0:55 - Chapter 1 - A history of instability 7:00 - Chapter 2 - The 1st congo war 12:50 - Chapter 3 - Operation kitona 21:10 - Chapter 4 - The african world war 25:40 - Chapter 5 - The final years
Please keep focusing on more obscure wars like this as an alternative to making more videos about WW2 or The Hundred Years War. There’s loads of TH-cam content on mainstream wars but precious little on lesser known wars like this one.
The Belgian Congo/ Zaïr/ Congo Kinshasa/ Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) had been exploited by Europe and the Western (Edomite) society since recorded history in the 1400s. "Democracy" in the DRC since 1959 was and is a façade. The country remains a traumatised plunder basket for international Conflict Mineral gluttons. The Gospel of Peace is entirely absent in the eastern DRC. The AU and SADC do not succeed to silence the guns in Africa. The AfCFTA initiative suffers. Kisangani as a central Africa hub port remains isolated and undeveloped. Various narratives obscure the truth.
He was considered a monster even by the standards of his own time, which really says something. I've seen 19th century posters decipting him as a python who strangles the life out of native Congolese.
Lemme get this straight. These dudes hijacked planes, took over the airport when they landed, went into battle, then retreated, took over a different airfield, extended the tarmac, and then flew home. I'm not even mad, that's just impressive
Ok I just looked it up, apparently that Operation is so famous it's studied in military schools around the world. I'm not in the military though, maybe someone else can confirm this
I have a few friends whose families have fled these regions as refugees and their stories are just absolutely heartbreaking and I can’t even imagine, the terror and and unbearable sadness,confusion and helplessness the civilian casualties of these wars would have gone through!😢😢😢😢😢 Once again a prime example of “absolute power, corrupting absolutely”. Humans really are the worst sometimes 😢💔
I served in the US Army with a former Congolese child soldier who came to the US as a refugee in the late 90s. This dude was a bit sadistic and had a dark, nefarious sense of humor. Honestly he seemed a little unhinged and I never truly trusted the guy. He said he was forced into being a child soldier and he had several photos of himself holding AK-47s and RPGs. Oddly in these photos he never looked unhappy about it. I don’t know what ever happened to this guy but until this video I never really had any sort of understanding about the situation he grew up in. So thanks for taking the time to explain this largely unknown topic. This is why I keep watching your channels.
He was probably screwed up from the horrors he saw as a kid. You should see the movie beasts of no nation and innocent voices they are war films about child soldiers
What a complicated, tragic and crazy war. This has all the ingredients for a "good" story but as usual anything going on in Africa gets ignored by everyone
There are many documentaries on the history of Africa and even movies based around things that happen there. So, how exactly does everyone ignore what's going on there? I guess the eradication of parasites that harmed millions of Africans, spearheaded by foreign nations, was also just the rest of the world ignoring what happens there as well...
@@oblivion155 dude let's be honest. How many people have even heard of this war outside the continent? And how many of those know any real details on it? To say that in any way African history gets nearly as much representation as other parts of the world would be a total joke. Yes every once in a while there is a slight mention but apart from slavery and coloniualism, its entire history is relegated to a few pages at best in most books.
@@micahistory I learned pretty much the same amount about every nation that was taught in my classes with the exception of the USA as it is my home country. A simple search would've shown you that there are at least 243 documentaries covering Africa that can be easily found. Covering a great deal of topics. If none of them contain the amount of detail you are looking for then make your own documentary. Just because you didn't learn a lot about a specific country doesn't mean that others haven't either. Did you ever take the time to read the entire history book you were given or was it just the few pages your teacher chose to pull their lesson from? Genuine question because in my history book there was more than just a "few pages at best." In the American History books I can see your point but that would be because they are about America not Africa so of course the mentions would be limited to the topics you mention. The other books weren't like that though. Most nations/countries had their own chapter.
There should be some knowing about this. Just remembering it is difficult because everytime Something Happens. I watched a diff vid before and the only thing i could remember was Ruanda troops Walking through congo to the Airport
I think this war isn't talked about much in western media for a few reasons: 1) we focus on North American/European conflicts, because they get more clicks/views 2) it's really complex and hard to simply point and say "here's the bad guy, here's the good guy", so it's not intuitive to understand what's going on Either way, great video as always. Cheers.
When looking into the depths of such conflicts like this one, all I can see is darkness. Horrible atrocities, brutal mass murder, and to what end? Territory, money, justice? In the end, nothing really justifies this kind of war. Thanks for posting the video. This really broadened my perspective.
For what? If you could do anything about it would you? DRCongo holds 90% of World's coltan. Which is a resource used to make elctronic devices, like satellites, Mobile Phones, smart watches, tablet or smart TV's. Meaning when you buy one of these there is 90% chances you are financing this conflict. Now that you have this information are you willing to stop buying electronic devices or to pay about 9 times its value?
@@1individeo Would it be possible your source out the mining of such material to another less violent country? Also. Could you please provide references to what you're talking about?
@@natedcarr6148 those minerals ARE literally sold to non violent countries. Think any country that produces computer chips and satellites. Remember if you destabilize a region that has resources the price drops. We saw that every time there is a conflict in the middle east oil price drops. So it is possible to end that conflict if we are willing to pay like 5 times the price we pay for our elctronic devices.
"The Congo was a dream to European colonialists being rich in every resource imaginable" HOI4 Players: Bruh there's like 3 tungsten and 14 rubber here.
I remember Leopold from your Biographics video on him. Absolutely appalling what colonialism did to this area. I can barely even comprehend the damage they did to so many generations of Congolese
I think just simply blaming the leopold for every thing the african rulers have done is quitely misguided. These wars were caused mainly by hatred between africans.
Containing every necessary and rare materials known to Earth, this nation could have been one of the most developed nations on Earth if it weren't for the civil wars.
So the entire raping of the country by Belgium has nothing to do with it? Murdering 10 million people? Colonialism? Nah not these things? Just civil war? hahaha
29:23 : Joseph Kabila was not voted by the parliament. He was chosen by the cabinet ( or the executive branch) together with the army high- command ( J. Kabila was the chief of staff of land forces at that time) and even representative of the allies ( Angola and Zimbabwe).
Damn i never expected this war to be so brutal. I also noticed African countries wars are very very similar i found many of the war tactics in Ethiopian war too
Random request: War of 1812. As an American, and even an ex-US history teacher I don't know much about it. Coming from your British perspective would be pretty interesting i bet. All I really know is the Brits burned down Washington.
