Southern Cameroons National Council

The Southern Cameroons question is a problem of international law; it is not the domestic problem of one of the parties to the conflict; it is not about the break up of a state; it is not about a group of people within their own state claiming that they have a right to self-determination. It is an issue of restitution; it is an issue of ending years of rape and armed robbery by one people against another; it is an issue of enforcing the respect of territorial boundaries inherited at independence; it is an issue of the illegal acquisition of territory with the attendant colonization of the true owners of the territory. In short, it is a question of forcing the aggressor and expansionist nation to retreat to its rightful international borders. Throughout human history, the answer to colonization and the illegal acquisition of territory has never been decentralization, good governance, power-sharing and so on; the answer to colonization and the subjugation of one people by another is always and ever decolonization.

COLONISATION AND ITS PROOFS

The Southern Cameroons was a League of Nations Mandate from 1922 to 1945, and a United Nations Trust Territory from 1945 to 1961. By virtue of its status as a League of Nations Mandate and a United Nations Trust Territory, it acquired international personality and became an indisputable subject of international law, and not the domestic appendage of some other State. In 1954 it attained self-government as the last but one step to sovereign independence, and then in 1961, through the violations of the United Nations Charter by the Administering Authority, the UK, a way was opened for it to be colonized by another former United Nations Trust Territory, the Republic of Cameroun.
The facts to establish colonization are very simple and incontrovertible:

(1) The Republic of Cameroun and Southern Cameroons were separate UN Trust Territories, equal in status and governed by the same articles under the UN Charter (and thus had equal rights), and with separate Trusteeship Agreements: can one former Trust territory lay a claim on another? Of course both Cameroons were parts of the former German Kameroun, but there is no principle of international law or of common sense stating that the contiguous territories of every former colonial master must form one country; that all former Roman territories, for example, should form one country, or that British India, now three different countries must be one; or that the contiguous former French territories of Gabon, Congo Brazzaville, The Republic of Cameroun, Chad, and Central African Republic must be one country. The conquest of the Germans by the allies and the Versailles Treaty put a complete end to former German colonies, each passing into a new ownership, new system of international law and a new destiny. Nor can the Republic of Cameroun claim to be the new colonial master posing to inherit former German colonies. That would still amount to expansionism and imperial tendencies. What gave it identity was the fact that it was a United Nations Trust territory; that is exactly the same fact that gave identity to the Southern Cameroons!

(2) The Republic of Cameroun achieved its independence on January 1 1960 within clearly defined borders which did not include the territory of the Southern Cameroons, and when the Southern Cameroons was still a UN Trust territory. Is there an internationally recognized instrument, complying to Article 102 of the UN Charter, by which the boundaries of the Republic of Cameroon have been subsequently altered to include the territory of the Southern Cameroons?
(3) Is there a Treaty of Union between the Republic of Cameroon and the Southern Cameroons?
(4) By what instrument of International Law then did the Republic of Cameroun acquire jurisdiction over the territory of the Southern Cameroons?

(5) In view of Article 4(b) of the African Union Constitutive Act, by which all African countries agree to the principle that their territorial boundaries remain frozen as they were on the attainment of independence, by what instrument have the boundaries of the Republic of Cameroun changed from what they were on 1 January 1960 (date of independence, when Southern Cameroons was still a UN Trust Territory) to now include the territory of the Southern Cameroons?
In the place of producing these proofs, no narrative, however beautiful, intricate and involved would constitute the proofs required. If these proofs cannot be put on the table, we are faced with colonization, illegal territorial acquisition and the subjugation of one people by another, which are all crimes against humanity!

These proofs do not exist anywhere and so no matter what attempt is made to hide the colonization or brainwash the world, naked aggression and colonization is what characterizes the occupation of the Southern Cameroons by the Republic of Cameroun. Whatever conferences were held, whether in Fumban or elsewhere, have no relevance in so far as they cannot produce the proofs demanded.

