After reunification on 1 October 1961, Cameroon became a federal republic, but in practice inherited a shaky federalism with an unequal distribution of power between the two federated states in the federal assembly and in the government. Here, the commission urges for dialogue, calls on the state to end discriminatory treatment against the anglophone minority, and appeals for legal proceedings to take place in anglophone regions and in a language understood by the accused, among other recommendations. Influenced by these prominent political leaders and by a certain fear of being absorbed by the Nigerian giant, the vote went in favour of reunification. [fn]Crisis Group interviews, priests, girls and young women, Buea and Bamenda, March-June 2017.Hide Footnote. The Anglophone territory was called West Cameroon and the Francophone territory was called East Cameroon. In October 2016, anglophone teachers' and lawyers'. Cameroun: Paul Biya confront la triple pression de lONU, des Etats-Unis et du Vatican. The crisis has been transformed to a separatist movement, with some Anglophones clamoring for an . Unfortunately, these relationships continue into the present. So they proposed federalism in order to guarantee implementation of reforms and achieve a more general solution. Cameroon, facing Boko Haram in the Far North and militia from the Central African Republic in the East, needs to avoid another potentially destabilising front opening up. [fn]Crisis Group interviews, academics, Buea and Bamenda, March-April 2017.Hide Footnote, In particular, unification left the impression of a democratic setback, cultural assimilation and a downgrading of political status. The other movements were the Cameroon Anglophone Movement (CAM), the Free West Cameroon Movement (FWM), the Southern Cameroons Restoration Movement (SCRM) and the Ambazonia Movement. Cookie Settings. Jess Craig Cameroon's Government Is Deceiving the West While Diverting Foreign Aid Paul Biya's regime is ignoring the battle against Boko Haram and the Islamic State and using foreign. [fn]Before 1972, the second most senior government official was Anglophone, but the Anglophone prime minister is now the fourth or fifth most senior official after the president of the Senate, the president of the National Assembly and the president of the yet to be created Constitutional Council.Hide Footnote Many Anglophones are convinced that the Francophone part of the country followed a strategy to marginalise Southern Cameroons and are still not sufficiently aware of the disastrous impact the economic crisis of the 1980s also had on several Francophone regions. The president of the republic should publicly recognise the problem and speak out to calm tensions. [fn]One of the most virulent criticisms of the Francophones is against the tribal attitude of Anglophones in the Northwest and Southwest.Hide Footnote Francophone teachers in the Anglophone zone complain about discrimination in the universities, while Francophone citizens complain about their stigmatisation and the calls for violence against them issued since January 2017. In 1961, he set about bringing West Cameroon under control through a mixture of repression and exploitation of divisions among Anglophones. The two sides have made abundant use of propaganda. Crisis Group interviews, Western diplomats, Yaound, Washington and New York, February-July 2017.Hide Footnote The strongest reactions have come from international civil society, especially from the UK Bar and organisations like Amnesty International. However, they are still dissatisfied. Foncha and Jua wrote privately to Ahidjo and expressed their opposition in the official media. Germany pays the largest sum of development funding in the world to Cameroon 100 million between 2017-2019 alone. At the time of the 1961 referendum, the political landscape in Southern Cameroons was already dynamic. Open Letter to His Excellency Paul Biya, The Bar Council of England and Wales, 24 March 2017; Cameroon: arrests and civil society bans risk inflaming tensions in English-speaking regions, Amnesty International press release, 20 January 2017. [fn]Crisis Group interviews, members of the elite and local population, Yaound, Douala, Bamenda, December 2016 and April 2017.Hide Footnote The current crisis represents an especially worrying resurgence of this old problem. The Anglophone representatives thought they were participating in a constituent assembly that would draft a constitution guaranteeing an egalitarian federalism and a large degree of autonomy to federated states,[fn]Crisis Group interviews, university academics and researchers, Buea and Limb, March 2017. Crisis Group interviews, CPDM leaders and senior officials, Yaound, December 2016. Crisis Group interviews, diplomats, Consortium members, government officials, Northwest and Southwest, 2017. In addition to petitioning local and international communities, anglophone Cameroonians have also exhausted legal avenues in the struggle. To the question as to whether a more public reaction would be