Dibussi Tande
"Let me state it loud and clear: The past is what it is. We are on our part determined to look toward the future... Let's refrain from throwing an armful of wood into a fire which is about to go out … We have forgotten. Why do they want us to remember again? Ahmadou Ahidjo (responding to calls to rehabilitate UPC exiles) - February 25, 1959.
On November 30, 1989, Ahmadou Ahidjo, Cameroon’s first President, died in exile in Dakar, Senegal, far away from the country that he had ruled with an iron and bloody fist for over two decades.
Ostracized by the Biya regime which considered him public enemy number one, scorned by Cameroonians for his alleged role in the bloody 1984 coup attempt against his successor; and banished from official Cameroonian discourse and memory (bank notes with his image were withdrawn from circulation, public spaces that bore his name - such as the Ahmadou Ahidjo stadium - were renamed, his name a taboo in the official media, etc.), Ahidjo like the UPC exiles of the 50s and 60s, became, in his final years, a sad and lonely figure in exile, moving from Morocco, to France, and then finally to Senegal.
Continue reading "Repaid in his own Coins: Ahmadou Ahidjo and the Politics of Ostracism" »
taking part in a « peace keeping operation », a « police action » rather than a military campaign. This terminolgy was not an innocent one. Because Cameroon was a United Nations Trusteeship territory, France could not legally carry out full-fledged military operations in the country without a specific UN mandate, which it never received.
Far from the glare of the international community which was distracted at the time by the liberation war in Algeria, literarily given a free pass by Western governments obsessed with the “Red Menace” on Africa; and egged on by a Western media which saw terrorism in every UPC declaration and action (sounds familiar??), France unleashed a bloody reign of terror in the French Cameroons from 1956 to 1964 which many have not hesitated to label 
Lion Man and Other Stories is a collection of short stories culled from the culture and folklore of the indigenous people of Bamunka, a small village with a population of approximately 76,500 located in the grass fields of the North-West Province in the Republic of Cameroon. The greater majority of the Bamunka people depend on subsistence farming, rice cultivation, fishing and the tapping of palm wine for a living.
Some eight months after his spectacular 
Loss of physicians and other skilled people trained at very high expense is the worst of the drain of African resources that has been going on relentlessly for the past 500 years. Recently Monsieur, the 
The cover story of the September issue of 
Biya’s first government caused no stir… To all intents and purposes, [it] was Ahidjo’s. Bello Bouba Maigari, a young, soft-spoken, affable Northerner was appointed Prime Minister. At 35, Bello Bouba had been enmeshed in the intricacies and intrigues of behind-the-door politics. In fact, he traveled constantly to foreign capitals as a private Ahidjo envoy. He was publicly known Ahidjo’s protégé. It was murmured that Ahidjo was grooming him for power. In this light, Biya would have served as a caretaker President until 1985 when elections were due and Bello Bouba Maigari would have become President.
It was Thursday November 4, 1982. As far as the political sky in Cameroon was concerned, there were no clouds - let alone nebulous ones. If anything, the country was said to be booming economically; politically stable; and national cohesion was being more and more cemented. For the last six months of 1982, Ahidjo had been unusually active - holding meeting after meeting, receiving foreign dignitaries and trotting the globe.For instance, Kenneth Kaunda - mid September - who had "come to obtain counsel from (his) Cameroonian counterpart" was the first to be shown around the rooms of the recently completed Unity Palace. Obiang Nguema Mbazogo of Equatorial Guinea - October 27, 1982.
The UPC maquis started in 1956, just a few months after 
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