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Donnée: 1
Titre: Colonial Existence, Home and Nationalism in the Narratives of
British Cameroons’ Exiles in the United States.
Auteurs: Achankeng, Fonkem1 (AUTHOR) [email protected]
Source: Round Table. Jun2015, Vol. 104 Issue 3, p319-340. 22p.
Type de document: Article
Termes de sujet: *EXILES
*CAMEROONIANS
*COLONIES
*IMPERIALISM
*STATE, The
Termes géographiques: CAMEROON
Mots-clés fournis par les auteurs: Ambazonia
Anglophone Cameroon
biography
British Cameroons
colonialism
exiles
immigration
national identity conflict
nationalism
nationalist resistance
political refugees
postcolonial annexation
self-determination
sovereignty
transnational lives
Résumé: This article explores the personal meanings and public
expressions of colonial existence, home and nationalism among
exiles of British Cameroons from the standpoints of 11
biographies of British Southern Cameroons’ first-generation exiles
living in the United States. Examining their narratives reveals why
the exiles actively resist a public categorisation as being
Cameroonians. This article provides a new type of research
regarding British Cameroons’ exiles and their vision of the
restoration of the statehood of British Cameroons, a former United
Nations trust territory deserving its separate sovereignty and
independence in accordance with the UN Trusteeship Agreement
(1946) and UN Resolution 1514 of 1960 on the independence of
colonial people. Significant about this study of the narratives of
British Cameroons’ exiles is its focus on biography for portraying
particular facets of nationalist resistance, including questions
relating to the processes that surround the right to define the
community one calls home. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

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1University
Affiliations de l'auteur: of Wisconsin Oshkosh, Oshkosh, USA
ISSN: 0035-8533
DOI: 10.1080/00358533.2015.1053222
Numéro d'accès: 103417522
Base de données: Academic Search Ultimate
Colonial Existence, Home and Nationalism in the Narratives of British Cameroons’
Exiles in the United States.

This article explores the personal meanings and public expressions of colonial existence, home and
nationalism among exiles of British Cameroons from the standpoints of 11 biographies of British
Southern Cameroons' first-generation exiles living in the United States. Examining their narratives
reveals why the exiles actively resist a public categorisation as being Cameroonians. This article
provides a new type of research regarding British Cameroons' exiles and their vision of the restoration of
the statehood of British Cameroons, a former United Nations trust territory deserving its separate
sovereignty and independence in accordance with the UN Trusteeship Agreement (1946) and UN
Resolution 1514 of 1960 on the independence of colonial people. Significant about this study of the
narratives of British Cameroons' exiles is its focus on biography for portraying particular facets of
nationalist resistance, including questions relating to the processes that surround the right to define the
community one calls home.

Keywords: exiles; political refugees; British Cameroons; Anglophone Cameroon; nationalism; national
identity conflict; self-determination; nationalist resistance; transnational lives; biography; Ambazonia;
colonialism; immigration; sovereignty; postcolonial annexation

Introduction
Without a sense of identity, there is no need for struggle. I will only fight you if I am very sure of myself, I
am definitely not you. (Macedo, [41], p. 122)

Observers of post-Cold War African conflicts do not often focus on the Cameroon Republic because of
the belief that Cameroon is a postcolonial African country grappling only with the democratisation of
national life. Few understand that the country faces the additional problem of a nationalist struggle by
former British Southern Cameroons to 'restore its independence and sovereignty' (Ebong, [19]). In spite
of the UN Charter in its Article 76(b) and the 1960 UN Resolution 1514 (XV) on the independence of
colonial countries and peoples, this former Class B United Nations trust territory was compelled by
Britain and the United Nations to remain content with an 'independence by joining' concept. The seeds of
a nationalism conflict were sown when Britain and the United Nations imposed 'independence by joining'
on British Cameroons while other colonial territories in Africa, including French Cameroon, became
independent. As asserted by Harriet Isom ([34]), a former United States Ambassador to Cameroon, 'the

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dichotomy between the former British colonial part of Cameroon and the larger, dominant, former French
colonial Cameroon still exists'. This article contributes to the body of scholarship on the struggle for
identity and full independence for British Southern Cameroons by exploring the conflicting notions of
'colonial existence', 'home' and nationalism among British Cameroons people in the narratives of British
Cameroons' exiles. Even more interesting for the analysis is the fact that the very existence of the entity
that inspires nationalism from a colonial existence is itself the creation of colonialism. The article
discusses the lives of individual British Cameroons' exiles in the United States and explores the
processes of how individual exiles maintain and negotiate their identity as British Southern Cameroons
(aka Ambazonia) people within the circum-Cameroonian group in the United States, as is the case in the
home country of Cameroon.

Dissatisfied with a recolonised life in Cameroon Republic, British Cameroons' nationalist groups, notably
the Southern Cameroons National Council (SCNC), Southern Cameroons People's Organisation
(SCAPO) and Ambazonia Restoration Movement, have for decades been involved in a nationalism
struggle seeking to 'restore the independence and sovereignty' of British Southern Cameroons. The
nationalist struggle and the attendant repression in the Cameroon Republic have caused thousands of
British Cameroons' people to flee to the United States and other destinations in Europe, China, Nigeria
and Southern Africa (Pineteh, [49]). By 2007, the United States Embassy in Cameroon reported that the
struggle had 'produced some of the largest numbers of refugees in the United States in recent times ...
making Cameroon the asylum leader among all African countries and placing the country in the top five
source countries of US immigrants' (Marquart, [43], p. 2). British Southern Cameroons (Ambazonian)
immigrants living in the United States and elsewhere in the world are usually lumped into the category of
'Cameroonians'. Such categorisation, by implication, does not differentiate between the two Cameroons.[
1]

What seems unique about British Southern Cameroons is the territory's pre-independence heritage. As
Fanso ([20], p. 141) pointed out, 'The story of the struggle for identity and autonomy, or the right to self-
determination in the Southern Cameroons began almost immediately after the Anglo-French invasion
and partition of the German protectorate of Kamerun in the course of the First World War'(. As a former
League of Nations Mandate and, later, a UN Class B trust territory under United Kingdom administration,
the people contrast their British colonial heritage with the French colonial heritage of French-speaking
République du Cameroun (Cameroon Republic). Although administered as a separate entity through the
League of Nations, the inter-war years, and through a successful post-World War II self-governing period
(1954–60),[ 2] British Southern Cameroons continues to be a colony with no alternative for its
sovereignty.

