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Thu 20 May, 2004 10:51 am
Posted on Sun, May. 16, 2004
Iraq a land of opportunity for South Africa's apartheid-era troops
By Sudarsan Raghavan
Knight Ridder Newspapers
PRETORIA, South Africa - A decade after the end of white rule, the war in Iraq is reminding South Africans of yet another uncomfortable legacy from the brutal days of apartheid - South Africa's role in providing mercenaries to a wide range of military causes throughout the world.
Hundreds of former South African soldiers and police officers are serving in Iraq now as private security contractors. South Africans are among the private soldiers who guard L. Paul Bremer, the chief U.S. envoy to Iraq, and patrol the heavily fortified Green Zone, where the U.S. command is headquartered.
At least six South Africans have been killed there.
When the fifth South African was killed in Iraq last month, the government pleaded with its citizens not to seek their fortunes in Iraq. Then, it threatened to stop them - possibly under a law that forbids mercenary activities. The sixth was killed a week ago in Kirkuk.
"Very often, not even the families are aware that their husbands, sons and brothers have gone to Iraq," South Africa's Deputy Foreign Minister Aziz Pahad told the South African Press Association.
The concerns come as South Africa plays a prominent leadership role in tackling Africa's myriad problems. South Africa has brokered peace in several civil wars and committed troops to monitor truces in Burundi and Liberia. At the same time, South Africa has tried to live down its reputation for supplying men to far-off causes.
It is a difficult task. From the Ivory Coast to Papua New Guinea, South African mercenaries have trained national armies, guarded politicians, protected oil and mining facilities - and, of course, fought on the frontlines.
They are widely known for their superior training, management skills and prowess with weapons and technology. They are also abundant and cost half as much to hire as ex-U.S. or British special forces soldiers.
With apartheid's demise, hundreds of white and black soldiers found themselves unemployed after their units were disbanded. Others quit rather than work for the black-majority government that swept into power in 1994. Whites worried about affirmative action policies. Blacks were seen as sellouts for fighting in the apartheid military.
Many were recruited by Executive Outcomes, a shadowy South African security company led by former special forces commanders of the infamous 32 Battalion, which spearheaded a covert war in Namibia and Angola in the 1970s and '80s.
In the mid-1990s, several hundred Executive Outcomes soldiers, using combat helicopters and fighter jets, protected Angola's oil-rich government from tens of thousands of UNITA rebels. And in Sierra Leone, they helped defeat the rag-tag rebels of the Revolutionary United Front.
Today Executive Outcomes is defunct. But South African mercenaries still roam the continent seeking to make money from the developing world's miseries.
Last year, the government of the Ivory Coast placed dozens of soldiers of fortune, including many former Executive Outcomes members, on its bankroll to fight off rebels who have effectively split the nation in two.
In March, 70 suspected mercenaries - South Africans, Angolans and other nationalities - flew from South Africa en route to allegedly overthrow President Teodoro Obiang Nguema, the dictator of Equatorial Guinea.
But they were nabbed in Zimbabwe, where they allegedly stopped to collect weapons. Hours earlier, another 15 were taken into custody in Equatorial Guinea, apparently after a tip-off from the South African government.
Many were ex-members of the 32 Battalion and were allegedly going to be paid $1.9 million and given oil concessions. They were charged with conspiring to commit a coup, which they have denied.
"We don't like the idea that South Africa has become a cesspool of mercenaries," South Africa's foreign affairs minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, told South African reporters at the time of their arrest.
Last month, South Africa agreed to their extradition to Equatorial Guinea to face trial. The decision not to push to have them tried in a South African court was widely seen as a warning to potential mercenaries.
But it's unlikely to deter South Africans from flocking to Iraq. The money is plentiful, and jobs for men with their skills are scarce.
"Iraq is a godsend in terms of keeping these guys employed," said Johann Smith, a security consultant and former South African intelligence operative.
Some have murky pasts in brutal apartheid-era military units whose goal was to perpetuate white rule at any cost.
One security guard killed in Iraq confessed to South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission that he was part of an apartheid death squad that committed human rights atrocities.
A South African soldier or police officer can make eight times his usual annual salary by working in Iraq - as much as $15,000 a month, said Henri Boshoff, a military analyst with the Institute for Security Studies in Pretoria.
"If you ask me at 11 a.m. today that you need 100 well-trained soldiers, I can get them for you by 11 a.m. tomorrow," said Smith.
Legally, South Africa could stop them. The 1998 Foreign Military Assistance Act forbids citizens from taking part in wars or providing security, logistical support or training without government permission.
But enforcing the legislation is proving to be difficult. South Africa's liberal Constitution guarantees the right to a livelihood, making it easy to challenge the 1998 law.
So far, two South African mercenaries have been prosecuted under the law for fighting in the Ivory Coast. Both received slaps on the wrists: one paid $3,000, the other $14,000 in fines. They spent no time in prison.
No South African has been charged for working in Iraq.
South Africa has dozens of private airstrips. Borders are porous. New recruits often fly to Europe, Jordan or Kuwait as if they were going on vacation. There, they sign contracts and slip into Iraq.