The UN Organised-Plebiscite and its Interpretation

The UN-organised plebiscite is the single event that opened the way for the colonization of Southern Cameroons to take place. Under Article 76(b) of the UN Charter, Trust territories were to be led by their Administering Authorities to self government or independence. Southern Cameroons attained self-government in 1954, and was getting ready to achieve sovereignty. However, in a conspiracy to hand the Southern Cameroons to France, the United Kingdom, the Administering Authority over the Southern Cameroons, came up with something called "independence by joining". The "independence by joining" concept denied Southern Cameroons sovereign independence and forced on her two choices only: either to achieve independence by joining Nigeria or to achieve independence by joining the Republic of Cameroun; none of these choices complied with Article 76(b) of the UN Charter! Despite all protests, on 11 February 1961, the Administering Authority organized a UN-sponsored Plebiscite in which these two questions were put to the people of Southern Cameroons: (1) Do you wish to achieve independence by joining the independent Republic of Cameroun? Or (2) Do you wish to achieve independence by joining the Federal Republic of Nigeria? The people of Southern Cameroons voted to achieve independence by joining the Republic of Cameroun. It is the meaning of this vote that lies at the heart of the confusion in the mind of the international community.

How could the people of Southern Cameroons achieve independence by joining another people? What was such joining intended to achieve, when the Southern Cameroons was already governing itself since 1954 at a time when The Republic of Cameroun had not even achieved self-government? What protection was there to ensure that such joining did not become the backdoor by which the independence that was being offered to the people of Southern Cameroons was going to be ousted? Where did the Administering Authority acquire the right to conduct such a plebiscite, given Article 76(b) of the UN Charter? Which jurisdiction had competence if a problem developed between the two proposed partners to joining? What were the safeguards that the bigger proposed partner would not use its size to swallow up the smaller one? Who did the Administering Authority intend to fool by including the word "independence" in its plebiscite questions? These questions begin to show you the enormous conspiracy behind the Plebiscite. President De Gaulle of France confirmed the secret dealings when he called the Southern Cameroons, after the Plebiscite, "un petit don de la reine" (a small gift from the Queen)!

MEANING OF THE PLEBISCITE

The Plebiscite vote constituted no commitment of the People of southern Cameroons towards the Republic of Cameroun. It was only a commitment towards the United Nations, in the same way as when a daughter tells her father whom she would like to marry, such an avowal to her father constitutes no commitment towards that person! The dialogue in the Plebiscite was strictly between the United Nations and the People of Southern Cameroons!

Many people try to use the UN-organised plebiscite to attempt to substantiate the occupation of Southern Cameroons by La Republique du Cameroun. But this is a gross mistake. It is very easy to fool the listener by telling him that a matter was decided by referendum or by plebiscite. But only an inattentive listener will be fooled: a careful listener will want to know what the matter was, the exact questions that were asked in the referendum and what happened thereafter, because the referendum and its implementation are two different things! If you have a daughter and two suitors come along, John and Peter, and you ask your daughter which one she will marry and she says, Peter, that of course does not make the marriage; it only identifies the person she wants to marry, and the marriage itself can only become a reality if all the procedures for a legal union can be successfully concluded. And it often happens that events may prevent the marriage from taking place altogether, despite that a suitor has been identified! The identification of a suitor does not even constitute a commitment towards the identified suitor!!

