Tentative Guidelines for building partner armies post conflict

[Tom Kratman]

Nah, I'm still around, but if I have nothing to say on a given subject then there's no sense saying it.

Hey Marc !



I hate you - As I pine away with a balmy 5 degrees of Estonian Spring listening to renditions of the Grateful Dead on the radio Sounds like something I would have indeed enjoyed ! Seems Tom Kratman (and Odom) has disappeared and no doubt on another journey.

Hey Colin,



As you already have French under your belt (and would have to be retaught Belgian French to comprehend the Zairois (and truly infuriate the real French) ), I would recommend Lingala over Swahili regardless of the region. Even in Rwanda I got by with Lingala. I learned Lingala mostly by default working with the military in Gbadolite and Kinshasa, but it came in handy all over. You may have also noticed that even with Lingala or Swahili, they still use much of the French language merely to borrow words especially during bartering. I know some humanitarian deminers that found they were lost with just French and began learning Lingala too.

BTW, a General in DIA call Zaire "one of the most inhospitable places on earth". I often referred to the country in message traffic as it was always known --- The Heart of Darkness.



David's got a good point. We have some post-intervention success stories that rarely make the press. Makes me wonder what recipe we used then, that obviously aren't working now.

[Stan]

Hey Tom,

Nah, I'm still around, but if I have nothing to say on a given subject then there's no sense saying it.

Jeez, for someone with nothing to say herein... can't wait for your interest to peak

Then there's always professional help available...

Well, it's all in the coding ! Sometimes, I just cheat and use wordpad....

Stan, thanks. But what about Lingala in N Kivu / S Kivu? Still applies? The thing is that if one goes as a English-language teacher / foreign language student, which is one of the things I'm idly considering, Tanzania is much easier and safer to learn Swahili in. Never mind, these possibilities are years away - but good to get views on the options.

Hi Colin,
I think there's more than 100 examples of Peace Corps workers doing the exact same thing in Kivu. For that matter, my time in Goma and Bukavu went relatively well with Lingala. Let's not forget that much like any trading border, there's little if any language barriers. In the late 80s I traveled to the bitter end of Lake Tanganyika with a bunch of Brits and Lingala worked much better than French (well, if you've ever heard a Brit speak French, you'd be inclined to learn Lingala too ).