Events, Verisoph

1991 to 1992 Breakup of Yugoslavia 0 cit. In 1991 and 1992 Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, and Macedonia broke away, and the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia dissolved amid war. The multiethnic federation fractured into separate states. politics / war ●●●●

c. 1991 The Powell Doctrine on the use of force 0 cit. General Colin Powell set out conditions for using military force, including clear goals, overwhelming strength and an exit plan. The approach guided American war planning after the Gulf War. politics / war ●●

September 1991 Tailhook scandal 0 cit. At the Tailhook Association's annual convention of US Navy and Marine Corps aviators, dozens of women, including servicewomen, were sexually assaulted by officers in hotel hallways, and the Navy's initial investigation was widely seen as a cover-up. Congressional pressure led to a renewed investigation, and the scandal ended or damaged the careers of numerous senior officers, including the Secretary of the Navy. It became a major catalyst for policy changes on sexual harassment and assault within the US military. politics / war ●●

17 January 1991 Operation Desert Storm air campaign 0 cit. A U.S.-led coalition opened the Gulf War with a five-week air campaign that destroyed Iraqi air defenses, command infrastructure, and military targets before the ground invasion began. Precision-guided munitions and stealth aircraft featured prominently and were showcased in widely broadcast gun-camera footage. The campaign was held up as a model of modern air power's ability to cripple an adversary before ground forces engaged. technology / war ●●

23 March 1991 Sierra Leone civil war begins 0 cit. The Revolutionary United Front launched an insurgency against the Sierra Leonean government, beginning an eleven-year civil war marked by mass amputations and the use of child soldiers. The RUF financed its campaign chiefly by seizing diamond-mining areas and smuggling rough diamonds out through neighboring Liberia. economy / war ●●●

24 October 1991 Goldstone Commission established to probe political violence 0 cit. President F. W. de Klerk appointed the Commission of Inquiry Regarding the Prevention of Public Violence and Intimidation, chaired by Justice Richard Goldstone, under a 1991 law negotiated between the apartheid government and liberation movements. Over three years it produced 47 reports on incidents of political violence during the negotiations period. politics / war ●●

c. 1991 Paramilitaries in the Balkan wars 0 cit. As Yugoslavia broke apart, armed volunteer units operated alongside regular forces, most infamously the Serb Volunteer Guard led by Željko Ražnatović, known as Arkan. These paramilitaries were tied to ethnic cleansing and massacres, and the international tribunal for the former Yugoslavia indicted Arkan for crimes against humanity before his 2000 killing. The war became a modern example of states using deniable irregular units to do what regular armies could not openly do. politics / society / war ●●

17 January 1991 The Gulf War and the 'blood for oil' debate 0 cit. A US-led coalition drives Iraq out of oil-rich Kuwait after Saddam Hussein's invasion. Supporters framed it as defending a small nation, while critics charged it was a war fought to protect oil supplies, coining the slogan 'no blood for oil'. politics / war ●●●

January 1991 The fall of Siad Barre and the collapse of the state 1 cit. In January 1991 rebel factions drove Siad Barre out of Mogadishu, ending his rule and, with it, effective central government in Somalia. No group could replace him, and victorious militias split along clan lines and turned on each other. The country fell into warlordism and famine, becoming a byword for state collapse for the next two decades. politics / war ●●●

28 May 1991 The Derg falls and the EPRDF takes Addis Ababa 0 cit. A coalition of rebel armies led by Tigrayan fighters, the EPRDF, captured the capital as Mengistu fled into exile in Zimbabwe. At the same time Eritrean forces secured full control of Eritrea, ending Africa's longest war of the era. The victory ended seventeen years of Derg rule and brought Meles Zenawi to power at the head of a new ethnic-federal state. politics / war ●●●

1991 Land clashes tear the Rift Valley at the return of multiparty politics 8 cit. As Kenya legalized opposition parties in 1991 and moved toward its first multiparty election in 1992, violence broke out in the Rift Valley between Kalenjin and Maasai groups and Kikuyu, Luo, Luhya, and Kisii settlers. At least a thousand people were killed and around two hundred thousand were driven from their homes. Human rights groups and later inquiries concluded the clashes were organized and encouraged by figures around the Moi government to punish opposition areas and clear land. The death toll and displacement are documented; the finding that officials instigated the violence comes from those inquiries and rights reports. politics / society / war ●●●

c. 1991 Ethnic clashes sweep the Rift Valley 0 cit. As multiparty politics returned, violent clashes broke out in the Rift Valley and spread over the next two years, killing more than a thousand people and displacing hundreds of thousands. A later judicial inquiry, the Akiwumi Commission, found evidence that some of the violence had been organized and that officials failed to stop it. The bloodshed shadowed the return to competitive politics. politics / society / war ●●●

