Resolving Anglophone crisis: When personal interest overrides general good!.

25/01/2023

After a series of meetings between Cameroon and the Canadian government to bring peace to the two regions, it emerged that over 6,000 Cameroonians have died from the ongoing conflict.

The Canadians in a decision applauded by Pope Francis, the United States, United Kingdom etc, offered to broker peace talks between the separatist fighters and Yaounde.

Three days after the government of Canada announced agreement which took a series of secret meetings with the separatists, Cameroonian and Canadian government officials to reach, Yaounde issued a surprised refutal.

Last Friday, the Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister, Mélanie Joly, announced that “Canada has accepted the mandate to facilitate this process, as part of our commitment to promote peace and security and advance support for democracy and human rights. Our role also reflects Canada’s engagement to work with our African partners to build a better future for everyone”.

“The parties to this agreement are the Republic of Cameroon and the Ambazonia Governing Council, the Ambazonia Defence Force, the African People’s Liberation Movement, the Southern Cameroons Defence Force, the Interim Government and the Ambazonia Coalition Team. The parties further express the hope that other groups will join the process,’’ Joly added.

The Canadian statement published on its government’s website pointed out that the Cameroon government was among the parties that had agreed to a formal peace process with Canadian mediation. “Canada has accepted the mandate to facilitate this process.”

There are reports that over the past three days, she also repeatedly tweeted positive reactions to the Canadian announcement.

But on Monday, Cameroon inflicted what is being termed in diplomatic circles as "a snub on Canada", denying that Canada should play the role of mediator in the conflict that is still ongoing into the sixth year!

After three days of silence, the Minister of Communication and Government’s Spokesman, Rene Emmanuel Sadi, without naming Canada,  said:

“The Government of the Republic of Cameroon informs national and international community that it has not entrusted any foreign country or external entity with any role of mediator or facilitator to settle the crisis in the North West and South West regions.”

“It is first and foremost up to the Cameroonian people, to the institutions and leaders that they have freely chosen, to seek appropriate ways and means to address problems facing our country,” the statement read.

Smarting from Sadi’s communique, Joly’s Press Secretary, Adrien Blanchard, on Monday evening said: “We are in touch with the parties and our previous statement still stands.”

Representatives of Cameroon’s government had attended all of the earlier meetings in Canada that led to the agreement,” he said.

Just hours before the Cameroonian government denied the agreement, the US embassy in Cameroon had said it commended the government and all parties in the talks “for their courage in taking this important positive step toward a sustainable peace.”

The British High Commissioner in Cameroon, Christian Dennys-McClure, said the announcement of peace talks was “a very welcome development”. Pope Francis, praised the agreement during an address on Sunday.

But why exactly did the Cameroonian government had to back out of the agreement to the humiliation of Canada?

Some Canadian media have reported that it was Yaounde that "appealed to the Canadian government last summer to play the role of mediator in the dispute between the Cameroonian government and English-speaking separatists. Secret meetings were held in Montebello, Mont-Tremblant and Toronto to allow the parties to negotiate".

A Canadian commentator in another reaction wrote that "analysts had always worried that the Cameroonian government might not be fully committed to the peace talks and might prefer to keep pursuing a violent crackdown on the separatist forces".

Chris Roberts, a University of Calgary scholar and Africa specialist who has worked on Cameroon issues added that: “I assume Canadian officials and others in the international community were prepared for this denial, given the regime’s track record”.

Last September, the Cameroonian government pulled out of a Swiss-mediated peace process that had begun in 2019. 

So why has Cameroon gone public to snub the accord Yaounde reportedly begged Canada to mediate? Does it not project the Biya regime as "unreliable" in diplomatic circles which can also have an adverse effect in attracting foreign investments Cameroon badly needs?

Since the conflict in the North West and South West regions started, it has been explained in many comments that some people in government who are reaping from the fighting do not want it to end.

It was an Anglophone member of government, who, while the former PM, Philemon Yang, in 2016, was in a meeting with striking lawyers and teachers in Bamenda, seized the CRTV television during the midday news and declared that “there was no Anglophone crisis”!

That outing of his, it is widely believed, was what fuelled the tension and tempers in the North West and the South West regions that have taken Cameroon to where it finds itself today.

PM Dion Ngute, while on his first official visit to Bamenda in 2019, had warmed the hearts of Anglophones, when he said President Biya had sent him to tell them that government was ready to entertain dialogue on anything except secession.

But while many interpreted it to mean government was ready to entertain discussions on federalism, a North West member of government abandoned the PM in Bamenda and took off to France where he used RFI to counter what the PM had said in Bamenda.

In what was interpreted as fueling the Anglophone crisis, he told RFI that there was never going to be any dialogue or negotiation on the form of state.

It was widely understood in 2020 that PM Dion Ngute, had initiated dialogue between government and the jailed Anglophone leaders to end the crisis in the Anglophone regions.

But while there were hopes and jubilation that the move could see peace return to the North West and South West regions, the same bad seeds in the Biya regime, for selfish interests, frustrated the widely applauded negotiations with the jailed separatist leaders.

Here they are again on the Canada mediated peace talks which many welcomed and saw as the ultimate way out of the bloodletting in the North West and South West regions.

In their myopic reasoning, they would rather the bloody armed conflict in the English-speaking regions continue to claim more innocent military and civilian lives than it goes down in record that it was PM Dion Ngute who worked out the formula for return to peace in the North West and South West regions!

What a wicked world and wicked people who pass for President Biya’s collaborators!

It is the same jealous, rivalry and egocentric spirit in the system that is said to have been stretched to the Canadian mediation as well as the botched Swiss dialogue both initiated by the current Star Building tenant.

The Canadian foreign ministry is reported to have said they had not been officially informed about the decision by Yaounde to call off the talks.

For the interest of peace and human rights which have international ramification when at stake, we urge the Cameroon government to continue with the Canadian mediation.

Peace, the CPDM officials often said, has no price and there can't be any development without peace.

At The Guardian Post, we make bold to state that President Biya should, without any waste of time, fire all those who are putting gluttonous selfish interest above the supremacy of government and the blood of defence and security forces, separatist fighters and innocent civilians who have perished and continue to perish because of the senseless war in the North West and South West regions.