and extrajudicial killings became features of daily life under a Franco-Cameroonian hybrid state even before the UN Trusteeship was lifted with independence on the January 1, 1960. Gaston Monnerville, the former French head of the Senate said at France’s congress that, “Without overseas territory, today’s France would decline to be a lesser power needing to be liberated instead of the winner of WWII”. Former President François Mitterrand said that, “Without Africa, there would be no history of France in the 21st century” (Denang, 201). French politicians know they had to maintain close relationships with La République du Cameroun. French Defence and Security for Africa Africa to France is like Latin America to the US and East Europe to the Soviet Union. Despite the reduction of French troops in this period, the conviction that “Africa is France’s backyard” remained unchanged. After the independences of French colonies on the continent, France struggled to maintain military cooperation with the newly independent states and signed new military defence treaties with all the new countries (except Algeria) with the name of preventing communist penetration and keeping African internal security. From 1960 to 1994, France updated defence pacts with 27 African nations, which laid a legal foundation for the continuous deployment of French military bases. In the 1970s and 1980s, France deployed bases in over 20 African states, which represented 40% of the continent’s territory. So, France remained the most influential external power among the youngest countries of the post-colonial period (Degang, 2011). 296

In addition to defence pacts and military bases, France has started to use direct military intervention option after losing the possession of colonies. According to Bade (2013), France has intervened in its former African colonies between thirty and fifty times. Griffin (2007) claims 37 times since 1960. In terms of offering a comparison, Britain has intervened in ex-colonies in Africa just once in the same period. Training has also been an important component of the security relationship. From decolonization until 1997, France trained approximately forty-seven thousand African military officers, especially at the military cadet school in Yaounde. In fact, during the last 50 years, a total of 67 coups happened in 26 countries in Africa, 16 of those countries are French ex-colonies, which means 61% of the coups happened in Francophone Africa. Table 2: Number of Coups in Africa by country Ex French colonies

Other African countries

Country

Number of coups

Country

Number of coups

Togo

1

Egypte

1

Tunisia

1

Libye

1

1

Equatorial Guinea

1

Cote d’Ivoire

Madagascar

1

Guinea Bissau

2

Rwanda

1

Liberia

2

Algeria

2

Nigeria

3

297

Congo – RDC

2

Ethiopia

3

Mali

2

Ouganda

4

Guinea Conakry

2

Soudan

5

SUB-TOTAL 1

13

Congo

3

Tchad

3

Burundi

4

Central Africa

4

Niger

4

Mauritania

4

Burkina Faso

5

Comores

5

SUB-TOTAL 2

32

TOTAL (1 + 2)

45

TOTAL

22

Source: Survie France, Françafrique ,1993

298

As these numbers demonstrate, France is quite desperate but active to keep a strong hold on his colonies whatever the cost, no matter what. In March 2008, former French President Jacques Chirac said: “Without Africa, France will slide down into the rank of a third [world] power.” Chirac’s predecessor François Mitterrand already prophesied in 1957 that: “Without Africa, France will have no history in the 21st century.” At this very moment, 14 African countries are obliged by France, through a colonial pact, to put 85% of their foreign reserves into France central bank under French minister of Finance control. Until 2014, Togo and about 13 other African countries still had to pay colonial debt to France. African leaders who refuse are killed or victim of coup. Those who obey are supported and rewarded by France with lavish lifestyle while their people endure extreme poverty, and desperation. It’s such an evil system even denounced by the European Union, but France is not ready to move from that colonial system which puts about 500 billion dollars from Africa to its treasury year in year out. Economic Relations of Colonial Imperialism As it may be figured out from stated number of examples, the armed forces have been actively used to be effective on all sides of the continent. For certain, making the presence felt in a country just through the army did not mean to be dominant on every field in the country in question. It was also necessary to be in that region through other ways to be accepted as a big brother. Economic links were the first one that comes to surface. By West African and Central African CFA (Communauté Financière Africaine) Francs, the French government maintained great power over fifteen countries. France was interested in strategic resources more than trade. France obtained 100% of its uranium, 90% of its bauxite, 76% of its manganese, and 59% of its cobalt from Africa. 70% of the oil state-owned energy company Elf extracted during the 1980s came from Gabon, Cameroon, Angola, and Congo (3). Considering the exploitation of natural resources, financial aids were concentrated on those regions. CFA franc. These two words probably do not mean much to most readers, but they encapsulate one of the world’s most enduring–and little-known–economic experiments. In the simplest possible terms, the CFA franc is a currency used by 14 countries of Western and Central Africa, all of which are former French 299

colonies. Hence the name ‘franc’, a reference to the currency formerly used in the colonies: the French franc. Indeed, as we will see, the name is more than just a semantic legacy. France still plays a considerable role in the management of this ‘African’ currency. But, to avoid getting ahead of ourselves, let’s start by laying out the basics. When we talk of the CFA franc, we are in fact talking of two monetary unions: the Central African Economic and Monetary Community (CEMAC), which includes Cameroon, Gabon, Chad, Equatorial Guinea, the Central African Republic and the Republic of the Congo; and the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU), which comprises Benin, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Niger, Senegal and Togo. These two monetary unions use two distinct CFA francs, but which share the same acronym: for the CEMAC franc, CFA stands for ‘Financial Cooperation in Central Africa’, while for the WAEMU franc it stands for ‘African Financial Community’. However, these two CFA francs work in exactly the same manner and are pegged to the euro with the same parity. Together with a 15th state–the Comoros, which uses a different franc (the Comorian franc), but which, again, is subject to the same rules as the other two–they form the so-called ‘franc zone’. Overall, more than 162million people use the two CFA francs (plus the Comorian franc). For a long time, the CFA has been a non-issue in public debate–even in France or Africa. This, however, is changing. In recent years, it has been at the centre of an increasingly heated debate in the Francophone world, helped, in part, by books like L’arme invisible de la Françafrique: Une histoire du franc CFA (‘The Invisible Army of Franco-African Imperialism: A History of the CFA Franc’), by the French journalist Fanny Pigeaud and the Senegalese economist Ndongo Samba Sylla. As they put it: ‘For a long time, much effort has been put into keeping the topic of the CFA franc and the issues that surround it shielded from the public debate, in France as well as in Africa. Being poorly informed on the topic, citizens lacked the tools to question the system. However, in recent years, the CFA franc has ceased to be a matter debated solely by experts … and is today the subject of articles, events, television shows and conferences on the African continent and in France.’

On one hand, the French government claims that the CFA franc is a factor of economic integration and monetary and financial 300

stability. On the other hand, the opponents of the currency–which include many African economists and intellectuals–argue that the CFA franc represents a form of ‘monetary slavery’, which hinders the development of African economies and keeps them subservient to France. In order to make sense of this debate–and before we move on to analysing the actual mechanism of the CFA system–we need to start from the origins of this contentious currency. A history of Violence and Repression as a Power Factor The CFA franc – which originally meant ‘franc of the French colonies of Africa’ – was created in 1945, when it became the official currency of the French colonies in Africa, which until then had used the French franc. Officially, granting the colonies their ‘own’ currency was a reward for the decisive role they played in the Second World War. In fact, as Pigeaud and Sylla write, ‘far from marking the end of the “colonial pact”, the birth of the CFA franc favoured the restoration of very advantageous commercial relations for France’. Indeed, despite the rhetoric about granting greater autonomy to the colonies, the CFA franc was essentially a French creature, issued and controlled by the French Ministry of Finance. This meant that France could set the external value of new currency–its exchange rate vis-à-vis the French franc–according to its own needs. Which is exactly what the colonial power proceeded to do, by imposing a highly overvalued exchange rate on the colonies. The aim was twofold: to make French exports cheaper, thus encouraging the colonies to increase their imports from metropolitan France (that is, France located in Europe, as distinguished from its colonies and protectorates); and to make the colonial exports more expensive on world markets, thus forcing the colonies to turn to the metropolis to get rid of their excess production. France, having been severely weakened by the war, therefore benefited both in terms of exports and imports, allowing it to regain its market share and to secure the supply of muchneeded raw materials. However, the most obvious benefit for France was the fact that the CFA franc allowed it to continue purchasing resources from the colonies ‘for free’, since it effectively issued and controlled the colonies’ currency, just like it did when the colonies used the French franc. In short, Pigeaud and Sylla note, contrary to French colonial propaganda, the aim of the CFA franc remained that of 301

‘ensuring France’s economic control of the conquered territories and facilitating the drainage of their wealth’ towards the metropolis. What sets France apart from all the other former colonial powers in Africa is the fact its monetary empire survived the decolonisation process which began in the 1950s. It should be noted, however, that France was no exception in this regard: at the time, it was common practice among colonial powers to impose forms of monetary subservience on their respective colonies. What sets France apart from all the other former colonial powers in Africa–such as Great Britain, Belgium, Spain and Portugal–is the fact France’s monetary empire survived the decolonisation process which began in the 1950s. So, while most African colonies, upon becoming independent, adopted national currencies, France managed to cajole most of its former colonies (except for Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria) into maintaining the CFA franc. It did so by resorting to all the pressure tools at its disposal: diplomacy, corruption, economic destabilisation, even outright violence. ‘To uphold the CFA franc’, Sylla writes, ‘France has never hesitated to jettison heads of state tempted to withdraw from the system. Most were removed from office or killed in favour of more compliant leaders who cling to power come hell or high water.’ The first step was to force the colonies to sign a long list of socalled ‘cooperation agreements’ before granting them their ‘independence’. Under these agreements, the new states were forced to entrust the management of virtually all key sectors of their administration to the French state, including their currency, by pledging to remain within the monetary union of the franc zone. Pierre Villon, a French Communist MP, noted at the time that in the economic, monetary and financial fields, these agreements tended ‘to limit in practice the sovereignty granted [to the former colonies] by the law’. To understand why the African states accepted such heavy limitations to their newly won sovereignty, one must grasp the extent of their psychological subjection to France – and their fear of ‘wading into open waters’ – stemming from decades of colonial ‘tutelage’. These were, after all, agricultural or extremely underdeveloped economies. However, it wasn’t long before the first rebellions against the CFA franc started breaking out. From the 1960s to the 1980s, various countries tried to abandon the CFA system, but very few actually succeeded. As Pigeaud and Sylla write, France ‘did everything to discourage those states that intended to leave the 302

CFA. Intimidations, destabilisation campaigns and even assassinations and coups d’état marked this period, testifying to the permanent and unequal power relations on which the relationship between France and its “partners” in Africa was based – and is still based today’. When Guinea, after its repeated calls for a reform of the CFA system fell on deaf ears, launched its own national currency in 1960, France responded by secretly printing huge quantities of the new currency before pouring them into the country, causing inflation to skyrocket and transforming the country into an economic basket case. Similarly, when Mali left the franc zone in 1962, France pressured neighbouring nations to limit trade with the country, contributing to a sharp depreciation of the new currency and compelling Mali eventually to re-join the CFA system. France is also believed to have played a role in the murder of at least two African progressive heads of state that were planning to launch a national currency and take their countries out of the CFA system: Sylvanus Olympio in Togo (in 1963) and Thomas Sankara in Burkina Faso (in 1987). This long trail of violence and repression helps us understand how France became ‘the only country in the world to have succeeded in the extraordinary feat of circulating its currency, and only its currency, in politically free countries’, as the Cameroonian economist Joseph Tchundjang Pouemi observed in 1980. It also calls into question the claim that the African states adhere ‘voluntarily’ to the CFA system. The ‘diabolical mechanism’ of CFA franc as pillar of French Dispossession With this necessary premise out of the way, we can now move on to analyse the ‘diabolical mechanism’, in Pigeaud and Sylla’s words, that underlies the CFA franc. Nowadays, Paris claims that the CFA franc has become a fully-fledged ‘African currency’ managed by the Africans themselves. In the late 1970s, in a process that took the name of ‘Africanisation’ of the franc zone, the headquarters of the central banks of the two monetary unions – the BEAC (Bank of Central African States), the WAEMU’s currencyissuing authority, and the BCEAO (Central Bank of West African States), the CEMAC’s currency-issuing authority–were transferred to the African continent. Furthermore, the number of French 303

representatives sitting on the boards of the two central banks was cut back. However, as Pigeaud and Sylla note, apart from these cosmetic changes, the mechanism at the heart of the system ‘has barely changed since the colonial era’. Today it rests on the so-called four fundamental principles of the franc zone, which continue to grant France almost absolute control over the CFA system, even though France no longer possesses the franc. Indeed, upon adopting the euro, France succeeded in ensuring that the management of the CFA system remained within its exclusive remit, with the European Union and the other member states having little or no say in the matter. The result is that ‘the spirit and function of the device on which this colonial creation rests remain the same as when it was created in 1945’. The four principles in question are the fixed exchange rate (the anchoring of the CFA francs first to the French franc and now to the euro); the free movement of capital between the African countries and France; the free convertibility of the CFA francs into euros but not into other currencies (or even between the two CFA francs), which means that every foreign payment made in CFA francs must first be converted into euros through the Paris exchange markets; and the centralisation of foreign exchange reserves. The benefits that France accrues from the four principles underlying the CFA system are innumerable. ‘More than simply a currency’, Pigeaud and Sylla write, ‘the CFA franc allows France to manage its economic, monetary, financial and political relations with some of its former colonies according to logic functional to its interests’. For example, by virtue of its presence within the institutions of the franc zone (France holds a de facto veto on the boards of the two central banks), Paris still has the power to determine the external value (exchange rate) of CFA francs, without even having to inform the African countries in advance (as France did in 1994, when it devalued the CFA francs by 50 per cent, and then again in 1999, when it adopted the euro). Moreover, thanks to the free movement of capital, French companies can ‘privatise’ the profits made in Africa by repatriating them to France rather than investing them locally. A French Communist MP noted that in the economic, monetary and financial fields, the CFA franc tended to limit in practice the sovereignty granted to the former colonies by the law. But the real keystone of the CFA system is represented by the centralisation of foreign exchange reserves: this essentially means that the central banks of the franc zone–the BEAC and the 304

BCEAO–must deposit a part of their foreign-exchange reserves in France, in a special account at the French Treasury known as the ‘operating account’. Initially, the BEAC and the BCEAO were required to deposit almost all their foreign reserves; nowadays, they are ‘only’ required to deposit 50 per cent (the BEAC) and 60 per cent (the BCEAO) of their total reserves. These operating accounts are denominated in euros. They are regularly credited and debited based on the international payments of the African countries. The underlying mechanism of the system is relatively simple: if the Ivorian economy exports cocoa to France for a value of €400million, this sum is credited to the operating account of the BCEAO; on the other hand, if the country imports €400million worth of equipment from the euro area, the operating account is debited for the same amount. Theoretically, this is a quid pro quo for the ‘guarantee’ of convertibility offered by France to the countries of the franc zone. This arrangement stipulates that in the event of a shortage of foreign reserves, the French Treasury is required to grant an advance to the central banks of the franc zone to avoid a devaluation of the CFA francs. But this guarantee exists only on paper. Paris has introduced strict rules (including a series of automatic mechanisms that are triggered in the event of a scarcity of reserves) that make it highly unlikely for a ‘zero foreign exchange’ situation to arise. Indeed, as Pigeaud and Sylla note, it is not really France that guarantees the convertibility of the francs; rather, it is the reserves of the large exporting countries, such as the Ivory Coast and Cameroon, that compensate for the scarcity of reserves of countries, such as the Central African Republic and Togo, which have fewer resources. Theoretically, the African countries could dispense with the guarantee altogether. This is testified by the fact that the operating account of the central banks of the franc zone have constantly registered a positive balance since the birth of the system (except for a brief period between the late 1980s and early 1990s). But the real ‘exorbitant privilege’ that France derives from the operating account is that, through it, it can continue to pay its imports from the franc zone – which include a wide range of agricultural, forest, mining and energy resources, including uranium, of crucial importance for the French economy – in its own currency (first the franc, now the euro), without having to go through other currencies, and thus without depleting its own foreign reserves. To 305

give an example, if France imports, say, $1million worth of cotton from Burkina Faso, it merely has to credit the equivalent in euros to the BCEAO’s operating account. Barrier to development And what about the alleged benefits that the CFA system brings to the African states? According to its defenders, the CFA franc has promoted the economic development of the member states, facilitating the region’s economic integration and creating an environment of macroeconomic stability. In reality, Pigeaud and Sylla argue, the CFA system inflicts ‘four important handicaps’ on the member countries. The first two handicaps are obviously the fixed exchange rate and the anchoring of CFA francs to the euro. As is well known, a country that pegs its currency to another currency cannot pursue an autonomous monetary policy. The WAEMU and the CEMAC, two currency unions mainly composed of poor countries, are de facto subordinated to the monetary policy of another currency union, the Eurozone, which comprises highly developed countries with totally different priorities and needs. The consequences of this were well explained by the Nobel prize winner Robert Mundell in 1997: If a small country unilaterally fixes its currency to a larger neighbour, it in effect transfers policy sovereignty to that larger neighbour. The fixing country loses sovereignty because it no longer controls its own monetary destiny; the larger country gains sovereignty because it manages a larger currency area and gains more “clout” in the international monetary system.

Moreover, as the countries of the Eurozone know all too well, the fixed exchange rate means that: The 15 member countries of the franc zone, taken individually, are deprived of the possibility of using the exchange rate to soften the effects of economic shocks or to improve the price competitiveness of local products. And this in a continent where shocks of every kind–political (coups d’état, wars, social tensions etc), climatic (rainfall variations, droughts, floods etc) and economic (volatility of the prices of primary products, interest rates on the foreign debt, capital flows etc)–are commonplace. Thus, to deal with adverse shocks, the countries of the franc zone have only one option, in the absence of

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fiscal transfers: “internal devaluation”, that is, an adjustment of internal prices that passes through the reduction of labour income and public spending, tax increases and the decline in economic activity.

A cursory glance at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) statistics confirms that the fixed exchange rate has proven to be a ruinous choice for the African countries: since 2000, the countries of Sub-Saharan Africa operating in a fixed-exchange-rate system have experienced economic growth between one and two percentage points below that of those countries with a flexible exchange rate. This gap is due in particular, to ‘the lower growth of the member countries of the franc area’, states the IMF. As Sylla notes: ‘(E)xperience shows that nations like Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria, which, post-independence, withdrew from the franc zone and [minted] their own currency, are stronger economically than any user of the CFA franc’. A third handicap follows from the first two: the under-financing of the economies of the franc zone. In order to avoid depleting their foreign reserves, which would jeopardise the fixed parity, the central banks of the franc zone must limit the growth of domestic credit (the volume of bank loans made available to governments, businesses and households). Moreover, since 1999, the countries of the franc zone are subject to the same budgetary constraints (strict deficit- and debt-to-GDP limits) of the Eurozone countries, as well as to the prohibition of monetary financing. One of the consequences of this is that African countries must turn to foreign countries–often France itself–to finance their development, contracting foreign currency loans at very high interest rates. This mechanism further tightens the noose around African countries, with dramatic social consequences. As Pigeaud and Sylla report, ‘every dollar spent in Africa on servicing the debt translates into a 29 per cent reduction in healthcare expenditure (which, in more tragic terms, can be translated economically as follows: every $140,000 devoted to servicing the debt, a child dies).’ Such under-financing clearly penalises the economic growth of African countries, as admitted even by economists supportive of the CFA franc, such as Sylviane Guillaumont Jeanneney: ‘The weak growth of the UEMOA is partly explained by a lower investment rate compared to other regions of Africa.’ The Senegalese economist Demba Moussa Dembélé, a critic of the CFA system, is more unforgiving. Because of the fixed parity and the restrictive 307

policy of the BCEAO, he explains, ‘we are subject to the imperatives of the European Central Bank, which is obsessed with fiscal discipline and the fight against inflation, while the priorities of our underdeveloped countries should be employment, investment in productive capacity, and the creation of infrastructures. This implies a greater distribution of credit to the private and public sector.’ France is also believed to have played a role in the murder of at least two African progressive heads of state that were planning to launch a national currency and take their countries out of the CFA system Lastly, the final handicap: the free movement of capital. This factor, Pigeaud and Sylla write, ‘considerably hinders the development of the African countries, translating in most cases into a financial bleed-out. When fundamental sectors of the economy are under the control of foreign capital, as is the case in most countries of the franc zone, the free movement of capital acts as a mechanism for draining African resources towards the rest of the world: a legalised looting.’ This phenomenon can be observed above all in those countries most endowed with natural resources: Ivory Coast, Cameroon, Congo, Gabon and Equatorial Guinea. Suffice to say that between 2000 and 2009 the net transfers of income to the rest of the world – which include the profits and dividends of the multinationals operating in those countries – amounted to roughly 43 per cent of GDP for Equatorial Guinea and 30 per cent percent of GDP for the Congo. The result of these ‘four handicaps’ is that, although some countries of the franc zone (especially those richer in raw materials) have experienced a rather strong annual GDP growth rate in recent years, an analysis of the long-term statistics shows that the real GDP per capita–or ‘average income’–of most countries of the zone is equal to or lower than that recorded in the 1970s or 1960s. It is therefore not surprising that socio-economic progress in the franc zone has been very limited: 12 of the 15 African states of the franc zone are classified as ‘Low Human Development’ countries, the last category in the Human Development Index (HDI) developed by the United Nations Development Program. In 2015, the last four places in the HDI ranking went to Burkina Faso, Chad, Niger and the Central African Republic, all of which are part of the franc zone. Furthermore, ten states of the franc zone are part of what the United Nations calls the ‘Least Developed Countries.’ 308

‘Obviously, the CFA franc is not the only cause of these countries’ underdevelopment and other African countries have not necessarily “fared better”’, Pigeaud and Sylla note. ‘But the claim that the CFA franc has “promoted” growth and development in the area is patently false’: In all the CFA countries, the underdevelopment of human potential and productive capacities is the norm. The CFA system has not stimulated neither the commercial integration of its members, nor their economic development or their economic attractiveness. On the contrary, it has deprived countries of the ability to conduct an autonomous monetary policy, paralysed their productive dynamics through the limitation of bank credit, penalised the competitiveness of local production through structurally overvalued exchange rates and facilitated destabilising forms of capital outflow, with dramatic social consequences.

An unsustainable status quo In light of the above, one might ask why the countries of the franc zone don’t simply abandon the CFA system. A first response is that, even today, France has no qualms about using its power to quell any challenge to the system. A particularly striking example of this occurred recently in the Ivory Coast. It all started after the 2010 presidential elections, when the country found itself with two presidents: Laurent Gbagbo, the outgoing president, had been recognised as the legitimate winner of the elections by the Ivorian Constitutional Council and had therefore stayed in power; Alassane Ouattara was considered the winner by the ‘international community’. Wanting to see Ouattara in power, the then French president Nicolas Sarkozy immediately resorted to the CFA apparatus to put pressure on Gbagbo. To begin with, the French government cajoled the BCEAO–the central bank of the CEMAC, the monetary union of which the Ivory Coast is a part–into preventing the Ivorian government from accessing its accounts at the BCEAO and closing down the Ivorian branches of the BCEAO. Then, the bank’s board forced its governor to resign, accusing him of being too complacent with the Ivorian authorities. Shortly afterwards, the French government also forced the French banks operating in the country to stop their activities.

