Internal rivalry for power among the separatist groups in Cameroon caused clashes between them and played into the hands of the military.
Clashes between Cameroon’s rebel groups have intensified in the past two months, with some attacks reported northwest and southwest. These clashes started amid significant decrease of rebel movement support by local people in these two regions.
The situation gives a chance to start the merging process of these groups. One of Cameroonian rebel leaders, Chacha already posted a video clip on social media calling for all separatists to unite under his Southern Cameroon Restoration Forces after such clashes. He said if anybody attempts to betray their struggle to gain independence, he, Chacha will kill such a traitor as he is killing Cameroon soldiers that have been sent by President Biya to eliminate true separatist fighters.Cameroon’s military says the self-proclaimed general Chacha posted the video after he killed several members of competing rebel groups.
In case such negotiations fail which looks quite possible, the infighting may mark the beginning of a backsliding in terms of civil population security in rebel territories. If no external powers intervene, Yaounde authorities will have a chance to crush resistance in rebel area.
The roots of Cameroonian English speakers’ grievances go back to the League of Nations’ decision to split the former German colony of Kamerun between the allied French and British victors at the end of WWI. These two regions also use their own legal and educational systems, inherited from the British, and have a unique cultural identity.
Since 2016, separatists of so called Ambazonia Defence Forces and several armed groups have been fighting to establish a state they call “Ambazonia”, made up of about 5million of Cameroon’s 24million people — representing the greatest threat to Mr Biya’s leadership in his 37 years in power.
The conflict has seen the largely francophone country’s two English-speaking regions agitate first for greater autonomy because of complains of being marginalized by the French-speaking majority. The Anglophones, even the moderate ones, wanted a federal state.
The crisis stroke after a brutal crackdown on peaceful independence protests in 2016. Mr Biya’s francophone government has responded by locking up opposition figures, blocking internet access in anglophone regions and engaging in extrajudicial killings and the arbitrary arrest and torture of journalists and civilians, according to human rights groups. But President Biya has a kind of immunity because of Cameroon’s importance in the fight against the jihadist Boko Haram insurgency.
In December last year, armed separatist movements in Cameroon have dismissed the approval of a special status to Anglophone regions by the country’s parliament, insisting that only independence would satisfy them. So, they show that the real reason of their activity is power and self-enrichment, not independence. The administrative regions of Southwest and Northwest Cameroon play an important role in the national economy, with vibrant agricultural and commercial sectors, and most of the country’s off-shore oil. So there are doubts that referendum supervised by the United Nations could be effective in crisis solving.
Government troops retain control of the main towns, while the ADF operates in villages and remote territories. Poor road infrastructure limits the direct access to the state, so government’s actions made them operate in a more clandestine way. That caused a split among rebels and appearance of new armed groups with criminal affiliations loosely linked to the ADF.
Since December, several villages in Cameroon’s Anglophone west have launched assaults on rebel camps over attacks on civilians and looting villages. The angry villagers say they do not know who to trust, as they say the military commits similar crimes against them.
Parliamentary and municipal elections scheduled on February 2020, have escalated the crisis in English-speaking regions of Cameroon. Communities in the rebel regions are opposed to the elections, so the situation will probably escalate until the February elections.
