Africa's World War Quotes

“Looting and its attendant calamities (arson, rape, torture) become routine operations for the “combatants,” who are soon more akin to vampires than to soldiers. Even the regular armies—and here the parallel with the Thirty Years’ War is inescapable—all use militias to supplement or reinforce their own capacity. After a while there is a kind of “blending” between the so-called regular forces (who in Africa are usually poorly paid and poorly disciplined) and the militias they have recruited as auxiliaries. This blending leads more to the de-professionalization of the regular forces than to the professionalization of the militias. This was a key factor in the grotesque fighting between the Rwandese and Ugandan armies in Kisangani, where the invaders seemed to have lost even the most elementary vision of what they were doing in the Congo and turned to fighting each other like dogs over leftover bones.”
― Gérard Prunier, Africa's World War: Congo, the Rwandan Genocide, and the Making of a Continental Catastrophe

“In typical Kabila fashion his arrest was later justified by saying that he had “kept a private militia, planned a coup and smoked hemp.” The”
― Gérard Prunier, Africa's World War: Congo, the Rwandan Genocide, and the Making of a Continental Catastrophe