The premise for the Southern Cameroonian uprising in 2017 was simple. The US, the UK, Germany, South Africa, the UN, and the international community understood the legitimacy of the Southern Cameroonian cause.
In the event of any government backlash to their non-violent protest, those they considered champions of free speech and leaders of the free world, would mediate or at least prevent violent repression.
In the context of international relations this might sound naïve, but the thousands of Southern Cameroonians on Ground Zero, and around the world, who timed their march to coincide with the UN General Assembly (UNGA) on 22 September 2017 genuinely believed it.
In fact, their leaders had believed it for decades, they just didn’t have the numbers, so they worked diligently in the background to educate and mobilize from the grassroots.
On that cold morning the streets of Bamenda, capital of Cameroon’s Northwest region didn’t look like they were about to change forever. People stood in small groups whispering, many smirking, looking more like they wanted to watch rather than join the march.
In offices, staff kept peeking outside, refreshing their phones, and asking colleagues if they would join the march. By 8AM images of protesters carrying peace plants started flooding onto social media. By 9 AM nobody was interested in work. They would refresh the Facebook pages of activists and protest organizers like Mark Bareta and then check outside for any signs of protest.
Protesters in blue and white had camped outside UNGA headquarters in New York, designated locations in Berlin, London, Paris, Johannesburg, and every city where a few could come together, yet Sisiku Ayuk-Tabe, Tassang Wilfred, and the rest of the Southern Cameroonian leadership abroad understood that Ground Zero mattered most.
When pictures of the Bafia rally came in, everyone went out onto the streets. They pinned their flags at palaces and every major junction and asked their representatives in government to resign.
Ngeh Ransom* was among the observers of the march in Kumbo which has now become one of the strongest separatist strongholds in the Southern Cameroons. He didn’t join the crowd but understood from the turnout and outpouring of emotion that something big was happening.
“From the mammoth crowd that marched with peace plants, I expected an urgent attention to the cause of the march from the international community. It was very impressive; in fact if I had the strength and courage, I should have joined them at one point.”
“I saw the hearts of many, especially old women who accompanied the march over a long distance. Only Independence Day shall have such a crowd.”
Most of the soldiers sent out to quell the protests could only stand and watch, but by evening they had started making examples of a few protesters. A week later, on 1 October, with no concrete reaction or support from the international community, Southern Cameroonians declared independence and the war started.
The question then, for the experts in diplomacy is, if a minority with concerns about their welfare and human rights exhaust every legal means within their country to resolve their problems, where do they go? And what do they do? What is the process? Who decides what is worth talking about at the UN? How many starving and uneducated kids do you need to qualify for relief? How many dead and mutilated bodies do you need to carry to New York to get heard? Wouldn’t it be less expensive to prevent conflicts rather than to resolve them?
These are the questions that Ngeh Ransom and other Southern Cameroonians are still asking five years after one of the greatest civil protests that Cameroon has ever witnessed.
“The silence of the national and international actors has caused the peaceful march to become a bloody war with loss of many lives and material.” Ngeh Ransom says.
“I don't know much about the degree of intervention expected from the UN, but I think they have not done anything serious to help the situation in Southern Cameroons. Most of them that I have heard from consider the conflict as an internal affair, which seems far from it considering the historical reasons advanced by the English-speaking Cameroonians who are fighting for restoration.”
As the UNGA commemorates the 30th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities, it must determine how to handle not only this war, but other existing and emerging conflicts that arise from different peoples asserting themselves and attempting to claim their basic rights.
*Not his real name
Tony Vinyoh is a Southern Cameroonian writer with numerous by-lines in a range of international and local media outlets, including for the BBC and Fodor’s Travel.
DISCLAIMER: The views expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect the views of Vanguard Africa, the Vanguard Africa Foundation, or its staff.