Once Upon a Time… Osende Afana (I)

By Dibussi Tande

'the majority of them... when they returned to Africa shamefully betrayed the noble ideals which they defended... in Paris'. They joined the ranks of the bourgeoisie and adopted the motto FVVA (Femmes, Villas, Voitures, Argent). Only a few militants like Osende Afana practised what they had preached and died for the causes in which they believed: that of revolution." Gonidec, African Politics. p. 73

On March 15, 1966 Osende Afana, one of the last of the “intellectual revolutionaries” died in Ndélélé subdivision deep in the dreaded Djoum forest in what is today Kadey division in the East Province of Cameroon. The circumstances of his death are still unclear to this day but what is known is that he was tracked down by Ahmadou Ahidjo’s security forces, ambushed, killed and then beheaded. While his headless body was buried in an unmarked grave, legend has it that his head was taken to Yaounde and put on display for some members of the Ahidjo regime as a “war trophy”.

The death of Osende Afana, one of the most influential but least known historic leaders of the Cameroon nationalist resistance was another watershed in the nationalist struggle against the French-backed Ahidjo regime. It also closed the chapter on the brief and improbable life of one of the continent’s leading intellectuals who could have had a chair in any top ranking French university if only he had been willing to make compromises and become a systems man like many of his contemporaries, but who abandoned academic robes for military fatigues in a revolutionary war in the jungles of Eastern Cameroon.

So how did the 36-year old Osende Afana, Cameroun’s first PhD in Economics, one of the precursors of African economic nationalism, along side Amilcar Cabral, Antar Diop, etc, end up being hunted down and slaughtered like a wild animal deep in the forests of Djoum? This is his story:

Early Interest in the Politics of Liberation
Born in 1930, the young Osende became interested in politics at a very tender age. In 1947, for example, when  he was barely 17 years old, he made the case for independence before visiting United Nations Visiting Mission to the French Cameroons as a representative of the Association des etudiants camerounais (see the 1947 edition of the Yearbook of the United Nations). After he was dismissed from the Grand Seminary for insurbodination, Osende Afana moved to  lycée général Leclerc in Yaoundé where he was actively involved in student politics. Upon graduation, he left for the Université de Toulouse in France where he ultimately obtained a doctorate in economics. It was at Toulouse that he went into full bloom politically; he formally joined the UPC and helped found the Toulouse branch of the nationalist movement, along with a local chapter of the Association des etudiants camerounais (AEC).

Student Activist Extraordinaire
In 1954 Osende Afana represented the AEC in the radical Federation of Students from Black Africa in France - Fédération des étudiants d'Afrique noire en France (FEANF). Created in December 1950 during the Bordeaux congress  of  the African student associations of Bordeaux, Montpellier, Paris  and Toulouse, FEANF quickly became a thorn in the flesh of the French government. The association was at the forefront of the clarion call for immediate and unconditional independence for African countries still under the yoke of colonial rule. Even after the indepence, FEANF continued its fight and was, according to Gonidec,  “accused of systematially disparaging African governments and propagating the 'inoperative concepts' of neo-colonialism and imperialism”. During its 8th Congress in 1957, FEANF formally adopted a series of resolutions that called for the total independence of Africa. This historic congress was chaired by none other than Osende Afana, then Vice-President in charge of communications.

By 1958, France began to openly discuss the possibility of granting independence to its African colonies. At the same time the French began a frenzied search for the “right people” to groom for an eventual take-over of positions of power in various African states upon their departure. Members of FEANF and other student associations whose formed the elite of the soon-to-be-independent African states were suddenly confronted with a dilemma – either harken to the call of pseudo-independence being offered by France or keep fighting for real and unconditional independence – a dilemma that would continue long after the flurry of  independence in the early 1960s. As Godinec points out in African Politics (page 73 - 74):

During struggles for national liberation, it is easier for intellectuals to lean on the side of (political) revolution, because the aim is to destroy a system  which blocks their chances of acceding to jobs at higher levels...

After independence, the situation becomes more complex. It is no longer merely a matter of replacing European rulers by African rulers, but of radically transforming society. Faced with this problem, intellectuals do not show evidence of the same cohesion, and finally split into three groups, adopting different class positions.

