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Fact Sheetare thus faced with a situation in which Third World States, themselves the pre-beneficiaries of resolution 1514 (XV) guaranteeing the principle of self-determination of all peoples, become modern colonizers of less fortunate peopleswithin their area.” [Judge TO Elias, President of the International Court ofJustice (as he then was), in ‘The Role of the ICJ in Africa’, 1 RADIC, 1989, p.8)] Down Memory Lane: GenesisOn Tuesday December 5, 1991, the Cameroon Anglophone Movement (CAM), the vanguardorganisation for the restoration of the statehood of the Southern Cameroons-on-Ambas, was founded. CAM was born in the home of Chief Dr. H.N.A. Enonchong’s,Bonaberi, Douala, La Republique du Cameroun.Chief Dr. H.N.A. Enonchong became the consensus first Chairman of CAM. Veteran Mr.Albert W. Mukong, now of blessed memory, was then on self-exile in London. Hereturned home from exile in February 1992. Elections into CAM were conducted in aCAM General Assembly that held at the Batasof Hotel in Buea, the historic capitalof the Southern Cameroons, on July 2, 1992. Dr. Enonchong, who with the support ofMr. Mbiwan, had tried to transform CAM into a political party, with himself asleader, failed to get the Batasof meeting banned by Pro-consuls of La Republique.What happened was that CAM operatives in Buea, among them, Messrs. Anu, GeorgeNgwane, Barrister Charles A. Taku and Dr. Christopher Atang, had earlier obtaineda permit for the holding of the CAM General Assembly from the Sous-Prefet of Buea,Mr. Rudolf Itoe, who later became a traditional ruler. Dr Enonchong idea was toturn CAM into a party to rival the Social Democratic Front (SDF) political partyof Ni John Fru Ndi. The rank and file of CAM roundly condemned Enonchong. He hadto abandon to his dreams.At the Batasof General Asembly, portfolios were equally shared out between theNorth-West and the South-West. Ambassador Martin Ekwoge Epie was elected NationalChairman, beating Professor Tanyi Mbuagbaw, also of blessed memory, in theprocess. Dr. Arnold B.Yongbang was elected Vice-Chairman and Mr. Albert W. Mukongwas elected Secretary-General with Moses Tabe Nkwo as his assistant; BarristerCharles A. Taku was elected Commissioner for Human Rights, and Paddy MbawaCommissioner for Information and Education; the Treasurer was Dr. Ngenge; theFinancial Secretary went to Yana Zumafor; the Commissioner for Organisation andPropaganda went to Edwin Wongibe; Institutional and Environmental Affairs went toBarrister W. Chrys. M. Etinge; Dr. Christopher Atang handled the Commission forInternational Affairs; Professor Tanyi Mbuagbaw took on the Social and CulturalAffairs Commission; John Tazifor handled the Ways and Means Commission; PeterNsanda Eba headed the Technical and Development Commission; Barrister John Nsohthe Legal Affairs Commission; the Auditors were Dr. Mrs. Elisabeth Tamanjong andJ.E. Ndele.Initially created as a socio-cultural organisation to defend the rights of theAnglophones against the overwhelming maginalistion by the Francophone-led regimesin Yaounde, CAM soon turned into a restoration movement because of theintransigence of the Biya regime. “Zero Option,” namely, separation from LaRepublique du Cameroun and full independence for the Southern Cameroons-on-Ambaswas soon declared. CAM now devoted its energies and resources to spearheading thestruggle for the restoration of the Statehood of the Southern Cameroons; and inDecember 1993,On Saturday, 6 July 1996, the CAM General Assembly holding in Bamenda in the homeof the late Pa Stephen Ndi’s at Cow Street, Nkwen changed the name of the vanguardliberation movement to the Southern Cameroons Restoration Movement – SCARM. CAMthus situated Southern Cameroons as the nation that it is, rather than a mere
 
