South Africa's ageing white mercenaries who helped turn tide on Boko Haram
Battle-hardened soldiers, many of them paramilitary leftovers of the apartheid regime, have pursued private wars simply to put bread on the table
Leon Lotz was once a member of the Koevoet – “crowbar” in Afrikaans – a paramilitary police unit created by South Africa’s apartheid regime to root out guerrillas in what is now Namibia. Thirty years later, something persuaded him to take up arms again in a foreign country. He was killed in March, apparently by friendly fire from a tank in northern Nigeria. Among the most striking facts about Lotz was his age: 59.
A wealth of media reports, witness accounts and photos on social media suggest that he is not the only white mercenary who helped turn the tide against the Islamist militant group Boko Haram in recent weeks, allowing Nigeria to hold a relatively peaceful election. Whether as technical advisers or frontline combatants, some are said to have come from the former Soviet Union but about 300 are reportedly from South Africa and nearing retirement age.
Who are the members of this dad’s army, willing to risk death abroad and prosecution at home to fight someone else’s war? What is their motivation? And are they welcomed by those they are ostensibly helping?
South Africa has a chequered history of exporting soldiers of fortune. Most belong to a generation of soldiers who felt cast aside when the Berlin Wall fell, Nelson Mandela was released and South Africa’s military needs were drastically reduced. Robbed of the only role they were trained for and unable to find alternative work, they felt alienated under a black government and pursued private wars to put bread on the table.
“Very often it’s a money issue – they haven’t done well and they need to make some,” said Jakkie Cilliers, executive director of the Institute for Security Studies in the capital, Pretoria. “It’s not ideological and it’s not the gung-ho image one has from the film Blood Diamond. This is the only skill these guys have. Most of them are in their late 50s or early 60s and trying to make a late bit of income before they’re past it. In five years’ time it won’t be an issue.”
Cilliers recently took part in an Afrikaans radio programme during which three or four mercenaries phoned in. “They said things like: ‘I’m trying to help my kids. My lifestyle is quite crappy. I’m trying to put the grandkids through school.’”
Over the past two decades such private military contractors (to use the respectable term) have gone into battle in Angola, Sierra Leone, Iraq and Afghanistan, and been linked to a failed plot to smuggle Muammar Gaddafi out of Libya.
According to those who have hired or worked alongside them, they are highly professional, skilled and battle-hardened by the South African border wars, in which they often fought alongside black comrades. The popular image of mercenaries as hard-drinking, womanising buccaneers is half a century out of date although, having grown up under white minority rule, they carry some of its baggage.
One source, who did not wish to be named, said: “Are the guys in Nigeria likely to be racist? Yes, they came from the apartheid era and no one has pressed the delete key. But they are very professional guys who get the job done.”
They are mercenaries. The point is they have no business to be there
Several hundred South African mercenaries are still active, according to one estimate, despite the threat of criminal prosecution back home. Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula, the defence minister, has said any deployment to Nigeria would be illegal under laws passed in 1998 and toughened in 2006. “They are mercenaries, whether they are training, skilling the Nigerian defence force, or scouting for them,” she was quoted as saying. “The point is they have no business to be there.”
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