The name Ambazonia or Ambazania refers to two separate entities. One pertains to an advocacy group struggling for the total restoration of the statehood of the Crown Colony

Crown colony

A Crown colony, also known in the 17th century as royal colony, was a type of colonial administration of the English and later British Empire....

 formerly known as the British Southern Cameroons

Southern Cameroons

Southern Cameroons was the southern part of the British Mandate territory of Cameroons in West Africa. Since 1961 it is part of the Republic of Cameroon, where it makes up the Northwest Province and Southwest Province...

. It is also used to refer to the Southern Cameroons by organisations that struggle for the dissolution of the 1961 union of the Southern Cameroons with Cameroun

Cameroun

Cameroun was a French and British mandate territory in central Africa, now constituting the majority of the territory of the Republic of Cameroon....

.

Etymology

The term "Ambazonia" is derived from the word Ambozes, the local name for the area at the mouth of the Wouri

Wouri River

The Wouri is a river in Cameroon. The river is formed at the confluence of the rivers Nkam and Makombé, northeast of the city of Yabassi. The Wouri then flows about southeast to the Wouri estuary at Douala, the chief port and industrial city in the southwestern part of Cameroon on the Gulf of...

 (now Douala) river.

History

The Republic of Ambazonia was declared by the Southern Cameroons National Council

Southern Cameroons National Council

The Southern Cameroons National Council is a self determination organisation seeking the independence of the anglophone Southern Cameroons from the francophone Republic of Cameroon . It is a non-violent organisation, and its motto is "The force of argument, not the argument of force." The current...

 (SCNC) as an independent state on 31 December 1999. This declaration of independence

Declaration of independence

A declaration of independence is an assertion of the independence of an aspiring state or states. Such places are usually declared from part or all of the territory of another nation or failed nation, or are breakaway territories from within the larger state...

 has not been recognised by other countries or by the United Nations

United Nations

The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...

 (UN). The area remains under the control of the Republic of Cameroon. Southern Cameroonians in exile formed the Ambazonia Liberation Party (ALIP) in July 2004.

In 2005 the Southern Cameroons/Republic of Ambazonia became a member of the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organisation (UNPO). On 31 August 2006 the independence of the Republic of Ambazania, to include the disputed territory

Territorial dispute

A territorial dispute is a disagreement over the possession/control of land between two or more states or over the possession or control of land by a new state and occupying power after it has conquered the land from a former state no longer currently recognized by the new state.-Context and...

 of Bakassi

Bakassi

Bakassi is the peninsular extension of the African territory of Calabar into the Atlantic Ocean. It is currently ruled by Cameroon following the transfer of sovereignty from neighbouring Nigeria as a result of a judgment by the International Court of Justice...

 was formally proclaimed by the Southern Cameroons Peoples Organisation (SCAPO).

As noted, the name Ambazonia was used in 1984 by Fon Gorji-Dinka (leader of the Ambazonia pressure group), when the parliament and government of the Republic of Cameroon changed the name of the country from the "United Republic of Cameroon" to back to the pre-reunification name of the French Cameroun, the "Republic of Cameroun". In the view of some, particularly in the former British Cameroon, this meant a dissolution of the 1961 personal union

Personal union

A personal union is the combination by which two or more different states have the same monarch while their boundaries, their laws and their interests remain distinct. It should not be confused with a federation which is internationally considered a single state...

. It was in this light that beginning in 1984, Ambazonia, was declared to represent a timely intervention of the people of Southern Cameroons to return the statehood of the former British Southern Cameroons territory. Ambazonia saw this not as the fait accompli of a one Cameroon state, but as an opportunity to engage both states into a 'constitutional review' of their post-1984 relations. Ambazonia believed that by "operation of the law", there should be an equal participation by the two states that made up the now extinct federation, in a new vision for their countries (Republic of Cameroon and the Southern Cameroons) relation with each other. In the document, dubbed the "new Social Order", the Ambazonia's proposal of CACIN, (the Cameroon-Ambazonia Confederacy of Independent Nations) was summarily rejected by the Republic of Cameroon. Instead, the Leader of ARC (the Ambazonia Restoration Council), Fon Gorji-Dinka, was arrested and tried for treason for claiming the continuing existence of the sovereignty of the 'Southern Cameroons' in the Republic of Ambazonia.