In spite of the unfair treatment by Britain and the United Nations at independence and in spite of the
many decades of colonial occupation and subjugation in the Cameroon Republic (Konings and
Nyamnjoh, [37], [38]; Jua and Konings, [35]; Anyangwe, [[ 4]], [ 7]; Litumbe, [40]), many of the exiles in
this study refused to recognise the Cameroon Republic as their country. During the fieldwork period of
the study leading to this analysis, several of the participants repeatedly stated 'We are not Cameroonian,
have never been Cameroonian, and do not want to be Cameroonian'. This theme is very recurrent
among the exiles in the study in spite of a major public diplomacy campaign of the government of
Cameroon Republic in Washington DC to give the impression, through annual Cameroon cultural
festivals, that Cameroon is one. The focus in this article is on exploring the colonial experiences from
which the territory and its people struggle to break free, and discussing the historical and legal contexts
that provide a basis for the nationalist claims in the narratives of the exiles. Through these narratives, the

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article examines how British Southern Cameroons' exiles construct, negotiate and maintain their
separate identity in their newly adopted host country of the United States.

Methodology
A qualitative approach using an interview format was employed to identify the notions of 'home' and
country of origin among British Cameroons' exiles in the United States. To understand the conflicts of
colonial existence, home and nationalism, the methodology utilised for data collection was biographical
narrative research. In this qualitative approach that explored the conflict dynamics among Cameroonians
living in the United States, participants told the stories of themselves and their country of origin without
interruption. This life-story interviewing method was first used by a German sociologist, Fritz Schütze
([54], [55]). As researchers in different disciplines and geographical areas have shown, the life-story
method offers a profound understanding of the meanings that individuals give to their lives and their
experiences. As a way of carrying out an in-depth study of individuals, the life-story interview is important
for its interdisciplinary applications in understanding the lives of individuals in detail and how each
individual plays various roles in society (Galatzer-Levy and Cohler, [26]; Gergen, [27]; Atkinson, [11]).
Van Manen ([59]) also considers the life-story method as that type of phenomenological approach used
to understand the significance that people give to their life experiences. Other researchers, including
Nancy Grey Osterud and Lu Ann Jones ([47]) and Emily Honig ([33]), have indicated the relevance of
oral histories as a means of retrieving subdued voices, allowing people to speak for themselves, to
describe their situation, define their identity and interpret the meaning of their own lives.

According to Chaitin ([13]), this methodology has some underlying major assumptions. First, while the
life story of each biographer is unique, the stories are also embedded in particular social and cultural
contexts. By studying individuals, the experts contend, we gain not only an understanding of the
individual's experiences but also insights into the particular social structures and dynamics, cultural
values, mores and norms in which the individual lives (Rosenthal, [51], [52]). Second, life stories can be
systematically interpreted and analysed, considering that people choose what to say and how to say it.
Subscribing to this viewpoint, Creswell ([15]) maintained that human experiences are expressed
consciously and tangibly through the views of those who lived the experience. In keeping with the
tradition in life-story interviewing, I used an open-ended method of eliciting information from the research
participants.

The life-story method was also significant for this study because of the need to dismantle official
narratives on subjects of colonisation. In agreement with Donaldo Macedo ([41]) and Linda Smith ([56]),
Victoria Fontan ([23], p. 24) has insisted on using decolonising research methods and critical pedagogy
to understand the daily lives of the populations we study. This approach, Fontan ([23], p. 24) has argued,
'brings parts of the invisible to the forefront ... and involves the dismantling of "official" narratives,
asserting the first person and subjective experiences of all those involved as visible and relevant'. We
must, therefore, understand the participants in the study from the standpoint of investigations reflecting
the 'personal and political issues surrounding and constricting one's choices' (Moors, [44], p. 228). This
standpoint is relevant in a postcolonial context of independence struggles and amidst the 21st century
rhetoric on freedoms and human and people's rights.

The British Cameroons' exiles sample for the study was made up of 11 individuals (see Table 1) living in
the United States. The reason for choosing the United States among other exile destinations was that a
majority of British Cameroons exiles live in the United States and also because the level of activism
among the exiles is only comparable to Belgium. To participate in the study the respondent had to be a

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first-generation immigrant and/or refugee from British Cameroons living in the United States. Participants
were all adults—seven men and four women. There were more men than women in the exile population
because of the daring nature of escape from the home country. The families of many of the male
interviewees were still back in the home country. Most of the exiles were on asylum or expecting to be
granted asylum status in the United States at the time of this research. The analyses of the interviews
assessed how these different British Cameroons people (Ambazonians) viewed their sense of
'Ambazonian-ness'. At the time of the research, the interviewees resided in states in the Midwest and
east coast of the United States. The participants were selected through a purposefully random sampling
of individuals actively involved in the struggle. The first participants identified pointed the researcher to
others they knew in the struggle, and I contacted and worked with any of them who were willing and had
the time to participate in the research. Table 1 provides a listing of the participants. All the names listed
(Tata, Ndek, Mbalak, Wanga, Nambang, Akendong Makweleng, Atangncho, Fuabenyong, Fatima,
Azem) are pseudonyms intended to protect the confidentiality of each participant.

Table 1. British Cameroons' sample

Name GenderOrigin AgeYear of exileGeneration of exile

Tata Male Cameroon74 1992 1
Ndek Male Cameroon82 2001 1
Mbalak Male Cameroon79 1996 1
Wanga Male Cameroon46 2000 1
Nambang FemaleCameroon52 1994 1
Akendong Male Cameroon44 1997 1
Makweleng FemaleCameroon46 1994 1
Atangncho Male Cameroon54 1999 1
FuabenyongMale Cameroon50 2002 1
Fatima FemaleCameroon59 2003 1
Azem Male Cameroon48 1993 1
The narratives analysed were all collected in English since British Cameroons was under British
colonialism from 1913. The narratives were intended for an examination of the historical circumstances
of the territory and people of British Southern Cameroons since 1961, and to understand how the exiles
perceive their lives, the territory and their experiences. The analysis in this study draws from the
narratives of the exiles and the documentation that they made available to me in culling that which best
illustrates how ex-British Southern Cameroons' exiles think and feel about a country that they know and
call 'home' and the nationality they seek to avoid.

This analysis focuses mainly on the links to their 'home' and the sense of a shared nationalism among
the exiles and their people in the territory. Like Nigel Rapport and Andrew Dawson ([16], pp. 207–221) in
Migrants of Identity: Perceptions of Home in a World of Movement, the analysis questions the processes
that surround the right to define the community one calls home. The question remains, who owns these
rights and how are they seen to be ascribed? In addressing this question, the focus was on the
narratives of exiles, who from exile continue to resist colonisation by the Cameroon Republic,
containment, and subjugation by contesting their nationality as 'Cameroonians'. Worthy of note is the
irony of an independent Cameroon Republic, itself a product of colonialism, colonising an entity that is
equally the product of colonialism. In further developing the idea of earlier scholars on African
immigrants in the United States, including Takougang ([57]) and Arthur ([10]), one may add that the
circumstances in the home country affect the lives and the activism of forced migrants in a host society.
In doing so, US-based Ambazonians imagine their homeland from abroad and through active contacts

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with those in the territory. The narrative stories collected and analysed provide insight into historical and
structural conditions of individual and collective identities of British Southern Cameroons' exiles in the
United States.