So no plebiscite can dispense with the proofs listed above, for when the people of Southern Cameroons answered the Plebiscite questions, they simply told the United Nations what was on their mind about the questions asked. They were not even speaking to the Republic of Cameroun, let alone making a commitment to it; their answer was addressed to the United Nations which asked them the questions! The dialogue in the Plebiscite was strictly between the United Nations and the People of Southern Cameroons! That answer was not a Treaty of Union; it was not a contract with the Republic of Cameroun; it was not an act of incorporation of the Southern Cameroons into the Republic of Cameroun; it was not an international instrument which altered the boundaries of the Republic of Cameroun, or an invitation that the Republic of Cameroun should invade and occupy the Southern Cameroons. It could not be an act by which a gift was made of the people of Southern Cameroons to the People of the Republic of Cameroun; it was not the abnegation of the right to the self-determination of the people of Southern Cameroons; it was not a death sentence on the people of Southern Cameroons so that they may never again have a voice of their own. Even if a Union Treaty were subsequently concluded between the two sides (though it was not), sovereignty over the Southern Cameroons territory could never pass to the Republic of Cameroun, because political unions are administrative conveniences, and not a process by which one people surrender themselves and their territory, gratis, to another people! Such arrangements would amount to the institution of slave trade in peoples! Again, if Union was concluded, for it to become valid, the legislatures of both sides would have to ratify the Treaty of Union, and it would have to be deposited with the United Nations secretariat as proof in compliance with Article 102(1) of the UN Charter. There was neither a Union Treaty nor even the promulgation of the Plebiscite results by the Southern Cameroons Parliament! No election and no referendum anywhere in the world becomes a law on its own, especially if the purpose of the referendum is the relation between two subjects of international law. Informality never binds subjects of International Law. The Republic of Cameroun was so anxious to colonise the Southern Cameroons, that immediately after the Plebiscite, it wrote a federal constitution and imposed it on the Southern Cameroons even while the Southern Cameroons was still a UN Trust Territory. This was international theft! In fact, the Plebiscite itself, though a violation of Article 76(b) of the United Nations Charter, which imposed the obligation on the Administering Authority to lead the peoples of the Trust Territory to self government or independence, was an acknowledgement of the right of the peoples of Southern Cameroons to always express themselves on their fate. How can that right suddenly cease to exist now? Do the people of Southern Cameroons have the independence that they voted for in the Plebiscite? No country can legally acquire foreign territory by making some domestic changes in its own laws! Therefore if those who invoke the plebiscite bother at all to take a second look, they will see where it began and where it ended, and how it should be interpreted and how it should not be interpreted.

UN RESULTION 1608 (XV) of April 1961.

The United Nations fully recognized the fact that the Southern Cameroons people's response to the Plebiscite questions of 11 February 1961 was not a commitment towards the Republic of Cameroun, but simply an invitation to treat or an identification of their independence partner. Once that identification was done, then and only then would the process of union and independence begin in earnest. It also recognised the fact that the Southern Cameroons and the Republic of Cameroun were both subjects of international law and that the joining (and achievement of independence), which was the subject of the plebiscite could not be concluded any other way than by an international treaty under the auspices of the United Nations. The only way a valid and binding international commitment could be established between the Southern Cameroons and the Republic of Cameroun, as two subjects of international law, was through an international treaty, not by changes in the domestic law of the Republic of Cameroun!! This is why UNGA Resolution 1608 (XV) of April 1961 was passed in paragraph five of which the UN called for a Union Treaty to effect the intentions previously expressed by the two sides. Unfortunately, instead of waiting for this Resolution to be  implemented, the Republic of Cameroun used its size and army to simply occupy the Southern Cameroons (with the conspiracy of the Administering Authority) without even a piece of paper being signed by the two sides and wrote and imposed a federal constitution on the people of Southern Cameroons even while the Southern Cameroons was still a Trust Territory! Article 47 of that unilateral federal constitution proclaimed, as a bait, that it was inadmissible to make any proposal that would change the federal structure of the new imposed nation; but then shortly after, since it was only a ploy for colonization, the federation was abolished and the new entity turned into a united republic, which shortly after again, was abolished and turned into a unitary State. Shortly after again, in 1984, the colonial regime, thinking the colonization was complete, resumed the name it had prior to 1961: La Republique du Cameroun!