appropriate, one ambassador in Yaound replied I dont know, but this is a question we ask ourselves every day. Assessing the Practice of Journalism in Bamenda-Cameroon during the Anglophone Crisis, 2016-2019, Youth Involvement in Civil Society in Cameroon since 1990, An institutional government design for curbing identity and language conflict in states: An analysis of the Cameroonian Constitution of 1996, THE FEDERAL SOLUTION VERSUS NATIONALIST CONSCIOUSNESS: A NEO-FUNDAMENTAL NATIONAL QUESTION IN CAMEROON, AN EVALUATION OF NATION BUILDING POLICIES IN CAMEROON SINCE COLONIAL TIMES, Ambiguous Transitions: Mediating Citizenship among Youth in Cameroon, Historical knowledge-genre as it relates to the reunification of Cameroon in selected Anglophone Cameroonian History textbooks. [fn]The commissions president and members who are close to the ruling party and hold several posts should be replaced by a younger team with greater legitimacy and composed of an equal number of Francophones and Anglophones, including Consortium members, as well as broadening its remit to include powers to impose sanctions on ministerial departments and government bodies that do not respect bilingualism and that discriminate against Anglophones. The violence that was rife between November 2016 to January 2017 in Cameroons two Anglophone regions and the support for the Operation Ghost Town that followed, showed that the Anglophone problem is deep-rooted. The Faculty of Law, University of Oxford, Postdoctoral associate, Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, Causes of the Anglophone Conflict in Cameroon, Faculty of law blogs / UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD. The first Francophone magistrates were appointed to posts in the Anglophone part in 2002 and this trend intensified in 2014. By continuing to browse the site you are agreeing to our use of cookies. Crisis Group interviews, CPDM and SDF mayors, Yaound, Douala, Kumba, May 2017.Hide Footnote The transfer of financial resources (the percentage of which is not detailed in legal texts) has only increased from 4 to 7 per cent in 13 years, while it is 20 per cent in other decentralised unitary states like Kenya and Ghana. The Cameroon National Union (CNU) was formed in 1966 and the other parties were dissolved. Crisis Group interviews, CPDM and SDF mayors, Yaound, Douala, Kumba, May 2017. Although the great majority of the Anglophone diaspora probably supports the current protest movement, a minority has reacted in a hostile manner to calls for secession and to the movement as a whole, to the extent of sometimes writing to the authorities of the countries where the leading exponents of the secessionist current are living to call for their expulsion. Asong, L., Chi, S. N., (2014), Ndeh Ntumazah: A Conversational Auto Biography, African Books Collective. Crisis Group interviews, police inspector and technical advisor to the presidency, Yaound, Douala, Buea, 2017. Enter the email address you signed up with and we'll email you a reset link. Despite its long history of hosting refugees . All this needs to be taken seriously, all the more so as some secessionist groups have circulated videos encouraging violence, for example, explaining how to make Molotov cocktails. Root Causes The crisis in Cameroon is rooted in the way Cameroon became independent. It only took a dominant role after the 17 January arrest of Consortium leaders. [fn]Article 47 of the constitution of 1 September 1961. Crisis Group interview, Yaound, March 2017. The local economy is based on the oil sector (9 per cent of GDP), timber (4.5 per cent), intensive agriculture, including large plantations owned by the Cameroon Development Corporation and other smaller plantations that supply Douala and the countries of the Central African Economic and Monetary Community, as well as cocoa, rubber, etc. To this end, IOM Cameroon provides tailored lifesaving assistance and protection, complemented by efforts to build community-based approaches for the attainment of durable solutions, seeking to prevent forced displacement and favour reintegration by addressing the drivers of crises, supporting mechanisms of conflict management and reduction, and building resilience in communities. World Report 2022: Cameroon | Human Rights Watch [fn]Rivalries between the two regions go back a long way. Crisis Group interviews, Bamenda University teachers, Bamenda, April 2017. The crisis has been transformed to a separatist movement, with some Anglophones clamoring for an independent No-So, re-baptized as Ambazonia. In the 2013 general elections, the CPDM obtained 148 out of 180 deputies, 82 of 100 senators and 303 of 360 mayors.Hide Footnote If the present situation persists, it will be difficult to organise peaceful elections in the two Anglophone regions. Generally little understood by Francophones, the Anglophone problem dates back to the independence period. That is understandable: it would take away the presidencys complete control over the regions and could by opening the way for local