División en tramos, en secciones y en unidades de muestra

A major Anglophone challenge to the Francophone-dominated state occurred in the wake of the Tripartite Conference convened by President Biya from 30

12 _{See ‘Anglophone Independence: SCNC Adopts UN Flag, Calls for Quebec-Style} referendum’, in The Herald, 6-8 May 1996.

13 _{Indeed, in June 1995, the national radio carried an announcement on the creation of} ‘une association des Francophones de culture Anglophone’. Everybody knows that there are only ten provinces in Cameroon. By adopting the name of ‘Eleventh Province’, these immigrants express their marginalisation, being recognised neither as Francophone nor as Anglophone citizens. For a discussion on the ‘eleventh province’ association, see Geschiere & Gugler 1998: 313-14; and Geschiere & Nyamnjoh 2000. For the relationship between Anglophone identity and autoch- thony, see Konings & Nyamnjoh 2000.

October to 18 November 1991 to try to solve the severe political and economic crisis caused by the radical opposition’s protracted ghost-town campaign (see above). The conference was attended by representatives of government, opposition parties and civil society. Although it was largely controlled by the government (Takougang & Krieger 1998; Eboussi Boulaga 1997a), the non- governmental representatives nevertheless succeeded in forcing constitutional reforms onto the agenda. During subsequent deliberations there was a clear divide between Anglophones and Francophones about the institutional configu- ration of a reformed state. Contrary to the majority of Francophone participants, who proposed some measure of decentralisation within a unitary state, Anglo- phone participants advocated the dismantling of the unitary state and the return to a federal state. The conference established a technical committee on constitutional matters consisting of seven Francophones and four Anglophones to determine the outlines of a new constitution. The committee was to be chaired by Professor Joseph Owona who at the time was secretary-general at the presidency and had an impressive track record of service in the unitary government.

The four Anglophone committee members belonged to different socio- political backgrounds. Mr Benjamin Itoe was then a minister and a CPDM militant; Dr Simon Munzu was a member of the CPDM (he later left the party to become secretary-general of the Buea-based LDA); Barrister Sam Ekontang Elad was an executive member of the LDA; and Dr Carlson Anyangwe had been nominated as an independent candidate even though it was soon to be revealed that he was a founding father of the SDF. The first three came from the South West Province, Carlson Anyangwe being the only North Westerner in the group. What united them was their Anglophoneness and their shared grievances about Francophone hegemony (which they could articulate both in French and English). They presented a draft proposal on a new federal structure that has come to be known as the EMIA Document (an acronym for Elad, Munzu, Itoe and Anyangwe). Itoe did not sign the document, ostensibly in a bid to keep his ministerial post, but it was not long, however, before he was sacked from the cabinet. The committee was suspended – without ever having met – on 14 February 1992 because of the upcoming parliamentary elections scheduled for March. However on 17 May 1993 its chairman, Professor Owona, presented a draft constitution to the Anglophone Prime Minister Simon Achidi Achu, which preserved the essential features of the unitary state, making no concession to the Anglophone members’ federalist demands.14

14 _{On that occasion, he claimed that the draft constitution had been drawn up by the} technical committee. See Le Messager, 8 June 1993, p. 5.

Shortly after the October 1992 presidential elections, President Biya announced that he intended to organise a national forum (un grand ou large débat) on constitutional reform. This announcement that was probably aimed at mitigating people’s anger over the controversial elections, especially in Anglo- phone Cameroon, was reiterated in his New Year message to the nation on 31 December 1992. It was not until 23 March 1993 that Professor Augustin Kontchou Kouomegni, the minister of state in charge of communications and also a government spokesman, informed the Cameroonian people that the national forum on constitutional reform would be held from April to June 1993. In response to this announcement, the Anglophone members of the technical committee convened an All Anglophone Conference (AAC) from 2-3 April 1993 in Buea, the former capital of the Southern Cameroons, ‘for the purpose of adopting a common Anglophone stand on constitutional reform and of examining several other matters relating to the welfare of ourselves, our posterity, our territory and the entire Cameroon nation’.15

