By Chief Charles A. Taku*
The persistent call by the Secretary-General of the United Nations and significant peace advocates, among them, Nobel Peace prize laureates for a cease-fire in the ongoing war of attrition and genocide in the Southern Cameroons, to allow peace efforts to be explored and access to victims in dire need of humanitarian assistance during the covic-19 pandemic has been ignored by the Government of Cameroun. What brazen insensitivity and impunity!
It is left to be seen how the international community will react to the impunity with which the rampaging hordes of assassins have been unleashed to perpetrate genocide, to loot, rape, pillage and swim in the blood of the innocent victims; women, children men of all ages. I have incessantly called on the civilized world to put an end to the carnage, genocide and impunity, lest the blood of the innocent blur the collective conscience of humanity, in our time, and on our watch.
The question is worth asking: What emboldens the masterminds of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes to disregard the calls for a ceasefire, to get to the negotiation table to address the root causes of the crisis without preconditions requested by the international community? And how come it that there has so far been no consequences for this blazon impunity?
The answer to these questions may among several reasons reside on the influence and impunity of reckless primitive capitalist accumulation in the war economy. Borrowing from the distinguished Professor Ekor Toyor, the international community needs to understand the essence, processes, contradictions, historical pressures and cultural emanations of primitive capitalist accumulation to understand the politics underpinning the politics and the impunity of the genocidal predators.
The Southern Cameroons case crystalizes around the interpretation of United Nations Resolution 1608 (XV). A British Minister in the Commonwealth and Foreign Office very recently made bold to anchor the case of his government on a flawed interpretation of Resolution 1608(XV) in a widely publicized letter to a Member of the House of Commons.
An enduring resolution of the Southern Cameroons/Ambazonia conflict, rests on the accurate interpretation of this UNGA Resolution and the consequences of non-compliance, the violations of the sacred trust embedded in the UN Charter and the sanctity of universal erga omnes obligations towards the people the Southern Cameroons.
If since October 1, 1961, the matter was as simply a a matter of the interpretation of the UNGA Resolution 1608 (XV) as the Hon Minister now purports, why then has Great Britain the Trust Administering Power, LRC , the colonising power or the UN not taken up the matter to obtain expert interpretation to ascertain if the intendment of the resolution and UN Charter obligations were respected and implemented? Why vacillate for over 59 years during which period genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes claiming the precious lives of over 13000 and the deportation of hundreds of thousands to Nigeria and many countries in West Africa has occurred with impunity; and for economic gain, and the corruption of the consciences and gratification of the economic interests of colonial and neo-colonial interests ? Why have they not activated the mechanism for the resolution of conflicts through the international rule of law enshrined in the UN Charter to interpret the Resolution; provide a comprehensive solution to the conflict, abate the genocide and crimes and hold the masterminds accountable pursuant to founding objectives for which the UN was founded?
I cannot at this point in time conclude that the UN will do nothing or will act in a manner that will encourage tacitly endorse or encourage the ongoing genocide and impunity. The UN internal mechanisms have been activated and the competent organs are constantly briefed while some of its personnel and ancillary organs are engaged; each at its own pace, although the intensity of the carnage warrants an urgent and robust intervention.
However, the impunity and reluctance of LRC to hasten to respect the call of the civilized world to abate the slaughter and impunity has been aggravated by the devastation of the covid-19 pandemic. The benefits to its war economy has demotivated Cameroun from respecting the request for a ceasefire and calling its forces back to barracks to allow humanitarian and healthcare assistance to war victims in the forests and bushes of the Southern Cameroons. Cameroun and its colonial master have benefited from the spoils of annexation and colonisation of the Southern Cameroons since the night of September 30, 1961 and finds it hard to disengage from a territory and people it has exploited for almost six decades with impunity.
Fon Gorgi Dinka termed the deal which led to the annexation and colonisation of the Southern Cameroons the Mc McLeod slave deal. By this deal, Her Majesty’s Government in the night of September 30, 1961 folded the Union Jack and handed over the instruments of sovereignty over the Southern Cameroons to a war criminal Ahmadou Ahidjo . At the time, he was intensifying the slaughter of nationalists in his own country, LRC. Britain knew that the war criminal would slaughter, jail and plunder the Southern Cameroons in enforcing the slave deal; as indeed he did, and his successor has intensified with sadistic impunity.
Ambazonia however kept the international legality of surrounding its fate and date with history, on October 1, 196. On October 1, 1961, it was its elected government that was in place and all symbols of state and UNGA Resolution 1608(XV) have survived the thievery for posterity to plead and defend its case and sovereignty until the last man standing. The impunity and complicity in the Alibaba booty was explained by Ahmadou Ahidjo in a speech to the National Assembly of LRC on August 11, 1961. He discounted the usefulness of signifying a treaty of union with the Southern Cameroons after it attained independence on October 1, because for him, the Southern Cameroons was merely returning to LRC’s motherland. He intended to adjust LRCs constitution of 4th March 1960 to accommodate its territory to the LRC motherland. It is this arrogance of impunity and the fulfilment of the criminal qui pro quo that took place at the Tiko Airport in the night of September 30, 1961 that led this criminal mastermind to make the fundamental mistake of believing that through terror of impunity he would annex and colonise the Southern Cameroons with no consequences. History has proved that he was wrong and will always be wrong.
