Only. You can rule. Would say. For years private armies have provided services to governments around the world they are often secretive that operate in the shadows. Blackwater now known as academy is one of the most well known private army it has provided troops and other services to the u. S. Government in different conflicts including the war in iraq but its not always clear how these private armies are formed where they operate or even what their missions consist of so we travel to south africa to find out more even barlow is chairman of specialized tasks training equipment and Protection International a private army that according to barlow has operated throughout africa and beyond he was also behind another Similar Company that shut down in 1980 called executive outcomes and while many argue private armies are mercenaries doing the jobs government dont want to do follow insists his operations are legitimate and follow International Law but who make sure these armies are indeed following International Law and what about accountability even barlow talks to aljazeera. Thank you very much for talking to all just look thank you so how would you like to identify yourself well 1st of all im an african. Im also a South African and i see what i do. Advise governments and their own forces in terms of National Security its what i do if governments have a requirement whether it be political or security and they speak to me i advise them as best i can isnt it true that youre one of the pioneers if not the pioneer who moved this trade of mercenary activity from just an individual trade into a fully fledged industry well i think we were probably the 1st company or a private company that was contracted by a National Government. To add value to their National Security strategy and in order to bring an end to conflict in their countries if thats considered to be a pioneer in case we were talking about the South African cup of now were talking about then government government why do you think people in your industry feel so sensitive to the world mostly i think there are some people that feel sensitive towards it and im one of them. We dont see ourselves as mercenaries we 1st of all contracted by National Government we become part of the armed forces we wear the uniforms we follow the procedures and guidelines we fall under the. Legal regulations of that country so in other words we serve their country that contracts us and yes we get paid for it but we certainly dont get paid to run around and cause chaos but according to all English Dictionary use the word mercenary means and let me read it out a soldier who is paid to fight by the country by a country or group that they do not belong to and synonymous is a soldier of fortune its an interesting definition there are many soldiers who serve in armed forces of countries where they were not born and they are people serving in european armies that were born in africa or they most in the south African Defense force recruited people during its pre 994 era that were born in Different Countries where those people mercenaries so therefore i dispute the argument and to me i see the client which is a government i am responsible for the main placed under mark command and i am accountable to that government unlike our views that are being forced into wars by politicians you and your business you choose to go to war what is the final line between the moral and the immoral especially in light of those accusations against some companies in your industry that they tend to prolong wars to generate more money id like to go back and start over where your question ended and 1st of all. I have served in no country that is prolonged a war or a conflict in fact we have ended conflicts in very short space of time because that is the the mission that our government gives to us and then used to bring in into conflict in order to enable governance to be reestablished or negotiations to take place i think there is a fine line between moral and immoral but that really goes back to the people that are involved if you engage people in a country that youll discipline that have no selfrespect that do not respect people theyre going to commit deeds that are immoral and as far as we concerned we give an undertaking to a government that we will in the conflict and that is what we have done every time so weve never prolonged the conflict in fact weve ended them despite them carrying on for decades and decades weve ended them in a very short space of time but i am aware of companies that. Do not mind if the conflict continues because thats the goose that lays the golden egg and they certainly dont want to stop it in spite of the successes you achieved your Company Achieved both in that goal and set you on the 2 governments or the countries be terminated the contracts of executive outcomes why do you think the 2 governments in spite of all these successes terminated your contracts well i think 1st of all ngo no one needs to bear in mind that if you read the contract which was awarded to us was initially a 12 month contract to train a brigade in order to take the war to the enemy at that stage we need. To bring about an into our still ities that contract was extended for about 3 and a half years so they didnt in the contract they did in the contract assume is we need to have been defeated on the battlefield and they were under pressure from the United Nations in particular who saw us as a threat possibly to their own deployments in angola the same applied to sierra leone that was a very vicious and brutal civil war that was ended in a very short space of time the cereal only and government asked us to stay the world bank and i. M. F. Ever put pressure on them to get rid of us so that the u. N. And other Foreign Forces could come in and in both instances by 3rd countries returned to war so i would argue exactly the opposite what that ever a serious interest investigation by any of the Intelligence Service into the accusations that your your Company Executive out placed yes there was. The 1st investigation took place in 1903 that was driven by the south African Department of foreign a phase and encouraged by military intelligence as well as some white collar companies that were profiting off the illegal purchase of diamonds from rebel groups in that instance the attorney general issued a statement to say that they are not there is no reason at all to actually take the matter further because the evidence laid before them was really nonexistent and then after executive outcomes closed its doors and there was a very lengthy Intelligence Report that was produced i dont know who produced it in which it actually found that all the accusations leveled against the company were false that a lot of them were malicious lies in order to slander the company and that there was no further basis for investigation into the company besides the military on the combat services you say that your Company Provides also noncombat and nonmilitary services to your