Reconciliation in Cameroon

by Dieudonne Nsom Kindong, Jr

May 14, 2020

Introduction  

Up until November 2016, Cameroon[1] was often credited by many an observer as an exemplary country in Africa, one where despite its diversity and challenges had managed to steer clear of armed civil conflict. A foreign journalist reporting on his coverage of Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to Cameroon in 2009 remarked that “by the standards of West Africa, Cameroon is peaceful, tolerant, orderly, and relatively developed” (Allen 2009). It could be argued that Cameroon’s image as ‘Africa in miniature’[2] was not only due to the fact that Cameroon has a little bit of everything that Africa has in terms of wildlife, vegetation, and culture, but more importantly in terms of diversity, religious tolerance, and peaceful cohabitation of the two diametrically different acculturated people[3] living side by side. But all that beautiful and peaceful image of the country changed inexorably by the end of 2016 when the government of Cameroon responded with deadly force against peaceful street protest by lawyers and teachers of former British Southern Cameroons complaining against the gradual assimilation of the English Common Law code into the Napoleonic code as well as the imposition of the French language in Anglophone schools[4].

Background to Present Conflict

The country today called the Republic of Cameroon was once a German colony until after the First World War[5]. After Germany’s defeat in that war, the German-run territory was partitioned between France and Britain following the London Declaration in 1919 – “London Declaration divides Cameroon into French (80%) and British administrative zones (20%). The British zone is divided into Northern and Southern Cameroons” (BBC News, 2018). In 1960 the French administered zone became independent and took on the name La République du Cameroun (LRC)[6]. In 1961 the British administered zones of the Cameroons voted in a United Nations-sanctioned plebiscite resulting in the Northern zone choosing to become “a separate province of the Northern Region of Nigeria” hence becoming an integral part of Nigeria. Conversely, the Southern zone decided to become independent by joining La République du Cameroun but not as a mere province as did the Northern zone when it voted to join Nigeria. Rather, the British “Administering Authority, the Government of Southern Cameroons and the Republic of Cameroun” were expected per the stipulations of United Nations Resolution 1608 of the 994th plenary meeting of the United Nations on 21 April 1961 to discuss the terms of union of the two territories (World Legal Information Institute, n.d.). They had less than six months to come up with such agreement[7].

Clearly, the United Nations Resolution 1608 intended for the three parties – the British Administering Authority, the Government of Southern Cameroons, and the authorities of La République du Cameroun – to work out the terms of union between the two Cameroons. History has it that the British Administering Authority did not take this assignment seriously while the authorities of LRC were manipulative and deceptive in the process (Achankeng, 2014, pp. 129-154). Meanwhile, the political leaders of the Southern Cameroons set to work in earnest, but before any legitimate and viable agreement could be reached, the British Administering Authority quickly ceded the administration of the Southern Cameroons to La République du Cameroun on 1 October 1961. This enigmatic manner of obtaining independence by the people of Southern Cameroons has since become the catalyst that has ignited frequent tensions between the government of LRC and the people of former British Southern Cameroons, ultimately leading to present day hostilities “that has now left close to 800,000 people homeless and upended the lives of three million people” (Bone, 2021) with thousands of deaths. Historians have blamed today’s ongoing bloodshed and misery in Cameroon and elsewhere on the British manner of granting independence to its former colonies:

A remarkable feature of the collapse of the British Empire is that the British departed from almost every single one of their colonial territories invariably leaving behind a messy situation and an agenda of serious problems that in most cases still haunt those territories to this day. One such territory is the Southern British Cameroons. There, the British Government took the official view that the territory and its people were “expendable”. It opposed, for selfish economic reasons, sovereign statehood for the territory, in clear violation of the UN Charter and the norm of self-determination. It transferred the Southern Cameroons to a new colonial overlord and hurriedly left the territory. The British Government’s bad faith, duplicity, deception, wheeling and dealing, and betrayal of the people of the Southern Cameroons is incredible and defies good sense. (Anyangwe, n.d.)

How Can Reconciliation be Achieved?