linguistic expression of a people in bondage.The following members of the founding membership of SCARM have since passed on: PaJoseph LAMFU, Barrister W. Chrys. M. ETINGE, Ephraim Ebong ENONGENE, AmbassadorMartin Ekwoge EPIE, Albert W. MUKONG, Pa Stephen NDI, Christopher TOMPAH, DanielNgeka MOKEBA, Michael NDZE, Professor Tanyi MBUAGBAW, Christopher Bah TANGOH,Emmanuel NJUA, P.P. NKWENTI, and Professor Aloysius Ngimdoh FONJE.The Coming of the Southern Cameroons Peoples Conference and its governing Organthe SCNC.On April 18, 1995, the then Chairman of the Cameroon Anglophone Movement,Ambassador Martin EKWOGE EPIE, sent the following letter to the Southern Cameroonscommunity in the UK-Society:As most of you may know, there was an All Anglophone Conference (AAC) convened inApril 1993 in Buea. The AAC had been a CAM idea. But circumstances made uspostpone it many times. Then, a group of elites in Buea prompted by Dr. CarlsonAnyangwe (founding member of CAM), jumped on the idea and launched it.Two of the convenors of the AAC, Dr. Anyangwe and Dr. Munzu, contacted us andrequested that CAM should take a low profile at the Conference. They requested usto put our network at their disposal to make AAC a success. We agreed. And Isigned a circular to all CAM activists asking them to put their weight behind AACbut to consider that we, CAM, we are not the convenors of the event.We agreed to this arrangement because of one compelling consideration. A largesection of the Southern Cameroonian “elite” was still afraid of the dry and hardlanguage of CAM and still considered us as too “extremist.” We therefore felt thatif we supported the convenors to say the same thing, which we had been sayingsince CAM, was born, the struggle would advance. The convenors had some amount ofpublic stature at the time and were not as threatening as CAM. They could, wethought, rally the elite to the struggle more than we could at the time.And so it came to pass. The entire network of CAM was mobilised. And those whowere not members of CAM joined the organisational effort. AAC was a huge success.The “elite” turned up in their numbers representing the entire spectrum of theCameroon Anglophone elite – the clergy, traditional rulers, political leaders,elder statesmen, ministers, members of the armed forces, and the grassroots.At the end of the Conference, a 55-member Standing Committee was created, withequal representation from the Northern and Southern Zones of the territory of theSouthern Cameroons, to undertake the tasks which the Conference conferred upon it.The Executive Council of the Standing Committee was made up of: Barrister SamEkontang Elad (Chairman); Mr. Augustine F. Ndangam (1st Vice Chairman); Mme.Victoria Ndando (2nd Vice Chairperson); Dr. Carlson Anyangwe (Secretary-General);Mr. A. Yana Zumafor (Deputy Secretary-General); Mr. Emmanuel Fai Visha (MinutesSecretary); Dr. Simon Munzu ( Spokesman); Dr. Arnold Boh Yongbang (Treasurer);Chief Dr. S.B. Mbene (Assistant Treasurer); Mr. Sylvester Teh (FinancialSecretary); Mrs. Beatrice Wamey (Assistant Financial Secretary); Mr. Vincent Feko(Co-ordinator, Douala); Barrister Rex Ntuba (Co-ordinator, Southern Zone); Dr.Kevin N. Gumne (Co-ordinator, Northern Zone); Ambassador Henry Fossung (Adviser);Ambassador Martin Ekwoge Epie (Adviser); Barrister Luke Sendze (Legal Adviser);and Justice A.N.T. Mbu (Legal Adviser). Seven members of the National ExecutiveBureau of CAM were also members of the Standing Committee of the AAC.It was at this stage that frictions developed between CAM and the AAC. But, we inCAM, recognising that the Standing Committee was strategic to our struggle,managed, more than the non-CAM members of the Committee, to downplay the frictionsand maintain the Committee.The frictions developed because the AAC tried to create its own organisation onthe field whereas it was supposed to be an umbrella organisation for all SouthernCameroons organisations. So, when the Standing Committee was born, we faced thissingular situation where we went to the people to collect funds while someStanding Committee people went to the same Southern Cameroonians to collect funds.It was an odd situation because both the AAC and CAM were pursuing the same goal.There was a wish that CAM should dissolve and yield leadership of the struggle to
 