clients could you give us some examples yes for example in one month in 1995. We provided medical aid to more than a 1000 people of the local population living around one of our specific bases. We also provided in excess of 50000 liters of clean Drinking Water a day to the local people of course is that a huge impact on those who are importing bottled water and selling it at great costs. We collected medicines from hospitals in south africa that were time expired those medicines were flown to angola in particular and medical staff used those medicines on the sick and infirm in angola and of course that created huge problems so these are just some of the examples would you walk us through the book a sense of. Bowker on the offensive. Was really not part of executive outcomes that was Step Internationally that actually partook in that offensive i need to 1st of all make it very clear that we were a subcontractor there was a prime contractor pointed that appointed us as a subcontractor and our initial i was not boko haram per se but it was too risky the ship our girls. They were the girls that had been kidnapped and with their waste and response was hash tag save the girls. That type of nonsense does not save girls unfortunately these girls became victims of a situation where the security had broken down in a specific area they were kidnapped and that was the 1st mission to rescue the girls. Within did a Selection Process of the nigerian soldiers the soldiers were detained after the Selection Process within trained. In a very specific way to conduct a hostage rescue operation and that requires a very specific type of person however approximately 5 or 6 weeks into the training of the Hostage Rescue Team we were asked to change our mission and that mission was to go to a town called my degree in northeast nigeria that had come under Severe Threat of boko haram within rapidly i to transition what we were doing and suddenly china very offensive force with a minimum of equipment and we rushed to my degree we met with the 7th Infantry Division commander. We finally understood the pressures he was under and our suggestion was to him that this force we had trained which we named the 72nd mobile strike force would actually spearhead the division and that is precisely what we did the operation was in 2 was in 3 phases. The 1st phase was to actually cut a dividing line across northeastern nigeria and isolate boko haram into 2 defined areas and then mop up one area in the south was the start and after that was done mop up in the north the division would follow behind occupy to reign we would train the division in situ in defensive positions etc but we were never allowed to execute the entire operation so in 11 month we took back to train larger than belgium from boko haram we were not allowed to finish because it came at a time when governments were in the process of changing i think president jonathans government possibly saw the entire boko haram contract if we call it that almost as a last gasp in order to regain popularity the incoming president president bari was heavily supported by a Foreign Government and one of the 1st missions was to terminate our contract could you name that Foreign Government yes we were told it was the United States. And they had actually funded president baris campaign the Campaign Manager for president barak came from the u. S. And im not saying that the United States is bad i understand foreign interests but i would have thought that a threat such as boko harder on the integrity of the state of nigeria or to be actually a priority it wasnt like you think the u. S. Would intervene to abort such operation. Again i cant answer that i think that the u. S. Can answer but what ive come to realize that is when a governments foreign interests clash with the states own domestic interest conflict is bound to ensue and those conflicts usually just continue with no end and we can look at all the conflicts in africa where Foreign Forces of coming life prolonging those conflicts they havent ended those conflicts and the amount of money and manpower and equipment thrown at those conflicts seems to me then something is wrong if no injuries ulti is achieved and surely that result should be to end the conflict and establish a basis for negotiations come to an agreement then in reestablish governance but thats not whats happening in africa how much did you try the Nigerian Government well 1st of all we didnt charge the Nigerian Government and i think here there is a question the Nigerian Government can on so we will one subcontractor so in other words a Nigerian Government appointed a contractor and we contracted to that contract as they subcontractor so i think thats all ill say if youre really interested in the figures thats for the Nigerian Government to discuss have you ever operated in. Here. But i need to clarify it was southern sudan. We had a contract to train a very specialised group food the ugandan peoples Defense Force and while the training was ongoing in northwest uganda i was deployed to those are which was the home of the 4th Infantry Division. The ugandans in later redeployed me into the d r c 2. Attach myself to one of the infantry battalions that was deployed they while the training for the special group was still ongoing ive been deployed with the special group into the d r c. Late into the Central African republic with the 2nd one and at this stage we went into an area which is very contentious known as dog food but i need to state that those movements across borders were all agreed to by the governments in question and that the governments in question authorized that ugandan troops could operate in those countries so in that sense yes of operated in sudan albeit mainly southern sudan so you had the approval of the Sudanese Government yes there would be the approval of the government because that was an agreement signed between or partaken governments and that was to counter the Lords Resistance Army with the l r a it had its origins in uganda and it started as a similar religious movement and then transitioned into a movement and purely a terrorizing the local population kidnapping of of Young Children and forcing them to become child soldiers. As a ugandan forces were combat in the Lords Resistance Army they moved into their law right up into the d r c forgive me and then into Central African republic as well where they had for want of a better word bases in order to secure themselves our mission was really to track them down risk your child soldiers that had been deployed with them and to bring in into this campaign of terror conducted by the l r a mission was purely to be in a town called mazhar which is i am of the 4th infantry we did not really lie or interact with the south Sudanese Forces will ever fall in this case yes. And if so in which capacity. We were never involved in somalia per se but i can tell you that we were approached by a shipping company in the early days of the piracy we actually met with