CI-NEWS

The Grand National Dialogue: Another missed opportunity to resolve the Anglophone Crisis. A stitch i

2019-10-14

No: 451

The Grand National Dialogue: Another missed opportunity to resolve the Anglophone Crisis. A stitch in time saves nine.

When I was a little girl, my mother would tell me to repair the loose hem on my skirt as soon as I noticed it. She was a teacher of domestic science at the time and would make us stitch all tears and loose seams on our garments before we washed them. She would always say “a stitch in time saves nine”. If you do not stitch this up, the tear would get bigger as you scrub and rub the garment together, or the seam would continue to loosen and before long your skirt would have no hem. Then you would have to stitch up the whole skirt instead of the one or the few stitches you could do today and save yourself from the extra effort later. I took my mother literally at the time, but as I grew up, I learned that this idiom is one of life’s best principles to live by.

This idiom came running back to my mind as I watched the closing ceremony of the Grand National dialogue. As I peruse the information trickling in from all the social media platforms, I heave a heavy sigh of disappointment. Once again, the government has missed another opportunity to end the crisis in the war-torn Anglophone regions. Once again, the government has failed to be proactive, to use its leverage, to get ahead of the situation and take control of it. Once again, the government has proven that it is master of the game of charades and that this dictatorship has come to stay.

History, they say is the study of past events to prevent them from repeating in the future. I cast my mind to May of 2015 when Common Law Lawyers of the Anglophone regions met in Bamenda to address the issues that were plaguing them and the Anglophone community in general. The recommendations from this meeting were served on the President of the Cameroon Bar Association at the time and the Minister of Justice. Both leaders ignored these resolutions and refused to take seriously the plight of the Anglophone Lawyers. Little did they know that a few months down the line Lawyers would take to the streets and that demonstration would be the start of a national crisis. A Stitch in time saves nine….

As lawyers went on strike in October of 2016, the authorities blasted the move and sarcastically said lawyers would eventually return to court when they get hungry. They must have needed a crystal ball to see that there was a sense of disgruntlement in the air, that there was a brewing tension, a few weeks later, the teachers joined the lawyers announcing their strike and before long the civil society joined. One thing led to another and before we knew it, there is full open armed conflict between separatist groups and government forces. We find ourselves in a civil war where over 2000 people have died, almost two million internally displaced persons and an estimated five hundred thousand refugees. Had the government paid keen attention to those early cries of the baby- A stitch in time saves nine.

I am walking down memory lane to debunk the conspiracy theories and to show that the government has had many opportunities to take control of the situation in these warring regions and to bring peace back into the nation. Yet somehow the government always misses to maximize these opportunities and each time the situation further degenerates at the expense of the people and the taxpayers. How many times has the government chosen threats over frank talks, arrested and detained civil society leaders who dared to speak, cracked down violently on peaceful protesters? I could go on and on, yet the point remains the government has chosen to fund a war instead of to fund peace.

I had a mixed feeling when the President of the Republic called for a national dialogue on September tenth. The simple fact that he made a speech on a non-traditional speech making day was amazing. It meant he had been touched by the protracted violence and the instability in the Anglophone regions. This premise alone gave assurance that the dialogue would seek to bring lasting solutions to the crisis. However, as I listened on to his Speech, I became suspicious of the whole purpose of the dialogue. It seemed to be a ploy, another game of charades. The President denied the existence of an Anglophone problem simply because the Prime Ministers since 1992 have hailed from either of the two English speaking regions… as if that is the bone of contention. He decided to host the dialogue in Yaoundé where freedom of speech could be guaranteed but not freedom after the speech. He appointed the Prime Minister and head of government to chair the dialogue alongside other government officials who can be blamed for their role in fueling the crisis, making the government a party, the judge and the jury in its own cause.

