H.RES.895

“Who are we to condemn?” — Denzel Washington

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After reviewing House Resolution 895, it occurs to me: were it not for the Berlin Conference, the Cameroonians would not be in the predicament that they are in today.  Many advocates for Ambazonian independence lay blame squarely at the feet of Sir Andrew Benjamin Cohen, United Kingdom Representative to the United Nations Trusteeship Council, for arguing that an independent Southern Cameroons would not be economically viable, and having the option for sovereignty removed from the 1961 British Cameroons referendum, leaving only the options of integrating into Nigeria or integrating into Cameroon on the plebiscite . However, after we lay aside the economic argument by briefly remarking how, once independence was won, Haiti itself was forced into debt that made it economically inviable, we recall the “peculiar and powerful interest” in the continent itself, including the place where sprang the Bantu expansion, imperiously renamed “Kamerun.”