Talk:Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo

message: Is the Mi26 used by the DOC? QZXA2 16:31, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: According to the IISS Military Balance 2007, the Air Force has 1 Mi-26 Halo; the IISS usually puts a little mark next to the entry if the aircraft is unservicable, and there's nothing there. This means that it might be flying, which would be a bit of a surprise for the DRC. Buckshot06 09:02, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mi26 

message: *The planned centres were to be at N’Zumu, in the 1st Military Region; at Kitona (2nd Military Region); at Bokala and Gbadolite in the 3rd Military Region of Equateur; at Katende in the 4th Military Region of Western Kasaï; at Katenda and Lucha in the 5th Military Region of Eastern Kasaï, at Kamina and Mura 6th Military Region of Kabanga, at Luama (Kindu) in the 7th Military Region of Maniema; in the 8th Military Region of North-Kivu at Mushaki (Goma) and Nyaleke (Beni); in the 9th Military Région of Lukusa at Bunia; in the 10th Military Région of South Kivu at Luberizi.
http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/engAFR620012007?open&of=eng-COD
*Point de situation du Brassage :
Le brassage de la 15ème Brigade intégrée s’est achevé et les 2837 hommes qui la composent attendent d’être déployés. Le brassage de la 16ème Brigade se poursuit pour les 4401 hommes présents au camp de Luberizi et devrait s’achever le 24 juin 2007. Enfin, à Kamina, 4139 hommes sont en attente du début du brassage de la 17ème Brigade. 
(MONUC, 29 May 2007, from http://fr.allafrica.com/stories/200705301111.html)
*12th and 13th Battalions of 17th Brigade - http://www.mamboafrica.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=7368&Itemid=26  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Buckshot06 (talk • contribs) 20:35, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Article Sandbox/Workspace

message: Is this article a suitable place to discuss the former Congolese National Army and Zairean Armed Forces?  There is a Force Publique article that discusses the immediate post-independence era of the Congolese armed forces, but there seems to be a gap for the history of the forces under Mobutu. W. B. Wilson 15:47, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi again Mr Wilson. I have been thinking this could be a good place to put details of the former FAZ and FAC etc, but I haven't started it; there's too much to fill in on the current situation which needs doing first. Cheers Buckshot06 15:56, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Greetings Buckshot06. I'll add a stub section noting the origins and pointing to the Force Publique article. Cheers, W. B. Wilson 16:08, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Sounds good. I've just removed a redundant re-re-direct at the bottom of the FP article so it now points to this page directly. Buckshot06 16:47, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Done. It may not fit well as it is with the structure of the article so please edit it as required. Cheers, W. B. Wilson 17:19, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  ANC and FAZ 

message: Buckshot06 has asked me to do an informal review of this article. Because I'm a pushy jerk I've also done a copyedit as well. In general, I think that this article is off to a good start and can be expanded along its current lines to reach A/FA status. The choice of topics to cover seems good, and the assessment of the military is fair and draws on highly reliable sources. Some specific comments and suggestions are:
*The overall structure of the military needs to be outlined upfront, even if this is currently very murky. For instance, the existence of an air force isn't mentioned until almost the end of the article and it's not mentioned whether the DRC currently or has ever had a navy or Army riverine force. 
* Can anything be said about the civilian organisations which support the military? Is there or has there been a department of defence or any local defence industries?
* The presence of foreign troops and foreign military aid missions is mentioned in the introduction, but not in the body of the article. Sections on these topics would be great.
* It might also be worth including a dedicated section on how the military is being rebuilt, as this is a little bit buried at present.
* More citations are needed, especially to support and illustrate statements such as 'according to some internet references' - these references should be mentioned, especially when they contradict each other.
*the term 'brassage' needs a definition
*it might be worth including a map showing the DRC's provinces/regions as these are probably totally obscure for most people who read the article but are frequently mentioned in the article. This kind of thing tends to be frowned on for some reason though.
* Is a reliable list of the Army's equipment available? - I suspect not, but if it is it would be worth including in some form.
*Is the list of Chiefs of Staff complete? If not, this should be stated.
* Has the Army played any role in DRC politics since Mobutu Sese Seko siezed power? - eg, did it play a role in supporting his rule and choosing his successors? --Nick Dowling 09:03, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Informal review

message: Information in the most recent Jane's publications conflicts slightly with with the information on the DRC's air force and navy in the article:
* Jane's World Air Force's 2007 can only confirm that the air force has four aircraft in service (2 C-130, 1 DHC-5D, 1 Boeing 727) and a unknown number of Su-25s (no more than 8 in the air force's fleet following losses), C-47s, MB-326GBs and possibly some MiG-23s. It is also stated that the aircraft which aren't currently in service are generally in so poor a state that they couldn't possibly be repaired. I think that the table on the air force needs an extra column which draws on one or more of the available estimates of the Air Force's actual strength to highlight the fact that deliveries don't equal aircraft in service as is discussed in the article's text. 
* Jane's all the World's ships states that the navy is organised into four commands which in turn come under the command of the Army. The commands are: Matadi (coastal), Kinshasa (riverine), Kalemie (Lake Tanganyika) and Goma (Lake Kivu). Is this a better source to draw on than the source which states that there are 5 naval districts? - I have no real affection for Jane's (which suffers from sloppy and lazy editing IMO) so it's quite possible that this information is out of date or wrong. --Nick Dowling 03:27, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Air Force aircraft and navy organisation

