10.00.00 Soldiers firing A new kind of killing force has burst onto the world’s battle fields. They take 20th century weapons into third world countries. They’re South Africa’s apartheid soldiers or ‘Executive Outcomes’.
00.29 Johannesburg + Debeers The new South Africa still has much that’s not so new. In the mineral industries opportunities are rarer than ever. Today are mining executives sending mercenaries to win mineral rights through war?
00.44 Eeben Barlow Until recently Eeben Barlow, commanded the mercenaries. He’s implicated in a world wide web of war, greed and intrigue.
00.51 TITLES Executive Outcomes - The War Business
01.22 SOUTH AFRICA, 1997 Memorial of Dolf Van Tonder Durban We have come together for a memorial service. For the service of Daniel Rudolf Van Tonder - better known as Dolf. He was found missing on the 2nd April 1994 while he was working as an instructor for the MPLA government in Angola. I didn’t know him personally, but I was privileged to know Marie Van Tonder. Dolf was a person who couldn’t even go out and kill the bugs in the kitchen, but would always lift them up and throw them out the back door... that’s the kind of man that I was introduced to through Marie’s eyes.
02.11 Int: Anonymous EO mercenary 1. Dolf was a well trained reconnaissance soldier and Dolf was also one of the older guys in the group. I think he knew. I think Dolf was also in kind of a financial stress situation, I assume that Dolf had problems financially and that he went there for the money.
02.36 Military museum The fall of the apartheid regime spelt the end of an era for South African Special Forces soldiers. After years of combat in the bitter bush wars against the ANC, many soldiers found it impossible to return to ordinary life.
02.57 Wife Marie Van Tonder at kitchen table showing photos of missing Dolf That’s Dolf over there…This photograph is of the 4 people who went missing and this was the last day that they actually were seen alive. That was the day that they left. Dolf went missing in Camaxilo, that is over there in the Lunda Norte area. He said that if he was told to go and fight he wouldn’t do such a thing. He wouldn’t be stupid enough to put his life on the line for the amount of money that he got.
Wedding Photo [pause]
03.36 Dolf’s effects Marie still keeps Dolf’s things sent back from Angola after the battle in which he disappeared.
03.46 Int: Marie Van Tonder I don’t like the word ‘mercenary’ because I can’t place Dolf or see him as a mercenary. He was the most gentle person alive, I think, and he wasn’t a killer.
04.03 Int: Anonymous EO mercenary 1. When we lost Dolf Van Tonder it was 2nd April 1994. We had to attack a town I would say approximately 30km South of the Zairian border. And we had 80 bombs to fire into the enemy base. But we drew fire, enemy fire... I saw tracers going in and out of the helicopter, smoke and fumes of the petrol coming out of the helicopter and we knew it was hit very very very badly.
04.41 Unita stills of burnt out helicopter EO’s burned out helicopter was poured over by the victorious UNITA rebels. It was one of their biggest scoops ever. The big question for Marie is, did they take any prisoners as well that day.
04.58 ANGOLA 1994 EO mercenary Video Diary, Angola Unique video footage obtained by the producers shows for the first time ever Executive Outcomes mercenaries in the front-line positions they don’t admit they go into.
05.09 Mercenary’s v/o over bunkers This end is for my head and that is for my feet. If the mortars come I just climb in there... it’s not so deep. It’s about a meter under the ground. There’s my bible and there’s my torch. Everyone has dug holes around here. When the bombs fall they fall just there by that tree.
05.34 Pretoria suburbs & barking dogs In these leafy Pretoria suburbs the New South Africa remains only a distant reality. It’s also where Executive Outcomes is based. Behind bars, white washed walls and security cameras is an organisation which has dispatched mercenaries to fight all over the world. Linked to Apartheid’s notorious death squads, there can be few people with as many secrets as Eeben Barlow.
06.26 NATSOF Eeben Barlow on phone (Afrikaans) in Pretoria HQ Hello. OK. Thursday night I fly Johannesburg to the other place which you know and I’ll speak to you from there... I can’t talk because I’ve got people with me. And a bit later I’ll fly from that place to the other place we’ve already talked about??
06.46 Board Room Adept at manipulating his public image Barlow treads a delicate tightrope. On the one hand, he needs to advertise his real skills, his combat skills. On the other the public must believe what he does is merely to train soldiers. But the truth is that what Executive Outcomes does do best is fight.
07.10 Int: Eeben Barlow - Executive Outcomes Often we come under fire & we come under fire wherever we work. We are contracted by governments that have conflicts, internal conflicts. Everyone in the company knows that we are employed in high risk areas and therefore we’re armed.
07.25 Int: Anonymous EO mercenary 1. The Xinxi mission was the first mission we had to do. We had to attack... it was described as a hospital with a few guards guarding the hospital and we thought it was an easy target, a sitting duck, a turkey shoot - call it what you want. So when all of us were employed by EO on these commando-type operations we never used any personnel of the MPLA or the government forces. We were small groups to be fitted into one or two helicopters.
08.05 Helicopter droning & stills
08.22 ABU DHABI, 1997 Abu Dhabi in the Middle East... Capital of the United Arab Emirates and jewel in the Arab peninsular. It’s an opulent state - created from the desert, with the riches of oil. It’s also become one of the most important sites for the world’s larger arms deals. Every two years it hosts the IDEX arms fair, the largest of its kind in the world.
Music & IDEX 1997 - the International Defense Exhibition
09.06 Exhibitors Leading weapons builders show off their tools for destruction. And the new South Africa is exhibiting for the first time. South African Defense Minister Joe Modise here enjoying the fruits of the ANC’s revolution. But he’s not the only South African at the fair.