My analysis of the relationship between the exiles and the Cameroon Republic was also inspired by
Stéphane DuFoix's ([18]) work. By examining this scholar's 'antagonistic mode in the connections of
refugees and the home state and the participation by migrants and refugees in the politics of their
country of origin' (DuFoix, [18], p. 63) it was obvious from the narratives analysed that British
Cameroons' exiles did not want to have anything to do with the Cameroon Republic, which they
considered to be a 'foreign country' and preferred to refer to it as 'a neighboring country' or 'a sister
African country'. For the exiles, 'the British Cameroons' nationalist struggle was not about an inch of
Cameroonian territory or any of its resources'. It was about 'the right of the sovereign people of British
Southern Cameroons to determine their destiny as all other peoples and former colonies of the world'. It
is important to clarify the several names of the 'home' of the exiles in this analysis. The homeland of
British Cameroons' exiles was also variously referred to in the narratives as 'Southern Cameroons',
'British Southern Cameroons', 'British Cameroons', 'Anglophone Cameroon', or 'Ambazonia'. Such
different terminology is reflective of the different colonial experiences of the territory and should be
regarded as interchangeable. Similarly, the terms 'exile' and 'refugee' or 'political refugee' were
understood and used from the perspective of international refugee law as referring to persons who seek
refuge in a foreign country because of war and violence, or out of fear of persecution.

Context of British Cameroons and US-oriented Migration

The former British Cameroons, which the political refugees in this study refer to as their homeland, is
currently considered by public opinion to be within the borders of the Cameroon Republic since October
1961, and therefore part of Cameroon Republic. Summing up the condition of British Southern
Cameroons' people in the Cameroon Republic, Aka ([ 1], p. 271) pointed out that '... former British
Southern Cameroons is reduced to a colony of ex-French Cameroon and the consequences of
subordination have become more agonizing than when the territory was administered as part of Nigeria'
after World War I.

British Cameroons is located in the Gulf of Guinea. The territory lies between the Federal Republic of
Nigeria and République du Cameroun at the point where West Africa and Central Africa meet. With a
surface area of 16,364 square miles (42,383 km²), the territory has a population of approximately five
million people, according to estimates in 2005 by the Southern Cameroons National Council. Anyangwe
([ 4], p. 2) has pointed out that Southern Cameroons is '... demographically bigger than at least 60 UN
and 18 AU Member States, and spatially bigger than at least 30 UN and 12 AU member States,
including, for instance, British Honduras and Fiji, the Gambia, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, Djibouti,
Burundi, and Guinea Bissau'.

British Southern Cameroons has unique geographic and physical characteristics in West Africa and
much of the scenery is remarkably beautiful. Aside from the picturesque scenery and geographic and
physical beauty, Southern Cameroons is endowed with vast agricultural and mineral potential (Field,
[22], p. 8). While vast plantations of cocoa, coffee, tea, rubber, bananas and oil palms flourish on the
volcanic soils of the south, bordering the Atlantic Ocean, there is coffee growing and animal rearing in
the highlands of the north. The principal livestock are cattle, pigs, sheep, goats and poultry. There is also
diversified farming in the rural areas, which produce various kinds of grains, tropical fruits, vegetables,
starchy tubers and tobacco on a large scale for export. The territory also produces crude oil, tropical

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woods and fish. Most of this enviable potential in abundant energy and mineral resources is still
unexploited, as is true of the bountiful timber and superb agricultural conditions for crops and
plantations.

Prior to 1961, the territory's economy was not just flourishing, its communication infrastructure included a
seaport in Victoria, a wharf in Tiko on the Atlantic coast, and a river port on the Cross River in Mamfe on
the border with Nigeria in the west. The territory also had a hydroelectric power station in Yoke, an
international airport in Tiko, and other airports in Bali Victoria, and Besongabang by Mamfe. This
economic infrastructure has been left in ruins. Explaining this situation, Ndek saw it as 'part of the grand
design by the colonizer to render the territory and its people increasingly dependent on the colonizer in
order that the people can see themselves as helpless without the coloniser'.

Independence by Joining
Some scholars of British Cameroons, including Ardener ([ 8]), Levine ([39]), Kale ([36]), Ndifontah
Nyamndi ([46]) and John Percival ([48]), have pointedly observed that Britain from the outset had
decided against an independent administration for British Cameroons. According to Kale ([36], p. 38),
British administration of the territory prior to World War II was 'haphazard and full of misgivings'. It is in
this context that the idea of a plebiscite was imposed by Britain through the United Nations on the
people of British Cameroons. Rather than grant independence to British Cameroons in accordance with
the Trusteeship Agreement, the United Nations organised a plebiscite in British Cameroons on 11
February 1961 in which the people were asked to choose between joining one of two neighbours. That
plebiscite further cemented the split between British Northern Cameroons and British Southern
Cameroons. Fossung ([24], p. 8), shedding light on the idea of 'independence by joining', noted that 'The
Trustee and the Supervisory Authority, the UN, worked with determined assiduity to prepare the
annexation of the Southern Cameroons by Republique du Cameroun through an oral amendment by the
Trusteeship Council's already-adopted-draft of United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) resolution
1608 (XV) of April 21, 1961'. The imposition on British Southern Cameroons of 'independence by joining'
was in contradiction to Article 76(b) of the United Nations Charter, which defined the purpose for which
trust territories were created. This was reinforced by the 1960 United Nations Resolution 1514 (XV), on
the independence of colonial peoples. The nature of this contradiction stood out clearly in the narratives
of many of the exiles, and provided a historical and legal context of the Southern Cameroons' nationalist
conflict.

In keeping with the UN Charter and especially the provisions of the Trusteeship Agreement, J. O. Field,
British Commissioner of Southern Cameroons, noted:

A modern state is in the making, and today, one hundred years after the founding of Victoria, Southern
Cameroons can look back with pride on its achievements and look forward to its rapidly approaching
independence with quiet confidence. (Field, [22], p. 16)

As a United Nations trust territory, independence was the logical next step in the life of the territory.
Given the territory's political structures and economic potential, by 1960 it was only logical for the people
of the territory to look forward to independence and sovereignty with hope. However, this independence
and sovereignty did not come, and has continued to elude the people of British Southern Cameroons.
Atangncho, in his narrative, lamented how:

In place of its independence as the case was with other French or British colonies inherited from
Germany after World War I such as French Cameroon, Togoland, Tangayika, Rwanda, and Burundi

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British Cameroons became annexed and re-colonized by former French Cameroon.