Some of them rally to the cause of the minority dominant classes who wield the power of the State and who are the allies of imperialism.
…
The Second group of intellectuals is constituted by those who are apparently revolutionaries because they believe that progress can result from the partial substitution of private (especially foreign)capitalims with state capitalism...

Lastly, there are the truly revolutionary intellectuals. They are those who havng realized that they cannot constitute an independent political force, have decided, as Franz Fanon puts it, to plunge into the mass of the people, to listen to the voice of the exploited people and to awake their political awareness. 'This involves the difficult but not impossible task of freeing oneself from boutgeois ideologies and attitudes, impregnation with which it the result of colonialist education and propaganda.

The Revolutionary Option
For Osende Afana, there was no dilemma; he would continue the revolution. So in 1958 he left France clandestinely and headed for Cario, Egypt, where the Union des Populations du Cameroun (UPC) had set up its headquarters in exile. Osende Afana later explained that the choice to leave France and abandon his dreams of a teaching job in a French university was an easy one:

"I would not have had the courage to look at myself in the mirror every morning. I love Cameroon and I my heart bleeds when I see her being exploited in the worst possible manner. Even the most prestigious economic chair in the world cannot stop that bleeding. The land of our ancestors deserves better than the scaliwags at its head”.

Osende Afana soon became one of the closest collaborators and advisers to the historic leaders of the UPC in exile - Félix-Roland Moumié, Ernest Ouandié and Abel Kingué – and was a member of the UPC delegation that went to the United Nations to defend the case for immediate independence for Cameroon. He was also the UPC representative at the Permanent Secretariat of the Afro-Asian Peoples' Solidarity Organization (AAPSO), which was headquartered in Cairo.

An unapologetic panafricanist who strongly believed in the resolutions of the Bandung non-aligned conference particularly its endorsement of South-South cooperation, Osende Afana worked hard at the AAPSO to establish a credible and mutually beneficial framework for Afro-Asian relations [See for example, Osende Afana, "Consolidating Afro-Asian Solidarity," 1960].

By the time UPC leadership moved the party’s headquarters to Conakry in Guinea, he had become an indispensable piece in the UPC edifice.

Pan Africanism and Economic Nationalism
Osende Afana was among the select group of African intellectuals who realized early on that political independence was meaningless if it was not accompanied by economic independence would Hence, he advocated for a new economic models that were not subject to foreign control. It was in this context that he warned against the dangers of foreign aid. [see for example, Afana Osende, "Les dangers de l'aide exterieure", Revolution Africaine, No. 12, Alger, 1963].

This was a view shared by Mamadou Dia who argued that:

African Intellectuals would be wrong to think that they can discard or toy with Economic Sciences in order to achieve their cultural objectives. That would be tantamount to ignoring one of the fundamental tenets of Negro-African culture and resigning oneself to half-culture which will not stand the test of time or the assimilationist tendencies of other cultures because it has no root. The African man of culture cannot, under pain of serious mutilation, ignore the relationship that exists between the evolution of economic structures and that of the various phases of civilization (…). He cannot but realize that the genius of each people marks with an indelible seal not only his works of art, his philosophy but also his economy, i.e. his grip on the reality. (see Elikia Mbokolo)

Alongside other African revolutionary intellectuals such as Majhemout Diop of Senegal, Amilcar Cabral of Guinea-Bissau or Issa Shivji of Tanzania, Osende Afana sought to establish the « reality of social classes and the class struggle in Africa ».  In was in this context that he developed his “theory of accelerated growth of the African economies”, which he expounded in his groundbreaking highly-acclaimed publication, l’économie de l’ouest africain, perspectives de développement (1966), which Gonidec summarizes thus:

On a purely theoretical level, some Africans have tried to gain acceptance of a conception of transition to socialism close to either the new democracy or national (or revolutionary) democracy. The former trend may be illustrated by the work of Osende Afana, Osende Afana, former leader of the FEANF and a UPC militant, killed in the Cameroon resistance. Here we find a marxist analysis of African societies: the existence of social classes and the reality of the class struggle, and the setting of imperialism against the African people as the main contradiction. The remedies draw their inspiration from Chinese methods; compulsory planning, nationalization of all key sectors of the national economy, self-reliance, the necessity of a proletarian party, and the creation of a united front - a 'dictatorship of all revolutionary classes combined, led by the proletariat'.  (p. 137).