09.34 EO stand Tucked away is fellow countryman and old arch enemy… Eeben Barlow. Here to promote his ‘professional military advisory service’.
09.49 EO PROMO VIDEO The mercenaries promotional video speaks of only training.
09.58 Video Commentary & promo music Executive Outcomes’ mission is to provide the most professional military training related to land, sea and air warfare.
10.19 Crowded EO stand Since 1993 when Executive Outcomes began they’ve completed dozens of usually top secret missions. Their reputation has grown and today their stand is one of the busiest.
10.29 Int: Eeben Barlow , Executive Outcomes Everything is going very well. We’ve had very interesting people who’ve been to see us and obviously we’ve been extremely busy over here. So it’s too early to say that this was highly successful in terms of contracts but already we’ve been invited to visit a few countries around here and I believe any government that asks us and visit them can only be serious.
10.50 Barlow talking to French General Later a secretly filmed meeting with a French general, also involved in the mercenary business, reveals that Executive Outcomes has grand ambitions but the competition is fierce.
11.00 Barlow to French General There can be times where we can open the door for you, maybe, into a country. You can open the door for us. There can be a countries where your skills and our skills combined can do something. We still stay independent, but there’s no reason why we have to work against each other. We don’t go into countries which are traditionally under French control... we don’t go in there.
11.27 Chris Grove to French General There are certain countries like Algeria which you have an interest in but you don’t have access to it any more. Although we don’t necessarily have interests in it we have access to the country.
Barlow to French General You see, General, business is business...
11.46 EO Stand Meanwhile on the other side of the world, their mercenaries have started ‘Operation Oyster’ in Papua New Guinea... sub- contracted, they say, by a British Company called Sandline.
PNG Newspaper headlines After months of secret negotiations 70 Executive Outcomes mercenaries have arrived but the story’s been leaked.
12.05 Int: Eeben Barlow We’re not there to ferment any destabilisation. In fact we were brought in on a specific assignment by Sandline and that is to train the armed forces. If the government of PNG wishes that we should not be there that is their prerogative and then we will leave. But we’re not there to start a civil war.
12.27 PORT MORESBY, PAPUA NEW GUINEA, 1997 But in Papua New Guinea on that very day, civil war does seem to be looming. The population are rioting because they’ve discovered mercenaries have been in the country for weeks.
12.40 Panguna mine (aerials) Executive Outcomes is here to free this mine on Bougainville Island. It used to produce huge revenues but today it sits idle, swamped by rebels.
12.51 BRA Rebels BRA separatists forced the Panguna Copper Mine on Bougainville to close 8 years ago. But the government knows that the rebels’ wooden rifles will be no match for EO’s high tech firepower.
13.07 PNG army, coffins at airport For years PNG troops have been returning from the Bougainville battlefront in coffins. They say they’ve begged for more resources but the government has always refused. Now the hiring of Executive Outcomes mercenaries has made them furious.
13.21 Int: Major Walter Enume - PNG Defense Force We’ve only got 2 battalions and those battalions just rotate and rotate. We could have used that money. With that 36 million we could have formed the 3rd battalion, get our equipment and our logistics in place. Then I’m definitely sure we’d be quite capable of sorting out the Bougainville crisis.
13.39 NATSOF General speaking to crowd
13.46 PNG army The army EO would have lead in combat is now rallying against them. The troops are angry at politicians’ lies that the foreigners wouldn’t have been fighting.
13.54 PNG Contract But the EO contract states that the mercenaries were to defeat the BRA rebels and repossess the Panguna mine.’
14.03 Lawyers office/ Tim Spicer Tim Spicer, the UK architect of the contract faces legal charges. Today he’s consulting his lawyers in the PNG capital, Port Moresby. He’s a British war hero, and represents Sandline, the shadowy London company in charge of the mercenary contract.
14.27 PNG prisoners Today though, Spicer is appearing in court along with Papua New Guinea’s more common criminals.
14,38 PNG Helicopter letters Letters between London and Papua New Guinea show a high handed and sophisticated sales routine. There are well based allegations of a plan to enrich local MPs prepared to back the mercenary deal.
14.52 PNG Army Barracks Troops are amassing at the central barracks. The country is in crisis. Ordinary Papua New Guinea people have heard of the scandal and now they want the government out.
15.08 Vox pop They seem to be a bunch of killers who are hired to kill people. They form revolutionary groups against the government in operating the mining industries.
NATSOF Demo We are going to Parliament...
15.25 Demo They are protesting at the idea of foreigners coming to kill PNG citizens so that politicians and businessmen can make money. It’s nationwide revulsion at the idea of using mercenaries to solve a very local issue.
15.40 Outside parliament Surrounding the Parliament they won’t allow MPs to leave until the government stands down.
14.46 Parliament Meanwhile inside the besieged building politicians squabble over who is responsible.
15.51 Natsof Resign, resign, resign!!
15.58 Protesters listening to radios During the debate the Government admits that there was a link between the mine and the mercenaries. It’s something they had always denied.
16.07 voice of Chris Haiveta, PNG Deputy Prime Minister, in parliament Government has made a policy decision that any future expenditure in Bougainville, when the problem is brought to a close, will be repaid from the economy of Bougainville and will be repaid by Panguna mine.
16.26 Panguna Mine Tim Spicer strenuously denies any interest in the Panguna mine but in his own words to the PNG Defense Minister he wrote...
Tim Spicer’s Letter ‘We may be able to assist with funding and could come to some arrangement regarding part payment with mineral concessions’.
16.46 Protesters Outside Parliament At Night It’s the early hours of the morning. Protesters and soldiers still besiege the parliament.