Fuabenyong also argued in the same light:

The other countries with a similar history as us all gained their independence normally, but why was that
not the case of British Cameroons? By refusing to grant independence to the trust territory of British
Cameroons in 1961, the United Nations was in violation of the principles for which it was created,
namely freedom and democracy.

These excerpts and others reveal that the exiles interviewed for this study perceive the situation of their
homeland in terms of colonialism and argue that the cure for colonisation cannot be anything but
decolonisation. As a concept, colonialism remains controversial because of its overwhelming presence
in the continent of Africa. Many critical analyses on colonialism and its forms of knowledge, including
those by leading scholars on the subject such as Nicholas Dirks ([17]), Nicholas Thomas ([58]) and
Bernard Cohn ([14]), focus on the colonial past but also recognise its present implications for colonised
people. Studies on the decolonisation of Africa, however, focus mainly on European colonisation of
African peoples, whereas intra-African colonisation, such as British Cameroons' colonial occupation, is
ignored. Sorting out what colonial influences inform British Southern Cameroons' quest to 'restore
independence and sovereignty' in postcolonial life is increasingly difficult. The vocabulary employed in
describing persisting anti-colonial struggles as 'secession' reflects the controversy over the concept. For
those who consider some territories and peoples including British Cameroons and Western Sahara as
actively held back from establishing their own nation states by stronger nation states, we cannot
consider the subject as outdated.

Many people from British Cameroons in the Cameroon Republic view their struggle as anti-colonial
resistance. The nationalist rejection of Cameroon is the result of the annexation and colonial subjugation
of one former United Nations Class B trust territory by another former United Nations Class B trust
territory (Anyangwe, [ 4], p. 3). From this perspective, it is argued that the present state of Cameroon
Republic and British Cameroons embodies a relationship within the country that implies characteristics
analogous to the relationships that existed between imperialist European states and their colonies.
Fowler and Zeitlyn ([25], p. xviii), subscribing to this viewpoint, asserted that 'there are fascinating
convergences and parallels here [in Cameroon], in the events of Europe and Africa and the knowledge
that is created in the interpretation of them, that remain to be explored'. For the people of British
Cameroons, independence and sovereignty are a right and one they must have in an era of freedom and
democracy. One of them, Mbalak, pointedly stated:

The basic objective of the Trusteeship System was to promote the development of the inhabitants of the
Trusteeship Territory progressively towards self-government or independence in accordance with the
Article 76(b) of the United Nations Charter.

Ndek also underscored the fact that British Southern Cameroons achieved self-government within the
meaning of Article 76(b) of the United Nations Charter in 1954. Cameroon Republic achieved the same
status in 1958, gained independence from France on 1 January 1960, and became a member of the
United Nations on 20 September 1960 as 'République du Cameroun'. Ndek also argued that 'Unlike all
other Trusteeship Territories, British Southern Cameroons, self-governing from 1954, was denied
independence status and admission into membership of the UN by the United Kingdom and the United
Nations'. Rather, in the case of British Cameroons, the United Nations proceeded to implement what the
global body termed 'independence by joining' one of two neighbours. The point should be made that

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République du Cameroun voted against union with the Southern Cameroons in Resolution 1608 (XV),
an indication that the Cameroon Republic was more interested in colonising the territory than in union
with it.

When British Southern Cameroons was finally compelled to join République du Cameroun, as
declassified documents have attested, Ndek described the scenario as one in which 'The United
Kingdom, the Trustee, rather decided to barter the Southern Cameroons to another former Trust' (see
Declassified Files, including confidential documents with reference FO371/101390).[ 3]

In other words, the exiles blame their plight on the external control of their territory and its people by the
United Kingdom and the United Nations, and also on the influence of French Cameroon refugees who
settled in the Southern Cameroons in the 1940s and beyond. As Aka ([ 1], p. 204) put it, 'The process of
Southern Cameroons becoming part of the Cameroon Republic followed the course dictated by the
Union des Populations du Cameroun (UPC) Party and the One Kamerun (OK) Party, which were both
influenced by and from French Cameroon'.

Tata, another participant in the study, wondered how the United Nations acted towards the people of
Southern Cameroons when the independence resolution was so clear. In late 1960, Tata said, the United
Nations was determined to eradicate colonialism in all its facets, per the landmark Resolution 1514 (XV)
of 14 December 1960. The resolution, he argued:

... Solemnly proclaims the necessity of bringing to a speedy and unconditional end colonialism in all its
forms and manifestations; And to this end, Declares that: ( 1) The subjection of peoples to alien
subjugation, domination and exploitation constitutes a denial of fundamental human rights, is contrary to
the Charter of the United Nations and is an impediment to the promotion of world peace and co-
operation. ( 2) All peoples have the right to self-determination; by virtue of that right they freely determine
their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development. ( 3) Inadequacy
of political, economic, social or educational preparedness should never serve as a pretext for delaying
independence. ( 4) All armed action or repressive measures of all kinds directed against dependent
peoples shall cease in order to enable them to exercise peacefully and freely their right to complete
independence, and the integrity of their national territory shall be respected ...) to transfer all powers to
the peoples of those territories without any conditions or reservations in accordance with their freely
expressed will and desire without any distinction as to race, creed or color, in order to enable them enjoy
complete independence and freedom.

Tata expressed how unfairly and unjustly his people had been treated at independence. Most of the
exiles interviewed considered the plight of the territory as a conspiracy by the international community, in
which they and their people were sacrificed, in colonial tradition, through the process of 'independence
by joining'.

In a way, the struggle to achieve the independence and sovereignty of British Southern Cameroons
(Ambazonia), of which the exiles were a part, was unique, in the sense that it was not an ethnic conflict
resulting from the kind of exclusion of a particular ethnic group one sees in modern nation states
(Wimmer, [60]). Southern Cameroons' exiles and their people argued that they are neither
Cameroonians nor an ethnic group in postcolonial Cameroon Republic. The narratives of the exiles
revealed that they should never have been part of the Cameroon Republic in the first place because
their territory, made up of 60 ethnic groups, was a separate self-governing United Nations trust
territory. The inference is that putting a British Cameroons (a former British colony) together with an

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independent former French colony was not only a top-down colonial decision, a recipe for conflict, but
also an extension of the colonial existence of British Cameroons.

Framing the Statehood Struggle

British Cameroons' political history, beginning with the 'independence by joining' in 1961, reveals a
sequential stratagem by the authorities of the Cameroon Republic to expunge utterly the territory from
the political map of Africa through annexation and internal colonisation and assimilation. The narratives
of British Cameroons' exiles reflect the struggle to restore their 'home' and country through themes such
as specific identity of British Cameroons, home of origin, and restoration of statehood as a fundamental
right.