While many might be baffled today at the marxist leninist and socialist tendencies of the first generation of African revolutionaries (Neto, Cabral, Toure, and even kenyatta and Nyerere, etc.), Ali Mazrui explains:

After the war, European communist parties continued to play a relatively important role in French-speaking Africa, but less so in English-speaking Africa where the British communist partty, inlike its French counterpart, had not established strong roots... Marxism gained a stronger and more lasting foothold in other parts of Africa. the ....(FEANF) included in its rank, and especially among its cadres, a majority of marxists, like Osende Afana of Cameroon, author of an important work on the economy of West Africa. Through communist study groups founded during the Second World War or soon after, and the General Confederation of Labour, many trade-union cadres became receptive to Marxism and to techniques for organizing the masses. (p.801).

But l’économie de l’ouest africain was not just another publication regurgitating sterile marxist-leninist dogma which would be discredited some three decases later with the fall of the iron curtain. As Nga Ndongo has pointed out, Osende Afana’s work was part of a nationalist economic ‘school’ which offered an uncompromizing – and accurate - critique of imperialism and neocolonialism, sought to demystification of monetary integration and cooperation, and unmasked the nefarious and debilitating effects of foreign debt and investment, among other things.

Most important to some, l’économie de l’ouest africain was also a blueprint for true Pan-Africanism.  Afana believed that the creation of a multiplicity of regional organizations in Africa - Maghreb Union, UDEAC, Casablanca groups, Monrovia group, etc - was a threat to African unity and that because of the inward-looking nature of these organizations, Pan-africanism had become a distant and even unattainable dream:

"These regional groups could have set the basis for true african unity. Unfortunately, imperialists... deploy every effort to foil the realisation of the revolutionary unity of our continent. Thus even after the pan african Conference of Independent African Heads of State and Government that held in Addis Ababa in 1963, they continue the work of division under the guise of regional decentralization..."

"At [the continental] level just as at the national level, the fight for unity and the fight against neocolonialism are one and the same fight. Only the liquidation of neocolonialism will make it possible to unite the entire continent under one government at the service of African people. The road to this ultimate goal passes through different phases made up of unity of action, strengthening of cooperation in the areas of politics and organization, and even through progressive regional organizations (p. 197).

Some 40 years later, true African Unity is still a distant dream even after the creation of the African Union (AU) which has so far promised more than it has delivered. As the Elikia Mbokolo has pointed out:

The misfortune of Pan-Africanism lay in the new balance of power between the political leaders and the intellectuals after independence. Until then, there was more than collaboration between the two groups, a veritable osmosis in the sense that the political and intellectual functions were performed by the same movements and, often, by the same people.

Afterwards, in an Africa dominated by “parties-states-nations”, the political leaders appropriated all the powers to themselves and sidelined, sometimes with brutality and violence, the intellectuals from the political scene and from government. Economic thinking, though relevant, novel, bold and brilliant, was thus confined within university walls and nuclei of dissidence, while in the circles of princes there were all kinds of busy and shrewd “advisors” bent on keeping African States in the neo-colonialist structures.

This produced disastrous consequences. Whilst on the political scene the Pan-African ideal was sluggishly moving toward the full emancipation of the continent, the latter was indeed paralysed (S. Amin) from the economic standpoint, incapable or unwilling to map out a development strategy for the entire continent, leaving it to each State to define its short term interests. By hanging onto the European Economic Community, particularly through the Lome Accord, African States found themselves bound hand and foot in traps against which they were warned by the first generations of Pan-African activists like Kwame Nkrumah (Africa must unite, 1963; Neo-Colonialism, 1965).

Click here for Part II: The Death of Osende Afana

Comments

[nyamwenge]

How many la republique people know that they have such a noble history that has not been fulfilled? They are still a frech colony. This is truly now our (Southern Cameroonian) history but theirs. They need to leave us and go finish their unfinished business with the french.