COLONISATION IN ACTION

La Republique du Cameroun will always behave towards Southern Cameroons and Southern Cameroonians as an armed robber, no matter the sweet speeches of brotherhood or any flattery, because no one who takes,  by force of arms, what belongs to another, can behave otherwise than as an armed robber towards the rightful owner! No other proof of colonisation and subjugation is necessary than the method by which a foreign people and territory have come under the jurisdiction of another! And no other cure to this armed robber conduct is there other than the return of the territory to its rightful owners!

Having illegally occupied the Southern Cameroons, using the pretext of a plebiscite, and without any protest from the former Administering Authority or a hypnotized world, the Republic of Cameroun went ahead to decapitate the Southern Cameroons into its provinces; to close all wharfs and airports of the Southern Cameroons; abolish its parliament; impose the French language; abolish its legal and educational systems; destroy the economic infrastructure and all Southern Cameroon banks; even shut down its electrical power plants, to institute complete dependence of the people of Southern Cameroons on the Republic of Cameroun. Names of towns were changed; the Plebiscite Day was renamed Youth Day to hide the plebiscite altogether; the two stars they had put on the flag to blindfold the people were reduced to one; and in 1984, the Republic of Cameroon reverted to the name "La Republique du Cameroun" which it had before it occupied the Southern Cameroons! The whole intention was to erase the memory, from the minds of Southern Cameroonians, of their own separate existence as a historical reality! As the final act of trying to illegally acquire the Southern Cameroons, it sued Nigeria over the Bakassi Peninsula which lies in the south western region of the Southern Cameroons. In that case, the crucial issue, which would have been to prove the jurisdiction of the Republic of Cameroun over the Southern Cameroons in which the Bakassi Peninsula is found, was never raised. Both Nigeria and the ICJ assumed that jurisdiction over the Southern Cameroons legally belonged to the Republic of Cameroun (false interpretation of the Plebiscite), and the ruling was accordingly a gross violation once more of justice against the suffering Peoples of the Southern Cameroons. The people of Southern Cameroons cannot even assemble on their own territory, because they will be met with tear gas and accused of plotting secession. The answer to all appeals for a peaceful solution has been typically colonial: arrests, intimidation, imprisonment, torture and killings, with all impunity.
Colonisation behaves the same everywhere: it lives on bribes, intimidation, violence, armed robbery, propaganda, brainwashing; it strips the colonized people naked of what is their own and imposes its own alien ways on them; its sole purpose is to exploit and under develop the colonized peoples, under the cover of beautiful words and sweet speeches. It calls nationalists and freedom fighters terrorists, just as Mandela, Nkrumah and all other African heroes were called terrorists and trouble-makers by their dominators! Like every armed robber, it is prepared to kill anyone who threatens to uncover the truth of the colonisation or reveal the identity of the armed robber. Africans know better than anybody else what colonization has done to their minds. The danger every listener faces is that of being brainwashed by sweet words, and “politican considerations” to think that colonization can behave differently anywhere; but the unavoidable truth is that no one who takes, by force of arms, what is not his can behave otherwise than as an armed robber towards the rightful owner!

PEACEFUL ATTEMPTS TO DECOLONISATION:

Since the occupation of their country and homeland, the People of Southern Cameroons, firmly believing in the UN Charter, the Constitutive Act of the African Union, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights, the Declarations of World leaders and in International Law in general, have pursued the restoration of the sovereign independence of their homeland in the most orderly and peaceful manner. Various liberation movements have been formed, including the Southern Cameroons National Council (SCNC), The Southern Cameroons Peoples Organisation (SCAPO); the Southern Cameroons Restoration Movement (SCARM), the Southern Cameroons Youth League (SCYL), and so on. Many liberation fighters have died in La Republique du Cameroun's prisons.

