It also leads people to believe it can monitor WhatsApp communications.Hide Footnote In particular, the government has exploited the idea of false news to sow doubt and avoid responsibility for human rights violations by casting doubt on their veracity, even in confirmed cases. The Cameroon National Union (CNU) was formed in 1966 and the other parties were dissolved. Download Free PDF The Socio-economic Consequences of the Anglophone Crisis in Cameroon (November 2016-August 2019), A Cause for an Indispensable Concern ALAH BERTRAND 2020, Global Scientific Journal (GSJ) The Anglophone problem is not a novelty in Cameroon's political landscape. Crisis Group interviews, senior officers and senior presidency officials, Yaound, December 2016, March 2017. This entry traces the historical roots of the conflict and discusses the role of social media in spreading identity consciousness, and how slow response by international actors has prolonged the crisis. Over the last 10 years, the US has channelled hundreds of millions of dollars into state military forces. Crisis Group interviews, European diplomats, Yaound, July 2017. Du Bois, W. E. B., (2014) [first published in 1896], The Suppression of the African Slave-Trade to the United States of America, Oxford University Press. Contrary to widespread belief, the Anglophone movement is not limited to the Northwest. The constitutional process for reunification and abandonment by the British left Anglophones with the impression of having been deceived by the Francophones, and also explains the bitterness of Anglophone militants toward the UK. The ruling party dominates the political landscape. [fn]Crisis Group interviews, Cameroonian and Nigerian diplomats and Anglophone militants, Yaound, Buea, March-May 2017.Hide Footnote. Crisis Group interviews, Consortium members, Buea, May 2017. Some European diplomats have criticised the U.S. position citing as an example the fact that the firm that is helping the Cameroonian government to monitor and filter social media sites is American. The first Francophone magistrates were appointed to posts in the Anglophone part in 2002 and this trend intensified in 2014. The first major international actor to react to this crisis, it should keep up the pressure. CRISIS OVERVIEW Thematic report 19 February 2021 700,000 children have been affected by school closures in Cameroon's Northwest (NW) and Southwest (SW) regions (referred to from now on as the NWSW regions), as a result of the Anglophone crisis that began in 2016 (key informant interview 16/11/2020; OCHA 31/05/2019). OCHA coordinates the global emergency response to save lives and protect people in humanitarian crises. Rpublique centrafricaine: Tableau de bord humanitaire (Janvier - Juin 2023), Central African Republic Humanitarian Dashboard (January - June 2023), UNICEF Central African Republic Humanitarian Situation Report No. Influenced by these prominent political leaders and by a certain fear of being absorbed by the Nigerian giant, the vote went in favour of reunification. PDF The Anglophone Crisis in Cameroon: Unmasking Government's Implication Talks with the government were rather cordial. Keywords: Geopolitics, Territoriality, Anglophone Crisis, Ambazonia, The Republic Of Cameroon, Separatists/Secessionists, Suggested Citation: We did not try to identify rearbases outside the country, because all we wanted to do was to discuss the situation. In 1994, they protested in vain when the government, under pressure from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), announced the privatisation of the Cameroon Development Corporation (CDC), which played a major economic and social role in the Anglophone part of the country. Several Francophone police officers have said that Anglophone police officers support the Anglophone cause. A minority of civilians picked up arms and joined the violent struggle. Members of the security forces who have committed abuses should be sanctioned. The Impact of the Resurgent Anglophone Crisis in Cameroon on Language But Anglophones believe that it acts as a brake on the international communitys response, even though it has sought to promote multilingualism and multiculturalism within Francophonie. Criticisms of the centralised state. The date of 20 May became Cameroons main national day of celebration. [fn]The commissions president and members who are close to the ruling party and hold several posts should be replaced by a younger team with greater legitimacy and composed of an equal number of Francophones and Anglophones, including Consortium members, as well as broadening its remit to include powers to impose sanctions on ministerial departments and government bodies that do not respect bilingualism and that discriminate against Anglophones. The Grassfields, better known as the Bamilk, are originally from Francophone West regions and some of them from the Anglophone Northwest region. Max Saintclair Mbida, Dynamique contestataire et dviance dmocratique: approche comprhensive et configurationnelle des mobilisations estudiantines luniversit de Buea, in Jean-Emmanuel Pondi (dir.). In January 2017, at a meeting in Mamf, Francophone bishops criticised