The Assassinations (Excerpts from "Flash of the Sun")

Excerpts from Flash of the Sun

Chapter 20 




Saturday, October 15, 1960

It was a mix of cloudy and clear skies over Geneva Switzerland that afternoon as William Bechtel strode towards the restaurant for the rendezvous with the Cameroonian. The Frenchman whistled slightly under his breath and reached out for the knob of the entrance door. He even adjusted the front collar of his jacket with his left hand as he pulled the door open and walked inside.

A formally dressed waitress in a blue apron approached him right away even before he made up his mind which table to settle down at. She widened her smile at William Bechtel, and then asked him if she could be of service, flashing the menu suggestively at the same time. He assured her he would look at the menu afterwards, and then without asking for directions, he headed for the table at the far corner of the restaurant.

He had been to the Plat D’Argent before, on several occasions actually. The one thing he liked the most about the joint was the Chef’s daily menu. He had met the chef before, a charming fellow with a broad smile and an effusive heart for those customers that settled for his menu and enjoyed it. The fellow had elevated his cooking to the form of an art and William Bechtel loved him for that. In fact, his respect for people who showed a great deal of dedication to their careers was deep, especially those who go about it without feigning things. For he too was proud of his own career and for that reason, he would accomplish any task that had to be done. Has to be done, William Bechtel thought. He felt so because he was determined not to fail in the task he was out to accomplish that day.

William Bechtel looked around him at the few customers in the room, mused at the fact that there were just nine diners and carousers for a place he held in such high esteem.

Perhaps the long drizzle of the morning has made a muddle of life for the city's inhabitants. Or perhaps it was just one of those days that things happen, he thought.

He even smiled mildly at the reflection of the words things happen, as he looked up from his menu to find that the waitress who had been darting back and forth was approaching his table finally.

“Monsieur, should I get something for you now?” the waitress asked, probably surprised that he had been sitting there all those minutes and holding the menu in his hands without deciding on what to have.

“An aperitif will do for now. I will have the meal later,” William Bechtel said and pointed to the menu.

“Thank you, Monsieur! I will be back in a moment,” the waitress smiled as she jotted it down.

“That’s lovely of you,” he smiled back.

“Thank you, Monsieur!” she responded warmly, bowed a little, and then turned around and walked away with a faint smile still on her face.

He marveled at her retreating figure graced with those strides that you often see from models in a catwalk. Her perfectly shaped hips were oscillating in a manner that made him swallow some spittle without meaning to. She was new around, and William Bechtel was certain she was offering far more than Plat D’Argent had on their menu.

I am on a job; I should keep my mind away from distractions, the Frenchman thought, and then grunted. Besides, it is about time a man my age starts giving up in a graceful manner some of the things of youth, especially the cravings for a girl one could father or even grandfather, he told himself.

He looked at his watch, sucked his mouth, and then nodded as if acknowledging something to himself. He was expecting the Camerounian in half an hour, but based on his knowledge of Africans when it came to keeping time for a rendezvous, he knew it could be in three quarters of an hour or even more before the African showed up.

William Bechtel thought back to his first encounter with Félix Moumié, the new UPC leader living in exile in the independent African Republic of Guinea. When he first met Moumié three months ago in the Ghanaian capital city of Accra, he had introduced himself to the Cameroonian partisan leader as a journalist and a friend of another journalist who was a buddy of Charles Van Der Lanoitte, the Reuters correspondent reporting the France’s war against the UPC in the newly independent Republic of Cameroun—the former French Cameroun. He had worked his way into Félix Moumié's confidence with ease, to the point where the Camerounian went on to voice his admiration for his deep knowledge of the conflict. When the UPC leader confided in him that he was glad he would be taking the Camerounian’s side of the story to the western media, he knew then that he had made his mark.

But William Bechtel knew there was more about the UPC leader at stake here than the conflict in the Republic of Cameroun that France just allowed to become a member of the United Nations Organization (UNO). He knew the Camerounian opposition leader was a far more dangerous element than his predecessor Ruben Um Nyobé. Félix Moumié was a highly educated man—a medical doctor with a mastery of English, French, German and some Russian. He also knew that the agitator was forcefully selling the UPC’s case to the western world in a far more effectively way than any other African leader opposing colonial rule or neocolonialism in the continent.

