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| Southern Cameroonians protesting against marginalization and discrimination |
Bishops from Cameroon’s English-speaking regions have said a
new government commission to look at the rights of the country’s
English-speaking minority is not adequate to resolve what has come to be known
as “the Anglophone problem.”
The National Commission for the Promotion of Bilingualism
and Multi-culturalism was set up earlier in the year as part of government
measures to resolve the long-standing problem of perceived marginalization of
the minority Anglophones (who constitute 20% of the population) by the
francophone-dominated administration.
But the
bishops are saying the commission is simply fruitless.
“A
Commission on bilingualism and multi-culturalism cannot resolve the Anglophone
Problem,” said the Bishop of Kumbo and Vice President of the National Episcopal
Conference, Bishop George Nkuo.
“It should have been a commission on
Bilingualism and Bi-Culturalism,” he said, noting that such a commission would
help protect and preserve Cameroon’s bi-cultural heritage.
Cameroon’s
bilingual and bi-cultural status derived from its colonial heritage. Initially administered
as a German Protectorate in 1884, Cameroon would later be shared with France
and Britain as League of Nations Mandates after Germany was defeated in the
First World War.
The end
of the Second World War and the establishment of the United Nations saw the two
parts of Cameroon transition from mandated territories to UN Trust Territories.
In
1960, the northern part of Cameroon administered by France gained its
independence. The southern part administered by Britain as part of Nigeria was
in 1961 subject to a plebiscite in which they were offered independence by
reuniting with their francophone Cameroonian “brothers” or by remaining part of
Nigeria.
The
results showed an overwhelming desire by English-speaking Cameroonians to
reunite with the French-speaking part of Cameroon.
The “marriage” was guaranteed by a Federal Constitution that
was ostensibly meant to preserve and protect the minority Anglophones and their
colonial heritage. But in 1972 then-President AhmadouAhidjo organized a
referendum that dissolved the federation in favor of a united republic, thereby
removing the protections Anglophones enjoyed.
“That marked the start of the ‘Anglophone Problem’,” said
Professor VerkijikaFanso of the University of Yaoundé.
He said
the absence of protective guarantees meant that “the values that
English-speaking Cameroonians brought into the union were eroded.”
Fanso
said the minority Anglophones have seen their educational and legal systems
systematically chipped away by the Francophone majority.
This
has recently led to popular uprisings in the two English-speaking regions. The
uprisings were initially sparked by disgruntled lawyers and teachers protesting
the use of French in courts using the Anglo-Saxon common law tradition
(practiced in the English parts of the country) and in Anglophone schools, and
it soon boiled over to the general public, with many Anglophones calling for
outright secession.
Bishops
of the Ecclesiastical Province of Bamenda (their jurisdiction is mostly in the
English-speaking parts of Cameroon) have said the problem is a result of the
government’s inflexibility.
In a
strongly-worded letter addressed to the President of the Republic in December,
the Bamenda bishops said that the Anglophone Problem was a result of “the
failure of successive governments of Cameroon, since 1961, to respect and
implement the articles of the Constitution that uphold and safeguard what
British Southern Cameroons brought along to the Union in 1961.”
They
also condemned what they called “the deliberate and systematic erosion of the
West Cameroon cultural identity which the 1961 Constitution sought to preserve
and protect by providing for a bi-cultural federation.”
Resolving the Crisis
In
attempts to resolve the crisis, President Paul Biya has set up a Commission for
the Promotion of Bilingualism and Multiculturalism.
The
text creating the Commission states that the Commission shall “be responsible
for submitting reports and recommendations on issues relating to the protection
of bilingualism and multiculturalism to the President of the Republic and the
government, monitoring the implementation of constitutional provisions
establishing English and French as two official languages of equal status …,
preparing and submitting to the President of the Republic draft instruments on
bilingualism and multiculturalism and togetherness, receiving petitions against
discriminations arising from non-compliance with the constitutional provisions
on bilingualism, multiculturalism, and reporting … to the President of the
Republic.”
But the
Catholic bishops have dismissed the commission as a missed opportunity.
“Why
Common Law lawyers were striking is that their legal system was being eroded.
It is the same thing with teachers, who saw the Anglo-Saxon educational system
they inherited from Britain being eroded. So, the problem is not a problem of
multi-cultures, because Cameroonians in their cultural and linguistic diversity
have always lived together,” said Archbishop Cornelius FontemEsua of Bamenda.
In their December letter, the bishops said:
“Anglophone
Cameroonians are slowly being asphyxiated as every element of their culture is
systematically targeted
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