October 1992 Founding of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines 0 cit. Six NGOs meeting in New York agree to coordinate a campaign against antipersonnel landmines. The campaign achieved the 1997 Ottawa Treaty banning the weapons and shared that year's Nobel Peace Prize. diplomacy / society / war ●●

1 March 1992 Independence of Bosnia and Herzegovina 0 cit. no story A referendum backs independence from Yugoslavia; recognition follows in April 1992 as the Bosnian War begins. politics / war ●●●

6 April 1992 to 14 December 1995 Bosnian War 0 cit. no story Bosnia's independence from Yugoslavia triggers a three-sided war marked by ethnic cleansing, the siege of Sarajevo, and the Srebrenica genocide. NATO intervention and the Dayton Accords end the war after about 100,000 deaths. politics / war ●●●●

5 May 1992 to 27 June 1997 Tajikistani Civil War 0 cit. no story Post-Soviet Tajikistan collapses into war between the government and an Islamist-democratic opposition. Tens of thousands die before a 1997 power-sharing peace. politics / war ●●

December 1992 US and UN intervention and Black Hawk Down 0 cit. As famine killed hundreds of thousands, a US-led coalition landed in December 1992 to protect aid deliveries, followed by a UN mission. The effort slid into conflict with warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid. In October 1993 a US raid in Mogadishu turned into a fierce street battle, the Black Hawk Down incident, killing 18 Americans and, by most estimates, several hundred to over a thousand Somalis. The US pulled out, and the UN withdrew by 1995. diplomacy / war ●●●

c. 1992 Engineered land clashes hit the Rift Valley 0 cit. Around the return of multiparty politics, waves of ethnic land clashes broke out, concentrated in the Rift Valley, killing hundreds and driving tens of thousands from their homes. Investigations linked the violence to figures in the ruling party who used it to punish suspected opposition communities and shift the vote. The bloodshed recurred around the 1997 election. politics / war ●●

September 1992 Kiliku committee calls the 1992 clashes political 2 cit. The parliamentary select committee chaired by Kennedy Kiliku reported on ethnic clashes in western Kenya and other areas in September 1992. Later summaries of the report say it treated the violence as politically motivated, tied to provincial officials and politicians, and not simply a spontaneous tribal eruption. The report was rejected by the KANU parliament, leaving the same pattern of violence, denial and impunity to recur. politics / society / war ●●●

13 January 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention 0 cit. Convention banning the development, production, stockpiling, and use of chemical weapons and requiring destruction of existing stocks under international verification. Nearly all states have joined. diplomacy / science / war ●●●

13 September 1993 Oslo I Accord 0 cit. Declaration of Principles between Israel and the PLO, negotiated secretly in Oslo, establishing mutual recognition and Palestinian interim self-government. It began the Oslo peace process. diplomacy / politics / war ●●●

24 May 1993 Independence of Eritrea 0 cit. no story Eritrea formally becomes independent from Ethiopia after a thirty-year liberation war and a near-unanimous referendum. politics / war ●●●

24 March 1993 De Klerk reveals South Africa's bomb 0 cit. President de Klerk tells parliament that South Africa built six nuclear weapons and destroyed them before joining the NPT. It is the first time any state publicly confesses to a completed secret arsenal. politics / war ●●●

c. 1993 Hutu Power, the Interahamwe, and hate radio 0 cit. As the civil war ground on, a hardline movement called Hutu Power organized youth militias, the best known being the Interahamwe tied to the ruling party. A new station, Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines, or RTLM, mixed music and talk with open calls to see Tutsi as cockroaches to be exterminated. Militias were armed and lists of targets drawn up in the months before the killing began, evidence historians cite for how planned it was. politics / war ●●●

December 1993 The death of Pablo Escobar 0 cit. Colombian security forces, working with US help and a rival vigilante group, tracked down and killed Pablo Escobar on a Medellín rooftop. His death broke the Medellín cartel but did nothing to slow the flow of cocaine, which simply passed to other hands. politics / war ●●

26 October 1994 Israel-Jordan peace treaty 0 cit. Treaty ending the state of war between Israel and Jordan, fixing their border and normalizing relations. Jordan became the second Arab state to make peace with Israel. diplomacy / politics / war ●●●

5 December 1994 Budapest Memorandum 0 cit. Memorandum in which Russia, the United States, and Britain gave security assurances to Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan in exchange for giving up Soviet nuclear weapons. Russia's later invasions of Ukraine broke its commitments. diplomacy / politics / war ●●●

