AMBAZONIA v. LA REPUBLIQUE DU CAMEROUN: SWISS PROCESS DEAD?; AYABA CHO WAS CORRECT

Dear All,

We have litigation, arbitration and mediation. In terms of litigation, it is a contentious process and consent of the other Party is not required to litigate. In terms of arbitration and mediation, there can be no process unless there is consent of both parties.

Arbitration and mediation are well established processes with a rich jurisprudential base that we can draw from. Mediation is older than Arbitration but even the later is relatively old. The first recorded arbitration if my memory serves me right is in the city-State of Kish (modern Tall al-Uhaimer), the probable seat of the first Sumerian post-diluvian dynasty, where King Me-silim recorded his arbitration of a boundary dispute between the south Babylon cities of Lagash and Umma.

This is the earliest known record of the arbitral process and predates (by 1000 years or more) the Code of Hammurabi (the sixth King of the Amoritic dynasty of Babylon, reigning from 1795 to 1750 BC).

Mediation is a consensual process and every process has a start and end date. A mediation process starts when both Parties commit to be bound by outcome of mediation or to take part in mediation. Before such commitment, there is no process or initiative.

In relation to the Swiss initiative or process, a certain “Team Ambazonia” purporting to talk for the State of Ambazonia gave its commitment in writing to take part in mediation. The other Party called La Republique du Cameroun does not appear to have given its commitment to take part in writing and if it did give such a commitment orally, it is difficult to prove, and even if such a commitment was given, it is not clear if the purported giver had the powers to bind the State of La Republique du Cameroun in any commitment.

Without a commitment in writing or orally provable commitment from La Republique du Cameroun, there was NEVER been any Swiss Initiative or Process since the initiative or process is only birth from the point of both commitments.

Based on the above, it is intellectual and practical fraud to claim that the Swiss Initiative or Process is dead since it never even existed. Something that never lived cannot die. There has only been hope for an initiative or process and no process at all.

A mediation process or initiative is not birth because one Party (Ambazonia) romances with a potential mediator or facilitator or aid to a potential mediator (Switzerland) such as the HD. A potential mediator spending thousands or millions of dollars to assembly and possibly train or arrange a non-State Party in a potential mediation does not by itself birth a mediation initiative or process.

Ayaba Cho perhaps with great insight, insisted that written commitment be obtained from La Republique du Cameroun since it is a contumelious and a contumacious Party but members of ACT vilified him for being recalcitrant but later events have proved him right. Dealing with La Republique du Cameroun, you must have all papers right from day one. 60 years after Foumban, we still do not have a Union Treaty so we cannot expect a commitment from them to take part in any further Swiss Initiative process.

Despite its well established flaws, I have always supported future or possible mediation in Switzerland provided HD can manage to bring La Republique du Cameroun on the table but they seem to have woefully failed.

Conclusion

The Swiss Initiative or Process is NOT dead, it never existed, was never birth and had no life no matter how short hence cannot die. Ayaba Cho was right not to commit to the process without seeing a commitment from the State Party of La Republique du Cameroun.

By Barrister Martin Tumasang