Former SCNC Chairman, Ambassador Fossung
By Andrew Nsoseka
Former SCNC Chairman, Ambassador Henry Fossung has endorsed the IG’s Ikome Sako’s stand against the proposal that a referendum should be organised to decide the faith of the former Southern Cameroons. Like Ikome Sako, Ambassador Fossung says any proposals on how to resolve Anglophone Crisis and end the war, should be done on the negotiation table and not the other way round.
Henry Fossung prior to his activism and fight for an independent Southern Cameroons, served as Cameroon’s ambassador to the Central Africa Republic, Chad Republic, Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra Leone. He has also served numerous international committee conferences, including the UN Committee on Disarmament and law of the sea.
Ambassador Henry Fossung’s outing came after Ambazonia Interim Government’s President, Dr Ikome Sako’s media outing in which he stated that like in conquered Ukrainian territories and others facing similar problems and wars of occupation, organising a referendum in former Southern Cameroons will be out of place because they had enjoyed their independence before. Sako had argued that as a territory that had enjoyed autonomy, the Southern Cameroons should not be subjected again to another referendum to decide its future, especially at a time that it has been occupied with thousands killed and hundreds of thousands displaced across Cameroon, neighbouring Nigeria and others fleeing to other faraway countries to seek refuge.
Dr. Sako was speaking at an international press conference on May 8, 2023, to update the media on the state of the ongoing war of independence that has pitted pro-Anglophone Independence fighters, Amba fighters against Cameroon government forces since 2017.
In his outing, Ambassador Fossung said through the ICJ and the Green Tree Accord, the International Community has in a way, recognised the boundaries of the former Southern Cameroons, a territory they have now chosen to call Ambazonia. He said the ICJ kept the boundaries of Southern Cameroons intact, by the writing he made in 1994. He said this was further amplified by the Green Tree Agreement between Cameroon and Nigeria to the effect that the territory was in Southern Cameroons, and as such, cannot be occupied. “They know that we did achieve the basic objective of the Trusteeship system. We were a trusteeship territory, a child of the United Nations”.
According to Ambassador Fossung, there have been several tries to unite the republic of Cameroon and Southern Cameroons over the years. “People have tried to push us into the arms of la République du Cameroun with all fraud. They failed because la République has rejected us quite a good number of times. I think the war that they brought on us is one of those rejections and that makes a 5th rejection,” he said.
On the famous resolution 1608, he said it is a non-starter because Great Britain denied the Southern Cameroons a chance to participate because they feared the people would only accept and do for themselves, “what is right”.
He said the war is meant to subdue the people of the former Southern Cameroons after other options had failed. He quoted president Biya’s outing in which he declared to the effect that they tried to assimilate the English-speaking regions of Cameroon and failed. To the former Ambassador now a proponent of a free Southern Cameroons now called Ambazonia, the war is meant to achieve with brute force, what the various regimes in Cameroon had failed to achieve, using other options. He says he stands with Sako and other actors in the conflict who advocate for a negotiated solution and not a referendum to decide on the faith of the territory and end the unnecessary bloodletting.
