The End of French Rule in Cameroon 0761852786, 9780761852780

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THE END OF FRENCH RULE IN CAMEROON

Martin Atangana

Copyright © 2010 by University Press of America,® Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard Suite 200 Lanham, Maryland 20706 UPA Acquisitions Department (301) 459-3366 Estover Road Plymouth PL6 7PY United Kingdom All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America British Library Cataloging in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Control Number: 2010929881 ISBN: 978-0-7618-5278-0

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992

Contents List of Acronyms Preface Introduction 1. Political and Economic Development in Cameroon in the Post War Era (1946–1956) 2. The Implementation of the Loi Cadre (1957) 3. The Recognition of Cameroon’s Option for Independence (1958) 4. The Transition and Transfer of Power (1959–1960) Conclusion Bibliography Index About the Author

Acronyms

AEF

Afrique Equatoriale Française

ALCAM Assemblée Législative du Cameroun ALNK

Armée de Libération Nationale Kamerunaise

AOF

Afrique Occidentale Française

ARCAM Assemblée Représentative du Cameroun ATCAM Assemblée Territoriale du Cameroun BDC

Bloc Démocratique Camerounais

CAOM

Centre des Archives d’Outre Mer

CGT

Confédération Générale du Travail

CNO

Comité National d’Organisation

ESOCAM Evolution Sociale du Cameroun FIDES

Fonds d’Investissement pour le Développement Economique et Social des Territoires d’Outre-Mer

GTN

Groupement Tactique du Nord

JDC

Jeunesse Démocratique Camerounaise

JORF

Journal Officiel de la République Française

PCF

Parti Communiste Français

PUF

Presses Universitaires de France

RDA

Rassemblement Démocratique Africain

SFIO

Section Française de l’Internationale Ouvrière

SHD

Service Historique de la Défense

UDEFEC Union Démocratique des Femmes Camerounaises UN

United Nations

UPC

Union des Populations du Cameroun

USC

Union Sociale Camerounaise

USCC

Union des Syndicats Confédérés du Cameroun

ZIFOC

Zone Insécurité aux Frontières Occidentales du Cameroun

ZOM

Zone d’Outre-Mer

ZOPAC

Zone de Pacification du Cameroun

Preface This book is an analysis of the decolonization process that took place in Cameroon in the late 1950s, and the circumstances surrounding Cameroon’s journey to reach independence on January 1, 1960. I became interested in this subject as a graduate student in Paris in the late 1980s. But I soon discovered that historical research on the subject was, at that time, complicated by a number of obstacles resulting from two main factors: the relative proximity of the period under consideration, and the passions and hatred that the events, which took place in Cameroon in the late 1950s and early 1960s, created. The three main consequences of this situation were that archives related to the subject were still unavailable, it was difficult to interview the people who had survived that agitated period, and many works were never published due to censorship and the political climate in Cameroon. In recent years, however, most of these obstacles have faded away, as evidenced by the increasing number of theses and dissertations presented at the University of Yaoundé on political development in Cameroun during the aforementioned period. It is an opportunity that I have decided to seize to complete my old project. To do this, I have used many of the archives that are now open to the public. These documents were found in France, Cameroon, and the United States. I also reviewed and benefitted from studies that were produced in recent years on some aspects of the subject that I have discussed in this book. My purpose is first to offer a synthesis of these materials, provide a historical background to the independence movement that occurred in Cameroon, and expand the existing limited literature in English on the historiography of Cameroon. Secondly, this book analyzes the circumstances surrounding the unsuccessful attempt of the Union des Populations du Cameroun (UPC) to seize independence in Cameroon by force, and the subsequent eradication of this party by an alliance of French and Cameroonian government forces. It also offers information on the crushing of the UPC rebellion. One of the main emphases is on exploring the decisions of key political and military figures. The Cameroonian example of a violent uprising is unusual in French Black Africa and certainly merits more attention than it has received. One of my primary goals is to make a contribution to this aspect of the history of Cameroon, and to show the length the French were prepared to go to, in order to leave Cameroon in the hands of a government that would be sympathetic to their interests. I would like to thank Bea Vidacs who translated many of my original documents from French to English. I want to express my gratitude to my colleague George White of the Department of History and Philosophy at York College of the City University of New York

who read my manuscript and made corrections and invaluable comments. I should not fail to mention Elizabeth Howitt who helped me with the proof-reading, editing, and formatting of my manuscript. I am very grateful to the staff of the research centers where I conducted my research, especially Njoki-Wa Kinyatti and John Drobnicki of the York College Library; Jacob Jocelyn of the Service Historique de la Défense (Paris, France); Marie-Chantal Zangna Balla, Nathalie Akama, and Flavien Dong of the Archives Nationales (Yaoundé, Cameroon); Jean Claude Yojec of the Centre des Archives d’Outre-mer (Aix-en-Provence, France), Jackie Charles and the staff of the Dag Hammarskjold Library at the United Nations (New York, USA). I am also indebted to Rose and Michel Poivre who accommodated me in their home in Paris during my stay in France for research. Finally, my very special thanks go to my wife Lois and her family in New York, my son Charles, and my family in Cameroon for their love and support. Martin Atangana New York May 2010

Introduction In the wake of post-World War II reforms, generous ideas were launched in France as well as in Great Britain concerning the future of the overseas territories. However, the period between 1945 and 1955 was rather indecisive. Good intentions were rarely, if not at all, followed by concrete actions. The colonial policy of small steps towards self-government only increased the impatience of local African elites and intensified their demand for independence. The slowness of the colonial authorities to implement the reforms that were promised contributed to the overall feeling of mistrust and disappointment. Africans no longer trusted a policy that was clearly oriented towards maintaining white domination and, therefore, their demands became more radical. This led to the decolonization movement that was to affect Black Africa between 1958 and 1965. The year 1954 marked the beginning of the definitive decline of whatever still remained of the French colonial empire that had been renamed the French Union in 1946. In Indochina, the Viet Minh inflicted a military and moral defeat on the French expeditionary army that was to lead to the abandonment of the colony. The loss of Indochina was consummated by the Geneva Agreements of 1954. In India, old French territories were taken from France under Indian pressure. In Paris, the treaties signed with the Etats associés (associated states) of Indochina could not withstand the blow of Dien Bien Phu. Indeed, the Algerian rebellion exploded and, as Joseph Laniel pointed out, “Marshal de Lattre’s prediction that abandoning Indochina would rapidly lead to an uprising in North Africa, came true.”1 Around the same time, the government of Pierre Mendès France spontaneously gave up the Tunisian protectorate and shortly afterwards the government of Edgar Faure relinquished the Moroccan protectorate. Nonetheless, in North Africa, anti-French agitation increased. Massacres of isolated colons (French settlers) were followed by a long string of killings. In the African territories under French rule, centrifugal forces—often initiated from abroad—progressively expressed themselves: the notion of a French Union was put into question. France’s prestige started to decline, which strengthened the nationalist movements that were organized in various territories of the French colonial empire. Nevertheless, following the French collapse at Dien Bien Phu and the beginning of armed fighting in Algeria, French authorities fell back on Black Africa. From then on, they seemed determined to prevent the disintegration of at least this part of their colonial empire. They wished to oversee entirely and by all means the evolution of the territories still under their control. With the return of General Charles de Gaulle to power in France in 1958 and the

increasing awareness colonized people had of their situation, this trend eventually led to independence that was granted to most French African territories south of the Sahara in 1960. It was in this context that French Cameroon achieved independence in 1960. The purpose of this study is to analyze the end of French rule in Cameroon. The period covered by this analysis goes from 1957, when French Cameroon became a State, the Etat sous tutelle du Cameroun (The Trust State of Cameroon), to 1960 when, on January 1, the territory finally became independent. During this relatively short though eventful period, French policies towards Cameroon underwent significant changes. After the First World War, the ex-German colony of Kamerun, then occupied by French and British troops, was put under the control of the League of Nations. This newly created organization gave Great Britain and France the mandate to administer the territory. After the creation of the United Nations in 1946, the “mandated territories” of the League of Nations became the “trust territories” of the United Nations. Paris and London continued to administer Cameroon with the mission of bringing the country to independence. Therefore Cameroon, just as Togo, was not a colony like the other territories under French rule in Black Africa, but a trust territory over which France had only a provisional mandate on behalf of the United Nations. At the beginning, however, France steadfastly aimed for either integrating Cameroon into the French Union, despite the terms stipulated by the trusteeship system, or for establishing an autonomy that would promote the integration of the country into this Union. At any rate, bestowing political independence on Cameroon as demanded by the nationalists was out of the question. France made no effort to hasten Cameroon’s accession to independence. This lack of commitment to promoting the independence of Cameroon can be explained by French fears. It was thought that initiating the independence process prematurely in Yaoundé could be used by the Algerians as an excuse for furthering their revolution. In addition, if Cameroon were to be granted independence, the other territories under French rule would not expect to receive less than Cameroon. Later, faced with the strengthening of local nationalist claims, an ever increasing sympathetic audience on both the international and the national stage, and given the changes taking place in the world, France was eventually forced to accept, in principle, the demands of organizations deemed extremist. Despite this, from then on, France was bent on marginalizing these organizations and instead giving political independence to “moderate” groups willing to maintain close links with the old colonial power. Thus France wished to retain control over Cameroon and various French governments made significant efforts to achieve this goal. France’s attitude can be explained by three main factors: the geographic importance of the territory in its relation to French Equatorial Africa, and particularly the role of the port of Douala as the natural outlet for not only Cameroon but also Chad and Ubangui-Chari (modern Central African Republic); the economic importance of Cameroon in terms of its wealth and its potential for generating profits;2 and the rapid growth of the French community and its investments in Cameroon during the post-war period.3 One of the important advantages of Cameroon for France was its strategic location. Like a hinge in the middle of Africa, Cameroon appears as the point of gravity of the Black Continent, making it one of its key-countries. Moreover, Cameroon is located between French West Africa and French Equatorial Africa. The French wanted to guarantee their troops a secure transit from

one part of their empire in Black Africa to the other. From Cameroon, the French could better control the rest of their empire in Africa, and maybe even expand it in the long term. France’s attitude must also be understood within the general framework of the division, among the great powers, of the world into areas of influence. French-speaking Africa remained France’s “hunting ground”. In the early 1960s, the United States disapproved of this French control over Black Africa because it hindered the expansion of American capital. However, the American involvement in Vietnam soon resulted in giving France a free hand in Africa. This allowed the French to tighten their control over their African colonies. In pursuing their ambitions, the French had to confront the energetic opposition of the Cameroonian nationalists of the Union des Populations du Cameroun (UPC), a radical left wing party that, from its creation in 1948, demanded the unification of the French and British Cameroons and total independence. The UPC was headed by Ruben Um Nyobè, a former trade union leader who enjoyed the support of European progressive groups. The confrontation between the UPC and France led to armed conflict in Cameroon which made this country the only one, among all territories under French rule in Black Africa, where demands for political independence led to violence. As argued earlier, successive French governments were at first strongly opposed to the Cameroonian nationalists’ demands for independence. Eventually France ended up bestowing this independence on those moderate leaders and political groups that had often questioned the principle and manner of achieving independence and had agreed to maintain close economic, military and political links with France. How did French policies towards Cameroon evolve? How were France’s objectives achieved? How did Cameroon attain independence? This study aims at providing answers to these questions. To do this, the implementation of the Loi Cadre (framework law), which resulted in the creation of the Trust State of Cameroon, will be analyzed; the recognition by France of Cameroon’s option for independence and the implications of this recognition will be discussed; and the transitional period during which the government to which France was ready to transfer power in Cameroon was established will be examined. But, it is first necessary to explain the political and economic development of Cameroon during the decade that followed the Second World War.

NOTES 1. J. Laniel, Le drame Indochinois, De Dien Bien Phu au pari de Genève (Paris : Plon, 1957), p. 132. 2. To better understand French concerns over the future of Cameroon, the specific importance of the Douala area must be mentioned here. Douala was encircled by a zone particularly rich in export crops such as banana, coffee, cocoa, palm oil, and timber. French colonial interests were concentrated in this area that comprised approximately 1,500,000 inhabitants, and that constituted one tenth of the territory served by the railway. This zone, in the shape of a semi-circle with a radius of 300–350 km from Douala, became so essential for French economic plans in Cameroon that it was referred to as the “fertile crescent.” Even André Soucadaux who was the High Commissioner of France in Cameroon from 1949 to 1954 described it as a cercle utile [useful circle] (ARCAM, “séance extraordinaire du 17 au 21 janvier 1951. Procès verbaux des séances,” p. 21). Significantly, the greater part of French infrastructural investments was devoted to the construction of facilities for the export of cash crops and the import of industrial products, in keeping with what could be referred to as the “policy of the fertile crescent.” 3. The French community in Cameroon grew from 3,210 people in 1944 to 17,000 in 1956. During the decade that followed the Second World War the French invested greater funds in Cameroon, in both the public and private sectors than in any other

of their African territories. See M. Atangana, “French Capitalism and Nationalism in Cameroon,” African Studies Review 40, 1 (1997), pp. 83–111.

ONE

Political and Economic Development in Cameroon in the Post War Era (1946–1956) During the nineteenth century, empire-building powers quarreled over the shares of Africa that each one wanted to acquire. On July 12, 1884, faced with British hesitation and French clumsiness, the Duala chiefs signed a treaty with Germany in which they yielded their right to sovereignty, legislation, and administration to this European power. This marked the beginning of German colonization in Cameroon. The German protectorate of Kamerun was 507,332 square miles and it grew to about 750,000 square miles after 1911. In 1916, during the First World War, the Germans were driven out of Cameroon by the Allies who then occupied the entire territory with no intention of returning to the Germans any of their occupied colonies. Article 119 of the Treaty of Versailles simply annulled Germany’s rights to have colonies. After the Great War, in keeping with the agreement between Generals Dobell (on behalf of Great Britain) and Aymerich (on behalf of France) in the course of consultations following Germany’s defeat, Cameroon was partitioned. The final division of the former German Kamerun led to the carving out of two pieces, one was a southern piece which was annexed to French Equatorial Africa, while the rest was divided into two international mandates one of which was entrusted to France and the other to Great Britain. France received 431,206 square miles, that is four fifth of the territory, while Britain received 76,135 square miles consisting of two disconnected pieces on Nigeria’s border, 38,000 square miles belonging to the northern region and 45,325 square miles to the southern region. The British decided, for administrative reasons, to unite their two regions. French Cameroon was administered as part of the French colonial empire. Until 1957, its development followed the principles established at the Brazzaville Conference of 1944.

The Development of Trade Unionism One of the earliest post war reforms decided by the French for their colonies was the right of Africans to form unions. Following the spirit of Brazzaville, on August 7, 1944, the Comité Français de Liberation Nationale authorized the organization of trade unions in the French colonies of Black Africa where unions were previously forbidden. As a result, study groups on union organizing were formed in Douala and Yaoundé by Gaston Donnat and Soulier, two French civil servants and union activists who were members of the union known in France as

the Confédération Générale des Travailleurs (CGT). Many Cameroonian leaders including Jacques N’gom, Charles Assalé, Leopold Moumé-Etia, André Fouda, Philémon Sakouma, and Ruben Um Nyobè also participated actively in this process. Their activities resulted in the rapid development of unionism in Cameroon. Most of the unions that were created in Cameroon were local branches of French unions. They included the Union des Syndicats Confédérés du Cameroun (USCC) that was affiliated to the CGT, the Confédération Camerounaise des Syndicats Chrétiens (CCSC) affiliated to the Confédération Française des Travailleurs Chrétiens (CFTC), the CGT-Force Ouvrière (FO), the Union des Syndicats Autonomes du Cameroun (USAC), the Confédération Générale Kamerunaise du Travail (CGKT), and the Confédération des Syndicats Indépendants du Cameroun. The French Administration and the colons (settlers) were soon thwarted by militant trade unionism that demanded salary increases, creation of canteens, and expansion to Africans of benefits granted only to Europeans. On many occasions, unions resorted to strikes. The activities of the nascent trade unions, which sought to improve the conditions of Cameroonian workers and echoed the general nationalist feeling stimulated by the Second World War, quickly led to the riots that occurred in Douala in September 1945. These riots killed 9 people and wounded 20 others.1 In the 1950s, trade unionism in Cameroon split into two camps, trade unions accused of radicalism by the colonial administration, and trade unions considered as moderate by the administration. The most radical and active trade union in the territory was the USCC. Founded in 1944 with assistance from the CGT, the USCC was a radical union and the UPC’s main ally in Cameroon. The party’s statute explicitly mentioned that its members must help the USCC. The two organizations had similar ideological views. The UPC’s idea that economic development that would benefit Cameroonians and not foreign companies had to first begin with the political development of the territory was supported even more strongly by the USCC and constituted the basis of their collaboration.2 Despite all attempts made by the administration to gag the USCC, which the French Government accused of being communist, this union was able to achieve a far greater following in Cameroon and abroad than any of its rivals.3

The French Constitution of 1946 After the Second World War, France adopted a new constitution. This new constitution that created the Fourth Republic was approved by referendum on October 13, 1946, and took effect on December 24, 1946. It emphasized the doctrine of assimilation and transformed the federalist hopes of the Brazzaville Conference into a centralized French Union comprising metropolitan France, overseas departments and territories, and associated territories and states. Cameroon and Togo were incorporated into the French Union as “associated territories.” The ambiguities of the French Constitution with regard to the Trusteeship Territories of Cameroon and Togo gave France the opportunity to treat the two countries as integral parts of the French Republic. The Constitution of the Fourth Republic gave the inhabitants of the territories under French

rule the right to elect representatives to the parliamentary bodies in Paris: the National Assembly, the Council of the Republic, and the Assembly of the French Union. At the Palais Bourbon (the French National Assembly) Cameroon was represented, from 1946 on, by three deputies: Dr. Louis Paul Aujoulat, Prince Alexandre Douala Manga Bell (both having been elected in 1945 to the Constituent Assembly that wrote the 1946 Constitution), and Jules Ninine; in 1951, the number of seats grew to four, and Plantier became the additional representative of the territory. Until the elections of January 1956 in which André-Marie Mbida, a Cameroonian political leader and future prime minister of Cameroon replaced Aujoulat, Douala Manga Bell was the only deputy of the four to have been of Cameroonian origin; and it should be noted that Bell was a French citizen. One deputy was elected by the first electoral college (that of the French), while two, later three, others were elected by the second college (that of Cameroonians). The representatives to the Council of the Republic were elected by the members of the Territorial Assembly and the deputies of the territory. One seat was provided by the first section of the Assembly, and two by the second section. Henri Chamaulte for the first college, Njoya Arouna and Pierre Kotouo (the latter replacing Charles Okala), were elected senators on June 18, 1955, with a mandate that was supposed to last until 1961. It was also the Territorial Assembly that, meeting as a single electoral college, elected five representatives for six years to the Assembly of the French Union. Joseph Guyard (member of the first college) and Soppo Priso, Ahmadou Ahidjo, Daniel Kémajou and AndréMarie Mbida (members of the second college) were elected on October 10, 1953. Pierre Rocaglia replaced Mbida when the latter was elected to the National Assembly in January 1956. The Assembly of the French Union only had an advisory role with regard to the legislation affecting the overseas territories. According to the report of the 1952 UN Visiting Mission, some political parties, such as the Evolution Sociale du Cameroun (ESOCAM) and the Bloc Démocratique Camerounais (BDC), reckoned that the representation of the territory in the French parliamentary bodies was “in keeping with the current level of development of the territory.” This view was not shared by the Union des Populations du Cameroun (UPC). Its leader, Ruben Um Nyobè, maintained that “the representation of Cameroon in France’s parliamentary assemblies was insufficient to assure the defense of the interests of the territory.”4 He also made the following critique: With regard to representation in the metropolitan parliamentary assemblies we can show that out of the 624 deputies who constitute the National Assembly of Paris, 4 deputies are elected by Cameroon, of which 1 by the French of Cameroon and 3 by the indigenous people. What kind of influence can 3 deputies exercise over 624? Even if we admit that half of the deputies are absent, what impact can 3 voices have as opposed to 312? The French Senate has 320 members, 3 are elected by Cameroon, of which 1 by the French of Cameroon and 2 by the indigenous population. The Assembly of the French Union is a consultative assembly which has no legislative power whatsoever. There too the indigenous population of Cameroon is represented by 3 deputies. Togo has a smaller representation because of its smaller population. How could the territories under trusteeship then properly benefit from the French parliamentary assemblies?5

Pierre Chauleur, former French administrator in Cameroon, raised the question of the limited nature of the power of the deputies of the territory in the following terms: It is, indeed curious to note that although the deputies of Cameroon have the right to vote on the status of education or the military system of France, they do not for the most part have the right in their villages to appoint their municipal councilmen or even to determine the location of a slaughterhouse.6

The Assembly of Cameroon The most important political reform introduced in the territories under French rule in 1946 was certainly the creation of local assemblies.7 The decree of October 25, 1946, that created the Assemblée Représentative du Cameroun (ARCAM) specified that the bureau of this assembly was to include a president, who was a French citizen; two vice-presidents, one of whom was to be French; and two secretaries, of whom one was French. The assembly’s permanent committee consisted of five members, two of whom were French. The law of January 6, 1952 changed the name ARCAM to Assemblée Territoriale du Cameroun (ATCAM) and modified its composition. The number of representatives rose from 16 to 18 for the first college (that of the French) and from 24 to 32 for the second college (that of Cameroonians). The dual electoral college system thus continued. The powers of the ATCAM remained the same as established by the decree of October 25, 1946, for the ARCAM. The authority of the Assembly extended to several aspects of the country’s life. In the financial field, the Assembly deliberated and voted on the budget; it had spending initiative. Cameroon’s financial autonomy was quite important since the territory retained the totality of its revenue. The International Trusteeship System influenced the fiscal system and the international import export trade: it was the open door policy which had been instituted in 1884 at the Berlin Conference for the Congo Basin. As such, Cameroon could establish a wide variety of taxes and duties, including the right of importation and exportation. The powers of the Cameroonian Assembly also extended to the patrimony and above all to the economic and social domains. Thus, the Assembly deliberated on the economic and social development plans in collaboration with the Board of Directors of the French program for the economic and social development of overseas territories known as Fonds d’Investissement pour le Développement Economique et Social des Territoires d’Outre Mer (FIDES). Likewise, it deliberated on the problem of creating incentives to production, the organization of savings banks, and all that concerned cooperatives. In the administrative field, the Assembly regulated various areas such as the land tenure system, territorial administration, civil status, hunting, and fishing.8 Finally, it should be pointed out that the Assembly elected the deputies, the members of the Assembly of the French Union, its own bureau and president. In 1954, the presidency, which until then had belonged to the French, went for the first time to a Cameroonian, Paul Soppo Priso, who succeeded Dr. Louis Paul Aujoulat. “This ouster was the alarm signal, the starting point of a process, the final stage of which came in the legislative elections of January 2, 1956 during which Aujoulat, who was elected five years earlier by the Cameroonians, lost the trust of the latter who replaced him with Mr. Mbida.”9 But the powers of the Cameroonian Assembly should not be exaggerated. They were not always of the same level. The juridical power of its deliberations, for example, varied from case to case. Some deliberations had executive power, while others were placed under the oversight of the high commissioner of France in Cameroon (who represented the executive and was responsible to the minister of overseas France in Paris), or were considered mere opinions or wishes. Generally speaking, it can be said that the powers of this assembly were vague, and the Assembly was essentially advisory in nature. In 1949, the UN Visiting Mission

reported that: The actual authority of the Representative Assembly is as yet essentially circumscribed. Despite its important powers in budgetary matters, the political domain is in theory closed to it, and texts prohibit it from exercising legislative power.

Based on information received in connection with this subject, the report reproduced the following declarations made by the president of the ARCAM at the closing of the regular session of 1946: Gentlemen, you have fulfilled the mandate that has been entrusted to you by signaling to the central authority that the powers accorded to this Assembly do not allow it to truly take part in the management of the country. You have noted how regrettable it was that this was more a “council of notables” than a democratic assembly invested with true powers.

The report also expressed other statements regarding the powers of the ARCAM: On another occasion the Assembly protested vigorously because the government did not take into consideration its views. Yet another time, the members denounced the fact that the governor was willing to ask for the opinion of the Assembly in matters in which he was not obliged to do so, but did not allow it to modify the proposed texts. Then the Assembly questioned the government’s interpretation of the legal texts constituting ARCAM, and affirmed its wish to have more say in the establishment of its agenda.10

On January 10, 1950, Daniel Kémajou, who was a member of the ARCAM, delegate from the Mungo, and deputy of the Assembly of the French Union, addressed a memorandum to the secretary-general of the Trusteeship Council in which he requested a more extended field of activities for the ARCAM. He also demanded that this Assembly “be able to evade France’s council of ministers who by simple decree can dissolve or suspend the Territorial Assembly.”11 All these statements show clearly that the members of the ARCAM themselves were dissatisfied. But the criticism of the Assembly of Cameroon came also from other sectors of the Cameroonian population that used petitions to express their discontent. One of these petitions demanded “the establishment of a territorial assembly elected by universal suffrage and having the powers to deliberate on the economic, social, and cultural problems of the country.”12 Another petition by the political organization known as Ngondo was even more explicit. It criticized the limited nature of the powers of the ARCAM in the following terms: We do not see any manifestation of an attempt to confer it [the ARCAM] particular legislative powers which would be a step towards “self-government.” It is only if Cameroonians are granted greater responsibilities than those currently given to the ARCAM that the inhabitants of the territory will be able to acquire the necessary legislative experience to prepare them for autonomy.13

As all the inhabitants of France’s dependent territories, Cameroonians were made citizens of the French Union by the Constitution of 1946. But the latter distinguished between citizens with civil law status (French nationals and Cameroonians who had acquired civil law status) and citizens with personal status, that is to say, the great majority of the native population. The first category had the right to vote and constituted the first electoral college. In the second category only those who satisfied a certain number of specific conditions had the right to vote and constituted the second college.14 The 2,611 voters registered in the first college elected 16 representatives to the ARCAM. The 38,976 registered voters of the second college elected 18 Cameroonians and 6 others were appointed by the high commissioner. The disparity in these

numbers becomes even clearer when it is mentioned that the 4,000 French citizens with civil status had 16 elected officials and the 24 others represented 3 million Cameroonians. Here is Um Nyobè’s testimony on the ATCAM that was created in 1952: The current Assembly consists of 50 members of which 18 represent some 12,000 French people of Cameroon and 32 represent 3 million Cameroonians. Among the 32 representatives of native interests, there are 10 paramount chiefs, who are salaried dependents of the Administration, a European doctor [who was] a civil servant, 5 indigenous civil servants, thus subordinated to the administration, 1 member of the central government, secretary of state to the ministry of colonies (it is he who presides over the Assembly), 1 Catholic priest, elected under the threat of divine sanctions, 8 businessmen incapable of freeing themselves from the influence of the administration; that is to say 26 are subordinated to, collaborators of, chiefs or allied to the administration. If we add to this number the 18 councilors elected by the settlers of the territory, whose interests coincide with those of the administration, we arrive at a total of 44 councilmen loyal to the administration or directing it as is the case for Mr. Aujoulat, secretary of state to the ministry of Colonies.15

It can be concluded that the political changes just analyzed provided the white society of Cameroon with a solid institutional base which enabled it to prevent political reforms. “In fact, the political institutions in Cameroon—and representation in the metropolitan assemblies— were effectively monopolized by three forces: the French colonial administration, the white settler society, and Cameroonians who did not threaten the first two. The predominance of these three collaborating forces was maintained through the wide use of the two-college system, which accorded political representation to the whites greatly disproportionate to their numbers; and secondly, by the very restrictive franchise determining which Cameroonians were allowed to vote.”16 Adalbert Owona recapitulated this institutionalization of white domination in the political representation of Cameroon: For the Europeans, the electoral college embraced the totality of the country. That of the Africans was divided between the North and the South. Political life was practically in the hands of the European minority which enjoyed a privileged representation. The apex is that the majority of the African delegates (for example traditional chiefs and notables)—totally illiterate and therefore not understanding a word of French- sat in this assembly where French was the only official language. . . . Unlike them, the Europeans, fortified by their knowledge and competence were able to manipulate and twist this Assembly as they desired.17

The situation described above began in 1945 and lasted for about a dozen years. The French succeeded in maintaining the double college system up until the Loi Cadre (framework law) that was adopted in 1956.18 Indeed it was Article 10 of this law that introduced universal suffrage for all political and administrative elections. As far as the composition of the Assembly of Cameroon was concerned, the double college was the most important objection that could be raised against this assembly. On this question, the opinion of the French Government was expressed clearly by Paul Coste-Florêt, minister of overseas France, who stated that in his view “there are two very strong arguments in favor of the double college. . . . First of all it protects and defends the economic interests of France and of the overseas territories. This is also the role of the French colons.”19 Consequently, the explanations provided by the local administration to the UN Visiting Mission in 1952 fitted with the government’s line: At Cameroon’s current developmental level the double college system is still necessary to preserve the interests of the Europeans of the territory, whose contribution is indispensable for its economic development. . . . At present the elected members of the first college can enlighten their colleagues regarding certain economic problems, in particular on the question of the necessity of not taking certain steps likely to alarm or discourage French or foreign external

private investment.20

As for the settlers of Cameroon, they expressed their anxieties in 1954 after A. Douala Manga Bell presented, at the National Assembly, a bill envisioning the institution of the single electoral college. This is what they wrote in their newspaper: There is no doubt that the National Assembly will follow the deputy, Prince Douala Bell, and that a majority will vote for the single electoral college; thus the Europeans will be definitively put aside, without it being taken into consideration that 9/10 (if not more) of the economic activity of the overseas territories, almost all of the private capital invested, mining, industrialization, the important sectors/businesses of transportation and transit, banking, trade with the métropole [France] and with foreign countries etc are done by the European element.21

For Cameroonians the question of the double electoral college was a source of discontent, even among those elements who were close to the French authorities. As mentioned earlier, Douala Manga Bell undertook actions at the National Assembly to abolish the double college. At the Assembly of the French Union, similar initiatives were also proposed by Cameroonian representatives, namely Ahmadou Ahidjo, André-Marie Mbida, and Paul Soppo Priso.22 In the territory, several different forces expressed their disagreement. The traditional association of the Bamiléké people known as Kumzse demanded the single college.23 The 1949 UN Visiting Mission reported that the Ngondo protested against the institution of the double college.24 The Mission of 1952 pointed out that “the maintenance of the double college has aroused lively criticism among the évolués of Cameroon, especially among such political parties as the Cameroonian section of the [French] Socialist Party, the Evolution Sociale du Cameroun and the Union des Populations du Cameroun UPC.”25 The criticisms were generally based on two main factors: firstly, the double electoral college system was based on racial discrimination; secondly, if the single college system had been instituted in Togo under French Administration, it should equally be instituted in Cameroon which had the same status. Based on the information it obtained, the 1952 UN Visiting Mission considered that “it would be desirable to institute the single electoral college system as soon as possible in Cameroon.”

The Trusteeship Agreement At the end of the Second World War, the UN trusteeship system replaced the League of Nations mandate regime. At first, the French Government refused to place Cameroon and Togo under the new trusteeship system established at the San Francisco Conference of April 1945, just as it had at first rejected the mandate regime for the two territories at the end of the First World War. But as in the earlier case, France soon relented under pressure from other countries including the United States and Britain.26 Article 77 of the UN Charter, that was signed in San Francisco on June 2, 1945, stipulated that territories formerly under mandate were to be placed under the new system. France’s opposition completely disappeared when Bevin, the British foreign secretary, announced on January 17, 1946, that the former British mandates of Tanganyika, British Cameroon and Togo would be placed under the International Trusteeship System. It is important to examine the controversy surrounding the International Trusteeship System that France caused in December 1946 at the UN, because of the great importance the

Trusteeship Agreement had on Cameroon’s political life and on the relationship between France and Cameroon during the following decade. The explicit mission assigned to France by the Trusteeship Charter was “self-government or independence” for the peoples concerned. However, the draft agreement the French submitted to the General Assembly of the UN envisioned that Cameroon would be administered “as an integral part of France” and allowed them to retain the limited goals of the Mandate Agreement of 1922.27 The Trusteeship Agreement thus barely disguised the fundamental conflict that was to become increasingly acute as Cameroonians themselves became aware of Article 76 of the Charter. On the one hand, Cameroonians vehemently demanded political progress towards autonomy; on the other, the successive French Governments refused to abandon their goal of integrating Cameroon into the French Union. The Marchés Coloniaux expressed this point of view in strong terms at the moment when it began to appear that France was going to have to accept once again this “infringement on its sovereignty:” For us the question is simple, we are in Cameroon and in Togo as we are in Algeria or Senegal. We have been there for nearly thirty years, we have given them our best men, we have spent considerable sums. For us Cameroon and Togo are part of the French Union. Enough of Byzantine discussions. The French Union exists. Cameroon and Togo are part of it; we refuse to accept that there can be an international discussion of what concerns only the French Nation.28

The roots of other conflicts also clearly appear in the report of one of the French delegates to the October-December 1946 session of the UN, Dr. Louis-Paul Aujoulat, who was also a deputy of Cameroon to the French Constituent Assembly. In Aujoulat’s view, this session had two positive outcomes: the “consecration” of the Trusteeship System and the creation of the Trusteeship Council. According to Aujoulat, the participants of the debates feared that the establishment of this system and of the ad hoc Committee be postponed. Many of the delegates . . . —notably the delegates of the small powers— . . . declared themselves, despite numerous reservations, in favor of the Agreement: one can even say that they accepted the texts . . . despite their content. It is true that the Charter of San Francisco only left room for two alternatives: either to accept the Agreement that has been submitted to them, or run the risk of the mandatory powers withdrawing and maintaining the mandate system.29

Subsequent conflicts, the seeds of which were already evident at this session held at Lake Success in New York, placed in opposition not only France and the UN or France and the Cameroonians, but also the great colonial powers and the smaller countries supported by the former Soviet Union. The former group adopted a “laissez faire” attitude towards the administration of the mandated territories, while the latter, the “anti-colonial bloc,” became increasingly distrustful of what it considered to be the true colonial goals of the French in their colonies. These divisions were also reflected later on in the political differences between the Trusteeship Council, in which the colonial powers had the majority in favor of the status quo, and the Fourth Committee of the General Assembly where the anti-colonialist forces succeeded in pushing for a more rapid development in the trust territories.30 According to Dr. Aujoulat, the acceptance of the French propositions by the UN at Lake Success created a climate of suspicion and frustration. In a desperate attempt to modify the French positions, which they judged incompatible with the spirit of the Trusteeship System, the anti-colonialist nations

submitted several amendments to the French text, but without success. The trusteeship agreements signed by France and Britain were approved by the UN General Assembly on December 13, 1946. An analysis of these agreements shows that France undertook to: respect the primacy of the interests of the populations of Cameroon and develop their gradual participation in the administration of their territory; assure and safeguard their security and defend their economic interests and property rights; maintain an open door policy and ensure the equal treatment of all members of the UN in economic matters; ensure the intellectual progress of Cameroonians by developing primary, secondary, and technical education; assure freedom of conscience and worship and facilitate the work of missionaries of every nationality and their educational, medical, and social activities; assure freedom of speech and association in Cameroon; and allow the supervision of the implementation of the Trusteeship Agreement by the Trusteeship Council. In return the French had the right to: administer Cameroon as an integral part of France; establish if necessary—but after consultation with the local assembly—customs, fiscal, or administrative unions with other territories; establish military bases or maintain troops in Cameroon with the goal of maintaining peace and international security; set up public commercial or industrial monopolies deemed beneficial to Cameroonians; demand for Cameroon reciprocal treatment in economic matters from the countries that were to benefit from the open door system; and organize popular consultations to allow Cameroonians to express themselves on their political system.31 As required, the implementation of these agreements was supervised by the UN Trusteeship Council that examined annual reports submitted by the French Government and sent visiting missions to the territory. Cameroon was visited by these missions in 1949, 1952, 1956, and 1958. The terms of the trusteeship agreements caused much discontent among various forces within the Cameroonian society. The dissatisfaction stemmed first from the fact that the proposed agreements were not submitted for the approval of Cameroonians before being presented to the UN. In particular, Article 4 of these agreements stating that Cameroon would be administered “as an integral part of France” became the main focus of Cameroonian criticisms. The 1949 UN Visiting Mission reported that it received from many Cameroonians “requests suggesting the revision of the Trusteeship Agreement, notably with regard to the clause of the agreement according to which the territory would be administered as an integral part of France.”32 In a petition addressed to the Trusteeship Council and signed on February 20, 1954, some of the representatives of various Bamiléké groups, speaking in the name of the Bamiléké people, demanded “the deletion of the scandalous clause of Article 4 of the Trusteeship Agreement . . .” and protested “vigorously against the incorporation of our country into the French Empire.”33 In another petition, dated November 17, 1949, the representatives of the Beti people wrote: Sincerely, we have never been apprised of these Trusteeship Agreements at the time of their elaboration. . . . The said agreement being exclusively to the advantage of the trusteeship power, the indigenous people of Cameroon insist that they should undergo a general revision.34

The revision of the Trusteeship Agreement was also one of the resolutions adopted by the Kumzse during its fifth congress which took place in November 1952 in Dschang.35 This was

also the position taken by another important ethnic association, the Ngondo, which after maintaining that the agreement had not been brought to the attention of the population of Cameroon, considered that “this lack of political honesty on the part of France had made a very bad impression on Cameroonians.”36 Criticisms came also from various political parties. In a petition dated February 28, 1950, the leaders of the ESOCAM wrote that they wished to “maintain that the Cameroonian people had not been consulted prior to the signing of the Trusteeship Agreement.”37 As for the UPC, the challenge this party mounted against French domination was based on the argument that Article 4 of the Trusteeship Agreement, concluded between France and the UN on December 13, 1946, envisaged that France would administer Cameroon as an “integral part of the French territory” while Article 60 of the French Constitution of October 1946 stipulated that only the French overseas territories and departments were included in the French Republic. Moreover, this same Constitution indicated that Cameroon, a trust territory, had been admitted into the French Union as an associated territory. Um Nyobè maintained that the Constitution of France did not define the status of the “associated territories.” Thus, in Um Nyobè’s view, the consequence of this legal evasion was to favor the inclusion pure and simple of Cameroon in the French colonial empire. Um Nyobè made his first testimony before the Fourth Committee even more striking by alluding to Article 61 of the French Constitution which stipulated that the status of each associated state depended on the official act which defined its relationship with France. However, as he successfully demonstrated, not only had no such text been promulgated but the ATCAM was not competent to negotiate the relationship between Cameroon and France. On that issue Um Nyobè made the following statement: Up to now there is no treaty that determines the relations between Cameroon and France. In any case such a treaty can only be negotiated by a Cameroonian government, which would present the negotiation for ratification by a Cameroonian Assembly invested with political powers. . . . The Trusteeship Agreement cannot be considered to be a treaty defining the relationship between Cameroon and France; the Trusteeship Agreement is . . . a contract between the French Government and the UN about the administration of Cameroon. It is worth noting that none of the clauses of the Trusteeship Agreement foresee that Cameroon will be incorporated in the French Union as an “associated territory.” The expression “associated territory” is nothing but a way to camouflage assimilation. But this camouflage is badly disguised since Article 4 of the Trusteeship Agreement envisions that France will administer Cameroon “as an integral part of the French territory,” in other words Cameroon is purely and simply incorporated in the French Empire, under the guise of the International Trusteeship System. This is why we insist that this sentence, which allows the French Government to carry out in Cameroon a policy identical to that carried out in France’s own colonies, and we know how it does it, be deleted and that we should be apprised of how it is to govern.38

Another argument by Um Nyobè was based on the fact that the delegates of Cameroon, Dr. Aujoulat and Douala Manga Bell, sent by the French Government to the UN in 1946 to support France’s proposed text of the Trusteeship Agreement, had lied when they stated at the UN that the French proposal had been widely disseminated in Cameroon and had received widespread popular support.39 Um Nyobè ferociously attacked their statement. It is important to mention that at the beginning of 1946, Douala Manga Bell had criticized the French Government for having excluded Dr. Aujoulat and himself from the discussion concerning the inclusion of Cameroon in the Trusteeship System.40 Finally, Um Nyobè denounced the fact that Cameroon was going to be represented in the French parliamentary assemblies. In his view, this was in complete contradiction to the spirit of the Trusteeship System. This system sought to prepare the trust territories for self-government or independence, while the representation of Cameroon

in the metropolitan parliamentary assemblies, Um Nyobè maintained, could only be justified by the integration of Cameroon into the French empire. The UN General Assembly agreed to listen to Um Nyobè on three separate occasions, in 1952, 1953, and 1954, because there were very serious constitutional arguments at the heart of the political challenge that the UPC launched in reaction to French domination. The secretarygeneral of the UPC could ridicule the French Administration because the latter had replied clumsily that if the Cameroonian people had not been consulted about the Trusteeship Agreement it was because they were not advanced enough to be consulted, which put into question France’s original argument, according to which the agreement was valid because the Cameroonian people had agreed to it. France’s argument also undermined the testimony of Aujoulat and Douala Manga Bell who maintained that the agreement had received widespread support among the Cameroonian people. The exposé of the UPC constituted a telling condemnation of French domination in Cameroon as remarked upon by the Indian representative to the UN General Assembly in 1953, who declared with perspicacity that “a territory administered as an ‘integral part’ cannot achieve independence by any other means than through violence, that is to say by armed revolt.”41

The Development of Political Parties In the 1950s the most popular and most radical political party in Cameroon was the UPC. This party was created in Douala on April 10, 1948. Ruben Um Nyobè was the party’s secretary-general. He was a trade union leader trained by French union activists from the CGT. Um Nyobè demanded the implementation of Article 76 of the UN Charter that clearly envisaged the independence of the trust territories, and called for the reunification of French Cameroon with the British Cameroons. Thus reunification and independence were the two themes of the agenda of the UPC. In 1949, organizations affiliated to the UPC presented a petition to the UN demanding the political independence of the country. A nationalist and revolutionary movement, the UPC was the Cameroonian branch of the Rassemblement Démocratique Africain (RDA), a pan-francophone African political movement created in 1946 under the leadership of Félix Houphouët Boigny from Côte d’Ivoire. In 1951, when the RDA decided to cut ties with the French Communist Party and to cooperate with the colonial administration, the UPC left the RDA and continued its activities independently. In the elections for the French National Assembly in June 1951 and for the ATCAM in 1952, the UPC was defeated. The French Administration felt strengthened by the victory of its allies for whom these elections constituted a test of legitimacy, whereas the UPC accused the electoral system engineered by France of excluding from the elections the UPC’s natural supporters, the popular masses.42 The fact that the composition of the electorate was based on educational achievement and wealth gave credence to this charge. The French were successful in excluding the party from local and metropolitan political institutions, but they failed to stop the activities of the party and the expansion of its network. In 1952, Um Nyobè went to New York to attend the meeting of the UN General Assembly. In his speech, he addressed three major problems: the issue of reunification, the relations between Cameroon and the French Union, and the necessity of fixing a deadline for the ending of the

trusteeship and the accession to independence. The UPC addressed the UN as a petitioner again in 1953 and in 1954. The prestige of the nationalist party continued to increase. By that time the relations between the French Government and the UPC had reached a breaking point. This radicalization can be explained by the emergence of new factors. The first factor had to do with French internal politics. From 1946 to 1954 France was engaged in a war with Indochina, a member of the French Union. The defeat of French troops at Dien Bien Phu and the Geneva Agreements that followed were perceived by the French political and military authorities as a humiliation. Similarly, the outbreak of the Algerian revolution in 1954 was considered by France to be not only a new challenge, but also a gangrene whose spread had to stop immediately. It was essential for the French authorities that the request of independence by the UPC should not create a precedent in Black Africa. The second factor was related to international politics. The UPC’s demand for independence was unfolding at the height of the Cold War in a zone that was considered to belong to the Western alliance, and the French Administration considered the UPC to be part of the international communist movement. A few years earlier in Indochina, faced with the attack of the Viet-Minh, France had transformed its colonial war into a sort of crusade to protect the free world. Finally, to these two factors was added the internal political context in Cameroon. Roland Pré, the new high commissioner who arrived in Cameroon in 1954, seemed to be more concerned than his predecessor, André Soucadaux, with the economic development of the territory than with the political debate. This preoccupation, coupled with the question of Indochina and Algeria, made him reluctant to accept the nationalist party’s demand for independence. Concerned about the activities and the success of the UPC, the colonial administration began to support the formation of moderate movements that would be opposed to the UPC. André Soucadaux worked towards this end during his term as high commissioner of France in Cameroon from 1949 to 1953, in a joint effort with Dr. Louis Paul Aujoulat, a resident Frenchman who was at the same time deputy of Cameroon and secretary of state for overseas France. As a result many political movements emerged in Cameroon. On June 10, 1949 the Evolution Sociale du Cameroun (ESOCAM) was created under the leadership of Pierre Dimala. The party’s program was mainly to support the assimilation of Cameroon into the French Union and to oppose independence and reunification demanded by the UPC. Undermined by internal division, the ESOCAM disappeared before 1955. Its decline led to the birth of the Mouvement de Coordination des Indépendants Camerounais (INDECAM), an organization created in 1952 in Edéa to fight the UPC more effectively than the ESOCAM did. Like the ESOCAM, the INDECAM remained weak, with the Bassa people as its main base of support. Another movement that emerged soon after the creation of the ESOCAM was the Renaissance Camerounaise (RENAICAM), created on December 2, 1949. Its program was similar to that of the ESOCAM. The RENAICAM disappeared before 1957. These parties and many other political movements that emerged in Cameroon between 1949 and 1954 were regionally based. Along with the UPC, two other important parties emerged, but these did not seem to have specific ethnic bases of support. These were the Bloc Démocratique Camerounais (BDC) and the Union Sociale Camerounaise (USC). The BDC was founded on August 1, 1951, under the leadership of Dr. Louis Paul Aujoulat, a medical doctor and resident Frenchman who arrived

in Cameroon in 1936. He was elected deputy of Cameroon in 1945 and 1946 and served in the French Government between 1949 and 1953 as secretary of state for overseas France, minister of health, and minister of work and social affairs. The BDC sought moderate reforms, in close cooperation with France. Aujoulat wanted the development of Cameroon within the French Union. He also demanded a single electoral college and more powers for the assembly of Cameroon of which he was a member from 1946 to 1956 and president from 1946 to 1954. The party’s main influence was in the central regions, and in the cities of Yaoundé, Douala, and Ebolowa. The BDC enjoyed the support not only of the French Administration, but also of Catholics missions and trade unions, traditional chiefs, and civil servants. The party spread its ideas through its newspaper known as Le Cameroun de Demain. The BDC began to disintegrate after the December 1956 elections for the French National Assembly in which Aujoulat was defeated by André-Marie Mbida. Created in September 1952, the USC owed its importance to its leader Charles Okala, representative of Cameroon to the Council of the Republic in Paris. The USC was allied with the French Socialist Party (SFIO) and had a socialist type program. Okala and Um Nyobè had the same objectives and both leaders presented similar critiques of the French Administration when they appeared at the UN. Like the UPC, the USC demanded independence, opposed the French policy of assimilation, and advocated the political development of Cameroonians. However, the USC was unable to gain a great following because its leader was always out of the country and its program was overshadowed by that of the UPC. The party finally declined for lack of financial support and effective leadership. Finally, among the most important political movements that operated in Cameroon in the late 1950s were three parties that had parliamentary groups in the local Assembly: the Groupe d’Union Camerounaise under the leadership of Ahmadou Ahidjo, the Mouvement d’Action Nationale of Soppo Priso, and the Parti des Démocrates Camerounais led by André-Marie Mbida. Their activities will be discussed in subsequent chapters.

