THE SOUTHERN CAMEROONS’ WAR OF INDEPENDENCE
WHICH OF THE TWO CONCEPTS WILL BE APPROPRIATE FOR A LASTING SOLUTION?
* Dialogue is a process in Conflict Resolution where the stakeholders decide to come around a table to seek a solution to their differences. This happens in the case of problems at their initial phase, where the parties concerned decide to listen to each other with the hope of arriving at a consensus for peace to reign. In the crisis in question, we are referring to the Corporate strike actions in 2016 by the Common-law Lawyers and the Teachers of the Anglophone educational subsystem in Cameroon. This process is usually coordinated by a Mediator. The mediator is not the solution-giver here but just someone to moderate discussions amongst the aggrieved parties for a way out of their problems. The solution comes from the concerned actors.
* NEGOTIATION. In this process, there are two well-identified actors, each has reached a point of no-return, each actor holds tight to his position, pride takes precedence over reason and each camp is so desperate that non cares about the conséquences of intransigence. However, each party still seeks a solution and for peace to reign. Here, there’s a need for a Negotiator who acts as a liaison for the two parties in a “give-and-take” procedure. Each party gives away an earlier conquest to the opponent, and both strive towards a middle way. In the case of the crisis in question, we have, for example;
– the State of Cameroon. They have militarized the Southern Cameroons, aka Ambazonia, which they have baptized North West and the South West Regions; they have the Leaders of Ambazonians in their custody; they have a sword of Damocles ( international arrest warrants) dangling over the heads of the sponsors of the war living in the Diaspora; they have refused to discuss the form of the State of Cameroun, they’re for a Decentralized unitary state, etc
– the freedom fighters they have installed: Monday ghost towns, lockdowns, civil disobedience, boycott of all national ceremonies, have war weapons, they are for total independence, etc.
Negotiations will entail each camp giving away a demand to another in exchange for the other’s demands in the pious hope of reaching a consensus for a permanent peace.
NB.
The best Negotiator could be a national rather than an international person or body because the end of the conflict will equally be beneficial to the Negotiator.
This is a simplistic explanation of the two concepts.
MORE WRITEUPS AHEAD.
