Yaounde - Anglophone separatists are losing their battle for independence, the government said in a media outing that looked both like a celebration of victory and anti-SCNC propaganda on Thursday.

It came as sources were telling us that troops had stood by to forestall any public demonstration, which the Southern Cameroons National Council habitually holds on October 1 of every year to mark what it calls Independece Day.

SCNC and other allied groups, including the Southern Cameroon's People's Organisation (SCAPO) are pressing for the breakaway of Cameroon's two English language provinces over alleged marginalisation.

In a statement stamped "very urgent", the minister of communication said SCNC and SCAPO had lost their case in the African Union's human and people's rights commission that was hearing the dispute.

"The commission has rejected all the secessionist claims," Issa Tchiroma said in the release first read on CRTV during a special lone-item radio newscast at 9am on a day the SCNC calls Independence Day.

"It also doubted allegations of discrimination and violence against the Anglophone community," Tchiroma added in the statement initially released only in French.

The African Commission on Human and People's Rights (ACHPR) advised SCNC and SCAPO activists to create a political party and engage in "constructive dialogue" with the state, the minister said.

It was not immediately clear if the development, a significant setback to a six-year legal battle, would cause the SCNC and SCAPO to abandon their cause.

The SCNC was yet to react but the group said on its site that it was also pursuing its cause with the United Nations, asking the world body to "decolonise British Southern Cameroons."

In the meantime, state media analysts were writing the obituary of the secessionist movement which began in the 1980s with the All-Anglophone Conferences.

"The decision has thus closed the legal avenue by which the SCNC and SCAPO hoped to obtain self- determination for the peoples of the territory," wrote Martin Nkemngu of Cameroon Tribune Friday.

ACHPR reached its decision on the case brought in by Kevin Ngwane Ngumne and co during its Banjul session in mid-May 2009. Tchiroma said, adding that it was validated by the heads of state summit of the Africa Union in July.

Its release by government came two months after. It was the first time the government went public about the case, making it appear to be part of October anti-SCNC propaganda and crackdown.

Security forces were also planning to deploy to traditional hot spots in the night of 30 September, we gathered from top military sources in Limbe.

Blackouts on the eve of October one were widely interpreted in the seaside town as deliberately caused to permit the movement of troops and weapons.

"We spent the whole day planning intervention strategies," said an officer, who cannot be identified because the plans were taking place in secret.

Until the weekend, Standard Tribune could not confirm any major SCNC events. In the past, the group held small rallies and raised flags in localities around the Anglophone provinces.

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