I’m bored, so I’ll give a quick version even if this is an old comment. The British were impressing American sailors into their navy to fight in the ongoing Napoleonic wars. The US didn’t like that very much, and wanted to get more land so decided to declare war. There were some naval battles in the Great Lakes region, and an American invasion of British Canada which involved burning the capital of upper Canada. There were a couple of coastal battles, such as the battle of Baltimore in which the Star Spangled Banner was written by Francis Scot Key, and the Battle of New Orleans which helped make Andrew Jackson famous. There were also some naval battles in the Atlantic, that is where the USS Constitution got famous. The War of 1812 was a war fought by the young American nation to show its sovereignty against an Empire that was already engaged in another war. Also, the 1814 burning of Washington D.C was by British soldiers who had came directly from Europe. Canadians had nothing to do with them, except for also being British subjects.
10:48 The way you pronounced ANGOLA made it appear like it was an absurd concept, as if Angola wasn't next door but perhaps nestled in between Argentina and Brazil somewhere^^ i loved that, for a moment my brain went "sure, why not Angola. And does India have an opinion on this?"
One of the main reasons capitalism grew even faster after ussr dissolved like you pointed out in video was stoppage of aid. Ussr gave lot of countries aid to keep them under their influence and then Us to counter them gave other countries aid when ussr dissolved aid stopped and usa stopped it too cause there was nothing valuable to do it now ussr was gone. Thus world had to adopt free market policies
6:44 Stealing goverment funds does not create inflation. Increasing the total amount of currency does create inflation, lessening its per unit purchasing power.
The way the DRC was created it wasn't fair especially for Zambian side and we still have a lot of DRC people stealing our copper and DRC can never be at peace because someone in Europe just decideded how big DRC is without thinking
He literally just took stuff from the Wikipedia articles. This video is full of errors. There's a lot of good book on the matter, but here's a few: - Africa's World War by Prunier - snarky, a bit biased, but still prob the best IMO. - Dancing in the Glory of Monsters by Stearns - maybe the easiest one? - Congo, Epic History of a People by Van Reybrouck - good for context. - The Congo Wars: Conflict, Myth and Reality by Turner - also good, but I Prunier does it better IMO. - Jason Stearns has a new one out, and it's probably pretty good. Haven't read it yet. A lot of the Rwanda books will also help understand the conflict too.
Of unknown, but extreme wars, please make a video of The War of The Tripple Alliance/Paraguayan War that almost wiped the country off the map and took the life of half its population for the sake of their insane president’s ambitions.
I'd enjoy this a lot more if it were broken up into multiple parts and major moments in the war, or the lead-up to it, could be explained more slowly. It's really hard to keep up with this, for me at least.
his video has many many factual errors. Some are quite serious. One of the worst is claiming that the RPF shot down Habyarimana's plane. His death is an extremely contested and famously unsettled matter. Saying that Kagame vowed to 'take revenge on the Hutu' and 'hold the Hutu accountable' is super inflammatory. His language and his whole stated philosophy at that time was very very very anti-tribal. (Whether or not you believe Kagame is a different question!). Less serious stuff: Kabila 1 hadn't been waging war in Eastern DRC for decades at that point. He'd been living in Tanzania for years. His forces were still somewhat active, but he was a part-timer who hadn't been permanently based in the Kivus for a long time. Kabila 1 and the AFDL did not execute 'any and all Hutu in the process.' There were definitely terrible atrocities against Hutu. But to say that any and all Hutu were killed is just crazy talk. Many survived. Kabila 1 was not democratically elected. . his not even close with some of those pronunciations. 'Kabiya'? James 'Kabebe'. his map has South Sudan, which didn't even exist. It was all Sudan back then. In fact, that border between southern Sudan, DRC, and Uganda was one reason why Sudan joined the war. There's a lot more stuff that's debatable/oversimplified/etc. I
i have families on both sides but i was born in rwanda, and i know the French played a complicated role. I think they were interested but not active largely because they were still very embarrassed over actively supporting the genocidal side in Rwanda. DR Congo is the largest French-speaking nation in the world and it has a lot of raw materials, so the French took an active interest. IIRC, they were on 'Team Mobutu' through the cold war but pulled back a bit in the 90s when the development community turned its focus towards 'good governance' and cut funding to Mobutu the kleptocrat. I don't think the French ever really trusted Mobutu, since he was so wily. I think their view was 'he's a crooked bastard, but he's OUR crooked bastard'. In terms of the second war - it's hard to separate it from the first war and the genocide. Mobutu skillfully exploited the Rwandan genocide to turn on the money tap again. The French went along with it because they fundamentally opposed the new Rwandan govt/the RPF, Uganda, and their proxies in the first war. The genocidal govt of Rwanda was extremely pro-France, and French literally soldiers helped the perpetrators flee into Congo. People blame America for failing to stop the genocide, but France is much more to blame. France was asleep at the wheel in Rwanda and they knew it. France knew that the people fleeing Rwanda into DRC weren't genocide victims - they were genocide perpetrators and ordinary fearful Hutu. But they were Francophones and it was a genuine humanitarian crisis and it was a block to the Rwandans. For the second war - France didn't like when Kabila 1 took power in the first war, but they didn't directly engage. They saw Kabila as a proxy for 'Anglo' intruders (AKA Rwanda and Uganda) into the Francosphere. Prunier says France took the whole thing as an American intrusion into the French sphere of influence, which it wasn't. It was it's own conflict with its own motives and complexities, but the anti-Rwanda forces were happy to frame it that way to France. (In fact, this dynamic is all through the history of hte regions. Foreigners don't understand the region, but they have lots of money. Local leaders know that the foreigners don't get it, and they want the money. So they exploit western ignorance to get money and guns.) HOWEVER, when Kabila 1 turned on Rwanda (and thus started the second war) the French were happy to support him. They asked other French-speaking nations to support Kabila 1 against Rwanda. But otherwise I don't think they were directly involved. They didn't send troops, and they weren't active at either of the big peace negotiations. They supported MONUC, but didnt' take a leading role.
Do you know any good ressource to learn the 20th conflicts on this area or anything about the history of Congo ? I'm second gen immigrant from DRC and it's quite hard to found proper information in the western world@@fides_visuals
Modern African Wars have been so horrifying that many probably should be covered in *Into the Shadows* (And all war, not evolving large birds, are already horrifying.)
