The massacre of Bamileke communities during the French and post-colonial military campaign in the twentieth century remains one of the least acknowledged mass atrocities in Central Africa. French colonial authorities classified the killings as “order maintenance.”
Edited from a reflection originally shared by Vivian Abiedu, By The Independentist Editorial Desk
Introduction — The Silences That Shape Our Understanding of Africa
Across Africa’s history, some tragedies are remembered loudly and globally, while others are smothered in silence. Some genocides become symbols, with memorials, documentaries, campaigns, and international recognition. Others — equally devastating, equally real — are buried because powerful actors prefer them forgotten.
Vivian Abiedu’s original reflection asked a profound and uncomfortable question:
Why do certain African peoples become globally recognised victims, while others — including the Bamileke, Hutu, Congolese, and Southern Cameroonians ( Ambazonians)— remain erased from world conscience?
To answer that question, we must confront the selective politics of memory.
Rwanda — A Genocide the World Chose to Remember
The Rwandan tragedy is one of the most widely commemorated events in modern African history. The world, ashamed of its failure to intervene, transformed Rwanda into a symbol of global conscience. Today, Rwanda is heavily branded as a story of resilience and rebirth. International institutions celebrate its recovery. Global companies promote its image. Even football jerseys carry the slogan inviting the world to “Visit Rwanda.”
Rwanda successfully mastered the global politics of remembrance, and the world embraced a convenient redemption story. Yet the simplified version taught in schools and presented in films hides painful complexities. Long before the terrible events of April in that country, the Great Lakes region experienced cycles of violence in which different communities — Hutu, Tutsi, Twa, Congolese — suffered at different moments under different forces. But only some of these sufferings received global recognition.
Congo — The Largest Human Catastrophe the World Chooses to Ignore
If Rwanda is the tragedy the world showcases, Congo is the tragedy the world avoids. Millions have died in Congo over the past decades. Generations of women have endured unspeakable brutality. Entire regions have been torn apart by wars fuelled by foreign powers, multinational corporations, and neighbouring states seeking mineral control and geopolitical leverage. Yet Congo has no global memorial. No world museum. No Hollywood project. No international holiday of remembrance.
Why?
Because too many powerful interests profit from Congo’s silence. And when global profit is at stake, global sympathy becomes very selective. Vivian’s questioning of this silence is both valid and necessary.
Cameroon — The Erased Bamileke Genocide
Vivian raises another critical point: the massacre of Bamileke communities during the French and post-colonial military campaign in the twentieth century remains one of the least acknowledged mass atrocities in Central Africa. French colonial authorities classified the killings as “order maintenance.” The post-independence regime reframed them as “pacification.” School systems rewrote them out of official memory. No national memorial has ever been permitted. No truth commission has investigated the crimes. No international tribunal has examined them. And yet historians, including French scholars, have documented massive loss of life in the Bamileke heartlands.
Why has this tragedy not become a pilgrimage site like Rwanda?
Because acknowledging it would force France to admit to a major war crime. It would force the regime in Yaoundé to confront its own violent foundations. It would require the international community to admit that it routinely chooses which African victims deserve recognition and which must be forgotten. These are uncomfortable truths — and therefore they remain suppressed.
Ambazonia — A Contemporary Tragedy Being Buried in Real Time
Southern Cameroonians today are living through the same erasure. Mass graves exist across the land. Villages have been burned. Whole communities have been displaced. Civilians have faced torture, assassination, and enforced disappearances.
Yet:
No global memorial exists. The African Union has not intervened. The United Nations treats the crisis as an internal disturbance. France shields the regime responsible. Nigeria maintains strategic silence. Even within the media landscape, many journalists who rise to prominence choose selective outrage. Some amplify narratives convenient to the regime, avoid uncomfortable truths, or shape their reporting to maintain political or professional favour.
This is why Vivian’s critique of media behaviour — including the editorial choices of figures like Mimi Mefo — must be understood not through ethnicity, but through the ethics of journalism and the geopolitics of narrative control.
The Politics Behind Selective Memory
Oppressors always try to rewrite the story after the violence. This is a pattern across nations and eras.They sanitise their history. They present themselves as victims or saviours. They launch global branding campaigns. They sponsor international partnerships. They fund tourism slogans. They discredit survivors. They bury mass graves.They criminalise truth-telling. This is why some tragedies are globally remembered, while others are made invisible. The world’s conscience is shaped not by justice, but by power.
Identity, Culture, and the Need for Responsible Analysis
Vivian’s reflection also touched on the differences in cultural development among groups that share origins — why some excel in trade, others in craftsmanship, others in organisation or industry.
These questions are intellectually valid. But they must be approached through the lens of history, geography, opportunity, and policy — not destiny, stereotype, or physical features. Culture evolves through environment and experience. People are shaped by circumstance, not by the shape of their skull. Economies produce behaviours; behaviours do not produce economies.
The Ambazonian nation we are building must be grounded in responsible analysis, not inherited prejudices. We examine systems, not tribes. We challenge oppression, not peoples. We fight propaganda, not our neighbours.
Conclusion — Reclaiming African Memory
Vivian Abiedu’s reflection came from a place of deep frustration: the consistent erasure of African suffering, the manipulation of African narratives, and the global system that decides which victims deserve sympathy and which ones must remain invisible.
Her core message survives and is strengthened in this editorial: Africa’s history has been written by those who benefit from silence. Until Africans reclaim their own memory, their tragedies will always be curated by others. Rwanda is remembered because the world chose to remember it. Congo is forgotten because the world chooses to forget it. The Bamileke massacres were hidden because the truth is inconvenient. And Ambazonia’s pain is being buried in real time because global politics demands it.
The real question remains: Who decides which African victims are allowed to be seen? Justice requires an honest memory — not a selective one. And it is our duty, as Ambazonians, Africans, and human beings, to tell the full story.
The Independentist Editorial Desk