But there was something else about the whole thing that made William Bechtel very anxious. Félix Moumié had successfully made powerful friends in the robust French Communist party. He was privy to information that the energetic African even met that summer with Ernesto Che Guevara, the Argentine international revolutionary and second-in-command in the new anti-American and anti-Western government of Fidel Castro’s Cuba. Another thing that troubled William Bechtel enormously was the fact that the Camerounian partisan leader had successfully developed a special rapport with the bellicose Egyptian president Gamel Abdel Nasser, the Pan-Africanist president of Ghana Kwame Nkrumah, the stubborn nationalist Guinean head of state Sékou Touré and some of the other leaders in the communist bloc who hoped to one day see Africa as an economically united and politically integrated continent. The fact that those leaders promised to increase their support to his partisan group made William Bechtel even more nervous.

William Bechtel was also certain the new UPC leader had what it takes to put the French Army in Cameroun in disarray and even defeat the regime of their protégé Ahmadou Ahidjo in the long run. There were even unconfirmed reports that Patrice Lumumba of Congo Leopoldville had a meeting with Moumié and that the two resolved to formulate a master plan that would change the political landscape in the middle Africa, and then take that part of the world out of the western sphere of influence. That particular piece of information convinced him that Félix Moumié was another Che Guevara in the making, an opinion several of his superiors also shared.

William Bechtel emptied his glass of red wine and looked at his watch again for the umpteenth time. It was now ten minutes to the rendezvous time, more than enough time to compose himself before the Camerounian showed up. He thought about the red wine he had just drunk and smiled. The Cameroonian would love it too. He was privy to information on Félix Moumié that revealed the UPC leader’s love for a good drink and his tendency to relax when having some level of alcohol coursing through his system. That is the case with most politicians and revolutionaries; he thought as if all they need is a slight amount of an intoxicant to make them feel truly important.

He tried to concentrate on the plans for the impending meeting, conscious of the fact that he could not afford not to win the Camerounian’s full trust. Just then, it crossed his mind that the crowd in the restaurant was getting bigger. But he didn’t dwell on it because a motion at the entrance caught his attention. A big black man was ushering his way in, followed by Félix Moumié.

William Bechtel smiled at the observation. Félix Moumié was no dummy. His decision to show up with some support, someone who could keep an eye on things or even intervene physically on his behalf, confirmed once again the resourcefulness of his mind. He had seen the other guy before and knew of his activities. Jean-Martin Tchaptchet was the President of the French section of the UPC. William Bechtel looked at his watch as he rose from his seat to welcome the two men approaching his table. It said six minutes to meeting time. He extended his right hand to the Camerounians and even thought they were unusually steady. The men shook it, muttered greetings, and then Félix Moumié introduced his counterpart as a comrade and friend in France.

William Bechtel motioned Félix Moumié and Jean-Martin Tchaptchet to the empty seats, flipped his fingers and even whistled for the attention of the waitresses. He asked his guests in a seemingly relaxed manner to give their orders for something to drink and eat. However, when the men hesitated, he suggested that they share a bottle of wine, the very brand he was drinking before they walked in. Jean-Martin Tchaptchet looked at Félix Moumié who conceded with a headshake, and then added that they could have something to eat afterwards. Félix Moumié asked for a glass of juice by the side and then brought his hands together on the table. William Bechtel hid his joy with a smile.

He filled up the three glasses with the wine the tempting waitress brought, raised his glass to the air for a toast and clinked the other two glasses as a sign of goodwill. The men took a couple of sips and appeared relaxed minutes right after that.

William Bechtel spurred the two Africans on with words of approval for their struggle and was amazed by how quickly they picked on the bait. Now they were talking, rapidly, seriously, in above normal tones and with a great deal of exertion as if that would convince him to take their cause more seriously and transmit their messages widely to the western media. But he hardly listened to the points the Camerounians were trying to make as he waited, waited and waited. Then he decided to reach for some documents in his file.

William Bechtel’s heart was throbbing unusually fast when a guy in an apron walked up to their table and reported that someone was on the phone for a Dr. Félix-Roland Moumié. He noticed the puzzled expression on the UPC leader’s face with the corner of an eye, and was relieved when Félix Moumié told them that he would be back in a moment, and then left for the phone call.

Now alone with the other Cameroonian, he placed the file of documents on the table and told Jean-Martin Tchaptchet to move his seat closer to his and join him in taking a look at the articles and other documents pertaining to their movement. Now he too was speaking rapidly, grabbing Jean-Martin Tchaptchet’s attention in the process, distracting him from everything else, and at the same time, he tossed a tiny light green crystal into Félix Moumié’s glass of wine.

