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Are you ready for a new Campaign in the Congo?

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Are you ready for a new Campaign in the Congo?

Old 5th Nov 2008, 01:13
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OBSLF - My question still stands though, hard decision or just not bother making one at all? The world is riven with conflict and human suffering but I'm afraid I find the viewpoint that there's just too much of it to bother doing anything, no matter how small, about it a bit callous and isolationist. I suppose we could go the whole hog - DfID's foreign aid budget is about £6 billion a year, why bother with that? £6bn spent at home would build a lot of schools and clinics here. Surely £6bn is a drop in the ocean compared to £248bn owed by the world's 47 poorest nations? Why bother? So they might kill another 900,000 Africans? There's another 880 million sub-saharan africans kicking around so it's just 0.001% of the total; probably won't be missed. No point bothering trying to stop that then really.

The examples of strife torn countries you quote cover the whole gamut of worldly ills - humanitarian disaster, civil war, rebellion, insurrection, fruitcakery and simple criminality. Yes people are dying everywhere but the politics, size of forces involved and sheer unfeasibilty make intervention by UK/NATO/the boy scouts nigh on impossible. That is just a harsh reality of life.

A decision to get involved in a humanitarian/interventionist op must be based primarily on what you can actually offer and what, if any, benefit your action will have, ideally without getting all your blokes killed in the process. There is also the political "what's in it for me" factor. No one is suggesting we send a brigade or a division into the Congo with an Iraq style crack-on-and-give-us-a-bell-in-a-year-or-two type plan. I'm certainly not advocating invading the place and driving Challengers up the palace steps, but instead just putting enough forces in place to avoid what history has shown us is probably going to happen again. Perhaps helping to avert a humanitarian disaster also makes the Govt look good? Raises their standing on the world stage and diverts eyes away from unpopular ops elsewhere?

I don't hold these views because I feel we need to assuage some great national guilt nor do I think we should get involved so we can be righteous crusaders, Robin Hooding it through Africa, freeing the poor from oppression. I agree we have problems at home that need sorting but without being some sort of dreadful socialist I find it difficult to equate some dole sponging loser fretting about their 52" plasma telly and if there'll be enough left over for micro-chips for the 10 kids, with some poor african peasant fretting about him and his family getting their heads cut off. I'm just a simple, career military bloke who has spent the last 15 odd years trash hauling to all manner of war zones and disasters. I regularly marvel at the huge amounts of cash, men and materiel we tip into generally fruitless endeavours and often wonder if perhaps we directed a small percentage of our efforts elsewhere could we actually make a real difference to people's lives rather than just bombing their vegetable patches?
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Old 5th Nov 2008, 06:41
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Sorry Stoppers, but the simple fact is that most of Africa has gone down the pan since they were granted independence.


Greed, corruption and tribal hatred have taken over. It's very non-PC to mention the c-word (colonialism), but you only have to read the post immediately preceding yours to get the true picture regarding daily life before and after independence. Zimbabwe was once a wealthy country, it is now ruined. South Africa? Well, "They've f*cked up Paradise" was one of the more polite comments I heard - from someone who now has armed guards keeping thieves out of his house if he ever goes away.....

Short of invading the place, imposing colonial rule and locking up corrupt officials, any hand-wringing well-intentioned UN intervention will be a total waste of time and effort in the ex-Belgian Congo. Genocide will continue, as will corruption, because re-colonising such African states will never happen.

As for African attitudes, I recall the account a school friend (who lived in Malawi, one of the more successful emergent states) in 1966. His family employed various locals, one of whom was the 'House Boy'. They paid him absolute peanuts, so I asked why they didn't pay him a better wage, given that he was such a loyal, hard working chap.

"Because he'd be killed" was the answer. "If the word got out that he was paid more than any other House Boy, another would kill him and then apply for his job."

Fortunately my direct experience of sub-Saharan Africa extends only to Senegal, Sierra Leone and Botswana; these are decades if not centuries ahead of places such as the ex-Belgian Congo. A few UN statements, offers of aid and 'peacekeeping' troops will have absolutely no effect.

Sad, but unfortunately true.