Chief among their peaceful efforts are the following:

1. In 1995, John Ngu Foncha, who was the Southern Cameroons Prime Minister during the Plebiscite period, led a delegation to the United Nations to petition that body about the colonization of Southern Cameroons by the Republic of Cameroun.
2. In April 1993 Southern Cameroonians met in what was called the All Anglophone Conference I (AACI) and came up with the Buea Peace Initiative outlining the proposals for a peaceful settlement to the colonization; but they were ignored by La Republique du Cameroun;
3. In 1994 Southern Cameroonians also met in what was called the All Anglophone Conference II (AACII) and issued the Bamenda Proclamation in which they gave the Government of the Republic of Camerouon a reasonable time within which to address the issue or they would resort to the zero option which is the inevitable restoration of the Sovereignty of the Southern Cameroons. Once more they were ignored. And so began in earnest the irreversible march towards the restoration of the sovereignty of the Southern Cameroons;
4. In 2002, SCAPO sued the Federal Republic of Nigeria in the Abuja High Court of Nigeria to compel Nigeria to honour its obligations under the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights. The Abuja High Court issued a landmark ruling ordering, “the government of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to take up the case of the self-determination of the Southern Cameroons at the International Court of Justice and at the United Nations and to pursue it diligently to its final conclusion”. Nigeria has not yet executed the court order.
5. The UN Human Rghts Tribunal Judgment of 17 March 2005 in favour of Ambazonia, one of the Liberation Movements for the freedom of Ambazonia (former British Southern Cameroons).
6. Bakassi interpleader: When La Republique du Cameroun took Nigeria to the United Nations Security Council for failing to implement the ICJ ruling on Bakassi, the Southern Cameroons, through SCAPO, introduced an interpleader as an interested party, which was duly accepted by the United Nations Security Council. Unfortunately, instead of allowing the matter to come before the Security Council, Nigeria was pressurized to sign the Greentree Accord of 12 June 2006 out of the United Nations system.
7. Petitions: Virtually hundreds of petitions have been made by individuals and groups, both to La Republique du Cameroun and to other organizations and African governments for a peaceful solution to the problem.
8. There are many other ongoing initiatives such as Radio Free Southern Cameroons; and so on.

THE SOUTHERN CAMEROONS QUESTION AND AFRICAN UNITY

Some people have asked us this question: how can you be fighting for the restoration of your sovereignty at a time when Africa is fighting so hard for unity? This question betrays many wrong thoughts in the mind of the questioner. His concept of union, his failure to consider the basic texts of the African union, the purpose for which the OAU was created in the first place; and above all, his complete disregard for the subjugation of one people by another. Let us explain this matter more clearly.