16.51 Natsof Angry Protesters ‘Come on Papua New Guineans, wake up. Our leaders are not thinking. Something is wrong.
17.01 Int: Sir Michael Somare Ex Prime Minister, PNG We have been confined to parliament and I think it’s a siege. The military and people surrounding the parliament house. I’ve been in politics for 30 years and in those 30 years this is my first experience of being confined. I cannot move. I cannot go out.
17.28 MPs Inside Besieged Parliament Only a handful of MP’s knew anything of the contract before it was signed. But many now know how Executive Outcomes works.
17.36 Int: John Tekwe PNG Minister They are known for one thing. They just go out there and just shoot at whatever they see. They don’t care. They just achieve their mission and whatever the aftermath - how many people they kill, they hurt, and the ill feelings, that’s our problem. And I don’t want to see this happen in this country.
18.15 ANGOLA, 1994 We’re standing on territory onto which our own people recently fired mortars a short while ago. We surprised the enemy a little I think. There are a couple dead and a couple badly burned.
18.30 Video Diary In 1994 Executive Outcomes spent 9 months fighting in Angola in a top secret and devastating operation.
18.45 Video Diary Mercenary speaks ‘One down plenty to go.’
18.48 LUANDA, ANGOLA, 1992 Following UN sponsored elections in 1992 Angola plunged back into war. Executive Outcomes signed their first Angolan contract soon afterwards.
19.00 Rounding up UNITA supporters When the elections collapsed thousands of UNITA supporters were rounded up and slaughtered. Executive Outcomes was to be employed by one of Africa’s nastiest governments.
19.13 PAPUA NEW GUINEA, 1997 Unlike Angola Papua New Guinea is a poor country with few resources. And there’s never been the political will to really wipe out the BRA rebels. It was rather a case of greedy politicians falling into the grip of determined British salesmen.
19.34 Executive Outcomes Weapons List The equipment list which came with the EO contract included helicopter gunships, rockets, and hi-tech surveillance equipment. But PNG officers also spoke of an ultra secret consignment of even worse munitions.
19.48 Major Walter Enume Major Walter Enume worked with the mercenaries and didn’t like what he saw.
19.52 Int: Walter Enume There was potential for massacres. There was weaponry that is now at our disposal which we never had before. Weapons that can kill people within a radius of 2-3 kms.
20.09 Executive Outcomes Equipment Unloaded at Airport South African intelligence has discovered that EO had purchased 70 air fuel bombs. They are state of the art Russian weapons which suffocate everything in a 2 km circle.
20.20 Int: Nick Van Den Berg, Executive Outcomes Maybe they’ve heard rumours of air fuel bombs and the application thereof. I think, and that’s my personal opinion, that air fuel bombs in that area would not serve any purpose in any case.
20.35 Setup - Bill Skates Sandline are now sueing the PNG government for the $20million they claim to be owed from the deal. The new Prime Minister has vowed he won’t pay.
20.44 Int: Bill Skates, New Prime Minister PNG They may have signed a legitimate contract with a legitimate government, but the question is whether that contract was approved by Parliament and whether it was within the constitution. And if it has been in violation of the constitution it should be dealt with. And so should the government.
21.05 British High Commission From the British High Commission, where Colonel Tim Spicer stayed during his confinement in PNG, he reluctantly gave a press conference.
21.16 Tim Spicer’s Press conference But he refused to be drawn on just who is behind his British organisation. Or why a mercenary was receiving preferential treatment from the UK High Commission. I don’t wish to comment on that.
21.25 Natsof Tim Spicer I’m a British subject. I think the British government have shown me every facility that they’re able to. Sandline happens to have an office in London. There is no association other than that.
21.42 Mercenaries Leave PNG While Spicer stays behind to face an inquiry his fighters are going back to where they come from, South Africa.
21.58 LONDON, UK, 1997 But its become clear this was a very British operation.
22.09 Kings Road, London, Tony Buckingham Headquarters In the posh Kings Road area of London is the headquarters of Spicer’s firm, Sandline. And 535 King’s Road is home to a number of other related companies, mostly mining and oil firms.
22.23 According to a UK intelligence dossier it’s really this man behind it all.
22.28 Tony Buckingham Picture & Intelligence Doc Tony Buckingham is ex British Special Forces and the mastermind behind an empire built on mineral concessions freed by mercenaries.
British Flag in PNG & sunset And at the Papua New Guinea inquiry Spicer admitted that he works for Buckingham but he said,
22.44 PNG Inquiry (Sunset) ‘Executive Outcomes is entirely separate from Sandline, only a subcontractor.’ But then the judge revealed $18m was paid into a joint account controlled by Eeben Barlow and Buckingham. The judge concluded ‘The information provided by Sandline that they are entirely separate from EO cannot be correct.’
23.12 Executive Outcomes Home Video Music - Black Man Hit A home video made by Executive Outcomes shows the worst of the marriage between Western business and the soldiers who for so long propped up the apartheid system.
EO Home Video ...we struck oil and that’s no sin...
23.26 Executive Outcomes Music Video - Oil Rigs & Dollar Signs EO’s home video also backs up claims that the oil industry has played a key role in providing work for the mercenaries.
23.36 Int: Eeben Barlow We went in 1993 to secure the oil fields so that they could recover the equipment… that’s the oil companies… that’s Texaco, Fina, Gulf, Sonangol, everyone… they have been able now to continue with oil production and all the international oil companies have now started investing very heavily into that area. So peace was the condition for investment afterwards? Absolutely. No investor’s going to allow his money to be spent thinking or knowing he’s going to lose it.
Tunnel [pause]
24.11 Mountains Executive Outcomes mercenaries aren’t easy to find. Their contracts demand secrecy with big financial penalties for those who speak out. The mountains of the Eastern Transvaal are a favourite hideaway for fighters who find it difficult to readjust to normal life.