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But Gbagbo refused to give in. At that point, France moved to the next stage. It mobilised its invisible weapon: the operating account. With the assistance of the BCEAO, the French Ministry of Finance suspended the country’s payment and exchange operations: effectively, all commercial and financial transactions between the Ivory Coast and the rest of the world were blocked. The Ivorian companies found themselves unable to export or import. ‘The French authorities’, Pigeaud and Sylla write, ‘demonstrated that the operating account could become a formidable instrument of repression: through it, France was able to organise a frighteningly effective financial embargo.’ As Justin Koné Katinan, Laurent Gbagbo’s budget minister at the time, would later say: ‘I witnessed the reality of Franco-African imperialism with my own eyes. I saw how our financial systems continue to be totally under France’s dominion, [and operated] in the exclusive interest of France. I saw how a single official in France can block an entire country.’ Faced with France’s financial embargo, the Ivorian administration began to take steps to create its own national currency. At that point, France threw away its mask: it mobilised its armed forces present in the Ivory Coast–as in other countries of the franc zone–and overthrew the government. The aforementioned episode shows just how simplistic the claims that the countries of the franc zone adhere ‘voluntarily’ to the CFA system really are. That said, there’s no doubt that the African elites of the franc zone, with few exceptions, support the CFA system. This is hardly surprising. After all, ‘they were put into power–and they continue to exercise it–with Paris’s support’, Pigeaud and Sylla note. African leaders know that as long as they continue to facilitate the operations of the French state and don’t challenge the CFA franc, they will enjoy the ‘tutelage’ of the former colonial power, including against their citizens and opponents. Furthermore, despite being designed to serve primarily the interests of France, the CFA system offers certain economic benefits to some African social groups. The pegging of the CFA franc to the euro, a strong currency, allows importers in African countries, for example, to buy products at an advantageous price that allows them to easily compete with local producers. At the same time, it provides the local middle and affluent classes with an artificially high international purchasing power that gives them the opportunity to access the same goods and services as their Western counterparts. Finally, the free movement of capital allows the wealthy elites of those countries to stash their fortunes abroad, more or less legally. 310

Herewith are some main components of the Colonization continuation pact since 1950s: Colonial Debt for the benefits of France colonization The newly “independent” countries pay for the infrastructure built by France in the country during colonization. Automatic confiscation of national reserves The African countries deposit their national monetary reserves into France Central bank. France has been holding the national reserves of fourteen African countries since 1961: Benin, Burkina Faso, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Mali, Niger, Senegal, Togo, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, CongoBrazzaville, Equatorial Guinea and Gabon. The monetary policy governing such a diverse aggregation of countries is uncomplicated because it is, in fact, operated by the French Treasury, without reference to the central fiscal authorities of any of the WAEMU or the CEMAC. Under the terms of the agreement which set up these banks and the CFA the Central Bank of each African country is obliged to keep at least 65% of its foreign exchange reserves in an “operations account” held at the French Treasury, as well as another 20% to cover financial liabilities. The CFA central banks also impose a cap on credit extended to each member country equivalent to 20% of that country’s public revenue in the preceding year. Even though the BEAC and the BCEAO have an overdraft facility with the French Treasury, the drawdowns on those overdraft facilities are subject to the consent of the French Treasury. The final say is that of the French Treasury which has invested the foreign reserves of the African countries in its own name on the Paris Bourse. In short, more than 80% of the foreign reserves of these African countries are deposited in the “operations accounts” controlled by the French Treasury. The two CFA banks are African in name, but have no monetary policies of their own. The countries themselves do not know, nor are they told, how much of the pool of foreign reserves held by the French Treasury belongs to them as a group or individually. The earnings of the investment of these funds in the French Treasury pool are supposed to be added to the pool but no accounting is given to either the banks or the countries of the 311

details of any such changes. The limited group of high officials in the French Treasury who have knowledge of the amounts in the “operations accounts”, where these funds are invested; whether there is a profit on these investments; are prohibited from disclosing any of this information to the CFA banks or the central banks of the African states .” Wrote Dr. Gary K. Busch It’s now estimated that France is holding close to 500 billion African countries money in its treasury, and would do anything to fight anyone who want to shed a light on this dark side of the old empire. The African countries don’t have access to that money. France allows them to access only 15% of the money in any given year. If they need more than that, they have to borrow the extra money from their own 65% from the French Treasury at commercial rates. To make things more tragic, France imposes a cap on the amount of money the countries could borrow from their reserves. The cap is fixed at 20% of their public revenue in the preceding year. If the countries need to borrow more than 20% of their own money, France has a veto. Former French President Jacques Chirac recently spoke about the African nations money in France banks. “We have to be honest, and acknowledge that a big part of the money in our (French) banks come precisely from the exploitation of the African continent.” Right of first refusal on any raw or natural resource discovered in the country France has the first right to buy any natural resources found in the land of its ex-colonies. It’s only after France would say, “I’m not interested”, that the African countries are allowed to seek other partners. Priority to French interests and companies in public procurement and public biding In the award of government contracts, French companies must be considered first, and only after that these countries could look elsewhere. It doesn’t matter if the African countries can obtain better value for money elsewhere. As consequence, in many of the French ex-colonies, all the major economic assets of the countries are in the hands of French expatriates. In Côte d’Ivoire, for example, French companies own and control all the major utilities–water, electricity, telephone, 312

transport, ports and major banks. The same in commerce, construction, and agriculture in the rest of the ex-French colonies in Africa. In the end, these Africans now Live On A Continent Owned by Europeans! Cultural “Cooperation” Culture defines one’s way of living–it is like a guidebook which everybody gets accustomed to in order to simplify daily living. It adverts to the attitudes, practices shared by a group or a society. It defines a country’s language, architecture, clothing, cuisine, religion, and their customs. The eminent Black scientist, Dr. Cheika Anta Diop succinctly placed culture in its proper perspective by stating the following; I consider culture as a rampart that protects a people, a collectivity. Culture must, above all, place a protective role: it must assure the cohesion of the group. Following this line of thinking, the vital functions, of a body of African human sciences is to develop this sense of collective belonging through a reinforcement of culture. This can be done by developing the linguistic facts, by re-establishing the historical consciousness of African and Black people so as to arrive at a common feeling of belonging to the same cultural and historical past. Once this is attained, it will become difficult to ‘divide and rule’ and to oppose African communities one against the other (Moore and Diop, 1981: 375).

In associating this definition French culture, it has been a good tool to deepen relationships. France stubbornly insisted on preserving francophone culture worldwide. Average annual expenditure of the country on cultural activities is around 750 million Euros (Barrios, 2010). One of the main forums for France’s cultural influence in Africa is L’Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie (OIF), founded in 1970. OIF describes itself as a community of destiny which is conscious of the links and potential that come from sharing a language, French, and universal values. In total, almost 274 million people may be defined as Francophones (OIF, 2014)). The organisation has 84 member states, 26 of whom are observers. According to Barrios, only 31 of them are truly francophone countries. Although it is a giant cultural organization, OIF tried to influence the politics in the past but found as 313

ineffective. Besides, it should not be missed that French government has dispatched over 6000 language teachers (2) to Africa in the past two decades. One of the other irrevocable parts of Franco-African relations is the continued presence of French citizens throughout Africa. Some thirty thousand French expatriates (Bade, 2013) reside in West Africa. French as culturcide in Cameroun We shall poach enormously from an article by Professor Peter Wuteh Vakunta published in Pambazuka News of March 8, 2012.The language question in Cameroon has become the elephant in the room - a problem that no one wants to talk about. Of all the burning issues that continue to plague Cameroon, the language question is the thorniest. This problem has snowballed into what is now being touted as the identity crisis in Cameroon. More than 50 years after gaining symbolic independence from imperial powers (France and Great Britain) Cameroonians still do not have a language policy that protects indigenous languages. There is no language policy put in place, to the best of my knowledge, to forestall the marginalization of linguistic minorities. Arguing along similar lines, Ayafor posits: ‘There has been unrelenting efforts and frustration at the fact that language policy has not contributed to national integration through linguistic fusion’ (140). Unlike most other African countries which give pride of place to indigenous languages, French and English, languages of predatory imperialists, remain official languages in Cameroon in stark contradiction of the national constitution which stipulates: ‘The State shall guarantee the promotion of bilingualism throughout the country. It shall endeavour to protect and promote national languages (Article 1.3: 5).’ The question that begs to be asked at this juncture is why Cameroon, where over 200 native tongues co-exist, does not have an official indigenous language policy. What explains the fact that Cameroonians are still dressed in borrowed robes five decades after gaining token independence from their colonial lords? How can Cameroonian leaders reasonably pontificate on the need to nurture a national identity without putting in place an indigenous language policy to foster indigenization and cultural symbiosis? These questions need to be addressed with the urgency they deserve. Cameroonian policy-makers seem to be oblivious of the fact that languages convey the cultural identity, worldview and imagination 314

of the people that speak them. In short, language constitutes the memory-bank of a people; it is an embodiment of both continuity and change in the historical consciousness of the community of speakers of the language. In other words, Cameroonian native languages carry with them the habits, mannerisms, and identity of native speakers. What prevails in Cameroon today is tantamount to ‘linguicide’, a term I have used to describe the linguistic genocide that is prevalent in the republic of Cameroon. Our leaders need to put an end to servile linguistic assimilation nationwide. Bjornson describes assimilation as: ‘The adoption of European tastes, languages, customs, and colonial government policies by Africans’ (19). He further notes that language is the soul of a people; it transports visible and invisible culture. If you destroy a man’s language, you destroy his cultural roots. Interestingly, Cameroonians tend to give pride of place to alien cultures to the detriment of their own indigenous cultures. Cultural imperialism manifests itself in different ways in Cameroon. The choice of what Cameroonians consume is an indicator of the degree to which they have been assimilated into alien cultures. There is a crop of people in Cameroun, notably political leaders, who will not go shopping in Cameroon. Every month, they fly to France or other Western nations to buy groceries, including bottled water. This attitude of alienating oneself from things made at home has sounded the death knell of domestic industries in Cameroon. Albert Gerard has a point when he maintains: ‘…Les gouvernements issus de l’empire français ne prennent guère de mesures efficaces pour encourager l’activité écrite dans les langues du peuple. Ils ont pour cela des motifs politiques valables’ (265). Governments that were formed in the wake of political independence from France do not take effective measures to foster the codification of indigenous languages. They have valid political reasons for not doing so. Linguistic genocide is observable in all walks of life in Cameroon. In the judicial branch of government, the interpretation of the letter and spirit of the law is left to the whims and caprices of French-speaking judges who are ignorant of how the Anglo-Saxon legal system operates. This has resulted in several instances of miscarriage of justice. For example, miscarriage of justice was evident during the infamous Yondo Black trial way back in the 1990s when an Anglophone witness was deprived of his right to testify on the grounds that the presiding judge could not understand the English language. One wonders what has become of the pool of 315

trained translators and interpreters at the Presidency of the Republic and Ministries in Yaoundé who waste valuable time translating trivialities such as inscriptions on ballot papers for elections that have been rigged beforehand. The Cameroon Radio and Television (CRTV) is another venue where language abuse is a sore point. This government-owned news network has been so ‘french-fried’ that 95 per cent of the programs broadcast are solely in French, to the detriment of English-speaking Cameroonians who have the constitutional right to be informed as well. News items obtained from English-speaking countries overseas are rapidly translated into French to serve the needs of the Francophone majority at the expense of the Anglophone minority. During electoral campaigns, little or no time is allotted to Anglophone opposition leaders desirous of addressing the nation in a bid to sell their political platforms. The language of instruction and daily routine in the armed forces, police and gendarmerie is French. Anglophones recruited into these forces have to learn French ‘overnight’ or perish. The foregoing is only a tip of the iceberg of the logjam that has earned the sobriquet the ‘Cameroonian Crisis’. There is no turning a blind eye to it. It will fester and become an incurable wound. Worse still, it will haunt not just the present generation of Cameroonians but also those yet to be born. It may even affect Africa as a whole because Cameroon is, indeed, Africa in miniature, a microcosm of the continent. Besides, the phenomenon of globalization is tearing down the invisible walls that nations have hitherto erected around themselves. Cameroonians have to face this linguistic challenge squarely. We do not need another Bosnian or Rwandan genocide in order to acknowledge the fact that we cannot ignore a festering wound for too long. Downplaying the importance of indigenous languages amounts to self-hatred - a harbinger to identity crisis. Confiant et al perceive identity crisis as an anomaly. They point out that the tragedy of the ex-colonized is the servile manner in which he tries to ‘portray himself in the colour of elsewhere’ (80). In other words, the formerly colonized suffers from self-hatred and self-delusion. Franz Fanon describes Africans who behave in this manner as people with ‘black skin’ wearing ‘white masks’ (15). To put an end to this cultural erosion, it is incumbent on Cameroonians to defuse what Ngugi wa Thiong’o calls the ‘cultural time bomb’ (1986). He maintains that the sharpest weapon wielded and actually daily unleashed by imperialism against that collective defiance is the 316

cultural bomb. The effect of a cultural bomb is to annihilate a people’s belief in their names, in their languages, in their environment, in their heritage of struggle, in their unity, in their capacities and ultimately in themselves. Cameroonians need to cultivate plurilingual proficiency. Language experts are unanimous on the fact that multilingualism is indispensable in today’s global village. In fact, monolingualism, they argue, is fast becoming an anachronism. To put this differently, ability to communicate in several languages is an asset; not a liability. Multilingualism is an added advantage to the multilingual individual and to the nation as a whole given that what is acquired in one language is transferable to the other language. Studies have shown that multilingual individuals exhibit a higher level of cognitive ability than their monolingual counterparts. Surprisingly, Cameroon’s so-called bilingual education policy has proven to be a nonstarter on account of ill-will, ethnocentrism and bigotry. Worse still, the language policy in Cameroon has been transformed into a political game of chess where ignorant players chip in with the sole intent of scoring political points. I want to reiterate the fact that the latent linguistic warfare that we are waging in Cameroon is not restricted to vernacular languages. English and French are at daggers drawn as well. The second fiddle status that has been assigned to Englishspeaking Cameroonians by francophone members of government has made the implementation of the nation’s bilingual education policy a stillborn. There seems to be a deliberate attempt on the part of government officials to asphyxiate the Anglo-Saxon culture and language in Cameroon. This probably explains why in Englishspeaking towns and cities such as Buea, Tiko, Kumba, Bamenda, Bali, Nso, Ndop, and Nkambe to name but a few, there are billboards and toll-gates with inscriptions written in French. Tiko is an irksome example. As you approach this town, you are greeted by a billboard that reads: ‘Halte Péage!’ What is this sentence intended to communicate to Anglophones who commute on this road day in day out? How do the powers-that-be in Yaoundé expect the average Joe who has never been given the opportunity to learn French to understand what this inscription connotes? Tiko is not an isolated case. There are myriads of such monolingual billboards all over the country. Similar linguistic hotchpotch litters Cameroonian airports. The Nsimalen Airport in Yaoundé is an example. At this airport commuters are exposed to stomach-churning gibberish such as: ‘To 317

gather dirtiness is good.’ This is a word-for-word translation of the Français petit nègre’: ‘ramasser la saleté c’est bien’. The French in this sentence leaves much to be desired. But it is even more annoying to realize that there is no English language translation of the notices posted on the billboards. The originators of this unintelligible stuff know full well that in bilingual countries the world over, all official communication: billboards, memos, letterheads, road-signs, application forms, court forms, police documents, health forms, driver’s licenses, hospital discharge forms, and a host of others, are all written in the official languages of the country in question. Failure to do so is tantamount to a violation of the constitution, an illegal act punishable by law in countries that respect the rule of law. At the Nsimalen, one finds on billboards inanities such as: ‘Not to make dirty is better’. This linguistic trash is meant to be a translation for: ‘Ne pas salir c’est bien’. If the situation were not so serious one would be cracking up but the question of language policy in Cameroon brooks no laughter. I wonder what diplomats accredited to Yaoundé think of Cameroonians when they read this entire linguistic potpourri. In sum, it is better to understand the historical lesson of menticide that has been copied and imposed on Ambazonians by the French-teleguided regime in Yaounde through the eyes of other victims. Between 1936 and 1938 the world became more conscious of the very real danger of systematized mental coercion in the field of politics. This was the period of the well-remembered Moscow purge trials. It was almost impossible to believe that dedicated old Bolsheviks, who had given their lives to a revolutionary movement, had suddenly turned into dastardly traitors. When, one after another, every one of the accused confessed and beat his breast, the general reaction was that this was a great show of deception, intended only as a propaganda move for the non-Communist world. Then it became apparent that a much worse tragedy was being enacted. The men on trial had once been human beings. Now they were being systematically changed into puppets. Their puppeteers called the tune manipulated their actions. When, from time to time, news came through showing how hard, rigid revolutionaries could be changed into meek, self-accusing sheep, all over the world the last remnants of the belief in the free community presumably being built in Soviet Russia began to crumble. 318

In recent years, the spectacle of confession to uncommitted crimes has become more and more common. The list ranges from Communist through non Communist to anti Communist, and includes men of such different types as the Czech Bolshevik Rudolf Slansky and the Hungarian cardinal, Joseph Mindszenty. Mental Coercion and Enemy Occupation in Ambazonia Cognizant of the long term ramifications of linguistic apartheid in Cameroon, Anglophone parents and teachers took to the streets in the 1990s and asked for the creation of an independent board to manage the affairs of Anglophone students. That initiative gave birth to the Cameroon GCE Board as we all know it today. Nyamnjoh notes that when irate Anglophone teachers confronted the erstwhile Minister of National Education, Mr. Robert Mbella Mbappe, over the issue of an independent examination board for Anglophones, he made the following remark: ‘You can do whatever you like with your so-called GCE board, none of my children studies in Cameroon’ (114). Has this drama any links with Natzi German coercion and Cameroun occupation and colonization of Ambazonia? Those people who lived in the Nazi occupied countries during the Second World War learned to understand only too well how people could be forced into false confessions, and into betrayals of those they loved. One victim was born in the Netherlands and lived there until the Nazi occupation forced him to flee. In the early days of the occupation, when they heard the first eyewitness descriptions of what happened during Nazi interrogations of captured resistance workers, they were frightened and alarmed. The first aim of the Gestapo was to force prisoners under torture to betray their friends and to report new victims for further torture. The Brown Shirts demanded names and more names, not bothering to ascertain whether or not they were given falsely under the stress of terror. One victim remembers very clearly one meeting held by a small group of resisters to discuss the growing fear and insecurity. Everybody at that meeting could expect to be mentioned and picked up by the Gestapo at some time. Should they be able to stand the Nazi treatment, or would they also be forced to become informers? This question was being asked by anti-Nazis in all the occupied countries. During the second year of the occupation it was clear that it was better not to be in touch with one another. More than two contacts 319

were unsafe. They tried to find medical and psychiatric preventives to harden them against the Nazi torture they expected. As a matter of fact, one victim conducted some experiments to determine whether or not narcotics would harden them against pain. However, the results were paradoxical. Narcotics can create pain insensitivity, but their dulling action at the same time makes people more vulnerable to mental pressure. Even at that time they knew, as did the Nazis themselves, that it was not the direct physical pain that broke people, but the continuous humiliation and mental torture. One patient, who was subjected to such an interrogation, managed to remain silent. He refused to answer a single question, and finally the Nazis dismissed him. But he never recovered from this terrifying experience. He hardly spoke even when he returned home. He simply sat bitter, full of indignation and in a few weeks he died. It was not his physical wounds that had killed him; it was the combination of fear and wounded pride. They held many discussions about ways of strengthening their captured underground workers or preventing them from final selfbetrayal. Should some of the victims be given suicide capsules? That could only be a last resort. Narcotics like morphine give only a temporary anaesthesia and relief; moreover, the enemy would certainly find the capsules and take them away. They had heard about German attempts to give cocaine and amphetamine to their air pilots for use in combat exhaustion, but neither medicament was reliable. Those drugs might revive the body by making it less sensitive to pain, but at the same time they dulled the mind. If captured members of the underground were to take them, as experiments had shown, their bodies might not feel the effects of physical torture, but their hazy minds might turn them into easier dupes of the Nazis. If an individual’s attention is fixed on the development of conscious awareness of automatic body functions, such breathing, the alert functioning of the brain cortex can be reduced, and awareness of pain will diminish. This state of pain insensitivity can sometimes be achieved through autohypnotic exercises. But very few of these victims were able to bring themselves into such anaesthesia. Finally, this simple psychological trick evolved: when you can no longer outwit the enemy or resist talking, the best thing to do is to talk too much. This was the idea: keep yourself sullen and act the fool; play the coward and confess more than there is to confess. Later people verify that this method was successful in several cases. 320

Scatter-brained simpletons confused the enemy much more than silent heroes whose stamina was finally undermined in spite of everything. The specific techniques used in Cameroun dungeons to break the Ambazonian man’s mind and will to extort confessions for political propaganda purposes are relatively new and highly refined. Yet enforced confession itself is nothing new. From time immemorial tyrants and dictators have needed these “voluntary” confessions to justify their own evil deeds. The knowledge that the human mind can be influenced, tamed, and broken down into servility is far older than the modern dictatorial concept of enforced indoctrination. The primitive shaman used awe inspiring ritual to bring his victim into such a state of fright hypnosis that he yielded to all suggestions such as the Sisiku Ayuk Tabe “negotiating” with Cameroun police torturers. The native on whom a spell of doom has been cast by the medicine man may become so hypnotized by his own fear that he simply sits down, accepts his fate, and dies. Ayuk Tabe and his abducted prisoners at SED have not died. But, fright led them to compromise the liberation struggle by accepting to form a rival government while in jail that spelled doom for the restoration of Ambazonia. Françafrique France’s intense relationship with Africa has created a concept named as “Françafrique”. This concept was first used by Félix Houphouët-Boigny, the first president of the Ivory Coast, to define the connections between the countries that obtained their independence from France. Because of the incidents in Rwanda and Zaire, troubles involving the Elf (a complicated network of government and non-government employees to launder money through French oil company), and arms aid to Angola, the meaning of Françafrique has changed over time in terms of content and began to define France’s dirty relations with Africa. According to François-Xavier Verschave (French economist and an expert on France-Africa relations) “Françafrique is like an iceberg, you have the upper face, the tip of the iceberg: France, the best friend of Africa, the homeland of human rights, etc. And then you have 90% of the relationship that is immersed: all the mechanisms of maintaining French domination in Africa with African allies…”(Confiant, 1990). Cameroun Independence as Colonization 321

The Cameroonian war also played out on the international stage—in particular at the United Nations. Immediately after Um Nyobè’s death, the French authorities announced the country’s imminent independence and offered to examine the best way forward. Presented as an act of generosity, independence in fact perfectly suited the French war plan. From the Cameroonian perspective, the scheme had two obvious defects. For one, it called for independence prior to an election. For another, the Cameroonian leaders whom French authorities co-opted as allies had to sign a series of bilateral accords with Paris, some of them secret, that would legalize French control over the new state’s commercial, monetary, military, cultural, and diplomatic policies. This was, then, an illusory independence—the Cameroonian people were deprived of sovereignty, and their leaders remained under France’s supervision. Nevertheless, the United Nations accepted the French plan in March 1959 thanks to the willing compliance of Washington and London—quite happy to keep this part of the French empire in the Western fold—and of Moscow— in a period of “peaceful coexistence” and not much concerned about Cameroonian communists. This controlled independence had numerous advantages for the French. Apart from defusing the real Cameroonian independence movement’s message, it allowed the French authorities to put an end to the international trusteeship system and shed UN oversight. Also, independence would accelerate British Cameroon’s emancipation, and Paris assumed the two parts of the country would quickly reunite. The latter aim was only half achieved—the northern half of British Cameroon joined Nigeria. Surely the most important outcome of Cameroon’s independence was that it freed France to repress movements deemed subversive as it wished. From the moment independence was proclaimed, France intensified its war effort. The Sanaga-Maritime had been, in large part, purged between 1957 and 1959, and the conflict escalated in Wouri, Mungo, and the Bamileke region, where the Kamerunian National Liberation Army (ALNK) had been established in 1959. The French army repeated its villagization policy, set up militias, and disappeared prisoners. It added a vast campaign of aerial bombardment to its repertoire. The population endured intense psychological campaigns—torture was systematized, public executions proliferated, and the severed heads of alleged rebels 322

were displayed at markets and public squares. In parallel, France intensified its hunt for exiled enemies. Félix Moumié, for instance, died in November 1960 after being poisoned in Geneva by an agent of the French secret services. This policy of terror continued for a decade. Under the leadership of Ernest Ouandié—who returned to Cameroon after Moumié’s assassination—the ALNK displayed astonishing fighting spirit in spite of incredible material difficulties. The ferocious repression guided secretly by France started to bear fruit in 1962– 63. The nationalist underground became more and more restricted, but did not disappear completely. It was only when Ouandié was arrested in 1970 and publicly executed in January 1971 that the nationalists accepted that armed struggle had definitively failed. Over the course of the war, the government began routinely practicing the counterinsurgency methods innovated in the 1950s. Supervised by French advisers, Cameroonian president Ahmadou Ahidjo—installed in 1958—transformed his regime into a dictatorship. Well aware that he owed his power to France, he suppressed all civil liberties and progressively established a oneparty system. Under the pretext of fighting “subversion,” he surrounded the Cameroonian people with a wall of silence. With its omnipresent army, brutal political police, and administrative detention camps, the regime became one of the most repressive in Africa to the benefit of the local apparatchiks and French businesses, who shared in the profits from the country’s economic exploitation. The French government was so satisfied by the result that it granted independence to its other African colonies along the same lines. Like Ahidjo, the leaders of these new, nearly all pro-France countries signed bilateral agreements drastically limiting their sovereignty and transformed their regimes into dictatorships. Those who refused were severely brought to task or eliminated, as in the case of the Togolese Sylvanus Olympio—assassinated in 1963 by French-trained putschists. Thus “Françafrique” was born—the French version of neocolonialism, which allowed Paris to maintain its former African colonies not in spite of independence but, in fact, thanks to it. Broken Silence How did the Cameroon war go so unnoticed that today hardly anybody knows it took place? This question becomes even more 323

troubling given that the conflict left tens of thousands dead. According to the British embassy’s confidential report from the mid-1960s, the war caused from 60,000 to 76,000 civilian deaths between 1956 and 1964. At a 1962 conference, a journalist from Le Monde claimed 120,000 had been killed since 1959 in the Bamileke region alone. “Yet we are almost entirely ignorant of this even in France, the former metropole,” he added. For good reason: neither he nor any of his colleagues informed their readers about it. There are many reasons for this silence. First, since Cameroon’s jurisdictional status as a UN-supervised territory didn’t allow France to repress the nationalist movement—particularly as its leaders merely claimed the political and civil rights the UN trusteeship system was designed to bestow—the French authorities were forced to wage a secret war couched as enforcing law, order, and security. “We must impose silence,” as the French High Commissioner succeeding Messmer put it. This silence extended after independence. To admit that repression continued — let alone that it intensified—would have highlighted the artificiality of independence and the illegitimacy of the pro-France regime. As a result, very few journalists were allowed in combat zones. Taken up in French planes to observe the conflict from above, they described it as an incomprehensible “tribal war,” thereby justifying French aid—”at the request of the Cameroonian government”—to end this “anachronistic” conflict. If the journalist from Le Figaro—one of the few French people to fly over the Bamileke region in 1960—is to be believed, French intervention in Cameroon was a kind of humanitarian charity. France’s military strategy included the deliberate portrayal of the conflict as a tribal or civil war. Heavily committed in Algeria— which was also monopolizing public attention—the French army sent very few of its own troops to Cameroon. As much as possible, they trained and supervised troops either from surrounding French colonies (Côte d’Ivoire, Chad, Gabon) or from local paramilitary groups and self-defence militias within Cameroon. Recruiting the civilian population had numerous advantages. First, these auxiliary troops cost less than the French army. Secondly, civilian recruitment nourished the logic of counterinsurgency, by forcing populations to choose a side. There was no greater test of loyalty than making some Cameroonians participate in the elimination of others. Finally, by stirring up ethnic rivalries, French instigators could hide behind their African subordinates when carnage ensured, attributing it to “innate African savagery.” 324

