Cameroon is Sudan-style disaster waiting to happen – warns Canadian foreign policy expert
By Hans Ngala
A Canadian foreign policy expert and academic has warned that if Cameroon does not take appropriate steps to address the “civil war” in its Anglophone regions, it risks witnessing the same political turmoil that has taken place in Sudan recently.
Chris Roberts, a professor in international relations at the University of Calgary in Alberta, Canada, made his comments in an article for Foreign Policy magazine which CNA has seen.
In his submission, Roberts warns that “There are lessons from Sudan that will likely remain unlearned in Cameroon until it is too late when a looming crisis over Biya’s successor could potentially drive conflict from the periphery to the center of the country”.
He buttresses his point further:
“With an impending succession crisis, endless war on the frontiers, a factionalized governing party, and fragmented security forces, Cameroon faces similar risks to Sudan” he cautions.
The expert who authored a 10-point statement in October 2022 (which CNA reported on at the time, see link https://cameroonnewsagency.com/independence-best-option-to-resolve-anglophone-war-says-canadian-institution/) also stated that nearly 5 million Anglophone Cameroonians are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance, but the attention of the world -specifically the West, is more fixated on Ukraine and that Cameroon’s close partners such as France and the US have done very little to mitigate the civil conflict.
The scholar also states that continued financial bailouts for Cameroon from global financial institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have cemented the Cameroon Government’s recalcitrant attitude as “the regime is increasingly confident that loans, grants, investment, and humanitarian assistance will keep rolling in no matter what it does”.
The warning comes barely 3 days after Amnesty International released a statement in which government soldiers, separatist fighters, and Mbororo Fulani herdsmen were all faulted by the rights group for being behind “atrocities” in the Northwest and Southwest regions of Cameroon.
Roberts’ warning adds to a long list of similar warnings issued by other organizations such as the International Crisis Group which warned of an “armed uprising” in 2017 at a time when the Anglophone Crisis was still more of sectoral strikes by teachers and lawyers, but authorities dismissed the warnings and claimed that the International Crisis Group was on the payroll of secessionists.
