Bush Administration Hires South African Mercenaries to serve in Iraq

How about killer robots? I think that would be cool.

 

Not soldiers...militay advisors.

 

And I thought America doesn't tolerate evil-doers?
unless you don't feel that apartheid was evil

 

On a side note, I assume you know a thing or two about apartheid soldiers, right?

 

There are "advantages" to hiring non-military to do jobs. For instance they can set up whole child sex-slave rings in Bosnia, get caught, and have nobody ever get arrested, because they are outside the relm of military justice and protected from the local governments. I'm sure international individuals are even better. You could have them out doing anything you want, seperate from the regular US soldiers, and the story wouldn't get out back in the US as it did with Dynacorp.

 

Hmmmm. Wonder where these folks were headed?
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Zimbabwe seizes US plane with 64 'mercenaries'

HARARE : Zimbabwean security authorities have impounded a US-registered aircraft that landed at the country's main international airport with military equipment and 64 men aboard suspected to be mercenaries, Home Affairs Minister Kembo Mohadi revealed.

"A United States of America-registered Boeing 727-100 cargo plane was detained last (Sunday) night at about 1930 hours (1730 GMT) at Harare International Airport after its owners had made a false declaration of its cargo and crew," the minister told a news conference.

"The plane was actually carrying 64 suspected mercenaries of various nationalities," he said Monday.

"Further investigations also revealed that on board the plane was military material."

Mohadi said full details would be issued in due course but that in the meantime investigations were under way to establish the "true identities of the men and their ultimate mission".

The plane had been moved to a military base, he said.

What had been done with those on board was not immediately clear.

 

Curious... via Josh Marshall...
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This has me wondering.

If you've been reading the news the last few days you may have noticed this odd and somewhat mysterious story of a US-registered cargo plane loaded with 64 "mercernaries" and various military equipment which was impounded Sunday night at Harare International Airport in Zimbabwe "after its owners had made a false declaration of its cargo and crew."

When asked about it on Monday, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said "We have no indication this aircraft is connected to the U.S. government."

That seemed like a rather less than unequivocal response. And behind the scenes US government officials said they didn't believe the US government had any connection with this operation. But they wanted to make sure before saying anything definitive.

Now, if you look at the press accounts, what's caught people's attention is the US registry of the plane. Specifically, it's registered to a company called Dodson Aviation, which is based in Kansas.

Now, Dodson says they sold the plane to a "reputable" firm in South Africa about a week ago. "I think they were going to use it for charter flights," company director Robert Dodson told the Associated Press.

Now here's a little more detail.

Dodson Aviation of Kansas has a South African subsidiary, Dodson International Parts SA Ltd (According to their website, "Dodson International Parts SA (Pty) Ltd is the African division of United States based companies Dodson International Parts Inc. and Dodson Aviation. The company was established in 1998 and is based at Wonderboom Airport, Pretoria.") And it was from this subsidiary's hangar at an airport just north of Pretoria that the aforementioned mercenaries boarded the plane.

Now, here's where this gets a little murky.

I wanted to find out more about Dodson International Parts SA Ltd. What I found something out about was a company that sounded very similar: a South African company called Dodson Aviation Maintenance and Spare Parts.

They're also in the airplane business.

Not exactly the same name. But remember, the South African company is the subsidiary of two American companies, Dodson Aviation and Dodson International. If these aren't the same company, or closely related companies, I'd figure they often get confused for one another.

In any case, here's what I found about Dodson Aviation Maintenance and Spare Parts.

They come up in the December 2000 Report of the Panel of Experts to the United Nations on Sierra Leone, in the section of the report dealing with the arms trade.

Here's the section that caught my eye (italics added) ...

187. Fred Rindel a retired officer of the South African Defence Force and former Defence Attaché to the United States, has played a key role in the training of a Liberian anti-terrorist unit, consisting of Liberian soldiers and groups of foreigners, including citizens of Sierra Leone, Burkina Faso, Niger and The Gambia.
188. The panel interviewed Mr Rindel extensively. Rindel was contracted as a security consultant by President Charles Taylor in September 1998, and training started in November 1998. The contract included consultancy services and strategic advice to convert Charles Taylor's former rebel militia into a professional unit. The Anti-Terrorist Unit is used in Liberia to protect government buildings, the Executive Mansion and the international airport, and to provide VIP Security and the protection of foreign embassies. The numbers trained were approximately 1200. Because of negative media attention, Rindel cancelled his contract in Liberia in August 2000.