The DRC has by far the most sad history in Africa. I hope they get better one day but I highly doubt that and I think it's better to let the country collapse than be subsumed by constant civil war and endless chaos
the country has no intention of doing that as over 95% identify as Congolese. the rebels are usually small skirmishes between tribes fighting for land and mining access in 2/26 provinces. The Congolese war happened because Congolese citizens, the army, and neighboring countries all revolted against Mobutu, the Rwandan Hutu vs Tutsi ethnic war created chaos for it to reach the level of civil war. every Congolese war from the crisis in the '60s to the first war all have foreign power funding, aiding, or creating proxy rebel groups from Belgium, Rwanda, Uganda, and Burundi. unlike other African countries where ethnic groups are big enough to fight for independence, in Congo there are over 250 and none is big enough to be an independent country or challenge the central government. Right now the eastern Congo province of Nord Kivu has an m23 rebel fighting for Tutsi refugees and Congolese Tutsi tribes, who are a minority in the province and an insignificant minority in the country as a whole. there will probably be tribe infighting for a while but those are small skirmishes and most of those groups consider themself Congolese and fight for land, riches, and political influence rather than independence. Remember congo is a new country they are simply going through the same situations European countries like Germany went through before the country united.
the other truly tragic story is how the Zimbabwean soldiers who held DRC together where never payed for their efforts, some are still still MIA even today 20 years later for some reason
I pray to my g_ds that Simon can teach the masses in a 3 part series about the Angolan Civil War. It is the perfectly tragic story of African decolonization.
Correction 12:32 : Kabila was never elected. Rather, when Mobutu fled the capital on May 16, Kabila ( still in Lubumbashi, the second largest city, though AFDL troops were already in the outskirts of Kinshasa, the Capital) announced that he has taken the position of the head of state. That was a surprise to even some other members of the AFDL. Indeed, AFDL had 4 "founders" ( at that point, one of them, Ngandu Kisase was already killed) and Kabila was officially only the spokesman of the rebel group.
@@jonathangrafton4016 If they are refugees then they would need to be outside of Rwanda in order to be a refugee. So probably some who fled joined the many rebel groups in Congo etc so may have ended up in clashes with Kagame's army. Naturally many of the criminals during the genocide attempt were punished. But for the most part good efforts were made in mending the Rwandan society.
@@happycarnivore.. Most of the people who fled hadn't joined a rebel group, the RPA would've had a harder time in the First Congo War if that was the case. Rwanda treated the Hutus who ran as if they had all been Interahamwe. ALiR wished this was the case, since they had been the Interahamwe who ran to Zaire. Most of the genocidaires had escaped punishment from the RPA, the vast majority of the Hutus that were massacred in the DRC had been innocent.
@@ericmaniraho2260 Yes. He actually did, and yes he also purged his own political and military hierarchy to maintain dictatorial control, that is true too.
*Please make a video on the Chechen wars. Those two were insanely brutal. I literally got the chills reading about how tenacious the chechens were despite their small population and weak weaponry they sure gave the Russians run for their money. Today's chechnya under Kadyrov is nothing like those lions of the past.*
I would love this, though he already has a video on the Chechen wars on Into the Shadows. I haven't seen it though, maybe this channel could go more into the battle aspects of it
Good report just one thing that needs to be mentioned is the strong link between the plundering of mineral resources and the war, those minerals like coltan and cobalt are used in many electronic equipment like mobile phones, laptops even electric cars. Rwanda has always been backed by western countries so that it can destabilise that region hence these minerals could be obtained cheaply. If there were no mineral resources there would be no war it is that simple
the map animation to get an overview was hilariously unhelpful.. :D maybe put some names on the countries or sth the bouncy arrows just added to the confusion
Guerrilla warfare is so important to understanding military conflict in the last 100 years. Can we expect an episode on the NPA in the Philippines sometime?
This is a good summary of a conflict that has claimed millions of life. In the East region of DRC, millions of people are killed, women are raped on a grand scale. This is the heritage of colonization in Africa: weak states, corrupt leaders, ethnic wars that never seem to end. Hey Simon, please consider a video on Central African Republic.
@Robert Sears Millions of Africans lives from that region. Did you not understand this from the video? Or did you just come to troll hate and fear based comments?
WARNING FOR VIEWERS: This video has many many factual errors. Some are quite serious. I checked - a lot of the text and images are copied from Wikipedia. Serious errors: One of the worst is to claim that the RPF shot down Habyarimana's plane. His death is an extremely contested and famously unsettled matter. Saying that Kagame vowed to 'take revenge on the Hutu' and 'hold the Hutu accountable' is super inflammatory. Kagame's messaging and his whole stated philosophy at that time was very very very anti-tribal. (Whether you believe Kagame is a different question!). Another bad one is saying that Kabila 1 and the AFDL executed 'any and all Hutu in the process.' There were definitely terrible atrocities against Hutu in the DRC. But to say that any and all' Hutu were killed is crazy and reckless. Less serious errors: Kabila 1 hadn't been waging war in Eastern DRC for decades at that point. He'd been living in Tanzania for years. His forces were still somewhat active in the region, but he was a mostly-absent part-timer who hadn't been permanently based in the Kivus for a long time. Kabila 1 was not democratically elected. Come on. You're not even close with some of those pronunciations. 'Kabiya'? James 'Kabebe'??? Dude, come onnnnnnn... do better. Your map has South Sudan, which didn't even exist. It was all Sudan back then. In fact, that border between Sudan, DRC, Uganda, (and what is now South Sudan) was one reason why Sudan joined the war. (I give up counting all the errors) There's a lot more stuff that's debatable/oversimplified/etc, but that'll do for now. The issue is just lazy research. I recognise some of the text you're using. I recognise these pictures. You've literally just copied stuff from the wikipedia articles. That's the laziest research possible. I've seen other videos by you on other channels, and they've been similarly wrong. You've clearly got the resources to do the job properly. People make mistakes, I get it. But most people don't make such silly mistakes with this much confidence. The subject deserves much better attention than this.
@@KaptajnKaffe My sources are mostly Prunier (both books), but also a bit of Reyntjens and Guichaoua. Also a bunch of less academic ones ranging from Powers to Dallaire to Stearns. I don't have any history qualifications but I have a Masters degree that had a research component (development policy), and I also lived in East Africa for a year. I used to speak Swahili well enough to work as a translator
Horrible. In my early years thought Africa was pretty more peaceful and spared the worst violence. But I'm realizing, day by day, that actually the opposite was occuring.
