72 – i-go-books

Rhodesian Fire Force

30degreessouth — Mon, 02 Mar 2015 10:37:22 +0000

On 11 November 1965, Rhodesian prime minister Ian Smith unilaterally declared his country independent of Britain. International sanctions were immediately instituted against the minority white regime as Robert Mugabe’s ZANLA and Joshua Nkomo’s ZIPRA armies commenced their armed struggle, the Chimurenga, the war of liberation.

Bush War Rhodesia

30degreessouth — Mon, 02 Feb 2015 09:08:26 +0000

It has been over three decades since the Union Jack was lowered on the colony of Rhodesia, but the bitter and divisive civil war that preceded it has continued to endure as a textbook counterinsurgency campaign fought between a mobile, motivated and highly trained Rhodesian security establishment and two constituted liberations movements motivated, resourced and inspired by the ideals of communist revolution in the third world.

Biafra

30degreessouth — Mon, 02 Feb 2015 08:54:49 +0000

Nigeria was a unique concept in the formation of modern Africa. It began life as a highly lucrative if climatically challenging holding of the Royal Niger Company, a British Chartered Company under the control of Victorian capitalist Sir George Taubman Goldie.

Somalia

30degreessouth — Mon, 02 Sep 2013 14:27:14 +0000

The end of the Cold War introduced an altered global dynamic. The old bond of East/West patronage in Africa was broken, weakening the first crop of independent revolutionary leadership on the continent who no longer had the support of one or other of the superpowers. With collapse of the Soviet Union, all this changed.

Great Lakes Holocaust

30degreessouth — Mon, 02 Sep 2013 13:21:27 +0000

Great Lakes Holocaust is the first in two volumes covering military operations in Zaire – as the Congo was named from 1971 until 1997 – and the Democratic Republic of Congo at the turn of the 21st century.

Great Lakes Conflagration

30degreessouth — Mon, 02 Sep 2013 13:05:09 +0000

Great Lakes Conflagration is the second in two volumes covering military operations in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) at the turn from the 21st century.

The Flechas

30degreessouth — Mon, 02 Sep 2013 08:41:08 +0000

In 1961, Portugal found itself fighting a war to retain its colonial possessions and preserve the remnants of its empire. It was almost completely unprepared to do so, and this was particularly evident in its ability to project power and to control the vast colonial spaces in Africa.

Saaf’s Border War

30degreessouth — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 14:08:12 +0000

South African Mirages and Cuban MiG-21s dogfighting over Cuito Cuanavale, the largest tank battle on African soil since El Alamein; Puma troopships shot out of the skies by Strela missiles and RPG-7 rockets; Alouette III gunships hovering menacingly above Koevoet tracker-combat teams as they close in for the kill; Hercules and Transall transports disgorging their loads of Parabats over Cassinga; suicidal helicopter hot-extractions of Recce operators deep in enemy territory; and a lone Alouette pilot who disobeyed orders and under intense ground fire evacuated a critically wounded soldier … such is the story of the South African Air Force, the SAAF, over the 23-year period 1966–1989, the period of conflict that became known as the ‘Border War’.

Mau Mau

30degreessouth — Mon, 01 Oct 2012 13:45:35 +0000

The Second World War forever altered the complexion of the British Empire. From Cyprus to Malaya, from Borneo to Suez, the dominoes began to fall within a decade of peace in Europe. Africa in the late 1940s and 1950s was energized by the grant of independence to India, and the emergence of a credible indigenous intellectual and political caste that was poised to inherit control from the waning European imperial powers.

Congo Unravelled

30degreessouth — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 12:45:11 +0000

Post-independence events in the Republic of the Congo are a veritable Gordian knot. The ambitions of Congolese political leaders, Cold War rivalry, Pan-Africanism, Belgium’s continued economic interests in the country’s mineral wealth, and the strategic perceptions African History & Politics of other southern African states all conspired to wrack Africa’s second largest country with uprisings, rebellions and military interventions for almost a decade.