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Cameroon Lawmakers Divided Over President's Proposal for Separatist Crisis

Moki Edwin Kindzeka

   YAOUNDE, CAMEROON - Cameroon's Parliament is divided over the so-called
   special status President Paul Biya ordered for the country's
   English-speaking regions as a solution to the crisis that has killed
   more than 3,000 people.
   Some lawmakers who convened for the extraordinary session of Parliament
   on Biya's instructions suggest that only the creation of federal
   states, one incorporating the country's English-speaking regions and
   the other made up of the French-speaking regions, can stop the crisis.

   Others said the English-speaking regions' special status already cedes
   enough power and resources to the crisis-prone areas, where separatists
   are fighting to create an English-speaking state

   Cavaye Yeguie Djibril, speaker of Cameroon's National Assembly, told
   the lower house of the Parliament that Biya asked him to convene the
   extraordinary session solely to examine the bill and vote it into law
   because Biya is determined to restore peace in the restive
   English-speaking regions.

   Lawmaker Njume Peter Ambang from the English-speaking South-West said
   the section of the bill granting a special status to the
   English-speaking regions could calm rising tensions for peace to
   return.

   "It is a moment for us to leave a legacy and we should look at this
   particular document with a lot of seriousness and responsibility,"
   Ambangsaid. "We owe Cameroonians a lot. This is the moment that I think
   we have to make Cameroonians to know that they elected us for their own
   interest."

   The bill envisages the creation of assemblies of chiefs, regional
   assemblies and regional councils for the English-speaking North-West
   and South-West regions with each of the two regions having elected
   presidents, vice presidents, secretaries, public affairs management
   controllers and three commissioners responsible for what the bill
   describes as economic, health, social, educational, sports and cultural
   development affairs.

   It also would also create the post of a public independent
   conciliators, responsible for solving disputes over the functioning of
   regional administrations. The bill also proposes more powers for
   elected mayors and would give them the authority to recruit hospital
   staff and teachers.

   But lawmaker Henry Kemende, from the English-speaking North-West
   region, said the special status for the English-speaking regions will
   not solve the crisis because most English speakers expect the creation
   of a federal state recognizing the people's cultural and linguistic
   diversity. He said the French-speaking regions should constitute one
   state while the English speakers form another in a federal republic.

   "We thought that will have a bill that will admit the fact that we have
   failed in a unitary state and that we were going to try something
   different from the unitary state," he said.

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