In my opinion Africa should be made countries based on tribal borders not colonial ones Cuz in one countrie theres too many ethnicity where they have their own culture
1:45 wtf? Is he gonna cut of the head to launch it into space or whats the idea? Edit: Ok so I looked it up (took me quite some time) and apparently yes that was the whole idea. Just with fun twist that everyone watchin would try to get ahold of the head (this executionstyle seems to have been only used for human sacrifice upon the death of a leader).
If you live or follow events on East Africa,you can tell the tension in that region,M23 rebels are becoming more daring,blame games between DRC and Rwanda too.
Huh. I still hear people say Zaire when referring to the Congo. Course, I also hear people say “Yugoslavia” when referring to, well, the area that used to be Yugoslavia.
Before you make a video about the Second Congo War, you should've made the First War? Anyway, this is an interesting video! You should also make Biographics videos about Mobutu Sese Seko, Laurent Desire Kabila and his son Joseph
So you mean to say that only 800 Zimbabwean soldiers reversed the course of war fighting nearly 50 000 rebel soldiers from Rwanda , Uganda, Burundi and Tanzania ? Are they Spartans ?
@@ankundamwebembezi6358 Well, there're Middle eastern, African and Asian-Pacific as minor theatre of World war 1. Also, expeditionary force of U.K. colonies around the world were involved.
U started out outlining the horror of Belgian colonialism, hopped skipped your way through African kleptocracy and tribal genocide and wargasm and the light at the end of your tunnel is the Chinese ? Really ?
From what I understand about the Rwanda genocide Tutsi and Hutu were not tribes or areas but classes of people imposed by the French to govern the country when they ran it.rwanda is a peaceful country since Kagame ended the genocide.congo is the instigator of any border wars.there are no Hutu or Tutsi in Rwanda only Rwandans
Mobutu Sese Seko deserves a vid about him alone, the madman.
Check biographics. A video about him came out recently
@@KW-qd1bi I follow Biographics and was happy to see a vid of him did come out soon after.
My question to him would be: where's the fucking money, you greedy cu next tuesday!!!!
0:55 - Chapter 1 - A history of instability
7:00 - Chapter 2 - The 1st congo war
12:50 - Chapter 3 - Operation kitona
21:10 - Chapter 4 - The african world war
25:40 - Chapter 5 - The final years
Our hero labeling the chapters as always 👍
thanks
Please keep focusing on more obscure wars like this as an alternative to making more videos about WW2 or The Hundred Years War. There’s loads of TH-cam content on mainstream wars but precious little on lesser known wars like this one.
Right August!
Yeah, 5 million people dying makes it the 3rd largest war in human history I think? That's crazy for something I only heard about today.
The second killed over 5 million people and is very much in recent memory it should definietly be discussed more
The poor coverage of this conflict by mainstream media is rooted in racism.
This is one of the most complicated wars I've ever tried to understand. My brain is about to burst into flames
Because of Many ethnicity fighting each other
The Belgian Congo/ Zaïr/ Congo Kinshasa/ Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) had been exploited by Europe and the Western (Edomite) society since recorded history in the 1400s. "Democracy" in the DRC since 1959 was and is a façade. The country remains a traumatised plunder basket for international Conflict Mineral gluttons. The Gospel of Peace is entirely absent in the eastern DRC. The AU and SADC do not succeed to silence the guns in Africa. The AfCFTA initiative suffers. Kisangani as a central Africa hub port remains isolated and undeveloped. Various narratives obscure the truth.
@@25eyal17 We don’t fight each other in congo we are fighting the Rwandan
@@shukurumsebaloli you don't get it, do you? The territories where the war is happening literally have kinyarwanda names
@@25eyal17
And most kinyarwanda speakers in that region are against the rwandan government.
When it comes to names to put on a list alongside Mao, Stalin and Hitler, few people ever think to include Leopold II of Belgium...
I mean there are people that are still alive that lived through the first 3 regimes you listed.
He was considered a monster even by the standards of his own time, which really says something. I've seen 19th century posters decipting him as a python who strangles the life out of native Congolese.
Leopold was more monster than human. An sadistic bastard without soul.
Few people consider colonialism wrong
@vitorpereira9515 Oh, he was a human , which is why it's so sad and tragic
Lemme get this straight. These dudes hijacked planes, took over the airport when they landed, went into battle, then retreated, took over a different airfield, extended the tarmac, and then flew home. I'm not even mad, that's just impressive
Ok I just looked it up, apparently that Operation is so famous it's studied in military schools around the world. I'm not in the military though, maybe someone else can confirm this
definitely the MVP
kabila wasnt that bad
General James kabarebe, Rwandan officer now presidential adviser on security issues
hahahha the leader was the former chief of staff very tactical guy
Its impressive that a small nation like Rwanda could cause such damage as they did the behemoth Zaire.
Rwanda are a lot stronger than they are credited for
Long live Tutsi Cushitic
Look at the Rwandan map before Europe curved it up it was bigger than it is today they know how to fight
They were better trained and organized
@@madisonbradt9917 more like congo was busy infighting and rwanda was profitting.
I have a few friends whose families have fled these regions as refugees and their stories are just absolutely heartbreaking and I can’t even imagine, the terror and and unbearable sadness,confusion and helplessness the civilian casualties of these wars would have gone through!😢😢😢😢😢
Once again a prime example of “absolute power, corrupting absolutely”. Humans really are the worst sometimes 😢💔
I served in the US Army with a former Congolese child soldier who came to the US as a refugee in the late 90s. This dude was a bit sadistic and had a dark, nefarious sense of humor. Honestly he seemed a little unhinged and I never truly trusted the guy. He said he was forced into being a child soldier and he had several photos of himself holding AK-47s and RPGs. Oddly in these photos he never looked unhappy about it. I don’t know what ever happened to this guy but until this video I never really had any sort of understanding about the situation he grew up in.
So thanks for taking the time to explain this largely unknown topic. This is why I keep watching your channels.