He was still speaking rapidly when Félix Moumié returned with a worried look on his face. The UPC leader expressed surprise that the caller did not respond at all when he started talking on the phone. William Bechtel dismissed it as a malfunctioning of the telephone line, a joke, a possible mistake or something else, and then went on to sift through the papers in the file, pointing out the gross inconsistencies and fabrications that the different papers carried in their stories about the UPC.

“It is sheer madness,” William Bechtel cried, “Look at this. Quite the contrary to the information we have been getting from Der Lanoitte,” he added, and then started reading from it in heavily accented English,

Four years ago, when rioting broke out there, the Union des Populations Camerounaises—the nation's strongest political party—was blamed for it, and outlawed. The U.P.C. then broke wide open. A moderate, non-violent wing split away from the terrorist faction that fled to the hills. Under a "national reconciliation" policy, more than 650 convicted U.P.C. supporters received amnesty recently from the government of Premier Ahmadou Ahidjo. But the terrorists, directed by Dr. Félix-Roland Moumié, an ingratiating and crafty little physician, got no mercy: while entire villages were moved down to roadside locations surrounded by stockades, French and Cameroonian patrols flushed guerrillas from the emptied hills…Dr. Moumié himself fled the country after the 1955 riots, turned up ultimately in Cairo, and with plenty of money (from Russia and Red China, say his enemies) launched a campaign demanding U.N.-supervised elections before the Cameroons became independent, on the grounds that the present Legislative Assembly does not represent the will of the people. His plea was turned down by the U.N. Moumié proclaimed: "Freedom with violence is preferable to slavery without it," and his followers started practicing what he preached.

“You see, even the Americans are against you and your group. That piece is from the July 27, 1959 edition of Time. Time magazine has another article about you that is even more damning. Please read this with me. I can even go ahead and translate it for you if your English isn’t good enough; if you don’t mind, that is. Here it is:

“‘The first of Africa's six new nations to get its independence in 1960 celebrated its beginnings last week with half the country in a state of emergency… On the morning of the first day of independence, terrorists killed five people in the capital of Yaoundé…six months of struggle, 22 whites have died—more than were killed in a similar period during the Mau war in Kenya... Responsible for most of the slaughter are the exiled leaders of a dissident political party banned in 1955, who are working to undermine 35-year-old Premier Ahmadou Ahidjo's fledgling government. The party is led by Dr. Félix-Roland Moumié, who has been issuing Czech pistols to Bamileké tribesmen. Just back from Moscow, Moumié operates from his refuge in nearby really independent Guinea. His followers hide in the hills or attack from across the border in the neighboring British Cameroons...’”

William Bechtel read the entire article, cocked his head, and then grinned at the two Africans. “Huh. What does it say here? January 11, 1960 edition,” he added, and then whistled in an incongruous manner.

The meeting progressed in a state of heightened anxiety. William Bechtel showed the two revolutionaries more documents, took down notes, argued heatedly with them and barely ate the food he ordered. All the while, he never lost sight of Félix Moumié’s glass of wine, cursing under his breath each time the UPC leader ignored it and drank from the other glass.

In a move that was probably out of desperation, William Bechtel started talking excitedly in feigned exaltation, and then went on to push the file towards Félix Moumié. He was still talking with increased vigor seconds after when he made what apparently looked like an innocent gesture with his hand, knocking the file off the table to the floor. He smiled and mumbled incoherently, asking for pardon from the two Camerounians, giving his sixty-four years of age as a factor. At the same time, he got up from his seat in an agitated manner, knocking a chair over in the process, and then surged forward to assist the Africans in picking up the sheets of paper scattered on the floor.

Now standing between Jean-Martin Tchaptchet and the table, and with both UPCists bent over to pick up the materials on the floor, the Frenchman brought his left hand over Félix Moumié’s second glass of drink and let go of the little crystal held between his thumb and index finger.

William Bechtel looked around him to find that a few of the customers were casting curious glances at their corner. He realized they were attracting some attention. But that was not the list of his worries. He continued with his ploy and even smiled a little when Félix Moumié drank from the second glass. But then the UPC leader picked up the first glass of wine he had been ignoring and raised it to his lips. Bechtel barely caught himself from knocking the glass off the Camerounian’s hand. A mild look of trepidation could be seen on his face as the UPC partisan leader emptied his other glass of its content.