democratic experiences with possible national impact threaten the regimes absolute power. The British territory comprised Southern Cameroons and Northern Cameroon. http://www.hts.org.zaOpen AccessHTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies. The lack of legitimacy of Anglophone leaders is also true, to a lesser degree, of opposition leaders. The opening of a front in the West could prove to be dramatic for Cameroon, which already faces Boko Haram in the Far North and militias from the Central African Republic to the East. On 7 January 2020, fighters from the Ambazonian separatist group burned down the Elections For context, professional jobs are hard to access in Cameroon, and many suggest that they are denied opportunities because of their anglophone background. Crisis Group interviews, university academics and researchers, Buea and Limb, March 2017. Crisis Group interviews, Anglophone populations, Buea, Bamenda, March-May 2017. Bogged down in a total war against the nationalist movement (Union des populations du Cameroun UPC), which challenged French presence, the Francophone territory was less democratic. The trial of Anglophone militants is flawed in ways that illustrate persistent problems: it has been repeatedly postponed and conducted in French, with only rough translations provided if at all, and this for offences committed by Anglophones in Anglophone regions. Academia.edu no longer supports Internet Explorer. But questioning of the central principle of non-violence, inherited from the SCNC, gives cause for concern. From uprisings against slave traders on the ships, to rebellions in the fields, and full-scale revolution. [fn]Most of these messages are public and accessible on Facebook and YouTube. (PDF) Cameroon and the Anglophone Crisis - ResearchGate Piet Konings, The Anglophone Problem in Cameroon, The Journal of Modern and African Studies, vol. Strengthened by the support of some Anglophone leaders, such as Endeley and Muna, who saw an opportunity to dethrone Foncha, he succeeded in his objective. Even in the governing party, the CPDM, Anglophone deputies have expressed their concerns to the government. These developments are leaving huge environmental footprints and . Une guerre cache aux origines de la Franafrique, 1948-1971 (Paris, 2011); Meredith Teretta, Nation of Outlaws, State of Violence. History [ edit] The divisive politics engineered by the Cameroonian state has led to the politicization of identities, resulting in a fractured polity separated by linguistic nationalisms. The varied nature of the ongoing crises in Cameroon, from the Lake Chad Basin's Far-North region, to the North-West, South-West (NW-SW) Anglophone regions, to the East region's refugee crisis . The security forces also arrested and intimidated prominent Anglophones. Can bilingualism survive in Cameroon? It is a socio- political issue which intermittently pits residents of the country's Northwest and Southwest The last 3 years have witnessed a period of substantial volatility in Cameroon. What role are the Anglophone diaspora and religious actors playing? PDF RISK OF MASS ATROCITIES IN CAMEROON - United States Holocaust Memorial The Anglophone diaspora did not initiate this crisis, contrary to previous challenges to the government. Group interviews, SCNC militants, Bamenda, April 2017.Hide Footnote the most well-known was the Southern Cameroons National Council (SCNC), the youth wing of which, Southern Cameroons Youth League (SCYL), resorted to low-intensity violence. [fn]The ruling party dominates the political landscape. It also leads people to believe it can monitor WhatsApp communications. PDF Cameroon - ACAPS What is the governments response? Tendances, profils et dterminants de la pauvret au Cameroun entre 2001 et 2014, INS (Yaound, 2015). Des mdias camerounais dnoncent les pressions de Yaound sur le traitement de la crise Anglophone, Le Monde, 22 February 2017.Hide Footnote Finally, the regimes refusal to negotiate on fundamental questions and its sometimes brutal response highlight its authoritarian nature. Meanwhile, the government claimed that Ayah Paul Abine had been arrested at the Nigerian border in possession of a large sum of money. The Sawa are originally from Francophone and Anglophone coastal regions, including the Francophone city of Douala and the Anglophone towns of the Southwest, such as Limb and Buea. Threats are sometimes carried out. The government responded by shutting down the internet in the two regions on 17 January, banning the Consortium and the SCNC and arresting Consortium leaders and several activists such as Mancho Bibixy, claiming that the Consortium had conditioned agreement on the introduction of federalism. [fn]Crisis Group interviews, students and young people from the Southwest, Buea, Limb and Kumba, March-May 2017.Hide Footnote. The international response has been led by the U.S., multilateral organisations and international civil society. World Report 2023: Cameroon | Human Rights Watch [fn]Crisis Group interviews, senior officials, Yaound, 