Inside Africa: The Continuing Anglophone Crisis in Cameroon

Giles Clarke

Cameroon is not expecting to see any progress to be made in potential ceasefire talks between Cameroon’s Francophone government and its Anglophone separatists of the symbolically independent Federal Republic of Ambazonia come to a stalemate. Neither side appears ready to put down the guns and come to the negotiation table to end a decades-long feud which has led to a series of attacks perpetrated by both sides, killing thousands and displacing more still. The conflict has drawn international attention as many criticize both sides for human rights violations and brought on demands for at least a temporary ceasefire, if not serious peace negotiations, in order to allow a humanitarian corridor to be established. 

This corridor could potentially allow for medical aid to reach regions in desperate need not only because of the violence in the Anglophone regions, but also to support the medical needs of citizens during a global health pandemic. In order for this to happen, the separatists need to trust that the government is sincere in its commitment to the ceasefire and it would not be used to bulldoze into Ambazonia. 

Where did the conflict begin?

To understand the conflict, one must go back in history to before Cameroon’s independence. The divisions in the country today fall along the same lines set up by the French and the British in the early 1900s after the two European powers forced out Germany. France got the lion’s share of the country, getting 80% of the northern and eastern regions. The British kept the remaining territory in the west. These dividing lines remained in place until 1960 when French Cameroon became independent. The process to declare the British-run Cameroon independent was messier. The west was split between the north and south. A year after French Cameroon’s independence though, the southwest region joined Cameroon while the northwest region went on to join Nigeria. 

However, ever since the merge, tensions have been growing. The Anglophone minority in the southwest felt marginalized as the country’s first president, Ahmadou Ahidjo, made it a point to maintain a relationship with France and set up the capital, Yaaunde, in the Francophone region. Ahidjo’s time in office was a conflicted one filled with authoritarianism, conflict and civil rights violations. Then Cameroon’s current president took power in 1982. President Paul Biya kept the country as a single-party state, though he worked to develop a more democratic society. In it though, the Anglophone southwest still claimed that it was being oppressed by the Franophone majority. 

While Biya was dealing with a struggling economy post-Ahidjo, border disputes with Nigeria and attacks by the Boko Haram Islamic militant group along the Cameroon-Nigerian border, the Anglophone conflict was growing until in 2016, there was a series strikes and demonstrations in the southwest protesting against the marginalization the Anglophone population felt at the hands of the Francophone government. The government tried to squash these protests, but there were still calls for more equitable treatment between the two groups and even talks of secession from Cameroon entirely. 

Those separatists finally declared the southwest region independent and named the new state the Federal Republic of Ambazonia. This was largely a symbolic move because the state is not officially recognized as an independent state, but the conflict has progressed from skirmishes between protesters and the government to full-scale civil war in which 3,000 are estimated to have been killed and 500,000 more forced from their homes, according to BBC reporting.

The impact today

Human rights violations and atrocities have been noted on both sides of the conflict. Parts of the Ambazonia region have been abandoned with left behind shells of cars and crumbling buildings destroyed in the fighting between separatist militants and Cameroon’s armed forces. Villages sit empty because the people fled from the violence and important facilities like hospitals and schools are falling into disrepair. Recently, three soldiers with Cameroon’s forces have been charged with murder following a massacre in the northwest, still a part of the Anglophone region. At least 15 children, two pregnant women and five other civilians were killed in February 2020 in the village of Ngarbuh. Investigations by the Cameroon government determined these were rogue soldiers, and as of June, they are in a military prison. Such incidents show that some peace negotiations would benefit the civilians caught in the crossfire between the separatists and the government, but the region also faces another issue. 

The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted almost all facets of life worldwide, and Cameroon is no exception, though it is struggling to find the resources to properly respond to it during its own internal conflict. UNICEF estimates that 34% of the healthcare facilities in the Anglophone region of Cameroon have either been completely destroyed or crippled by a lack of personnel and the necessary equipment to provide adequate care. The country has reported more than 20,000 cases overall, and the in-fighting could only hurt a country that has already received heavy blows over the last four years. A humanitarian corridor is necessary to provide medical care in parts of the country with limited resources even if it weren’t for COVID-19. The lack of trust after failed attempts to start a dialogue in the past. According to the Africa Report, separatist leaders have explicitly said that they cannot commit to a ceasefire as the militants are the “only protectors” of the people who live in the area. 

In order for talks to potentially move forward, Ambazonians want negotiations to take place outside of Cameroon with a “trusted international actor” acting as a mediator. They also want all separatists to be welcome to the table instead of individuals being selected by the Cameroon government. Biya has also announced that elections will take place this December in all 10 regions that make up Cameroon, including in the Anglophone regions. These elections could bring forward 90 councilors with more localized control. Twenty will be representative of traditional chieftains. It is an effort to decentralize the power, spreading it out to allow more regional control over issues, which could shift the conflict in a new direction if Biya’s opposition decides to participate in them.