The Secrets of an Aborted Decolonisation

The Declassified British Secret Files on the Southern Cameroons

Carlson Anyangwe

• Publisher: Langaa RPCIG
• Year: 2010
• Print ISBN:
  9789956578504
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9789956578771
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: African History
• Index: History

A remarkable feature of the collapse of the British Empire is that the British departed from almost every single one of their colonial territories invariably leaving behind a messy situation and an agenda of serious problems that in most cases still haunt those territories to this day. One such territory is the Southern British Cameroons. There, the British Government took the official view that the territory and its people were expendable. It opposed, for selfish economic reasons, sovereign statehood for the territory, in clear violation of the UN Charter and the norm of self-determination. It transferred the Southern Cameroons to a new colonial overlord and hurriedly left the territory. The British Governments bad faith, duplicity, deception, wheeling and dealing, and betrayal of the people of the Southern Cameroons is incredible and defies good sense. Ample evidence of this is provided by the declassified documents in this book. Among the material are treaties concluded by Britain with Southern Cameroons coastal Kings and Chiefs; and the boundary treaties of the Southern Cameroons, treaties defining the frontiers with Nigeria to the west and the frontier with Cameroun Republic to the east. The book contains documents that attest to the Southern Cameroons as a fully self-governing country, ready for sovereign statehood. These include debates in the Southern Cameroons House of Assembly; and the various Constitutions of the Southern Cameroons. The book also reproduces British declassified documents on the Southern Cameroons covering the three critical years from 1959 to 1961, documents which speak to the inglorious stewardship of Great Britain in the Southern Cameroons. This book removes lingering doubts in some quarters that the people of the Southern Cameroons were cheated of independence. Its contents are further evidence of their inalienable right and sacred duty to assert their independence. No one who reads this book can possibly be indifferent to the just struggle of the Southern Cameroons for sovereign statehood.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Content
• Introduction
• Chapter One. British Treaties with the Chiefs of Bimbia and Victoria
• Chapter Two. International Colonialism and the Emergence of the Southern Cameroons Polity
• Chapter 3. International Boundaries of the Southern Cameroons
• Chapter Four. Legislation Establishing Courts of Justice
• Chapter 5. Regulations Regarding Public Service, Plebiscite, Chiefs and House of Chiefs
• Chapter 6. House of Assembly Debates: Supplementary Appropriation, Medical Reports, Firearms, ‘Check off ’ System
• Chapter 7. House of Assembly Debates: Supplementary Estimates, Water Rate, Agency Services, Defence
• Chapter 8. House of Assembly Debates: Housing, Roads, Airstrips, Water Supply, ‘Federal Constitution’
• Chapter 9. Constitutions of the Southern Cameroons
• Chapter 10. Declassified Secret Files 1952, 1959
• Chapter 11. Economic Viability of the Southern Cameroons: Sir Phillipson’s Report, 1959
• Chapter 12. Declassified Secret Files 1960
• Chapter 13. Declassified Secret Files: 1961
• Back Cover