British Cameroons successively became the Federated State of West Cameroon in the Cameroon
Republic (1961–72), then two 'Anglophone' provinces of a United Republic of Cameroon (1972–84), and
finally the 'Anglophone ethnic community' in a predominantly French-speaking Cameroon Republic since
1984. This transformation, from a former UN trust territory under United Kingdom administration to an
ethnic community within a newly independent nation state has met unrelenting resistance from the
inhabitants. That resistance accounts for the rise and spread of British Southern Cameroons' nationalism
both within the Cameroon Republic and abroad.

British Southern Cameroons' people living abroad and involved in the nationalist struggle try to frame
and reframe the nationalist struggle to anyone willing to listen to them. The following quotation from
Fuabenyong summarises the struggle of the people 'to reclaim the statehood and reassert the existence,
identity, dignity and humanity of [our] people'. This is the way Fuabenyong depicts the struggle:

Because of the many ways that people perceive the Southern Cameroons nationalist struggle, some
people suggest that a cure for the problem may be decentralization, good governance, or the sharing of
power in La Republique du Cameroun, none of which is a solution to the actual problem. Some conceive
it as a question of self-determination, others as a linguistic problem, some others as a problem of
marginalization, and even others say that it is a minority problem in Cameroon. Let me debunk these
various perceptions, and then get back on the subject of the problem. The Southern Cameroons
nationalist struggle is, first and foremost, a territorial dispute between Southern Cameroons and La
Republique du Cameroun. The fundamental issue is that La Republique du Cameroun crossed its
internationally-recognized boundaries to illegally annex and occupy the Southern Cameroons. I
challenge anyone who disputes this fact to produce the Treaties and international instruments defining
La Republique du Cameroun's boundaries. The recognized and legal international boundaries of every
African country are the boundaries it inherited on the day it achieved independence according to Article
4(b) of the African Union Constitutive Act.

Fuabenyong was very emotional about the problem as he narrated his view of the conflict and kept
asking why people who hear about the plight of his people would rather see the struggle in terms of
'secession' rather than in terms of a people seeking justice to be done to them.

Azem, a gentleman in middle age, used to lead the struggle in his state of residence in the host country,
and the surrounding states in the Midwest. Since his escape, Azem has tried several things to advance
the cause of the independence struggle. He mentioned that he did not want anyone ever to identify him
as Cameroonian. He worried about those compatriots in his city who were going around with a
'Camerounese flag in their cars'. He said 'I consider that identity an insult'. He cited a speech in Buea,
capital of British Cameroons, the country of his dream, by Paul Biya, the president of the Cameroon

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Republic, in which the president asked British Cameroons' people to repeat the following after him: 'I am
Cameroonian, I was born Cameroonian. I will die Cameroonian.' This participant asked rhetorically: 'Why
did Mr. Biya only ask that question in British Cameroons' territory?' He answered his own question: 'He
asked the people to recite those lines because the President understood that British Cameroons people
were and are not Cameroonian people by law.' Azem mentioned that the president could not ask people
in République du Cameroun to repeat such a civics lesson. Azem continued, 'the President knows that
Republique du Cameroun is occupying our country and has no business there. They can remain in
British Cameroons for another hundred years. They will leave because they are colonizers according to
international law, and they know it. A people cannot be colonized forever. British Cameroons will be free.'

Akendong, 79 years old, was visiting from the homeland. He was retired from a private professional
practice. Explaining the activism of British Cameroons' people, he used analogies to interpret the
upsurge in activism. Akendong said:

If the shirt you are wearing is stolen by me and discovered after many days, would it be a valid excuse
for me to say that I have been wearing this shirt for the past two or three years, my sweat is on it, it is
now part of me, why didn't you complain of your shirt? You would say that I am just discovering now that
you stole my shirt. That claim of yours over your legitimate right is not bad by the evolution of time and
so the right to self-determination is not extinguished the way some people put it to say that because of
passage of time and so it should be forgotten. I will continue to fight for the dignity of our people. Many of
those who stood against our independence even in the 1960s and continue to stand against our freedom
now are themselves only immigrants in Southern Cameroons and have an interest in seeing the country
as one.

Rather than getting involved in projecting the national interest of the Cameroonian state from a distance
as the government of Cameroon would wish of 'all Cameroonian Diaspora', many British Southern
Cameroons' exiles identified only with British Cameroons as their home of origin. They continue to stay
away from the public diplomacy campaigns of 'Annual Cameroon Cultural Festivals' in Washington DC
by the government of Cameroon to create the impression, in North America, of a single and indivisible
peaceful Cameroon.

To demonstrate a separate national identity, they created a separate internet group and did not respect
the 'one star flag paraded by Cameroon Republic as the national flag of Cameroon'. They honoured a
separate flag and a separate coat of arms, organised under the umbrella of Southern Cameroons
Peoples Council in North America (SCPC-NA), and even designed a separate Southern Cameroons
passport in preparation for the independent and sovereign nation of their dreams. People of British
Southern Cameroons did not waste their time on the efforts of the Cameroon government to connect
with them. Instead, many were more focused on the struggle to reclaim their political, economic and
cultural freedom in their own right as a former UN trust territory equal to other former colonies.

Nambang, 57 years old, living with her husband, Moussa, 60, and their two teenage children, was very
active in the struggle. Both she and her husband were frontline militants of the sovereignty cause. They
could not care less what other immigrants from the home country thought about their near fanatical
defence of the cause. Although they were struggling as most first-generation immigrants do in a host
country, their militancy did not seem to be affected by their struggles to survive in exile. They spoke with
one voice as if they were one person, which showed that they share ideas on the issues. At the time of
the interviews, they had great love for the imagined country and would go to great lengths to advance
the struggle in any way they could. These two participants envisioned what life would be again after the

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independence and sovereignty they strongly imagined would be achieved. They said there was not a
single political prisoner during the period the territory was self-governing and contrasted that situation
with their lives under the Cameroon Republic, where they said 'we cannot move an inch without the
police and gendarmes harassing us and we cannot express our political ideas without being arrested
and detained'.

Conflict
British Cameroons' exiles argue that their home 'has been overrun, occupied, and colonised by
Republique du Cameroun', contrary to Article 4(b) of the Constitutive Act of the African Union, which laid
down the principle of 'respect of borders existing on achievement of independence' by member states.
British Southern Cameroons' exiles consider the conflict as one within 'international law wherein
Republique du Cameroun crossed its internationally-recognised boundaries to illegally occupy and
annex the Southern Cameroons'. This drawn-out British Southern Cameroons' nationalist conflict has
not, over the decades, appeared to be going away. One of the exiles, Fatima, explained that '... the
persistence of the conflict has been due to the unwillingness of the United Nations to intervene, and
especially because of the nonviolent nature of the conflict'. This participant added that '... the absence of
intervention means that the different sides remain in their positions'.