the pirates from il we met them in nairobi and we got to understand why they were pirates. Between the pirates and ourselves we came to an agreement as to what would get them to stop being pirates when their proposal was submitted to the shipping company they were not interested in following it so i think one needs to understand that to go the way that we view this is that piracy is big business its actually not what it appears to be it was not that we were hired for a long term we were contracted to come up with a proposal for them in order to come up with a coherent and sensible proposal we decided to meet the pirates because thats the best way to understand why the pirates over the the end result of the meeting with the pirates was something the shipping companies didnt want to accept and that is constant a huge amount of money in life at the moment and piracy has now become a major problem out there despite what everyone saying and our concern is that it is not only confined to somalia its moved down south its moved north and its starting very very viciously on the west coast of africa when you speak to the pirates and im speaking of the early days im not speaking of now. Fishing stocks had been depleted because of toxic waste dump in off the coast. And these were fishermen and they knew the sea there understood the sea and they full once the fish were gone the next fish to catch was a ship. And that is what they did however this is transitioned into a Major Business now where every ship that appears to be vulnerable or weak is targeted by them for capture. How do you explain this seemingly pair of the many western countries hunting down your contracts while at the same time seeking your expertise by inviting you to lecture in the war colleges in the us russia Czech Republic and many other countries. I think 1st of all i dont see a problem at all with people wanting to exploit the Knowledge Base that weve built up we are after all africans who work in africa but i do think there is a major concern that africans can actually end african conflict. If you have a look at the conflicts in africa the most recent being in mozambique and we see the dismal performance of the private military company to me that doesnt hold any good what are they doing there if theyre not going to add value and bring about a sense of stability and peace then they shouldnt be there but unfortunately this is being allowed to drag on there are countries that have had private military Companies Operating there for years along with National Armed forces yet the problems never go away theyre actually seem to be intensifying and these are things that really concern me. In terms of knowledge weve built up a huge Knowledge Base we are africans were not only from south africa but we are from many african countries as part of step as we had an executive outcomes. We understand the culture we understand the traditions of people we can converse with them. And we look at all these private military Companies Going into africa they just charge and they dont understand the environment that in they dont understand the area of operations they dont understand the people and very quickly their friend the people and oftentimes the people become Collateral Damage because of a poor way in which they are approached and all that does is it really just lengthens the conflict recently published a book titled the composer warfare. What is the composition of warfare and. Did you just feel rice on this or was it based on your field experience will its titled compass it will fit the conduct of successful operations in africa and i wrote that book explicitly for african on these because i think the time has come for many african armies to realize the doctrine that theyre using does not work in their countries its been proven over and over again and if you really look at doctrine were looking at british colonies apply british doctrine french colonies upright french doctrine. These doctrines dont work most of them come from world war 2 theyve never been updated revaluated and besides doctrine is related to the training which you operating in doctrine tells you how to do things it does not dictate what you should do in other words doctrine will tell you that if you need to go drink a glass of water you get up you walk to the cupboard you take a glass you fill it up with water and you drink it doesnt tell you which route to take it doesnt tell you which class to type it doesnt tell you which tap to take your water from that just an example of doctrine so we have this mess of mismatch of doctrine versus the terrain versus the enemy or the threat. And these templates that are being super imposed on africa are failing wherever theyre trying to be superimposed on. I know of no Great Success which tells me that there is something very very wrong with the doctrine. Last summer there was a frenzy recruitment in pretoria. By men who posed as a representative of your company your step. The goal was to get combat zones to fight for the libyan rebel leader after why did blackwater have to impersonate its tip and did you take any legal action against like water well 1st of all we took no legal action against anyone because we didnt have proof of who it really was. We were aware that there were South Africans trying to recruit in fact there was an office set up not too far from where we are at the moment that claimed that they were Step International and they were recruiting people for libya and we mediately expose them and we expose them in the media which ironically the media did for once publish. And we went looking for these people but they moved their office very quickly we didnt put a warning out to everyone who we know not to agree with these people not to sign contracts because as soon as a contractor started lying about who he is hes going to be lying to the government that hes trying to get a contract from so we will not tolerate people using our name if you were offered a contract to fight for half that would you have agreed. When asked that question often. We cannot fight full force and Government Forces are actually trying to overthrow a un recognized government and we will support any un recognized government as long as they are not the perpetrators of acts of violence against a population and weve turned down contracts from un recognized governments but with that government has acted in a very evil way toward people lets talk more about money this is the only thing that would get you to accept a contract and what jobs you have turned down 1st of all lets start with what weve turned down im not going to go through the whole list but i will take you back to a country which was known as zaire now known as the democratic republic of congo where a previous president asked us to get involved in assessing 1001 of his ministers and who is the president. We will continue our conversation with even barlow on the next episode of talk to aljazeera. 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