SPEECH BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF AMBAZONIA ON THE OCCASION OF THE US-AFRICA SUMMIT

SPEECH BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF AMBAZONIA ON THE OCCASION OF THE US-AFRICA SUMMIT 2022 (14 DECEMBER 2022)

Wednesday 14th December 2022

Ref. No. FRA/1214/22

SPEECH BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF AMBAZONIA ON THE OCCASION OF THE US-AFRICA SUMMIT 2022 (14 DECEMBER 2022)

Mr. President of the USA,

My President,

The organizers of the US-Africa Summit 2022,

Fellow African Heads of State here present,

Dear international observers,

I want to thank the United States of America for organizing the second US-Africa Summit. This is a laudable action to revitalize partnership and alliances with African Countries. I understand this Summit will continue efforts to strengthen ties with African Nations that are under severe pressure by their local populations to review the significance or not of traditional alliances that stem from our colonial heritage.

We the people of the Southern Cameroons/ Ambazonia regret our absence from the ongoing US- Africa Summit. This would have been a golden opportunity for the US to affirm her historical YES vote at the United Nations, in favor of the Independence resolution on the Southern Cameroons- Ambazonia on April 21st 1961. I have been obliged by the people of the Southern Cameroons – Ambazonia to bypass this error of omission, by addressing the US-Africa summit as the uninvited 55th Nation of Africa, albeit from an observer’s perspective. It is our hope that the Summit will be a moment of sincere introspection around the true causes of anti-western sentiments sweeping across the African Continent today. Summits like this should not be mere banquets away from home, they should not be cocktails of political pleasantries, and not certainly a collection of image-building souvenirs and empty smiles. It is another opportunity for participating African Leaders to tell the truth to each other, it should also be a moment to review our partnerships and alliances with a super power like America. During such reviews, both sides should x-ray with candor the causes of mutual failures as well as the areas where measurable progress has been achieved by either side.

The post-colonial philosophy that made most alliances with Africa and the West look like a beautiful young girl toasted around by suitors or bidders, and whose will does not count, led to the establishment of Transactional alliances and not genuine partnership alliances. That kind of posture reminds the Africa psyche of the infamous era of slavery. The Africa of today is in need of direct mutually beneficial politico-economic partnership alliances with America, on grounds of equality and respect for each other.

Africa doesn’t need baby seating today, Africa doesn’t need people to decide for her, Africa doesn’t need systems and alliances that work more for the good of others than our own people, and leaders who appear to serve foreign interests more than national interests. This schoolmaster approach by the West, may have worked for a while, but right now it is not working for Africa. The youth, and that means 60-75% of the 1.2 Billion people in Africa are asking why the richest continent remains the most backward! Instead of frowning at voices like mine on the continent, instead of giving Band Aid solutions, why don’t we try out a cheaper option which is one of a direct strategic partnership with the people of the continent – a marshal plan for example. I said the people of the continent, not the leaders. There is a remarkable difference between the people of Africa and the political leadership in Africa today. I have the impression that based on the former alliances and operational philosophies, the West is losing the people in preference for their Leaders, many of whom have long lost the legitimacy to speak for their people because, they have been rejected by their people even though they keep stealing elections.

Africa is not poor, we are the richest continent in the world, our problem is not poverty, hunger, and diseases! Our problem can be summarized in three words: corruption, exploitation, and bad leaders in power. We need to forge alliances that will help the people of Africa to address these key problems. True friends will help you fight your true enemies, not imaginary ones.

America is a friend to Africa because America has what it takes to efface these three monster problems, but America will be Africa’s friend indeed when they stop leading from behind on key issues affecting the continent of Africa. Remember, a friend in need is a friend indeed.

