A-Infos (en) France, UCL AL #366 - History - Cameroon: "The Other Algeria" and the Birth of Françafrique (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

In Cameroon, Paul Biya has just been re-elected for an eighth seven-year 
term. At 92 years old, he is the oldest serving president. He has been 
in power since 1982, a total of 43 years. Only one other country has 
served longer than him: his neighbor in Equatorial Guinea, "President" 
Teodoro Obiang Nguema, who has been in power since 1979. Cameroon, 
nicknamed "Africa in miniature" because of the diversity of its 
climates, landscapes, languages, and ethnic groups, is also the starting 
point of a long colonial history with metropolitan France and of a war 
too often overlooked, overshadowed by the Algerian War, much to France's 
delight.

At the end of the First World War, the African territories were once 
again divided following the Berlin Conference of 1885[1]. Kamerun[2], 
which belonged to Germany, was split in two. A small part of the 
Northwest went to England, while the rest of the territory became 
French. Today, this still has an impact with the tensions in Ambazonia[3].

On the Road to French Colonization
The French colonists simply continued the work of the German colonists. 
Even then, the German Chancellor Bismarck famously said, "The merchant 
first, the soldier second." French colonization claimed to be "more 
humane" than the Germans, but ultimately, nothing changed for the people 
of Cameroon, who were forced to work on large-scale projects, 
particularly port infrastructure and railways, such as the 
Douala-Yaoundé railway, which resulted in thousands of deaths due to 
disease, mistreatment, and lack of food. But what primarily interests 
the metropolis is agriculture. Particularly rubber plantations for 
rubber, cocoa, and palm oil, followed by bananas and logging. The 
indigenous people work in conditions akin to slavery: without sufficient 
food, with endless hours, and paid a pittance, when they are paid at 
all. These projects will also allow the French to divide the ethnic 
groups in order to better control them. Some groups will be specifically 
assigned certain tasks, while others will be assigned to different ones. 
Some tribes and chiefdoms will be wealthier than others, allowing for 
indirect control by France, which will remain hidden behind these 
inequalities that it will create, highlight, and exploit through 
brutality and inter-ethnic violence. The most striking example is the 
genocide in Rwanda in 1994. The Church in Cameroon was not to be outdone 
in taking advantage of this "cheap" labor force, using it to build 
churches while white Christians received only a prayer.

Photograph of wounded people following a "law enforcement" operation at 
the Baham market, November 22, 1956
DR
However, at the end of the Second World War, the world was divided 
between the two major victors. The United States and Russia did not look 
favorably upon the former colonies, both British and French. They 
pressured the colonized countries to cease their colonial status and 
tried to gain control over them. Some were granted special status. This 
was the case for Cameroon and Togo with regard to the UN, which were 
placed under French "trusteeship."

Furthermore, after thousands of Cameroonians were sent to the front on a 
"voluntary" basis, the question of decolonization and Cameroon's 
independence arose. The massacres of Thiaroye in Senegal in December 
1944[4]and Sétif, Guelma, and Kherrata in Algeria in May 1945[5]called 
into question French colonialism. In Cameroon, demonstrations erupted in 
Douala in September 1945[6]. Railway workers began a strike to obtain a 
wage increase, soon joined by other strikers and angry young people 
demanding greater access to food. Shops were looted, but unlike in Sétif 
and Guelma, no white people were killed. This did not prevent the French 
air force from retaliating, strafing indiscriminately, nor did it 
prevent the settlers from organizing themselves into militias. They 
wanted to replicate what was happening in South Africa: secession from 
the colonial power, which they felt didn't grant them enough authority, 
and a state founded on racial segregation, which would ultimately lead 
to apartheid in South Africa in 1948. Even today, it's difficult to 
accurately count the dead from those days in September 1945, but some 
speak of around a hundred deaths among the indigenous population. The 
colonial power had recently authorized trade unions in Cameroon, and the 
settlers didn't see it that way: French trade unionists were also 
targeted. This was the case for Maurice Soulier, the general secretary 
of the Union of Federated Trade Unions of Cameroon (USCC), affiliated 
with the CGT. Étienne Lalaurie, a French trade unionist with ties to the 
USCC, narrowly escaped being lynched and killed a colonist in 
self-defense. The emergence of trade unions in Cameroon allowed the 
Union of the Peoples of Cameroon (UPC) to take off in the late 1940s and 
early 1950s.