message: "this process is being hampered by corruption, the near-impotence of the government, and inadequate donor coordination."
Doesn't seem very neutral. 207.138.98.253 (talk) 13:54, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: It's cited and fair. The DRC is pretty chaotic. --Nick Dowling (talk) 23:55, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I would be interested if the contributor had a source that said otherwise.  Neutral does not mean "nice," it simply means it represents various viewpoints rather than favoring a particular one.  Not even the combatants themselves seem to be saying other than this.  --Blechnic (talk) 00:45, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: NPOV

message: This is a good article, and it was nice to see it on the main page of Wikipedia.  But the authors missed tons of information about combatant forces in Central Africa published in scholarly economic and less scholarly business journals.  Every issue of the various African economic journals I read carries something about DCR and usually about the fighting in the East because of the mineral riches of the area and current interests and activities in exploiting them.  If you are interested in more information on this topic, try doing area-limited scholar and economic database searches.  --Blechnic (talk) 06:46, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Other sources 

message: Wikipedia maintain that the population of Kongo is near 5 mill in 2005. But they maintain 11 mill in military: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_the_Congo
OktoberStorm (talk) 04:46, 20 July 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: The Republic of the Congo and Democratic Republic of the Congo are two different countries.  Also, the number of people who are available for military service in a country is very different from that country's active military personnel. - BanyanTree 04:51, 20 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Huge inconsistency 

message: *General Gabriel Amisi Kumba, or 'Tango Fort' has been reported as deputy commander of the Congo military. Buckshot06 (talk) 16:55, 10 February 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Biographies

message: Labourious is an old British English spelling no longer in the Collins Dictionary. So I've changed it to laborious which is. Feel free to revert but would be interested to know what dictionary supports the spelling. Regards, SunCreator (talk) 13:49, 24 June 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Spelling  labourious 

message: My thoughts are that if I looked up "DRC Army" I'd want to know about the army of today - how many soldiers - how well trained - where are they deployed/equipped, etc etc. To wade through the "Once upon a time there was a king in Belguim calle Leopold ..." So, I think that the stuff about NOW should be first and the history - even though it's fantastically fascinating - should be at the end. In fact ... I think it should be condensed and put as a separated article. Any support? Francis Hannaway (talk) 08:27, 14 May 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Strong oppose. One cannot understand the reasons why the FARDC is the way it is today without the history, especially of the Force publique. Anyone who wants to scroll right down immediately can easily do so. Not all readers will want to know about today's army, and it is most logically explained in chronological order. Buckshot06 (talk) 09:40, 14 May 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Put "today" at the start and "History" at the end 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

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message: what sort of additional details on brassage would you want to have added to the article? I tried carefully to summarize the ICG report some years ago, and there's little further.. Buckshot06 (talk) 10:07, 20 December 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Regrettably it's been too long since I've given this issue good thought, it would take some time for me to find the sources I was thinking of when I made that suggestion. For one thing, Turner considered brassage a failure, which seems of note. -Indy beetle (talk) 22:40, 20 December 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: When you find them again, tell me, and happy to expand the coverage. Have "Congo Wars" on my bookshelf if that's the particular bit of writing of Turner's you're talking about. Buckshot06 (talk) 23:05, 20 December 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Brassage 

message: Accessible at https://web.archive.org/web/20150319205319/http://gga.org/stories/editions/aif-30-broken-ranks/rogue-army-for-a-fragile-state/. Thanks go to . Buckshot06 (talk) 07:58, 27 November 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  February 2015 article 

message: In 2021, the Transnational Institute published a report about the role of the arms trade in displacements, finding that "between 2012 and 2015 Bulgaria exported assault rifles, large-calibre artillery systems, light machine guns, hand-held under-barrel and mounted grenade launchers to the Democratic Republic of Congo’s national police and military. [...] Bulgarian weapons were in use in North Kivu in 2017 coinciding with the forced displacement of 523,000 people." Highlighting the role of the military in human rights abuses, they write that FARDC soldiers in North Kivu "possessed Bulgarian-manufactured ARSENAL weaponry that had been exported to the DRC."
Can be Bulgaria listed as foreign supplier or there are just actual suppliers which are supplying guns even today? Dr. Ivan Kučera (talk) 08:26, 5 February 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bulgaria as Foreign supplier