Washington, DC, 9 December 2016 – The Southern Cameroons National Council (SCNC – North America) condemns, in the strongest terms, the horrifying executions of more than ten people Thursday in the city of Bamenda (North West Region of the Cameroons) and of two additional people gunned down Friday in the town of Kumba (situated in the South West Region) by soldiers of the expansionist and colonial government of “La Republique du Cameroun”.

According to reliable sources, hundreds have been arrested in both towns and have been taken into detention in unknown places. The regime in Yaounde has said two people were killed were killed in Bamenda and has not owned up to killing people in Kumba, raising fears that many citizens may be “disappeared”.

The SCNC calls on the African Union, whose court based in Banjul (The Gambia) has issued a ruling recognizing Southern Cameroonians as a people, different from the people of French-speaking “La Republique du Cameroun”;

The SCNC calls on the United Nations, whose General Assembly adopted Resolution 1608 on 21 April 1961 granting independence to Southern Cameroons effective 1 October 1961, being more than year after “La Republique du Cameroun” gained independence from France on 1 January 1960;

The SCNC calls on President Barack Obama and the Government of the United States of America, which voted in favor of ending the colonial occupation of Southern Cameroons during that U.N. General Assembly meeting;

We call on the USA and the International Community to not only condemn, in the strongest terms, the savagery of the colonial regime in Yaounde, but to call them out by their name. What happened in Bamenda on Thursday and is unfolding in Kumba this Friday, added to the events of the last few weeks in Bamenda and Buea, constitute a declaration of war by the colonial regime of Yaounde, which thinks that “might is right” slaughtering a peace loving people whose “force of argument” the colonialists have been unable to counter, including before international courts, where they have repeatedly suffered humiliating defeat.

We call on the International Community to denounce these acts of state terrorism on a people who are only exercising their universally recognized right to self-determination and their constitutional right to protest. And, we call on President Obama, to declare “La Republique du Cameroun” a terrorist state/organization and take the same action in removing him from power as the U.S. government has supported or spearheaded in other lands ruled by terror.

The SCNC invites the United Nations, the African Union and the rest of the International Community to take all necessary measures to defend the defenseless people of Southern Cameroons from the acts of terrorism, war crimes and crimes against humanity that “La Republique du Cameroun” has been committing in Southern Cameroons since 1961.

We urge the United Nations, the African Union and the rest of the International Community to appoint a Special Prosecutor and to deploy United Nations Human Rights experts to investigate these crimes and ensure that their perpetrators, beginning with President Paul Biya and his government, are brought to book.

We have learnt from reliable sources that political dissidents and leaders of Southern Cameroonian pro-democracy and pro-human rights organizations have been earmarked for assassination. Leaders of the associations of Southern Cameroonian lawyers, teachers and students, who have led peaceful protests against discrimination on the basis of language and called on the regime in Yaounde to end the ongoing cultural genocide, have been forced into hiding by Death Squadrons (“Squadron de la Mort”) sent by “La Republique du Cameroun” to hunt down and assassinate them. This means these organizations are now without the mature leadership they need, opening wide the possibility that even minor mistakes by young people, like throwing stones at riot police and paramilitary troops, cannot be checked by leaders and will provide the pretext the regime is looking for to kill even more people.

After 55 years of colonial occupation and domination by “La Republique du Cameroun”, the people of Southern Cameroons have had enough of the black-on-black colonization from “La Republique du Cameroun” and request that the United Nations take emergency action to ensure that the colonialists in Yaounde march back their “killing machines” (soldiers) back across the internationally recognized boundary between French-speaking Cameroun and English-speaking Cameroon.

The SCNC condemns the criminal silence of France whose proxy war “La Republique du Cameroun” is fighting. France never wanted Southern Cameroons to gain independence because she always intended to cause the French Overseas Territory of “La Republique du Cameroun” to occupy it. That is why France led “La Republique du Cameroun” and all former French colonies who were then members of the United Nations to vote against U.N. Resolution 1608. Even as the United Nations recognized “the Cameroons” (in plural), France and “La Republique” had already hatched the plot that has doomed the experiment in a federation of two equal states proposed by the United Nations in the Plebiscite which held in Southern Cameroons on 11 February 1961.

The SCNC informs the African Union, the United Nations and the rest of the International Community that the people of Southern Cameroons have embarked on an irreversible march towards restoring their independence and ending colonial rule of their people. We are not looking back and we are not turning back. Our fight has been dubbed “The Coffin Revolution”, in honor of one of its inspiring young leaders who, like millions of our people, would much rather buy and bring their coffin to their own funeral than continue to suffer what has turned out to even worse than colonial rule under German or British occupation.

The SCNC reiterates this warning: The Government of “La Republique du Cameroun is bent on perpetrating genocide on the people of Southern Cameroons. The SCNC prays the African Union, the United States of America and the United Nations not to stand idly by (as in Rwanda) and watch another genocide unfold. If you do, history will retain that you were forewarned.