William Bechtel was smiling warmly as he shook hands with the two Cameroonians and watched them leave that evening with a feeling of relief. He knew the men were thinking that they had won over a powerful journalist to their cause. But then, William Bechtel wondered what their reaction would have been had they known otherwise. He chuckled at the thought, adjusted his collar again, hailed an approaching cab, and then got in and slumped into the back seat.

William Bechtel, a decorated soldier in the French Foreign legion and a sophisticated agent of the La Main Rouge (The Red Hand), the covert lethal branch of the Service de Documentation Extérieure et de Contre-Espionnage (External Documentation and Counter-Espionage Service― SDECE), better known as the French secret service, had every reason to feel accomplished. His role might be considered murky, but the Frenchman thought he was doing his job. He was living up to the purpose of the La Main Rouge, created to eliminate threats from anti-French elements, especially the Africans fighting to take their Francophone lands out of the geo-political sphere of influence of France.

William Bechtel telephoned Paris that evening before he took a bath. His mood became pensive as he cleansed himself, wondering why Jacques Foccart sounded so concerned about the dosage he put in Félix Moumié’s drink. However, just before he fell into an unconscious slumber, a thought crossed his mind, and he wondered how President Charles De Gaulle would receive the news. The thought left him with a smile on his face.

Chapter 1 

New York, spring 1958

Renault's "princess"—the 1956 Renault Dauphine—made René Roccard proud, a feeling millions of his French compatriots also shared. So when he bought a Dauphine sedan from the first consignment the auto manufacturer shipped to the United States of America, his co-workers were not surprised at all. However, people started raising their eyebrows when he made it a point of intoning stanzas of France’s national anthem La Marseillaise or honking in jubilation whenever he saw a Dauphine or drove past one.

The patriotic Frenchman regarded the car as a testament to France's recovery after the country's humiliating four-year occupation by Germany during the Second World War.

Even so, René did not feel proud or concerned about the automobile as he navigated streets of New York city that afternoon. The expression of grim determination on his face relaxed a little as he left East 48th Street behind him and joined the crawl of traffic through Broadway. Completely oblivious to the skyscrapers on both sides of the road, he grappled with the details of his self-assigned mission as if nothing else mattered in the world. The Frenchman’s extreme preoccupation almost made him hit the back bumper of the blue Ford Fairlane right in front of his car, but he reacted swiftly to the impending impact by stepping hard on the brake pedal. The Renault Daphne jerked to a stop, and he came close to bumping his head on the steering wheel. The thought that he came close to screwing up his mission by getting into a stupid accident, infuriated him so much that he hit the steering wheel repeatedly, gritted, and then dropped back in his seat.

“Merde…merde, les salopards!” René cursed and didn’t cease until the sound of cars hooting from his rear alerted him that he was lagging behind the flow of traffic.

René moved the car forward, in rhythm with the other vehicles in front of him, and then looked at his perspiring palms one after the other. The irony of his nervousness brought a sigh to his lips at the same time that his eyelids narrowed even further. The contorted expression on his face only eased a little as he drove into 1st Avenue/United Nations Plaza, steering the vehicle through a variety of residential neighborhoods.

“Cette circulation est agaçante,” he hissed under his breath.

True he hadn’t anticipated the heavy traffic at that hour of the day and never imagined the temperature could hit ninety-seven degrees Fahrenheit. He did not like the implication at all because it could mean a mess up of his plans.

René looked les agitated when he parked the car in the Turtle Bay neighborhood, got out, opened the trunk, and then pulled out a guitar case with hardly recognizable rifle parts inside. In fact, the thought of “La Bastringue” by the chansonnière Mary Rose-Anna Bolduc crossed his mind as he shut the trunk with a bang. But only after locking the driver door and pocketing the key did he start humming the Quebecer’s song under his breath.

“You have a nice baby there,” a voice with a distinct trace of Boston accent sounded from behind René, sending a chill up his spine.

He froze for a moment, and then turned around with a half-angry and half-surprised look on his face. “What did you just say?” the Frenchman asked with a sneer.

“It is a beautiful piece of machinery. Oh yes! As a matter of fact, my wife is buying one tonight,” the smiling American replied, and then ran his hand on the hood as if caressing it.

