From Palladium Magazine, January 18:
“Opportunity Is Always Out There” With Simon Mann
Simon Mann was formed in consummately British institutions. After completing his education at Eton College and the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, he entered the Scots Guards in 1972. It was a family tradition—both father and grandfather had served before him. Later, he joined the British military’s elite Special Air Service (SAS), which took him across Europe. Such a military career might have set him up for prestige in conventional business or politics. Instead, Mann decided to try his luck in Africa.
In 1993, Mann went to Angola to seek fortune in the oil industry with his friend Tony Buckingham. Within months of their arrival, the oil-producing city of Soyo was captured by anti-government rebels. It seemed like their oil venture was doomed—until, as Mann tells the story, he proposed a solution: reconquer Soyo. Mann and Buckingham called upon South African contacts, most of whom had backgrounds in the South African Defence Force and the shadowy Civil Cooperation Bureau (CCB), an apartheid-era counterinsurgency unit. One of these contacts, Eeben Barlow, was a former South African military officer who had seized the opportunity of apartheid’s collapse to recruit compatriots into a private military company (PMC) called Executive Outcomes (EO).
Together, they secured Angolan government contracts for EO to reconquer Soyo, and eventually help the government win the civil war. Their success in achieving an Angolan victory put Mann and his friends on the map. Soon, governments across Africa and elsewhere were knocking on their doors.
EO soldiers have since taken part in conflicts across the continent, and Mann has gone on to many more adventures. In 1997, his own PMC, Sandline International, was involved in the controversial Sandline affair in Papua New Guinea. In 2004, Mann was arrested for organizing a failed coup in Equatorial Guinea, and spent the next five and a half years in some of Africa’s most notorious prisons. He was released in 2009 after a pardon. His memoir, Cry Havoc, was published in 2011.
Today, Mann continues his work in the world of private military ventures, including with STTEP International, a PMC that has fought the Boko Haram insurgency in Nigeria. Known internationally as a mercenary, in conversation Mann is polished and confident in his positions. We were curious to learn more about what it means to get involved in war and statecraft as a non-state actor, the unconventional opportunities he has found, and how he thinks about his work. He sat down with Palladium to explain.
A soldier fights for king and country. Or in some cases, for freedom and democracy. A mercenary, on the other hand, puts his life on the line for cash in countries not his own. Who ends up in this line of work and why?
Who ends up in the line of work? Ex-soldiers. And funnily enough, I get asked by a lot of kids on social media, “How can I become a mercenary without being a soldier first?” You can’t. Don’t try. Become a soldier. And then, if you want to, you can go into the PMC world. It’s the PMC world they want to get into, not mercenary work.
There is a long and, I think, very boring debate that one can have about the meaning of the word “mercenary.” You can be a mercenary doctor: you’re a doctor, but you’re more interested in the money than you are in curing patients. So a soldier is someone who fights in wars, or is ready to fight, or is in uniform, and the mercenary soldier is a soldier who’s doing it purely for money.
But now it does get very torturous. For example, if I joined the British army today, am I joining it because I wish to fight for democracy? No, I’m not. Nobody in the British Army that I ever met was doing it for queen and country. They’re doing it because they see it as an exciting lifestyle and the money is okay. Sometimes, it’s the best job they can get. But the motivation is, at least in part, financial. It is unlikely, really, to be patriotic. That doesn’t mean to say that we’re not patriotic. But that is not the prime motivation.
Is glory a motivator?
I looked it up once in Shakespeare, this whole business of soldiers and money. He referred to it as “bubble reputation in the cannon’s mouth.” What they were seeking was this moment of glory.
You know, I think this is a personal thing. I’ve never been interested in glory, not at all. I’m a British guy, and I’d joined the British Army. I wanted to be an officer in the Scots Guards, which is one of the King’s own guards, and in the SAS, which is the UK’s special forces. The rough American equivalent is Delta Force. The SAS and Delta are very close.
But we also have Gurkhas in the British army—men from Nepal who volunteer to join. They come and serve with the British army, which they do incredibly well. Now, are they mercenaries? I don’t think so. Most people don’t think so. And if you said that to one of them, he probably wouldn’t be very friendly; they have these kukris, these unique knives, and you don’t want to upset them too much.
I think another very interesting example is that of Oman: specifically, Operation Storm and the war in the 1970s. It was an insurgency coming through Yemen, a serious attempt to overthrow the ruler of Oman.....
....MUCH MORE
Here's a story we linked to in 2011 about a Gurkha and some would-be rapists:
POKHARA, Jan 13: Gorkha soldiers have long been known the world over for their valor and these khukuri-wielding warriors winning the British many a battle have become folklore.
A retired Indian Gorkha soldier recently revisited those glory days when he thwarted 40 robbers, killing three of them and injuring eight others, with his khukuri during a train journey. He is in line to receive three gallantry awards from the Indian government.
Slave girl Morgiana in the Arabian Nights used her cunning to finish off Ali Baba´s 40 thieves, but Bishnu Shrestha of Baidam, Pokhara-6 did not have time to plot against the 40 train robbers. He, however, made good use of his khukuri to save the chastity of a girl and hundreds of thousands in loot.
Shrestha, who was in the Maurya Express to Gorakhpur from Ranchi on September 2 while returning home following voluntary retirement from the Indian army--saved the girl who was going to be raped by the robbers in front of her hapless parents, and in doing so won plaudits from everybody.
The Indian government is to decorate Shrestha with its Sourya Chakra, Bravery Award and Sarvottam Jeevan Raksha Medal and the 35-year-old is leaving for India Saturday to receive the first of the awards on the occasion of India´s Republic Day on January 26.
“The formal announcement of the awards will be made on Republic Day and on Independence Day on August 15,” said Shrestha, whose father Gopal Babu also retired from the same 7/8 Platoon of the Gorkha Regiment around 29 years ago.
His regiment has already given him a cash award of Indian rupees 50,000, and decided to terminate his voluntary retirement. He will get the customary promotion after receiving the medals. The Indian government will also announce a cash bounty for him and special discounts on international air tickets and domestic train tickets.
The band of about 40 robbers, some of whom were travelling as passengers, stopped the train in the Chittaranjan jungles in West Bengal around midnight. Shrestha-- who had boarded the train at Ranchi in Jharkhand, the place of his posting--was in seat no. 47 in coach AC3.
“They started snatching jewelry, cell phones, cash, laptops and other belongings from the passengers,” Shrestha recalled. The soldier had somehow remained a silent spectator amidst the melee, but not for long. He had had enough when the robbers stripped an 18-year-old girl sitting next to him and tried to rape her right in front of her parents. He then took out his khukuri and took on the robbers.
“The girl cried for help, saying ´You are a soldier, please save a sister´,” Shrestha recalled. “I prevented her from being raped, thinking of her as my own sister,” he added. He took one of the robbers under control and then started to attack the others. He said the rest of the robbers fled after he killed three of them with his khukuri and injured eight others.
During the scuffle he received serious blade injury to his left hand while the girl also had a minor cut on her neck. “They had carried out their robbery with swords, blades and pistols. The pistols may have been fake as they didn´t open fire,” he surmised....MORE
Got that?
With his khukuri knife he charged 40 low-life punks armed with pistols, knives and swords.
Killed three. Wounded eight. Chased the other 29 away.
A different approach to gang-rape from that evinced by, say, the South Yorkshire Police, know what I'm sayin'?
Singapore hires 'em as cops. Pretty smart if you ask me.
—last seen providing security for the Trump-Kim summit in 2018's "Dyson chooses Singapore for first electric car plant"
The car plant didn't work out. The Gurkhas do.