[PAOLO LAURENT]

I WONDER ON WHOSE INTEREST AND BENEFIT
IS DIBUSSI TANDE ALWAYS WRITING, CAMEROUN HISTORY AND POLITICS TO?
THEY THE CAMEROUNESE DONT ENVY OUR STORIES, WHY MUST THESE DIBUSSI BOY KEEP
BRINGING OUR ENEMY STORY TO US? WE AINT WANNA KNOW WHAT THE HECK THEY , HAVE,
PLEASE EXPOSE OUR WORLD WIDE RICH CULTURE AND HISTORY OF SOUTHERN CAMEROONS
AND LET OUR YOUTH KNOW THAT WE HAVE OUR OUR HISTORY AND CULTURE WHICH IS TOTALLY UNCONNECTED TO CAMEROUNS. AND THAT WE HAVE NEVER BEEN A UNITED COUNTRY IN HISTORY OF THE EARTH , GOD FORBID, RE-UNIFICATION, THATS THEIR FRENCH LIES AND DECEITS, THEY HAVE BEEN TELLUNG THE WORLD.
NO MORE FRENCH CAMEROUN STORIES HERE PLEASE. I AM A PROUD SOUTHERN CAMEROONIAN. I AM VERY PROUD OF MY ANGLOSAXON HERITAGE.

[nahjela]

Mr. Paolo Laurent, no one forces you to visit this blog. If you don't like what you see here then simply go and never come back. This is Dibussi's territory and he reserves the right to write whatever pleases him. What temerity on your part. Wonders shall never cease! You might as well create your own blog and you can then write whatever you please. No one is holding you back.

[Dibussi]

Paolo Lauren,

Osende Afana may be a French Cameroonian but his story is that of Pan Africanism and failed attempts at African unity; Neocolonialism and the bungled decolonization struggle in Africa; the strings of foreign debt which are today strangling the continent; the (in)compatibility of Marxist concepts with African reality; the failure of the African elite who sold their countries to Western interests, etc. So even if Osende Afana happened to be a Mongolian, he would still be of great interest to me.

That said, a point needs to be made here once and for all; this is not a Southern Cameroons blog neither is a "La Republique" blog. It is MY blog where I write about issues that are of interest to ME. If what I write is of interest to folks who stop by my blog, they will return. If it is not their cup of tea, they will simply move on to other blogs that are in line with their interests. And that is how it should be. This is the blogosphere where everyone can find - or create - their niche.

BTW, there are dozens of blogs dedicated to Southern Cameroons where you can get your fill of unadulterated Southern Cameroons information and analysis. Two of these that instantly come to mind are http://www.southerncameroonsig.org/ and http://internationalsecretary.blogspot.com/index.html

So I refuse to be pigeon-holed by any political agenda or philosophy; I refuse to be dictated the issues that I can write about. And if I feel like writing a thousand articles about Francophone Cameroun that is my prerogative.

Dibussi

[paolo laurent]

what is francophone cameroun?
sir

[paolo laurent]

najela, or who
if every ones creat his own blog ,then no one would read any ones blog.
fact is these young southern cameroonians
like dibussi, with weak identity and self knowledge fails to know that. , if a man doesnt know where ,he is coming from, then
he doesnt really knows where he is heading to. having a phd doesnt make you wise or
educated of noble or dignify, than sticking to your soul and pushing gradually with all intellectual gifts to the stars. soo, you stay genuine and un compromised. your natural talents ,gifts and beauty emerges with time, as the aging of old wine. soo ,the new age nasty( french colonial rejects) false sense of superiority attitude of
take it or leave it is have no place in our culture nor our dearly southern cameroons.

[paolo laurent]

dibussi ,
you are a hypocrate, you talk of pan-africanism, when you dont even have a home in africa, you cant even portrait southern cameroon on african map. just look at the map you, place on your blog lastly.
its shameful. who in the world can make uo where southern camerooons is? if its not depicted on the map of mother africa.
yet low spirited as you and the mola ffroggies, who mistakes themselves for sawas
doualas or whatever, youre quick to conjoint southern cameroons on a lone
mural with la republique du cameroun as if they were con joint twins on a lost planet
without boundaries. its pitiful what curriculum you were feed. hopefully not the ones control by the yaounde minstere d
education. ( a useless french negro government scheme of things, that end up dreging my poor countrymen.
we shall be free in mind and soul one day
and see the promise land together,
down with any thing french, for they are the satanic wretched souls of europe.and
the earth.

[Navella]

Mr. Lauren, Do you know what the main lesson of Osende Afana is, especially for folks like you who call for a bloody revolution in Cameroon behind the safety and anonymity of their computers?

Afana abandoned the comfort of "Exile" in Europe to fight and die on the battlefield IN CAMEROON for what he believed in.