“Thank you, Sir! Believe me, your wife will love it,” René retorted, making no effort to disguise his thick Gallic accent. Then he regarded the man for a moment with narrowed eye-lids, “Excuse me, Sir! I must leave now,” he added and turned around. He did not even look at the man he addressed the words to when he waved him goodbye and hurried away.

He walked across the park with quick steps in the direction of the Tudor City apartments, conscious of the dampness on the back of his shirt.

“Ignore it,” he hissed in an effort to shake off the sudden upsurge of irritation plaguing him.

René increased his pace as he approached the apartment block situated directly opposite the United Nations Headquarters, right across First Avenue. He even covered the remaining twenty yards to the apartment door with half-running steps.

 “What am I doing to myself?” he mumbled, mindful of his panting and the slight trembling of his hands.

The Frenchman pulled out the bunch of keys from his back pocket, picked out an inconspicuous silver key, inserted it into the keyhole, and then unlocked the entrance door. He pushed it open with heightened anxiety, muttering a torrent of curses under his breath as he stepped inside Giuseppe Matteotti’s two-bedroom apartment. Then he locked the door behind him and hurried to the casement window.

It was just a month ago that he made the Italian painter’s acquaintance in a bar, got his invitation to his apartment to see his paintings, and then decided to copy the painter’s key after he told him he would be away in his old country for half a year.

René took less than three minutes to assemble the sniper rifle, and then set aside fifteen minutes to wait for his target while his high adrenaline level subsided. But the target did not show up until forty-three minutes later, and even when he exited the United Nations building, he did so with a crowd. On top of that, the man never stayed for more than a second or two in the crosshairs of René’s rifle scope, a development that caused his flow of adrenaline to rise even further.

Ruben Um Niobe, the energetic six-foot leader of “The Union of the Populations of the Cameroons (UPC)”, the civic-nationalist political party that morphed into the Cameroonian Underground Organization by taking up arms against France in French Cameroun following its ban by French authorities in 1955, appeared to be talking and gesturing to the five men and a lone woman around him with an air of confidence and a smile on his face that triggered a flow of bile up René’s throat. He swallowed it back and licked his lips.

René’s heart skipped a beat when the diplomats started walking with the French Camerounian away from the building. His cardiac turmoil was followed by an ache in his stiffened trigger finger as he focused his aim and waited for the moment to deliver the shot that would avenge the death of his brother. However, just as he was about to press the trigger, Ruben stopped, held the shoulder of one of the foreign diplomats, and then moved away. The unexpected movement made René gasp without intending to. Now, his target was almost completely hidden by the burly diplomat, a development that infuriated him even further, leaving his nerves more overwrought than before. The Frenchman bit his lip as he watched the other diplomats encircle Ruben. Then they walked with him to the waiting car. And then the car drove away.

Rage swept over René, making him to quiver, so that he buckled under the weight of his failure, slumped to the floor, and then rolled over. He hit his thighs with both fists, emitting as he did so a series of grunts that seemed to give a rhyme to the vocal manifestation of his tribulation. Then he leaned backwards on the wall and closed his eyes, muttering barely audible curses as he banged the back of his head on the barrier.

René Roccard’s lip movement stopped for a moment, followed by a deep frown, an unconscious facial movement that created a look of extreme rage on his face. Then without even opening his eyes, he nodded to himself several times as if acknowledging an inner voice. Yes, it was his inner voice all right. He would try again for the third time, and if the next attempt turned out to be unsuccessful too, then he would have to make the journey to French Cameroun and finish the job there.

René closed his eyes again and tried to shake off the haunting Monday, January 6, 1958 headline in the New York Times, but it kept imposing itself on his mind.

France Sends Troops to Crush Red-Led Uprising in Cameroons; Acts to Prevent New 'Algeria' in African Territory Where Rebels Burned 60 Villages.

“Les idiots, les imbéciles!” he growled, paused for a moment with an expression of deep pain on his face, and then pulled his hair.

The rebellion in our Cameroun isn’t different from the one in Algeria. That’s why Marc is dead. He quivered in an inaudible voice, ruffled his hair, and then closed his eyes.

A moment of silence ensued before he buried his head in his hands and started weeping.

René went to work the next day feeling disheartened. But that emotion did not last for long because news from Paris reporting the return to power of General Charles De Gaulle reached the consulate hardly an hour after he got there. The afternoon report brought a genuine smile to his face for the first time that week.