Wanted in Africa, Needed in Iraq
Wanted in Africa, Needed in Iraq
Julio Godoy
IPS 5/20/04
Coalition forces find new uses in Iraq for an arms dealer they had branded a villain in Africa.
PARIS, May 20 (IPS) - Arms dealer Viktor Bout was the merchant of death wanted for feeding conflicts in Africa - until Iraq happened.
Today the United States and Britain are using his extensive mercenary services in Iraq. The condemnation of his role in the diamond wars and other conflicts in sub-Saharan Africa over the past ten years is being silently erased.
The Tajikstan-born Bout would be an embarrassing ally to acknowledge publicly. But the coalition partners are showing him exceptional favours as he does some of their job for them.
The UN Security Council drafted a resolution in March to freeze the assets of mercenaries and weapons dealers who backed ousted Liberian dictator Charles Taylor. Bout should top that list, French diplomatic sources say. But the diplomats and UN sources say the United States has been working to keep Bout off that list.
U.S. officials have indicated unofficially that the reason is that Bout is useful in Iraq, the sources told IPS.
One of Bout's many companies is providing logistical support to U.S. forces in Iraq, well-placed French diplomatic sources say. His private airline British Gulf is supplying goods to the occupation forces, they say.
In recognition of these services both the U.S. and the British governments have been opposing French efforts to include Bout in the UN mercenaries list, the diplomatic sources revealed.
"We are disgusted that Bout won't be on the list, even though he is the principal arms dealer," according to a diplomat involved in the UN negotiations over that list. "If we want peace in that region (West Africa), it seems evident that Bout should be on that list."
The British government had at first included Bout in its list of mercenaries, French diplomats say. But he was taken off under U.S. pressure.
In 2000 Peter Hain, then British foreign office minister responsible for Africa, described Bout as "the chief sanctions-buster, and...a merchant of death who owns air companies that ferry in arms" for rebels in Angola and Sierra Leone.
Now Iraq has become another business location for Bout with no particular risks attached despite the UN efforts to seize him, French diplomatic sources say..
Typically, Bout has left few traces of his activities in Iraq. French officials say British Gulf is soon expected to go under another name now that it is known to be his. His mercenaries leave few footprints, and if they die, nobody asks questions about the body bag.
But the UN knows what Bout is about through his activities in Africa. "Viktor Vasilevich Butt, known more commonly as Viktor Bout, is often referred to in law enforcement circles as 'Viktor B' because he uses at least five aliases and different versions of his last name," says a UN Security Council report.
The stocky Bout (37) graduated from the Military Institute of Foreign Languages in Moscow. He is said to be fluent in at least six languages. He began his career as an arms dealer in Afghanistan after his air force regiment was disbanded during the break-up of the former Soviet Union.
According to intelligence documents, he was able to establish close relationships with several African heads of state and rebel leaders including the late Angolan rebel leader Jonas Savimbi, former Liberian president Charles Taylor, former Zairian president Mobutu Sese Seko and Libyan President Moammar Gadhafi.
"He had access to what the African warlords wanted," says André Velrooy, a Norwegian journalist who investigated Bout's activities for the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ). "The end of the Cold War resulted in a massive amount of surplus weapons and spare parts being dumped at often very low prices onto the private market."
Bout had the capacity to deliver not only small arms, but also major weapons systems, and deliver them almost anywhere in the world, Velrooy reported. "And his associates -- ranging from former U.S. military personnel and Russian officials to African heads of state and organised crime figures -- gave him a lengthy list of buyers and sellers with whom to do business."
Bout was the biggest operator in the African arms market. He ran a myriad of companies employing an estimated 300 people. The companies operated 40 to 60 aircraft, including the world's largest private fleet of Russian-made Antonov cargo planes, according to the investigation by ICIJ.
Bout made it almost impossible to trace his activities. He leased aircraft to other individuals and companies so that he could not directly be linked to illegal activities. "Bout adamantly denies that he was involved in weapons trafficking, or that he was anything other than a legitimate air cargo entrepreneur," says Velrooy.
But UN monitors too have accused Bout of shipping contraband weapons to rebel movements in Angola and Sierra Leone and to the Taylor regime in Liberia.
The United States and Britain are now using -- and protecting - a dealer who is also reported to have helped arm the Taliban.
Germany's Der Spiegel newsweekly reported in 2002 that Vadim Rabinovich, an Israeli of Ukrainian origin along with the former director of the Ukrainian secret service had sold a consignment of 150 to 200 T-55 and T-62 tanks to the Taliban.
The tanks were believed to have been transported by one of Bout's air freight companies in a deal conducted through Pakistan's secret service. The deal was uncovered by the Russian foreign intelligence service SVR in Kabul, Der Spiegel reported.
The UN backed an international warrant in 2001 for the arrest of Bout. But Bout enjoys support in high places and has been living comfortably in Moscow.
"That's the problem in dealing with Viktor B," the French daily Le Monde quoted a French secret service expert as saying. "Because Bout has served so many people, he always has somebody powerful who protects him."
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