Recognition of minority groups as a prerequisite for the protection of human rights: The case of Anglophone Cameroon

Abstract

Human rights are inextricably linked. No instrument demonstrates this nexus between the various categories of rights better than the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights. In the African Charter collective rights and individual rights are interdependent and indivisible. In some circumstances it would be difficult if not impossible to protect individual rights if collective/group rights were not guaranteed and protected. The collective right of self-determination is recognised in the United Nations Charter. The right to self-determination is of particular relevance to the Republic of Cameroon where the Anglophone minority since independence continuously has complained of marginalisation and neo-colonialism. These complaints have been to the effect that severe violations of the rights of some Anglophone Cameroonians have occurred. The article contends that these violations are a direct consequence of the attempted erasure of the status of a 'people' that Anglophone Cameroonians as a group continued to enjoy after their free association with the Republic of Cameroon. The article demonstrates that the attempted erasure has enabled not only the violation of individual rights but has led to an armed conflict in Cameroon where there is now a struggle for the creation of an Anglophone state.