Agitation and Repression The expansion of the UPC and the increasingly revolutionary spirit of the masses pushed the colonial administration to step up its offensive against the UPC. By the beginning of 1955, Roland Pré was determined to destroy the UPC by any means necessary, including force. His method coupled administrative and economic reforms with a policy of violence. The colonial administration also found a considerable ally in the Catholic Church. Thus, for example, in their “joint letter from the apostolic vicars of Cameroon” of April 1955, the bishops of Cameroon exhorted their faithful followers to distrust the UPC, labeling it communist. The UPC responded to the attacks of the administration by calling for a boycott, a call that resonated throughout all the regions under UPC influence. From January to May 1955, Douala, Yaoundé, and other cities and towns in Cameroon were subject to agitation spearheaded by the USCC which was closely linked to the UPC. In March 1955, violent clashes took place in a number of places between Cameroonians, many of whom were UPC militants, and French colonial forces. In March and April there were several strikes asking for wage increases and other demands. The administration wrote the following report of these strikes, indicating their

place, date, and number of strikers: At the port of Douala; March 1–4; 520 strikers. At the SNC of Madoumbou; March 1–17; 350 strikers. At the GAFAC garage in Douala; March 8–15; 27 strikers. At the CAMPAGNOLO building in Douala; March 9–18; 180 strikers. At SOLIDIDIT in Bonabéri; March 11–14; 27 strikers. At the SNC of Manoka; April 2–21 (no number).43 On April 22, 1955, Cameroonian nationalists issued a Proclamation Commune (Joint Proclamation) refusing from then on to recognize the French Administration and demanding the formation of a temporary executive committee, which would be the only one qualified to negotiate with the French Government. This “Joint Proclamation” further exacerbated the already extremely tense political and social situation. Although the nationalists made it clear that their joint proclamation was “not an insurrectional watchword,” the French authorities considered it to be “a veritable declaration of war. The nationalists no longer acknowledge the French Administration, they have decided to get rid of it by all means.”44 Everywhere, incidents involving the UPC multiplied. The most notable of them were a series of demonstrations that occurred in the Bamiléké region involving the party leaders, Um Nyobè and Félix Moumié. By the end of April, 1955, the situation was extremely tense. In the Bamiléké, Mungo, Sanaga-Maritime, and Nyong-et-Sanaga regions feelings ran high, and most of the towns in these regions were experiencing increasingly more serious incidents. Between May 22 and May 30, 1955 serious riots took place in the Bamiléké country, the Bassa country, Douala, Nkongsamba, and Yaoundé. High Commissioner Roland Pré called for military support from French Equatorial Africa.45 According to official sources, 26 people died, 189 were injured, and 722 were arrested.46 According to the nationalists, the outcome was far worse: thousands of deaths. Some authors assigned the responsibility for the riots to the administration and others to the UPC. The two sides themselves accused each other in their interpretations of the facts.47 The incidents of May 1955 provided the colonial authorities with an excuse for dismantling and destroying the UPC. With the decree of July 13, 1955, the French Government, at that time presided over by Edgar Faure who had just replaced Pierre MendèsFrance, banned the UPC and its auxiliary organizations, including Jeunesse Démocratique Camerounaise (JDC) and Union Démocratique des Femmes Camerounaises (UDEFEC). This law was based on the old French law passed on July 10, 1936 banning fascist organizations. Having thus become illegal, the UPC entered the maquis (underground insurgency organization) led by some of its leaders such as Secretary-General Um Nyobé, while others including President Félix Roland Moumié, Vice-Presidents Abel Kingue and Ernest Ouandié went into exile.

The Emergence of the Nationalist Spirit in South Cameroon Following the banning of the UPC, Cameroon was not merely deprived of its revolutionary nationalist party in the legal political sphere, but also of its only viable political organization.

Roland Pré, himself, bore witness to this situation when he stated: “This has created in Cameroon a double vacuum, in the political and trade union areas.”48 But what worried the French authorities the most was not so much the political vacuum, but rather the emergence of a nationalist spirit which spread throughout the South of Cameroon. As one observer remarked “the dismemberment of the UPC has created an almost total political vacuum, leaving behind a nationalist sentiment . . . rather passionate, and all the more explosive because it lacks legal means of expression.”49 Among the new sources of this nationalist spirit were first the areas that were the main bases of support for the UPC, that is to say the Mungo region, the Sanaga-Maritime region, New-Bell in the Douala area, and the rapidly growing towns of the South, where the strong nationalist consciousness was the result of almost eight years of anti-colonial agitation by the UPC. To these regions should be added those which had been nationalist even before the Second World War, including the Duala communities and some sections of the Bulu population in the area of Ebolowa. However, in 1955–1956, there emerged a wave of anti-colonialism throughout a part of the country, which until then, had always remained on the sidelines of the nationalist struggle, that is to say the southern and central cocoa producing regions of Dja-etLobo, Ntem, and Nyong-et-Sanaga. The election of a man from the Eton-Beti group of the north of this region, André-Marie Mbida, in the 1956 elections for the French National Assembly, was an expression of this rising sentiment in the territory. Mbida had been elected to the ATCAM in 1952. In 1953, he became one of the representatives of Cameroon to the Assembly of the French Union. Like Aujoulat who he defeated in the 1956 elections, André-Marie Mbida was a practicing lay Catholic and a former member of the parliamentary group known in Paris as Indépendants d’Outre-Mer (IOM).50 Most commentators agreed in recognizing the implications of the election of Mbida. The latter had succeeded, during the campaign, in riding the wave of nationalism which continued to shake up Cameroonian society since the riots of May 1955. The speeches he made during his campaign “expressed a lively hostility towards the French Administration.”51 Pierre Messmer, future high commissioner of Cameroon, considered these speeches to be “ferociously antiwhite.”52 According to Robert Cornevin, “the success of Mbida should . . . be interpreted as the wish of the electors for the ‘Cameroonization’ of the political personnel, which they rightly considered to be too French.”53 The fact that Mbida was the first Cameroonian without French citizenship to be elected deputy of the National Assembly was very significant. After the elections Mbida, the future first prime minister of Cameroon, became the national hero of the territory. In a speech given after the elections of January 1956, Roland Pré clearly recognized that the emergence of a certain moderate nationalism in the territory as well as the results of the elections proved the clear desire of the overwhelming majority of the population of Cameroon to see its representation Africanized in the elected councils and assemblies. Although the goal of independence was generally not contested, he declared that there was confusion in the people’s minds about what this goal would entail. His critique addressed some common features among the supporters of this moderate nationalism: the attitude towards the consequences of the colonial system; the desire for equality between Cameroonians and whites

in all domains; a distrust of the intentions of whites in all sectors, be they public or private; and resistance to further expropriations in the name of the public domain.54 Although the high commissioner attempted to interpret this feeling in a way which did not preclude FrenchAfrican interdependence and cooperation—as Dr. Aujoulat had attempted to do during the past decade—the mood in the territory in early 1956 was clearly one of strong suspicion about the intentions of the French Government.

Formation and Defeat of a Nationalist Front It can be said that the fundamental goal of the French Government was to introduce reforms that would induce the political leaders of the territory to support the pure and simple integration of the territory into the French Union, instead of facilitating the political emancipation of Cameroon. However, the strength of national sentiments in Cameroon in 1955–1956 and the political immobility of the French Government in the previous ten years were not conducive to reconciling moderate Cameroonian politicians with the idea of a French-African community. During the second half of 1955, nationalism became the overriding sentiment in political life in South Cameroon. Although Mbida based his campaign on the antiFrench ferment, which led to the riots of May 1955, he completely changed his attitude towards the movement for independence after his election. Indeed, it was no longer Mbida, but Soppo Priso, who led the moderate nationalist movement in 1955–1956, and who created an organization to fill the void created by the banning of the UPC. Since 1947 Soppo Priso played a moderating role in Cameroonian politics. Until his election as the president of the ATCAM in April 1954, Soppo Priso did not hesitate to praise France’s activities in Cameroon. Subsequently, he abandoned his moderating role to adopt more nationalist attitudes. For example in April 1955, he forcefully criticized the French Government for having made decisions concerning Cameroon’s development plan without consulting the ATCAM.55 When Soppo Priso, the Cameroonian elected to the highest post in the territory, openly opposed France’s “decolonization” program, the colonial administration openly manifested the resentment this desertion inspired and consequently the prosperous businessman began to have some business problems, for example in his financial arrangements with local banks. In mid 1956, he opposed the reform project of Gaston Defferre, the new minister of overseas France, a project that was to become the Loi Cadre (outline law) of June 1956. Unsuccessful in trying to change the policy by means of the territorial and metropolitan institutions, Soppo Priso returned to Cameroon ready to organize the people against these institutions. It was in this context that the Union Nationale was created on June 9, 1956. The Union Nationale brought together various people such as Soppo Priso, Mathieu Tagny (UPC), Charles Okala (USC), Benoît Bindzi (BDC), Martin Abega (paramount chief), Melone (catholic priest), and many others.56 Its goal was to unite various movements in support of a “minimal program” the main outlines of which were: rejection of the Loi Cadre, unification of the Cameroons, reconstitution of the Cameroon Assembly based on the universal suffrage, and granting of a general amnesty in the entire territory. The Union Nationale did not completely reject the Loi Cadre, for it took up the content of its proposals on universal suffrage, the single

electoral college, the extension of the powers of the territorial assemblies, and the participation of elected representatives in the executive power of each territory. However, it objected to the fact that there were no specific provisions for Cameroon as there were for Togoland, and that it hindered rather than facilitated the move towards independence. From June to September 1956, Soppo Priso traveled all over southern Cameroon, holding meetings and inviting Cameroonians to demonstrate their support for the Union Nationale. During this period other political movements and other Cameroonian politicians also exerted pressure, through their actions, on the French Government. By November 1956, the Union Nationale could boast of having achieved some tangible success. To begin with, Cameroonian political leaders were united for the first time since 1944–1947, even if temporarily, in support of common demands. Secondly, the government of Guy Mollet was forced to concede that the Loi Cadre did not sufficiently take into consideration the specificity of Cameroon and that the Cameroonian Assembly should be consulted on its final form. Thirdly, the Mollet-Defferre Government agreed to dissolve the ATCAM prior to the expiration of its mandate, on March 30, 1957, in order to provide an opportunity for a new assembly elected by universal suffrage and by a single electoral college to study the Loi Cadre proposal. Fourthly, members of the UPC were allowed to take part in the political life of the territory through the Union Nationale, although many of them were under threat of imprisonment. Finally, at the end of August 1956, Defferre presented a bill, which was to be debated in the French National Assembly in October that granted amnesty to all Cameroonians implicated in the riots of May 1955. The amnesty did not allow the UPC militants to participate in the elections except as individuals not affiliated with the party, since the French Government had not yet agreed to revoke the decree of July 13, 1955, which banned the UPC and its auxiliary organizations. The Administration, which had succeeded in forcing the UPC to go underground, once again became the target of increasingly violent criticism from certain strata of the population that until then had remained peaceful. The Administration had to recognize the efficacy and influence of the UPC, despite the repression, and acknowledge the necessity of negotiating with an organization that was no longer legal. After the elections of January 1956 and the enthusiastic support for candidates of nationalist sentiments, a lull set in, in the territory. However, no real dialogue immediately took place between the UPC and the Administration. It was only after the replacement of Roland Pré by Pierre Messmer as high commissioner of France in Cameroon in April 1956 that the repression against the UPC began to slow down. In July, fifty-nine militants were released and in August the French Government announced its intention to submit an amnesty bill to the next parliamentary session. But all these partial attempts at reconciliation with the UPC were not accompanied by any concessions on the fundamental problems, and they did not convince the party that the colonial authorities were acting in good faith, all the more so as the reality clearly demonstrated the Administration’s constant efforts to encourage a split within the UPC. On June 24, 1956, while Soppo Priso toured Cameroon to mobilize support for the Union Nationale, the French authorities, including the new high commissioner Pierre Messmer, met in Paris with the Cameroonian parliamentarians to discuss the future of the territory. A few weeks later Mbida, who until then appeared to be a sworn enemy of France’s plans in Cameroon,

started to be viewed as the long sought after “valuable interlocutor” to replace the dissident Soppo Priso. From this moment on a third political force emerged in the territory, allied to the French and opposed to both the UPC and the Union Nationale. Several motivations were behind this anti-nationalist formation. First of all, there were regional concerns, as the Center allied itself with the North, which was traditionally conservative, to combat the radicalism of the UPC that was deeply implanted in the South, as was the Union Nationale. But, there were also religious factors, since the powerful Catholic hierarchy of the region of Yaoundé was able to temper Mbida’s nationalism and convince him to join forces with the Muslim Fulani of the North. Finally, there were also economic interests, ethnic sentiments, political ambitions, and perhaps a touch of megalomania. Indeed, in a letter sent to the French president, the prime minister and the minister of overseas France, AndréMarie Mbida declared himself to be “certainly not the only one, but the first and foremost valuable interlocutor in Cameroon, as the one and only entirely autochthonous deputy of Cameroon in the French National Assembly, . . . the only deputy who represents an economically powerful mass of the population,” unlike Soppo Priso, whom he depicted as “the smallest, the very last and least of the valuable interlocutors.”57 When Mbida began to attack Soppo Priso’s ideas and to move towards supporting the French reforms of 1956, the political leaders of the North felt encouraged to openly declare their opposition to the nationalist front. On August 3, 1956, before leaving Paris to return to Cameroon, the three parliamentarians who represented the North (Deputy Jules Ninine, Senator Njoya Arouna, and Councilor Ahmadou Ahidjo) made a joint declaration calling upon the voters to fight against the Union Nationale.58 A little later the BDC, even though much weakened, also abandoned Soppo Priso’s movement, followed by Charles Okala, and, after much hesitation, the USC. Furthermore, many splinter groups, which since 1955 had been fighting against the ideas that Mbida now became the defender of, were also looking for reasons to leave the Union. Some leaders accused Soppo Priso of trying to transform the movement into a single party. Others now found themselves confronted with the danger of losing their identity in the powerful Union Nationale. It was also argued that the Union Nationale was being swamped by the UPC and that once the nationalist party regained legality, it would take the place of the Union Nationale and all the other groups that created it.59 At the end of 1956, the rift within the Cameroonian political landscape was almost complete, with, on the one side, the Union Nationale and the UPC working to bring the UPC back into legality and to force the government to satisfy the latter’s long-standing demands, and, on the other side, the Mbida coalition that had allied itself with the French authorities to smother the demands for independence and keep Cameroon in the French Union. Despite the departure of many political leaders and traditional chiefs from the Union Nationale, the movement could still be described as strong after its second congress, which was held in Dibombari in the Mungo region on November 3 and 4, 1956.60 As for the French, they were assured of the support of the Islamic North and the Catholic South, and could also play the amnesty card. In August the French Government announced its decision to institute an amnesty in Cameroon in order to allow the participation of all in the upcoming elections. The UPC received this news with skepticism. The party leaders were dissatisfied with two aspects of

the government’s amnesty bill: the law did not lift the July 1955 ban on the party; and it was strictly limited to charges linked to the riots of May 1955, and thus was not applicable to a significant number of UPC militants who had been accused of actions committed prior to the May riots.61 As had been proposed earlier, the French Government dissolved the ATCAM on November 8. Then it postponed the elections from November 18 to December 23 in order to have more time to organize these elections. However, while the radicals and moderates were awaiting the implementation of the one measure meant to resolve the impasse, which had lasted for more than a year, that is to say the amnesty law, this measure was unexpectedly delayed. The French Government explained that this delay was due to parliamentary procedure. The law was finally voted on, on December 11, 1956, two weeks before the elections and, significantly, after the deadline for the submission of candidacies. This new situation resulted in the development of two groups within the Union Nationale. The first, called for the organization of a special congress to decide upon the new strategy the movement should adopt. The second that included mainly UPC members, recommended a boycott of the elections. But at the special congress, which took place on November 28 and 29, 1956, while some expected final confirmation of the boycott of the elections, a majority led by Soppo Priso approved the participation of the Union Nationale in the elections. The UPC members were not ready to participate in the elections as long as the amnesty had not been extended to the imprisoned combatants, and as long as the decree of July 13th on the banning of the UPC had not been rescinded. Georges Chaffard characterized as “specious” the argument that the UPC leaders decided to boycott the election because they feared that it would reveal the limits of their support. On the contrary he stated: If the amnesty law had been approved within the time limit compatible with the opening of the electoral campaign, and if the UPC would have been allowed to conduct its campaign openly, it would certainly have obtained a spectacular success on its lists [of candidates]. . . . It seems as if under procedural pretexts the French authorities have arranged to exclude the UPC from the elections.62

The thesis that an attempt by the French Government to exclude the UPC from the December 23 elections, is confirmed by a document coming from the French authorities themselves. This document entitled “Gaston Defferre to Pierre Messmer” was cited by Eugène Wonyu, a former UPC member from 1952 to 1960: What worries us is the position of the UPC in these elections. If the UPC presents candidates, they will win in any event. The South, the whole South supports either the policy of the UPC or that of the Union Nationale, which only heeds the directives of the UPC, which agitates clandestinely in the country. In case they [the UPC] stay away as in Togo, it would be better for us to implement our projects with our friends who are still faithful to us. I repeat, what worries us is that if the UPC succeeds in getting some fifteen (15) representatives into the Assembly, if our projects fail, they could have a majority given their political maturity, and consequently, they could turn this Assembly into a constituent one by proclaiming independence. In this case we shall be faced with a fait accompli, and Cameroon, whether we like it or not, will have international support. Therefore these elections must be in our favor, that is to say, we must have a majority in the Assembly even if the UPC participates. This is certainly a difficult problem, but we must overcome it. We must succeed in including Cameroon in the French Union.63

According to A. Eyinga, Paris has hardly denied the existence of this correspondence.64 The UPC militants were strongly convinced that the decision by Soppo Priso and others to

participate in the elections represented a betrayal and an abandonment of the fundamental goals of the Union Nationale. In a meeting held on December 3 and 4 at Makai in Sanaga-Maritime, the militants of the UPC voted for the formation of the Comité National d’Organisation (CNO), the military branch of the UPC, and for its program. Some UPC leaders called upon the party’s sections to boycott the elections of December 23, peacefully. By contrast others recommended resorting to direct action. During a congress organized on December 9 at Kumba in British Cameroon by Abel Kingué and other UPC leaders, the Jeunesse Démocratique Camerounaise (JDC) adopted a motion recommending the sabotage of voting booths, and the use of direct action and terrorism. On December 18 and 19, 1956, eighteen months after the riots of May 1955, another bloody week began. It was marked by acts of sabotage, such as the blocking of roads and railways, the cutting of telephone lines between Douala and Yaoundé, and by numerous assassinations, such as those of Dr. Charles Delangué and Samuel Mpouma who were two of the candidates in the elections of December 23. The “kamerunian” rebellion, which was to last for several years, had just begun. Nevertheless, although surrounded by an atmosphere of terror, elections took place with a participation rate of 22% of the registered voters in Douala, 14% in the Sanaga-Maritime, 66% in the Mungo, 70% in Yaoundé, 80% in Ntem, 50% in the North.65 A new Territorial Assembly would be able to discuss the statute prepared by the French Government. It would finally become possible to apply the Loi Cadre in Cameroon.

Economic and Social Development The constitutional changes concerning the French colonial empire, embodied in the Constitution of the Fourth Republic discussed earlier, insured France’s direct rule of Cameroon and the opportunity for the French Government to adjust the orientation of Cameroon’s economic policy according to the needs of the colonial state. In the law of April 30, 1946, the French National Assembly established a long term program for the development and modernization of France’s overseas territories. This program was known as Fonds d’Investissement pour le Développement Economique et Social des Territoires d’Outre-Mer (FIDES—Investment Funds for the Economic and Social Development of Overseas Territories). The funds for this program were made up of contributions from the French national budget and from the participation of each territory in its local plans, mostly from long term and low interest loans from another French financial institution called Caisse Centrale de la France d’Outre mer (CCFOM). During the decade that followed the Second World War these funds were to be employed in Cameroon in two economic plans, the 1947–1953 plan and the 1953–1957 plan. An assessment of French public investments during this period shows the privileged status of Cameroon relative to other overseas public investments by France. Due to the diversity of the sources of investment funds used during the FIDES era, estimates as to their totals vary greatly depending on which sources one includes in the computation. However, a reasonable estimate of the FIDES and CCFOM investment in Cameroon from 1947 to 1955 is 90.1 billion French Francs.66 This investment was almost as great as that for the entire French Equatorial

Africa, a federation of four colonies that received 96.2 billion, or for Madagascar, another French colony that was much larger and far more populous than Cameroon, that received 67.4 billion. In fact, Cameroon’s total amounted to 17 percent of the total sum of 540.9 billion French Francs invested overseas by the FIDES and the CCFOM during this period. On a per capita basis, the total sum of these investments is roughly equivalent to 4,300 francs CFA per inhabitant for Cameroon, 3,200 for French Equatorial Africa, 2,500 for French West Africa, 2,200 for Madagascar, and 1,800 for Togo. It is important to point out that French West Africa was a federation of eight territories and had almost 20 million people, French Equatorial Africa comprised four colonies and 4,500,000 people, whereas Cameroon had about 3 million people. As compared to public investment, private investment was insignificant. The total estimate of investment by private capital from 1946 to 1956 is roughly equivalent to 28 billion French Francs. In this field, however, it can also be pointed out that Cameroon enjoyed a “most favored nation status” in Black Africa relative to other territories under French rule. By the early 1950s, Cameroon had acquired a strong reputation among the French for its investment prospects. With the souring of French colonial plans elsewhere, especially Indochina, Cameroon became a favored target for investors, a territory of refuge for available capital. The comparison with French West Africa shows that investment was much wider and more sustained in Cameroon. In 1952 investments by private companies were three times those of 1947 for French West Africa; the corresponding figure is seven times for Cameroon. Moreover, 13 percent of the total number of both newly created companies and companies increasing their capital investment in Black Africa in 1949 were located in Cameroon. Ten percent of the total sum of private capital in Black Africa in 1949 was invested in Cameroon. In 1952, those percentages increased to 29 percent and 25 percent respectively. Although efforts were made to continue to attract private businesses into the country, there was an undeniable withdrawal of private capital from 1951 on. This withdrawal can be explained by financial and political reasons: the high level of taxation, the instability of the CFA franc, and the rise of nationalism reflected in growing demands for independence by Cameroonian nationalists. However, the economic situation was much better in Cameroon than in many other territories under French rule in 1955. During the first economic plan, which lasted from 1947 to 1953, the officials of the ministry of overseas France and the colonial administration of Cameroon decided to emphasize the infrastructural development of the territory. To a great extent, they focused on major projects, such as the modernization and extension of the port of Douala, the construction of a magnificent bridge on the Wouri River in Douala complete with a railway line, the improvement of the road network, especially between Douala and its hinterland, and the renovation of the railway system. Clearly, the majority of these undertakings concerned Douala. Although the second plan, which was to last from 1953 to 1957, anticipated more direct social measures affecting the welfare of the Cameroonian people, the first plan had a greater social impact, and it structured the Cameroonian economy in such a particular way that attempts to correct this disequilibrium during the second plan remained ineffective and superficial. Investments were realized in various sectors. In the field of infrastructure, one of the most

noteworthy projects was the hydro-electric plant of Edéa that led to the building of a dam on the Sanaga River and generators to provide electricity by Energie Electrique du Cameroun (ENELCAM), and to the construction of a plant for the processing of alumina into aluminum by the Compagnie Camerounaise de l’aluminium Péchiney-Ugine (ALUCAM). The total of classified roads grew from less than 4,000 km in 1948 to 6,416 km in 1956, of which 577 km were asphalted, and to which we should add 4,000 km of non-classified roads. Many bridges were built over the Wouri and the Lom rivers, and on many roads including the NgaoundéréMaroua, the Bafang, the Kribi-Edéa, the Kribi-Lolodorf, and the Bafia-Eséka roads. Waterworks were constructed in Yaoundé, Douala, Nkongsamba and Edéa. The electrification of the major cities including Douala, Yaoundé, Nkongsamba, Edéa, Garoua, Maroua, and Dschang was completed. The capacity of the port of Douala increased from 20,000 tons in 1947 to 767,000 tons in 1957, and that of the port of Garoua rose from 25,000 tons in 1947 to 40,000 tons in 1955. The railway system was modernized and as a result the amount of goods transported by rail grew from 250,000 tons in 1947 to 650,000 tons in 1957. The runways of the airfields of Yaoundé, Ngaoundéré, Garoua, and Maroua were improved causing many positive changes: commercial air transportation continued to grow; the total traffic of these four airfields increased from 1,245 planes in 1950 to more than 9,000 planes by 1950; the number of passengers grew from 7,950 in 1950 to more than 36,000 in 1955; and the tonnage of freight rose from 300 tons in 1950 to more than 5,000 tons in 1955. In the area of rural economy, the implementation from 1947 to 1956 of a rural infrastructure program manifested itself in the creation, equipping and operation of numerous technical installations including: the agricultural research center of Nkolbisson; the production station of Nkoemvoné; the rice station of Logone; the disinfection center of Douala; the agricultural production and animal reproduction centers of Kouden and Wakwa; the reforestation centers of Baleng and Melap in the West; and the registry offices of the dense forest at Bonépoupa, Kribi and Mbalmayo. The volume of some of the main Cameroonian export products increased constantly from 1946 to 1956. This was the case for coffee, peanuts, and cotton whose export quantities increased from 5,858 tons to 17,793 tons of coffee, 1,683 to 8,971 of peanuts, and 223 to 5,235 of cotton. Other products, such as cocoa and bananas, experienced an appreciable variation in their volume from year to year. The volume of cocoa for example changed from 35,488 tons in 1946, to 60,489 tons in 1953, to 45,965 tons in 1956; whereas the volume of bananas for the same years moved from 5,378 to 72,334, to 66,036. Finally, the export of palm oil saw a net weakening from 1949 (6,281 tons) to 1956 (745 tons). The development of these exports depended heavily on production. In this context, it should be noted that generally during the decade following the Second World War, production as well as the export of agricultural cash crops rose sharply in Cameroon. There are several explanations for this phenomenon. The growth of cocoa production, for example, occurred as a result of the efforts made by the French to develop Cameroon and to create a classe conservatrice (conservative class) in the country by helping to bring about prosperity in the rural areas with the view of moderating the ardor of anti-colonial demands and strengthening the predisposition of certain cocoa planters to collaborate with the colonizers. At the end of the Second World War, prior to the drop in the export price of cocoa some twelve years later,

the stable incomes brought by this crop resulted politically in a very moderate and even optimistic attitude. By contrast, the end of the economic boom and the fall in prices, starting in 1955, led to the growth of anti-colonialism in the cocoa growing regions of Cameroon. Technical improvements in forestry exploitation made the increase in the tonnage of timber possible. Technical progress, however, had its negative side: it seemed to the inhabitants to go against their growing need for available employment. The most important among them were the people of the Sanaga-Maritime since this region had the largest number of companies working in forestry. This sector owed its importance in the Sanaga-Maritime to the combined presence of the forests and railroads. After agriculture and public works, forestry was the field that employed the largest number of manual laborers in Cameroon, and this is the other factor that explains the rise in the production and exportation of Cameroonian timber during the decade that followed the end of the Second World War. Thus, the tonnage of cocoa, coffee, banana, timber, peanuts and cotton increased in a satisfactory way. The opposite can be said of palm kernel and palm oil production. Under the Germans these represented the second most important export products after rubber. In the 1950s, the commercial quantities of these products stagnated or regressed. The bulk of these two products was neither put on the market nor exported. This decline is one of the main explanations for the impoverishment of the Bassa area, where palm nut and palm oil were the main agricultural products. The problems resulting from forestry exploitation and agricultural production in the Bassa area made this region the potential reservoir of revolutionary nationalism in Cameroon. There were some failures or semi-failures in other aspects of production, such as the construction of a quinine extraction plant, the creation of quinquina plantations in Dschang, and the attempt to launch the mechanized production of peanuts in the northern part of the territory. Significant changes also occurred in the social field. With regard to health, Cameroon had 314 dispensaries in 1957, of which 243 were public institutions, that is to say one dispensary for 10,000 inhabitants. During the preceding years 41 hospital buildings and 10 maternity wards were constructed. The hospitals of Douala and Yaoundé, which were the country’s main medical centers, were enlarged and modernized and the important medical research center of Yaoundé received new equipment. Between 1947 and 1955, the number of hospitalized patients, of hospitalization days, of consultations, and of medical personnel increased respectively from 32,872 to 73,236, from 890,044 to 1,696,885, from 3,915,570 to 7,821,939, and from 1,227,549 to 2,575,512. An infrastructure was established for the prevention and treatment of diseases such as leprosy, treponematoses, tuberculosis, malaria, and sleeping sickness. Concerning education, 2,465 schools existed in Cameroon in 1957, including 583 public primary schools, 1,787 private primary schools, 18 public secondary schools, 35 private secondary schools, and 70 educational centers. These institutions were attended by 278,907 students including 59,856 boys and 23,618 girls in the public schools, and 198,798 boys and 52,636 girls in the private schools. From 1952 to 1957, the percentage of the student population in South Cameroon rose from 39 to 74 percent. Furthermore the number of holders of various certificates of general education grew from 100 to 240 during the same period, and the number of high school graduates increased from 1 in 1948 to 452 in 1956.

Numerous critiques could be made of the FIDES investment in Cameroon. One of the effects of this investment was it created a structural imbalance in the Cameroonian economy. This was not only a source of economic frustration for Cameroonians of various social strata, but also an obvious target for the nationalists. Public opinion in Cameroon viewed the FIDES as a cadeau empoisonné (Pandora’s box) and an unprofitable program because of the imbalance it created within the budget of the country. Despite the frequent reference to the mise en valeur (development) of Cameroon, the French were above all concerned with the croissant fertile (fertile crescent). This was an area in the shape of a semi-circle with a radius of 300 to 350 km (one tenth of the territory) extending out from Douala, which was served by the railroad, and in which the major export crops of Cameroon were produced. French colonial interests were concentrated within this area. The fertile crescent became so central to French economic thinking in Cameroon that one author named it le Cameroun utile (the useful Cameroon). Even High Commissioner André Soucadaux qualified the area as le cercle utile (the useful circle). Consequently, the greater part of French infrastructural investments was devoted not to the development of Cameroon into a viable economic unit, but to the construction of facilities for the export of cash crops and the import of manufactured goods. During the First Plan (1947–1953) the French Government invested an estimated sum of 80 billion French Francs, 85 percent of which was spent on infrastructure. Whenever the French sought to demonstrate the utility of their improvement of Cameroon’s infrastructure, they first pointed to the increase in imports and exports. From 1947 to 1953 exports increased from 132,430 tons to 273,260 tons, and imports increased from 77,030 tons to 287,788 tons. However, these figures which the French cited as a proof of their positive contribution to Cameroon’s development were increasingly seen by Cameroonians as a reinforcement of their subordinate position in the economic structure of French colonialism. The FIDES pursued the policy of the “fertile crescent” not only on the infrastructural level, but also in the area of social development. The cities included in the “fertile crescent” were heavily favored over the other cities and towns of Cameroon in terms of the provision of potable water, education, health care, and other social amenities and services. Rather than seeking the harmonious development of Cameroon’s economy, the French embarked on a vast program of large-scale construction, all of which was completed during a space of seven or eight years. Consequently, the employment structure of the Cameroonian population in the vicinity of these major projects was quickly transformed, as thousands gave up marginal farming and other activities to seek work in the building and ancillary concerns that proliferated. Given the fact that there was no other program of industrialization to provide more permanent work, considerable anxiety developed among Cameroonians and European settlers when this construction program came to an end by the middle of the 1950s. The FIDES also stimulated investment by private European concerns in Cameroon. Clearly, many of the FIDES funds went directly to European-owned construction enterprises as well as stimulating the establishment of ancillary concerns to support the construction effort. This can be explained by the fact that financial institutions in Cameroon were granting loans only to Europeans since they, unlike Africans, were able to furnish required guarantees. All large and small industries established within the “fertile crescent” were owned by Europeans.

As a result, whereas public investment in Cameroon engendered a mainly radical critique of French colonialism in the territory, private investments—overwhelmingly European in origin —stimulated parallel misgivings among the more bourgeois and moderate nationalist figures in Cameroon politics. The unwillingness of banks to grant loans to Cameroonians to facilitate their entrance into the import-export trade and internal commerce, and the slowness of the administration to grant licenses to establish these concerns, were responsible for the switch to a more militant nationalist position by many moderate Cameroonians who had remained on the sidelines of the anti-colonial struggle until 1955. Finally, the FIDES was not as generous as had first appeared. The program involved a 45 percent contribution by the territory based largely on loans from the CCFOM, a percentage that was to decrease over time. The estimate of Cameroon’s contribution to the FIDES plans for the period 1946–1958 was 64.5 billion French Francs or slightly over 40 percent of the total investment. Therefore, not only was the FIDES program designed by France to meet French colonial needs, but it was also seen as a means of employing Cameroonian financial resources as investment capital for French companies. For example, here are percentages of Cameroon’s participation in capital investment of four significant French firms by 1956: Credit du Cameroun, 38 percent; Energie Electrique du Cameroun, 9.8 percent; Société Immobilère du Cameroun, 35 percent; and Société des Recherches du Pétrole, 11.2 percent. Cameroon participated in financing these firms in exchange for token representation on their management boards. The bad investment policies of the French Government discussed above were not only the source of discontent at all levels of Cameroonian society, but also an obvious target for the nationalists. Thus, they contributed to increased nationalism in a territory which already had a strong tradition of anti-colonialism since German rule. The intensive infrastructural work undertaken by the French, the increase in private capital investment to service these undertakings, and the steady increase in the supply of the main export crops contrasted with the inertia of the French in the political sphere. Between 1950 and 1955, little or no progress was made towards granting legislative power to the territorial assembly, establishing a democratic local government system, or holding free elections in the territory. The Loi Cadre that France was forced by local and international circumstances to design, and that was about to be implemented in Cameroon, certainly marked the beginning of a new era in which the French Government finally seemed ready to make political concessions in Cameroon.

NOTES 1. For details on these riots, read R. Joseph, Radical Nationalism in Cameroun: Social Origins of the UPC Rebellion (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977); G. Chaffard, Les carnets secrets de la décolonisation, Vol. 2 (Paris: Calman Levy, 1972); C. Coquery-Vidrovitch, “Emeutes urbaines, grèves générales, et décolonisation en Afrique noire,” in Chemins de la décolonisation de l’empire français, 1936–1956 (Paris: CNRS). 2. See Le Travailleur 5 (September 15–30, 1954). On the USCC and its links with the UPC, see M. Atangana, Capitalisme et nationalisme au Cameroun au lendemain de la Seconde Guerre Mondiale, 1946–1956 (Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 1998), pp. 45–71. On trade unionism in colonial Cameroon in general and the USCC in particular, see Ibid and L. Kaptue, Travail et main d’ouevre au Cameroun sous régime français, 1916–1952 (Paris: L’Harmattan, 1986).

3. The activities of the USCC appear clearly in the memorandum that the union sent to the UN (UN Archives in New York, RAG–2/130–9). See also Travailleur Camerounais (1948 to 1954), and L. Kaptue. 4. “Mission de visite des Nations Unies dans les territoires sous tutelle de l’Afrique occidentale, 1952. Rapport sur le Cameroun sous administration française et documents y afférent,” Conseil de Tutelle, documents officiels, 13ème session, 28 janvier–25 mars 1954, supplément No. 5 (New York, 1954), p. 11. 5. R. Um Nyobè, Le Problème National Kamerunais (Paris: L’Harmattan, 1984), p. 106. 6. “Cameroun 1952,” Marchés Coloniaux 340 (March 17, 1952): 1244. 7. The details are contained in a series of decrees signed on October 25, 1946, pp. 109–150. On the creation of ARCAM, see Ibid, Decree No. 46–2376, and “Rapport annuel du gouvernement français” (1947), pp. 220–225. 8. On the power of the Assembly of Cameroon, see “Rapport annuel du gouvernement français” (1947), p. 20 and subsequent pages, and “Mission de visite de l’ONU” (1952), p. 10. 9. Zang Atangana and Debeusscher, “L’Evolution politique du Cameroun” (Paris : 1959), p. 13. 10. Rapport de la Mission de visite de l’ONU dans les territoires sous tutelle d’Afrique occidentale,” Nations Unies, Documents officiels de la 7ème session du Conseil de Tutelle, 1er juin–21 juillet 1950 et documents y afférent, Supplément No. 2 (Paris: 1951), pp. 58–59. 11. UN Archives, RAG–2/130–75,130/5/03. 12. Ibid (Petition T/PET–5/53–40/30). 13. Ibid (Petition T/PET–5/56–4/31). 14. The details of these conditions can be found in “Rapport annuel du gouvernement français” (1947), p. 14. 15. R. Um Nyobè, pp. 206–207. 16. R. Joseph, p.75. 17. Cited by R. Joseph, Ibid. 18. It should be noted that in Togo, the other Trust territory like Cameroon, the single college system was instituted in 1951. 19. Cited in JORF, Débats de l’Assemblée Nationale (November 23, 1951): 8337. 20. Cited in “Mission de visite de l’ONU” (1952), pp. 10 and 37. 21. Le Cameroun Libre 471 ( May 1954): 6; Climats 440 (May 20–26, 1954): p.7. 22. The initiatives of these representatives appeared in JORF. Débats de l’Assemblée de l’Union Française, session of July 28, 1955 and of August 2, 1955. 23. UN archives, RAG-2/130/34, T/PET 5/L.9, “Travaux du 5ème congrès du Kumzse—Association traditionnelle du people Bamiléké” (Dschang: November 24–30, 1952). 24. “Rapport de la Mission de visite de l’ONU” (1950), p. 59; UN Archives, DAG–5/2–5–3, T/PET, 5/1.84 (January 24, 1956). 25. “Mission de visite de l’ONU” (1952), p. 10. 26. R. Moreux, “Le trusteeship français sur le Cameroun et le Togo,” Marchés Coloniaux (March 2, 1946): 195. 27. According to D.E. Gardinier (Cameroon: United Nations Challenge to French Policy, London: Oxford University Press, 1963, p. 6 and subsequent pages), the French text of the Trusteeship Charter translated the term self-government by “s’administer eux-même,” the latter concept reflecting the French notion of local administration within a centralized state as opposed to the Anglo-Saxon concept of self government. It should be noted, however, that this goal of establishing self administration for the trust territories was exactly the same as that laid down in the preamble to the Constitution of the Fourth Republic for the French colonies. 28. “Jamais de trusteeship sur les terres de l’Union Française au Cameroun et du Togo,” Marchés Coloniaux (January 18, 1946): 75. 29. L.P. Aujoulat, “Le Cameroun et le Togo demeure sous une tutelle française qui doit rester vigilante”, Marchés Coloniaux (January 18, 1947): 65–66. 30. D.E. Gardinier, pp. 54–55. 31. For the full text of the Agreement, see “Conseil de Tutelle. Accord de tutelle pour le territoire du Cameroun sous administration française tel qu’il a été approuvé par l’Assemblée Générale le 1er décembre 1946.” 32. “Rapport de la Mission de visite des Nations Unies” (1950), p. 60. 33. CAOM, 3292, Petition T/PET.5/L.20, “Pétition des représentants des divers villages Bamilékés concernant le Cameroun sous administration française (Bafoussam, February 20, 1954). 34. UN Archives, RAG.2/130.77, “Representatives of the Beti people,” T/PET.5/17 (November 17, 1949). 35. UN Archives, RAG.2/130.34, T/PET.5/L.9. 36. UN Archives, RAG.2/130.75, 130/5/03, “Assemblée Représentative du Cameroun. Memorandum adressé par le Ngondo, Association traditionnelle du people Duala a l’ONU” (November 26, 1949); UN Archives, RAG.5/2.5.3, T/PET.5/1.84. 37. UN Archives, RAG.2/130.77, “Evolution Sociale du Cameroun. Pétition de l’ESOCAM,” T/PET.5/54 (February 28, 1950). 38. R. Um Nyobè, pp. 200–201. 39. Their statements appeared in “Danger Aujoulat,” La Voix du Cameroun 10 (October–November 1952): 1. 40. Douala Manga Bell’s complaint was published in Le Cameroun Libre (February 21, 1946): 5. 41. Cited in La Voix du Cameroun 6 (August–September 1954): 1.