24.28 Setup - David, Executive Outcomes Mercenary 2 In 1993 David was recruited for EO’s first contract in Angola. Four years later he’s still a mercenary. His job in the South African army ended when the ANC came to power. He says Executive Outcomes saved him and many others from the bread queue.
24.48 Int: David, EO Mercenary 2 Is being a mercenary a glamorous job? No. Never ever. It’s a job you do because that is what you’ve been trained to do it all your life - being a soldier. So if you’re going to do it you do it properly.
24.59 Monkeys He says the first contract was in the Angolan oil town of Soyo. Their task was to capture the Soyo oil base while a British team rescued equipment.
25.08 Int: David, EO Mercenary 2 When we were recruited at Soyo the purpose behind it, apart from guarding the oil support base was to recover a fairly technical computerised pumping station or floating pumping station and that was the main thing. Apparently this thing was worth somewhere in the region of $80 million.
Soyo Pictures gunfire
25.36 Unita Dead Executive Outcomes had arrived. They easily captured the oil base. David says two Britons conducted the operation. One was Tony Buckingham, the other Simon Mann, also ex SAS. The international oil community had sent in its own private army.
25.56 Int: David, EO Mercenary 2 At the time I met up with them I was introduced to them as Tony Buckingham and Simon Mann. I was aware that they were involved in the sponsorship of recovering the oil drum and the whole Soyo trip. But they weren’t introduced to me as ‘this is Brigadier General or Major General’ or whatever rank they may have had... just as two businessmen from an oil company.
26.20 Kwando Base & oil company boat photos Their Angolan HQ was Kwando base where oil workers used to stay. Offshore the mercenary team used oil company boats to prepare for their attacks.
26.35 SOYO, ANGOLA, 1993 Once the oil base was captured, EO troops discarded their uniforms, pretended to be ordinary security guards and invited in the press.
26.43 Int: Buks Buys, Executive Outcomes Mercenary We were hired by a legitimate oil company. And they decided to get expert people in like the British SA... - or whoever - to protect the installations against any sabotage. Is that mercenaries? You call that mercenaries.
27.06 LUANDA, ANGOLA, 1997 The Soyo mission was EO’s first Angolan contract and it was the beginning of a lucrative business strategy. Today Buckingham & his portfolio of companies control some of Angola’s most valuable assets.
27.29 Luanda GVs Luanda, Angola’s capital. It’s a devastated city. It should be one of the richest in Africa but a vastly corrupt government has seen to it that ordinary Angolans see none of it.
27.41 Sonangol GVs Cuba once extended the hand of friendship to Angola. Today it’s international business which supports the corrupt officials who control everything here. Buckingham’s second operation in Angola involved not oil but rather diamonds.
27.56 Int: Executive Outcomes Mercenary 1 With Photos We heard about this Buckingham guy in London who was financing the whole story. If ever we needed any equipment, specialised equipment, it was told that they would go back to him and ask for finances, or discuss it… We knew it was either diamonds or oil that was paying for this whole exercise. We knew the government gave us the weapons but the money which paid for the weapons, we were told, it came from London.
28.30 ANGOLA, 1994 We had good success today. We got 80 heads. We had no human loss on our side except one or two who got wounded here and there. I wish you could feel the pressure of the exploding bombs. This morning a big mortar fell just 20 metres away. It’s not nice, it’s not nice.
29.04 Marie Van Tonder looks at Photos of Corpses When Dolf first disappeared Marie was given photos of 3 dead men. She still agonizes whether one of them is her husband.
29.15 Int: Marie Van Tonder I might be wrong I don’t know. When I look at this guys mustache, OK, his face is swollen. He’s got a straight mustache whereas Dolf’s mustache comes right down
29.29 Int: Marie Van Tonder We didn’t even get a letter to say they were sorry. It was like they wanted us to believe that they were dead. So that we could just carry on with our lives and then we wouldn’t be a burden to them.
29.45 EO Lawyer’s When Executive Outcomes did send Marie a letter it was a lawyer’s letter demanding about $1000 for a death certificate for her husband. They even refused to pay out his one year contract.
Executive Outcomes helicopters/ music
30.15 Int Fran Oberall, Fiancee of missing Danie Scheurkogel Sweetheart, I don’t know how to write this letter. After UNITA attacked us it was decided by the powers that be, to teach them, UNITA a lesson they would never forget. To absolutely annihilate everything within a radius of 30kms. The result was that nothing was left and bodies everywhere. It was devastating. The reccies captured a few UNITA soldiers and what they did to them, to extract information from them... If only you can imagine, it was worse! It will give me nightmares for the rest of my life.
31.02 Blacking up (EO video)/ music The day of the key Angolan battle had come. The EO mercenaries blacked up for the final attack on the diamond town of Cafunfo.
ANGOLA, 1994, Mercenary’s Hi 8 video of capture of Angolan diamond town of Cafunfo [pause]
31.33 It was this attack which opened up diamond concessions from which Tony Buckingham is alleged to have made a fortune.
31.55 EO troops looting town
32.01 After capturing Cafunfo town EO’s mercenaries went on a drunken looting spree lasting a day.
32.15 ANGOLA, 1997 On route to Huambo city in Southern Angola - heading into Unita rebel territory. Today Unita remains cut off from the world by self-imposed front lines. And the UN struggles to maintain a fragile peace.
32.34 UN body out ambulance The body of the latest Brazilian peace keeper to be killed is flown back to the Angolan capital. EO’s supporters say private armies are less costly and more effective than the UN.