As for the dole scounger, I agree. The UK disease of living off credit and debt has to be stopped - credit card bills, for example, should be paid off by the end of the following month unless the debtor has an agreement in place. That's what happens in places like Germany; I recently had to pay £2500 to buy an airline ticket and yet my minimum credit card payment needed at the end of the month for a bill of over £5000 was only £25 - this astonished my German colleagues. I always budget for this, but your dole scrounger will scrape up £25 and keep paying interest payments on the balance, yet will probably never pay off the balance. Ready access to credit MUST stop - those jackals of white collar crime who make a living off the ignorance and misfortune of others should be ashamed of themselves. How often have you received junk mail offering yet another credit card, for example?

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Old 5th Nov 2008, 09:28
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Just This Once

40 years ago, perhaps even 30 years ago, the UK and other Western Nations could have intervened under a UN mandate. Today, I doubt that the requisite UN mandate authorising the use of military force to control the situation would be forthcoming. The most one could expect is a UN sponsored force to provide a firm base from which evacuation could could be organised and protected.

What role British Military Forces could carry out would be extremely limited given the current level of Operations - and would, I feel, require the mobilisation (if only in part) of the remaining non committed Army Reserve Forces. Moreover the Air Transport Force (some of which is 40 years old) is already heavily committed; thus deployment and resupply by air would require the hire (or mobilisation) of Civilian Air Transport. Unlikely with a General Election starting to loom over the horizon.

We do not need another ill - equipped, under resourced, spur of the moment "Operation" designed to show off a Certain Person's "Statesmanship" prior to the announcement of a General Election.
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Old 5th Nov 2008, 10:05
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I agree, but WE do not make the decisions as to where British Forces are deployed.

That is done, at the moment, by the "Man from Kirkaldy". Forgive me if I assume that any such decision would be based on Electoral- rather than Humanitarian - considerations; particularly with a Bye-Election pending in the Constituency next to his.
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Old 5th Nov 2008, 10:10
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Beagle’s post really sums it up. My father was an instructor at RAF Heany, near Bulawayo from 1951-1953. I lived there and went to school there. In 1957 my father emigrated back there when he retired and I joined them. I was called up for my National Service (six months training followed by three years weekend camp once a month) and went back to Heany, now called Llewellan Barracks.. There were three hangers there which were used by the Rhodesian Ministry of Agriculture to store maize. The project was to have a seven year reserve in stock in case of a series of droughts. When I left in 1960 to join the RAF they had built it up to two years. When Rhodesia became Zimbabwe there was five years reserve.

Within a year it had all been exported, privately.

A friend of mine bought 5,000 hectares of bush and turned it into a ranch. I helped him to clear the land. A Caterpillar D6 and 100yds of anchor chain. Wrap the chain around the biggest tree, pull it taught, then drive around in a big circle tearing up all the scrub and termite hills. By then the tree was nine parts worn through so you just nudged it over with the blade. He built a 200yard dam for year round water, ranch house and forty two family chalets for his workers. On top of that was a school with two teachers all for free. He spent Rh₤8,000 importing two Brahmin bulls from the USA to cross with the Afrikaner Longhorn and he built up a herd of 1,200. Every year the local African farmers would bring their mangy animals round where a vet would impregnate them with semen from the Brahmins to improve their stock.

He was murdered by the so-called veterans. The ranch has now gone back to the bush.

I went back there a couple of years ago. I expected it to be a shambles but it surpassed that. Beggars were virtually unknown when I was there before but now the country was full of them, crippled. Not from land mines or wounds but deliberate shattering of limbs. I looked at a petrol station price sign and I thought at the exchange rate then it wasn’t too bad. The sign showed the price when they last sold petrol, two years before. At Victoria Falls (the wife wanted to see it) the hotel was packed for a ‘local government conference’ and it took a very short time to ascertain that everybody involved was on a gigantic freebe. There was no petrol in Vic Falls, even the police had to drive across to Zambia the refuel their vehicles. On all flights, domestic or international, you have to pay a departure tax in $s, €s or ₤s. It goes into a white bag, thence to Mugabe.

