Mercenaries

Abdel-fatau Musah

Description

This powerful book critiques mercenary involvement in post-Cold War African conflicts. The contributors investigate the links between the rise in internal conflicts and the proliferation of mercenary activities in the 1990s; the distinction in the methods adopted by Cold War mercenaries and their contemporary counterparts; the convoluted network between private armies; business interests and sustained poverty in Africa’s poorest countries; and the connection between mercenary activities and arms proliferation. Countries discussed include Sierra Leone, Zaire, Angola, Uganda and Congo.
Acronyms

Foreword by Lord Avebury

Introduction

1. Africa in Search of Security by J. ‘Kayode Fayemi

2. Private Military Companies and African Security 1990-98 by Kevin A. O’Brien (University of Hull)

3. A Country Under Siege: Sierra Leone by Abdel-Fatau Musah

4. The Hand of War: Former Zaire 1996-7 by Khareen Pech

5. Mining for Serious Trouble: Jean-Raymonde Boulle by Johan Peleman (International Peace Information Service, Antwerp)

6. Mercenaries, Human Rights and the Legality by Alex Vines (Queen Elizabeth House, University of Oxford)

7. Africa: Civil Conflicts and the OAU Convention against Mercenaries by Kofi Oteng Kufuor (East London University)

8. The African Security Crisis by Eboe Hutchful (Wayne State University)

9. Arresting the Tide of Mercenaries in Africa by ‘Funmi Olonisakin (King’s College, London)

Conclusion

Appendices

Index

Sujets

• África
• International relations
• Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction
• Africa
• Science

Informations

• Publié par: Pluto Press
• Date de parution: 20 novembre 1999
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781849640398
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

Edited by Abdel-Fatau Musah and J. ‘Kayode Fayemi

Foreword by Lord Avebury

Mercenaries An African Security Dilemma

P Pluto Press LONDON • STERLING, VIRGINIA

First published 2000 by Pluto Press 345 Archway Road, London N6 5AA and 22883 Quicksilver Drive, Sterling, VA 20166–2012, USA

Copyright © AbdelFatau Musah and J. ‘Kayode Fayemi 2000

The right of the individual contributors to be identified as the authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 0 7453 1476 7 hbk

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Mercenaries : an African security dilemma / edited by AbdelFatau Musah and J. ‘Kayode Fayemi ; foreword by Lord Avebury. p. cm. ISBN 0–7453–1476–7 1. African—History—1960– 2. Mercenary troops—African. I. Musah, AbdelFatau. II. Fayemi, ‘Kayode. DT30.2.M47 2000 960.3'2—dc21 99–34771 CIP

Designed and produced for Pluto Press by Chase Production Services, Chadlington, OX7 3LN Typeset from disk by Stanford DTP Services, Northampton Printed in the EU by TJ International, Padstow

Contents

About the Centre for Democracy and Development Foreword by Lord Avebury Acknowledgements Abbreviations and Acronyms

Introduction

1. Africa in Search of Security: Mercenaries and Conflicts – An Overview Abdel-Fatau Musah and J. ‘Kayode Fayemi

2. Private Military Companies and African Security 1990–98 Kevin A. O’Brien

3. A Country Under Siege: State Decay and Corporate Military Intervention in Sierra Leone Abdel-Fatau Musah

4. The Hand of War: Mercenaries in the Former Zaire 1996–97 Khareen Pech

5. Mining for Serious Trouble: JeanRaymond Boulle and his Corporate Empire Project Johan Peleman

6. Mercenaries, Human Rights and Legality Alex Vines

7. The OAU Convention for the Elimination of Mercenarism and Civil Conflicts Kofi Oteng Kufuor

8. Understanding the African Security Crisis Eboe Hutchful

vii viii xi xii

1

13

43

76

117

155

169

198

210

vi MERCENARIES 9. Arresting the Tide of Mercenaries: Prospects for Regional Control ’Funmi Olonisakin

Conclusion Appendices I Mercenaries: Africa’s Experience, 1950s–1990 II Convention for the Elimination of Mercenarism in Africa III OAU Resolution on the Activities of Mercenaries (1967) IV OAU Declaration on the Activities of Mercenaries in Africa (1971) V OAU Convention for the Elimination of Mercenaries in Africa (1972) VI The Report by the UN Special Rapporteur on the Use of Mercenaries, 1998

Notes on Contributors Index

233

257 265 265 275 281

283

286

289

321 323

About the Centre for Democracy and Development

The Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD) is a nonprofit, non governmental, independent research, information and training institution dedicated to policyoriented scholarship on questions of democratic development and peacebuilding in the West African sub region, concentrating on the Gambia, Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone. The Centre has offices in London, UK, Accra, Ghana and Lagos, Nigeria. Its work is grounded in an appreciation of the practical problems that have inhibited democratic reform in the region, and in the need to strengthen civil society institutions and government bodies in their work. The Centre aims to provide accurate information on and rigorous analysis of democratic developments in the region. It also plans to offer strategic training to people interested in fostering democratic develop ment in the region.