Finally, the silence that has reigned since the mid-1960s must be situated in the war’s outcome. The French victory and Ahidjo’s installation as the postcolonial state’s first president not only muzzled all criticism of the regime, but also effaced the memory of the nationalists who fought to achieve real independence. History is, after all, written by the victors: The traces of their crimes are removed, and the witnesses who might cause them embarrassment are silenced. In Algeria, the FLN took power in 1962, but the defeated UPC could not honour its heroes. No scholarship could be undertaken that even evoked this period; to do so was considered a capital offense. Not until the 1980s could Cameroonians begin to research their country’s violent decolonization, and even then they had to do it abroad. At the beginning of the 1990s—a period marked by mass democratic movements across Africa—the silence was finally broken. After partial democratization, a number of Cameroonians tried to exhume the past. But the blackout had been so complete and so long that the task proved difficult. Journalists and historians who worked on these subjects not only had to deal with a scarcity of archival sources and a profusion of hard-to-verify narratives, but also to overcome the scepticism of their international counterparts who, having never heard of this secret war, found the macabre stories hard to believe. A number of “Africanists” at French universities tended to prolong the silence around events that they had either underestimated or never researched. This perhaps explains why, in 2009, François Fillon responded to questions about France’s role in the UPC leaders’ assassinations by describing the accusation as “pure invention.” In fact, this aspect of the war is the best documented. Granted, in a July 2015 visit to Cameroon, François Hollande mentioned these “tragic episodes” for the first time. But his vague sentence barely paid lip service to these “episodes”; indeed, he appeared to not know what he was talking about. There has been no follow-up to these muddled ramblings. Hoping to avoid legal proceedings like those successfully undertaken by former Land and Freedom Army fighters and other Kikuyu survivors of the “Mau Mau” against the British authorities, French officialdom is for the moment trying to play for time, patiently waiting out the surviving victims and witnesses. But it knows that the silence covering up the atrocities committed by France, contra international law, during this violent conflict cannot last. Anti-French feeling has become so powerful in Africa, and 325

historical thinking about present-day crises deriving from humanity’s colonial past so developed throughout the world, that France will sooner or later have to look its past in the face. Invited by his French peer, Emmanuel Macron, to participate in the Paris Peace Forum 2019 (November 11 to 13), Cameroonian President Paul Biya actively participated in a debate session moderated by Mo Ibrahim on the theme: “Rise of the south: towards a more balanced global governance system.” In Biya’s witnessing confession, “My country is complex. We were first a German colony. After the First World War, Germany lost its colonies, which were shared between Great Britain and France, and my country was divided. Some were under British colonization and others under French colonization. The result has been a juxtaposition of culture and civilization that makes things quite difficult. Well, we have done everything we can to put the two languages, English and French, on an equal footing but, the mindsets, as well as the judicial systems, are different. So, we have had conflicts that are being resolved at the moment to keep the part of my country that was under British colonization under a specific status,” Paul Biya explained. “We had the possibility of integrating the English speakers [Anglophones] directly into the Francophone system, which was predominantly used by 80% of our people but, I believe that countries are now concerned about affirming their identity and that is why we are setting up a special status that recognizes the specificity of the English-speaking area, but it remains an integral part of Cameroon.”

This prepared statement demonstrates very eloquently that President Paul Biya is an ignorant and insensitive sociopathic maniac capable of exterminating humanity just to crusade for exterminating French cultural imperialism. The Southern Cameroons has never been a British colony. It was a United Nations Trust Territory. In historical perspective though, during the 20th century, cultural imperialism was no longer so closely linked with military intervention only but rather with the exertion of cultural, economic and political influence by some powerful countries over less powerful countries. Cultural imperialism, in anthropology, sociology, and ethics, is the imposition by one usually politically or economically dominant community of various aspects of its own culture onto another nondominant community. It is cultural in that the customs, 326

traditions, religion, language, social and moral norms, and other aspects of the imposing community are distinct from, though often closely related to, the economic and political systems that shape the other community. It is a form of imperialism in that the imposing community forcefully extends the authority of its way of life over the other population by either transforming or replacing aspects of the nondominant community’s culture. While the term cultural imperialism did not emerge in scholarly or popular discourse until the 1960s, the phenomenon has a long record. Historically, practices of cultural imperialism have almost always been linked with military intervention and conquest. The rise and spread of the Roman Empire provides some of the earliest examples of cultural imperialism in the history of Western civilization and highlights both negative and positive aspects of the phenomenon. During a period known as the Pax Romana, the Romans secured a fairly long period of relative peace and stability among previously war-torn territories through a unified legal system (see Roman law), technological developments, and a well-established infrastructure. However, this peace was secured, in part, by the forced acculturation of the culturally diverse populations Rome had conquered. Later, cultural imperialism became one of the primary instruments of colonization. While colonization was almost always initiated by some kind of military intervention, its full effects were achieved through practices of cultural imperialism. Fuelled by a belief in the superiority of their own way of life, colonizers used law, education, and/or military force to impose various aspects of their own culture onto the target population. Motivated, in part, by a desire to purge local populations of allegedly barbaric, uncivilized customs and mores, colonizers also knew that the best way to mitigate resistance by the colonized was to eradicate as far as possible all traces of their former way of life. One of the clearest examples of the forced acculturation of a colonized population is Ambazonia by the French through its LA RÉPUBLIQUE DU CAMEROUNvassal state.

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References Asante, M.K. (1988). ‘Afrocentricity’. Trenton: Africa World Press. Paris: Stock. Atanga, M. (2011) The Anglophone Cameroon Predicament. Langaa Research & Publishing CIG, Bamenda. Ayafor, Isaiah, Munang.(2005). ‘Official Bilingualism in Cameroon: Instrumental of Integrative Policy?’ In ‘Proceedings of the 4th International Symposium on Bilingualism’. Ed. James Cohen et al., Somerville: Cascadilla Press, 2005. ‘The African Quest for Freedom and Identity: Cameroonian Writing and the National Experience’, Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2001. BAPEC (Bamenda Provincial Episcopal Conference) (2017) Memorandum to President Paul Biya on the Current Situation in the Northwest and Southwest Regions. http://www.cameroon-info.net/article/cameroon-bamendaprovincial-episcopal-conference-memorandum-to-presidentpaul--biya-on-the-current-situation-in-278001.html Bade, S. (2013). The British Aren’t Coming: Why the French Intervene in their Former African Colonies and the British Do Not, Stanford Digital Repository. Barrios, C. (2010). France in Africa: from paternalism to pragmatism 2010, FRIDE Policy Brief. 1-5. Retrieved from http://fride.org/descarga/PB_58_Eng_France_in_Africa.pdf Botwe-Asamoah, Kwame. ‘African literature in European Languages: Implications for a Living Literature’. Journal of Black Studies 31.6 (2001):746-763. Bjornson, Richard. (1986). ‘A Bibliography of Cameroonian Literature’, Research in African Literatures 59 (1986): 418-427. Blair. (2020).Exclusive: Testimonies From Ngarbuh About How Some Survivors Cheated Death By Hair’s Breadth, Plus Names of Victims, Survivors, Cameroon News Agency, Feb 19, 2020. Accessed Feb 19, 2020. Buzan, T. (2003) The Mind Map Book. London: BBC Books. Buzan, T. (1997) Use Your Head. London: BBC Books. Chafer, T. (2002 July), Franco-African Relations: No Longer So Exceptional?, African Affairs, 101 (404). 343-363. Cameroon, Government. ‘Constitution of the Republic of Cameroon’. Yaoundé. Government printer, 1996.

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Confiant, Raphaël.(1990). Patrick Chamoiseau, and Jean Bernabé. ‘In Praise of Creoleness’, Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press. Degang, S. and Zoubir Y. (2011), Sentry Box in the Backyard: Analysis of French Military Bases in Africa, Journal of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies (in Asia), 5 (3), Washington, DC: International Publishing House for China’s Culture, 82-104. Dounge, G. (2017) The Legal Argument for Southern Cameroon Independence. http://www.africafederation.net Eyoh, D. (1998) Conflicting Narratives of Anglophone Protest and the Politics of Identity in Cameroon. Journal of Contemporary African Studies, 16, 249-276. https://doi.org/10.1080/02589009808729630 Fanon Frantz.(1967). ‘Black Skin, White Masks’, New York: Grove Press, 1967. Gérard, Albert. (1988). ‘Oralité, glottophagie, créolisation: Problématique de la littérature africaine’, Bulletin des séances de l’Académie Royale des sciences d’Outre-Mer 34.2, (1988): 259269. Griffin, C., (2007), French Military Interventions in Africa: French Grand Strategy and Defence Policy since Decolonization, Paper prepared for the International Studies Association 2007 Annual Convention, University of Southern California, 35-37. Joost A. M. Meerloo, ‘The Crime of Menticide’, American Journal of Psychiatry 107, no. 8 (1 February 1951): 595. Joost Abraham Maurits Meerloo, Een mond vol spijkers: een psycholoog op het oorlogspad (Wassenaar: Servire, 1975). Ngugi, wa Thiong’o. (1986). ‘Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature’, Portsmouth: Heinemann. Nyamnjoh, Francis B.(1986). ‘The Cameroon G.C.E Crisis: A Test of Anglophone Solidarity’, Limbe: Noormac Press. Obeng, Gyasi, Samuel and Beverely Hartford.(2002). ‘Political Independence with Linguistic Servitude: The Politics about Languages in the Developing World.’ New York: Nova Science Publishers, Inc., 2002. Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie (2014). Retrieved from https://www.francophonie.org/Estimation-desfrancophones.html Short, D.(2010). ‘Australia: A Continuing Genocide?’, Journal of Genocide Research 12, nos 1–2 (2010), 45–68; and J. Huseman and D. Short, ‘“A Slow Industrial Genocide”: Tar Sands and the 329

Indigenous Peoples of Northern Alberta’, International Journal of Human Rights 16, no. 1, (2012): 216–37, at 222. Simon-Skjodt. (2020). See ‘Risk Of Mass Atrocities In Cameroon’ Policy Brief, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide. Published June 2020. Survie France, Françafrique, Retrieved from http://survie.org/francafrique/?lang=fr U.N. Division for the Advancement of Women, Report of the Expert Group Meeting on Measures to Eradicate Violence Against Women (New York; October 8,1993).

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Chapter Nine From the Anger of Despair to Resistance and SelfDefence*

Introduction Emotions are wonderful things. They may be uncomfortable, but everyone experiences them. But, no matter for how long these emotions are contained they eventually explode at the threshold of tolerance. This is “Bottle Up and Explode” Syndrome. It is the result of repeatedly stuffing difficult emotions as they arise. When the undealt with emotions build to the point that human bodies can no longer contain them, they involuntarily burst out of the human being. Inward manifestations of “Bottle Up and Explode” Syndrome might take the form of dissociation, suicidality, “irrational” thinking, or intense fear. Outward manifestations might include angry outbursts, sobbing spells, or impulsivity. In the case of the ongoing 21st Century genocide in Cameroon, it is the “Bottler Up and Explode” Syndrome of half a century of colonization and colonialism. 331

Unfortunately, foreign powers like the United States of America-the moral conscience of the world- have been roped into the conflict by a rogue regime desperate at the throws of its apocalypse. The United States Military aid for the “War on Terror” is being used to crush the resistance and self-defense of the people of Ambazonia (former United Nations Trust Territory under British Administration, hereunder) against the oppressive African colonial Republic of Cameroon. The only solution, following ongoing years of genocide, burning of hundreds of villages, rife pauperization, targeted killings of more than 5000 unarmed civilians, wanton genocidal rape, extortion, looting, torture, and burning of personal property, institutions of learning and health clinics, it is impossible to imagine the Republic of Cameroon and Ambazonia establishing a peaceful and reconciliatory “living together.” The only peaceful solution is separation. Neither, federalism nor unitarism of any complexion can guarantee a peaceful “living together” of both entities. From what used to be known as a “Heaven of Peace” in the turbulent Central African region, the situation in Cameroon is gradually becoming another story of carnage and bloodshed as the world stays silent. As the massacre continues, it is fast becoming another episode of the international community failing to uphold the right to protect human beings from brutal treatment by oppressive regimes. In the meantime, the Anglophone regions of Cameroon, otherwise known as Southern Cameroons, have become the epicenter of a policy orchestrated by the pro-Francophone regime. Understanding Anger and Resistance: A Theoretical Perspective Understanding the relationship between emotion and human behavior has long fascinated those who endeavor to contribute to a broader knowledge of human nature. Great classical philosophers such as Plato, Aristotle, Spinoza, Descartes, Hobbes and Hume all had identifiable theories of emotion. It was Cicero, for instance, who reminded orators of his day of the power of emotion when attempting to persuade an audience. In particular, he encouraged the use of pathos (the appeal to emotion), because it is by drawing on emotion, he argued, that opinion can be swayed most effectively. Here I have in mind Cicero’s De Oratore, particularly book I, chapter V. 332

Conveying anger to one’s listeners is epistemically valuable in two respects: first, it can direct listeners’ attention to elusive morally relevant features of the situation; second, it enables them to register injustices that their existing evaluative categories are not yet suited to capturing. Thus, when employed skillfully, angry speech promotes a greater understanding of existing injustices. This epistemic role is indispensable in highly divided societies, where the injustices endured by some groups are often invisible to, or misunderstood by, other groups. Although people commonly tend to think of anger as a troublesome, negative emotion, Aristotle wisely noted how: “Anyone can get angry—that is easy; however, to be angry at the right person, to the proper extent, at the proper moment, with the right motive, and in the right way, that is not so easy” (350 bce/1925). The motivation for all human action, according to Aristotle, can be assigned to one of seven causes: chance, nature, compulsion, habit, reasoning, anger, and appetite. Anger he referred to as an expression of passion and pain, for which humans have both an appetite and a fear. In this view, anger is not simply a negative emotion to be shunned and avoided, it is also a source of passion that may be concentrated and directed toward the pursuit of important goals. In a similar sense, anger can play a dual role within the process of social influence in general, and persuasive message design in particular. As it concerns health communication, anger may be either a curse or a blessing—either an obstacle to be avoided, or a vehicle to be driven and finessed. In the pages that follow, the functions and consequences of this powerful emotion are reviewed with a mind toward identifying the direct and indirect roles anger can play in motivation, decision making, judgment, choice, and behavior. The goal is to explore how anger may be employed as a message feature with application across a broad range of health communication contexts. As it concerns health message design, anger may be usefully focused upon the harmful effects of disease, substance abuse, health risks in general, and the companies profiting through products harmful to public health. On the other hand, anger may be unintentionally generated and misdirected toward policymakers and health campaigns perceived as unjustly limiting hedonically relevant personal freedoms (Miller, 2016). In either case, the effects of message-generated anger on pertinent health behaviors can be quite powerful, whether directed against risky and harmful outcomes, or 333

rebounding in resistance to well-intentioned health promotion campaigns. Defining Anger Anger may be defined as a primary, event-related negative emotion (Ortony, Clore, & Collins, 1988), and although it need not be directed at an agent in the same sense as an attribution-related emotion, such as resentment, contempt, or indignation, anger can be particularly intense in response to negative outcomes associated with the agency and actions of other people. Within a social– emotional context, anger is expressed and experienced as an interpersonal event that may often damage relationships by reducing intimacy, spawning discord, intensifying negative feelings, and escalating mutual hostility (Fehr & Baldwin, 1996). Conversely, anger may also lead to a number of positive outcomes, including the redress of grievances, shared understanding, emotional closeness, and the reduction of tension and anxiety through emotional ventilation and catharsis (Tavris, 1984). In general, the subjective experience of anger is negatively valenced and aversively arousing, although some people may find it less aversive than others (Harmon-Jones, 2004: 18, 337-361). Because of anger’s potential for intense arousal, some individuals may experience a reinforcing, self-stimulation effect felt to be energizing and invigorating, although conducive to aggression (Berkowitz, 1970: 1-7; Bushman, Baumeister, Stack, & Kruglanski, 1999: 367-374). At input, the elicitation of anger depends on perceptions of goal-relevant, situational disruptions (Ortony et al., 1988); whereas at output, anger affects cognitive processing strategies (Nabi, 2002: 204-216; Schwarz, 1990:522-561), risk assessment (Lerner & Keltner, 2000:473-493), and judgments bearing on goal-directed behavior (Clore, Ortony, Dienes, & Fujita, 1993; Schwarz & Clore, 1983). Though the occurrence of anger can be cognitively disruptive and affectively unpleasant, it can also have powerful effects on concentration, determination, and focus (Nabi, 2002, 2003: 199-223), particularly when aimed at approaching, engaging, and removing goal-hindering obstructions. Relative to sad or neutral emotion states, anger may also cause people to be more influenced by heuristic cues, especially sourcerelevant information. Bodenhausen, Sheppard, and Kramer (1994: 45-62) argued that anger may induce a lack of analytic processing resulting in greater source derogation due to reduced motivation to 334

actively analyze judgment-relevant information. According to Bodenhausen and colleagues, anger may reduce people’s ability to engage in thoughtful analysis. It seems likely that the high levels of physiological arousal that often accompany anger serve to reduce cognitive capacity and discourage analytical thinking. Regardless of cause, an increased reliance on heuristic cues is likely a result of limited information processing, and most anger theorists agree that angry people generally do not process information systematically (Moons & Mackie, 2007: 706-720). In essence, anger is a subjective feeling tied to perceived wrongdoing and a tendency to counter or redress that wrongdoing in ways that may range from resistance to retaliation (Fernandez, 2008). Like sadness and fear, the feeling of anger can take the form of emotion, mood, or temperament. Many psychological tests of anger present a list of anger-provoking scenarios, as in the Reaction Inventory the Multidimensional Anger Inventory and the Novaco Provocation Inventory (Novaco, 1975). Some of the items on these inventories are highly specific. In general, research shows that wrongdoing is perceived not merely in the instance when one is physically assaulted. Wrongdoing also falls within several psychosocial categories: (i) insults or affronts, (ii) insensitivity or indifference, (iii) deception and betrayal, (iv) abandonment and rejection, (v) breach of agreement or promise, (vi) ingratitude, and (vii) exploitation. Ways of reacting to such angering pain are multiple. One of them is learned helplessness. Learned helplessness is a phenomenon observed in both humans and other animals when they have been conditioned to expect pain, suffering, or discomfort without a way to escape it (Thomas, 2016). Eventually, after enough conditioning, the animal will stop trying to avoid the pain at all—even if there is an opportunity to truly escape it! When human or other animals come to understand (or believe) that they have no control over what happens to them, they begin to think, feel, and act as if they are helpless. This phenomenon is called learned helplessness because it is not an innate trait; no one is born believing that they have absolutely no control over what happens to them and that it is fruitless to even try to gain control. It is a learned behavior, conditioned through experiences in which the subject either truly has no control over his circumstances or believes that he has no control over his circumstances.

