Mr. Chairman SCNC,
Compatriots and fellow children of God
RECONCILIATION WITH THE TRUTH
Your motto The force of argument and not the argument of force is an excellent one to which we must add The force of Truth and not the truth of force.
The SCNC statement of 28 December 1994 calls on all to revive, defend, protect and preserve the independence and sovereignty of the Southern Cameroons” Since one cannot revive a thing which never existed, this call is a clear acknowledgment that (a) our country once had independence and (b) that it has lost that independence to a foreign country called Cameroun.
Southern Cameroon is not a name but a description, which uses the Republic of Cameroun as a point of reference. Being a description it lends itself to several translations and interpretations, each depending on the context. For example in her claim against Nigeria now pending before the International Court of Justice over the Bakassi peninsula, Cameroun describes our country as former Western Cameroun under British mandate.
The French version is Cameroun occidental or Cameroun meridional
The first time the “Republic of Ambazonia appeared in print was in May 1986 in the most authoritative Paris based monthly La Monde Diplomatique.
In that article the paper analyzed what it called the crushing influence of Fongum Gorji-Dinka's radical idea among the students and middle class, for the establishment of une Republique d'Ambazonie (Republic of Ambazonia). This was ten years ago.
We all know that the idea of Republic of Ambazonia was already Circulating in Buea Mountain Club in the sixties; and that Chief Ewusi was taken to Yaounde and interrogated on it.
A Doula based news paper Challenge Hebdo of 23 August 1993 confirm an article titled The Forces at Work which reads Federalism or Secession? the Choice is not quite clear so long as the forces at work are clouded in smoke. One of the most radical and oldest groups is that of the old lawyer Fon Fongum Gorji-Dinka. He still keeps his capabilities secret. His dream: concretize the creation of the Republic of Ambazonia an idea already advances since the sixtiesSo let those of us who are late comers to the idea of an independent Ambazonia stop exhibiting an intellectual dishonesty which is bound to be more ignominious than the ostrich act of hiding its head in the sand in the face of danger not knowing that so long it exposes its rather dirty posterior.
We advise such a late comer to have the honesty to acknowledge as our illustrious son N. Nfor Susungi did in his letter of January 25 1993 from Abijan to SDF chairman John Fru Ndl, saying The people of the Southern Cameroon want their full independence. The constitutionality of this quest was established years ago by people like Fon Gorji-Dinka, long before we understood what he was talking about.
Is it not a national disaster that a geo-physicist by formation sees the need for a quest to have constitutional bases, while some of us care little about legality, let alone the constitutionality of their public action?
Now by the mysterious design of God the International Court of Justice requires Cameroun to show legal justification for its claim over Ambazonia part of whose territory is Bakassi the object the land and maritime dispute now pending before the ICJ.
The ICJ being a court between state and state we have to come before it as a sovereign state. Fortunately there is procedure for states which are not members of the United Nations to intervene in litigation before the ICJ.
The most authoritative text used for priming U.S diplomats in international law states thus on Determining qualifications for Statehood … whether an entity meets the qualifications of, and is entitled to be treated as a state is an objective question. , ..In theory that question might be subject to judicial determination by international or national tribunals.
Since Cameroun’s High Court has held that the Republic of Ambazonia is a Sovereign State illegally and forcibly occupied by Cameroun and even issued an order, (against which Cameroun has not appealed) expelling Cameroun from Ambazonia, that is binding on Cameroun (even more than the act of Ahidjo signing treaty of Union with John N Foncha on 13 December 1960 instead of signing it with the British who were supposedly still administering the territory.
International Lawyers are agreed that once the objective of Article 76(b) had been achieved (a) in 1958 with the promulgation of Self-Government and (b) with the promulgation of an independent constitution the Southern Cameroon Constitution Order-in-Council Trusteeship was terminated by operation of the law. One of the best and non-contentious means of terminating an agreement is by performance of the contract. So the U.N. trusteeship authority on our country was terminated with effect from 1 October 1960.
So the organization of the plebiscite of 11 February 1961 was ultra vires and therefore the mandate which the U.N sought from it was invalid, utterly null, and totally void. That is why when the U.N. realized this, they dropped the idea of creating the said confederacy and scrapped the commission which they had appointed to carry this out; and to this day the post-plebiscite conference which the U.N. was to organize was also abandoned.
You would certainly want to know why our people ever went to Foumban at all? That question is not for me to answer. But what we want to emphasize is that this annexation has no legal basis but it came upon us, all the same, by the design of God.
Now God has sent us Bakassi where Cameroun, for want of any legal basis for its annexation of our country is bound to loose, if and only if this illegality is exposed before the ICJ.
Are you willing to join us in the forensic exercise, or would you rather persist in the make-belief that the U.N still has a subsisting trusteeship agreement, other than that which the law has terminated on first 1 October 1960. That is the question.
Please let’s stop deceiving ourselves and our people. We can never win by falsehood. Only the truth shall set us free.
Thank you
Sign
Fongum Gorji-Dinka