11 December 1994 to 31 August 1996 First Chechen War 0 cit. Russia invades separatist Chechnya and destroys Grozny but cannot defeat the insurgency. Russian withdrawal in 1996 leaves Chechnya effectively independent until the second war. war ●●●

7 April 1994 Rwandan genocide begins 0 cit. After the president's plane is shot down, Hutu extremists begin the systematic killing of Tutsi, murdering around 800,000 people in a hundred days while the world stands by. The failure haunts international politics and drives the doctrine of a responsibility to protect. society / war ●●●●

21 October 1994 Agreed Framework freezes Yongbyon 0 cit. The United States and North Korea sign a deal freezing the Yongbyon plutonium program in exchange for fuel oil and civilian reactors. The bargain holds for eight years before collapsing amid mutual accusations. politics / war ●●

1994 Amazon is named after the warrior women of Greek myth 0 cit. Jeff Bezos named his 1994 online bookstore after the Amazon River, the world's largest. Spanish explorers had named that river for the Amazons, the warrior women of Greek mythology. economy / religion / war ●●●

31 August 1994 IRA ceasefire declared 0 cit. The Provisional IRA announced a "complete cessation of military operations," ending its armed campaign after twenty-five years, following months of secret contacts involving the British and Irish governments, the Social Democratic and Labour Party, and Sinn Féin. The ceasefire broke down in February 1996 with the Canary Wharf bombing in London, but was restored in July 1997 and held through the subsequent peace negotiations. diplomacy / war ●●●

13 October 1994 Loyalist ceasefire announced 0 cit. The Combined Loyalist Military Command, representing the UVF, UDA, and Red Hand Commando, announced a ceasefire six weeks after the IRA's, expressing "abject and true remorse" to all victims of loyalist violence. The announcement removed one of the last major obstacles to political negotiations. Loyalist paramilitary structures nonetheless persisted, and sporadic violence, including feuding between paramilitary groups, continued for years afterward. diplomacy / war ●●

c. 1 March 1994 Goldstone Commission exposes military 'third force' unit 0 cit. Early Goldstone Commission reports had found no proof of a coordinated 'third force' fomenting violence against the ANC, pointing instead to political intolerance and social conditions. In early 1994 the commission's investigators raided a covert Military Intelligence unit and uncovered evidence of a secret operations centre running a destabilisation campaign against the ANC, prompting President de Klerk to dismiss 23 senior army officers implicated in the operation. politics / war ●●●

11 January 1994 The Dallaire warning is ignored before the Rwandan genocide 0 cit. The Canadian general Romeo Dallaire, commanding the UN force in Rwanda, cabled headquarters warning of arms caches and plans to exterminate the Tutsi. UN leadership told him not to act and to inform the very government implicated in the plot. Months later the genocide began, and the warning stands as a documented failure to heed a clear alarm. politics / war ●●●

21 April 1994 The UN pulls out as Rwanda's genocide unfolds 0 cit. As about eight hundred thousand people were slaughtered in a hundred days, the Security Council voted to cut the UN force in Rwanda to a token size rather than reinforce it. Member states refused to name the killing genocide, which would have obliged them to act. The UN later admitted its own failure, and the episode remains a byword for the gap between the never again promise and the deed. politics / war ●●●

July 1994 Rwandan genocide spills into eastern Zaire 0 cit. As the Tutsi-led Rwandan Patriotic Front took Kigali in July 1994, more than a million Hutu fled west into eastern Zaire, fearing reprisals for the genocide. Vast camps sprang up around Goma and Bukavu, where a cholera epidemic killed tens of thousands within weeks. The sudden mass of refugees on Mobutu's crumbling eastern frontier set the stage for a decade of war. society / war ●●●

c. 1994 Ex-FAR and Interahamwe regroup in the refugee camps 0 cit. The defeated Rwandan army, the ex-FAR, and the Interahamwe militia that had carried out the genocide took control of the UN-supplied camps, using them as a rear base. From across the border they launched raids back into Rwanda and terrorized local Tutsi. Aid agencies warned that the camps had become a militarized sanctuary, but the fighters were never disarmed. politics / war ●●●

6 April 1994 Habyarimana's plane is shot down 0 cit. On the evening of 6 April 1994 a plane carrying President Habyarimana and the president of Burundi was shot down on approach to Kigali, killing everyone aboard. Responsibility has never been settled: one line of argument blames Hutu extremists who wanted the peace deal dead and a pretext for slaughter, while another blames the RPF, and both sides have long accused the other. The killing was used within hours as the trigger for a genocide that was already prepared, and the question of who fired the missile remains formally unresolved. politics / war ●●●