42. To this accusation must be added the charge of electoral fraud that Um Nyobè emphasized in his UN speeches (see R. Um Nyobè, pp. 181–186). Morgenthau described in detail the technique used by the French officials to falsify the results of elections in their territories (see R.S. Morgenthau, Political Parties in French-Speaking West Africa. Oxford: the Clarendon Press, 1964). For the particular case of Cameroon, read La Voix du Cameroun 15 (May–June 1954), and R. Um Nyobè. 43. “Les Emeutes de mai” (Yaoundé: Service de l’information, 1955). These events are also reported in L’Eveil du Cameroun (March 3, 1955): 1. 44. “Les Emeutes de mai,” p. 20. 45. Le Monde, May 29–30, 1955. 46. Report of the UN Visiting Mission to Trust Territories in West Africa, 1958, concerning the Cameroons under French Administration (1959), paragraph 55. 47. For the interpretations of the riots of May 1955, see: G. Chaffard, Les carnets secrets, Vol. 2; D.E. Gardinier; R. Joseph; VT. Le Vine, “Cameroon” in Political Parties and National Integration in Tropical Africa, J.S. Coleman and C.G. Rosberg (Berkeley: Berkeley University Press, 1964); C. Welch, Dream of Unity: Pan-Africanism and Political Unification in West Africa (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1966); Afrique Nouvelle (January 8, 1957); Afrique France Presse Outre-Mer (June 1, 1955); Inter-Afrique Presse (June 2, 1955 and June 9, 1955); Le Monde (May 29–30, 1955 and July 10–11, 1955); Le Parisien Libéré (June 30, 1955). For the Administration’s interpretation of the riots of May 1955, see “Les Emeutes de mai.” For the UPC’s interpretation, see the press release of its Political Bureau entitled “UPC: Section camerounaise du RDA- Bureau du Comité Directeur sous-maquis,” reproduced in Afrique Informations 39 (October 15– November 15, 1955): 6–9. 48. “Le gouverneur Roland Pré nous parle du Cameroun,” Bulletin de l’Association pour l’Etude des problèmes de l’Union française 90 (July 1955): 3; Afrique Informations 39 (October 15–November 15, 1955): 3; Le Monde (July 10–11, 1955). 49. Index Quotidien de la Presse française (February 22, 1956): 4. 50. For a biography of Mbida, read D. Abwa, André-Marie Mbida, premier Premier Ministre camerounais, 1917–1980 (Paris: L’Harmattan, 1993). 51. F. Pain, “Evolution Sociale et Economique du Cameroun depuis 1947,” Faculté de Droit et des Sciences Economiques, Université de Paris (1959), p. 32. 52. R. Mauriès, “La troisième force de M. Mbida,” La Dépêche du Midi (December 14, 1956). 53. R. Cornevin, Histoire de l’Afrique, T.3, colonization, décolonization, indépendance (Paris: Payot, 1975), p. 603. 54. R. Pré, Allocution radio diffusée du 7 janvier 1956,” Bulletin d’Information et de Documentation 126 (January 7, 1956): 7–9. 55. Le Cameroun Libre 493 (April 1955): 5. 56. La Presse du Cameroun (June 12, 1956): 1. 57. Cited in La Presse du Cameroun (October 29 and 31, 1956). 58. See “Mise en garde des parlementaires du nord Cameroun contre l’Union Nationale Camerounaise,” Afrique France Presse-Spéciale outre mer 3013 (August 4, 1956). 59. Union, 10 (October 22, 1956) and 11 (October 27, 1956). 60. See M. Ducat, “Du mandat à l’indépendance,” Marchés Tropicaux et Méditerranéens (November 21, 1959): 2552. 61. Liberté 11 (September 21, 1956): 1. 62. G. Chaffard, Les carnets secrets, Vol. 2, p. 367. 63. E. Wonyu, De l’UPC à l’UC. Témoignage a l’aube de l’indépendance, 1953–1961 (Paris: L’Harmattan, 1985), p. 292. 64. A. Eyinga, Introduction à la politique camerounaise (Paris: L’Harmattan, 1984), p. 102. 65. Ibid. 66. My estimates and discussion in this section are based on studies I have previously published. See the following works by M. Atangana: French Investment in Colonial Cameroon. The FIDES Era (1946–1957) (New York: Peter Lang, 2009); Capitalisme et nationalisme au Cameroun; “Mythes et réalités de l’investissement privé en Afrique noire française: le cas du Cameroun dans les années 1940 et 1950,” Canadian Journal of African Studies 35, No. 1 (2001): 1–31; and “French Capitalism and Nationalism in Cameroon,” pp. 91–96.

TWO

The Implementation of the Loi Cadre (1957) In the 1950s, a series of events combined to shake faith in the French Union and to impact political development in French Africa. Especially significant were the defeat of French troops at Dien Bien Phu (Indochina) in 1954, the commencement of the Algerian revolution the same year, the reluctant granting of independence to the French protectorates of Morocco and Tunisia in 1956, and the prospect of independence in Ghana that led to a new constitution granting internal autonomy to Ghana’s neighbor, the French-administered UN territory of Togo. These changes necessarily led to a new approach in all the territories under French rule in Black Africa. The result was the Loi Cadre (framework law).

The Loi Cadre It was on June 23, 1956, that the French National Assembly passed the Loi Cadre. The motion was proposed by Gaston Defferre, the minister of overseas France in the Socialist government of Guy Mollet, and was actively supported by Félix Houphouët-Boigny, deputy of Côte d’Ivoire to the National Assembly who held a prominent post in each cabinet in Paris from 1956 to 1959, and who became Côte d’Ivoire’s first president in 1960. The Loi Cadre was designed as a faster means of bringing about overdue reforms in French Africa because previous French Governments had been notoriously slow in making colonial reforms. Gaston Defferre was determined to seize the momentum from recent events to ensure that the future relationship between France and Black Africa would be spared the kind of ugly memories that accompanied the bitter French colonial conflicts of Indochina and North Africa. The Loi Cadre was to provide an institutional framework for the gradual evolution of overseas territories towards self-government. It established universal suffrage in a single electoral college and permitted the territorial assemblies to gain ministerial powers over the governments of each colony. Thanks to the Loi Cadre, the French accelerated reforms and allowed various territories to adapt their political development to their particular circumstances in the quest for independence. It gave the French Government extensive power to legislate detailed political reforms in Africa. A series of decrees issued under this law by the French ministry of overseas France granted a form of internal self-government to each French colony. Each local assembly was granted the power to elect, from among its members, a council of ministers. Under the presidency of the governor, this council of ministers constituted the executive for the territory. The minister who had the largest vote in the assembly

was appointed vice-president of the territory. The council of ministers was to resign if it was defeated in the assembly. Every territorial assembly was given the power to pass laws for matters such as civil service, health, internal trade, agriculture, primary and secondary education, each of which came under a minister. However, subjects like foreign affairs, currency, economic development, and defense still remained in the hands of the French Government, and laws passed in these areas were carried out under the direction of the governor. While the above provisions of the Loi Cadre applied to those African territories with the status of colonies, the second chapter of the law dealt specifically with Togo and Cameroon in their capacity as “Associated Territories” of the French Union. It was Gaston Defferre, successor of Pierre Henri Teitgen at the ministry of overseas France, who made sure that the law initiated by his predecessor was passed, and who set up the structures required for its application. Defferre appointed his principal private secretary, Pierre Messmer, to the position of high commissioner in Yaoundé and charged him with applying the changes imposed by the Loi Cadre in Cameroon. Born in Vincennes on March 20, 1916, Pierre Messmer was a civil servant who joined the “Free French” forces in 1940 and participated in military campaigns in Africa, Italy, France, and Germany. Georges Chaffard described him as a good and responsible administrator, with a liberal mind and enough authority, capable of winning over the trust of dominant political circles in Paris.1 Messmer first served in Indochina where he was sent as early as 1945 during the Viet-Minh insurrection. Like many other young colonial bureaucrats of those times who saw their regular careers disrupted by the events taking place after the war, he sought a “patron” who could help him during these difficult times. His friend and classmate, Jean Ramadier, who had also returned from Indochina, worked in the cabinet of his father, Paul Ramadier, at that time president of the council of ministers in France. Thanks to him, Messmer met several socialist leaders and quickly made connections. Paul Ramadier appointed him secretarygeneral of the Comité Interministériel pour les affaires d’Indochine (Inter-Ministerial Committee for Indochinese Affairs). Then Messmer returned again to Saigon as private secretary of a “leftist” high commissioner and radical senator, Emile Bollaert. When Bollaert was replaced by Pigon and the “rightists” took over Far Eastern affairs, Messmer left to serve as governor first of Mauritania (1952), then of Côte d’Ivoire (1954) before returning to Paris where Gaston Defferre invited him to work with him at the Rue Oudinot (ministry of overseas France, 1956). Shortly afterwards he was sent to Yaoundé to replace Roland Pré who returned to Paris. Pierre Messmer arrived in Cameroon in April 1956 where he held the position of high commissioner until February 1958.2

ALCAM: The New Assembly Resulting from the Elections of December 1956 Following the spirit of the Loi Cadre, the French Government decided to dissolve the ATCAM elected in 1952 and to set up a new territorial assembly that was charged with giving its opinion about Cameroon’s projected statute prepared in Paris. The objective of the elections of December 23, 1956, was to designate, on the basis of universal suffrage and a single electoral college, the 70 members of the new assembly.

The assembly in place when the Loi Cadre was passed had been elected on May 30, 1952, under a system of dual electoral college and restricted suffrage. Its powers were to expire on March 30, 1957. From a juridical perspective, it was entitled to discuss the statute prepared by the French Government for Cameroon. The law foresaw the consultation of the territorial assembly of 1952, the only one that could be referred to when voting on the Loi Cadre. The renewal of this assembly was not stipulated in the law of June 23, 1956. The position taken by the departing assembly could have been contested by the assembly that would replace it a few weeks later. Also, Gaston Defferre explained that France did not want to slow down the setting up of new institutions for fear of disappointing Cameroonians eager to be in charge of managing their own affairs.3 Thus, on November 8, 1956, the French Government dissolved the ATCAM of 1952 and anticipated elections scheduling them for December 23, 1956, with a single electoral college and based on universal suffrage. The result was the creation of a new assembly known as the Assemblée Législative du Cameroun (ALCAM). Considering the results of these elections, it can be argued that the French Government reached the goal set in the “GD à PM” (Gaston Defferre to Pierre Messmer) document mentioned earlier (see chapter one): it succeeded in forming a new territorial assembly whose members hailed from legal moderate parties, except for some deputies who were independent farmers. The groups represented in the new assembly included: the Groupe d’Union Camerounaise newly founded by Ahmadou Ahidjo that won thirty seats; the Démocrates Camerounais led by André-Marie Mbida with twenty seats; the independent farmers under the leadership of Mathias Djoumessi and Michel Njine with nine seats; and the Mouvement d’Action Nationale (MANC) of Paul Soppo Priso and Charles Assalé who won eight seats. The powers of the ALCAM extended to various areas including, but not limited to, the territorial administration, public communities, electoral systems, customary rights regulating the statutes regarding persons and property, public service, labor legislation, sports, health, sanitation, agriculture, cattle, water and forests, hunting, fishing, and urbanization.

The Statute of 1957 and its Implications Following the procedure stipulated in the Constitution of 1946, the text of the proposed Statute was submitted to the Assembly of the French Union, then to the National Assembly that had to modify it in accordance with the opinion of the Cameroonian assembly. As soon as sessions started, on January 28, 1957, the new assembly undertook the discussion of Cameroon’s proposed Statute, examining it for a month. Senator Kotouo’s amendment concerning Cameroon’s adoption of Article 8 referring to Togo that prescribed autonomy and the ending of the trusteeship regime by way of a referendum was rejected. Another bill, submitted by the same senator and alluding to the “legitimate aspirations of Cameroonians,” was withdrawn on the request of the overseas minister because it seemed to imply the possibility of independence for Cameroon. The deputies from Soppo Priso’s MANC opposed the Statute and submitted an alternative text. Their new text recognized the immediate independence of Cameroon and stipulated that all the special powers France reserved for itself in the proposed Statute should be immediately transferred to the newly created State of Cameroon. Ahidjo and the influential Muslim aristocrats of his party, as well as the Christian

Democrats of Mbida, opposed the demand for independence and approved the Statute. They only requested that the name Territoire sous tutelle (trust territory) be replaced by Etat sous tutelle (trust state) and that the sphere of competence of the Cameroonian Government be expanded. The Statute was adopted with these modifications, first by the Cameroonian Assembly with a vote of 59 to 8, and then by the Government of Guy Mollet. The Statute went into effect in Yaoundé on May 9, 1957.4 The Statute defined Cameroon as a “trust state” whose nationals were designated Cameroon citizens. They enjoyed the civil, civic, and social rights of French citizens, and the latter, by reciprocity, enjoyed the rights attached to the status of Cameroon citizens. The Statute provided for a division of responsibility between the French and Cameroonian authorities. The enactment of legislation and regulations relating to the following matters, which were enumerated exhaustively, was within the competence of the central organs of the French Republic: the system of public liberties; external affairs and defense; the currency and foreign exchange systems, the organization and management of credit, any financial assistance to be granted, foreign trade, the customs system, the general regulation of customs matters and the laws and regulations relating to mineral resources; the curricula and examinations in public institutions of secondary and higher education; the penal code, administrative disputes, the legislation and regulation relating to commerce, and criminal procedure; the public services of the French Republic; and the matters regarding the rules governing persons subject to the ordinary civil law of France, the organization of jurisdiction applying French law and of the administrative courts. Clearly, the statute reserved great powers for the French Government. France’s power could be better understood by looking at the details of the areas reserved for the high commissioner. The high commissioner was the representative of the French Republic in Cameroon and the depository of the powers of the Republic. He was in charge of the defense and security of the territory. Matters concerning air, sea, and land forces as well as the forces in charge of borders security depended on his authority. He received, from the prime minister of Cameroon, information concerning the implementation of defense and civil protection. He issued passports, temporary entry and exit visas, and residence permits. In accordance with Article 3 of the Trusteeship Agreement, the high commissioner was responsible for public order and guaranteed the security of persons and property. He was in command of the territory’s police and could delegate by decree his powers over the urban and rural administrative police to the prime minister. In case of emergency, he could take any measure required to guarantee safety and keep or reinstate order, and had to immediately inform the prime minister of such measures. The high commissioner also guaranteed the communication flow between his office and the Cameroonian Government, the minister of overseas France, the representatives of the French Republic overseas, the authorities of foreign countries in Africa, and the consular representatives of foreign governments regularly accredited and whose jurisdiction included Cameroon. After consultations by the prime minister with the concerned authorities and representatives, the high commissioner negotiated all agreements, especially trade agreements covering all or parts of Cameroon, within the limits of the governmental instructions and on condition of their approval by the French Government. He could be delegated by the minister of overseas France, and with the latter’s consent by other French ministers, to take care of

matters related to their powers. The high commissioner guaranteed the promulgation, publication, and execution of laws, decrees, ordinances, regulations, and instructions belonging to the domain of the central institutions of the French Republic. The texts were to be published in the Journal Officiel and communicated to the Cameroonian prime minister. Finally, the high commissioner possessed reserve powers in regard to the operation of Cameroon institutions. He or his legal deputy presided over the Cameroon council of ministers. He had to be notified of Cameroonian laws and regulations, and administrative certificates of the Cameroonian Government before their promulgation by the prime minister, their publication or their implementation. Within ten days of the date of this communication, the high commissioner could ask the ALCAM for a second deliberation or the Cameroon Government for a re-examination of the communication’s text, and these appeals could not be refused. District and region heads and their assistants were appointed by him with the prime minister’s approval. They were required to promote, coordinate, and watch over the activities within their jurisdiction related to all the services provided by the French Republic and the state of Cameroon. They were the representatives of the high commissioner and of the Cameroonian government. The Statute of 1957 made French the official language of Cameroon and established a Legislative Assembly elected by direct and secret universal suffrage, and a government. The Cameroon Government, responsible to the ALCAM, ensured the enforcement of Cameroon legislation and the organization and direction of Cameroon public services. The government consisted of a prime minister and of ministers designated by him. The prime minister was designated by the high commissioner and confirmed by the ALCAM. On May 15, 1957, following the proposal by the high commissioner, the ALCAM confirmed the appointment of André-Marie Mbida as prime minister of Cameroon by a vote of 56 in favor and 10 opposed. This is how Georges Chaffard explains the French authorities’ choice of Mbida: The day after the elections, Messmer, in agreement with the Rue Oudinot [the ministry of overseas France], offered the position of prime minister to André-Marie Mbida, the Catholic leader. He appeared to be well situated within the new territorial assembly not so much because of personal references but because of a minimum respect for parliamentary rites. Mbida is a deputy in the French National Assembly, has links with socialists, and is supported by the missions. These are all useful qualities to simultaneously curry favor with the SFIO [socialists] and the MRP [republicans] in Paris5.

To this should be added a point that also benefited the French Government: Mbida and his partisans were not in favor of immediate independence. In his inauguration speech delivered on May 15, 1957, the prime minister stated: Concerning political matters, my program will be the one I have always defended. . . . I mean that leading Cameroon to its independence through the proper stages will allow us to prepare ourselves to assume in the future the entire management of the affairs of the country.6

André-Marie Mbida was born to Roman Catholic parents in Edinding near Yaoundé in 1917. He studied theology, and then worked in the French service as a legal secretary from 1945 to 1950. In 1951, he opened a trading house in Ebolowa. Then in 1952, he was elected to the ATCAM. Between 1953 and 1956, he served as councilor in the Assembly of the French Union. In the elections for the National Assembly in January 1956, Mbida was triumphantly

elected as a deputy to the French National Assembly defeating Dr. Louis Paul Aujoulat. The two men had shared similar political views, but Mbida, although strongly criticized for being a difficult person, appeared as the champion of Blacks, against a European, who was accused, mistakenly or not, of being too closely linked to High Commissioner Roland Pré. After he was elected to the French parliament, Mbida won another victory with his party, the Démocrates Camerounais in Yaoundé’s local elections. Thanks to the cohesive position of the Catholics at the center of the political spectrum, he was the leader of the strongest and most important parliamentary group. His large legislative following in the ALCAM resulted in the high commissioner asking him to form the first Cameroon government. Mbida presented his cabinet on May 16, 1957. He had formed a coalition government with Ahmadou Ahidjo, the leader of the Muslim elected representatives of the North and chairman of the Groupe d’Union Camerounaise. Mbida’s cabinet comprised seven members from the Démocrates Camerounais, five members from the Groupe d’Union Camerounaise, two members from the Groupe des Paysans et Indépendants, and one political leader who was not a member of the ALCAM. The following list shows the members of the first government of Cameroon: Prime minister: Mbida, André-Marie (chairman of the Démocrates Camerounais, and deputy of the French National Assembly). Vice-prime minister for domestic affairs: Ahidjo, Ahmadou (chairman of the Groupe d’Union Camerounaise, and councilor at the Assembly of the French Union). Minister of state for reserved affairs (Affaires Reservées) and studies: Djoumessi, Mathias (chairman of the Groupe des Paysans et Indépendants, and traditional chief). Minister of finance: Arouna, Njoya (member of the Groupe d’Union Camerounaise, and councilor of the republic). Minister of economic affairs: Kotouo, Pierre (councilor of the republic). Minister of public works, transportation, and mines: Njine, Michel (member of the Groupe des Paysans et Indépendants). Minister of national education: Ahanda, Vincent (member of the Démocrates Camerounais). Minister of public health: Adama, Haman (member of the Groupe d’Union Camerounaise). Minister of agriculture and farming: Mandon, Alfred (member of the Groupe d’Union Camerounaise). Minister of labor and social laws: Marigoh, Marcel (member of the Démocrates Camerounais). Secretary of state for Information: Medou, Gaston (member of the Démocrates Camerounais). Secretary of state for public service: Tsalla, Germain (member of the Démocrates Camerounais). Secretary of state for domestic affairs: Logmo, Antoine (member of the Démocrates Camerounais). Secretary of state for budget: Biyoo-Olinga, François (member of the Démocrates Camerounais). Secretary of state for agriculture: Talba Mala, Oumate (member of the Groupe d’Union Camerounaise).

Once the new institutions were in place, the moment seemed appropriate for French authorities to look for solutions concerning the UPC.

The UPC: the Main Opposition Force Many political organizations existed in Cameroon in the 1940s and 1950s. The following list shows some of these organizations with their founding date: Ngondo (Traditional association of the Duala people—in existence since the beginning of the twentieth century) Solidarité Camerounaise (September 10, 1947) Union Bamiléké (February 8, 1948) ASSOBETI (Amicale Voix du Peuple Beti, Association of the Beti people—February 24, 1948) UPC (Union des populations Camerounaises—April 10, 1948)

Kumzse (Traditional association of the Bamiléké people—May 10, 1948) ESOCAM (Evolution Sociale Camerounaise—June 10, 1949) RENAICAM (Renaissance Camerounaise—December 2, 1949) Union Bamoun (January 13, 1950) BDC (Bloc Démocratique Camerounais—August 1, 1951) Front Intercolonial (July 24, 1952) USC (Union Sociale Camerounaise—September 1952) JEUSAMAR (Jeunesse de la Sanaga-Maritime—September 1952) INDECAM (Coordination des Indépendants Camerounais—November 8, 1952) ASOBAKE ( Association of Bamiléké traditional leaders—November 25, 1952) RPC (Rassemblement du Peuple Camerounais—February 12, 1953) ASSABENOUE (Association Amicale de la Benoué —April 21, 1953) ERNKAM (Etude de la Région du NKAM—April 27, 1953) RMC or RAMOCAM (Radicaux Modérés du Cameroun—September 8, 1953) UPB (Union des Populations Batanga—December 5, 1953) UNICAM (Unité Camerounaise—April 22, 1954) Manjong Bamiléké (August 1, 1954) Evolution des Jeunes Camerounais (March 1, 1955) Groupement Anti-Upécistes des Boulou du Dja-et-Lobo (April 15, 1955) PRONORI (Ligue Progressiste des Intérêts Economiques et Sociaux des Populations du Nord Cameroun—April 25, 1955) MEDIAFRANCAM (Médiation Franco-Camerounaise—May 6, 1955) Assemblée Traditionnelle du Peuple Bamoun (June 25, 1955) Front National Camerounais (July 7, 1955) MANC (Mouvement d’Action Nationale du Cameroun—June 9, 1956) Union Tribale N’tem-Kribi (date of creation unknown) UAFC (Union d Action France—date of creation unknown) UDC (Union Démocratique Camerounaise—date of creation unknown) Comité de Coordination du Cameroun (date of creation unknown)

None of the organizations listed above could claim to have achieved national scale. They were mostly associations with a regional or local clan character. Some of these political “parties” were only replicas of French parties, such as the Union Sociale Camerounaise, the Coordination des Independents Camerounais, and the Parti des Radicaux Modérés Camerounais. Others including the Modérés Progressistes du N’tem, the Ligue Progressiste des Intérêts Economiques et Sociaux du Nord Cameroun, the Médiation FrancoCamerounaise, claimed to represent an ethnic group or a region. Still others hailed from trade union organizations and wanted to enter the political arena. Such was the case of the UPC. The UPC’s success was clear in most of the southern and the south western parts of Cameroon, particularly in Douala, in the Bassa area, and in Bamiléké land. This was so for various reasons. In 1957, Douala was a growing city with 125,000 inhabitants of which 15,000 were unemployed. In the Bassa area—where Um Nyobè was born—Cameroonians had greatly suffered the effects of the First World War. They had been recruited for public works and European plantations and had paid the heavy tribute of forced labor, especially for the construction of the railroad and the Edéa dam. The Bassa had been greatly influenced by the almost total lack of economic growth in their area, and by the influx of Europeans after World War II whose successful economic activities did not counteract poverty in the Bassa area. The Bamiléké land suffered from overpopulation, which, from 1936 on, gave rise to the emigration

of approximately one inhabitant out of five. This exodus left a large number of people uprooted. Because of the overpopulation the Bamiléké area suffered from a variety of local social, political, and economic difficulties. Many Bamiléké had migrated to rural and urban areas in Cameroon where they came into conflict with European economic interests. The unemployed of Douala, the Bassa irritated by the large number of Europeans arriving into their region, and the Bamiléké uprooted from an oppressive and overpopulated society were the three groups that quickly provided the UPC with followers and members. They were in favor of radical change, and the UPC stood for rather radical change. Not only was it the first Cameroonian party to call for independence, but it also stood for a reordering of domestic society in favor of the peasant and the worker. Commenting on the issue discussed above and on the influence of the UPC’s secretary-general, G. Chaffard wrote: It is striking to see that the majority of the UPC leaders belong nearly exclusively either to the Bamiléké or to the Bassa ethnic groups. Um Nyobé is Bassa, as is his favorite disciple Theodore Mayi Matip, president of the JDC (Jeunesse Démocratique Camerounaise). The president and vice-president of the movement, Félix Roland Moumié and Abel Kingué are Bamiléké.7 But Um Nyobè’s personal charisma reaches far beyond racial frontiers. For the progressive [evolué] youth, regardless of their religious or ethnic background, the UPC’s secretary-general is the unquestionable leader of Cameroonian patriotism: the man who has raised the flag of independence. For the impoverished crowds on the outskirts of Douala, he is the fair and strong hero who will bring better times. Feared and respected, his name is evoked in the bush as that of a legend.8

For sure, Um Nyobè’s influence reached far beyond racial frontiers. However, certain segments of the population remained hostile to the UPC. Indeed, the Muslims of Northern Cameroon whose traditional leaders held on to their predominant positions, and the Catholics from the Yaoundé region who firmly opposed anything labeled “communist,” acted as a break to the further expansion of the UPC. Was the UPC a Communist Party? The affiliation of the UPC with the Rassemblement Démocratique Africain (RDA), that had close ties with the French Communist Party (PCF), was one of the factors that reinforced France’s opposition to the UPC. The party, like its subsidiary organizations, was accused of being communist. This is one of the main reasons why the Cameroonian clergy fought against it. In the “joint letter” of April 1955 the bishops of Cameroon warned their faithful followers against the UPC in the following terms: It is necessary that Christians recognize the undeniable danger signs of the parties that pretend to guide them. Some of them are opposed to the truth, to charity, to justice, to prudence. . . . Christians should not be fooled by false promises, or solemn claims from movements inspired by materialism. What did communism do everywhere where it appeared and under whatever name it presented itself? Do not forget that Pope Pius XI, in his encyclical Divini Redemptoris, has solemnly condemned communism as a danger to the Christian faith. . . . Marxism, unless it repudiates its own principles in which case it would not deserve its name anymore, is the actual danger to our civilization. . . . We are warning Christians about the true tendencies of the political party known under the name of Union des Populations du Cameroun (UPC), not because of the independence it defends, but because of the spirit that drives it and inspires its methods, because of its hostile and malevolent attitude towards the Catholic mission and because of its links to atheist communism condemned by the Pontifical Sovereign.9

There were also several political parties that, supported by colonial authorities, opposed

the UPC as part of their struggle against communism. This was the case of ESOCAM. A document written by this organization in Nkongsamba on May 28, 1955, addressed to the secretary-general of the UN, clearly stated that ESOCAM, Recognizing and firmly convinced that Cameroon can be built and become rapidly emancipated only under the combined influence of the two big entities, the European or French entity and the African or Cameroonian entity, asks the responsible persons of both entities to genuinely support our effort to curb the damage that the agitation of the communist annex called UPC has caused in this territory. . . . Considering that the notion of immediate independence, currently popularized by UPC propaganda in Cameroon under French trusteeship, implies a period of time during which representatives of Russia, Peking, and rebel Indochina would arrive in Cameroon to decide, without any form of legal proceedings, about the eviction and the occupation of the territory by a government of an extraordinary and foreign power benefiting the easy infiltration of Russian communism and thereby denying the clauses of the fundamental principles of the United Nations concerning world security and peace; Considering that such immediate independence or plebiscite . . . is a grotesque lie completely invented by Moumié Félix, Ouandié Ernest, Kingué Abel, Um Nyobè Ruben. . . . Requests . . . to proceed immediately to the detention not only of those whose names were mentioned above, but also of the leaders of the communist C.G.T., the J.D.C. (a UPC subsidiary), of their followers, and to dismiss from public functions all civil servants who followed them or who maintained close links to them inside as well as outside the territory.10

On the above accusations, E. Wonyu who was a UPC member wrote that “Um Nyobè was a revolutionary nationalist. If he was Marxist from his training as a unionist, he was never a communist.”11 R. Joseph who studied the UPC argued that “between its creation in 1948 and its exclusion from Cameroonian political life in 1955, the UPC was certainly not a communist party.”12 The UPC’s secretary-general himself claimed that his party was not a communist organization. In the report he presented to the First Congress of the UPC, in Dschang on April 10, 1955—a report later reprinted and distributed clandestinely in the maquis (rebellion)— Um Nyobè wrote: We are treated as communists, yet everybody knows that we are not a communist organization. We are not saying this because we hate the communists, or because we are afraid of being communists, but because we consider that the struggle for our national liberation should not be beholden to this or that ideology. . . . It is said that we aim to deliver the country to Russia. To this, we answer that a long time ago tsarist Russia had colonies. The colonial system was dismantled in Russia almost thirty years ago. Former Russian colonies are now members of the Soviet Union on an equal footing. People’s equality of rights and obligations should be the goal of the French Union, should it not?13

The clandestine bureau of the UPC’s board of directors also reprinted Um Nyobè’s “Confession of Faith,” a text he wrote as candidate to the legislative elections of June 17, 1951. It is necessary to report the long excerpts of this text in which Um Nyobè demonstrated that his party was not a Communist organization. The griots [praise singers] of colonialism will tell you: Um Nyobè and all the other UPC candidates are communists, don’t vote for them for you will risk becoming subject to the administration’s reprisals. I do not even want to comment on an argument that defeats itself. First of all, what is communism? What do you know about it? Those who talk about it, do they know something about it? If they do, they should sincerely explain what it is, if they do not, they should confess to acting as instruments of certain circles. We have stated many times that the parliamentary links of RDA’s elected representatives do not make them members of the French Communist Party, nor do they make the RDA a communist party or its militants members of any other communist party.14 Nobody has been able to come forward and prove the contrary. Furthermore, the parliamentary links of RDA’s elected representatives to the communist groups of different assemblies ceased to exist on October 17, 1950. And yet some people present the UPC as a dissident section of RDA, which continued to belong to the French Communist Party after the relations were cut. This is wrong, first of all because Cameroon does not have an

elected representative in the RDA, and also because our Movement is not led by the parliamentary group but by the coordination committee in which Cameroon is represented by two fellow party members. Nobody can prove that the UPC severed ties to the coordination committee or to RDA’s parliamentary group. Our slanderers contradict themselves when they suggest that we could achieve the UPC’s “autonomy” through resignation from RDA. Because of its content, our Movement could appear to be a political party, the expression of a given class of men. It is a vast mass movement grouping men and women from all social sectors struggling to achieve national liberation. All those who want France to remain the country of the French are against any kind of foreign domination, regardless of their differences of opinion. All those who want Africa to remain the country of Africans are anti-colonialists, regardless of their different political views. Now, all those who stand up against colonial oppression, against forced labor and the indigénat,15 against expropriation, against low salaries and against all that aggravates the misery of Africans, all those people are considered to be communists. After this lengthy explanation to demonstrate that the UPC is not a communist organization, I also should tell you the reason why colonialists and their lackeys are against the communists. If you read the debates of all the parliamentary assemblies of the Métropole, you will see that the elected communist representatives always support those who really defend our interests. It is for this reason and this reason only, that the partisans of the ancient regime are against the communists.16

The thesis of the affiliation of the UPC to the international communist movement dominated the political debate in Cameroon. The climate of Cold War that affected international relations in the late 1940s and early 1950s jeopardized the future of the UPC by transforming the action of the French Administration in Cameroon into a crusade for the defense of the Free World. For a long time the question of “communist infiltration” became the hobby horse of UPC opponents who, thus, avoided discussing the real demands formulated by the party. In 1957 Dr. Marcel Bebey-Eyidi summarized this question at the UN when he declared that: Instead of facing the growth of Cameroon nationalism one preferred to fight it. In order to find allies within the United Nations and paralyze this growth, one labeled it “communist.” Thus the UPC was outlawed because it was supposedly “communist.” . . . Tomorrow you will also learn that the Assembly of Cameroonian elite is “communist” or “anti-French.” Because to escape any of these labels one must always accept all that is dictated from above. We refuse to support any sort of fiction. That does not make us communist or anti French; on the contrary. We maintain here that as far as we know Cameroonians ignore what communism is and are not interested in it. For all that, if it is really a matter of fighting communism, why not destroy it in France first before coming by us?17

To the pastoral letter of the bishops of Cameroon, Um Nyobè answered with a booklet entitled Religion ou colonialisme? (Religion or Colonialism?) in which he denounced the campaign led by foreign priests and presented the princes of the Church as allies of the “secular” princes.”18 Relying on the example of Jesus Christ who was born in a country under Roman colonial rule, Um Nyobè also expressed the idea that the struggle of the Cameroonian people came straight from that of Jesus because, he said, “God himself could not opt for the oppressors.” And to confuse all those, Cameroonians and colonialists, who wanted to put him down, he wrote in 1951 that: We know that the independence that we are demanding is neither Catholic, nor Protestant, nor Communist, nor of any other belief, but independence for the Cameroonian people and, thus, each one will respect his or her belief without persecuting other people’s beliefs.19

It is difficult to grasp the UPC’s ideology because, as Louis Paul Ngongo wrote, Um Nyobè “keeps his ideological inclinations to himself. . . . The silences of the party’s secretary-general or his evasive answers concerning the relations with the parties of Soviet Union or China, limit our understanding to what we can infer from an analysis of the organization, its actions and its links with the CGT.”20 Nonetheless, the somewhat Marxist practices of the UPC and its close links with the communist world make it possible to assert that the UPC was closer to the

communist ideology than to the capitalist one. However, the most appropriate way to characterize the ideology of the UPC is that of radical nationalism: the party was radical in that it sought a drastic change in the territory’s economic structure, which it felt mainly benefited the colonial forces; “and it was nationalistic in that it considered the unification and independence of Cameroon to be necessary first steps in the attainment of a more socially just Cameroon society.”21 The Political Objectives of the UPC While it is difficult to grasp the UPC’s doctrine, it is easier to have a clear idea of the party’s political objectives. Instead of developing vague theories, the UPC’s secretary-general adopted the preoccupations of workers and peasants: the price of some local products compared to the price of imported articles, increasing unemployment, insufficient hospitals and schools, etc. Between 1951 and 1953, the UPC developed its program and its strategy. The congress of Kumba emphasized the issue of the path towards independence. In Um Nyobè’s view independence was not negotiable. At the 1952 Congress, priorities were redefined: the reunification of the two Cameroons replaced independence as the main priority. In a memorandum submitted to the UN delegation visiting Cameroon in 1952, the UPC presented a plan to achieve independence within five years. This plan included three stages: the immediate reunification of the two Cameroons; the formation of a legislative assembly elected by universal suffrage and a single electoral college; and the establishment, for the period of the transition, of a mixed government, four out of five members of which should be Cameroonians. When he went to New York to address the UN General Assembly for the second time in 1953, Um Nyobè pleaded a solid case, unassailable from a juridical point of view and mostly accepted by the Cameroonian people. Taking into consideration the evolution of the country and the international situation, the UPC readjusted and finalized its program on April 22, 1955. The party proposed the election of a constituent assembly before December 1 of the same year, the constitution of a provisional government whose main task would be to organize general elections, and the establishment of a UN Committee in Cameroon to watch over the orderly implementation of the institutions of the new State. This program was the subject of the Proclamation Commune (Joint Proclamation).22 The Organization of the “Maquis” When the Loi Cadre began to be applied the UPC, outlawed since the decree of July 13, 1955, was in the maquis. This French term is used to describe insurgency fighting carried on by the underground UPC elements against government forces. The maquis movement first operated from the Sanaga-Maritime in the Bassa countryside and later engulfed the Bamiléké region. In the Sanaga-Maritime the maquis was organized around the UPC’s secretary-general. Um Nyobè gave priority to the creation of a territorial base for the development of a truly autonomous political apparatus that could eventually replace the French Administration. The analysis of the UPC’s archives, seized by the police on November 23, 1957,23 reveals the scope of the organization and the way it functioned underground in the Sanaga-Maritime. On

February 1, 1959, Lieutenant Colonel Jean-Marie Lamberton who led the French military operations in the Bassa region wrote a report on the pacification of the Sanaga-Maritime. According to this report,24 two or three huts made of branches and hidden in the bush, formed the maquis where Um Nyobè lived with his concubine, their son born in 1956, and one or two close associates. Only some reliable messengers knew the carefully concealed path that lead to Um Nyobè’s refuge. A few kilometers away was the Secrétariat Administratif et Bureau de Liaison (SA/BL—Administrative Secretariat and Liaison Bureau) maquis that could be considered Um Nyobé’s headquarters. Although they frequently changed places, these two maquis were never located more than 15 or 20 kilometers away from Boumnyebel village. The SA/BL was mainly concerned with issues of general organization and political orientation. Assisted by Um, “General” Isaac Nyobè Pandjock was in command of the rebels’ military formations whose hiding place was in the thick forest expanding north of Makak between the railroad in the South, and the road in the North that joins Douala to Yaoundé. The political hierarchy started at SA/BL with Um Nyobè at the top and ran down the different levels to the comités de base (CB—grassroots committees) at the bottom. The higher echelons operated in the maquis in the forest and the lower ones operated clandestinely in the villages. The grassroots committees (CB) depended on central committees attached to a provincial section constituted at the level of the administrative subdivision. The rebellions of 1957–1958 took place, in fact, within the jurisdiction of the provincial section of Eséka (SE) and more especially in the departmental sections of Edéa (SDE) and of Ngambé (SDB: the Ngambé subdivision was also called the subdivision of Babimbi, hence the initials SDB: Section Départementale de Babimbi). From the level of the central committee up, all the members of the hierarchy lived in the maquis. A similar structure characterized the JDC (the UPC youth movement) and the UDEFEC (the UPC women’s organization) whose leaders took refuge in Nyobè’s vicinity. The president of the JDC was Théodore Mayi Matip. The president of UDEFEC, Ngapeth, was in Khartoum but was represented in the Sanaga-Maritime by Jeanne Ntamack. The Groupes d’intensification du Mouvement (GIM—Movement Intensification groups) inspected, exhorted, and governed the maquis through frequent rounds or meetings organized in the middle of the forest. “General” Isaac Nyobé Pandjock and the Comité National d’Organisation (CNO) staff were at the top of the military hierarchy. The CNO structures included “brigades,” “regiments,” “battalions,” and “companies” of a very variable size and fighting capacity. An information service worked at the level of the “regiment.” Five departments techiques (DT— technical departments) were charged with manufacturing firearms (guns and pistols: these were like hunting arms with a butt and barrel made of hard wood, a cardboard tube of caliber 12, a percussion system with a rubber spring) and with supplying munitions, tools, and a variety of other materials. For information and provisions, the maquis relied on the support of village committees some of which remained inactive until a replacement was necessary when active members were detained or threatened and thus forced to go underground. Women and children were usually those in charge of carrying provisions and mail from the village to an appointed place designated by the leader of the maquis. As a general rule, these carriers were not informed of the location of the maquis.

Hence, although banned, the UPC continued its activities underground, remaining hostile to France’s Cameroonian policy. French authorities could not ignore this extremist movement for at least two reasons. Firstly, the French Government wanted to avoid a repetition of the situation in Northern Africa. Secondly, it constantly wished to present itself in a favorable light to the Trusteeship Council with regard to the manner in which it administered Cameroon. Furthermore, once the new institutions stipulated in the Loi Cadre were in place, Pierre Messmer tried to open communications with the UPC—which the colonial administration had succeeded in keeping away from the constitution of the new assembly—in order to not deliberately exclude it from the political game. In these endeavors, the high commissioner followed instructions received from Paris and fulfilled the wishes of the French representative at the Trusteeship Council, Jacques Koscziusko-Morizet, who particularly paid attention to the evolution of the opinion of the UN concerning the Cameroonian question. France sought solutions to solve the conflict between its government and the nationalist party in Cameroon. But efforts also came from other actors, including the UPC itself.

The Search for Solutions Regarding the UPC Um Nyobè’s Proposals It was through Soppo Priso, leader of the left opposition in the ALCAM, that High Commissioner Pierre Messmer was able to assess Um Nyobè’s position. Different proposals about the participation of the UPC in political matters appeared in the local press, particularly in L’Opinion du Cameroun, a newspaper belonging to Doctor Marcel Bebey-Eyidi. He was one of Soppo Priso’s most important partisans25 and was known as being a supporter of the UPC. He opened the pages of his newspaper to Um Nyobè and to other members of the banned movement. Some of the articles were so critical of the Mbida regime that Bebey-Eyidi was jailed for two months for aiding an outlawed organization. Doctor Charles Assigui Tchungui also published an article in L’Opinion du Cameroun suggesting ways of defusing the political situation in the country. One of the solutions put forth was Um Nyobè’s entry into the assembly of Cameroon on the basis of a partial election. The UPC’s secretary-general answered with several open letters explaining his ideas about the real solutions for the political and moral tensions in Cameroon. First, concerning his possible entry into the local assembly, the possibility suggested by Doctor Assigui, Um Nyobè wrote: I believe that by devoting part of his presentation to the possibility of my entering the ATCAM, Doctor Tchungui speculated, in good faith I want to believe, on a particular fact that cannot be considered as an important factor for the solution of the Kamerunian problem. Nevertheless, I must take this opportunity to once more explain our position on this issue. 1. My friends and I have never thought, much less suggested that the ATCAM, as an institution, was a fake. An assembly becomes a fake only when the totality or the majority of its members is elected by means of fraud, pressures, corruption, etc. . . . 2. We have never made our joining any kind of assembly dependent on obtaining a majority or, even less, unanimity. . . . The reasons why all the nationalists who are consistent in their position contest the legitimacy of the current Assembly are well known and cannot be eliminated by a partial election in a given district. It would always be just a particular case, regardless of who is the elected candidate.26

These statements were followed by his actual proposals for defusing the political situation.