She who has to be obeyed wanted to go on the Blue Train so we went to Pretoria. In my previous youth in Rhodesia I worked for the Netherlands Bank of South Africa and I spent six months as a courier. Having forecast five outsiders on the Bulawayo tote I had a 1959 Galaxy with twin 4 barrel carbs and all the trimmings. I used to drive all over South Africa with documents and the odd bars of bullion. Quite a lot sometimes, but not too much otherwise the SA customs would notice the rear springs compressed a bit. Petrol was 1/9 a gallon and they paid me a shilling a mile so a trip to Durban and back was about ₤90 profit, three times my salary. When the wife and I arrived in Pretoria I went to an old suburb where some friends lived in typical Dutch gabled bungalows. You could not see the houses any more. They were surrounded by high walls with razor wire and signs stating that the property was protected by some security company and they would be there in five minutes. I knew a restaurant owner from my previous time so I decided we would have dinner there. The hotel would not let us out of the door until they had arranged a REPUTABLE taxi. The same when we left the restaurant. On the Blue Train we got held up on the outskirts of Johannesburg. The suburban carriages beside us had a big sign either side of the doors. IF THIS CARRIAGE IS EMPTY GO TO ANOTHER ONE.

In Cape Town it is relatively secure so we could do the Table Mountain trick. The taxi’s meter was all smashed up. I asked the driver why. “I was robbed and they smashed the meter trying to get money out of it.” I rented a car to drive along the coast to Durban and thence to Jo’burg. There was a very emphatic warning from the car hire people when they knew I was dropping it off at Jo’burg. I was told that within 200 kms I was to lock the doors and windows and not stop for anything until you reach your hotel, not even a police car. This was in reference to the blue light gangs who rob and rape anybody unfortunate enough to stop for them.

The Cape Province scenery had changed little apart from the roads were better. We stopped for the night at a place call Wilderness, popular with Rhodesians as a seaside holiday resort. It hadn’t changed. The restaurants were full of whites eating and the blacks were in the kitchen washing up. The beach used to have high fences segregating the beach between whites, coloured and blacks. The fences had gone but the posts were still there, so were the whites, coloured and blacks in the same old places. The next day was the only time I can recall being really frightened. I was driving through the Transkei in the gathering dusk with a fuel gauge slowly going down to zero. When a filling station came into view with all the lights on it was like the gates of heaven.

The hotel in Jo’burg was like a prison camp. We stopped at the gate, twelve foot high with razor wire like the fence. The gatekeeper came up to the car followed by a guard with a sub machine gun who job was to look after the gatekeeper. When he was satisfied the gate rolled back like something from Star Wars. The same getting out, the only way was a plastic card from reception as proof that you stayed there.

A rape every six minutes, a murder every fifteen, statistics inconceivable fifty years ago. Unless something changes drastically it will only get worst.
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Old 5th Nov 2008, 13:08
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i have to say that the concern regarding overstretch runs through many facets if we are to go and help the people of congo, but this environment will be far from benign. therefore if we are going to help, and it's not my ability or right to say whether we should or shouldn't, are we going to use what little left we have lying around to send there. For example would this be an operational mission or would it be a routine mission? if it's operational we surely don't have enough AT platforms to send out let alone send the ones designated for routine deployment only? this is not posted to harp on about the foam issue with hercs but to highlight that as has happened situations occur internationally very quickly and if all that is left are the unprotected ac to use, then you guys will not be protected. this really is of grave concern to people.
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Old 5th Nov 2008, 14:22
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StopStart:

Once again, you are completely avoiding the issue. Yes, terrible things are happening in the Congo. And in Darfur. And Somalia. Zimbabwe, etc., etc.

We don't have enough blood and treasure to stop them all. When you look at the military in the US and UK, you'll see that the cupboard is bare.

The Congo is a huge country. Pacifying it would require large numbers of occupying troops, who would be vulnerable to guerrilla style attacks. Many of our high-tech advantages (night vision, UAVs, satellites, etc.) don't work as well in the jungle as they do in the desert. This would be an open-ended commitment -- we would be occupying the country for decades to come.

There will not be a military solution to the strife in the Congo. It must be a political solution. 100,000 western troops in the country isn't going to result in the emergence of a competent, honest, and peaceful government. It would still be a corrupt, violent !@#!@hole. Only now they would be blaming all of their ills on the white imperialists.

Given the imperial history in Africa, it is safe to say that we would wear out our welcome rather quickly.
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Old 5th Nov 2008, 19:00
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OBSLF - My question still stands though, hard decision or just not bother making one at all? The world is riven with conflict and human suffering but I'm afraid I find the viewpoint that there's just too much of it to bother doing anything, no matter how small, about it a bit callous and isolationist. I suppose we could go the whole hog - DfID's foreign aid budget is about £6 billion a year, why bother with that? £6bn spent at home would build a lot of schools and clinics here. Surely £6bn is a drop in the ocean compared to £248bn owed by the world's 47 poorest nations? Why bother? So they might kill another 900,000 Africans? There's another 880 million sub-saharan africans kicking around so it's just 0.001% of the total; probably won't be missed. No point bothering trying to stop that then really.
A significant cause of third world poverty (and our own immigration issues) is our (ie US and EU) protectionism of our agricultural industry. We artificially lower the cost of home-produced food, and thereby penalise foodstuffs from the developing world. We are committed to "globalisation" where it suits us, but refuse to consider globalisation where it does not suit us - eg by lowering barriers to food imports.

