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International terrorism and the seizure of hostages for political purposes have become all too familiar events in Africa, the Middle East, Western Europe, England - no area seems to be immune - innocent civilians are being seized and held by those wishing to achieve ideological and political goals. When rebels held hostage American consular personnel and other civilians in Stanleyville, the Congo, in 1964, the United States was confronted with a unique crisis situation.In this exhaustively researched account, Colonel Fred Wagoner presents a chronological narrative of the events leading to the Belgian-American operation, DRAGON ROUGE, which successfully rescued Americans and Belgians held hos...
On the early afternoon of 5 August 1964, insurrectionists of the Popular Army of Liberation of self-commissioned "General" Nicolas Olenga, calling themselves Simbas, seized Stanleyville, the capital of Haut Congo Province, and the third largest city in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Present in Stanleyville and vicinity were 30 Americans. Five were American consulate employees. Also present were approximately 1,500 foreigners. For the next 111 days they were held and then a rescue operation was made. This is the story of that incident.
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For the Belgian Paracommando Regiment, the Congo was a familiar, though often hostile, environment. For most of the officers and sergeants of the regiment, the fields, buildings, and river below were as familiar as the Belgian landscape. But for most of the 340 enlisted men drifting in the sky over the airfield, the Congo was an unknown menace outside their military experience. Most of these paras were young draftees to whom the Congo represented a closed chapter in Belgium's colonial history. Yet even with the experience of its senior leadership, the Belgian Paracommandos faced a severe test on this early spring morning. The young paras and their seasoned leaders were conducting the first international hostage rescue in the post-World War II era. The challenge was enormous, the risks staggering; the Paracommandos were jumping into a perilous den of uncertainty. Stanleyville was at the heart of the Simba Rebellion and the scene of the growing desperation. Faced with a government ground assault, the Simba leaders had taken several thousand non-Congolese hostages to guard against what appeared to be imminent defeat. Keywords: Military operations.
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