Following independence, the first President of Cameroon, Ahmadou Ahidjo requested continued French military intervention to fight the UPC rebels.

The war is believed to have produced some 61,300 to 76,300 civilian deaths, according to estimates from the British embassy assembled in 1964, with 80% of the dead being from the Bamileke Region.

General Max Briand, the commander of all French military forces in Cameroon, gave an estimate of 20,000 people killed in the Bamileke Region in 1960 alone.

One must write a book to cover the inventory of forces and structures of power that were used to combat our organization”[4]Um Nyobe's words allude to the tensions that existed between the nationalist movement and the colonial administration.

Attempts to thwart the nationalist movement were not unique to Cameroon, but rather a natural extension of French colonial politics at the time.

The French colonial administration's efforts to suppress UPC led to a brutal civil war.

On 22 April 1955, the UPC published the "Proclamation Commune," which at the time, was considered a unilateral independence manifesto.

Slowly, the French began to focus their energies on quelling the UPC movement, by stifling its leaders and their supporters.

[16] In the Sanaga-Maritime, the region of the country that contains the nation's largest cities Douala and Yaounde, the French Administration repressed these riots.

In retaliation, the UPC established an armed branch of their party called Organizational National Committee (CNO).

[14] From 18 January 1957, to 25 May 1959, French authorities installed a similar martial zone in western regions of Cameroon.

[citation needed] On 1 January 1960, Cameroon gained independence, and Ahmadou Ahidjo became the nation's first President.

The French Army "frequently burned or otherwise completely destroyed entire villages infested with terrorists, resulting in the killing of an unknown number of non-terrorist civilians".