Corruption is another substantial impediment to development, particularly in Africa. We are probably to blame for that too, as we introduced consumerism and materialism to Africa rather than investing in their institutions and educational system. If you examine the social structures of virtually any African tribe or community, you will find them exemplary in their social code, until we turned up a few centuries ago and ruined them.

Despite the travesties that we (and the other European colonial powers) vested upon our colonies, it did not stop us from expecting them to fight for us in two world wars.

So I think that we are very much more in debt to them, than they are to us.
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Old 5th Nov 2008, 19:37
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Grrr

OBSLF - re-read my posts fella, you're completely failing to grasp what I'm advocating. I know we can't solve them ALL and I'm not even beginning to suggest that. To avoid repeating myself for the third or fourth time just re-read what I've already said and then compare it to what you've just said. 100,000 troops? No. Occupation? No. It is actually possible to provide relief from suffering without turning large areas of desert into glass or jungle into charcoal.

Chappie - noted. Aircraft, in limited numbers, would be available and would be suitably equipped for said mission. Deficiencies would indeed be of grave concern but none more so than to the folk like me that would be flying it.

BEags, caz, Fareastdriver - I fully accept that Sub-saharan Africa is an utter disaster and that the Africans, or at least those that put themselves in power, are generally corrupt morons who should've been drowned at birth. I myself come from a colonial farming family (Keen-ya don'cha know. King's African Rifles baaaaa!) and we have plenty of tales of how, when left to their own devices, the africans have managed to completely screw up perfectly good farms, road, sewerage, water, train and even administrative systems. The reasons for that are manifold but the former colonial powers must bear a fair proportion of the blame for the subsequent disasters of independence. I personally believe that a form of re-colonisation is the only way to get a lot of these places sorted out. But as BEags says, mention that in public and the Thought Police snipers will pick you off in no time. It will never happen anyway and so a lot of these places will continue to spiral down into ever deeper pits of lawlessness, corruption, poverty and death. What's the answer? No idea. And if I did I wouldn't be sitting here arguing aimlessly about it on the internet!

I've only ever advocated a sticking plaster approach to the current problems of the DRC. I think too many of you are looking far beyond the humanitarian, tactical (if you like) level. Drill down through the global, strategic layers to that tactical level to get to where I see us/someone acting in a limited role. Limited but effective. And if that small effect dissuades someone from chopping up someone else then job done. Drag yourselves away from talk of colonialisation, invasion, mineral wealth, thousands of troops etc etc if you can and at least consider that perhaps a small number of suitably equipped troops can intervene and successfully deter widespread slaughter. As said, I'm not a fantasist or a human rights campaigner and no matter how fervent my "passion" for the subject I still retain the objectivity to be able to see what is possible militarily and what isn't. I'm not suggesting we magic an army out of thin air or liberate a fleet of aircraft from our collective backsides. I know all too well how stretched we are but I also believe there is flex in the sytem for what would be required. But I think it's probably time to change the record and give it a rest!

If at a lose end, try reading some, one or any of these books on your next det/route/whatever and you'll see these aren't stories of savage from mud hut A chopping up savage from mud hut B. These are stories of the doctor coming home to his suburban house, parking his car in the drive, wondering what's for dinner and what's on TV tonight only discover that his wife and kids are lying around said TV disembowelled and beheaded. Rock and roll. Try one of them and you might perhaps see where I'm coming from, why I appear to be slightly "off the deep end" and why I believe that if the events of 1994 are allowed to be repeated then we in the so called "civilised" west countries are no better than those carrying the machetes.

Conspiracy to Murder
A People Betrayed: The Role of the West in Rwanda's Genocide
We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families
Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda
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Old 5th Nov 2008, 20:27
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Stoppers,

I agree with your sentiments and your good intentions, but we are not responsible for all of the worlds ills. To put even a token force in would result in British deaths for a pointless cause and even more hours on frames we will never be able to afford to replace.