7 April 1994 The first hours: the prime minister and the peacekeepers 0 cit. Within hours of the plane crash, the presidential guard and militias hunted down moderate Hutu leaders, killing acting Prime Minister Agathe Uwilingiyimana. Ten Belgian peacekeepers guarding her were captured, disarmed, and murdered, a strike calculated to drive Belgium and the UN out. The organized targeting of moderates in the first day shows the killing followed a plan, not spontaneous rage. politics / war ●●●

April 1994 The hundred days of killing 0 cit. Over roughly a hundred days, organizers used the army, militias, and ordinary neighbors to kill Tutsi and moderate Hutu across the country. Commonly cited estimates of the dead range from about 500,000 to 1,000,000, with the exact figure still debated among historians and demographers. Victims were sorted at roadblocks by their identity cards and killed mostly with machetes and clubs, making this one of the fastest mass killings in modern history. The speed and reach, guided by RTLM and local officials, are the strongest evidence of central organization. society / war ●●●

April 1994 Massacres in the churches 0 cit. Tutsi families fled to churches and parish compounds, long treated as places of refuge, and were slaughtered there in the thousands at sites like Nyarubuye, Nyamata, and Ntarama. In some cases local clergy and officials are documented to have helped gather or hand over the victims. These church sites are now among Rwanda's main genocide memorials. religion / war ●●

June 1994 France launches Operation Turquoise contested 0 cit. With UN backing, France sent troops into southwestern Rwanda in an operation it described as humanitarian, setting up a safe zone as the RPF advanced. Critics, including many survivors and later a French research commission, argue the zone let genocide organizers and militias escape into Zaire and point to France's earlier arming and backing of the Habyarimana government. France has long defended the mission as lifesaving and denied complicity, and the exact effect of the zone remains contested. diplomacy / war ●●●

July 1994 The RPF wins and millions flee 0 cit. The RPF fought its way to Kigali by early July 1994 and took control of the country, ending the genocide by military victory. Fearing revenge, around two million Hutu, including the defeated army and the militias who had done the killing, fled into eastern Zaire and other neighbors. Those overcrowded refugee camps, run in part by the very genocide organizers, became the fuse for the wars that followed in Congo. politics / war ●●●

August 1994 The double genocide debate and RPF reprisals contested 0 cit. As the RPF took power, human rights investigators alleged its forces carried out large-scale reprisal killings of Hutu civilians, a charge the RPF disputes and downplays. A 1994 UN report by Robert Gersony describing systematic RPF killings was never officially released, and later work put the reprisal death toll in the tens of thousands, though estimates vary widely and are contested. Some critics use the phrase double genocide to equate these killings with the genocide of Tutsi, a framing that survivors and many scholars reject as false balance, while others insist the RPF crimes must not be erased. Rwanda's government treats such claims as genocide denial, which critics say is used to silence honest inquiry. politics / war ●●●

c. 1994 Displaced families are blocked from returning after the 1990s clashes 2 cit. After the first multiparty election cycle, many families driven from Rift Valley and western Kenya could not safely return to farms and homes. Human Rights Watch documented repeated attacks on returnees, security-operation zones around places such as Burnt Forest, Molo and Londiani, and state harassment of displaced people and relief workers. The point is structural: election violence changed settlement patterns and then made return dangerous. politics / society / war ●●●

14 December 1995 Dayton Agreement 0 cit. Peace agreement ending the Bosnian War, negotiated at Dayton air base and signed in Paris, preserving Bosnia as one state with two entities. Its complex constitutional structure still governs Bosnia. diplomacy / politics / war ●●●

24 April 1995 Kazakhstan completes denuclearization 0 cit. The last of more than 1,400 strategic warheads inherited from the Soviet Union leaves Kazakhstan for Russia. The country that hosted Semipalatinsk becomes a leading voice for disarmament. politics / war ●●

11 July 1995 The Srebrenica massacre in a UN safe area 0 cit. The UN had declared Srebrenica a safe area, but its lightly armed Dutch peacekeepers stood aside as Bosnian Serb forces overran the town and murdered around eight thousand Muslim men and boys. Requests for air support went unanswered up the chain of command. A later UN report accepted grave institutional responsibility for the worst mass killing in Europe since the Second World War. politics / war ●●●

1995 The US Fifth Fleet is based in Bahrain 0 cit. The United States reactivates its Fifth Fleet in 1995 and headquarters it at Naval Support Activity Bahrain in Manama. The fleet patrols the Persian Gulf, the Red Sea, and the approaches to the Suez Canal and the Strait of Hormuz. Bahrain becomes the permanent home of US naval power in the region. diplomacy / war ●●

