French Cameroun colonial occupation and brutal oppression of Ambazonia is now close to sixty long years. That country is daily plundering and looting the resources of Ambazonia, violently imposing on the people, humiliating them, and terrorizing them.
The die was cast three years ago. We took one giant step to end our shameful status of a colonised people. Like all slaves, we revolted. The colonial oppressor then demonstrated its determination to exterminate us and steal our Homeland. It unleashed an unjust war on us. Since then we have been in the throes of an existential armed threat.
We are fighting for survival as a people. We are literally fighting with bear hands, apparently with no expertise in the art of war. But against all odds, we continue to resist the mighty onslaught of a well-resourced French Cameroun army backed by mercenaries and well-known foreign governments.
But we remain defiant and undaunted. We shall fight on for 100 years, if need be. We shall fight on until our Homeland is totally liberated. We shall fight on until we are free. We shall fight on until we unfetter the shameful shackles around our necks and feet, like those of slaves of old. We shall fight on until we defeat the enemy. We do not doubt success and final victory.
Let the world know and bear witness that we are fighting for the decolonisation of Ambazonia. That territory is historically and legally our Homeland. It has been oursfrom time immemorial. It belongs to us and to none other. Sovereignty over it lies with us, the people of Ambazonia. No other people can possibly assert a superior title to that land.
It is our right and duty to institute a government on that territory, laying itsfoundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to us seems most likely to secure our national interest, our safety, our welfare, and our happiness.No one, no country and no organisation should presume to do so for us or to deflect us from doing so.
In the past:
We allowed the UN to impose on us an unwarranted and choice-less plebiscite that took place on 11 February 1961;
We attended a purposeless and agenda-less charade in Foumban in July 1961;
We submitted to an annexationist document framed and adopted by French Cameroun on 1 September 1961 and dressed up as a so-called federal constitution whereas it was a mere framework for the cannibalisation of Ambazonia;
We submitted on 30th September 1961 to the British transfer of powers not to the Government of the Southern Cameroons as ought to have been the case but to a foreign country, namely, French Cameroun, resulting in the re-colonisation, rather than the decolonisation, of the Southern Cameroons;
We submitted on 1 October 1961 to occupation by French Cameroun forces and to rule by a French Cameroun pro-consul deceptively known as ‘federal inspector of administration’;
We allowed in 1962 French Cameroun to extend to Ambazonia its torture outfits and its draconian Subversion Ordinance that sanctioned the trial of our people by military tribunals for a number of ill-defined crimes and, in effect, made every Ambazonian a prisoner in the closed society imposed on us by French Cameroun, practically converting our space of existence into an open prison system;
We submitted in 1962 to French Cameroun imposition of its French colonial currency, its metric system, its system of driving on the right hand side of the road, and of the French language as the language of governance;
We allowed in 1966 French Cameroun to impose on us its one-party despotic rule;
We failed in 1972 to oppose the odious plot and historical swindle of a so-called referendum which purported to have given a veneer of suspect legality to the continuing cannibalisation of Ambazonia;
We failed in February 1984 to confront Biya when he purported to have completed the cannibalisation of Ambazonia by resurrecting extinct la République du Cameroun as a legal, territorial and political expression, while at the same time asserting an unsubstantiated territorial aggrandisement claim to the territory of Ambazonia;
We failed in 1990 and 1992 to reject the poisonous and conditioning fake ‘peace’ discourse of French Cameroun;
We failed in 1994 at the tripartite to reject and denounce French Cameroun’s continuing perfidy and efforts to get us to accept its brutal colonial rule and oppression;
We allowed ourselves in 2010 to be manipulated by French Cameroun’s deceptive and aggressive use of the term ‘reunification’ to think that the independence of French Cameroun involved us and that our Homeland is part of the territory of French Cameroun;
We allowed ourselves to be hoodwinked in 2016 to agree to ‘dialogue’ with the devil, a ‘dialogue’ which ended with the kidnapping and incarceration of our then leadership.
All this nonsense is now over. Never again shall we give ear to and act on anything other than what we, as a sovereign people, have decided. French Cameroun, like an invalid, has used Ambazonia as footstool for decades. It hasgot free lunch from Ambazonia for over five decades. It must now grow up, get rid of its mentality of an invalid, start living on its own, and begin to cater for itself.The era of Santa Claus is over.
On this auspicious occasion I pay tribute to the memory of our valorous soldiers who have gained honourable death in battle. I pay tribute to all those, including babies and the elderly, who have been cowardly murdered by enemy forces. I commiserate with all those who have been raped or maimed.I salute all our valiant people, our brave refugees and internally displaced persons. I salute our gallant and resourceful freedom fighters. We stand together until the end.
I salute our friends who continue to stand by us in various ways in this our hour of great tribulation, the darkest hour of our history as a people. Our life of sorrow will not last long. May our enemy be put to eternal shame! May our merciful Lord hasten the advent of our redemption!
Darkness tarries only for a while before dawn. The dawn of national liberation, the dawn of a free people, is about to break.
Long live the invincible people of Ambazonia! Long live Ambazonia!
By Prof Carlson Anyangwe