Developing
Prof Willibroad Dze-Ngwa, a professor of peace and conflict studies, said on Sunday that the Anglophone crisis cannot "die a natural death" and called for a new dialogue beyond the 2019 Major National Dialogue.
His remarks responded to Prime Minister Joseph Dion Ngute, who said last Monday that the crisis could fade in 10 to 15 years even without a settlement. Dion Ngute spoke at the launch of a government community dialogue in the South West Region, where he asked elites, chiefs and civil society to persuade separatist fighters to disarm.
Dze-Ngwa wrote that time can change a conflict's intensity, exhaust combatants and alter political circumstances, but does not resolve the grievances, identities and political ideas that sustain it. "An ideology cannot be defeated by the calendar," he said.
He called for a structured political process with a defined mandate, agreed agenda, credible facilitation and verification. He said no subject should be excluded, listing the roots of the Anglophone problem, the form of the state, including federalism and decentralisation, the fate of detainees and victims, transitional justice, ceasefires and guarantees against reprisals.
He said talking to opponents is not endorsing them. "Dialogue is not surrender," he said.
The 2019 dialogue was criticised by conflict experts and civil society for excluding separatist leaders, some of whom remain in jail.
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