2017; prefects and deputy prefects, North Cameroon and Yaound, 2016-2017.Hide Footnote But there is a serious risk that the crisis could deteriorate and, in time, destabilise the country. [12] Anglophone Cameroon is the present-day NorthWest and SouthWest (English Speaking) regions of Cameroon herein referred to as No-So. Crisis Group interviews, Ni John Fru Ndi and academics, Yaound, Douala and Bamenda, March-April 2017. Never before has tension around the Anglophone issue been so acute. A minority favours secession. Piet Konings, The Anglophone Problem in Cameroon. The federal inspector had more power than the elected prime minister of West Cameroon and showed it on a daily basis by humiliating members of the federated government and parliament. In the past two . The National Commission on Bilingualism and multiculturalism should be restructured to include an equal number of Anglophones as Francophones, to guarantee the independence of its members and to give it powers to impose sanctions. On 18 January 2017, the president of the African Union Commission expressed concerns about acts of violence, arbitrary arrests and detentions and called on the government to seek dialogue. These territories were handed to the British and the French to administer and guide towards independence. An important body of scholarship shows how the exploitative socioeconomic structure implemented through the European legal regime of slavery continues to structure exploitative relationships in the present, albeit in transmuted forms. The haughty attitude and cynicism of senior government officials, notably when they say that as long as the Anglophones do not take up arms, the current strike does not worry [us] unduly, could promote instability. Anglophone Cameroon is the present-day NorthWest and SouthWest (English Speaking) regions of Cameroon herein referred to as No-So. [fn]Crisis Group interviews, senior officers and senior presidency officials, Yaound, December 2016, March 2017.Hide Footnote. We did not prepare our escape to Nigeria. Annuaire statistique du Cameroun, Institut national de la statistique (INS), 2015, p. 383. A minority of civilians picked up arms and joined the violent struggle. Nevertheless, I hope this offers a starting point. When Paul Biya succeeded Ahidjo in November 1982, he further centralised power. The Bamilk and the Sawa are two important ethnic groups in Cameroon. Revendications des Anglophones: la rponse du chef de lEtat. The Anglophone armed conflict which is a transformation from Anglophone Identity problem escalated in 2016, but can be traced back to the colonial time. 2020, In: Richmond O., Visoka G. (eds) The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Peace and Conflict Studies. [fn]Crise anglophone: la libration des prisonniers divise, Mutations, 17 February 2017; At South West elite forum in Buea: speakers launch xenophobic attacks on North Westerners, The Guardian Post, 3 February 2017.Hide Footnote However, the public has not shown itself to be very divided. Crisis Group interviews, Anglophone population, Northwest and Southwest, 2017. In fact, very few representatives of Francophone civil society organisations and political parties have visited the Northwest and the Southwest since October 2016. Southern Cameroons became independent on 1 October 1961 when it joined the Republic of Cameroon. The armed conflict was triggered by the Francophone-dominated government's violent repression of peaceful protests from October 2016 onwards, although the root causes go back to independence in 1960/1961, and indeed further back to the unequal colonial division of German Kamerun (1884-1916) between the French and British after the First World War. Following the [fn]Officials from the European Commission nevertheless met members of the government in Yaound in April. [fn]Cameroun: des parlementaires du parti au pouvoir appellent Paul Biya envisager la libration des leaders Anglophones, Jeune Afrique, 16 February 2017.Hide Footnote, The Anglophone crisis is a classic case of a dissatisfied minority while at the same time the result of structural problems. From Sectoral Mobilisations to the Resurgence of the Anglophone Problem. [fn]Cameroons poverty rate was 37.5 per cent in 2014 according to the INS. Article 47 of the constitution of 1 September 1961. A genuine decentralisation could even encourage a healthy process of renewal within the CPDM. Meanwhile, the government claimed that Ayah Paul Abine had been arrested at the Nigerian border in possession of a large sum of money. Samuel Kleda: selling ignorance and sacralization of temporal power, Wirba joseph Cameroonian Parliamentarian defies speaker of the house on Anglophone problem, SCDF, Southern Cameroons Defense Forces updates, Resistance Speech by the FAGC Leader Ayaba Cho Lucas, The Humanitarian Fallout from Cameroons Struggle Against Boko Haram. The Anglophone Crisis in Cameroon: A . Since 1996, the SCNC has taken further diplomatic initiatives at the UN, the African Court of Banjul, the Commonwealth and national