Mai Mai Militas

The Mai Mai (the word "Mai Mai" means "Water, Water" basing on the rituals that those militias believe will make themselves immune to bullets), as mentioned in a few of my previous posts is a broad term for tribal militias that warred against various rebel groups and the Kabila regime. Several Mai Mai militias groups also allied themselves with the Kabila regime. Several Mai Mai groups formed to protect their villages from the Rwandan backed insurgents, but many of these groups took advantage of the conflict to solve a variety of tribal disputes like cattle rustling and raiding rival villages. As they are only a label, their is no cooperation between several of the Mai Mai groups and several even war against each over.  The Mai Mai don't answer to any of the peace treaties, so it is problematic to disarm them.

Mai Mai group A;  Some of the more better equipped Mai Mai factions. Military fatigues and sophisticated weaponry hints that this Mai Mai faction collaborated with the Kabila regime or some of the foreign governments. Several of the more mainstream groups like the RCD factions and the UPC factions have military uniforms, most likely because of the rebel groups collaboration with foreign governments.

Mai Mai Group B;  All photos below show the heavy tribal influences among the Mai Mai factions. These fighters must be part of some of the more isolated groups that have little western influences. Traditional clothing and weaponry with of the expectation of AKs show that they are very tribal and strongly believe in folk magic. This Mai Mai group most likely has not collaborated with any governments because they lack sophisticated equipment.

Taping Revolt Basic Info

The Taping Revolt originated when some Chinese man named Hong Xiuquan claimed to be the younger brother of Jesus Christ. Hong's alleged goal was to free China from the "infidel" Qing dynasty and establish a holy kingdom under his altered version of Christianity. He then created a cult style kingdom called the Taping Heavenly Kingdom at the expense of the Qing Dynasty. The resulting war ended in the deaths at least 20 million people. The Taipings had initial success against the Imperialist government, but violent infighting among the Taipings and the European governments intervening on the side of the Imperial government saved the Qing Dynasty from falling. The Qing Dynasty only phyrrhicly defeated the Taipings. Some extreme estimates point the death toll as high as 100 million deaths. How could such a man with such a bizarre cult do so much damage? Well, China was very weak from corruption and humiliating defeats from the Europeans and the Japanese. 19th century China suffered various horrific rebellions (several of them had death tolls in the low millions) throughout its various regions. In various regions that were devastated by rebellion, tensions were so high that they only needed an almost comically trivial incident to fuse it. Some of the Dungan revolts in the Central Asian region of China were sparked by a pricing dispute over bamboo. Other notable large scale revolts in 19th century China was the Nien Revolt (got fused into the Taping Revolt), Dungan Revolts, Panthay Revolts, and the Miao Revolts. So the Qing Dynasty was quite vulnerable to any revolts, and even minor incidents could turn into violent uprisings. Soon the combinations of all those massive uprisings and other factors lead to the collapse of the last classical Chinese Dynasties in 1911.

Warfare of the Ancient Mayans

Mayan civilization was originally seen as a pacifistic society that was too focused on non-violent activities like building and Astronomy. Once more accurate translations of the Mayan language became more available, evidence showed that the Mayans were actually the exact opposite of the traditional view. The Mayans were somewhat similar to the classical Greece with city states almost in a continuous state of war against each over. Most of the wars were minor raids for slaves and sacrifices. However, their were causes of wars similar to today. Major reasons for wars between Mayan city states were for domination of rival city states and conquest of territory, civil wars within city states due to dynastic disputes, and revolts by subjected cities against the mother kingdom to secede. Mayans practiced Human Sacrifice like the Aztecs as mentioned above, but the sacrifices of the Mayans were generally targeted towards rival kings. Rival kings were the most prized of all human sacrifices. The Mayan Human Sacrifices were also more deliberate and more elaborate then that of the Aztecs. Several methods towards Mayan Sacrifices involve decapitation, heart removal, and by the Bow and Arrow ritual. The collapse of the Mayan city states is believed to have been caused by the frequent wars in Mayan society.

RUF Rebels

If you remember from my previous post about the Kamajors, here is their enemies the Revolutionary United Front (RUF). They are most famous for being depicted in the Hollywood movie Blood Diamonds, which is a very accurate depiction of their crimes and their infamous funding by Diamonds. The signature tactic of the RUF is the amputation of its victims limbs, what ever solider or civilian (but they amputated much more civilians then soldiers). The RUF used children as young as 7 in their armies, often forcing them to kill their parents or the tribal elder. The RUF didn't even have a known ideology. They never supported any forms of religions, communism, nationalism, ethnic groups, or any other ideologies popular to rebel groups. One of the major reasons why the RUF was able to continue their insurgency was their use of the lucrative diamond trade. The Diamond Trade was so lucrative that the RUF didn't even need to win the "hearts and minds" of the people or state backing (although it did get the NPFL backing it). The RUF has gained $125 million annually from the Diamond trade. The RUF used miners enslaved at gunpoint in its mines. In 1997, as mentioned in my earlier post on the Kamajors, several rouge soldiers from the government army calling themselves the AFRC formed an alliance with the RUF and toppled the Civilian government in Freetown. The Civilian government was later put back into power by ECOMOG a year later after driving the RUF/AFRC junta out of Freetown. The RUF continued its insurgency until its defeat in 2002.

The front figure is wearing Kamajor clothing. This hints that the website ever misidentified Kamajor militiamen for the RUF or that they may be RUF fighters wearing clothing stolen from corpses of Kamajor fighters.

