A Reply to Dr. Susunji’s RE-UNIFICATION: CLARIFICATION NOTE

Louis Egbe Mbua

I was interested in Hon Chief Ayah’s internet-circulated posting, 29 June 2012, which clearly stated that there is no legally binding document deposited at the UN, as required by international law enshrined in the UN Charter that created the so-called Union between the Southern Cameroons and La Republique du Cameroun. Hon. Ayah was correct. However, it seems Dr. Susunji, in his own rebuttal article equally published yesterday, 29 June 2012,  in various Cameroon internet fora is stating that Hon Paul Ayah’s is misleading and that there is or was a kind of legally binding agreement. This is incorrect as the following analysis and argument will reveal in this essay.

 
In the first place, if there was any “Treaty”, then that Treaty has been violated since Ahidjo abrogated the Treaty in 1972 by violating the Federal constitution that brought to birth the de facto Federation in 1961.  The Federal Constitution which came to force in September 1961 could not possibly be classified as a Treaty since the only signatory in the document was President Ahdijo of the Cameroun Republic who single-handedly signed it in September 1961. Southern Cameroons was still a UN Trust Territory at the time; and that the British Commissioner of Southern Cameroons, JO. Fields, who was responsible for the territory, never signed it.

 There is no such a thing as a singled-handed Treaty of Union. A political or economic union is formed and agreed by more than one party and not by a single political or economic entity. The following is that Dr. Susunji’s premise is flawed to begin with. Furthermore, President Biya went further and destroyed any vestiges or pretences of this “Treaty” in yet another single-handed decree signed in 1984 by altering the name of the country from the United Republic of Cameroon adopted in the illegalities of the 1972 constitutional violation to La Republique du Cameroun: the exact name that the French Cameroon employed to gain independence as a UN Trust Territory from France.

 Therefore, even if for argumentation’s sake, we agree that there was a de facto Union, it now no longer exists as the 1961 Plebiscite terms have now been violated single-handedly by the two Presidents of La Republique du Cameroun which is a separate territory from Southern Cameroons: Ahidjo and Biya. No Southern Cameroonian institution or person was ever signatory to these two acts. It follows that Dr. Susunji’s assertions and long explanations are entirely hollow. According to Dr. Susunji, the Joint Communiqué that happened in Yaoundé in 1960 between Foncha and Ahidjo setting the terms of the envisaged UN organised and supervised Plebiscite in the Southern Cameroons; and the envisioned creation of the Federation of Cameroon was a “Treaty”. He attempted to defend it by writing on point 11 of his missive that:

“11. The catastrophic mistake which was committed by Commissioner JO Field is that when Foncha, Muna, Jua and Kemcha took off for Yaoundé for the 3rd round of negotiations with President Ahidjo, the Commissioner did not expect them to succeed. The unexpected "success of Foncha's delegation took the British Government and the Opposition by surprise and changed the course of Southern Cameroons history. The British Government initially took the agreement lightly because it was still believed that the 1st plebiscite option of joining Nigeria would prevail and render the Yaoundé Agreement caduque.”

 I believe the reason given here by the learned Doctor is again grossly flawed. He is assuming that JO Fields and the opposition didn’t know the intent of the meeting between the KNDP and Ahidjo’s UC. They merely took it to be a partisan affair with no direct bearing to the future of Southern Cameroons and rightly so. Political parties have a right to meet and discuss issues of interest. JO Fields and the opposition didn’t have to go to Yaoundé with the KNDP as he, in particular, was not a member of the KNDP; and that his role was non-partisan. If this was to be the actual Treaty, then JO Fields who was the UK representative on behalf of the UN would have had to go with them. He didn’t, meaning that Foncha went for just talks; and any agreement with Ahidjo was just for them: and that, exactly, was what happened. Dr. Susunji should not assume that JO Fields and the opposition didn’t know what the resulting Communiqué stood for.

 He went further on point 12 stating:

 “12. If the outcome of the plebiscite was that the people of the Southern Cameroons had voted for integration into Nigeria, the Yaoundé Agreement would have automatically become useless. However, when the outcome of the plebiscite favored reunion with Cameroun Republic, the Yaoundé Agreement (Joint Communiqué ) became a legally binding agreement between two states, whose terms and conditions had to be executed as required by UN General Assembly resolution 1608 (XV). But it was too late to expand the boundaries of that vague agreement.”

