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Since the coup in Mali days ago, there has been a wave of reactions at the international level, from both state actors and international organisations such as ECOWAS, the African Union and the United Nations.
France and other states have condemned the action, terming it an “unconstitutional changeover of power” and have demanded a return to constitutional order.
Reacting to the turn of events, the Cameroon Renaissance Movement, CRM says the happenings in Mali are more or less reminiscent of the situation prevailing in other African countries, including Cameroon.
Reaffirming its attachment to the respect for democratic principles, and the need to use peaceful and electoral means to gain power, it however focuses on “unconstitutional changeover of power” as not designated against the people as the true holders of sovereignty.
“This principle was designed to protect democracy and not dictators who, as soon as they come to power, destroy the democratic mechanisms of access to power. It aims to prohibit the overthrow of a power that works democratically and meets the multifaceted aspirations of the people,” the CRM states in a release.
The international community, the CRM says, must also hear the voice of the people on how they are governed.
“It is clear that the peoples are often left to their fate by this international community when their own rulers become their tormentors. They are left to their own devices when they denounce, including through giant peaceful demonstrations, the constitutional manipulations by certain leaders to remain in power against the will of the majority of the population; the enactment of tailored electoral codes to perpetuate their regime through elections marred by massive fraud; the establishment of electoral bodies and constitutional courts all in the pay of the leaders and political parties in power.”
Quoting examples like that of Nazi Germany, South Africa’s liberation movement and the case of the “racist regime” in Southern Rhodesia, the CRM says “the basic question that arises is whether the international community can support an unjust and illegitimate constitutional order and condemn its overthrow without disregarding the fundamental rights of citizens and peoples.”
“If the seizure of power by force, as is currently the case in Mali, is inevitably and effectively an unconstitutional changeover of government, the foiling of the democratic changeover of power and the maintenance in power against the will of the sovereign people are no less logics of unconstitutional perpetuation of government which must be condemned and sanctioned with even more vigour by the international community,” it says.
The international community, and especially the African Union it adds “… is called upon for more consistency. They would gain credibility if they were genuinely involved in all types of “unconstitutional changeovers” of government and stood firmly with the people and citizens in the face of the violation by those in power of their fundamental rights and freedoms.”
Citing the Anglophone crisis, CRM president, Maurice Kamto faults the international community who he says “seem to focus on the consequences and not on the causes of the “unconstitutional changeovers” of power, refusing to prescribe the consensual establishment of the rules of the democratic game in order to avoid recourse to such changeovers of power.”
“The people of Mali need to be supported in this direction and not be stifled by reckless sanctions.
As far as they are concerned, the CRM and the National Resistance will always stand alongside the Cameroonian people in their struggle for their national liberation, shared progress and the construction of a State that is subject to the rule of law, a State that is modern, solid, democratic and radiant at the international level,” Kamto declares.
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