Text:
http://www.mg.co.za/mg/news/98aug2/28aug-congo.html
South African
mercenaries in
Congo
A wide array of South African private
military companies are involved on both
sides of the Congo fracas -- including
Executive Outcomes. KHAREEN PECH,
WILLIAM BOOT and ANN EVELETH report
OUTH AFRICAN mercenaries and
private military companies swooped
into strife-torn Central Africa this
week to clinch deals and sharpen the
Angolan-led military front in support of the
embattled Congolese leader, Laurent Kabila.
A Mail & Guardian investigation has
revealed that, contrary to government
statements last week denying the involvement of South Africans in the Democratic
Republic of Congo's troubles, a wide array of South African-based,
military-related companies are playing a strategic role on both sides in the
unfolding crisis that could plunge Africa into intra-continental warfare.
Rico Visser, intelligence officer for the Pretoria-based military firm Executive Outcomes (EO), told a small group of journalists last weekend that EO is involved in an operation to restore electricity to Kinshasa, which is powered from the Inga Dam, south-west of the capital. After the port of Matadi on the Congo river, Inga Dam is one of the most strategic points on the western front of the month-old war in the Congo. It is held by Rwandan-backed rebel forces who seized it two weeks ago and is central to their strategy to reclaim Kinshasa and topple Kabila. Operations launched by an EO-led military force are likely to oust the rebels from Inga Dam, and significantly reduce their military chances of winning the war.
Visser has subsequently refuted EO's involvement in the region. Yet last Saturday Visser had placed reporters on standby for a free trip from Lanseria airport to Kinshasa in order to promote EO's role in restoring power to Kinshasa and also to facilitate positive press coverage for Kabila. They claimed to have secured a contract with Kabila and promised to fly the reporters back since EO has regular flights between Johannesburg and Kinshasa.
An SABC crew waited at Lanseria airport for several hours before the flight was rescheduled for Monday or Tuesday. After SABC television news reported the story on Monday, EO angrily called off the free flight, an SABC source said.
Despite Visser's denials, the M&G has learned from reliable sources close to the military group that EO principals have been in contact with Kabila for more than a year and recently negotiated a contract with Kabila's ministers in Kinshasa to supply special VIP protection, sophisticated electronic surveillance services and air combat support.
These same sources say that the planned flight was cancelled after EO failed to receive advance payment from Kinshasa and as a result the contract has not yet been concluded. EO's involvement with Kabila is closely linked to the recent deployment of Angolan armed forces in the south-west of Congo. According to these and other sources operating in Angola, EO-affiliated commanders have maintained contracts for special support services with the Angolan government. These have included the supply of aircraft as well as fighter jet and helicopter pilots for offensive aerial reconnaissance operations against Unita's embargo -breaking suppliers; offensive intelligence operations and strategic planning. These contracts are run by both London-based principals and Lafras Luitingh, EO's former operations manager, who officially resigned from the group in 1997 but who is still a consultant and de facto operational manager.
A second consortium of affiliated air, cargo, transport and military companies
that operates out of smart offices in Rosebank and several premises in Namibia
has also secured contracts to supply Kabila's forces with non-lethal support, a
senior member of the group said. The consortium has access to strategic airports
in the Caprivi strip, northern Mozambique, Zambia, Angola and Malawi. Their
operations are focused around lines of support to capital cities and key
military bases in the Congo and its neighbouring states.
And this week scores of South Africans arrived with more than 100 white, French
-speaking troops in Kabila's home stronghold of Lubumbashi,
eyewitnesses said. Their corporate identity is not yet known but they were
reportedly hired to defend strategic points outskirting the southern mining
capital before an expected rebel attack, security sources say.
Kabila visited South Africa three weeks
ago and conducted several military
recruitment and fund-raising meetings
with clients in Gauteng, according to
sources linked to these transport and
military companies. He is said to have
received about $50-million from a
consortium of funders that include
South African and Namibian-based
businesspeople as well as the Namibian
government.
M&G reporters have discovered that
the involvement of South Africans in the
region is not confined only to Kabila's
side. South African-based private
military and intelligence companies are
also assisting Kabila's challengers —
the rival, Tutsi-led power bloc that is
chiefly comprised of rebel Congolese as
well as Rwandan and Ugandan forces.
A Johannesburg-based corporate
intelligence company staffed by former
military intelligence officers recently
assisted Ugandan defence ministers to
procure several South African
armoured personnel carriers from local
arms manufacturer Reumech.
This transaction was brokered by
former South African Defence Force
(SADF) officers who have developed links with Kampala in recent months and who
are connected to a cast of South African right-wingers.
Key among these is wealthy businessman and farmer Johan Niemöller, who was recently linked to the South African National Defence Force arms thefts at 44 Parachute Battalion in the Free State. Niemöller made a fortune through the retail of special-forces fabrics and other equipment to the SADF in the 1980s and at the same time developed close military links with Unita, which he still maintains. Niemoller is also a former member of the Civil Co-operation Bureau (CCB) and has been linked to the murder of Anton Lubowski in Windhoek in 1985. Despite being implicated in several sinister plots, Niemöller still runs military supply lines into Africa, security sources said.
