DAKAR,
Senegal — It has a sky-blue-and-white striped flag stamped with a dove
and a national
anthem that speaks of “the heroes who bore the land with their blood.”
anthem that speaks of “the heroes who bore the land with their blood.”
“Glory to the father for making you a nation, a joy forevermore,” the lyrics say. “Ambazonia, land of freedom.”
The
nation of Ambazonia doesn’t officially exist. But a violent battle over
attempts to create it in English-speaking areas of largely
French-speaking Cameroon is quickly escalating. Schools, homes and
villages in the Central African nation have been burned to the ground.
Travel between some towns has been blocked.
For
a year and a half, the Cameroonian military has been accused of beating
and arresting people suspected of being separatists, torching homes and
killing unarmed protesters.
For
their part, separatists have taken up arms and have also turned to
violence. They have been accused of burning markets, launching attacks
from civilian bases, beheading soldiers and kidnapping people they
suspect as traitors.
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Videos
purporting to show abuses on both sides have circulated on social
media, fanning already sky-high tensions. Propaganda and lies
proliferate. Both sides are using incendiary rhetoric: The military
calls the separatists “terrorists,” while the separatists— many part of
the Cameroonian diaspora — have accused the military of “genocide.”
“We
see the situation degenerating from a crisis to a conflict,” said Gaby
Ambo, executive director of the Finders Group Initiative, a human rights
group in Cameroon. “And if nothing is done soon, it will turn into a
civil war with grave consequences.”
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Anglophone
separatists have been fighting for recognition of Ambazonia — named
after Ambas Bay in southern Cameroon, an 1800s-era settlement for freed
slaves — for decades. But calls for secession have amplified
significantly in recent months.
So
far Cameroon’s government has refused to engage in meaningful dialogue
with separatists, largely because it flat-out rejects losing territory.
Anglophone regions contribute to the nation’s economy and include
important palm oil and other agricultural production.
“It
is not possible to sit around the table with groups who would like to
take the nation and cleave the nation,” said Issa Tchiroma Bakary,
Cameroon’s information minister.
“Secession,” he said, carefully emphasizing every word, “this shall never, ever take place.”
Cho Ayaba, commander in chief of Ambazonian Defense Forces, who delivers orders from his home abroad, is convinced a section of the United Nations Charter gives Ambazonia status as its own nation.
“We
are at a very, very dangerous crossroads,” Mr. Ayaba said. “The absence
of willingness on the part of Cameroon to negotiate itself out of its
occupation of Ambazonia and insistence on the utilization of
disproportionate force leaves the Ambazonian people with no other choice
than to defend themselves.”
English-speaking
citizens of Cameroon make up about a fifth of the population in two of
the nation’s 10 regions. Modern-day Cameroon is one of the most
geographically, ethnically and linguistically diverse countries on the
continent, so much so that it is known as “Little Africa.” But its two
official languages, French and English, come from colonization.
Many Anglophones have long felt ignored
by the French-speaking government, a sentiment dating to the post-World
War I era when the League of Nations appointed France and England as
joint trustees of what was then German Kamerun. The colonialists pushed
their own cultures, languages, and legal and educational systems on
their territories.
