Lean year for mercenaries
Anthony Mockler
The outlook for mercenaries is not good. 1976, which started off with great hopes, turned out to be a very bad year indeed; and nine mercenaries, seven of them British, are still confined in fairly ghastly conditions in Sao Paolo prison in Luanda. Acker, McIntyre and Nammock will be out in 1991 if all goes well; Lawlor, Evans and Fortuin in 1999; but Grillo, Marchant.and Wiseman not till well on into the next century.
This year began with something of a splash. 'Mercenaries in the pay of international imperialism' landed on the night of 15 January at Cotonou airport in Benin (formerly Dahomey) in an attempt to overthrow President Kerekou; they failed, and took off again the smile evening, leaving two dead behind and one (black) prisoner. A three-man UN enquiry team reported in March that the mercenaries — roughly 100 strong — had been recruited in Paris, Dakar and Abidjan, flown to Morocco, trained at Benguir near Marrakesh, and then flown to Gabon from where the operation was launched by an expatriate Frenchman.
The next big event was, probably, an allblack affair: the invasion of what used to be Katanga by 2,000 men on 8 March — 'Mercenaries from Angola', proclaimed Mobutu Sese Seko, led by other mercenaries coming from across the Atlantic.'
Ten days after the invasion of Katanga came the assassination of President Marien Ngouabi of the Congo-Brazzaville — the only black African president to be assas-: sinated last year—followed within the week by the murder of Cardinal Biayenda and the execution of the former President, Alphonse Massemba-Dembat. Only Field Marshal Amin attributed this to mercenaries. Later in the year, however, there does seem to have been a definite plot to have President Eyadema of Togo assassinated by a small group of British mercenaries, called off when the Foreign Office revealed all before it had happened — very much a Frederick Forsyth-inspired operation, had it come off.
And that was just about that, for 1977. A lean year. One failed coup, one failed invasion, one failed plot. Meanwhile, however, and more importantly, the signatories to the Geneva Convention were hammering out their new Protocol No I and adopting, by consensus, the Article on mercenaries. 'A mercenary', this states categorically 'is not entitled to the status of combatant or prisoner of war.'
As a legal principle this should be given the widest possible publicity — if only to prevent future Callans from embarking without a thought on disastrous adventures. For what was so appalling at the Luanda trial was the general lack of any principle at all to define the alleged crime of ‘mercenarismo'. None of Callan's men appeared to have had the slightest notion of what they might be letting themselves in for, and rather pathetically supposed they were 'just doing the job for which we've been trained, sir.' This is why the Geneva rule and the definition of mercenary that accompanied it should be generally known.
Admittedly this severity was modified by three points. First, under Article 65, a mercenary would be entitled to the minimum of humanitarian treatment accorded to all those not enjoying more favourable conditions; secondly, advisers, secret agents and volunteers were not to be classified as mercenaries; and thirdly, it applied only to international conflicts and not to civil wars. As, however, mercenaries throughout history, from Xenophon in Persia onwards to the Congo, Nigeria, the Yemen and Angola — have fought almost exclusively in civil wars, this rather makes nonsense of the whole Article.
But how did the participants define (thorniest of problems) a mercenary? Any person 'specially recruited inside the country or abroad to fight in an armed conflict', taking part 'effectively and directly in hostilities' and 'essentially in order to obtain a personal advantage'; being neither a national of a party to the conflict nor a resident in territory controlled by such a party; and 'not being a member of the armed forces of a party to the conflict or of a state and sent by this state.'
This is obviously an extremely careful definition; it rules out Cubans under the last clause, it would have ruled out Schramme and other Belgians in the Congo as residents; it would have ruled out several of the Angolese mercenaries who never took any direct part in hostilities — let alone an effective one.
The Protocol was adopted on 10 June. A fortnight later President Bongo opened the 29th Meeting of the Council of OAU Ministers which produced a snappier definition, though clearly based on Geneva. A mercenary is 'any person who is specially recruited either within a country or outside to fight in an armed conflict or who in fact takes part in hostilities for personal profit promised by one of the parties to the con flict and who is neither a national of the countries involved in the hostilities nor a resident in territory controlled by one of the parties.' So much for British 'contract officers' in Oman and the Gulf; so much, come to that, for the Gurkhas in Hong Kong — though fortunhtely for them in neither case are they likely to come within the purview of the OAU.
However, at the next African trial of mercenaries — wherever and whenever that may be — there are going to be interesting legal arguments over the two conflicting definitions. But at least there is now, what there was not at Luanda in June 1976, an agreed definition by Africans or mercenaries in Africa. And this will be of literally vital interest to many. For instance it will be no use pleading, as Fortuin said, 'I was recruited as a personal bodyguard, I didn't come to Angola to fight', if in fact he did fire a shot. It would be no use claiming, as Nammock did, that so far from making a profit he was never paid — for the pay was promised. And, it would seem, it would be no use a captured Cuban claiming he was a regular soldier — unless indeed the implication of the phrase 'specially recruited' is to protect this sort of foreign expeditionary force.
What of the three groups this year? The first, the airborne attackers of Benin, could certainly be tried as mercenaries, both black and white; the third, the would-be killers of Eyadema, too — for even though they took no part in hostilities,. they were specially recruited to do so. What of the second? The Katangese would claim they were nationals of the Congo, though no longer residents; Mobutu no doubt would counter that the had forfeited their nationality.
Enormous confusion has always been caused by this whole question of the defin ition of a mercenary. It has possibly beer clarified a little in 1977, at least for practica purposes. It is certainly useful for any wht.
might be considering becoming 'mei, cenaries in Africa to reflect on how ver+ all-embracing the OAU definition now is and no doubt in practice the OAU one is t one to watch. No longer will Mr Rowland be able to claim with as much conviction a he did on 12 July, 1976: 'we do not accer that it has been established that being mercenary is a crime having a basis in intei national law.'
Previous page
