Report’s 1,000 pages fill gaps about Africa’s colonial past

In another initiative to address Africa’s colonial past, some 14 academic researchers from Cameroon and France who were commissioned to research the role played by France in Cameroon’s independence have handed their findings to the two countries’ presidents, Paul Biya of Cameroon and Emmanuel Macron of France.

The research team – eight Cameroonian and seven French researchers, as well as an artist – handed over their findings on 21 and 28 January at the Unity Palace in Yaoundé and the Élysée Palace in Paris respectively – the residences of the two presidents.

The Memory Commission included historians from the Heritage Higher Institute of Peace and Development Studies, the University of Dschang and the University of Maroua in Cameroon, as well as the University of Artois in Arras, and the University of Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne, both in France.

Commissioned by Macron to determine the role France played in the suppression of nationalist opposition struggles in Cameroon from 1945 to 1971, the report details, among other aspects, the inhuman and brutal treatment of Cameroonians who resisted colonialism.

The submission of the report marks a step forward in France’s broader commitment to truth and reconciliation regarding its colonial past, the report added.

The Commission’s 1,000-page report, which is currently available only in a summarised French version, follows nearly two years of meticulous research, which involved digging into both French and Cameroon history archives, the researchers said.

The report noted: “This chapter of history has long been suppressed and [has] largely [been] omitted from public discourse, notably within school curricula.”

“As assigned, we have … gathered evidence to establish the truth about our colonial history,” Professor Willibroad Dze-Ngwa, the founding president of the Heritage Higher Institute of Peace and Development Studies, and one of the research team members from Cameroon, told University World News.

He said the two years of research, during 2023-24, illuminated France’s role in the violent repression of Cameroonian independence movements.

Confronting colonialism

The work of the researchers is the latest in a series of projects involving former colonies and their colonisers, which have tapped into the scientific expertise of academics to contribute more prominently to the global debate about colonialism, post-colonialism, the atrocities involved, including the slave trade, and calls for reparations – and public apologies.

In November 2024, University World News reported that UNESCO has called for the creation of university chairs to study the history of enslavement and the transatlantic slave trade. Earlier, University World News also reported on Zimbabwe’s President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s launch of an academic study into the impact of colonialism on the African country that will culminate in a demand for reparations from its former colonial power, Britain.

Academics, university experts and authorities of France and Cameroon, following the submission of the joint report, have also acknowledged the need for higher education in Africa to drive colonial and post-colonial history research to build a better future through the prism of truth and reconciliation.

“The ongoing research by university experts will certainly establish the truth, opening the way for reconciliation. But also, it will allow the re-evaluation of the role of internal and external political players needed for the advancement and genuine emancipation of post-colonial African societies,” Professor Lang Michael Kpughe of the University of Bamenda told University World News.

A report for future generations

Cameroon’s President Biya, upon receiving the report, said: “Your work must be construed as a necessary first step that opens avenues for further research in the quest for the truth.

“The Memory Commission has done something that will undoubtedly impact future generations, because it will allow them to not only understand their history, but also to better project themselves into the future.”

He also called for the creation of a monitoring research committee, enjoining the two countries to foster scientific research in this field of study, as well as build and further deepen the knowledge of their common history.

The same call was made by Thani Mohamed Soilihi, the French ministerial delegate in charge of Francophonie and International Partnerships, who represented Macron in Yaoundé.

“France has called for university experts in their different spheres to join in the furthering of the work that has been done by the commission to enrich the report for scholarly purposes and to teach a future generation,” he said during his address in Yaoundé.

Criticism and contestation

However, some university professors in Cameroon were apprehensive that the report somehow shifted blame to the regime at the period that was studied.

“Cameroon’s current leadership remains wary, fearing the report somehow shifted blame from France to its Cameroonian allies of the time,” Professor Mathias Eric Owona Nguini of the University of Yaoundé 2 told University World News.

Professor Thomas Atenga of the University of Douala also noted that atrocities, said to have been carried out by the first post-independence president Ahmadou Ahidjo’s regime, were certainly done under French orders.

