Executive Outcomes is the model on which all Private Military Companies (PMCs) operating in Iraq and Afghanistan are based. Founder Eeben Barlow in the early 1990s originally offered courses in intelligence to South Africa's Special Forces and security work to De Beers' diamond mining industry. This was greatly expanded in 1993 when an oil company offered EO a contract to provide security for its staff while they recovered valuable drilling equipment stranded at the Angolan oil port of Soyo - after its capture by UNITA rebels. Barlow recruited ex-members of South Africa's elite military units for the job. EO was contracted for a month, but this ended up being extended and EO spearheading an Angolan Army assault on Soyo and its capture from UNITA. This highly successful operation led to a contract to retrain the Angolan Army. Both UNITA and MPLA had taken part in UN supervised elections in 1992, but UNITA had rejected the results after losing and it had returned to civil war. During a hard-fought campaign, retrained Angolan Army units led by EO captured Cafunfu - the diamond producing area that funded UNITA's war effort. Eventually, international pressure spearheaded by the UN and the 'blood diamond' lobby, forced EO's withdrawal from Angola which quickly sank back into chaos. EO's next contract was in May 1995 when 200 men were despatched to Sierra Leone where RUF rebels, chopping off people's limbs and engaging in cannibalism, were marching on Freetown. EO smashed the rebels and this led to free and fair elections with a new government being elected. Pressures were again exerted which resulted in EO's withdrawal. In the place of its 200 troops the UN deployed 18 000 soldiers at a cost of US$1 billion per year. The rebels regrouped,frequently taking UN troops as hostages, and the country again sank back into...

Executive Outcomes Against All Odds

Literature & Fiction

Eeben Barlow

Genre Fiction

Galago Books

<p>Executive Outcomes was already well known to several governments and private corporations before it exploded into controversy in 1993 after entering into a contract with Angola's FAA to train a brigade-level force to decisively end their decades-old conflict with UNITA. It was also well known to those involved in fermenting conflicts in order to topple African governments with a view to controlling resources for personal gain. The role Executive Outcomes played in bringing an end to the conflicts in Angola and Sierra Leone threatened numerous duplicitous foreign entities. To protect their economic and other interests, a media frenzy was generated to discredit the company, and false media and intelligence reporting became the norm upon which Executive Outcomes was judged. Executive Outcomes is still regarded as the gold standard by which similar companies are judged, and it is the only private military company that never failed in a contract or abandoned a client government. During the years that it was active, the men of Executive Outcomes saved many thousands of lives. In this revised edition, the author presents a no-holds-barred account of the company's activities and the numerous threats it had to deal with, including attempts to assassinate its founder and chairman. Eeben Barlow served as a commandant (lieutenant colonel) in several conventional, unconventional, and covert South African Defence Force units. Commissioned in the SADF's Corps of Engineers, he served as the sapper officer in several infantry battalions, and as second in command of 32 Battalion's Reconnaissance Wing. Following that deployment, he served as an agent handler for Military Intelligence and thereafter as a covert operative in the SA Special Forces' shadowy Civil Cooperation Bureau.</p>

Executive Outcomes: Against All Odds [Paperback] Eeben Barlow

History

Military

30 Degrees South

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Eeben Barlow. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Eeben Barlow