4 September 1995 The 1995 Okinawa rape case ignites mass protest 0 cit. In September 1995 three US service members abduct and rape a 12-year-old Okinawan girl. Anger that the men were first held by US authorities under the status of forces rules fuels a protest rally of tens of thousands in October. The case becomes the defining symbol of local grievance over US bases and immunity in Japan. politics / war ●●●

24 October 1996 to 16 May 1997 First Congo War 0 cit. no story Rwanda and Uganda back Laurent Kabila's rebellion, which sweeps across Zaire and topples Mobutu. The fragile new order collapses into the far larger Second Congo War a year later. politics / war ●●●

1 June 1996 Ukraine transfers its last warheads 0 cit. The last nuclear warheads stationed in Ukraine arrive in Russia for dismantlement, completing the pledge made at Budapest. Ukraine gives up roughly 1,900 strategic warheads it could not operationally control. politics / war ●●●

23 November 1996 Belarus transfers its last warheads 0 cit. Belarus sends its final SS-25 missiles and warheads to Russia, the last Soviet nuclear weapons to leave the non-Russian republics. The withdrawal completes the denuclearization promised under the Budapest Memorandum. politics / war ●●

25 June 1996 Khobar Towers bombing 0 cit. A truck bomb destroyed part of the Khobar Towers housing complex used by US forces, killing 19 American Air Force personnel and wounding hundreds. politics / war ●●●

October 1996 The First Congo War topples Mobutu 0 cit. A rebellion led by Laurent-Désiré Kabila, backed by Rwanda and Uganda, swept across the country in the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide and the refugee crisis in eastern Zaire. Mobutu, ailing and abandoned by former patrons, fled in 1997 as rebels took Kinshasa. Kabila seized power and renamed the country the Democratic Republic of the Congo. politics / war ●●●

October 1996 Banyamulenge Tutsi targeted in South Kivu 0 cit. Zairean authorities in South Kivu ordered the Banyamulenge, ethnic Tutsi long settled in the region, to leave the country within days, threatening them as foreigners. The order, coming amid cross-border raids, gave Rwanda a pretext to intervene in defense of a kindred population. Banyamulenge fighters, armed and trained by Kigali, rose in revolt. politics / war ●●

October 1996 Formation of the AFDL under Laurent-Desire Kabila 0 cit. Rwanda and Uganda assembled four small anti-Mobutu factions into the Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo-Zaire, or AFDL. They chose Laurent-Desire Kabila, a veteran leftist rebel from the 1960s, as its public face and spokesman. The alliance gave a Congolese front to what was in large part a Rwandan and Ugandan military operation. politics / war ●●●

November 1996 Rwanda and Uganda invade to break the camps 0 cit. Rwandan forces and the AFDL attacked the refugee camps to destroy the ex-FAR and Interahamwe bases, citing the threat to Rwanda's security. The camps collapsed and around 600,000 refugees streamed back into Rwanda, while hundreds of thousands more fled deeper into the Zairean forest. The security pretext quickly turned into a campaign to topple Mobutu. politics / war ●●●

c. 1996 Massacres of Hutu refugees during the westward pursuit 0 cit. As the AFDL and Rwandan army pursued Hutu who had fled west, they attacked columns of refugees deep in the forest, killing large numbers of civilians alongside armed men. A later UN human rights mapping report catalogued these killings and said some, if proven in court, could amount to genocide against the Hutu, a characterization Rwanda rejects. The full death toll is unknown and disputed, with estimates ranging into the hundreds of thousands. society / war ●●●

October 1996 Rwanda topples Mobutu in the First Congo War 0 cit. Rwanda invaded eastern Zaire to break up the Hutu-led refugee camps and pursue the genocide militias sheltering there, then backed a rebel coalition, the AFDL, fronted by Laurent-Désiré Kabila. The alliance marched across the country and overthrew the long-ruling dictator Mobutu Sese Seko in 1997, renaming Zaire the Democratic Republic of the Congo. A later UN Mapping Report alleged that the attacks on Hutu refugees during this campaign could, if proven in court, amount to crimes against humanity or even genocide, allegations Rwanda rejects. politics / war ●●●

3 December 1997 Ottawa Treaty 0 cit. Convention banning anti-personnel landmines, driven by a civil society campaign that won the Nobel Peace Prize. Most states have joined, though major powers remain outside. diplomacy / society / war ●●●

29 April 1997 Founding of the OPCW 0 cit. The Chemical Weapons Convention enters into force, establishing the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons to verify the destruction of chemical arsenals worldwide. It won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2013. diplomacy / politics / war ●●