As complicated and tragic as the situation is in Cameroon, such troublesome relationships are not unique to Cameroon. Other countries have experienced a similar fate. Hence, in order that there might be reconciliation between the people of former British Southern Cameroons and the Republic of Cameroon, examples of how countries surmounted their own challenges can be borrowed and adapted to the situation in Cameroon. One such example is that of South Africa. The idea of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission is often associated with South Africa because of the laudable job of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission founded at the end of apartheid in the 1990s. However, the one truth about South Africa that is not often highlighted enough, and which could be particularly useful in the context of Cameroon is one that took place long before there was ever a Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa. While still soaked in the menace of the apartheid regime, the South African National Congress, a political movement that fought fiercely to bring an end to white rule in South Africa, way back in June of 1955 drew up a Freedom Charter with its very first article declaring loud and clear that “South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black and white, and that no government can justly claim authority unless it is based on the will of all the people” (South African History Online, n.d.). With such a firmly articulated creed, along with other powerful stipulations of the Charter, the tone was set, and the way forward paved for what would become decades of struggle for a South Africa where all who live in it have a sense of belonging to it. In an attempt to bring about reconciliation in Cameroon, the idea that the territory of Cameroon in its entirety belongs to all who live in it can be a transforming idea. This would be the first truth to be recognized by each side. School children on both regions of the country would be taught this fact.

One would expect that after more than six decades of political wrangling, inherent mistrust, neglect, and economic exploitation, people of both sides are intrenched in their negative beliefs and resentful attitudes towards the other. This makes for an exceedingly difficult reconciliation process. Christopher Michell (2014) has however argued that “people do learn and change, especially if placed in an appropriate setting that encourages alteration” (p. 269). One such alteration, Michell proposes, is the use of ‘strategic and tactical reframing’ (p. 269). In the context of Cameroon, this technique would be incredibly useful because one of the major causes of the conflict in the country is the fact that the two sides do not agree on the history of the country. On one hand, most Francophone Cameroonians simply regard the whole territory as a LRC territory and disregard the bilingual[8] and dual nature of the country. They sometimes even refer to Anglophones as “Nigerians” insinuating that Anglophones are invaders of their territory. The history of how the two Cameroons came together is not even taught in schools among Francophones or if at all, it is highly diluted. On the other hand, the Anglophones, especially the educated ones are contemptuous towards the Francophones and regard them as oppressors. Such animosities do not allow for deep listening to take place.

Another example that Cameroon could borrow from to help with reconciliation work is the example of the training done in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. As a way of helping to break the intransigent mindset of the Israelis and bring them to understand the Palestinian perspective, researchers exposed Israeli high school students to both sides of the Northern Irish conflict. This exposure to a similar conflict but one removed from their own helped “increased their ability to take the Palestinian perspective” (Staub, 2014, p. 983). Such trainings have been used and worked well in the Rwanda situation where giving examples from other countries helped participants discover new ways of listening to the opponent with a disposition to truly comprehend them. Reconcilers in their efforts to achieve genuine reconciliation in Cameroon would do well to utilize such a method.  

If Cameroon has been living under boiling tension for so long, it is because of the false notion that glossing over the country’s history will keep conflict at bay. If the Greensboro’s example in the United States has any lesson to teach Cameroon, it is the lesson that “History matters. It matters whether we tell the truth about what happened centuries ago, and it matters whether we tell the truth about more recent history. It matters because if we can’t, we will never be able to face the present, guaranteeing that our future will be doomed” (Jovanovic, 2012). Only by speaking truth can the future of Cameroon as a nation be guaranteed.

In November 2019, the world and especially Anglophone Cameroonians were shocked to hear Paul Biya, the President of Cameroon for over 37 years (and in government for over 45 years) unwittingly and publicly admitted that there had indeed been decades-long attempts to “assimilate” Anglophone Cameroonians into LRC, but that this decades long attempt had been unsuccessful: “We tried assimilating [the Anglophone] system into the majority francophone system but because of identity differences, it failed” (Pan African Visions, 2019), Biya told this to Mohammed “Mo” Ibrahim, a Sudanese-British billionaire in an interview in France following the Second Paris Peace Summit in 2019. Though the admission was disconcerting, it was also ironically a relief to many in Anglophone Cameroonian because it was regarded as a revelation of the truth of what was long contended by the Anglophones. At this point in the history of Cameroon, what is needed after such divulgence is for the government of Cameroon to take necessary steps to look at the consequences of what such an assimilation policy has engendered in the Cameroonian society and to do something to remedy the situation (Jovanovic, 2012).