32.49 Body loaded But EO’ s ‘peace’ does not always last.
33.00 Unita Town Bailundu is the capital of UNITA territory and a town where the people have seen the worst that war can bring. Today UNITA has been beaten into submission and EO are widely regarded as being responsible. Many here have witnessed Executive Outcomes in the battlefield. They say the worst was the EO airforce. They say that once the mercenaries were employed the air war became more fierce and accurate than it had ever been.
33.36 Unita testimony ‘We could see them in the helicopters & they would shoot & laugh. But if it was an airplane it would fly too high and we couldn’t see them - but we would hear the language they were speaking through the FM radios… the language was English.... look at this ... she’s burnt like this all over her body.
Burnt woman It’s clear evidence of phosphorous bombing.
34.15 São Pedro Market And at São Pedro market in Huambo city Migs dropped phosphorous bombs onto this crowded marketplace.
34.24 Anon Phosphorous bomb int: They were bombing these places like São Pedro market where they could see a lot of people. When the bombs were falling they divided into small bombs and the way it looks like when they are now burning, they burn with a big fire and make a noise sssshhhhhhhh like that.
35.04 EO jet and bombing mercenaries film It undoubtedly was the success of the air wing which did do most to turn the tide in this war.
35.11 EO Aircraft (Stills) Executive Outcomes brought in pilots who, though not familiar with the MIG jets, were quick to adapt.
EO Mig bombing pictures [pause]
35.24 The South Africans did bring with them huge experience having spent years here flying at war for the old apartheid government.
35.35 Track through bombed house EO has been given an uncontrolled freedom for destruction. There are no controls to the force they can deploy or how they deploy it.
35.45 Phosphorous Bombs Unexploded phosphorous bombs are all to easy to find in Huambo.
35.51 Jonas Savimbi’s House Jonas Savimbi’s house was hit with pin point accuracy. It’s believed that a key EO task was to kill Savimbi - the rebel leader.
EO Mig with big bomb
36.02 Anonymous int: EO mercenary The BBC told the world that at Xinxi 70 of the enemy died when we attacked the town, mostly innocent women and children… I also know of a few personal incidents where civilians were shot at out of the helicopter by individuals of the company. It was very difficult because the civilians in that area were pro UNITA, pro enemy, some wore enemy battle fatigues, some wore nothing, only civilian clothes. So it was a very difficult war to distinguish between enemy and civilians.
36.49 UNITA take producers to meet soldier In southern Angola the producers asked if UNITA might have captured Marie van Tonder’s husband Dolf. Amongst the demobilising UNITA troops a soldier was found who did know something. And UNITA also handed over
37.06 Photos of missing mercenary photographs never seen before. They said he’s a mercenary captured during battle but don’t know his name.
37.13 Interview: UNITA Captain Martino Bayonette When we captured them I wanted to kill them. Then because the government always denies that they use mercenaries I decided that we have to display them to the world to prove that mercenaries are in Angola.
37.35 Aerial of diamond fields And this is what it’s all about. The diamond fields of Angola. After EO had taken Cafunfo Buckingham’s companies were rewarded with some of the richest diamond concessions in the world. In a 1996 prospectus Buckingham claimed his Angolan concessions hold diamonds worth three and a half billion dollars.
Finding a diamond [pause]
38.00 Security guard & gun Further, huge security budgets are then spent on the same mercenaries, to guard his mines.
38.07 Alfa 5 It a key Buckingham strategy and he’s left behind security firms wherever his mercenaries have fought. Alpha 5 in central Luanda is just one that EO is associated with, now that the Angolan mercenary operations are over.
38.21 Int: Smuts Chata, UNITA Secretary for Mass Mobilisation They are still here in Angola. We understand that there are some special companies who have recruited these people. We think that it is probably a special plan. There are some people still in Luanda, who are mercenaries, who are leading some security companies, private companies. These people are recruited into them. They are still there.
38.50 SOUTH AFRICA, 1997 EO Memorial In the Pretoria garden of the Executive Outcomes logistics centre in South Africa there’s a memorial to the EO mercenaries who’ve died in battle, mostly in Angola.
39.02 EO Personnel Office & Angolan visa forms But Angolan visa forms and South African passports were easy to see in EO’s personnel office. It’s further evidence that Executive Outcomes has never really left Angola.
39.22 Int: Thys Pelser EO Personnel Officer We’re looking for specialised guys. That’s the main criteria. Normally it’s someone that’s trained up to combat team level. We do need pilots now and then. Mostly it’s chopper pilots that we employ.
39.49 Filing cabinet In their personnel files are details of over 2 thousand mercenaries and logistics people. And the details of everyone from the notorious Koevoet police unit also seem to be here. Koevoet was renowned for cruelty and political killings during the apartheid era.
40.08 Nick van den Berg As international concern grows Executive outcomes is changing. This man, Nick Van Den Berg, is now - they say - in charge. He doesn’t have the death squad past that dogged Eeben Barlow.
40.25 Nick van den Berg outside walking Our personnel office is situated here in the out buildings. And we also have my financial people sitting in the out buildings and also the logistical guys.
40.34 Containers Q: So where is all the equipment then? Vd Berg: Our equipment?
40.46 Vd Berg shows flack jackets If you want, have a look at this. Body armour, flack jackets… We don’t want to get involved in anything that’s illegal. So we enter into a legal contract with a legal government, that’s a recognised government. That’s our way of doing things.
41.10 White board On EO’s walls a chart shows a computer network linking the United States, the UK and South Africa. It’s a chilling indication of just how big these people are.
41.22 Executive Outcomes offices show evidence of an intricate global network of companies.
41.30 Files The book shelves give away another link to Britain. It’s the airline, IBIS air, closely associated with Tony Buckingham.
41.41 Int: Nick Van Den Berg Yes, we do have a number of helicopters and planes but the planes are grouped in a specific company. But we do get preferential treatment from that company because we’ve got shares in the company.
