The Anglophone Crisis (), also known as the Ambazonia War, is an ongoing armed conflict in the English-speaking Northwest and Southwest regions of Cameroon, between the Cameroonian government and Ambazonian separatist groups, part of the long-standing Anglophone problem. Following the suppression of 2016–17 protests by Cameroonian authorities, separatists in the Anglophone regions (formerly collectively known as the Southern Cameroons) launched a guerrilla campaign and later proclaimed independence. Within two months, the government sent its army into the Anglophone regions..
Starting as a low-scale insurgency, the conflict spread to most parts of the Anglophone regions within a year. By the summer of 2019, the government controlled the major cities and parts of the countryside, while the Ambazonian nationalists held parts of the countryside and regularly appeared in the major cities. Separatists have occasionally carried out raids into the neighboring Francophone regions of Littoral and West. Thousands of people have been killed in the war, and more than half a million have been forced to flee their homes. The Cameroonian government was supported by the Buhari administration in Nigeria, while at least one Ambazonian group is allied to Biafran separatists.
Talks mediated by Switzerland in 2019 ultimately failed, and the Ambazonian leadership crisis has complicated any diplomatic process. Separatist leaders who were extradited from Nigeria in 2018 were in 2019 handed life sentences by a military tribunal. Facing mounting international pressure for a global ceasefire, in July 2020, Cameroon began negotiating with these imprisoned leaders. The talks were held between Sisiku Julius Ayuk Tabe and other imprisoned leaders and representatives of the Cameroonian government. The talks outlined a series of conditions for the Cameroonian government to accept, which Ayuk Tabe said would create an "enabling environment" for substantial negotiations to occur. These talks ultimately failed, and fighting continued.
Background
The name "Ambazonia" is taken from Ambas Bay and Ambozes, the local name of the mouth of the Wouri River. This is where the English language was permanently established for the first time in Southern Cameroons, when missionary Alfred Saker founded a settlement of freed slaves by Ambas Bay in 1858, which was later renamed Victoria (present-day Limbe). In 1884, the area became the British Ambas Bay Protectorate, with Victoria as its capital. Britain ceded the area to the German territory of Kamerun in 1887. Germany had some trouble establishing control over the hinterlands of Victoria, and fought the Bafut Wars against local fondoms until 1907.The Cameroon Tribune, No. 600, p. 2, 26 December 1996
Following World War I and the Treaty of Versailles, Kamerun was divided between a French and a British League of Nations Mandate. The French mandate was known as Cameroun, and comprised most of the former German territory. The British mandate was an elongated strip of land along the border of Colonial Nigeria, consisting of Northern Cameroons and Southern Cameroons, including the historical Ambas Bay Protectorate. This territory was organized as British Cameroons.Lee, Alexander, and Kenneth A. Schultz. Comparing British and French colonial legacies: A discontinuity analysis of Cameroon, p. 10 APSA 2011 Annual Meeting Paper. 2011.
The British administered the territories through indirect rule, allowing native authorities to administer the population according to their own traditions. In 1953, the Southern Cameroons delegation at a conference in London asked for a separate region. The British agreed, and Southern Cameroons became an autonomous region with its capital still at Buea. Elections were held in 1954 and the parliament met on 1 October 1954, with E. M. L. Endeley as Premier.DeLancey, Mark W., and Mark Dike DeLancey (2000): Historical Dictionary of the Republic of Cameroon (3rd ed.). Lanham, Maryland: The Scarecrow Press.
The United Nations organised a plebiscite in the region on 11 February 1961 which put two alternatives to the people: union with Nigeria or union with Cameroon. The third option, independence, was opposed by the British representative to the UN Trusteeship Council, Sir Andrew Cohen, and as a result was not listed. In the plebiscite, 60% of voters in the Northern Cameroons voted for union with Nigeria, while 70% of voters in the Southern Cameroons opted for union with Cameroon.Nohlen, D, Krennerich, M & Thibaut, B (1999) Elections in Africa: A data handbook, p177 The results owed partly to a fear of domination by much larger Nigeria.Amaazee, Victor Bong. The 'Igbo scare'in the British Cameroons, c. 1945–61. The Journal of African History 31.2 (1990): 281–293. Endeley was defeated in elections on 1 February 1959 by John Ngu Foncha.
Southern Cameroons federated with Cameroon on 1 October 1961 as "West Cameroon", with its own prime minister. However, the English-speaking peoples of the Southern Cameroons did not believe that they were fairly treated by the 80% majority French-speaking government of the country. Then-president Ahmadou Ahidjo feared that Southern Cameroons would secede from the union, taking its natural resources with it. Following a French Cameroon unilateral referendum on 20 May 1972, a new constitution was adopted in Cameroon which replaced the federal state with a unitary state, and also gave more power to the president. Southern Cameroons lost its autonomous status and became the Northwest Region and the Southwest Region of the Republic of Cameroon. Pro-independence groups claimed that this violated the constitution, as the majority of deputies from West Cameroon had not consented to legitimize the constitutional changes.Roger, Jules, and Sombaye Eyango. Inside the Virtual Ambazonia: Separatism, Hate Speech, Disinformation and Diaspora in the Cameroonian Anglophone Crisis, p. 28 (2018). They argued that Southern Cameroons had effectively been annexed by Cameroon.Anyangwe, Carlson. Betrayal of Too Trusting a People. The UN, the UK and the Trust Territory of the Southern Cameroons: The UN, the UK and the Trust Territory of the Southern Cameroons, pp. 108–111. African Books Collective, 2009. Shortly afterwards, French Cameroun's political leadership changed the constitution again, appointed French-speaking Paul Biya as Prime Minister and successor to Ahmadou Ahidjo.