Further, He called for a national dialogue for all the regions of the country to address all possible issues affecting the country as if the entire country is plagued by the Anglophone crisis and the civil war. This move reminded me of President Ahidjo who in 1972, called for a national referendum that saw the participation of East Cameroon in an election that only concerned the future of West Cameroon. The most shocking revelation of the speech was that He refused to dialogue with the other side- the separatist leaders and fighters who are the actual warring parties. No wonder there was no ceasefire throughout the dialogue process. I wonder how a truce would ever be reached.

Nevertheless, I chose faith, to hang on to that little glimmer of hope that something good may come out of the dialogue process. I followed up closely as preparations were made and momentum built gearing up for the Grand National Dialogue. And that day finally came and once again the government missed the opportunity for peace. The agenda was set in stone- there shall be no discussions on the form of state, were any discussions to arise, they must be centred around decentralization. Debates in the decentralization commission were rife. Participants pushed for the amendment of the agenda to allow discussions on the form of the state to no avail. The form of state was never opened for discussion.

The recommendations from the decentralization commission, in line with article 62 of the 1996 Constitution, proposed that the Anglophone regions be granted some form of special status within the Republic. The parameters of that special status were left undefined. The assumption is that the parameters may follow the provisions of articles 55-57of the constitution, which grants regions greater autonomy to manage their own affairs. This would be a welcomed recommendation if articles 58-60 of the Constitution which gives the head of state powers to appoint Regional delegates to supervise the regions and to suspend regional councils and their organs, were inexistent. At the close of the Grand Dialogue, the decentralization commission ended right where it took off.

Revising the form of state has, since 1991, has always been the preferred solution to put an end to the Anglophone problem in Cameroon. The SDF was born for this very purpose and so were the All Anglophone Conferences. As a matter of fact, SCNC and Ambazonia came to existence because all other efforts to get the government to open discussions on the form of the state failed. Even the infamous 1996 constitution that embodies a certain form of decentralization, whose implementation the government is still trying to figure out twenty-three years later, is a result of the pressure on government to reconsider the form of state.

After all these years, after all the major political crises that have plagued our country, this ongoing war in the two Anglophone regions, the government remains adamant to open discussions on the form of the state. The question that begs an answer is this: is government for the people or the people for government? In other words, do the people mandate the government or the government mandates the people? By refusing to allow discussions on the form of the state, the government is directly infringing on the people’s right to participation and representation in government, in legal terms it is called the right to self-determination. The right to self-determination entails the people’s right to choose their political systems, to have equal participatory rights within this system as well as the absence of sustained and systematic discrimination of any kind against people.

The Anglophone problem- a problem of systematic and sustained discrimination against the minority, has persisted since 1961 and has been amplified since 2016 by the ongoing Anglophone crisis. The people have criticised the centralization of power and since 1991, have repeatedly demanded that the form of state be revisited to enable the effective participation of the people in government. Yet the government for some unknown reasons, refuses to heed these demands. Does this government realise that by refusing to allow discussions on the form of the state, it is strengthening the case of the pro-separatist groups and lending credence to their cause? Is the government aware that international law is leaning towards the position of the Supreme Court of Canada which held in the case of Secession of Quebec that ‘when a people is blocked from the meaningful exercise of its right to self-determination internally, it is entitled, as a last resort, to exercise it by secession.’ It would be wise of the government to allow open and honest discussions on the form of the state. This is the only way for lasting peace to return to the warring regions and to guarantee the territorial integrity of Cameroon. A stitch in time saves nine…

I am always looking for the silver lining when the skies are grey. Perhaps the Presidential decree announcing the discontinuance of proceedings at Military Courts, against the three hundred and thirty-three charged with misdemeanours committed in relation to the Anglophone crisis is a good sign that the storm would soon be over. Please do not ask why the military court should try misdemeanours but rejoice that three hundred and thirty-three Cameroonians shall have a taste of freedom once more. Of the many loose stitches on our national fabric yet to be paid any form of attention, this one stitch, was just in time.

Joyce Nyamboli

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The Grand National Dialogue: Another missed opportunity to resolve the Anglophone Crisis. A stitch i