These proposals were included in a document Um Nyobè submitted to the French Government on July 13, 1957, through the high commissioner of the French Republic in Cameroon. A copy of the document was also presented to the prime minister. In this document Um Nyobè explained that in his view, the solution of the “Kamerunian” crisis could be achieved through a process that included three components. The first one was the granting of an amnesty. First component: amnesty It should be total and complete. It should involve the lifting of all sentences already passed and the withdrawal of all current lawsuits related to the events of May 1955 and December 1956. The intervention of the amnesty law should be based on the acknowledgement of the fact that paratroopers, cannons, and machine guns, instead of bringing “peace,” bring only death, hatred, and widen the gap between the population of France and the population of Kamerun. If this first variant is accepted, as dictated by the current situation, we commit ourselves to fighting against any form of political revenge, from wherever it may come. We will be equally willing to consider other forms of guarantee that could be asked of us, as long as they are compatible with the fundamental principles on which the cause we are defending is based.

Um Nyobè’s second component had two parts dealing with the elimination of the political void and the necessity for the French Government to recognize the sovereignty of Cameroon. Second component 1. The elimination of the political void On this point the French Government could legally urge the passing of a law repealing the decree of July 13, 1955,27 or at least implement a statutory act suspending its application. To this end we pledge to cooperate with the public authorities to keep the public order, a true public order. Nationalist militants, men and women, trained during two years of clandestine life, will show their sense of responsibility in order not to betray the spirit of understanding that would guide the implementation of the measure we propose. This measure is also consistent with the recommendations adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations during its last session. As in the previous case, we will be open to consider other forms of guarantee that could be required of us, for example tolerance towards our political adversaries with reciprocity. 2. Solemn declaration of the French Government concerning the recognition of the independence and the sovereignty of Kamerun. This measure should consider the following dilemma: either Kamerun is an immature country and it remains a territory under the trusteeship of the United Nations administered by France; or Kamerun is a State, and it is acknowledged that no State has ever been under the trusteeship of another State. Even Morocco and Tunisia were not called States when they were protectorates. Accordingly, it is time to give up the vague notion of “Trusteeship State of Kamerun” and replace it with the notion of sovereign State, which would include the transfer of the attributes of sovereignty by the guardian finishing her mission, to the ward who has attained his majority. A series of problems will then arise whose solution will require close collaboration between the new state of Kamerun and the United Nations. We can see here that none of us ties Kamerun’s accession to independence to the guardian’s departure. We have always been clear about our position on this issue and last November, I declared to a French journalist28 that for us, keeping the French imprint was not a question of political opportunity, but a question of necessity.

Finally, the last component called for moral amnesty. Third component: moral amnesty In this case it is the Kamerunian people who amnesty France. For the present time we can neither speak of political progress nor of economic and social progress. Badly hit by bloody repression and the suppression of the most essential public liberties, Kamerun is going through the worst crisis in its history.29

Um Nyobè’s proposals were a response to certain specific facts. Concerning amnesty, for example, Gaston Defferre, minister of overseas France, announced in 1956 that the government

had taken several important measures in favor of Cameroon, including the dissolution of the existing Territorial Assembly of Cameroon that was to sit until March 30, 1957. Commenting on this decision, Gaston Defferre underlined that the parliamentarians of the territory, present in Paris, were consulted. He then specified that elections would take place before the end of the year, based of universal suffrage and a single electoral college, and that the resulting assembly would have to address the issue of Cameroon’s future status, as had happened in Togo. It is worth noting that in this context, Gaston Defferre also declared that “in order for this consultation to be truly popular, an amnesty law will be voted on by the parliament before the elections.” And yet this law was not voted on, on the date announced by Gaston Defferre. Using the events of December 1956 as an excuse, the senators postponed the discussion of the bill. When Um Nyobè presented his proposal, the bill was still on hold at the Council of the Republic.30 Concerning recognition of Cameroon’s independence by France, Um Nyobè pointed to the fact that all initiatives of the French Government have always been oriented towards integrating Cameroon “by trick or by force into the French Union.” Since 1954 he maintained that the question of whether Cameroon should or should not belong to the French Union could only be addressed after the unification and the independence of Cameroon, which did not depend on France’s departure. In his declaration to René Mauriès, Um Nyobè added that the “hours of patience were numbered.” In a document written in the maquis on August 27, 1957, the secretary-general of the UPC provided the following explanation: This means that if we can say that we are able to offer recognition and sincere friendship to a France that would recognize genuinely our rights in a timely manner, it is also our duty to say that the Kamerunian people are determined to achieve their independence against all odds. The French minister of colonies at the time, M. Gaston Defferre, and his “valuable interlocutors” underestimated the impatience of the Cameroonian people and thought that everything could be solved with paratroopers, cannons, machine guns and torture camps.31

From the time when his party was still legal, Um Nyobè denounced French policies of force, which, according to him, were launched in March 1955 by Pierre Messmer’s predecessor, Roland Pré. As Um Nyobè wrote on September 20, 1955: Roland Pré’s determination to destroy the UPC has become the only preoccupation of the high administration. Since provocations, intimidation, persecution, and arbitrary arrests have failed against the firmness and maturity of the Cameroonian masses, Roland Pré resorted to arms and called upon the troops of the AEF [French Equatorial Africa]. . . . Then, Roland Pré and Aujoulat went to Paris to negotiate the banning of the UPC and other progressive movements, all this after having established a regime of terror in the country. Aujoulat and Roland Pré believed that they could thus destroy Kamerunian patriotism and then set up puppet movements whose role would be to demand the integration of Cameroon into the French colonial empire.32

Um Nyobè was not the only one pointing out the use of force by the French Government in Cameroon. On Roland Pré’s regime of force Le Monde commented: The territory’s administration and the party are engaged in a real test of will. While the previous governor, Mr. Soucadaux was often satisfied with banning the UPC’s demonstrations, the current high commissioner, Mr. Roland Pré, ordered more brutal operations: the search of the UPC’s headquarters, the temporary arrest of Mrs. Um and party members in Douala and the Bamiléké region. For Mr. Pré, it was no doubt the complement to a deliberately sought solution for social progress.33

Georges Chaffard also agreed with the idea that Roland Pré was seeking social progress in

Cameroon. According to this author, Roland Pré went to Cameroon with a real concern for the economic and social development of the country. However, having failed in his mission to negotiate with the UPC, the high commissioner undertook a policy of force which led the UPC to insurgency. As George Chaffard put it, The new high commissioner of France, Mr. Roland Pré, who in November replaced Mr. Soucadaux, who had been appointed to Madagascar, had greatly contributed to the choice of armed insurrection. This is a paradoxical result for a high-ranking public officer who arrived in Cameroon with the best intentions and who was more concerned with economic and social development than with political repression. The minister of overseas France, Mr. Robert Buron, instructed him to try to restore the dialogue with the UPC. The “boss” of Rue Oudinot [the ministry of overseas France] in agreement with the president of the council of government, Pierre Mendès-France, undertook a policy of action overseas which was in sharp contrast with the inaction of their respective predecessors, Louis Jacquinot and Joseph Laniel. He negotiated the retreat from trading posts with India, stopped the persecutions of the young RDA leader Sékou Touré in Guinea, and launched the statute of internal autonomy for Togo. Being a member of Buron’s cabinet, Roland Pré should have held out his hand to Um Nyobé if the latter was willing to accept it. The high commissioner’s awkwardness was rightly blamed later on. He was indeed more capable of conceiving plans, than of implementing them and, like Erik Labonne in Morocco, more at ease in the art of anticipation, than in the handling of political realities.34

Roland Pré himself pointed to the “political void” caused by the UPC’s absence and to the danger it involved. Anticipating the decree of July 13, 1955, that banned the UPC, he declared on July 8, 1955, during a luncheon with overseas journalists that “there is today a political and trade union void in Cameroon, because the UPC brought down the CGT in its fall. This situation can be dangerous for the future.”35 Um Nyobè’s second component was aimed at eliminating this “political void.” The secretary-general of the UPC complained about the fact that the French Government never thought of presenting any proposition to the Cameroonian nationalists, whereas, despite the ban of the “the most important fraction of political opinion,” lasting already for two years, he never ceased submitting constructive suggestions for a negotiated solution of the Cameroonian problem. To these peaceful and conciliatory overtures the French authorities often replied with “silence, contempt, or even insult.” On this occasion, Um Nyobè presented his solutions for the political and moral easing of the Cameroonian situation to Pierre Messmer and André-Marie Mbida. He was to be disappointed again, for the high commissioner could only give a dilatory answer. Decisions of such significance could be taken only at the French Governmental level. Parliamentary recesses would have been a convenient excuse, if Paris did not have to take into account the point of view of Yaoundé where the young Cameroonian Government intended henceforth to have a say in all negotiations with the UPC. André-Marie Mbida and his partisans did not want either immediate independence, for which they thought Cameroon was insufficiently prepared, or a too inclusive armistice that would, on the one hand, bring formidable rivals into the political arena, and, on the other hand, would provoke disorder in the country. The prime minister told this to Messmer, and let it be known in Paris. Um Nyobè’s proposals having been rejected, the UPC leaders continued to deny the legitimacy of the new institutions resulting from the Loi Cadre. From the standpoint of the secretary-general, the statute had not been negotiated between two sovereign States and thus was a “unilateral act on the part of the French Government and parliament that did not even take into account the timorous opinion of the Kamerunian Territorial Assembly when the latter was neither the current ‘Legislative Assembly’ nor the so called Cameroonian

Government. . . .”36 In the view of UPC leaders, the statute of Cameroon was “legally and politically obsolete.” They referred to the resolution adopted by the Trusteeship Council in its 19th session concerning the events of December 1956 and stated that The Council takes note with interest of the fact that during the electoral campaign all opinions were expressed and that those who were to become leaders of the majority and minority groups in the Territorial Assembly declared themselves to be in favor of independence as the goal to be achieved by the Territory, although some people were in favor of a quicker and fuller evolution than others.37

Based on this, the UPC’s secretary-general wrote on August 27, 1957: Given that the final objective of the trusteeship regime was either autonomy or independence, and not autonomy first and then independence, the referendum only allowed the Kamerunian people to vote for either one or the other. Yet, all sectors including the members of the current assembly—the conditions of whose “election” are well known—voted in favor of independence. The referendum is thus out of the question. Consequently, the observation of the Trusteeship Council makes obsolete the current statute of Cameroon. From the juridical point of view, we already said that there is no historical precedent of a State being under trusteeship of another State.38

As for André-Marie Mbida, the nationalists blamed the French Government for having found in him an agent to increase ethnic conflicts. Indeed, Mbida uttered statements like “the Bassa are incapable of fighting with the Beti, the Douala are incapable of fighting with the Bassa,” or “the whole of Cameroon will come together to exterminate the Bassa.” Jean Ramadier, successor of Pierre Messmer as high commissioner of France in Cameroon, also criticized the Cameroonian prime minister for his stance. Another consequence of Um Nyobé’s proposals falling through was the relaunching of terrorist activities by the CNO from September 5, 1957, on. The official report on the operations of pacification in the Sanaga-Maritime, the Bamiléké, and the Mungo regions indicates that in the zone between Yaoundé and Douala there were 9 assassinations and 20 kidnappings in September; 11 people were killed and 16 were wounded in November. A wave of violence flooded the subdivisions of Eséka and Ngambé in the Sanaga-Maritime. Farmers and village chiefs were attacked, some were killed, and others kidnapped. Their houses were sacked or set on fire. Similar incursions occurred in the Bamiléké and Mungo regions most of the time by gangs coming from the British zone—where some UPC leaders took refuge after the party was outlawed in July 1955—and returning after performing their crimes. According to the high commissioner and the report of the 1958 UN Visiting Mission, these attacks were more often crimes committed by simple bandits than acts of political terrorism even when they were perpetrated in the name of politics. Murders, arson, and kidnappings multiplied to the point that it soon became necessary to reinstate the military apparatus removed since March. The 1958 UN Visiting Mission also reported that the security forces of the Sanaga-Maritime, which included 150 to 200 men at the beginning of 1957, were reinforced from September on. In early November, the forces, amounting by then to 400 men, were reinforced again by two companies of the French army. Similarly, the police force in the Bafoussam administrative subdivision was strengthened after the murder of Samuel Wanko, a Bamiléké deputy, and six other people, who died in an ambush near Bafoussam on December 13, 1956. Proceedings were instituted and warrants issued for the arrest of all those who were known to have been implicated in acts of violence. By the end of the year between 100 and 150 arrests had been

made. The systematic hunting out of the rebel bands had started. It would continue for many years. Amnesty With the existence and development of the situation described above, the search for a solution became urgent. Many people, while condemning violence and not necessarily questioning the need for firm action to suppress the rebellion in the Sanaga-Maritime, believed in the search for a political solution. They were convinced that the approach to a permanent solution lay in the granting of an amnesty for political acts committed since 1955. The appeals for such an amnesty grew in number. The French Government had in fact drawn up an amnesty bill in 1956, which provided for a general amnesty applicable in respect to all acts committed during the incidents of May 1955, which were subject to a penalty of up to five years’ imprisonment, and also for the possibility of applying the amnesty by decree to all people sentenced to prison terms of up to twenty years for such acts. The bill was submitted to the French Parliament on August 2, 1956. French authorities later explained that no action could be taken before November because the Parliament was in recess until October. In November the bill was initially examined by the Assembly of the French Union, which approved it on November 20, 1956. It was then referred to the National Assembly, which approved it on first reading on December 11, 1956, and transmitted it to the Council of the Republic, which was to make a decision on the matter within two months. The decision was postponed due to the outbreak of terrorism, which occurred at that time. It was only much later, on November 29, 1957, that the Council of the Republic turned its attention to the bill. It drafted a number of amendments to the text approved by the National Assembly, the most important of which was to replace the general amnesty for certain deeds by individual acts of pardon. The text proposed by the Council of the Republic was referred to the National Assembly, which adopted it on February 7, 1958. It was promulgated ten days later as Act No. 58–148 of February 17, 1958. Before that date another significant attempt was made for peace and reconciliation in the Sanaga-Maritime. The Good Offices of Mgr. Thomas Mongo In October 1957, a new and important mediator visited Um Nyobè in the maquis. Thomas Mongo, Coadjutor-Bishop of Douala and a native of Bassa land as was the UPC’s secretarygeneral, was much pained by seeing his native province caught in fire and blood. During their meeting in October, Mgr. Mongo suggested to the one who was already called Mpondol39 that the three forces that should come to an agreement to solve the crisis in Cameroon were the UPC, the French Government, and the French military authorities. After expressing his agreement with the three components proposed by Um Nyobè, the prelate specified that he had communicated with the French authorities and the Cameroonian prime minister. Mgr. Mongo concluded his statement in the following terms: I am here to present you a program and if you accept it I will convey your message to the government. Here is the program: 1. Suppression of “self-defense”40 and all that it involves, for instance what you call “torture camp,” 2. Withdrawal of military troops,

3. Ending of the persecutions, 4. Amnesty, 5. Negotiations between you and the government for the settlement of the political problems. If you agree to follow this process, I will be your messenger and, after my solemn installation on October 6, 1957, I will go to Yaoundé to discuss these issues with the authorities. As soon as the implementation of the program begins you will leave the maquis and will defend your Movement yourselves. As for me, I will then have the opportunity to do my job and launch a campaign aimed at achieving what you recommended: moral amnesty.41

Um Nyobè accepted Mgr. Mongo’s proposals. For the UPC’s secretary-general this opening for negotiations was an event in itself. On October 2, 1957, he told the prelate that “the date of October 1, 1957, will enter in the history of our struggle as the date of the opening of French-Kamerunian negotiations. For sure, their status is still unofficial. Regardless of what the outcome will be, it is a beginning.”42 Unfortunately, the negotiations were a failure. In his book Les Blancs s’en vont Pierre Messmer reported on Mgr. Mongo’s mediation and its results. Messmer who claimed to be the initiator of this mediation explained that early in October 1957 he asked Mgr. Mongo to go to Sanaga-Maritime and give Um Nyobè the following verbal message: France is ready to quickly recognize the independence of Cameroon and to take action at the United Nations in favor of unification. Tell him also that the UPC will be allowed to legally participate in the political life of the country when the insurrection stops.43

According to Messmer, Mgr. Mongo who accepted the mission spent two days in the forest with Um Nyobè. On his return, the bishop reported to the high commissioner that Um Nyobè was still recovering from surgery he had for a hernia and had a fever. However, he stated two conditions to stop the insurrection. The first condition was amnesty for himself and his friends. The second condition was his appointment as prime minister of Cameroon; he would then form a government of national union.44 Messmer answered that he accepted the first condition but could not accept the second one. He told Mgr. Mongo: Um Nyobè, defeated, speaks as if he was the winner. Maybe the long days he passed in the forest have cut him off from sources of information. In that case, explain to him that many things have changed in the past year: things have developed against him in Cameroon where the elected assembly and the government that he considers as “fake” have real powers. He knows this since he requests these powers for himself. At the UNO on which he puts all his hopes, the climate has also changed and not in his favor. If he assesses the situation “objectively,” he, the Marxist, should be realistic, meaning that he should understand the consequences of this situation before it is too late. I will not offer him new propositions. Military operations will resume and intensify. Can you give him my answer quickly?45

Mgr. Mongo accepted to meet Um Nyobè again. However, his mission did not produce any positive result. In November, after the violence triggered by the rebels in early September resumed, the prime minister went to Boumnyebel (Sanaga-Maritime), Um Nyobè’s place of birth, to talk to the Bassa. In a speech which he delivered on November 9, 1957, Mbida gave an ultimatum to the Bassa people. He said: The Cameroonian Government is determined anyway, by all means which are legal, useful, or appear to be necessary, to enforce order in the Sanaga-Maritime region and in the Bassa country. . . . The Cameroonian Government will no longer permit that this order be disturbed without punishment. Consequently, a maximum period of ten days is given to the Bassa, UPC members or not, who are currently in the forest to go back to the village. . . . All those, whoever they are, who will not go back to their village within this period of ten days, will be considered by the Cameroonian Government as true rebels and will be treated as such. In my capacity as head of the government I will require the harshest laws be used against them.46

Mbida’s ultimatum had no useful result. In Um Nyobè’s view, Mbida’s threats could have troubling effects on the negotiations, the outcome of which he was still waiting for. The secretary-general of the UPC shared his concerns with Thomas Mongo in a letter written the day after Mbida’s declaration: If the authorities you contacted arrived at the same positive conclusions, we could see peace reinstated with giant strides, to use your own expression. Unfortunately, Mbida’s threats are extremely worrisome and, if implemented, would not fail to worsen an atmosphere already too tense. In any case, we remain optimistic and, as agreed, I wait for your letter to learn about the results of the important mission you have undertaken.47

Since no agreement was possible between Mpondol and the high commissioner the campaign of violence continued. This situation of unrest, ongoing in the Sanaga-Maritime was likely to harm France’s position in the UN. Yet one of France’s goals had been to assert from the start the authority of the new Cameroonian Government elected on December 23, 1956, clearing away the minefields set up by the UPC. Consequently, the French Government charged Pierre Messmer with the mission of re-establishing order in the troubled regions. Military Measures UPC plans in the Sanaga-Maritime became clear to Pierre Messmer by the end of 1956 and the beginning of 1957. In a report addressed to the minister of overseas France on January 14, 1957, the high commissioner explained these plans and the responses of his administration: It must be admitted that the electoral agitation decided by that party’s board of directors was not a mere façade hiding the obvious determination to seek the establishment of the maquis in the Sanaga-Maritime. It was not only a matter of putting pressure on public opinion but certainly also to quickly create a zone of insecurity where, by means of the use of local or regional committees, the UPC would establish a parallel power. The rapidity of the intervention of the forces of order was decisive. . . . However, the effectiveness of their intervention was greatly increased by the fact that they faced groups that were unarmed, or whose arms were limited to a few hunting guns collected from the population. In addition, the supply of ammunition for hunting was not guaranteed, this made these guns unusable. After a few days, the outlaws had only machetes and spears, which is insufficient to oppose the action of security forces.48

According to the report of the ministry of overseas France for the month of January 1957, order was established in the Sanaga-Maritime: Cameroon, which has ended the year 1956 in a state of uncertainty, experienced peace by the beginning of the new year: in the only troubled region, Sanaga-Maritime, the forces of order had to intervene several times against UPC groups still wandering in the forest until February 8 when order was restored. On January 10, The high commissioner toured the region; he went all over the roads where the worst incidents occurred, especially Road 10, the Kikot Road where two candidates in the elections for the territorial assembly were killed, and Road 11, that of Sakbayémé where Administrator Kaelin was fatally wounded during the events of December. During the first two weeks in January, the villagers, reassured by the presence of security forces, went back to their houses and plantations, and rebuilt the houses that were burnt or destroyed by the rioters.49

The ministry of overseas France was mistaken. The situation was far from being under control. In the summer of 1957, burnings and attacks developed in the area comprised between Douala and Yaoundé. There were 27 attacks in July and August, 9 murders and 20 kidnappings in September. The CNO started to reorganize and launched new terrorist acts in October: 59 attacks and 51 murders in Sanaga-Maritime region, 10 attacks and 13 murders in the Bamiléké land.50 By December 1957 the re-organization of the CNO was completed. The armed branch of the UPC had created new military-type units, including regiments of 150 to 200 men and

battalions of 50 men. Six battalions operated between the Yaoundé-Douala road and the Sanaga-Maritime, 5 other battalions were established around Eséka, 3 regiments were active between the Sanaga-Maritime and the Bafia regions, in addition to some other maquis.51 At the end of April 1957, the army commander of the French Equatorial Africa-Cameroon Defense Zone had explained to High Commissioner Pierre Messmer that “the search for, chase after, capture and destruction of localized armed groups was no longer an operation of the reestablishment of order but a ‘war operation’ assuming a particular military character.”52 Because of its military character, Messmer’s task of re-establishing order in the troubled regions of Cameroon required the implementation of a military plan of action. High Commissioner Pierre Messmer explained his ideological strategies when he wrote that: My experience from Indochina taught me how to treat a communist insurrection. The fighting and negotiations with the VietMinh taught me two rules: you can usefully discuss with communist leaders only if you are in a position of political and military strength; in the negotiations you must be straight. . . . Faced with Um Nyobè who was already leading the maquis when I was appointed high commissioner, I first applied the policy of containment, by preventing him from exiting the Bassa country, his fortress, and by insuring the security of sensitive zones, the railroad, the city of Edéa with its hydroelectric dam and its aluminum factory, and the city of Eséka with its lumber industry. I hoped—wrongly, I admit—that by leaving the UPC alone in the forest, it would condemn the elections without disturbing them, limiting itself to ordering people to abstain like it did for local elections. But since the UPC had chosen terrorism, I had to act quickly and strongly.

In addition to his ideological strategies, Pierre Messmer gave details on the political and military actions that he took against the UPC. Politically, I have disarmed the UPC by suggesting to Gaston Defferre, who agreed, to make a commitment to grant independence quickly (that was done three years later), and to work for unification. . . . Militarily, I had to neutralize the three or four thousand ill equipped maquisards [maquis rebels] who controlled the forest without being able to come out of it because the neighboring tribes refused to welcome them and did not hesitate to denounce them. I request extra military support from General Le Puloch, the superior commander of troops in AEF-Cameroon who I knew well in Indochina. He immediately sends two battalions from Chad. . . . To assure the unity of the politico-military command I call an energetic and clever comrade, chief administrator Doustin. From that time, the Bassa insurrection entered the death throes.53

By the fall of 1957, the objectives of the maquis in the Sanaga-Maritime region were clear to the French authorities. By constantly sabotaging the rail line linking Yaoundé and Douala passing through the Sanaga-Maritime, the UPC wanted to permanently cripple the free flow of people and goods along this axis, thereby striking an effective blow to the authorities. Also, by resorting to other forms of sabotage in an attempt to neutralize the effectiveness of the French Administration in the Sanaga-Maritime, the UPC sought to put the entire region under its control and create a state of independence. This would strengthen its power to bargain directly with the French Government in Paris in lieu of the Administration in Yaoundé. In the absence of any direct negotiations with the French Government on the question of Cameroonian independence, the UPC planned to expand its guerilla network all over Cameroon in a bid to wrest the country from the French.54 Messmer responded to the UPC challenge with a series of decisions. By the third week of November, three measures were taken: the abolition of periodic markets, the closure of roads for the transportation of passengers, and the imposition of curfews at night in rural areas. Also, from November 1957 on, Messmer entrusted the political and administrative responsibility for

the reestablishing of order in the Sanaga-Maritime to Daniel Doustin, delegate of the high commissioner for South Cameroon. Lieutenant Colonel J. Lamberton joined him to lead military operations. Since Colonel du Crest de Villeneuve and his six companies of tirailleurs (skirmishers) from French West Africa and seven platoons of Cameroonian guard had been unsuccessful, Messmer asked General Louis Le Puloch to replace them and send additional support. It must be mentioned that more support was also requested by the Cameroonian prime minister. On December 9, 1957, Mbida went to France with some of his cabinet members including Pierre Kotouo, minister of economic affairs, Haman Adama, minister of public health, and Antoine Logmo, secretary of state for domestic affairs. In Paris, the Cameroonian prime minister was received by René Coty, the French president, Félix Gaillard; the president of the council of ministers, Jacques Chaban-Delmas; the French minister of defense; and Gérard Jacquet, the minister of overseas France. To these authorities, Mbida explained that the high commissioner of France in Cameroon and the Cameroonian Government were facing difficulties to maintain public order in Cameroon. He demanded and was promised increased French military support in order to crush the rebellion in Cameroon.55 As a result of the requests from the authorities of Yaoundé, French Equatorial Africa-Cameroon battalions of colonial infantry were sent to the Sanaga-Maritime. Finally, Messmer created the Pacification Zone of Cameroon (ZOPAC) in Eséka on December 9, 1957. Lieutenant Colonel J. Lamberton, Commander of the ZOPAC, gave clear instructions in his Instruction Générale No.1. He wrote that: The involvement of army units in the re-establishment of order in the Sanaga-Maritime implicates a diligent cooperation with the administrative authority and, above all, the integration of the military action and the political action. They both have as objectives: 1. to remove the mass of the population from the physical and moral pressure of the leaders of the rebel organization; 2. to isolate the military formations of the rebellion; 3. in order to favor their disintegration process and result in their elimination. To reach that goal, the processes that were adopted are the following: 1. the grouping of the population along the roads in order to facilitate its control and its security; 2. propaganda and counter-propaganda; 3. the research and exploitation of information. . . . In the fulfillment of this task, the mission of the Army is as follows. . . . The commanders of army units must: 1. Provide all the help in its power to install the population in the regrouping zones. . . . 2. Organize the security of the regrouped populations [through the creation and/or the use of watch, patrols, and ambushes]. . . . 3. Hasten and check the fulfillment of the regroupings. . . . 4. Support the propaganda and counter-propaganda efforts.56

The “Plan of Action for the Sanaga-Maritime” presented by Lieutenant Colonel Lamberton and approved by Mr. Doustin and General Le Puloch clearly stated that the objective of ZOPAC was the “destruction of the communist-type revolutionary organization that, under the aegis of the UPC, got a foothold in the eastern part of the Sanaga-Maritime.”57 The Plan started from the hypothesis that the CNO staff led by “General” Isaac Nyobè Pandjock was located in the Makak-Otélé region near the Douala-Yaoundé railway. It was also necessary to take into account the mobility of the underground forces in the forest and the active complicity of part of this region’s population. The area to be “pacified” was divided into two battalion quarters,

one on either side of Eséka. Each one was organized into three sub-quarters thus covering in a grid-like manner the area of the maquis. Reports by the commander of the French Equatorial Africa-Cameroon Defense Zone indicated that armed forces in Cameroon included 6 infantry companies, 5 armored platoons, 5 platoons of gendarmerie, and 22 platoons of Cameroonian guards. More support came from French Equatorial Africa: 2 companies in December 1957, 3 companies in January 1958, as well as more battalions.58 The Plan had two phases. The first, “political,” phase was to take place during the first trimester of 1958 and was to be devoted to studying the area, collecting information, studying the structures of the Bassa people (especially by the officers who were to be in charge of them), and above all to relocating the population into new villages along the roads and railways. The second, “military,” phase was to destroy the UPC’s armed organizations, which would by then be separated from their popular support bases and thus exposed. Operations in the Sanaga-Maritime began in December 1957 and lasted practically until the end of 1958. The confrontation that took place between the UPC’s armed branch and the French troops in Cameroon had numerous victims. This was the last so called campaign of “pacification” led by the French army in Black Africa.

Towards the Recognition of Cameroon’s Option for Independence To resolve the Cameroonian political crisis, the French Government had finally adopted a military solution. A solution it had often shied away from not only in order to avoid setting a precedent in Algeria, but also in order to deal tactfully with the parliamentary right in Paris. The most satisfied with the military solution was certainly the Cameroonian prime minister. Fiercely hostile to the UPC, André-Marie Mbida had gone to Paris to request the dispatch of French troops to crush the UPC rebellion, because, as he declared in an interview for Le Monde, “the geographical location of Cameroon wedged between AOF [French West Africa] and AEF [French Equatorial Africa] was such that victory of a subversive movement would not fail to infect rapidly the two neighboring federations.”59 And yet, although he declared that he worked for the interest of the French Union, Mbida was not anymore, in France’s eyes, the right man at the top of this important country of the black continent where, it was said, a communist subversion supported by Moscow and Peking threatened the security of the free world. Many factors explained this disavowal. André-Marie Mbida, the Cumbersome Prime Minister By late 1957, early 1958, it had become clear that the populations’ growing yearnings, recognized by most political leaders, coincided with the declared objectives of the UPC: independence and the unification of the two Cameroons. However, Mbida’s position concerning the future of Cameroon was not in line with these popular yearnings. For the Cameroonian prime minister, independence was indeed the goal to be eventually reached, but it was premature for the moment. He and his followers had adopted a ten-year program of economic, social, and political improvements at the end of which it would be possible to reconsider objectively the situation. Furthermore, his group decided not to include the

unification of Cameroon into this program. According to the 1958 UN Visiting Mission, they considered that each territory should develop within its own framework and that the problem of unification should be eventually considered in the context of “the United States of Black Africa.” In an interview with the British Consul in Douala, Mbida expressed his point of view when he stated that “we wish that the two zones develop peacefully without any of the two administrative powers looking to evict the other . . . there are things the French Government cannot say publicly, but we can speak for it.” Referring to the future of Cameroon after the end of the trusteeship regime, Mbida also declared that certain French groups “should not raise expectations: Cameroon will not become part of overseas France when the trusteeship ends.” He added that his objective was “independence, step by step, in a context of work and order.”60 Moreover, the authoritarian and irritable temper of the prime minister increasingly irritated the ALCAM which jealously guarded its prerogatives, as revealed in the following statement by Paul Soppo Priso, the president of the ALCAM: The arbitrary and often antidemocratic attitudes of the prime minister; his lack of flexibility in relation to problems that could be solved in the context of free debates and harmonious compromises; his single-mindedness in wishing to subjugate the opposition by all means and take revenge on his political opponents and on all those who do not see eye to eye with him; his powerful tendency for systematically rejecting reconciliatory solutions in Cameroon; and finally his incorrigible complex of asserting his position and deciding as the absolute master, contribute to heightening the political tensions which characterize the situation currently.61

Because of his radical anti-communism Mbida pushed a good number of progressive or simply democratic elements to side with the UPC. His Catholicism troubled the Protestants whose leader was Soppo Priso and the Muslims whose spokesman was Ahidjo. Mbida felt connected to France and did not accept any foreign intrusion. The General Consuls of the United States and Great Britain in Yaoundé often faced his sarcasm. His administration was criticized by the Cameroonian petitioners periodically heard by the UN Trusteeship Council. All these grievances formulated against the prime minister locally and internationally harmed France. For Gérard Jacquet, the socialist minister of overseas France who replaced Gaston Defferre in June 1957 and who was also a member of the board of directors of the Section Française de l’Internationale Ouvrière (SFIO), if his colleague Mbida was not good for Cameroon, he should be replaced by a more suitable man. Under the circumstances, this man was Ahmadou Ahidjo, Counselor of the French Union, leader of the ALCAM, and leader of the elected Muslims of the North, despite being registered in Paris as a member of the parliamentary group known as Indépendents d’Outre Mer. The replacement of Mbida by Ahidjo has to be understood in the context of a larger plan which constituted an important shift in the policies of France towards Cameroon in late 1957 and early 1958. The Operation of Late 1957 Against all odds Mbida did not intend to allow his removal. In order to prevent it he tried to get the support of the parliamentary right wing in Paris. This leader of a black government who had been regularly elected and was so attached to France, was he not considered by certain political and military groups in Paris as the right man at the head of a key country in Central Africa like Cameroon? The parliamentary right was unaware as yet of the operation the French Government had decided to implement, an operation that explained almost everything.

This operation took into consideration two important deadlines. The first was the debate on Cameroon before the UN General Assembly that was planned for March 1958. If the French Government wanted to present an acceptable trusteeship report to the UN and avoid being condemned as it was for Algeria, it became urgent to set aside Mbida and to give the impression that France was looking for an opening to the left. Having a Muslim as prime minister would be tactically rewarding with the Afro-Asian group at the UN. Ahidjo agreed in advance to cautiously enlarge governmental representation to include the neutral group of Soppo Priso. Later on, the slogans of independence and unity would be launched in the context of, for example, a declaration of intent in order to help Ahidjo find a way to crush the UPC. For the two themes of Um Nyobè’s struggle were precisely national independence and the reunification of the British and French Cameroons. The second deadline was the independence of Nigeria. Great Britain, which exercised trusteeship over Western Cameroon under the control of the UN decided, for administrative reasons, to unite the two territories. Since Nigeria was attaining independence, British Cameroon would have to decide to either definitively become part of Nigeria, or become independent, or else be reunited with the French zone from which it had been separated since 1919. Paris hoped that the desire for reunification would prevail. Given that the so called French Cameroon was larger, more populated, and richer, it would easily absorb the British part of the country. This territorial enlargement would benefit the French influence over this part of Africa in the long run. Still, it was necessary to provide the leaders of the British zone who were in favor of reunification with arguments that would allow the reunification thesis to prevail. These arguments would be the promise of a deadline for independence, and the end of Mbida’s “dictatorship.” Therefore, French policies had three goals: undermine the basis for supporting the UPC; avoid the condemnation of Cameroon at the UN; and enlarge the area of French influence by incorporating the British zone of Cameroon. The operation was carefully prepared by Pierre Messmer, high commissioner of France in Cameroon, and Xavier Deniau, a young civil servant in charge of diplomatic relations at the Office of the high commissioner in Yaoundé. Jacques Kosciuzko-Morizet, head of France’s Permanent Delegation to the Trusteeship Council in New York, worked closely with Yaoundé to make it a success. Gérard Jacquet, minister of overseas France agreed with the operation. However, although he was more progressive than his predecessor Gaston Defferre, he feared complications from internal affairs and the hostility of independents, social republicans, and other French political leaders such as Roger Duchet, Michel Debré, Raymond Triboulet, P. Arrighi and Louis Jacquinot as soon as the slogans of independence and unification would be launched. The operation was ready. However, the obstacle to its implementation was Mbida’s cumbersome presence. Since he refused to understand, the only solution became to push him out the door without much ado. It became urgent to find the man who would be in charge of doing it.

NOTES

1. G. Chaffard, Les carnets secrets, Vol. 1, p. 298. 2. After Cameroon, Pierre Messmer served as governor general of French West Africa (1958–1959), minister of the armies in Paris (1960–1969), prime minister of France under Georges Pompidou (1972–1974), and member of the Académie Française (from 1999). He died in Paris on August 29, 2007. 3. “Réception de M. Gaston Defferre, Ministre de la France d’outre-mer à l’Assemblée législative du Cameroun le 17 mai 1957” (Speech by Gaston Defferre at the assembly of Cameroon). Brochure. 4. “Decret n° 57–0501 du 16 avril 1957 portant création d’un Etat sous-tutelle du Cameroun,” JORF, Lois et décrets (April 18, 1957). For a presentation and an analysis of the statute of Cameroon of 1957 also see “Le Statut du Cameroun,” Recueil Penant, 68ème année (1958). 5. G. Chaffard, Les carnets secrets, Vol. 1, p. 300. 6. “Discours d’investiture prononcé par M. André-Marie Mbida, Premier Ministre, Chef du Gouvernement camerounais, le 15 mai 1957 devant l’Assemblée législative du Cameroun.” Brochure. 7. Félix Roland Moumié was a Bamoun. 8. G. Chaffard, Les carnets secrets, Vol. 2, pp. 359–360. 9. Cited by L.P. Ngongo, Histoire des forces religieuses au Cameroun, de la lère Guerre Mondiale à l’indépendance, 1916–1955, (Paris: Karthala, 1982), pp. 289–292. 10. Cited by D. Kom, Le Cameroun. Essai d’analyse économique et politique (Paris: Editions Sociales, 1971), pp. 70–71. 11. E. Wonyu (Ndong-Lolog), Plaidoyer pour le patriote martyr R. Um Nyobè (Paris: L’Harmattan, 1988), p. 27. 12. R. Joseph, p. 212. 13. “Rapport présenté au premier congrès de l’UPC à Dschang le 10 avril 1950 par le Secrétaire général.” Documents de l’UPC. Cited by E. Wonyu, De l’UPC à l’UC, annex, pp. 250–251. 14. When Um Nyobè made his “confession of faith” he was vice-president of the RDA, which had close ties with the French Communist Party and to which the UPC was still affiliated. 15. Indigénat was a judicial system that enabled a French colonial officer to summarily punish an African subject (another name for second class citizens in French colonies) for certain offenses such as the refusal to pay taxes, the refusal to do public work, disrespect for French authority, or giving refuge to offenders. No trial was necessary, there was no appeal, and the victim, immediately after serving one sentence could be punished for another offense. Indigénat did not apply to French citizens, black or white. 16. R. Um Nyobè, pp. 257–258. 17. L’Opinion au Cameroun 15 (1957). Born in 1914 Dr. Bebey Eyidi became a medical doctor in Paris in 1950. After he returned to Cameroon he became involved in nationalist activities outside the UPC. He published L’Opinion au Cameroun and appeared at the UN as a petitioner in 1957 and 1959. 18. R. Um Nyobè, p. 278. 19. Cited by D. Bayiga, L’incorruptible guérilléro: Ruben Um Nyobè, héros et martyr (Edéa, Cameroon: Publications Galaxie, 1991), p. 21. 20. L.P. Ngongo, p. 203. 21. M. Atangana, “French Capitalism and Nationalism in Cameroon,” p. 90. 22. R. Um Nyobè, p. 306. 23. As Um Nyobè put it: “One of the biggest ‘victories’ of the colonialists and their puppets was the armed robbery of part of the UPC’s archives and materials in the region of Boumnyebel on November 23, 1957.” (R. Um Nyobè, p. 366). 24. SHD 6H 239. J. Lamberton, “La Pacification de la Sanaga Maritime, (Cameroun : décembre 1957–janvier 1959),” pp. 11– 12. Jean-Marie Lamberton was an officer of political affairs who had in the past been administrative delegate of That Khê (Tonkin, on the border with China), chief of the second office of the land forces of the Far East, and instructor at the military school. For the organization of the UPC maquis in the Sanaga-Maritime see also A. Mbembe, La naissance du maquis dans le Sud-Cameroun, 1920–1960: histoire des usages de la raison en colonie (Paris: Karthala, 1996), pp. 327–363. 25. Later Bebey-Eyidi broke with Soppo Priso when “Action Nationale” participated in the Ahidjo Government. 26. R. Um Nyobè, pp. 336–337. 27. This is the decree outlawing the UPC and its affiliated organizations. 28. This French journalist was René Mauriès who was working for the newspaper called La dépêche du Midi. 29. R. Um Nyobè, pp. 338–340. 30. Le Monde (August 20, 1956). 31. R. Um Nyobè, p. 343. 32. Ibid, p. 333. 33. Le Monde (May 29–30, 1955). 34. G. Chaffard, Les carnets secrets, Vol. 2, pp. 361–362. 35. Le Monde (July 10–11, 1955). 36 R. Um Nyobè, p. 352.

37. Cited in La presse du Cameroun (May 31, 1957). 38. R. Um Nyobè, p. 353. 39. Mpondol was Um Nyobè’s affectionate nickname in Bassa language. It means the one who is the voice of; conveys the choice of; defends the case of. 40. To cope with the terrorist acts triggered by the CNO, the administration supported the constitution of some “self-defense groups.” Their actions were not very different from those of some unruly CNO members. 41. “Rapport sur les négociations officieuses pour le dénouement de la crise kamerunaise. 1er Octobre 1957—sous maquis.” Cited by E Wonyu, De l’UPC à l’UC, appendix, p. 310. 42. Ibid, p. 315. 43. P. Messmer, Les Blancs s’en vont. Récits de décolonisation (Paris: Albin Michel, 1998), p. 121. 44. Messmer viewed Um Nyobè as a true Communist who was well informed about the history of the war in Indochina and whose dream was to realize, like Ho Chi Minh in 1945, a government of national union led by the Communist Party. Ibid, p. 122. 45. Ibid, pp. 122–123. 46. Cited in R. Um Nyobè, p. 409. 47. “Rapport sur les négociations officieuses.” Cited by E Wonyu, De l’UPC à l’UC, appendix, p. 315. 48. Cited by E.-J. Duval, Le sillage militaire de la France au Cameroun, 1914–1964 (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2004), p. 198. 49. Cited by Ibid, pp. 198–199. 50. Ibid, pp. 201. 51. Ibid, pp. 201–202. 52. Cited by Ibid, p. 200. 53. P. Messmer, pp. 119–120. 54. P. Nwankwo, Franco-African relations: the case of Cameroon in the postcolonial period, 1960–1985, Ph.D. Dissertation, New York University (1988), p. 204–205. 55. AC, 1 AC 19. Documents and reports on the UPC. 56. SHD, 6H 241 and 6H 243. 57. SHD, 6H 239. J. Lamberton, “La Pacification de la Sanaga Maritime,” p. 26. 58. E.-J. Duval, pp. 205 and 207. 59. Le Monde (December 18, 1957). 60. Ibid. 61. Le Monde (January 4, 1958).

