What are 5 000 South Africans doing in Iraq?

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=273792&area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__national/

South Africa had an obligation to oversee and regulate the thousands of militarily-qualified citizens selling their skills abroad, Parliament's Defence Portfolio Committee heard on Tuesday.

"If you keep dangerous animals in your yard, you have responsibility to ensure they don't get out and harm people," Defence Department official Siviwe Njikela told committee members.

He said an estimated 5 000-plus South Africans were working in Iraq "doing Lord knows what".

"If we have that kind of a population in Iraq, isn't it rather curious that we have no idea what they are doing there? The South African government should know -- that is the principle -- without infringing on their right to earn a living and practice their profession."


I used to know a couple of brothers from South Africa. They were mercenaries. They got their start in Rhodesia. I bet they are in Iraq right now.

[leveymg]

1. SA and ex- Rhodesia provides many of the mercenaries around the world

One of the biggest companies, Executive Outcomes ,was started by white South African special forces who suddenly found themselves without a job a decade or two ago. They've become a serious problem that SA can't deal with alone. See, http://www.alternet.org/story/18588/

Hired Guns with War Crimes Past

By Louis Nevaer, Pacific News Service. Posted May 4, 2004.

Due to the Coalition Provisional Authority's 'outsourcing' of privatized security services, South African ex-hit men and Serbian mercenaries find gainful employment in Iraq.

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http://www.sandline.com/hotlinks/Chicago_Trib-merc_strain.html
S. Africa strains to keep lid on mercenaries
Good pay from foreign conflicts lures ex-soldiers

By Laurie Goering
Tribune foreign correspondent
Published March 18, 2004

JOHANNESBURG -- Under the former apartheid government, Carl Alberts, a combat helicopter pilot, was awarded South Africa's highest military honor for his service battling guerrillas in Angola. Last month, the 49-year-old retired pilot was arrested by South Africa for fighting rebels in Ivory Coast, this time as a mercenary for Ivory Coast's government. A decade after the end of apartheid and cessation of South Africa's numerous border wars, the country has some of the best-trained soldiers in the world. The problem is many of them are working for the highest bidder, in conflict zones from Iraq to Sierra Leone.




"We don't like the idea that South Africa has become a cesspool of mercenaries," Nkosozana Dlamini-Zuma, South Africa's foreign affairs minister, said last week after more than 20 alleged South African mercenaries were arrested in Zimbabwe and Equatorial Guinea as part of an apparent coup plot against Equatorial Guinea. Despite legislation to curb mercenaries, South Africa remains one of the biggest providers of paid fighters on the international market, particularly for conflicts in Africa.

SNIP

Soldiers for hire

South Africa, long known for its military prowess and arms manufacturing, made an international name for itself as a mercenary supplier in the mid-1990s, as hundreds of mainly Afrikaner soldiers quit the military rather than work for the postapartheid government with its affirmative-action policies. Other soldiers, black and white, soon learned that they could make as much money in a day fighting abroad for profit as they could in a month of regular service. Many were recruited by Eeben Barlow, the former commander of South Africa's famous 32 Buffalo Battalion, a special forces espionage unit that served in Angola during the apartheid years. His company, Executive Outcomes, soon went to work in conflict zones from Angola to Sierra Leone, training government fighters, protecting mining and oil facilities and providing other military and security services.

SNIP

Increasingly, multinational corporations, as well as troubled governments, hire mercenaries. Fighters are sometimes paid in oil and diamond concessions as well as in cash, analysts say. The men arrested in Equatorial Guinea, a tiny nation with vast oil reserves, had reportedly been offered such concessions for their work in ousting the government of President Teodoro Obiang Ngeuma Mbasogo.


SNIP

Even coups "are not carried out for the sake of coups," Maroleng said. "Normally they have an underlying bottom line, an economic interest."

SNIP


A 1997 United Nations report on mercenaries suggests that getting control of the problem may be nearly impossible as long as Africa is beset by conflicts and saddled with governments unable to maintain order. Hiring mercenaries, the UN says, can improve military skill in a conflict, conceal the mastermind behind an event and allow participants to avoid risking their own personnel for what it calls "comparatively low cost." South Africa "is trying to do the right thing," Stremlau said, but "it's a hard thing to do, and right now these guys are clearly not under control yet."

[Greyhound]

2. South Africa is a major source of such talent.

Withdraw amerikan forces and replace with mercs for the mid-terms?

[saskatoon]

3. in Iraq right now

as PAID hired killers by the US undoubtedly.

[pushycat]

4. PAID with US tax dollars? Damn, that is unforgiveable.