                               **************

The month of May 1958 is remembered in the annals of French History as the month of the second and most important Algiers Putsch—an attempt to overthrow the reigning government in Paris that was launched from the capital of French Algeria.

This was after the French populace grew tired of governments that were plagued by recurrent cabinet crises that in turn increased the misgivings of the French Army and the French settlers in the colonies, especially in Algeria. The plotted revolt of these French soldiers was a culmination of years of political instability originating from the shortcomings of the parliamentary system of the French Fourth Republic, which saw twenty prime ministers govern France within a period of eleven years, the vast majority of them coming from parties on the left of the political spectrum.

Following years of chafing against the incompetence of different French governments to quell the rebellions in Algeria and French Cameroun, the army became convinced that even the current right-wing government of the German Alsace-born Pierre Eugène Jean Pflimlin was about to act out of political expediency and order another precipitated pullout from the territories, just like the previous center-left government of Pierre Mendès France did with French Indochina in 1954, thereby sacrificing French honor in the process.

That was why from the balconies in Algiers in Algeria and Yaoundé in French Cameroun, to the corridors of power in France itself, patriotic voices were heard disturbing the air, calling for the return to power of General Charles De Gaulle. The cry for the return of the towering French warrior and statesman to the political scene carried with it a fervor that felt like some sort of a religious zeal.

It was Charles De Gaulle who saved French honor during the four years of German occupation of France, but then surprised the nation by resigning from public office in 1946, decrying the weaknesses of the French Fourth Republic, its constitution and the parliamentary system of government. Now, he was vindicated.

Just like millions of discontented and despondent French citizens, René Roccard regarded the French legend as their only hope in rallying the French nation again. He was certain General Charles De Gaulle was the only person capable of giving a sense of direction to France’s relationship with its evolving territories and colonies, and with the rest of the changing world. But above all, René was convinced that France was entering a new era in its history, a phase that would allow patriots like him to accomplish their self-assigned missions for the fatherland and be acknowledged at the same time as French heroes who saved France from irrelevancy. 

Chapter 12 

September 13, 1958

They said Ruben Um Nyobé radiated a strange confidence that did not reflect his level of exposure to the known world controlled by the major powers. Some of the men of power exercising direction over the destiny of colonial Africa aptly admitted with some degree of awe that Ruben Um Nyobé, the leader of the banned Union of the Peoples of Cameroon, otherwise known as the UPC, was a well-read man. A few of them even talked of his poignant wit, holding that the French Camerounian leader also possessed the great ability to grasp details like a vacuum cleaner, and pointing out that he had what it takes to be a successful politician anywhere in the world.

True the Cameroonian interacted with his people deeply and in a manner that some of his enemies and opponents claimed smacked of populism, true he was engaging even with those who were committed to prevent him from realizing his political dreams, and true he was an altruist. But even Ruben's most virulent critics all agreed that he was neither a populist nor a con politician nor an advocate of discrimination. Ruben considered himself a leader with the common touch and an all-embracing vision to move his people to a better future.

The steel-nerved Ruben’s evolution over the past decade as the head of a trade union that championed the interest of the workers of French Cameroun, to that of the leader of a political movement committed to rallying the forces of the former German colony towards reunification and independence, had taken a toll on him. This, in view of the fact that the arduous task of galvanizing the populations of British Cameroons and French Cameroun, of working against Britain and France in their visions of control of a future post-independence Africa, and of being a good father and husband, was proving to be far more challenging than he had anticipated.

As he walked the footpaths of the Bassa forest that bright September afternoon, Ruben looked neither charismatic nor imposing. In fact, the expression on his face was that of a worried man caught in a death trap. His eyelids shook again, repeatedly as if they were being triggered by a vibrator. The trembling always left him with a premonition of trouble, an intuitive feeling he did not like, but one that had been plaguing him for over a week now. It made him grumpy to the point where he started snapping at his fighters for no apparent reason or for the slightest of mistakes or infractions. Also, he could not stop himself from constantly dwelling on the past, to the vision of a future reunited Cameroon that he and other close top officials of the UPC weaved. That future New Cameroon was expected to be at peace with itself and the rest of the world.