We are in the G8 heading towards third world status ourselves. Soon we will see much of what is going on far away happening in Eurasia. We need to save our over stretched resources for the future!

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Old 5th Nov 2008, 20:44
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DRC has been a festering basket case for many years now - was only a matter of time before it did a Rwanda.

Personally, I believe there are much more clear-cut reasons to intervene here than in Iraq and Afghanistan. Can't quite see us going it alone though like we did in Sierra Leone (is there any talk of a UN operation?).
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Old 6th Nov 2008, 15:13
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OBSLF - I know we can't solve them ALL and I'm not even beginning to suggest that.
You are suggesting that we solve this one. Why this one and not that one? Yes, the Congo is a tragedy. So is Darfur. So is Somalia. So is Colombia. So is Sri Lanka. So is Zimbabwe. We can not solve them all, so how are we going to choose between them?

You have provided no compelling reason that this one is more important than the others. Furthermore, we can not afford the two wars we are already in, and yet you are suggesting that we jump into a third. That is the height of folly.

To avoid repeating myself for the third or fourth time just re-read what I've already said and then compare it to what you've just said.
I have. There is nothing there other than your emotional response to this tragic situation. No logic at all.

100,000 troops? No.
How many troops then? The Congo is a huge country. A few hundred troops in Kinshasa isn't going to stop the insurgency.

Occupation? No.
That is the practical effect of sending in thousands of armed troops. You can call it "peace-keeping." You can call it "peace-making." You can use whatever weasel-word, politico-speak you want to put a happy face on it, but it would still, in the end, be an occupation. Our occupying soldiers would then be targeted by the insurgents.

Furthermore, putting in a bunch of western troops would not solve the underlying causes of the strife: tribal differences, poverty, brutality, corruption, etc. After a decade of intervention, and spending billions of dollars and the lives of many soldiers, those problems would still remain.

It is actually possible to provide relief from suffering without turning large areas of desert into glass or jungle into charcoal.
Nice straw-man argument. I never said that nor implied it, as you well know.
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Old 6th Nov 2008, 16:37
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Part of the congo problem lies with its neighbours. Both Rwanda and Uganda have a hand in the east congo. Their cronies are stealing and destroying the whole area. Rwanda needs more room,it is one of the most highly populated countries. It sees a nearby congo empty by comparison, so it is trying to move in. It is using its allies in congo to destabilise the region so it can go in and restore peace never to leave. Be aware that the presidents of uganda,rwanda, and the troublemaker in east congo are all friends. This is not like the tutsi/hutu genocide on rwanda. These three people are conspiring to annex part of east congo without the west interfering. They may well get away with it.
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Old 6th Nov 2008, 17:54
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Stopstart:

I've only ever advocated a sticking plaster approach to the current problems of the DRC. I think too many of you are looking far beyond the humanitarian, tactical (if you like) level. Drill down through the global, strategic layers to that tactical level to get to where I see us/someone acting in a limited role. Limited but effective. And if that small effect dissuades someone from chopping up someone else then job done. Drag yourselves away from talk of colonialisation, invasion, mineral wealth, thousands of troops etc etc if you can and at least consider that perhaps a small number of suitably equipped troops can intervene and successfully deter widespread slaughter. As said, I'm not a fantasist or a human rights campaigner and no matter how fervent my "passion" for the subject I still retain the objectivity to be able to see what is possible militarily and what isn't. I'm not suggesting we magic an army out of thin air or liberate a fleet of aircraft from our collective backsides.

You are talking bollocks.

F*ck off to the voodoo site. Or Don't. Nobody cares.

You'd go down quite well over at arrse.

See Ya!
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Old 6th Nov 2008, 18:30
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Noncombatant Evacuation Order

Some may be missing one essential point: if this gets worse, we will go back - again. Thankfully it will not be me this time but I feel very strongly about the youngsters who may be nominated. UK Joint Forces have conducted NEOs of UK Entitled Personnel (UKEP) from Kinshasa and Brazzaville plus Lebanon, Asmara, Freetown etc and there are a multitude that were planned but not conducted yet such as Zimbabwe.

One-quarter the size of the U.S, the DRC is bordered by the Republic of Congo, the Central African Republic, the Sudan, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania, Zambia, Angola, and the Atlantic Ocean. Under a nasty piece of work called Mobutu Sese Seko, it was called Zaire. May I offer a quote from Ian Taylor's Conflict in Central Africa: Clandestine Networks & Regional/Global Configurations?