embassies. Crisis Group interview, senior official at the presidency, Yaound, December 2016. On 23 January 2017, the president of the Republic created a National Commission for Bilingualism and Multiculturalism. January 2022 Authors: Christian Nkatow Mafany University of Yaounde I Abstract Between 1960 and 2015, Cameroon has projected herself at the level of the international scene as one of the best. [fn]Crisis Group interviews, members of the Commission for Bilingualism, Yaound, Douala, Buea, 2017.Hide Footnote, The government announced other measures on 30 March, including the creation of new benches for Common Law at the Supreme Court and new departments at the National School of Administration and Magistracy (Ecole nationale dadministration et de magistrature, ENAM), an increase in the number of English language teachers at ENAM, the recruitment of Anglophone magistrates, the creation of a Common Law department at Francophone universities and provisional authorisation for Anglophone lawyers to act as notaries in the Northwest and the Southwest regions. Similarly, several ethnic groups from the Anglophone Northwest are effectively the same as the Bamilk of Western Francophone regions, and all form part of the Grassfield group.Hide Footnote Most Anglophones in the Northwest favour a two-state federation, as in 1961. Crisis Group interviews, Western diplomats, Yaound, February-May 2017. Most scholarly write-ups have rather focused on the causes, course, consequences and international interventions in the crisis, with little attention to the geopolitical undertones. He met Consortium leaders in prison and signed a communiqu calling for the release of prisoners, the restoration of internet and dialogue. The immediate origins of the crisis can be traced to the government's violent repression of protests by lawyer and teacher unions in 2016. Sorry, preview is currently unavailable. [fn]The Anglophones believe that they are under-represented in the government administration and the security forces, because the entry examinations for the major schools and the police force are weighted in favour of Francophones. It should also have greater independence from the executive.Hide Footnote Finally, the President of the Republic should visit the Anglophone regions. These groups also call on citizens not to pay tax and encourage attacks on Francophones. Meanwhile, the government believed that the trade unions had a hidden agenda involving secession and that this was why they continually added to their list of demands. [fn]See Law 2004/17 of 22 July 2004 on guidelines for decentralisation; law 2004/18 of 22 July 2004 setting rules applicable to communes; law 2004/19 of 22 July 2004 setting rules applicable to the regions; law 2009/11 of 10 July 2009 on financial arrangements for decentralised local authorities. The role of Mr. Mark Bareta, a Belgian resident, in ongoing destabilization of Cameroon, email from Benjamin Akih to the Belgian deputy prime minister and security and interior minister, consulted by Crisis Group, 24 May 2017. Crisis Group interviews, youth, Yaound, Maroua, Douala, December 2016-May 2017. This is adding to a growing moral debt that will one day need to be repaid.. Ahidjo took advantage and manipulated the rivalries among the elites and the ethnic and cultural divisions between Grassfields in the north, which had cultural and linguistic links with the Bamilks of the west Francophone region, and the Sawa in the south, who had cultural and linguistic links with the Francophone coast. b. The regime of trusteeship, introduced in 1945 by the newly created UN, granted more rights to former colonies and territories and was consistent with the UNs wish to gradually end colonisation. Following an increased security presence in the English-speaking regions, armed groups have surfaced calling for secession the creation of an independent nation of Ambazonia. Download Free PDF The Socio-economic Consequences of the Anglophone Crisis in Cameroon (November 2016-August 2019), A Cause for an Indispensable Concern ALAH BERTRAND 2020, Global Scientific Journal (GSJ) The Anglophone problem is not a novelty in Cameroon's political landscape. In the Anglophone zone, it was 55.6 and 18 per cent in the Northwest and Southwest respectively. For example, the Anglophone movement claimed the UN was on the point of conceding independence to Southern Cameroons, and that the Southern Cameroons Defence Forces were in the process of liberating the region. The Impact of The Anglophone Crisis on The Economic Development of Cameroon On 28 November 2016, the U.S. State Department published a communiqu calling for dialogue in the Anglophone regions and calling on the government of Cameroon to respect fundamental freedoms. In response to unexpected violence, some anglophone groups tried to defend the local population. Crisis Group interviews, local elites and elected representatives, Buea, Limb, Kumba, March-May 2017.
We Talk All The Time But Never Hang Out, University Of Bournemouth Entry Requirements, Articles C