Ruben was convinced that they had done a great job harnessing the resources of the land, that they had cultivated a sense of common purpose among the various groups in both the French-speaking and the English-speaking populations of the partitioned former German colony of Kamerun, and that they were winning over foreign friends to their cause. But then, France lost Indo-China, surrendered the task of fighting communists and nationalists in that part of Asia to the Americans, and then turned its eyes on the nascent African nationalism with a determination to quell it that rivaled the ferocity of the Roman Army in its campaign to defeat Spartacus and his slave revolt against Rome. Reacting from fears that the UPC would reunite French Cameroun and British Cameroons, and then lead it and other French colonies away from its control, the weakened French government panicked and banned the party on false grounds that it harbored Marxist objectives.

Ruben shut and opened his eyes in rapid succession as if to ward off depressing thoughts. Still, the worries persisted. Those ten years of laying the foundation for a reunited and independent Cameroon involved winning the overwhelming support of both the French Camerounian and British Cameroonian peoples, a task that kept him away from his family most of the time and that subjected him to a great deal of deprivation. It was a sacrifice for the future, the UPC hierarchy had reasoned. But now, all their efforts and sacrifices were being washed away by the irresponsible and irrational action of Roland Pré, the right-wing Frenchman who as the High Commissioner of French Cameroun banned the UPC on July 13, 1955, seven months after he arrived in the land as the chief administrator of the United Nations Trust territory and five months before elections for seats in the new Assemblée Législative du Cameroun Français (ALCAM), otherwise known as the Legislative Assembly of French Cameroun. The UPC’s confinement to the shadows of politics in French Cameroun was all the more disheartening because they had been looking forward to winning more than seventy percent of the legislative seats.

The UPC leader’s thoughts drifted again to the trembling of his eyelids. He muttered a sigh under his breath and shook his head warily. The trembling of his eyelids wasn’t the only thing that worried him so much. The onset of insomnia and the discomfort that came with it had added more irritation to his edgy nerves. Flashbacks of those sleepless nights when the brief moments of slumber were interrupted by terrifying dreams that never failed to leave him soaked in his own perspiration, were not comforting at all. The vividness of one of those nights as he thought about it brought a sigh out of his lips. For the past couple of days now, everything around him seemed to be having an eeriness that he found strange to his senses, to the point where he even had to seek the help of a local doctor about it, fearing that he was losing his mind.

"You need a lot of rest, you need some sleep and some time off from the worries of the destiny of this land," the doctor had told him.

But what did the doctor know, living off the sifted information the French system was providing to the local population and the rest of the world about the French Army’s fight against the UPC liberation movement. How could the doctor even expect him to sleep when his people were being massacred every day, and when they were being forced to flee their homes and live a desolate existence in the heart of the forest? Furthermore, how could his mind be at rest when Félix Moumié, Ernest Ouandie, Abel Kingue and most of his other assistants had to flee to British Southern Cameroon, leaving him virtually alone in the arduous task of continuing the insurrection in that part of French Cameroun where the French had concentrated their forces in with the sole purpose of killing the cherished dream of reunification, independence, and a New Cameroon?

As he trod the footpath with his close lieutenants in front and behind him, Um Nyobé’s mind started to wander again—this time, to his 1956 appearance at the United Nations where he had presented the motion for immediate reunification and independence of French Cameroun and British Cameroons. However, another French Camerounian unknown to the political circles in the territory also appeared at the assembly hall that day led by the French ambassador to the United Nations who, it turned out, had made arrangements for the unknown entity to speak after him. The position the man postulated was so shocking that he had trembled in suppressed rage. However, when he found out afterwards that his French Camerounian counterpart was groomed, coached and paid by the French to deliver their version of events in the UN Trust Territory of French Cameroun; he was more awed than surprised.

Hiyopot, as Ruben had referred to the man afterwards, had countered and contradicted all his claims; and without blinking an eye, Hiyopot had looked in his direction and declared to the assembly that he, Ruben Um Nyobé, was not even of Cameroonian descent, and for that reason above everything else, he, Ruben Um Nyobé, had no right to be there speaking on behalf of the peoples of the territories of French Cameroun or British Cameroons that came out of the former German colony of Kamerun.

He remembered how flabbergasted he was by Hiyopot’s speech until a female delegate from Romania turned to him, smiled, and then told him in a voice that brought some relief to his soul. “Mr. Um Nyobé, do not worry about the things he just said. Every country has its smart and it’s less smart. In Rumania, we have our useful idiots too."

