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Cameroon MPs Approve Law Giving Special Status to English-Speaking Regions

Moki Edwin Kindzeka

   YAOUNDE - Cameroon's Parliament approved legislation granting two
   English-speaking regions in the country special status. But lawmakers
   representing the Northwest and Southwest regions says the law will not
   solve the ongoing separatist crisis there.

   Aboubakary Abdoulaye, the French-speaking senior vice president of
   Cameroon's Senate, the legislature's upper house, who presided over
   Friday's closing plenary session of an extraordinary session of
   Parliament, said approval of the bill should end the violence over the
   issue.

   "Permit me to particularly point out the special status which the
   Northwest and the Southwest regions will henceforth be entitled to. It
   is therefore high time to silence the guns. It is therefore high time
   to stop the killings, violence and destruction."

   The extraordinary sessions of the upper and lower houses of Parliament
   were convened a week ago following instructions from Cameroon's
   President Paul Biya.

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