African rebel groups, miltias, etc.

Does anyone know the rank structure of any of the militia, paramilitary groups, or rebel groups that fought in any of the African civil wars in the last fifty years? I can't find anything on it. Generic would be fine. Warlord, strongman, etc.

Thanks!
 

Cook

Banned
Generally the various leaders like to be known as ‘general’. You can use whatever you like, and be very loose with it’s equivalency to real armies because you’re talking about disorganised militias in the best cases and psychotic looters and mass murderers in the worst cases.
 
If you're talking about what they call themselves, probably by the rank names of the colonial power that use to rule them.


In term of how they are organised, it can be loosely affiliated cells in the case of guerrillas, ad hoc groups under a warlord or a traditional army structure either based on the colonial power or in some cases, on the soviet model.
 
These African groups are all different.
Forces like POLISARIO,FROLINAT or ZIPRA, which got outside backing, where or are organised much like real armies with normal command structures.
While militias in places like Somalia depend more on informal structures and charismatic local commanders.
 
Rank inflation is very common, especially among stagnant and de-facto criminal groups: Anybody of any signifcance is a general and even very small groups are lead by colonels and captains.

Regarding tactical organisation, guerillas tend to operate in smaller groups (company and below) loosely organized in regiments, brigades and / or fronts.
 
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Thande

Donor
We have a running gag on the forum that there are a bewildering variety of (mostly West, some Central) African rebel groups whose names consist of rearranging the same few words into an acronym, and then re-spelling that acronym in French. The words being things along the lines of "People's", "Popular", "Movement", "Front", "Restoration", "Democracy", "National", "Salvation" and so on. You wouldn't go far wrong if you called something the People's Popular Movement Front for the Restoration of Democracy and National Salvation (Front Populaire du Mouvement Populaire pour la Restauration de la Démocratie et de Salut National, or FROPOPMOPOPREDESANA for short).
 

Ismail

Banned
We have a running gag on the forum that there are a bewildering variety of (mostly West, some Central) African rebel groups whose names consist of rearranging the same few words into an acronym, and then re-spelling that acronym in French. The words being things along the lines of "People's", "Popular", "Movement", "Front", "Restoration", "Democracy", "National", "Salvation" and so on. You wouldn't go far wrong if you called something the People's Popular Movement Front for the Restoration of Democracy and National Salvation (Front Populaire du Mouvement Populaire pour la Restauration de la Démocratie et de Salut National, or FROPOPMOPOPREDESANA for short).
At least it's better variety than what existed previously. I mean 1980's Ethiopia had the Tigrayan People's Liberation Front, the Eritrean People's Liberation Front, the Ogaden National Liberation Front, the Western Somali Liberation Front, the Eritrean Liberation Front, the Oromo Liberation Front and the Afar Liberation Front.

I think "Liberation Front" is the most popular thing to put in a rebellion's name. They even have an incomplete list on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Liberation_Front
 
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