The Bassas of Cameroon

Most are either Protestants or Presbyterians. Some are also Roman Catholics, while a growing number are Jehovah’s Witnesses or have joined other Evangelical Christian groups. It is claimed that, it is because Bassas are rebellious, proud and adventurous; hence they joined massively the war for the independence of French-speaking Cameroon, which began in 1958 and ended only in 1970. The Bassas paid the ultimate prize, even more than the Bamilekes, who were other nationals or natives of French-speaking Cameroon who joined the war for independence in East Cameroon, led by the Union of the Population of Cameroon (UPC). The Bamilekes were equally massively massacred by the French installed government of late Ahmadou Ahidjo, especially in the late 60s and early 70s. By some estimates, the Bamilekes lost not less than 3 hundred thousand people. But since they were better organised and also knew how to compromise, they were able stop the massacre of their population. But the Bassas stood their grounds or were motivated by attributes earlier mentioned; hence the so-called pacification of the Bassaland was a phenomenal atrocity. But there are no records or estimate of figures or the number of Bassas massacred by France and the regime of Ahmadou Ahidjo, as it is the case with the Bamilekes.

It was in a bid to break the back of the UPC led rebellion in Bassaland, French Forces using their French-speaking West African soldiers, generally referred as Senegalese or Tireraillieur Senegalais, decided to use petrol bombs on villages in Bassaland. The method of counter insurgency used in Bassaland by the French and their locally backed regime of Ahmadou Ahidjo, caused a massacre that most people even native or ethnic Bassas, don’t want to recall, for it was atrocious. And it explains why, today, in most parts of Bassaland, there are still large swath of land now transformed into forest, complete with names, but uninhabited. In spite the price that they paid under French colonial period and also under the regime of Ahmadou Ahidjo that was installed by France, Bassas have remained recalcitrant nationals/natives. Even though their population figure was depopulated during the war of independence of French East Cameroon, most Bassas have managed to be well educated and some have become top civil servants. It may partly also explain the reasons why most civil savants sent to work in Bassaland end up either promoted or are sent back to their respective ministries in Yaoundé, to occupy vacant offices, with no real responsibilities.