their counterparts for not opening their schools, while the latter regretted the Francophone clergys ignorance of the Anglophone problem and the threats to which they had been subjected. In fact, very few representatives of Francophone civil society organisations and political parties have visited the Northwest and the Southwest since October 2016. Crisis Group interviews, Anglophone lawyers and local population, Bamenda, April 2017.Hide Footnote While the march was taking place peacefully, gendarmes violently dispersed the crowd, manhandled some lawyers and arrested some motorbike taxi drivers (Okada boys). [fn]Yonatan Morse, Cameroon has been in crisis for six months. This has formed the basis of relationships in modern day Cameroon. Crisis Group observations, Anglophone groups, WhatsApps and Facebook, 2016-2017. Group interviews, SCNC militants, Bamenda, April 2017. [fn]Religious leaders, managers of educational establishments, teachers and parents of pupils receive threats from unidentified individuals and groups on a daily basis and are victims of violence. Crisis Group interviews, CPDM leaders and senior officials, Yaound, December 2016. On Facebook and YouTube, the Southern Cameroons Defense Forces regularly announce their imminent arrival to liberate Ambazonia. David Abouem Atchoyi, Le problme Anglophone pourrait devenir le nouveau Boko Haram, Le Jour, 10 January 2017.Hide Footnote, However, the crisis has also raised awareness. At the end of November, the prime minister formed an ad hoc inter-ministerial committee charged with leading negotiations. However, they are still dissatisfied. Frances involvement in Cameroon has continued since independence and is by far the most significant. Violence in Cameroon's Anglophone crisis takes high civilian toll [fn]Revendications des Anglophones: la rponse du chef de lEtat, Cameroon Tribune, 31 March 2017.Hide Footnote On 20 April, the government turned the internet back on after a 92-day cut. However, in the Anglophone part, until 1968, this appointment only validated the prior election of the prime minister by the parliament of West Cameroon.Hide Footnote The Anglophones, who were in a weak position, accepted Ahidjos constitution and only obtained a blocking minority by way of concession. The other important sectors are commerce, banking and microcredit, services, small and medium sized industries and transport. Crisis Group interviews, Francophone officials, teachers and taxi drivers, Buea, March-May 2017. In July 2017, an Ambazonia Governing Council made its appearance online and Sisiku Ayuk Tabe was elected prime minister in an online vote. Cameroon at the Brink.pdf. The minister and the National Communications Council (CNC) kept up the pressure thereafter. This is apparent on a daily basis in the form of irreverent remarks by ministers to the prime minister. Anglophone Crisis - Wikipedia In November 2016, the president of the Social Democratic Front was booed in Bamenda when he tried to calm an angry crowd. It was alleged that secessionists in the diaspora used the social media to disseminate their messages and manipulate the populations through fake information. While the risk of partition of the country is low, the risk of a resurgence of the problem in the form of armed violence is high, as some groups are now advocating that approach. [fn]A member of the Consortium said: We did not initially start the strike in support of federalism or secession and much less of the armed struggle. Cameroon | ACAPS Country analysis Cameroon Cameroon has been experiencing an interplay of protracted crisis situations that continues to define political, economic, and social developments in the country. This paper sets out to examine factors militating against the survival of bilingualism in Cameroon and factors supporting its continued existence. 2 (1997), pp. PDF Cameroon - Acaps French was spoken and Frances social, legal and political norms shaped the centralist political system of successive regimes. They brandished placards with slogans against violence and the politicisation of their problems. The executive and the senior levels of the administration are the only real opponents of decentralisation. Small secessionist groups have emerged since January. While this crisis threatens to split the country, it has received little attention from scholars and peace advocates. Crisis Group interviews, academics and researchers at the Paul Ango Ela Foundation, Yaound, March-May 2017. Meanwhile, the government believed that the trade unions had a hidden agenda involving secession and that this was why they continually added to their list of demands. When the multiparty system was restored in the 1990s, the Anglophones seized the opportunity to make their grievances heard. View history Tools The Anglophone Crisis, an ongoing civil war between the Cameroonian state and Anglophone separatists who are trying to establish a new state called "Ambazonia", broke out due to grievances which built up within Cameroon at large and its English-speaking parts specifically over several decades. [fn]Crisis Group interviews, youth, Yaound, Maroua, Douala, December 2016-May 2017. Cameroon is a