An analysis of the documents on the 1961 'independence by joining' concept and the restoration of
statehood conflict indicates that there was increasing vigour in the territory in demanding freedom from
colonialism, especially after 1990. The documents also indicate that Southern Cameroons people sent
delegations and petitions to various multinational organisations, as well as many governments in Africa
and around the world that potentially had the clout to intervene in the conflict. The multinational
organisations included the United Nations, the African Union, the Commonwealth of Nations, and the
Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organisation. In addition to the delegations and petitions, the
nationalist movements in British Southern Cameroons issued several communiqués, memoranda and
declarations to inform world opinion on the British Southern Cameroons' struggle to 'restore its
sovereignty and independence'. These petitions served to forewarn the international community of any
impending dangers that might follow if there was no intervention. These communiqués and other
communications with the international community include the Buea Declaration (1993), the Buea Peace
Initiative (1994), the London Communiqué (1995), the Bamenda Proclamation (1995), the Signature
Referendum (1995) and the Proclamation of the Restoration of the Sovereignty and Independence of the
Southern Cameroons (1999). Two excerpts follow.

The Bamenda Proclamation (May 1994, p. 4)

... Should the Government either persist in its refusal to engage in meaningful constitutional talks, or fail
to engage in such talks within reasonable time, the Southern Cameroons National Council shall so
inform the people of Southern Cameroons by all suitable means. It shall thereupon proclaim the revival
of the independence and sovereignty of the Southern Cameroons and take all measures necessary to
secure, defend, and preserve the independence, sovereignty and integrity of the said Southern
Cameroons ...

The Buea Peace Initiative (1995)

... There comes a time in the affairs of man when a long-suffering people must either stand up and be
counted, or forever hold their peace. That moment has finally come for the people of Southern British
Cameroons ...

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In spite of these attempts and several others to alert the government of the Cameroon Republic and the
world community to the situation and to invite the international community to work towards resolving the
conflict, both the government of the Cameroon Republic and the international community elected to look
the other way.

From understanding structural violence in war and peace as theorised by Scheper-Hughes and Bourgois
([53], p. 4), one interpretation is that 'structural violence is generally invisible because it is part of the
routine grounds of everyday life ...'. Haddad ([29], p. 45) is a major critic of the structuring of sovereignty,
where modern states are motivated by concerns for the resecuring of international stability rather than by
notions of human and people's rights. In explaining this international community approach to postcolonial
conflicts like the Southern Cameroons' nationalism in the Republic of Cameroon, Burton ([12], pp. 17–
18) has also attributed the persistence of such conflicts to mainstream political theory that has been
preoccupied mainly with the preservation of the state and its institutions. In any case, the British
Cameroons' nationalism and the political tensions in Cameroon (Gros, [28]; Konings and Nyamnjoh,
[38]; Anyangwe, [ 5]; Isom, [34]) have resulted in massive refugee flows from the country (Marquart,
[43]).

'Ambazonian-ness' Over a Cameroonian Homeland

A major finding in the construction of the separate British Cameroons identity is a predominance of what
is referred to as 'Ambazonian-ness' over the Cameroonian national identity. As in the homeland country
of Cameroon, the image of the Cameroon Republic as 'homeland' is not always evident among
indigenous British Southern Cameroons' exiles who would want their country called 'Ambazonia' or any
other name centred on the Bay of Ambas. Located in the Gulf of Guinea, the Bay of Ambas, the people
claim, is the name of the coastal area of their territory where European explorers first came in contact
with the territory and its people. British Cameroons' studies on Ambazonian identity in postcolonial
Cameroon are constructed on the basis of Donaldo Macedo's ([41]) notion of the self-affirmation of
people, groups and entire nations who are subordinated to and exploited by others, usually in colonising
situations. Macedo ([41], p. 122) calls on such people to 'embrace their identity and protect it', stating
that 'without a sense of identity, there is no need for struggle'. Many native British Southern Cameroons'
people have a strong sense of identification with their history as a self-governing people in international
law (1954–61), with great accomplishments in economic and democratisation issues. Confronted with a
new situation as a recolonised people, British Cameroons' people at home and in exile convey the sense
of a people of a former colony. They consider themselves as held together by a history in international
law dating back to 1913 (Fanso, [20]), with a culture, a language and a defined territory with recognised
international boundaries (Munzu et al., [45]). This conception among the people aligns with Anderson's ([
2]) territorial ingredient of nationalism.

Ndek, 82 years old at the time of the study, fled Cameroon as a retired elderly citizen in 2002. As leader
of a nationalist movement, he saw himself targeted to be killed. He continued the struggle through public
education. When asked 'Please tell me your life story, whatever you think is relevant and whatever you
wish to share, including why and how you came to the United States', Ndek began his narrative as
follows:

Well, as the leader of the SCNC, they always targeted to kill me. This happened several times since ...
eeh way before 1999 when there were some killings in the northern zone of my country. And since the
1999 proclamation of the independence of Southern Cameroons, the government of La République
intensified its threats on my life. The very last attempt took place in my own residence. I was presiding at

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a meeting of our people when their gendarmes and police officers stormed the building. They beat us
mercilessly and nearly killed me. They ransacked the entire house, collected our machines, computers,
and documentation, and took all of us to the police station, where we were detained for weeks under
very inhuman conditions. You know, most of the military and officers in our territory are Francophones
used to colonize us. Umm ... To this day, I still do not know how I was taken away. I found myself in a
hospital bed when I returned to life. Someone at the scene later gave me a picture of my condition at the
police station. I still have a copy with me and can show it to you ...

The prevailing thought among many of the exiles is that the independence that was foreseen by J. O.
Field in 1958 and expected by the people never came. To this day, the people of Southern Cameroons
are still struggling to free themselves. Ndek described the situation in the following excerpt:

Our people could only look forward to our independence with hope. We had a good record of
achievements as a Class B United Nations Trust Territory. Southern Cameroons had viable political
structures and economic potentials. The territory had a Premier who was Head of Government, a House
of Assembly with a functional Opposition, and a House of Chiefs ... My first trip to London started at Tiko
International Airport. Today, the place is bush, as we have all been redirected to fly out of Cameroon
mainly from Douala in French Cameroon. As a self-governing people from 1954, Southern Cameroons
was the first territory in Sub-Saharan Africa to practice multi-party democracy, and to organize free and
fair democratic elections in which we changed governments peacefully and democratically in 1959. Our
people believe that the United Nations and the United Kingdom worked very hard to prepare the
annexation and re-colonization of Southern Cameroons by La République du Cameroun. In La
République du Cameroun, we have been reduced from a nation to a tribe, who can take that? We are a
people with our own history. We are involved in this liberation struggle because we must restore the
sovereignty and independence of the country we lost in 1961.

