Download the Press release here>> SDF press release 12.09.2019_1
A Social Democratic Front (SDF) delegation, led by the First National Vice Chairman Hon. Joshua OSIH responded today to an invitation from the Prime Minister, Head of Government, to exchange on the forthcoming national inclusive dialogue convened by the President of the Republic.
This meeting gave us the opportunity to table to the Prime Minister for onward transmission to the convener of the dialogue, the Head of State, our preliminary position concerning this long-awaited exercise.
We insisted that this dialogue must satisfy the aspirations of the anglophone community and nothing short of this will work, we made it clear as follows:
– That such a National Inclusive Dialogue should be chaired by a neutral personality;
– The national dialogue must dwell on the root causes of the Anglophone problem;
– That there must be structured openings to discuss the form of the state, with the view to adopting a new constitution for Cameroon and this should be prominent on the agenda;
– That this dialogue has been occasioned by the Anglophone crisis and therefore anglophones must be central to its discussions and we proposed a preconference in this regard that will allow this dialogue not to go the way of the 1972 referendum and the 1991 tri-partite meeting;
– That the military cannot be part of a national inclusive dialogue, which is essentially political;
We stated unequivocally that the convenor needs to create an enabling environment for this dialogue to prosper by:
– Declare a ceasefire;
– Granting a general Amnesty to all those who have been implicated in this crisis that will allow all the stakeholders to participate;
We welcome and appreciate the fact that the Prime Minister informed us that the UN, the African Union and the Commonwealth have indicated their will to participate in the dialogue and we will wish that countries such as the USA, Britain and Germany should actually be third parties involved in this exercise.
We further mentioned that the nature of the conduct of this dialogue should be clear, notably:
– That the timings and sequencing must be consensual;
– That we need a proper definition of what is in the national inclusive dialogue, including its structure and the mechanisms to be used;
– That we must make sure that the major stakeholders are part of the preparatory phase, the process phase itself as well as the implementation phase in order to nurture the outcome;
The SDF understands that a national inclusive dialogue is essentially process focused and we therefore wait for the convenor to indicate to all the stakeholders the way forward.
Done in Yaoundé this 12th day of September 2019.
Hon. Joshua N. OSIH
1st National Vice President
#### MKPD Opinions ####
We support the national dialogue initiative, and appreciate everyone working to achieve peace in Cameroon.
However.. I have to plead with the SDF to build a website. This is the 21st century, and the SDF level of incompetence is just sad. Here You have a press release but no website of your own to publish it on? 😔 Sad!
