Bordercamp 2000

Mountain Mourners

The Southern Cameroons problems

The Southern Cameroons is located on the West African coast what is today known as French Equatorial Africa. After the defeat of the Germans during the second world war, Britain became the administering authority of the Southern Cameroons for 46 years. Today it has a population of about 4.5 million inhabitants with a land surface area of about 43000 sq.KMs. The region is self sufficient with food and has a good number of natural resources such as crude oil and gas, palm oil and kernels, timber, rubber, cocoa, coffee, tea, bauxite, uranium, gold, calcium, bananas and a lot of fish from its territorial waters. This region today still attracts the eyes of greedy nations. Its problems fall within the domains of political, social, economical and cultural instigated by greedy nations particularly La Republique du Cameroun who to present day is the dictoria and anarchical administering authority over the Southern Cameroons.

POLITICAL:
Politically The Southern Cameroonian feels marginalized because: If a Southern Cameroonian is in Government he/she has either been bought over or occupies a post without any portfolio. They have no say in the decision making of the Country(Cameroon).

SOCIAL:
Social wise, La Republique du Cameroun has taken upon itself to perpetuate wanton harrassements,indiscriminate killings,tortures, unwanted arrests and imprisonment without trial. There is no freedom of movement and speech in any form particularly those politically inclined. There is constant arrest of Journalists which leads to the outflow of a majority of them especially of the English speaking. At the end of it all, The Southern Cameroonians are treated as refugees in their own Country. In effect, there is total violation of the rights of The Southern Cameroonians. They are rated as second class citizens. Access to professional schools is highly tribalistic. Either you bribe your way out or you are outrightly refused the chance. Despite the claim that the country has two official languages (i.e. French and English), the French language is dorminant in all aspects of life. For instance, political activists are tried in the Military tribunal in French irrespective of their linguistic background. So it means nothing to the administration whether the culprit understands the language (French) before the sentence. Through suspicion, people are incriminated with inexistent crimes. Some of the supporters of the present regime are being promoted to influencial positions if they happen to track down any of the political activists who stand as a stumbling block to the present tyranic regime.

ECONOMICAL:
Economically, the Government exploits the Southern Cameroon region because of its rich natural resources and fails to develop this region. If the Southern Cameroonians can boast of a road, it should only be the feeder roads. ie roads that lead to the resourceful areas only. These roads are poorly constructed and do not last for long if at all constructed. Unfortunately, these extracted resources are exported to repay borrowed money. In cases where this money is paid, a certain percentage is embezzled and stored in foreign Banks. In this case, we only see the resources being depleated and no money circulating to booster the economy of the country in question. The environment degrades in another way. For instance, timber is only extracted and not replaced and more often than not crude methods are being used in felling the trees, thus destroying the young ones. Most of the companies in the Southern Cameroons have been closed down such as the National Produce Marketing Board, Powercam, Cameroon Bank, etc and the few existing companies are manned by people who easily transfer the revenues to the coffers of La Republique du Cameroun thus depriving the Southern Cameroons from self aggrandisement. The Victoria (Limbe) seaport and the Bamenda Airport remain unoperational and undevelopped simply because they are found in the Anglophone zone.

CULTURAL:
Cameroon is a multi-cultural country with more than 250+ Languages but looking at the culture in this case, we are talking about the two official languages ie English and French. The Southern Cameroonians have an Anglosaxon culture and La Republique du Cameroun is doing every thing to merge this English culture with the French culture which is total assimilation. There are threats to further divide the two Anglophone provinces. The intention being to add part of the South West Province to the Francophone littoral and part of the North West Province to the Francophone Western Province. This will eventually lead to a complete wipe out of the anglo saxon culture. A culmination of the above mentioned problems have led to serious preasure from the Southern Cameroons National Council (SCNC), the Southern Cameroon National Youth League (SCNYL), the Mountain Mourners, the Southern Cameroons Peoples´ Conference in North America (SCPC-NA) and other preasure groupes are bound to right out the wrongs of the tyrannic regime. A good number of people have been arrested even justice Ebong Frederick Alobwede the acting chairman of the SCNC for proclaiming the independence of the Southern Cameroons on the 30th of Dec. 1999. With others in the Maximum security Prison, they undergo serious torture, poor feeding, no medical care, no access to family members. All these inhuman treatment take place in a dark and airtight room of about 4 by 5 meters. The youths being the target of the Government because of their active participation towards achieving the independence of the Southern Camerooms, have taken upon themselves to keep the international cmmunity informed about the plight of the Southern Cameroonians and the liberation of its political prisoners. We, the members of the Mountain Mourners call the attention of the international community to mediate before things get offhand. The Mountain Mourners is open to invitation to unravel the plight of the people of the Southern Cameroons worldwide through theatre and music.