The Times carried a story on UNPO’s Earth Day celebration in The Hague last Saturday. Dabney Yerima, SCNC Chairman, who took part in the event was interviewed and spoke about recent arrests and detentions in Southern Cameroons.

Below is an excerpt of the article written by Andrew Balcombe, published by The Times on 27 April 2007:

“In the Grote Marktstraat last Saturday, the Unrepresented Nations and People Organisation (UNPO) held a celebration for Earth Day.

The event was organised to “not just highlight the plight of people affected by climate change but also to bring attention to minorities being swept aside by oil and logging companies,” said UNPO representative, Maria Skeie. “We want to make the Dutch aware of communities around the world who do not have a government or United Nations to speak for them”.

The UNPO is headquartered in The Hague and has four main themes; environmental protection, human rights, the right to self determination and non-violence as a methodology.

[…]

Members who have joined the UNPO include the Australian Aboriginals, the Lakota in the Black Hills of Dakota (the US), and the Buffalo River Dene Nation in Saskatchewan, Canada.

Other minorities from Asia and Africa are also represented. One such member was present at the event on Saturday. Dabney Yerima, the Chairman of SCNC represents the Southern Cameroons people of the West African country of Cameroon.

He told The Times “We want the world to know that Cameroon has always been two separate states. We joined together with the French speaking Cameroons in 1972 but the government is not keeping to its side of the agreement. We want our statehood back and want to achieve this using peaceful means.”

The UNPO and SCNC wanted to bring to light the “detention without charge” of SCNC leaders [...] “They were arrested for simply holding a press conference”, said Maria Skeie.

UNPO started out in 1991 with 14 members and has grown to have almost 70 members within its rank.”

Source and copyright: The Times (www.argopress.nl)

For more information, please see this article:

UNPO celebrates Earth Day 2007