Ernest Ouandié: Freedom, the message and the messenger

Pan African revolutionary hero Ernest Ouandié was condemned to death by a neo-colonial court-martial in Yaoundé, La Republique du Cameroun on January 5 1971 and executed in Bafoussam on January 15, 1971. He did not testify during the neo-colonial court-martial. He left on record, the following prophetic message full of historic and ideological significance to victims of colonialism and neo-colonialism in Africa and beyond which LRC and its court-martial were representative executioners:

” You will one day have to answer for this mockery of a conviction before history! As far as I am concerned, I am ready, under these conditions, to be executed rather than submit to a mockery of a trial”.

This message relates to the sham independence which predatory neo- colonial France purported to have granted to Cameroun, its supposed structures of governance which were remote-controlled through colonial treaties and puppet leaders. The judiciary, the military and security architecture of the state are instruments of oppression under this neo-colonial contraption.

This explains why they were relied on to enforce the assassination of a leading voice of freedom from colonial rule and neo-colonialism in Africa. Because of his historic stand against colonialism and neo-colonialism, Ernest Ouandié must be celebrated as an African liberation hero and not as a citizen of La Republic du Cameroun.

It is hard for me to characterize him as a Camerounais. He may be one by birth but his revolutionary message resonated beyond La Republique du Cameroun. Albert Mukong, a revolutionary contemporary of Ernest Ouandié who spent time with him in Ghana and in the dungeon of La Republique du Cameroun prior to his assassination, told me that the revolutionary leader was not afraid of death because for him, alive of dead, the struggle for the total liberation and genuine independence for LRC and Africa will not abate and therefore, killing him was an exercise in futility.

The events that followed the assassination of Ernest Ouandié on January 15, 1971 validated the struggle for the genuine independence of La Republique du Cameroun Ernest Ouandié and his fellow freedom fighters which allegedly occurred on January 1, 1960.The assassination of Ernest Ouandié was followed by the invalidation of January 1. 1960 as the date of the independence of LRC and the annexation the Southern Cameroons by FranceAfrique’s predatory colonial vassal contraption bastardised as La Republique du Cameroun with its supposed date of independence as May, 20 1972. Therefore, La Republique du Cameroun colonial contraption was never independent at all. The assassination of Ernest Ouandié and other genuine opponents of colonialism and neo-colonialism underscored this reality.

The supposed independence of LRC was mired in the blood of genuine freedom fighters. On January 3, 1964, Tankeu Noe was assassinated and 15 freedom fighters were assassinated as part of the celebration of the fourth anniversary of the independence of LRC. No record of a genuine trial meeting international standards of a trial has been shown to exist of these freedom fighters.

The assassinations of these freedom fighters, in January makes January, and the purported independence of LRC in January1 1960, a month of the collective assassination of the freedom and independence of the people of LRC. The assassination of the freedom hero on January 15, which is the mid of the month of January, carries symbolic weight necessitating the individual and collective recommitment of all freedom lovers in Africa to the struggle against colonialism, neo-colonialism and a total rejection of FranceAfrique and its enslaving legacy of puppetry leadership.

By Chief Charles A. Taku,
Washington DC, 15 January 2023

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