THREE

The Recognition of Cameroon’s Option for Independence (1958) The double deadline of the March 1958 UN debates and the announcement of the independence of Nigeria slated for October 1, 1960, pressed France to change policies and adopt the option of independence for Cameroon. For sure, it was still only at the stage of a declaration of intent, but this already constituted a big shift in France’s policies towards Cameroon and especially in the attitude of the French Government towards France’s overseas territories (to which Cameroon and Togo had been assimilated) after the Conference of Brazzaville of 1944. Any idea of autonomy was to be set aside. Now France adopted the UPC program while still trying to keep this party out of the political arena of Cameroon. The most difficult task then seemed to be to persuade the men and political parties, with which France later intended to negotiate independence, to adopt the two main demands of the UPC. One of these men was Mbida. Messmer knew that Mbida was not the man to reach out to the UPC. In order not to risk his career in a move that would cause an adverse reaction in Paris and all the more given that the ministry officially wanted to stay out of it, the high commissioner asked to be appointed to another position. Thus, it was his successor who would be in charge of implementing the French operation of late 1957 described earlier.

A New High Commissioner in Cameroon On January 13, 1958, a meeting took place in Douala between Pierre Messmer and AndréMarie Mbida. The high commissioner told the prime minister about the call he received from Gérard Jacquet, the minister of overseas France, announcing his imminent departure from Cameroon. For his replacement, the Cameroonian Government had to choose one of the three following people: Jean Michel Soupault, Minister Gérard Jacquet’s principal private secretary; Georges Spénale, high commissioner of France in Togo; and Jean Ramadier, governor of Guinea. None of them was really of Mbida’s liking. The prime minister would have wished for the nomination of a Catholic such as Sam Marco, governor of Ubangui Chari (known today as Central African Republic) and Minister Louis Paul Aujoulat’s former principal private secretary. It was Jean Ramadier who became the new high commissioner of France in Cameroon. Actually, according to the long letter Vice-Prime Minister Ahidjo wrote to Mbida from Paris on January 19, 1958, it would seem that Jean Ramadier was imposed on the Cameroonians. In this letter Ahidjo wrote:

My dear friend, I landed here in the middle of the agitation for the removal of high commissioners and governors. I had no specific information until the arrival of Messmer who was called for this purpose. He told me that you were contacted and given a list of three names to choose from: S, S [Soupault and Spénale], and Ramadier. Needless to say I was stupefied by the extent of these gentlemen’s audacity in proposing Soupault, Spénale, and Ramadier, the socialist. Messmer told me that you approved of the latter somewhat reluctantly. I told Messmer I could not understand why they wanted to impose a socialist given that Cameroon is not socialist. Let’s not harbor any illusions, proposing three names is a trick because in fact it has been Ramadier all along. Messmer then explained that when he arrived the minister told him he intended to appoint Ramadier somewhere else and thus his nomination [in Cameroon] would not work. Also Péchoux had been considered, but he declined the offer.1 It was then that the two of us tried to review this matter and Messmer mentioned Marco’s name. I answered that I had no objections, on the contrary I thought he could be successful. We parted and he promised to suggest his name to the minister. In the meantime It was explained to me that Sam Marco could not be appointed because he was Catholic and above all because the socialists wanted to have one of their own in Cameroon. Kotouo [Cameroonian senator, member of the Mbida government] arrived here at that point. He informed me in detail about your position saying that you were quite uncomfortable and that you did not want at all to see a socialist appointed. We therefore took the matter up again and I made Messmer understand that we opposed even Ramadier or any other socialist. We asked to see Jacquet. He received us yesterday and we explained our objections to him. He answered that he could not do otherwise but appoint Ramadier (while Messmer had told me that he had appointed him to another assignment), that the latter was qualified and so on and so forth. Without insisting we left the office disgusted. Now that is the situation! The appointments will come out on Wednesday. My dear friend, I am fully disgusted with these gentlemen. They will never be decent and honest. . . . This is a staged affair and they are all part of it!2

Appointed by Jacquet with Messmer’s approval and without Mbida’s opinion being taken into account, Ramadier landed in Yaoundé on February 3, 1958. When the new high commissioner set out for Cameroon all those who knew his past, all those who were familiar with the usual behavior of Governor Ramadier were certain that soon something would happen in Cameroon just as it happened in Guinea or in Niger under the Ramadier Administration. To better understand the political development that was about to happen in Cameroon it is necessary to take a look at Ramadier’s past. Not a very conventional administrator, Jean Ramadier was able to get himself out of some difficult situations in the past only thanks to his name and to the patience of his father Paul Ramadier, French socialist leader and former president of the Council of Ministers (prime minister) in Paris. Jean Ramadier served as administrator in Indochina under the Vichy regime. Interned by the Japanese in 1940, he came back to France in 1946. By then his father had become one of the prominent personalities of the new republic. He joined Léon Blum’s cabinet as an expert in Far-Eastern affairs. In 1947, he became assistant director in the cabinet of his father, then president of the Council of Ministers. From there he moved on into the cabinet of Paul Béchard, another important socialist leader, state secretary first of the presidency and then of the armed forces. And when Béchard was sent to Dakar as high commissioner of France in French West Africa in August 1948 he followed him as principal private secretary. After Béchard left Dakar in 1951, Jean Ramadier was appointed Commandant (Officer) of the Circle (province) of Bouaké in Ivory Coast. Bouaké was in the heart of the Baoule region, the estate of Houphouët Boigny, leader of the Rassemblement Démocratique Africain (RDA). Ramadier succeeded in gaining Houphouët’s trust. This did not prevent him, two years later, in Niger where he had become governor, to favor the progressive leader Djibo Bakary against the “Houphouëtist” RDA of Hamani Diori. The situation in Niger however was different. Diori cooperated with the administration in accordance with the new policy of the RDA that decided in 1951 to cut ties with the French

Communist Party. But there was a solid opposition, well structured and led by Djibo Bakary, a young, intelligent, and dynamic trade union leader. In Niger, it was the support of Bakary that had to be looked for and not that of the RDA anymore. To achieve this goal Ramadier convinced the young revolutionary of the advantages that he could obtain by adhering to the Mouvement Socialiste Africain (MSA—African Socialist Movement), the African branch of the SFIO (the French Socialist Party) that was itself a competitor of the RDA. That would be the price to be paid for being allowed to operate openly and gaining seats in the territorial assembly, and even the control of the Council of Government. For that he would have to prove to be more active than Hamani Diori. All this under one condition: the acceptance of legality. Bakary accepted. In March 1957, consequently, the MSA won the majority of the seats in the territorial assembly and Djibo Bakary became mayor of Niamey and vice-president of the Council of Government. From November 1956, Ramadier was the governor of Guinea where another young African leader, Ahmed Sékou Touré, was very active. In Guinea, Ramadier wanted to play Sékou’s card because in his view, Sékou Touré represented the future, just like Djibo Bakary did in Niger. The two leaders maintained close personal ties. Both belonged to the same generation, had the same union background, and spoke the same language. In Conakry, Jean Ramadier consciously supported the claims of Sékou Touré. He helped him fight the feudal landlords by accepting and even encouraging the suppression of traditional chiefdoms. This earned him a strong scolding from the minister of overseas France, Gérard Jacquet, because Bary Diawadou, leader of the Guinean opposition to Sékou Touré, was a member of parliament affiliated with the radical party. Ramadier went so far as to transfer to Sékou Touré certain prerogatives that in accordance with the rules pertain only to the governor, the representative of the Republic. The examples of Djibo Bakary and Sékou Touré were well-known in African political circles. Mbida had reasons to worry and he would have had even more had he known that Ramadier’s mission in Cameroon was to change the ministerial team in order to clean up the political climate before the dreaded deadlines.

Ramadier’s “Declarations of Intent” On February 4, 1958, the day after he landed in Yaoundé, Ramadier had a three hour conversation with the prime minister. On February 6, the national daily La Presse du Cameroun published the first declaration of the new high commissioner who officially stated that France accepted the demands of the Cameroonians. Sharing his impressions on Ramadier’s intentions, Mbida declared two days later to the same newspaper: From the words of the high commissioner, I got the impression—he actually clearly said it—that he does not care about statutes and rules and does not hesitate to act above the law. Ramadier thinks that it is necessary to eliminate the UPC and communism by using their own weapons and that it is therefore necessary to bestow independence on Cameroon. It is in this way that the members of the UPC will have the opportunity to show whether they are truly nationalists or they are fighting for foreign ideologies. I made him realize that it was an extremely dangerous idea because independence would serve the UPC’s propaganda. Ramadier, however, did not change his mind. In the end, he explained to me that his predecessor Messmer had focused on administration and not on politics and that he would pay more attention to political matters than to administration.

On February 7, Ramadier left for a tour of the Sanaga-Maritime, the region that was the

most politically agitated. The high commissioner was accompanied by Mbida and by Colonel Crest de Villeneuve, the military commander. A meeting took place in Eséka bringing together the authorities from Yaoundé and the regional authorities. Lieutenant Colonel Jean-Marie Lamberton, commander of the “Cameroon Pacification Zone” (ZOPAC), reported about the pacification plan and the efforts undertaken by the French armed forces to restore order in the insurgent region. Furthermore, Lamberton allegedly made available a document taken from the rebels in which the appointment of Ramadier was welcomed as that of a man who could bring independence to Cameroon. There seemed to be a slight difference of opinion between the military and the high commissioner concerning the effectiveness and the results of the operations of the French Army in the ZOPAC. In the opinion of Ramadier, the military chiefs had already accomplished the best they could. More could not be achieved unless the troops deployed were increased threefold, with all the consequences that this would imply; above all, the development of urban terrorism. However, Ramadier did not want under any circumstances to bear the responsibility for expanding the area of insurgency. He wished to spare France from another North African situation. Consequently, drawing his conclusions from his observations in the field, Ramadier decided to take the initiative of making such political statements as to defuse the insurgency. He thus informed the minister for overseas France in a report drafted after his trip to the Sanaga-Maritime. Jean Ramadier did not wait for instructions before acting. He took advantage of the situation by formally getting in touch with the Legislative Assembly on February 10, 1958. In his speech, a true profession of faith according to La Presse du Cameroun of February 12, 1958, Jean Ramadier said: Be convinced that whatever has been said and whatever one might think, neither my affiliation nor my personal opinion will influence in any way what I do. Feeling totally free, without obligations to anyone, in full loyalty and in complete honesty I am trying to help you build your country. . . . I am not afraid of words. I don’t give in to customs or traditions which could hinder the will to move towards progress, towards more freedom, towards improved conditions for the masses. . . . We will help you to create Cameroon and once that is achieved we will recognize its national status, its independence, and even the unification of the two Cameroons.

The deputies of the ALCAM only remembered of Ramadier’s speech that France’s line of action was to henceforth lead Cameroon to independence. Ramadier’s statement was received very favorably by almost everybody. Mbida and his Christian democrats were the exception. As reported by the 1958 UN Visiting Mission, Mbida and his followers had just adopted, on January 26, a program that did not foresee independence any earlier than in 10 years and that excluded the reunification of the two Cameroons.

The Downfall of the Mbida Government On February 11, 1958, the day after Ramadier’s speech in the ALCAM, the ministers held a council meeting chaired by the high commissioner. At this meeting, the prime minister violently attacked the speech of the preceding day. Mbida thought that the speech was very dangerous and constituted encouragement for the UPC’s terrorists. Ramadier responded by saying that his statement was a deliberate one and that he had received great applause. In accordance with the provisions of the Statute of Cameroon of 1957, independence and

reunification pertained to the responsibilities of the high commissioner and not to those of the Cameroonian Government. Mbida accused Ramadier of thinking of nothing else but socialist interests, of serving the cause of the RDA, and of playing the game of the UPC. Certain members of the government, such as Ahidjo, began to censure Mbida. The cleavage became apparent and Mbida found himself in a minority position. Then, Ramadier allegedly began to consult the most important ministers, notably Vice-Prime Minister Ahidjo, head of the representatives of the North, asking them to resign. The purpose was to generate a crisis as a consequence of which Mbida would resign and be replaced by Ahmadou Ahidjo. Ramadier allegedly also consulted Daniel Kémajou who was the president of the ALCAM, traditional chief of the Bamiléké, and Counselor of the French Union. According to him, a vast majority would engage in the assembly against Mbida thereby giving rise to one of two possible situations: either Mbida, faced with the crisis, takes the initiative and asks for a vote of confidence or a group of deputies submits a motion for impeachment. On the evening of February 11, 1958, the Groupe d’Union Camerounaise that included the deputies from north Cameroon under the leadership of Ahmadou Ahidjo condemned Mbida’s policies and decided to withdraw its representatives from the government. The Paysans Independents, the group of representatives from the West led by Kémajou, declared almost unanimously that they no longer supported Mbida. Their decision was approved by Michel Njine, their only representative in the government. Soppo Priso’s Groupe d’Action Nationale together with the representatives from Douala already constituted the opposition. Fearing a coup, Mbida had already sent his principal private secretary to Paris on February 11, 1958, to ask for an appointment with the minister of overseas France and to stir up France’s political circles. The following day, February 12, 1958, six ministers resigned from the government. They included: Ahmadou Ahidjo, vice-prime minister and minister of domestic affairs; Alfred Mandon, minister of agriculture; Njoya Arouna, minister of finance; Adama Haman, minister of public health; Michel Njine, minister of public works, transports, and mines; and Oumate Talba Malla, secretary of state for agriculture. They were all members of the Groupe d’Union Camerounaise, except Michel Njine who was a member of Groupe des Paysans Independents. Mbida demanded to meet the high commissioner in order to submit to him the decree by which he terminated the official functions of those who resigned in accordance with the rules of the Statute. He also submitted the list of the new members of the government chosen from among his friends who would replace those who had resigned. He asked the high commissioner to urgently sign the decree thus confirming the composition of the new government. Mbida referred to Article 19 of the Statute of Cameroon of 1957 whose paragraph 4 stipulates that the high commissioner “confirms by the ordinance the appointment of the prime minister and the nomination of the ministers chosen by the latter.” If the high commissioner accepted the procedure proposed by the prime minister the crisis would end. Ramadier wanted his plan to succeed. Therefore, he refused to grant the requested signature to the prime minister. Ramadier explained to Mbida that Article 19 was only applicable to the formation of the cabinet when the prime minister was appointed by the ALCAM. The crisis arising several months after the appointment required a reference not to Article 19 but rather to Article 20 which provided for the “collective responsibility of the ministers vis à vis the Assembly.” It was therefore for the ALCAM to renew or cancel the

appointment of the Mbida government. Only afterwards could the high commissioner confirm by decree either the re-composition of the government approved by the deputies or the moving of the prime minister into a minority position. If an impeachment motion were to be approved by the ALCAM, Mbida would have to accept his defeat in accordance with democratic rules. Mbida based his position only on Article 19. In his view, Ramadier had conspired to dismiss him by inciting the ministers to resign. On the morning of February 13, 1958, an impeachment motion was submitted to the assembly. Mbida decided to go to Paris himself, to the source of power, in order to present to the authorities of France the extremely serious dispute caused by Ramadier’s failing to apply the provisions of the Statute. In Yaoundé the new ministers selected by Mbida began to disassociate themselves from the prime minister. They argued that they had not been consulted and that their constituency did not approve of Mbida’s policies. The negotiations between the high commissioner and the parliamentarians confirmed that the impeachment was going to be voted on and that a new national government could easily be formed around Ahidjo and with the participation of Soppo Priso and Charles Assalé from the opposition caucus. February 18 was proposed as the date for the debate on the impeachment motion. On the evening of February 13, Ramadier reported to Minister Gérard Jacquet as follows: As I indicated to you the operation succeeded very quickly because maintaining Mbida as the head of government had become impossible. Everyday the opposition to him and even more to his methods became stronger. A painful atmosphere penetrated the work of the Legislative Assembly. I spent 48 hours with him in the Sanaga-Maritime. His attitude, his speech produced the most annoying effect. . . . Daring to say in public that all of Cameroon would commit itself to exterminate the Bassa is simply unacceptable. I simply could not condone such an attitude anymore just as I could not accept to be close to a political personality imposed by us and who exists only through the support we give him. Too many examples in other regions of the French Union bear testimony to the vanity of such policy.3

Before going to Paris on February 13, 1958, Mbida sent a message to the minister of overseas France. He wrote: The action of the high commissioner causes a heavy blow to the relations and the friendship between France and Cameroon. . . . (Mbida and his friends) remain convinced that the behavior of the high commissioner does not represent the true feelings of the French Government, . . . demand the immediate recall of Mr. Jean Ramadier, . . . provide an immediate mandate to the prime minister to present their views to the high authorities of France!4

In Paris Mbida denounced the action of the high commissioner. He declared that Ramadier “came to Cameroon with a clearly defined objective, which he did not even hide, namely to make my government fall and to replace it with another ministerial combination.” According to Mbida, the action of Ramadier violated the Statute “which he systematically refuses to apply.” Mbida also accused Ramadier by adding that “ever since his arrival all the contacts he pursued aimed at causing the crisis that just started.”5 Mbida was received by René Coty, the French president; Félix Gaillard, president of the Council of Ministers; and Gérard Jacquet, minister of overseas France. He gave a quick summary of his meetings with French authorities to the French press: The minister of overseas France assured me that he had never authorized Jean Ramadier to make the declarations which I objected to. Furthermore, the minister sent a telegram asking the high commissioner to sign the decree nominating my new ministers, as the Statute requires him to do. As to the president of the republic, I had the honor to point out that, in my opinion, there was a danger that the friendship

between France and Cameroon and the Franco-African community was going to be affected by the recent incidents. Ramadier was urgently called to Paris.6

Before leaving Paris on February 16, 1958, Mbida denounced “socialist colonization” and announced his decision to leave the socialist parliamentary caucus to which he had belonged. He declared: I love France and I would not do anything hostile to it. This is why I regret that by denying my authority Ramadier supported, I would like to believe unwittingly, the agents of the USSR, the plunderers, the saboteurs, and the murderers, exactly those against whom I am fighting.7

In addition to the “Ramadier-Mbida conflict,” another conflict developed between Jean Ramadier and Gérard Jacquet. While Mbida deployed his energies, Jacquet was both surprised and annoyed. He neither expected the crisis to erupt so quickly nor Mbida to so skillfully make use of the most appropriate arguments to convince the parliamentarian right wing in Paris. He was the only member of the French Government who was familiar with the Cameroon file. On the one side, there was a black deputy regularly elected, Catholic and anticommunist who presented himself as the champion of the “French presence.” On the other side, there was a high commissioner clearly from the left who triggered the mistrust of the MRP and the independent members of the French parliament and was accused of favoring the UPC. How to convince the opposition? Ramadier appeared to be the person in the best position to provide the government in Paris with explanations and thus counterbalance the campaign Mbida led in Paris. Consequently Jacquet called Ramadier to Paris. The high commissioner refused to obey for reasons that he explained in a telegram addressed to the minister of overseas France: To my great regret I am not able to come to Paris immediately because I am too aware of my responsibilities with regard to the maintenance of public order. The entire population is following the evolution of the situation. . . . My departure at this moment would immediately be taken advantage of and one would have to fear the most serious troubles.8

Instead, Ramadier sent two emissaries to Paris, his assistant, Lelong, and his principal private secretary, d’Ornano. Police reports told of the satisfaction of the people in face of the impending dismissal of Mbida. Yet, Mbida thought he had already attained the recall of Ramadier. He sent his friends a telegram with the news of victory. On February 15, 1958, the president of the ALCAM, Daniel Kémajou, made public the text of a letter he wrote to the minister of overseas France: Everyone knows that Mr. Mbida, facing a difficult situation with the Assembly, found it easier to go against the high commissioner than to prove before that Assembly his alleged popularity. The Assembly had no doubts about the many kinds of support which he could attain from governmental institutions in Paris. However, in the name of the democracy you wanted to establish in our country, I beg you to let the Cameroonians freely elect those who must define the direction of their affairs.9

After the radio announced that Mbida had been received by René Coty, Félix Gaillard, and Gérard Jacquet on February 15, the anger of the parliamentarian right increased. Roger Duchet had also received Mbida and promised to help him. In the political circles of Paris the situation became increasingly tense. Gérard Jacquet, more annoyed than ever, sent Ramadier a last ultimatum summoning the high commissioner to come to Paris. If Ramadier obeyed, he would disrupt the current scheme. Moreover, seeing the high commissioner weakened in his position, the majority of the ALCAM would think that the Rue Oudinot (ministry of overseas

France) had once more stepped back and would turn against France. At the UN, the AfricanAsian group would be irritated. Ramadier knew about the rumor that had reached Jacques Kosciuszko-Morizet, the French representative in New York, according to which, the minister of overseas France would support the prime minister against the high commissioner. Ramadier also knew that by refusing to obey the minister’s summoning he placed himself in a situation of insubordination and risked his career. Yet, once more, he refused to comply for the following reasons. Given that Mbida’s victory messages increasingly agitated the majority of the population (which sided with the high commissioner in his “match” with the prime minister), Ramadier believed that his sudden departure, imposed by Paris, could trigger serious disturbances that would benefit the UPC. Thus, Ramadier decided to go to Paris only after the vote on the motion of impeachment and the installation of the Ahidjo Government. In a telegram addressed to Gérard Jacquet on February 15, 1958, he gave the following reasons: The situation gets worse by the hour. The press releases and Mbida’s untimely telegrams agitated the public opinion to a point that was difficult to foresee. National union is now a fact in the Assembly. I only regret that after I was led to play the role of catalyst, you would now want me to take also the role of the scapegoat. My departure from Yaoundé before Tuesday, that is before the impeachment vote could only seriously disrupt the public order. That is a responsibility which your collaborators want you to support. We have come to the point where things will have to be said clearly and even brutally. I never asked to come to Cameroon, you appointed me to this position because others were not approved. I know I have acted and continue to act objectively and independently. Each person has now to assume his responsibility. I have taken and take mine. I intend to bear all the consequences in the knowledge of acting in the best interest of Cameroon and of France.10

In Yaoundé the majority of the Assembly, opposed to the idea of keeping Mbida in power, threatened not to meet anymore and to ask the UN to lift the French trusteeship immediately if the minister of overseas France forced the high commissioner to return to Paris. However, things began to fall into place with the capitulation of Mbida. Upon his return to Cameroon on February 16, 1958, Mbida submitted his resignation to the high commissioner. This is the telegram he sent the very same day to the French president René Coty, to the president of the Council of Ministers Félix Gaillard, and to the minister of overseas France Gérard Jacquet: Upon my return to Cameroon I found out that in spite of the explicit instructions you gave to High Commissioner Jean Ramadier, instructions of which you informed me when we met on February 15, the high commissioner did not think he had to comply with your summons and is still in Cameroon. During my absence he continued to pursue his efforts of disintegration by persistently refusing to sanction by way of decree the changes in my government thereby flagrantly violating the provisions of the Statute of Cameroon. This confirms the determined intention of High Commissioner Jean Ramadier to do every thing for the crisis to succeed, a crisis he had deliberately provoked in the first days of his taking office. I consider that under these conditions the future and the protection of Cameroonian institutions are at risk and High Commissioner Jean Ramadier is personally responsible for this. I have, therefore, decided not to put myself any longer at the disposal of his illegal maneuvers and to submit today to the high commissioner my resignation as prime minister and head of the Government of Cameroon.11

Mbida made this decision in a special meeting of the cabinet. For Ramadier, the main obstacle was removed. A parliamentary debate about impeachment was no longer necessary. The only thing left for Ramadier to do was to install the government of Ahidjo at the earliest moment, before returning to Paris where a dismissal for refusal to follow orders awaited the rebellious high commissioner. In Paris Ramadier’s two emissaries, d’Ornano and Lelong, visited Paul Ramadier, father of the high commissioner. He understood his son but he could not help him because the breach of discipline had been too obvious. Likewise, Houphouët Boigny who was a minister in the French Government in Paris could not help his friend Ramadier out

of governmental solidarity. Jacquet refused to receive Ramadier’s two emissaries. He reproached Ramadier for three things: a speech (the one of February 10) delivered too early; a questionable interpretation of the Statute refusing the reshuffling undertaken by Mbida; and above all, the offense inflicted on the minister by not heeding his summons. In order to appease the parliamentary right, the minister believed he had to publish a press release stating that Ramadier had been given no instructions authorizing him to intervene in the internal affairs of Cameroon. The independent members of parliament demanded a recall of Ramadier. All these pressures from the right and a criticism of Ramadier’s actions were contained in a letter published in Le Monde on February 19, 1958, by Senator Roger Duchet who wrote: It is very true that the independents were worried about the appointment of Ramadier. Not because he is a socialist, but because his previous failures did not make him suitable for the position of high commissioner in Cameroon. In Guinea, he resigned in a grievous way in front of the territorial Council of Government. In Yaoundé, he delivered a senseless speech before the Cameroonian Chamber of Deputies and unleashed the crisis. M. Antoine Pinay and I had a meeting with Gérard Jacquet on Saturday morning. The minister of overseas France straightforwardly recognized that the high commissioner had become enmeshed in the internal politics of Cameroon against the wishes of the government. He confirmed to us that the high commissioner had “neither an official nor an unofficial mandate” to propose to Cameroon an independence which in fact it does not want. The same day I alerted the independent ministers who will make sure this rather distinctive civil servant leave Yaoundé without return. We all decided to oversee future appointments more carefully which, if done carelessly, could very quickly plunge the entire French Union into disorder and chaos.

In Cameroon, the local population was satisfied with the resignation of Mbida but protested against the imminent recall of Jean Ramadier while the French civil servants wondered what attitude to take and what discipline to observe when a representative of the Republic is practically repudiated by the Republic itself. When the crisis approached its end, the French Government finally promulgated, on February 17, 1958, the amnesty law long awaited and demanded by the UPC. The draft of law had been adopted ten days earlier by the National Assembly. Who had delayed the adoption of this law drafted in 1956? The report of the 1958 UN Visiting Mission, in its paragraph 70, gives the following answer to this question: The French Government drafted an amnesty law in 1956 . . . which was presented to the French Parliament on August 2, 1956. The government wanted the draft to be adopted without delay so that the elections on December 23 could be held under better conditions. For several reasons, primarily because the parliament was not in session until October, nothing was done before November. In November, the draft was reviewed first by the Assembly of the French Union which approved it on the 20th. It was then sent to the National Assembly which adopted it in a first reading on December 11 and passed it on to the Council of the Republic. The latter had to make a decision within two months. However, the decision was adjourned because apparently the wave of terrorism occurring then did not favor the adoption of measures of reconciliation. It is only much later, on November 2, 1957, that the Council of the Republic examined the draft. It contributed to the text approved by the National Assembly with [some] amendments. . . . The text proposed by the Council of the Republic was sent back to the National Assembly which adopted it on February 7, 1958. It was promulgated ten days later as Law no. 58–148 of February 17, 1958.

Without a doubt the draft was not adopted before December 1956 because the French Government wanted to exclude the UPC from the December 23, 1956 elections for the new Assembly. To that reluctance was subsequently added an even more energetic disapproval of Prime Minister Mbida who was fiercely opposed to the UPC.

Cameroon’s New Government

The crisis that took place in Cameroon in February 1958 ended with the replacement of the two highest authorities of the territory, Prime Minister André Marie Mbida and High Commissioner Jean Ramadier. After Mbida’s resignation, Ahidjo was elected new prime minister on February 19, 1958, by a vote of 49 in favor and 15 abstentions. The abstentions emanated from Mbida’s group, the Démocrates Camerounais, now reduced in number. However, its president explained that the abstentions did not mean that the democrats were in favor of being part the official opposition. The new government was formed by a coalition of the Groupe d’Union Camerounaise (7 ministers), the Paysans Indépendants (1 minister) and the old opposition group known as of Groupe d’Action Nationale Camerounaise (2 ministers). One minister had no party affiliation and two others were chosen from among leaders who were not members of the ALCAM. One of them was eventually replaced by a member of the Groupe d’Union Camerounaise. The following is a list of the members of Ahidjo’s cabinet. Prime minister and minister of domestic affairs: Ahidjo, Ahmadou (Groupe d’Union Camerounaise). Vice-prime minister for national education: Njine, Michel (Groupe des Paysans et Indépendants). Minister of finance: Assalé, Charles (Groupe d’Action Nationale Camerounaise). Minister of public service, posts, and telecommunications: Adama, Haman (Groupe d’Union Camerounaise). Minister of economic affairs: Fouda, André (mayor of Yaoundé). Minister of labor and social laws: Behle, Gaston (Groupe d’Action Nationale Camerounaise). Minister of public works, transports, and mines: Okala, Charles. Minister of production: Mandon, Alfred (Groupe d’Union Camerounaise). Minister of state for public health and population: Njoya, Arouna (Groupe d’Union Camerounaise). Secretary of state at the presidency for information: Akassou Djamba, Jean (Groupe d’Union Camerounaise). Secretary of state for domestic affairs: Ninekan, Pierre (deputy of the ALCAM). Secretary of state for production: Malla, Talba (Groupe d’Union Camerounaise). Secretary of state for finance: Sissoko, Sékou Cheik (Groupe d’Union Camerounaise).

The policy of the new government was presented in Ahidjo’s inaugural speech. In it the new prime minister stated that whereas the year 1957 had constituted an initial stage, the year 1958 should be marked by the establishment of a program that would save Cameroon from aimless drifting. He also declared that several conditions must exist if the country was to be conscious of a national soul of which it could be proud and an ideal on which to focus hopes, namely, Cameroonian unity which would include the reunification of the two Cameroons; a Cameroonian nation that would achieve independence within a reasonable period of time; and Franco-Cameroonian co-operation, which would be meaningless without an inter-African community. Ahidjo considered it essential that internal and administrative structure be reformed, which would allow Cameroon to take its place in the international community “with its head erect as its heart filled with gladness.” This implied a modification of the 1957 Statute and the elimination of the duality between Cameroonian institutions and those of France. Finally the new prime minister appealed to the outlawed movement when he declared that: The independence to which the Cameroons aspire cannot be conceived except in the union of all its children, for what would it avail our country to present itself before the community of nations if it were still divided by fratricidal quarrels and strife? I therefore appeal to all, on the eve of the decisive step which we are about to take, to give proof of a spirit of harmony and understanding, inspired one and all by the same patriotism, so that we must be united. I shall not tolerate the existence of two classes of Cameroonians, one of them outcast and marked with the seal of opprobrium, and although the wrongs of the past can to a certain extent be forgotten, my government cannot permit one part of the

population of this country deliberately to place itself outside the law.12

Prime Minister Ahmadou Ahidjo and Daniel Kémajou, president of the ALCAM asked for Ramadier to remain in Cameroon, but to no avail. Indeed, the minister of overseas France sent them a message explaining that the recall of Jean Ramadier was simply due to the need to sanction an act of administrative indiscipline. The policy of the French Government remained unchanged with regard to what the high commissioner had announced: independence and reunification remained the objectives of the government. Ahidjo was satisfied with the explanations. Kémajou considered the recall of Ramadier to be an insult to ALCAM whose full confidence Ramadier had enjoyed. The choice to replace Ramadier fell on Xavier Torre, a native of Corsica who was the secretary-general of French Equatorial Africa at the time. He allegedly was linked to the independents, which helped appease Roger Duchet, Michel Raingeard, Denis Baudoin, Antoine Pinay, and others. The French Government, however, could not disclaim the political statements of Ramadier and revise earlier commitments. Thus, the task of Xavier Torre was to prepare the next phase, the lifting of the trusteeship. The confirmation by Paris that Ramadier’s promises would be respected caused great relief at the UN. In Yaoundé, the new government waited for a declaration of intent from Paris concerning independence and reunification. On March 5, 1958, in Paris, Ahidjo had a conversation with René Coty, president of France. Three days later, Ahidjo and Kémajou were received by Félix Gaillard, president of the Council of Ministers, and by Albert Sarraut, president of the French National Assembly. It was reported, that the text of a declaration on the future of Cameroon was being prepared in Paris. Ramadier’s premature remarks allegedly complicated the government’s task by awakening the distrust of certain parliamentarian groups. An agreement on the publication of the famous “declaration” was reached on March 11, 1958. The Agence France Press (AFP) disseminated the news that the minister of overseas France had taken into account the main lines of the program developed by the prime minister of Cameroon in his inaugural speech and had entrusted Xavier Torre with the responsibility of helping to carry out this program by all possible means that France could employ in keeping with its mission. It is worth noting that the ministry of overseas France did not want to pronounce the fetish words yet. It hid rather cautiously behind Ahidjo’s program. The recognition by the French Government of Cameroon’s option for independence remained at the stage of “declarations of intent.” But in any case this recognition was a fact. The French Government had reoriented its Cameroonian policy hitherto hostile to the very principle of independence for Cameroon (which was the reason for its misunderstanding with the UPC that demanded recognition by France of the accession of Cameroon to independence within a brief period to be determined). Now the French Government declared its willingness to recognize Cameroonians’ right to selfdetermination and to grant them independence. The evolution of France’s policies towards Cameroon between 1957 and 1958, as well as what was referred to as “the Ramadier-Mbida confrontation,” were discussed in the correspondence that Abel Eyinga had with Jean Ramadier after the high commissioner left Cameroon. This interesting correspondence was published by Eyinga in his book on

Cameroonian politics. In his first question, Eyinga asked Ramadier why the French Government suddenly declared itself to be in favor of immediate Cameroonian independence, while hitherto it was stubbornly opposed to acknowledging publicly and officially the possibility for Cameroon to attain independence? Ramadier answered that the declarations of the French Government in favor of independence in Cameroon only came after he had expressed his opinion and in a way because the government was compelled to. Eyinga also asked Ramadier if he left Paris already determined to immediately grant independence to Cameroon, and if his declaration was based on instructions received from the government or from his own authority. Ramadier wrote the following answer: I was determined to pursue a political solution and my visit to the place of action in the Sanaga-Maritime only confirmed my conviction that the only solution was political. To be consistent I would say that I formally avoided any participation in or continuation of a war of conquest; for indeed that is where we were. Before my departure, I talked with the nationalist students in Paris and I did not hide from them my intention of seeking a political opening. Before leaving the AOF (French West Africa), I asked Sékou Touré and Djibo Bakary to inform Um about my intentions. I learned shortly after my arrival that the message had been passed on and that I could contact him, though at first indirectly. This explains the terms of both my speech in front of the Assembly13 and my declarations in Edéa and at the Sanaga-Maritime.

It was the French Government that appointed Mbida prime minister of Cameroon. Surprisingly, the same government dismissed him less than a year later. What then, Eyinga asked Ramadier, were the true causes for Mbida’s removal? Ramadier answered this question in the following terms: It is true that Mbida was put in that position by the French Government and my predecessor. It is also true, however, that he had developed close links with the socialist group of the National Assembly even if he had nothing whatsoever to do with socialism. At the end of 1957, everybody in Cameroon knew that Mbida was still there only because of us and that any viable solution to the Cameroonian problem required his elimination. However, he terrorized his colleagues, and enjoyed the support of the financial sector and the Catholic Church. Though maybe negative and surely reactionary, he was nonetheless powerful. I realized that removing him through regular procedures would take a long time and furthermore that the arrival of a new high commissioner willing to cooperate with him would only reinforce his position. Not wanting in any way to support retrograde policies I was forced to take the initiative of a rupture. I must tell you that before leaving I declared that I would seek the removal of Mbida in the shortest time and I was approved.

Ahidjo was chosen to replace Mbida. Yet, Ahidjo was one of the most important members of the Mbida cabinet. His politics had been the same as those of the disgraced prime minister. Eyinga’s final question, therefore, was to know what specific reasons made Ahidjo “the right person for the situation, the new man of action required by the circumstances.” In his long answer, Ramadier explained that The choice of Ahidjo somehow occurred to me. I met Ahidjo in Paris and our first exchange was rather brutal. Ahidjo did not hide from me that he had opposed my appointment just because I was a socialist. In the same straightforward manner I pointed out to him that there were socialists and socialists. However, to be precise I must say that, given the lack of an immediate understanding with Um, I was looking to place the Ahidjo-Assalé tandem only as a transitional stage. What induced me to make this choice was first the necessity of giving a larger role in the political leadership to somebody from the North, and, secondly, facing Mbida’s Catholic politics, the necessity of resituating the Protestants. Assalé’s trade unionist and political past led me to consider him as a progressive element linked to the nationalists and a warranty for a genuinely new orientation. To respond more specifically to the last part of your . . . question, I did not necessarily consider the Head of the government to be a man of action, I thought it was to be a transition government whose role would be to open a dialogue with Um and the

internal resistance. As I mentioned before, I was in contact with Um, I was not given enough time to go further. If we were to draw a lesson from this adventure, I must acknowledge that having proceeded too quickly, I could not draw all the benefit from the operation. However, if I had not proceeded so abruptly, even brutally, the process would never have unfolded. I acknowledge that it is highly possible, that coming from Guinea and having cooperated closely with Sékou Touré and his Council of Government for one and a half years, my perspective was distorted and I tended to think of the end of the colonial administration and the advent of independence as irreversible and unavoidable. I don’t know if I am right or wrong, in any case, my principles do not allow me to act in any other way.14

Concerning the replacement of Mbida, Moyo Bonakolo published an article in AfriqueAsie entitled “l’erreur du siècle” (the mistake of the century). He stated that Soppo Priso also was contacted on the night of February 14, 1958, by French authorities who considered him the right person to succeed Mbida. Soppo Priso, who had been elected to the local assembly thanks to the support of the UPC declined the offer because he considered that the mission of the Head of government, as defined by the French was to subdue the UPC.15 In any case, Ahidjo was the designated successor of Mbida. Actually, it seems that French authorities had already chosen Ahidjo several months before the crisis of February 1958. Why Ahidjo? In addition to the explanations given by Ramadier in his letter to Eyinga, it should be added that France wanted a moderate man ready to adopt and implement the program of the UPC, that is: the reunification of the two Cameroons and the independence of the country. For France, the problem was not any more to grant or refuse independence. Rather, it was to grant independence while having a head of government who, in the eyes of the French Government, was capable of maintaining privileged ties with France and of enhancing the value of the autonomous government of Cameroon before leading it towards independence. Mbida was fiercely hostile to the UPC and its program. Priso and Assalé were too progressive. The fact that the French Government pointed to Ahidjo had an explanation. The influence of the UPC was mostly felt in southern Cameroon and the guerilla war took place there as well. Being from the northern region of the country and representing the interests of the tribal chiefs and feudal lords of that region, Ahidjo did not see the UPC (or at least did not seem to see the UPC) as imminent a danger for his mandates as would his political adversaries of southern Cameroon. Once installed, Ahidjo showed great astuteness. He neutralized the opposition, that is to say the UPC, by demanding the independence of Cameroon and the reunification of the territories under French and British administration, as well as some minor concessions geared towards ending civil war and guaranteeing the stability of his government. Ahidjo presented himself as a defender of the program of the UPC, which he had made his own. Gérard Jacquet had already adopted that program by entrusting Xavier Torre with the responsibility of carrying it out. The only thing left for the two governments to do was to begin the negotiations for independence.

