| Regulation of Foreign Military Assistance Act, 1998 | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Parliament of South Africa | |
| |
| Citation | Act No. 15 of 1998 |
| Enacted by | Parliament of South Africa |
| Assented to | 20 May 1998 |
| Commenced | 18 September 1998 |
| Status: In force | |
The Regulation of Foreign Military Assistance Act, 1998 (FMAA) [1] is an act of the Parliament of South Africa which prohibits mercenary activities both within South Africa and abroad, and prohibits citizens and residents from lending unauthorized foreign military assistance. [2]
The history of mercenaries in Africa is ancient, but they rose to new levels of activity, power, and scrutiny during the periods of decolonization and the Cold War with the rise of the private military company (PMC). [3]
The nascent post-colonial governments of the region were often abysmally short on resources, manpower, and equipment, allowing PMCs to even act as kingmakers-for-hire for distant, resource-interested corporations and competing superpowers, threatening stability across the entire continent. Poverty, widespread in the region, enticed many men of working age to join these stateless, for-profit paramilitaries. [3]
In 1992, one such company, the South Africa-based Executive Outcomes (EO), drew international attention for its involvement in the Angolan Civil War, in which it had begun the conflict supporting the rebel anti-communist group National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) against the Marxist–Leninist People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) government based in Luanda, before accepting a contract with Ranger Oil to protect its facilities from UNITA. EO then accepted a contract from the MPLA to help it fight, eventually victoriously, against UNITA, which would help cement this reputation of itself and other PMCs as dangerous to the stability of the region. [3] EO and its subsidiaries such as London-based Sandline International would operate across the entire continent, even conducting operations as far away as to participate in the Bougainville conflict in Papua New Guinea. [3]
The destabilizing nature of these PMCs along with their sometimes horrifying conduct [4] caused international, though not unanimous, condemnation. Various national and international groups made attempts to ban or at least restrict their activities. The Angolan government tried and imprisoned or executed several mercenaries in 1976, but found no applicable international law with which to condemn their actions. [5] The United Nations enacted Article 47 of the 1977 Additional Protocols I of the Geneva Conventions, denying mercenaries fitting its definition the legal status of combatants and prisoners of war, [6] and the 1989 International Convention against the Recruitment, Use, Financing and Training of Mercenaries, [7] which attempted to ban mercenaries outright, but several important countries including every permanent member of the UN Security Council did not ratify it. [8] The Organisation of African Unity (OAU)’s Convention for the Elimination of Mercenarism in Africa also attempted to ban use of and employment as mercenaries, [9] but even as of 2006, only had 11 signatories. [3]
The government of South Africa was among the organizations making active effort to curb the spread of PMCs across Africa through legislation such as the 1998 Act. [10]
The FMAA criminalizes financing, engaging in, or recruiting, training or employing people for mercenary activity, in South Africa or abroad, [11] punishable by fine, imprisonment, or both. [2]
The FMAA criminalizes offering military or military-adjacent services, including advice, training, recruitment, medical services, procurement or equipment, or armed security in conflict areas, or conduct or attempt any coup, [12] to any entity or person without specific and likely conditional authorization from the National Conventional Arms Control Committee, or to fail to comply with conditions set by the NCACC, [11] punishable by fine, imprisonment, or both. [2]
The FMAA has been criticized as being unenforceable due to being too broad in its definitions of what constitutes military and security work. [13]
As a direct result of the FMAA's enactment, Executive Outcomes ceased all direct activity in Angola and elsewhere on December 31, 1998, and many of its former contracts are now held by local companies such as Teleservice, some of whose personnel now receive training by ex-SADF EO personnel in South Africa. [14]
Other mercenaries and mercenary groups reportedly dodge, subvert, or flaunt the law as well. South Africa-based Meteoric Tactical Solutions, and South African-UK company Erinys International have both reportedly carried out operations prohibited by the Act such as security and military training without NCACC approval, without consequence. [10] South Africans continue to serve in the Israeli Defense Force, the Nigerian Armed Forces, and other PMCs worldwide, thus far without being effectively prosecuted. [12] New South African PMCs have even been founded since the passing of the bill, such as Erinys South Africa in 2002, [15] STTEP International in 2006, [16] and Dyck Advisory Group in 2012. [17] South Africans continue to be employed in other PMCs worldwide. [18]
In Cape Town in 2005, Mark Thatcher pled guilty of violating the FMAA during the 2004 Equatorial Guinea coup attempt and was sentenced to a fine of $506,000 and suspended prison sentence. [19]
The FMAA is set to be repealed by the even stricter Prohibition of Mercenary Activities and Regulations of Certain Activities in Country of Armed Conflict Act, 2006, which was assented in 2007 [20] but not yet put into effect as of March 2024. [12]
A mercenary, also called a merc, soldier of fortune, or hired gun, is a private individual who joins an armed conflict for personal profit, is otherwise an outsider to the conflict, and is not a member of any other official military. Mercenaries fight for money or other forms of payment rather than for political interests.