41.55 Ibis chopper & Plane Ibis Air is an air company which EO have declared to the South African banking authorities as a company largely owned by them.
Tony Buckingham business card But Tony Buckingham carries Ibis Air business cards describing him as the chief officer of the airline. It’s yet another indication of Buckingham’s key role.
42.11 Gung ho plane Without Ibis Air Executive Outcomes would literally, never have got off the ground.
42.15 Int: Eeben Barlow Executive Outcomes is not a secretive organisation. We’re registered at the registrar of companies as a legitimate company. It has no front companies. That is a figment of someone’s imagination, which in all fairness, we suspect, was something generated by South African military intelligence.
42.37 Petra Burrill & Son Elijah at Kitchen Table Ibis Air moved Petra Burrill and her family to work in their Kenya division. She says they were given bank accounts controlled by the Moi family.
42.48 Showing false aircraft sticker Petra Burrill showed us illegal aircraft registration stickers which she says she was asked to make. She believes Executive Outcomes, Ibis Air and all the others are the same crooked company.
43.03 Int. Petra Burrill He was never told that they were connected to Executive Outcomes. He thought he was working for an airline. We heard a lot about how great things went for them in Sierra Leone and how they’ve virtually enslaved this country by the mining rights, and things like this.
43.29 Burrill’s house Petra Burrill also tells of how IBIS Air arranged for her family’s passports to be confiscated once they started asking questions. Petra’s 16 year old son Elijah now carries a gun. He’s terrified EO mercenaries will come and get them because they’re speaking out against EO.
43.47 Int: Elijah Burill, his Father worked for Ibis My mother’s frightened, I’m frightened. We’re pretty frightened of these people. We carry firearms, different weapons. I inspect the wire every day. Maybe because we’re going to expose their whole operation and they might not be able to get work anymore, as mercenaries.
44.09 Diamond-Works Prospectus And this is Buckingham’s newest company. It’s called DiamondWorks. But on closer inspection it looks like just another Buckingham transformation. The company’s only real assets are the mining concessions freed by EO in Angola and Sierra Leone. The prospectus goes on to reveal that Tony Buckingham is a director. And other key military figures have also been absorbed.
44.35 Planes flying into Lanseria airport From airports like this one at Lanseria, outside Johannesburg, IBIS aircraft full of mercenaries have streamed in and out. Experts suspect that with so many British military figures involved Executive Outcomes has the support of the British secret service.
Wild Coast
44.59 Colonel Jan Breytenbach setup with wife On the wild coast of South Africa Colonel Jan Breytenbach, of the South African army is sure there are UK intelligence links.
45.11 32 Battalion Archive Breytenbach lead the apartheid regime in battle against the Angolans. He says even during South Africa’s darkest and most ostracized days he always had links with the English SAS.
45.24 Photo Breytenbach with SA forces and officers. And it was Colonel Jan Breytenbach who founded South Africa’s elite reconnaissance unit - the reccies. He modeled the unit on the SAS and is seen here with senior SAS officers. He’s one of the few who would know of EO intelligence links.
45.39 Int: Colonel Jan Breytenbach, Founder SA Special Forces After the war Stirling, David Stirling, started an organisation known as Capricorn. Capricorn consisted of former SAS personnel. It was used by the British Foreign office to extend as it were their influence in third world countries. The organisation that Executive Outcomes worked with from Lanseria was known as Capricorn. So that to me was the connection between the British - Capricorn - and Executive Outcomes.
46.16 Capricorn & IBIS Planes Perhaps worried by this link, Executive Outcomes changed the name of its airline to Ibis Air.
46.25 Dialing phone Though Tony Buckingham refused to give an interview for this film his Kings Road HQ was clearly panicking.
46.35 Phonecall to Michael Grunberg, Sandline Executive There is some suggestion that Executive Outcomes are linked, in more than the knowledge of each other, with Mr Tony Buckingham and his businesses. And something about Mr Buckingham’s businesses being linked to British intelligence services somehow. What I’m happy to do is to document to you the facts. If those facts come across I’ll be very happy. If you present another story that presents a different image then it’ll be very unfortunate.
47.13 ANGOLA, 1994 Mercenary’s diary footage It’s morning now! This is the day after we took Cafunfo. We’ve been busy having a bit of a party since last night. These are all the men. Hennie Blau: ‘The men who did the job are the men who are sitting here. And the people who aren’t in our group, it’s true to say - they missed a great deal.’
47.36 Animal Trophies The Angola operation was for many mercenaries an adventure. But some complain of their inability to put their gunhappy times behind them.
47.46 Int: Anonymous Executive Outcomes mercenary 1 If medals were dished out there were quite a few guys who should have got medals in Angola, in a mercenary sense. It was actually a very empty feeling to get acquainted to normal life again. A normal sleeping pattern. My relationships with people, who are dear to me. A man doesn’t talk about this very lightly but it was very very serious. I experienced it very intensively. I feel very sorry for the people around me.
48.20 Marie Van Tonder identifies pictures of husband Dolf captured by Unita & previously thought dead Marie van Tonder was deeply surprised to hear of the new photographs that had emerged during the trip to Angola. After 4 years she’d given up hope.
48.38 Int: Marie Van Tonder That’s him. That’s him .You can see he’s lost weight but that’s him.
Wedding photo Does it mean Dolf might be alive?
49.02 Photos on Marie’s lap
49.08 Beggar Good morning Maam, how are you today?
49.15 Cape Town, South Africa In the new South Africa there’s plenty of revulsion at the country’s apartheid killers now going off and killing for other people. It’s a reminder of a past South Africans are trying hard to forget.
