Mercenaries: The Scourge of the Third World

212 Pages·1999·11.062 MB·English

by  Guy Arnold (auth.)

MERCENARIES
Also by Guy Arnold
WARS IN THE THIRD WORLD SINCE 1945
BRAINWASH: The Cover-Up Society
KENYATTA AND THE POLITICS OF KENYA
MODERN NIGERIA
THE RESOURCES OF THE THIRD WORLD
* WORLD GOVERNMENT BY STEALTH
BRITAIN SINCE 1945
* THE END OF THE THIRD WORLD
* From the same publishers
Mercenaries
The Scourge of
the Third World
Guy Arnold
First published in Great Britain 1999 by
MACMILLAN PRESS LTD
Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and London
Companies and representatives throughout the world
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library,
ISBN 978-1-349-27710-0 ISBN 978-1-349-27708-7 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-27708-7
First published in the United States of America 1999 by
ST. MARTIN'S PRESS, INC.,
Scholarly and Reference Division,
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010
ISBN 978-0-312-22203-1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Arnold, Guy.
Mercenaries : the scourge of the Third World/Guy Arnold.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-312-22203-1 (cloth)
1. Mercenary troops-Developing countries. I. Title.
U42.A 78 1999
355.3'54-dc21 99-18562
CIP
© Guy Arnold 1999
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1999
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made
without written permission.
No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with
written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by
the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1P 9HE.
Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to
criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
The author has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance
with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and
sustained forest sources.
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Contents
Preface VI
List of Abbreviations and Acronyms Vll
Introduction IX
The Congo 1960-1965
2 The Nigerian Civil War 18
3 Southern Africa (I) Rhodesia 26
4 Southern Africa (2) Angola 33
5 African vulnerability 46
6 Island destabilization: Comoros, Seychelles, Denard 56
7 The British mercenary tradition: The Middle East 65
8 Papua New Guinea and Bougainville 74
9 Nicaragua and Colombia 86
10 Europe 101
II South Africa and Executive Outcomes 113
12 The new mercenary coporations 123
13 Sierra Leone, Sandline and Britain 132
14 Western attitudes 147
15 The United Nations 159
16 Conclusions - the future 169
Notes 175
Appendix 181
Index 190
v
Preface
The subject of mercenaries rouses similar emotions to that of arms
sales and in a violent, competitive world the demand for the services of
the former and the supply of the latter steadily escalates. In the near 40
years from the Congo crisis of the early 1960s to the restoration of
President Kabbah in Sierra Leone with the help of the British mer
cenary company Sandline in 1998, there has been a profound change
in the perception and use of mercenaries, from the individual soldiers
of-fortune who turned up in the Congo or Angola to the new corpo
rate mercenary who is leased out by a range of security and military
advice companies which claim only to work for legitimate govern
ments. These companies are the result of a new approach to problems
by an ever wider range of governments: the 'outsourcing' of tasks to
private enterprise which formerly were the sole province of govern
ment. There is every indication that sophisticated military advisory
security firms will become increasingly powerful, sought after and
dangerous. If this proves to be the case they will turn into an inde
pendent monster that cannot be controlled and one, moreover, that
will have been encouraged by the shortsighted and foolish policies of
the world's major military powers.
Vl
List of Abbreviations and
Acronyms
ADFL Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of
Congo-Zaire
AFRC Armed Forces Revolutionary Council
ANC African National Congress
APC All People's Congress
BATT British Army Training Team
CCB Civil Cooperation Bureau
CIA Central Intelligence Agency
DCC Directorate of Covert Collection
DSL Defence Systems Limited
ECOWAS Economic Community of West African States
ECOMOG Economic Community Monitoring Group
ELP Portuguese Liberation Army
EO Executive Outcomes
FAPLA Forc;as Armadas Populares de Libertac;ao de Angola
FAZ Forces Armees du Zaire
FMG Federal Military Government
FNLA Frente Nacional de Libertac;ao de Angola
MDLP Democratic Movement for the Liberation of Portugal
MPLA Movimento Popular de Libertac;ao de Angola
MPRI Military Professional Resources Inc
NGO Non-Government Organization
NPFL National Patriotic Front of Liberia
NPRC National Provisional Ruling Council
OAU Organization of African Unity
RUF Revolutionary United Front
SADF South Africa Defence Force
SAS Special Air Services
SDP Seychelles Democratic Party
SLPP Sierra Leone People's Party
SPPF Seychelless People's Progressive Front
SPUP Seychelles People's United Party
SWAPO South West Africa People's Organization
UDI Unilateral Declaration of Independence
vii
Vlll Abbreviations and Acronyms
UNITA Uniao Nacional para a lndependencia Total de Angola
UNSDF Ukrainian National Self-Defence Forces
ZANU Zimbabwe African National Union
ZIPA Zimbabwe People's Army
Introduction
The story of mercenaries goes back almost as far as that of organized
armies; they recur throughout recorded history, sometimes playing a
relatively honourable role, at others a disreputable one. The most
reliable army is that of patriotic volunteers, the least the mercenary
corps, while lying between these two extremes is the army of the
modern state: that is, one made up largely of conscripts. The fact
about the mercenary which should never be forgotten is that he serves
for pay; he is not a patriot and he has no loyalty to the cause for which
- temporarily - he is fighting. An army composed, wholly or in part,
of mercenaries cannot be relied upon in the same way as a national
army. The financial motive comes first with the mercenary; as a result
his loyalty must always be suspect. Those who employ mercenaries,
therefore, must ensure that they are paid and paid regularly. Such pay
is often extremely high but unpaid mercenaries are a danger to their
employers and not to be trusted. The mercenary bands commonly
employed in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries easily and often
turned into a menace both to their former employers and, more
generally, to the country in which they would operate as freebooters
once the money to pay them had run out - as it frequently did.
Mercenaries first appear in ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia where
their services were essential aspects of imperial control. At the height
of their military dominance the Carthaginians employed large num
bers of mercenaries alongside their regular troops. Some of these
regular mercenary forces such as the Nubians serving the Pharoahs
or the Janissaries serving the Ottomans were composed of slave regi
ments. Possibly the most famous mercenary band in history was that
celebrated by Xenophon in the Anabasis, his story of the 10,000
Greeks who were employed by Cyrus, the pretender to the Persian
throne. These Greeks formed a highly efficient fighting force and were
available because the long Peloponnesian war between Athens and
Sparta had just come to an end.
Mercenaries or potential mercenaries are usually available in large
numbers at the conclusion of any major war. When the Roman
Empire ceased to rely upon its citizen armies and turned instead to
mercenaries it embarked upon a path that led to its eventual disinte
gration.
IX