Cameroon Begins Week-Long Talks to Resolve Anglophone Crisis

(Bloomberg) -- Cameroon convened about 1,500 delegates to a week of talks about the crisis in its two English-speaking regions as part of the government’s first serious effort to negotiate an end to a three-year secessionist revolt.

The talks in the capital, Yaounde, billed as a “national dialogue,” are being presided over by Prime Minister Joseph Ngute and will include opposition supporters, church leaders, civil-society groups, members of the security forces and a few former insurgents.

The crisis in the Southwest and Northwest regions has killed an estimated 2,000 people and left many Cameroonians from the Anglophone community calling for federalism or complete secession from the French-speaking majority. Both topics were considered taboo until protests against the dominance of the French language in schools and courts were so brutally quashed by security forces in 2016 that they turned into a full-blown revolt.

The central African nation split after World War I into a French-run zone and a smaller, British-controlled area. They were unified in 1961 but maintained some autonomy until the federation was replaced by a unitary state in 1972. The English-speaking minority, about a fifth of the population, has complained of discrimination by the French majority for decades.

“Federation remains the best system of government that can enable the protection of the minority,” Anglophone opposition leader John Fru Ndi said in an interview last week.

Severe Impact

The conference was called by President Paul Biya in a speech on Sept. 10 and follows earlier attempts by moderate Anglophone leaders to convene the English-speaking community. Africa’s second-longest serving head of state, Biya, who runs a highly centralized government, had so far refused a dialogue with what he said were “terrorists.”

In the two weeks preceding the conference, Ngute oversaw consultations in all of the nation’s 10 regions and received proposals from delegates, including a 400-page document from the highly influential Catholic Archdiocese in Douala. Representatives of the association of Cameroonian businesses as well as those of the Cameroon Chamber of Commerce have all advocated for a return to peace considering the impact the crisis has had on the economy.

Traditional leaders from the Southwest region call for a 10-state federation, while chiefs from the mainly French-speaking Littoral region are asking for a four-state federation.

Separatist groups said on social media they could only participate in the dialogue if there’s a neutral mediator. Ten self-proclaimed leaders of the separatists were sentenced to life in prison by the Yaounde military tribunal last month after a trial deemed unfair by Human Rights Watch. Defense lawyers had no prior knowledge of the evidence presented to the court by the prosecution and were not given any chance to object to the evidence, the rights group said on its website, citing Fru John Nsoh, lead counsel for the separatist leaders.

To contact the reporter on this story: Pius Lukong in Yaounde at plukong@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Paul Richardson at pmrichardson@bloomberg.net, Pauline Bax, Karl Maier

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