Southern Cameroons and SCNC National Chairman,

Chief Ayamba Ette Otun to the nation, Buea, 31 December 2005. 2005.

1. My Fellow Southern Cameroonians, Brethren in the Struggle; I wish you all a very eventful and prosperous New Year 2006.

2. In spite of our continuous massive and deliberate impoverishment, intimidation, arbitrary arrests, incarceration and death in the just ended year 2005, we should continuously thank God Almighty, for His infinite goodness which He has freely provided us in the year 2005 and brought us to see the dawn of this New Year 2006.

3. Justifiably we are bountifully grateful to the Lord for the strides we have made towards the restoration of the Statehood and sovereign Independence of our beloved Fatherland, the Southern Cameroons.

4. The SCNC has had many sad as well as happy moments in the just ended year 2005. Nonetheless, we have registered considerable achievements both Nationally and Internationally.

5. On the National Front, we have intensified the sensitisation, mobilisation and successful establishment of SCNC structures all over the national territory.

6. To this effect the National Exco has visited most of the LGAs and all Counties of our Country, supervised elections and installed democratically elected Executives into their functions. It was the successful tours, the massive attendance at rallies and meetings and enthusiasm with which the masses received the statehood restoration message that caught the Yaounde colonial regime off guard. Panic stricken, the occupation forces and their agents embarked on massive arrests, detentions and torture.

7. In spite of the despotic Yaounde regimes’s declaration and intensification of a diabolic war on the SCNC prior to, during, and after 1st October 2005 the SCNC has remained firmly committed to its restoration mission and through God’s grace beat the occupation forces in their own game.

8. Southern Cameroonians under the leadership of the SCNC most successfully celebrated the 44th Independence Day Anniversary on 1st October 2005 with pomp and pageantry. Southern Cameroons Flags were flown all over Southern Cameroons in spite of the airtight presence of the occupation forces. Here we thank the Anti-SCNC Gangs of cronies led by Philemon Yang – Assistant Secretary General at the Yaounde Presidency, Hon. S. N. Tamfu, CPDM Political Bureau member, Elvis Ngolle Ngolle, Minister Delegate at the Presidency, Nsahlai, among others, for organising various diabolic meetings in Buea, Bamenda, Kumbo, Nkambe, Mamfe. As clear as day light, this gave them the opportunity to know the true spirit, aspirations and will of the Southern Cameroonian people who want nothing but their FREEDOM. We only hope that they reported nothing but the truth to their colonial boss, Mr Biya.

9. On 30th September breaking 1st October, midnight activities went smoothly as the occupation forces unsuspectingly kept on parading but never succeeded in frustrating our efforts in Buea, Kumba, Bamenda, Kumbo, Batibo, Ndu, Bafut, Ako, Mamfe amongst other capital towns in Southern Cameroons. Of great significance was the hoisting of the Southern Cameroons Flag at 3:pm in plain day light at the Bamenda Food Market, which became the most conspicuous and most internationalised flag hoisted.

10. The SCNC hereby pays the highest TRIBUTE to all brave Southern Cameroonian youths, national and international Journalists who did a good job and published extensively on the legitimate struggle and the eventful celebration of Southern Cameroons National Day.

11. The diabolic and brutal repression of the occupation forces did not stop at arrests, torture and inhumane detentions; on the 14th Nov. 2005 the SCNC Secretariat was invaded, vandalised and looted of numerous historic documents, pictures and even money. This following the arrest, incommunicado detention of the National Vice Chairman, Nfor Ngala Nfor and Bui County Chair, Stephen Kongnso. This arrest and inhumane detention, which was occasioned in Kumbo initially, included Mr Andrew Mueller, an international Journalist and Researcher. This eloquently dramatised not only the repressive character of the Yaounde autocratic annexationist regime, it more than ever demonstrated how panic stricken the regime is. How else could it be explained that a journalist who has been to war-torn Iraq, Kosovo, Israel, Palestine etc, and never suffered arrest and detention came to Southern Cameroons and was arrested and detained by La Republique du Cameroun occupation forces? Although Mr Andrew Mueller was hastily released on diplomatic grounds after two days, judicious note was however duly taken.

12. These numerous arrests, tortures, detentions and atrocities against the SCNC, the vanguard liberation movement only justifies the illegality and illegitimacy of Yaounde’s rule over Southern Cameroons. The justness of the restoration of the statehood of Southern Cameroons as a distinct sovereign nation lies in law, culture and history. We will neither retreat, nor will we surrender.

13. We pay gluing tribute to all Southern Cameroonians who have suffered unjustified deaths this time around for our cause. At this juncture (one minute silence in their memories), we recall amongst the several of them: the silent murder of Julius Ngu due to lack of medical care at Kondengui Maximum Prison, the callous murder of two Students of Buea University for carrying out a peaceful demonstration demanding favourable conditions for their studies. Though the strikes were started in Universities of La Republique du Cameroun, not even one student was arrested. Your blood watered the tree of liberty. You will never be forgotten.