The post-colonial politics of condoning corruption, exploitation, and bad leaders in power, while pretentiously prescribing wrong medicine such as aid for development as the Chinese and the French are doing on the continent, is a time bomb. The origin of this approach dates back to the sixties, when the colonial powers of Europe decided to exert economic and political influence over Africa through debt management. That kind of politics was good for France and Europe from the post-World War II era, but not today, because if the buyers all die sellers will go out of business, unless the sellers have to buy their own goods and services. Please America, a viable Africa is a better friend and partner to the rest of the world than an exporter of misery, poverty, disease, hunger, crimes, and terrorism.

The attitude of some of our friends aiding and abetting corruption, protecting, and helping bad leadership, and rewarding corruption in Africa, is adding to Africa’s depression not deliverance. This will affect all of us.

Dear President Biden,

Africa is very sick, and we know the medicine and it is local, not imported. We cannot continue to pretend that all Africa needs now is more of the same. We cannot also say all countries have problems so let Africa solve her problems. The difference is that Africa’s problems have a lot of umbilical cords wrapped around her neck, complicating the birth of her dreams economically, industrially and politically. Please, let’s help Africa cut it off without fear of retribution or victimization from her trusted friends.

America should not help Africa as a distant friend anymore, because until you draw closer (to Africa) you will not truly acknowledge that Africa is a Continent not a country. The one size fits all approach in dealing with Africa, as if Africa is one country is wrong because such an approach misses all the distinguishing details that make for strong alliances. America must be prepared to hold hands with leaders of the next generation on the continent, to address the real issues Africa is facing.

America cannot continue to ride on the backs of the French to protect their/America’s interest on the continent. By that I mean America cannot act only as, and when or where it pleases the French in Africa. The post-WW doctrine of sphere of influence is no longer relevant in a unipolar world. In Many instances America is either acting late or absent, and our mutual interest is in serious jeopardy. Here come the growing symptoms of the problem: increased migrations, civil unrests, unending wars, rising anti-western sentiments, rising numbers of Military coups d’Etats, the rise and spread of extremism in sub-Saharan Africa. These have created a favorable climate for the growing Chinese and Russian influence on the continent through the help of a sit-tight corrupt African political elite. Here are the direct effects of the failure of the post-independence and neo-colonial order, promoted in my own part of Africa principally by the French.

French policies towards Cameroon were developed in the 1950s by a postwar political leadership that sought primarily to guarantee their own survival as a nation, and to uphold their status as a world power. We the People of The Southern Cameroons/Ambazonia were caught up in the French web when we were forced to get “Independence by Joining.” We voted to join LRC and two gentlemen agreed, but the French pushed Ahmadou Ahidjo to opt for Re-unification instead of Unification, go for Annexation instead of Equality, and adopt a Unitary State instead of Federation.

The French also advised Ahidjo in Foumban in 1961, to reject every commonsense proposal by the people of the Southern Cameroons for a genuine Union of Two States of Equal Status; the French drafted the fraudulent 1961 LRC Constitution that was never ratified as required by the Southern Cameroons House of Assembly; the French President Pompidou ordered Ahidjo to abolish the fictitious Federation between LRC and Southern Cameroons - Ambazonia in 1972 through a fraudulent referendum; and the French finally advised Biya to finalize the annexation project of the Southern Cameroons – Ambazonia, by reverting to their former name-LRC- before the failed unification experiment. Throughout all these times America has been playing the concerned observer, in what is customarily referred to as France’s sphere of influence in geopolitics. The CIA carried out many studies on the problem of Southern Cameroons/Ambazonia, warning of the rising tensions in the southern Cameroons, but America did nothing practical to engineer genuine resolution of the problem through dialogue.

My Fellow Americans,

Whenever there was a call for dialogue with the people of Southern Cameroons/Ambazonia, whether it’s AAC 1 & 2 of 1993/94, African Court of Human and Peoples Rights in Banjul, the French would move to reassure their puppet regime in Yaounde, that they don’t have to cave in. President Mitterrand for instance, advised Paul Biya that he should not accept Federalism, that in case of any uprising Paul Biya should be prepared to use that as the alibi to crush the Southern Cameroons -Ambazonia, and seal our fate as their conquered slaves. Their hope was that in the event of war LRC will crush us like flies, as they did to the UPC- led nationalist resistance in the 1950s.

