Letter to the Editor
The Independentist News Editorial Desk (IED) had the following exchange with a British national (TC) (Full Name withheld) who spent many years in Cameroon. The correspondence concerns the article titled “How Britain Tried to Erase Southern Cameroons.”
TC: The rewriting and distortion of history is unforgivable – in innocent comedy it sells tickets but in real life costs countless lives.
IED: Thank you for your candid reaction. We agree that history must never be rewritten for political convenience, because false narratives can indeed cost lives. That is precisely why the article relies on United Nations records, British parliamentary debates, and the documented sequence of trusteeship, the 1961 plebiscite, the termination of British responsibility, the abolition of the federation, and Britain’s subsequent treatment of Southern Cameroons as an internal Cameroonian matter.
If you believe that any specific statement is historically inaccurate, please identify it and provide the documentary evidence. The editorial board will examine it carefully and correct any proven error. However, a general accusation of “distortion” cannot replace engagement with the historical record. The purpose of the article is not to invent history, but to examine responsibilities, omissions, and consequences that official narratives have too often avoided.
Disagreement is legitimate. Evidence must decide the matter.
TC: Before I came to Cameroon, the govt under Thatcher substantially reduced their annual grant to the BBC. Similarly since the mid fifties funding for overseas commitments drained away as GB struggled to pay off loans for WW2. In the case of BBC this led to what the Lloyd’s Bank Review called the political economy of broadcasting. Less money, more extremes.
IED: Yes We are fully aware of the WWII loan Britain got from the US and they finally paid it off in the early 2000s, if our memory is correct.
TC: Back in the fifties it was all about panic and bad decisions. In the early sixties we inflicted a huge act of harm on ourselves by closing much of our home railway system. The majority now pays for the ignorant and often cynical mistakes of a civil service minority.
IED: That too, we are aware of, in addition to the devaluation of the pound sterling and the Suez Canal Crisis
TC: The FCO (Foreign & Commonwealth Office) needs a new relationship with west Africa generally and don’t forget we still have the entente cordiale from 1904, which perhaps needs re-reading by people who got out of the habit.
IED: Absolutely. The FCO needs a fundamentally renewed relationship with West Africa—one based on sovereignty, mutual interests, and direct engagement rather than inherited colonial alignments. The 1904 Entente Cordiale should indeed be reread, particularly where Anglo-French understandings may still shape British policy toward former British territories and reinforce excessive deference to France. West Africa has changed, and British policy must change with it.
The Independentistnews Editorial desk
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