14. Fellow Southern Cameroonians continue to languish in the numerous torture chambers of La Republique du Cameroun. The case of the Kondengui Maximum Prison where people through some kangaroo court judgements have, instead of being set free for want of evidence, had their terms of imprisonment reduced loudly testifies to the fact that the judiciary in La Republique du Cameroun is there to defend and protect the dictatorship.

15. Dear Compatriots; like at the home front, we have equally registered victories at the international scene.

16. Thanks to our membership of the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organisation (UNPO) our voice is now being heard within the international arena. In the months of March and April, the SCNC sent a three-man delegation to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR) in Geneva. Our participation at the 61st Session of the UNCHR was significant and historic in the sense that after forty-four years of brutal occupation we had the platform to cry out to the world against the annexation of our country by La Republique du Cameroun and called for to avoid another blood-bath in Africa.

17. In June we were again at The Hague for the 7th General Assembly of the UNPO. This alternative UN, as it is fondly referred to, committed to the right to self determination, freedom and justice for all peoples and nations through non-violence, adopted a powerful Resolution on the Southern Cameroons calling on the UN to apply preventive diplomacy to avoid blood bath between the two Cameroons.

18. At this General Assembly session we won two red feathers. Firstly, the Southern Cameroons National Team christened “SC 13” came third in an international football competition and won a cup for our country.

19. Secondly, in the elections to the Ten-Man Presidency of the UNPO General Assembly, NFOR Ngala Nfor, the SCNC National Vice Chairman was elected. This is no small recognition for our country.

20. On December 1, 2005, the UNPO organised a Peaceful Manifestation at the Embassy of La Republique du Cameroun in The Hague against rampant arbitrary arrests, detention of SCNC activists and called for the immediate release of Nfor N. Nfor. This laudable action, first of its kind by an international organisation, greatly helps in internationalising the SCNC legitimate struggle. The UNPO in addition to numerous petitions to the UN and other world bodies on our behalf has also pledged solidarity with the SCNC and the Southern Cameroons people in their legitimate pacific struggle.

21. In this same year we have reason to thank the Lord for obtaining ADMISSIBILITY in our case against La Republique du Cameroun at the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights in Banjul, The Gambia. All submissions for the MERIT stage have already been completed and ruling is now fixed for the first half of the New Year 2006. I call on you all to continue to pray for final victory.

22. The aggressive diplomatic offensives pursued in 2005 will be intensified in the New Year to end slavery, mass poverty and brutish life the Southern Cameroonian people have been subjected to.

23. We lament the prohibitive taxation and very Low Salaries and Galloping Corruption, which we are all subjected to Southern Cameroonians and even those of La Republique du Cameroun are suffering from the excruciating pains of prohibitive taxes silently as they cannot resist this exploitation by a few for their benefit. We must not continue to be a colony of a country that has signed for dependency.

24. These taxes which are already so obnoxious are increased from this month of January 2006 with impunity. Fuel is unaffordable. Ordinary kerosene is beyond the reach of the average urban dweller; talk less of the villagers. There is the obnoxious land tax and La Republique du Cameroun is out to tax even the air we breath. The burden will always be heavy on the already impoverished Southern Cameroonians. This regime, which is in its “grands ambitions” has set itself out not for poverty alleviation, but to tax the poor to the grave. What a paradox for a country so endowed with natural wealth!

25. With this suffocation, the SCNC calls on all Southern Cameroonians to support our restoration train for national rebirth and freedom from slavery and misery. In the New Southern Cameroons mass poverty, mass unemployment, burdensome taxation will be a thing of the past. Equal opportunity and equitable development will be a right to all.

26. The despotic regime stands accused of paying lip service to the eradication of HIV/AIDS. We call on all Southern Cameroonians, parents and youths, to remain faithful to their partners and avoid promiscuity. We do assure all that the surest protection is abstinence. The New Southern Cameroons needs a healthy citizenry.

27. In concluding this message to the nation, we take this opportunity to address a goodwill message to our neighbour. As believers and defenders of international cooperation and good neighbourliness, on behalf of the Southern Cameroonian people, we heartily extend our best wishes to President Paul Biya, his government and people of La Republique du Cameroun on their 46th Independence Day, January 1, 2006.

Fellow Southern Cameroonians, let us with determination, selfless sacrifice, total faith in the Lord of Justice, enter the New Year and collectively make it a year of victory and through our collective endeavours fire the State Restoration Train (SRT) to move faster to the GATE OF FREEDOM.

God Bless You All

Long Live the right to self-determination,

Long live the Federal Republic of Southern Cameroons,

Long live International Co-operation,

God save the world and rid it of Oppression, Tyranny and Terrorism.