The Glasgow Herald - September 12, 1961
"It must be hoped that [the people of Southern Cameroons] will not regret their choice, for few states have ever embarked upon independent self-government in more inauspicious circumstances."
After more than 40 years of separation under British and French Trusteeship, the main parts of the old German colony of Kamerun will be reunited on October 1 as an independent African State. This was the vision that carried the people of the British-administered Southern Cameroons to the poll in February of this year to vote for union with the neighbouring (and already independent) French Cameroon Republic.
The gravest problem of all, however, remains the security, for without law and order the work of integration and development will become almost impossible. In the Cameroon Republic already, manpower and money that could well be put to better uses are being drained away in the suppression of tribal terrorism in the long spine of mountain dividing the two territories. The terrorist raids originated in the land of the Bamileke tribesmen in league with the anti-French underground nationalist movement led by the late Dr. Felix Moumie, one of whose objects was in fact the union of the two territories. But the anarchy that now prevails in the Cameroon Republic is a senseless affair of indiscriminate murder and burning with the armed bands often fighting one another. The few French soldiers left with President Ahidjo in 1960 have made little impression, and there will be no help after October 1, when the British troops who kept the raids out of the Southern Cameroons are withdrawn. Perhaps the British Government can offer to postpone the departure of the troops until the leaders of the new state feel confident that the situation is under control or until an effective police force has been organised to take their place.
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