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Osprey Men at Arms #492
Modern African Wars (4): The Congo 1960–2002
From Belgian and French paratroops to Che Guevara and CIA funded Cuban B-26 pilots, the Congo has been a hotbed of African conflict in the late 20th century.
When the colonial powers began retreating from Africa in the 1950s and 1960s, the Belgian Congo/Zaire became the bloodiest, most chaotic example of 'how not to do it', and has remained so ever since. A vast region with huge mineral wealth, abandoned in 1960 with virtually no infrastructure or functioning government, it was immediately torn by civil wars.
Many whites remained in-country, both as missionaries and to exploit the mines, and Belgian military advisors were caught up in the chaotic conflict that threatened them. White mercenary troops were hired, and in the 1960s these became famous world-wide for some dramatic rescue missions. Manipulated by mining interests, the rich province of Katanga/Shaba seceded from the Republic; Swedish, Irish and 14 other UN contingents had to intervene, and the UN Secretary General was killed there under suspicious circumstances. In the late 1960s even Che Guevara tried to stick his nose in, so the CIA got involved, providing T-28s and B-26s with mercenary Cuban exile pilots.
In the 1970s, during the ruinous 30-year dictatorship of General Mobutu, periodic rebellions required the hasty insertion once again of Belgian and French paratroops to save European lives. From the mid-1990s the country split again, becoming the battleground for the largest African war in history, as armies and rebel groups from Rwanda, Angola, Zimbabwe, Uganda, Namibia and other countries crossed into the Congo to support one side or the other, or simply to loot the rich resources. Major operations ended - or paused - in 2002, but the old hatreds and constant lure of the Congo's natural resources continue to boil over into periodic outbreaks.
Featuring specially commissioned full-color artwork and rare photographs, this is the harrowing story of the wars that ravaged Congo for four decades.
When the colonial powers began retreating from Africa in the 1950s and 1960s, the Belgian Congo/Zaire became the bloodiest, most chaotic example of 'how not to do it', and has remained so ever since. A vast region with huge mineral wealth, abandoned in 1960 with virtually no infrastructure or functioning government, it was immediately torn by civil wars.
Many whites remained in-country, both as missionaries and to exploit the mines, and Belgian military advisors were caught up in the chaotic conflict that threatened them. White mercenary troops were hired, and in the 1960s these became famous world-wide for some dramatic rescue missions. Manipulated by mining interests, the rich province of Katanga/Shaba seceded from the Republic; Swedish, Irish and 14 other UN contingents had to intervene, and the UN Secretary General was killed there under suspicious circumstances. In the late 1960s even Che Guevara tried to stick his nose in, so the CIA got involved, providing T-28s and B-26s with mercenary Cuban exile pilots.
In the 1970s, during the ruinous 30-year dictatorship of General Mobutu, periodic rebellions required the hasty insertion once again of Belgian and French paratroops to save European lives. From the mid-1990s the country split again, becoming the battleground for the largest African war in history, as armies and rebel groups from Rwanda, Angola, Zimbabwe, Uganda, Namibia and other countries crossed into the Congo to support one side or the other, or simply to loot the rich resources. Major operations ended - or paused - in 2002, but the old hatreds and constant lure of the Congo's natural resources continue to boil over into periodic outbreaks.
Featuring specially commissioned full-color artwork and rare photographs, this is the harrowing story of the wars that ravaged Congo for four decades.
48 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2014
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
October 26, 2019
Osprey Publishing Men-At-Arms publication.
This African country has been a battleground for decades during the 20th century and at the beginning of the 21st. The aspect that might be of interest is how much external powers (not immediate neighbors) were involved in the wars in the Congo.
This African country has been a battleground for decades during the 20th century and at the beginning of the 21st. The aspect that might be of interest is how much external powers (not immediate neighbors) were involved in the wars in the Congo.
April 12, 2016
I read this as background for Barbara Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible, which I have just started, and to try to get a handle on the complicated situation in the Congo, although it only goes up to 2002. it contains an obsessive amount of detail about the names and numbers of different armed groups, and the series is intended to give great detail about different uniforms which I just skipped over, but it does convey the general outline of the appallingly complex toing and froing of the civil wars in the Congo, and also the involvement of so many outside nations, not just the local African ones such as Angola, Rwanda and Uganda, but Egypt, the Sudan, Zimbabwe, and Ethiopia, European powers such as Belgium of course and France, other nations through the UN Forces, such as Sweden, and others which provided arms and training, such as Cuba, Israel, the Ukraine, China and (rather surprisingly) North Korea.
What also struck me was that the book was full of sentences which could be expanded into whole novels, whether thrillers or more literary works, - for example Laurent Kabila sent a force to relieve the important town of Kindu, a force which included former child-soldiers, but "this contingent announced that they had no confidence in the Kindu high command, hijacked a train, and left for Katanga". Again "In March 1965 Castro's Cuba sent Che Guevara and about 100 Afro-Cuban volunteers to the eastern Congo to help train the rebels with Chinese-supplied arms. Inserted across Lake Tanganyika from what became Tanzania they were to have been supplemented by smaller units from Algeria. However a coup in Algeria halted this action, and the Sino-Soviet split put the pro-China Congolese rebels and the pro-Soviet Cubans at loggerheads." It's interesting how global issues affected local events in remote Congolese areas.
I shall have to read more background material on the Congo, which has always interested me, and where the wars and suffering are on a huge, but largely unreported scale.
What also struck me was that the book was full of sentences which could be expanded into whole novels, whether thrillers or more literary works, - for example Laurent Kabila sent a force to relieve the important town of Kindu, a force which included former child-soldiers, but "this contingent announced that they had no confidence in the Kindu high command, hijacked a train, and left for Katanga". Again "In March 1965 Castro's Cuba sent Che Guevara and about 100 Afro-Cuban volunteers to the eastern Congo to help train the rebels with Chinese-supplied arms. Inserted across Lake Tanganyika from what became Tanzania they were to have been supplemented by smaller units from Algeria. However a coup in Algeria halted this action, and the Sino-Soviet split put the pro-China Congolese rebels and the pro-Soviet Cubans at loggerheads." It's interesting how global issues affected local events in remote Congolese areas.
I shall have to read more background material on the Congo, which has always interested me, and where the wars and suffering are on a huge, but largely unreported scale.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews