[2] Albert Ndongmo was born on 26 September 1926 in Bafou, French Cameroons, near Dschang, to a Christian family of Bamiléké people.

[4] On 15 March 1960, Ndongmo launched the journal L'Essor des jeunes to impart Christian values to young people.

He saw freedom of expression as the cornerstone of an integrated system of political, social, personal and intellectual belief, and attempted to use the journal for this purpose, although he was forced to work within a very limited budget.

[7] In April 1970 the archbishop Jean Zoa wanted to move L'Essor to Yaoundé and to make it a monthly Catholic journal for young people throughout the country.

Led by General Max Briand, who had served previously in Algeria and Indochina, these troops conducted a brutal "cleansing" campaign in the Bamiléké territory of the West, Centre and Littoral provinces.

[9][10] The rebel leader Ernest Ouandié, a Bamiléké like Ndongmo, refused to recognise Ahidjo and continued guerilla warfare.

[13] He submitted a written intervention on "Christological, ecclesiological and anthropological foundations of the missionary activity of the Church".

[15] He understood and to some extent agreed with the UPC since he too was opposed to the dictatorial regime, although he did not support the revolutionary guerrilla movement.

[17] According to Ndongmo, in 1965 President Ahidjo asked him to try to mediate with Ernest Ouandié, now the last active rebel leader, to try to end the fighting.

In July or August 1970 Ouandié called for help, and Ndongmo picked him up in his car and took him to his own house, where he let him stay for several nights.

[19] The prime minister of East Cameroon, Simon Pierre Tchoungui, asked the Pope to summon Ndongmo to Rome and to then invite him to remain there.

Ndongmo explained he had set up the factory only to give the diocese financial independence, so it did not have to rely on Western aid.

[23] Two days after Ouandié's arrest, on 21 August 1970 the Minister of Justice, Félix Sabal Lecco, announced that the security services had discovered a plot to assassinate the head of state by Ouandie in which Ndongmo was complicit.

[20] On Ndongmo's return to Cameroon on 27 August 1970, he found from a newspaper headline that he had been suspended from his position by Rome.

[24] Pope Paul VI had named Georges Siyam Siewe as apostolic administrator "Sede Plena" for Nkongsamba, taking over all active duties.

[29] He and the other accused were interrogated by Jean Fochivé, director of the regime's SEDOC political police force, over the next five months.

[33] Some Catholics condemned Archbishop Zoa for being too close to the government, and for possibly assisting in removal of a popular rival.

"[36] Ahidjo resigned the Presidency in November 1982 and in February 1984 a Cameroon military tribunal sentenced him to death in absentia.