THE MUNZU-TUMI ANGLOPHONE GENERAL CONFERENCE (AGC)
By Denis Atemnkeng
SUMMARY

1. The AGC is based on the fundamental assumption that the same people who have ignored Ambazonians for 57 years and opted for intensive colonization, assimilation and war; and who have prohibited any debate on Cameroun’s illegal claims on Ambazonia are willing to discuss those claims today. Who said so? Where did we get that information?

2. No positive outcome, much less a lasting solution, can be expected from a so-called all-inclusive dialogue presided over by the same people who are prosecuting a war against Ambazonians to silence them. A lasting and final solution to the Ambazonian crisis cannot be determined in any dialogue presided over by their murderers and prosecutors or by those treating Ambazonians as a conquered people!

3. The pretension that a preparatory conference will iron out the differences between federalists, unionists and pro-independence groups and enable them to come out with a common position for the supposed all-inclusive dialogue is an illusion.

4. The AGC idea is that the silent majority of the-close-to-8 million Ambazonians, the people who are suffering the war, whose villages have been razed to the ground, and on behalf of whom the AGC is being held should have no voice, but be represented by a select elite who are suffering nothing. This elitist representation has never work and will not work. The people can be consulted directly through a UN-organised referendum, the incontestable solution. This conflict is about a people struggling to have a voice to run their own lives; it is an existential conflict; it is a struggle for survival of a people with their own distinct culture and way of life. Any lasting solution must seek the wishes of the people themselves, not the wishes of the elites, who are in complete disconnect with the masses!

5. A “negotiated end to the war” cannot be achieved by asking one of the parties to the war to preside a conference to end the war. This is never done. What you are asking thereby is for one party to impose the terms of surrender on the other!

6. Another assumption of the conveners that puts them at odds with the overwhelming majority of Ambazonians is that the Southern Cameroons is a part of La Republique du Cameroun and therefore the Ambazonian crisis is an internal affair of Cameroon. This is why the conveners are awaiting an all-inclusive dialogue from the colonial regime, for which they call the AGC to prepare for. If they did not take this position, they would be calling for genuine dialogue on neutral soil under international auspices and not putting the matter in the hands of one of the parties to the conflict! They want la Republique du Cameroun to be both party and judge in this matter; the aggressor to preside over the victim!

7. It is Impossible to find a lasting solution to the Ambazonian crisis by rejecting the principles of the United Nations Charter, the African Union, and International law in general. In other words, it is impossible to find a lasting solution without first settling the issue of whether Ambazonia is a legitimate and legal part of La Republique du Cameroun or not. This is precisely what the conveners are avoiding by purporting to place the solution of the matter in the hands of la Republique du Cameroun instead of an all-inclusive dialogue under international auspices.

Only a conference held under international auspices and on neutral territory will finally establish whether the conflict is an internal affair of Cameroun or not. The conveners want to help Cameroun in its coverup; in its fraudulent claim that the matter is internal to Cameroun! No dialogue based on falsehood, territorial fraud, deceit, illegal occupation, and intimidation can succeed. As long as no one, including La Republique du Cameroun, has published the instruments of international law on the basis of which the conveners and La Republique du Cameroun are asserting La Republique du Cameroun’s jurisdiction over the Southern Cameroons, we would simply be planting seeds of future wars.

8. The preparatory conference provides the worst setting for freedom of expression. By inviting agents of the colonial regime and calling the conference in wartime and in the midst of gross human rights violations, the conveners have effectively ensured that no pro-independence opinion will be expressed at the conference. When you invite those who are killing Ambazonians simply because Ambazonians want the right of free expression, to a meeting in which you want Ambazonians to express themselves freely, you can only imagine the outcome.

9. The conveners allege that there is no preconceived outcome. But they have ensured a preconceived outcome by inviting agents of La Republique to the meeting; by ensuring that the great majority in the diaspora cannot attend since it is held in wartime and under abusive conditions; by refusing to insist on the minimum conditions that la Republique must fulfill for the conference to hold and thus placing the risk of attendance on each individual; by stealthily passing the main issue which Ambazonians want to talk about under the carpet, and so on. How do you invite the same people killing Ambazonians into a meeting in which you want Ambazonians to speak their mind? Can they discuss their strategies freely with their “enemies” in the house?

10. A UN-organised referendum exclusively for the people of Ambazonia remains the best, the incontestable and the final and lasting solution to the conflict. It is the only solution that would silence all the factions trying to impose their will on the silent majority of Ambazonians.