In 2017 President Macron while visiting West Africa met with Paul Biya and asked him to send his military to declare war on the Southern Cameroons. Little did they know that the Southern Cameroons /Ambazonia would rise as we have done, with enough strength and resolve to stand and resist their barbaric genocidal army for 6 long years and counting. Today France seems to have lost the moral compass to instruct LRC on the path of a political solution, to resolve what they erroneously ordered Cameroun to do in the first place. Hence, the situation in the Southern Cameroons- Ambazonia needs an outsider to resolve, not the French – the French are parties to the ongoing conflict in Ambazonia. Also, the French are somewhat paralyzed at this time by certain issues deriving from their existing alliances with their former colonies:

1. Guilt has destroyed the moral authority of the French act today on certain issues affecting the continent;

2. The rise of anti-French sentiment in all their former colonies have also diminished France’s boldness on the continent;

3. The fear of the Russian expansion within former French colonies has taken the gusto away from the political will or influence of the French in Africa;

4. The expulsion of the French from Mali and Burkina Faso has made France want to embrace anyone who still tolerates them, no matter how bad they are for other interests in the region.

America cannot continue to rely on an unwilling ally, or a paralyzed one. America must stand on her feet and use her political, and economic capital in the continent, for the good of the people of Ambazonia and Cameroon.

My dear President Biden,

We, Americans have to stop leading from behind the French, because France is either unwilling to act against the status quo, or is losing control too fast of her colonial allies because of their mistakes.

The American Interest in the Gulf of Guinea cannot be guaranteed on the backs of a morally disabled ally. Inaction is not an option either. America should not think that those who have issues with France today on the continent also have the same issues with America. The French need help to do what is right. They are like the biblical figure who said, “when I want to do good, I find myself doing the evil I do not want.” If America continues to lead from behind in Southern Cameroons/Ambazonia and LRC because it is so-called France’s backyard, the price will be, Russia next door in the Gulf of Guinea.

The Yaounde war- hawks are now leaning on Russia because the French would not help them, and cannot stop them. Ambazonia, on the other hand is the natural ally of America. America for 60 years has been the number one destination of S-C Ambazonians fleeing the torture and persecution from the LRC regime. Ambazonian-American Diaspora is the most powerful S-C Ambazonian community outside Ambazonia. The Children of most Southern Cameroons/Ambazonian-Americans today see themselves as Americans. The Ambazonian-American economic power is today valued at Billions of Dollars. Our ties with America are permanent.

In Ambazonia/Southern Cameroons, about 40 % of direct foreign investment in Ambazonia and the Gulf Guinea on the Ambazonian side is American. America has a legitimate corporate social responsibility to protect Ambazonia from annihilation, and to stem insecurity out of the Gulf. However, America is trying to do so by supporting a foolhardy tyrannic ruler who, believes the Southern Cameroons-Ambazonia problem can only be resolved by a lopsided military option. A tyrant that believes killing all Southern Cameroons citizens proves that he is right and everyone is wrong, a delusional despot who believes that what happened in 1961 was re-unification (i.e. a Recovery of their lost territory) and not a Unification of two nations of equal status as was proclaimed by the UN. This 90-year old genocidaire is in a class of his own. He is old and worn out, he is not worried about what or how others think.

Let me remind you who Paul Biya is. He is the Hitler of our time in black skin. There has never been any dictator more brutal than Paul Biya. He is the man who declared a senseless war against unarmed citizens of the Southern Cameroons/Ambazonia, using tanks and Helicopters gunships, just for holding a different political opinion from his, and for demanding dialogue. That war is ongoing now for 5 years + and has costed the lives of 40 thousand plus; his forces have massacred and dumped the bodies of thousands of innocent Southern Cameroons citizens, including the well-known case of Journalist Wazizi in mass graves, littered all across Ambazonia.