He was probably screwed up from the horrors he saw as a kid. You should see the movie beasts of no nation and innocent voices they are war films about child soldiers
What a complicated, tragic and crazy war. This has all the ingredients for a "good" story but as usual anything going on in Africa gets ignored by everyone
There are many documentaries on the history of Africa and even movies based around things that happen there. So, how exactly does everyone ignore what's going on there? I guess the eradication of parasites that harmed millions of Africans, spearheaded by foreign nations, was also just the rest of the world ignoring what happens there as well...
@@oblivion155 dude let's be honest. How many people have even heard of this war outside the continent? And how many of those know any real details on it? To say that in any way African history gets nearly as much representation as other parts of the world would be a total joke. Yes every once in a while there is a slight mention but apart from slavery and coloniualism, its entire history is relegated to a few pages at best in most books.
@@micahistory I learned pretty much the same amount about every nation that was taught in my classes with the exception of the USA as it is my home country. A simple search would've shown you that there are at least 243 documentaries covering Africa that can be easily found. Covering a great deal of topics. If none of them contain the amount of detail you are looking for then make your own documentary. Just because you didn't learn a lot about a specific country doesn't mean that others haven't either.
Did you ever take the time to read the entire history book you were given or was it just the few pages your teacher chose to pull their lesson from? Genuine question because in my history book there was more than just a "few pages at best." In the American History books I can see your point but that would be because they are about America not Africa so of course the mentions would be limited to the topics you mention. The other books weren't like that though. Most nations/countries had their own chapter.
There should be some knowing about this. Just remembering it is difficult because everytime Something Happens. I watched a diff vid before and the only thing i could remember was Ruanda troops Walking through congo to the Airport
watching all these videos on all these channels is like the modern version of those encyclopedia books I read as a kid.
I think this war isn't talked about much in western media for a few reasons:
1) we focus on North American/European conflicts, because they get more clicks/views
2) it's really complex and hard to simply point and say "here's the bad guy, here's the good guy", so it's not intuitive to understand what's going on
Either way, great video as always. Cheers.
Here is another simple reason. Outside of resources the rest of the world has never given a fuck about Africa.
We focus on western history in the west... NO WAY!!!
Well, we focus on those conflicts because we are directly correlated to them in some way.
Also, #2 can be attributed to most wars.
I love these comments, it's like saying "do you realise they don't even teach the war of Spanish succession in Japan"?
The more languages involved, the less historians that can cover the topic.
When looking into the depths of such conflicts like this one, all I can see is darkness. Horrible atrocities, brutal mass murder, and to what end? Territory, money, justice? In the end, nothing really justifies this kind of war.
Thanks for posting the video. This really broadened my perspective.
For what? If you could do anything about it would you? DRCongo holds 90% of World's coltan. Which is a resource used to make elctronic devices, like satellites, Mobile Phones, smart watches, tablet or smart TV's. Meaning when you buy one of these there is 90% chances you are financing this conflict.
Now that you have this information are you willing to stop buying electronic devices or to pay about 9 times its value?
@@1individeo Would it be possible your source out the mining of such material to another less violent country? Also. Could you please provide references to what you're talking about?
@@natedcarr6148 I am not sure about the numbers though th-cam.com/video/YTJwbP9Dg_o/w-d-xo.html
@@natedcarr6148 th-cam.com/video/F5VZtJDYWNM/w-d-xo.html
@@natedcarr6148 those minerals ARE literally sold to non violent countries. Think any country that produces computer chips and satellites. Remember if you destabilize a region that has resources the price drops. We saw that every time there is a conflict in the middle east oil price drops. So it is possible to end that conflict if we are willing to pay like 5 times the price we pay for our elctronic devices.
"The Congo was a dream to European colonialists being rich in every resource imaginable"
HOI4 Players: Bruh there's like 3 tungsten and 14 rubber here.
Thank you kindly good Sir. & Team. The alliances & their timing was very interesting
I remember Leopold from your Biographics video on him. Absolutely appalling what colonialism did to this area. I can barely even comprehend the damage they did to so many generations of Congolese
It is sadly a blot on many nations 😔
I think just simply blaming the leopold for every thing the african rulers have done is quitely misguided. These wars were caused mainly by hatred between africans.
@@Dragosflash Yep. Tribalism.
@@Dragosflash You're absolutely right!
Wargraphics needs more war graphics, ie maps
Yep I love me some maps.
It's because he just lifts stuff from the Wikipedia articles. This video is full of errors.
Containing every necessary and rare materials known to Earth, this nation could have been one of the most developed nations on Earth if it weren't for the civil wars.
Don't forget every western power has an invisible hand through proxy wars, extremist group allegations etc
🌈colonialism🌈
@@ladyrain299 more like the Hatfield/McCoy x1000 taking place with the Hutu and Tutsi probably doing the most damage to the African continent
So the entire raping of the country by Belgium has nothing to do with it? Murdering 10 million people? Colonialism? Nah not these things? Just civil war? hahaha
@@ladyrain299 *corruption
29:23 : Joseph Kabila was not voted by the parliament. He was chosen by the cabinet ( or the executive branch) together with the army high- command ( J. Kabila was the chief of staff of land forces at that time) and even representative of the allies ( Angola and Zimbabwe).
Damn i never expected this war to be so brutal. I also noticed African countries wars are very very similar i found many of the war tactics in Ethiopian war too
@Robert Sears you must be talkin' bout those white folks.
Random request: War of 1812. As an American, and even an ex-US history teacher I don't know much about it. Coming from your British perspective would be pretty interesting i bet. All I really know is the Brits burned down Washington.
IN 1814 WE TOOK A LITTLE TRIP, ALONG WITH COLONEL JACKSON DOWN THE MIGHTY MISSISSIP
I’m bored, so I’ll give a quick version even if this is an old comment.
The British were impressing American sailors into their navy to fight in the ongoing Napoleonic wars. The US didn’t like that very much, and wanted to get more land so decided to declare war.
There were some naval battles in the Great Lakes region, and an American invasion of British Canada which involved burning the capital of upper Canada. There were a couple of coastal battles, such as the battle of Baltimore in which the Star Spangled Banner was written by Francis Scot Key, and the Battle of New Orleans which helped make Andrew Jackson famous.
There were also some naval battles in the Atlantic, that is where the USS Constitution got famous.
The War of 1812 was a war fought by the young American nation to show its sovereignty against an Empire that was already engaged in another war.
Also, the 1814 burning of Washington D.C was by British soldiers who had came directly from Europe. Canadians had nothing to do with them, except for also being British subjects.
Thanks
Mobutu’s full name’s pronunciation 😂😂😂you tried till you got to the “Ngbendu”
10:48 The way you pronounced ANGOLA made it appear like it was an absurd concept, as if Angola wasn't next door but perhaps nestled in between Argentina and Brazil somewhere^^
i loved that, for a moment my brain went "sure, why not Angola. And does India have an opinion on this?"
One of the main reasons capitalism grew even faster after ussr dissolved like you pointed out in video was stoppage of aid. Ussr gave lot of countries aid to keep them under their influence and then Us to counter them gave other countries aid when ussr dissolved aid stopped and usa stopped it too cause there was nothing valuable to do it now ussr was gone. Thus world had to adopt free market policies
6:44 Stealing goverment funds does not create inflation. Increasing the total amount of currency does create inflation, lessening its per unit purchasing power.
The way the DRC was created it wasn't fair especially for Zambian side and we still have a lot of DRC people stealing our copper and DRC can never be at peace because someone in Europe just decideded how big DRC is without thinking
"Roland was a warrior from the land of the midnight sun ..."
Majorsamm gang
Best Thompson gunner to ever live
Great video! I was wondering if you could list out your sources as I would like to do more research into this topic
He literally just took stuff from the Wikipedia articles. This video is full of errors. There's a lot of good book on the matter, but here's a few:
- Africa's World War by Prunier - snarky, a bit biased, but still prob the best IMO.
- Dancing in the Glory of Monsters by Stearns - maybe the easiest one?
- Congo, Epic History of a People by Van Reybrouck - good for context.
- The Congo Wars: Conflict, Myth and Reality by Turner - also good, but I Prunier does it better IMO.
- Jason Stearns has a new one out, and it's probably pretty good. Haven't read it yet.
A lot of the Rwanda books will also help understand the conflict too.
@@ahorrell Thank you! I just ordered Africa's World War and Congo, Epic History of a People. I really appreciate your response.
Thanks for the video
Not per se limited to this report, but in general your posts are excellent!
Kabila was so lucky to get help from Zimbabwe and Angola. If it wasn't for them DRC would have become a colony of Uganda and Rwanda
Can’t exactly call him lucky given he was assassinated and his son made peace.
We haven’t had a video about tactical genius in a while. Maybe something like the Inchon landings or the Israeli 6 Day War
Ooh, six day Israeli war, I'd watch that
6 day war.
Rest In Peace to those that passed away.
Fantastic video, really punching points and detail
Of unknown, but extreme wars, please make a video of The War of The Tripple Alliance/Paraguayan War that almost wiped the country off the map and took the life of half its population for the sake of their insane president’s ambitions.
He already uploaded it like a week or two ago 👍 great video too
Good video thanks.
I'm surprised you didn't try to link to your into the Shadows video about the Rwandan genocide
I'd enjoy this a lot more if it were broken up into multiple parts and major moments in the war, or the lead-up to it, could be explained more slowly. It's really hard to keep up with this, for me at least.
his video has many many factual errors. Some are quite serious.
One of the worst is claiming that the RPF shot down Habyarimana's plane. His death is an extremely contested and famously unsettled matter. Saying that Kagame vowed to 'take revenge on the Hutu' and 'hold the Hutu accountable' is super inflammatory. His language and his whole stated philosophy at that time was very very very anti-tribal. (Whether or not you believe Kagame is a different question!).
Less serious stuff:
Kabila 1 hadn't been waging war in Eastern DRC for decades at that point. He'd been living in Tanzania for years. His forces were still somewhat active, but he was a part-timer who hadn't been permanently based in the Kivus for a long time.
Kabila 1 and the AFDL did not execute 'any and all Hutu in the process.' There were definitely terrible atrocities against Hutu. But to say that any and all Hutu were killed is just crazy talk. Many survived.
Kabila 1 was not democratically elected. .
his not even close with some of those pronunciations. 'Kabiya'? James 'Kabebe'.
his map has South Sudan, which didn't even exist. It was all Sudan back then. In fact, that border between southern Sudan, DRC, and Uganda was one reason why Sudan joined the war.
There's a lot more stuff that's debatable/oversimplified/etc.
I
i have families on both sides but i was born in rwanda,
and i know the French played a complicated role. I think they were interested but not active largely because they were still very embarrassed over actively supporting the genocidal side in Rwanda.
DR Congo is the largest French-speaking nation in the world and it has a lot of raw materials, so the French took an active interest. IIRC, they were on 'Team Mobutu' through the cold war but pulled back a bit in the 90s when the development community turned its focus towards 'good governance' and cut funding to Mobutu the kleptocrat. I don't think the French ever really trusted Mobutu, since he was so wily. I think their view was 'he's a crooked bastard, but he's OUR crooked bastard'.
In terms of the second war - it's hard to separate it from the first war and the genocide. Mobutu skillfully exploited the Rwandan genocide to turn on the money tap again. The French went along with it because they fundamentally opposed the new Rwandan govt/the RPF, Uganda, and their proxies in the first war. The genocidal govt of Rwanda was extremely pro-France, and French literally soldiers helped the perpetrators flee into Congo. People blame America for failing to stop the genocide, but France is much more to blame. France was asleep at the wheel in Rwanda and they knew it. France knew that the people fleeing Rwanda into DRC weren't genocide victims - they were genocide perpetrators and ordinary fearful Hutu. But they were Francophones and it was a genuine humanitarian crisis and it was a block to the Rwandans.
For the second war - France didn't like when Kabila 1 took power in the first war, but they didn't directly engage. They saw Kabila as a proxy for 'Anglo' intruders (AKA Rwanda and Uganda) into the Francosphere. Prunier says France took the whole thing as an American intrusion into the French sphere of influence, which it wasn't. It was it's own conflict with its own motives and complexities, but the anti-Rwanda forces were happy to frame it that way to France. (In fact, this dynamic is all through the history of hte regions. Foreigners don't understand the region, but they have lots of money. Local leaders know that the foreigners don't get it, and they want the money. So they exploit western ignorance to get money and guns.)
HOWEVER, when Kabila 1 turned on Rwanda (and thus started the second war) the French were happy to support him. They asked other French-speaking nations to support Kabila 1 against Rwanda. But otherwise I don't think they were directly involved. They didn't send troops, and they weren't active at either of the big peace negotiations. They supported MONUC, but didnt' take a leading role.
