Despite Cameroon being embroiled in a crisis which has raged on for four years now, it has opted against the inclusion of a discussion of the Responsibility to Protect dubbed R2P and atrocity prevention on the draft agenda of the 75th session of the United Nation’s General Assembly.
The R2P is a global political commitment which was endorsed by all member states of the United Nations at the 2005 summit in order to address its four concerns which are; to prevent Genocides, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity.
The sole purpose for the R2P is protecting civilians of member countries from calamities, even if it entails bypassing the sovereignty of member countries to do so. The norm of the R2P was borne out of the International community’s failure to deal with tragedies such as the Rwandan genocide in 1994 and the Srebrenica genocide in 1995.With an active crisis which has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives and more than 700,000+ people internally displaced, Cameroon voted against the inclusion of the Responsibility to protect discussions from the UN General Assembly 75th session draft agenda.
It is joined by 12 other countries including Syria, Myanmar, China, and North Korea amongst others. Taking to consideration the mission of the R2P which is preventing genocides, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity, one would argue that Cameroonians with the absence of administrative bottlenecks, stand to benefit from it the most.
Many have touted the crisis in Cameroon as brewing magma which may soon burst into something 4 times worse than what it is at the moment should great care not be taken.The government of Cameroon in the midst of the current Anglophone crisis has done feasibly very little to ease the tensions which keep rising with each passing day.
There have been numerous calls for an unconditional dialogue between the government and the separatists but both camps are unwilling to give in. in the midst of these tensions, the civilian population have been most affected and have suffered undue hardships meted on them by both government forces and the separatist fighters.
Unimaginable atrocities without action that qualify the intervention of the R2P have been committed in the two affected regions by the government forces and the military. There have been numerous genocide acts like the Ngarbuh-Ntumbaw massacre by the military, the pinyin massacre, Buea town etc as well as the most gruesome of inhumane murders like the butchering of a woman in Muyuka by separatist fighters on the basis she was a black leg, the slaughtering of Sam Soya by the military as well as the lynching of prison warden, Florence Ayafor by the separatist fighters.
With Cameroon voting against the R2P, it is another indication that the authorities are unwilling to resolve the crisis. With the government unable to resolve the crisis which could indeed lead to worse repercussions, it has equally made it a point to prevent international intervention.
There is no clear and feasible project to end the crisis. Multitudes are dying daily and unless something urgently is done, then the worse is yet to come.
