Operations ?Leopard? and ?Red Bean? - Kolwezi 1978: French and Belgian intervention in Zaire (Africa@War)

This history traces the FNLC’s roots, conflicts, and daring interventions shaping Zaire’s security.

This book provides a history of the roots of FNLC (Front for the National Liberation of the Congo: ex-Katanga Gendarmerie) in Angola and Zaire, political situation under Mobutu regime, FNLC incursions into Zaire border since 1977 (“Shaba Wars I and II”) and subsequent hostage taking in mining town of Kolwezi. The author describes the subsequent French Foreign Legion and Belgian Para Commando airborne operation and freeing of the hostages, together with practical destruction of the FNLC as fighting force.

Daniel Kowalczuk is a Polish analyst of post-colonial wars around the Globe, with special interests in Biafra, the Congo, Sub-Saharan Africa and Indochina since 1945. He has published dozens of related articles in the specialized press and is widely acknowledged for his often pioneering work. Furthermore, he has researched and authored studies of several other little-known conflicts, including the Coconut Revolution (Bougainville, 1980-1988), and the Noumea Hostage Crisis (New Caledonia, 1988), the commercial use of helicopters during the Biafran War, the ‘Brown Water Navy’ operated by France during the I Indochina War (1945-1954), and the history of the Katanga Air Force. Following ‘Kolwezi, 1978’, ‘Air Wars over the Congo, Volume 1’, is his second instalment for Helion’s Africa@War series.