OP-ED | Ambazonia: Macron’s “Pandora”, Rubin’s Megaphone and Britain’s Selective Deafness

Rubin’s article, “Macron Might Have Opened a ‘Pandora’s Box’ in Cameroon,” warns that denying the same courtesy to the English-speaking break-away claimed by rebels campaigning for the restoration of Ambazonia would expose Paris to charges of racism or anti-Semitism. Conservative commentators quickly suggested that Donald Trump, should he return to the White House, answer France tit-for-tat by recognising Ambazonia.

2 | London piles on – but still snubs its former ward

Britain, which once administered Southern Cameroons, joined the bandwagon on 29 July. Prime Minister Keir Starmer pledged UK recognition of Palestine in September—unless Israel first agrees to a cease-fire, restores large-scale humanitarian access to Gaza and freezes West Bank annexation.

The symbolism is striking: the two European powers that shaped modern Cameroon are lining up behind Palestinian statehood while offering little more than platitudes to the crisis they helped create in the North-West and South-West.

3 | A short history of broken promises

• 1961 – Southern Cameroons votes to federate with French Cameroun, lured by constitutional guarantees of equality; outright independence is not on the ballot.

• 1972 – President Ahmadou Ahidjo dissolves the two-state federation and imposes a unitary state.

• 2016-17 – Peaceful teachers’ and lawyers’ strikes meet live ammunition, birthing an armed insurgency.

• 2025 – The war drags into its ninth year.

The Anglophone revolt is therefore not a whim; it is a revolt against more than five decades of constitutional bait-and-switch.

4 | The state of Ambazonia – by the numbers (2025)

• Civilians killed since 2016: over 6,500

• Internally displaced: about 334,000

• Refugees in neighbouring Nigeria: over 76,000

• People in need of humanitarian aid: roughly 1.5 million

• Schools fully / partly closed: more than 2,100

• July incidents: roadside IED on the Bamenda-Muyuka axis, a cabaret attack in Bamenda, and mass security sweeps

Rebels hold rural strongholds; Yaoundé controls garrison towns and the airwaves. Between them stretches a no-man’s-land of torched villages and traumatised children.

5 | Paris, profits and President Biya

At 92, President Paul Biya is again a candidate in the October election, even as rumours place him frequently in a French clinic. France has sold Cameroon tens of millions of euros in military equipment over the past five years—small change in Paris, life insurance in Yaoundé. Rubin is right to call out that hypocrisy, but wrong to suggest recognition alone will fix it.

6 | Recognition is not moral alchemy

Palestine, for all its limbo, has a diplomatic template. Ambazonia lacks agreed borders, a unified command or any cease-fire discipline. Elevating an idea to a flag without groundwork would export the conflict rather than solve it.

7 | Britain’s colonial IOU

In 1961 Westminster barred Southern Cameroons from choosing outright independence, steering it toward federation with French Cameroun. Six decades later, Westminster’s readiness to champion Palestinian statehood while ignoring its former ward reeks of selective morality.

8 | What an honest policy would look like

1. Condition the cash and the guns
   France and Britain should apply to Yaoundé the same leverage they now brandish at Tel Aviv: release political prisoners, allow independent monitors, open humanitarian corridors— or watch defence and development contracts freeze.

2. Revive credible mediation
   After Canada’s failed facilitation in 2023, a joint U.S.–African Union–ECCAS panel, backed by the EU, could reconvene talks that include both the government and the major separatist factions.

3. Ring-fence humanitarian funding
   Donors rushing money to Gaza must not leave Bamenda’s maternity wards in the dark. A dedicated emergency fund for the North-West and South-West could keep schools, clinics and trauma services alive.

9 | The Rubin thesis, revisited

Yes, Macron’s Palestine move highlights French double standards; yes, Ambazonians have a legitimate grievance. But statehood is more than a hashtag. Without a cease-fire, civilian protection and a federated economic plan, premature recognition could turn the Anglophone regions into Africa’s next forever war.

Conclusion

Macron and Starmer have rekindled a debate on colonial frontiers—and that debate is long overdue. Yet Ambazonia will not be liberated by Western virtue-signalling, nor pacified by French matériel. It will take monitored cease-fires, hard negotiations and, above all, the political will of those who drew the original map.

Until France and Britain honour their responsibilities, the people of Southern Cameroons will keep burying their dead while great powers trade recognitions like diplomatic souvenirs.

— Cameroon Concord News Group Opinion Desk