French President Emmanuel Macron has officially acknowledged France’s role in a war marked by “repressive violence” in Cameroon during its fight for independence in the 1950s and 1960s. A letter sent to Cameroonian President Paul Biya reveals that France carried out mass forced displacements, detained hundreds of thousands of Cameroonians, and backed brutal militias to suppress the country’s movement.
The acknowledgment comes after a report by a French-Cameroonian commission of historians found evidence of these abuses between 1945 and 1971. The report confirmed that France used “multiple forms of repressive violence” in certain regions, leading to the deaths of several independence leaders, including Ruben Um Nyobè, Paul Momo, Isaac Nyobè Pandjock, and Jérémie Ndéléné.
Macron’s letter marks a significant step in addressing France’s colonial past, following earlier moves to recognize responsibility for the 1994 Rwandan genocide and the massacre of Senegalese riflemen after World War II. However, an official apology for torture and other abuses committed by French troops in Algeria remains ruled out.
Source: https://apnews.com/article/france-macron-cameroon-colonialism-war-8ac5c6e04edf71403f877ee8cb2d6e62