THE ANGELLA JOHNSON INTERVIEW
AT best Eeben Barlow is a pathological charmer. At worst he is a pathological liar. The man who has replaced Ronald Reagan and Leonid Brezhnev to become a major power broker in Africa is seeking to legitimise the mercenary business of state- sponsored killing for money. But to hear him talk you would think he was Africa’s best hope for stability.
Barlow, head of Executive Outcomes – the Pretoria-based company which this week confirmed its mercenaries were training soldiers in Papua New Guinea – has been on a serious charm offensive, preaching the word of privatised, “cost-effective”, international peacekeeping armies.
His message: “We brought peace to Angola and Sierra Leone … we safeguard assets and bring security.” He could almost be saying: “Wars R Us.”
Executive Outcome’s operations in both countries have won some plaudits, even from critics who paradoxically accept that Barlow’s band of hired guns appear to have done a better job than any United Nations peacekeeping force, yet are naturally repulsed by the concept.
“We are selling the business of surviving,” says the former South African military intelligence operative. His is a sanitised version of modern warfare: where governments with millions of dollars in loose change can call on Executive Outcomes to “train” their armies for combat. But the lines often become blurred as his band of war-busting soldiers inevitably find themselves in the thick of fighting.
Sitting with Barlow in his mock Tudor-style home in a quiet Pretoria suburb, I am reminded of our first meeting a week ago. He was making a presentation at a seminar held by the Institute for Security Studies in Midrand. It was an impressive performance.
He stood on the stage in his sober business suit and crisp white shirt, a Mont Blanc pen peeping out of the breast pocket. The picture of a respectable businessman as he faced an audience of international journalists, military spooks and embassy bods from some African states. So slick was the presentation, that if he had adapted the Gecko speech from the movie Wall Street and said: “War is great, war is good”, I think many would have applauded.
Today the pen lies on an elegant coffee table and Barlow is relaxed in crisp blue jeans and a blue and white check shirt. Well, if you call chain-smoking and constant interruption by the ringing of his cellphone relaxed. But maybe the Czechoslovakian pistol he carries in a holster on his hip helps.
“I wear this because I’m always receiving death threats,” he explains. There is a certain readiness about Barlow. At first glance, with his thinning blonde hair and sharp facial features, he seems rather effete. But it is merely camouflage. Up close his eyes are cold and calculating – perhaps heightened by the fact that one is blue, the other is green, and that his stare is fixed.
He reminds me of a cobra, coiled and waiting to strike. Here is a man who has killed often (though says he did not enjoy it); who has seen life seep out of the bodies of buddies while fighting South Africa’s bush war in Angola; who has made his fortune teaching others how to kill. Death almost seems to walk with him.
“Being a soldier is an honourable profession and a lot more dedicated than people realise,” he says. “I was a soldier because I wanted to be one and have little or no regrets about my time in the military.”
Yet Barlow, who served with the notorious elite 32 Battalion in Angola, insists he is against war – it is like a gun runner saying he hates guns.
A slight man, who walks and talks with purposeful briskness, he projects an air of cultured elegance and is quite attractive, if you like that kind of coldness.
We are sitting in a room tastefully decorated with pale blue walls and elaborately draped peach curtains. “I choose this colour because it’s very soothing,” he explains. Sinking into soft peach leather sofas festooned with brocade cushions covers, I comment that it seems very British.
“I’m very colonial,” he says in jest. Sounds Freudian to me.
Here is a man whose early years were spent in Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia) and who filled his time with globe-trotting of the mind. A voracious reader (Mark Twain, Shakespeare and the Bront sisters were among his favourites) he dreamed of the far away places described in these books. “I particularly admired those courageous adventurers who sailed the world.” Paintings of sailing ships lining the wall of his home are a testament to that passion.
When Barlow was six his father, a railway station master, moved the family from Northern Rhodesia to a farm in Waterberg, Nylstroom. The Afrikaaner natives were not friendly. “They were still fighting the Boer War,” Barlow says dryly. “And there was strong animosity towards anyone who was English speaking.” His father is second- generation English and his mother of French extraction.
