DRC: Mercenaries will bury this lawless country

Author: Lindah Uwase

• 2023-01-19 04:56:00

A mercenary, sometimes also known as a soldier of fortune or hired gun, is, according to Wikipedia, a private individual, particularly a soldier, that joins a military conflict for personal profit. As noted, mercenaries fight for money or other forms of payment rather than for political interests. And this is where, for the most part, the problem lies.

Addressing the Financial Times meeting in London, in October 2022, Democratic Republic of Congo President Félix Tshisekedi said he would not bring in mercenaries to deal with a nagging rebellion in his country’s volatile east, but described having mercenaries as ‘fashionable’.

Two months later, social media and mainstream media were awash with photos of armed Westerners loitering around Goma airport. In attempting to cover up, Kinshasa claimed that these white armed men were from ‘private military companies’ often referred to as mercenaries.

These mercenaries are often composed of demobilised and disgruntled Western soldiers. They are not governed by any laws and they tend to appear frequently in areas that are either rich in oil or other valuable minerals. The DRC being a mineral-rich country has always been on the radar of mercenaries. They pick particular gigs for selfish reasons. All they do is plunder natural resources and leave countries more wreaked than before. That is why there is no record, globally, of any situation that has ever been fixed by mercenaries

It is not the first time Kinshasa is working with mercenaries.

 In late 2015, then President Joseph Kabila hired cyber mercenaries, Black Cube, to gather intelligence of Kabila’s enemies. The deal with Black Cube stood at around $20 million.

The mercenaries now present in Goma arrived under the guise of training Congolese soldiers. However, they are more engaged in fighting the M23 rebels. They fly Congolese fighter jets which have violated Rwanda’s airspace on two different occasions. The latest of those mercenaries is the 100-man personnel from Russia’s Wagner Group - the group’s mission in Mozambique was a disaster – and 103 ex-French Legionnaires flown into DRC from Bucharest, Romania. They landed in Goma.

According to media reports, Wagner, a private military company, has been accused of human rights violations in Mali and Central African Republic.

The ex-French Legionnaires, according to Africa Intelligence, are under the command of Romanian war entrepreneur Horatiu Potra, a former French Foreign Legionnaire who now works in private military services.

Potra made a name for himself in Chad and the Central African Republic, where he trained the presidential guard of Ange-Félix Patassé for a time before being suspected of collaborating with rebel leaders.

Bulgaria based mercenary group, Agemira, is reported to be operating in DRC. At its helm is Frenchman Olivier Bazin, alias "Colonel Mario", a businessman, active in Franco-African circles for some 30 years, and a broker in military equipment.

Accredited by the DRC Defence Ministry, Bazin’s company deployed around 40 personnel guising as technicians to Goma. Most of them have served in the Soviet army.

Other groups that have previously operated in DRC, since the 1960s, include the first known mercenary group in DRC called ‘5 Commando’, active from 1964 to 1967. The mercenaries were led by three men – Mike Hoare, John Peters and later Georg Schroeder, at different occasions. Hoare is one of the richest mercenaries that ever existed. Forbes and Business Insider estimated his net worth to be $5 million.

The ‘5 Commando’ were known for unsanctioned killing, torture, looting and rapes in recaptured rebel areas. In a press interview, Hoare himself described his men as “appalling thugs.” Some South African members of the unit were later convicted of manslaughter by Congolese courts.

The DRC has had its own dose of mercenaries and it’s been sour. In his attempt to fight the M23 rebels and cover up his failures, Tshisekedi decided to revise the old script and re-activate the mercenaries. 

But there is a problem; a very big problem. These mercenaries are accountable to no one in the dysfunctional government in Kinshasa. They are operating outside Congolese law.

Worse still, they value profits more than peace – as they have an economic interest in prolonging conflict rather than reducing it.

Without any doubt, eastern DRC's chance for peace and stability will be undermined by the mercenaries flooding the country. The latter are a recipe for disaster.