The National Union for the Total Independence of Angola is the second-largest political party in Angola. Founded in 1966, UNITA fought alongside the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) and the National Liberation Front of Angola (FNLA) in the Angolan War for Independence (1961–1975) and then against the MPLA in the ensuing civil war (1975–2002). The war was one of the most prominent Cold War proxy wars, with UNITA receiving military aid initially from the People's Republic of China from 1966 until October 1975 and later from the United States and apartheid South Africa while the MPLA received support from the Soviet Union and its allies, especially Cuba.
A private military company (PMC) or private military and security company (PMSC) is a private company providing armed combat or security services for financial gain. PMCs refer to their personnel as "security contractors" or "private military contractors".
Executive Outcomes is a private military company (PMC) founded in South Africa in 1989 by Eeben Barlow, a former lieutenant-colonel of the South African Defence Force. It later became part of the South African-based holding company Strategic Resource Corporation. The company was reestablished in 2020.
The National Front for the Liberation of Angola is a political party and former militant organisation that fought for Angolan independence from Portugal in the war of independence, under the leadership of Holden Roberto.
The Angolan War of Independence, known as the Armed Struggle of National Liberation in Angola, was a war of independence fought between the Angolan nationalist forces of the MPLA, UNITA and FNLA, and Portugal. It began as an uprising by Angolans against the Portuguese imposition of forced cultivation of only cotton as a commodity crop. As the resistance spread against colonial authorities, multiple factions developed that struggled for control of Portugal's overseas province of Angola. There were three nationalist movements and also a separatist movement.
The Luanda Trial was a trial held in Luanda, Angola, in June 1976 during the Angolan Civil War. Thirteen Western mercenaries were sentenced to either long prison terms or execution by firing squad.
The Angolan Civil War was a civil war in Angola, beginning in 1975 and continuing, with interludes, until 2002. The war began immediately after Angola became independent from Portugal in November 1975. It was a power struggle between two former anti-colonial guerrilla movements, the communist People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) and the anti-communist National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA).
The South African Border War, also known as the Namibian War of Independence, and sometimes denoted in South Africa as the Angolan Bush War, was a largely asymmetric conflict that occurred in Namibia, Zambia, and Angola from 26 August 1966 to 21 March 1990. It was fought between the South African Defence Force (SADF) and the People's Liberation Army of Namibia (PLAN), an armed wing of the South West African People's Organisation (SWAPO). The South African Border War was closely intertwined with the Angolan Civil War.
Operation Savannah was the South African code name for their military incursion into Angola in 1975–1976. It was part of the South African Border War and arose due to the Angolan War of Independence. The operation also materially influenced the subsequent Angolan Civil War. South African forces invaded deep into Angola with the objective of driving the MPLA, Soviet and Cuban forces out of southern Angola so as to strengthen the position of UNITA, the main opponent of the MPLA and an ally of South Africa.
Lt-Col. Eeben Barlow is a veteran of the South African Defence Force and was the second-in-command of its elite special forces 32 Battalion Reconnaissance Wing. He later served in Military Intelligence as an agent handler and later as an operative and region commander in the ultra-secret Civil Cooperation Bureau (CCB), a covert division of Special Forces. He founded the private military contractor (PMC) Executive Outcomes (EO) in 1989, and was involved in providing counter-insurgency as well as peacekeeping forces in Africa and Asia. Barlow resigned from Executive Outcomes in July 1997 and the company closed its doors on 31 December 1998. Barlow is the former chairman of STTEP, but also lectures on military matters at defence colleges and universities. Some consider Eeben Barlow the grandfather of modern private military companies as the founder of Executive Outcomes. Shannon Sedgwick Davis stated in her book about an alliance to stop the atrocities of the Joseph Kony of the Lord's Resistance Army, "Eeben Barlow and the trainers, your sweat and sacrifice translated to lives saved, thank you."