Barlow senior worked for a mining company during the week. Weekends he farmed maize and cattle.
Life was hard with little spare money. But Barlow (40) remembers spending happy times with his three brothers and a sister who now also live in the Pretoria area.
“My parents never spoke of politics, but looking back I don’t think they supported apartheid because of the way we treated our black workers. I was brought up to be respectful to everyone.”
At 12 he was sent to boarding school in Nylstroom with other farm children, leaving five years later after matriculation. Conscription followed the next year.
“I had been brought up hearing stories of how members of my parents’ family fought in World War II and it always excited me as a way of life. It was not until I went to the Angolan war that I realised how we were being used politically.”
He hated the racism; became very disillusioned and was particularly angry about the treatment of black soldiers of the 32, who had fought with him in Angola. “These were the guys who were blindly loyal to us and us to them. The way they were treated when they came here was disgusting … they were good enough to take a bullet for me but became nothing in South Africa. They were my guys no matter what their colour.”
But it was not a relationship of equals. Blacks were usually footsoldiers who did most of the dog work like carrying heavy machine guns. None were officers.
Barlow has been accused of being a modern- day imperialist – exploiting the continent’s power struggles for his own financial gain. A charge he vehemently rejects. He sees himself more as a man whom history has forced into the arena of commitment. “We are selling skills which teach people how to kill, but I see armed force as the option of last resort. There’s always going to be armies, so they might as well be disciplined.”
I ask if this is not just another brand of colonialism. “Not at all,” he replies crisply. “The difference is that we are invited in by legitimate democratic governments, we are paid to provide a service and then leave when the contract is up. It’s not about telling clients their politics.”
He argues that democracy was forced on Africa with no regard to tribal boundaries. “It was never a natural system … not part of the culture.” As a result, he believes these artificial countries will always be plagued by tribal conflict.
“War and anarchy will reign in Africa because it has been exploited by people making promises. The Cold War left a huge vacuum and I identified a niche in the market. If there is a civil war situation in a democracy then the only way to resolve it is if the armed forces are disciplined.”
That is the concept behind what is now a multimillion dollar company. He started Executive Outcomes with just the money needed to register the company, on leaving the military in 1989.
“The reality is that armies will fight but we want them to be controlled. I think what we do stops the fighting.”
A bold claim from a modern-day adventurer who is spreading his tentacles, often through a complicated web of mercenary subsidiary companies, to Europe and the Far East. He refuses to name all his clients on grounds of confidentiality: “Governments don’t want people to know that they are unable to contain their problem.” But he said there were approximately 12 countries, about 70% of which are African.
The company’s two best known operations were in Angola and Sierra Leone where it was credited with bringing peace to both countries. Originally called in to defend riverside diamond mining areas, its duties spilled over into training government soldiers and flying combat missions against rebels.
What about allegations that Executive Outcomes has secured concessions to diamond mines in these countries? “Do you know how expensive it would be to run a mine?” he counters. “No thank you. We prefer to be paid in cash.” He was paid $20-million for the Angolan job.
Barlow also defends his business by arguing that it creates jobs for unemployed soldiers (including Umkhonto WeSizwe and Inkatha as well as ex-South African Defence Force members), who are paid between $3500 and $12000 a month.
“We get the best. Initially we had to look for people, but now they come to us.” All have a military or police background. They apply by sending a CV and attending an interview.
Anyone with the right qualification can apply, with the exception of women. “I think it’s unfair to have women. It’s the way I was brought up. Girls should not be exposed to war and things like that.” Nice to know there are still some gentlemen left.
Barlow, who has been studying African politics and international studies through correspondence at Unisa since 1986 (he says it should have taken about six years but work has been a constant interruption) is divorced with one child.
His company is now so successful a European country wants to buy it (he says it is not the French, others suggest it might be the British) to protect interests in Africa.
“If I accept, then I want to write a book about my experiences and spend time speaking with people about ways of resolving crisis.”
Then again he rather fancies being left alone on a tropical island.