Indeed the leader ..of an expedition or the commander of a military garrison in the far interior had the power to exact the death penalty should he feel convinced of the need to do so. ^ 29 He would no doubt make a report to the Governor. But then the execution would already have taken p l a c e .
However, it is notorious that flogging, torture, and vicarious punishment remained the favourite and most cherished ways of 'civilising' Cameroonians. It mattered not that whipping was criticised by liberals in the Reichstag and that regulations placed limitations on it. What
counted, it seemed, was that it was highly recommended by protagonists of colonialism as the best cure for African delinquency and the proper way of civilising primitive races.
80
And so the whip ruled in Cameroon.28. Clifford, op.cit., p. 75.
29. Rudin, op.cit., p. 206.
30. According to Schnee, op.cit. at p. 119, ’’The whip or cane is used in all colonies where there are primitive races to deal with, the native territories under British and French rule not excepted. It is really Impossible to do without it altogether, for the native in many respects resembles a child."
In a move advertised as representing a liberal policy, the Imperial Chancellor promulgated a number of decrees aimed at curbing and regulating the punishment of natives in the colonies. 31 The first decree dated 17th
February 1896 provided that "In proceedings at law where natives are concerned,, any measures for the purpose of obtaining confessions or declarations other than those allowed by the German Rules of Court are forbidden. The infliction of unusual punishments particularly in the cases of suspected guilt, is likewise prohibited."
But another decree was passed on the 22nd April 1896 providing that "The admissible punishments are:
corporal chastisement (whipping, flogging), fines, imprison-ment with hard labour, imprisonimprison-ment in chains, death 32 ...
A sentence of flogging is to be carried out with an instru
ment approved by the Governor, that of a sentence of whipp i n g with a light cane or switch. A sentence of
flogging or whipping may specify a single or double flog
ging or whipping. The second flogging must not take place until after the expiry of two weeks."
The decree proscribed the whipping of women and children. It further provided that flogging or whipping was to be administered in the presence of an official and a doctor or sanitary officer.
The decree indeed took care to describe the whip
31. See Clifford, op.cit., pp. 71-72; Rudin op.cit., p. 203-32. It was only as from 1900 that Germans began to keep
statistics of sentences passed on convicted persons in Ca
meroon. Statistics for 1900 to 1913 show that an average of 30 Cameroonians were being executed yearly, i.e. at least 390 death penalties carried out between 1900 and 1913. See Rudin, op.cit., p. 203.
129.
Itself with detail. The German whip was r o p e s ’ ends softened by being beaten with a hammer or piece of wood and issued by the Governor as a necessary item of equipment for the good administration of the colony. It was 60 cm long and 2 to 2^ cm thick. A record of all floggings was required to be kept. Finally, it was provided that flogging should be administered as a punitive measure only, never as a disciplinary one, and never legally by a private p e r s o n .33
Perhaps no instance illustrated the cleavage
between paper legality and social reality in German Kamerun than this one. What transpired in practice belied the theory on paper.' The decrees made no provision for means of control of possible and easily foreseeable excesses by individual Germans. They were glaringly silent as to any form of trial being a necessary preliminary to p u n i s h m e n t . They ignored the desirability of evidence being taken and committed into writing.
The decrees themselves represented an official admission of malpractices that had become commonplace In the German colonies. They confirmed that indeed improper
33. Townsend, op.cit., p. 286.
34. ’’The German method in the colonies was of a p a t r i a r chal character. The officials in charge were expected to use their knowledge of human nature and familiarity with native customs and usages rather than lose them
selves and bewilder the litigants in the technicalities of a Europeanized procedure." See Schnee, op.cit., pp. 123-124.
methods were being used to obtain 'confessions and dec
l a r a t i o n s ’; that ’unusual punishments were being inflicted even to mere suspects; that 'corporal c h a s t i s e m e n t ’ was the ordinarily ’a d m i s s i b l e ’ form of punishment; and that a sentence of flogging was being carried out all at one flogging session.
That the 1896 decrees were honoured more in breach than in their observance is amply evidenced by the fact that in 1907 another decree was passed in another attempt to regulate the manner in which ’n a t i v e s ’ were being punished. Jesko von Puttkamer who held the gover- norship 35 in Cameroon during this period was more
interested in the mercantile prosperity of Germans than in the bien-etre of Cameroonians. So the 1907 decrees were largely ignored. No one bothered about legal niceties, and the status quo ante went on unperturbed.
The notorious ’law of f l o g g i n g s ’ was carried out in a manner which was nothing short of brutality. 37
35. Six Germans held the Governorship in Cameroon through
out the whole period of German rule: Soden (1885-1891), Zimmerer (1891-1895), Puttkamer (1895-1907), Seitz
(1907-1910), Gleim (1910-1912), and Ebermaier (1912-1915).
36. Out of the 2,700 Cameroonians punished in 1906-1907, 906 were subjected to flogging; in 1907- 1 9 0 8 , the num
ber was 924 out of 3,150. In 1912-1913, of the 11,229 Cameroonians who appeared in court 4,800 were sentenced to flogging. See Rudin, op.cit., p. 203, fin. 3.
37. Weston, op.cit., at p . 7 has noted that ’’The condemned man is not tied up, as he ought to be. He lies on the
earth, his face in the dust or on a hard floor, as the case may be. After the first two or three stokes he usually has to be seized and forced to keep still. If he continues to wriggle and scream, he is liable to
/Continued over
131 .
Germans never hesitated to inflict vicarious punishment on Cameroonians. Parents were made to suffer for the faults of sons. A wife was also made to suffer for the faults of her husband. And this not only for local offences where connivance or complicity could be suspected but for offences committed in distant places as well.