49.28 South African parliament At the South African parliament a new law has now been put forward to put Executive Outcomes out of business. It proposes a ten year jail sentence for anyone caught fighting for money.
49.40 Int: Aziz Pahad, South African Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs There’s sometimes a perception that the South African government is sanctioning the activities of such mercenaries. We have publicly condemned this. We are trying everything to ensure that we convince governments that we don’t have any official connections and that we are taking steps to deal with this problem. It is a matter of tremendous embarrassment and concern to us.
50.05 Int: Eeben Barlow Anyone who understands the term mercenary, whether he is inside the company, or outside the company, will deny that we are mercenaries. For a start, governments all over the world make use of private contractors to train their armies. Our client governments are no exception to that.
Ship and sunset
50.31 Marie walking along beach I think that people who still go and work for them should know better - after what they’ve read and what they’ve known. Know now that if they go and work for them they go with their eyes open.
Music/ Executive Outcomes corporate logo.
CREDITS
51.42 END
00.29 Johannesburg + Debeers The new South Africa still has much that’s not so new. In the mineral industries opportunities are rarer than ever. Today are mining executives sending mercenaries to win mineral rights through war?
00.44 Eeben Barlow Until recently Eeben Barlow, commanded the mercenaries. He’s implicated in a world wide web of war, greed and intrigue.
00.51 TITLES Executive Outcomes - The War Business
01.22 SOUTH AFRICA, 1997 Memorial of Dolf Van Tonder Durban We have come together for a memorial service. For the service of Daniel Rudolf Van Tonder - better known as Dolf. He was found missing on the 2nd April 1994 while he was working as an instructor for the MPLA government in Angola. I didn’t know him personally, but I was privileged to know Marie Van Tonder. Dolf was a person who couldn’t even go out and kill the bugs in the kitchen, but would always lift them up and throw them out the back door... that’s the kind of man that I was introduced to through Marie’s eyes.
02.11 Int: Anonymous EO mercenary 1. Dolf was a well trained reconnaissance soldier and Dolf was also one of the older guys in the group. I think he knew. I think Dolf was also in kind of a financial stress situation, I assume that Dolf had problems financially and that he went there for the money.
02.36 Military museum The fall of the apartheid regime spelt the end of an era for South African Special Forces soldiers. After years of combat in the bitter bush wars against the ANC, many soldiers found it impossible to return to ordinary life.
02.57 Wife Marie Van Tonder at kitchen table showing photos of missing Dolf That’s Dolf over there…This photograph is of the 4 people who went missing and this was the last day that they actually were seen alive. That was the day that they left. Dolf went missing in Camaxilo, that is over there in the Lunda Norte area. He said that if he was told to go and fight he wouldn’t do such a thing. He wouldn’t be stupid enough to put his life on the line for the amount of money that he got.
Wedding Photo [pause]
03.36 Dolf’s effects Marie still keeps Dolf’s things sent back from Angola after the battle in which he disappeared.
03.46 Int: Marie Van Tonder I don’t like the word ‘mercenary’ because I can’t place Dolf or see him as a mercenary. He was the most gentle person alive, I think, and he wasn’t a killer.
04.03 Int: Anonymous EO mercenary 1. When we lost Dolf Van Tonder it was 2nd April 1994. We had to attack a town I would say approximately 30km South of the Zairian border. And we had 80 bombs to fire into the enemy base. But we drew fire, enemy fire... I saw tracers going in and out of the helicopter, smoke and fumes of the petrol coming out of the helicopter and we knew it was hit very very very badly.
04.41 Unita stills of burnt out helicopter EO’s burned out helicopter was poured over by the victorious UNITA rebels. It was one of their biggest scoops ever. The big question for Marie is, did they take any prisoners as well that day.
04.58 ANGOLA 1994 EO mercenary Video Diary, Angola Unique video footage obtained by the producers shows for the first time ever Executive Outcomes mercenaries in the front-line positions they don’t admit they go into.
05.09 Mercenary’s v/o over bunkers This end is for my head and that is for my feet. If the mortars come I just climb in there... it’s not so deep. It’s about a meter under the ground. There’s my bible and there’s my torch. Everyone has dug holes around here. When the bombs fall they fall just there by that tree.
05.34 Pretoria suburbs & barking dogs In these leafy Pretoria suburbs the New South Africa remains only a distant reality. It’s also where Executive Outcomes is based. Behind bars, white washed walls and security cameras is an organisation which has dispatched mercenaries to fight all over the world. Linked to Apartheid’s notorious death squads, there can be few people with as many secrets as Eeben Barlow.
06.26 NATSOF Eeben Barlow on phone (Afrikaans) in Pretoria HQ Hello. OK. Thursday night I fly Johannesburg to the other place which you know and I’ll speak to you from there... I can’t talk because I’ve got people with me. And a bit later I’ll fly from that place to the other place we’ve already talked about??
06.46 Board Room Adept at manipulating his public image Barlow treads a delicate tightrope. On the one hand, he needs to advertise his real skills, his combat skills. On the other the public must believe what he does is merely to train soldiers. But the truth is that what Executive Outcomes does do best is fight.
07.10 Int: Eeben Barlow - Executive Outcomes Often we come under fire & we come under fire wherever we work. We are contracted by governments that have conflicts, internal conflicts. Everyone in the company knows that we are employed in high risk areas and therefore we’re armed.
07.25 Int: Anonymous EO mercenary 1. The Xinxi mission was the first mission we had to do. We had to attack... it was described as a hospital with a few guards guarding the hospital and we thought it was an easy target, a sitting duck, a turkey shoot - call it what you want. So when all of us were employed by EO on these commando-type operations we never used any personnel of the MPLA or the government forces. We were small groups to be fitted into one or two helicopters.
