Number 64 in Helion’s Africa @ War Series details the United Nations (UN) peacekeeping efforts for the past 20+ years from the former on-the-ground head of the UN mission. The book illustrates what it is like to oversee trying to keep groups of nomadic tribes that have been warring for centuries over some of the most inhospitable areas on planet Earth from continuing the process. Not pretty or heroic. A treatise on absurdity. This book was painful to read, but a reviewer’s duty and morbid curiosity won out. Tip: the history chapter alone is worth the effort to read this book!

Chapters

• Acronyms & Abbreviations
• Introduction
• Chapter One – A Brief Historical Background to MINURSO: The Western Saharan Conflict
• Chapter Two – The Establishment of MINURSO: The Decisions Leading to the Peacekeeping Mission
• Chapter Three – The Further Work of MINURSO – a Review of the Mission’s Recent Developments
• Chapter Four – The Structure of MINURSO
• Bibliography
• Notes
• About the Author

This part of Africa has held little attention with the rest of the world, and the history of the region is utterly fascinating and sad. Waves of immigrants have become a couple of very antagonistic tribes eking out a subsistence/famine livelihood in one of the driest and hottest environments on Planet Earth. In spite of being out of touch with modern societies, these groups have acquired modern military weapons, mostly European, Russian and US weapons.

The ousting of Spanish control in 1975 led to a full-scale civil war that also engulfed the neighboring countries, especially Morocco, that decided to secede adjoining areas. Vicious land grabs escalated the fight, slowly over years, and in 1991 the United Nations finally stepped in to broker a cease-fire with a Referendum, establishing borderlines, and sent an armed force to keep the status quo.

The majority of the book details the operations (mostly simple survival in extremely hot, dry and hard-to-reach outposts). Guerilla warfare has been smoldering since the Referendum, with occasional clashes that continue to this day.

This book is extremely interesting for figure and armor modelers looking for obscure projects. Adapting common vehicles such as M48s, M113s, French armor, Soviet armor and many modifications of Toyota Land Cruisers along with their camo schemes gives the chance to model familiar subjects in unfamiliar outfits and appearances. The many human subjects are also invisible to modern modelers, and range from desert robes to modern military camp uniforms. The illustrations and photos are very well done and give a wealth of possibilities for dioramas and unusual subjects.

But most of all, this book shows the worst and best faces of humanity forced into an unsolvable, unwinnable predicament. The lessons of how people adapt to stay alive is something which everyone can learn – this book is an ultimate survival guide as well.

My thanks to Helion and Casemate for a good read.