162 - Cameroon 1958, France's hidden war Back to main page ---
Summary of all tickets Thursday, September 18, 2008
I break the young ... Seriously, I'm doing now except for my silence to share a section of the newspaper Liberation, which broke a silence of 50 years. When I lived in Cameroon, Um Nyobe was in everyone's memory, but I had never heard of him before. A little history:
Cameroon 1958, France's hidden war
Just last fifty years, Ruben Um Nyobe, leader of the Union of Cameroon's population, fell under the bullets French . The crackdown against the independence movement will be tens of thousands of victims.
FANNY PIGEAUD
DAILY: Wednesday, September 17, 2008
E Islands are three in the center of the image: three heads resting on the ground. Three heads of young men with swollen faces. This photo is one of the few remaining witnesses today in Cameroon, the ruthless suppression by the army against the French colonial populations of the Union of Cameroon (UPC) and its leader, Ruben Um Nyobe, slaughtered ago just fifty years, September 13, 1958.
The war against this political party, which demanded independence lasted almost fifteen years and has an estimated several tens of thousands of deaths, perhaps hundreds of thousands of victims. But it is the subject of a major blackout in France and at the top of the Cameroonian State.
In 1948, in the union of the port city of Douala, the UPC has emerged. The country was split in two: first German colony, was placed in 1919 by the League of Nations under French rule for its eastern and its western UK. Soon, the claims of the UPC - independence and reunification - become extremely popular, especially in the west and south of the country, the Bamileke and Bassa, who suffered predation system and forced labor imposed by the Germans and the French. The outstanding personality of Ruben Um Nyobe, intellectually honest, humanist and pacifist, play a lot, "Mpodol" ("he who carries the voice of his own," Bassa language), as his supporters call him, has a great aura.
To advocate nationalist Um Nyobe goes three times in the UN headquarters in New York. But if the authorities French considering the independence of Cameroon, they do not want to entrust the reins of power to the UPC. They violently disperse its manifestations and meetings and they end the ban in July 1955. The movement's leaders then chose hiding or exile. Cornered, the radical wing of the party decides to answer violence with violence: it goes underground in the south of the country, installed a parallel administration, and engages in guerrilla actions. In return, the colonial authorities impose a regime of terror. Under the leadership of High Commissioner for Cameroon at the time, Pierre Messmer, they use methods then in progress in Algeria hunted, presented as "terrorists", "UPC militants" have infiltrated, arrested, tortured, deported, murdered, beheaded. Dozens of villages were razed, others bombed with napalm, their populations are displaced into camps to cut the "maquis" of their popular support. The clampdown particularly ethnic bassa, the main breeding ground for rebellion.
"machetes cons of automatic weapons"
"There was a curfew from 20 pm. The army encircled the area and then we heard gunshots intimidation until morning. As the bullets passed through some houses, we slept in our beds, "recalls Raphael, a resident of Douala. "Every morning, we found the severed heads displayed on the sidewalk: they were meant to scare people and tell them" do not join the jungle, you'll end up like them ', "says journalist Henriette Ekwe, when a child. In the jungle too, life is hell: "It was an asymmetrical warfare: we only had machetes, automatic weapons to oppose the French army. In the forest, where we lived, we had nothing to eat, "remembers a former resistant.
In France, these events pass almost unnoticed: the press is concerned primarily with the war in Algeria. Especially, very little information is from Cameroon, because "it was a war of professionals, without conscripts, unlike Algeria, said French historian Gabriel Périès. Moreover, France has never been officially at war in Cameroon and the expeditionary has been "sent virtually in a semi-clandestine" Périès adds.
In 1958, the refuge of Um Nyobe is discovered. He was killed while trying to escape. Her body, bloodied and disfigured, was buried in a hurry by the colonial authorities and covered with a slab of concrete. The Cameroon
finally won independence in 1960. But he remains under close political and economic control of France and Africa Mr. De Gaulle, Jacques Foccart, which requires the president to head its Ahmadou Ahidjo. Those who run the State of Cameroon and "never fought for independence but were forced to accept it, "says the historian Emmanuel Tchumtchoua, who notes that" independence has not ended the discrimination and injustice of colonial rule. " The UPC is continuing the liberation struggle in the West, right in Bamileke country, through its armed wing, the National Liberation Army of Kamerun (KNLA). Ahidjo the battle on the mode of the scorched earth policy and with the active assistance of the French army, which remained in place until 1964 to form his Cameroonian counterpart. Both Maurice and Robert Delaunay - relatives of Foccart - oversee the liquidation of the maquis "UPC militants" with the head of the Cameroonian Jean Fochive. "In every village there were many deaths," said a journalist from the West, Nkwebo Denis, the private daily Le Jour. "Sixteen members of my family were executed on the same day. We never knew what they were accused. "Gangs of looters and insurgents mingle with confusing. Badenkop village, home to the headquarters of the KNLA, was "completely gutted" of its population and burned. As hundreds of thousands more, its inhabitants were herded into a camp for four years. "Only two or three people were allowed out each day of camp," said one resident.
