Firing squad for all mercenaries?

Press, 28 July 1976, Page 17

Firing squad for all mercenaries?

New Zealanders being recruited to serve as mercenaries in Rhodesia may be signing their death warrants —whether killed in action or by firing squads if they are captured. Some people—including Frederick Forsyth, author of “The Day of the Jackal’’—argue that mercenaries are not necessarily sadists, nor that they fight only for money. Simply, they love the excitement and danger of war. COLIN LEGUM, of the “Observer,” London, says in this report Africans are puzzled that Western governments pleaded for the lives of the mercenaries sentenced to death in Angola, and are angry’ enough to treat all “Dogs of War” as international criminals and countries from which they’ are recruited as enemies of Black Africa . . .

The miserable saga of the white mercenaries in Africa does not end with the execution by a firing squad of three Britons and an American in Angola. Their deaths could mark the beginning of a much more serious conflict between African and Western governments as the war deepens in Rhodesia. Hundreds of new mercenaries are lining up to be recruited by lan Smith’s regime. The argument over the executions has been so overlaid by emotionalism on both sides that the real issues are likely to be missed. The British and American governments would have had a more creditable case if they had distinguished between the shootings of a Briton, John Barker, and the American. Daniel Gearheart — whose principal crime was that they were mercenaries who joined the losing side — and Costas Georgiu, otherwise known as “Colonel

Callan", and Andrew Mackenzie. who were directly involved in brutally killing 14 other British citizens in the mercenary force. If Georgia or Mackenzie had managed to get home they would have been charged in British courts — and, if convicted, they would have escaped the gallows only because capital punishment has been abolished here. Since their crime was carried out on Angolan soil, the Government of President Agostinho Neto had the legal right, by international standards, to try to execute them: capital punishment is still employed in Angola. Africans are puzzled that Western governments — and Queen Elizabeth — should have pleaded for the lives of men who killed fellow Britons. If, Africans ask, Western governments can show such little concern for the fate of their own massacred citizens, how can they be expected to show

any concern for the killings of blacks by mercenaries? Westerners, for their part, fail to comprehend why Africans should be so intolerant toward mercenaries. Totall}’ different historical experiences on both sides explain this huge gulf of misunderstanding. Mercenaries — in one form or another — have played an acceptable role in Europe and the Americas through the centuries. At times their role has even been honourable: the “Dogs of War” have enlisted to defend some noble causes. They have not been seen as a threat to the security of any Western government in modem times.

Even though mercenaries have never been accorded the status of prisoners-of war under international law, they have been regarded with some tolerance as soldiers of fortune. When the wheel of fortune went against them, they ex-

pected to be treated as honourable combatants. In Western experience it has been difficult to distinguish between the mercenary who sold his gun to the highest bidder, and the volunteer who went out to fight in support of his principles — as happened, for example, in the Spanish Civil War when European leftists and conservatives enlisted equally on opposing sides. The African experience has been completely different, and especially smce the 1960 s when the continent emerged from its long experience of colonialism. Mercenaries entered the Congo (now Zaire) in large numbers. At first they bolstered Moise Tshombe, who was fighting (with international financial interests behind him) for the secession of the copper-rich Katanga province. They stayed on to help entrench the rule of Tshombe when he finally became the Congo’s Prime Minister. They then established his successor, President Sese Seko Mobutu. Later, they were engaged in trying to oust Mobutu himself. Bands of mercenaries were later recruited to strengthen Nigeria’s Ibos in their attempt to bring about the secession of the Biafra Republic, and a few were recruited to help the Southern Sudanese rebels In all of these conflict!

the role of the mercenaries happened to be in support of those who wanted to break up African countries. Since the larger African interest is to prevent the further Balkanisation of their continent, the role of the white mercenaries was seen as counter-produc-tive. But there are two even stronger objections to the mercenaries. Since most African armies are relatively weak and not very efficient, the recruitment of even a few hundred professional soldiers could ne enough to alter the balance of military power. Thus, an alien force of adventurers might be in a position to change the course of a country’s history’. In the West there is no danger of an alien group of military adventurers seriously affecting the nature of government. The second objection is that mercenaries are suspected of being the paid agents of foreign governments, hired to fulfil the policies of those governments which — for obvious reasons — do not wish themselves to appear to be taking sides openly. In the case of Angola, it is no secret that the funds to recruit mercenaries came from the Central Intelligence Agency which h'as been shown to have paid out $2 million for this purpose, after Congress had refused to endorse * by the

Ford Administration to take sides in the Angolan struggle. Clandestine operations by Western Powers wishing to determine the nature of a particular African Government are obviously a major fear among the continent’s leaders. It is, in their eyes, a classic example of the ways in which neocolonialism can operate. Thus, the consensus among African leaders is that mercenaries are a real threat, to. the continent. The Organisation of African Unity declared war on all mercenaries in 1967 after 119 mercenaries, under the leadership of a Belgian, “Black” lean Schramme, had almost succeeded, in overthrowing President Mobutu's regime. The O.A.U. drafted a charter outlawing mercenaries, and it sought to get United Nations approval for making them international criminals. Although this charter was never ratified, it nevertheless expresses Africa’s stand on the question. All foreign governments were warned by the O.A.U. in 1967. that unless they stopped their citizens from being recruited, any mercenaries caught in the continent would be treated as criminals, and not as fighters entitled to prisoners-of-war status. In spite of constant reminders about the existence of this African charter during the Angola

struggle, Western governments failed to curb the recruiting of mercenaries. This was not because countries like Britain did not try to stop it, but because they argued that their existing law's could not be effectively enforced. Western governments could find themselves in an even more difficult position in Rhodesia than in Angola. If the struggle there ends, as predictably

it will, in a victory for the black challengers, the fate of any white mercenaries caught in the web of war will be no different from what has occurred in Angola: only the numbers are likely to be much larger. This is the lesson which Africa hopes Western governments will learn from the execution of Colonel Callan and his three colleagues in Luanda.