European security companies have been fighting terrorism in Africa. There are those who go for noble reasons; but the actions of others are questionable.
O Colonel Romuald he served for 36 years in the French army before retiring. The paratrooper was on missions in Mali, Senegal, Togo, Afghanistan and Kosovo. It is currently at war in the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
The retired soldier heads a delicate mission in the city of Goma, which is why he prefers not to reveal his surname. He heads a team of 20 people from the Bulgarian security company Agemira, which advises the Congolese army in its war against the M23 militia and helps organize its ranks. Agemira is also responsible for maintaining planes and drones, supplying troops and intermediating arms deals.
As he tells (DW), Romuald relies on former colleagues in uniform; French Army retirees, like him, make up the majority of personnel. Argemira has been providing services to the African government for two years, after the M23 once again threatened its hegemony.
According to United Nations experts, the militia receives support from Rwanda in the form of weapons and up to 4,000 soldiers. In the province of North Kivu, where Goma is located, they control vast expanses of fertile land rich in natural resources.
In addition to Agemira, the DRC government also hired the Romanian military company Ralf – an acronym for “Romanians who served in the French Legion” – which has 800 fighters of Romanian and Belarusian origin.
As the name of the company suggests, many of them actually served in the branch of French military service open to foreigners. In the DRC, its soldiers – or “Romeus” – form a defense ring around Goma and Sake.
“Noble cause”? Some
Agemira and Ralf work together, they consider themselves a team.
“We are fighting for a noble cause”assures Colonel Romuald. According to him, Rwanda is illegally occupying neighboring territory and , such as the coltan mine – an ore widely used in the manufacture of portable electronic devices – in Rubaya, about 50 kilometers from Goma.
The rebels’ actions, Romuald argues, force millions of people to flee. European veterans, he adds, want to free the DRC from this situation.
“I told my wife that I will not return home until the refugees can return to their homeland,” he said.
Until February, he was confident that the mission would be completed by the end of the year. But the fighting continues, despite an official truce in force since August. Diplomatic negotiations between the DRC and Rwanda have also not led to peace so far.
Romuald admits that optimism is excessive. He attributes the failure to the technical superiority and stricter discipline of the Rwandan army, which would have allowed them to advance into neighboring territory.
But the Problems also appear to be at high levels of government. A few months ago, several Ralf fighters left the DRC due to late payment of their salaries. According to Romuald, the problem has already been resolved.
“A kind of racism”
Depending on the rank, a mercenary earns between 5,000 and 6,000 dollars per month (between 4,800 and 5,700 euros, approximately).
“This is many times more than the few hundred dollars that Congolese soldiers receive,” he told DW Onesphore Sematumbaanalyst at Think Tank Crisis Group, in Nairobi, Kenya.
For the specialist, the unequal treatment between soldiers locals and foreigners is “a kind of racism”.
According to him, foreign officers stay in hotels or mansions and use new army vehicles, while Congolese soldiers have to travel on foot, which feeds resentment – a fact recognized by an Agemira soldier who spoke to DW in a restaurant on the banks of the picturesque Lake Kivu.
Sematumba points out that although the mercenaries have so far managed to defend Goma and Sake, they have not been able to contain the M23’s advance into rural areas. “They are highly paid and don’t really make much of a difference”consider.
The expert attributes this failure, in part, to the presence in the east of the country of different military actors: the national army, mercenaries, the United Nations peacekeeping force, troops from the Southern African Development Community, units from Burundi, militias civilians and troops from the East African Community, who were temporarily present.
War for fun?
Still, Colonel Romuald insists that the Europeans are not in the DRC for money: “It’s my job and it’s an adventure.”
“They just like what they do”, he agrees Frank Daumannprofessor at the Friedrich Schiller University of Jena, Germany, who monitors the private security company market.
Daumann explains that some army veterans end up joining these companies because they want to continue working after retirement.
Mercenarism is illegal in Europe and French and Romanian secret services sometimes interrogate Agemira and Ralf employees during their visits to their country of origin, reports Romuald. “If we behaved like mercenaries, we would be arrested,” he explains.
Branch with dubious reputation
The business practices of many private security companies are opaque. Some of them, such as Africa Corps (formerly the Wagner Group, Russia) and Academi (formerly Blackwater, USA), have been accused by organizations such as Human Rights Watch of committing serious crimes.
But despite condemning the actions of these two companies in particular, Colonel Romuald says the regulating this sector would be too utopian.
So far, human rights defenders in Goma have found no evidence that Agemira or Ralf are committing crimes or doing business with the country’s mineral resources.