He did not sit in France to ask that others go oust the Ahidjo regime for him. He went to do it himself and died honorably in the process. He was only 36 years old when that happened. A real African hero!!!

Southern Cameroons "freedom fighters" like yourself who are constantly going on about a "revolution" in the Cameroons -- from far away United States or Europe and who cannot even contribute to their local SCNC chapter (will you be in Dallas?) should put their money where their mouth is or shut up.

Osende Afana may have been a "frog" but you will never be anything like him...

By the way which honorable Southern Cameroonian/African will ever call himself "Paolo Lauren" even as a Pseudonym? You don't know of any Southern Cameroons heroes. Where's your pride and identity man?

[Ma Mary]

Paolo ----- I am a Southern Cameroons activist too and I want total separation from la Republique, but it is not because the people of la Republique are inherently evil, but because it is a union that does not work and will never work as far as I can see. They also have a history, and have not stood up to the promise of their history, and there is much to be learned there. Additionally, if you are fighting la Republique for independence, it is valuable to know thine enemy. There is wisdom in knowing everything about him. In that wise, Dibussi is doing the struggle a service, so chill down and do not be so intense that you or I miss an opportunity for understanding. The struggle is about failure of dialogue, because stone heads in la republique have refused to understand our point of view, because they are so busy being parasitical. Do not make the mistake of being a stonehead too, because you are overindulging in anger.

[Kwensih]

It was high time somebody told Paolo Lauren where to take his dim-witted rhetorics. None of his posts has any hint of coherent thoughts. I am an English speaking Cameroonian: I have lived the discriminations the French speaking majority has meted out on us for decades, but that has not blinded me to the fact that there are french speaking Cameroonian who will die anyday to defend the rights of every member of this ill-fated unitary system of government. The Paolo Laurens of this world are like robots; once they are programmed they are incapable of any independent thought.

[Akoson]

Mr. Dibussi, Citizen journalism at its finest indeed! Keep the flame burning...it was a good piece.

I've got a question for you...

Mr. Dibussi from every indication you're a Pan-Africanist - you're totally against any form of neo-colonialism and you stand for a united Africa. In the above article you quoted a quote from Osende Afana which drew my attention and its the basis for my asking you this question. Here is the quote:

"..'These regional groups could have set the basis for true african unity. Unfortunately, imperialists... deploy every effort to foil the realisation of the revolutionary unity of our continent. Thus even after the pan african Conference of Independent African Heads of State and Government that held in Addis Ababa in 1963, they continue the work of division under the guise of regional decentralization'..."

If you really stand for the words of late Dr. Osende Afana and you believe whole-heartedly that disuniting Africa is always a top agenda on secret papers of these Western nations, why do you think that these so-called imperialists wouldn't deploy every means necessary to fragment Africa in every golden opportunity they've. A solid point in case is the legitimate case of the Southern Cameroons which has not yet gained its independence. It is more than easy for a super power like the states and or Britain to file a paper at the U.N. and press for the total and unconditional independence of that fine African nation. That of course must follow the next second.

Of course America and the U.K know the might of being united(United states....United Kingdom...bold-face UNITED) and the priviledges thereunto.

QUESTION:

What do you think is stopping them from fragmenting West Africa if they've a hidden agenda of seeing Africa disunited?

The Son.

[Wakaman]

Thank you Dibussi for this article which answers a nagging question that I have had for a while now.

As I was drinking deep from Bate Besong's website after his death, I came across an article titled "L’ECRIVAIN EST MORT: ALAS, POOR FERDINAND (SON EXCELLENCE LEOPOLD OYONO)!" in which BB took on the erstwhile anti-colonialist writer for becoming a seasoned neo-colonial lackey after independence. There was one passage which read:

"As one whose work was already representative of the culminating achievement of a major 20th century literary icon, you served the African Revolution with your terse,aphoristic prose as Wambo “le Courant”, Etienne Bouli, Ossende Afana, Ernest Ouandie, Mpodol Ruben Um Nyobe et al served it with the mitrailleur."

I wondered at the time who Osende Afana was, and why BB was listing him along the other well known martyrs of the Kamerunian revolution. Now I know, and I can't wait to read the second part of your posting.

BTW, I don't think you should even bother responding to that Paolo Lauren guy. One day he will realize as Ma Mary has pointed out that knowledge is power...

