SWELA endorses the Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium

15/01/2017

SWELA Secretary General’s consultation with some senior South West opinion leaders:

Concerned about the present strikes by Common Law Lawyers and Anglophone Teachers in our Country;

Aware of the sacrifices that the members of the Education Community and Lawyers in the North West and South West Regions are making;

Cognizant of the short term, mid-term and long term gains these sacrifices shall bring to our Educational and Legal System;

Sensitive to the overtures made by the Head of State in his end of year speech with focus on frank dialogue and the imminent creation of a National Entity that shall discuss reforms related to our bi-cultural co-existence;

The under mentioned Opinion Leaders from the South West Region meeting in Buea on 8th January 2017 resolved as follows:

Urge Government as a matter of urgency to deliver on her development promises in the South West Region,
Urge the Anglophone Teachers Trade Unions and Common Law Lawyers to remain steadfast in their demands related to their professional growth within the Anglo-Saxon heritage,
Appreciate the inclusion of South West members into the Inter-Ministerial Dialogue Committee charged with seeking solutions towards an unadulterated and unfettered Anglophone subsystem of Education,
Congratulate the Clergy on their commitments towards breaking the stalemate through their patriotic publications,
Call on Government Ministers and Administrative Authorities to show restraint in their overt and covert actions that can only escalate the crisis,
Call on residents of the South West Region to desist from street violence that can likely provoke armed response,
Call on both appointed and elected Officials in State machinery to honestly in public domain present the facts of the retarded development of the South West Region and by extension the Anglophone problem.
Propose a broad-based National Consultation to discuss the form of state which has been the sticking point in the “LIVING TOGETHER” experiment between the former West Cameroon and East Cameroon,
Call on South West Elite Association (SWELA) to review their stance on a loose ten-state Federation in the face of a systemic erosion of the Anglophone political, economic and socio cultural values,
Support the Consortium whose role is to carry through the grievances of the Anglophone People in all its facets;
Endorse the Anglophone struggle for the protection of their minority rights.