Betrayal of Too Trusting a People. The UN, the UK and the Trust Territory of the Southern Cameroons: The UN, the UK and the Trust Territory of the Southern Cameroons

14. A Historical Injustice Crying Out to be Set Right

Chapter Fourteen A Historical Injustice Crying Out to be Set Right In all its dealings with the Southern Cameroons, Cameroun Republic has always appealed to fraud, tricks and lies as methods of statecraft. This disgraceful method of conducting public affairs has resulted in one critical consequence never anticipated by that country: Cameroun Republic’s frontier with the Southern Cameroons continues as unchanged in character. The frontier line between both countries has thus always remained, de jure, an international boundary, notwithstanding the informal federation and Cameroun Republic’s assumption of a colonial sovereignty over the Southern Cameroons. During the period of the de facto federation that frontier line merely had the appearance of an internal boundary. By voting against UN Resolution 1608 (XV), which endorsed the plebiscite result and decided to terminate the Trusteeship concerning the Southern Cameroons, Cameroun Republic thereby continued its international boundary with the Southern Cameroons as unchanged in character. Furthermore, the so-called ‘federal republic’ and ‘united republic’ were not genuine and enduring constitutional arrangements but merely stratagems and spurious contraptions designed to whitewash Cameroun Republic’s colonial occupation of the Southern Cameroons. That being the case the international boundary between the two countries never legally acquired an internal character. Further still, in 1984 the President of the so-called ‘united republic of Cameroon’, acting at his whim, revived Cameroun Republic as a legal and political expression. That action ipso facto confirmed Cameroun Republic’s frontier line with the Southern Cameroons as an international boundary. Finally,theconfirmationof theinternationalcharacterof theboundary line between the Southern Cameroons and Cameroun Republic is further evidenced by the fact that Cameroun Republic has always maintained along the frontier line the military, police and customs barriers existing before independence. These barriers exist to control the movement of persons, goods and services between both countries, and up to the 1970s any Southern Cameroons citizen intending to travel to Cameroun Republic needed a laissez-passer to be able to enter that country. 244 Betrayal of Too Trusting a People Today, the people of the Southern Cameroons do not enjoy even a modicum of local self-government, their territory being administered by nationals of Cameroun Republic appointed by Cameroun Republic. They are denied basic human rights and are daily the object of the highhandedness of, and ruthless repression by, Cameroun Republic security forces. They have no voice in or control over any matter affecting their lives, their future, and their territory. Cameroun Republic has assumed suzerainty in the territory. That is an unwarranted privileged status, politically, economically, culturally and socially. That status is highly prejudicial to the general interests, the dignity and the self-worth of the people of the territory. By all accounts this is far worse than anything experienced under British colonial administration. Like all colonial territories the Southern Cameroons is entitled, as a matter of law and justice, to enter into its inheritance by emerging into sovereign statehood. Sadly, the UN and the Administering Authority failed to honour their moral and legal obligations to the people of the Southern Cameroons. Procedurally the conduct of the plebiscite may have been free. Substantively, however, it was neither full nor fair. No political status options were offered as required by the 1960 Declaration on decolonisation. By denying the Southern Cameroons the option of separate independence the UN and Britain violated the inalienable right of the people of the Southern Cameroons to emerge from colonial yoke by choosing to establish a sovereign independent state. As a global political organisation of sovereign states, the UN is massive, bureaucratic and slow. It is government-led and being a creation of humans, it is as human in its ambitions and failings as any other human product. A critical element about that Organisation is its susceptibility to geo-political factors. States appeal to it to serve their perceived political interests. The history of the UN shows that states readily accept its deliberations when such are not in conflict with their interests, but tend to reject or question them if they are perceived not to be in their interest or that of their “friends.” 245 A Historical Injustice Crying Out to Be Set Right Take the case of the Southern Cameroons, for example. Britain took the view that it would not have anything to gain by being at least morally required, even if only a contingent requirement, to provide a future sovereign independent Southern Cameroons with development assistance. It also took...