Negotiations for Independence Negotiations to plan the process of Cameroon’s accession to independence started soon after Ahidjo came to power. In March 1958, the new prime minister of Cameroon went to Paris where he met with high-ranking authorities of the French Republic, such as René Coty,

president of France, and Félix Gaillard, president of the Council of Ministers. On May 12, 1958, encouraged by High Commissioner Torre, Ahidjo announced that he had just submitted a draft resolution asking the French authorities to acknowledge Cameroon’s aspiration for independence, to transfer all the powers related to the country’s internal affairs to Cameroon, and to keep exercising the trusteeship until the proclamation of independence. Concerning the first point, Ahidjo declared that: France is requested to lay down unequivocally the principle of the right of the Cameroons to accede to full sovereignty within a period of time which we, in agreement with France, shall determine. The independence of the Cameroons has certainly been talked about for a long time. We consider that the time has come to do away with any ambiguity on the subject and to decide what our future is to be. That is why we are anxious that the new statute should include a solemn official affirmation of the principle of the independence of the Cameroons. After the decision taken by the Legislative Assembly, we confidently expect the metropolitan country to give its answer clearly and without reservations. Only when the situation is clearly established and there are no ambiguities will it be possible for us freely to determine, having regard to our common interests, what the future relationship between the Cameroons and France should be.16

It is worth recalling that Gérard Jacquet had already made his “declaration of intent” to Ahidjo in March. The events of May 13 that brought General Charles de Gaulle back into power took place before France reacted to Ahidjo’s statement. Having regained power on June 1, 1958, de Gaulle had greatly changed his conception of the links with the old colonial Empire. He had come to see that the independence of the territories and a solid cooperation between them and France was preferable to a sovereignty kept at the price of a large military outlay, and against the wishes of the local populations. In short, he had drawn the lessons from the wars of Indochina and Algeria. Thus, the founder of the Fifth Republic was willing to grant independence from the French Empire to all the territories that wanted it. General de Gaulle’s attitude made the Cameroonian Government quite optimistic. On June 12, 1958, the ALCAM approved the draft resolution submitted by Ahidjo. The members of the Démocrates Camerounais, Mbida’s group, declared that their position had not changed and thus refused to vote. The resolution that was adopted reads as follows: The Legislative Assembly of the Cameroons, in accordance with the provisions of Article 59 of Decree No. 57–501, setting forth the Statute of the Cameroons, requests the government of the French Republic to amend the Statute of the Cameroons so as to: recognize the option of the States of the Cameroons for independence upon the termination of the trusteeship; transfer to the State of the Cameroons all the powers relating to the conduct of its domestic affairs; maintain the United Nations trusteeship. It invites the Cameroonian Government to negotiate on these general lines the terms of the new Statute of the Cameroons which will be submitted to it and which should constitute the stage of transition to independence. The Legislative Assembly of the Cameroons confirms the statements of the prime minister, head of the government of the Cameroons, concerning the desire of the Cameroon people to see the two Cameroons reunified. The Legislative Assembly of the Cameroons expresses the hope that the Cameroons, once it has attained its independence, may be able to associate itself cordially and freely with France in the joint interests of the two countries.17

On June 22, 1958, Ahidjo went to Paris to undertake negotiations with the representatives of the French Government. These negotiations lasted from June to October and resulted in the writing of the new Statute of Cameroon. The negotiations were influenced by political developments in Nigeria. The constitutional

conference of Nigeria adopted October 1960 as the deadline for the independence of the country. Cameroon under British trusteeship was administered as part of Nigeria. According to the British position, the annexation of a country under trusteeship by a neighboring independent country was a form of granting independence. The British Cameroonian population was to be consulted as to whether they wanted to join the new independent territory. In order for them to make a well informed decision and abandon the idea of reunification with French Cameroon, the latter’s future had to be defined before that date. The UN’s mission in charge of defining the mode of consultation was to visit Cameroon sometime in November 1958. In order for this mission to receive the necessary instructions from the Trusteeship Council, the latter had to meet before the mission’s departure. It was thus necessary to reach an agreement on the principle of independence and its approximate date before November. But the statute of April 16, 1957, did not grant the degree of autonomy required for efficiently preparing Cameroonians for the exercise of their full responsibilities in the case that Cameroon had to be directed towards independence rapidly. All this was anticipated in the French plan of late 1957–early 1958 that was presented earlier (see previous chapter). The time pressure explains the precipitation of events from October on. On October 18, 1958, the ALCAM had to discuss the draft of the new statute and conventions between France and Cameroon. When he returned from Paris the next day, High Commissioner Xavier Torre announced on Radio Cameroon that France was ready to grant independence to Cameroon on January 1, 1960 and, for that purpose, to initiate the procedure for lifting the trusteeship at the UN. Thus, the Government of General de Gaulle took it upon itself to utter the taboo words that the Fourth Republic had not dared to pronounce. On October 21, 1958, the government submitted to the ALCAM a draft resolution expressing Cameroon’s desire for independence and for the lifting of trusteeship on January 1, 1960, and for the reunification of Cameroon. The resolution was adopted on October 24, 1958. It reads as follows: The Legislative Assembly of the Cameroons, aware that it is expressing the unanimous feeling of the peoples of all the regions of the Cameroons, Notes with satisfaction the negotiations carried on by the prime minister which have resulted, in conformity with the resolution of 12 June 1958, in the transfer to the State of the Cameroons of all powers relating to the conduct of internal affairs as from 1 January 1959; and the agreement of the French government that the procedures for the termination of international trusteeship should be initiated; Solemnly proclaims the will of the Cameroonian people that the State of the Cameroons should attain national independence on 1 January 1960; Reaffirms its attachment to the principle of the reunification of the two Cameroons and urges that all steps be taken to ensure that the peoples concerned may, in complete freedom, express their will concerning such reunification before 1 January 1960. Therefore calls on the Cameroonian Government to request that France should bring before the General Assembly of the United Nations, during its present session, the matter of the abrogation of the Trusteeship Agreement concomitant with the independence of the Cameroons; Opposes any attempt which may be made to delay the attainment of full sovereignty by the Cameroonian people; Pays a tribute to the work accomplished by France in the Cameroons and renews the wish which it expressed on 12 June that an independent and sovereign Cameroon should participate in a free and amicable association with France in the interest of the two countries.18

Only seven deputies opposed the resolution, and they belonged to the Démocrates Camerounais group led by Mbida. On October 28, France presented the text of the ALCAM resolution to the Fourth Commission of the General Assembly of the UN as expected. The draft

of the statute was submitted to the Assembly for its consideration in early November 1958. Indeed, Article 59 of the April 16, 1957 statute stipulated that its modification should follow the same procedural forms that had presided over its establishment. These forms were: a decree by the Council of Ministers adopted after consideration by the Assembly of Cameroon and the Assembly of the French Union, and submitted for the approval of the Parliament on November 20. The draft statute was adopted. The ordinance was submitted to the Conseil d’Etat (the State Council) on December 17 and was signed on December 30, 1958.19 Furthermore, the ordinance promulgated certain French-Cameroonian conventions. The statute was to come into effect on January 1, 1959. Even before the ordinance was signed, the former prime minister of Cameroon and his group, always opposed to an immediate independence, criticized the negotiations for independence, the new statutes and their conventions, as well as the “fraudulent political maneuvers of the French Government.” His party the Démocrates Camerounais presented a memorandum to the UN Visiting Mission on November 17, 1958. It reads: It is in this way that our Legislative Assembly, in complicity with the fraudulent political maneuvers of the French Government, adopted a resolution recognizing the option of Cameroon for its independence at the end of the trusteeship with transfer of all internal competencies, thereby shamelessly violating the international texts. The party of Cameroonian Democrats rose up and still does against this vote which is both illegal and detrimental to the complete independence of Cameroon. It is in the same way that, the Trusteeship power, through the Cameroonian Government, submitted for the consideration of our Legislative Assembly a new statute assorted with some curious conventions. Does the government have the right to pass conventions with its protégé without the knowledge of the nations that signed the United Nations Charter? Seriously taking these facts into account, the party of the Cameroonian Democrats, thus, wishes that Cameroon immediately receive its complete independence, simultaneously with the lifting of the trusteeship without waiting until 1960. Indeed, the party of the Cameroonian Democrats seriously fears that, during the long waiting period (1958–1960), the representatives of the French government in Cameroon will continue to work [on the minds of] the inexperienced popular masses of the North and the East in order to achieve the integration of Cameroon into the French community.20

One of the most important objectives of France’s policies for Cameroon was being realized at the end of 1958. Although the problem of the UPC had not yet found a definitive solution, a lot has changed in the course of the struggle against the already dispersed extremist party.

The Results of the Struggle Against the UPC After the UPC was banned on July 13, 1955, the party divided into two factions. One section lead by Félix Roland Moumié, Ernest Ouandié, and Abel Kingue, first took refuge in British Cameroon. Then, shortly after being evicted from that part of the country, it took refuge in Cairo thanks to the support of Colonel Abdel Gamal Nasser who authorized it to open an information office and use the local radio from which to broadcast. The information office published a relatively successful bi-weekly journal known as La Voix du Kamerun. As for the radio programs, they seem to have been a failure. From Cairo, Moumié went to New York to present himself as a petitioner at the Fourth Commission of the UN General Assembly. He demanded that the Cameroonian request, that is the ALCAM resolution of October 24, which was presented by France to the UN on October 28, 1958, be rejected. He used the following

arguments: the current government was not representative; reunification had not been guaranteed by the UN; the Ahidjo regime was little more than France’s minion; individual liberties of the Cameroonian people were severely reduced; etc. For a moment the Fourth Commission remained undecided. The definitive examination of the Cameroon question had to be postponed until the UN mission visiting Cameroon between November 14 and December 6 had the time to prepare its report. An extraordinary Assembly session was scheduled for February 20, 1959, to rule definitively on the future of Cameroon. During this session, the “struggle” between the French-Cameroonian representatives and their adversaries was very vigorous. In 1958 Moumié and his colleagues, supported by Ahmed Sékou Touré, moved their activities to the newly independent Republic of Guinea. Moumié received substantial financial and political aid from the Guinean president. The other faction of the UPC, led by Ruben Um Nyobè, went underground. The maquis movement operated from deep inside the equatorial forest of the Bassa countryside in the Sanaga-Maritime and later entered the Bamiléké grassland. In the Sanaga-Maritime the military measures taken by the French authorities began to yield results. Already at the time of Ramadier’s arrival in Cameroon, the relocation of villages along the roads and railways was more or less finished in conformity with the first phase of the “plan of action in the SanagaMaritime.” All the villages were grouped and placed under the strict control of military posts. These were camps surrounded by fences and equipped with watchtowers. Every night, watch teams made up of peasants took turns providing surveillance of the camp and preventing attacks from outsiders against informers, guides, trackers, or chiefs who were strongly in favor of the military occupation. A so called auto-defense group, comprising peasants armed with machetes and spears was established for each hamlet. In the forest where the rebels were now isolated, French battalions were able to carry out multiple commando actions. By the time the Ahidjo government came into office in February 1958, reinforced French military forces had already launched operations aimed at eliminating the rebel bands of both the Bassa and Bamiléké regions. In January 1958, new army units were sent to reinforce the troops operating in the Sanaga-Maritime, bringing them up to a force of eight companies, and bringing the French-Cameroonian security forces as a whole to about a thousand men in this region, including a few platoons of auxiliary gendarmes. Similarly, two army companies of troops were sent to reinforce the forces operating in the Bamiléké region where, however, the sporadic incidents appeared to be acts of banditry rather than an organized campaign with political motives. In the Sanaga-Maritime the first stage of the repression had ended by the first two weeks of April. Its results were encouraging. From March 1958, the number of ralliés (rebels who surrendered) started to increase: 70 in March, 85 in April, 120 in June, 180 in July, 145 in August, 220 in September, 270 in October, and about 320 in November. These figures include CNO members only. The number of maquis that were found and destroyed increased from 9 in January 1958 to 26 in March, and 62 in July. The number of rebels that were killed also increased rapidly from 4 in December 1957 to 38 in April 1958. The number of attacks organized by the CNO suddenly decreased from 16 in December 1957 to 9 in January 1958, 8 in February, 1 in April, and 0 from May on.21

Although the Ahidjo government, like its predecessor, condemned the continued resorting to violence of the UPC leaders, it adopted a much more conciliatory attitude towards the dissolved party. From its position in favor of independence and unification—the very slogan of the UPC—it was well placed to argue the futility of violence. Moreover, Soppo Priso’s Groupe d’Action Nationale, which had always favored a general amnesty, was now represented in the government, and many other political leaders, such as Daniel Kémajou, the president of ALCAM, had also declared themselves in favor of a more conciliatory position. In his investiture speech of February 18, 1958, Ahidjo made an appeal for the union of all Cameroonians. In April he toured the Sanaga-Maritime region, and in several speeches invited the dissident elements of the population to return to normal life. His attitude clearly appeared in a speech on April 23 at Ebolowa, in which he declared: If we wish to attain the objective which all Cameroonians have at heart, namely, the sovereignty of our country, we must without fail unite and work together with no ulterior motives. We may have different ideas, and different ideologies, but we have no right to disperse our efforts when the higher interests of the country are at stake. We must all do everything in our power to ensure that peace is fully restored. The day before yesterday, my colleagues and I made a brief tour in the disturbed region of Sanaga-Maritime. Wherever we went, we repeated to the peoples of the SanagaMaritime that the essential condition for our achievement of independence and sovereignty is that peace should reign in our country. If we all consider our ultimate goal to be the sovereignty of our country, I must repeat here what I said in SanagaMaritime: we cannot build an independent State of the Cameroons on the corpses of Cameroonians.22

On June 12, during the debate at the ALCAM that led to the formal request for independence, Ahidjo stated that if the members of the UPC were to return to legality, he would be ready to welcome them with open arms. This call, made at a time when the French military activities were also having their effects, appeared to be heard. Indeed, some UPC members started to rally round the new government of Yaoundé. Official reports show that 124 people left the maquis between January 1 and April 10, and 230 between April 16 and June 15.23 Assassinations continued to occur in the Sanaga-Maritime and in the Mungo between June and August. The government nonetheless recorded new UPC ralliés: 161 in June, 192 in July, and 174 in August. In total 2,070 people surrendered between January and November 1958. From January 1 to October 31, 1958, 371 rebels were killed, 104 were injured, 882 were apprehended, and 195 guns were seized.24 Among those who died was “General” Isaac Nyobè Pandjock, commander of the CNO, the rebels’ military organization. According to Lamberton, his hiding place was in the thick forest reaching north of Makak between the railroad in the south, and the road in the north that joins Douala to Yaoundé. The “General” was killed on June 7, 1958. However, the biggest loss was without doubt the death of Ruben Um Nyobè. The secretary-general of the UPC was killed near Boumnyebel, his birth place, on September 13, 1958. The death of the man considered to be the soul of the resistance movement marked the end of a legend whose force and vitality deeply affected all those involved. For the Bassa people, Mpondol had the reputation of a superman, one who was not vulnerable to bullets because of the gris-gris [amulet] that protected him. According to some authors Mpondol forgot his fetish and thus became vulnerable.25 Other authors argued that he died holding his gris-gris (amulet) in his hand but it failed to protect him.26 Other controversial explanations concerning the death of the UPC’s secretary-general also circulated. According to Richard Joseph, Um Nyobè’s

clandestine location was revealed to the authorities by party members. The same author also wrote that Um Nyobè was captured, wounded but alive, and the decision to eliminate him was taken subsequently.27 Jean François Bayart put this version into question. He wrote the following: Did the army try to capture Um Nyobè or did the patrols get the order to kill him? Even well informed opinions diverge. The hypothesis of the leader being captured and then eliminated upon Ahidjo’s demand should very likely be discarded: the prime minister, accompanied by Assalé, was in the Mbam [region] and learned the news there. However, orders can always be given in advance of events.28

Georges Chaffard and Achille Mbembe pointed to the thesis of betrayal. Georges Chaffard mentioned that the betrayal of Mpondol was the work of a follower who had left the maquis to rally round the new government.29 According to Achille Mbembe, suspicions fell upon Um Nyobè’s partner.30 Abel Eyinga raised the thesis of an assassination and provided what was perhaps the most convincing and detailed explanation of Um Nyobè’s death. He demonstrated that the assassination of the UPC leader was programmed at the highest level of the colonial administration. The decision to kill Um Nyobè was made by Prime Minister Ahmadou Ahidjo and was approved by French authorities who could have opposed it. Abel Eyinga argued that anti-guerilla techniques skillfully used by Lieutenant Colonel Lamberton, informants within the UPC, tiredness and terror felt by populations under harsh repression for three years, and the greed of bounty hunters are among the many factors that made it possible for the colonial army to accurately locate Um Nyobè’s maquis several months before September 13, 1958. Um Nyobè could have been shot on several occasions before that date. This did not happen because the soldiers were ordered to only follow the UPC leader and keep an eye on his maquis, which they did until they were ordered to kill him. Abel Eyinga reported that Charles Okala, who was a minister in the Ahidjo cabinet, confessed to him that before making his decision, Prime Minister Ahmadou Ahidjo consulted three members of his government including Charles Okala himself and Charles Assalé. Okala refused to reveal the name of the third person. After the decision was taken to physically eliminate the secretary-general of the UPC, the order was given to the army. On the morning of September 13, 1958, a small army unit highly equipped and guided by their informer, Luc Makon ma Bikat, opened fire on unarmed people, killing Um Nyobè, his mother-in-law Ruth, Pierre Yem Mback, and Jean Marc Poha. Some of Um Nyobè’s companions were able to hide and then run away. Makon ma Bikat latter proudly declared that he himself was the one who specifically identified Um Nyobè to his killer who did not know the secretary-general. The informer and his entire clan celebrated this event by partying and drinking.31 In any case, the combination of Um Nyobè’s personality and his political, magical, and religious aura made him a very impressive figure. His strength of character, his honesty, sincerity, and loyalty were acknowledged by everybody, even his enemies. His death was widely lamented even outside of the movement. In a public declaration Ahidjo admitted that while he disapproved of the UPC’s violent and cruel methods, he sincerely regretted that Um Nyobè’s stubbornness had such tragic consequences for him. He repeated that he was prepared to cooperate with the members of the UPC if they renounced violence and resumed legal

methods of activity. Jean Ramadier wrote in one of his letters to Eyinga that Mpondol’s death was “a gross and irreparable mistake.” Soppo Priso considered the death of the one who Chaffard called the “Cameroonian Ho Chi Minh” a tragic event for Cameroon. “To Moumié, Um Nyobè’s death only marked the beginning of the struggle for true independence, a call to fight to the end.”32 With its imminent independence, Cameroon was expecting more than ever to solve its long-standing internal crisis and achieve a national reconciliation in which Um would have played an important role. Um Nyobè was without doubt a powerful political figure and a symbol of Cameroonian nationalism. The death of the soul of the resistance movement was a hard blow to the Bassa rebellion. Indeed, after Mpondol’s death the rebellion faded away. Many rebels became discouraged and rallied around the government. The number of those who left the maquis was 272 in September, 607 in October, 406 in November; for a total of 2,070 people between January 1958 and November 1958. Among them was Théodore Mayi Matip, president of the JDC.33 The ZOPAC commander reported that there were no more than 50 to 100 people remaining in the forests, and that the rebellion in the Sanaga-Maritime had virtually come to an end. In the Mungo region however, there were still sporadic incursions of “bandits” coming from the British zone. Um Nyobè’s death cleared the way for the French to attempt to win over the Bassa people who had viewed Um Nyobè as a superman. Since the belief in Um Nyobè’s invincibility was so strong among the Bassa people, the French seized the opportunity of Mpondol’s death to launch their action psychologique campaign throughout the Sanaga Maritime. The goals of the colonial authorities appeared clearly in Lieutenant Colonel Lamberton’s Directive Générale No.4, which he issued on June 17, 1958. France’s psychological war was centered around the inclination of the Bassa rural masses to believe in superstition and witchcraft. To discredit these practices, the colonial authorities recalled the impotence of Um Nyobè’s amulet, which did not protect him from death once struck by a hail of bullets. They argued that the lesson from Um Nyobè’s death was for the Bassa people to turn their back on Bassa witchcraft, backward beliefs and practices, and to embrace European “magic” that featured “intellectual dynamism, technological experience, and material efficiency.” The colonial authorities sought to convince the Bassa to end their attachment to the UPC because “the party had definitely failed and will necessarily be eliminated from the Cameroonian political scene.” Finally, the French wanted “to spread the ideas that collaboration and concord are necessary to improve the level of life; that individual interests had to be replaced by general interests, and that this was the goal and the only aim of politics.”34 The cost of the rebellion in the Sanaga-Maritime was high, not only in terms of the damage done by the rebels to the lives and property of their fellow Cameroonians, but also in terms of the loss of lives among the rebels themselves. In its statement about the rebellion, the 1958 UN Visiting Mission gave the following numbers for the period between September 5, 1957, and October 31, 1958: 75 civilians killed, 90 wounded, 91 abducted, and 200 houses set on fire. On the rebels’ side, the report for the period between January 1 and October 31, 1958, was the following: 371 killed, 104 wounded, 882 arrested, and 195 firearms seized.35 Ahidjo continued to appeal to the rebels. He called again for reconciliation in a speech made at the UN General Assembly on November 11, 1958. He stated:

I have said publicly on several occasions that my Government will not permit the singling out of any group of Cameroonians for permanent opprobrium. On the other hand, although we can understand the forgetting of past errors, we cannot allow a fraction of the people of our country to set themselves deliberately outside the law. We extend a fraternal hand to those who have voluntarily cut themselves off from the Cameroonian community. We wish to associate all the spiritual families of the country in the construction of the Cameroons in peace, union and labor. Our appeal is still, however, to be heeded, for although it has up to the present been largely effective inside the frontiers of the Cameroons, where calm has been restored, the same has not been true among those who have learned nothing and forgot nothing since they left their country. The desire for reconciliation must work both ways.36

According to the commander of the ZOPAC, operations could be considered as terminated in December 1958. They have resulted in the demolition of the rebel organization and to the rallying of the majority of the rebel groups round the new regime. Army units that had been sent from French Equatorial Africa went back to their garrisons the same month. On February 1, 1959, Lieutenant Colonel Lamberton wrote a report that suggested victory for his troops and the end of the Bassa rebellion: “It can be admitted that the Bassa rebellion ended with Um Nyobè’s death. Before that event, a few important leaders had surrendered. On November 15, 1958, except for ten holdouts, all the rebels had gone back to their villages.”37 At the end of 1958 French forces evacuated the Sanaga-Maritime region. The dissolution of the ZOPAC went into effect on December 31, 1958. Was it really the end of the rebellion of Cameroonian extremist nationalists? It seemed so when Prime Minister Ahidjo visited the pacified zone in December 1958 and read Lamberton’s report. Weapons were silent, rallying around the government increased. Furthermore, there were no more reasons to rebel since France and Cameroon had already agreed on Cameroon’s accession to independence on January 1, 1960. However, bitter struggles between the French-Cameroonian authorities and the UPC resumed in full force in 1959, at the UN and in Cameroon. At stake was the political leadership of a country considered to have great assets and soon to pass from trusteeship to independence.

NOTES 1. After he was removed from Côte d’Ivoire and stayed in Paris for one year without special assignment, Laurent Péchoux was appointed governor of Togo where conflicts with the local nationalists caused him to be recalled again to Paris in 1954 by Minister Robert Buron. Thereafter he was not appointed to any leadership position. 2. Cited by G. Chaffard, Les carnets secrets, Vol. 1, pp. 306–307. 3. Cited by Ibid, p 317. 4. La Presse du Cameroun (February 15, 1958). 5. Le Monde (February 15, 1958). 6. CAOM, 1 Affaires politiques 3327; Le Monde (February 16–17, 1958). 7. Le Monde, (February 18, 1958). 8. Cited by G. Chaffard, Les carnets secrets, Vol. 1, p. 319. 9. CAOM, 1 Affaire politiques 3327; Le Monde (February 18, 1958). 10. Cited by G. Chaffard, Les carnets secrets, Vol. 1, p. 321. 11. CAOM, 1 Affaire politiques 3327; La Presse du Cameroun (February 18, 1958). 12. Report of the United Nations Visiting Mission (1959), paragraph 76. 13. In his speech to ALCAM on February 10, 1958, Ramadier stated: “Feeling totally free, not owing anything to anybody, honestly and sincerely, I intend to help you build your country with all my forces. . . . Colonialism must disappear if we want the Franco-African community to become a reality.” 14. A. Eyinga, Introduction à la politique camerounaise, pp. 149–151. 15. Afrique-Asie 395 ( March 9 to 22, 1987): 14–15.

16. Report of the United Nations Visiting Mission (1959), paragraph 77. 17. Idib, paragraph 78. 18. Idib, paragraph 82. 19. Ordinance No. 58–1375 of December 30, 1958 concerning Cameroon’s statute. JORF (December 31, 1958). 20. Report of the United Nations Visiting Mission (1959), p 51. 21. SHD 6H 239. J. Lamberton, “La Pacification de la Sanaga Maritime,” p. 28. 22. Report of the United Nations Visiting Mission (1959), paragraph 93. 23. SHD, 6H 246. Report on the results of the operations of pacification in the Sanaga-Maritime, the Bamiléké, and the Mungo regions by January 1, 1959. 24. M. Atangana, “French Capitalism and Nationalism in Cameroon,” p. 102. 25. V.T. Levine, Le Cameroun, du mandat à l’indépendence (Paris: Présence Africaine, 1984), p. 217. 26. G. Chaffard, Les carnets secrets, Vol. 2, p. 387. 27. R. Joseph, pp. 446–447. 28. J.F. Bayart, L’Etat du Cameroun (Paris: Presses de la Fondation nationale des sciences politiques, 1979), p. 61. 29. G. Chaffard, Les carnets secrets, Vol. 2, p. 386. 30. R. Um Nyobè, appendix. 31. A. Eyinga, L’U.P.C. une révolution manquée? (Paris: Editions Chaka, 1991), pp. 97–98. See also A. Eyinga, Introduction à la politique camerounaise, p. 155. 32. P. Nwankwo, p. 208. 33. See the article by Philippe Dacraene “La mort d’Um Nyobè a porté un coup décisif au mouvement insurrectionnel de la Sanaga-Maritime” (The death of Um Nyobè was a decisive blow to the insurrection movement of the Sanaga-Maritime), Le Monde (December 15, 1958). 34. SDH, 6H 246, “Directive Générale No.4 sur l’action psychologique a conduire en ZOPAC;” SHD 6H 239, J. Lamberton, “La Pacification de la Sanaga Maritime,” pp. 52–53. 35. Report of the United Nations Visiting Mission (1959), paragraph 100. 36. Cited in Cameroun, Next Independent Country in Africa; From Trusteeship to Independence, 1946, 1960 (Paris: Diloutremer, 1959), p. 25. See also United Nations General Assembly. Thirteenth Session. Fourth Committee. Official Records (1958), p. 267. 37. SHD 6H 239. J. Lamberton, “La Pacification de la Sanaga Maritime,” p. 30.

FOUR

The Transition and Transfer of Power (1959-1960) France considered the year 1959 to be a year of transition during which the French Government would prepare the Cameroonian Government to rule the country after its eventual accession to independence planned for January 1, 1960. A new statute granting autonomy to Cameroon went into effect on January 1, 1959.

A New Statute for Cameroon The new statute of Cameroon was born as an order of the French Government, Order No. 58–1375 of December 31, 1958.1 This was a group of agreements that became the first among the series of cooperation accords, or what Abel Eyinga called “unequal Franco-Ahidjo accords,”2 signed between France and Cameroon. It contained many conventions including the Franco-Cameroonian convention on the use of reserved powers, the transfers of power, and the inter-governmental cooperation; the convention relative to the situation of the employees of the French Republic serving in Cameroon and in the services of the Cameroonian state; the convention relative to defense, public order, and the use of the constabulary force; the FrancoCameroonian judiciary convention; the convention relative to currency and foreign trade; the cultural convention; the convention relative to civil aviation; and the convention relative to meteorology. The Franco-Cameroonian conventions were signed by Bernard Cornut Gentille, minister of overseas France representing the French Government, and Ahmadou Ahidjo, prime minister of the Cameroonian Government, representing the Cameroon State. The Statute of 1958 included many interesting features. Its preamble stated the principle of recognition by the French Republic of the Cameroonian option for independence. The French Republic takes note of the resolution adopted by the Cameroon Legislative Assembly on June 12, 1958, especially its first paragraph, which affirms the option of the State of Cameroon for its independence upon the termination of the trusteeship. It takes note also of the resolution adopted by the said assembly on October 24, 1958, proclaiming the will of the Cameroon people that the State of Cameroon should attain full independence on January 1, 1960. Desirous of complying with these wishes, it will take all appropriate measures to promote the attainment of independence by Cameroon. The present statute, which ensures the full autonomy of the State of Cameroon, marks the last stage in the evolution of institutions before the termination of the trusteeship, which will take place in accordance with the conditions set forth in the Charter of the United Nations and the Trusteeship Agreement.

The granting of Cameroonian citizenship was acknowledged. The new statute granted to Cameroon complete internal autonomy allowing for full control over legislative and regulatory

powers as well as the transfer of internal powers until then reserved to the high commissioner. Consequently the prime minister of Cameroon now presided over the Council of Ministers and was the only one entitled to order an eventual dissolution of the ALCAM. He was designated by the high commissioner after consultation with the representatives of all the groups in the ALCAM, and was confirmed in office by the ALCAM. He appointed the ministers and secretaries of state and had the power to remove them from office. Public order, the judicial organization, public liberties, customs, programs of higher and secondary education, the penal and commercial legislation, which were fields until then reserved for the high commissioner, were now under the powers of the State of Cameroon. The transfer to the Cameroon Government of command and services until then under the control of the high commissioner was planned for January 1, 1959. The delegations of Douala and Garoua, the heads of the administrative units and their assistants, the security services, the Cameroonian guard, the seaports captaincy, and the aviation and meteorological services were the responsibility of the Cameroon Government from January 1, 1959. The different FrancoCameroonian conventions were to regulate relations between the French and Cameroonian governments. Very important matters were still under the control of France. Article 23 stipulated that: The French Republic shall be responsible for monetary and foreign exchange policy, foreign policy, frontier security, and defense of the State of Cameroon. The central organs of the French Republic have power to legislate and issue regulations in these fields.

The Government of the French Republic continued to be represented in Cameroon by the high commissioner who was assisted by a deputy high commissioner. The powers of the high commissioner were defined in article 24: He shall exercise, within the framework of laws and regulations, the powers of the French Republic and shall be the channel of communication between the Cameroon Government and the French Government. Within the limits of his authority he shall have the power of issuing regulations and may require the Procureur Général [Prosecutor] of the Court of Appeals to carry out, in conformity with the instructions given by him, the acts necessary to bring matters before the courts. The units of the land, sea and air forces shall be under his authority.

Although the high commissioner was no longer presiding over the Council of Ministers, he remained its hierarchical superior authority. Therefore, all the laws, decrees, regulations, and orders decided by the Cameroonian authorities had to be communicated to him before their publication and he could even prevent publication. This was clearly stated in Article 26 of the new statute: By reason of the obligations assumed by the government of the French Republic, the high commissioner shall be kept informed by the prime minister of the functioning of the Cameroon institutions. Cameroon laws, regulations, and administrative acts shall be communicated to him prior to promulgation, publication or application. Within a period of ten clear days he may request that they be read or examined a second time and this request may not be refused. After there has been a further deliberation or examination, the high commissioner may, within the same period, if he deems such texts to be contrary to the provisions of the present statute, to treaties and international agreements or, in general to legality, inform the government of the French Republic which, after consulting the Conseil d’Etat [State Council], may within a period of three months issue a decree annulling the act submitted for consideration. The application of the act in question is suspended during this period.

Concerning economic matters, the first article of the “Franco-Cameroonian convention relative to currency and foreign trade” reserved for the French Government, various powers including the definition of the currency, the setting of monetary parities, the control of exchanges and the coordination of foreign trade, the issuing of bills and coins entrusted to the Institut d’Émission de l’AEF-Cameroun to which the Cameroon State remained associated, the regulation and organization of banking activities of the private sector as well as the direction of credit that pertain to the activities of the monetary committee of the franc zone with which the Cameroon State remained associated. The new statute was a very precious document for the French-Cameroonian authorities in the sense that it would continue to increase the importance of the government of Yaoundé during the coming debates in the UN. The other document that also strengthened their position in the UN was the report of the 1958 UN Visiting Mission in Cameroon.

The Report of the 1958 UN Visiting Mission From November 14 to December 6, 1958, a UN mission visited Cameroon with the goal of ascertaining the actual opinions in the territory about the question of independence, and to see if a referendum was needed to assess public opinion on the matter. This mission was led by Benjamin Geryg of the United States and included representatives from Haiti, India, and New Zealand. On January 25, the “Geryg Mission” presented its report to the Trusteeship Council. Its conclusions were all very favorable to the French-Cameroonian proposals. One of them was on the problem of a popular referendum about independence. On that matter the mission wrote: The mission has concluded that the request that the territory should become independent on 1 January 1960, which was approved in the Legislative Assembly of the Cameroons by a large majority, is also supported by the great majority of the population. It therefore considers that it is not necessary to consult the population on this subject before the termination of trusteeship.3

On the question of holding new general elections under UN supervision before independence, the mission commented: An examination of the conditions in which the elections of 23 December 1956 took place and of their results does not, in the Mission’s judgment, give justification for any claim that the composition of the Legislative Assembly does not reflect popular opinion, except possibly in the Sanaga-Maritime. The mission thinks it important to consider also the development of the political situation since the elections. The program for the future of the Cameroons initiated by the government and adopted by the Assembly, represents the highest objective of the Trusteeship System and has received the support of the majority of the population. The opposition to the present Assembly comes from a few groups which are politically active but which, in the Mission’s opinion, represent so far only a minority of the population; they do not dispute the objective of independence; and another chance at the polls will come to them in the normal course of events. It is important to recognize the identity of these groups. Among them are former members and supporters of the UPC who clearly desire to vindicate the UPC’s unsuccessful campaign for a national boycott of the 1956 elections.4

Based on its investigation and on its analysis of political development in Cameroon, the mission wrote the following conclusion concerning the question of new general elections: The Mission is of the opinion that on the whole the present Legislative Assembly is representative in character. There are certainly insufficient grounds, in the Mission’s view, for the holding of new general elections under United Nations supervision before the termination of trusteeship. Furthermore, it sees no reason why fresh elections to the Legislative Assembly should be

a precondition of the attainment of independence. It must be remembered that it was the present Legislative Assembly and Government which demanded and obtained from France the commitment to grant independence on 1 January 1960. It would be ironic if their representative character were to be called in question.5

The report also commented on the rebellion in the Sanaga-Maritime and the death of Um Nyobè, and announced that the Ahidjo Government was preparing a large-scale amnesty plan. On February 14, 1958, the ALCAM adopted, by a vote of 31 to 7, a bill granting amnesty to several categories of people who had participated in the UPC revolts and offering the possibility of commuting the sentences of other people condemned for major offences. A few days later, the UN debates on Cameroon started. The UN was to approve the end of the trusteeship and determine the conditions under which the transition from trusteeship to independence would occur. The special session of the General Assembly called for February 20, 1959, would resolve definitively the question of Cameroon’s future. At the UN, France’s objective was to highlight the positive points of the government it had set up in Yaoundé before the ending of the trusteeship and to keep the extremists out of the political arena in Cameroon. However, things would not be easy for France. In their Cairo shelter, the leaders of the UPC’s hard-line, President Félix Roland Moumié, the two vice-presidents Abel Kingué and Ernest Ouandié had quickly reestablished themselves. They decided to use all means necessary to prevent the proclamation of independence on January 1, 1960, which they would not be able to control. It appeared better to slow down the transfer of sovereignty rather than seeing the “puppets” benefiting from it. The year 1959 was the UPC’s last chance to gain power under favorable conditions. If during that year the UPC was unable to exploit its international support and domestic popularity in Cameroon to come into power, there was no hope to accomplish it after independence. If the UPC failed to gain power before January 1, 1960, its friends would certainly choose to cooperate with the new independent state rather than make it their enemy. Furthermore, once Cameroon was independent and admitted into the UN, it would become difficult, if not impossible, for the unofficial spokespersons of the Cameroonian people to appear in the UN sessions. However, as long as Cameroon was under trusteeship, Moumié and his friends would be allowed to express their views at the UN. The showdown between the Franco-Cameroonian authorities and the UPC at the UN developed in two phases. The first phase unfolded in the special session on Cameroon in February-March during which the points of view of both sides were heard. The second phase occurred in October-November when the Cameroonian question was debated for the last time. Between these two phases, violence resumed in Cameroon.

The Special Session of the UN on Cameroon (February-March 1959) The debates during the special session of the UN on Cameroon that took place in FebruaryMarch 1959, began with some introductory presentations of the French-Cameroonian proposals, on the one hand, and the UPC proposals, on the other.6 Two groups participated in the debates. The first group included the French Cameroonian delegation with officials such as Louis Jacquinot, Ahmadou Ahidjo, Jacques Koscziusko-Morizet, Njoya Arouna, Léon Pignon, and Daniel Kémajou, and the petitioners in favor of the French Cameroonian proposal

represented by Moussa Yaya, Benoît Bindzi, Paul Monthé, Gaston Kingue-Jong, Din Samé, Joseph Amoulion, Paul Biba, Ellé Mboutou, and Médard Ngaba. The second group included petitioners in favor of the UPC proposal. Among the members of this group were Marthe Ouandié, Félix Moumié, André Marie Mbida, Dr. Bebey-Eyidi, Théodore Mayi Matip, Philippe Mbarga Manga, Martin Tchapchet, Joseph Binet, Fongum Dinka, François Fosso, Jean Ndingué, Tchoumba Ngouankeu, Magnus P. Mukoko, Albert Mukong, Jacques Ngom, Victor Ngu, Ndeh Ntumazeh, and Tsala Mekongo. The UPC proposal was presented by Dr. Félix Roland Moumié. The president of the UPC disagreed with the report of the UN Visiting Mission on the representative character of the assembly of Cameroon and asked for new elections before independence. Moumié defended his point with the following arguments: the current assembly had been elected only for the purpose of negotiating the proposal of the statute with the French Government; the elections of December 23, 1956, did not reflect the population’s will because they had been carried out in an unhealthy social and political atmosphere; there were still seven French representatives in the ALCAM that could not therefore be considered truly Cameroonian. The UPC leader raised concerns about the wisdom of a decision that would allow the French to participate in the elaboration of a constitution for a country that was not theirs. Dr. Moumié believed that the Cameroonian people wanted, above everything else, a sincere reconciliation of all the political tendencies. He was ready to meet Ahidjo and explore all the means to achieve a real détente in Cameroon. For him, only an unconditional armistice and the removal of the ban on the UPC could bring back normal political life to the country. Ghana, Guinea, Liberia and the Soviet Union supported the UPC position. In his intervention, Daniel Chapman, representative of Ghana, supported the organization of new elections. The position of Ismaël Touré of Guinea followed the same line of argument. Sékou Touré suggested five steps to achieve a solution to Cameroon’s problems: firstly a total and unconditional ceasefire as the basis for national reconciliation; secondly the ending of all the statutory dispositions against any political movement in the territory; thirdly the reunification of the two Cameroons on the basis of a popular referendum under the oversight of the UN; fourthly general elections to be held before January 1, 1960, under UN supervision; and fifthly the proclamation of independence, the ending of trusteeship and the admission of Cameroon into the UN on January 1, 1960. The representative of the Soviet Union, Arkady Sobolev, elaborated a draft resolution on behalf of eight states including Ghana, Guinea, Liberia, Libya, Morocco, Egypt, Sudan, and Tunisia, calling for elections in Cameroon before independence. He completely agreed with the observations of the petitioners supporting the UPC proposal. According to Arkady Sobolev, the declarations of the petitioners revealed that France had provoked the current crisis and was doing everything possible to suppress the national liberation movement of which the UPC was the vanguard. Without the participation of the UPC, it would not be possible to solve the crucial problems of Cameroon. The representative of the Soviet Union also argued that the reason why the French Government vehemently refused new elections was obvious. By forcefully removing Cameroon from the trusteeship system, France was trying to force it to enter into the French community. Under these circumstances Arkady Sobolev believed that independence would only be a fiction. The point made by the Soviet representative was also shared by André-Marie Mbida. In

his statement he denounced the French plan to grant “fictitious independence” to Cameroon if this country accepted to join the French Union. The former prime minister of Cameroon said: In 1957, when I was prime minister, the high commissioner of the French Republic in Cameroon proposed negotiations on some affairs: I flatly refused his proposals because, I thought they were illegal . . . because I saw in them the beginnings of an integration into the French Union. . . . And it is because I always resisted all those propositions that the French Government was determined to overthrow my Cabinet, in order to get trustworthy and docile men under its influence. I assert before the international community that Mr. Jacquet planned all those schemes from 1957 when he was the minister of the colonies. And as the French Government knew full well that I could not accept them and I implacably opposed them, schemes were put in motion to cause the downfall of my Cabinet.

In his statement, Andre-Marie Mbida emphasized what in his view was the French concept of the type of independence that France was going to grant Cameroon: I maintain, without fear of contradiction, that Mr. Jacquet told me literally in February 1958 that the French Government did envisage granting Cameroon a certain kind of independence on condition that the territory join the French Union. In September 1958, I met with the same Jacquet . . . at the National Assembly. My colleague Germain Tsalla was with me. Three times, Mr. Jacquet plainly stated that Cameroon would be granted a false independence to facilitate ending the trusteeship, and would afterwards join the French-African Community. I don’t need to add that when I was the head of the Cameroonian Government in 1957, the French Government suggested several times that I should contact Mr. Houphouët Boigny, the minister of state and a great leader of the French-African community, for talks on that matter. I never followed through on making contact because my country did not want to become a French-African entity. So, there is no doubt that the independence now promised Cameroon is nothing but the fruition of the French scheme planned since 1957.7

On January 27, Ahmadou Ahidjo presented the point of view of his government. He claimed that the current assembly of Cameroon was in fact a representative organ elected by direct and universal suffrage and included elements of an active opposition. Since all the elected candidates to the ALCAM supported independence and since his government had promised to hold new elections immediately after independence, he did not see any need to hold a referendum. He argued that elections before independence could only create new disagreements and heighten political passions. Ahidjo insisted that elections be held only after independence in a calm atmosphere. Concerning the new amnesty law, Ahidjo characterized it as generous and noted that of the 2,303 people condemned or charged in the three preceding years for offences concerning political events, only 400 were still detained on January 1, 1959. Only 56 people condemned to death or to perpetual forced labor were not affected because they were considered to be “bandits.” This law was criticized by Tchoumba Ngouankeu during the debates. This petitioner said: This amnesty law was passed six days before the resumption of the General Assembly session, for the obvious reason that the French Government and the Cameroonian Government judged that they could not face the Assembly with empty hands. In any case, it is very dubious that the amnesty will be a real amnesty. When I left Cameroon, on February 19, 470 of my friends were detained in the Nkongsamba jail. Among these people was Mr. Kaminy who would have been a member of our UN delegation if the Cameroonian Government had not been opposed to his departure from the country. The amnesty law does not apply to people condemned to death or to certain jail sentences. What the Cameroonian people want is total and unconditional amnesty for all political offences committed since May 1955. Meanwhile, mass arrests continue in Cameroon and French troops from French Equatorial Africa, from French West Africa, and from other territories continue to be sent to Cameroon. If these kinds of things are happening under the trusteeship regime, it is easy to imagine what will happen after independence in 1960, when the country will be under the exclusive control of France.8

Concerning the imminent independence of Cameroon, Ahidjo declared that the new republic would not accept integration into the French Community.

In the opinion of Koscziusko-Morizet, delegate of France to the Fourth Commission, Article 59 of the statute approved by the ALCAM granted the Assembly the power to prepare the last steps of the trusteeship period. It was in the course of carrying out this activity that the ALCAM had asked and obtained total domestic autonomy since January 1, 1959, and had then set the date for independence. Therefore, France did not see any reason to proceed to new elections before the granting of independence. On March 12, the Commission heard all the petitioners. It was then time to end the general debate and open the final step of the decision-making process, reserved only for members of the Commission including France. Two resolutions were proposed. The first one was prepared by the United States, Italy, New Zealand, Paraguay, and Haiti. This group was later joined by Burma, Cambodia, Ceylon, Malaysia, Guatemala, India, and Japan. They recommended the independence of Cameroon and the ending of the trusteeship on January 1, 1960, elections after independence, and the admission of Cameroon into the UN after the accession of the country to independence. The second resolution was supported by Ghana, Guinea, Libya, Tunisia, Liberia, Morocco, Sudan, Egypt, Cuba, Iraq, Yugoslavia, the Soviet Union, and Indonesia. This resolution recommended supervised elections before the proclamation of independence and the removal of the 1955 decree concerning the ban on the UPC and its subsidiary organizations. The first resolution was adopted on March 12, 1959, during the 879th session by a vote of 56 to 9 with 16 abstentions. On the following day, March 13, 1959, the General Assembly unanimously adopted this resolution. In it, the General Assembly decided in agreement with the administrative authority that on January 1, 1960, when Cameroon under French Administration will accede to independence, the trusteeship agreement approved by the General Assembly on December 13, 1946, will cease to be valid, in accordance with Article 76 of the United Nations Charter.

The UN General Assembly also expressed its trust that elections will be held as soon as possible after January 1, 1960, date of accession to independence in order to form a new Assembly which will have to take decisions concerning the establishment in their final form of the institutions of a free and independent Cameroon.

Finally, the General Assembly recommended that “at its accession to independence on January 1, 1960, Cameroon under French Administration be admitted as a member of the United Nations, in accordance with Article 4 of the Charter.”9 Supported by the UN, France won a very important victory in fulfilling its ambition. However, the UPC did not accept defeat.

