The mercenary business: ‘executive outcomes’

Abstract

Executive Outcomes is an army for hire. A sophisticated force, the 'company' will not work for rebel movements but contracts with 'democratic' governments. 'Executive Outcomes is the small wave of the future in terms of defence and security, because the international community has abdicated that role' (Barlow, 1997). Rather than being seen as mercenaries, they prefer the label of 'corporate troubleshooters', a niche which incorporates a huge unmet demand for security in Africa.The soldiers of fortune who followed the wake of crisis in Africa during the sixties and seventies were bound to clandestinity; the public bragging came later. In most cases they were sourly and implacably opposed to national liberation which they saw as a communist conspiracy on behalf of an inferior race that had failed to identify its interests with those or its betters. For the mercenaries who fought in Katanga at the time of the Congo disaster, in Angola before independence, anti-communist ideology had a useful subsuming role: greed, adventurism and some brusque racial views comfortably rolled up into a defence of the free world.Executive Outcomes (EO) is a mercenary organisation which represents a new incarnation of the army for hire. The cant and truculence of its predecessors are much harder to detect, even though it was put together in the closing stages of apartheid, which most of its personnel served with dedication. Since it was founded in 1989, it has fielded a force of at least five hundred men, under a core of mostly South African white officers, against rebel groups in west and southern Africa, using light armoured vehicles, helicopters and fixed wing aircraft. Despite higher casualties than it had hoped, it has made a good showing. Above all, it has taken political and military instability in Africa to be a market issue -that of massive unmet demand for security -and positioned itself perfectly in that market. Executive Outcomes thrives on the absence of civility, consensus, law and order; its biggest operations so far have been in countries with valuable mineral resources. Its position in a complicated network of companies, registered anywhere between the Cape and the Isle of Man, makes it more than a military force, and its corporate links give it cozenage with some wellrespected figures in Britain. Its greatest friends are probably vulnerable civilians whose environment it has secured against armed conflict -displaced peasant farmers, piece-workers, impoverished miners, people who are less concerned with the idea that their nation-state may have become a job-lot than they are with physical safety, food and livelihood, all of which Executive Outcomes has reinstated for tens of thousands of non-combatants in Africa. Yet no one would disagree that it is first and last a mercenary force, however carefully repackaged.Much of the packaging work is carried out by the company's general manager, Eeben Barlow, who has overseen Executive Outcomes biggest contracts and helped it onto a

Securitization Outside the West

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Securitization Outside the West

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Building a peace economy?

“…A large percentage of the profits from war economies are laundered or filtered through financial institutions in the developed world (Power, 2001;Quirk, 1997) and some of the world's most powerful tobacco companies have also been found to have knowingly contributed to cigarette smuggling, with trade routes including conflict zones (Titeca, Joosens and Raw, 2011). External actors are also known to benefit via the involvement of international private security companies such as Executive Outcomes (Harding, 1997;Howe, 1998;O'Brien, 1998). Governments of so-called 'peaceful states' also benefit from these forms of trade, shifting allegiances as need requires (Friman and Andreas, 1999: 10;Power, 2001).…”

Peacekeeping and an ‘african high command’: plus ca change, c' est la meme chose

“…Meanwhile, in other failed states, such as Sierra Leone where civil strife had destroyed the legitimacy of the state, there emerged a 'surrogate international oppressive state apparatus' in the form of Executive Outcomes (EO). According to Jeremy Harding, this is a 'new incarnation of hire army' (Harding, 1996:1). Executive Outcomes, a company which is South African based, was founded at the sunset of apartheid in 1989.…”

Securitization Outside the West

“……”

Building a peace economy?

“…A large percentage of the profits from war economies are laundered or filtered through financial institutions in the developed world (Power, 2001;Quirk, 1997) and some of the world's most powerful tobacco companies have also been found to have knowingly contributed to cigarette smuggling, with trade routes including conflict zones (Titeca, Joosens and Raw, 2011). External actors are also known to benefit via the involvement of international private security companies such as Executive Outcomes (Harding, 1997;Howe, 1998;O'Brien, 1998). Governments of so-called 'peaceful states' also benefit from these forms of trade, shifting allegiances as need requires (Friman and Andreas, 1999: 10;Power, 2001).…”

Peacekeeping and an ‘african high command’: plus ca change, c' est la meme chose

“…Meanwhile, in other failed states, such as Sierra Leone where civil strife had destroyed the legitimacy of the state, there emerged a 'surrogate international oppressive state apparatus' in the form of Executive Outcomes (EO). According to Jeremy Harding, this is a 'new incarnation of hire army' (Harding, 1996:1). Executive Outcomes, a company which is South African based, was founded at the sunset of apartheid in 1989.…”

Securitization Outside the West

“……”

Building a peace economy?

“…A large percentage of the profits from war economies are laundered or filtered through financial institutions in the developed world (Power, 2001;Quirk, 1997) and some of the world's most powerful tobacco companies have also been found to have knowingly contributed to cigarette smuggling, with trade routes including conflict zones (Titeca, Joosens and Raw, 2011). External actors are also known to benefit via the involvement of international private security companies such as Executive Outcomes (Harding, 1997;Howe, 1998;O'Brien, 1998). Governments of so-called 'peaceful states' also benefit from these forms of trade, shifting allegiances as need requires (Friman and Andreas, 1999: 10;Power, 2001).…”

Peacekeeping and an ‘african high command’: plus ca change, c' est la meme chose

“…Meanwhile, in other failed states, such as Sierra Leone where civil strife had destroyed the legitimacy of the state, there emerged a 'surrogate international oppressive state apparatus' in the form of Executive Outcomes (EO). According to Jeremy Harding, this is a 'new incarnation of hire army' (Harding, 1996:1). Executive Outcomes, a company which is South African based, was founded at the sunset of apartheid in 1989.…”