189. In 1998, ECOMOG identified a plane, registration number N71RD, owned by a South African company, Dodson Aviation Maintenance and Spare Parts, as having carried weapons to Robertsfield in September of that year. The plane is a Gulfstream 14-seater business jet that cannot be used for arms transport, but there are other relevant connections. Fred Rindel was the owner of Dodson. The company was closed on 31 December 1998, but during the period under investigation, the plane was leased to, and operated by, Greater Holdings (Liberia) Ltd., a company with gold and diamond concessions in Liberia. The plane was used for the transport of the Greater Holdings' staff to and from Liberia.



Mr. Rindel's name came up earlier in 2000 in testimony at the UN Security Council by then-UN Ambassador Richard C. Holbrooke in a discussion of Sierra Leone (italics added) ...

In regard to arms trafficking to Sierra Leone, Mr. Chairman, we remain concerned and I would like to add a few more items to the record. The principal Africa countries involved in arms trafficking to the RUF - though they deny it - include Burkina Faso, Liberia and Libya.
In 1999, planes landed in Ouagadougou, allegedly coming from the Ukraine, with several tons of small arms and ammunition. This incident, which the Ukrainians say has stopped, is one that we believe should be brought to the attention of your committee.

In regard to trafficking, arms brokers have played a vital role in keeping the RUF supplied with weapons and other military materiel. A well-known arms and diamond dealer in Sierra Leone, Zief Morganstein, in July 1999 arranged for a Continental Aviation-based charter out of Dakar to fly a shipment of small arms from Bulgaria to Sierra Leone. Last year the RUF received 68 tons of weapons from Bulgaria, which Morganstein may have helped arrange. There have been other connections between former government officials from South Africa during its Apartheid regime who now operate as private individuals, including Fred Rindel, the South African Defense Attache in Washington, who now works as a security consultant in Liberia and trains Liberian troops and RUF insurgents. There are other charges about other businessmen who are reportedly helping the Sierra Leone government coming from various countries around the world.



Now, I've scanned the news coverage of this and I haven't seen any mention of this seeming connection. So perhaps these are two utterly unrelated companies?

As of Tuesday the situation in Zimbabwe seems to be calming down, though now there are apparently fears in Equatorial Guinea that these mercenaries were somehow intended to assist a coup in that country. (No, I can't keep up either.) "Some 15 mercenaries have been arrested here," the country's Information Minister Agustin Nse Nfumu told Reuters. "It was connected with that plane in Zimbabwe. They were the advance party of that group."

Equatorial Guinea is next door to Gabon. And Joe Wilson used to be the US Ambassador there back in the day. So maybe he can make some sense of this. I can't. But I'd be very interested to talk to the investigators who put together that UN report and see if there's any connection between Dodson International Parts SA Ltd and Dodson Aviation Maintenance and Spare Parts.

-- Josh Marshall

 

If they were hired by the US to participate in activities that are illegal in their respective countries then there is something wrong.

'Mercenary team' may face death


State TV showed soldiers sorting through equipment on the plane
Zimbabwe's government has warned that more than 60 suspected foreign mercenaries detained on Sunday could face the death penalty.
Foreign Minister Stan Mudenge told a press conference the men would have to face the "severest punishment available in our statutes".

The men - said to be Angolans, South Africans and Namibians - were detained after their plane was impounded.

It is still unclear what the men were doing and where they were heading.

Zimbabwe's Home Affairs Minister Kembo Mohadi said on Monday that as well as carrying the alleged mercenaries, the plane also contained "military material".

Mystery

The plane's operators, UK-based Logo Logistics Ltd, said the men were bound for the Democratic Republic of Congo to work as security guards on the mines.

A BBC correspondent says the Zimbabwean authorities have linked the men to a British ex-SAS soldier, the US government and a South African mercenary group.

Some reports had suggested the plane was bound for Equatorial Guinea, which has seen a security crackdown in recent days following reports of a coup attempt.

Equatorial Guinea's Information Minister Augustin Nse Nfumu said that 15 mercenaries had been arrested there, including several South Africans.

The South African foreign ministry issued a statement saying that any South Africans involved in mercenary activities would be breaking the law.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3497622.stm

 

You quoted what somebody wrote about a <b>different</b> news story several weeks ago and applied it to a currently developing news story.

Does it look <i>nifty</i> doing that to somebody?
Sure it does.

Is it honorable for you to do that?
Not from my viewpoint.

 

More from Josh...
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Okay, just what is going on in Zimbabwe?

Last night we discussed the mystery of this planeload of mercenaries taken prisoner in Harare, Zimbabwe.

