20 October 2011

To

Your Excellency;

WE MUST PREVENT A BLOOD BATH

I am writing this open letter because

1. I want this to be on public record and
2. the one I sent in 2005 through Prime Minister Ephraim Inoni by DHL was not honoured with even an acknowledgement of receipt.

In the eyes of international law and the United Nations, the restoration law 84/01 which was enacted by the Parliament of the United Republic of Cameroon, and promulgated by your good self on 2 January 1984, dissolved the union that had comprised Ambazonia (Southern British Cameroons) and the Republic of Cameroon (French Cameroun).

This was confirmed by the United Nations Human Rights Committee (UNHRC) in its judgment of 2005 in the case of the Fongum Gorji-Dinka-v-Cameroon, which inter alia states “As a result of the subjugation of Ambazonians and the alleged serious violations of their human rights by the Franco-Cameroon armed forces and militia groups, riots broke out prompting parliament to enact restoration law 84/01 in 1983 which dissolved the union of the two countries. The author (Fon Gorji-Dinka) became the Head of the Ambazonian Restoration Council and published several articles calling on President Paul Biya of the Republic of Cameroon to comply with the law and withdraw from Ambazonia.

This means that with effect from 2 January 1984, Ambazonia and Cameroon became again as mutually sovereign and as legally distinct from each other as they were prior to 1 October 1961 when the illegal, ill-fated and much troubled union was created by the Anglo-French Cold War politics which placed Ambazonia under subjugation by Franco-Cameroon armed forces to this day.

The UNHRC held that

• the persecution and exile of the Ambazonian leader was as a result of the Cameroon occupation of Ambazonia
• the Cameroon High Court judgment HCB/28/92 was the best attempt at domestic redress; and
• it failed only because Cameroon authorities do not respect judgments on Human Rights. The UNHRC demanded that, in addition to paying cash compensation for the Human Right violations, Cameroon should withdraw from Ambazonia thus providing an effective remedy to the Ambazonian leader’s exile.

Your Excellency, hopes for a peaceful resolution of this conflict were raised when a Cameroon team, led by the Cameroon High Commissioner HE. Nkwelle Ekaney, opened talks at the Cameroon High Commission with our team, led by Britain’s former Attorney General the Rt. Hon. Lord Peter Goldsmith, QC PC, to work out the modalities for implementing the decision of the UNHRC.

These hopes were however dashed when Cameroon suspended the talks. No reason was given for this. But it is said this was to spite me for having in the first place drawn the attention of the United Nations to Cameroon law 84/01 thus providing the UN the excuse for staging such an embarrassing drama during the celebration of the 50^th anniversary of Cameroon independence. In that drama, the President of the 64^th Session of the UN General Assembly, Dr Ali Abdussalam Treki presented to Your Excellency a framed map of French Cameroun as a souvenir, showing the territorial boundaries of the country recognized by in international law and the United Nations as the Republic of Cameroon. This means and is understood to mean that international law and the United Nations recognize Ambazonia as a sovereign buffer State between Republic of Cameroon and the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

It would be recalled that an ethnic Ambazonian John Fru Ndi won Cameroon Presidential elections in the 1992; but though he was a Cameroon citizen by adoption, it would be unconstitutional to install him (a foreigner) as Cameroon Head of State. Accordingly, Your Excellency being an ethnic Cameroonian was declared elected in place of the foreigner Fru Ndi who won the elections. He the winner was placed under house arrest and the kingpins of his party were arrested and jailed; some had to go into hiding; all because they attempted to put a foreigner as Cameroon Head of State.

Cameroon’s military Chief General Semengue in his memoirs says that they the ethnic Cameroon military top brass had perfected plans to kill the foreigner President John Fru Ndi and topple his regime if he were installed as Cameroon President. So an Ambazonian is a foreigner in Cameroon and a Cameroonian is a foreigner in Ambazonia; that is the law, domestic and international.

Ambazonians have voted massively in the recent Presidential elections to flush Cameroon out of Ambazonia. They have voted against any Cameroonian or any Party led by a Cameroonian. They have clearly set the stage for putting an end to their subjugation under Franco-Cameroon armed forces. And they will see to it that Cameroon gets out of Ambazonia. I would prefer that this be done peacefully. For, the alternative is too ghastly to contemplate.

In this connection I wish to draw attention to the high point in the HCB/28/92 and that is the renovation of the Plebiscite Pact. The Plebiscite Pact sets out the terms of a union in the form of a Confederacy of Ambazonia and Cameroon Independent Nations (CACIN).

I call on Your Excellency please, please, please let us together urgently set the CACIN in force. This would build a solid bridge of love between Cameroon and Ambazonia. We must not let the situation slip into a blood bath which would end in creating an abyss of implacable hate between our two countries. Accordingly we must

1. proclaim the coming into being, with immediate effect, of a Confederacy of Ambazonia and Cameroon Independent Nations
2. appoint Commission for the Constitution of the Confederacy (CCC), consisting of constitutional and administrative experts; four to represent each country and nominated by that country’s Head of State; while chairman would be agreed upon by the two Heads of States
3. the CCC is to translate the terms of union set out in the Plebiscite Pact into the constitution of the Confederacy. Of course there are details to be worked out regarding the polity leading in the interim till the organs of the Confederacy are installed.

Your Excellency would agree with me that this is not the time for procrastination. I therefore trust that you would deal with this matter with a sense of extreme urgency; and come up with a positive response through the channels already put in place for implementing the UNHRC decision.

May the Peace of God be with you!

Yours fraternally

Fon Fongum Gorji-Dinka