Macron's visit to Cameroon revives painful colonial past

French President Emmanuel Macron's visit to Cameroon's capital Yaounde, as part of an African tour, July 25-28, has revived a painful colonial past and, until now, not yet reconciled.

Like Algeria, Cameroon is one of the African countries that have long suffered from the devastating hegemony of French colonization, with a significant difference, that of the destruction of most traces of the crimes and abuses committed by the French generals and their henchmen against a population deprived of defense and subsistence.

Macron nevertheless announced that the archives of French colonial rule in Cameroon would be opened and called on historians to shed light on the colonial period, recognizing that the colonial past brought 'painful and tragic' moments in Cameroon.

France remained in Cameroon from 1916 until 1960. It razed villages and massacred entire populations, especially after the advent of the resistance of the Union of the Peoples of Cameroon (UPC) party in the 1940s.

On March 2, 1960, under the leadership of the French army, Cameroonian troops razed the village of Yogandima and massacred nearly 8,000 unarmed civilians, according to Cameroonian historians.

Between February and March 1960, at least 156 Bamileke villages were burned and razed down. And this premeditated heinous crime France has managed to stifle until today has continued for several years. Around 400,000 Bamileke were massacred, or perhaps more.

"In fact, the Bamileke experienced genocide between 1955 and 1965. The figures are between 800,000 and 1 million deaths in the Highlands region and in other cities such as Douala, Yaounde, Sangmelima, Ebolowa, Nkongsamba," said Jacques Kago Lele, Cameroonian writer and historian.