Portal:Military history of Africa

The Military history of Africa Portal

War memorial square in Massawa, Eritrea

The military history of Africa is one of the oldest and most diverse military histories. Africa is a continent of diverse regions with diverse people speaking hundreds of different languages with many different cultures and religions. These differences have also been the source of much conflict since a millennia.

Like the history of Africa, African military history is often divided by region. North Africa was part of the Mediterranean cultures and was integral to the military history of antiquity. The military history of modern Africa may be divided into three broad time periods: pre-colonial, colonial, and post-colonial.

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The conflict forces many civilians to live in internally displaced person (IDP) camps. The Labuje IDP camp (pictured) is near Kitgum Town.

The Lord's Resistance Army (LRA),^[1] formed in 1987, is a rebel guerrilla army operating mainly in northern Uganda and parts of Sudan. The group is engaged in an armed rebellion against the Ugandan government in what is now one of Africa's longest-running conflicts. It is led by Joseph Kony, who proclaims himself a spirit medium, and apparently wishes to establish a state based on the Ten Commandments and Acholi tradition.^[2] The LRA is accused of widespread human rights violations, including mutilation, torture, rape, the abduction of civilians, the use of child soldiers and a number of massacres.

The January 1986 overthrow of President Tito Okello, an ethnic Acholi, by the National Resistance Army (NRA) of southwest Ugandan Yoweri Museveni marked a period of intense turmoil. The Acholi feared the loss of their traditional dominance of the national military; they were also deeply concerned that the NRA would seek retribution for the brutal counterinsurgency, particularly the actions of the army in the Luwero triangle.^[3] By August of that year, a full-blown popular insurgency had developed in northern regions that were occupied by government forces.

While the LRA claims to be Christian, their actions, allies, and beliefs seem to indicate otherwise. According to South African missionary Dr. Peter Hammond, "[The Lord's Resistance Army] ... pretends to be Christian, but [its] members pray five times a day towards Mecca! The LRA has been heavily armed and supported by the Muslim Government of Sudan. The LRA's main activities have been attacking the supply lines of the Christians in Southern Sudan. In this, the LRA has been clearly serving the cause of Khartoum."

References

Selected biography

Joseph Kabila Kabange

Joseph Kabila Kabange (born June 4, 1971), known commonly as Joseph Kabila, became president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo after the assassination of his father in January 2001. On November 27, 2006, he was confirmed as the first Congolese President to be democratically elected by universal direct suffrage.

In order to integrate his father's rebel forces, Joseph Kabila followed a military curriculum in Tanzania, and in the neighbouring countries of Uganda and Rwanda, after graduating from high school. In 1996, he joined his father's Rwandan backed rebel forces (the Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo, (AFDL)), as operations commander, in the campaign that is dubbed the First Congo War. Following the AFDL's victory, and Laurent Kabila's rise to the presidency, Joseph Kabila went on to get further training at the National Defense University, in Beijing, China.

When he returned from China, Kabila was given the rank of Major-General, and appointed Deputy-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the , in 1998. He was later, in 2000, appointed Army Chief of Staff, a position he held until the elder President Kabila's assassination in January 2001. As chief of staff, he was one of the main military leaders in charge of Government troops in the Second Congo War.

Quotes

"During my lifetime I have dedicated myself to this struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die." — Nelson Mandela

Equipment

Mirage F1 from different angles

The Dassault Mirage F1 is a single-seat air-superiority fighter and attack aircraft built by Dassault Aviation of France.

Dassault designed the Mirage F1 as the successor to its Mirage III and Mirage 5 fighters. Unlike its predecessors, it has a swept wing mounted high on the fuselage, as well as a conventional tail surface.

The first prototype, which was developed by Dassault using its own funds, made its maiden flight on 23 December 1966.

Mirage F1 is used by Libya (38 units) and Morocco (50 units).

Selected picture

On this day...

8 January

• 1806 - Cape Colony becomes a British colony.
• 1961 - In France, a referendum supports Charles de Gaulle's policies in Algeria.

Did you know...

• ......that the British colonial Administrator Sir Robert Codrington was influential in establishing British colonial government in Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland and making them different in character from white-settler-led Southern Rhodesia?
• ...that on March 23, 2007 a TransAVIAexport Airlines Ilyushin Il-76 aircraft delivering humanitarian aid was shot down in Somalia?
• ...that Emmanuel Kwasi Kotoka came to power in Ghana through a military coup d'état in 1966, only to be deposed and killed in a further coup fourteen months later?
• ...that the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum recorded over 1,200 violations of human rights in Zimbabwe by the law enforcement agencies from 2001 to September 2006?
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