complex nation composed of two colonial politiesBritish West Cameroons and French East Camerounwhose questionable birth by way of UN plebiscites has resulted in linguistic, cultural, and economic cleavages. This article however upholds that the No-So is still part of Cameroon's territorial space, considering the fact that Ambazonia is not internationally recognized as a sovereign state. Crisis Group interviews, humanitarian actors, students and human rights observers, Buea, March-May 2017. [fn]The Anglophones believe that they are under-represented in the government administration and the security forces, because the entry examinations for the major schools and the police force are weighted in favour of Francophones. These were formal demarches, although deliberately discreet. On 14 January, the Consortium cancelled a meeting with the committee, condemned the violence perpetrated by the security forces and declared a two-day Operation Ghost Town in the Northwest and the Southwest. The change in currency entailed a reduction in the purchasing power of the Anglophone population by at least 10 per cent. With a year to go before the next presidential and general elections, it would not be politically sensible to ignore the dissatisfaction and anger of a fifth of its population, especially as Francophones share some Anglophone grievances. [fn]Cameroun: des parlementaires du parti au pouvoir appellent Paul Biya envisager la libration des leaders Anglophones, Jeune Afrique, 16 February 2017.Hide Footnote, The Anglophone crisis is a classic case of a dissatisfied minority while at the same time the result of structural problems. The threat of a second year of school closures hangs over the beginning of the next academic year. IOM Cameroon embraces the humanitarian-development-peace nexus vision in its strategic approach for two key pillars of the missions interventions: emergency response to crisis and peacebuilding and recovery. On 20 October 1961, Ahidjo signed a decree reorganising federal territory into six administrative regions, including West Cameroon, and appointed a federal inspector for each region, who was to report to the federal president. 1: 30 June 2023, Rpublique centrafricaine : Rapport de situation, 15 aot 2023. The president of the republic should publicly recognise the problem and speak out to calm tensions. [fn]See Law 2004/17 of 22 July 2004 on guidelines for decentralisation; law 2004/18 of 22 July 2004 setting rules applicable to communes; law 2004/19 of 22 July 2004 setting rules applicable to the regions; law 2009/11 of 10 July 2009 on financial arrangements for decentralised local authorities. It should also have greater independence from the executive. Despite gross inequalities, and centuries of being ignored, the anglophone peoples of Cameroon continue to resist and strive for a long overdue freedom. Anglophone crisis in Cameroon to include: a. The armed conflict was triggered by the Francophone-dominated government's violent repression of peaceful protests from October 2016 onwards, although the root causes go back to independence in 1960/1961, and indeed further back to the unequal colonial division of German Kamerun (1884-1916) between the French and British after the First World War. The regime in Yaound seems more sensitive to international than to national pressure. [fn]Crisis Group interviews, senior police officers, Buea, March-May 2017; WhatsApp discussions, secessionist militants, March-July 2017; and SCDF, Southern Cameroons Defense Forces updates, YouTube, 28 March 2017; and Resistance Speech by the FAGC Leader Ayaba Cho Lucas, YouTube, 22 June 2016.Hide Footnote, Partisans of armed violence have not yet put their ideas into practice because they do not have either the resources or enough support from abroad. The public, elected representatives, parliamentarians and religious leaders regularly receive text messages and calls from Cameroon and abroad, informing them of Ghost Town days, now called Country Sundays. To conclude, the root causes of the Cameroon conflict are multilayered and complex. Who are the protagonists? Since November 2016, the Anglophone populations have embarked in civil disobedience against the Government of Cameroon over the latter's alleged slowness or refusal to address their grievances. They appeared before a military court under the terrorism law. Crisis Group interviews, teachers at the Catholic University of Central Africa and researchers at the Paul Ango Ela Foundation, Yaound, December 2016. Crisis Group interviews, magistrate, Anglophone and Francophone lawyers, Douala, Buea and Bamenda, March-May 2017; and email correspondence, president of the Northwest Lawyer's Association (NOWELA), 29 May 2017. [fn]These concerns were partly justified, because the executive is centred on the presidency and the general secretary of the presidency de facto occupies the role of prime minister. The first and main ideologues of the Anglophone movement come from the Southwest and it was there that the first All Anglophone Conference was held.Hide Footnote However, when, at the end of January, the traditional chiefs of the Northwest wrote to the president of the republic