Early last year Niemöller began recruiting former SADF soldiers to back Unita forces and troops commanded by former Zairean military leaders who settled in South Africa after fleeing the Congo ahead of Kabila's march into Kinshasa in May 1997. At the time, he consulted a Gauteng-based security expert for strategic advice on ways to plot a sequence of military revolts that would rage through Angola and central Africa. His plan was to "kick the communists out of Africa and put the white man back in power", the security consultant told the M&G.
Recently Niemöller clinched a part of his plan and extended his military influence in the region when he struck a deal with the Mobutuists to establish arms caches in neighbouring territories and received large sums of money from a former Zairean general to recruit hired forces and purchase weapons.
A common factor in many of the military deals shaping the forces in the Central African war is the role of a handful of Mobutu Sese Seko's closest military associates. Former Zairean security police chief General Kpama Baramoto, former special forces commander General Ngbale Nzimbi and former minister of defence Admiral Mudima Mavua topped the list of Kabila's "most-wanted military and civilian suspects" who fled to South Africa as Kinshasa fell last year. These and other members of Mobutu's inner circle have been plotting to oust Kabila from the Congo since the early days of his own rebellion.
Baramoto is one of the richest and most powerful members of this exiled military clique. He led efforts to organise a last-ditch reversal of Kabila's eight-month revolution in January 1997. The plot to retake the former Zaire with the help of 500 heavily armed South African mercenaries involved security firm Stabilco, former EO operative Mauritz le Roux and a handful of former CCB operatives.
The plot fell apart over internal rivalry among the Mobutuists who had failed to
clearly negotiate the rescue contract.
But Baramoto did not give up. He revived the plot from the comfort of his luxury homes in Sandton, where he set up house with his five wives and numerous children. Eyewitnesses to Baramoto's dramatic May 1997 entrance into South Africa say he arrived with suitcases containing more than $100-million and an unknown amount of precious gems. Although the generals pleaded poverty to Minister of Home Affairs Mangosuthu Buthelezi and later to the court, Baramoto's home was subsequently robbed of at least $2-million.
Arrested in December 1997 by South African authorities — on their return from an
illicit flight to the Congolese town of Kahemba — Baramoto, Nzimbi and Mavua
emerged as the military ringleaders of an international network of Mobutuists
bent on
regaining power. The three men admitted in court papers that they had "entered
the
Congo secretly to attend a meeting to consider whether or not to lend their
support
to armed resistance to the Kabila regime". They claimed, however, to have
decided
against joining the rebellion. But documents confiscated from one of Baramoto's
houses
suggested otherwise.
According to Buthelezi's affidavit to the court, these included "quotations for
arms
and ammunition, as well as military personnel ... classified government
documents [and]
South African identity documents" with the generals' photos issued under bogus
names.
Explaining his opposition to the Mobutuist's appeal for political asylum in
South Africa, Buthelezi said the generals were "involved in activities which
sought to destabilise the Congo in particular as well as the Southern African
region in general ... had dealings with persons who have been accused of
mercenary activities in other countries [including] elements of the old [pre
-1994] military intelligence".
Intelligence sources told the M&G at the time that investigations had revealed the generals had travelled out of the country often to, among other places, Unita's Angolan strongholds and Belgium.
Other sources said the destination of the trip that led to their arrest was not Kahemba, but Unita's Andulo base — and that the plotters they met were in fact senior Unita officials. Baramoto also met Savimbi during his residence in South Africa, and sources say this produced a joint military training venture between Unita, Hutu militias holed up in Unita strongholds, ex-Zairean Armed Forces soldiers and other Zairean troops. This natural alliance between groups disadvantaged by Mobutu's downfall grew to include other recent losers from Congo-Brazzaville.
A surprise development three months ago, however, saw a sudden reshaping of these predictable groupings in favour of a new opportunism, as sections of the Mobutuists began to co-ordinate their rebellion-plotting meetings with a Rwandan -Banyamulenge (Zairean Tutsis) plan to oust Kabila, whom they had swept to power just 12 months earlier.
Baramoto and his clique of Zairean generals have attended security meetings with Rwandan and Ugandan leaders and have been seen in both Kampala and Kigali in recent weeks, eyewitness sources said.
Africa Confidential has reported that both Baramoto and Nzimbi played a crucial role in the Rwandan-backed rebel capture of Kitona military base. The two generals were able to secure majority support for the Tutsi-led rebels from the former Zairean troops garrisoned there, who have remained loyal to their former commanders.
The M&G can also reveal that a consortium of former military enemies
tendered jointly three months ago for a related contract. The bidders included a
former Umkhonto weSizwe soldier, an ex-SADF general, as well as a National
Intelligence Agency operative and several Johannesburg-based businesspeople.
The prospective buyer was a wealthy Congolese import/export broker based at Johannesburg's Carlton Centre, with links to French funders and pro-Tutsi groups.
The plan on offer included the training of specialist troops, the procurement of light weapons and the supply of strategic support services to back a rebellion to be launched from the eastern provinces of Congo with the aim of finally unseating Kabila.
Alliances in Central Africa are now shifting so quickly and unpredictably that the future of the entire region is uncertain. "The situation presents a real challenge for those who want to look for a politically correct side to join in the war. There is none," said Francois Misser, an established writer on the region. -- Electronic Mail&Guardian, August 28, 1998.