The AAC turned out to be a landmark in the history of Anglophone Cameroon. It brought together over 5,000 members of the Anglophone elite and all the Anglophone associations and organisations were represented. CAM in particular played a leading role in the organisation of this conference. After two days of deliberations, the conference issued the Buea Declaration which stated that:

§ the imposition of the unitary state in Southern Cameroons in 1972 was unconstitutional, illegal, and a breach of faith;

§ the only redress adequate to right the wrongs done to Anglophone Cameroon and its people since the imposition of the unitary state was a return to the original form of government of the reunified Cameroon;

§ to this end, all Cameroonians of Anglophone heritage were committed to working for the restoration of a federal constitution and of a federal form of government which takes cognisance of the bicultural nature of Cameroon and under which citizens will be protected against such violations as have here above been enumerated; and

§ the survival of Cameroon in peace and harmony depended upon the attain- ment of this objective towards which all patriotic Cameroonians, Franco- phones as well as Anglophones, should relentlessly work.16

15 _{All Anglophone Conference (AAC) 1993: 8. For an interesting report on the} organisation and proceedings of this conference, see ‘The Untold Story of the All Anglophone Conference’ in Cameroon Life, Vol. 2, No. 8, May 1993, pp. 8-15. 16 _{All Anglophone Conference (AAC) 1993: 29-30.}

The Buea Declaration listed the multiple Anglophone grievances about Francophone domination. Like previous documents written by Anglophone pressure groups,17 _{it tended to blame the ‘wicked’ Francophones as a whole for}

the plight of the ‘poor’ Anglophones, and compared both in rather idealised terms: the former, in full solidarity, agree among themselves to oppress the latter who, by their very nature, are peace-loving, open to dialogue, and committed to freedom.18 _{Of course, this demagogic approach, which is}

commonplace in ethno-regional discourse, serves to emphasise the insurmount- able dichotomy that justifies the AAC call for autonomy and return to the federal state. This approach may be efficient in mobilising Anglophones but has hardly helped the struggle against their real enemy, the Francophone-dominated unitary state that has allies and opponents in all parts of the country. In addition, it tends towards a frozen and geographically restricted idea of being Anglo- phone, denies the existence of various ethnic links between Francophones and Anglophones, and creates serious obstacles to any Francophone sympathy for the Anglophone cause.19

Henceforth the AAC became the main Anglophone organisation and mouth- piece, responsible for the defence and representation of general Anglophone interests. All the existing and newly emerging Anglophone associations became auxiliary organisations of the AAC. Under the AAC umbrella they continued to carry out their own specific responsibilities. They were represented in the 65- member Anglophone Standing Committee created by the AAC. Being the most important auxiliary association, CAM was well represented in the Anglophone Standing Committee, thus exerting an enormous influence on AAC policies. The three convenors of the AAC occupied leading positions in the Anglophone Standing Committee: Elad was its chairman, Anyangwe its secretary-general, and Munzu was its spokesman.

17 _{See, for instance, Mukong 1990 and Free West Cameroon Movement, op. cit., 1991.} 18 _{See Louka (undated): 78-79; Sindjoun 1995: 93-94 and Fardon 1996: 93.}

19 _{See, for instance, the warning of Professor Maurice Kamto, an eminent Francophone} legal scholar, that ‘Anglophones should blame the Ahidjo and Biya regimes, not Francophones’, in Le Messager, 24 June 1993, p. 12. Indeed, because of such collective condemnation the French-language newspapers have been reluctant to admit the existence of an Anglophone problem in Cameroon. See, for example, La Nouvelle Expression, 13-17 January 1994, pp. 1-3 for the hostile reception experienced by Simon Munzu when trying to explain the Anglophone problem to Francophone journalists and intellectuals. It is only recently, thanks to the trivialisation of the whole idea of minorities in the 1996 constitution, that the Francophone press appears to be waking up to the concerns of the Anglophone minority. See La Nouvelle Expression. Dossiers et Documents, 23 May 1996, pp. 1- 28, devoted entirely to ‘Minorités, Autochtones, Allogènes et Démocratie’ in Cameroon.