[PAOLO LAURENT]

LIVE FREE OR DIE
NO REPENTANCE TO THE ENEMY

[PAOLO LAURENT]

MA MARY AND THE ALL OTHERS ARE ONLY
SENDING WRONG SIGNALS TO THE ENEMY.

ONLY AN ARMED SOUTHERN CAMEROONS CAN BESTOW INDEPENDENCE, PRIDE, RESPECT AND
STATEHOOD, JUST HOW THIS WORLD OPERATES. JUST LOOK AT TCHAD, EQUOTORIAL GUINEA, GABON, ETC ALL THESE SMALL POOR PRIMITIVE NATIONS , HAVE NOT MUCH WEALTH AS SOUTHERN CAMEROONS, BUT HAVE AN ARMY. SUCH NO CAMEROUNESE WOULD MESS
WITH THEM, SUCH IF THEY COUNTRY-LORDS OF BUEA AND KUMBA , BAMENDA WERE ALL ARMED FOR THEIR SELF DEDENCE , NO FROG, WITH GRAD 6 EDUCATION WOULD MESS WITH THEM, THE UB KILLINGS WOULD HAVE BEEN COUNTER ACTED, WITH EQUAL MEASURES.
ONLY COWARDS NEVER LEARN, BB WONT HAVE DIE, IF HE HAD KNOWN, HIS HIGHER CALL WAS IN THE FIGHTING FOR HIS PEOPLE EMANCIPATION FROM AFAR, THAN IN THIS APARTHEID, BARBARIC STRAGEHOLD OF A FEIFDOM CALLED LA REPUBLIQUE DU CAMEROUN.

I AM NO APOLOGIST, I LIVE AND IDE FOR MINE.

I KILL, WHEN ITS NECESSARY, IN ORDER TO LIVE, NOT WRITING JARGON, OF NO SENSE

ABOUT FROGS , THAT WOULD TAKE MY KIDS TO NO WHERE IN THE WORLD.

[PAOLO LAURENT]

MA MARY AND THE ALL OTHERS ARE ONLY
SENDING WRONG SIGNALS TO THE ENEMY.

ONLY AN ARMED SOUTHERN CAMEROONS CAN BESTOW INDEPENDENCE, PRIDE, RESPECT AND
STATEHOOD, JUST HOW THIS WORLD OPERATES. JUST LOOK AT TCHAD, EQUOTORIAL GUINEA, GABON, ETC ALL THESE SMALL POOR PRIMITIVE NATIONS , HAVE NOT MUCH WEALTH AS SOUTHERN CAMEROONS, BUT HAVE AN ARMY. SUCH NO CAMEROUNESE WOULD MESS
WITH THEM, SUCH IF THEY COUNTRY-LORDS OF BUEA AND KUMBA , BAMENDA WERE ALL ARMED FOR THEIR SELF DEDENCE , NO FROG, WITH GRAD 6 EDUCATION WOULD MESS WITH THEM, THE UB KILLINGS WOULD HAVE BEEN COUNTER ACTED, WITH EQUAL MEASURES.
ONLY COWARDS NEVER LEARN, BB WONT HAVE DIE, IF HE HAD KNOWN, HIS HIGHER CALL WAS IN THE FIGHTING FOR HIS PEOPLE EMANCIPATION FROM AFAR, THAN IN THIS APARTHEID, BARBARIC STRAGEHOLD OF A FEIFDOM CALLED LA REPUBLIQUE DU CAMEROUN.

I AM NO APOLOGIST, I LIVE AND IDE FOR MINE.

I KILL, WHEN ITS NECESSARY, IN ORDER TO LIVE, NOT WRITING JARGON, OF NO SENSE

ABOUT FROGS , THAT WOULD TAKE MY KIDS TO NO WHERE IN THE WORLD.

[PAOLO LAURENT]

iIF IN 45 YRS ALL YOU APOLOGISTE HAVENT LEARNT YOUR ENEMY ENOUGH TO.

THROW HIM, AND HIS WORTHLESS HISTORY TO THE ATLANTIC OCEAN, THEN YOU ARE ALL CAUGHT, IN THE WHIRLPOOL OF THEIR FRANCAFRIQUE, MENTAL FRAME.
MAN KNOW YOUR SELF, AND YOU ARE FREE.
NOT KNOW YOUR NEIGHBOR?

