Chapter Three
To once again take up the chronological narrative, I believe I left off in 1955, at the onset of my military career. During World War 2, the Free French had upgraded the status of soldiers from the colonies. In retrospect, I think I chose the military because, as an eighteen year-old, I was drawn to the rigor and order represented by this profession.
Upon enlisting, and passing the physical examination, after a frustrating year’s wait, I was finally accepted for service in the Troupes coloniales, and sent for training to a regional camp on the outskirts of Brazzaville. Three strenuous months later, a full-fledged tirailleur [infantryman], I was dispatched as part of a company of 100 to the west-African colony of French Cameroon. To anticipate, Cameroon would not become independent for another three or four years: the exact date was January 1, 1960. (Ngongo’s own Independence would follow some seven months later, on July 14, 1960.) And I assume that the perceptive reader will have guessed the identity of our company captain. He was none other than my former schoolfellow, Alphonse Batakoudou, or “Fons,” who had joined the Troupes coloniales directly upon graduation from L’Insitut, six or seven years before me.9
Our company’s convoy of large lorries traveled overland from Brazzaville to Cameroon, taking three days and nights to reach Yaounde’. The trip took so long because the distance was above 1,300 kilometres of mostly unspeakable roads. Captain Batakoudou was a stern disciplinarian, which meant no camaraderie with, or special favors for, anyone -- not even his old schoolfellow.
Upon arrival, we were assigned to a mixed regiment of recruits like ourselves, and experienced professional soldiers, both Frenchmen and Africans. This regiment served under the command of lieutenant colonel Jean Lamberton. Our mission was to assist in the suppression of pro-Independence elements in the colony’s western region. In other words, we were engaged in the early stages of a campaign that would turn into what history has dubbed “the Bamileke massacre.”10
The specific assignment of our company, la septieme compagnie ngongienne, was to surveil rebel elements in the restive Littoral province, and to escort the inhabitants of the more intractable villages to centralized camps, where we were tasked with guarding the prisoners. In the course of these operations, we perpetrated certain acts that were subsequently called “war crimes.”
One such act that is still branded on my memory was when the company was directed to burn a rebel village, without first allowing the inhabitants to surrender or flee. Even now, more than six decades later, with all of the harsh things I have since witnessed (some, the consequences of my own orders!), I still experience occasional nightmares in which I hear the piercing screams, and smell the burning flesh, of the victims. After 1972, when that iconic image of the nude Vietnamese girl fleeing a napalm attack was published, that image sometimes added a visual component to my nightmares. Ironically, perhaps, before Cameroon, Colonel Jean Lamberton had been a commander in the first Indo-China war.
Less than a year after we burned the Cameroonian village, Alphonse Batakoudou and I left the Troupes coloniales, and joined the PPN insurgency, fighting for Ngongo’s own independence. Given our military experience, both of us rose quickly to positions of command. Among the myriad decisions with which Fons and I were entrusted, we would sometimes have to decide what to do with those who collaborated with the French.
One such instance involved an Acholi village in the far northwest corner of the country. I am proud to say that we did not resort to the terrible expedient of burning that village, or any other. Instead, we would continue to engage in skirmishes with the traitorous elements, which depleted our already insufficient manpower. Do I regret this tactical decision? Not when I think of what my dreams might have been had we decided otherwise!
During the following year, 1960, the movement we had worked to prevent, and the one in which we served, both came to fruition. French Cameroon was granted her Independence on January 1, 1960, becoming Republique du Cameroun. Seven and-a-half months later, on the auspicious date of July 14, our own Republique d’Ngongo followed.11
Inevitably, there was a scramble for the leadership role of our new nation. After a month of frenetic backroom maneuvering, the choice fell on Alphonse Batakoudou, who was duly nominated by the PPN, then elected to the Presidency of our one-party democracy. I accepted the Party’s decision, agreeing to assume the post of Minister of Defense in the Batakoudou administration. To sweeten my submission, my father was permitted to become a part-owner of L’Union Miniere, the country’s leading copper concession. As such, he was transformed from a laborer in the vineyard to a collector of dividends. He enjoyed this change of status for some thirty-odd years, until his death in 1995. (My mom passed in ’77.)
My only reservation about serving under Fons was that it might have made more sense to reverse our roles. Given my broader experience, which included a half-decade’s first-hand work in Ngongo’s leading industry, and given the fact that Fons had gone directly from school into the military, which of us was more qualified to lead the new nation? And which was better suited to navigate the treacherous shoals of our relationship with our erstwhile colonial masters, the French, already known for their masterful ability to turn political dependency to economic, cultural, and other dependencies?
At the time, I thought the party’s choice was based mainly on that African bugbear, seniority. (Not that I would later eschew this prop to my own authority.) But I accepted the decision for two principal reasons. Firstly, I admired and respected Fons. Secondly, I already understood how easily fragile liberation movements could be undermined by personal rivalries.
For examples of this scissiparite’ [fissiparousness], I did not have far to look: our neighbor, the DRC, was already showing signs of this fatal flaw.12
There was yet another reason for my submission: like myself, Fons was an ethnic Lugbara, in his case on both the paternal and maternal branches. (I think I momentarily overlooked this third reason just now because, at the time, I took it for granted.) At any rate, Fons Batakoudou became Ngongo’s first President. And, after a time, he looked like being our President for Life.
Since FN claimed that the burning of the Cameroonian village had such a lasting effect on him, I consulted les Annuaires des Troupes coloniales (fortunately now available online), and found, under the year 1958, an official list of some fifteen military companies from Ngongo that had served in Cameroon. I sent the two or three-hundred living members of these companies a group email, requesting any recollections about this particular incident, “for a book I am writing.” Of the dozen-or-so responses received, M. Abiero’s seemed the most trenchant. (Our correspondence was in French, of course.) —RS
Email exchange with Francois Abiero, a soldier who served in la septieme compagnie ngongienne, and who took part in the burning of the western Cameroonian village:
M. Singer,
After all these years, I am surprised to be asked about this incident. As a very old man, I must say that the event still lingers in my memory. Not only did our squad perpetrate an act of dubious morality and doubtful utility on that day, but one of the soldiers, Sergeant F.S.O. Nkwema, subsequently went on to become our country’s second President. It was in the latter role that his persecution of v.v. [yours truly], over a business disagreement, drove me into exile, from which I have never returned. Instead of bothering a nobody like myself, why don’t you ask that bastard-dictator what he thinks of what we did that day?
—(signed) Francois Abiero, Cap d’Antibes, France, 8 octobre, 2022
My only comments about M. Abiero’s vituperative response are that he had apparently not yet seen the notice of Nkwema’s death, and that “Abiero” is an Acholi name. (See Note 5, supra.)—RS
Note 9: FN has already disclosed this “surprise,” at the end of Chapter Two. To anticipate, similar repetitions will recur throughout the memoir. The explanation is simple: old men tend to forget what they have said!
Note 10: These details about the Troupes coloniales and French Cameroon’s war of independence are essentially accurate.
Note 11: Once again, the aged memoirist repeats himself. This coincidence turned out to be a complex case of the dynamic whereby yesterday’s liberators became tomorrow’s dictators.
Note 12: FN’s assessment is, once again, accurate: by July, 1960, less than a week after Independence, the Democratic Republic of Congo was already in turmoil. Lumumba and Kasa-Vubu were desperately trying to suppress an army rebellion, and there was violent disorder in many parts of the country. By the following January, fissures among the leadership would lead to Lumumba’s execution. However, for FN’s subsequent relationship with the tyrant who emerged from the scrum, Mobutu Sese Seko, see Note
7, supra.
To be continued...
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