moostraks
02-01-2008, 05:57 PM
Just got a new(used)book and was reading it called Joining the Army That Sheds No Blood by Susan Clemmer Steiner (1982). Came across an interesting section on Zaire. I thought I would share it with anyone interested,:
"In 1978,some of the exiled Kantangese launched an attack from acros the border in Angola to get their ancestral land back. This really upset the NATO countries. If there were prolonged fighting in Shaba Province, NATO access to the cobalt would be endangered ( side note:used then for cancer treatments, jet engines, and nuclear propulsion systems)The world price of cobalt shot up from $50 to $685/lb.
What made people nervous was that Angola(where the Kantangese had taken refuge) was now a communist country. Everybody was afraid that if the Kantangese took control of their ancestral land again, they might want to sell the cobalt to the USSR .
We in North America were told that France had to go into Zaire with troops to "throw the communists out"(with some United States militsry equipment and Belgian troops on the scene as well). But we were only told part of the story. The part about the United States and France protecting "our cobalt" was left out.
If the Kantangese ancestral land had been a desert area with no minerals, the United States and France would have let the african ethnic groups slug it out themselves."
And foreign countries hate us for our entanglements why??? This just sounds so much like an instant repeat of what we have been living.:(
"In 1978,some of the exiled Kantangese launched an attack from acros the border in Angola to get their ancestral land back. This really upset the NATO countries. If there were prolonged fighting in Shaba Province, NATO access to the cobalt would be endangered ( side note:used then for cancer treatments, jet engines, and nuclear propulsion systems)The world price of cobalt shot up from $50 to $685/lb.
What made people nervous was that Angola(where the Kantangese had taken refuge) was now a communist country. Everybody was afraid that if the Kantangese took control of their ancestral land again, they might want to sell the cobalt to the USSR .
We in North America were told that France had to go into Zaire with troops to "throw the communists out"(with some United States militsry equipment and Belgian troops on the scene as well). But we were only told part of the story. The part about the United States and France protecting "our cobalt" was left out.
If the Kantangese ancestral land had been a desert area with no minerals, the United States and France would have let the african ethnic groups slug it out themselves."
And foreign countries hate us for our entanglements why??? This just sounds so much like an instant repeat of what we have been living.:(