Though one could consider Biya’s unofficial admission of ill-will by LRC as an acknowledgement, it is not sufficient to bring about reconciliation. Reconciliation experts know that acknowledging the wrong done against the other is critical in the reconciliation process, but that has to be done through an “encounter” with the other:

People need opportunity and space to express to and with one another the trauma of loss and their grief at that loss, and the anger that accompanies the pain and the memory of injustices experienced. Acknowledgment is decisive in the reconciliation dynamic. It is one thing to know, it is yet a very different social phenomenon to acknowledge. Acknowledgment through hearing one another's stories validates experience and feelings and represents the first step toward restoration of the person and the relationship (Lederach, 1998, p. 27).

This “encounter” is one of the missing pieces in the puzzle in the ongoing conflict between LRC and the people of former British Southern Cameroons. The two sides must come together in a constructive dialogue where encounter can take place.

In the end, what matters are relationships between the people of former British Southern Cameroons and LRC. Lederach (1998, p. 24) has insisted on a “paradigm shift” from the traditional frame of reference which usually focus on resolving issues in a conflict; Lederach highlights a new frame of reference whereby the focus is “on the restoration and rebuilding of relationships.” Lederach (p. 26) believes that “relationship is the basis of both the conflict and its long term [sic] solution” in lingering conflict settings like the one between LRC and the people of former British Southern Cameroons. Acrimony between the two peoples can be scaled down greatly if both sides recognize that they are in a relationship and that the roughly 295424.72 square miles territory called Cameroon belongs to both and that they are there to stay.

Conclusion

I have briefly discussed the history of Cameroon and indicated that at the root of its present-day bloodshed is the haphazard manner with which the country was decolonized. I have asserted that although the situation is quite complicated and tough to deal with, reconciliation is possible especially if both sides are willing to recognize the truth that the land belongs to all who live in it notwithstanding the history and that seeking ways to mend relationships by listening to one another is the way to go. I recognize that truth is not the only element that is needed for reconciliation to take place between the two peoples; reconciliation in this context will not be an end state but a process. But it is not entirely up to the two peoples only to forge a way forward towards reconciliation; the international community that caused this mess in the first must play a positive role. Ultimately though, relationships (between the two people and with the outside world) are the basis for any future peaceable cohabitation between the people former British Southern Cameroons and the La République du Cameroun.

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Works Cited

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[1] For this paper, whenever “Cameroon” is spelt without any adjectives, I am referring to both English and French Cameroon (together) as a nation. Otherwise, the adjectives or change in spelling will determine what I am referring to.

[2]  This appellation comes from the fact that “Cameroon is climatically, agroecologically, topographically, culturally, linguistically, and ethnically an extremely diversified country of about 475,000 km2” (World Bank Public Information Center, 1997, p. 30).

[3] Cameroon is made up of Francophones and Anglophones; they were acculturated quite differently by their colonial masters (France and Britain). The two peoples live in physically separate geographic regions though they move freely and settle where they see fit within each other’s region.

[4] Napoleonic Code is also known as the civic code. The main difference between Common Law and the civic code is that “in common law countries, case law — in the form of published judicial opinions — is of primary importance, whereas in civil law systems, codified statutes predominate.

[5] The Germans named the territory “Kamerun” and it was much larger then than what is today known as the Republic of Cameroon.

[6] Although the French appellation “La République du Cameroun” (LRC) translates into English as “the Republic of Cameroon,” it should be noted that in this particular historical context, the two connotations do not carry the same meaning because LRC is the name given to the independent former French territory while “the Republic of Cameroon” is supposed to mean the combined independent former French territory and the independent former British Southern Cameroons.

[7] The plebiscite vote took place in February 1961 and they were given until the end of September that year to come up with the terms of union.

[8] In Cameroon more than 250 different languages are spoken, but per the constitution, English and French are the two official languages.

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