Again, this is mistaken thinking. It was not possible for that Communiqué to be automatically and legally binding as it never carried the signature of the Commissioner of Southern Cameroons who represented the Administrative Authority, the UK, and hence the UN. The Communiqué remained just that until given the authority of the UN as signatory being the authorised Trustee of the Territory in line with the Trusteeship Agreements of 1946.  The UK and the UN could be taken to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) if they even as put their signature, retrospectively or presumptuously, to the Communiqué since they were not present, and that it was a simple partisan affair.  That is why the UN General assembly moved quickly to call for a meeting between the Administrative Authority, the Southern Cameroons government and the government of the Republic of Cameroun to meet and work out the “agreed” terms.

If it was automatically and legally binding, then the UN had no reason to pass another resolution for a meeting after the plebiscite -- a compulsory condition for the Cameroon Federation to occur. The following is that as long as this meeting never happened with the three parties agreeing on the kind of Federation, the Communiqué cannot be legally binding. Consequently, this cannot be accepted as a legal document. Furthermore, Southern Cameroons was a democratic state. As a result, all agreements and envisaged constitutions must have to be ratified by the Southern Cameroons Upper and Lower Houses. There is no evidence that such ratification occurred in the Southern Cameroons parliament of both the Ahidjo’s signed 1961 constitution and the alleged Foncha-Ahidjo pre-plebiscite Communiqué of 1960.

In addition, The Joint Communiqué was not a Treaty because Foncha had no powers on foreign policies because Southern Cameroons was still a UN Trust Territory in 1960. The UN never put their signature there as they were wont to. The Communiqué was what they
agreed to do if both the Southern Cameroons and the Northern Cameroons voted to be part of the Cameroon Federation with the Cameroun Republic. It did not mention Southern Cameroons alone.

The Northern Cameroons never signed anything because it was not a treaty and no negotiations were involved; and that they were never part of the meeting with Foncha and Ahidjo in 1960. Foncha and Ahidjo could not possibly, and had no powers to decide the future of Northern Cameroons when he [Foncha] was not a citizen of that part of the UN Trust Territory since the Northern Cameroons were actually politically and legally separate from the Southern Cameroons. They eventually went their separate ways to choose Nigeria in the plebiscite. It was just talks. People come up with a joint Communiqué on what they agreed/disagreed after talks but this cannot be counted as a Treaty without the peoples’ consent in a democratic state.

What the UN meant here was the talks after the plebiscite and after the Southern Cameroons independence was voted at the UN in April 1961; and when the people must have made their decision on where they wished to belong; and not before the people had decided. If the Communiqué was the Treaty, it meant that the plebiscite results were, in effect, null and void since there was no discernible reason to hold the plebiscite as the results were a forgone conclusion.  Dr. Susunji appears not to take to this fundamental fact.  It has to be noted, also, that there was no Union of any form between the Republic of Cameroon and Southern Cameroons before the plebiscite; so how can the Communiqué be transformed into a “Treaty” of the Union when it was signed in 1960 while the plebiscite happened but in 1961? This makes little legal sense as it is similar to a birth certificate being issued by the local authority or hospital before a child is actually born! No court of law will accept such a document.

Thus, according to Dr. Susunji's logic, the union existed in 1960, and before the plebiscite results in 1961 were known: meaning that the Union came to being before it was born. This does not make any sense and must be rejected with full force. What mattered was what the UN Resolution said should happen after the plebiscite and the Southern Cameroons independence vote. Nothing happened as the UN envisaged. Consequently, no legally binding document exits in Cameroon that joins the two former UN Trust Territories possibly why Biya is arranging to “celebrate” the “Re-Unification” in a year that means little or nothing to the history of Cameroon -- 2012.

What Cameroon is attempting to celebrate in Buea this year should be viewed as a non-event. Whether it goes on or not, it means nothing in both legal and historical terms. The correct way forward is for the two parties to meet in the auspices of the UN as planned in 1961, reach a mutually acceptable Agreement and then sign a Treaty that meet their political aspirations. Anything short of this is meaningless, and will continue creating tension between the two former Trust territories with a potentially devastating explosion in full view.