Freedom from past colonial subjugation and its perceived continuance in the present constitutes a major
manifestation of conflict in postcolonial Cameroon. The decolonisation of British Southern Cameroons
and the putting together of 'two Cameroons', each previously administered by different colonial masters
in decidedly distinctive ways, predicated conflict. Shedding light on the circumstances of the
decolonisation of Southern Cameroons, Fossung ([24]) stated:

The option of outright independence as in the options given by Britain to British Togoland previously was
rejected by Britain with scorn. In order to get the cooperation of the UNO [United Nations Organisation]
and the Western world, the UK portrayed the Self-Governing state of the Southern Cameroons as an
unviable state that must not be allowed to become a separate political entity as it might become a wedge
of Communism in the heart of Africa, to the detriment of the Western world. (Fossung, [24], p. 8)

In his Imperialistic Politics in Cameroun, Resistance and the Inception of the Restoration of the
Statehood of Southern Cameroons, Anyangwe ([ 5]) captures the 'predicament' of the people of the
territory in the following words:

... there has been a clear effort to erase from the surface of the earth the Southern Cameroons, a
country with a modern history going back to the 1840s; a country with international personality from 1922
to 1961, with well attested international borders, with self-government institutions based on the
Westminster model and a thriving and vibrant democracy from 1954 to 1961; a country enjoying full self-
government status from 1960–1961; and a country in status nascendi, poised for sovereign statehood,
before disaster struck, the disaster of colonization by a Black neighboring country, itself a former UN

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trust territory and (lately) independent from France. (Anyangwe, [ 5], p. 2)

This picture has tended to escape notice even by some recent writers on the Southern Cameroons. The
frustrations of the people of British Southern Cameroons in regard to their predicament in the Cameroon
Republic are very evident in the narratives of many people of British Southern Cameroons origin
whether they live in the territory or in exile.

The relationship between former French Cameroon and former British Cameroons within a postcolonial
African context reveals evidence of colonial control by former French Cameroon over former British
Cameroons in the sense theorised by Cohn ([14], p. 3), who views colonialism as 'a cultural project of
control'. In the experience of British Cameroons, the refugee narratives contend that colonial control over
them simply transferred from Europeans (Britain) over to fellow Africans—République du Cameroun. As
one study participant put it,

The métropole and the colony are right here at our doorstep. The empire is now République du
Cameroun. When it comes to how they see us, they are like blocks from the same mould, the same size,
the same shape, the same content. They have never considered us part of them and their country. And
true enough, we are different. We are not Cameroonians. We have every right to stand up for what is
ours rather than staying enslaved in a foreign country.

Considering themselves a distinct nation through their history and political achievements before 1960
(year of African independence), British Cameroons' exiles seek to restore the independence and
sovereignty of their home. For them, 'Cameroon is a foreign country'. In the interviews, the exiles
express what their struggle means. Independence and sovereignty for British Cameroons means a
number of things. It means

the perceived right to self-determination or the right to freely determine their political status, and the right
to freely pursue their economic and social development according to the policy they have chosen. It
means the right to existence (the only adequate guarantee of which is sovereign statehood). It means
the freedom from domination by another people and a generally satisfactory environment favorable to
their development. It means the right to freely dispose of their wealth and natural resources, as well as
the lawful recovery of property and adequate compensation in case of spoliation. It also means the right
to have and enjoy the same respect and rights as all other people, including the right to be free; the right
to free themselves from the bonds of domination by resorting to any means recognized by the
international community, the right to resist colonial rule. Finally, it means the right to cultural development
of their people and the all-important issues of survival, identity, and dignity as a people under
international law.

If taken further, the struggle of the British Cameroons' people in postcolonial Cameroon is not premised
on modern state theories of ethno-national conflicts highlighted by Wimmer ([60]). The Southern
Cameroons' nationalism conflict is not about exclusion from 'political participation, equal treatment
before the law and protection from arbitrariness of state power (of Cameroon Republic), dignity for the
weak and poor, and social justice and security' (Wimmer, [60], p. 1). Rather, the stories analysed in this
study reveal that the people of British Cameroons do not feel as if they are members of the postcolonial
Cameroon nation and do not want to be associated with the nation of Cameroon Republic. Their
arguments bring forth many connections between the past and their future through the present. What
appears significant in the experiences of British Cameroons' exiles, in general, is their ability to link the
past to the future they imagine. The exiles, in the interview leading to this analysis, wondered how 'a

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self-governing people with established international boundaries, a firm democratic tradition, and a
growing economy would be sacrificed as sheep to the slaughter'.

Conclusion
This article was concerned with how the people of British Cameroons living in exile continued to imagine
an alternative world for their 'home' on the basis of their historical past. The making of British
Cameroons' homeland into a separate state and the focus of the British Cameroons' exiles of this
analysis are related to a long history about the extraneous undermining of British Cameroons' claims
because of the structures of colonialism. These structures in postcolonial Cameroon illustrate the
continued existence, even in the 21st century, of colonialism. Other aspects of British Cameroons'
histories include the Unification Movement of French Cameroon people living in British Cameroons as
refugees in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s. The colonial interests of Britain only compounded the
contradictions of the United Nations in implementing its own decisions within the context of Cold War
politics. From the narratives of British Cameroons' exiles in the case of their territory, the 1960 United
Nations General Assembly Resolution 1514 (XV) remains an example of some of the inconsistencies of
the United Nations decolonisation process when considering the fate of the territory in 1961.

From the findings in this study the line of argument of the exiles can be considered even further within
colonial theory. The decision of Britain, the Trusteeship Administering Authority, to sacrifice a self-
governing territory and people remains a symbol of colonialism, one where the coloniser has little or no
regard for the colonised. The exiles continued to imagine themselves beyond the traumas of their
everyday lives in the Cameroon Republic and in exile as they looked to the future. They fantasised and
idealised what life was like in British Cameroons before their people were denied the exercise of
independence and sovereignty. As Anyangwe ([ 6], p. 4) put it, 'We were somebody before the pitch
darkness of Camerounese colonialist occupation and plunder fell upon us ... thereafter, we became
nobody'. The people of ex-British Cameroons also keep alive the dream that Southern Cameroons shall
be free again. This Utopia of life in British Cameroons upon regaining statehood and independence may
be important to the exiles, but within a global community that is not welcoming about the emergence of
new states, it is difficult to imagine what happens to the unified sense of a national self for the
subjugated people of British Cameroons if the desired future nation never arrives (Aretxaga, [ 9], p. 253).