to ask him to release prisoners as a goodwill gesture, the traditional chiefs of the Southwest responded by sending a motion of support to the government and calling on the youth of the Southwest to break with the disorder caused by northerners. The environment is the silent casualty in the Cameroon Anglophone crisis Some of them, notably the Bakweri minority, would even form a federated state with the coastal Sawas (the Douala) rather than with the Grafis of the Northwest. As the crisis in the . Above and beyond the electoral question, the sporadic violence of the last few months and the use of social networks have shown that some secessionists are ready for the armed struggle. Article 22 of the League of Nations Covenant of 28 June 1919 states that the international mandate status applied to colonies and territories that, as a consequence of the war, had ceased to be under the sovereignty of the States which formerly governed them and that are inhabited by peoples not yet able to stand by themselves. 2 (1999).Hide Footnote. With the war against the UPC still at its height in East Cameroon, the arbitrary arrest and detention of opponents and trade unionists accused of subversion became common. The Anglophone crisis is in part a classic problem of a minority, which has swung between a desire for integration and a desire for autonomy, and in part a more structural governance problem. Crisis Group interviews, Western diplomats, Yaound, March 2017. Between January and April, the chancellor of a Catholic University received an average of one hundred text messages every day, telling him not to open the university; a bishop received about fifty calls and one teacher received text messages and calls describing her home and telling her not to teach courses. Even though the violence, which raged from November 2016 to January 2017, has come to a halt, aspects of the crisis remain: radicalisation of the diaspora and a segment of the population, a loss of confidence in the government and targeted social violence. The single party resulted in the Anglophones losing all their institutional leverage to plead their cause. Natives of the Southwest, such as the Bakweris, feel they have been invaded and economically and politically marginalised by people from the Northwest who settled there from the 1960s onwards. The lawyers demanded the translation into English of the Code of the Organisation for the Harmonisation of Business Law in Africa (OHADA) and other legal texts. The Even in the governing party, the CPDM, Anglophone deputies have expressed their concerns to the government. Max Saintclair Mbida, Dynamique contestataire et dviance dmocratique: approche comprhensive et configurationnelle des mobilisations estudiantines luniversit de Buea, in Jean-Emmanuel Pondi (dir. However, though the latter back the Anglophone cause, the fear of reprisals from the instigators of Operation Ghost Town rather than support for the strike explains the decision of Catholic and Protestant institutions to not resume their courses. What is the governments response? Anything seems possible at the moment: a boycott, support for the SDF or the emergence of new movements. The Southwest is considered to be the economic motor of the zone, because of its timber industry, the CDC and oil production-related industries.Hide Footnote, Anglophones and Southerners in particular often complain about the low proportion of Anglophones in the workforce and in decision-making posts in state oil companies, such as the National Refining Company (Socit nationale de raffinage, Sonara), based in the Southwest, and the National Hydrocarbons Corporation (Socit nationale des hydrocarbures, SNH). Anglophones are therefore no poorer than people in the north and east, but they are much poorer than people in Douala and Yaound with who they often compare themselves and where the rate is 4.2 and 5.4 per cent respectively. The commissions president and members who are close to the ruling party and hold several posts should be replaced by a younger team with greater legitimacy and composed of an equal number of Francophones and Anglophones, including Consortium members, as well as broadening its remit to include powers to impose sanctions on ministerial departments and government bodies that do not respect bilingualism and that discriminate against Anglophones. A striking feature of the Cameroon conflict is the lack of attention afforded by international actors. Crisis Group interviews, Francophone academics and trade union leaders, December 2016 and March 2017. These exploitative relationships began in the seventeenth century, when millions of African people were forcibly relocated during the repugnant trans Atlantic slave trade. Crise Anglophone: le SNJC demande aux journalistes dignorer les injonctions du CNC, camerpost.net, 22 January 2017. English was the official language in the territory under British administration. The Consortiums provisional leadership was entrusted to Mark Bareta in Belgium and Tapang Ivo in the U.S. Other Consortium members went into exile in Nigeria, South Africa and the U.S. Nkhongo Felix, Press briefing: transfer of consortium operations to