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129 34 The Omenology of St. Cloud Friday, October 4, 2002 Whoever took the snapshots of President Paul Biya and his Nigerian counterpart, Olusegun Obasanjo in the Parisian outskirts of St. Cloud on September 5 ought to be awarded the top prize for photojournalism. The photograph captured the essence of a despondent yet arrogant Paul Biya and a beaming and triumphant Obasanjo who were being psychologically prepared for the forthcoming verdict of the International Court of Justice at The Hague with regard to the dispute over the Bakassi Peninsula. It could be said that the summit meeting, brokered by the UN Secretary- General, Kofi Annan under the good offices of French President Jacques Chirac, incidentally the Senior Prefect of the French Overseas School of Democracy, was held in a location called St. Cloud. It was quite significant and ominous because as the saying goes, after the cloud, comes rain, and after the rain comes… The nebulous background of the summit spells an augury yet to be deciphered. It is quite significant that the protocol of understanding reached as St. Cloud, i.e. the principle of abiding by The Hague’s verdict, the withdrawal of belligerent forces from the dispute territory; and the placing of observers to oversee an eventual withdrawal – underlines the fact that Bakassi neither belongs to La République du Cameroun nor to Nigeria. It is also significant to recall that the Bakassi imbroglio cannot be disentangled without resolving the Southern Cameroons Question. The Hague and the corpus of international law recognize the international personality of the Southern Cameroons. Any attempt by La République to claim neighbourliness with Nigeria under the pretext that La République and Southern Cameroons are one and the same, has fallen flat on its face 130 because the 1961 plebiscite (albeit illegal), in which the Southern Cameroons state decided to join La République du Cameroun did not give La République a mandate to annex the Southern Cameroons. The federal arrangement under which the 1961 unification was operated was abrogated by systematic and consecutive constitutional aberrations and the final pull out from the federal arrangement by La République in 1984 when it reverted to its original name at the time of independence in 1960.In law and in any human arrangement, a partnership is automatically considered dissolved when one member dies or withdraws. La République’s act of secession should go the whole hog and culminate in the withdrawal of its forces of occupation and quisling proxies. Last year, CRTV dispatched journalists to cover Southern Cameroons Independence Day on October 1. We hope it does same this year on condition that the ethics of truthful and fair reporting are respected and the exponents of the Southern Cameroons cause allowed to air their views instead of confronting them with the dogs of war and showers of mayhem. Intimidation, wanton killing of unarmed citizens and blackmail cannot divert the God-ordained cause of a people in bondage. After the cloud comes… S-N F. ...

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