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Violent Resistance as a Duty? Every living being on this planet has experienced injustice and oppression at some point or another and in some form or another. As humans, our lives are shaped by blatantly violent and subtly coercive forces that compel us to act in certain ways and to not act in other ways. It is, unfortunately, an unavoidable part of the very fabric of our everyday lives, whether we realize it or not. For some, this oppression is obvious and terrible, as they regularly experience assault, rape, arrest, murder, starvation, and theft in their families and communities. Others experience it to a slightly lesser degree as they are openly mocked, discriminated against, and treated with lesser value than other members of their culture due to their gender, sexual orientation, age, health, class, or race. Still others might not see these forces in their lives at all, as their experience with oppression is on the receiving end when they receive wealth and power at the expense of those underneath them on the pyramid of social inequality. There is a reason why it is normal and acceptable for living creatures to treat each other with hatred and disrespect. The reason is that a lot of people believe in certain ideas. There are many ideas out there, but unfortunately the most popular ideas are also the most destructive ones. For example, there is a very popular idea out there that if you take the sexual organs of a cotton plant, flatten it into a piece of paper, dye it green, and make figures and pictures of dead royalty on it, you can then use this piece of paper to have power and control over other living creatures. If someone has a lot of these pieces of paper, they can purchase whatever they want and kill billions of humans, cows, fish, forests, streams, or whatever else they can come up with. The question of whether somebody should do these things is never brought into question, because the fact of the matter is that they can. This is a very bad idea. Another popular idea is that certain humans can own other animals and areas of our planet. When certain humans are allowed to own other animals, human or otherwise, they often do very bad things to them. When certain humans own parts of our planet, they often like to create imaginary lines called borders and kill other people who also want to live in that part of the Earth, as well as doing great damage to the Earth as they take trees, water, plants, minerals, and other parts of the Earth away in order to make lots of money. Someone who owns another animal, or a part of the Earth 336

can do almost whatever they want to them, even very horrible things, just because they can. This is also a very bad idea. There is also the idea that certain people have less value because of their skin color, their gender, their sexual orientation, their age, their education, their religion, their cultural values, how much green paper their family has acquired through the generations, or various other reasons. This is another very bad idea that has caused incalculable levels of suffering in our world and continues to do so every day. There are also some good ideas, though. There is an idea that all living creatures should be treated with respect and dignity. There is an idea that all humans are of equal value and that nobody should be able to hurt or oppress someone else regardless of how much money or power they have. There is an idea that everybody should have the freedom to live how they choose as long as they don’t hurt or oppress anybody else. These ideas are often called ‘radical’, ‘revolutionary’, and ‘dangerous’, because they are a threat to those who have a lot of green paper and imaginary lines on the Earth. These radical ideas, although they seem like good ideas to most people who take the time to think about them, are unfortunately not the ideas that run the world. Therefore, those who believe these radical, dangerous ideas and believe that they are worth fighting for must resist the dominant and powerful bad ideas and those who enforce them. This is called ‘resistance.’ Those who engage in resistance have acquired a very large arsenal of tactics and strategies for engaging in resistance over the past several thousand years, and resistors today have a wealth of knowledge to draw upon. On the other hand, many resistors are also struggling with the challenges of living in a new era. The old ideas don’t always work in this age of expanding technology, Orwellian surveillance, and increasingly militarized police forces. Within the world of resistance, there are many different ideas for what ideas we should be fighting for and how we should fight. How should we resist? When someone asks the question, “How should we resist?” there are two big ideas that immediately jump up and loudly answer, “Resist this way!” Idea one says that you should resist using violent tactics, and idea two says that you should use nonviolent tactics. Both ideas have their heroes, success stories, philosophies, and various arguments for their legitimacy and supremacy. Both ideas have a long history of successful resistance, and both ideas have produced many incredible thinkers, writers, 337

activists, radicals, and revolutionaries who have left a legacy that is admirable and inspirational. Here there is a problem. Amidst the shouting match between these two big ideas of violence and nonviolence there is also an idea that I think has not received much attention, yet it is very important. This idea says that both methods of resistance are good ideas. This idea says that there are not just two main ways of resisting, but rather there is one bigger idea that includes both of the other ideas within it. This idea attempts to dissolve the rigidly polarized worlds of violent and nonviolent resistance by introducing a model that, by introducing a concept called colonization into the dialogue, encompasses the whole spectrum of resistance. This idea honors the experiences and beliefs of all people so that that any individual or group of people can effectively resist bad ideas until they no longer exist. Resistance against various power relations is the result of interpretations of the aim and discourses of the organized resistance, and how those resisting recognise themselves in relation to those interpretations. This, in turn, creates particular conceptions of the self, which allow people to move outside the boundaries of the resisting organization and make their own everyday resistance. In the end, self-reflection becomes the very base for an individual’s decision to practice everyday resistance against the violent tyrannies of all sorts. Violence: Violence is any physical, emotional, verbal, institutional, structural, or spiritual behavior, attitude, policy, or condition that diminishes, dominates, or destroys others and ourselves. Violence consists of actions, words, attitudes, structures, or systems that cause physical, psychological, social, or environmental damage and/or prevent people from reaching their full human potential. Johan Galtung (1969), one of the founders of Peace and Conflict Studies and creator of the Violence Triangle, posited that violence generally falls into three categories: direct violence, structural violence, and cultural violence. Direct Violence can take many forms, but its most obvious form involves the use of physical force, as in assault, rape, a murder, a mugging, etc. Verbal violence is also a form of direct violence, as in hateful and derogatory speech intended to do harm to another. Structural Violence exists when some groups, classes, genders, nationalities, etc. are assumed to have, and in fact do have, more access to goods, resources, and opportunities than other groups, classes, genders, nationalities, etc., and this unequal advantage is 338

built into the very social, political and economic systems that govern societies, states and the world. These tendencies may be overt such as Apartheid or more subtle such as traditions or tendency to award some groups privileges over another. Cultural violence is the prevailing attitudes and beliefs that we have been taught since childhood and that surround us in daily life regarding power and the necessity of violence. We can consider, for example, dominant narratives of history which glorify genocide, rape, and theft and present them as necessary evils in the face of cultural progression. Almost all cultures recognize that killing a person is murder, but killing tens, hundreds or thousands during a declared conflict is called ‘war’ or ‘colonizing a country,’ and the casual killing of civilians by the State is declared ‘collateral damage.’ It is important to realize that there is interplay between the components of the triangle. Cultural and Structural Violence cause Direct Violence, while Direct Violence reinforces Structural and Cultural Violence. Direct Violence is visible as behavior in the triangle, however this violence does not come out of nowhere; its roots are Cultural and Structural. For the purposes of this book, property destruction is not considered violent unless it directly jeopardizes another living creature’s ability to support and sustain their existence (Bobichand, 2012). The State: By the State, I mean any hierarchical political organization which holds a monopoly on violence within its defined territorial boundaries and serves to ‘legitimize’ the use of violence on other States, on its own citizens, and on the Earth with the purpose of increasing the wealth, power, and oppressive capacity of the ruling class of that State. Pacifism: Pacifism is a broad ideology which encompasses many schools of thought and attitudes of resistance. There are two beliefs which unite all pacifists – being anti-war and against oppressive violence. Within that spectrum are many approaches to resistance, ranging from non-resistance to active resistance. For the purposes of this book, I need to create an ideological distinction between ineffective, disengaged non-resistance and active, engaged, effective resistance, and although the term pacifism is not completely accurate, it will serve the purposes of this book. Therefore, I will use the term pacifism to denote nonresistance and active nonviolence to denote resistance, although not all who identify as pacifists are non-resistors. I realize this may be a troubling choice of definitions to some, but due to the poverty of language I could not find a better way to distinguish the two 339

ideologies. Thus, when I use the term pacifism, I am describing an ideology of nonviolent nonresistance; a philosophy which forbids an individual to engage in direct oppressive violence but does not allow for effective resistance to oppressive violence. The writings of Martin Buber, Leo Tolstoy, John Howard Yoder, Adin Ballou, The Buddha, and Greg Boyd are good examples of pacifist ideology. Active Nonviolence: Also known as Satyagraha, the third way, nonviolent resistance, and nonviolent direct action, this philosophy distinguishes itself from pacifism in many important and often misunderstood ways. Active nonviolence posits that through offensive, yet loving and creative action, violence can be overthrown with a dedication to and willingness to suffer for one’s cause. Adherents to this philosophy often put themselves in physical danger and engage in direct action, property destruction, and civil disobedience to the State, but their actions are carefully planned as to never harm or assault another living being. Active nonviolence as a form of resistance has gained great popularity in social change movements over the past century. The writings/actions of Mohandas Gandhi, MLK Jr., Dorothy Day, Shane Claiborne, Walter Wink, Yeshua, and many others are representative of active nonviolence. Violent Resistance: Any action taken that intentionally harms another living beings life, health, or well-being for the purpose of resisting oppression will be understood to be violent resistance or violent direct action. Advocates of violent resistance believe that violence is a powerful, effective weapon that the State uses to legitimize itself every day, and those that resist the State are therefore entitled to also use violence to defend themselves against oppression. Almost all revolutions and resistance movements throughout human history have been violent, and many nonviolent movements have been bolstered by their violent counterparts, as we’ll explore later in the book. Advocates of violent resistance include Huey Newton, Malcolm X, Ernesto Guevara, Derrick Jensen, Ward Churchill, Peter Gelderloos, Ted Kaczynski, John Brown, Johann Most, Luigi Galleani, Emma Goldman, Victor Serge, Severino Di Giovanni, and Naomi Jaffe. Colonization: Colonization is the illegitimate economic exploitation and political domination of a people by a violent oppressor, as well as the separation of colonized peoples from their individuality and culture. Frantz Fanon, one of the greatest theorists of colonization and decolonization, has explored this concept exhaustively, and we will borrow heavily from his writings as we 340

continue throughout this book. Fanon believed that the rich history, culture, and wisdom of oppressed peoples are physically and symbolically destroyed, and in their place the colonizer creates a people who deserve only to be ruled and exploited. The colonizer reconstructs colonized peoples as ‘lazy’ and ‘unproductive,’ thereby justifying low wages or coercive systems of labour. He also reconstructs them as ‘stupid,’ thereby justifying the imposition of the colonial power’s institutions and practices – boarding schools, religious training centers, and plantations/factories. Finally, he constructs them as ‘savage’ and ‘dangerous,’ thereby justifying military conquest, police repression, and coercive forms of social control (Fanon, 1969). The result is a people “in whose soul an inferiority complex has been created by the death and burial of its local cultural originality” (Fanon, 1952). Fanon (1965) believed it was important to realize that colonialism, “hardly ever exploits the whole of a country. It contents itself with bringing to light the natural resources, which it extracts, and exports to meet the needs of the mother country’s industries, thereby allowing certain sectors of the colony to become relatively rich. But the rest of the colony follows its path of underdevelopment and poverty, or at all events sinks into it more deeply.” Decolonization: Decolonization is both the act of physically freeing a territory from the external control of settlers and the psychological act of freeing the consciousness of the native from the effects of colonization: the states of alienation and dehumanization. Fanon posits three premises in his theory of decolonization: a.) the act of colonization is never legitimate, as it is rooted in exploitation and oppressive violence; b.) due to the illegitimacy of colonization, the oppressed (the colonized) are entitled to two actions: the reclamation of physical liberation and sovereignty as well reclamation from the psychological suffering of colonization; c.) almost no nonviolent options are available which serve the ends of both physical and psychological liberation. Due to this reasoning, Fanon concludes that violent resistance is not only justified, but required for the oppressed to fully decolonize themselves and resist oppressive violence. While there are some critiques of Fanon’s theory (1974), I believe it a helpful model to help us understand the complexities of and requirements for effective decolonization. 341

The path to the decolonization stage is for individuals or organizations that have engaged in some activity – whether it is explicitly violent or not- that has broken their former view of themselves as weak and subservient, and has empowered them to ‘stand up for themselves,’ regardless of the consequences. This shift may or may not necessitate physical violence, as many individuals may be able to transition to a state of empowerment by simply realizing and accepting the truth that they are not victims, but for the vast majority of people it will require some sort of physical violence. The transition to this stage requires a full and complete decolonization of fear from the oppressed psyche, a rooting out of the mentality of subordination and domination and replacing it with a clarity of truth- a truth that destroys the former illusions of fear and understands that no human has the right to oppress/ kill/rape/extort/intimidate another form of life. Most of the time this stage will be accompanied with violence, as Fanon (1961) stated, “At the level of individuals, violence is a cleansing force. It frees the native from his inferiority complex and from his despair and inaction, it makes him fearless and restores his self-respect.” This stage may be seen as a ‘reaction’ to the oppression and disempowerment felt during the previous stage, and thus many individuals and groups may remain in this stage for a very long time, enjoying their newfound freedoms and savoring their liberation of their bodies, hearts, and minds. It will follow as a general rule that the amount of oppressive violence that an individual or culture has been subjected to is directly proportionate to the amount of violence they will need to exert on their oppressors in order to effectively decolonize themselves. Fanon repeated this assertion many times, and Gandhi (1942) understood this as well, when he famously said, “Nonviolence cannot be taught to a person who fears to die and has no power of resistance.” The failure to properly define the functions of violence or nonviolence presents a false dichotomy. Therefore, it is important to dissect the terms nonviolence and violence. Nonviolence is traditionally understood as being a way of life, or a moral philosophy. This moral view of nonviolence is often given a religious overtone. Another way to understand nonviolence is as a tactical political philosophy, for example, nonviolent direct action. In this case, one uses their body to effect political or moral change. Violence, on the other hand, is understood as a reactionary, political tool. Indeed, violence may generally be understood in relation to 342

the term revolution. Violence, then, is understood as killing, murder, death, and tyrannical. In addition, violence can and should be understood in a more complex manner. For example, one could argue that violence can be physical, psychological, emotional, rhetorical, or epistemic. Thus, the use of retaliatory physical violence becomes a matter of one’s moral taste, which in some sense could prove apolitical. What both terms have in common is the desire to change some form of systematic oppression, both of which can be physical or psychological, but is violent, nevertheless. The major difference between nonviolence and violence is the means or the method in how this change in power comes about. To be sure, power is at the heart of nonviolence and violence as political, moral, or ideological change. However, as the historical record indicates, there was no real contradiction between the use of nonviolence or armed selfdefense as a political tactic if they work in tandem. Morality became an issue for Black folk under the constant strain of violent white supremacy when someone came along and said nonviolence was a way of life. Background to Cameroon Colonial History The crisis in Southern Cameroons, which has resulted in a violent confrontation between armed pro-independence groups and the Cameroonian forces over the last two years, is not giving any sign of moving towards a solution—rather the contrary is true. Since the date of the symbolic declaration of Southern Cameroonian independence of 1 October, at least hundreds have been killed in a conflict that has been dragging on since the 1960s and has a lot to see with the centralization of power at the hands of the Cameroonian state. The Republic of Cameroon could be said to have a complicated and an unfortunate history, perhaps, more than a vast majority of the other African states. The Portuguese were the first Europeans to get to the area now known as the Republic of Cameroon in the 15th century. They established a sugar cane plantation in the 16th and subsequent centuries, up to the early 19th century. Portuguese and Dutch slave traders dominated the slave trade in the area until slavery was abolished. Sometime in the 19th century, nomadic Fulanis arrived in Northern Cameroon and settled. Germany eventually gained possession of the area and established Cameroon as a Protectorate in 1884, thereby, making 343

the country a colony. German colonial authorities ruled the colony until 1916 when a combined French, British and Belgian military force drove out the Germans during the First World War. After the First World War, Cameroon was taken away from Germany as part of the armistice that ended “the war to end all wars” in 1919. It was divided into two and shared by two of the victorious allied powers (Britain and France). As a result, Britain administered Northwestern and Southwestern Cameroon under the Mandate of the League of Nations while France administered four-fifth of the total territory. (The Commonwealth, 2017, October 5; Caxton, 2017, July 21). Obviously, France had a much bigger territorial area under its control than Britain. After the Second War, both countries continued to administer the territory under the Trusteeship of the United Nations. While still under the trusteeship of the UN and administered by France and Britain, indigenous African political parties emerged and began to agitate for Cameroonian independence. For instance, the Union of the Peoples of Cameroon (UPC), led by Ruben Um Nyobe demanded that the two parts (English-speaking and Frenchspeaking) should be amalgamated to form an independent country. Due to its proactive role in agitating for independence, the UPC was banned in the 1950s by the colonial powers. The ban resulted in a massive rebellion in which a considerable number of people were killed, including the leader of the party, Mr. Nyobe (Ibid). In any case, partial self-rule was granted to the colony. Eventually, Cameroon gained full independence on January 1, 1960. A UN plebiscite was held in 1961 in which Northwestern Cameroon decided to join Nigeria while Southwestern Cameroon joined French Cameroon, following the feeling that it was ignored, discriminated, and marginalized by Britain, while being ruled as part of Nigeria. Due to the nature of the country, a federal system of government was established with both language zones (Englishspeaking and French-speaking) having their own parliaments. The prime minister of the English-speaking Cameroon became the deputy president of the country while the leader of the Frenchspeaking regions served as the president (Morse, 2017, June 2). However, the federal system was illegally dissolved in 1972 by President Ahmadou Ahidjo and replaced by a unitary system of government, resulting in the concentration of power at the national level. As a result, the name was changed from the Federal Republic of Cameroon to the United Republic of Cameroon. In 1984, the name was changed again, and the country became the Republic of 344

Cameroon (Republique du Cameroun), the name at independence in 1960. Cameroon, unlike its Nigerian neighbor, which has had fifteen heads of state since independence in October 1, 1960, has had only two since independence in January 1960. Ahmadou Ahidjo first ruled as the president from 1960 to 1982, then President Paul Biya took over in the same year and has continued to rule the country to the present. Both political leaders originate from the Frenchspeaking regions. This means that no English-speaking Cameroonian has had the opportunity to serve as a head of state of the country. All policies and decisions seem to originate from the strategic interests and calculations of the French-speaking regions. Even Cameroon’s foreign policy is greatly aligned with that of France. This accounts for why President Paul Biya visits France regularly and is strongly aligned with France. On the other hand, Britain has had little or no influence on the English-speaking regions, thereby, leaving those regions to feign for themselves. An interesting aspect of Cameroon’s politics is that the military attempted four unsuccessful military coups in 1979, 1983, and February and April 1984. The last two attempted coups were alleged to have been staged by military officers who were loyal or sympathetic to former President Ahidjo. As a result, the former head of state was tried for instigating the coups in absentia and found guilty. This means that unlike many other African countries, Cameroon has never had a military regime in power. Nonetheless, the country tilted towards a unitary system of government because the power-wielding elite opted to centralize political authority at the center to reduce divisiveness. They did so by merging two governing political parties and some opposition groups in 1966. Similarly, the ruling party was reconstituted as the Cameroon National Union (Union of National Camerounaise), otherwise known as the UNC. Then, it was renamed as the Rassemblement Democratique de people Camerounais (Cameroon’s People’s Democratic Movement (CPDM) or RDPC). In sum, Cameroon started as a German colony, then was taken over by the British and French following the end of the First World War, under mandate of the League of Nations and United Nations trusteeship. The French (Francophone) and British (Anglophone) regions were amalgamated. The majority (four-fifth or about 80%) of the regions of the country is French-speaking while a smaller portion (about 20%) of the regions is English-speaking. (International Crisis Group, 2017, August 2). Perhaps, due to this 345

factor, the French regions (see map below) have dominated the country so much so that the English-speaking region feel marginalized and discriminated against in almost every aspect of the country’s life. The Trouble with Cameroon The government of La Republique du Cameroun thrives on falsehood and tells a lot of lies and seems to truly believe its lies. The country can never stand because it is built on lies and maintained by a desperate and very costly attempt to sustain the falsehood at all costs. The history of the country has been thoroughly falsified. Everybody seems to overlook the impact of the falsehood and it will never triumph over truth. The history of the country has been falsified to the extent that even legal minds tend to believe that there was a valid and subsisting federation in the Cameroons between 1961 -1972 whereas what obtained was a gigantic fraud orchestrated by the government of President Ahmadou Ahidjo against the gullible and unsuspecting leaders of the Southern Cameroons under Premier John Ngu Foncha in 1961. Ahidjo and La Republique du Cameroun carefully put in place an undeclared hidden agenda to systematically annex and assimilate The Southern Cameroons over time. This is what happened. When the Second World War ended, the United Nations Organization (UNO) was created to take over the role hitherto played by the League of Nations to safeguard world peace and stability in the comity of nations. The Mandates System of the League of Nations under which former German colonies were administered by members of the League of Nations came to an end in October 1947 when the United Nations Trusteeship Council was created as an organ of the UNO to oversee the various European powers administer and prepare the said former colonies for independence. As part of the said Trusteeship System, France was given The United Nations Trust Territory of French Cameroons whilst Britain was Given the UN Trust Territory of British Cameroons. The British Cameroons was divided for administrative convenience into two territories (British Northern Cameroons which was administered from Kaduna as part of the Northern Region of Nigeria and British Southern Cameroons which was administered from Enugu as part of the Eastern Region of Nigeria). 346

In 1954, there was a crisis in the Eastern House of Assembly at Enugu that caused the representatives of the Southern Cameroons in the said Eastern House of Assembly to withdraw from there and come home to Buea where they set up the Southern Cameroons House of Assembly. Britain, the administrative authority quickly gave its blessings to their plight and a parliamentary system of government with a bi-camera assembly akin to what obtained in Great Britain was put in place with an elected Prime Minister who was Head of Government business and a cabinet of ministers appointed from the House of Representatives by the Queen of England who handled issues of sovereignty like Foreign Affairs, Defense, Police and currency. There was a Constitution for the territory known as The Southern Cameroons Constitution Orders in Council. Sovereignty was then still vested with the Queen (administrative authority). Dr EML Endeley was the first Prime Minister from 1954 – 1958 when he was defeated in a free and fair elections by John Ngu Foncha to whom he handed power gracefully and sat in House of Assembly as leader of the opposition. In October 1959 the UNO General Assembly passed Resolution 1541 setting a dateline for immediate independence of all colonial territories under trusteeship in 1960. The British ironically complained that the British Southern Cameroons was not ready for independence having been administered from Nigeria with most of the Civil Service, Police and other staff coming from Nigeria and so with their mafia, the UN Resolution got modified and the notion of independence by joining either Nigeria or former French Cameroons that had just obtained independence on 1st January 1960 was crafted. Meanwhile, French Cameroons got its independence on 1stJanuary 1960 and was admitted into the UNO as member on in 1960 with its territory clearly mapped out, frozen and her flag, Coat of Arms and articles of state which did not include the territory of Southern Cameroons which though quasi autonomous with bi-camera parliament and government under an elected Prime Minister, was still a trust territory of the UNO under Britain. Meantime campaigns raged in British Cameroons as to independence by joining either independent Nigeria or La Republique du Cameroun. The third option spearheaded by PM Kale with the support of scholars like Fr Paul Verdzekov (then Curate in Catholic Mission Bota) who had just returned from studies in Ireland and Sorbonne in France was unpopular and muzzled out. Hence the plebiscite was organized on the 11th 347

February 1961 under the auspices of the UNO with the publication of the pamphlet entitled The Two Alternatives which clearly spelt out the terms of either eventual union. Voting was done separately in Northern Cameroons and Southern Cameroons and as was secretly planned by the British, Northern Cameroons voted to join Nigeria while Southern Cameroons voted for union with La Republique du Cameroun. To give meaning to and settle the issues of the plebiscite results, the UNO General Assembly passed Resolution 1608 of 21st April 1961 which further clarified the conditions under which the respective federations would be constituted based on equality. Thereafter Northern Cameroons pursuant to the same Resolution got independence by joining Nigeria on 22nd June 1961 while the Southern Cameroons was to have its own independence from Britain on 1st October 1961. It must be underlined here that the Northern Cameroons that went to Nigeria got partitioned into two regions within the Nigerian federation and never acceded to Selfgovernment with an elected Premier and House of Assembly like the Southern Cameroons from 1954 when they rioted and left the Eastern House of Assembly at Enugu and consequently has undergone a peculiar political evolution and development as part of Nigeria. As soon as the territory was thus partitioned by the UNO that created the trusteeship system, President Ahmadou Ahidjo of La Republique conceived his fraudulent, grand plan to systematically annex and assimilate the British Southern Cameroons which he announced at the UNC (CNU) Party Congress in Ebolowa in 1961 how part of their territory which was estranged had come back to the motherland. June 22nd 1961 – British Northern Cameroons obtains independence and becomes part of independent Federal Republic of Nigeria while British Southern Cameroons is still under UN Trusteeship waiting for midnight 30th September when trusteeship would end so she becomes independent and joins La Republique du Cameroun in a UN sponsored federation “…equal in status” as per UNGA Resolution 1608 of 21/04/1961. July 1961 – La Republique du Cameroun conceives draft Bill to change name of country to “Republique Federale du Cameroun” and allegedly smuggles bill to John Ngu Foncha who does not reveal same to Southern Cameroons House of Representatives nor government that he headed. 348

July 1961 – Ahidjo organizes Foumban Constitutional Conference where the draft Bill for federal constitution was to be debated but unfortunately the conference ends in disarray without any Resolution. August 24th-25th, 1961 – the Draft Bill for Federal Republic of Cameroun is debated and adopted in the parliament of La Republique du Cameroun only. Neither House of Representatives, House of Chiefs nor Government of The Southern Cameroons who had voted to join them were consulted. 1st September 1961 – President Ahmadou Ahidjo by virtue of powers granted him by the constitution of La Republique du Cameroun promulgates the adopted draft Bill into Law No L/F/01 of 01/09/1961 on the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Cameroun which immediately goes operational in his country whilst the Southern Cameroons is still under UN Trusteeship with The Southern Cameroons Constitution Orders in Council as our own governing law under the British Crown and Union Jack. 30th September 1961 – at the Tiko international Airport in the afternoon, while Southern Cameroons was still under UN Trusteeship that was to expire at midnight for the territory to achieve independence and join La Republique du Cameroon, Ahidjo comes for official visit, the Union Jack is lowered and the Two Stars Flag of La Republique du Cameroun is hoisted, Ahidjo inspects Guard of Honour mounted by the remaining British soldiers and Ikeja trained Police, Ahidjo is thus handed The Southern Cameroons illegally and prematurely by J O Fields (last Commissioner)who waves Good Bye, enters the plane and goes off to England. 1st October 1961 – Ahmadou Ahidjo, Head of State of the Federal Republic of Cameroon and Commander in Chief of Armed Forces: – Had already sent his troops to occupy Buea and Bamenda – appointed John Ngu Foncha an elected Prime Minister as Vice President of the Federal Republic with office and fabulous salary/allowances in Yaounde. – appoints J C Ngoh as Federal Inspector of Administration answerable to the president and with more powers than the elected Prime Minister of West Cameroon. – Signed Decree in 1962 extending Terrorism Law of La Republique du Cameroun to West Cameroon to give legal cover to arrest and incarcerate political opponents like Nde Tumazah, Albert 349

Mukong, Peter Banfogha etc. of the UPC and One Kamerun party stock who were still enjoying liberties in West Cameroon. – 1966 – One party system was rammed down throats of Southern Cameroonians who had managed a vibrant multiparty system with multiple free and fair elections since 1954. – 1968 – Augustine Ngom Jua another elected Prime Minister of West Cameroon (never appointed Vice President of Federation) was sacked ignominiously whilst addressing parliament in Buea and replaced with S T Muna – 1970 – S T Muna was appointed Federal Vice President whilst J N Foncha was appointed Grand chancellor of National Orders (whatever that means). – 20th May 1972 – hoax of Referendum was organized to create United Republic of Cameroon, sovereignty is vested with the President who creates 7 Provinces dividing West Cameroon into South West and North West Provinces respectively making sure that seeds of division are sowed, watered and nurtured between them and sponsoring VIKUMA (Victoria, Kumba, Mamfe alliance against the NW). – 1st February 1984 – Paul Biya signed decree resurrecting the erstwhile Republique du Cameroun which had only gone into abeyance with the illegal imposition of the Federal Constitution on the UN Trust Territory of the Southern Cameroons. – 1992 – High Court of Bamenda in Judgment No HCB/28/92 per Justice FOMBE Richard, between The State of Southern Cameroons alias Ambazonia & 2 Ors Vs La Republique Du Cameroun & 1Or declared the administration of La Republique du Cameroun illegal over the Southern Cameroons territory … (Judge was subsequently killed and Case File disappeared). – May 2009 – Notwithstanding the existing illegality, the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights (ACHPR) in Communication 266/2003 dated 27/05/2009 between Kevin Ngwang Gumne, SCNC & SCAPO Vs Cameroon wherein the special tribunal of the African Union held that Southern Cameroonians are a distinct people different from citizens of La Republique du Cameroun and recommended Constructive Dialogue between La Republique du Cameroun and the peoples of the Southern Cameroons. In fact, when the leader of the Cameroon delegation (Dr. Joseph Dione Ngute) raised the issue of them being tried in the military tribunal because they were terrorists, the court asked him whether terrorists go to court, and he was dumbfounded. In fact this same recognition was made by the United Nations 350

Human Rights Committee (UNHRC) in Communication 1134/2002 dated 17/03/2005 between Fon Fongum Gorji Dinka Vs Cameroon as well as in the very recent Communication 1813/2003 dated December 2014 between Ebenezer Derek Mbongo Akwanga Vs Cameroon wherein the UNHRC went ahead to award damages in the sum of US$3.445.904 against the Defendants. Picture 15: Two Maps of Southern Cameroons and La Republique du Cameroun presented to President Biya on May 20, 2010.

