“We, the people of Cameroon, proud of our linguistic and cultural diversity, an enriching feature of our national identity, but profoundly aware of the imperative need to further consolidate our unity, solemnly declare that we constitute one and the same Nation, bound by the same destiny, and assert our firm determination to build the Cameroonian Fatherland on the basis of the ideals of fraternity, justice and progress.[…] The Republic of Cameroon shall be a decentralized unitary State. It shall be one and indivisible, secular, democratic and dedicated to social service. It shall recognize and protect traditional values that conform to democratic principles, human rights and the law.” — Preamble of the Constitution of Cameroon
Reconciliation, a word familiar to most Africans and peacebuilding practitioners, but it is a concept “vaguely” understood by most of us. Even in the academic world, few universities offer a program on “Reconciliation.” It remains a land of the “unknown,” yet many of us have decided to embark on that journey for reasons that ultimately recognize the urgency of rebuilding relationships on the basis of truth and justice.
The Republic of Cameroon, a motherland among other motherlands in Africa, is a country that has been known for its talented citizens across various sectors, but in recent decades its portrait has been darkened by governance that has stripped down its social, economic, and political sectors.
Cameroon counts around 260 ethnic groups, spread across 10 regions of the country and in the diaspora. These constitute what can be described as cultural identities. But colonialism left behind another layer, subnational identities shaped by language (French and English).
In 1919, after Germany’s defeat, Cameroon was placed under the mandate of the League of Nations and juridically (as a UN Trust Territory) subjected to French and British authorities through the provisions of the Treaty of Versailles until 1960 (Willard, 1970). Basically, in its juridical form, Cameroon was never a colony of France and Britain, but rather an administered territory under these two powers. Unfortunately, in practice, colonialism was the system applied. From this arrangement emerged the Francophone and Anglophone subnational identities. Initially administrative, these categories hardened into political identities.
The colonial era
In the late years of the colonial era (1945–1960) in Cameroon, French colonial authorities imposed their authority through violence, which intensified with the rise of the Union des Populations du Cameroun (UPC) nationalist movement, which was claiming independence for Cameroon. Founded in Douala in April 1948, the UPC was the only nationalist movement active at that time. Its primary objectives were: to unify the French and British administered Cameroons (artificially divided after World War I); to obtain immediate independence from France; and to reject the French policy of assimilation, which aimed to integrate colonized people into French culture.
In response to these demands, France engaged in a prolonged and brutal campaign of political violence and repression against the nationalist movement. The French administration labeled the UPC as “communist” and banned it in July 1955. Determined to annihilate this movement, the French authorities, with their army often led by veterans of the Indochina War, employed brutal counterinsurgency tactics similar to those used in Algeria. These tactics included mass forced displacement, collective punishment, paramilitary militias, targeted violence (executions and torture), and the assassination of UPC leaders (both on the ground and in exile).
The postcolonial era
For many years, the war remained largely unknown to the international public (often referred to as the “Hidden War” or the “Cameroon War”) and was overshadowed by the Algerian War, as well as purposefully obscured by French and post-independence Cameroonian authorities. The violence did not end with official independence in 1960.
Cameroon accessed independence in January 1960, but without a consensual supreme law. The issue was not the absence of a constitution, but the divisiveness of the process. Many Cameroonians, still reeling from colonial repression and mass violence, argued that reconciliation should come first before institutional matters. That claim was sidelined (by whom? History will tell us). Ignoring reconciliation in favor of consolidating state control marked the early DNA of the Republic. This omission is critical. It meant that the nation’s founding moment did not begin with unity and healing, but with repression. The cost, until today, is long-term mistrust in the state.
In 1961, French Cameroon sought reunification with British-administered Cameroon, leading to the creation of the Federal Republic of Cameroon. Federalism was meant to protect diversity and autonomy. But centralization quickly eroded the federal compact. What was designed as unity through diversity became assimilation under the dominance of the Francophone state.
The new Republic with old methods
In 1982, Paul Biya became the second President of the Republic of Cameroon, following the resignation of President Ahmadou Ahidjo. Two years later, in April 1984, Cameroon registered its first failed coup d’état. President Paul Biya was not overthrown, and later a wave of assassinations and arrests among the population was recorded, targeting particularly citizens from the northern part of Cameroon, who were designated as perpetrators of the coup and allies of the first President, himself accused of plotting it. This phase of Cameroon’s history engendered the first signs of what we can call the politics of tribalism or the political instrumentalization of ethnicity.