1997 The Project for the New American Century contested 0 cit. Neoconservatives found the Project for the New American Century to argue for American global primacy and higher military spending. Its members later filled key posts in the Bush administration, and its 2000 report Rebuilding America's Defenses is often cited by critics for a line about a catastrophic 'new Pearl Harbor' speeding change, which conspiracy theories link to 9/11. The think tank and its members are documented; the foreknowledge reading is not established. politics / war ●●●

c. 1997 Colombia's paramilitary umbrella, the AUC 0 cit. In 1997 regional anti-guerrilla militias in Colombia joined into the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, or AUC, a paramilitary federation that fought leftist rebels while funding itself through the drug trade. Investigations and later confessions under the Justice and Peace process documented massacres and links between paramilitary commanders and politicians, a scandal known as parapolitics. The AUC formally demobilized in the mid-2000s, though successor armed groups remained. economy / politics / war ●●

c. 1997 Chiquita pays Colombian paramilitaries 0 cit. Over roughly seven years, Chiquita's Colombian operation made payments totaling about 1.7 million dollars to the AUC, a right-wing paramilitary group later designated a terrorist organization by the United States. The company said it paid under threat to protect its workers, while critics saw it as funding violence in a region wracked by massacres. The payments echoed the old pattern of the fruit business entangled with armed power. economy / society / war ●●●

17 May 1997 Mobutu is overthrown in Zaire 0 cit. A rebellion led by Laurent-Desire Kabila, backed by Rwanda and Uganda, drives the ailing Mobutu from power after thirty-two years. With the Cold War over, his Western patrons no longer needed him and let him fall. He died in exile months later, leaving a hollowed-out state that soon plunged into a devastating regional war. politics / war ●●

March 1997 The AFDL march across Zaire and the fall of Kisangani 0 cit. The rebel column advanced hundreds of miles across the country against Mobutu's demoralized and unpaid army, which often fled rather than fight. The capture of Kisangani, the third city and a diamond hub, in March 1997 showed the regime could not hold the interior. Foreign mercenaries hired by Mobutu failed to reverse the collapse. politics / war ●●

17 May 1997 Mobutu falls and Kabila proclaims the DRC 0 cit. Mobutu Sese Seko fled Kinshasa on 16 May 1997, ending more than three decades of rule, and died in exile months later. Laurent-Desire Kabila entered the capital, declared himself president, and renamed the country the Democratic Republic of the Congo. His victory owed almost everything to Rwandan and Ugandan arms, a debt that would soon turn poisonous. politics / war ●●●

c. 1997 The 1033 Program begins transferring military surplus to police 0 cit. Congress created the 1033 Program in the 1997 defense authorization, letting the Department of Defense give surplus military equipment to local law enforcement, often for little more than shipping costs. Over the following years departments large and small received rifles, night-vision gear, aircraft, and armored vehicles, with the total value of transfers eventually running into the billions of dollars. Supporters called it a thrifty way to equip police, while critics said it flooded ordinary policing with battlefield hardware and the mindset that came with it. politics / war ●●●

August 1997 Fresh clashes hit the coast and Rift at the 1997 election 12 cit. Around the 1997 general election, deadly violence flared again, most sharply at Likoni on the coast where armed gangs attacked residents seen as up-country outsiders, and once more in parts of the Rift Valley. Dozens were killed and thousands displaced ahead of the vote. Investigators again pointed to political organization behind the attacks rather than spontaneous ethnic hatred. The killings and displacement are documented; the reading that they were engineered for electoral advantage rests on the official inquiries. politics / war ●●

10 April 1998 Good Friday Agreement 0 cit. Agreement between the British and Irish governments and Northern Ireland parties ending three decades of the Troubles, establishing power-sharing and the principle of consent. It was approved by referendums on both sides of the border. diplomacy / politics / war ●●●

6 May 1998 to 18 June 2000 Eritrean-Ethiopian War 0 cit. no story Eritrea and Ethiopia fight a trench war over a disputed border town, killing tens of thousands. A cold standoff follows until the 2018 peace agreement. war ●●●

28 February 1998 to 11 June 1999 Kosovo War 0 cit. no story The Kosovo Liberation Army fights Serbian forces whose ethnic cleansing prompts a 78-day NATO bombing campaign. Serbia withdraws and Kosovo comes under UN administration, declaring independence in 2008. politics / war ●●●

11 May 1998 Pokhran-II tests 0 cit. India detonates five devices at Pokhran, including a claimed thermonuclear design, and declares itself a nuclear weapons state. The tests end 24 years of restraint and provoke sanctions and a Pakistani response within weeks. politics / war ●●●●