The Resumption of Violence Encouraged by the results of the special session on Cameroon of February-March 1959, the Yaoundé Government proceeded to partial elections to fill the empty seats in the ALCAM. On April 12, 1959, elections were held in the Sanaga-Maritime and in the Bamiléké region. In the Sanaga-Maritime, six former members of the UPC, including Mayi Matip ran and were elected, despite the ire of the “external” UPC. Félix Moumié and his exiled comrades announced a four-point program. The first point was to continue the revolution in Cameroon as long as “real independence” was not reached, that is, as long as power would be held by men appointed by

France. In the view of Moumié and his companions “real independence” would be reached only if the Ahidjo “puppets” were replaced by the UPC “patriots.” The second point was to oppose the UN’s decision to grant independence to Cameroon without elections or previous proclamation of a constitution. The third point was to discourage all countries from signing any treaties with Cameroon. And the last point was to persuade investors to refrain from bringing capital to Cameroon.10 The objective of the UPC was to block the on-going process in the UN. The nationalists wanted to bring about a situation that would force the international organization to revise its March 13 vote and withdraw its backing of the Ahidjo Government. This would be the demonstration of popular hostility to the “fake” regime of Yaoundé. The Petition Committee, which emanated from the UN Trusteeship Committee, had to meet before the end of the year to study whether the Cameroon case should be kept open in the international organization. In order to show that the case could not be closed, a new wave of terrorism was launched in Cameroon in the end of June and the beginning of July 1959. This new insurrection was done without the Bassa clans, which had mostly become legal. After Ruben Um Nyobè’s death and the rallying of his circle around the government, the leadership of the UPC fell on the Bamiléké. The CNO, created in the Bassa area, was succeeded by the Armée de Libération Nationale Kamerunaise (ALNK—Kamerunian National Liberation Army). The site of the disturbances moved westward to the Bamiléké region and inside the Mungo region. A document seized by security forces revealed that by June 1960, the organization of the ALNK included, in addition to the army’s headquarters, divisions of 2 to 4 brigades. Each brigade had 4 regiments of 512 fighters. A regiment comprised 4 battalions of 128 fighters, and each battalion included 4 companies of 32 men. A company had 8 fighters.11 According to a police report on the situation in the Bamiléké, the ALNK had at least 1,500 fighters by September 1961.12 In Pierre Messmer’s view,13 the Bamiléké insurrection was more a jacquerie (peasant uprising) than a revolution and the UPC never succeeded in controlling it. It actually started at the end of 1955 following the removal of Pierre Ninyim Kamdem, young Chief of Baham. A young militant nationalist student in Paris and a member of the pro-UPC student group known as Union Nationale des Etudiants Kamerounais (UNEK), Ninyim Kamdem inherited the throne of Baham in 1954. He then joined a UPC study group and began to organize a Comité de Base (grassroots committee) for the nationalist party. After a year or two, the French decided to depose him because of his pro-UPC attitudes. The UPC leaders encouraged him to organize a terrorist campaign against the new chief. After the UPC became illegal, Pierre Ninyim Kamdem established a front organization known as the Courant d’Action Nationale (CAN). It was the leaders of this group, including Isaac Tchoumba, Martin Singap, and Marcel Peze, who established the first Bamiléké maquis. Ninyim Kamdem’s activities were soon discovered. In November 1956, he was imprisoned and the CAN was suppressed. However, while remaining in contact with the UPC leaders in exile, Singap and Tchoumba continued the rebellion.14 The first significant attacks in the Bamiléké took place in July 1957 with the Baham chiefdom as the main target. Violent actions occurred again later that year. On October 29, the attack on the Batcham chiefdom resulted in the death of three people including the chief’s wife, the wounding of 5 people, and the burning of 26 houses. The Batie and Bayangam chiefdoms were also attacked on November 3 and December 10 respectively. Then on December 13,

Samuel Wanko, a member of the ALCAM, and 5 people from the Batoufam chiefdom were murdered.15 On November 29, 1957, Ahmadou Ahidjo, then vice-prime minister in charge of domestic affairs, condemned violence in a speech that he delivered in Dschang. He declared that: The Bamiléké people will not like that, by the fault of a few agitators, their country be troubled, and their economic prosperity be hindered. They must no longer tolerate that chiefdoms be looted and burnt and that innocent people be murdered. In the name of the Government, I bow myself very low before these innocents, victims of a blind and criminal barbarism. I solemnly condemn these stupid attacks caused by men who only seek to satisfy personal hatred or rancor by vilely concealing them under the acts of patriotism.16

In another speech that he gave on December 5, 1957, in Batcham, Ahmadou Ahidjo expressed himself again, more vigorously, on the violent acts that occurred in the chiefdom in particular, and in the Bamiléké in general when he declared that: Bandits committed crimes not only here, in Batcham, but also in several villages in the Bamiléké. We know, the Government knows that the majority of the Bamiléké people condemn these criminal acts. Whatever reasons pressed these bandits to commit their crimes, the Government considers that these acts are unacceptable, and by my voice, it says to the Batcham population, and to the entire Bamiléké population, that all measures will be taken so that such crimes will not be repeated and that if they are repeated, everything be done against these bandits and those who guide their arms. . . . I ask the population to trust us, I solemnly tell it that bandits will not command in Cameroon.17

Many other attacks were reported in March, then in September 1958. On November 5, 1958, the commander of the French Equatorial Africa-Cameroon defense zone informed the high commissioner that it was necessary to envisage for the Bamiléké and Mungo regions a politico-military organization, a zone of pacification comparable to that of the SanagaMaritime in order to prevent groups coming from British Cameroon from operating in collaboration with troublemakers. A report known as Ordre de Securité No. 1 (Security Order No.1) that was written in December 1958 indicated that “multiple attacks maintain a Zone Insécurité des Frontières Occidentales du Cameroun (ZIFOC—Insecurity Zone of the Western Borders of Cameroon). This zone includes the entire Bamiléké region and at least the northern part of the Mungo region.”18 In this area, the police station of Forkona was attacked on November 21, 1958, causing the death of 2 guards and the wounding of 5 others. In another attack committed around the same period, 9 people were killed and 57 others were arrested. In total, the official report on the results of the operations of pacification in the Sanaga-Maritime, the Bamiléké, and the Mungo regions established that by January 1, 1959, 8 army men have been killed (1 European and 7 Africans), and 14 have been wounded (4 Europeans and 10 Africans); the rebel losses were: 229 killed, 52 wounded, 507 arrested, 175 weapons seized, and 2,025 surrendered; the figures concerning the population casualties were 122 attacks, with 80 killed, 80 wounded, 76 kidnapped, and 32 cases of arson.19 Although Bafoussam appeared to be the epicenter of the new rebellion that developed in West Cameroon in 1959, Douala and Yaoundé experienced bursts of terrorism in which Europeans were not spared. A series of attacks took place on June 26, 1959, in one of which a terrorist commando killed 5 people and injured others. In Yaoundé, another commando killed 2 Europeans and injured 5 more on July 1, 1959. A police station was attacked in Mbanga and 4 policemen were killed. In Penja, 3 planes were set on fire. Many attacks also took place in

Mbalmayo, Loum and in general in the Bamiléké and Mungo regions.20 From the beginning of this revival of violence, the Ahidjo government, supported by the French Government, responded with severe repression. In a speech that he delivered at the ALCAM on May 6, 1959, Prime Minister Ahidjo cited violence and crimes in the Bamiléké as reasons to implement exceptional measures: We are forced to note that one of our regions is affected by an ill that saps it like leprosy. I am talking about the Bamiléké region where our fellow countrymen are the victims of a handful of bandits that do not recoil from assassination, rape, looting, deliberate fire. . . . The government considers that the moment has come, Gentlemen, to definitely burst the abscess. Since the words of forgiveness were not heard and that our acts of clemency remained ignored, the time has come to mercilessly punish those who stubbornly persist in perpetrating crimes against their fellow countrymen and against the Nation itself, because their actions are likely to take us half a century backwards, to jeopardize the tremendous progress achieved thanks to the efforts and the sacrifices of real patriots. Thus, the government is now going to devote all its attention to the fight against the traitors to the ideal of peace and progress that drives us, against those whose schemes contradict the national motto every day. And it is going to ask you, Gentlemen, to associate yourself to this public salvation task by adopting a series of bills which have already been brought to your Assembly and which are intended to grant us the means to victoriously fight against the subversion that is sometimes orchestrated from abroad by Cameroonian immigrants.21

The requested bills were adopted by the ALCAM on May 27, 1959. Consequently, exceptional measures were taken and made public in the months that followed. On June 28, 1959, many ordinances were signed, proclaiming a state of emergency in the Bamiléké, the Wouri, the Nyong-et-Sanaga, and the Sanaga-Maritime regions.22 To these ordinances were added Decree No. 59–101 of June 29 instituting special courts in the Wouri, Mungo, SanagaMaritime and Nyong-et-Kellé regions; Decree No. 59–108 of July 7, 1959, instituting a special criminal court in the Nyong-et-Sanaga region; Ordinance No. 21–43 of July 4, 1959, proclaiming a three-month state of emergency in the Mungo region; Ordinance No. 21–48 of July 7, 1959, proclaiming a three-months state of emergency in the Nkam, Mbam, SanagaMaritime, Nyong-et-Kellé, Ntem and Dja-et-Lobo regions; and the Decree of July 16, 1959, instituting a special criminal court in the Mbam region.23 More measures were taken. The government proceeded to arrest, torture and carry out executions. It also eliminated the Bureau National de la Conférence des Peuples Africains (National Office of the African Peoples Conference) that was affiliated to the UPC, and banned the publication of six “pro-UPC” newspapers. The Cameroonian Government knew it had the support of the French armed forces. This appeared clearly in the following declaration made in Douala by High Commissioner Xavier Torre: The dispositions in place allow . . . [armed forces] to respond with force and efficiency to all possible new aggressions. I might add that with the full agreement of the Cameroonian Government, if as a consequence of a multiplication of the incidents the forces of the Cameroonian Government were insufficient to face the normal missions of peace-keeping . . . the texts allowing it, and our shared desire for efficiency requiring it, the French armed forces would intervene on the side of the Cameroonian forces to guarantee order.24

In fact, French armed forces were highly active in the struggle against terrorism in Cameroon.25 Consequently, violence started to decline at the beginning of August, although some instances of murder, plunder, and arson were still reported in the Mungo and Bamiléké regions. Some members of the former executive board of the UPC reacquired legal status, for

example Jean-Paul Sendè, Elie Ngué, and Victor Nantia. A great number of insurgents who had gone underground or into exile in British Cameroon later rallied around the government. In this atmosphere, the old idea of a round table resurfaced. Its proponents assumed that national unity and internal peace could be achieved only if all the political actors of Cameroon agreed on a common national program. This would require a series of round table discussions with the participation of the “external” UPC. Then a “government of national unity” would be constituted that would take the necessary measures to establish a constitution, call for new elections, and perform the transfer of sovereignty. The greatest supporter of this idea was Soppo Priso. André-Marie Mbida, who had joined his ex-enemy Moumié in Conakry following his fall from power, also supported the idea. Already in January 1959, the democrats had called for an independence conference based on the British model. In February, Cameroonian students in France declared themselves in favor of a national reconciliation committee. The formation of a national unity government was part of Mayi Matip’s program.26 In the meantime, Moumié had been expelled from Cairo, and was refused entry to Nigeria. It was in Conakry, where he was welcomed by Sékou Touré, that Moumié and his friends established their headquarters. André-Marie Mbida also settled in Conakry and contacted the revolutionaries. A few months earlier, the former prime minister had reproached the French authorities for not exterminating the UPC quickly enough. Ousted from power, he had not forgiven France. In order to take his revenge against those who had fired him, Mbida entered into an alliance with the UPC. In a joint press release from Conakry on August 13, 1959, Ernest Ouandié and André-Marie Mbida proposed a round table to be held on August 20, the formation of a popular government, and the preparation of elections to be held before the end of trusteeship. They declared that they “accepted the good offices of the Independent African States,” and demanded that France nullify all current institutions, lift the decree banning the UPC, and put an end to the current state of war.27 Neither the Ahidjo Government, nor the French Government, nor the UN, reacted to this declaration. These conditions were unacceptable to the Cameroonian and French authorities. The round table was not called for August 20, 1959, but the idea remained present among its promoters, even within the government. The opponents of the government accused it of not being interested in reconciliation and of attempting to crush the opposition by the most severe means. Ahidjo’s political position soon started to deteriorate. The three most important Bamiléké politicians increasingly distanced themselves from the head of the government. Mathias Djoumessi remained part of the democratic opposition. Nominated to form a pro-government Bamiléké party or to supervise the implementation of the Union Camerounaise (Ahidjo’s party) in the region, Daniel Kémajou made a calculated decision to explicitly refuse the demand. He felt that he could not bet on Ahidjo whose political career was compromised by his collaboration with colonialism and whose days were numbered. Michel Njine had contacts with the rebels while he was presiding over the cabinet in the absence of the prime minister. Ahidjo had gone to Paris by the end of August, beginning of September to negotiate the terms of accession to independence with General De Gaulle. In West Cameroon, the conservative support for the prime minister was vanishing. The liberals were not reassured either; they were shocked by the terrorism and repression but impressed by the determination of the UPC. Ahidjo retaliated. The vice-prime minister in charge of education, Michel Njine, was

dismissed on September 12, 1959. Almost a month later, the representatives of the North voted against Daniel Kémajou provoking his downfall from the ALCAM’s presidency and his replacement by Jean-Baptiste Mabaya. Arrests, torture, special courts, and executions proliferated. A new series of measures were instituted in order to mobilize the country against the continuous incursions of terrorists, among them the creation of several units of Bamiléké self-defense militias, recruited from the local population with the mission of organizing quick reprisals against terrorist bands. European settlers began to arm themselves and to organize self-defense groups as well. In Douala, on the night of September 14, 1959, in response to the new attacks against bars and gas stations, a spontaneous and ruthless attack erupted in which many European civilians collaborated with the police. This operation left numerous victims. On the following day, many letters arrived to the Petition Commission of the Trusteeship Council. They denounced the incapacity of the Ahidjo regime to maintain order even with the help of the colonial forces: proof of its lack of popular support.

The Last Debates on Cameroon at the UN (October-November 1959) The UN debates of October-November 1959 were preceded by debates at the ALCAM. The imminent independence of Cameroon, on January 1, 1960, and the fact that the new statute of the country included a fairly new set of constitutional and institutional dispositions made it likely that the October session of the ALCAM would be its last. The session lasted 18 days. The debates concerned two proposed bills presented by the Cameroonian Government. The first bill proposed to grant total and unconditional amnesty to all people from the departments of Sanaga-Maritime and of Nyong-et-Sanaga who had committed “political” offences or who had been involved in the political unrest in these regions.28 More interesting was the second bill in which Ahidjo requested full powers. This bill aimed at granting the Ahidjo Government the power to legislate by decree for a period of 6 months during which the new institutions of the country would be established. The law would also allow the Ahidjo Government to prepare a draft Constitution with the help of a consultative committee composed solely of Cameroonians, 42 people in total. Finally, the proposed bill stated that the new Constitution, once written, would be submitted to a referendum. In fact, what was asked of the ALCAM was to “take a holiday” and to allow the government to assume all legislative powers until the meeting of a new assembly, elected in accordance with the new Constitution. Ahmadou Ahidjo personally presented the proposed bill granting him full powers, arguing for it on the basis of an analysis of the economic, social, and political difficulties with which Cameroon was confronted. According to the prime minister, the “exceptional situation” of Cameroon required “exceptional solutions.” He made this clear in the speech he gave at the ALCAM on October 20, 1959: We are forced into an exceptional situation that requires exceptional solutions. More than ever, efficiency must be sought and the government is ready to assume the more serious responsibilities if you give it the means to do so. Your ministers and I are in effect convinced that only a government that is entirely responsible, endowed with full powers, but inspired by the democratic spirit that drives you, and concerned about the sole superior interests of the country, will be able to solve the problems of the moment. We are at this point convinced that this is the only reasonable solution . . . we have decided to commit the existence of the

government to the submission of a bill that includes the possibility, for the executive, to take by ordinances all the measures necessary for the preparation of independence, after the Assembly is put on leave.29

The day the bill was officially submitted, the protest of the opposition in the ALCAM produced such an uproar and disorder that the session had to be suspended. Tsalla Mekongo, deputy of the Démocrates Camerounais, argued that the special powers would allow the prime minister to “kill whomever he wanted.” Soppo Priso believed that the ALCAM was illqualified to decide on the question. The other opponents were Yankana, Akono, Amougou and Mbong Bayem. But it was Daniel Kémajou who objected the most vehemently to the adoption of this law. For the former president of the ALCAM, Ahidjo’s bill would concentrate in the hands of a single person the executive, legislative, and judicial powers, which amounted to setting up a dictatorship, personal power, or in other words, the reign of good pleasure, police omnipotence, concentration camps,30 deportations, arbitrary arrests and imprisonment, arbitrary and abusive dismissal of civil servants, summary executions, hangings, persecution of students in high schools, unemployment, dark despair, injustice without relief, and slavery. This is what is awaiting us. As you notice yourself, gentlemen, these projects are very dangerous and, therefore, deserve to be renounced purely and simply. . . . Thus, Mr. Ahidjo would peacefully be preparing the elimination of those standing in his way to power. . . . Mr. Ahidjo would, for at least six months, commit our [independent] country to [Franco-Cameroonian] agreements which he would be the only one to examine and the only one to sign, without any possible control of the members elected by the people. . . . No and No. It is better to die in dignity than to live in slavery and dishonor.31

On October 30, 1959, in spite of the opposition screaming, protesting, and insulting the president of the ALCAM, the bill was finally adopted by a vote of 50 to 12 with 1 abstention.32 Ahidjo received full powers to negotiate the cooperation agreements with France before January 1, 1960. Once again a French maneuver had achieved its goals. In the UN, the last session of the year was under preparation. The Cameroon problem did not appear anymore as a special question on the agenda. There would only be the examination by the Fourth Commission of the Trusteeship Council report for the years 1958–1959. Some petitioners were allowed to present their case in front of the Fourth Commission: Mayi Matip, Nonga Yomba among those who rallied around the government; Manga Bile, the representative of the democrats; Ernest Ouandié from Conakry; Ntumazeh, the representative of the “Kamerun Party;” and Isaac Tchoumba of the Bamiléké Association. These petitioners raised concerns about the devious character of the French project, the non-democratic nature of the regime, the sincere desire for unity and reconciliation, the need for elections before independence, and the lifting of the ban on the UPC. Two important African personalities, Félix Houphouët-Boigny and Léopold Sedar Senghor pleaded in favor of the Ahidjo Government lending their support to the French policy. Guinea proposed a resolution that asked for sending a goodwill commission to Cameroon to “facilitate national reconciliation.” Before voting on this resolution, many states had removed their demand for elections before independence. In the course of the debates, the position of the pro-UPC countries changed. Their sympathy went to Ahidjo. The Soviet Block and Guinea, steady in their hostility toward France and the “neocolonialist regime of the puppet Ahidjo” were the only ones to remain uncompromised in their position. The Commission rejected the Guinea resolution by 41 votes to 37 with 7 abstentions.

It was a failure for Moumié who had asked for elections, convinced that the UPC would have a clear victory. That was what he had declared a few months before the last debates at the UN in an interview with Max Clos of Le Figaro. In this interview the UPC president criticized France as much as the Ahidjo Government. Moumié said: [What we want to obtain] is participation in Cameroon’s spheres of power. The UPC struggled for years to wrest independence of the country from France. We do not want today to be relegated to the shadows. . . . Under current conditions, France grants to Cameroon only semi-independence. We will not be a sovereign state but a semicolony. The Ahidjo Government was established by the colonial administration. It is a puppet government that does not represent anything else than the French Administration. France is playing a very dangerous game. We will not recognize any agreement signed between Paris and the current government of Yaoundé. I have warned the financial groups who are thinking of investing in Cameroon of the risks that they are running. . . . It is for all these reasons that we demand general elections before independence. We are sure that the UPC would have an unquestionable victory.33

During this time, the French and Cameroonian governments had already written off the UPC as a party with no constituency and that no longer represented anything. Elections before independence would certainly have shown this clearly and finally solve the question. However, Paris and Yaoundé remained opposed to the demands of Moumié. Here are some reasons why, put forth by Ahidjo: It is no longer possible to consider Moumié to be the leader of an opposition party. He is only a rebel chief who has blood on his hands. I let him know several times that I was ready to renew the dialogue with him, on the condition that he comes back to Cameroon. Today, it is too late. Even if he is granted amnesty for his previous doings he will have to answer in court for his behavior of the last month.34

Ahidjo also added that the UPC could not present candidates even for the elections that the government was planning to hold in March or April 1960, because the party was illegal. The outcome of the last debates on Cameroon in the UN was the General Assembly’s rejection of the proposition, made by some countries, to send a new mission to Cameroon to study the situation before the proclamation of independence. With this decision, the UN “legalized” the Ahidjo Government and accepted that the former French Cameroon accede to independence without previous elections, with the government that France had established in Yaoundé in February 1958.

The Accession of Cameroon to Independence After their victory at the UN, the French and Cameroonian governments had to make a few necessary arrangements before January 1, 1960. Having been granted full powers by the ALCAM on October 30, 1959, Ahmadou Ahidjo could go to Paris to negotiate cooperation agreements with France before the independence date. On December 26, 1959, in Paris, French Premier Michel Debré and Ahmadou Ahidjo signed the French-Cameroonian treaty regulating the new relationship of cooperation between the two countries. The treaty was to be in effect for six years. It discussed financial and economic questions, as well as civil aviation, maritime transport, judicial, and cultural questions. The head of the Cameroonian Government also took advantage of his trip to Paris to ask that French troops continue helping maintain order even after independence. Special agreements were made on this point, without any publicity. Since there was no Cameroonian national army at this point, and very few staff to

create one, the presence of French troops was more necessary than ever. A convention regarding French military assistance and cooperation with Cameroon and a convention concerning the status of the French military mission in Cameroon constituted two of the many agreements included in the conventions signed on December 26. Concerning these agreements, here is what could be read in Le Monde: Finally, and probably here lies the essential part of the agreements, military dispositions were taken; they concern the stationing of French troops on Cameroonian territory. They could also allow for an eventual right of passage for the troops of the community. These are important dispositions if we consider the strategic position of Cameroon as a hinge zone between the former AOF [French West Africa] and the former AEF [French Equatorial Africa].35

The task of the French troops in Cameroon was to repress the Bamiléké uprising and to train staff for the national army as soon as possible. Cameroon was about to become the first territory of Black Africa that France would bring to independence. On the eve of this event, on December 29, 1959, the exiled UPC leaders published a declaration from Conakry in which they made their position toward Cameroon’s independence known. Our position is clear: independence does not fulfill the objectives pursued by the UPC since its birth. From January 1 onward, Kamerun will have nominal independence. Far from being an indispensable instrument for the full blossoming of the people, it will be the yoke with which the agents of colonialism and imperialism will continue to keep them as prisoners in their own country. This people will continue to go naked and to die of hunger in a country rich in considerable economic resources. Illiteracy will continue. . . . Therefore, the revolution must continue on these special issues: 1. Real independence 2. Restoration of and respect for democratic liberties 3. Land to the people working it, namely the peasants 4. Well-being of the workers. We want to make a special call to political leaders, to union workers, to all African organizations to support the just cause of the Kamerunian people. African problems are now so intertwined that the events happening in one or another area of our continent should not leave any African indifferent. If the fascist experiment against which the Kamerunian people are struggling succeeds, those profiting from it will not refrain from expanding its field of application. The Kamerunian people do not judge African leaders by their declarations but only by their constructive acts in favor of the revolution. These people do not forget that leaders like Senghor bear a part of the responsibility for the deterioration of the situation in their country.36 Sooner or later, the Kamerunian people will have the last word.

On December 30, 1959, the UPC’s terrorist commandos launched a raid in Douala. A group invaded the Hausa neighborhood, a Muslim population of traders from North Cameroon, known for its hostility towards the UPC. Before the terrorists reached their other targets, security forces retaliated with machine guns. The attackers, armed with machetes, in a state of frenzy, threw themselves at the bullets. The automatic weapons of the police caused great carnage: one hundred dead among the attackers. Two French policemen were killed. On the night of December 31, minor troubles broke out in Yaoundé but did not prevent the solemn proclamation of independence on January 1, 1960. Under these conditions, it is not surprising that the ceremonies were held almost entirely without the population’s participation. La Croix reported that “contrary to all expectations, only a small group witnessed the ceremony of the exchange of the French tricolor for the Cameroonian flag on government buildings.”37 And Le Monde wrote:

Fearing a public disturbance, the government dropped at the last moment the foghorn concert and the torchlight march scheduled for midnight. . . . Never before had the capital of a country offered a spectacle so tragically empty as the one of Yaoundé in this most exciting moment of the country’s history. At sunset, the population evacuated the streets of Yaoundé and Douala. . . . Armed soldiers watched the doors of the building and stood two yards away from the guests attending the dinner offered by the president of the Assembly. Personalities of Yaoundé were reassuring their guests by showing them the revolvers they carried on them since the July incidents.38

At the event France was represented by Louis Jacquinot, state minister in charge of trust states; Robert Buron, minister of public works; and Jean-Pierre Bernard, French ambassador. Also among the guests were the UN secretary-general Dag Hammarskjöld, Henry Cabot-Lodge representing the United States, John Profumo who represented Great Britain, and the Malian leader Modibo Keita. The Soviet Union, West Germany, Japan, and Tunisia were also represented, as well as many other countries except for Sékou Touré’s Guinea that offered asylum to the UPC president Félix Moumié. On January 2, other ceremonies of the same kind were held in Douala. The surprise of the official march was the presence of a procession of some members of the UPC belonging to the fraction of the movement that had split off from the exiles and, therefore, was supporting the Ahidjo Government. But other Bassa, in the Ngambé subdivision, also claiming to belong to the UPC entered in protest in the name of the revolution promoted by Félix Moumié for real independence. In preparation for eventual fighting with the forces of order, the insurrectional troops had to expropriate firearms and ammunition (hunting cartridges) from their owners and set up a mandatory enlistment. This was the beginning of a long series of events and bloody dramas that ravaged the district of Babimbi and the Department of Nkam. Looting, killings, torture, and arson took place. The forces of order had to step in. Many troublemakers were killed, others were arrested. The rebels had been able to enlist entire towns including women and children. The new independent State was born in blood. Cameroon’s draft constitution defined a presidential regime fairly similar to the institutions of the French Fifth Republic. The opposition included the revolutionaries of the extreme left but also the Catholics since the constitution made Cameroon a secular State. A referendum took place on February 21, 1960. In spite of the call for a boycott launched by the leaders exiled in Accra, electoral participation was substantial: 797,488 “yes” and 531,075 “no.” The Republic was proclaimed with Ahmadou Ahidjo as its first president. Ahmadou Ahidjo had been presented as “France’s man.” He discussed that matter in an interview granted to Jeune Afrique in 1978.39 When answering the question if he had profited “from a more or less discrete hand of the colonial administration in climbing the ladders of the State,” Ahidjo stated: On the contrary, considering me as a potential agent of Nasser, no doubt because of my religion, the administration did not trust me. That is why when the first Loi cadre’s government was constituted, Pierre Messmer preferred to ask another leader to form the first government of Cameroon; even though at that time I was presiding over the most important parliamentary group at the Chamber of Deputies.

When he was reminded that upon the fall of the government of André-Marie Mbida in February the new French high commissioner for Cameroon came to appoint him, Ahidjo answered: On the contrary, Mr. Ramadier, because it is of him that we are talking, came to Cameroon with a very specific mission: to

appoint a socialist for the position of prime minister. Don’t forget that Mr. Ramadier, as well as the minister of overseas France of the time, Gérard Jacquet were both socialists. This is why they wanted to favor [a socialist] in Cameroon.

Finally, responding to the remark pointing to the fact that Ramadier preferred to appoint him instead of Paul Soppo Priso, Njoya Arouna or Charles Assalé, Ahidjo declared: Precisely because Ramadier understood that the mission that had been entrusted to him in Paris was impossible to fulfill. The political situation of Cameroon was such that Ramadier could not do anything else than to call me to form the government.

Called to form the government in February 1958, Ahidjo, considered by some as a man of transition, was able to stay in power and reign over Cameroon as the allmighty master until November 4, 1982, when he finally decided to resign as president of the Republic of Cameroon.40 More than two decades earlier, one of his first decisions as the president of the new independent state of Cameroon was to put an end to the Bamiléké rebellion with the help of French troops.

The French Military Campaign against the Bamiléké Rebellion The fact that Cameroon became a sovereign country on January 1, 1960, did not in any way diminish the level of insurgency in the Bamiléké. “Moumié remained firm in his opposition and rejection of a regime deliberately brought and kept in power by the French who had made the destruction of the UPC the prerequisite for Cameroonian independence.”41 On the eve of the referendum of February 21, 1960, that was to institutionalize the Ahidjo regime, a new offensive began in the Bamiléké land and spread to the whole area from Douala to Bafoussam, covering the Wouri, Mungo, and Bamiléké administrative regions. At first, the rebellion was linked to an internal social revolution. The affected zone was overpopulated and the peasants were running out of land, because the archaic land tenure system assigned land ownership to traditional chiefs. Unable to own their own piece of land and forced to work as share-croppers for bosses often despotic or degenerated, the villagers periodically rose up. This time the rebellion took a political turn. UPC emissaries exiled in Conakry succeeded in persuading UPC activists that, with independence, the time had come to instigate an agrarian revolution. UPC commandos recruited many fighters among these angry masses. About 400,000 people were involved in the Bamiléké rebellion, that is, one Cameroonian out of ten. Faced with these dramatic circumstances, President Ahidjo asked French troops to restore order. The French military campaign of pacification in the Bamiléké was to be led by General Max Briand, who as of January 5, 1960, was head of the French military mission in Cameroon and commander of French troops in the newly independent country. Violence had actually begun in the Bamiléké during the second half of 1957. At that stage of the rebellion, it was mainly the Bamiléké people who were destroying the Bamiléké region. The high commissioner of France in Cameroon Pierre Messmer and the head of the Bamiléké region Maurice Delauney were worried by this situation. However, this “domestic” conflict was not what determined France’s massive military commitment in the Bamiléké. It was the successive attacks on French nationals, especially in 1959, which forced France to envisage a decisive military intervention in the region. French media not only denounced these attacks but also required that the French Government protect French nationals in Cameroon:

On the eve of the proclamation of Cameroon’s independence, we must bring to the attention of the French Government the serious threats that hang over the religious missions of the West. For six months, they have been subject to armed attacks and systematic lootings. The murders of missionaries have multiplied and the UPC has taken, with challenge, the atrocious responsibility. On the night of July 25 to 26, a Father of the Catholic mission of Njombé was seriously wounded. A few days later, another missionary was attacked with machete strikes in Dschang. On August 27, R.F. [Reverend Father] Moroni was wounded by a group of rebels at the mission of Bandjoun. On August 30, R.F. Musslin was murdered. On September 6, Catechist Raphael Nitcheu was shot and his body was savagely cut up. Lastly, on November 30, a group of nearly 1,000 outlaws invaded the Catholic mission of Bafang, murdered R.F. Eberlé and Brother Sarrou, and wounded R.F. Lequeux and a Cameroonian religious sister. The outlaws cut off the heads of their victims, as if they were performing ritual sacrifices and took the heads with them. The French Government has the duty to take measures, in agreement with the Cameroonian Government, to protect its nationals. It would not be acceptable that it shows no interest. There are weaknesses which do not pay.42

By the end of 1959, French authorities acknowledged that by attacking French troops and European people, the Bamiléké insurrection was developing beyond the lines of a jacquerie, and that it was necessary to grant more support to troops operating in Cameroon.43 Shortly before the proclamation of independence, reinforcements were sent from French Equatorial Africa and French West Africa to Cameroon. General Le Puloch, who was in command of the Zone d’Outre-Mer (ZOM—Overseas Zone) No. 2 that included French Equatorial Africa and Cameroon, was already willing to launch a campaign against the Bamiléké rebellion in the first weeks of 1960. He reproached Colonel Crest de Villeneuve, the military commander of Cameroon, for being passive in the face of the events, and hesitating to put his troops into action on the pretext that Cameroon was on the eve of independence. Upon General Le Puloch’s request, General Max Briand was appointed to replace Colonel Crest de Villeneuve. The new military commander of French troops in Cameroon shared the idea that the Bamiléké insurrection was developing beyond the lines of a jacquerie. On January 5, 1960, General Max Briand wrote a report that stated that 200,000 Bamiléké, very lightly armed, are currently in a state of open rebellion in the triangle comprising Dschang, Bafang, Bafoussam. . . . Actually this is a mass of people who are seeking their way outside the established power. Thus, jacquerie had been evoked; but the UPC’s clear tendency to appropriate the benefit of this jacquerie for itself now forces us to treat this revolt like a subversive war.44

In his report, General Max Briand also explained that in order to complete his mission successfully it was necessary to reorganize the military system and obtain additional aid in the Bamiléké area. By January 1960, there were 5 overseas battalions in the Bamiléké. More military support was granted to the Groupement Tactique Nord (GTN) that was specifically established to restore order in the Bamiléké and the Mungo regions.45 Consequently, on February 28 the GTN military system comprised 3,500 troops, 2 helicopters, and a liaison airplane stationed in Koutaba. The troops included 1,500 commandos; 1 Cameroonian infantry company; 2 French infantry companies; 5 companies from the ZOM No. 2; a battalion of 3 companies from the ZOM No. 1; 1 armored squadron with 2 platoons; 13 platoons of gendarmerie; 49 civil commandos comprising 30 men each armed with hunting guns; and 1 flight patrol with 3 T6 airplane fighters.46 Politically, the military commander of the territory acted under the authority of the

Cameroonian Government. In the military field, since Cameroon did not have a minister of armed forces yet, and since the National Defense Supreme Council had not been created yet, General Briand was placed under the authority of General Sizaire, superior commander of the ZOM No. 2. Two “Zones of Operation” were established with headquarters in Dschang for the Bamiléké Zone of Operation, under the command of Colonel Gribelin, and in Douala for the Douala-Mungo Zone of Operation, under the command of Colonel Laurière. These zones were operational by March 1960. Finally at the head of the Bamiléké region was Prefect Alexandre Ter Sarkissoff, graduate of a prestigious French military school known as Saint-Cyr. Briand’s mission was very clear: to “break” the Bamiléké rebellion. To achieve this goal, the French troops in Cameroon had to isolate the infiltrated zone to avoid the spread of the rebellion; then to put down the rebellion manu militari; and finally to ensure the installation and temporary protection of the Cameroonian national administration. General Briand was also to help Ahidjo organize the Cameroonian Army. With the system well in place, the campaign could effectively begin. Elections for the ALCAM were scheduled for April 10, 1960. A few weeks earlier, the rebels murdered 74 people in the Foto and Fokéré-Dschang chiefdoms. It became necessary to provide security for the elections. The French had already started operations of repression in the Bamiléké region by February 1960, as Brice Nitcheu explained in his article on the French military campaign in the Bamiléké. He wrote: Between February and March 1960, 156 Bamiléké villages are burned and razed. A meticulous record of destruction of public property will be carried out: 116 classrooms, 3 hospitals, 46 dispensaries, 12 agricultural stations, and 40 bridges will be destroyed. Nobody made an inventory of destroyed private dwellings or burned crops. Nobody could count the tens of thousands of civilians who were massacred. We will never know.47

According to the same source, the Franco-Cameroonian troops razed the village of Yogandima on March 2, 1960, killing nearly 8,000 unarmed civilians. By the end of March, beginning of April several intensive air raids were organized in the Dschang and Bafang regions. The election of April 10, 1960 took place in a climate of terror in the Bamiléké. After the elections, military operations intensified. From April 15 to 20, 1960, the Dschang, Mbouda, and Bafang regions suffered intensive air raids and combing operations. In Dschang, 103 people were killed and 42 others were taken prisoner. In Mbouda and Bafang, 53 and 43 people, respectively, were killed. As a result of these operations, many guns were seized. In May, other military operations resulted in the killing of about 100 people in the Mbouda region. On June 1, 1960, 213 people were killed and 30 others were taken prisoner in the same region. In addition, many guns and ammunition were seized.48 In July, 1960, the number of military operations decreased. Within the space of four months, the GTN had launched about sixty military operations with various names, such as Charlie, Epervier, Martinet, Babouche, ABC, and Alpha. For the most part, these operations were characterized by intensive, massive, blind air raids. This military strategy made it possible to limit the losses of GTN troops, but it caused important collateral damage. Thus, the civilian population of the Bamiléké paid a heavy price in this phase of military “pacification.” They had to escape the harassment of the rebels and survive the intensive raids of the GTN. Many of them were victims of bombs with napalm. According to Roland Tsapi, French lawyer

Jacques Verges believes that this weapon of mass destruction was used against civilians in the Bamiléké.49 Mongo Beti reported that one of his high school classmates, Elie Tchokokam, a Bamiléké man and medical doctor, who worked at a hospital in the Bafoussam area, informed him that he had treated people who were burned by bombs with napalm.50 Jacob Tatsitsa’s description of one of the many military operations, “Operation Alpha 5,” also mentions the use of napalm and gives interesting details on the strategies used by French troops to crush the rebellion in the Bamiléké: Operation “Alpha 5” is launched in April 1960, it lasts four days and takes place in four stages. First, the villagers are woken up by airplane humming, bomb explosions, and canon fire. Secondly, fire is systematically set to straw houses through the use of flamethrowers, while the localized maquis are bombed with napalm. Thirdly, infantrymen comb the area, kill men and catch children, women, and old people who are grouped manu militari at the Tialong (Balatchi) Protestant mission. Fourthly, infantrymen set fire to the bush to drive out fugitives; they kill the livestock. . . . The destruction of the Kongo maquis temporary ends the supremacy of the guerilla warfare.51

According to Georges Chaffard “French officers will later admit that they had overdone it, and that by using other methods better results could have been obtained at a lesser cost. But Cameroonian authorities were among the first to request expeditious methods. And the French Government does not want to drag on this distant intervention wanting to keep it as secret as possible.”52 Pierre Messmer, minister of armed forces in France from 1960 to 1969, that is, during the military campaign against the Bamiléké rebellion, justified the pitiless campaign of French troops in the region by saying that “the UPC was a communist party, led by merciless communist leaders. Um Nyobè and especially Moumié were merciless people. When you are merciless, your opponents do not feel sorry for you either, they do not let you off lightly.”53 For some observers, the crushing of the Bamiléké insurrection was nothing less than pure genocide. On that issue, Brice Nitcheu reported the testimony of Max Bardet, a helicopter pilot who declared that “they have massacred 300 to 400,000 people. A real genocide. They have practically wiped out the race. Spears against machine guns. The Bamiléké had no chance. Villages have been razed, like Atilla.”54 On the same issue, Jacques Kago Lélé stated that : In the way of genocide, the Bamiléké experienced it between 1955 and 1965. Figures are between 800,000 and 1 million people killed in the High-Plateau [Bamiléké] region and in other cities such as Douala, Yaoundé, Sangmélima, Ebolowa, Nkongsamba.55

Brice Nitcheu explained the interesting attitude of the French press on the atrocities in the Bamiléké. He wrote: On this terrible repression, the French press, completely silenced, and blinded by the Algerian crisis, will not say a word. It is impossible to find in Cameroon documents on these massacres: the government of Ahidjo, in the pay of France, carefully hid everything. And this great crime of France, premeditated, planned, that she managed to hush up until now, has continued for several years: ultimately perhaps 400,000 Bamiléké were massacred, or maybe more.56

In Cameroon, there were authorities who criticized not only the repression in the country, but also the presence of French troops in independent Cameroon. In a speech that was delivered in October 1960, Barnabé Mballa, doyen of the ALCAM, complained that the country lived in a “perpetual state of anguish” due not only to the terrorism but the odious, brutal, and bloody repression which, in his view, characterized the state of emergency

established by the government. It made one wonder if Cameroon were really independent, he said, and reminded one of the situation in France in 1789. He lashed out bitterly at the continued presence of French troops and military bases in Cameroon. He considered French influence to be evident in the government of Yaoundé.57 As one can expect, the French military campaign that took place in the Bamiléké in 1960, produced a great number of casualties. A report presented on March 25, 1961, by General Briand gives the following figures: Losses of friendly forces: 614 killed including 583 African civilians; 615 wounded including 530 African civilians; Losses of rebels: 4,440 killed; Total losses of the Bamiléké population: to the 5,000 killed in action, must be added 1,000 people who died as result of injuries; 10,000 who were killed in internal fights; 5,000 who died from diseases. Although these numbers can be questioned, one can admit that the total losses of the Bamiléké population reached a little more than 20,000 in I960.58

Like most official evaluations, this number of 20,000 was certainly a low estimate. However, it made the insurgency in the Bamiléké one of the deadliest conflicts in Black Africa in the early 1960s. This “pacification campaign” was the last to be led by French troops in Black Africa. Big bands of rebels had been dislocated. The first units of the national army and of the Cameroonian police were able to begin to take over from the French Army. Their task was not to pacify the Bamiléké, which the GTN did, but to “clean” the region and to prevent the recreation of criminal bands. To achieve this goal Cameroon requested the help of French troops still present in the territory. In a letter sent to the ambassador of France in Cameroon on February 13, 1961, Charles Assalé, the prime minister of Cameroon at that time, wrote: Although order and security have been established in the entire territory of the Republic of Cameroon, certain centers of rebellion have not been completely destroyed in the western part of the country. Cameroonian armed forces fulfilled the pacification missions that fall to them and assure the maintenance of order and civil protection against attacks and exactions. But our national army which is being formed does not have as yet the numbers and sufficient training to face all the missions that are incumbent on it. Consequently, I have the honor to request, in application of Article 1 of the Defense Agreement of November 13, 1960, and of Article 4 of the Agreement of January 12, 1961, the help of the French Groupement . . . under the form of preventive measures. . . . The use of these preventive measures would be limited to the departments of Dschang, Banganté, Bafoussam, Mbouda, and Haut-Nkam. The help provided under that form by the French Groupement . . . to the Cameroonian Army will be granted . . . until July 1, 1961.59

France agreed to provide the requested aid. Thus, French troops, under French command, remained actively committed to military operations in the Bamiléké. To better understand not only French commitment in the military and police operations in post-independent Cameroon, but also the development of the pattern of Cameroon’s dependency on France for political and economic survival, it is necessary to look at the Agreements of November 13, 1960, evoked by Charles Assalé in the above quote.

The Cooperation Accords of November 13,1960 A little over ten months after Cameroon’s accession to independence a new group of

accords was concluded between France and Cameroon. As a treaty between two sovereign states, the Accords of November 13, 1960, were different in the eyes of international law from the 1958 Accords reflecting Cameroon’s new sovereign status. Thus, the 1960 Accords reached specific agreements in new areas such as diplomatic and consular matters. However, France still had a strong influence on certain issues including foreign relations, defense, and foreign exchange, due to the political and economic situation Cameroon faced after independence: the war against the UPC rebellion was still raging on and the newly independent country still lacked the necessary resources for an economic take off. In the economic, monetary, and financial fields, the 1960 Accords recognized Cameroon’s right to establish its monetary system. But, they also provided for the continued reliance by Cameroon and France on the franc zone agreed upon in the 1958 Accords. Regarding cultural matters, the Statute of 1957 had made French the official language of Cameroon. But since the Cameroonian Government did include that declaration in its new constitution that went into effect in March 1960, the 1960 Accords acknowledged this in its reference to French as Cameroon’s official language. The 1960 Accords also covered many areas of judicial cooperation between France and Cameroon, including the continued exchange between the two countries of mutually beneficial legal information and reciprocity for citizens of both countries to enjoy the same legal rights while residing in either country. In various fields of development, the 1960 agreements established many guidelines for both countries on issues such as French aid to Cameroon and membership in ancillary organizations of mutual interest to both countries. From the Cameroonian point of view, the most important agreements included in the 1960 Accords were perhaps the treaties on French military assistance to Cameroon. These treaties defined France’s role in assisting Cameroon in the organization and proper functioning of its army. They also contained certain provisions that facilitated Cameroon’s continued reliance on the French armed forces for the eventual defeat of the UPC thereby ensuring the survival of the young Cameroonian state under the leadership of Ahmadou Ahidjo. Apart from conventional military aid, the special assistance provided by French agents to Cameroon’s police forces in the crackdown of internal aggression must be mentioned. Of equal importance to the French réseaux parallèles (parallel network) that operated in Cameroon and elsewhere in Francophone Africa was the specific establishment of the Cameroonian intelligence service known as Service de Documentation et d’Etudes et de la Securité Camerounaise (SDESC), under the direction of the French secret services, called Service de Documentation Exterieure et de Contre Espionnage (SDECE). The close cooperation between the two services led to the violent repression of opponents to the regime of Yaoundé and the elimination of the last UPC leaders in the 1960s.

