He219
03-21-2004, 07:27 PM
South Africa strains to keep lid on mercenaries (http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/nationworld/sfl-319mercenary,0,678694.story?coll=sfla-newsnation-front)
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - (KRT) - Under the former apartheid government, Carl Alberts, a combat helicopter pilot, was awarded South Africa's highest military honor for his service battling guerrillas in Angola. Last month, the 49-year-old retired pilot was arrested by South Africa for fighting rebels in Ivory Coast, this time as a mercenary for Ivory Coast's government.
A decade after the end of apartheid and cessation of South Africa's numerous border wars, the country has some of the best-trained soldiers in the world. The problem is many of them are working for the highest bidder, in conflict zones from Iraq to Sierra Leone.
"We don't like the idea that South Africa has become a cesspool of mercenaries," Nkosozana Dlamini-Zuma, South Africa's foreign affairs minister, said last week after more than 20 alleged South African mercenaries were arrested in Zimbabwe and Equatorial Guinea as part of an apparent coup plot.
Despite legislation designed to curb mercenaries, South Africa remains one of the biggest providers of paid fighters on the international market, particularly for conflicts in strife-torn Africa.
"For anyone looking for talent, this is the place to come," said John Stremlau, head of international relations at Witwatersrand University in Johannesburg. "There are a lot of thugs around but not many pros. South Africa is one-stop shopping - capable, well-trained bodies with management skills and satellite phones."
South Africa, long known for its military prowess and arms manufacturing, made an international name for itself as a mercenary supplier in the mid-1990s, as hundreds of mainly Afrikaner soldiers quit the military rather than work for the post-apartheid government with its affirmative-action policies. Other soldiers, black and white, soon learned that they could make as much money in a day fighting abroad for profit as they could in a month of regular service.
Many were recruited by Eeben Barlow, the former commander of South Africa's famous 32 Buffalo Battalion, a special forces espionage unit that served in Angola during the apartheid years. His company, Executive Outcomes, soon went to work in conflict zones from Angola to Sierra Leone, training government fighters, protecting mining and oil facilities and providing other military and security services.
"We are selling the business of surviving," Barlow told a South African reporter. The Cold War, he noted, had left a vacuum in Africa and "I identified a niche in the market."
Since then, former South African soldiers - and some on leave from active duty - have served in conflicts from Papua New Guinea to Congo. At least 1,000 are working in Iraq, some guarding oil facilities near Basra. One South African, (François Strydom, former security policeman and Koevoet counter-insurgency unit, a notoriously brutal counterinsurgency arm of the South African military that operated in Namibia during the neighboring state’s fight for independence in the 1980s) working for SAS International - a US company subcontracted by Erinys, which identifies itself as a security firm, was killed in a January car bombing in Baghdad, and five others were injured. His colleague Deon Gouws, who was injured in the attack, is a former officer of the Vlakplaas, a secret police unit in South Africa.
Increasingly, multinational corporations, as well as troubled governments, hire mercenaries. Fighters are sometimes paid in oil and diamond concessions as well as in cash, analysts say. The men arrested in Equatorial Guinea, a tiny nation with vast oil reserves, had reportedly been offered such concessions for their work in ousting the government of President Teodoro Obiang Ngeuma Mbasogo.
"There's a whole movement away from this romanticized image of the snake-eating loner who heads into the continent to destabilize things," said Chris Maroleng, a researcher at the Institute for Security Studies in Pretoria. "Now these guys are seen as front parties for multinational businesses" interested in security or protecting mineral rights.
Even coups "are not carried out for the sake of coups," Maroleng said. "Normally they have an underlying bottom line, an economic interest."
Embarrassed by its reputation for supplying mercenaries, South Africa in 1998 passed the Regulation of Foreign Military Assistance Act, which forbids citizens from participating in armed conflicts or providing security, training or logistical support for coups or other military activities without government approval.