Source: The UN presented two maps to President Biya representing the two Cameroons during the 50th independence day celebrations

– The recommendations for constructive dialogue between the two peoples of La Republique du Cameroun and the Southern Cameroons (Ambazonia) by both the African Union and the UNO Secretary General Koffi A Annan has been roundly frustrated with impunity and utmost disdain by Paul Biya’s La Republique du Cameroun and everybody seems so helpless!! – It must also be underlined here that while it was legal and legitimate for the Draft Bill for the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Cameroun to be debated only in the parliament of La Republique du Cameroun and then promulgated into law by their president Ahmadou Ahidjo and implemented in their territory, it remains a gigantic fraud and illegality for that Federal Constitution and ALL OTHER SUBSEQUENT LEGISLATION and practice 351

deriving from it to be implemented in the territory of the Southern Cameroons(Ambazonia). A law that was adopted and promulgated without the consent of Ambazonians should not be implemented on them. This happens to be one of the principal causes of the American War of Independence, the principle of NO TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION. How can a law adopted in parliament of Nigeria be implemented in Cameroon? – By the same argument should Southern Cameroons continue to pay taxes and sponsor a government that rather than build roads, schools and hospitals sends armed policemen, gendarmes, and military to torture, maim, rape, loot, and even kill innocent unarmed school children? Do parents suffer with children like this only for them to reach university and be tortured, maimed, raped and killed by armed troops of La Republique du Cameroun? Why the carnage as if Southern Cameroonians were conquered in War? This is the source of the anger of Ambazonians-separate, annexed, and excluded (see the two maps below). What were the two maps that the UN representative handed to Biya in Yaounde on May 20, 2010? According to live reports from CRTV, the UN representative, Dr. Ali Triki, who was the President of the 64th General Assembly of the UN, in handing the two maps to Cameroun’s Head of State, declared “Voici les cartes de Cameroon Britannique…histoire en a decidee ( Here are the maps of British Cameroons…history had so decided..”. According to another Stateowned media, Cameroon Tribune of Tuesday May 25, 2010, on page 1 and 3, carrying the pictures of the two maps in the presence of Paul Biya and Jean Victor Nkolo, who is of the Information Department at the UN, the two maps were well framed, large enough for Biya to understand even from twenty meters away. The first and very gigantic one is the Map of La Republique du Cameroun as of January 1, 1960! It clearly shows the red line and green line separating British Cameroons from La Republique du Cameroun. LRC is no more a triangle with British Cameroons as Biya and Yaounde claim. What Dr. Ali Triki was presenting through this first big map was the map showing LRC as far as the United Nations is concerned. That is LRC as per January 1, 1960. The second map is also very clear and well framed, clearly separated from the first. It shows the Map of British Southern Cameroons as of October 1, 1961. What does this entail? It means one and one thing only. The United Nations cannot suffer itself to print and frame very large maps of one’s country to come and present it as birthday gifts just 352

like that. Imagine that at your birthday, someone comes up with framed pictures of yours when you were born. Or, in another circumstance, imagine that you are celebrating the 50th anniversary of your marriage, someone comes with two framed pictures of you, and your wife, separately, when she was a maiden and you a bachelor. More so, he refers to her as Miss. The message is simple! That the man, say, the court magistrate or mayor, is reminding you that your stay together is still not regularized as per international law. Aborted Demands for Political Decentralization, Equity and Fairness in Governance During the 1990s, there were a series of protests and demonstrations against one-party rule since it tended to concentrate political power at the center. This led to the multiplication of political parties. Despite the multiplication of political parties, the incumbent president, Mr. Paul Biya, was able to win various presidential elections handily, including those of 1992, 1997, 2004 and 2011(The Commonwealth, 2017, October 5). It should be noted that in 2008, President Biya abolished term limits, thereby, enabling him to run for office as the president without any constitutional restriction (Morse, 2017, June 2). Even though Cameroon joined the British Commonwealth in 1995 because it has an English-speaking population, nevertheless, Cameroon has operated as if it is a wholly French-speaking country, to the detriment of the Anglophone region. Feeling neglected, marginalized and deprived, English-speaking Cameroonians started clamoring for a change or a restructuring of the country. They insisted upon the equitable sharing of the oil wealth, which presently is lopsidedly in favour of the country’s majority Frenchspeaking regions. They also insisted upon changing the judicial system which is currently based on French language and legal traditions while ignoring English language and legal traditions (Vanguard, 2017, October 1). They are particularly irked by the fact that Anglophone Cameroon courts are sometimes operated by French trained judges who have no understanding of British common law. In addition, English-speaking students decry the fact that they are not given opportunity to take examinations in English (Morse, 2017, June 2). They also decry the fact that there are too many French-speaking teachers in the Anglophone region that are not proficient in English. The employment environment is very 353

stifling to English-speaking Cameroonians who find it difficult to gain employment and to join professional associations (Caxton, 2017, July 21). This makes English-speaking citizens feel like foreigners in their own country. To solve some of the problems, the English-speaking citizens called upon the government to redeploy the French-speaking teachers and encourage more English-speaking teachers to be deployed in English-language schools. In particular, the Anglophone Cameroonians want the reintroduction of a federation rather than a unitary system (Ibid.). Like in many other African countries, Anglophone Cameroonian demand for restructuring of the country has been ignored or rejected by the political leadership and the Frenchspeaking majority which assume that they have the political and military wherewithal to stop or prevent any major rebellion on the part of the English-speaking people from taking place. Hence, protests have been met with harsh security measures. The harsh security measures simply added fuel to the anger and the desire to restructure the country or separate the two parts. Hence, starting in late 2016, the crisis in the English-speaking regions escalated as the people demanded a restructuring or a rearrangement of the country. Consequently, thousands of English-speaking Cameroonians, including students, teachers, lawyers and civil society organizations mounted demonstrations and strikes against discrimination (Morse, 2017, June2). Due to the confrontations, the casualty rate is increasing. For instance, four protesters were killed in December 2016. In another protest, 100 people were arrested and detained. On October 1, 2017, a mass protest in the English-speaking NorthWest and South-West regions resulted in the death of 17 protesters as security forces used live bullets to disperse the protesters (Unh & Ojeme, 2018, February 2). In the effort to curtail rebellion in the English-speaking regions, the government went as far as banning internet communication for three months and proscribing two organizations. It even arrested and charged the leaders of the two banned organizations with crimes bordering on terrorism. It also instituted a temporary restriction on travel in both the Northwest and Southwest regions of the English-speaking zone (Nigerian Tribune, 2017, October 12). As the conflict escalated, certain elements decided to opt for secession and are now demanding the separation of the Englishspeaking region from the French-speaking regions. They call their region Ambazonia. The demand for independence has increased confrontations between security forces and the separatists, thereby, 354

resulting in armed resistance. The violent clashes have forced more than 40,000 English-speaking Cameroonians to flee their country and seek refuge in Nigeria. Apparently, there are thousands of Cameroonians who are now in refugee camps in Nigeria. In early January 2018, Sisiku Ayuk Tabe, the leader of the separatists and other important members of the Southern Cameroon National Council (SCNC) were arrested in Abuja, the capital of Nigeria, by Nigeria’s Department of State Service (DSS) while they were organizing a meeting to find ways of taking care of the thousands of English-speaking Cameroonians who left Cameroon to seek refuge in Nigeria (BBC, 2018, January 8). The arrests prompted human rights lawyers and advocates in Nigeria to demand the release of the individuals since they have a right to express their political opinions. Similarly, the Amnesty International warned against repatriating the separatist leaders back to Cameroon by reminding Nigeria of its obligation to adhere to international law regarding human rights (Premium Times, 2018, January 12). Sadly, Nigeria secretly repatriated the separatist leaders back to Cameroon, thereby, putting their lives in great danger. Thus, the country has incrementally edged towards an uncontrollable civil war as an increasing number of Englishspeaking Cameroonians have joined the call for total separation from French- Cameroon. Consequently, the major cities in the English zone are now occupied by military and police forces. Buea, the major city in Southwest Cameroon became a ghost town when separatists decided to symbolically declare independence on October 1, 2017. This date was chosen for the symbolic declaration since it was the day that both the French-speaking and Englishspeaking regions amalgamated in 1961 (Vanguard, 2017, October 1). It should be noted that Nigeria got its independence on October 1, 1960. As the conflict spreads, even rural areas in the Englishspeaking zone are feeling the impact of the escalating conflict. In many rural communities, people are running into the bushes to hide from Cameroon’s security forces that are desperately trying to stop the rebellion. President Paul Biya, despite his old age, seems to have a total grip on power like a dictator. He rules Cameroon as a personal estate. Strongly backed by the French-speaking Cameroonians, he holds cabinet meetings infrequently. As a result, cabinet meetings are held two or three years apart. Just in passing, a cabinet meeting took place in March 2018 and the previous one was held in October 2015. The cabinet meetings generally last for very short durations 355

and the minutes of the meetings are rarely published (Premium Times, 2018, March 15). Indeed, Cameroon operates like a personal colony of President Paul Biya and his ardent supporters. He is free to do whatever he wants whenever he wants without any political oversight. He takes vacations regularly in Switzerland. To appease the aggrieved English-speaking population, he appoints individuals among them to sinecure positions as Prime Minister and hopes that this would dampen the agitation for separation (Ibid.). The Responsibility to Protect and the International Media Silence The double face of the international community has once more been unveiled in the situation in Ambazonia. Many in Ambazonia have pondered aloud how a social movement in Iran, which led to the death of about 21 people, would lead to an urgent session of the UN Security Council, while a struggle lasting close to two years in an African country, with tens of deaths recorded, many missing, thousands arbitrarily arrested, civilians without arms tried in military courts, patients dragged out of hospital beds and taking to unknown destinations, villages burnt and entire communities displaced, an appalling refugee situation has not receive a similar treatment. Despite the numerous appeals in person and in writing, protest marches organized by South Cameroonians at the various international organizations especially the UN, the situation is yet to be heard at the General Assembly, or the more powerful and influential Security Council. This goes to support the thesis that “black lives do not matter” to the international community. Even the Commonwealth, which preaches the upholding of human rights as its key value is still to promote these rights in one of its member states. The overbearing influence of France in the UN in general, and Security Council in particular, has also become a deterring factor to the hearing of the Southern Cameroons’ case. France is the former colonial master of Francophone Cameroon, and since the reunification of Anglophone and Francophone Cameroon in 1961 it has kept its gripping effect over the country, controlling its economy and resources – most of which come from Southern Cameroons or Anglophone regions. However, for the UN to uphold its integrity which is fast dwindling, it has to uphold its famous policy of the “responsibility to protect,” which was endorsed in 2005 by all members of the UN 356

who pledged to prevent genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. It was invoked in the Libyan case in 2011. According to the UN, the responsibility to protect ensures that when a state fails to protect its own citizens who are vulnerable, the international community is empowered to take necessary actions to protect the vulnerable population. This was upheld in Resolution 1973 when the UN Security Council empowered NATO countries to stage an incursion into the country as a means of protecting the Libyan people who it was reported could no longer be protected by their government. Moreover, other related organizations including Commonwealth, La Francophonie (to which Cameroon is a member) can also uphold their own integrity by imposing their might on the situation. The imposition of violence as a solution to the problem is a clear indication that the government of Cameroon has run out of options and needs urgent assistance. Cameroon has a serious problem unfolding in the area called Southern Cameroons (Anglophone Cameroon) where Anglophone separatists are fighting for the creation of their own state called Ambazonia Republic where they belief they would be fairly represented. This is an occasion for the international community to help the government and people of Cameroon come out of this quagmire. In the present situation where both parties have lost faith in each other, the international community could provide good offices as well as mediate in the conflict. In the present lackluster situation pressure on the international community can only be imposed by the media power. In his book The Power of News, Michael Schudson argues that the media has a central role to play in the choices people make in politics. The power of the media in Cameroon is not underestimated as it is usually called the fourth power, meaning it can bring pressure and effectuate changes in any situation. Presently, the eclipse of the situation is such that even Francophones do not have a clear picture of the real situation in Southern Cameroons as the state media has never mentioned the story of the suffering masses and the refugees in Nigeria. Most private media houses in Cameroon have also shunned images from Southern Cameroons and rather prefer to uphold the thesis of politicians who are exploiting the situation to make gains. The refugee crisis in Libya only received attention after CNN exposed the sale of African migrants into slavery. Immediately, countries and organizations weighed in and within months 357

thousands of migrants were rescued and repatriated to their countries of origin. A similar media exposure of the Southern Cameroons’ case especially at the international level would also expose the real issue in context and the carnage ongoing (see map of Southern Cameroons). Anger, Resistance, and Self-Defense As a matter of common sense, guns lethalise anger, domestic disputes, mental illness and despair. A gun in the home makes the likelihood of homicide three times higher, suicide three to five times higher, and accidental death four times higher. The pro-gun lobby has created the fantasy of a gun as a homeowner’s perfect protection against a mythical intruder. Each time a gun in the home injures or kills in self-defense, there are four unintentional shooting deaths or injuries, seven criminal assaults and homicides with a gun, and many completed or attempted gun suicides. The pogroms unleashed against Ambazonians by the Biya regime, especially from November 30th, 2017 when the President declared war, created interest in violent self-defense. In fact, the extermination of Ambazonians, rather than emerging fully formed from President Paul Biya’s long-term plans, was a piecemeal process driven to a large extent, “from below,” by initiatives from rival power-centers within the highly fragmented Cameroonian bureaucracy. To say this is not to absolve Biya of responsibility for the genocide in Ambazonia. The annihilation of Ambazonians in Cameroon – was frequently cited by both Biya and his subordinates as they sought to fulfil his prediction in the fraudulent “One and Invisible” Cameroon. Mass murder came to seem to Biya officials as the only way out of what they experienced as a managerial political nightmare. Every revolution is accompanied by anger. Anger does not necessarily make one blind. It is also active and temporary. When anger breaks out, one still has time to reflect— sine ira cum studio—otherwise one would be tainted by that so easily corruptible hate. Self-defence is defined as the right to prevent suffering force or violence using a sufficient level of counteracting force or violence. This definition is simple enough on its face, but it raises many questions when applied to actual situations. For instance, what is a sufficient level of force or violence when defending oneself? What goes beyond that level? What if the intended victim provoked the attack? Do victims have to retreat from the violence if possible? 358

What happens when victims reasonably perceive a threat even if the threat doesn’t exist? What about when the victim’s apprehension is subjectively genuine, but objectively unreasonable? Defensive violence against actions from groups or nations is a justified form of violence. Defensive violence can be defined as forceful or violent acts against a group who makes the initial violent acts. Throughout the history of wars in the world, including World War I and II, when a country would attack another using violence, the victim country would generally respond by defensively using violence to protect themselves and forcing the attacker to flee. There are many other examples that surface today and in recent events, as well as other events that have occurred throughout history to show justified defensive violence. The United Nations Charter is the one authoritative source of international law regulating the use of force. Since the 9/11 attacks that inaugurated the ‘war on terror’, scholars and countries such as the United States have sought to develop a new legal framework that would essentially justify an expanded version of self-defense. The United Nations Charter is the one authoritative source of international law regulating the use of force. The 9/11 attacks that inaugurated the ‘war on terror’ prompted the claim that the law of the Charter was obsolete because it was intended to deal with conflicts between states, the principal actors in the international system, and not non-state actors such as Al Qaeda. A novel situation has arisen; the old law of the UN must be appropriately adapted to deal with these new threats, or else, a new legal framework must be established: this in general is the argument made, not only by scholars but powerful countries such as the United States which, through successive administrations, has sought to develop new doctrines that would essentially justify its approach to the ‘war on terror’. The resulting framework – I present a tentative version here because debates as to its character are ongoing – is based on the paramount importance of self-defense; it profoundly challenges a body of law, relating to sovereignty, self-defense, human rights, and the use of force that has been carefully and laboriously constructed over the past decades through the auspices of the UN and various other related institutions. In this paper I examine this new framework first, in terms of how it seeks to amend or reinterpret existing principles restricting the use of force, second, its underlying vision of war and violence and third, I suggest ways in which this framework serves to reproduce certain colonial structures which 359

appear to be deeply embedded in both international law and international relations. Self-defence, States’ Silence, and the Security Council: Examining Acquiescence Concerns and UN Article 51 Reports When is silence juridically relevant in international law? When is it pertinent to measures of self-defense? Under what circumstances does a State — or the United Nations Security Council — tacitly consent to another State’s conduct by not speaking out against it? Where do States, and where does the U.N. Security Council, have an obligation to publicly denounce unlawful conduct lest they acquiesce in the violative conduct and, possibly, in a revised interpretation or modification of the legal provision corresponding to that violative conduct? The basic contours of the relevance of silence in international law are not new. They have resurfaced over centuries and across a range of contexts, touching on such matters as the attribution of territorial title, change of a land boundary, and derogation of a treaty. The (Draft) Articles on the Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts (2001) recognized, for example, the loss of the right to invoke responsibility where the injured State is considered, by reason of its conduct, to have validly acquiesced in the lapse of the claim. More recently, silence and inaction have been raised—in draft conclusions of the International Law Commission (ILC)— regarding two topics that pertain to (re)interpreting, or perhaps even modifying, legal provisions. One topic concerns treaties, and the other relates to customary international law. Both topics are under active consideration by the ILC in conjunction with U.N. Member States, and both may be relevant to self-defense. That is because the legal parameters concerning self-defense measures pertain not only to the U.N. Charter but also to customary international law. The first ILC topic is the establishment of the agreement of parties to a treaty through subsequent practice. According to the ILC’s most recent draft conclusions regarding that topic, silence on the part of one or more parties can constitute acceptance of the subsequent practice when the circumstances call for some reaction. (Those draft conclusions also state that silence by a party shall not be presumed to constitute subsequent practice under Article 360

31(3)(b) of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties accepting an interpretation of a treaty as expressed in a pronouncement of an expert treaty body.) The second ILC topic is the identification of a rule of customary international law. According to the most recent ILC’s draft conclusions concerning that topic, relevant practice may, under certain circumstances, include inaction, and failure to react over time to a practice may serve as evidence of acceptance as law (opinio juris), provided that States were in a position to react and the circumstances called for some reaction. The status of the norms and the corresponding treaty provisions and customary rules at issue—in particular, those concerning the prohibition of the use of force in international relations—may further complicate the legal analysis. That is because certain norms, including those recognized as reflecting obligations erga omnes or jus cogens, give rise to additional considerations. Those considerations might, for example, implicate a potential obligation of third States to cooperate to bring the breach to an end and to not recognize as lawful any situation created by the breach, as well as modalities through which the relevant norm may, or may not, be modified. Today, foundational questions concerning the juridical relevance of silence resonate perhaps most significantly with respect to extraterritorial State military attacks that are (purportedly) conducted on a self-defense basis, that are directed against nonstate armed groups, and that are undertaken (at least seemingly) without the consent of the territorial State. Such attacks directed against ISIS in Syria make up one prominent set of examples. But they are far from the only instances. An ongoing debate among international lawyers concerns aspects of the legality of such resorts to force under the U.N. Charter and under customary international law. One subset of that debate concerns whether—and, if so, under what conditions—the international legal regime governing self-defense permits a State, without U.N. Security Council authorization, to resort to force by directing an attack against a terrorist group in circumstances where that group is neither directed nor controlled by, but operates in and emanates cross-border threats from, another State and where the attacking State does not have the consent of the territorial State. A related strand of debate relates to what, if any, legal effects may arise in the face of those resorts to force from silence — whether it 361

is the silence of States other than the attacking State(s) or the territorial State(s) or the silence of the U.N. Security Council itself. Against the backdrop of those debates, this project seeks to deepen and widen our understanding of the role, if any, of silence or inaction in discerning whether armed action directed against non-state armed groups in the identified circumstances fits within the existing international legal order. Of the array of potential concerns in this thematic area, this project will focus on two linked sets of issues. The first set of issues that this project will explore concerns the legal relevance, if any, of States’ silence or inaction in relation to the resorts to the use of force (purportedly) in self-defense raised above. Among the relevant stakes are whether—by not publicly protesting or otherwise denouncing resorts to force in the form of military attacks directed against non-state armed groups (seemingly) without the territorial State’s consent—certain States (perhaps especially States other than the attacking State and territorial State) and/or the U.N. Security Council may be considered to have tacitly consented to the validity of those resorts to force and/or of the legal rationales underlying them. We will explore normative parameters in light of subsequent practice of parties to the U.N. Charter and of State practice and opinio juris, as well as jurisprudence of international courts. The second set of issues that this project will examine concerns so-called “Article 51 reports.” Article 51 of the U.N. Charter lays down that: Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security. Measures taken by Members in the exercise of this right of self-defense shall be immediately reported to the Security Council and shall not in any way affect the authority and responsibility of the Security Council under the present Charter to take at any time such action as it deems necessary in order to maintain or restore international peace and security. We will explore the role of Article 51 reports within the normative regime as well as international legal aspects concerning the U.N. Security Council’s responses, or lack of responses, to those reports. In doing so, we will consider such issues as the accessibility of and transparency concerning those reports; trends and trajectories regarding the content (including legal arguments), form, and other substantive and procedural aspects pertaining to 362

those reports; and the U.N. Security Council’s responses to those reports and/or its own silence or other forms of inaction regarding them. Self-Defense and Defense of Vulnerable Ambazonian Others Self-defence and defence of vulnerable others are two criminal defenses that can be used when a criminal defendant commits a criminal act but believes that he or she was justified in doing so. Although our legal system generally discourages the use of force or violence against others, courts have recognized that all individuals have the right to protect themselves from harm and may use reasonable force to do so. Likewise, the defence of others also recognizes the right to use reasonable force in defence of others who are threatened. Today, some 500 villages and counting have been burnt to ashes; children drifting around with neither food to eat nor any knowledge of the whereabouts of their parents; at least one million internally displaced people. In the meantime, thousands have taken refuge in forests, sleeping in the open and living on wild food, while more than a conservative 50,000 people according to UNHCR, have successfully crossed into Nigeria as refugees. In some situations, even houses of priests and pastors have been burnt – like the case of the Pastor of the Presbyterian Church Kwa-Kwa (in the South West of the country) and the Roman Catholic Priest in the same area. It is therefore not a surprise to hear Professor Fonkem Achankeng wonder whether with such carnage “we (Ambazonians) are winning.” Perhaps the easiest way to understand why French Cameroon barbaric colonialism is so horrific to Ambazonians and the international community is to imagine it happening in your own country now. It is invaded, conquered, and occupied by a senile and savage foreign power. Existing governing institutions are dismantled and replaced by absolute rule of the colonizers. A strict hierarchy separates the colonized and the colonizer; you are treated as an inconvenient subhuman who can be abused at will. The colonists commit crimes with impunity against your people. Efforts at resistance are met with brutal reprisal, sometimes massacre. The more vividly and accurately you manage to conjure what this scenario would look like, the more horrified you will be by the very idea of colonialism. 363