Programme on Conflict Management, Regional Security & Peacebuilding

In seeking to develop an institutional framework for analysing conflict and its links with democracy and development, this programme recognises structural stability as a foundation for sustainable development. By doing this, we acknowledge the importance of a holistic security agenda in which the management of violence is subject to civilian, democratic control. In addition to our work on PMCs we are also actively involved in civilmilitary relations and peacebuilding training, light weapons research and developing a monitoring mechanism for conflict prediction in West Africa.

vii

Foreword

Lord Avebury

There has been a pressing need for this study, which examines the connections between African conflicts, the extraction of minerals, and the use of private military companies (PMCs). Armed opposition groups exist in Angola, Algeria, Burundi, Central African Republic, Chad, Democratic Republic of Congo, Republic of Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, Guinea Bissau, Liberia, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, Uganda and Western Sahara. In some cases, the fighting arises from unresolved aspirations towards selfdetermination, while in others, religious and ethnic differences are at issue. In a significant proportion of these conflicts, however, the ownership and control of valuable resources is a factor, making the outcomes interesting to multinationals, and enabling the state participants to consider using PMCs to help secure victory over their opponents. Johan Peleman traces the astonishing deeds of JeanRaymond Boulle and his America Mineral Fields, whose tentacles reached into several African countries, with the help of good connections and military assistance. Despite the adoption of Codes of Conduct for arms sales by the EU, the OSCE and the UN, large quantities of arms and ammunition are still pouring into Africa, cutting into the resources available for development and undermining the continent’s ability to catch up with the rest of the world. Some of this arsenal is funded by the award of prospective mineral licences, as in the notorious transaction for the supply of $10 million military equipment to Sierra Leone arranged with the Thai businessman Rakesh Saxena, described by AbdelFatau Musah. In spite of the weakness of international law in regulating the activities of PMCs, a general consensus has evolved that nonstate foreign involvement in Africa’s conflicts should not be allowed. Recognising the trend, the PMCs are increasingly trying to diversify their activities from pure combat operations to incorporate the provision of military advice, the procurement of arms and the supply of passive security services. For public relations purposes and because of existing legislation against mercenary activity, they usually advertise the latter activity and are

viii

FOREWORD ix cagey about the former. They claim to work only for governments and not for armed oppositions, and they say they operate strictly within the bounds of domestic and international law. Kevin O’Brien says that IRIS, a group formed in June 1998, works for UNITA and is thus an exception to the rule, while Alex Vines claims that there is now an increasing number of mercenary operations conducted with nonstate parties. Obviously, UNITA has had a great deal of foreign assistance in using the proceeds of illegal diamond sales to fund largescale acquisition of military equipment and the boundary between PMCs and arms brokers is not sharply defined. Regardless of any doubts PMCs may harbour working for nonstate groups, they have not always acted in the interests of the people, as the example of PMC support for the dictator Mobutu in the former Zaire, dealt with by Khareen Pech, clearly demonstrates. At the same time South Africa, with its experience of one particular firm, enacted legislation to control the activities of PMCs based on her territory. The obvious flaw with that approach is that this business can be run from anywhere in the world, and individual African countries have no power to regulate PMCs headquartered in the UK, for instance. International agreements so far hold out no hope either. The OAU Convention for the Elimination of Mercenarism, analysed by Kofi Oteng Kufuor, relies on the definition of a mercenary from the UN Convention, and since they both deal only with foreigners who take a direct part in hostilities, they have no effect on the indirect but nevertheless key impact of the PMCs on several African conflicts. The difficulty of enforcement is possibly the reason why so few countries have ratified the UN Convention. Nor do these Conventions have anything to say about the related operations of arms brokers, and the financial role played by resource extraction multinationals. At the bottom end of the scale, the PMCs may shade off into Private Security Companies (PSCs), flourishing particularly where, as Eboe Hutchful emphasises, the coercive power of the state has declined. These enterprises are seen as legitimate but have their own problems. When multimillion dollar capital works are undertaken in connection with resource development, the owners need to protect their assets from sabotage, and either the state provides that service, or the owner has to engage a contractor for the purpose. If the armed forces and police of the state are seen as incapable of doing the job, there will be a strong argument for engaging private security guards, who may be more effective, but are obviously less accountable. There are no easy answers to a complex and difficult problem, as perhaps the fact that some PMCs are themselves calling for regulation demonstrates. Africa will need to establish and refine its own sub regional and continental conflict resolution mechanisms, to reduce the plague of wars afflicting her peoples; licencing of mineral extraction will have to become transparent so that Africa’s wealth is not misapplied to