It must be stated, however, that groups of people from any single home country are not monolithic. While
there are some members of the British Cameroons' people in the United States and elsewhere who wish
to conceal or downplay the right to separate independent statehood for their homeland, there are others
willing to go to any length to uphold their history and to use that history to ensure freedom for their
people and colonial territory. Indeed, the multiple ethnic groups from the Southern Cameroons area
share political goals even when many of them are unrelated ethnically. This is why the historical
imagination of 'home' is so crucial to understand how British Cameroons' people living in the Diaspora
share the same political goals of achieving statehood as the people in the homeland. It is also a claim of
this analysis that resistance theory highlights the complexity of the responses of oppressed and
subjugated groups to the logic of hegemonic ideologies of domination. In keeping with Sandra Harding's
([30], p. 136) requirement for scholars to 'be integrated into democracy-advancing projects for scientific
and epistemological reasons as well as moral and political ones', I suggest in this discussion that British
Cameroons' people in the United States continue to push forward the British Cameroons' struggle as a
political and social movement, even though in the social sciences some may consider such cases as
failed nationalist movements.

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It is also important to understand the social construction of home and home country among Southern
Cameroons' exiles who consider their home country as British Southern Cameroons and consider
Cameroon Republic as a foreign/neighbouring/sister country. For other Cameroonians and non-
Cameroonians, these exiles are Cameroonians. The double movement involved in recognising a home
country opens up a space of change and question; the idea of home that the exiles in this study claim is
not recognised or is misrecognised by others because it disrupts ingrained discourses of nationality and
who they want to be.

The narratives of the exiles emphasised the history of British Cameroons as 'a distinct people' defined
under international law. The exiles further held strongly to the argument that restoring the sovereignty
and independence of their homeland is a fundamental right. As Atangncho narrated, 'The UN General
Assembly voted on our independence on 19th April 1961, 50 member nations voted in favour of
Southern Cameroons independence, 2 member nations were against and there were 9 abstentions'. If,
by this UN vote, British Southern Cameroons was entitled to her independence and sovereignty, then
something must have happened in the implementation of that vote because that independence and
sovereignty elude British Cameroons to this day. Contrary to Hart's ([31], p. 28) assertion that the
modern world is supposed to be organised by an ideology of human freedom and equality, the evidence
of global inequality today continues to show that this emancipation rhetoric remains an illusion for some,
including British Southern Cameroons.

From the narratives, one may wonder why the world community that would not tolerate Portugal's
colonial control of Angola, for example, remained willing to tolerate Cameroon Republic's colonial control
of British Southern Cameroons. With the example of a colonial existence in postcolonial Cameroon and
the attendant conflicts of such an experience, one can safely state, in agreement with Malaquias ([42], p.
2), that the international community must not continue to 'ignore the complexities that reside at the core
of some intrastate conflicts in postcolonial Africa'. Ignoring or downplaying the aspirations and freedom
needs for some peoples and groups in postcolonial settings only causes such conflicts to escalate
further.

However, as a struggle for statehood restoration looking to the past, and very much part of the present
imagination of the exiles, the ages of the participants in my study appeared to be a major concern for the
outcome of the struggle. Although many young British Cameroons' people had gained asylum status in
the United States on the basis of being persecuted in the Cameroon Republic for their activism in the
British Cameroons' struggle, the younger generations for the most part were probably still trying to
survive in exile at the time of the research. In the tradition of Sandra Harding's ([30]) requirement for
scholars to 'be integrated into democracy-advancing projects for scientific and epistemological reasons
as well as moral and political ones' referenced earlier, I hope the younger generations of this population
will become visible in the struggle as they find their feet in exile. The activism of the younger generations
may add the necessary energy to the struggle because the study participants, though exhibiting so much
confidence in the struggle for the restoration of independence in their home country, were elderly and did
not look very healthy. Many were in their mid or late adulthood and some of them spoke with some
mannerisms and did not seem to be comfortable during the interviews. Some of them had been out of
work for a number of months and complained about feeling weak and increasingly losing appetite. They
had also been incarcerated in the home country many times and mistreated for their activism in the
struggle. In their Empire of Trauma: An Inquiry into the Condition of Victimhood, Fassin and Rechtman
([21], p. 232) hint at the fact that exiles 'caught between two histories, and between two worlds'
experience trauma. I too wondered whether some of the participants in the study suffered the double

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trauma of forced exile and the culture of colonial domination they had been through.

From a national sentiment perspective, a curious situation arises in this analysis, as pointed out earlier.
According to UN records, the Cameroon Republic voted against union with the British Southern
Cameroons in Resolution 1608 (XV). What this fact reveals is that the Cameroon Republic was more
interested in colonising the territory than in union with it and the world community has turned a blind eye
to the situation. The analysis also suggests that the colonial past and the nature of British Cameroons
decolonisation have implications in the present in the manner by which the people of British Cameroons
consider themselves subjugated in Cameroon Republic.

The final point in these concluding thoughts focuses on the legal and other remedies available to
peoples who are betrayed by the United Nations in a case like the British Southern Cameroons. In that
specific example one is faced with the situation that the United Nations itself becomes increasingly a
part of the problems it was created to resolve. As one of the participants asked, 'What happens when the
world body created to solve problems becomes the body creating the problems?' Considering the
situation of British Southern Cameroons as an example of a postcolonial annexed territory, it may be
important to question how the United Nations can be held accountable for its negligence. What is the
fate of the people of a former United Nations trust territory seeking a homeland of its own?

Notes
1 Following World War I, the German Protectorate of Kamerun was partitioned by Britain and France into
British Cameroons and French Cameroon. The two Cameroons existed separately from 1913 through
the League of Nations years as Mandates. They were inherited as separate United Nations
Trusteeships. For further details see, for example, E. A. Aka's ([1]) account, The British Southern
Cameroons: A Study in Colonialism and Underdevelopment. Madison, WI: Nkemnji Global Tech.

2 British Southern Cameroons was self-governing from 1954 with Dr E. M. L. Endeley as first premier.
The territory was the first nation in sub-Saharan Africa to organise free, fair and democratic elections
and to effect the first peaceful and democratic transfer of power in 20th century Africa. Yet, Britain and
the United Nations did not grant the territory its sovereign independence in 1960 in accordance with the
UN Charter in its Article 76(b) and UN Resolution 1514 on the independence of colonial people.

3 These were correspondences between the British Consulate-General in Brazzaville and the Honorable
Anthony Eden, Foreign Office, London, marked CONFIDENTIAL and referenced FO371/101390. The
documents, based on field reports in the territory, focused on political activities in Southern Cameroons
in the 1950s.

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~~~~~~~~
By Fonkem Achankeng

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