In 1971, the war officially ends with the arrest of Ernest Ouanda, last leader of the UPC, running on the public square in the city of Bafoussam. But the authorities continue to maintain a climate of terror. "Until the early 90s, could not pronounce the name of Um Nyobe and UPC. Otherwise, it disappeared, "says Samuel Mack-It, current president of the UPC party heir, not legally recognized. The wall of silence has been lifted very furtively in 1991 with the establishment of a semblance of democracy. Political calculation, President Paul Biya, in power since 1982, "rehabilitated" at once Ahmadou Ahidjo, who was sentenced to death in absentia in 1984, Ruben Um Nyobe Ernest Ouanda and another official of the UPC, Felix Moumie, poisoned in Geneva in October 1960, apparently by the French secret service. But Biya eve mostly swallow what is left of the UPC.
"As if the country had no history"
Today, the war that has bloodied the Cameroon, like name of Um Nyobe and his comrades, are rarely mentioned. There is no monument to remember their fight. They are only briefly mentioned in history textbooks. This indifference vis-à-vis the hero of the independence of Cameroon is "a special case in Africa," says historian Tchumtchoua. "There are actually two statements in conflict: the idealized, UPC, and one that wants to manufacture the power to maintain itself. According to the latter, the "UPC militants" were nothing more than bandits. "As for those who survived this period, "They are struggling to tell, and those who tell a few do it with serenity. The wounds are still open. Many are still traumatized and afraid, "says Henriette Ekwe.
result, the Cameroonian youth does not know much about these dark years, however, that guided the rest of the route of the country. "It's like there's no story, or a country without history is like a house without foundations," says a former resistance fighter who, like others, now lives in poverty.
"The period is conducive to the emergence of consciousness is happening" , However, believes Tchumtchoua. "It will say so. We will certainly lose the details, but history can not be erased. There are mechanisms to keep the memory: lullabies and songs evoke an indirect way this time. "Already, a small association composed of former UPC militants, widows and orphans of the resistance, the Association of Veterans Cameroon (Asvecam), was born in 2005 in Douala, to "do the duty of memory". "We want to make young people understand that there have been men of heart, altruistic who began serving their country without delay so immediate reward or compensation, "says one of its members. But that young people can refer to these figures, "we need to grieve, which has never been done: we did not bury, nor wept as he was, said Tchumtchoua. Um Nyobe Ouanda and have not been buried according to traditional rituals. Instead, it was hard on their bodies, and in doing so, they were denied the title of ancestors. Those who did knew what they were doing. Nothing is likely to be under Biya, who is only "a continuation of the regime neocolonial Ahidjo, "said Henriette Ekwe. "Especially since the current leaders of the army or police have been major killers in the 60s." This is probably not the current government who asked France to "recognize the massacres that she committed in Cameroon, "says the president of the Asvecam, Mathieu Njassep, former secretary of Ernest Ouanda. However, "the responsibilities must be established," he pleads. We recognize that we, as some of our comrades have done things that were not correct. Each party shall bear its share of responsibility. " But in France the blackout is total. "It's incalculable the number of times we saw each answer, either by people who worked on the side of the French army, intelligence or political leaders:" But nothing has spent in Cameroon! " As if there was a pact that says do not tell. It's pretty disturbing, "says Gaelle Le Roy, author, with Valerie Osouf, documentary Anatomy of independence (2008). No French military presence in the country between 1955 and 1964 has agreed to testify.
"The fact that has used banned weapons like napalm also explains the great silence, "adds Gabriel Périès. Gèze Francis, director of Editions de la Découverte, prepared with three young historians, French and Cameroonian, a book on the subject that will complement the few writings of historians Richard and Joseph Achille Mbembe or writer Mongo Beti: "It a secret war in every respect: it is absolutely not documented historically. "Yet," this war "that never happened" is in the archives, said Périès. But if it really opens them, there will be a problem : The total or partial destruction of a social group, race or ethnic group [the Bassas and Bamileke, ed] is considered a genocide and a crime of limitations ... "Little chance, so , they are made available as some actors are alive.
Links:
- Article Liberation
- A site on this page of history
- this period to "there"
- Pierre Messmer, a soldier Cameroon has not forgotten
Marjane Satrapi Persepolis 