The Birth of the UPC and a Tireless Activist: Ruben Um Nyobe
The UPC was founded in a café in Douala on April 10, 1948, by a handful 
of Cameroonian intellectuals and trade unionists trained by French 
communist trade unionists. Paris viewed the UPC as a communist movement. 
Although some UPC members were sympathetic to communist ideals, it was 
primarily nationalist. Ruben Um Nyobe, its general secretary, stated: 
"Colonial peoples cannot pursue the policies of a party, nor those of a 
state, and certainly not those of a single individual." Colonial peoples 
pursue their own policies, which are policies of liberation from the 
colonial yoke. The UPC advocated for immediate independence, the 
reunification of the two parts of Cameroon because a majority of its 
members were Douala and Bamileke-ethnic groups who resented Cameroon's 
new border-and finally, an increase in the living standards of the 
inhabitants. The UPC was a decolonization movement with a youth and 
women's section, led in part by Marthe Moumié, who would head the 
Democratic Union of Cameroonian Women (UDEFEC), a branch of the UPC that 
would play a major role in the fight for women's freedom in Cameroon. 
Marthe Moumié also had connections with many other independence leaders 
such as Nasser, Nkrumah, Ben Bella, Sékou Touré, Ho Chi Minh, and Mao. 
She was tortured for five years in Guinea and Cameroon immediately after 
the assassination of her husband, Félix Moumié, and was raped and 
murdered in her apartment in 2009 at the age of 77.

Ruben Um Nyobe (1913-1958) was one of the first political figures to 
advocate for Cameroon's independence. He was the Secretary General of 
the Union of the Peoples of Cameroon (UPC).

But the man who remains a symbol today is Ruben Um Nyobe, regarded by 
both his friends and his enemies as "a pure intellectual," "a politician 
with foresight and vision," nicknamed "the Mpodol" in his village-in 
other words, the spokesperson and educator of knowledge. He was a gifted 
orator, especially since he was multilingual. He traveled throughout 
Cameroon, repeatedly emphasizing the need for unity and liberation from 
colonialism, using compelling arguments and examples from everyday life. 
The UPC quickly became an essential movement in Cameroon, particularly 
due to the dual role of its members, both UPC and USCC: one foot in 
decolonization and the other in labor. The UPC leaders understood this 
perfectly: without economic power, there is no political power, and vice 
versa. The organization wielded significant cultural influence. The work 
of the great Cameroonian intellectual Achille Mbembe, who researched the 
archives and the "trial of independence," Nkaà Kundè in the Bassa 
language-Um Nyobe's ethnic group-must be acknowledged. Newspapers 
appeared, along with songs and rhymes to celebrate independence and 
non-violence. New words were used or revived, notably by Um Nyobe, who 
translated and wrote numerous texts: nlimil valet, meaning "one who says 
nothing," dikokon, to designate traitors and collaborators, and the word 
bijo, which refers to pre-colonial practices of deliberation. 
Deliberation would be a central topic of discussion during the UPC's 
early years, both in homes and at large gatherings.

The UPC's Guerrilla War
The UPC faced two choices. The first was a "peaceful" decolonization, 
like Gandhi's India, or a brutal decolonization through war, like Ho Chi 
Minh's in Vietnam. These two choices depended not only on the 
inhabitants of these two countries, but also on the colonial powers, 
England and France. For France, relinquishing its former colonies was 
far more complicated. Until the turning point of 1955, no violence would 
be tolerated from UPC activists. They believed that only through legal 
means could one escape colonization. They did not want a war with 
France. Ruben Um Nyobe was adamant on this point. He insisted, 
particularly within the UN, in which he believed, that the struggle was 
not against the French people, but against the colonizers; liberation 
was necessary without bloodshed, in accordance with international law.

At the end of May 1955, anti-colonial demonstrations took place, and 
they were brutally suppressed by the French authorities. UPC activists 
were arrested or killed, and others were forced into exile. There was no 
other option but to take to the mountains and change strategy: shifting 
from non-violence to legitimate self-defense against the racist and 
colonial power. The latter would implement entirely new 
counter-insurgency or counter-revolutionary methods. The High 
Commissioner to Cameroon, Roland Pré, followed by Pierre Messmer, would 
draw upon texts written by Colonel Lacheroy, a leading theorist of 
"psychological warfare," after France's bloody defeat at Dien Bien Phu 
(Indochina) in 1954. The French were determined not to repeat this 
debacle. These instructions would be used in both Cameroon and Algeria, 
employing torture and psychological pressure on the population, as well 
as infiltration and denunciation as cornerstones. They would also 
establish internment and "re-education" camps to imprison indigenous 
people who resisted French rule and to undermine the support of the 
resistance fighters. Napalm was reportedly dropped on the villages of 
Sanaga-Maritime, but it was more likely incendiary bullets used to 
frighten the population[7]: this was one of the two largest guerrilla 
strongholds, along with the Bamileke region.

[Photograph taken by a French officer during the war in Cameroon between 
1958 and 1959.][DR]Meanwhile, UPC commandos burned down the huts of 
collaborators and traitors, sabotaged railways, and orchestrated power 
outages. On the border with British Cameroon, where some leaders were in 
exile, they took advantage of the Franco-British discord since the 
Fashoda fiasco. Four of the UPC's most prominent leaders-Moumié, 
Ouandié, Afana, and Kingué-more inclined to take up arms than Um Nyobe, 
believed that the colonial power would not yield on the law, but would 
resort to violence. They will be right and will suffer the horrors of 
repression. The first will be poisoned in Geneva by the French secret 
service, which will only recently acknowledge his assassination. The 
next two will be assassinated, while the last will be one of the few UPC 
leaders not to die a violent death.

