RESTORATION FOR A JUST PEACE: Symptoms, Cause and Cure

When root causes of issues are adequately addressed, societies need not worry too much about its inherent symptoms flaring up periodically. Addressing root causes ends vicious cycles and ignoring them is an invitation to a collective peril: for those with the force of arms, and those armed only with the force of voice.

Let’s use the case of a diabetic as an example. Diabetes is a disease that affects the human body’s ability to produce or use a hormone called insulin. The inability to produce or utilize this hormone produces a number of symptoms:extreme thirst, frequent urination, blurry vision, extreme hunger, increased tiredness etc.Empirical logic demands that one cannot be successful in treating the diabetic by seeking remedies that address the various symptoms only. Success commands a frontal confrontation of the root cause: the body’s inability to produce or use insulin.

Symptoms

As we witness, yet again, another revolt in Ambazonia (former West Cameroon), now is the moment for all stakeholders in both former federated states (East Cameroun and West Cameroon, with recognized international borders), and the United Nations to muster the courage to address the root cause. The grievances of the teachers, students, lawyers, and in fact the entire population of what is known as English or Anglophone Cameroon, are symptoms, which will keep recurring should the root cause not be addressed once and for all. This revolt may be the last opportunity to do so.

The ugly scenes in Ambazonia of death, public lashings, allege rapes, and the real potential of collective fratricide need not be, should the Yaoundé junta have the decency to respect simple honesty, at long last! Intellectual honesty calls for dispassionate obedience and appreciation of the facts of history that must objectively lead us to address the cause of this vicious cycle.Tragically, those in power are not even seeking to remedy the symptoms, but through primitive arrogance, they have exacerbated them. The fury of the last weeks should come as no surprise.

Cause

The current plight of the people of Ambazonia is the result of an international crime. This crime was succinctly articulated by Pierre Messmer, a one time French pro-consul in Africa and Prime Minister of France. Messmer was a key architect in the erection and establishment of France’s Africa Vichy Republics in the late 1950s, of which Yaoundé is a member in excellent standing.

“The Foumban Conference, safe for appearances, was a sham, which was basically the annexation of the Southern Cameroons,” dixit Messmer in his autobiography, Les Blancs S’en Vont. That infamous Foumban Conference was the seminal event that served as the cover up for this international crime.

Messmer spoke of the meticulous preparation by French advisers and lawyers of their Camerounese pupils and subjects prior to Foumban, in order to execute this crime. He boasted that the Southern Cameroons’ delegation did not have a chance! When Charles DeGaulle described the federated state of West Cameroon and her people as a “little gift to France from the Queen of England,” it not only betrayed the arrogance of an accomplished thief who believed he’d gotten away with the perfect crime, but also the connivance of the United Kingdom.

President Paul Biya’s formal secession of East Cameroun in 1984 from the purported union and the reversion to its identity of January 1, 1960,République du Cameroun, was the final stanza in this pre-meditated crime described by Messmer.

Cure

From this crime emanates our troubles today. It must be undone. It will be undone by the restoration of the statehood of Ambazonia (former West Cameroon). It will be the restoration of justice for a lasting peace between two peoples.

With the secession of the former East Cameroun, the lasting peace begins with the putting in place of an international mechanism for the removal of the former East Cameroun’s colonial administration from Ambazonia and the payment of reparations by the authors (France) and the implementers (République du Cameroun) of this crime, to the people of Ambazonia.

By Terrence B. Wakai
For BaretaNews