LANGUAGE & ANNEXATION : From Pierre Messmer to Paul Biya

President Paul Biya's declaration during his interview in Paris with the French Television channel, France 24, that "...at a time when we are witnessing the linguistic imperialism of certain languages, it is worthwhile to preserve a space where one speaks French," is another slap in the face of the English-speaking community of our nation.   It is an insult to the Commonwealth. President Biya, acting like a French colonial governor from the periphery, appeared desperate to please his French bosses.

President Biya's declaration however, underscores the pathological paranoia and insecurity that inspires the sad and senseless war France has been waging against the people of the former United Nations Trust Territory of the Southern Cameroons under United Kingdom Administration and her "Anglo-Saxon" heritage since 1961. This 2007 declaration echoes what a former French colonial governor of French Cameroun, Mr. Pierre Messmer, recollected regarding discussions leading to the formation of the stillborn federal state between French Cameroun (la République du Cameroun) and the Southern Cameroons in 1961.

In 1998, Messmer wrote in Les Blanc S'En Vont that the Foumban Conference of 1961 "was a sham, that safe for appearance was an annexation" of the Southern Cameroons. He recollected that in Foumban, Ahidjo "presented a fake federal constitution meticulously prepared by his French jurists," and the joke in Yaoundé and Douala at the time was that of a "re-united" Cameroon as a "bilingual francophone country."

President Biya's and Messmer's utterances betray an insidious policy, under French tutelage, aimed at the economic, cultural and social genocide of the people of the former United Nations Trust Territory of the Southern Cameroons under United Kingdom Administration. President Biya's declaration in France provides the nationalists of the Southern Cameroons the added incentive to multiply their initiatives toward self-determination and autonomy for the inhabitants of the former United Nations Trust Territory of the Southern Cameroons under United Kingdom Administration.

We call on politically conscious francophones in the civil society and media who oppose any form of colonial domination on the continent to vehemently condemn President Biya's declaration. The condemnation must include an acknowledgement of the annexed status of the Southern Cameroons and calls for its immediate reversal. We call on President Biya to retract this antagonistic statement directed against Africans of English language expression. We call on the Commonwealth to review the status of the Republic of Cameroun as a member of that body.

Finally, we call on the United Nations and other nations who abide by its Charter to begin serious discussions for the self-determination and autonomy for the inhabitants of the former United Nations Trust Territory of the Southern Cameroons under United Kingdom Administration. It is matter of the maintaining international law, peace and security.

© The Frontier Telegraph

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