Enforcing the law, however, has been tough. Retired pilot Alberts, the first mercenary prosecuted under the law, was fined less than $3,000 for his offense, an amount equivalent to a day or two of pay, Maroleng said. The only other man prosecuted, for military recruiting in Ivory Coast, was fined $14,000.
Executive Outcomes and other mercenary supply companies officially have closed their doors in South Africa, but analysts say many recruit quietly in South Africa by word of mouth. Guns remain widely available in South Africa, and the nation's long land borders are porous and flanked by private airstrips.
Prosecution of mercenaries also is hampered by strong civil liberties protections in post-apartheid South Africa, which keep the government from carrying out effective surveillance, experts say. And the distinction between providing security services, which is legal, and mercenaries, which is not, can be a fine one.
As a result, in South Africa "you've got ample supply, a lot of demand and low enough enforcement to get under the radar and do business," Witwatersrand University's Stremlau said.
A 1997 United Nations report on mercenaries suggests that getting control of the problem may be nearly impossible as long as Africa is beset by conflicts and saddled with governments unable to maintain order. Hiring mercenaries, the United Nations said, can improve military skill in a conflict, conceal the mastermind behind an event and allow participants to avoid risking their own personnel for what it calls "comparatively low cost."
South Africa "is trying to do the right thing," Stremlau said, but "it's a hard thing to do, and right now these guys are clearly not under control yet."
http://cache.*****images.com/thumb/2907446.jpg?x=x&a=2907446&b=afp&t=1
Larger (http://cache.*****images.com/comp/2907446.jpg?x=x&dasite=MS_GINS&ef=2&ev=1&dareq=D7CC22FD3515C5900A9A6400B3134311)
Employees of South African security company Erinys carry their belongings as they leave their hotel hit by a suicide car bomb attack in the centre of Baghdad that killed at least three people 28 January 2004. Erinys was awarded a year-long, 39.5-million contract "to train 6 500 Iraqis to guard oil pipelines, wellheads and refineries, as well as water and electrical facilities. The site of the blast lies close to the Polish embassy. As a result of recruitment drives by Erinys and other security companies, former members of specialist regiments were in demand and could expect wages of £400 a day in Iraq.
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - (KRT) - Under the former apartheid government, Carl Alberts, a combat helicopter pilot, was awarded South Africa's highest military honor for his service battling guerrillas in Angola. Last month, the 49-year-old retired pilot was arrested by South Africa for fighting rebels in Ivory Coast, this time as a mercenary for Ivory Coast's government.
A decade after the end of apartheid and cessation of South Africa's numerous border wars, the country has some of the best-trained soldiers in the world. The problem is many of them are working for the highest bidder, in conflict zones from Iraq to Sierra Leone.
"We don't like the idea that South Africa has become a cesspool of mercenaries," Nkosozana Dlamini-Zuma, South Africa's foreign affairs minister, said last week after more than 20 alleged South African mercenaries were arrested in Zimbabwe and Equatorial Guinea as part of an apparent coup plot.
Despite legislation designed to curb mercenaries, South Africa remains one of the biggest providers of paid fighters on the international market, particularly for conflicts in strife-torn Africa.
"For anyone looking for talent, this is the place to come," said John Stremlau, head of international relations at Witwatersrand University in Johannesburg. "There are a lot of thugs around but not many pros. South Africa is one-stop shopping - capable, well-trained bodies with management skills and satellite phones."
South Africa, long known for its military prowess and arms manufacturing, made an international name for itself as a mercenary supplier in the mid-1990s, as hundreds of mainly Afrikaner soldiers quit the military rather than work for the post-apartheid government with its affirmative-action policies. Other soldiers, black and white, soon learned that they could make as much money in a day fighting abroad for profit as they could in a month of regular service.
Many were recruited by Eeben Barlow, the former commander of South Africa's famous 32 Buffalo Battalion, a special forces espionage unit that served in Angola during the apartheid years. His company, Executive Outcomes, soon went to work in conflict zones from Angola to Sierra Leone, training government fighters, protecting mining and oil facilities and providing other military and security services.