x MERCENARIES the funding of civil wars, and the arms brokers must be put out of business. J. ‘Kayode Fayemi argues that small arms proliferation poses a serious challenge to the demilitarisation agenda in Africa, and here, the enlarged European Union could help, not only by enforcement of its new, stricter code on conventional arms exports, but also by persuading the rest of the OSCE, the source of illicit weapons in many of Africa’s conflicts, to adopt the same rules. Whether those strategies could make mercenaries permanently unnecessary, to use Funmi Olonisakin’s vivid phrase, is doubtful. Conflicts are never going to be eliminated entirely from Africa, and as the Legg Report says, ‘[PMCs] are on the scene and likely to stay on it’. However, the international community can go a long way in drastically reducing the proliferation of PMCs by helping to build the capacity of autonomous conflict prevention mechanisms in the developing world, even while western states adopt proactive national legislation to curtail PMC activity coordinated from their territories. The government has promised a Green Paper on the subject in the next twelve months, and this admirable collection by the Centre for Democracy and Development sets the scene for an intelligent discussion of the issues which must be faced in a timely and comprehensive manner.

Lord Eric Avebury

Acknowledgements

This book has had a long gestation period and many people have contributed to its final emergence. We would like to thank first, the con tributors – seasoned researchers and activists – whose deep insights and incisive analyses of the mercenary phenomenon in Africa are brought vividly to the reader in this book. Besides the authors, many others have played significant roles in the course of producing this book. In acknowl edgement of that, we wish to express our profound gratitude to Liberal peer and CDD patron, Lord Eric Avebury, for his authoritative grasp of the issues, constant encouragement to us and agreement to write the foreword. We also wish to thank Bjorn Warkalla of the University of Berlin who helped with useful editorial work including significant updating of the appendices, during his internship at CDD and Emmanuel Kwesi Aning of the Centre for Development Research in Denmark for providing hitherto unpublished primary documents. Mohammed Faal helped greatly in gathering material and providing additional editorial support just as Charlotte Jenner’s administrative support was crucial in seeing through the project. Finally, we wish to register our appreciation to Roger van Zwanenberg and the editorial staff at Pluto Press for taking a keen interest in the project right from its inception. ThatMercenaries: An African Security Dilemmais in the public domain is due partly to the unwavering encouragement they gave throughout the book’s production. Notwithstanding the numerous assistance received from various quarters, primary responsibility for the final product lies with the editors and individual authors.

Editors June 1999

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Abbreviations and Acronyms

ACRF ACRI ADFL

AFRC AHSG AMF ANC ANC APC APR ARMSCOR ASAS BBC BCL BE BICC BMATT BP BRA CAMA CAMEO CAR CCB CDF CEMA CEO CFAO CIA CNDD CPP DCC

African Crisis Response Force African Crisis Response Initiative Alliance des forces democratiques pour la libération du Congo (Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo) Armed Forces Revolutionary Council Assembly of Heads of State and Government America Mineral Fields African National Congress Armée Nationale Congolaise All People’s Congress Armée Patriotique Rwandaise Armaments Corporation of South Africa Association of Southern African States British Broadcasting Corporation Bougainville Copper Ltd Branch Energy Bonn International Center for Conversion British Military Advisory and Training Team British Petroleum Bougainville Resistance Army Campaign Against Mercenaries in Africa Canadian Association for Mine and Explosive Ordnance Central African Republic Civil Cooperation Bureau Civil Defence Force Convention for the Elimination of Mercenaries in Africa Chief Executive Officer Compagnie Française de l’Afrique de l’Ouest Central Intelligence Agency Conseil National pour la Défense de la Démocratie Convention People’s Party Directorate of Covert Collection