When the colonizers sense that the jig is up, they co-opt the local elite—the intellectuals, priests or preachers, movers and shakers in the political class. These people are so deeply colonized that they collaborate with colonizers to keep a lid on things. They do so because their colonization conditions them to see revolution as a threat to values like dignity, equality, individualism, reasonableness. The reason is that the colonized elites prefer reform to revolution. They get a seat at the table of reasonableness and get to negotiate the terms of reform with the colonizers, terms that will, no doubt, help to cement their own power and privilege. But trying to find reasonable compromises with the colonizers, the colonized elites become ‘oh so reasonable’ instruments of the colonizers. In the end, reform promises no fundamental change at all, at least not for the masses. That’s why it’s always the Ambazonian masses and not the co-opted elites who are the leading edge of revolution. And that’s why nonviolent reform is for sell-outs, who are blind to their own colonization and complicit in not just their own oppression, but the oppression of the masses. Self-Defense and the UN Charter The United Nations Charter is the one authoritative source of international law regulating the use of force. Under the UN Charter, force is permitted only in two circumstances: first, when the use of force has been authorized by the Security Council acting under Chapter VII and second, under section 51 of the Charter a state which has been the victim of an ‘armed attack’ may respond by using force in self-defense. These basic principles are supported and complemented by a number of other customary rules. For instance, the use of force must be proportional to the injury suffered. Further, territorial restrictions are imposed on the use of force: it is impermissible under international law to wage war in the territory of a state which is not strictly party to the conflict for that would violate the sovereignty of the attacked state. Finally, a relatively clear boundary existed between ‘peace’ and ‘war’; wars were usually ended by some sort of treaty, peace was restored, and this enabled the different legal regimes of peace and war to operate with clarity. The UN Charter recognizes the fundamental, indeed primordial character of self-defense by stating that ‘nothing in the present Charter impairs the inherent right of self-defense.’ Crucial to this framework is the question of the scope of the right of self-defense. 364

The Charter recognizes the fundamental, indeed primordial character of self-defense by stating that ‘nothing in the present Charter impairs the inherent right of self-defense’. The right, in other words, precedes the Charter, even if the Charter attempts to limit the circumstances in which that right is exercised. The potency and primacy of the right of self-defense is suggested by the fact that the International Court of Justice left open the possibility that a state could use nuclear weapons in self-defense-this despite the catastrophic global consequences that would most likely follow. It is notable further, that both the Non-proliferation Treaty and the Chemical Weapons Convention explicitly permit a member state to withdraw from the treaty if ‘extraordinary events’ occur and upon giving due notice-as North Korea did with the Non-Proliferation treaty. One way to understand this apparently anomalous provision is that it recognizes that the inherent right of self-defense possessed by all states will only be meaningful if they have a concurrent right to develop and use whatever weapons are available for that purpose. In sum, a broad consideration of French Cameroon colonialism of Ambazonia suggests that this senile system of domination entails contest of reality in three worlds: the world of things, of people, and of meaning. Driven firstly by economic motives, French Cameroon colonizers attacked the world of Ambazonian things to obtain natural resources for its French overlords and markets for manufactured French goods. To obtain cheap or free labour, they not only occupied the land but also assaulted the world of people to force submission militarily and politically. Once they subdued Ambazonian people and occupied their land with savage security outfits and evil administrators, they assaulted the world of meaning because no system of oppression lasts without occupation of the mind and ontology of the oppressed. In short and in conclusion, French Cameroon colonialism is today more entrenched objectively and subjectively than it was in the past in Ambazonia. Effective and sustainable change to decolonize Ambazonia can come only when those within the center of the metacolonised world and those in its peripheries work together both to deconstruct metacoloniality in its different forms and jointly reconstruct a more just Ambazonian world on the ruins of the brutally imposed old French Cameroun colonialism. The call for collaboration is not a mere appeal for sympathy or generosity from the United States of America, United Nations, African Union, or European Union; those at the centers of metacolonialism also 365

pay heavy but hidden costs for injustice and dehumanization of Ambazonian others. I therefore see the project of decolonizing psychology in Ambazonia (using bottom-up rather than top-down approach to decolonization) as a means toward broad-based critical thinking and collaboration on what to deconstruct and how to reconstruct for the benefit of all. The reason for this bottom-up approach lies in the logic that social and political systems seldom die or dismantle easily; they often reinvent themselves for three chief reasons. Firstly, the economic and political interests they served in the past continue to prevail in subsequent generations. Secondly, the institutions— schools, law enforcement agencies, courts and others—that served those interests do not readily change. Thirdly, those who grow up under these systems―beneficiaries as well as victims―get so indoctrinated through childhood socialization, schooling, and adult experiences that they do not seek or accept alternative ways of looking at the world. Turned into true believers or acting as programmed robots, they defend the oppressive structures as if life would be impossible without them. In fact, they would (and often do) sacrifice life to defend and perpetuate these systems, however unjust. References Amnesty International warns against extradition of Cameroon separatist leaders arrested in Nigeria. (2018). Premium Times. Retrieved January 16, 2018). Berkowitz, L. (1970). Experimental investigations of hostility catharsis. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 35, 1– 7. Bobichand, R. (2012). “Understanding Violence Triangle and Structural Violence” – Rajkumar Bobichand (2012). Bodenhausen, G. V., Sheppard, L. A., & Kramer, G. P. (1994). Negative affect and social judgment: The differential impact of anger and sadness. European Journal of Social Psychology, 24, 45–62. Bushman, B., Baumeister, R., Stack, A., & Kruglanski, A. W. (1999). Catharsis, aggression, and persuasive influence: Self-fulfilling or self-defeating prophecies? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 76, 367–376. 366

Cameroon’s aging Biya holds first cabinet meeting since 2015. (2018). Premium Times. Retrieved March 22, 2018, from https://www.premiumtimesng.com/foreign/west-africaforeign/261929-cameroons-aging-biya-holds-first-cabinetmeeting-since-2015.html Cameroon’s Anglophone crisis at the crossroads. (2017). International Crisis Group. Retrieved October 6, 2017, from https://reliefweb.int/report/cameroon-s-anglophone-crisiscrossroads Cameroon city deserted ahead independence declaration. (2017). Vanguard. Retrieved October 4, 2017, from https://www.vanguardngr.com/2017/10/cameroon-citydeserted-independence-declaration/ Caxton, A. (2017). The Anglophone dilemma in Cameroon. Accord. Retrieved April 3, 2018, from www.accord.org.zo/conflict-trends/anglophone-dillemacameroon/ English speakers take to the streets. (2017). MNews24. Retrieved September 23/17, from m.news24.com/news24/Africa/News/English-speakers-taketo-the-streets-in-cameroon.20170. Fanon, F. (1967). Black skin, white masks. New York, NY, USA: Grove Press. Fanon, F. (1968). The wretched of the Earth. New York, NY, USA: Grove Press. Fanon, F. (1969). “Towards the African Revolution” – Frantz Fanon (1969). Fehr, B., & Baldwin, M. W. (1996). Prototype and script analyses of laypeople’s knowledge of anger. In J. Fitness & G. Fletcher (Eds.), Knowledge structures and interaction in close relations: A social psychological approach (pp. 219–245). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Fernandez, E. (2008). “The angry personality: A representation on six dimensions of anger expression.” In G. J. Boyle, D. Matthews & D. Saklofske (eds.). International Handbook of Personality Theory and Testing: Vol. 2: Personality Measurement and Assessment (pp. 402–419). London: Sage. Galtung, J. (1969). “Galtung’s Violence Triangle” – Johan Galtung (1969). Gandhi, M. (1942). “Nonviolence in Peace and War, Volume 1” – M.K. Gandhi (1942) 367

Harmon-Jones, E. (2004). On the relationship of anterior brain activity and anger: Examining the role of attitude toward anger. Cognition and Emotion, 18, 337–361. Keith E. Whittington, R. Daniel Kelemen, and Gregory A. Caldeira (Editors). (2010). The Oxford Handbook of Law and Politics. London: Oxford University Press. Lerner, J. S., & Keltner, D. (2000). Beyond valence: Toward a model of emotion-specific influences on judgment and choice. Cognition & Emotion, 14, 473–493 Moons, W. G., & Mackie, D. M. (2007). Thinking straight while seeing red: The influence of anger on information processing. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 33, 706–720. Morse, Y. L. (2017). Cameroon has been in crisis for six months. Here’s is what you need to know. The Washington Post. www.vanguardngr.com/2017/03/46-killed-96-wounded-ife-yorubahausa-clas-police/ Nabi, R. L. (2002). Anger, fear, uncertainty, and attitudes: A test of the cognitive-functional model. Communication Monographs, 69, 204–216. Novaco, R. (1975). Anger control: The development and evaluation of an experimental treatment. Lexington, MA: Heath. Ortony, A., Clore, G. L. & Collins, A. (1988). The cognitive structure of emotions. New York: Cambridge University Press. Our member countries -Cameroon history (2017, October 5). The Commonwealth. Retrieved October 5, 2017, from https://the commonwealth.org/our-member-countries/Cameroon/history: The Crackdown on Southern Cameroonians. (2017, October 12). Nigerian Tribune. Retrieved October 20, 2017, from https://odili.net/news/source/2017/oct/12/602.html. Schwarz, N. (1990). Feelings as information: Informational and motivational functions of affective states. In E. T. Higgins & R. Sorrentino (Eds.), Handbook of motivation and cognition: Foundations of social behavior (Vol. 2, pp. 527–561). New York: Guilford. Siebert, R. (1974). “Frantz Fanon: Colonialism and Alienation: Concerning Frantz Fanon’s Political Theory” – Renate Siebert (1974). Tavris, C. (1984). Anger: The misunderstood emotion. New York: Simon & Schuster. Thomas, D. (2016). Channeling the River: Using Positive Psychology to Prevent Cultural Helplessness, as Applied to African American Law Students. MAPP Capstone. 368

Unh, E. && Ojeme, V. (2018). Cameroun boils: From separatist fighters to refugees II. Vanguard. Retrieved February 3, 2018, from https://www.vanguardngr.com/2018/02/camerounboils-separatist-fighters-refugees-ii). Wilson, J. (1896). The Works of James Wilson, ed. J. DeWitt Andrews, 2 vols. Chicago: Callaghan. *This chapter was published earlier in Pan-African Visions in 2020.

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Chapter Ten Epilogue This epilogue is intended to tie up loose ends and resolve any issues in this book, so my readers are left satisfied.

Theoretical Reprise The word genocide is hard to define, and the act of genocide is even harder to recognize. The term has been used to describe a wide range of mass killings around the world and throughout history. In this study we looked at Ambacide (genocide and extermination) of the people of the former United Trust Territory of Southern Cameroons as a process and how instability, hatred, and modern media can lead people to murder other social justice is delivered to each and every individual of the society in an indiscriminate manner. In addition to this, positive peace refers to fair distribution of power and resources and where people can explore and attain their actual potential without any forms of direct and structural resistance. It imagines such a society where all forms of discriminations, inequalities and violence are absent and the society is built upon the foundations of cooperation, harmony, tolerance and respect. At the same time, positive peace does not mean the absence of conflict and inevitability of conflict is always maintained. The only difference is the conflicts emerged in positive peace are resolved based on cooperation among the parties in a constructive way and meeting the legitimate demands of each side mostly through structural reforms. So, positive peace is about cooperating with each other to attain social prosperity through collective efforts. Bringing appropriate and lasting solutions to the current crisis in Cameroon will thus be a challenge, necessitating trade-offs and compromise from both sides. People simply because of who they are. It also continues our examination of the different human aspects of genocide: the victim, the perpetrator, the rescuer, the survivor, and the witness. In fact, the definition of “genocide” was very tightly written. According to Matthew Lippman (“A Road Map to the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide,” Journal of Genocide Research, 2002), “measures 371

directed towards forcing members of a group to abandon their homes in order to escape ill-treatment”–what we now know as ethnic cleansing–is not considered genocide according to the U.N. definition. For decades, the world has bickered over what to call the situation in Ambazonia. According to Article 8 of the U.N. Convention: “Any Contracting Party may call upon the competent organs of the United Nations to take such action under the Charter of the United nations as they consider appropriate for the prevention and suppression of acts of genocide…” The U.S., which signed and ratified the Genocide Convention, is a “Contracting Party,” and has forced the world to accept the fact that genocide is taking place. If the U.N. followed its own laws, it would have intervened on the side of the victims. But the world’s governments cannot agree on an effective remedy. At the heart of the U.N.’s failure is a grave misunderstanding of national sovereignty: the notion that “sovereignty” belongs to the government, not the people. And this mistaken notion of sovereignty precludes consideration of one of most effective ways to prevent genocide: arming the victims. The historical world can be viewed as a potentiality to be molded according to human will rather than as objectively given. We should therefore advocate for the unity of theory and practice so that scholarly cognition can become a means by which to realize political goals, goals that are immanent in the historical process. However, other aspects of his argument remain compelling. The first is that theory needs to reflect on its own role in the process of societal reproduction. Traditional theory is a function of the industrial system because it promoted a knowledge that made available the world as a place for human manipulation according to means-end rationality. It was “a cog in an already existent mechanism” (Horkheimer, 1982: 216). Critical Theory, by contrast, should aim to produce knowledge that transcends the societal conditions that produces its periodic crises. For those of us who study genocide, this is surely a pressing imperative. Is it not true, after all, that the liberal theory of genocide highlights specific phenomena but fails to illuminate the nature of the system that produces it? And don’t we want our findings to be linked intrinsically to the establishment of a world in which genocide has been banished? The concept of theory needs to move world society to a new state of development. 372

The second, compelling dimension of Critical Theory is its holistic or dialectical approach, that is, its focus on “totality”: or— to use an analogy from economic theory—general equilibrium analysis rather than partial equilibrium analysis. In this respect, the Hegelian heritage retains its usefulness. The “true is the whole,” Hegel wrote in The Phenomenology of the Spirit, meaning for us that the individual instances of genocide we study cannot be understood other than as dialectically mediated moments of a global system. We need to study the entire system, in other words, not just its constituent parts. Horkheimer proposed that a critical theory not proceed, therefore, like traditional theory, which focuses on specific phenomena and tries to relate concepts to reality by way of hypotheses. Instead, Critical Theory proceeds historically by showing how the capitalist system functions and unfolds over time. It is not a storehouse of concepts and categories with which to interpret the course of events, then, but an internally integrated view that constructs a complete picture of a historically evolving global society as a whole (Picture 16-Ten Stages of Genocide).

Source: US History Museum

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Summary The crisis in Cameroon has outgrown the less-complicated demands that originally led to the strike action initiated by teachers and lawyers. Ordinary citizens have joined the protests, which have increasingly become suffused with burgeoning clamours for independence. To diffuse the crisis through heavy crackdowns only seems to justify the cause of the protesters. And the more resolute both parties get, the more the conflict seems to crystallize into a clash between peace and justice. Johan Galtung is often found to be making distinctions between “positive peace” and “negative peace”. Negative peace simply refers to the absence of violence or war. The peace which prevails during the ceasefire is a good example of negative peace. However, positive peace is not only mere absence of violence, it also entails justice for all. The main characteristics of positive and negative peace are: Positive peace: Structural integration, Optimistic, Preventive, Peace by peaceful means Negative Peace: Absence of violence, Pessimistic, Curative, Peace not always by Peaceful means. Positive peace is defined as justice for all. It does not mean only the absence of violence, but it also emphasizes on the presence of justice to everyone indiscriminately. Positive peace is such a situation where all forms of structural and direct violence are absent and If we were to go by the words of British poet laureate John Masefield, historical change isn’t just the occurrence of “one damn thing after another”.7 Effects follow from actions. It is therefore always necessary to analyse how particular conjunctions of material circumstances and human activity contribute to shape the fortunes of men. Modern Cameroon began as a federal state. The federal experiment lasted barely a decade, and the country transitioned to a unitary state. The ongoing crisis seems to be a corollary of that alteration. The situation beckons the current generation to provide an answer as to why the transition ushered feelings of discontent across a section of the country’s population over time. Providing an answer may mean reimagining a 21st century society where everybody who comes with their own uniqueness, is guaranteed a means of celebrating and preserving it and, at the same time, feels that they belong to the larger nation. Among the arguments made at the time the country transitioned into a unitary state was that the federation was a very 374

costly system to manage. Yet, lawyers and teachers called for a return to the two-state federation to permit for some level of local autonomy and control. While tenable, now this demand seems to be a no-go option for many in the current government. A few other voices are calling for a 10-state federation in Cameroon–a proposal which also raises many more delicate questions about costs. Others are clamouring for outright selfgovernment for the Anglophone regions. However, the president has declared unequivocally that the government will spare no efforts to counter any such voices seeking to divide the country. The 1996 Constitution describes the country as a decentralized unitary state. Many indicate that for decades now, no effort has been made to achieve the decentralization prescribed by the Constitution. In 2012, the World Bank described Cameroon’s legal framework on decentralization as “overlapping, cumbersome and contradictory, and in many respects open to different interpretations as decentralized functions are ill-defined and not distinct from ‘deconcentrated’ operations of the central government” The World Bank also stated that the president had not passed a decree of application regarding the format for the implementation of the decentralization process. Common law lawyers remained fearful that even in a decentralized state, civil law will continue to dominate, and their concerns will remain unsolved. The key takeaway from the crisis is the need for subsidiarity and more localized control of decision-making in Cameroon. Vertical and horizontal localization of political and economic power will increase people’s stake in development and the preservation of national stability. The central authority should be performing only those tasks that cannot be performed at a more local level. Whether it is called a federation, an effectively decentralized state, or another appellation, it will be important to de-escalate current tensions by guaranteeing more local control of decision-making. However, if federalism or decentralization is to work, there must be a real commitment to the center, as well as to the individual units. The institutions that implement this must be strong and sustainable. As the former Soviet Union and Yugoslavia demonstrate, even federalism does not provide a means of keeping together people who don’t want to stay together. The current UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres calls for a solution based on the root causes but does nothing to bring both sides to the negotiation table. On 28 September 2017, a statement 375

attributable to the Spokesman for the Secretary-General on Cameroon states: The Secretary-General is deeply concerned about the situation in Cameroon, including with regard to the recent security incidents in Bamenda and in Douala, and mounting tensions in the South-West and North-West regions related to planned events on 1 October. The Secretary-General has encouraged the Cameroonian authorities to continue their efforts to address the grievances of the Anglophone community. He urges the authorities to promote measures of national reconciliation aimed at finding a durable solution to the crisis, including by addressing its root causes. The Secretary-General supports upholding the unity and territorial integrity of Cameroon and urges all parties to refrain from acts that could lead to an escalation of tension and violence. The Secretary-General believes that genuine and inclusive dialogue between the Government and the communities in the South-West and North-West regions is the best way to preserve the unity and stability of the country. The Secretary-General stands ready to support these efforts, including through the United Nations Regional Office for Central Africa (UNOCA).

The African Union, through the Chairman of the African Union Commission, Moussa Faki Mahamat reacted with similar indifference to the raging genocide and extermination in Ambazonia by forces of La République du Cameroun on the streets and in homes. Social scientists and scholars have generally organized their understanding of genocide in terms of the political structure within which it takes place, the context in which genocide occurs, the motives of the perpetrator, the nature of the victims, and the stages through which genocide passes. a) Government Institutions It is clear from empirical and historical research that democide, including genocide (however defined), are facets of totalitarian systems run by sociopaths like President Paul Biya, and to a lesser extent of authoritarian ones. The degree to which people are not democratically free increases the likelihood of some kind of domestic genocide or democide, as in totalitarian Stalin’s Soviet Union, Hitler’s Germany, and Mao’s Communist China; or fascist 376

Chiang Kai-shek’s China, Franco’s Spain, and Admiral Miklos Horthy’s Hungary; or dictator Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, Idi Amin’s Uganda, and Mustafa Kemal Ataturk’s Turkey. Those governments that commit virtually no domestic genocide, or other government domestic murder or extermination campaigns, are the modern democracies that recognize civil liberties and political rights. To predict where genocide is likely to occur, look first at the totalitarian governments, and next at the authoritarian ones. b) Context Whatever the political institutions of a government, the possibility of genocide sharply increases when it is involved in international or domestic wars. The Holocaust is one clear example. There was the mass murder of Jews before 1939, but not as a government policy to murder all Jews wherever they were or came under German control. That policy did not come into existence until Germany was well into World War II. It was a similar case with the mass murder of Armenians by the Young Turk government. During World War I, the Turk’s alliance with Germany and the Russian invasion of Eastern Turkey provided the Young Turks with the excuse to purify Turkey of Armenians and Christians once and for all. Similarly, with Stalin’s deportation of ethnic/national minorities, such as Germans, Greeks, Meskhetians, Tartars, Ukrainians, and others during World War II that caused the death of around 750,000 of them. Perhaps a million or more were thus murdered during the Mexican Revolution from 1910-20. And other examples of genocide being executed during military incursions, civil wars, or the fight for independence are the genocides by Angola, Burma, Chile, both Congos, Colombia, El Salvador, Indonesia, Iran, Iran, Lebanon, Myanmar, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sudan, Syria, Yugoslavia (Serbia and Croatia), Ambazonia, and so on for many others. War has always been an excuse, cover, or stimulus for genocide and mass murder. c) Motives There has been considerable research on why a perpetrator should want to destroy a group or, if not destroy the group as such, murder people because of their group membership. Motives are often complex and intertwined, but one can usually pull out among the mix a major motive. One such motive is to destroy a group that is perceived as a threat to the ruling power. Such, for example, was the 1970 377

parliamentary elections in Pakistan that showed the political power of East Pakistan and threatened the control over it by West Pakistan, and the power of the military government. They thus militarily seized East Pakistan and murdered over a million Bengali leaders, intellectuals, professionals, and any Hindus that the military were able to capture. Such was also the case with the strong resistance of the Ukrainian farmer to Stalin’s program of collectivization in 1931-32 coupled with the threat of Ukrainian nationalism to communist control. So, when what would have been a mild famine hit the region in 1932, Stalin magnified the famine many fold by seizing food and its sources (livestock, pets, seed grain, shooting birds in the trees, etc.) and boycotting the import of food to Ukraine. Even visitors to Ukraine were searched and food taken away from them before they entered the Soviet Republic. About 5 million Ukrainians were starved to death. And such was the case when the Rwandan Hutu majority government undertook to murder all Tutsi within their reach at the time when there was turmoil resulting from a major 1991 incursion of the Tutsi expatriate Rwandan Patriotic Front in the northern part of the country. A second motive is deeply emotional and involves the destruction of those who are hated, despised, or conversely are envied or resented like Ambazonians in Cameroun. The genocide of Jews throughout history and in particular the Holocaust was fundamentally an act of religious and ethnic hatred mixed with envy and resentment over their disproportionate economic and professional achievements. Similarly, with the genocide of the Armenians in Turkey, 1915-18, where Armenians enjoyed wealth and professional status far beyond their numbers, but also were hated as Christians in a Moslem society. A third motive for genocide is the pursuit of an ideological transformation of society. Such have been the genocides and democides carried out by communist societies, for example, where those resisting or perceived to be enemies of the ideology are murdered, such as landlords, Kulaks, nationalists, “right-wingers,” and “counterrevolutionaries.” A fourth motive is purification, or the attempt to eliminate from society perceived alien beliefs, cultures, practices, and ethnic groups. “Ethnic cleansing,” “waste disposal,” or “prophylaxis,” are terms for this. Examples are the systematic attempt of Mao Tse-tung and Stalin to eliminate disbelievers from their communist societies; the 378

attempt to do the same by Christianity during the Middle Ages; the elimination of Christian groups and Moslem “blasphemers” in many current Islamic countries such as in Iran and Saudi Arabia; the ethnic cleansing that the Serbians practiced in Bosnia-Herzegovina in the 1990s; and the war that the Myanmar (Burmese) military have been carrying out against the Karen and other ethnic groups. And a fifth motive is that of economic gain or rich natural resources in Ambazonia. Thus, rapacious colonial powers or individuals (as of Cameroun under Ahidjo and Biya, Belgium King Leopold who personally owned the Congo Free State) mass murdered tens of millions in their colonies who got in the way, resisted the rape of the colony's wealth, or were worked to death; and similarly for the mass murder of Indians in the Americas that continues to this day. And thus, many millions were so murdered in the process of capturing, transporting, and maintaining slavery. Preventing atrocity crimes like genocide and extermination of human lives should be a priority for everyone. First and foremost, prevention is the only way to avoid the loss of human life, trauma and physical injury. However, there are also other significant reasons to focus on prevention. The United Nations Security Council has stated in several of its resolutions that serious and gross breaches of international human rights and humanitarian law constitute threats to international peace and security. Therefore, prevention not only contributes to national peace and stability, it also serves the broader regional and international peace and stability agenda. Prevention of atrocity crimes is also much less costly than intervening to halt these crimes or dealing with their aftermath. Finally, by taking measures to prevent atrocity crimes and fulfilling their primary responsibility to protect, States reinforce their sovereignty and reduce the need for more intrusive forms of response from other States or international actors. To those for whom the Kosovo action heralded a new era when states and groups of states can take military action outside the established mechanisms for enforcing international law, one might equally ask: Is there not a danger of such interventions undermining the imperfect, yet resilient, security system created after the second world war, and of setting dangerous precedents for future interventions without a clear criterion to decide who might invoke these precedents and in what circumstances? Nothing in the UN charter precludes a recognition that there are rights beyond borders. What the charter does say is that “armed force shall not be used, save in the common interest.” But what is that common interest? 379