“The importance of identifying ‘who did what and under whose orders’ during what circumstances in what historians refer to as ‘the Cameroon War’, should be clearly stated in the research report. Thus, [there is a need] to further the research work as recommended by President Paul Biya,” Atenga said in an interview over state radio after the presentation of the report to the president.

Overview of report’s content

The research report, broadly speaking, is divided into four sections providing a global history of a war of decolonisation, which is fairly unknown.

Following chronological order, the four sections of the report trace the genesis of the confrontation between the colonial authorities and the pro-independence oppositions (1945-55), then shift from political, diplomatic, police and judicial repression to the war led by the French army (1955-60), which continued to be involved in Cameroon despite its political transition and independence (1960-65 – and even beyond), with French aid remaining within the framework of cooperation between the two countries (1965-71).

The first section of the study looked at strategies of struggle against the resistant forces in Cameroon (1916-55). It looked at the defence of French interests, control of political life and the use of violent methods, in particular from the time of World War II, when the independence movement asserted itself.

The second section of the report looked at the period known as the ‘1955 moment’ when the fight against independence movements intensified and which led to the disappearance of legal policies. It was characterised by vast repressive sequences.

The third section reflects on the period of the ‘1960 moment’, during the end of French official supervision over Cameroon. It shows that formal independence did not mean a clear break with the colonial period. On the contrary, France played an influential role in the process of political transition between 1958 and 1965, a period when French authorities still participated in the repression of movements from the opposition.

The fourth and final section emphasises the reconfiguration, between 1965 and 1971, of relations between France and Cameroon after independence, with cooperation ties and strong links related to political issues, diplomatic and military ties in continuation of repression of so-called opposition movements by the first Cameroonian president Ahmadou Ahidjo.

“The research carried out by the commission made it possible to bring together, in sufficient quantity and value, alternative sources of information hitherto hidden from the public, including the writings of military collaborators, or the private archives of diplomats like Ambassador Francis Huré. This made it possible to restore the complexity of interdependence of both countries, showing France’s capacity to influence policies in Cameroon,” the report notes.

For example, “during this period, thousands of members of the Union of the Peoples of Cameroon (Union des populations du Cameroun) party, including its leader, were massacred, first by the French army, and subsequently by the [Ahidjo] regime that was established after independence”.

What are the benefits?

University World News noted in an earlier news report that, for two years (2023-24), the researchers had criss-crossed many countries, visiting every available archive, interviewing reliable informants, digging into military, diplomatic, public and private archives of great personalities just to establish facts and figures of this piece of history, describing their task as “Herculean”.

The head of the research commission, Karine Ramondy, based at the University of Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne emphasised the importance of incorporating their historical findings into school curricula. “We intend to have it included in school curricula.” This effort seeks to ensure that younger generations confront and learn from this painful chapter in Franco-Cameroonian relations.

History students in Universities in Cameroon also noted the importance of updating the history of the country with the new facts emerging from the research.

“The research findings come to enrich our history, shedding light on some grey areas in our history. Our historians have to update their facts with the new elements emerging from this research,” Hansel Ngole, a third-year history student at the University of Buea, told University World News.

Macron, according to news reports in France, lauded the academic efforts of the researchers, describing the history as “repressed”, reflecting its exclusion from public discourse and education.

“It will right the wrong information previously circulated by some dishonest historians, permitting students to get the historical truth,” he reportedly said.

In a news report in Le MONDE, Macron, during a visit to Cameroon, said archives on French colonial rule in Cameroon would be opened “in full” for historians to shed light on the period’s “painful moments”.

During the project, Macron expressed his dedication to the process, emphasising the need to confront the “respective responsibilities of French and Cameroonian actors” during and after the formal independence of Cameroon in 1960.

While former President François Hollande in 2015 alluded to these events as “extremely troubled episodes”, Macron went further by commissioning the detailed investigation by French and Cameroon academics that has now yielded the completed project.