According to a recent study, after the U.S. and the UK, private companies have contributed more occupational forces to Iraq than any other source. Many of these hail from South Africa, where they were trained in apartheid "elite units," i.e., something like death squads. Once the coalition forces hand over power to an interim government in Iraq, the use of such mercenaries by the U.S. is expected to increase.
Apartheid fighters flood Iraq
South Africa News
March 3, 2004
http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,,2-7-1442_1492812,00.html
Johannesburg - Francois Strydom learnt about killing in the Koevoet, the apartheid-era paramilitary police unit, notorious for violence, torture and murder.
In Iraq, Strydom found his skills were in demand.
Employed by US-based firm SAS International, Strydom was one of a number of South Africans in Iraq working as private "security experts" before a January 28 bomb outside the Shaheen Hotel prematurely terminated his contract.
The aftermath of the blast sent shockwaves through the media, as Strydom's death revealed an embarrassing situation. It was estimated that 1 500 former soldiers and policemen were operating in Iraq, in defiance of stringent legislation forbidding the practice.
It emerged that the men make up along with US and British personnel the largest contingent of commercial "military service providers" on the ground in Iraq.
Most are said to be members of former elite units, disbanded following the end of apartheid, their members suddenly finding themselves unemployed, their skills no longer required. ...
Strydom's death and the ensuing furore has shone a spotlight onto an industry that nowadays quietly prospers below the radar of the general public. The business of the industry is war, or as they might prefer to put it, "military security".
Even to speak of such firms as "mercenary-companies" is to court harsh criticism from industry figures, who try to distance themselves from the image of the typical soldier-of-fortune rampaging through an African war zone - an image they say is outdated.
"What the South African authorities are up against is not merely a few military adventurers," claimed journalist and defence expert Michael Schmidt in the newspaper This Day, "but the 21st century equivalent of the troops employed by the Dutch East India Company: private armies of very wealthy companies with global reach". - Sapa-dpa