Who shall define it? Who shall defend it? Under whose authority? And with what means of intervention? In seeking answers to these monumental questions, I see four aspects of intervention which need to be considered with special care. First, “intervention” should not be understood as referring only to the use of force. A tragic irony of many of the crises that go unnoticed or unchallenged in the world today is that they could be dealt with by far less perilous acts of intervention than the one we saw this year in Yugoslavia. And yet the commitment of the world to peacekeeping, to humanitarian assistance, to rehabilitation and reconstruction varies greatly from region to region, and crisis to crisis. If the new commitment to humanitarian action is to retain the support of the world’s peoples, it must be—and must be seen to be—universal, irrespective of region or nation. Humanity, after all, is indivisible. Second, traditional notions of sovereignty alone are not the only obstacle to effective action in humanitarian crises. No less significant are the ways in which states define their national interests. The world has changed in profound ways since the end of the cold war, but I fear our conceptions of national interest have failed to follow suit. A new, broader definition of national interest is needed in the new century, which would induce states to find greater unity in the pursuit of common goals and values. In the context of many of the challenges facing humanity today, the collective interest is the national interest. Third, in cases where forceful intervention does become necessary, the Security Council—the body charged with authorising the use of force under international law—must be able to rise to the challenge. The choice must not be between council unity and inaction in the face of genocide—as in the case of Rwanda—and council division, but regional action, as in the case of Kosovo. In both cases, the UN should have been able to find common ground in upholding the principles of the charter, and acting in defence of our common humanity. As important as the council’s enforcement power is its deterrent power, and unless it can assert itself collectively where the cause is just and the means available, its credibility in the eyes of the world may well suffer. If states bent on criminal behaviour know that frontiers are not an absolute defence—that the council will take action to halt the gravest crimes against humanity—then they will not embark on such a course assuming they can get away with it. The charter requires the council to be the defender of the 380

“common interest”. Unless it is seen to be so—in an era of human rights, interdependence and globalisation—there is a danger that others will seek to take its place. Fourth, when fighting stops, the international commitment to peace must be just as strong as was the commitment to war. In this situation, too, consistency is essential. Just as our commitment to humanitarian action must be universal if it is to be legitimate, so our commitment to peace cannot end as soon as there is a ceasefire. The aftermath of war requires no less skill, no less sacrifice, no fewer resources than the war itself, if lasting peace is to be secured. This developing international norm in favour of intervention to protect civilians from wholesale slaughter will no doubt continue to pose profound challenges to the international community. In some quarters it will arouse distrust, scepticism, even hostility. But I believe on balance we should welcome it. Why? Because, despite all the difficulties of putting it into practice, it does show that humankind today is less willing than in the past to tolerate suffering in its midst, and more willing to do something about it. Indeed, following the deadly celebrations of the declaration of the Restoration of the Independence of Southern Cameroons Mr. Moussa simply called for a return to boundaries at independence according to the 1964 Cairo Declaration and AU Constitutive Act (4.b). The AU’s reaction came after those of the UN, EU, Commonwealth, US, La Francophonie and many international human Rights organizations including Amnesty International and REDHAC. All these calls were transparently empty verbiage. No action! Conclusion My approach to genocide, informed by social theory, understands it as a fundamentally illegitimate variant of warfare— directed against civilian social groups as such rather than armed enemies—that most often takes place in contexts of more generalized, more conventional warfare. While it is true that genocide, once unleashed, often requires anti-genocidal military action to halt it, it follows that more profound policies to prevent and inhibit genocide must be closely linked with policies to reduce the possibilities of war in global society. In Lemkin’s lifelong efforts to give meaning to ‘Never Again’, he had meant to seek the elevated protection of groups over individuals both in times of war and peace, as humanity would suffer under the disappearance of its 381

peoples. The Genocide Convention as understood in Lemkin’s spirit has indeed become increasingly meaningless, and no longer carries the historical or normative weight to move states, people, or international organizations to prevent genocide. While the Genocide Convention nevertheless spurred the development of international criminal law, its focus was on individual criminal responsibility rather than on states. In understanding the required mens rea for genocide, the International Criminal Tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia balanced interpretations of genocide as a hate crime or a systemic crime, as to respond to the need to distinguish between a perpetrator and an abettor of genocide, as well the need to recognize the extermination of a people as genocide. While relevant for the strengthening of a global legal criminal system and the evolution of its norm, in a wider context these developments have effaced the hierarchy of crimes and led to the belief that a narrow scope lowers the responsibility for states to respond to humanitarian disasters. The ‘nuclear’ power of the word ‘genocide’ hence dissipated in the evolution of its aim (to include crimes against humanity) and in the historical distance from its horrific origin. As state sovereignty remains the framework for interpretation of other norms of the international community, doctrines for external humanitarian intervention are doomed to disappoint. Finally, then, Hannah Arendt’s observation with regards to punishment comes to mind in the context of the efforts of international lawyers, as dealing with prevention ‘explodes the limits of law.’ The ongoing Ambacide in Cameroon originates from history. In the wake of World War I, two men–British High Commissioner Alfred Milner and French Army General Henri Simon–representing two nations, Britain and France, in an agreement, confirmed the Picot-Oliphant Line of 1916, drawn to partition former German Kamerun into two asymmetrical territories. What was to follow the famous Milner-Simon agreement of 1919 was the consolidation of British and French systems in the separated territories. This did not change after the falsely claimed “reunification” in 1961. The socalled post-reunification period has been interspersed with sporadic identity struggles in attempts to preserve the bicultural heritage of the country. There were manifestations in the 1990s that led to allAnglophone conferences to defend the status and standing of Anglophones in the country. The recent crisis–another escalation in that sequel–has revealed a number of gaps within the political 382

system, which must be closed if Cameroon is to move forward as one nation. Existing institutions and leadership structures must be more responsive to the needs of citizens and addressing this could mean more localized control of political and economic resources. Overly centralized power structures limit access and create disconnect with the population. On the other hand, the military needs to improve on its human rights record, as young people–who have since left school–are becoming increasingly radicalized. Civil society has a huge role to play in addressing these gaps. The destruction of the landmarks of the old established order– such as the non-commemoration of unification day in greater parts of Anglophone Cameroon, in 2017–seems to have instilled a fresh spirit of nationalism and self-determination among the Englishspeaking populace. John F. Kennedy once said regarding crisis: “The Chinese use two brush strokes to write the word ‘crises.’ One brush stroke stands for danger; the other for opportunity. In a crisis, be aware of the danger–but recognize the opportunity.” This is an opportunity to remake LA RÉPUBLIQUE DU CAMEROUN and Southern Cameroons (Ambazonia). Even as both countries face a very stark choice between the forces of conservatism and change, many in these countries still express their conviction that a great destiny awaits both countries, provided that each person is willing to assume responsibility to find the best and most positive answers to these questions: Why are we French Cameroun and Southern Cameroon? What makes us proud to be either of the two? What type of separate countries do we want for our children? Barriers to Ending Genocide and Extermination Most responsible world leaders decry the act of genocide. The problem is that they seem to do so after the fact, that is, after an act of genocide has been committed and members of the targeted group are lying dead in the tens to hundreds of thousands, if not millions. Indeed, during those periods when genocide is actually being carried out, it almost seems as if world leaders—including those at the United Nations—are time and again playing out a deadly and scurrilous game of “see no evil, hear no evil.” Undoubtedly, there are numerous reasons why world leaders, both individually and collectively, persistently ignore both the early warning signs of an impending genocide as well as the actual genocidal events. These include, but are not limited to, the following: (a) the concept of so-called “internal affairs” and the related issue of the primacy of national sovereignty, which cause many nations to hesitate before becoming involved in another 383

nation’s internal affairs; (b) the hesitancy to commit one’s troops to a dangerous situation; (c) the lack of care regarding the problems of a nation whose geopolitical status is deemed “insignificant”; (d) the wariness of many nations at entering into agreements that could, at some point, subordinate national sovereignty to international will; and (e) a myriad of other reasons related directly to the concept of realpolitik. Not surprisingly, the issue of “internal affairs” is often used by genocidal nations to keep “outsiders” at bay, and by “bystander” nations as an excuse for not acting to prevent the genocide. In effect, the group perpetrating genocide is asserting, “This is our business, not yours [e.g., the international community’s], and we will handle our problems as we wish.” Conversely, and while possibly sickened by the actions of the genocidal state, the onlooker nations are, in effect, saying, “As disturbing as the situation is, it [the perpetration of genocide] is their problem, not ours.” Left unsaid but subsumed under the latter is the notion that “We don’t want other nations poking their noses in our business, and thus we won’t poke our nose in theirs.” The trouble with this attitude is that it ignores the central tenet of the Genocide Convention that genocide is a crime under international law. More specifically, Article 1 of the Convention states: “The Contracting Parties confirm that genocide, whether committed in time of peace or in time of war, is a crime under international law which they undertake to prevent and to punish.” The problem, as Kuper notes, is that “The doctrine of humanitarian intervention, [which] may be defined as ‘the right of one nation to use force against another nation for the purpose of protecting the inhabitants of that other nation from inhumane treatment by their governing sovereign,’ is clearly in conflict with the cardinal principles of respect for national unit, territorial integrity, and political independence” (Kuper, 1981). Until this thorny issue is resolved, the intervention of outside nations to prevent genocide is bound to remain problematic. Hesitancy on the part of a nation to commit its own troops to a dangerous situation (e.g., where genocide is taking place in another nation) also acts as a deterrent vis-a-vis intervention. A classic case of late was the Clinton Administration’s decision not to intervene in the conflict in the former Yugoslavia because of the so-called “Somalia factor.” As Neier explains:

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[I]n October 1993, the Somalia factor reappeared when eighteen Americans were killed in battle with the loyalists of a Somali warlord...Amid cries that America could not be policeman to the world, the episode gave Washington an additional reason not to deploy Americans in Bosnia...[R]etreat from the plan to intervene with force in Bosnia left the new president looking weak and inept. Accordingly, supporting the idea of a war crimes tribunal became...opportune to the Clinton Administration. It was a way to do something about Bosnia that would have no political cost domestically.

The same situation was reportedly at work regarding the Rwandan genocide: … The United States ... heard early warnings of the slaughter but resisted getting involved until it was far too late ... It was the Americans, stinging from their failed peacekeeping operation in Somalia in 1993, who put up the most resistance to getting involved in Rwanda in the spring of 1994, aides to Mr. Annan [SecretaryGeneral of the United Nations] said privately.

As cynical as it sounds, nations may also ignore genocide when it is perpetrated in a locale deemed of little or no geopolitical significance. Again, the genocide in Rwanda provides such an example. There is also the wariness of many nations to enter into agreements that could, at some point, subordinate national sovereignty to international will. A case in point is the fact that the United States did not ratify the UN Genocide Convention until 1988, due to the fact that within the United States “suspicion of international law has remained a potent political force.”7 This issue is obviously tied to interest in preserving one’s own internal affairs from interference by other nations (Neier, 1998). Finally, there is a wide array of other reasons for nations to act tentatively about preventing and/or intervening in genocide that relate to perceived national interest, or realpolitik. As Charny trenchantly notes: “Without doubt, one of the greatest obstacles to progress is the fact that, with few exceptions, leaders and governments employ self-interest cruelly and unashamedly...” “[For example, as of 1988] the United States remained a supporter of Pol Pot [the architect of the Cambodian genocide 385

between 1975-1979] as the vested leader of the Cambodian people so as to undermine the standing of the Vietnam-supported government of Cambodia. This left the Soviet Union, Vietnam, and Cuba trying to unseat the Pol Pot representation...Prior to the time that Vietnam fought against Pol Pot, the same Soviet Union was supporting the ‘Agrarian People’s Government’ of Pol Pot despite the reports of massive genocidal killing, while the United States was bringing to bear impassioned spokesmanship for human life and liberty against him” (Neir, Ibid.). Up until the mid-1990s, the international community’s record on bringing perpetrators of genocide to justice was nothing short of dismal. The examples are many and include those leaders responsible for genocide in Uganda (Idi Amin), Cambodia (Pol Pot, Leng Sary, Khieu Samphan, and Non Chea), and BosniaHerzogovina (Radovan Karadzic and Rakdo Mladic). However, the Cambodian government did recently arrest Ta Mok, a top military commander in the Khmer Rouge, and plans to try him. In 1993, the UN Security Council established a war crimes tribunal in The Hague to prosecute individuals responsible for serious violations of international humanity law in the territory of the former Yugoslavia since 1991. As Neier has observed, this decision “set a precedent for the world body: it was the first time in its forty-eight year history that it tried to bring anyone to justice for committing human rights abuses.” Equally significantly, “The charter for the ex-Yugoslavia war crimes tribunal...uses language from the UN’s 1948 Genocide Convention, even though the Convention itself was never invoked before Bosnia” (Weiner, 1988). In the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide in 1994, the UN Security Council established a second tribunal in Tanzania to prosecute those who committed genocide and crimes against humanity in that nation. The new Rwandan government also established its own tribunal. As positive as these developments are, all have had their share of problems. Two of the major figures responsible for the genocide in the former Yugoslavia (those named above), as well as more than half of the 62 other men indicted on war-crimes charges, have evaded capture.11 Many of those who best understand the situation, including senior United States diplomats, have argued that “no lasting peace is possible in Bosnia until Dr. Karadzic and General Mladic are brought to justice” (Ibid.) As for the situation in Rwanda: 386

[Over] 120,000 Hutu people have been arrested in Rwanda over the past [four] years on genocide charges stemming from the fourmonth bloodletting in 1994 in which at least 500,000 Tutsi died… Since January of 1998, the Rwandan courts have tried more than 200 people, handing out death sentences to about 40 percent and life in prison to about 30 percent. About 1 in 20 defendants has been acquitted.

But the Government’s relative success in training new judges and bringing cases to trial has not eased the legal crisis here, nor has it brought about reconciliation between the ethnic groups...With ethnic war raging in this hilly nation’s western provinces, the police and the Tutsi-dominated military continue to arrest more than 1,000 Hutu a month on various genocide charges, shoving them into already teeming prisons, where most await hearings without formal charges lodged against them. At the present rate of trials, it would take 500 years to try all the defendants” (McKinley, 1998). Though rife with limitations, each tribunal is undoubtedly a major step toward facing up to and addressing the profound need to punish those who commit genocide. For a detailed and highly readable discussion of the war crime tribunals and related events, see Aryeh Neier’s War Crimes: Brutality, Genocide, Terror, and the Struggle for Justice. Way Forward Charting a way forward for the eradication of genocide and extermination of Ambazonians is even more delicate than the Palestinian decolonization. Why do I say this? Briefly, -There are no Israelites imbedded in Palestine as LA RÉPUBLIQUE DU CAMEROUN are in Ambazonia. The “Frog must go” campaign is crucial to success. -Israel does not have infrastructures and institutions in Palestine as LA RÉPUBLIQUE DU CAMEROUN does in Ambazonia. -Comparatively, Palestine resistance is not as plaqued with enablers and black legs as Ambazonian resistance. -The number of Palestinians living in Israel are less compared to the number of Ambazonians living in LA RÉPUBLIQUE DU CAMEROUN. -There are no natural resources in Palestine that the Israelites need for survival. It is a do or die situation for LA RÉPUBLIQUE 387

DU CAMEROUN as well. If Ambazonia can deny them access to its natural resources it hurts them more than sending missiles into their territory. -The character and integrity of the oppressor is worth considering. Israel will heed to a greater extent than LA RÉPUBLIQUE DU CAMEROUN to international laws, their own laws, the cry of their own people, etc. To elaborate on these facts, Ambazonia includes the Bakassi peninsula oilfields, a resource rich section of coast abutting Nigeria assigned to Cameroon by the International Court of Justice in 2002 and with its own history of attempted secession (“The Republic of Bakassi”). The Peninsula had its own armed resistance movements. Negotiations between Nigeria and Cameroon were able to avoid war in 2006. The Peninsula’s Anglophone fishing people remain Nigerians but under the caretaking of Cameroun. Cameroun’s exploration and development of the Bakassi oilfields relied on the use of the country’s only oil refinery (Cameroon is the 12th largest African oil producer, Nigeria the first) it is quite possible that the current struggle for Anglophone rights has more to do with international oil interests than languages. President Biya’s efforts to appease the Anglophone cause included freeing “many” political prisoners as well as a willingness to negotiate anything but the breakup of the country. He encouraged restricted negotiations to run in tandem with military crackdown of Ambazonians. But the twenty percent Anglophone minority leadership is increasingly intransigent. Militant Anglophone forces have refused to negotiate without additional conditions, the freeing of political prisoners and withdrawal of Cameroon’s military forces from their regions. Now the government has passed legislation assigning the two predominantly Anglophone regions of the country “special status,” addressing issues of the judicial and educational systems to suit its colonial designs. Anglophone militant leadership rejects the new plans saying it wants nothing less than full independence as initially represented by the declared state of “Ambazonia.” This would grant it control of and profit from sale of oil. This position makes negotiations difficult and is only tenable with foreign country support. Taking the cue from the violent tone of Mr. Biya’s November 30, 2017 warfarist discourse and also goaded along by the equally xenophobic qua genocidal proclamations by other francophone natives in the local media and in the streets, the 388

French Cameroun Army marches into Ambazonia bursting heads, breaking limbs, killing peaceful protesters, burning homes and villages, killing innocent civilians, raping women and young girls, looting homes and shops, extra -judicial killings, kidnapping civilians, military high-handedness, extortion, arresting journalists and terrorising opinion leaders, etc. Having knowledge of the state of affairs we live in, the real question that has yet to be answered is how much stamina and stability do the modern structures of international relations and institutions still have? In particular, it must be remembered that a precedent has already been set in 1999 by NATO’s bombardment of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Since then, the unilateral violation of state sovereignty, without any mandate from the UN Security Council, has become commonplace. This is why I argue that the architecture of post-World War Two international relations doesn’t exist anymore. That leaves us to presume that today’s order is only a transitional one. Only time will tell what kind of world order will eventually emerge. History teaches us that times of transitions are also times of great armed conflicts, and since it is the global order that I am discussing here, it seems to me that only the results of a global conflict will provide a definite answer. Preventing atrocity crimes like genocide and extermination of human lives should be a priority for everyone. First and foremost, prevention is the only way to avoid the loss of human life, trauma and physical injury. However, there are also other significant reasons to focus on prevention. The United Nations Security Council has stated in several of its resolutions that serious and gross breaches of international human rights and humanitarian law constitute threats to international peace and security. Therefore, prevention not only contributes to national peace and stability, it also serves the broader regional and international peace and stability agenda. Prevention of atrocity crimes is also much less costly than intervening to halt these crimes, or dealing with their aftermath. Finally, by taking measures to prevent atrocity crimes and fulfilling their primary responsibility to protect, States reinforce their sovereignty and reduce the need for more intrusive forms of response from other States or international actors. To those for whom the Kosovo action heralded a new era when states and groups of states can take military action outside the established mechanisms for enforcing international law, one might equally ask: Is there not a danger of such interventions undermining the imperfect, yet resilient, security system created after the second 389

world war, and of setting dangerous precedents for future interventions without a clear criterion to decide who might invoke these precedents and in what circumstances? Nothing in the UN charter precludes a recognition that there are rights beyond borders. What the charter does say is that “armed force shall not be used, save in the common interest.” But what is that common interest? Who shall define it? Who shall defend it? Under whose authority? And with what means of intervention? In seeking answers to these monumental questions, I see four aspects of intervention which need to be considered with special care. First, “intervention” should not be understood as referring only to the use of force. A tragic irony of many of the crises that go unnoticed or unchallenged in the world today is that they could be dealt with by far less perilous acts of intervention than the one we saw this year in Yugoslavia. And yet the commitment of the world to peacekeeping, to humanitarian assistance, to rehabilitation and reconstruction varies greatly from region to region, and crisis to crisis. If the new commitment to humanitarian action is to retain the support of the world’s peoples, it must be—and must be seen to be—universal, irrespective of region or nation. Humanity, after all, is indivisible. Second, it is clear that traditional notions of sovereignty alone are not the only obstacle to effective action in humanitarian crises. No less significant are the ways in which states define their national interests. The world has changed in profound ways since the end of the cold war, but I fear our conceptions of national interest have failed to follow suit. A new, broader definition of national interest is needed in the new century, which would induce states to find greater unity in the pursuit of common goals and values. In the context of many of the challenges facing humanity today, the collective interest is the national interest. Third, in cases where forceful intervention does become necessary, the Security Council—the body charged with authorizing the use of force under international law—must be able to rise to the challenge. The choice must not be between council unity and inaction in the face of genocide—as in the case of Rwanda—and council division, but regional action, as in the case of Kosovo. In both cases, the UN should have been able to find common ground in upholding the principles of the charter, and acting in defence of our common humanity. As important as the council’s enforcement power is its deterrent power, and unless it is able to assert itself collectively where the 390

cause is just and the means available, its credibility in the eyes of the world may well suffer. If states bent on criminal behaviour know that frontiers are not an absolute defence—that the council will take action to halt the gravest crimes against humanity—then they will not embark on such a course assuming they can get away with it. The charter requires the council to be the defender of the “common interest”. Unless it is seen to be so—in an era of human rights, interdependence and globalisation—there is a danger that others will seek to take its place. Fourth, when fighting stops, the international commitment to peace must be just as strong as was the commitment to war. In this situation, too, consistency is essential. Just as our commitment to humanitarian action must be universal if it is to be legitimate, so our commitment to peace cannot end as soon as there is a ceasefire. The aftermath of war requires no less skill, no less sacrifice, no fewer resources than the war itself, if lasting peace is to be secured. This developing international norm in favour of intervention to protect civilians from wholesale slaughter will no doubt continue to pose profound challenges to the international community. In some quarters it will arouse distrust, scepticism, even hostility. But I believe on balance we should welcome it. Why? Because, despite all the difficulties of putting it into practice, it does show that humankind today is less willing than in the past to tolerate suffering in its midst, and more willing to do something about it. It is clear that the legal significance of the Genocide Convention is compelling under the latest developments in international criminal law, reflecting the evolution of the norm. However, the politicization of the word ‘genocide’ as based on the assumption of a legal obligation to act under the Convention, however, has led to a utilitarian approach to the ‘humanitarian and civilizing purpose’ of the Convention. But besides the nuclear weapons analogy in drafting the Convention, the scope of its political success is now becoming meaningless. The legal success of the Convention in the standardization of the crime and increasing integration of international criminal law continues to re-establish the norm politically, albeit under misinterpretation and without effect of prevention, as subjected to the norm of state sovereignty. The definition of genocide in the Convention is revealative. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) affirmed in the 2006 Armed Activities Case the prohibition of genocide as a jus cogens norm in customary international law, furthermore, finding this was supported by ‘the objective relationship between the norms and 391

