Talk:Operation South

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Theleekycauldron talk 23:22, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

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• Comment or view
• Article history

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• ... that Che Guevara was almost killed in the Democratic Republic of the Congo during Operation South? Source: Villafana, Frank (2017) [1st pub. 2009]. Cold War in the Congo: The Confrontation of Cuban Military Forces, 1960–1967. Abingdon; New York City: Routledge, p. 164
  • Reviewed: Marceli Godlewski

Created by Applodion (talk). Self-nominated at 16:52, 29 November 2023 (UTC). Post-promotion hook changes for this nom will be logged at Template talk:Did you know nominations/Operation South; consider watching this nomination, if it is successful, until the hook appears on the Main Page.

General: Article is new enough and long enough
New enough: Long enough:

Policy: Article is sourced, neutral, and free of copyright problems
Adequate sourcing: Neutral: Free of copyright violations, plagiarism, and close paraphrasing:

Hook: Hook has been verified by provided inline citation
Cited: Interesting:

QPQ: Done.

Overall: Very nice article, and quite the interesting hook. Thanks for writing it! Let me know when QPQ is done and I'll be happy to pass this. :) Grnrchst (talk) 16:19, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

• @Grnrchst: Thanks for the review! QPQ is done. Applodion (talk) 23:55, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

• Ok thanks, approved! --Grnrchst (talk) 07:46, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

Belgium and USA as combatants

@Brigade Piron: Seeing as you are raising valid points, but with the edit summaries being too small for a proper explanation, I wanted to outline the reasoning for listing Belgium and the USA in the infobox:

• Regarding the USA, it is straightforward. The sources outright say that large CIA contingents, led by ranking CIA agents and at least one Neavy Seal took part in the operation. These CIA contingents included both nearly all involved air assets, but also many of the armed ships (including almost an entire CIA-led Cuban rebel group -the Movimiento Recuperación Revolucionaria-, shipped from Central America to the Congo). The CIA forces were not under ANC control; they cooperated with the mercs and the ANC, but the sources describe them as allies, not part of the same force. The CIA forces were also consistently involved in combat during the offensive.
• Belgium is a little less clear-cut. Again, however, several sources talk about direct Belgian involvement, not just as advisors or mercs. Mwakikagile directly talks about the presence of a Belgian military mission during Operation South, the fact that "the Belgians" as well as the CIA pushed Hoare to launch the offensive, and how Belgian officers led the local ANC troops. Mwakikagile clearly describes Belgium as a combatant. Regarding his role in Operation South, Roger Hardenne is also consistently described as "Belgian officer", "Belgian paratrooper", "Belgian regular", etc. by the sources, never as an ANC officer. In fact, more sources described Roger Hardenne as a CIA asset than as an ANC commander. Furthermore, I also found this French source which states "Opération Sud ( Ops Sud ), lancée par l'A.N.C . avec un encadrement belge", basically sharing Mwakikagile's view that the Belgians were not merely advisors/mercs, but rather took a leading role in the offensive.

Applodion (talk) 18:32, 7 December 2023 (UTC)