Biya’s forces have burnt down more than 400 settlements and villages, forcing 1.6 million people including women and children, to be displaced without care, some live like animals in bushes without food, without shelter, without medicine, without sanitary pads. His forces shoot and kill goats, cats, pigs, cows and sheep belonging to villagers who escape from their bloody attacks; they follow human preys in to the Bushes and systematically destroy their huts, their crops and any barns they find. Biya commanded his forces to execute suckling babies in their mother’s arms; his soldiers threw a suckling baby into a pot of boiling oil; they cut off the heads of suspected enemies including that of one innocent Sam Suya in camera; his barbaric forces murdered babies going to and returning from school in Bamenda and Buea; Biya massacred 6 of our children in Mother Francisca secondary school in Kumba, and eleven in Buea; He massacred more than 21 persons including mothers and babies in Ngarbuh on Valentine’s day in 2020. Biya expelled humanitarian organizations in Ambazonia, who were responding to the plight of victims of his senseless slaughter of civilians. He has forcefully disappeared more than 1000 Ambazonians since the 22 of September 2017; his administrators and appointed leaders have called the people of Southern Cameroons Dogs, Rats, and roaches. Biya has put people in special jails who have been languishing under despicable conditions for 6,7,8 years without trial; he has sentenced more than 1500 innocent civilians - his political opponents, on trumped up charges in Military Tribunals; Biya’s forces have murdered many missionaries, pastors and Bishops in Cameroon, including an American missionary, Charles Wesco with impunity.

He has a secret killing squad called Commandement Operationel that has massacred hundreds of his political opponents. He has never truly won any election since 1992 in Cameroon.

He snubs Diplomats and World Leaders who care to tell him the truth about his bloody hands.

Fellow Ambazonians,

Dear Americans,

Paul Biya is evil, going by these few examples alone that I have mentioned, and if you doubt it, check out the latest reports by Human Rights Watch and the www.ambazoniagenocidelibrary.com. Paul Biya is worse than Idi Amin of Uganda, Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, Saddam Hussein of Iraq, or Muammar Gaddafi of Libya.

These presidents did not do 1/100th of what Paul Biya has done, and is still doing to the people of the Southern Cameroons - Ambazonia. Yet, none of these people could have been received at the White House for any reason whatsoever, by the President of the United States at a time like this. What makes Paul Biya different today, if I may ask?

Mr. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken: You posted on Twitter not too long ago that there shall be visa restrictions to Cameroonians who are obstructing peace. I wonder who you had in mind when you twitted, considering that Biya is the Chief perpetrator of the war against the people of the Southern Cameroons, thus obstructing Peace. How do you honor the mastermind and punish the collaborators? For your information, if you are not aware, Paul Biya attended your US-Africa Summit invitation along with Defense Chief who is personally overseeing the unending massacres in Ambazonia with impunity. Also, he came with 12 members of his War Cabinet. Mr. Secretary, tell us what has changed with Biya of 2022, to merit him and his blood-thirsty team such a generous exemption on your announced visa restriction policy. The Previous Administration under President Donald Trump, cut some military aid to Paul Biya’s killer regime used to kill Ambazonians. He removed LRC from AGOA and more. Sir, have the conditions which led to the previous American position against the Biya regime changed? I don’t think so, I think however that if there is any change, it is not for the better.