1. We remind everyone one that the Organisation of African Unity was formed, first and foremost, to rid Africa of all forms of colonialism (Article 2 of OAU Charter). The colonization of one African people by another is not excluded from this historic mission of the OAU; and is not better or more agreeable to the OAU than the colonization of Africans by Europeans; in many ways, it is even worse! Colonisation behaves the same everywhere: it is the rape and armed robbery of one people by another. It is recognized as a universal crime, whether committed by Africans against Africans or by foreigners against Africans. It lives on intimidation, violence, arrest, imprisonment, torture and killing of those who stand up for the truth of their rights. It calls nationalists terrorists and thrives by trying to distort the truth! It cannot now be condoned by the same organization that was formed to banish it and should not be condoned by any right-thinking human being.
2. In every way possible, Africans have condemned colonization; they have used their colonization to demand the cancellation of their debts; to seek special rights and sympathy in the world; to call for compensation for slave trade and colonization; to justify their backwardness in every domain; to accuse colonial masters of inhumanity to man; they have used it to demonise the Whiteman. Now tell me: Is it the same Africans who can be heard to be promoting and supporting colonization in Africa? If Africans now say that colonization is no more a crime against humanity, let them tell the world and stop using the argument of their own colonisation to their advantage! Yet, whatever the clever-minded now say, let it be known that it is not the human word that makes colonisation an evil; it is human nature itself that does not accept it.
3. African unity and the African Union are not based on the private speculations of each individual. They are based on sound principles laid down in the African Union basic texts. These principles found and promote the concept of Union that the African peoples aspire to. The whole of the Southern Cameroons case and its validity are founded on the principles of the African Union. The Southern Cameroons case is based on Article 4(b) of the African Union Constitutive Act; the Cairo Declaration of 1964 and articles 19, 20(1), 21(1), 22(1), 23(1) and 24(1) of the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights, in addition to the provisions of the United Nations Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and International Law. If there are any new principles of Union which now encourage the subjugation of one people by another, the illegal acquisition of territory and colonization, let them be laid down and declared in public so that the world may see the minds of Africans!
4. Union and Unity are founded on what is called in law, a meeting of minds, agreement, understanding, not the promotion of colonization, injustice, illegal territorial acquisition and oppression, which all breed nothing but conflicts. Some people still continue to conceive union in the way our forefathers conceived marriage. They gave their children into forced marriages and obliged them to remain in those marriages no matter the hell they were going through! Forced marriages have now been banned everywhere in the world, and it is time for all of us to know that! Forced marriages between peoples are just as evil as forced marriages between individuals! Africa can not be united through the promotion of the oppression of its own peoples; unity is not possible through the forced marriages of peoples and the nursing of conflicts. For who will be such unity, for oppressed human beings? We can now see why there are so many conflicts in Africa. Those who are called upon to apply Union principles resort to their own private speculations and their forced-marriage concept of union instead of following the authoritative and sound Union principles that have been laid down by common consent; and so injustices and oppression continue in the name of “political considerations”.
5. Will the Union of 53 States be less perfect than the Union of 54 States or more? That is the question about recognizing the birth of more States in Africa! If we were to follow the Laws of Nature, we would note that more distinct units, and thus units in which there is less conflict and greater unity of purpose, provide more solid building blocks than ones in which there are cracks, stress and weaknesses. Units with conflicts and disagreement about direction are like diseased cells in the body and sick individuals in any group. In short, perfection increases with distinctness, and that which is not distinct is a sign of imperfection. So does Africa prefer to build unity with solid and healthy building blocks or with cancerous and diseased ones? When people are free, they also contribute more wholesomely and willingly and do not provide internal structural weaknesses to the organisation. Even more important is this universal truth: the dynamics that lead to the birth and death of states as we know them today have not ceased because we are in the 21st century! The number of States in world, and in Africa, have always increased and will always increase! God created man to live in freedom, and human nature does not even manifest itself without freedom. We can notice how much colonization has diminished and impoverished the African as a human being.
6. Africa can learn what their colonization by the superior Whiteman has done to their own minds, the disorientation and helplessness in which they live and then consider what the colonization of Africans by other Africans, who are not so superior, can do in terms of enormous damage and complete disorientation of those they colonise.
7. We would like to ask you back this question: how many countries in Africa are willing to subjugate themselves to colonization to other Africans for the sake of African unity? Why then does anyone expect us to subjugate ourselves on that account? We love our country, the Southern Cameroons, just as much as the people of La Republique du Cameroun love their own country; they cannot have their own territory, their own way of life, their own space of existence, and then cross their border and confiscate our own. Even if Union will require the relinguishing of sovereignty, such relinguishing will be by all African countries, not some chosen few; it will arise from mutual understanding, agreement, negotiation and mutual benefit, not colonization and subjugation! One people cannot assert their own sovereignty and deny another people their own, on the pretext that they are doing it for unity. The African Union has not employed La Republique du Cameroun to occupy the Southern Cameroons to help it achieve Union! Let us make you a promise we can keep: tell la Republique, for the sake of African Unity, to give up its claim to sovereignty over its territory, and we will give up our own over the Southern Cameroons!