In 1992, Fon Gorji-Dinka, on behalf of the state of Republic of Ambazonia filed a lawsuit against the Republic of Cameroon and President Paul Biya

Paul Biya

Paul Biya is a Cameroonian politician who has been the President of Cameroon since 6 November 1982. A native of Cameroon's south, Biya rose rapidly as a bureaucrat under President Ahmadou Ahidjo in the 1960s, serving as Secretary-General of the Presidency from 1968 to 1975 and then as Prime...

 on the main charge of the Republic of Cameroon's illegal and forcible occupation

Military occupation

Military occupation occurs when the control and authority over a territory passes to a hostile army. The territory then becomes occupied territory.-Military occupation and the laws of war:...

 since the 1984 dissolution of the United Republic of Cameroon and the declaration of the Republic of Ambazonia. This suit was registered with the Bamenda

Bamenda

Bamenda, also known as Abakwa and Mankon Town, is a city in northwestern Cameroon and capital of the North West Province. The city had a population of 269,530 at the 2005 Census, and is located 366 km north-west of the Cameroonian capital, Yaoundé...

 High Court in the Northwest region of Cameroon as case number HCB28/92. Conflicting report

Report

A report is a textual work made with the specific intention of relaying information or recounting certain events in a widely presentable form....

s exist relating to the outcome of this case. However, the plaintiff, Fon Gorji-Dinka maintains that the Bamenda High Court reached a decision according to which the court among other things held that "(b) President Paul Biya is [also] guilty of treason for furthering and completing the treason of Ahidjo

Ahmadou Ahidjo

Ahmadou Babatoura Ahidjo was the first President of Cameroon from 1960 until 1982.-Early life:Ahidjo was born in Garoua, a major river port along the Benue River in northern Cameroun, which was at the time a French mandate territory...

 by bringing about the secession of the first defendant (East Cameroon) from the United Republic of Cameroon on February 4, 1984, reinstating its name "Republic of Cameroon" which had not been used since January 10, 1961. (c) That the break-away Republic of Cameroon continues, illegally and forcibly occupy the territory of the first plaintiff, which means the first defendant is guilty of an international offence of aggression and annexation, (d) The report made the Restoration of the statehood of the first plaintiff the starting point of restoration of legality". Followers of the Ambazonia pressure group led by Fon Gorji-Dinka assert that this decision was published in a Cameroon newspaper,"Le Messager

Le Messager

Le Messager is a daily newspaper in Cameroon. It was founded in 1979 by Pius Njawé, who in 2009 said that he had been arrested 126 times in 30 years. Reporters without Borders called it "the country’s first campaigning newspaper".-External links:*...

": Vol. II No. 04 of February 10, 1993. Other accounts hold that the case was never heard hence a decision was never reached.

In a 2005 judgment of the United Nations Human Rights

United Nations Commission on Human Rights

The United Nations Commission on Human Rights was a functional commission within the overall framework of the United Nations from 1946 until it was replaced by the United Nations Human Rights Council in 2006...

 ICCPR (International Covenant on Civil and political Rights) Tribunal Communication 1134/2002, the United Nations Human Rights Tribunal ruled in favor of compensation for Fon Gorji-Dinka for human rights

Human rights

Human rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...

 abuses to his person and for assurances of the enjoyment of his civil and political rights.

Geography

Ambazonia has a land size of 43,000 square kilometres and a population of approximately 6 million people according to the Cameroon

Cameroon

Cameroon, officially the Republic of Cameroon , is a country in west Central Africa. It is bordered by Nigeria to the west; Chad to the northeast; the Central African Republic to the east; and Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and the Republic of the Congo to the south. Cameroon's coastline lies on the...

 state census (the census has long been subject to political manipulation; the number is likely closer to 8 million). It is thus slightly larger than the Netherlands

Netherlands

The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

, ranked the 131st largest country and has about as many inhabitants as Paraguay

Paraguay

Paraguay , officially the Republic of Paraguay , is a landlocked country in South America. It is bordered by Argentina to the south and southwest, Brazil to the east and northeast, and Bolivia to the northwest. Paraguay lies on both banks of the Paraguay River, which runs through the center of the...

, the world's 93rd largest country in terms of population. (In other terms, Ambazonia is more populous than at least 60 UN and 18 African Union

African Union

The African Union is a union consisting of 54 African states. The only all-African state not in the AU is Morocco. Established on 9 July 2002, the AU was formed as a successor to the Organisation of African Unity...

 (AU) Member States, and is larger in area than at least 30 UN and 12 AU member states.) If independent, Ambazonia would share maritime boundaries

Maritime boundary

Maritime boundary is a conceptual means of division of the water surface of the planet into maritime areas that are defined through surrounding physical geography or by human geography. As such it usually includes areas of exclusive national rights over the mineral and biological resources,...

 with Nigeria

Nigeria

Nigeria , officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a federal constitutional republic comprising 36 states and its Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. The country is located in West Africa and shares land borders with the Republic of Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east, and Niger in...

, the Republic of Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea

Equatorial Guinea

Equatorial Guinea, officially the Republic of Equatorial Guinea where the capital Malabo is situated.Annobón is the southernmost island of Equatorial Guinea and is situated just south of the equator. Bioko island is the northernmost point of Equatorial Guinea. Between the two islands and to the...

.