The Force Publique (FP), French for "Public Force", was both a gendarmerie and a military force in what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo from 1885, (when the territory was known as the Congo Free State), through the period of direct Belgian colonial rule (1908 to 1960). Immediately following independence, the FP was retitled as the Congolese National Army or ANC.
Read more about Force Publique: Establishment, Under The Congo Free State, Post-Independence, Aviation, Former Members, See Also
Famous quotes containing the word force:
“In the capsule biography by which most of the people knew one another, I was understood to be an Air Force pilot whose family was wealthy and lived in the East, and I even added the detail that I had a broken marriage and drank to get over it.... I sometimes believed what I said and tried to take the cure in the very real sun of Desert D’Or with its cactus, its mountain, and the bright green foliage of its love and its money.”
—Norman Mailer (b. 1923)