South Africa battles image as home to "dogs of war"
By John Chiahemen
JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - The arrest of suspected mercenaries in Zimbabwe and Equatorial Guinea has raised accusing fingers in the direction of South Africa, battling to shed its image as the world's biggest supplier of dogs of war.
The toppling of apartheid white rule in 1994 ended South Africa's years of military confrontation with its black neighbours but left a large pool of trained soldiers available as hired guns in trouble spots from Sierra Leone to Iraq.
South Africans have for years rivalled the band of hardened war dogs led by veteran French mercenary chief Bob Denard, whose exploits in trouble spots across Africa since the 1960s have become part of the continent's folklore.
These days Private Military Companies, as the guns for hire groups prefer to be known, can be found operating out of countries around the world, recruiting former special forces soldiers and increasingly opening offices in Eastern Europe.
"The Ukrainians are the cheap hired muscle at the moment. But the quality is low," one English-based PMC operative told Reuters on condition of anonymity.
The Zimbabwe government said on Monday it had impounded a U.S.-registered Boeing 727-100 aircraft at Harare airport on Sunday which it said was carrying 64 suspected mercenaries and a cargo of military gear.
On Tuesday Equatorial Guinea, an impoverished and unstable state wedged between Nigeria and Cameroon, said it had arrested 15 mercenaries and linked them to the Zimbabwe plane.
The plane's operators, Logo Logistics Ltd, said the group in Harare were in transit to the Democratic Republic of Congo for mine security and logistical work.
Its spokesman Charles Burrows told Reuters most of the group were South Africans and had military experience.
"We're prone to use people with some military training to work in difficult places because they cope better and they know what they are doing," Burrows said.
SOUTH AFRICA REACTS
Even before the nationalities of the passengers on the plane was made public, South Africa said it had unconfirmed reports that they included its own nationals.
"Should the allegations that those South Africans on board are involved in mercenary activities prove true, this would amount to a serious breach of the Foreign Military Assistance Act," Deputy Foreign Minister Aziz Pahad said in a statement.
South Africa has passed a number of laws to stem the flow of mercenaries overseas, and last year prosecuted the first defendant -- a French-born naturalised South African -- for recruiting other mercenaries in the country.
Intelligence and security sources in Johannesburg say well over 1,000 armed South African former military personnel are currently employed in all manner of security duties in Iraq, some working for the United Nations. High pay, which contrasts with South Africa's own low pay levels for police and security work, is part of the attraction.
Arms expert Garth Shelton at Johannesburg's Witwatersrand University said it was hardly surprising that South Africa was awash with hired guns after years of active military involvement in Angola and Namibia.
"Their only skills are military. They are not computer operators, so they are looking for jobs where they can use their military skills," Shelton told Reuters.
Shelton said he had been approached by owners of South African "security" companies seeking work for their men abroad.
"One told me he had quite a number of people who were well trained, former South African Defence Forces (personnel) and he was looking to send them anywhere in the world," he said.
"He could provide them at short notice and he asked me if I knew any country in need of such people."
Security consultant Herman van der Linde said people were too focused on South Africa's image as a mercenary exporter.
"The government is saying they don't want these guys in the military anymore. They are working as security guards everywhere and everybody is screaming 'mercenary"," said van der Linde of Pretoria-based private think-tank Executive Research Associates.
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