Do you know any good ressource to learn the 20th conflicts on this area or anything about the history of Congo ? I'm second gen immigrant from DRC and it's quite hard to found proper information in the western world@@fides_visuals
Modern African Wars have been so horrifying that many probably should be covered in *Into the Shadows*
(And all war, not evolving large birds, are already horrifying.)
How dare you downplay the gargantuan struggle and heroism of all those brave and galant Australians.
A fair number are.
Am from rwanda and this guy actually knows what happened despite the official story saying otherwise kudos bro
"history's shortest war - lasting barely a day - linked on the screen now"
*YUGOSLAVIA TURNS TO NOYOUNOGOSLAVIA*
The DRC has by far the most sad history in Africa. I hope they get better one day but I highly doubt that and I think it's better to let the country collapse than be subsumed by constant civil war and endless chaos
the country has no intention of doing that as over 95% identify as Congolese. the rebels are usually small skirmishes between tribes fighting for land and mining access in 2/26 provinces. The Congolese war happened because Congolese citizens, the army, and neighboring countries all revolted against Mobutu, the Rwandan Hutu vs Tutsi ethnic war created chaos for it to reach the level of civil war. every Congolese war from the crisis in the '60s to the first war all have foreign power funding, aiding, or creating proxy rebel groups from Belgium, Rwanda, Uganda, and Burundi. unlike other African countries where ethnic groups are big enough to fight for independence, in Congo there are over 250 and none is big enough to be an independent country or challenge the central government. Right now the eastern Congo province of Nord Kivu has an m23 rebel fighting for Tutsi refugees and Congolese Tutsi tribes, who are a minority in the province and an insignificant minority in the country as a whole. there will probably be tribe infighting for a while but those are small skirmishes and most of those groups consider themself Congolese and fight for land, riches, and political influence rather than independence. Remember congo is a new country they are simply going through the same situations European countries like Germany went through before the country united.
While I really like this channel, it seems like a lot of the videos have a certain bias on some points, still, good work!
The Great Acronym War
You should make a video about Fallujah
Thank you for bringing this to light
Man you speak fast. My head is spinning from trying to follow you.
Sadly that lack of fearing anyone that Malcom X talked about or at least not being suspicious and careful enough lead to Lumumba’s death
Don’t care about Malcom
@@RR-ri4vnclown
He was killed by cia and belgians
Informative. Would leave behind the editorializing for the sake of objectivity, but it's just TH-cam. Other than that it's fine.
I like it when people fight and neither side knows why they are fighting.
Operation Kitona deserves it’s own video
definitely agree
the other truly tragic story is how the Zimbabwean soldiers who held DRC together where never payed for their efforts, some are still still MIA even today 20 years later for some reason
I pray to my g_ds that Simon can teach the masses in a 3 part series about the Angolan Civil War. It is the perfectly tragic story of African decolonization.
In another world, my dissertation was on Cuban intervention in the Angolan Civil War.
Correction
12:32 : Kabila was never elected. Rather, when Mobutu fled the capital on May 16, Kabila ( still in Lubumbashi, the second largest city, though AFDL troops were already in the outskirts of Kinshasa, the Capital) announced that he has taken the position of the head of state. That was a surprise to even some other members of the AFDL. Indeed, AFDL had 4 "founders" ( at that point, one of them, Ngandu Kisase was already killed) and Kabila was officially only the spokesman of the rebel group.
Kagame actually promoted a policy of reconciliation not revenge.
That was for the people who hadn't fled the country. The refugees didn't get the reconciliation.
@@jonathangrafton4016 If they are refugees then they would need to be outside of Rwanda in order to be a refugee. So probably some who fled joined the many rebel groups in Congo etc so may have ended up in clashes with Kagame's army.
Naturally many of the criminals during the genocide attempt were punished. But for the most part good efforts were made in mending the Rwandan society.
@@happycarnivore.. Most of the people who fled hadn't joined a rebel group, the RPA would've had a harder time in the First Congo War if that was the case. Rwanda treated the Hutus who ran as if they had all been Interahamwe. ALiR wished this was the case, since they had been the Interahamwe who ran to Zaire.
Most of the genocidaires had escaped punishment from the RPA, the vast majority of the Hutus that were massacred in the DRC had been innocent.
Are you sure?
@@ericmaniraho2260 Yes. He actually did, and yes he also purged his own political and military hierarchy to maintain dictatorial control, that is true too.
*Please make a video on the Chechen wars. Those two were insanely brutal. I literally got the chills reading about how tenacious the chechens were despite their small population and weak weaponry they sure gave the Russians run for their money. Today's chechnya under Kadyrov is nothing like those lions of the past.*
I would love this, though he already has a video on the Chechen wars on Into the Shadows. I haven't seen it though, maybe this channel could go more into the battle aspects of it
@@mattcromwell4308 really? Can u give me the link?
@@mattcromwell4308 exactly, the battles would be awesome. Like the battle of grozny
@@sebresludolf9611 yeah, search "Into the Shadows - Chechnya - Russia's Achilles Heel.
@@mattcromwell4308 got it
Such a big country could not defend itself against such small ones
6:57, Holy Crap!! It's Black Simon!
Good report just one thing that needs to be mentioned is the strong link between the plundering of mineral resources and the war, those minerals like coltan and cobalt are used in many electronic equipment like mobile phones, laptops even electric cars. Rwanda has always been backed by western countries so that it can destabilise that region hence these minerals could be obtained cheaply. If there were no mineral resources there would be no war it is that simple
the map animation to get an overview was hilariously unhelpful.. :D
maybe put some names on the countries or sth
the bouncy arrows just added to the confusion
brruhhh! they had time to extend the runway!! that's mental 🤣 impressive though.
Man, if I tought Yugoslav wars were brutal than this is apsolute hell.
Mihajlo Bogdanović
The microphone audio here is weird and has no bass compared to your other videos
can you cite your sources please.
Guerrilla warfare is so important to understanding military conflict in the last 100 years. Can we expect an episode on the NPA in the Philippines sometime?
Good video 👍
This is a good summary of a conflict that has claimed millions of life. In the East region of DRC, millions of people are killed, women are raped on a grand scale. This is the heritage of colonization in Africa: weak states, corrupt leaders, ethnic wars that never seem to end.
Hey Simon, please consider a video on Central African Republic.
@Robert Sears He means millions of lives.
