US/UK lukewarm attitude towards socio-political crisis in Anglophone Cameroon decried

The US and the United Kingdom have been very reticent following the on-going socio-political quagmire in the two Anglophone regions of Cameroon since November 21, 2016 after lawyers and teachers embarked on an indefinite strike to protest against marginalisation. Since then, courts and schools have been grounded as the crisis took a different twist plunging that part of the country into upheavals. The Cameroon government decided to cut internet services in the North West and South West which was only re-established after several months.

Faced with this imbroglio, the government has been adamant to open meaningful dialogue with the leaders of the Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society led by Barrister Felix Nkongho Agbor Balla, Dr Fontem A. Neba and Mancho Bibixy incarcerated by the Yaoundé regime for close to seven months now.

Britain, the former colonial master of Southern Cameroons has till date not made any official statement vis-à-vis the stalemate in Anglophone Cameroon. Despite calls by Southern Cameroonians in the diaspora particularly in the UK for the prompt intervention of the former colonial master, these calls and agitations have fallen on deaf ears.

On the other hand, the Trump administration has also not made an official statement since assuming the supreme magistracy of the United States of America. Cameroonians in the USA have constantly staged a civil protests at the New York Plaza, headquarters of the United Nations led by Dr Ayaba Lucas designated as the co-ordinator of the Ambazonia governing council, sent a clarion call in which he unravelled the marginalisation, intimidation, manipulation, torture, rape and indiscriminate elimination of Southern Cameroonians by the Yaounde regime. In another vein, an American congressman from Indiana called the attention of the US Government on the prevailing situation in Southern Cameroons during a parliamentary session.

Faced with this socio-political situation that is continuing and increasingly preoccupying international opinions, the American congress is currently examining the situation given the plethora of reports it is receiving on a daily basis on the actions of the Cameroon government.

This is the time to act fast because the situation goes viral. I am by this write-up calling on the US as a superpower and an exemplary guarantor of democracy and self-determination as enshrined in the United Nations charter.

Britain, the former colonial master on her part should make hay while the sun shines in order to bring the situation to normalcy. We don’t want to see what happened in the Central African Republic, Ivory Coast, Rwanda and Burundi to take place in Cameroon, our dear fatherland.

To solve the socio-political conundrum, I will prescribe general amnesty to be granted to all the Anglophone detainees in Kondengui and elsewhere, those who gone underground as well as those on self-exile.

Though the government of recent has offered symbolic concessions, political pundits opine that they appear to be mere palliatives as the wave of protests continue and ghost towns been codenamed “country Sunday”.

It should be worth mentioning that if the government does not look for concrete and lasting measures to the Anglophone problem, I am afraid schools in these two regions may not resume even in September.

Tarh Humphrey Ntantang is currently the regional chief of bureau for circulation, road safety and accident prevention at the Centre Regional Delegation of Transport since 2013. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in History and a Maîtrise in Political Science as well as a Master’s degree in Political History and International Relations. He is a PhD research student at the University of Yaoundé I.

Tarh was private secretary to the then vice president at the National Assembly, Hon. Rose Abunaw Makia from 2006 to 2009 and protocol officer at the cabinet of the Ministry of Environment and Forestry from 2002 – 2004.