the AAC. This, we considered, was not a reasonable proposal because the AAC wassupposed to serve as an umbrella group in which CAM was simply one of the‘Liberation’ Movements, much like the PLO has been an umbrella organisation forall Palestinian fighters. But what really made us not to dissolve was arealisation that most members of the Standing Committee were opportunists: theywere not tough enough to fight and were there simply to position themselves forpublic office or to seek public attention. Others came there thinking they coulduse the AAC to reinforce their political parties. The Committee was too weak; itcould be destroyed by la Republique’s usual methods of corruption and violence.CAM does not yield to threats of violence and most of our Executives do not seekto use CAM for the purpose of appointments to public office in la Republique duCameroun. If we folded up and gave leadership to the AAC, then it would bedifficult to reconvene CAM when the government shall have destroyed the AAC. So westuck to our guns, managed the internal contradictions of the AAC excellently andstopped la Republique’s efforts to exploit the CAM/AAC frictions.So accurate was our analysis of the AAC Standing Committee that one year later,the struggle entered a phase of trouble. The Standing Committee, after deciding toconvene AAC II, developed cold feet. It postponed AAC-II twice. CAM moved forwardafter the second postponement and put the maximum pressure possible on theCommittee. It was a tough fight from within. And as we expected, the StandingCommittee (or what was left of it after one year of activities) was split. So, itwas a thoroughly reduced and limping Standing Committee of the AAC-I which chairedAAC-II at the end of April 1994. And again, it was CAM which shouldered theresponsibility for the organisation. The excitement of 1993 was no longer there:people had realised that the struggle was not a bed of roses or a picnic.At the end of AAC-II, the Standing Committee, now called the Anglophone NationalCouncil (ANC), continued with the error of the Standing Committee by trying todevelop its own organisation, despite failures registered in the past year. We hadbecome used to this; so it caused no more problems. We continued to act within theANC to put across the CAM line whenever the opportunity arose.In August 1994, the All Anglophone Conference transformed itself into the SouthernCameroons Peoples Conference (SCPC). The Standing Committee of the AnglophoneNational Council became the Southern Cameroons National Council (SCNC) and a newstructure, the Southern Cameroons Advisory Council (SCAC), emerged. The SCPC, theSCNC and the SCAC – all put together, have the same profile of the StandingCommittee. But CAM continues to be represented in it; we continue to protect itfrom the damaging effects of power struggles; but we continue to act as anautonomous organisation.The Southern Cameroons Advisory Council (SCAC) is made up of political partyleaders of Southern Cameroons origin, senior Statesmen and distinguishedtraditional rulers. So in SCAC, we have, for example, personalities such as NiJohn Fru Ndi, Chairman of the Social Democratic Front (SDF); Mola Njoh Litumbe,Chairman of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP); Professor Victor Julius Ngoh,Chairman of the Peoples Action Party (PAP); etc, as well as Hon. John Ngu Foncha,Senior Statesman, Ambassador Epie, Senior Statesman and National Chairman of CAM,the Fon of Bali, Chief Agbor Tabi, Chief Namata Elangwe, Fon Anyangwe and Mrs.Gertrude Joe.The Southern Cameroons National Council (SCNC) is the large body which replacedthe ANC. Six members of the National Executive Bureau of CAM are members of theSCNC. In addition, four members of the CAM National Executive Bureau are alsomembers of the Executive Bureau of the SCNC. These are: Dr. Yongbang, Mr. Zumafor,Mr.Vincent Feko and myself.In summary, please retain that CAM and the SCNC are pursuing the same goal. ButCAM continues to preserve its organisational identity, its initiatives and itsplans, much as our affiliated organs do. But as we operate independently, so toodo we seek to coordinate with the SCNC. Dr. Arnold Yongbang is the CAM Executivewho, very informally, serves as the information belt between CAM and the SCNC.The Southern Cameroons Peoples Conference is the legitimate representative of the
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