HOW THE MATURITY OF THE PEOPLE OF SOUTHERN CAMEROONS HELPS THE WORLD

The international community ultimately always takes responsibility for conflicts in the world, because whoever or whatever engineered the conflict, conflicts always undermine peace, the human aspiration in the world and cause global instability. Elsewhere, human lives have been lost in senseless years of war, the international community has spent billions, resources have been diverted from education, healthcare and social services to pursuing and stopping needless wars, which always end by accepting the fact that every people have a right to their own existence. Beautiful speeches of indivisibility of states have been made, only to finally accept the unalterable truth that a suppressed people have the right to a separate existence, and that no people can be tied through colonization to another indefinitely! Examples abound in Africa's recent history of senseless wars! Here, in the case of the Southern Cameroons, the world is spared all this expenditure and blood-bath! The people of Southern Cameroons are mature, organized and clear-minded about what they want and how to go about it. Here is a case where the people themselves have done the work for the international community; yet just because of this maturity, the international community is looking the other way, as if to say that the People of Southern Cameroons must start their own war if their colonization is to be considered a conflict at all! So because of the absence of war, everyone is silent about this acute case of colonization in the 21st century under the nose of the African Union and the United Nations!
It is this paradox that cannot be understood. How can the world lay down beautiful principles of the peaceful resolution of conflicts, early warning systems, conflict prevention and management, justice and peace in the world; set up elaborate structures to implement these principles and yet, must ignore all those who, relying on these principles, have chosen not to make war? It is as if the unwritten principle is that only by war, blood and violence can oppressed peoples put their problem on the agenda of the international community! How do we understand that rebel groups and other movements which ignore international law and the peaceful resolution of conflicts and resort to violence are being begged and even bribed to come to the negotiating table, but not those who diligently pursue the course of legality and peace? How do we understand all this contradiction? Are those who are called upon to apply these principles just parroting them to earn their salaries? How can it be understood that with near-to-nothing cost in lives and resources, the world can make peace, but prefers war? Who shall be held liable for such a war? How will other Rwandas not repeat themselves in Africa in the face of these attitudes that do nothing but nurse more conflicts on the excuse that only when conflicts become war are they worth addressing as conflicts? In the final analysis, peace-loving peoples of the world must assume responsibility of doing whatever they can to promote peace in the world.

HOW YOU CAN HELP

The most important thing not to do is to make an argument on the basis of the presumptions on which we have been living, which have all been fed to us by those who have confiscated the voice of their victims. Africa knows how much of its history has been written and distorted by foreigners and its dominators. The struggle of the African Union to rectify African history and image is exactly the same struggle that the people of Southern Cameroons are waging: to let the truth of their history come to the light of day! The facts people claim they know are the "facts" fed to the world by La Republique du Cameroun, which has made its creed the suppression of the voice of the Southern Cameroons! Let our reason not also be confiscated by this propaganda! At this stage, all the People of Southern Cameroons want is for the true facts of this piece of African history come to the light of day!! After the truth has come out everyone can make up their own minds!

In every dispute, the lasting way to bring help is through a framework that will enable both sides to prove their case. This can be arbitration or judicial structures such as the ICJ, the African Court of Human and Peoples’ Rights, the Pan African Parliament, the African Union itself and so on. We have listed above, certain proofs that are unavoidable if the matter is to be resolved on the basis of justice. The People of Southern Cameroons need your help in sourcing a structure that will have the judicial or moral competence to hear both sides, and in particular, to oblige the Republic of Cameroun to prove the legal and international instruments by which it is claiming and forcefully exercising sovereignty over the Southern Cameroons.

In this endeavour to find a peaceful and lasting solution to the conflict, no contribution can be too small. We appeal to peace-loving countries, organisations, groups, individuals, professors, Presidents, etc., either in Africa or elsewhere, to use whatever means is at their disposal to help bring this case before a competent judicial or arbitration body so that both sides may at last have the chance to prove their case and put the matter to rest. If Africa is diseased within, it can never stand as the healthy and strong entity the African Union wants to see emerge