In 1992, the first multiparty elections were held in Cameroon, and Paul Biya was elected President of the Republic of Cameroon. The fairness of this election remains debated to this day.
The political scene in the 1990s in Cameroon, troubled by political protests, showed how political liberalization, economic crisis, and authoritarian resilience led to state repression and the rise of ethnic divisions.
In 2008, Cameroonians once again raised their voices against the modification of the Constitution and the dire economic situation in which the country was plunged. Unfortunately, on April 10, 2008, the revision of the Constitution was adopted by the National Assembly, modifying Article 6 and granting the President the power to be re-elected beyond the two mandates previously limited by that same article. As in the colonial era, protests were banned, people were arrested, others were killed, and the government did not seem willing to create space for dialogue, but once again chose repression. Cameroon entered a new phase: the definitive erosion of democracy.
The internal conflicts
In 2014, Cameroon entered its first asymmetrical war against the insurgent group Boko Haram in the Far North of the country, a region labeled the “forgotten region” due to the lack of planned development. While the net school enrollment rate was 84% nationally in 2014, it stood at just 46% in the Far North, and a mere 20% in the border districts with Nigeria (. The same year, a controversial anti-terrorism law was adopted, presented as a counterterrorism measure against Boko Haram. This law fueled further suspicion toward the government and reinforced its perception as an oppressive regime.
Two years later, in 2016, the Anglophone crisis emerged, placing Cameroon in the configuration of a country with two ongoing conflicts on its territory and paralyzing access in three of its regions. The marginalization of the Anglophone minority since reunification with Francophone Cameroon in 1961 made the Anglophone crisis foreseeable. No one can endure oppression indefinitely, and the North West and South West regions of Cameroon decided to demand recognition based on the federal agreement. But the response to their demands was violence and repression. Ten years later, the violence has not brought peace, but rather increased nationwide division.
Between 2018 and October 2025, following the presidential election, Cameroon has continuously been drained by physical, cultural, and structural violence, amplifying divisions among Cameroonians (including in the diaspora) and making the path toward reconciliation harder than ever.
Setting these scenes briefly is meant to show how, over time, Cameroon and Cameroonians have not had the space to define the identity of the nation they/we want to build. Sixty years later, Cameroon still has to find a narrative that will reconnect its multiple identities. But this new narrative must be rooted in the essence of reconciliation.
The envisioning of reconciliation
The history of independence contradicts reductionist explanations of African conflicts as “ethnic” or “tribal.” The struggle for freedom was national in scope. The Union des Populations du Cameroun (UPC), the driving force of independence, united Cameroonians from almost all regions. At that time, the only identity that mattered was freedom and unity.
The central question today is: what has changed? How did that unifying project give way to today’s congested political space dominated by discourses of division and exclusion? The answer lies in how political violence has reframed identities from tools of liberation into tools of fragmentation.
Cameroon has lived through a history of violence and social fragmentation. Decades after the end of the colonial system, the sociopolitical situation has not significantly improved. Today, on the edge of a political transition, the matter of reconciliation must be addressed as a priority, because the development of a Cameroonian nation depends on it.
After almost a decade working in reconciliation in Sub-Saharan Africa, analyzing conflicts between divided communities, facilitating dialogue, listening and learning from individuals, unlearning my own narratives and biases, and witnessing transformation as individuals begin to see each other beyond the single story told about them, I/we decided to bring the conversation of reconciliation closer to my home, Cameroon. This commitment has propelled me/us to write this series on “Thinking the Reconciliation process in Cameroon.”
The aim of our work is one of preparation and contribution to the transitional process in which Cameroon may soon find itself. Through this series, we want our readers to become familiar with the concept and practice of reconciliation, to think about reconciliation in the Cameroonian context (what would it mean?), to draw inspiration from other contexts that have undergone nationwide reconciliation processes, and most importantly to invite you to engage in a process that may help Cameroon and Cameroonians become one and indivisible, where we will be obliged to look at our past, acknowledge how deeply our social fabric has been damaged, and most importantly, rebuild our nation on the basis of truth and justice.
This series is about making reconciliation thinkable now, for an upcoming implementation process under better conditions.
This first article has explained why it is important to begin thinking about reconciliation today. The next article takes the discussion one step further by addressing the foundational question upon which the entire series rests: What is reconciliation, and what should it mean in the Cameroonian context?
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