Ambazonia / Federal Republic of Southern Cameroon

Last modified: 2007-01-27 by zeljko heimer
Keywords: cameroon | cameroun | southern cameroon | ambazonia | bakassi |
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• Various information
• Bakassi Peninsula

• Cameroon
• Nigeria

A look at http://www.southerncameroons.org will give you more details - but nothing about the flag. In spite of its name, Southern Cameroons is the northern and anglophone part of Republique du Cameroun.
On an open mailing-list about southern cameroons at e- groups.fr http://www.egroups.fr/group/scncforum I found an interting message:
n° 3379 (28 sept 2000), with a jpg of a proposal apparently not yet official at the Southern Cameroons National Council, if I understand well. 32 kb 9 stripes (white and blue), and a blue canton with a 13 stars circle and a dove - See the replies too at http://www.egroups.fr/message/scncforum/3379
It seems too that they hoisted at some point the old two-stars flag of Cameroon.
Olivier Touzeau 29 November 2000

Cameroon security forces move in against separatists

YAOUNDE, Jan 13 - Security forces were deployed in large numbers Thursday after secessionist demonstrations and arrests in Cameroon's mainly English-speaking South-West Province, witnesses said.
Residents of Buea and Limbe, reached by telephone, said that security forces were posted at strategic points in the two towns following the arrest of several secessionist activists at the weekend.
Members of the Southern Cameroon National Council (SCNC) held marches in the towns, using the flag of Cameroon from the first years after independence, with two stars signifying federalism and a bilingual republic. Today, English-speakers contest Francophone domination.
<...>
In a statement issued in Buea, retired ambassador Henry Fossung, recognised hitherto as the SCNC president, accused another wing of the movement led by Esuka Ndoki Mukete of seeking to "announce the creation of a Democratic Republic of Southern Cameroon".
Ndoki Mukete reacted to this allegation by announcing his resignation from the movement, adding: "At no time have I used or recommended the use of force or violence in SCNC activities."
<...>
Cameroon, once a German colony, was parcelled out into French and English protectorates. Part of the British Cameroons in 1961 voted to join a federation with French territory while the remainder decided to merge with neighbouring Nigeria.
In May 1972, separate state institutions were abolished and the Federal Republic of Cameroon was renamed the United Republic of Cameroon.

by André Pires Godinho 2 February 2003

At the official site of the separatist moviment of the South Cameroon mentioned above there is now the flag as above.
André Pires Godinho, 2 February 2003

by Željko Heimer 20 January 2006

An other variant of this flag is shown on http://kabuin.tripod.com/photo_gallery/index.album?i=5. (redrawn image from that site above, ZH)
Valentin Poposki, 28 Jul 2006

Bakassi Peninsula

Nigeria has agreed to hand over Bakassi Peninsula to Cameroon. Nigerian flags have been lowered there. A group of the Bakassi Movement for Self-Determination, standing against the decision, has decided to declare Bakassi Peninsula an independent republic. And a "newly-designed" flag has been raised. Or maybe it is not new, since sources do not agree: Sun News Online thus mentions that "The anthem, and a flag, [SNO] further learnt, had been prepared few years ago when they first considered self-determination as a homegrown response to a possible loss of the peninsula at The Hague".

BMOSB militants regarded their land as Nigerian but consider that Nigeria has let them down and thus do not want to keep any link with Nigeria either. Besides, Bakassa is said to have been enjoying a substantial degree of autonomy for a long time. The peninsula has a monarch. Thus it is not a mere fantasy nation.

However, the most precise description I have been able to find so far is here: "the flag, a white-and-blue striped material, with 10 stars representing the community's clans" (Source: http://nm.onlinenigeria.com/templates/?a=8464&z=12).

The description sounds strangely similar to the independentist flag of Southern Cameroons. Indeed, to add to the confusion, here is a quote from a forum (ICI Cemac website): "those who have proclaimed independence in bakassi are southern cameroonians and not nigerians. they have hosted our southern cameroonian blue and white flag and not any other flag". And a South Cameroons website claims that Bakassi is a South Cameroons territory (http://www.fdrsoutherncameroons.info/). The flag hoisted in Bakassi has the same number of stars as that of Southern Cameroons on the FOTW website but the explanation of that number, according to the above quote, should be different. Moreover, the flag drawn on the South Cameroons website has 13 stars... Yet the resemblance seems too obvious to be purely coincidental.

Thanh-Tâm Lê, 13 August 2006