There concealment of the spoils of the slave deal were wrapped in deception and shameful lies. The British argued that the Southern Cameroons was poor and could not survive economically on its own. This shameful status-evaluation was false. History has proved that the British and the French knew about the extensive mineral and natural resources potential of the Southern Cameroons. The British managed the CDC, PAMOL, exploited the Southern Cameroons Maritime Economy. Britain exploited the strategic and regional security potential of the Southern Cameroons. The Southern Cameroons had significant hydro-electric potential, Sea Ports and Airports.
Lately a British Firm signed an oil exploitation deal in the territory at the heart of the genocide to help LRC in its genocidal war efforts. An official British Government statement announced and praised the deal. An attempt by LRC to auction extensive forest and agrarian ancestral lands covering almost half of the territory of the Southern Zone of Ambazonia with the complicity of puppet chiefs and fringe power elites was strongly resisted by the people. The internationalisation of the protest forced the land grabbers to withdraw but the land grabbing crusade of the invaders remains unabated.
The peaceful resistance, resilience and gallantry in the fight against the plunder led to the declaration of a vicious war against the armless civilian population by President Paul Biya of LRC. This led to the ongoing slaughter and genocide; the prosecution of which has led to the exponential increase of the benefit derived from its the war economy.
The bourgeoisie class of colonial puppets to whom power was handed over in LRC after the slaughter of pro-independence nationalists in that country, sustained colonial power overseers over French colonial vassal and neo-colonial war economy. To sustain the war economy and exact maximum benefits, through systemic terror, asphyxiation of the so-called power elite, supposed academic and faculty opportunists, mystical initiations, systemic corruption, masturbation of the intellect etc, allegiances are compelled and human consciences subdued. Houses of worship and clerics are freely rented to perform rituals and praise worshipping to glorify not the living God but the god of their pecuniary desires.
The spoils of the war economy recruited some clergy on the side of those who are baying for and wasting the precious lives of people whom God created in his image and for whom these supposed anointed ones were commissioned to lead in their salvific sojourn towards the Kingdom of God. I am consoled by the fact that the Church of God is holy. It must not be abused and conflated with cursed Alibaba caves of earthly treasure that some are showcasing in the context of the war economy. Christians and persons of faith in the Lord must therefore, intensify prayers and leave Alibaba treasure seekers to play their acquired roles in the circus of earthly power and primitive capitalist accumulation.
The apparent senselessness and futility of the unwinnable war and genocide in the Southern Cameroons by LRC would reasonably have led to a withdrawal of its troops from the territory to the barracks and sought a negotiated settlement. The history of armed conflicts in Africa requires a respectable decision to stop the genocide, the carnage, looting, rape and indignities to victims. The war in Sierra Leone went on for 10 years, ending in the Lomé Peace Accord. A combined force of the Sierra Leone Army, ECOMOG, UNAMSIL, Executive Outcomes mercenaries brought by the Government of Sierra Leone did not defeat the Revolutionary United Front for Sierra Leone in the battlefield. Cameroun cannot win this senseless war of choice in the battlefield. It must end in an international negotiation table where internationally recognized experts, will examine the root causes of the conflict without pre-conditions has an overwhelming majority of international opinion has stated.
This reality is not lost on Cameroun’s leaders, its civilian and military commanders but the gain derived from the war economy is driving their urge to continue the war, regardless of the consequences and loss of human life. This is what is driving the impunity and urge to continue a losing war with the magnitude of the genocide, crimes against humanity and the ferocity of the war crimes.
This war is also about a policy of slaughtering civilians to sustain annexation, cultural genocide also called national integration which President Paul Biya confessed in France early this year has failed. The founding underpinning of the war is economic which was the basis of the annexation and colonisation in the first place. Inspired by this ideological orientation and motivation, the war is a cash cow for the enrichment of a colonial bourgeoisie puppetry at the evening of its life; but intent to drawn in the blood of Southern Cameroonians and sink with its natural resources and subsistence economy. These are the dire consequences of the war economy, impunity and the crisis of primitive accumulation.
There are two important obstacles standing between the Southern Cameroons and the unimpeded prosecution of this policy: Resistance, spiritual purity, the strength and the justice of its case around UNGA Resolution 1608 (XV) as well as the fact that the price of impunity will be fully paid now or at some point in time. In this regard, every pin of blood unjustly taken away will be accounted for and every victim, dead or alive will cry for and obtain justice.
*Chief Charles Taku is an International Lawyer and former President of the International Criminal Court Bar Association- ICCBA