The leaders of the UPC. From left to right, in the foreground: Osendé 
Afana, Abel Kingué, Ruben Um Nyobè, Félix-Roland Moumié, Ernest Ouandié.

When the charismatic Um Nyobè was killed in the bush on September 13, 
1958, the French soldiers tied up and dragged his body through the mud 
to show it to the villages they passed through. They disfigured him to 
completely obliterate him and encased his body directly in an anonymous 
block of concrete without an epitaph. Any mention of Um Nyobe was 
forbidden in Cameroon until the 1990s. Having dismissed the possibility 
of Um Nyobe's involvement, the French government granted "independence" 
to Cameroon in 1960 to a puppet, Amadou Ahidjo, whom the UPC refused to 
recognize, seeing Paris as the true architect of this so-called 
"independence." Ahidjo continued to wage war against the last UPC 
guerrillas and, with the help of the French military, killed the 
remaining resistance fighters in 1971 to establish a true dictatorship, 
which he maintained until 1982. He even had the support of the Israeli 
government in the 1960s to "pacify" Cameroon and create "educational" 
and "agricultural" structures: Israel was already familiar with 
colonization[8]. He then handed power to his only successor to date: his 
Prime Minister, Paul Biya. In August 2025, 70 years later, France 
finally acknowledged that it had waged war against Cameroon during those 
years[9].

Neocolonialism
Paul Biya is therefore Paris's second puppet in Cameroon and plays it 
safe for the sake of the former colony, having been in power for many 
years despite his long stays in his villa on the shores of Lake Geneva. 
Although Paris's dominance is being challenged by China, this does not 
prevent French business leaders from investing in Cameroon, such as the 
Bolloré Group, which has been responsible for numerous complaints and 
accidents, particularly on its palm oil plantations, or, more seriously, 
on its railway infrastructure, causing the deaths of many Cameroonian 
women[10]. Given his advanced age, we can hope that this will be Paul 
Biya's last term. But who will replace him? That is for the people of 
Cameroon to decide. And why not, as Achille Mbembe says, take up the 
torch of revolutionary struggle as Ruben Um Nyobe did in his time and 
finally dismantle the stranglehold of other countries on the African 
continent? "Politics touches everything and everything touches politics. 
To say that one does not engage in politics is to admit that one has no 
desire to live," Ruben Um Nyobe.

Marcel (UCL Toulouse)

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[1]Clélia Coret, "The Berlin Conference and the Partition of Africa," 
Digital Encyclopedia of European History, June 23, 2020, 
https://ehne.fr/fr/node/14355.

[2]Both spellings can be used; Kamerun is a German spelling. It was used 
by those who resisted French colonization to unite the English and 
French parts into a single country.

[3]Frédéric de Natal, "Ambazonia, a conflict forgotten by all in 
Africa," Conflits, July 2024, 
https://www.revueconflits.com/lambazonie-un-conflit-oublie-de-tous-en-afrique/.

[4]"1944: Thiaroye, a premeditated colonial massacre," Alternative 
libertaire no. 355, December 2024, 
https://unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?1944-Thiaroye-un-massacre-colonial-premedite.

[5]"Another May 8, 1945: The Sétif, Guelma, and Kherrata Massacres," 
Alternative libertaire no. 360, May 2025, 
https://unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Un-autre-8-mai-1945-Les-massacres-de-Setif-Guelma-et-Kherrata.

[6]Robert Paris, "The Douala (Cameroon) Workers' Revolt in September 
1945: Crushed in Blood!" Matière et révolution, June 2015, 
https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article3711.

[7]Sam La Touch, "Gestapo, Napalm, and French Massacres in Cameroon 
(1956-1971) in the Greatest Indifference," Mediapart blog, September 
2013, 
https://blogs.mediapart.fr/sam-la-touch/blog/150913/gestapo-napalm-et-massacres-francais-au-cameroun-1956-1971-dans-la-plus-grande-indifference.

[8]Thomas Deltombe, Manuel Domergue, and Jacob Tatsitsa, Kamerun!: A 
Hidden War at the Origins of Françafrique (1948-1971), p. 769-771 
subchapter: "The Militarization of the Economy: The Israeli Model," La 
Découverte, 2019.

[9]"Emmanuel Macron acknowledges that France waged a 'war' in Cameroon 
during decolonization," Le Monde, August 2025, 
https://www.lemonde.fr/afrique/article/2025/08/12/emmanuel-macron-reconnait-que-la-france-a-mene-une-guerre-au-cameroun-pendant-la-decolonisation_6628569_3212.html.

[10]Fanny Pigeaud, "Rail disaster in Cameroon: the mysterious 
disappearance of a report unfavorable to the Bolloré group," Basta!, 
February 2020, 
https://basta.media/Catastrophe-ferroviaire-Cameroun-Camrail-Bollore-disparition-rapport.

https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Kamerun-L-autre-Algerie-et-la-naissance-de-la-Francafrique
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