THE ROLE THAT WESTERN NATIONS MUST PLAY IN RESOLVING THE CAMEROON CONFLICT

BY ALEXIS TIMKO

Day after day, as the sun sets on the horizons of the northwest and southwest regions of Cameroon, anglophone Cameroonians fear for what the next day may bring.

Students will expect that their schools will once again be closed, as they have been for nearly three years; mothers will fear that their sons and husbands may be gunned down by the military; activists who demand to be heard will fear capture, sexual abuse, and torture.

Some English-speaking lawyers and teachers organized peaceful protests to speak out while some other English speakers formed a radical secessionist group called the Ambazonians who seek a two-state solution. It is a situation that demands publicity and response, but it has been met with closed doors.

In a population of about 28 million, there are a reported 4 million Cameroonians in need of humanitarian assistance, nearly 1 million internally displaced, and over 400,000 refugees.

For decades, those living in these regions have faced persecution and repression based on their use of the English language in a predominantly French-speaking country. After more than four years of ongoing violence, the future remains bleak as deaths and disappearances continue to be commonplace.

On New Year’s Day 2021, the United States became the first member nation of the UN Security Council to address the conflict with Senate Resolution 684, condemning the violence against the anglophone northwest and southwest regions of Cameroon. This set an important precedent for the international community, encouraging its state counterparts to do the same.

Shortly after this, Lord Alton of Liverpool raised the issue in Britain’s Parliament, acknowledging the pressure applied on the UK as a former colonial power in the northwest and southwest regions of Cameroon.

The European states’ centuries-old control over what is now Cameroon may have instigated this conflict in the first place.

“The UK must apply targeted smart sanctions against armed individuals implicated in human rights abuses in this devastating conflict. It is no longer possible for Britain to maintain a detached position while millions of Africans who cherish their English legal and school systems, and the English language, are asking for our moral support,” Alton said.

Yet, despite being a topic of conversation in two highly influential governments, the issue remains largely unresolved, according to several speakers at an Oxford University Conference on February 17.

Dr. Roxana Willis, principal investigator of the Cameroon Conflict Research Group at Oxford Law, is one of several scholars specializing in atrocity crimes who are calling for increased global attention and action in response to the situation between the francophone government’s president of 40 years, Paul Biya, and the country’s anglophone citizens. Willis admitted that some of her colleagues believe that the state of Cameroon needs to await a natural solution: the eventual death of President Biya. Willis, however, believes a solution in which Western nations play a more active role is the needed timely option.

Lord Paul Boateng, a British Labour Party politician and the UK’s first Black cabinet minister, agreed that a more active solution to the conflict must be discussed and that the U.S. Senate’s resolution was the starting point. To Boateng, the refusal to even discuss potential solutions and Western intervention speaks volumes about what other nations are willing to turn a blind eye to.

“We need to see ourselves and our institutions as part of the solution,” Boateng said. “And if we don’t, sisters and brothers, we become part of the problem.” He worries that ignorance about the issue may have already gone too far—a conventional wisdom that there is nothing Western states can do and that African countries must resolve the matter.

It seems that the European states’ centuries-old control over what is now Cameroon may have instigated this conflict in the first place. France and England once dominated the region and when the French territories declared themselves a new nation, it set the stage for a bilingual future.

Because of its French foundations, the government is largely francophone, leaving many anglophones feeling unrepresented and marginalized. And as France, Germany, and the UK governments continue to turn a blind eye, the imminent threat to human life in anglophone Cameroon persists.

“We cannot escape that the colonial powers have a duty—mostly because they started the problem—to be a part of the solution,” Boateng said. “The permanent members of the Security Council have a specific responsibility and the UN machinery has a part to bear in the solution.”

The global community needs to acknowledge the severity of the situation in Cameroon so that an effective intervention policy may be designed.

Though the Cameroonian government is heavily backed by powerful states, such as its neighbor Nigeria, some do not think that is a valid excuse for other nations to continue allowing the violence to happen.

Two years ago, Switzerland attempted to serve as a mediator between President Biya and Ambazonians leaders, said Dr. Christoph Hoffmann, a German politician of the Free Democratic Party and a professor at the University of Lucerne. However, this effort proved ineffective and was quickly abandoned.

According to Hoffman, international actors have seen this conflict as being within a country, rather than between two countries, which may be the reason why there has been no direct international intervention. Hoffman has advised freezing the actions and proposals of Cameroonian representatives within the UN to call more attention to the issue if the Security Council refuses to directly intervene.

Although numerous actions have been proposed, the general sentiment among most human rights activists and scholars is that the global community needs to acknowledge the severity of the situation in Cameroon so that an effective intervention policy may be designed.

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Alexis Timko is a junior at the University of Southern California majoring in Journalism and Law, History, Culture. She currently serves as an editor and reporter at USC Annenberg Media and as an intern for the International Human Rights Clinic at USC Gould School of Law. She is participating in a foreign affairs reporting class taught by Professor Philip Seib, a collaboration between the Pacific Council and the Annenberg School of Communication and Journalism.

The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Pacific Council.