I Beg Your Pardon Again---vincent Feko

I Beg Your Pardon Again By Vincent N. Feko

The 6.30 BBC news this morning (8 October,2008),reported that some 30 Southern Cameroons National Council ( SCNC ) members had spent their second night in the Tiko Police cell following their arrest when a combined detachment of Police.Gendarme, and the Army swooped on them, afternoon, October 6th 2008 in Mutengene; a rapidly growing township on the outskirts of Tiko, South West Province, one of the two provinces, that resulted from La Republique du Cameroun’s mutilation of Southern Cameroons. Reporting from Yaounde, the BBC correspondent, Randy Joe said, among those arrested was Chief Ayamba, SCNC Chairman, who has recently returned from a long tour of Europe and was holding a meeting with his members when the Forces of Law and Order swooped on them. According to Randy Joe, the SCNC is advocating for a separate state of Southern Cameroons which reunited with la Republique du Cameroun in 1961.He said the separatists complain that they are marginalized and treated as second class citizens. I would have had no bone to pick with the reporter had his use of the word “reunited” not elicited my reaction. In the first place,the Plebiscite of 11th February,1961, the bridge by which it is alleged brought Southern Cameroons and la Republique du Cameroun (LRC) together, was predicated on the word “ Joining” and not “Rejoining.” Just to freshen memories, the plebiscite questions to British Cameroons (Southern and Northern Cameroons-jointly) were, “ Do you want to achieve independence by joining the Federal Republic of Nigeria.” OR “Do you want to achieve independence by joining La Republique du Cameroun ?” This is what came to be known as, “THE TWO ALTERNATIVES.” In grammar, the word, “ joining” is the present continuous of the verb, “join” and the word is similar to, “ combine,” “unite,” that are completely dissimilar to recombine, reunite.The Plebiscite,though in application of UNGA Resolutions: 1514,1541,and 1608 respectively of 13th December 1960,15th December 1960,and 21st April 1961; was Britain’s modus operandi of circumventing Art.76(b) of the Charter of the United Nations under which non independent countries and territories were granted unconditional independence. Those resolutions were pursuant to Art.102(1)(2) of the Charter. As has now been proven, these resolutions were never implemented and as a result, the British Cameroons has never been decolonized. In the sad case of Southern Cameroons, it was simply invaded.

If Southern Cameroons had been decolonized, and it came together with LRC, we should have been referring to that relationship as a united one or unification and not to a reunited ,or reunifi1

cation. It is extremely important to note that the plebiscite per se, was a declaration of intent. What was that intention? To join LRC. The procedure leading to the consummation of the act of joining was laid down by UNGA resolutions 1541 and 1608,and Art.102(1)(2) of the Charter( cited above ). Again, as a matter of emphasis, since those United Nations requirements for consummation of the said joining were never executed, there was, ipso facto, no independence, no joining, no union, no unification. Of course, you can have a union by ambush or a union by mutual consent. For example, The Gambia and Senegal at one time, arduously worked on what would have turned out to be SENEGAMBIA, a union by mutual consent. But when negotiations broke down, each party went its separate way and that was the end of the Senegambian union or confederation. Senegal could have used its numerical strength, as well as its ethnic and demographic arguments, to get a union with The Gambia by ambush but it could not because, The Gambia, though a small country by land mass and population like Southern Cameroons, is an independent country. The union by ambush which democratic and international norms restrained Senegal from enforcing on The Gambia, was the type LRC forced down the throat of Southern Cameroons and got away with it because Southern Cameroons was not independent. It is this union by ambush that the SCNC and the other Southern Cameroons nationalist movements are fighting against, in order to pave the way for the Territory’s accession to independence. The marginalization or deprivation is a direct result of the unwarranted military and administrative occupation of the Territory in question by France and the French outpost of LRC.

It is hoped that this, and the write up and television lectures of some of the frontline nationalists on the Southern Cameroons plight will straighten the records so our compatriots, especially our journalists who have the ear of the public, may desist from using inappropriate adjectives or wrong words in reference to the unwholesome relationship between Southern Cameroons and LRC.

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