Military uniforms among this fighters suggest that they may be AFRC fighters, or they may be RUF fighters wearing clothing stolen or traded from government troops. However fighters in this conflict were legendary for switching sides back and forth from the RUF to the government almost daily.

This photo seems to depicted a RUF fighter standing next to a solider from ECOMOG.

The date of this photo and the presence of UN peacekeepers suggest that this photo was taken during some UN sponsored disarmament of combatants.

These RUF rebels depicted in these photos are actually mainstream government troops, however it is not an inaccuracy to label them as RUF fighters since many government troops often joined the RUF in attacks on civilians. Many deserted to the rebels presumably bringing their equipment with them. One Human Rights report mentioned it was difficult for the victims to identify their assailants because government troops were often identical to the RUF rebels.

This young fighter was identified as RUF in one website, and Kamajor on another. He could be easily part of any of those factions.

Although one website identified this fighters as RUF, the clothing suggests that this boy most likely belongs to the Kamajors.

These boys might be from the AFRC, the mainstream government army, or the RUF. One loose way to tell between the AFRC or the RUF is most AFRC fighters have military fatigues, while RUF fighters usually have civilian clothing.  However, this distinction is blurred as RUF and AFRC fighters traded with each other. So it was not uncommon for rebels to wear both military and civilian clothing.

Another photo that shows how difficult the distinction of rebels and government troops was in this war. Like repeatedly mentioned above, government troops were infamous for joining the RUF in terrorizing the civilian population. That is why the government had to rely on South African Mercenaries and Tribal Militias.

This photo shows the young age of many of the fighters in the Sierra Leone Civil War.

These fighters were labeled as RUF rebels in one website, and Kamajors in another.

Interactions Between Local Predators and Warfare

A hidden and disturbing aspect of warfare is the interactions of the local carnivores and the Human population during war-times. It is very common, even to this day for local predators like Wolves, Hyenas, Tigers, Crocodiles, Leopards, Lions and other predators to feast on the corpses left behind on the battlefields (I will not focus on smaller animals like Crows and Rats that prey on corpses from the battlefields since they are of no threat to living humans). This unfortunately leads the predators to have a taste of the living humans, causing problems for refugees and soldiers alike. One incident is that during a clash between government troops and insurgents in Ethiopia during an attempted coup, Hyenas made short work of the thousands of corpses left behind. In Sudan, the Hyenas also increasingly prey on humans due to the readily available from the violent Civil Wars. In the American Vietnam War, Tigers have been known to attack the Viet Cong and American troops alike. Strangely for most wild animals, some of the Tigers were attracted to Gunshots because they associated it with free meals in the form of dead bodies from the clashes between ARVN and the PAVN. In one episode of Duck Dynasty, Si Robertson comically described a case of him witnessing a Tiger dragging off a mortally wounded comrade into the jungle to young children in a class room. In WW1 wolves have been known to feast on corpses in the infamous trenches. The wolves soon started to attack living soldiers. The attacks got so serious that Russian and German troops formed unofficial alliances with each-over in order to hunt the wolf packs down. In WW2 Burma, Crocodiles and Tigers alike turned to man-eating. Several man eating Tigers plagued villages even after the war, and man eating Crocodiles even annihilated a feeling Japanese Army in the Battle of Ramree Island. All in all, I guess man eating (both the living and the dead) predators are just another one of those hidden horrors presented in wars along with cannibalism, rape, and human body part trophy taking.

Voynich Manuscript

The Voynich Manuscript was an unknown book discovered in some library in the early 1900s. The manuscript was written in an unidentified "language" that still remians untranslated to this day. The manuscript has even baffled the professional code breakers of WW1 and WW2. To make decoding the manuscript more problematic, no other manuscripts written in Voynich have been discovered. Basing the drawings in the Manuscript, it could be divided into several "sections". The "sections" are the Herbal, Astronomical, Biological, Cosmological, and the "recipes". The European style drawings often depict plants, constellations, and almost psychedelic drawings of nude women "bathing" in an unknown green liquid.  The characters of the text are of an unknown language, but they also seem to be European in nature. The Voynich text seem to be too sophisticated pattern to be a gibberish hoax. Examination of the Manuscript's text seem to be that of a natural language. Carbon dating of the Manuscript dates it the 15th Centenary, and it is believed to be written in Italy. The purpose is unknown, but it seems to be a biological study of some-sort.

UNITA Gallery

Battle of Chalons (My 100th Post!!!!)

When Honoria, the sister of the emperor of the Western Roman Empire offered to marry Attila the Hun, and her wedding gift would have been half of the Roman Empire. However, the emperor refused this and this enraged Attila. Attila then prepared his army for war. Both armies were multi-ethical with the Hunnic armies being made out of the Huns and several Germanic peoples like the Ostrogoths, Rugians, Scirii and other Gemanic tribes. The Roman Army was made out of Alans, Visigoths, and Franks. The causalities were unknown but it is said that so many people died that "it was knee deep in corpses". When Theodoric, one of the Visigoth Kings, was killed, it was said that their were so many dead bodies that it took several days to find Theodoric's corpse. When Theodoric's body was finally found, legend has it that it was buried under a pile of corpses. The Huns are also said to have their movements limited by the bodies. The Battle of Chalons was tacitly inconclusive, but Attila's army was damaged enough to force it to retreat. Historians ferociously debate the importance of the battle. Some historians believe that the Battle stopped the Huns from conquering Europe, thus cutting off the Christan world from having its almost limitless effect on the Western world. Other historians believe that other campaigns in Italy and other campaigns were more essential to the defeat of the Huns. Regardless of the importance of the battle, the battle reflects on the alleged invincibility of the Hunnic Empire.