Fact-Checking Reuters’ Ambazonia Story

Ambazonia is getting more media coverage, including from The Economist (this week) and The Washington Post (last week). The US-based Associated Press, the world’s biggest news agency, has disseminated a high-impact video of “before and after” images documenting the scorched earth policy of the colonialists in Ambazonia. Tim Cocks of Reuters – the world’s second biggest news agency – added to the inaccurate reporting with a story dated June 3 from Dakar (Senegal).

Reuters gets one thing right. “Initially,” the wire service writes “a minority (of Ambazonians) wanted an independent state, which they call Ambazonia.” Today, explains Reuters, a majority of Ambazonians believe that “only severance from Cameroon would satisfy their yearning for a better life.” Well said, especially if the wording was “their yearning for total independence.”

Below is my fact-check of Reuters. Please, use any nuggets of it to put pressure on Reuters and other media outlets. To paraphrase Hon. Joseph Wirba: if journalism becomes propaganda, then fact-checking becomes a duty of every citizen of Ambazonia.

REUTERS: “…Cameroon forces surrounded and killed more than two dozen suspected separatists in the town of Menka.”

FACT: Not true, Reuters. You have unwittingly or willingly bought into proven lies by the colonialists. The victims in Menka were executed; not killed. They (as all other victims of the unfolding genocidal violence) were targeted and executed because they are Ambazonians; not because they are separatists, which, they are not. Ambazonians are restorationists.

REUTERS: “At independence in 1960, English speakers were given the choice of remaining part of Cameroon or joining Nigeria.”

FACT: The glaring error in the date is part of a strategy of selling the lie that Ambazonia was always part of Cameroon. That is why Reuters refers to Ambazonians as “English speakers”, not “Southern Cameroonians” as we were then known. That is also why Reuters says the choice was that of “remaining part of Cameroon.” Ambazonia’s Independence Referendum held on 11 Feb. 1961; not “at independence in 1960”. The goal of the Referendum was twofold: First, obtain independence. Then, and only secondary to obtaining independence.

REUTERS: “They (English speakers) have since (joining) felt increasingly marginalized.”

FACT: Ambazonians are not complaining about being marginalized, Marginalization exists in every country. Reuters joins Yaounde in evoking marginalization, thus belittling the crime against humanity that Yaounde is guilty of. Also, it is not the true that Ambazonians have “increasingly felt” this evil. Ambazonians have always known that we were recolonized and we have been fighting colonial domination by neighboring Republic of Cameroon since 1961.

REUTERS: “What do the separatists want?”

FACT: What is so hard for Reuters to call Ambazonians by their name. If you must describe them, why choose the propaganda word “separatists” sold by the colonialists over the word “restorationists”? Well – I know why. Reuters has taken sides for the colonialists, as their reporting makes plain. Unlike the people of Katanga who wanted independence from the former Zaire; unlike the people of Biafra who seek independence from Nigeria; unlike the people of Catalonia who seek independence from Spain… and who can, as a result of never having independence before, be called “separatists” or “secessionists”, Ambazonians are “restorationists”. The world has to get use to this word. While the Confederate States during the American Civil War did not have a legal right to secede or separate from the United States, a state like Texas which joined the Union as a Nation, has a constitutional right to secede – the only such state in the USA to have that right. As a Nation before joining Cameroon, Ambazonia has the same right under International Law, including under Principles VII & VIII of UNGA Resolution 1541.

REUTERS: “Support for secession grew.”

FACT: That is Reuters going back, again, to the same old, tried and failed propaganda sold by the colonialists in Yaounde. If anyone is a secessionist, it is the Republic of Cameroon which under the February 1984 Secessionist Decree withdraw from any supposed union by reverting to its name prior to its independence in 1960.

REUTERS: “On Oct. 1, 2017 – the anniversary of the region’s independence from Britain – thousands took to the streets to demand a breakaway state.”

FACT: Now, you are talking, Reuters! Thanks for getting our independence right. You just need to stay with it and be reminded every time you refer to Ambazonia that it is, indeed, an independent and separate nation. That said, it is not “thousands” of our people “who took to the streets”; it is millions of our people who took to the streets. And, they were not demanding “a breakaway state”; they were celebrating the restoration of their independence. Our people are not demanding independence, which they already gained in 1961. We claimed that independence back.

REUTERS: “Witnesses (of Oct. 1, 2017) said troops opened fire from attack helicopters.”

FACT: Hello, Reuters! There you go again… running away from the facts. Videos of the attacks from helicopters is available on social media.

REUTERS: “Nigeria has cooperated (with the colonialists in Yaounde) deporting separatists, including Julius Ayuk…”

FACT: Nigeria has violated International Law, including the principle of non-refoulement of refugees; forcibly returning asylum seekers to the country from which they are fleeing political persecution. The accurate legal term for the abominable crime committed by Nigeria against Sisiku AyukTabe and other Ambazonian leaders, is rendition; not deportation. Using the word “deportation” is an unwitting sanitization of a worse crime. It is like using the word massacre to downplay genocide.

REUTERS: “France has condemned separatist violence and urged dialogue.”

FACT: Isn’t very telling that Reuters avoids highlighting criticism of the colonialists in Yaounde by, among others, the USA (who have decried “targeted killings”), by the United Kingdom, whose House of Commons has called for meaningful negotiations; by Australia, which has demanded as much? Isn’t it telling that Reuters fails to mention the United Nations declaring a humanitarian emergency in Ambazonia? It is very telling that Reuters chose this sentence referencing France. The French have nothing to decry about the regime of Paul Biya.

Sorry, Reuters. Ambazonians see through what our colonialists describe as “gombo” journalism. We know propaganda when we see it. So, avoid a situation where we have to call you out: “Lies! Lies! Pants on fire!”

Ntumfoyn Boh Herbert (Yindo Toh)

Spokesperson, MoRISC

herbertboh@yahoo.com or spokesperson@morisc.org