28 May 1998 Chagai-I, Pakistan's first nuclear tests 0 cit. Pakistan detonates five devices in the Ras Koh Hills two weeks after India's tests, becoming the seventh declared nuclear power. The subcontinent's rivalry is now openly nuclear on both sides. politics / war ●●●●

7 August 1998 1998 US embassy bombing in Nairobi 6 cit. Al-Qaeda detonated a truck bomb outside the United States embassy in Nairobi, killing about 213 people and wounding thousands. The attack brought Osama bin Laden to global prominence and reshaped US counterterrorism policy. politics / war ●●●●

7 August 1998 1998 US embassy bombing in Dar es Salaam 0 cit. Minutes after the Nairobi attack, a coordinated Al-Qaeda truck bomb struck the United States embassy in Dar es Salaam, killing 11 people and injuring dozens. politics / war ●●●

15 August 1998 Omagh bombing 0 cit. A car bomb planted by the Real IRA killed 29 people in the town of Omagh. It was the deadliest single attack of the Northern Ireland conflict and came months after the Good Friday Agreement. politics / war ●●●

8 October 1998 to 2007 The Nazi War Crimes disclosure opens intelligence files 0 cit. A US law required the declassification of records on Nazi war criminals, leading an interagency group to release millions of previously secret pages. The files revealed postwar recruitment of former Nazis by Western intelligence agencies. politics / war ●●●

December 1998 Global Witness report exposes the diamond trade's role in African wars 0 cit. The advocacy group Global Witness published 'A Rough Trade,' documenting how diamonds mined in rebel-held Angola were being sold through De Beers's buying network and financing UNITA's war effort. The report was widely credited with putting the term 'conflict diamonds' into public use and pressuring the industry toward reform. economy / war ●●

12 June 1998 UN Security Council bans purchase of UNITA diamonds 0 cit. The UN Security Council adopted Resolution 1173, prohibiting the direct or indirect import of diamonds from Angola not certified by the government, in an effort to cut off UNITA's main source of funding. It was one of the first international measures explicitly targeting conflict diamonds. diplomacy / war ●●

29 January 1998 Saville Inquiry established into Bloody Sunday 0 cit. Prime Minister Tony Blair established a new public inquiry, chaired by Lord Saville, into the killing of 13 unarmed civilians by British soldiers in Derry on 30 January 1972, an event known as Bloody Sunday. It replaced the earlier 1972 Widgery Tribunal, whose findings were widely regarded as a whitewash that had largely exonerated the army. The Saville Inquiry became the longest and most expensive public inquiry in British history. politics / war ●●

c. 1998 Carabinieri and the rise of stability policing 0 cit. In the late 1990s Italy's Carabinieri pioneered Multinational Specialized Units in the Balkans, armed police formations deployed to fill the gap between soldiers and civilian police in peacekeeping zones. This role, often called stability policing, drew directly on the gendarmerie tradition of a force that can face both crowds and armed threats. It spread to NATO and EU missions and later informed the founding of a joint European Gendarmerie Force in 2004. diplomacy / politics / war ●

August 1998 The Second Congo War, the Great War of Africa 0 cit. When Kabila turned against his Rwandan and Ugandan backers, a wider war erupted that drew in around nine African countries and many armed groups, often fighting over the Congo's minerals. It became the deadliest conflict since the Second World War and is sometimes called the Great War of Africa. A peace deal in 2002 and a transitional government in 2003 formally ended the war, though violence continued in the east. politics / war ●●●

2 August 1998 The RCD rebellion and the second invasion begins 0 cit. A mutiny in the east gave rise to the Rally for Congolese Democracy, or RCD, a rebel movement backed openly by Rwanda and Uganda. Kigali and Kampala again sent their armies into Congo, this time to overthrow the man they had made president a year earlier. The second war had begun barely fourteen months after the first ended. politics / war ●●●

c. August 1998 The Kitona airlift and the dash for Kinshasa 0 cit. In a bold stroke, Rwanda airlifted troops across the country to the Kitona base near the Atlantic coast, aiming to seize Kinshasa from the west. The force advanced to the city's edge and cut its power, nearly ending the war in weeks. The gamble failed only when other African states intervened to save Kabila. war ●●

August 1998 Angola, Zimbabwe, and Namibia intervene for Kinshasa 0 cit. Angola, Zimbabwe, and Namibia sent troops, aircraft, and armor to rescue Kabila and drive the invaders back from the capital. Angola wanted to deny its UNITA rebels a Congolese sanctuary, while Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe sought influence and mining wealth. Their intervention turned a rebel offensive into a war between states. diplomacy / war ●●●

c. 1998 Chad and Sudan join the pro-Kinshasa coalition 0 cit. Chad sent a contingent to help Kabila in the north, and Sudan lent support against Uganda, its regional rival. The Chadian force performed poorly and withdrew within months amid friction and losses. Their brief involvement showed how the war pulled in states from across the continent, each pursuing its own quarrels. diplomacy / war ●