It was the West’s manoeuvring that put Mobutu in power in 1965. After five years of turbulent independence, the Congo was thrown into crisis by the secession of mineral-rich Katanga. Outside forces, through either direct interventions or their subalterns, quickly rushed to defend their protégé Mobutu time and again from the uprisings of his own people. For instance, in 1977 and 1978, the country’s main opposition movement, the Congolese National Liberation Front (FLNC) (Front de la Libération Nationale Congolaise), operating from Angola, instigated two major invasions into Shaba (formerly Katanga) Province. Both affairs brought in outsiders to prop up Mobutu: from Morocco in 1977 and from France in 1978. ‘Classic colonialism is a relic but its absence does not mean that there are no ‘colonial’ interests to safeguard’ (Omari, 2001:253).

The careful cultivation of Mobutu as a ‘friend of the free world’, with its concomitant nod-and-wink to the construction of a highly personalised and kleptocratic regime is well known. The propping up of Mobutu’s decrepit regime by the West was a major crime against the Congolese people – but something which has been largely forgotten back in the metropoles. Mobutu’s downfall in May 1997 sprang from his failure to realise that whilst he had been useful during the cold war as an alibi for all sorts of intrigues within the continent in the name of fighting communism, after the collapse of the regimes in Eastern Europe, his extravagance and arrogance could no longer be tacitly ignored.

What is intriguing for any understanding of the political economy of contemporary Central Africa is the way that outside forces have maintained a steady grip on the post-Mobutu regimes. Indeed, outside involvement has further stimulated a set of regional structures, embedded in conflict, that now criss-cross Central Africa. Working hand-in-hand with global networks of extraction, local ‘big men’ have blatantly advertised the economic motivations underlying their participation [in conflict]. Intervening states have sought a direct share in Congo’s revenues from the extraction of mineral and other resources (Weinstein, 2000:17). These networks of violence and accumulation have built up a series of inter-linking connections in collaboration with extra-African forces that have constructed a set of transnational networks centred in Kinshasa and extending outwardly to Geneva, Brussels, Lisbon, Paris, Washington and elsewhere.
Responsibility for the insert in para 2 is mine, not the author. While no statement of a mission for UK Forces appears to have been agreed, perhaps exposure of international interests in the DRC may do more.

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Old 6th Nov 2008, 19:27
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Drag yourselves away from talk of colonialisation, invasion, mineral wealth, thousands of troops etc etc if you can and at least consider that perhaps a small number of suitably equipped troops can intervene and successfully deter widespread slaughter.
How? And for how long? As described above the DRC is 1/4 the size of the US. Where are you going to station that "small number of suitably equipped troops" to deter widespread violence in a nation that large? And how long are you willing to sustain them there?

The insurgency isn't going to simply dissolve because we put in 500 soldiers. They'll simply attack where we aren't or wait until we get tired of the cost (in blood and gold). Given the lack of patience in the West, they won't have to wait long.
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Old 6th Nov 2008, 19:44
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PR9

At the risk of dusting off the ISTAR threads, there is one other capability that will be missing from another African Op. In the last gasps of its life, the Canberra PR9 developed a most impressive capacity for tracking across huge swathes of the dark continent.
When threatened by their countrymen, the locals in towns and villages decamped into the bush. On some occasions, having settled into rough order humanitarian camps, they also suddenly moved out. In submissions to ministers, we had to admit that we could not find thousands of these Internally Displaced People (IDP).

As you are unlikely to shift satellites to cover a humanitarian crisis in Africa, I wonder how we would do it now?
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Old 8th Nov 2008, 19:40
  #98 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Jul 2002
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Agree with Stop/Start to a degree, something should be done. However, Belgium contibutes very little militarily to the EU, and the Congo is their former stomping ground.
All for military intervention, but their are many nations with troops doing nothing at the moment. Belgium, Germany, Hungary, Greece, Italy and others are happy to slumber peacefully under the NATO blanket, but are slow to contribute (Standfast the German deployment to ensure the airfield at Kabul is safe for parties and beercalls).
A bit unfair, an effort is made. Amongst others 4 F16's are now deployed in Afghanistan since last summer. Don't forget that our total population is less than that of London, just to put things in perspective. OTOH I think we, as in Belgium, have the moral obligation to intervene. Little to no doubt about that in my mind.
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