Still, that betrayal from his compatriot did not stop him from continuing with his mission to sensitize world leaders about the plight of the peoples of both French Cameroun and British Cameroons. He knew he was carrying a tough message to sell to the rest of the world that France was doing everything within its power to carry out its plot to retain control of French Cameroun while giving the world the impression that it had granted that part of the former German colony the independence its people wanted.

“Where exactly are we supposed to meet them?” Marcel Ngembus, the UPC lieutenant two persons behind Ruben interrupted his thoughts with the question, directing it at nobody in particular, even though he was referring to the local Bassa government official playing the role of broker in the preliminary talks between Ruben Um Nyobé and representatives of the government of the new French Camerounian Prime Minister Ahmadou Ahidjo.

“We are almost there,” Elvis Biyick, the other lieutenant at the head of the squad responded without even looking back at Marcel.

Ruben looked at Elvis in front of him, then at Marcel behind him, and then grunted. Both men were clutching their Kalashnikovs tightly and appeared as alert as desert foxes. He nodded mildly in approval even as he strained his ears for any sound from the nearby bushes.

Nothing! Nothing! Nothing!

Still, no worrying sound disturbed the eeriness of the forest for about ten minutes before he thought he heard something. He was about to mention his suspicions to Elvis when he realized that Elvis had stopped, his eyes wide in their sockets in a momentary gaze of dread that instantaneously turned into a look of dawning realization not unmixed with fury.

“Ambush! We have been ambushed,” Elvis screamed, broke the line, ran towards Ruben and pushed him down to the side of the footpath, over into the overgrown bush. The shootings started the moment he screamed the word ambush. It was an assorted mix of rattling sounds of gunfire from rifles, crackles from pistols and deafening explosions from grenades and other explosives. He thought he even heard sounds from a machine gun. And they appeared to be coming from every direction. Screams, agonizing cries, the barking of orders, imploration for help, shouts of surrender were all intermingled in the deafening noise hanging all around him as he crawled with his belly, grabbed a fallen pistol and crouched behind a tree trunk.

Ruben must have taken cover behind the trunk for about five minutes and he was still trying to figure out the directions the enemy firings were coming from when a hand tapped him on the back and whispered into his ears.

“There is an opening over there. We can make a run for it. Now, now, let’s go,” Marcel hissed.

Ruben was still trying to put his thoughts together when a bullet missed his head by an inch and splintered the trunk that he had crouched behind, sending pieces of wood up in the air. The miss was followed seconds after by another, and then a third.

“Let’s go now,” Marcel screamed and got up to his feet.

Marcel started shooting into the thick forest as they made the run, seemingly at nowhere but making an impact even though. They were less than five yards away from the huge mahogany tree they were hoping to crouch behind for shelter when it dawned on Marcel that the intensity of the assault had abated. Just then, a bullet hit him in his right shoulder. He stifled his scream, but a series of bullets caught him in the torso, forcing his weapon out of his hands. Ruben was about to head to the right when the shootings stopped abruptly as if someone ordered it.

“You are completely surrounded. Drop your weapons now. I repeat drop your weapons now and save your lives―” a voice sounded from a megaphone, stopping Ruben in his tracks.

An overwhelming feeling of tiredness swept over Ruben. He looked at his wounded leg, shut his eyes for a couple of seconds, and then opened them again and stared wearily at Marcel who was now on his knees with a dreary and death look on his face. He nodded slightly, and then turned around and looked dejectedly at his other fighters. Most of his men appeared dead and two of them were agonizing in pains on the footpath. One of the men had been hit so badly that his stomach split open and he was trying to hold his bowels in his hands.

Ruben dropped his pistol and raised his hands in the air, the anger of betrayal sweeping through his entire being, making him to unconsciously bite his lower lip so hard that he even tasted his own blood. He was still trying to make sense of the whole purpose of the betrayal when he heard a series of spurting sounds behind him, sounds that were followed by gasps from Marcel as he fell to the ground.

Ruben started turning around to see who the shooter was when a bullet hit him. This was followed by another bullet on his back, and then another and another. He buckled to his knees and fell flat on his face, the black faces of his native soldiers and the white French officer by his side stamped in his memory even as he tried to make a connection. The veil finally moved away, allowing him to make the association just before he let out his last breath. He had seen the face of René before, in the American city of New York. He even tried to smile at the realization just before he took his last breath. The haunt was over or so he thought.

Culled by Janvier T. Chando, author of    Flash of the Sun