Southern Cameroons Youth League (SCYL) president and human rights activist Ebenezer Akwanga
caused a diplomatic furore recently when he appeared in a photograph
proudly displaying a copy of a Southern Cameroons (SC) passport.
Most SC activists welcomed the gesture as another front in the fight
for the independence of English speaking Cameroon but critics were quick
to point out the passport was baseless because it could not be used for
any kind of travel.
Security forces in Cameroon are now on high alert on a look out for
any kind of trouble from the SCYL and other affiliated organizations it
regards as secessionists movements that might want to use the passport
issue to cause problems.
Francis Ngwa has been speaking to Ebenezer Akwanga
now living in exile in the USA after escaping from a 20 year jail term
from the Kondengui maximum security prison for his SC activism
Excerpts.
Q Before we begin, we just learnt SCNC chairman Chief Ottu Ayamba has died. Any comments?
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| Ebenezer Akwanga |
A- Let me first extend to Prince Lawrence Ayamba and the entire Ayamba
household the deepest condolence from GoSC, the SCYL Family and my own
family for the passing away of Southern Cameroons Chief Ette Otun Ayamba.
He stood for a good and just fight and would be remember for this. For
the purpose of this interview the President would be okay.
Q The talking point in Cameroon is a new passport for Southern
Cameroons that has been seen across Cameroon and various news
organizations have carried the story. What is the passport all about?
A-According to a GoSC press release issued on June 10 from Washington,
DC, “The creation and institutionalization of distinct symbols of
statehood entrenches and solidifies the concept of nationhood borne out
of a common history and common territorial space. While the physical
occupation of the Southern Cameroons still remains a sad reality, a
sense of difference and distinctiveness is constantly being strengthened
by the Southern Cameroons flag, anthem and the map.
So, while the Southern Cameroons passport adds to other statehood
paraphernalia, it indicates a radical departure from a past
characterized by group membership and allegiance to Movement ideology.
The Southern Cameroons passport shifts membership from different groups
to citizens of the State. It also challenges the constructed identity
imposed on our people and imbues a sense of pride and hope in a people
robbed of their identity, their homeland and their values. It is a solid
physical evidence of who we are as a people and galvanizes the inner
feeling of anyone who owns a copy to rededicate themselves to the call
in the Liberation Oath: “Southern Cameroons Must Win This ‘War’!…’I Will
Fight; I Will Endure; I Will Sacrifice and Do My Utmost As If The Issue
of the Whole Struggle Depended on Me Alone”. “So Help Me God!”
Q. How many passports do you personally have?
A-I am the owner of two national passports – the passport of the United
States of America and the passport of the Republic of Southern
Cameroons.
Q. I understand you don’t have a Cameroonian passport though you
were born and bred in Cameroon. Is that one of the reasons you have
decided to produce a passport for Southern Cameroons?
A-The refusal by the annexationist regime of La Republique du Cameroun
to issue me a copy of their little green book in 1995 which ruined my
study of divinity in South Africa’s University of Witwatersrand became
more than a blessing in disguise. By their action, they were not only
telling me that you are not ‘one of us’ which of course is true but that
I am a citizen of the country they have dehumanized for decades. The
Southern Cameroons passport is however not an answer to my personal
ordeals with LRC but a radical reawakening of our revolutionary
nationalism which would settle for nothing except total independence.
Q Southern Cameroons legally does not exist. It is not a UN
recognized nation. How come you are producing a passport nobody or state
authority will recognize?
A-Our fate is in our hands! Who we are has nothing to do with UN
recognition. Let us be realistic and stop this tingling game with a road
to nowhere. Look around history and you find visible reasons not to
pose such a question again. And by the way, if the flag and anthem were
securely locked up somewhere in a shelf, you of course wouldn’t have
been aware of it. The fact that it is brought up for discussion means,
they are visible, tangible and public symbols that are taken seriously.
On another note, the flag and the anthem were not invented in the
Diaspora. They have simply been made more prominent by Diasporas’ using
the social media with its outreach. In real terms there is a country
call Southern Cameroons. This country is simply under physical
occupation by LRC. The act of occupation does not in any way extinct
statehood especially when there is public opposition and resistance
against that occupation. History presents itself as a good template for
us to view events. And the history of occupation has been such that very
few occupiers have successfully maintained occupation without the
consent of the occupied. Colonialism has been the most acute form of
occupation. At a time when movement and opportunities for the colonized
was strictly determined by the colonial authorities, resistance against
colonialism prevailed. Since the All Anglophone Conference (AAC) of 1993
and 1994, the level of consciousness and awareness of our plight and
the vestiges of the occupation has been on the rise. The single story
narrative of ONE CAMEROUN which has been forced and peddled by Yaoundé
has been challenged in courts of law, academic writings and the street.
The Southern Cameroons quest for statehood is no longer a taboo subject
and most importantly our fate as a people does no longer depend solely
on how Yaoundé acts or think. The passport only makes this case more
visible and concretizes in a small but significant way both the concepts
of nationhood and statehood.
Q Why a Southern Cameroons passport now and what point are you trying to make?
A-Is there a fixed time in history for a people to re-escalate their
identity of oneness? Or do we need permission from somewhere to take a
dramatic shift in our pursuit for external self-determination.
Q. How many people own a Southern Cameroons passport now?
A-About fifty as of today
Q. Lastly, where do we go from here after the release of a S C passport?
A-This question has been asked every time that there is a shift in our
struggle and the responses have been more flamboyant than realistic. The
annexationist regime has been at war with our people for decades. And
in this war, we have made substantive progress, won and lost some
battles. So, to you and to all the people of goodwill out there, it is
necessary for me to say that anyone waiting for the United Nations or
the African Union to intervene in our struggle in any form whatsoever
based on our aspirations is dreaming a dream they would never woke up to
its realization. It is regrettable to say that the only reason Ukraine
has become a focal point in East-West relations is because blood has
been flowing on the streets; and the people of Taiwan and Kosovo or the
Palestinian Authority did not walk their way to their present status by
simply talking, organizing meetings and conferences in and out of their
homelands or participating in numerous forums online. They did this
through blood and iron and this is certainly where we have to go from
here. However prepared I am for this sacrifice, I can certainly do it
only if each one of you out there, keep away their cloth of
group-thinking, wear the cap of true radical nationalism and throw your
support behind me. You might not like the man Akwanga, but now is not
the time to put your fate and those of millions of others in those you
like – instead you must now commit yourself entirely to your people and
country, and to one person you know deep in your hearts that you can
trust at this critical juncture of our struggle to deliver the goods of
freedom.
Courtesy:www.irokoheritage.com