(…) ethical principles’ of states (Lepard, 2010: 145). The Genocide Convention however codified this norm and the manner in which its textual ambiguities of responsibility and the mental element of the crime were addressed, importantly shaped how the international community interprets the norm with regards to prevention and punishment. The Convention was ambiguous in establishing state responsibility in the crime of genocide, as its wording primarily focused on the prosecution of individual perpetrators of genocide. In explicit terms, states were only to implement appropriate legislation in the domestic criminal law system to be able to punish the act of genocide on their own territory (Article 6 of the Convention). In addition, but less precise, State Parties committed to strive after the prevention of genocide (of which it was not clear whether this extended beyond the national territory of a state). While for these obligations states can be held accountable, the Convention oddly enough did not specify the accountability of the state for its role in genocide. Its absence reflects the debates during the drafting process between focusing on individual criminal responsibility, a position taken by the United States, Soviet Union, and France or on mechanisms for state accountability defended by the United Kingdom (Schabas, op.cit.: 418–419). In the Bosnian Genocide Case the ICJ confirmed that a breach of the Convention emerges from failing to prevent genocide from occurring (as it did earlier in 1996 when confirming the obligation to prevent to exist erga omnes, and suggested that state responsibility may be evoked if there exists a ‘duality of responsibility’ under international law ( See ICJ, Bosnian Genocide Case, supra n.1, Judgment, p. 115, para. 170). This means that the Court recognizes the possibility that both individual criminal responsibility as well as state responsibility exist for the same acts, leaving aside whether the latter entails a criminal element. Seeing that the Convention does not expressly mention that there is a duty not to commit genocide, a state would merely be held responsible for not preventing genocide (Simma, 2010: 264– 265), as determined by the politics of drafting the Convention. The textual focus of the Convention on the individual perpetrator reveals as such an orientation towards international criminal law over human rights law in standards of protection of peoples. In addition, to establish criminal responsibility, ad hoc tribunals needed to develop the requirement of the mental element of the 392

crime, which may require a policy element by a state or by a nonstate actor. The power of the word ‘genocide’ has become apparent in the 1990s and its power was feared. The ontological background to the Convention suggested that the moral outrage that ought to arise would move states to act, giving it strong ‘ideational power’ in legal, political and social expectations (Glanville. 2009: 468). One of the most pressing questions from the Convention remaining unresolved concerns the word ‘prevent’ and whether it raises an obligation for states to intervene outside their borders. So, the word ‘genocide’ was considered to carry a heavy historical weight and moral duty, to be handled cautiously. At least, this was the conviction of the Clinton administration in 1994, when the atrocities occurring in Rwanda became known. The prevailing belief was that ‘declaring genocide’ would create ‘unwanted political and social pressure to act’(Ibid., 472).Its efforts to avoid the word touched upon ridicule, but under President George W. Bush, whose mantra ‘not on my watch’ probably considered more the fear of the name than genocide itself, the declaration of genocide was made without an overwhelming response to intervene in Darfur. Meanwhile, the willingness to undertake action to end the atrocities, as exemplified by Secretary of State Colin Powell’s words ‘we must act now’ and the US diplomatic efforts to put in place forceful measures, was mitigated by the UN Darfur Report (Luban, 2006: 3). The UN Commission followed the Tribunals in placing genocide and crimes against humanity on the same level, but rather than broadening the scope of international concern, it ‘deflated the urgency’(Wilt et al.,2006:3). As such, the word ‘genocide’ became an end in itself; the Bush administration had shown credibility by acknowledging the situation but was exempted from further action and could withdraw its statements. Rather than a means of intervention to prevent, bestowing the term became an instrumental condemnation and ‘a badge of honour’ for victims. The legal flexibility to address crimes in their context rather than to a rigid standard had been met by positivist instrumentalization of the word ‘genocide’ in politics. While unable to morally defend in the face of large-scale crimes against humanity, states have consistently resisted the establishment of a legal basis for humanitarian intervention. In order to protect their sovereignty, states eliminated ‘cultural genocide’ as well as ‘political groups’ from protection, leading the ICTR to describe Hutus and Tutsis, merely socially and politically distinguishable, as ‘ethnic groups’ in order to establish genocide (Luban, op.cit.). This 393

stands in sharp contrast with the killings in Sri Lanka in 2009, which did carry an ethnic element, but took place under the name of ‘counterterrorism’. What the ICJ and the International Criminal Tribunals sought to punish and prevent was mass-scale atrocities, but states pointed at the moral hazard of intervention, as observed in the Balkans (Kuperman, (2008), which would ultimately lead to not preventing but stimulating the occurrence of genocide and crimes against humanity. This inadequate definition of genocide therefore invites us to decolonize the concept. Some ideas were spawned about stopping some of the specific signals that may come into play including: (1) ongoing civil and human rights violations, particularly those that target specific groups of people (as was common during the Nazi reign of reign of terror during the Holocaust years); (2) newspaper articles or radio commentaries that systematically disparage, malign, or attempt to ostracize a particular group (again, this use of media for organized propaganda was common during the Holocaust); (3) radio reports that incite violence against a particular group of people (as happened in Rwanda during the 1994 genocide); (4) sporadic and violent attacks against a particular group of people by government or government-sponsored forces; and (5) “ethnic cleansing,” wherein a targeted group is forced en masse from their homes, communities, and region (as took place in Cambodia in the mid1970s and the former Yugoslavia throughout the 1990s). As early as 1982, none of them have as yet been implemented. That said, two real advances have been made. First is the establishment of International Alert (IA), whose initial mandate was both to alert world public opinion and government leaders as to potential genocides and to implement conflict resolution programs in areas of on-going violence with the potential to explode into genocidal massacres. For over a decade, IA has quietly gone about its work in various parts of the world to attempt to resolve internecine violence and other types of conflict. For some reason, IA has not acquired the same stentorian voice as Amnesty International in alerting the world’s populace to serious human rights infractions, but that is possibly due to the fact that it has focused more on the second part of its mission. Second, in June 1998, the United Nations established the first International Court, “a permanent body on call to deal with rogue leaders in a systematic way so that a mastermind of death like the late Pol Pot would not pose a jurisdictional problem if caught.” As positive as this move was, heated disagreement over the wisdom of 394

subordinating national sovereignty to international will placed a damper on the establishment of the court. [A]long with half a dozen other nations including Iraq and Libya, the Americans voted against setting up the new court. The Clinton Administration, especially the Pentagon, feared that there were not enough safeguards to prevent American soldiers from being brought to trial for acts committed in the line of duty abroad. A Republican-led Congress would go further, saying that no American should even be subjected to international legal proceedings (Crossatte, 1998). Another hope for preventing future genocides lies in the use of satellite photos for the express purpose of detecting early signs of “ethnic cleansing,” such as the rounding up of large groups of people and the presence of earthmoving equipment at new excavation sites in close proximity to these people. Satellite photos could also detect where dead bodies have been buried during a genocidal action. Decolonizing Genocide and Extermination (Ambacide) The doctrine of Responsibility to Protect (R2P) was adopted in response to the horrific genocides and violations of human rights that occurred in the 20th century. But it is inconsistent, hegemonic and colonial. More specifically, it was a response to the horrific events that took place in Rwanda and in the former Yugoslavia. R2P is inherently problematic, due to the fact that it allows states to pick and choose where and when to intervene based on their own self-interest. As a result of this, states do not intervene for the primary purpose of preventing or halting human suffering, but rather use it as an excuse to intervene in order to achieve a strategic objective, while hiding it under the veil of R2P, a true exemplification of realpolitik within the international system. Therefore, once a state intervenes and achieves their strategic objective within a country, they have no obligation to stay and help rebuild, and thus can leave the country in even worse shape than prior to intervention. An example of this is when the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) intervened in Libya, in order to remove Muammar Gaddafi from power and to prevent a potential genocide. However, in achieving their strategic objective, NATO dismantled Libya’s state apparatus and left the country in a more vulnerable position than it was under Gaddafi. As a result of NATO intervention, Libya is now on the verge of a potential genocide. Therefore, it is imperative for the survival and future 395

success of R2P to remove all aspects of realpolitik out of the conversation of human rights and genocide prevention. States strategic interests should play no role in deciding where to intervene and who to save. Hence, it should be decolonized. Decolonisation entails identifying, unveiling and interrupting, within academic practice and structures, the persisting remnants of Empire–what exponents of Latin American decolonial thought such as Walter Mignolo and Nelson Maldonado-Torres call ‘coloniality.’ By acknowledging these epistemic absences and violence, decolonization offers to the university, and the world, alternative ways of thinking about the effects of power differentials in knowledge production, transmission and exchange. Decolonisation offers an avenue to disrupt historically and geographically racialised and hierarchised epistemic hegemonies. Over the past few years within United Kingdom higher education, there have been increasing demands for decolonisation. These demands have often come from academic staff and students who belong to poorly represented radicalized and gendered populations. There has also been more focus on widening participation; adding authors from radicalized populations to reading lists; recruiting staff from underrepresented populations etc. Furthermore, increasing attention is being paid to equality, diversity, inclusion and representation. Yet these measures are often inaccurately conflated with decolonisation–without critical thought, representation can become toxic and tokenistic, people could be included into spaces that are not safe for them, spaces historically and repeatedly designed to harm and exclude them. Diversity is a fact of life that cannot be promoted without explaining why it has been demoted. General statements of equality often ignore the process of othering and set an unequal normative standard of equality. Therefore, in all these schemes we focus on what we are fighting for, rather than what we should be fighting against–colonial logics of commodification of space, nature, humanity and variably valued labour. What I mean by decolonization here is that Ambazonians must seek to disrupt the Franco-Camerounese colonial logics of commodification of space, nature, humanity and variably valued labour. We must not tolerate the neoliberal university since it can only survive through the colonial logics of commodification of space, nature, humanity and variably valued labour. The potential for decolonization exists in Ambazonia. One suggestion is to look for alternatives to hegemonical knowledge 396

practices outside or within the neoliberal university. Thus, the decolonial scholar can create spaces for decolonial thought cultivation within the university. But these must be understood as not being decolonization itself but generating the potential for decolonization. Furthermore, this process cannot be engaged in without understanding that not only Ambazonian universities but also their disciplines are conceptually ill-equipped to centre unrepresented populations, as the university and her disciplines have been complicit in making those populations unrepresented. Decolonizing genocide and extermination requires the reinstitution of a Lemkinian concept of genocide that explicitly reconnects genocide to imperialism in both its historic forms, including conquest, territorial expansion, settler colonialism, and colonization, and its more modern iterations, such as wars of aggression, including in some cases “humanitarian intervention,” neocolonialism, economic and cultural imperialism, and structural violence. Decolonizing genocide and extermination in Ambazonia also requires the inclusion of the voices of victims and survivors–the voices of resistance–and not on the terms of the states that have committed genocide and colonized the Genocide Convention but rather on the terms of the affected peoples. Decolonization cannot take place when the colonizer dictates the terms. If we are to have a concept of genocide for the twenty-first century, one that reflects the realities of group-based violence– cultural, physical, and structural–that threaten the survival of peoples as such, it must incorporate the lived experiences of those who have been targeted with such violence. Anything less is an abdication of control over defining genocide to the very powers that have benefitted the most historically from the original drafting and negotiating processes and will gladly continue to reap the benefits in the future. Decolonization is sometimes accompanied by periods of extreme destructive violence between those attempting to preserve the colonial restraints and those attempting to throw off the binds of colonization. France’s resistance to Algerian self-determination exemplifies a genocidal response to a decolonial movement. As the suppression of cultural rights intensified, some members of the oppressed population began to organize and consider armed resistance. Rather than accept the demands of the colonized people, France resorted to force to maintain its control over Algeria. Describing France’s use of force to suppress the legitimate rights of 397

Algerians, Muhammad El-Farra wrote in 1956, “Entire villages are shelled, bombed, or burned; acts of genocide are committed against the inhabitants of towns and villages; an indiscriminate campaign of extermination is now taking place…These are acts of genocide committed against people whose only crime is their love for liberty and their desire to preserve their own culture” (El-Farra, 1956: 7). The period of decolonization has been followed by new forms of imperialism and with them new forms of physical and structural violence. A primary driver of colonial genocide was the pursuit of economic expansion by the colonial powers (Short, 2016). Hence, resistance to decolonization and the advent of neocolonialism were rooted in, first, the maintenance of economic, as well as political and cultural, control and influence and, second, the development of new forms of control and influence. Indeed, Jones writes that under neocolonialism “formal political rule is abandoned, while colonial structures of economic, political, and cultural control remain. The resulting exploitation may have genocidal consequences” (Jones 2017: 91). Finally, decolonizing genocide requires that past genocides not be left in the past, including those that preceded the adoption and entry into force of the Genocide Convention and those that do not fit neatly under the legal definition codified within. Perpetrators of genocide must not be permitted to ignore and whitewash their histories on founding myths, revolutionary ideologies, and claims of benevolence. There must be redress for past, as well as present and future, acts of genocide. The UN line on self-determination through secession is such that secessionist states are unlikely to gain membership as the principle of territorial integrity holds primacy, which initially would show it to be a foe to self-determination through secession. However, as has been seen in cases such as South Sudan, the principle of territorial integrity is not absolute and has limits, most notably when the parent state is not fulfilling its side of the social contract by failing to provide security for its citizens. However, so far, the UN has not voiced support for the admission of secessionist states without the consent of the parent state (Orakhelashvili 2008, 8). This has sometimes been as part of a peace settlement, such as in the case of South Sudan, and if the failure of the parent state to provide security is down to direct oppression and persecution that is an ongoing concern. The principle of allowing these exceptions to the primacy of territorial integrity can be linked to UNGA Resolutions 545(VI) and 398

2625(XXV) and R2P, which would show the UN to be a friend to self-determination through secession in this instance. However, there is an argument, as noted in the introduction, that cases of passive failure to provide basic security and rights. This was evident in the case of Somalia, as illustrated by the aforementioned inability of the Somali government to prevent its forces raping and looting. This can invoke the same principles. The fact that Somaliland is not a UN member would show the UN to be a foe to selfdetermination through secession in this instance. The settlements that saw South Sudan become recognized were part of a negotiation for the resolution of conflict between the secessionists and their parent state. This indicates that the eventual admission of these states to the UN was a pragmatic move in order to create stability in the respective regions. This pragmatism can be further morally justified by the remedial right to secede and R2P, and its legitimacy justified by caveats such as UNGA Resolution 2625(XXV). However, arguably it would be just as pragmatic and moral to allow Somaliland to join the UN. It can be seen as compensation for the past wrongs of Barre, as well as promoting stability in at least part of Somalia, a country that is otherwise a failed state. This inconsistency can be explained since, as noted, Somaliland itself is not a major international security concern and thus does not warrant UN mediation in negotiations that could lead to recognition and UN membership. It was also not in the interests of any of the P-5 to recognise; both of these factors are in contrast to the case of South Sudan. Thus, keeping a somewhat ambiguous approach allows the UN to admit new members in cases of pressing threats to international security such as ongoing conflict, yet prevents a mass proliferation of states that could undermine the international states system, and also allows the P-5 to uphold their interests. The issue of state failure has been observed to be taken into account by the UN in the case of South Sudan. Thus, ostensibly one could argue that the UN is a friend to self-determination via secession if the balance of legitimacy is tipped towards the secessionists. However, the fact that Somaliland is not yet a UN member can be argued to refute this observation, thus it could be argued that the lack of legitimacy of a parent state and potential increased legitimacy of the secessionist state is only taken into account in cases of a pragmatic response to conflict resolution and when such secession does not contravene the interests of the P-5. The case of South Sudan showed that the UN can be a friend to 399

self-determination through secession in the context of state failure when required to facilitate mediation of conflict resolution that may result in secession (possibly at the behest of a major power). In such an incidence UN resolutions and principles can be interpreted as supporting such secessions, so long as none of the P-5 object. However, the UN is a foe to self-determination through secession in the context of state failure when there is not an immediate security threat and such a secession is not supported by a major P-5 power, as Somaliland has shown. This, however, fits in with the principle of territorial integrity which is a major principle of the UN and supported throughout the international community as it prevents a precedent that could undermine the international system of states. This means that the UN being a friend to selfdetermination via secession, even in the case of secession from failed states, is the exception rather than the rule. The case of “secession” and territorial integrity does not apply to Ambazonia because there is no a treaty of union between the Republic of Cameroun and the Southern Cameroons registered at the UN Secretariat as required by Resolution 1608. 1) The people of Southern Cameroons need their sovereign freedom as a People. The UN Should call on La Republique du Cameroun to withdraw to her recognized frontiers under international law, in which case the people of the Southern Cameroons would regain control of their territory. 2) Another way is for the UN to refer the matter to the International Court of Justice for its advisory opinion on whether the Republic of Cameroun can validly lay claim to the territory of the Southern Cameroons or if the claim of the Republic of Cameroun over that territory can override the claim of the people of the territory themselves. 3) The UN should immediately station UN peacekeeping and peacebuilding troops in Southern Cameroons territory to prevent further rape, torture, arrest, kidnap and the killings of Southern Cameroonians by the forces of La Republique du Cameroun, while considering point 1 and point 2 above.. References Bartrop, Paul. (2002). ‘The relationship between war and genocide in the twentieth century: A consideration’. Journal of Genocide Research 4(4): 519-532. 400

Chalk, F., and K. Jonassohn. (1990). The History and Sociology of Genocide: Analysis and Case Studies, New Haven. Charny, I. W. (1988). “Intervention and Prevention of Genocide,” in Israel W. Charny, ed., Genocide: A Critical Bibliographic Review (New York: Facts on File, 1988), 20-38. Charny, I. W. (1999). (Ed. in Chief). Encyclopedia of Genocide, Vol. 1-2. Santa Barbara, California. Charny, I. W. (1991). (Ed.). Genocide: A Critical Bibliographic Review, Vols. 1-2, New York 1988,. Charny. W. (Ed.). The Widening Circle of Genocide: Genocide: A Critical Bibliographic Review, Vol. 3, New Brunswick, New Jersey 1994. Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide at: Convention Crossette, B. (1998). “Dictators (and Some Lawyers) Tremble,” The New York Times. Destexhe, Alain. (1994-1995). ‘The Third Genocide’. Foreign Policy (97): 3-17. Farra, M. (1956). The Algerian tragedy. Africa Today, 3(4), 7–9. Fein, H. Genocide: A Sociological Perspective, Newbury Park, California, 1993. Glanville, Luke.(2009). “Is ‘Genocide’ Still a Powerful Word?” Journal of Genocide Research 11, no. 4, 467–486. Heidenrich, J. G. How to prevent genocide: a guide for Policymakers, Scholars, and the Concerned Citizen, Westport, Connecticut 2001. Horkheimer, Max. (1992) [1937]. “Traditional and Critical Theory,” in Horkheimer, Critical Theory: Selected Essays. New York: Continuum. Horowitz, I. L. (1997).Taking Lives: Genocide and State Power. New Brunswick, New Jersey . International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. at: ICTY. International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. United Nations web site at: ICTR Jongman, A. J. Contemporary Genocides: Causes, Cases, Consequences. Wassenaarseweg 52, 2333 AK, Leiden 1996. Jones, A. (2017). Genocide: A comprehensive introduction (3rd ed.). New York: Routledge. Katz, S. T. The Holocaust in Historical Perspective: The Holocaust and Mass Death before the Modern Age, New York 1994. 401

Kaye, James and Bo Stråth, eds. 2000. Enlightenment and Genocide, Contradictions of Modernity. Bruxelles: P.I.E.-Peter Lang. Kuper, L.(1981). Genocide: Its Political Use in the Twentieth Century, New Haven. Kuperman, Alan J.(2008). “The Moral Hazard of Humanitarian Intervention: Lessons from the Balkans.” International Studies Quarterly 52, no. 1 (2008): 49–80. Lemkin, R Axis .(1944). Rule in Occupied Europe. Washington, DC Preparatory Commission for the International Criminal Court. at: PCICC Lepard, Brian D. (2010). Customary International Law: A New Theory with Practical Applications. Cambridge University Press. Luban, David. (2006). “Calling Genocide by Its Rightful Name: Lemkin’s Word, Darfur, and the UN Report.” Chicago Journal of International Law 7, no. 1 (2006). McKinley, James C. Jr.(1998). “Massacre Trials in Rwanda Have Courts on Overload,” The New York Times (November 2, 1998): 3. Neier A. (1998). War Crimes: Brutality, Genocide, Terror, and the Struggle for Justice (New York: Time Books, 1998), 129. Rummel, R. J. (1994). Death By Government. New Brunswick, New Jersey at: DBG Schwarzenberger, Georg. (1957). International Law. Vol. Vol. 1. 3rd Edition. London: Stevens & Sons. Shaw, Malcolm N.(2008) International Law. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Short, D. (2016). Redefining genocide: Settler colonialism, social death and ecocide. London: Zed Books. Stanton, G. H. The Eight Stages of Genocide, Washington, D.C. forthcoming. Statute of The International Criminal Court. at: ICC Totten, S., W. S. Parsons, and I. W. Charny (Eds.). (1997). Century of Genocide: Eyewitness Accounts and Critical Views, New York. Wilt, H. G. Van Der, Harmen van der Wilt, and Jeroen Vervliet. (2012). The Genocide Convention: The Legacy of 60 Years. Martinus Nijhoff Publishers.

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Finally, Professor Tatah Mentan concludes that the pandemic genocide and extermination of Ambazonians by La République du Cameroun génocidaires can only be peacefully resolved by an internationally negotiated separation of both warring Former UN Category B Trust Territories. Tatah Mentan is an Independent Researcher, Member of the Political Commission for Nations and States under colonial rule, pacifist and engaged peace activist. He is a Theodore Lentz Peace and Security Studies Fellow, and Professor of Political Science.

Langaa Research & Publishing Common Initiative Group P.O. Box 902 Mankon Bamenda North West Region Cameroon

Tatah Mentan

Professor Tatah Mentan argues that the bloodbath was designed with a clear kinetic theological foundation as its centrepiece. The theologians of the genocide were ironically not clerics. They were rather journalists and sycophantic proregime intellectuals who apparently served as the echo chamber of the Biya genocidal regime for his Hitler-like “Final Solution” to crush and assimilate “Anglophones” – the “rats”, “cockroaches”, “secessionists”, “separatists”, or “microbes” as they were stigmatised. The suffering inflicted by Hitler on Jews fell outside the realm of expression. Often depicted as the savage lunatic who plunged the world into World War II, Adolf Hitler’s name has been on the tongues of historians, psychologists, economists, and laymen for ages. Similarly, President Paul Biya like Hitler the Monster is being depicted as the epitome of Lucifer himself.

AMBACIDE

Taking a look at the internet blackouts, the militarisation of towns and cities all across Southern Cameroons (Ambazonia), the indiscriminate torching of hundreds of villages, schools and health centres, the rampant gang rape of females by HIV-infected troops, mass killings of civilians, burning of innocent civilians in their sleep, disembowelling pregnant women and slaughtering them and their unborn babies, arbitrary arrests and detentions, dehumanising raids of residential areas in search of “Anglophones”, mindless torture, extortions, and looting by La République du Cameroun troops, the genocide and extermination were well planned in advance.

The Genocide and Extermination Reminiscent of Extermination of Jews (Holocaust) by Adolf Hitler

Genocide and extermination are no longer mere words, promises, hopes, etc. These acts are already a law which can be enforced. In practical terms, this law means no more extermination, no more mass killings, no more concentration camps, no more sterilisations, no more wanton rapes, no more killings and burning of people to conceal evidence, no more torching of habitats, no more breaking up of families. The call to stop genocide is often presented as the paramount moral obligation in contemporary global politics. The ‘Never Again’ refrain and the consistent references to the ethical value of Responsibility to Protect genocide stand as calls for urgent political mobilisation.

AMBACIDE

The Genocide and Extermination Reminiscent of Extermination of Jews (Holocaust) by Adolf Hitler

- Tatah Mentan -