Paul Biya rejected US Senate Resolution 684; This year he rejected mediated talks without preconditions which America recommended, and he has openly opted to kill his way to normalcy in the Southern Cameroons Ambazonia, as his choice solution to redress the legitimate political demands of the people of Southern Cameroons, Ambazonia. Biya’s killer forces are now combing through our villages and cities like maniacs, picking up our people at random and killing them. They just break into houses at the wee hours of the morning and round up anyone and everything standing on two legs, executing them and dumping their corpses wherever they choose. Does that seem like the solution that America has endorsed for the ongoing war Biya declared against the innocent people of Ambazonia? Paul Biya has sent envoys everywhere telling stakeholders such as the UN and maybe now the US, that they have already won the war, and that life has returned to normal in the Southern Cameroons. Who believes that to be true? My advice to the wise and powerful in America is to choose the side of the people of The Cameroons, unless you think that when Biya tells such lies he is representing the people of the Cameroons. Leaders come and go, but the people of Africa and Ambazonia will remain and will never forgot those who stood with and for them. America should not dine with a drowning dictator like Paul Biya, and sacrifice the wishes of millions of people in the Cameroons.

Dear State Department,

Any attempt to prescribe readymade solutions for Biya is not the way to go, because Biya has never done what anybody tells him, except the French President. The only solution to the Ambazonia -LRC conflict is to bring Biya to the table, to meet the Southern Cameroons Ambazonia. The final solution will emerge on the table, not from the White House, not from Champs Elysee, not from the European Parliament, but from a Comprehensive Negotiated Agreement. We don’t need a referendum. We may prefer a second Plebiscite if at all, because it pre-supposes we are autonomous and sovereign.

The much-heralded Referendum concept is used by non-sovereign entities seeking secession, to decide their destinies, and majority ‘YES’ becomes the 1st law of secession for any entity.

We are not trying to secede, we are a sovereign people, so we don’t need a referendum. The UN knew this truth and gave us a Plebiscite instead of a Referendum in 1961. Because a majority YES in a plebiscite does not automatically cede our sovereignty, while a majority Yes in a Referendum will. A majority decision in a plebiscite still leaves us with the power to decide what type of Union we want if at all. Those who disapprove Russia’s sham referendums in Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson in parts of Ukraine, should see why it is wrong to recommend a Referendum to LRC as the solution.

I call on African leaders present in Washington DC, to tell Paul Biya, “you cannot embark on annihilating a sovereign people who decided to join you freely without war.” Just as you cannot kill your abused fiancée if she decides to not continue with the marriage. African leaders, we should start helping each other in solving Africa’s problems. We cannot be claiming Africa for Africans, but when there are serious conflicts tearing apart a fellow African country, we look away waiting for an erstwhile colonial master, US or EU to take the initiative. Where are the elders in the Continent of Africa? There is an African proverb which says, until a person starts to assume the responsibilities of another fellow man, that person cannot be known as an adult in the community. Where’s the AU on the Conflict between LRC and Southern Cameroons-Ambazonia?

I call on all Ambazonian People to remain hopeful that America the beacon of freedom, cannot sacrifice her values on the world stage, because of an ailing blood thirsty Dictator like Paul Biya.

I think America is trying to reach a sleezy dictator that is unreachable, whenever you send envoys to reach him. Our concern should be the message from President Biden to dictator Paul Biya. I also want to caution that the recent prosecution of some of our comrades in the US is not an action premeditated by the Government of America against Ambazonia. It is a matter brought before the court by certain individuals residing in America. The law will follow its course, we have no problem with that. Instead of street demonstrations on this matter in DC, we should rather mobilize for a robust defense in Court to vindicate our comrades who engaged in activities protected by the Constitution of the United States. I urge Ambazonians to contribute to our Legal Defense Fund, accompany our comrades to court whether in Maryland, Kansas or Minnesota. It’s never a crime to provide defense and support for somebody in Court. All for one, one for all !

The verdict from these cases will establish a reference law that will influence opinions and guarantee us greater protection within the framework of existing laws in America. Remember this is the USA, where you are innocent until proven guilty.

The innocent should do the right thing and know that the enemy wants to do us evil, but our God will surely use it for our good in the struggle.

God bless our Beautiful Country, Ambazonia

And God Bless the United States of America.