"We are selling the business of surviving," Barlow told a South African reporter. The Cold War, he noted, had left a vacuum in Africa and "I identified a niche in the market."
Since then, former South African soldiers - and some on leave from active duty - have served in conflicts from Papua New Guinea to Congo. At least 1,000 are working in Iraq, some guarding oil facilities near Basra. One South African, (François Strydom, former security policeman and Koevoet counter-insurgency unit, a notoriously brutal counterinsurgency arm of the South African military that operated in Namibia during the neighboring state’s fight for independence in the 1980s) working for SAS International - a US company subcontracted by Erinys, which identifies itself as a security firm, was killed in a January car bombing in Baghdad, and five others were injured. His colleague Deon Gouws, who was injured in the attack, is a former officer of the Vlakplaas, a secret police unit in South Africa.
Increasingly, multinational corporations, as well as troubled governments, hire mercenaries. Fighters are sometimes paid in oil and diamond concessions as well as in cash, analysts say. The men arrested in Equatorial Guinea, a tiny nation with vast oil reserves, had reportedly been offered such concessions for their work in ousting the government of President Teodoro Obiang Ngeuma Mbasogo.
"There's a whole movement away from this romanticized image of the snake-eating loner who heads into the continent to destabilize things," said Chris Maroleng, a researcher at the Institute for Security Studies in Pretoria. "Now these guys are seen as front parties for multinational businesses" interested in security or protecting mineral rights.
Even coups "are not carried out for the sake of coups," Maroleng said. "Normally they have an underlying bottom line, an economic interest."
Embarrassed by its reputation for supplying mercenaries, South Africa in 1998 passed the Regulation of Foreign Military Assistance Act, which forbids citizens from participating in armed conflicts or providing security, training or logistical support for coups or other military activities without government approval.
Enforcing the law, however, has been tough. Retired pilot Alberts, the first mercenary prosecuted under the law, was fined less than $3,000 for his offense, an amount equivalent to a day or two of pay, Maroleng said. The only other man prosecuted, for military recruiting in Ivory Coast, was fined $14,000.
Executive Outcomes and other mercenary supply companies officially have closed their doors in South Africa, but analysts say many recruit quietly in South Africa by word of mouth. Guns remain widely available in South Africa, and the nation's long land borders are porous and flanked by private airstrips.
Prosecution of mercenaries also is hampered by strong civil liberties protections in post-apartheid South Africa, which keep the government from carrying out effective surveillance, experts say. And the distinction between providing security services, which is legal, and mercenaries, which is not, can be a fine one.
As a result, in South Africa "you've got ample supply, a lot of demand and low enough enforcement to get under the radar and do business," Witwatersrand University's Stremlau said.
A 1997 United Nations report on mercenaries suggests that getting control of the problem may be nearly impossible as long as Africa is beset by conflicts and saddled with governments unable to maintain order. Hiring mercenaries, the United Nations said, can improve military skill in a conflict, conceal the mastermind behind an event and allow participants to avoid risking their own personnel for what it calls "comparatively low cost."
South Africa "is trying to do the right thing," Stremlau said, but "it's a hard thing to do, and right now these guys are clearly not under control yet."
http://cache.*****images.com/thumb/2907446.jpg?x=x&a=2907446&b=afp&t=1
Larger (http://cache.*****images.com/comp/2907446.jpg?x=x&dasite=MS_GINS&ef=2&ev=1&dareq=D7CC22FD3515C5900A9A6400B3134311)
Employees of South African security company Erinys carry their belongings as they leave their hotel hit by a suicide car bomb attack in the centre of Baghdad that killed at least three people 28 January 2004. Erinys was awarded a year-long, 39.5-million contract "to train 6 500 Iraqis to guard oil pipelines, wellheads and refineries, as well as water and electrical facilities. The site of the blast lies close to the Polish embassy. As a result of recruitment drives by Erinys and other security companies, former members of specialist regiments were in demand and could expect wages of £400 a day in Iraq.