[This is very VERY serious stuff. The SA Govt is extremely concerned whenever a White man carries a weapon. Although these mercenaries in Zim are black and white, this law, deep down, is really aimed at Whites since most mercenaries in Africa have been white. Deeper down… there concern is that White males in South Africa are getting military training and are doing military work… and these same people could turn around and use it against the current Govt. Hence… this is the real motivation for these extremely tough laws. They fear Private Armies springing up among White South Africans. It gives them the creeps!! Jan]

South Africa is determined to break the guns for hire tradition of private soldiers and seems to be making an example of suspected mercenaries detained in Zimbabwe and Equatorial Guinea on coup-plotting charges.

President Thabo Mbeki’s government has introduced legislation to curb mercenary activity but the first two cases on military involvement in the Ivory Coast resulted only in fines of R23 000 and R90 000 each and no jail time.

This is hardly a deterrent for the soldiers who are known to earn a fortune for their work.

“After what has happened in Equatorial Guinea and Zimbabwe and the two prosecutions of South Africa over their involvement Cote d’Ivoire, South Africans will be careful about getting involved in military operations abroad,” military analyst Henri Boshoff said.

‘I don’t know if the South African government is trying to make an example of them’

Zimbabwe arrested 70 men travelling on South African passports at the Harare airport on March 7 where they stopped to pick up weapons they claim were to be used to guard diamond mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

But authorities say the men from South Africa, Namibia, Angola, Zimbabwe and the Democratic Republic of Congo were on their way to topple President Teodoro Obiang Nguema in the oil-rich state of Equatorial Guinea – and arrested them on a tip-off from South Africa.

Simultaneously, about 15 men including eight South Africans were arrested on similar charges in Equatorial Guinea.

“I don’t know if the South African government is trying to make an example of them,” said Jerry Carlse, the brother of one of the suspected mercenaries, Harry Carlse, referring to the view widely held among family members and sympathisers.

Foreign Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma has shown little sympathy for the men detained in both countries and the government is opposing court applications by the families to have the accused tried in South Africa.

“We don’t like the idea of South Africa becoming a cesspool of mercenaries,” Dlamini-Zuma said.

South Africa’s history as a seedbed for mercenaries dates back to the 1960s when its men fought in the Belgian Congo but it took off in the early 1990s when the end of apartheid put many highly-trained soldiers on the market for lucrative work.

Of the myriad of security firms and “private armies” that emerged from South Africa, the most well-known is Executive Outcomes, set up by Simon Mann who is accused of being the leader of the group of 70 suspected mercenaries going on trial in Harare on Wednesday.

In the early 1990s, Executive Outcomes helped the Angolan government protect oil installations from rebels during the civil war but it went out of business when the government adopted its 1998 Foreign Military Assistance Act barring mercenary work.

Mann was later involved in setting up British-based Sandline International that helped the government in Sierra Leone obtain arms in 1995 in violation of a United Nations embargo.

Sandline closed shop in April of this year due to what it described as a “the general lack of government support for private military companies.”

“Without such support the ability of Sandline to make a positive difference in countries where there is widespread brutality and genocidal behaviour is materially diminished,” said a Sandline statement posted on its website.

Nowadays, hundreds of South Africans are working under private security contracts helping United States and British forces in Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein and the death of six of these in past months has highlighted the danger of the job.

The government has appealed to South Africans to refrain from working there, but to no avail. Many former soldiers have been able to earn up to $15 000 (about R90 000) a month as security guards to the political players in Iraq.

South Africa has threatened to extend the anti-mercenary legislation to stop such quasi military activities by its citizens abroad.

Boshoff, an analyst at the Pretoria-based Institute for Security Studies, said the new act did not cover the “grey area between mercenary activities and security operations”.

Zimbabwe’s Foreign Minister Stan Mudenge in June said governments in southern Africa were sharing intelligence on the activities of about 90 organisations “which in one form or another call themselves private security companies, whose activities are a bit dubious”. – Sapa-AFP

This article was originally published on July 21, 2004

Source: Independent Online (IOL)
URL: http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click…/p>