Contested
From October-November 2016, Anglophone lawyers and then teachers in the North-West and South-West regions went on strike to protest against the posting of Francophone magistrates and teachers unfamiliar with common law or English to their courts and schools. The crackdown on these movements, arrests, and an internet shutdown in the two regions (January-April 2017) hardened the conflict, which led to the separatist proclamation of an "Ambazonia" on 1 October 2017.
No person recorded for this event.
This topic has more than one reading. Camerpedia presents them all, on equal footing, without favouring any one of them.
Readings of the crisis diverge sharply. Cameroonian authorities primarily see corporatist grievances hijacked by armed separatist groups they describe as terrorist; international humanitarian organisations and part of the Anglophone press and civil society analyse it as the culmination of decades of perceived marginalisation of the Anglophone regions, worsened by a disproportionate security response.
The Ministry of Communication and the Cameroonian authorities present the crisis as originating in legitimate but narrow grievances of lawyers and teachers, quickly seized upon by armed separatist groups they describe as terrorist, against whom the state is conducting a security operation while also offering a framework for dialogue, including the 2019 special status.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs traces the crisis's origin to longstanding grievances of Anglophone populations in the North-West and South-West about their place within the Cameroonian state, and has since 2017 documented an armed conflict marked by mass population displacement and abuses attributed to both separatist groups and security forces.
Part of the Anglophone Cameroonian press and civil society stresses the crisis's primarily identity-based and institutional character — the defence of the common-law legal system and the Anglophone education system — which predates 2016, and warns against a purely security-focused reading that, in its view, worsened the conflict rather than resolving it.
| Date | Event | Era | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1961 plebiscite in the British-administered Cameroons · Contested | Independence and reunification | Official sourceUNESCO – General History of Africa | |
| 1972 referendum and the creation of the unitary state · Contested | Independence and reunification | Official sourceUNESCO – General History of Africa |