WHY DO YOU THINK, ALL OFFICES IN THE UN. WHITESHOUSE, ETC. WHO RIGHTLY KNOWS, THAT SOUTHERN CAMEROONS HAVE A CASE, BUT THEY NEVER LISTEN TO THEIRS LEADERS?

BECAUSE, THEIR LEADERS, ARE JUST LIKE YOU ALL, WITH THE SAME WHITEWASH MIND FRAME, STORY TELLERS. NOT THINK TANKERS.
JUST LOOK AT THE MAP ON DIBUSSI BLOG

TO AN AMERICAN, BRITISH. S AFRICAN, NIGERIAN, AUSTRAIAN, INDIA, RUSSIAN, KID, WHERE IS THIS LOCATED?

THATS JUST A TIP OF YOUR LOWLIFE. MENTAL ALTITUDE. INSTEAD OF QUESTIONING YOUR OWN THOUGHTS, YOU ARE DAMN RIGHT EMOTIONAL ABOUT . YOUR ENEMY, WHO TAKES JOY INFLICTING PAINS ON YOU DAY/NIGHT.

FRANCO MY FOOT.

[Wakaman]

The Quotable Quotes of Mr. Paolo Lauren

1. "I AM VERY PROUD OF MY ANGLOSAXON HERITAGE."

Here is an African man, born and bred in Africa, who appears in public not be proud of his African or even Southern Cameroons heritage, but to be proud of his "Anglo-saxon" heritage!!!!! Anglo Quoi????!!!!!

How is he different from those "African Guallists", those black Frenchmen who are always proud of the "French heritage" for whom "voir Paris et mourir" is their motto? And he has the guts to talk of mental slavery!!!

Who is the slave here? Even 5th generation West Indians living in Britain don't go around talking about their "Anglo-saxon heritage". Poor Paolo Lauren, still a colonial stooge after close to half a century of independence ... just like his Francophone friend in Yaounde and Douala...

2. "I KILL, WHEN ITS NECESSARY, IN ORDER TO LIVE, NOT WRITING JARGON, OF NO SENSE"

Kill with your computer mouse,? Why are you not in Southern Cameroons, gun in hand fighting the enemy? You want the Ma Marys, the SJs and others to do your dirty job for you???

Here lies Paolo Lauren, the African armchair guerilla... who died peacefully in his sleep... with his computer mouse in his hand... in far away America..."

[PAOLO LAURENT]

the anglsaxon cultured africans dont go massacreing africans and hate filled, just for beeing what they are, or like. but they, they french-cultures
camerounese are doing just that, soo,
you cant compare the two, our world view and their isnt comparable. and one can be anglosaxoned cultured and still pride himself of his african ness. bet you didnt know that. and thought, is more powerful a weapon if properlly and timely chancelled, no matter where the author resides.

soo, mister apologist. look and take note
of the facts and beauty off my writeups
and stop beeing simply self irritant.

[Rosemary Ekosso]

Mr. Laurent has missed the entire point of this blog, I'm afraid. It is useful, whatever our unitarist or secessionist proclivities, for us to know our history and draw lessons from it. It is not useful to use other people's blogs to to showcase half-baked invective based on a warped sense of identity.

There is enough material in this blog for a book of profiles of Cameroonian historical figures. The book begs to be written. Dibbssi, more grease!

[PAOLO LAURENT]

rosemary
ours is called (independence)

not ( secession) repeat after me (independence) ( independence) (independence) mental slave Y all.

YOUR FORE FATHERS NEVER HAD BEEN UNITED
WITH LA REPUBLIQUE DU CAMEROUN, LITTORAL
CAN SECEDE FROM LRC, NOR S,CAMEROONS, BECAUSE, WE NEVER HAD BEEN , AND WILL NEVER BE A PROVINCE OR PART OF THIS COUNTRY, THERE IS FACTS , HISTORY AND
FALSE REALITY, YOU ARE ALL CAUGHT IN FALSE REALITY. WAKE UP

[Ma Mary]

You know what, I agree with you. It is "independence" not "seccession" and the facts and the law support that. That is why Southern Cameroonian leaders from Gorji, to Ebong to Luma, to Ayamba, to Mukete and Nfor have been locked up but never brought to trial for "seccession", because it is not possible to divorce when there is no marriage. Any union is a legal matter and this one does not exist anymore. but you catch bees with honey and not with vinegar. Winning hearts and minds is what this is about, and it is possible to disagree with ideas without resorting to unneccesary personal attacks on other Southern Cameroonians. You are not representing the cause well mr Laurent.