Europe and month-long ghost towns, 17 January 2017; Crisis Group interview, president of SYNES, Buea, May 2017. A timeline of Cameroon's history is available in the PDF version. This study will try to go beyond linguistic elements analysis to include a systematic construction of the historical and political, sociological and/or psychological dimension in the analysis and interpretation of specific texts/discourse. He then went into exile. Female students were beaten, undressed, rolled in the mud and one was allegedly raped. During the period of the mandate and the trusteeship, each colonial power shaped their territories in their own image. It should also take legal measures specific to Anglophone regions in the areas of education, justice and culture (not currently covered by legislation). While many Francophones say they support the Anglophones demands,[fn]Crisis Group interviews, Francophone academics and trade union leaders, December 2016 and March 2017.Hide Footnote the latter believe that this support is in word only and that Francophones do not really understand the problems that stem from being a minority. Most of the Anglophone elites in government advocated a hard line, hoping to please the president of the Republic. Some Francophone intellectuals said that federalism was only a step on the road to secession. Instead, were witnessing wealthy nations willingly ignore mass atrocities in order to bite more of the pie. In 1999, some secessionist militants replaced the name of Southern Cameroons with Ambazonia Republic, derived from the name given by the Portuguese to the regions coast, Ambas Bay, in order to get rid of any reference to Cameroon. The security forces worked with telephone companies and money transfer agencies to identify and arrest the local contacts of secessionists in exile and block the transfer of funds from abroad to the Anglophone regions. Since the 2000s, the Anglophone question has deeply divided society. [fn]Carlson Anyangwe, Betrayal of Too Trusting a People. On 28 November 2016, the U.S. State Department published a communiqu calling for dialogue in the Anglophone regions and calling on the government of Cameroon to respect fundamental freedoms. However, SCNC militants continued to organise protests in the Anglophone regions every 1 October and spectacular actions such as the proclamation of independence by the Ambazonia Republic on radio Buea in 1999 and in 2009. Crisis Group interviews, CPDM and SDF mayors, Yaound, Douala, Kumba, May 2017.Hide Footnote The transfer of financial resources (the percentage of which is not detailed in legal texts) has only increased from 4 to 7 per cent in 13 years, while it is 20 per cent in other decentralised unitary states like Kenya and Ghana. Unification left Anglophones with a sense that their territory was in economic decline, because it entailed the centralisation and/or dismantling of West Cameroons economic structures, such as the West Cameroon Marketing Board, the Cameroon Bank and Powercam, as well as the abandonment of several projects, including the port of Limb, and airports at Bamenda and Tiko, with investments in the Francophone part of the country winning out. Managing this and other crises has been very challenging to Cameroon's disaster management frameworks (Bang et al. They had a decisive impact on public opinion and opened the Pandoras box of the Anglophone problem. But questioning of the central principle of non-violence, inherited from the SCNC, gives cause for concern. History [ edit] If a new attempt at decentralisation is going to be acceptable and effective, it must reduce the powers of administrators appointed by Yaound by creating regional councils, introducing elected regional presidents, transferring significant financial resources and powers, and implementing measures that are already provided for in law. They are present in both Francophone and Anglophone zones. Without firm, persistent and coordinated pressure from its international partners, it is unlikely that the government will seek lasting solutions. Crisis Group interview, Yaound, March 2017. Crisis Group interviews, Consortium members, Buea, May 2017.Hide Footnote. Crisis Group interviews, Anglophone lawyers and local population, Bamenda, April 2017. A two-state federation, as before unification, or a four or six-state federation to better reflect the sociological composition of the country and make the idea of federalism acceptable to Francophones, or ten states to copy the current pattern of Cameroons ten regions? The reason why the crisis has not descended into armed violence is also that the main actors have not wanted it to. These groups also call on citizens not to pay tax and encourage attacks on Francophones. Although Ghost Town operations are reducing in intensity, they are also observed in the Southwest and are sometimes stronger in towns like Kumba, where young people have denounced the ethnic rhetoric of their elites. Similarly, several ethnic groups from the Anglophone Northwest are effectively the same as the Bamilk of Western Francophone regions, and all form part of the Grassfield group.
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