@Robert Sears Millions of Africans lives from that region. Did you not understand this from the video?
Or did you just come to troll hate and fear based comments?
Yeah because it was all peaceful before colonisation right...
@@warwickeng5491 Your sarcasm apart, what do you mean? Because it doesn't make any sense. Name me any place that was peaceful before colonization.
No chance of this war ending. It has been going for ever and will continue
WARNING FOR VIEWERS: This video has many many factual errors. Some are quite serious. I checked - a lot of the text and images are copied from Wikipedia.
Serious errors:
One of the worst is to claim that the RPF shot down Habyarimana's plane. His death is an extremely contested and famously unsettled matter. Saying that Kagame vowed to 'take revenge on the Hutu' and 'hold the Hutu accountable' is super inflammatory. Kagame's messaging and his whole stated philosophy at that time was very very very anti-tribal. (Whether you believe Kagame is a different question!).
Another bad one is saying that Kabila 1 and the AFDL executed 'any and all Hutu in the process.' There were definitely terrible atrocities against Hutu in the DRC. But to say that any and all' Hutu were killed is crazy and reckless.
Less serious errors:
Kabila 1 hadn't been waging war in Eastern DRC for decades at that point. He'd been living in Tanzania for years. His forces were still somewhat active in the region, but he was a mostly-absent part-timer who hadn't been permanently based in the Kivus for a long time.
Kabila 1 was not democratically elected. Come on.
You're not even close with some of those pronunciations. 'Kabiya'? James 'Kabebe'??? Dude, come onnnnnnn... do better.
Your map has South Sudan, which didn't even exist. It was all Sudan back then. In fact, that border between Sudan, DRC, Uganda, (and what is now South Sudan) was one reason why Sudan joined the war.
(I give up counting all the errors)
There's a lot more stuff that's debatable/oversimplified/etc, but that'll do for now. The issue is just lazy research. I recognise some of the text you're using. I recognise these pictures. You've literally just copied stuff from the wikipedia articles. That's the laziest research possible.
I've seen other videos by you on other channels, and they've been similarly wrong. You've clearly got the resources to do the job properly. People make mistakes, I get it. But most people don't make such silly mistakes with this much confidence. The subject deserves much better attention than this.
Hhhhh they are copying and pasting the same story. buh it's nice to see more African Stories recorded
Could you summarise the role of France in the 2nd Congo War?
I have to ask, what are your qualifications or sources for this info?
I know Simon has a team, but everyone make mistakes 😁
@@KaptajnKaffe My sources are mostly Prunier (both books), but also a bit of Reyntjens and Guichaoua. Also a bunch of less academic ones ranging from Powers to Dallaire to Stearns. I don't have any history qualifications but I have a Masters degree that had a research component (development policy), and I also lived in East Africa for a year. I used to speak Swahili well enough to work as a translator
@@ahorrell cool! That is a fine pedigree 😊
So many countries involved. And so much death and destruction. What a tragedy.
Roland the headless thompson gunner!!
Are you the same guy that does slapped ham
Beasts of no Nation is a pretty good fictional account of child soldiers.
Horrible. In my early years thought Africa was pretty more peaceful and spared the worst violence. But I'm realizing, day by day, that actually the opposite was occuring.
Please make an episode about the attack of the dead men. #osowiecfort
Sabaton already did that
Oh snap, place sounds Intense to live in.
Next time make subtitles in your videos
In my opinion Africa should be made countries based on tribal borders not colonial ones
Cuz in one countrie theres too many ethnicity where they have their own culture
They'll still fight each other for resources and land.
@@tacitus6384 like Russia and Ukraine lol
@@tacitus6384 You mean like UK vs Ireland?
1:45 wtf? Is he gonna cut of the head to launch it into space or whats the idea?
Edit: Ok so I looked it up (took me quite some time) and apparently yes that was the whole idea. Just with fun twist that everyone watchin would try to get ahold of the head (this executionstyle seems to have been only used for human sacrifice upon the death of a leader).
If you live or follow events on East Africa,you can tell the tension in that region,M23 rebels are becoming more daring,blame games between DRC and Rwanda too.
Huh. I still hear people say Zaire when referring to the Congo. Course, I also hear people say “Yugoslavia” when referring to, well, the area that used to be Yugoslavia.
"Well what do you know the next implemented Gov., was corrput" * say in a Cockney accent
My uncle went to the DRC
Before you make a video about the Second Congo War, you should've made the First War? Anyway, this is an interesting video!
You should also make Biographics videos about Mobutu Sese Seko, Laurent Desire Kabila and his son Joseph
Don't worry, first congo war is covered as well before the second one
Watch the video before typing?
Please visit Micahistory 2, it would mean a lot!
It's a culture thing.
So you mean to say that only 800 Zimbabwean soldiers reversed the course of war fighting nearly 50 000 rebel soldiers from Rwanda , Uganda, Burundi and Tanzania ? Are they Spartans ?
800 with ample air support plus thousands of Congolese plus Angolan forces
'm here partly to find out what Roland was up to.
Small Correction: Kabila was never elected, he appointed himself president
request one on Somalia
Iraq Iran war?
The time to blame the problems in Africa on colonization have long passed.
They do act like the white lunatics they criticize
That is true
My dad fought in this war in the Zimbabwean Commando's, i saw some of the combat footage his platoon took that shit looked fucked up.
For it to be a "World War" it kinda has to encompass the world. None of them had navies to be fighting around the world.
How ww1 was called a world war yet it took place in Europe? Plus what use are boats in a land war
@@ankundamwebembezi6358 Well, there're Middle eastern, African and Asian-Pacific as minor theatre of World war 1. Also, expeditionary force of U.K. colonies around the world were involved.
Both sides of the start of the war ate pygmies like they were game animals 😭
give lumumba on biographics
U started out outlining the horror of Belgian colonialism, hopped skipped your way through African kleptocracy and tribal genocide and wargasm and the light at the end of your tunnel is the Chinese ? Really ?
From what I understand about the Rwanda genocide Tutsi and Hutu were not tribes or areas but classes of people imposed by the French to govern the country when they ran it.rwanda is a peaceful country since Kagame ended the genocide.congo is the instigator of any border wars.there are no Hutu or Tutsi in Rwanda only Rwandans
Is that kind of sad to see that no one actually cared about this war I mean there’s no news or like newspapers about it🙁