[paolo laurent]

ma mary, you are still missing the point,
justice, freedom and human dignity is what all southern cameroonians asked for, its just what all mankind,the world over is asking for, and its doesnt lie in the hands of a few individual like those names you just mention. but,in the minds of the masses. The masses have got to see the world in black and white, i mean things, knowledge ideals. they ve got to see that what they learn in primary school. in geography,history,civics ,have a connection with them from their villages, to their cities, their livelihood ,to the politics that they desire and to a greater extend their world. this is not something you have to win hearts and minds by honey,
its something you have to take the raw .elemantary truth,only truth and facts, embedded from their origins that gave bith to their yester years, to their todays, such they themselves can make up their minds solid, to face the lucifer that
would come tomorrow and decive them with the fprbidden fruit, like the disinfirmation, whitewashing history of southern cameroons, that this cultic-satanic -apartheid -french-negro mafia gang is practising for half a century to un armed masses, by intimidation and briber.
A GREAT MING ONCE SAID, ( YOU MUST NEVER DECIEVE YOURSELF, AND YOU ARE THE ONLY PERSON WHO IS EASILY DECIEVED, ( ARNO PENSIAS)...WE MUST AT ALL TIMES BE THE HERMIT AND WITNESS TO HISTORICAL TRUTH, AND FACTS, NOT JUST BRIBE GIVERS , JUST TO WIN MINDS, FOR THAT WHICH IS EXPERIENCE THROUGH SELF ANALYSIS, AND SELF TAUGHT, STICKS IN THE HUMAN SOUL FOREVER.
BE BLESS.

[paolo laurent]

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

A. GOD DOESNT THROW DICE WITH HIS
UNIVERSE ( ALBERT EINSTEIN)
B. NOT UNLESS, WE FIND SOMETHING MOST GRANDEOUS, WE CAN DIE, WE AINT FIT TO LIVE
( MARTIN L KING JR)
C.OUR EXISTENCE HERE ON EARTH HAVE BUT ONE PURPOSE, TO LIVE AND DIE AS HE DICTATES,(GOD) MINDFUL THAT WE DIDNT HAD A CHOICE IN THE FIRST PLACE, TO CHOICE LIFE.(PAOLO LAURENT)
D. POWER, POWER AND MORE POWER CAN ONLY BE
TAME ONLY BY MORE POWER, (PAOLO LAURENT)
E. THE FEAR OF PAIN, MAKE MAN TO LIVE AS SLAVES PERPETUALLY, BUT THOSE WHO YEARN FOR DEATH IN THE FACE OF OPPRESSION AND INJUSTICE TO RIGHT WORLDS WRONG, GAIN ETERNAL GLORY IN HEAVEN (PAOLO LAURENT)

F,THERES NOTHING MORE DANGEROUS, AND NOTHING VERY EASILY TO CONTROL AND ENSLAVE A WHOLE NATION, THAN THE MINDS OF THE PEOPLE. THEREFORE NOTHING MUST BE PROTECTED AND FED WITH GREAT CARE LIKE THE FEEDING OF A NEWBORN CHILD,THE VERY INFORMATION AND KNWLEDGE THAT A GOVERNMENT TEACHES ITS PEOPLE FROM GRADE SCHOOL TO CLLLEGE, EITH BY BOOKS, RADIO, TV.
ITS CAN UPLIFT, LIBERATE, ENSLAVE, IMPOVRISH, ENRICH THEM ETERNALLY.

(PAOLO LAURENT)

[proudly kmerunian]

i thought your were preaching all about unity but shame you guy,s are all going for more fragmentation of our dear nation. we all know that kmerun as a whole is going through hell and no one is spare ignoring that fact and focusing in so southern Kmerun is a shame. as for me there is no south or north or west or east kmerun there is one nation Kmerun and believe in my beloved country

[proudly kmerunian]

i thought your were preaching all about unity but shame you guy,s are all going for more fragmentation of our dear nation. we all know that kmerun as a whole is going through hell and no one is spare ignoring that fact and focusing in so southern Kmerun is a shame. as for me there is no south or north or west or east kmerun there is one nation Kmerun and believe in my beloved country