A potted history of the shifts in mercenary loyalty in the former Belgian Congo from 1960 to 1967

An early memoir published in 1969 by "Black Jack" Schramme which translates to "The Leopard Battalion: Memories of a White African".

Often referred to as “the world’s second oldest profession”, appraisals of the role of the mercenary often veer from the sort of romanticised fiction portrayed in the 1978 movie The Wild Geese to that of the amoral “soldier of fortune” who profits from the human misery which accompanies war. It is the latter view which has tended prevail so much so that the term “mercenary” has been rebranded in recent decades. Today, they are often politely referred to as “military contractors”.

The activities of mercenaries in Africa’s post-independence civil wars of the second half of the 20^th century arguably provided the basis through which the mercenary was defined in the popular imagination. And no where else was the role of the mercenary as hero and brigand more explored than the wars waged in the former Belgian Congo. It was there that mercenaries rescued nuns who had been kidnapped and defiled. It was also there that they tortured and murdered native Africans with impunity.

It was also in the Congo that the white mercenaries, who often came from countries such as Belgium, France, Rhodesia and South Africa, demonstrated that most predictable trait of this ignoble profession: the primacy of personal profit over notions of idealism and loyalty.

This is a potted history of the shifts in the allegiance of white mercenaries while fighting in the war which engulfed the Congo after Belgium granted it independence in June 1960.

The first mercenaries fought for secessionist Katanga when the policies of the soon to be assassinated Congolese Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba were perceived by the West as an open invitation to the USSR to expand its sphere of influence into central Africa. This was unacceptable to the Western powers during the ideological Cold War. The mercenaries fought to enable the Belgians to retain their influence on their former colony by aiding the attempted secession of the minerally rich Katanga province which was led by Moise Tshombe. Although the recruitment of the mercenaries was reported to be done by shadowy, independent actors, Siegfried Muller, a South Africa-based West German mercenary, whose subsequent notoriety earned him the sobriquet "Kongo" Muller, admitted in the East German-made 1966 film Der lachende Mann – Bekenntnisse eines Mörders that mercenary recruitment was a "NATO operation".

Major Siegfried Muller AKA “Kongo” Muller

When Tshombe became part of the national government, the mercenaries were tasked with fighting against the anti-Mobutu Lumumbist forces and others during the Kwilu Rebellion of 1963 to 1965, and the Simba Rebellion of 1964. Pierre Mulele, a Lumumbist, led the Kwilu rebellion. Both Kwilu and Simba rebellions were an attempt to dislodge the Western-backed central government led by Joseph Kasa-Vabu (who was backed by Mobutu) and create a socialist state.

Belgium, along with the rest of the West, had gravitated towards Mobutu who had taken over most of the Congo, because they saw in him a man who would protect their collective interests. This meant that Tshombe, who as with other Katangan elites, had been encouraged to secede from the Congo, had effectively outlived his usefulness. This state of affairs was underlined by Tshombe’s dismissal by Kasa-Vabu from the cabinet of the central government in 1965.

Mercenaries such as the Belgian Colonel Jean "Black Jack" Schramme were up to this period still fighting on Mobutu's side. He had been personally recruited to fight for the central government by Tshombe but began to have second thoughts because of Mobutu’s misgivings over continual reliance on mercenary staffed units of L'Armée nationale congolaise. Mobutu began disbanding these units and in June 1967, the Frenchman Bob Denard warned Schramme that the last of the units would be imminently dissolved. Things came to a head when Tshombe's plan to return to the Congo from Spanish exile in 1967 was frustrated by an airplane hijack over the Mediterranean and he was incarcerated in Algeria.

Schramme and his men foreswore their allegiance to Mobutu's national army and issued an ultimatum to Mobutu to hand over power to Tshombe by August 20th, 1967. Mobutu himself issued a counter to the mercenaries’ ultimatum by giving them 10 days to surrender or "face spectacular punishment."

Despite their bravado, the mercenaries were by this time already on the verge of defeat, and they made their last stand at Bukavu where they began to be overwhelmed by Mobutu's forces. Many of them planned to flee across the border to Rwanda.

Anticipating this, the Rwandan government issued the following statement in Paris:

"Rwanda will welcome in a humanitarian spirit the black and white refugees coming from the Congo and will close its frontiers to the mercenaries and Katangan troops who have betrayed their people and the incontestable Congolese authority established by General Mobutu."

The mercenaries who fled to Rwanda were held in a camp and forced to sign a pledge not to return to any part of the African continent.

Each man signed and swore to the following statement:

"I solemnly undertake towards the OAU and every individual state in Africa to cease definitely any activity as a mercenary and never to return to Africa or associate myself directly or indirectly in any action harmful to the stability and peace of any independent African state."

While the likes of Schramme abided by the terms of the pledge, it did not end the scourge of mercenary activity on the African continent.

© Adeyinka Makinde (2024).

Adeyinka Makinde is a writer based in London, England.