Subcommittee on International Human Rights Committee on Oct. 30th, 2018

[Félix Nkongho]

Yes. As a result of the killing of unarmed civilians, the arrests and the burning down of villages, anglophone groups decided to come together to protect themselves.... It was in self-defence. That is how we had the creation of various separatist groups and armed groups that are now also operating in the country.

These separatist movements have always existed. They existed in the nineties...the Southern Cameroons National Council. Because of the historical set-up of Cameroon between the French and English, and the fact that the process of reunification and the constitution...at the conference in Foumban did not really go as it was supposed to, most anglophones believe there are attempts to assimilate, conquer and dominate them. There have always been these protests by various groups in anglophone Cameroon clamouring for independence.

The commission of bilingualism and multiculturalism, if you talk to an average anglophone in particular, is really of no object. I know it was created whilst we were in jail, but it was more to please the international community. It was more to show the international community that they were doing something. The problems, for anglophones, are not about multiculturalism or bilingualism. The average anglophone understands and speaks French. It's a cultural problem. It's a problem of assimilation. It's a historical problem. It's a problem of marginalization, oppression and suppression.

It is a problem where the people feel that the form of the state, unitary decentralization, has failed. It's not addressing the problems that face the specificity of the anglophones in Cameroon. It cannot be addressed in the unitary decentralization as seen in the 1996 constitution and as amended in the 2008 constitution. There is the cry for a return to either the two-state federation, or at best, an independent Southern Cameroons.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Flamborough—Glanbrook, ON]

You've asked for the Canadian government's help, and rightly so. I want to ask you, though, are there some governments now placing diplomatic pressure on the Cameroonian government that are gaining some successful movement?

[Félix Nkongho]

There are some governments with whom we are talking. The most successful thing that Mr. Biya did was that nobody was talking about Cameroon. That is because [Inaudible-Editor] six years, so nobody talked about Cameroon in the mainstream media. They would not discuss Cameroon in the Canadian parliament or in the House of Lords. At least now they are talking about Cameroon. Governments have been putting on pressure. Recently, the French president congratulated him for his victory, but reminded him that he should find a solution to the anglophone problem.

I know the Americans have also done so. The ambassador told Mr. Biya to think about his legacy, and to try to see how he can find a solution. The UN adviser on the prevention of genocide also brought it to the attention of Mr. Biya that he should find a solution to the crisis.

If we don't find a solution—if the international community doesn't put on pressure—it might degenerate into a francophone-anglophone fight. For the time being, it's a fight between the anglophones and the institutions of the state. If it degenerates into a fight between the anglophones and the francophones, then we might get into what happened in Rwanda. Let's not forget, the “never again” principle will have been dealt a serious blow if Cameroon degenerates into Rwanda.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Flamborough—Glanbrook, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair]

We will now move to Mr. Tabbara.

[Marwan Tabbara, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

Thank you very much for coming in. Again, we're very limited on time.

I just want to ask you about the situation of the press and journalists prior to the election, and after the election, and how the government has imprisoned certain journalists for 11- to 15-year terms, and how that has degraded a lot of the democratic institutions and freedom of the press.

[Félix Nkongho]

The government has always muzzled the press in Cameroon. In spite of the "liberty laws" of 1990, which ushered in a wave of press freedom, democracy and respect for human rights, it's more cosmetic in its application. The government really doesn't respect them.

We have Mancho Bibixy Tse, who used to be a reporter and was given 15 years. We have about three or four anglophone journalists who are in jail. We have others who were recently arrested because of protest. The government has a way of ensuring that you can be sued for defamation. Your press licence can be withdrawn. You know you can be suspended.

Most of the press are very wary. Everybody tries as much as possible not to be seen to be offensive to the government. Criticisms are very limited. The government has succeeded in creating lots of media houses that they control. They sanction media houses that are very critical of them. For those media houses that preach hate speech, but are supportive of the government, no sanctions are taken against them. It really is a double standard.

We are worried. We're scared that within the next seven years of Mr. Biya's presidency, the press will really suffer. The civic space is shrinking, Not only the freedom of the press, but also the freedom of expression and assembly is shrinking. It's now difficult to get an authorization to hold a rally, meeting or press conference. We saw what recently happened with the leaders of some of the opposition parties; that press conference was banned. We're going to have tough times with the press as we get into the next seven years of Mr. Biya's mandate.

[The Chair]

Thank you.

Ms. Hardcastle.

[Cheryl Hardcastle, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Thank you very much.

Can you tell us a little bit about your own background, your increased activism and the perspectives that you have now on ways that Canada can be involved? I understand that you are an activist, and you started out as a lawyer in a legal community. Just tell us your perspective and, just to take the rest of my time too, maybe add a little bit of your understanding of how things escalated to the point of the Republic of Ambazonia being established.

