Indikum Ransome Ndikum-Master Fellow-Geneva Academy
Thank you very much Madam Chair. I am (?). I'm a barista at law. I'm the current Master Fellow of
the Geneva Academy. I'm a member of the Ambasunia International Policy Commission. And I throw
my voice behind Dr. Itega Bernadette to talk on behalf of Southern Cameroonians. I am a youth and a
right advocate for the marginalised minority fraction of southern Cameroonians of English extraction
in Cameroon.
We are for the past 56 years been treated as second class citizens. With the assimilation of the
English culture in favor of the French culture. It is thanks to the digital media and the engagement of
youth in the same that the marginalization and assimilation of the minority Anglophones was
brought to the face of the world. In Cameroon, there is freedom of speech, of course. Where there's
no freedom (???) speech. And this is in gross violation of international treaties.
Young journalists, lawyers and rights advocates are constantly being executed, arbitrarily arrested
and detained without due process. The government has sporadically shut down internet as part of
the crackdown of minority Anglophones at the wake of the Anglophone crisis since October 2016,
which has grounded activities in the entire southern Cameroon with an indefinite strike action
declared by the common law lawyers and teachers, which is still ongoing. And southern
Cameroonians have been termed terrorists. Talks, government officials on state media by
government officials. The crisis has led to many deaths of Anglophones, including most of the youths,
which are at its apex now. And some scholars and activists have been quick to terminate a genocide
or a crime against humanity on the Anglophone minority, and I see reasons with them. Kofi Annan
once said, Genocide begins with the killing of one person, not because of what he has done, but
because of who he is.
The internet shutdown in southern Cameroon earlier this year that lasted for three months according
to the Internet Without Borders group costed business in southern Cameroon … (cut off by chair)