One of the major tasks assigned to the Anglophone Standing Committee by the AAC was the drafting of a federal constitution as the Anglophone contribu- tion to the national forum on constitutional reform to be organised by the government. The draft constitution eventually produced by the Anglophone Standing Committee20 proposed a loose form of federation that was clearly

inspired by the recommendation of the 1961 Bamenda Conference (see Chapter 2). It displayed remarkable similarities with the United States federal system, including a federal house and senate, a presidential system, and procedures for impeachment, as well as with the 1994 Nigerian federal draft constitution, which accommodated several power-sharing devices such as a system of rotating presidency amongst the federal states and the development of criteria for the sharing of federal revenues (Olukoshi & Agbu 1996).

As to the structure of the federal state, the authors proposed two levels of federation: an external federation composed of the erstwhile federated states of East and West Cameroon, and an internal federation composed of the provinces within each of the two federated states. By introducing an internal federation, the authors hoped to solve, or at least to diminish, the persistent problems of inter-ethnic and inter-provincial conflicts over the unequal distribution of employment, social services and development projects. Undoubtedly, this proposal of internal federation served the specific purpose of allaying any South West fears of North West domination in a future federal system. The proposed federal system would accord a large measure of political, economic, financial and fiscal autonomy to the two federated states, the provinces within each of the two federated states, and even the municipalities within the provinces.

The authors further proposed a strict division of powers between the legisla- tive, executive and judiciary:

§ All legislative power was to be vested in the legislatures, which would be bicameral at all levels. The federal legislature would be composed of a senate and a national assembly; the legislature of each of the federated states would be composed of a House of Representatives and a House of Tradi- tional Chiefs; the legislature of each province would be composed of a Provincial Assembly and a Conference of Traditional Chiefs.

§ As for the executive branch, the authors opted for a presidential system at the federal level. This choice seems to have been made for the following reasons. In the specific Cameroonian context of marked ethnic and regional diversities a presidential system was more likely to forestall administrative chaos and political instability than any other form of government. Moreover,

20 _{See Avant-Projet de Constitution de la République Fédéral du Cameroun, Buea:} AAC Standing Committee, 1993. For a summary, see Konings 1999a: 311-16.

it would enable the party in power to assume full responsibility for its policies and actions. The president and vice-president were to be elected on a single list by direct universal suffrage. The federal draft constitution provided some guarantees that citizens of both federated states would have access to the highest executive office at the federal level. Like the 1961 federal constitution, the draft stipulated that the president and vice-president could not come from the same federated state but unlike the former, it proposed a rotational system. The office of president could not be held by the same person for more than two consecutive five-year terms and, more significantly, that person had to be succeeded by a citizen of the other federated state. A similar rotational system would also apply to the highest executive authorities at state and provincial levels. The highest executive authorities at the level of the federated states were to be the prime minister and vice-prime minister, also elected on a single list by direct universal suffrage. The prime minister of a state would be accountable to the state legislative assembly and, like the president of the federal republic, could be subject to removal from office for serious misconduct or incapacity of whatever nature. The highest authority at the provincial level would be the governor. While governors were formerly nominated by the head of state, the federal draft constitution proposed that they be elected by direct univer- sal suffrage for a maximum of two four-year terms.

§ For the judiciary, the draft constitution outlined a system of justice that closely resembled the one proposed in the 1961 federal constitution. The chief justice, presiding over the Federal Supreme Court, would head a justice system comprising a federal supreme court, the supreme courts of the federated states, the provincial appeal courts and other less-influential and customary courts created by law.

Finally, the federal draft constitution provided two ways of revising the constitution. Parliament could revise any part of the constitution provided that two-thirds of its members voted in favour. However, any proposal for amendments which might affect the unity or the federal or republican character of the state would require the verdict of the people in a referendum, and would be approved only if at least sixty per cent of the electorate of both federated states participated in the referendum and endorsed the amendment.