Angola and the United States have maintained cordial diplomatic relations since 1993. Before then, antagonism between the countries hinged on Cold War geopolitics, which led the U.S. to support anti-government rebels during the protracted Angolan Civil War.
The Alvor Agreement, signed on 15 January 1975 in Alvor, Portugal, granted Angola independence from Portugal on 11 November and formally ended the 13-year-long Angolan War of Independence.
The Lusaka Protocol, initialed in Lusaka, Zambia on 31 October 1994, attempted to end the Angolan Civil War by integrating and disarming UNITA and starting national reconciliation. Both sides signed a truce as part of the protocol on 15 November 1994, and the treaty was signed on 20 November 1994.
Relations between Angola and South Africa in the post-apartheid era are quite strong as the ruling parties in both states, the African National Congress in South Africa and the MPLA in Angola, fought together during the Angolan Civil War and South African Border War. They fought against UNITA rebels, based in Angola, and the apartheid-era government in South Africa which supported them. Nelson Mandela mediated between the MPLA and UNITA during the final years of the Angolan Civil War. Although South Africa was preponderant in terms of relative capabilities during the late twentieth century, the recent growth of Angola has led to a more balanced relation.
The Cuban intervention in Angola began on 5 November 1975, when Cuba sent combat troops in support of the communist-aligned People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) against the pro-western National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) and National Liberation Front of Angola (FNLA). The intervention came after the outbreak of the Angolan Civil War, which occurred after the former Portuguese colony was granted independence after the Angolan War of Independence. The civil war quickly became a proxy war between the Eastern Bloc led by the Soviet Union and the Western Bloc led by the United States. South Africa and the United States backed UNITA and the FNLA, while communist nations backed the MPLA.
In the 1990s in Angola, the last decade of the Angolan Civil War (1975–2002), the Angolan government transitioned from a nominally communist state to a nominally democratic one, a move made possible by political changes abroad and military victories at home. Namibia's declaration of independence, internationally recognized on April 1, eliminated the southwestern front of combat as South African forces withdrew to the east. The MPLA abolished the one-party system in June and rejected Marxist-Leninism at the MPLA's third Congress in December, formally changing the party's name from the MPLA-PT to the MPLA. The National Assembly passed law 12/91 in May 1991, coinciding with the withdrawal of the last Cuban troops, defining Angola as a "democratic state based on the rule of law" with a multi-party system.
This article deals with the activities of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in Angola. The list of activities may be incomplete due to the clandestine nature of the subject matter.
The Halloween Massacre was a purge of UNITA party members and supporters carried out by Angola's ruling MPLA from October 30 to November 1, 1992, in Luanda, Angola. The unrest occurred as a result of the breakdown of the Bicesse Accords, on account of alleged voter fraud in the 1992 Angolan general elections, resulting in renewed military tensions, assassinations of public figures, and acts of terrorism. Thousands of UNITA supporters are estimated to have been murdered.
Mercenaries have played a vital role in the modern history of Africa from the independent movements of the 1960s up until the 2020s. Broadly the mercenary actions can be broken into two types of related actors, which can then be examined regionally. Mercenaries have been used to both influence conflicts in order to support or attack governments friendly to various foreign governments, notably the United States, Russia, France, the United Kingdom, Belgium, and many other foreign actors. This is mainly done to maintain spheres of influence, and create friendly governments. This was most prevalent during the Cold War era, but continues to this day, notably with the Russian Wagner Group. The second group of actions are mercenaries working on behalf of large multinational corporations, helping to secure resource extraction areas. Oftentimes the support of mercenary groups to keep a leader or government in power comes at a large cost, that the government is unable to pay, who then offers the mercenary company or Private Military Company (PMC) rights to resource extraction areas such as diamond mines, oil fields or other valuable natural resource to pay for the services of the mercenary company. This has notably happened in Sierra Leone. Legislation has been adopted by the OAU as well as the IRCC, and various African governments to attempt to regulate or ban the use and creation of mercenary companies. This legislation has been mostly unsuccessful largely because world powers such as the United States and Russia continue to condone the use of mercenaries as a tool of state craft. Many modern scholars consider the use of mercenaries in Africa to be a form of neocolonialism.