Police Operations in Post-Independent Cameroon The departure of General Max Briand from Cameroon early in 1962 marked the effective end of the commitment of French troops to the maintenance of order in the country, particularly in the Bamiléké. By the beginning of 1964, French intervention troops had left Cameroon. The

armed conflict between the French Government and the Cameroonian extreme nationalists was over. The massive repression phase led by the French troops had been replaced by operations conducted by the Cameroonian police, with the support of the French authorities. What followed was a quasi-permanent state of emergency, mostly in the southern and western areas of the country, which was characterized by terrorism, brutality, and bloody repression. This “state of emergency suppressed all liberties. . . . Informing, misinformation, denigration, untruth, and the cult of personality were institutionalized. Denunciations, disappearances, and political assassinations became common. The forces of repression, the political police became all powerful. Entire families spied upon and denounced each other. The job of ‘secret agent’ (a sneak) greatly prospered. Terror established itself throughout the country.”60 On these matters, here is the interesting testimony of Charles Van de Lanoitte, a journalist who was based in Douala and worked as a reporter for The Reuter Agency in Africa for 43 years: I have very much loved Cameroon, which I have made my adopted country; but I have been disgusted by the countless abuses of the real regime of Gestapo that was quickly established after independence. . . . I definitively left Cameroon and Africa in September 1969, at age 65. . . . The house of my daughter and my son-in-law was at 150 meters from the sinister torture camp of Manengouba, I knew nameless horrors were happening there; certain nights, one could hear the roaring of the damned; In the day, trucks were going up the road loaded with men chained up; in the night, around 3 a.m., it was the backfires and the gratings of the army truck that was going to the cemetery, where a team of prisoners were burying the naked and bloody bodies of the poor people who have been tortured to death, and who sometimes were still breathing. . . . I could no longer eat, nor work, nor sleep. . . . Worse: I felt madness coming over me: these atrocious stories were driving me crazy. . . . I think I would have committed suicide if I had stayed longer. [Here in Toulon, France] I feel my mind at rest, I forget about all these terrible things I saw in Africa these recent years: cut off heads rotting along a path; crying women whose sewing machine was just stolen by soldiers during a roundup in a village . . . people lying down on the road with their face against the ground while their houses were searched and everything possible was stolen.61

Operations conducted by the Cameroonian police, with the support of the French authorities also led to the systematic elimination of the UPC leaders who remained opposed to the new regime. Just as the punitive expedition in the Bamiléké country was coming to an end, the death of Dr. Félix Roland Moumié, president of the UPC, was confirmed in Geneva, on November 3, 1960. Public opinion held that the Cameroonian Government deliberately eliminated its principal opponent by using the services of William Bechtel, an agent of the French secret services (SDECE). The nationalist’s wife, Marthe Moumié, and Marcel Péju wrote about what they called a “crime d’Etat à la française” (a French style state crime). Investigations made by many observers clearly show that Moumié’s elimination was ordered and carefully programmed by the highest authorities of the French State. It was the French prime minister Michel Debré who in autumn of 1960, advised by Jacques Foccart, the special adviser for African affairs of President Charles de Gaulle and other French presidents of the Fifth Republic, gave orders to the SDECE to physically eliminate Félix Moumié. The Service Action, a branch of the SDECE specialized in executions, assigned the job to one of its specialists, William Bechtel. Félix Moumié was poisoned by William Bechtel during a dinner the two men were having at “Le Plat d’Argent,” a restaurant in Geneva on Saturday, October 15, I960.62 In an interview with Philippe Gaillard in 1995, Jacques Foccart called Moumié’s death an “execution” but refused to discuss the subject.63 As for Pierre Messmer, the former high commissioner declared that “there seems to be little doubt that Moumié was actually executed. In my opinion, France couldn’t care less. That was most convenient for the new

president, Mr. Ahidjo.”64 The elimination of UPC leaders continued. In January 1964, Noé Tankeu, “Commandant” of the ALNK was captured in the Bamiléké country and executed on a public square. “Chief Commander” David Mitton was killed the following year. Between March 10 and 15, 1966, Dr. Ossendé Afana, provisional secretary-general of the UPC was killed, in a fashion very similar to Um Nyobè in 1958. Finally, Ernest Ouandié, vice-president of the UPC was captured in 1970 and executed in January 1971.

NOTES 1. “Ordonnance No. 58–1375”. See also “Les nouveaux statuts du Togo et du Cameroun,” Receuil Penant, 69ème année (Paris: 1959), presenting and commenting on the new Camerounian statute of 1958. 2. A. Eyinga, Introduction à la politique camerounaise. 3. Report of the United Nations Visiting Mission (1959), paragraph 136. 4. Ibid., paragraph 139. 5. Ibid., paragraph 141. 6. For the details of the debates, see “United Nations General Assembly, Thirteenth Session, Official Records, Fourth Committee, Meetings 845 to 871 (Docs A/C.4/SR. 845–871). 7. Quoted in M. Atangana, “French Capitalism and Nationalism in Cameroon”, pp. 100–101 8. United Nations, Docs A/C.4/SR, 857th session. 9. United Nations, Docs A/C.4/SR, supplement number 18 A (A/4090/Add.l) 749th session; CAOM, 1 Affaires Politiques 3327. 10. La Presse du Cameroun (July 7, 1959). 11. SHD, 6H 241. 12. SHD, 6H 262. 13. P. Messmer, pp. 124–125. 14. W.R. Johnson, The Cameroon Federation: Political Integration in a Fragmentary Society (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1970), p. 356. 15. CAOM, 1 Affaires Politiques 3320. Rapport de Sûreté, janvier 1957-janvier 1958; and SHD, 6H 246, Report on military operations in the Sanaga-Maritime, the Bamiléké, and the Mungo regions by January 1, 1959. 16. Cited by P. Kamé, De la rébellion dans le Bamiléké (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2008), p. 98. 17. Cited by P. Kamé, p. 99. 18. SHD, 6H 244. 19. 6H 246, Report on the results of the operations of pacification in the Sanaga-Maritime, the Bamiléké, and the Mungo regions by January 1, 1959. 20. La Presse du Cameroun (July 4–10, 15–19, and 27–28, 1959). On these incidents, also read S. Prévitali, Je me souviens de Ruben : mon témoignage sur les maquis du Cameroun, 1953–1970 (Paris: Karthala, 1999), pp. 157–158. 21. CAOM, 1 Affaires Politiques 3327. Note sur la situation politique au Cameroun, 1 octobre 1958–31 mai 1959. 22. Journal Officiel de l’Etat du Cameroun (July 1, 1959). 23. Ibid (July 15, 1959). 24. La Presse du Cameroun (July 2, 1959). 25. In 1959 Le Figaro published an article on the increase of terrorism in Cameroon stating that the struggle against terrorism, for the defense of the people, was carried out almost exclusively by the armed forces and the police sent from France. 26. La Presse du Cameroun (January 6, February 24, November 23, 1959). 27. Ibid (August 20, 1959). 28. Law 59–57 of October 31, 1959, concerning full amnesty for acts of a political character or directly related to incidents of a political nature committed before the publication of the law in the Sanaga-Maritime and Nyong et Sanaga departments. 29. La Presse de Cameroun (November 8 and 9, 1959). 30. A UPC pamphlet issued in Cairo in July 1959 listed “concentration camps or penitentiaries” existing in Cameroon, including Doumé, Yokadouma, Baham, Bafoussam, Bamoungoum, Bansoa, and Dschang. 31. SHD, 6H 244. “Intervention du Prince Daniel Kémajou a l’Assemblée Législative du Cameroun lors de la discussion des pleins pouvoirs.”

32. Journal officiel des débats. Année législative 1959–1960. Première session annuelle ordinaire. 33. Le Figaro (August 8–10, 1959). 34. Ibid. 35. Le Monde (December 27, 1959). 36. This statement alludes to Léopold Sedar Senghor’s intervention at the UN as a minister in the French Government, in support of the French proposal on Cameroon and on Ahidjo’s Government. 37. La Croix (January 4, 1960). 38. Le Monde (January 5, 1960). 39. “Cameroun: les secrets de la stabilité,” Jeune Afrique 894 (February 22, 1978). 40. For a biography of Ahidjo, read P. Gaillard, Ahmadou Ahidjo (Paris: Jeune Afrique, 1994). 41. P. Nwankwo, p. 208. 42. Marchés Tropicaux (December 1959), p. 2789. On these crimes read also S. Prévitali, pp. 158–159, and P. Kamé, p. 89– 90. 43. SHD, 6H 266. 44. SHD, 6H 241. 45. In addition to the GTN, the Groupement Tactique Sud (GTS) was also created to restore order in the Mungo, Wouri, Sanaga-Maritime, and Nkam regions. 46. SHD, 6H 241. Rapport sur les opérations au Cameroun, année 1960. 47. “2 mars 1960: massacre au Cameroun” Rebellyon.info (http://rebellyon.info/2mars-1960-massacre-au-Cameroun.html). 48. P. Kamé, p. 91. 49. Roland Tsapi, “Comment Messmer a massacé les Camerounais,” Le Messager 2447 (September 3, 2007), p. 10. 50. M. Beti, Main basse sur le Cameroun: Autopsie d’une décolonisation (Paris: La Découverte, 2003), p. 86. 51. J. Tatsitsa, “UPC, Tensions socials et guerre revolutionnaire dans la subdivision de Mbouda de 1950 à 1965,” Masters Degree Thesis, University of Yaoundé I (1996), p. 64. 52. G. Chaffard, Les carnets secrets, Vol. 2, p. 400. 53. Cited by Roland Tsapi, p. 10. 54. “2 mars 1960: massacre au Cameroun.” 55. Cited by Brice Nitcheu, Ibid. 56. Ibid. 57. W.R. Johnson, p. 248. 58. SHD, 6H 241 and 6H 240. Reports on military operations in Cameroon in 1960. 59. Cited by P. Kamé, p. 95. 60. P. Ndedi-Penda, Le pouvoir aux deux visages: la terreur et la prospérité. Ahmadou Ahidjo (Galaxie, 1992), pp. 32-33. 61. Cited by M. Beti, , p. 95. 62. For more details, read M. Moumié, pp. 127–140; A. Eyinga, l’UPC, pp. 128–129; J.F. Held, L’affaire Moumié (Paris: Maspero, 1961); G. Chaffard, Vol. 2, p. 401; P. Krop and R. Faligot, La piscine. Les services secrets français 1944–1984 (Paris: Seuil, 1985); E. Comarin, “Le dernier Pernod de Félix Moumié” in Les dossiers secrets de l’Afrique contemporaine (Paris: Jeune Afrique Livres, 1989); M. Péju, “Un crime d’Etat à la française,” Jeune Afrique 1720–1721 (December 23, 1993–January 5, 1994); P. Krop, Les secrets de l’espionnage français (Paris: Payot, 1995); and Le Journal de l’Economie 46 (July 7, 2008). 63. P. Gaillard, Foccart parle. Entretiens avec Philippe Gaillard, Vol. 1 (Paris: Fayard/Jeune Afrique, 1995), pp. 207–208. 64. Cited by Roland Tsapi, p. 10.

Conclusion Franco-Cameroonian relations between 1957 and 1960 and particularly the conditions of accession to independence of the former French Cameroon are among the most complex and fascinating aspects of the history of Cameroon. The analysis offered in the book shows France’s initial opposition to the independence of Cameroon and the determination of the French Government to finally entrust this independence only to politically moderate groups, the development of the Cameroonian policy of France, and how the French Government managed to realize its goals. Clearly, the French Government was successful in realizing its ambitions for Cameroon, whereas the UPC, the main opposition force to France’s Cameroonian policy, failed to come to power. Having received, after the mandate, the trusteeship of Cameroon, France had the power to manage this former German colony “as an integral part of the French territory.” The French Union, created by the Constitution of 1946, included the territories under trusteeship (Togo and Cameroon) defined as “associated territories,” as part and parcel of an entity composed of the French Republic (metropolitan France, overseas departments and territories) and the “associated states” (for the most part states under French protectorate). In fact, Togo and Cameroon ended up being assimilated into the “overseas territories,” thus becoming de facto integrated into the “one and indivisible” French Republic. France’s intentions concerning the “overseas territories” (bluntly France’s colonies) were made clear at the end of the Brazzaville conference of 1944. This conference rejected any idea of autonomy for the colonies, and any possibility of evolution outside of the French Empire even in the distant future. France’s policy in Cameroon was diametrically opposed to the official goals of the trusteeship system whose objectives were the installation of a local government and the independence of the trust territories. Because of the demands the UPC made, the party became a very serious threat, not only for the colonial authorities, but also for the people who wanted a continuation of French policies within the French Union. No compromise was possible between France’s policy of assimilation in Cameroon and the demands of the UPC for local government, self-determination, and independence. The UPC’s challenge to France’s Cameroonian policy could neither be absorbed nor neutralized. And given the party’s importance, it could not be ignored. The only solution for France was the elimination of the UPC, by any means necessary. Until 1958, France’s goal was to integrate Cameroon into the French Union, in spite of the

explicit terms of the trusteeship system. France also characterized the UPC as being subversive and anti-constitutional. Any party who sought independence outside of the Union was deemed subversive, even if this goal was completely legitimate under the trusteeship system. Any group wanting an authentic local government, a “self government” in the Anglo-Saxon sense, and not simply a local administration as imagined by France for the territory, was considered disloyal. The French did not want to consider political emancipation as a legitimate objective of the parties in their colonies. It was only under the constraints of local or international circumstances that France made concessions. These concessions, however, were bent on preventing any further movement towards independence. In the case of those French territories where demands for independence did not play a decisive role for the indigenous peoples, the political shift took place without great upheaval after 1950. Where these demands were of central importance, conflict and violence were almost inevitable. The price of forcing Cameroon to accede to independence under the direction of the moderates was very high. The UPC rebellion lasted many years and cost the lives of thousands of civilians and soldiers. “Gaullism” contributed to curbing the last big revolutionary outburst in the Bamiléké region. The UPC did not profit from the events that its activities had contributed to create. When Cameroon became independent, the UPC was deliberately excluded from the political arena in the country. Many reasons can explain the failure of the UPC insurrection in Cameroon. Among these reasons was first the fact that the UPC, although a popular party in Cameroon, did not fully enjoy the following of all ethnic groups in the country. It can be noted that ethnic groups other than the Bassa and the Bamiléké did not get involved in the armed conflict. Also, there was no coordination between the Bassa and Bamiléké rebellions and this made it easy for the army and police to crush both revolts. Secondly, the UPC never received significant foreign material or political support. The only neighboring country where UPC leaders could find refuge was British Cameroon. Felix Moumié, Abel Kingué, and Ernest Ouandié decided to move there in 1955 when they chose not to follow Um Nyobè in the maquis. Shortly after, they were expelled by the British Administration and moved to Sudan, Nasser’s Egypt, Nkrumah’s Ghana, and Sékou Touré’s Guinea. This wandering was not helpful, even for the party’s image. Concerning the issue of foreign support, it should be noted that the example of Cameroon was not unique. The revolt in the isolated island of Madagascar was crushed by 1947. In Nigeria, the Biafra secession failed for lack of external support. In Angola, the revolt launched by the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) was formidable as long as it was supported by South Africa. In Western Sahara the Polisario was able to resist the Moroccan army only with the help it received from Algeria. In the Democratic Republic of Congo (ex-Zaire) the rebellion organized by Laurent Kabila ended the Mobutu regime thanks to the massive intervention of the army of Rwanda. Many other examples can be found. To the above reasons should be added the efficiency and determination of the French civilian and military authorities who organized and led the repression. They used a clear political strategy that consisted of guaranteeing independence within a short period of time, and recognizing the possibility of unification. Their Indochinese experience helped them limit mistakes on the field. They gave no particular importance to ideologies given that ideologies

had no serious influence on Africans. They based their actions on local tribal, religious, and economic realities, and did not hesitate to use harsh methods. Finally, a serious lack of preparation for armed struggle, lack of experience in revolutionary affairs, and foremost, a misreading of the balance of power were among the factors that caused the failure of the UPC insurrection. In contrast, the success of the French Government in the realization of its goals in Cameroon was total. With the UPC out of the way, Cameroon acceded to independence led by a government that consented to maintaining very close connections with the former colonial power through the signing of cooperation agreements. The policy of cooperation is a model of international relations that enabled France to retain influence in her former overseas possessions. The independence that the French decided to grant to the territories under their rule in Black Africa was conditioned on the signature of cooperation agreements guaranteeing what ever was required to preserve France’s interests. Thus, Cameroon and many other African countries had to sign a set of entangling agreements with France before and after independence. The Franco-Cameroonian agreements provided France with absolute privilege and advantage in the conduct of the affairs of the new republic. Consequently, they were viewed as unequal treaties by many leaders and observers. Concerning this aspect of decolonization in French Africa, it is clear that Cameroon was not an exception. What made Cameroon a distinctive case was that, of all the territories under French rule in Black Africa, it was the only one where the demand for political independence was accompanied by armed struggle. In addition, the decolonization of Cameroon was as atypical as its colonization in that France granted independence to those who demanded it the least, after eliminating politically and militarily those who requested it with the most intransigence.

Bibliography ARCHIVES Service Historique de la Défense (SHD, French military archives), Paris, France 6H 239. Various reports on the establishment of order and defense plans in Cameroon, 1956–1957. “La Pacification de la Sanaga Maritime,” (Report by J. Lamberton, 1959). Reports on the situation in Cameroon in 1960. 6H 240. Reports on incidents in Cameroon, 1958–1960. Reports on military operations in Cameroon, 1959-1960. 6H 241, and 6H 243. Reports on military operations and defense plans in Cameroon (1957–1961). 6H 244. Reports on the Zone Insécurité aux Frontières Occidentales du Cameroun (ZIFOC—the Non-secure Zone on the Western Borders of Cameroon), 1959–1960. Various reports on terrorist acts in the Douala, Mungo, and Bamiléké regions. 6H 246. Report on the psychological war in the ZOPAC. Report on the military operations in the Sanaga-Maritime, Bamiléké, and Mungo regions by January 1, 1959. 6H 262. Various reports on the situation in the Bamiléké region. SHD, 6H 266. Reports and correspondences on the pacification of the Sanaga Maritime, the Bamiléké and Mungo regions.

Centre des Archives d’Outre-Mer (CAOM, French overseas archives) Aix-en-Provence, France 1 Affaires Politiques 3320, 3322. Various police reports, January 1957–January 1958. 1 Affaires Politiques 3327. Report on the political situation in Cameroon, 1 October 1958–31 May 1959. Police reports, 1958. 1 Affaires Politiques 3325, 3326, 3347, 3348. Police reports, 1955–1958.

Archives Nationales (AC, The national archives of Cameroon), Yaoundé, Cameroon 1 AC 19. Documents and reports on the UPC, 1947–1962. 1 AC 72, 91. Anti-UPC actions, 1955–1958. 1 AC 80. Documents on the UPC. Anti-UPC propaganda in the Sanaga Maritime, 1957–1958. 1 AC 815, 846. Various police reports. Vt 7/81 and Vt 7/79. Letters/Correspondences from the Office of the Prime Minister.

United Nations Archives, New York, USA RAG 2/130 files 2, 3, 130/04(1). Cameroon under French administration (1952–1955). 7, 130/3/03. Annual reports, Cameroon. 9–12, 130/4/01(1), 130/5/01, 130/5/02; 19–36, 130/5/02; 75–79, 130/5/03. Various reports by the French colonial administration, unions, and political organizations. Letters, petitions, and memorandums sent by the people, political organizations, unions, traditional associations, and various organizations of Cameroon to the United Nations (1948–1957).

DAG 5/2.3 files 1. Documents on Cameroon under French administration (1953–1958). 2. Documents on rebel activities in the Sanaga-Maritime (1957–1958). 3. Various regional studies; various topics. 5. French reports. “Les mouvements extrémistes au Cameroun;” “Chronologie des incidents du mois de mai.”

DAG 5/2.4 files 3 and 4. Various petitions (1946–1955).

Documents of the United Nations General Assembly “Accords de Tutelle pour le territoire du Cameroun sous administration française tel qu’il a été approuve par l’Assemblée Générale le 13 décembre 1946.” “Rapport Annuel du Gouvernement Français à l’Assemblée Générale des Nations Unies sur l’Administration du Cameroun placé sous la Tutelle de la France” (1947–1957). “Rapport de la Mission de visite des Nations Unies dans les Territoires sous tutelle d’Afrique occidentale et documentation connexe, supplément 2” (Documents officiels de la septième session du Conseil de Tutelle, 1er juin–21 juillet 1950, Paris: 1951). “Rapport spécial du Conseil de Tutelle sur les unions administratives concernant les territoires sous tutelle et sur le statut du Cameroun et du Togo sous administration française tel qu’il résulte de l’appartenance de ces territoires à l’Union française” (New York: 1952). “Mission de visite de l’ONU dans les Territoires sous tutelle d’Afrique occidentale, 1952. Rapport sur le Cameroun sous administration française et documents y afférents” (Conseil de Tutelle, documents officiels, treizième session, 28 janvier– 25 mars 1954, supplément 5, New York: 1954). “Mission de visite des Nations Unies dans les Territoires sous tutelle du Cameroun sous l’administration britannique et du Cameroun sous administration française (1955). Rapport sur le Cameroun sous administration française et documents y afférents” (Documents officiels, dix septième session, 7 février–6 avril 1956, supplément 4, New York: 1956). “Report of the United Nations Visiting Mission to Trust Territories in West Africa, 1958, concerning the Cameroons under French Administration” (1959). United Nations General Assembly. Thirteenth Session. Fourth Committee. Official Records (1958).

PERIODICALS Afrique-Asie Afrique France Presse Outre-Mer Afrique Informations Afrique Nouvelle Bulletin de l’Association pour l’Etude des problèmes de l’Union française Bulletin d’Information et de Documentation Le Cameroun Libre Chroniques d’Outre-Mer Climats. La Croix Encyclopédie Mensuelle d’Outre-Mer Le Figaro Inter-Afrique Presse Jeune Afrique Journal des Débats de l’Assemblée Territoriale du Cameroun Journal Officiel du Cameroun Journal Officiel de la République Française Marchés Tropicaux et Méditerranéens (formerly known as Marchés Coloniaux du Monde) Le Monde Notes et Etudes Documentaires La Nouvelle Revue Française d’Outre-Mer (ex-Bulletin de la France d’Outre-Mer)

L’Opinion au Cameroun Le Parisien Libéré La Presse du Cameroun La Voix du Cameroun

GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY Ageron, C-R. La Décolonisation française. Paris: Armand Colin, 1991. Ansprenger, F. The Dissolution of the Colonial Empires. London: Routledge, 1989. Betts, R.F. France and Decolonization 1900-1960. Basingstoke UK: Macmillan, 1991. ———. Decolonization. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave, 1998. Biarnès, P. Les Français en Afrique Noire de Richelieu à Mitterand. Paris: Armand Colin, 1987. Chaffard, G. Les carnets secrets de la décolonisation, Vol. 1 and 2. Paris: Calman Levy, 1967. Chafer, T. The End of Empire in French West Africa. France’s Successful Decolonization? New York: Berg, 2002. Comarin, E. Les dossiers secrets de l’Afrique contemporaine. Paris: Jeune Afrique Livres, 1989. Cooper, F., Decolonization and African Society: The Labor Question in French and British Africa. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Cornevin, R. Histoire de l’Afrique. T3. Colonisation, décolonisation, indépendance. Paris: Payot, 1975. Gaillard, P. Foccart parle. Entretiens avec Philippe Gaillard, Vol. 1 and 2. Paris: Fayard/Jeune Afrique, 1995. Gifford, P. and Louis, W.R., eds. The Transfer of Power in Africa. Decolonization (1940–1960). New Haven: Yale University Press, 1982. Grimal, H. La décolonisation, de 1919 à nos jours. Brussels: Editions Complexe, 1985. Grosser, A. La politique extérieure de la Vème République. Paris: Jean Moulin, 1965. Hargeaves, J. Decolonization in Africa. New York: Longman, 1998. Krop, P. Les secrets de l’espionnage français. Paris: Payot, 1995. Krop, P. and Faligot, R. La piscine. Les services secrets français 1944–1984. Paris: Seuil, 1985. La Conférence africaine française. Brazzaville: 30 janvier-8 février 1944. Paris: Ministère des Colonies, 1945. Laniel, J. Le drame Indochinois, De Dien Bien Phu au pari de Genève. Paris: Plon, 1957. Lavroff, D.G., ed. La politique africaine du Géneral de Gaulle. Paris: Pedone, 1980. Mabileau, A., and Meyriat, J., eds. Décolonisation et régimes politiques en Afrique noire, Cahiers FNSP. Paris: A. Colin, 1967. Manning, P., Francophone Sub-Saharan Africa, 1880-1995. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Marseille, J. Empire colonial et capitalisme français. Histoire d’un divorce. Paris: Albin Michel, 1984. McNamara, F.T. France in Black Africa. Washington, DC: National Defense University, 1989. Maddox, G. and Welliver, T. Colonialism and Nationalism in Africa. New York: Garland 1993. Messmer, P. Les blancs s’en vont. Récits de décolonisation. Paris: Albin Michel, 1998. Morgenthau, R.S. Political Parties in French-Speaking West Africa. Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1964. Morris-Jones, W.H. and Fischer, G., eds. Decolonization and After: The British and French Experience. London: Frank Cass, 1980. Suret-Canale, J. Afrique noire. De la colonisation aux indépendances, 1945–1960. T1. Crise du système colonial et capitalisme monopoliste d’Etat. Paris: Editions Sociales, 1977. Springhall, J. Decolonization since 1945. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave, 2001. Thobie, J., Meynier, G., Coquery-Vidrovitch, C., and Ageron, C. Histoire de la France Coloniale, 1914-1990. Paris: Armand Colin, 1990. Viard, R. La fin de l’empire colonial français. Paris: Maisonneuve et Larose, 1963. Yacono, X. Les Etapes de la décolonisation française. Paris: PUF, 1985.

BIBLIOGRAPHY ON CAMEROON Abwa, D. André-Marie Mbida, premier Premier Ministre camerounais (1917–1980). Paris: L’Harmattan, 1993.

Atangana, M. French Investment in Colonial Cameroon. The FIDES Era (1946–1957). New York: Peter Lang, 2009. ———. Capitalisme et nationalisme au Cameroun au lendemain de la Seconde Guerre Mondiale (1946–1956). Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 1998. ———. “French Capitalism and Nationalism in Cameroon”, African Studies Review 40, No. 1 (April 1997). Austen, R. “The Metamorphosis of Middlemen: The Duala, Europeans, and the Cameroon Hinterland, ca.1800-ca.1960”, International Journal of African Historical Studies, 16, No. 2 (1983). Aymerich, Général de Division. La conquête du Cameroun, 1er Août 1914–20 février 1916. Paris: Payot, 1933. Bayart, J.-F. L’Etat au Cameroun. Paris: Presses de la Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques, 1985. Bayiga, D. A. L’incorruptible guérilléro: Ruben Um Nyobe, héros et martyr. Edéa, Cameroon: Publications Galaxie, 1991. Beti, M. Main basse sur le Cameroun: Autopsie d’une décolonisation. Paris: La Découverte, 2003. Bonakolo, M. “L’erreur du siècle,” Afrique-Asie 395 (March 1987). Bovar, A. Au tournant de l’indépendance camerounaise. Paris: L’Harmattan, 2000. Cameroun, 1966. Bilan de cinq années d’indépendance. Monaco: Paul Bory, 1966. “Cameroun: Les secrets de la stabilité”. Jeune Afrique 894 (1978). Cameroun, Next Independent Country in Africa; From Trusteeship to Independence, 1946–1960. Paris: Diloutremer, 1959. Chaffard, G. “Le Cameroun à la veille de l’indépendance,” Europe-France-Outre-Mer 355 (June 1959). Cornevin, R. “Cameroun: du régime colonial à l’indépendance,” Le Monde Diplomatique, supplément (September 1971). DeLancy, M. and DeLancy, M.D. Historical Dictionary of the Republic of Cameroon. Lanham: The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 2000. DeLancey, M. Cameroon: dependence and independence. Boulder: Westview Press, 1989. “Discours d’investiture prononcé par M. André-Marie Mbida, Premier Ministre, Chef du Gouvernement Camerounais, le 15 mai 1957 devant l’Assemblée Législative du Cameroun” (Brochure) 1957. Duval, E.-J. Le sillage militaire de la France au Cameroun, 1914–1964. Paris: L’Harmattan, 2004. Eyinga, A. L’UPC: une révolution manquée? Paris: Editions Chaka, 1991. ———. Introduction à la politique camerounaise. Paris: L’Harmattan, 1984. Gaillard, P. Ahmadou Ahidjo. Paris: Jeune Afrique, 1994. Gardinier, D.E. Cameroon: United Nations Challenge to French policy. London: Oxford University Press for Institute of Race Relations, 1963. Guyer, G. “The Food Economy and French Colonial Rule in Central Cameroon,” Journal of African History 19, No. 4 (1978). Held, J.H. L’affaire Moumié. Paris: Maspero, 1961. Hugon, P. Analyse du sous développement en Afrique noire: l’exemple de l’économie du Cameroun. Paris: PUF, 1968. Johnson, W.R. The Cameroon Federation: Political Integration in a Fragmentary Society. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1970. Joseph, R. Radical Nationalism in Cameroun. Social Origins of the UPC rebellion. Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1977. Kamé, P. De la rébellion dans le Bamiléké. Paris: L’Harmattan, 2008. Kaptue, L. Travail et main d’œuvre au Cameroun sous régime français, 1916–1952. Paris: L’Harmattan, 1986. Kom, D. Le Cameroun. Essai d’analyse économique et politique. Paris: Editions Sociales, 1971. Lawrence, A. “Le Cameroun face à l’ONU,” Revue de la Porte Oceane 70, (February 1951). Le Vine, V. Cameroon: From Mandate to Independence. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1960. ———. The Cameroon Federal Republic. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1971. Maslin, P. “Peuplement blanc et mise en valeur de l’ouest Cameroun,” Ecole Nationale de la France d’Outre-Mer 20, 1951. Mbembe, A. La naissance du maquis dans le Sud-Cameroun, 1920–1960: histoire des usages de la raison en colonie. Paris: Karthala, 1996. Moumié, M. Victime du colonialisme français: mon mari Félix Moumié. Paris: Duboiris, 2006. Mveng, E. Histoire du Cameroun. Paris: Présence Africaine, 1963. Ndedi-Penda, P. Le pouvoir aux deux visages: la terreur et la prospérité. Ahmadou Ahidjo. Publications Galaxie, 1992. Ngayewang, P. “Opinion camerounaises. Important malaise économique.” La Presse du Cameroun (February 1954).

Ngongo, L.P. Histoire des forces religieuses au Cameroun (1916–1955). Paris: Karthala, 1982. “Les Nouveaux statuts du Togo et du Cameroun.” Recueil Penant, 69ème année (1959). Nwankwo, P. Franco-African relations: the case of Cameroon in the postcolonial period, 1960 - 1985. Ph.D. Dissertation, New York University, 1988. Péju, M. “Un crime d’Etat à la française.” Jeune Afrique 1720–1721 (December 23, 1993-January 5, 1994). Prévitali, S. Je me souviens de Ruben: mon témoignage sur les maquis du Cameroun, 1953–1970. Paris: Karthala, 1999. “Réception de M. Gaston Defferre, Ministre de la France d’Outre-Mer à l’Assemblée Législative du Cameroun le 17 mai 1957” (Brochure), 1957. “La République du Cameroun.” Paris: La Documentation française, Notes et Etudes Documentaires 2741 (January 1961). Schatzberg, M., and Zartman, I. The Political Economy of Cameroon. New York: Praeger, 1986. “Le statut du Cameroun.” Receuil Penant, 68ème année (1958). Tambi Eyongetah and Brain, R. A History of the Cameroon. London: Longman, 1974. Tatsitsa, J. “UPC, Tensions sociales et guerre révolutionnaire dans la subdivision de Mbouda de 1950 à 1965.” Masters Degree Thesis, University of Yaoundé 1, 1996. Um Nyobè, R. (Mbembe, J.A., ed.). Le problème national kamerunais. Paris: L’Harmattan, 1984. Wonyu, E. Plaidoyer pour le patriote martyr R. Um Nyobè. Paris: L’Harmattan 1988. ———. De l’UPC a l’UC: témoignage à l’aube de l’indépendance, 1953–1961. Paris: L’Harmattan, 1985. Zang Atangana, J. Les forces politiques au Cameroun réunifié. Paris: L’Harmattan, 1989. ———. “Les partis politiques camerounais.” Paris: Recueil Penant 68 H (December 1960). Zang Atangana and Debeusscher. “L’évolution politique du Cameroun.” (1959).

Index The index that appeared in the print version of this title was intentionally removed from the eBook. Please use the search function on your eReading device for terms of interest. For your reference, the terms that appear in the print index are listed below Abega (Martin) Adama (Haman) Afana (Ossendé) Ahanda (Vincent) Ahidjo (Ahmadou): and post-war reforms and reforms of the Loi Cadre and Mbida’s replacement and negotiations for independence and Cooperation Accords and the UN and the repression of the UPC and accession to independence and Moumié’s assassination Akassou Djamba (Jean) Algeria ALCAM: creation and powers and the UPC and Mbida’s downfall and negotiations for independence and rebellion Amoulion (Joseph) Angola ARCAM: see Assembly of Cameroon. Armée de Libération Nationale Kamerunaise (ALNK) Arouna (Njoya) Assalé (Charles) Assembly of Cameroon (ARCAM and ATCAM) Assigui Tchungui (Charles) ATCAM: see Assembly of Cameroon Aujoulat (Louis Paul): and post-war reforms and the Trusteeship System and nationalism and Mbida’s replacement Aymerich Babimbi Bafoussam Baham Bakary (Djibo)

Bamoun Bamiléké: people and violence repression in the Bardet (Max) Bassa: and unrest and nationalism and maquis and repression Batcham Baudoin (Denis) Bebey-Eyidi (Marcel) Béchard (Paul) Bechtel (William) Behle (Gaston) Bell (Alexandre Douala Manga) Bernard (Jean-Pierre) Beti (Mongo) Biafra Biba (Paul) Bindzi (Benoît) Binet (Joseph) Biyoo-Olinga (François) Bloc Démocratique Camerounais (BDC) Blum (Léon) Bollaert (Emile) Bonabéri Bonakolo (Moyo) Bouaké Boumnyebel Brazzaville Briand (Max) Britain Burma Buron (Robert) Cabot-Lodge (Henry) Cambodia Cairo Caisse Centrale de la France d’Outre Mer (CCFOM) Ceylon Chad Chaffard (Georges) Chamaulte (Henri) China Clos (Max) College (electoral system) Colons Comité National d’Organisation (CNO) Communism Conakry Confédération Camerounaise des Syndicats Chrétiens (CCSC) Confédération des Syndicats Indépendants du Cameroun Confédération Française des Travailleurs Chrétiens (CFTC) Confédération Générale des Travailleurs (CGT) Congo Cornevin (Robert) Cornut Gentille (Bernard)

Coste-Florêt (Paul) Côte d’Ivoire Coty (René) Dakar Debré (Michel) Defferre (Gaston): and the Loi Cadre and independence Delangué (Charles) Delauney (Maurice) Deniau (Xavier) Diawadou (Barry) Dibombari Dien Bien Phu Dimala (pierre) Dinka (Fongum) Diori (Hamani) Dja-et-Lobo Djoumessi (Mathias) Dobell Donnat (Gaston) Douala (city): political activities economic development in unrest in Doustin (Daniel) Dschang Duala (people) Duchet (Roger) Eberlé (Gilbert) Ebolowa Edéa Egypt Eséka Evolution Sociale Camerounaise (ESOCAM) Eyinga (Abel) Faure (Edgar) Fertile crescent Foccart (Jacques) Fonds d’Investissement pour le Développement Economique et Social des Territoires d’Outre Mer (FIDES) Force Ouvrière (FO) Fosso (François) Fouda (André) French Equatorial Africa: military involvement economic development: Mbida’s replacement French National Assembly: and post-war reforms elections for and amnesty and FIDES and the Loi Cadre and Mbida’s replacement French Union: representation in the integration into the and amnesty and independence

French West Africa: economic development in military involvement political development Gaillard (Félix) Gaillard (Philippe) Garoua Gaulle (Charles de) Geneva Germany (or Germans) Geryg (Benjamin) Ghana Great Britain: see Britain Gribelin Groupe d’Action Nationale: see Mouvement d’Action Nationale Groupe d’Union Camerounaise Groupement Tactique du Nord (GTN) Guatemala Guinea: and political development and the UPC Guyard (Joseph) Haiti Hammarskjöld (Dag) Ho Chi Minh Houphouët Boigny (Félix) Indépendants d’Outre-Mer (IOM) India Indochina: and Cameroon’s political development and repression in Cameroon: Italy Jacquet (Gérard) Jacquinot (Louis) Japan Jeunesse Démocratique Camerounaise (JDC) Kabila (Laurent) Kago Lélé (Jacques) Keita (Modibo) Kémajou (Daniel) Khartoum Kingue (Abel) Kingue-Jong (Gaston) Koscziusko-Morizet (Jacques) Koscziusko-Morizet (Jacques) Kotouo (Pierre) Koutaba Kribi Kumba Kumzse Labonne (Erik) Lake Success Lamberton (Jean-Marie)

Laniel (Joseph) Laurière Le Puloch (Louis) Liberia Libya Logmo (Antoine) Loi Cadre: establishment of the implementation of the Mabaya (Jean-Baptiste) Madagascar Makai Makak Makon ma Bikat (Luc) Malaysia Mandon (Alfred) Manengouba Manga Bile Maquis: organization of the repression of the Marigoh Marcel) Maroua Mauritania Mayi Matip (Théodore) Mballa (Barnabé) Mbalmayo Mbanga Mbarga Manga (Philippe) Mbembe (Achille) Mbida (André-Marie): and post-war reforms the coming to power of and the UPC repression the downfall of in the opposition Mboutou (Ellé) Medou (Gaston) Mendès-France (Pierre) Messmer (Pierre): and post-war reforms and the Loi Cadre and negotiations with the UPC and Mbida’s replacement and the crushing of the UPC Mitton (David) Mobutu (Sese Seko) Mollet (Guy) Mongo (Mgr. Thomas) Moscow Moumé-Etia (Leopold) Moumié (Félix Roland): and the maquis in exile assassination of Moumié (Marthe) Morocco Mouvement d’Action Nationale Mouvement de Coordination des Indépendants Camerounais (INDECAM) Mpondol Mpouma (Samuel) Mukoko (Magnus P.)

Mukong (Albert) Mungo: post-war changes in the violence and repression in the Nantia (Victor) Nasser (Gamal Abdel) New York New Zealand Ngom (Jacques) Ngondo Ngongo (Louis Paul) Ngouankeu (Tchoumba) Ngué (Ellie) Niger Nigeria Ninekan (Pierre) Ninine (Jules) Ninyim Kamdem (Pierre) Nitcheu (Brice) Nitcheu (Raphaël) Njine (Michel) Njoya (Arouna) Nkam Nkongsamba Nkrumah (Kwame) Nonga Yomba Ntamack (Jeanne) Ntumazeh (Ndeh) Nyobè Pandock (Isaac) Nyong-et-Sanaga Nyong-et-Kellé Okala (Charles) Ouandié (Ernest) Ouandié (Marthe) Owona (Adalbert) Paraguay Paris: and post-war reforms and the Loi Cadre reforms and the question of the UPC and Mbida’s replacement and Cameroon’s independence Parti des Démocrates Camerounais Péchoux (Laurent) Péju (Marcel) Peking Penja Peze (Marcel) Pignon (Léon) Pinay (Antoine) Poha (Jean Marc) Polisario Front Pré (Roland) Profumo (John) Raingeard (Michel)

Ramadier (Jean) Ramadier (Paul) Rassemblement Démocratique Africain (RDA) Renaissance Camerounaise (RENAICAM) Rocaglia (Pierre) Russia Rwanda Saigon Sakouma (Philémon) Samé (Din) Sanaga-Maritime: unrest in the post-war development maquis in the repression in the Sarkissoff (Alexandre Ter) Sarraut (Albert) Sarrou (Jean) Section Française de l’Internationale Ouvrière (SFIO) Sékou Touré (Ahmed): and political development and the UPC Sendè (Jean-Paul) Senegal Senghor (Léopold Sedar) Service de Documentation et d’Etudes et de la Securité Camerounaise (SDESC) Service de Documentation Exterieure et de Contre Espionnage (SDECE) Singap (Martin) Sissoko Sékou (Cheik) Sizaire Sobolev (Arkady) Soppo Priso (Paul): and post-war reforms and the Loi Cadre and Mbida’s replacement and the question of the UPC question of the UPC Soucadaux (André) Soupault (Jean Michel) South Africa Soviet Union Spénale (Georges) Sudan Tagny (Mathieu) Talba (Mala Oumate) Tankeu (Noé) Tatsitsa (Jacob) Tchapchet (Martin) Tchokokam (Elie) Tchoumba (Isaac) Togo: post-war reforms the Loi Cadre Torre (Xavier) Triboulet (Raymond) Trusteeship: Agreement system Council Tsalla (Germain) Tsapi (Roland)

Tunisia Ubangui-Chari Um Nyobè (Ruben): and post-war reforms ideology political objectives maquis organization negociations with Franco-Cameroonian authorities assassination Union Démocratique des Femmes Camerounaises (UDEFEC) Union des Populations du Cameroun (UPC): and post war reforms ideology of the political objectives of the marquis organization negociations with Franco-Cameroonian authorities agitation and repression and the UN Union des Syndicats Autonomes du Cameroun (USAC) Union des Syndicats Confédérés du Cameroun (USCC) Union Nationale United Nations (UN): and post-war reforms the question of the UPC the question of independence Union Sociale Camerounaise (USC) United States Verges (Jacques) Villeneuve (du Crest de) Viet-Minh Wanko (Samuel) War: Cold War First World War Second World War Wonyu (Eugène) Wouri Yaoundé: post-war reforms Loi Cadre reforms the question of the UPC Mbida’s downfall political unrest the question of independence Yaya (Moussa) Yem Mback (Pierre) Zone d’Outre-Mer (ZOM) Zone of Pacification (ZOPAC)

About the Author Martin Atangana is Associate Professor of History at York College and The Graduate Center of the City University of New York. He received his Ph. D. in History at the University of Paris-Sorbonne (France). He is the author of Capitalisme et Nationalisme au Cameroun au lendemain de la Seconde Guerre Mondiale (1998), French Investment in Colonial Cameroon (2009), and scholarly articles on Franco-Cameroonian relations.