On 26 May 1993, the Anglophone Standing Committee submitted the federal draft constitution to the technical committee, which had been enlarged by a recent presidential decree from its original 11 members to 29 members but was still chaired by Professor Owona. The national forum on constitutional reform which had been given wide publicity by the government turned out to be nothing more than an opportunity offered to Cameroonian citizens to forward

any comments on the Owona draft constitution to the technical committee by mail, telephone or fax (Melone et al. 1996). Owona’s refusal to give an under- taking that the technical committee would examine and report on the Anglo- phone federal draft constitution, which he described as a copy of the Nigerian constitution, provoked Elad, Munzu and Anyangwe, the three convenors of the AAC, to suspend their participation on the committee. On 23 June 1993, Owona stated on television that the technical committee had not been able to examine the federal draft constitution due to the absence of the AAC convenors during the committee’s deliberations. The Anglophone Standing Committee then decided to publish the draft in English and French so as to inform the general public about the Anglophone problem and federalism.

Confronted with the government’s persistent refusal to discuss the AAC constitutional proposals, CAM, the most important and influential Anglophone association affiliated to the AAC, increasingly adopted to a more radical position. Having once been a major champion of a return to the federal state, it was becoming more and more inclined to advocate secession. CAM, supported by other Anglophone associations with a secessionist agenda such as the Free West Cameroon Movement (FWCM), then tried to convince the Anglophone Standing Committee to take a secessionist stand as well. This gave rise to regular conflicts within the Anglophone Standing Committee between moderates who continued to adhere to a federalist programme and strategy in spite of the government’s apparent unwillingness to enter into any meaningful negotiations on the one hand, and radicals who were striving for a secessionist programme and strategy, on the other. The moderates proved capable of controlling the Anglophone Standing Committee’s activities for some time. Given this situation, CAM officially declared itself in favour of ‘zero option’, i.e. total independence for the Southern Cameroons.21 _{However, it stressed its}

pursuit of Southern Cameroons’ independence through peaceful negotiation rather than through armed struggle. It thus remained faithful to the motto of the AAC: ‘the force of argument and not the argument of force’. On 9 February 1994, CAM’s National Executive unanimously agreed upon the Buea Peace Initiative (BPI), a blueprint for the peaceful and negotiated separation between the Southern Cameroons and La République du Cameroun, which was to be discussed at the next AAC Conference (AAC II). Interestingly, the BPI was inspired by the Czechoslovak experience: Czechoslovak leaders agreed on 20 June 1992 to amicably dissolve their federation into two separate and independ- ent states and to engage in negotiations about any possible future cooperation. The BPI presented the following proposals:

21 _{Cameroon Post, 1-8 December 1993, pp. 7-10; and Cameroon Life, Vol. 2, No. 10,} October 1993, pp. 10-16.

§ that the Southern Cameroons and La République du Camerounshould agree to a formal separation into two independent states;

§ that the territory of Southern Cameroons should reactivate its independence in the same way as La République du Cameroun had done in 1984, and sever all political and constitutional links with La République du Cameroun; § that the two entities should negotiate economic and political protocols in the

following areas:

o the exploitation of oil fields located in the territory of Southern Cameroons and the sharing of revenues therefrom in a just, fair and equitable manner,

o the joint ownership of the oil refinery at Victoria (Limbe) in the Southern Cameroons,

o the joint use of the electricity generated at Edea in La République du Cameroun,

o the joint ownership and management of Cameroon Airlines and joint access to the international airport at Douala in La République du Cameroun,

o a formula for sharing the external debt of Cameroon in a just, fair and equitable manner,

o the sharing of moveable assets belonging to the armed forces in a just, fair and equitable manner,

o the sharing of assets in foreign diplomatic missions,

o a timetable for the withdrawal of the civil servants of Southern Camer- oons origin from the territory of La République du Cameroun, and

o a timetable for the introduction of a separate currency in Southern Cameroons.

§ that the armed forces of La République du Cameroun should be withdrawn from the Southern Cameroons and that Southern Cameroonians serving in the armed forces of La République du Cameroun should be repatriated; § that all Southern Cameroonians jailed by La République du Cameroun for

political reasons should be released; and

§ that the government of La République du Cameroun should renounce the use of force, violence, torture and imprisonment of Southern Cameroonians to