The race for Africa continues
Mike Ching

Violence has broken out once again in West Africa, this time in Sierra Leone. Rebel leader Sam Bockarie has told the BBC he would burn down embassies if British navy ships attempted to land troops in the capital city of Freetown.

Bockarie alleges these troops are ‘mercenaries’. If Britain did help or hire mercenaries, it would be a clear violation of article 47 of the Geneva Convention, as well as being contrary to Resolution 49/1150 of the United Nations, which urges all nations, "to take the necessary steps and to exercise the utmost vigilance against the menace imposed by the activities of mercenaries." However, the use of mercenaries and other sorts of ‘black-ops’ has helped to form the political map of modern-day Africa.

Sierra Leone has seen its share of mercenary activity. Under the oppressive military regime of Valentine Strasser, they turned to the mercenary group EO (Executive Outcomes). Mercenary groups have phased out its old image in favour of more respectable corporate identities. In May 1995, EO deployed 170 men in Sierra Leone. These foreign professionals turned the war around completely.

In March of 1996, the Sierra Leonian people voted in their first election in 28 years, resulting in Ahmed Tejan Kabbah being elected president. EO’s stabilizing presence was graphically illustrated when, less than six months after its withdrawal in February 1998, the military seized power in another coup.

EO, originally registered as a British company in 1993, is now based in the Bahamas and is led by two former members of the SAS. They also own the Heritage Oil and Gas company. The Heritage Oil and Gas Board of Directors includes former Liberal Party leader David Steel and Andrew Gifford of GJW Government Relations, an influential parliamentary lobbyist. While one can make a logical connection to the covert involvement of the British government, conclusive evidence remains elusive. Other governments, however, are not so successful at hiding their involvement.

As early as 1960, when European nations were beginning to withdraw from its African colonies, mercenaries played roles rarely covered in the news. For example, when Belgium abruptly withdrew from the Congo, a nation of 200 tribes and 40 million people, they endangered the lives of remaining whites.

Congolese rebels, known as Simbas, were known to have eaten Italian airmen who fell into their hands. White mercenaries, hired by the Belgian government, mostly from France and Belgium, led by the legendary soldier of fortune Bob Denard, were quickly dispatched to the area. Support fire was provided to the mercenaries with B-26 bombers, which were then flown by anti-Communist Cubans paid by the CIA.

In 1965, mercenaries were fighting alongside Jonas Savimbi’s UNITA forces in Angola until the mid-seventies. In 1972, mercenaries lobbed shells at the presidential palace in Benin in an attempt to depose Matthieu Kerekou’s nationalist and left-leaning regime.

Mercenary forces invaded the Comoros Islands in 1995, because the government of President Djohar began to cultivate ties with Iran and Islamic fundamentalism. Mercenaries have been implicated in dozens of conflicts and coup d’etats across the African continent.

Two years ago, when the central government of Mobutu Sese Seko, in Zaire, was on the verge of collapse from rebel insurgents, Serb mercenaries were seen in action around the city of Kisangani. While the use of Serbian mercenaries is a interesting fact, the rebel forces are equally as interesting. Unlike Africa’s normally rag-tag, undisciplined soldiers, these rebels were well-organized and supplied with expensive combat uniforms and the latest arms.

It is clear, outside powers are helping the rebels. French security experts accuse Israel and the United States of secretly supporting and supplying the rebels and their shadowy leader, Laurent Kabila, in an attempt to extend its influence. Meanwhile France maintains its hegemony in West Africa through local black overseers called ‘presidents,’ backs Mobutu.

Paris is convinced there is an American plot to oust France from much of its West and North African dominions. France and the US are openly vying to secure Zaire, which has vast resources of minerals, gems, gold and oil. Israel’s interests, on the other hand, are not only in Zaire’s mineral wealth but also in Africa’s arms markets.

Over the past year, the US and Israel have been arming and financing the minority Christian regimes of Eritrea, Uganda and Ethiopia. Forces from these African nations have invaded Sudan, whose Islamic regime the Americans are attempting to overthrow. Europe’s strategy is to support France’s political and economic domination of North, Central and West Africa, and to discreetly reassert European influence. Israel’s strategy is to keep Europe, which tends to side with the Arabs, out of the Mideast, while expanding Israeli influence in Central Africa and along the Red Sea Coast on the Horn of Africa.

The control of oil and minerals is the symbol of international power. The competition for resources by developed nations reminds one of the great power capacity of the 19th century colonial era. For Western powers, mercenaries represent an opportunity to hide neocolonial ambitions.

While countries like France and the United States, who cannot afford to openly manipulate independent African states, the plausible deniability offered by mercenaries is an elegant alternative. No matter how much lip service is paid to the UN, cease-fires and aiding refugees, the real theme in Africa is the maintenance of the colonial hegemony in the form of puppet dictators, mercenary groups and military aid.

The process of decolonization continues.