[Félix Nkongho]

I'm a lawyer. I studied in Cameroon, Nigeria and the U.S. I was called to the bar in 1996. I have been practising law. I worked in the UN as legal adviser to the international criminal tribunal. I then worked as a human rights adviser with the UN mission in Afghanistan. I moved to the Congo as legal adviser to the UN police in the DRC, and then came back to Afghanistan as a legal adviser to the UN mission.

Three years ago I decided to come back to Cameroon because I felt a need to see how I could contribute to the democratic process. During my stay in the U.S. in 2005, a group of African students were doing their LLM in international human rights and criminal law. We founded an organization called the Centre for Human Rights and Democracy in Africa, with headquarters in Cameroon, Sierra Leone and Kenya. I happen to be executive director and founding president. When I came back, I started running the organization whilst also having a law firm.

It wasn't enough to just to be a lawyer and to have a human rights organization. Being activists, we decided to come together with other lawyers to create the Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium, of which I was the first president. It was the consortium that reawakened an anglophone conscientiousness and nationalism and patriotism. Over time, people had been complaining, but they needed a movement. They needed leaders who could be courageous enough to raise the issues with government.

As a result, we started a peaceful protest, but we have a government that really doesn't respond. Lawyers had written about four memorandums to the state documenting the problems that they faced, but unfortunately nobody responded to them. Nobody even acknowledged receipt of these documents.

So in 2016 they decided to have a sit-in strike action. For one month, the Minister of Justice.... Nobody responded to them. Then we decided that we would march in the street with our wigs and gowns to call the attention of the government. If they were really sleeping, they would realize that we mean business. But the lawyers were brutalized. They were beaten. They were dragged in the mud. Their wigs and gowns were seized. As a result of that, teachers and students had to join them in protest. These were peaceful protests.

Unfortunately, on January 17, the Internet was disconnected in the English-speaking part of the country for three months. I don't know whether you can really figure out what it means for the Internet to be disconnected in a part of the country for three months. That was a kind of collective punishment. We'd had the war in the north with Boko Haram, which had been going on for more than a year, and at no point in time was the Internet cut off.

Because of the protests in English-speaking Cameroon, the Internet was cut off for three months. We were arrested, blindfolded and cuffed. They drove us for close to 10 hours, locked up in very dehumanizing conditions, and we were charged in front of a miliary tribunal. During this period, when they had taken out the moderate leaders, the movement morphed into other groupings that had been existing but didn't have the voice, so a platform was created.

The young people in anglophone Cameroon who wanted change had created that platform, which we were fortunate to be the leaders of. But when we left...and because of the treatment they had given to those who were clamouring just for federation and a better living condition in the legal and educational system. Most people would argue that if you were preaching for federation and were facing the death penalty, they would rather preach secession and suppression and face the same death penalty. That is how positions hardened, because of the way people were killed, the way people were arrested. That is how positions hardened to now having a separatist movement.

The government had an opportunity to find a solution. It was still easy for them to at least try to address the problem, but at no point have they attempted to find a solution to the crisis. When they released us on August 31, it was a golden opportunity to release all those who were detained, but they chose to release only three. Justice Ayah, who used to be a sitting Supreme Court justice, was arrested and detained for seven months without any trial. They released some of us, and left the others in jail.

All these have been imposed in such a way that if you talk to the average person in anglophone Cameroon, separation is now in vogue. Now the majority of the people would not settle for anything less than separation. They are asking for a referendum for them to determine their fate, but we still believe that something can be done. Notwithstanding the situation, we can at least have a dialogue, a negotiated settlement. The diaspora living in Canada also would have a role to play because they are very influential. They have money, they have a voice. We can involve them in trying to see how we can find a holistic solution. The problem cannot just be solved internally without including the diaspora.

I'll give you an example. Cameroon has a way of blacklisting Cameroonians by birth who are out of the country. Yes, some of them might have dual nationality, but we have Cameroonians who have arrived at the airport with a visa and were sent back because they encouraged dissent abroad.

We cannot solve the problems in Cameroon without addressing the issue of the diaspora. We need to find a way to grant amnesty or clemency to those who are living abroad who have not been convicted but who have been blacklisted by the government. They are people who have parents in Cameroon. Their parents die, and they cannot come to Cameroon for fear of being arrested.

If these people cannot come to Cameroon, we know they would prefer to come to Ambazonia. We believe that the Government of Canada can do a lot in trying to create an enabling environment and putting pressure on the government to call for a dialogue, and at best, ask the people of Cameroon, ask the government to organize a referendum.

Thank you.

[The Chair]

Unfortunately that is our time. I know we had a very limited time today, but thank you very much for your testimony before this committee, and thank you to the members for being here today.

The meeting is adjourned.