A coalition of Southern Cameroons activists dubbed Ambazonian Governing Council has petitioned President Biya “to grant them immediate independence, release all imprisoned activists with immediate effect and stop tormenting Ambazonians.”

The Ambazonians wrote to President Biya following a session at the Buea Magistrate Court on September 5, after which the activists from different walks of life held an enlarged meeting with 15 of their accused colleagues.

In the letter titled “The Ambazonian People’s Quest For Freedom” and signed by the leader of the Ambazonian Governing Council, Dr. Lucas Ayaba Cho, the activists vent out their grievances and demand for Southern Cameroons to be granted its independence from “La République du Cameroun”.

“Accept fraternal greetings from the people of Ambazonia, who are constantly subjected to torments by your government of Cameroun’s forces of repression and annexation over the Ambazonia people’s justified struggle to be freed from the captivity, subjugation and annexation by your country La République du Cameroun,” partly reads the letter.

Demands

For the sake of the maintenance of peace in the West and Central African sub-regions, according to the activists, over eight million compatriots of Ambazonia, living both in the Ambazonia and in the diaspora, through the instruments of the Ambazonia Governing Council, call upon Biya as the President of La République du Cameroun and its government, to do the following:

First, they quote from Proverbs “…do not move back the boundary of long ago and into the field of the fatherless do not enter, for their redeemer is strong, he himself will plead their case with you.” Secondly, release all activists in your prisons with immediate effect. And cease immediately from tormenting Ambazonians with arbitrary arrest and unlawful detention.

Thirdly, respect the provisions of the Green Tree Accord and that Biya should acknowledge that the occupation of Ambazonia was and still remains an act of aggression against a people.



Finally, the activists urge Biya to start a process that will immediately see to the “withdrawal of all Camerounese military personnel and administrators from Ambazonia to ensure the peaceful handover of the territory to the people to whom it rightly belongs.”

Harassment

The activists state that they are appalled at being constantly inundated by men in alien military regalia each time they stand up for their inalienable rights to be free and to enjoy their territorial integrity as a nation separate from Cameroun.

“The fact that at the independence of Cameroun on 1st January 1960, Ambazonia was not a part of Cameroun and perhaps the fact that that same independence caused Cameroun’s international boundaries to become fixed and inviolable, there is no possibility under International Law and jurisprudence that it could today become a part to it, especially in the absence of a treaty of union and also given that Ambazonia in itself became an independent state as at 1st October 1961, going by the votes cast to that effect by 50 nations who voted ‘YES’ OUT OF THE 53 nations present during the 4th Committee of the United Nation’s General Assembly; 15th Session, 21st April 1961. The fact that La République du Cameroun, during this event, vigorously campaigned to block it and upon failing to do so walked out, was quite telling of an illicit Agenda to annex the Ambazonia former British Southern Cameroons.

Today’s realities have proven the illegal occupation of The Ambazonia by your country La République du Cameroun,” says the letter.

The letter continues, “These are two nations with distinct political and territorial leanings whose status as such must be duly respected by all instruments of International Law as elaborated and conceded to by the rulings of the Bakassi Peace Accord which saw your Excellency signed in accordance to the following statement;

‘I President Paul Biya of the Republic of Cameroon, in a bid to provide lasting peace to the Bakassi conflict, do hereby commit myself and my government, to respect the territorial boundaries of my country as obtained at its Independence,’ an event surrounding which the International Court of Justice ordered both your country Cameroun and Nigeria to return to their respective boundaries as obtained at independence.

“The fact that sovereignty is an inalienable right of Ambazonia to enjoy her territorial integrity in an outstanding respect of international treaties of boundary delimitation was further impressed upon by the handing of two fully framed maps by the President of The United Nations Organisation’s General Assembly, to your person and government, which included the map of the British Southern Cameroons, AMBAZONIA, and that of La République du Cameroun as obtained at its independence.”

The Southern Cameroons activists further states that the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the independence of La République du Cameroun was eloquent attestation to the fact that the presence of Biya’s government in The Ambazonia is an illegality which cannot in itself birth and oversee legality within a territory that does not belong to it but which it occupies only by the use of brute force, intimidation and demeaning political manoeuvres.

They also state that it was equally a testimony to the fact that “the international community has joined its voice with the people of Ambazonia who have been deprived of their State by your government and country, in praying you in a diplomatic overture to withdraw to your own country East of the Mongo and let Ambazonia go free in a liberty of the restoration of her pre-1961 Statehood.”