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UN-sponsored committee prepares for implementation of Cameroon-Nigeria pact

UN-sponsored committee prepares for implementation of Cameroon-Nigeria pact

SRSG Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah
Kicking off preparations to transfer authority in West Africa’s Bakassi Peninsula from Nigeria to Cameroon, following a pact recently brokered by Secretary-General Kofi Annan in New York, a top United Nations envoy met with facilitators today in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital.

The meeting of the Cameroon-Nigeria Mixed Commission took place in Nigeria’s capital, Abuja, in the presence of Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, Mr. Annan’s Special Representative for West Africa, to prepare reports for the follow-up committee on the implementation of the so-called Greentree Agreement, which is scheduled to meet on 10 July in Geneva.

The UN-sponsored Cameroon-Nigeria Mixed Commission, chaired by Mr. Ould-Abdallah, has been working over the past several years to finally resolve all issues of the dispute, which has its origin in the colonial borders established in the early 20th century by Britain and Germany.

Located on the Gulf of Guinea, the Peninsula had been the subject of intense, at times violent disputes between the two countries for dozens of years when Cameroon referred the matter to the International Court of Justice in 1994, which eventually awarded it to Cameroon, citing a 1913 agreement between Britain and Germany.

But the modalities of Nigeria’s final withdrawal had defied the efforts of the Mixed Commission until Mr. Annan undertook several days of intensive mediation with the Presidents of the two countries in early June.