Reframing the Struggle: Why Ambazonia Is a War of Independence, Not a War of Liberation

Framing the struggle as a liberation war collapses this legal distinction and allows the conflict to be treated as a domestic rebellion. Framing it as a war of independence situates it within international law, raising questions of self-determination, territorial status, and third-party responsibility.

By Timothy Enongene The Independentistnews Guest Editor-in-Chief

Language as Strategy, Not Semantics

As the conflict in the former Southern Cameroons enters its tenth year, the question confronting Ambazonians and the international community alike is no longer whether the crisis is severe, but whether it is being understood correctly. Language, in this context, is not a matter of rhetoric. It is a matter of law, strategy, and consequence. The persistent description of the conflict as a “war of liberation” obscures its legal character and weakens prospects for a durable resolution. What is unfolding in Ambazonia is more accurately described as a War of Independence.

The distinction is neither academic nor symbolic. In international practice, liberation struggles and independence struggles occupy different legal and diplomatic categories, and they generate different obligations for states and international institutions.

Liberation Movements and Their Limits

Liberation movements of the twentieth century—most notably the African National Congress in South Africa and the National Liberation Front in Algeria—sought to transform political systems from within. Their objective was internal change: dismantling apartheid, ending colonial domination, and reconstructing governance within recognized territorial frameworks. Even Algeria’s anti-colonial war, while violent and transformative, was ultimately a struggle to sever a colonial bond within an imperial structure that legally claimed the territory as part of France.

These struggles were historically justified and morally compelling. Yet their legal logic differs fundamentally from Ambazonia’s claim.

Ambazonia’s Distinct Legal Trajectory

Ambazonia’s case is not a struggle to reform the Republic of Cameroon, nor a demand for inclusion within a “one and indivisible” state. It is rooted in the historical and legal existence of British Southern Cameroons as a distinct political entity prior to 1961. The territory possessed internationally recognized boundaries, was administered separately under a United Nations trusteeship, and underwent a decolonization process that remains legally contested.

The 1961 UN-supervised plebiscite did not offer independence as an option. Voters were asked to choose between integration with Nigeria or union with the already independent Republic of Cameroon. This limitation, documented in UN records, lies at the heart of Ambazonia’s argument that decolonization was incomplete.

From Federal Union to Centralized State

The subsequent dismantling of the federal arrangement—first through the 1972 referendum and later constitutional changes—deepened the dispute by unilaterally altering the terms under which union had been accepted. From Yaoundé’s perspective, the plebiscite legitimized the union and settled the matter. From the Ambazonian perspective, it did not establish a valid transfer of sovereignty. This unresolved disagreement is not peripheral; it defines the conflict itself.

Why Framing Determines the Battlefield

Framing the struggle as a liberation war collapses this legal distinction and allows the conflict to be treated as a domestic rebellion. Framing it as a war of independence situates it within international law, raising questions of self-determination, territorial status, and third-party responsibility.

This distinction explains why Ambazonian actors resist narratives that reduce the conflict to an internal Cameroonian affair. Language, in this sense, becomes jurisdiction.

Historical Memory and the Risks of Informal Mediation

Cameroon’s post-independence history offers sobering lessons about mediation conducted without formal authorization or external guarantees. The 1970 Ndongmo Affair remains a powerful example. Bishop Albert Ndongmo, acting on what he believed to be a presidential mandate, mediated contacts with UPC leader Ernest Ouandié. When state objectives shifted, the mediation was denied, the mediator criminalized, and Ouandié executed. The absence of public authorization and institutional protection proved fatal.

Contemporary Echoes of an Old Pattern

Many Ambazonians see echoes of this pattern in more recent initiatives: early Anglophone civil society talks undermined by parallel dismissals; reported contacts with imprisoned leaders later minimized; international facilitation processes quietly abandoned; and foreign mediation efforts publicly denied after acknowledgment.

From the government’s standpoint, these reversals are framed as assertions of sovereignty or clarifications of informal engagement. From the Ambazonian standpoint, they confirm a structural risk: engagement without guarantees leaves one party free to deny responsibility when it becomes inconvenient.

Caution as Institutional Learning

This history helps explain why Ambazonian leadership has insisted on caution. Critics often describe this posture as inflexible. Supporters argue it reflects institutional memory rather than obstinacy. The lesson drawn is not that dialogue is futile, but that dialogue without recorded mandates, senior-level authorization, and third-party oversight is dangerously vulnerable to repudiation.

Why Independence Requires External Guarantees

Calls for international involvement should not be misread as dependence or abdication of agency. Independence claims, unlike internal reform efforts, require external guarantees to be credible. Comparative precedents—from Eritrea to East Timor—demonstrate that internationally supervised processes, registered agreements, and recognized guarantors are safeguards, not indulgences. They transform dialogue from a discretionary exercise into a binding process.

Conclusion: Naming the Struggle Correctly

Language is the foundation of sovereignty. Liberation implies reform. Independence implies restoration. To insist on the latter is not to escalate conflict, but to clarify its nature. Ambazonia is not seeking to be “freed” by Yaoundé, nor to renegotiate its place within Cameroon. It is asserting a claim to exist separately from a state whose jurisdiction over the territory remains legally disputed.

Whether one ultimately accepts that claim or not, any serious effort to resolve the conflict must engage with it honestly. Treating the struggle as a domestic insurgency forecloses the mechanisms required for a sustainable peace. Recognizing it as a war of independence does not predetermine the outcome, but it does acknowledge the legal and historical questions that must be addressed.

The failure of past efforts was not an excess of ambition, but a deficit of structure. Peace in Ambazonia will require more than willingness to talk. It will require transparency, recorded commitments, and international guarantees that make denial costly. Without these, mediation risks repeating a familiar pattern—engagement in private, repudiation in public—and history has already shown the human cost of that cycle.

Timothy Enongene Guest Editor-in-Chief The Independentistnews