May 1998 The Ethiopian-Eritrean border war 0 cit. A dispute over the small town of Badme flared into a full war between the former allies, fought with trench lines and heavy artillery in a style recalling the First World War. Estimates of the dead on both sides run to roughly 70,000 to 100,000 over two years. A 2000 peace deal and boundary ruling largely favoured Eritrea, but Ethiopia refused to hand over Badme, leaving the two states locked in a frozen standoff for years. diplomacy / war ●●

c. 1998 Killing the Vote documents election violence as a state tool 2 cit. Kenya Human Rights Commission's Killing the Vote did not treat the 1991-98 clashes as random tribal rage. It called them state-sponsored violence and a handy election tool: government surrogate agents killed, displaced and terrorized opposition communities in the Rift Valley, Western Kenya and Coast so the state could reassert dominance without admitting direct responsibility. politics / society / war ●●●●●

3 May 1999 to 26 July 1999 Kargil War 0 cit. no story Pakistani soldiers and militants infiltrate Indian positions in the Kargil heights, triggering a high-altitude war between the two new nuclear powers. India retakes the peaks and Pakistan withdraws under international pressure. war ●●

c. 9 September 1999 Moscow apartment bombings 0 cit. A series of apartment block bombings across Russia killed about 300 people. The attacks were blamed on Chechen militants and helped trigger the Second Chechen War. politics / war ●●●

4 September 1999 Apartment bombings in Russian cities 0 cit. A series of bomb attacks on apartment buildings in Buynaksk, Moscow, and Volgodonsk killed nearly 300 people over several weeks. The Russian government blamed Chechen separatists and used the attacks to justify launching the Second Chechen War, but journalist Alexander Litvinenko and other critics have alleged, without conclusive proof, that the FSB itself was involved in a false-flag operation; the claim remains disputed and has never been substantiated by an independent investigation. politics / war ●●●

23 September 1999 Second Chechen War begins 0 cit. Russian forces launched a large-scale military campaign in Chechnya following an incursion by Chechen and Dagestani militants into Dagestan and the apartment bombings blamed on Chechen separatists. Putin's uncompromising handling of the war as prime minister sharply boosted his public approval ahead of the presidential succession. war ●●●

9 September 1999 The Russian apartment bombings unproven 0 cit. In September 1999 a series of bombings destroyed apartment blocks in Buynaksk, Moscow, and Volgodonsk, killing around 300 people and spreading fear across Russia. The official investigation blamed militants linked to the war in the North Caucasus, and several people were later convicted. The bombings helped rally public support for a new war in Chechnya and for Putin, then prime minister. Critics and some former officials have alleged FSB involvement in staging the attacks; these allegations are disputed, denied by the Russian authorities, and have never been proven. politics / society / war ●●●

October 1999 Musharraf's Pakistan in the war on terror 0 cit. General Pervez Musharraf seized power in a coup and, after the 2001 attacks, became a key US partner in the war on terror. Washington lifted sanctions and gave billions in aid in return for cooperation against al-Qaeda and the Taliban, despite doubts about Pakistan's double game. Musharraf's rule shows the pattern renewed in a new era. politics / war ●●

c. 1999 Africa's World War splits the continent 0 cit. At its height the conflict drew in the armies of some nine African states and a shifting web of militias, earning the names Africa's World War and the Great War of Africa. Kabila's coalition of Angola, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Chad, and Sudan faced Rwanda, Uganda, Burundi, and their proxy rebels. It became the widest interstate war in modern African history. politics / war ●●●

c. 1999 Proxy militias fracture the east 0 cit. The war splintered into a mosaic of proxy forces: the RCD divided into a Rwandan-backed and a Ugandan-backed wing, Jean-Pierre Bemba's MLC fought in the north with Ugandan help, and local Mai-Mai militias resisted the foreign occupiers. Front lines froze while armed groups carved out fiefdoms and preyed on civilians. Control of territory increasingly tracked control of mines and trade routes. politics / war ●●

c. 1999 The Ituri conflict erupts between Hema and Lendu 0 cit. In the gold-rich Ituri district, long-standing tension between Hema and Lendu communities exploded into massacres, inflamed and armed by the Ugandan occupation and rival commanders. Tens of thousands were killed and hundreds of thousands displaced over several years. The violence later produced some of the first cases at the International Criminal Court. society / war ●●