In a memorandum dated 20 March 1985, Anglophone lawyer and President of the Cameroon Bar Association Fongum Gorji Dinka wrote that the Cameroonian government led by Paul Biya was unconstitutional and announced the former Southern Cameroons should become independent as the Republic of Ambazonia. Dinka was incarcerated the following January without trial.Nkwi; Nchoji, Paul (2015). The Anthropology of Africa: Challenges for the 21st Century (illustrated, reprint ed.), p. 478. Langaa RPCIG. . Three years later, he escaped to Nigeria.
In 1993, representatives of Anglophone groups convened the first All Anglophone Conference (AAC1) in Buea. The conference issued the "Buea Declaration", which called for constitutional amendments to restore the 1961 federation. This was followed by the second All Anglophone Conference (AAC2) in Bamenda in 1994. This conference issued the "Bamenda Declaration", which stated that if the federal state was not restored within a reasonable time, Southern Cameroons would declare its independence. The AAC was renamed the Southern Cameroons Peoples Conference (SCPC), and later the Southern Cameroons Peoples Organisation (SCAPO), with the Southern Cameroons National Council (SCNC) as the executive governing body. Younger activists formed the Southern Cameroons Youth League (SCYL) in Buea on 28 May 1995. The SCNC sent a delegation, led by John Foncha, to the United Nations, which was received on 1 June 1995 and presented a petition against the 'annexation' of the Southern Cameroons by French Cameroon. This was followed by a signature referendum the same year, which the organisers claim produced a 99% vote in favour of independence with 315,000 people voting.Southern Cameroons Peoples Organisation website
SCNC activities were routinely disrupted by police. On 23 March 1997, about ten people were killed in a raid on a gendarme camp in Bamenda. The police arrested between 200 and 300 people, mostly SCNC supporters, but also members of the Social Democratic Front, an opposition party with significant support in the Anglophone regions.March 1997 incidents in the north-west province CMR36066.E', Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, 31 January 2001. Accessed 10 May 2019. In the subsequent trials, Amnesty International and the SCNC found substantive evidence of admissions through torture and force. The raid and trial resulted in a shutdown of SCNC activities. In response to this, in April 1998 a small faction elected Esoka Ndoki Mukete, a high-ranking member of the Social Democratic Front, as the new chair of the SCNC. In October 1999, when many of the accused were found guilty in the 1997 trial, the faction led by Mukete became more assertive. On 1 October 1999, militants took over Radio Buea to proclaim the independence of Southern Cameroons, but failed to do so before security forces intervened.Elong, Eric Ebolo. Sovereignty in the Making: The Case of Anglophone Cameroon. 2, p. 24 The leadership and many members of the SCNC were subsequently arrested. After clashes with the police, the SCNC was officially declared illegal by the Cameroonian authorities in 2001.Secessionist minority Anglophone group silenced, The New Humanitarian, 19 February 2007. Accessed 27 October 2019. In 2006, a faction of SCNC once again declared the independence of Ambazonia.
Prelude
On 6 October 2016, the Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium, an organization consisting of lawyer and teacher trade unions in the Anglophone regions, initiated a strike. Led by Barrister Agbor Balla, Fontem Neba, and Tassang Wilfred, they were protesting against the appointment of Francophone judges in the Anglophone regions. They saw this as threatening the common law system in the Anglophone regions, as well as part of the general marginalization of Anglophones. The strikes were supported by peaceful protests in the cities of Bamenda, Buea and Limbe. The activists demanded protection of the law system of the Anglophone regions and opposed the civil law system used by the Francophone magistrate replacing the common law system. They asked for several laws to be translated into English, and that the common law system should be taught at the University of Buea and the University of Bamenda.
The Cameroonian government deployed security forces to crack down the protests. Protesters were attacked with tear gas, and protesters and lawyers were allegedly assaulted by soldiers. Throughout November 2016, thousands of teachers in the Anglophone regions joined the lawyers' strike. All schools in the Anglophone regions were shut down.
Two weeks into the protests, more than 100 protesters had been arrested, and six were reported dead. Unconfirmed videos released over social media showed various violent scenes, including the beating of protesters by policemen.
In January 2017, the Cameroonian government set up a committee to initiate a dialogue with the lawyer activists. The lawyers refused to talk, demanding that all arrested activists be released before any dialogue. The lawyers submitted a draft for a federal state, and the government responded by banning their movements altogether. The protesters were now openly regarded as a security threat by the Cameroonian government, and more arrests followed. The government also implemented an Internet blockade in cities across the Anglophone regions.