Now the Zimbabwean government is getting on board with the government of Equatorial Guinea in claiming that the mercernaries were actually bound for Equatorial Guinea to assist in a coup there.

(Keep in mind the backdrop that vast oil reserves have recently been found in Equatorial Guinea.)

What's more, the Foreign Minister of Zimbabwe Stan Mudenge held a press conference today in which he claimed that one of the imprisoned conspirators had implicated the US, the UK and Spain in the plot.

As Zimbabwe's Home Affairs Minister Kembo Mohadi later explained: Simon Mann, one of the detainees, has "been cooperating and has revealed that they were aided by the British secret service (MI6), the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Spanish secret service ... The western intelligence services persuaded the Equatorial Guinea service chiefs, that is the head of the police force and the commander of the army, not to put up any resistance, but to cooperate with the coup plotters."

Now, here's the problem. There's really, really, really good reason to doubt what we're hearing.

Zimbabwe is ruled by the corrupt and autocratic Robert Mugabe, who is almost a caricature of the post-colonial African kleptocrat. Not only is there little reason to take anything his government says at face value, he also has a history of playing on the colonial past and the possible neo-colonial present to whip up support for the rotten state of affairs he has created for his country.

And there's more. You can see the whole explanation that the Zimbabwean officials gave for this coup in this article.

But here's another part that caught me eye.

In Mohadi's words ...

"The group landed in Harare expecting to pick up arms and ammunition from Zimbabwe Defence Industries," a government-owned arms manufacturer, Mohadi said, adding that the plane had been expected to leave Harare Sunday night and land in Malabo Monday morning.
"On landing the group was to be joined by co-conspirators already in Malabo [the capital of Equatorial Guinea] to stage a coup to remove President Obiang from power.

"In the event of a successful execution of a coup d'etat, it was planned that the plane would fly to the Democratic Republic of Congo where the arms and ammunition brought from Zimbabwe were to be handed over to the Katangese rebels."



Now, I'm not clear enough on the geopolitical situation of either of these countries to be sure. But this guy seems to be describing a sort of airborne coup Love Boat.

Sort of like, hey, we're gonna pick up the arms in Zimbabwe and then fly on to Equatorial Guinea where we're gonna hook up with these coup dudes to overthrow the government there. And then once we've got that under control we're going to crank up the plane again and head off to deliver these arms to the rebels in Congo (DRC).

What am I missing here? I'd figure even the nastiest mercenaries and petro-thugs settle for one toppled government a plane trip, right?

Who knows? But it just sounds a little off to me.

On the other hand there are enough suspicious signs that I don't think we dismiss this entirely.

One of the principals of the Kansas company, Dodson Aviation, that supplied the plane told a local Kansas paper yesterday: "It's unbelievable. We basically sold the airplane, and the rest of it is just what we're finding out in the news."

But, as we noted late last night, it seems that a man tied to gun-running and African rent-a-mercenaries may have been an owner of Dodson's South African subsidiary. So I'm not sure that innocent, "golly gee, we just thought we were sellin' a plane" line really cuts it.

A Pentagon spokesman got a grilling on this yesterday from reporters too. And the statement he stood on was "It isn't one of our planes and not any of our people."

I think all that says is that the plane wasn't a US military plane and that the people weren't from the US military -- which of course tells us nothing.

I think what we need here is for a few reporters who have good sources and a good handle on African gun-running and natural resource politics to dig into this story and find out what's going on.

Late Update: There's a piece up on the New York Times website, datelined tomorrow, which discusses this story. Most of the article doesn't provide more than I've seen in the foreign press and what I've found on the wires.

With this exception: The South African government seems now to be lending some credence to the coup story ...

The South African foreign affairs minister, Nkosozana Dlamini-Zuma, said her department was in no hurry to help either the 20 South Africans detained in Zimbabwe or the seven arrested in Equatorial Guinea.
She told South African reporters that "there was a link between the plane and Equatorial Guinea" and that one man arrested in Equatorial Guinea had "spilled the beans."

"They are not exactly innocent travelers finding themselves in a difficult situation," she said, adding, "We don't like the idea that South Africa has become a cesspool of mercenaries."

That lends at least some greater measure of credence to these claims. But we still need to know more.

-- Josh Marshall

 

It's amazing that 60-odd foot of grunts (thanks to Mr. R. Crowe) can fly off to topple a government and grab a fortune in this day and age. Africa is a big place. I remember reading about a 727 airliner, I think it was, being stolen in Central or West Africa (can't remember ) and just disappearing from the face of the earth. You could fit a bunch of mercs in one of those and a lot of small arms.