The World’s First Private Military Contractor
By: Fearghal Fitzgibbon
Tags: South Africa, Africa, War, Military, History

The World’s First Private Military Contractor

The South African company Executive Outcomes

EO members in Sierra Leone. Source: Pinterest.

Mercenaries have been around for centuries. In the 4th century BC, an army of Greek mercenaries fought their way home from Persia. Vikings guarded the Byzantine emperors. It is nothing new for soldiers to sell their services to the highest bidder.

Names like Academi or Wagner Group have dominated the headlines in recent years. In the popular image, they represent a new breed of mercenary, a private army that can complete missions that national forces can’t (or won’t).

Most of these modern companies would call themselves PMCs (Private Military Contractors). These PMCs today owe a lot to a South African company that operated throughout the 1990s, Executive Outcomes (EO).

Executive Outcomes was controversial from the start. Founder Eeben Barlow had been a member of the Civil Cooperation Bureau (CCB), a covert unit engaged in espionage, assassinations, and sabotage. The company also recruited ex-apartheid era military and police personnel.

Angola

EO’s first major contract was in Angola. The Angolan Civil War had been raging since the mid-70s and had broken out again in 1992 when UNITA (one of the rebel movements) had refused to accept the election results.

The Angolan military (FAA) were old adversaries for the majority of the mercenaries. They were now tasked with training and supporting them against UNITA, a group many of them had fought alongside during the Border War. The FAA were suspicious and wary until EO started to demonstrate their effectiveness on the battlefield.

EO deployed less than 600 soldiers to Angola but they had the effect of many more. They trained the FAA’s 16th Brigade and other units before fighting alongside them in a series of fierce battles. EO was credited as the deciding factor that saw UNITA come to the negotiating table in 1994 to sign the Lusaka Protocol. A condition of the peace was that EO was removed from Angola.

EO in Angola. Source: Twitter.

Sierra Leone

EO’s next major deployment was to Sierra Leone where a brutal civil war had been raging since the early 90s. The country’s rich diamond fields became a curse as these soon became a focal point of the conflict. Located in the south and east of the country, they became strategic points that both government and rebel forces sought to control.

Control of the diamond fields was essential to purchase arms and ammunition. Children were forced to labour in the mines or forcibly conscripted to become child soldiers as depicted in the film Blood Diamond.

EO began training the Sierra Leone Army (SLA) in May 1995. Their offensive first pushed the rebels back from their siege of the capital. The diamond mines were retaken, cutting off the rebel source of income. A final sweep southward captured other mineral mines and forced the rebels to sign a ceasefire in November 1996.

International pressure once again resulted in EO withdrawing from the country. Just as they predicted, the rebel forces returned with a vengeance, plunging the country back into chaos.

EO personnel in Sierra Leone. Source: Reddit.

Equipment and structure

What made EO stand out amongst other mercenary companies was that it was effectively a small army. The company didn’t just provide infantry, its employees also included vehicle crews, pilots, engineers, and medics. EO ensured its soldiers went into action with tanks, APCs (armoured personnel carriers), air support, and artillery.

The vast majority of EO’s personnel were former SADF (army) and SAP (police) from the apartheid era. Contrary to popular opinion, only 30% of the company staff were white soldiers. The end of apartheid and the war in Angola saw the security forces downsized in South Africa which meant there were large amounts of soldiers and police out of work. The majority were veterans of wars in Angola and Namibia.

The company was remarkably popular with the local population due to its success against rebel forces. EO ensured that civilians were treated correctly though critics from the World Bank noted that “It doesn’t take much in Angola or Sierra Leone to look good”.

EO soldiers in Sierra Leone. Source: Reddit.

Dissolution and aftermath

Executive Outcomes was dissolved on 31 December 1998. Its decade of existence had been highly controversial. Critics accused the company of plotting coups and fighting for mining concessions. The company rejected such claims, insisting that it only offered its services to legitimate governments.

Whatever their views, even the harshest opponents of EO admitted that the company was highly effective and competent at what they did. The company ended two long-lasting civil wars at a fraction of the cost that later United Nations interventions required.

Many former EO personnel continued as PMCs and some have recently been involved in Nigeria in the fight against Boko Haram. Others were involved in the abortive 2004 Equatorial Guinea coup attempt.

Founder Eeben Barlow has continued to be active in the world of PMCs. He was head of STTEP (Specialised Tasks, Training, Equipment and Protection International) and has worked worldwide. At the beginning of December 2020, he announced that EO would be relaunched. He stated that “Executives Outcomes will once again provide successful African solutions, by Africans, for African problems.”