08.05 Helicopter droning & stills
08.22 ABU DHABI, 1997 Abu Dhabi in the Middle East... Capital of the United Arab Emirates and jewel in the Arab peninsular. It’s an opulent state - created from the desert, with the riches of oil. It’s also become one of the most important sites for the world’s larger arms deals. Every two years it hosts the IDEX arms fair, the largest of its kind in the world.
Music & IDEX 1997 - the International Defense Exhibition
09.06 Exhibitors Leading weapons builders show off their tools for destruction. And the new South Africa is exhibiting for the first time. South African Defense Minister Joe Modise here enjoying the fruits of the ANC’s revolution. But he’s not the only South African at the fair.
09.34 EO stand Tucked away is fellow countryman and old arch enemy… Eeben Barlow. Here to promote his ‘professional military advisory service’.
09.49 EO PROMO VIDEO The mercenaries promotional video speaks of only training.
09.58 Video Commentary & promo music Executive Outcomes’ mission is to provide the most professional military training related to land, sea and air warfare.
10.19 Crowded EO stand Since 1993 when Executive Outcomes began they’ve completed dozens of usually top secret missions. Their reputation has grown and today their stand is one of the busiest.
10.29 Int: Eeben Barlow , Executive Outcomes Everything is going very well. We’ve had very interesting people who’ve been to see us and obviously we’ve been extremely busy over here. So it’s too early to say that this was highly successful in terms of contracts but already we’ve been invited to visit a few countries around here and I believe any government that asks us and visit them can only be serious.
10.50 Barlow talking to French General Later a secretly filmed meeting with a French general, also involved in the mercenary business, reveals that Executive Outcomes has grand ambitions but the competition is fierce.
11.00 Barlow to French General There can be times where we can open the door for you, maybe, into a country. You can open the door for us. There can be a countries where your skills and our skills combined can do something. We still stay independent, but there’s no reason why we have to work against each other. We don’t go into countries which are traditionally under French control... we don’t go in there.
11.27 Chris Grove to French General There are certain countries like Algeria which you have an interest in but you don’t have access to it any more. Although we don’t necessarily have interests in it we have access to the country.
Barlow to French General You see, General, business is business...
11.46 EO Stand Meanwhile on the other side of the world, their mercenaries have started ‘Operation Oyster’ in Papua New Guinea... sub- contracted, they say, by a British Company called Sandline.
PNG Newspaper headlines After months of secret negotiations 70 Executive Outcomes mercenaries have arrived but the story’s been leaked.
12.05 Int: Eeben Barlow We’re not there to ferment any destabilisation. In fact we were brought in on a specific assignment by Sandline and that is to train the armed forces. If the government of PNG wishes that we should not be there that is their prerogative and then we will leave. But we’re not there to start a civil war.
12.27 PORT MORESBY, PAPUA NEW GUINEA, 1997 But in Papua New Guinea on that very day, civil war does seem to be looming. The population are rioting because they’ve discovered mercenaries have been in the country for weeks.
12.40 Panguna mine (aerials) Executive Outcomes is here to free this mine on Bougainville Island. It used to produce huge revenues but today it sits idle, swamped by rebels.
12.51 BRA Rebels BRA separatists forced the Panguna Copper Mine on Bougainville to close 8 years ago. But the government knows that the rebels’ wooden rifles will be no match for EO’s high tech firepower.
13.07 PNG army, coffins at airport For years PNG troops have been returning from the Bougainville battlefront in coffins. They say they’ve begged for more resources but the government has always refused. Now the hiring of Executive Outcomes mercenaries has made them furious.
13.21 Int: Major Walter Enume - PNG Defense Force We’ve only got 2 battalions and those battalions just rotate and rotate. We could have used that money. With that 36 million we could have formed the 3rd battalion, get our equipment and our logistics in place. Then I’m definitely sure we’d be quite capable of sorting out the Bougainville crisis.
13.39 NATSOF General speaking to crowd
13.46 PNG army The army EO would have lead in combat is now rallying against them. The troops are angry at politicians’ lies that the foreigners wouldn’t have been fighting.
13.54 PNG Contract But the EO contract states that the mercenaries were to defeat the BRA rebels and repossess the Panguna mine.’
14.03 Lawyers office/ Tim Spicer Tim Spicer, the UK architect of the contract faces legal charges. Today he’s consulting his lawyers in the PNG capital, Port Moresby. He’s a British war hero, and represents Sandline, the shadowy London company in charge of the mercenary contract.
14.27 PNG prisoners Today though, Spicer is appearing in court along with Papua New Guinea’s more common criminals.
14,38 PNG Helicopter letters Letters between London and Papua New Guinea show a high handed and sophisticated sales routine. There are well based allegations of a plan to enrich local MPs prepared to back the mercenary deal.
14.52 PNG Army Barracks Troops are amassing at the central barracks. The country is in crisis. Ordinary Papua New Guinea people have heard of the scandal and now they want the government out.
15.08 Vox pop They seem to be a bunch of killers who are hired to kill people. They form revolutionary groups against the government in operating the mining industries.
NATSOF Demo We are going to Parliament...
15.25 Demo They are protesting at the idea of foreigners coming to kill PNG citizens so that politicians and businessmen can make money. It’s nationwide revulsion at the idea of using mercenaries to solve a very local issue.
15.40 Outside parliament Surrounding the Parliament they won’t allow MPs to leave until the government stands down.
14.46 Parliament Meanwhile inside the besieged building politicians squabble over who is responsible.
15.51 Natsof Resign, resign, resign!!
15.58 Protesters listening to radios During the debate the Government admits that there was a link between the mine and the mercenaries. It’s something they had always denied.
16.07 voice of Chris Haiveta, PNG Deputy Prime Minister, in parliament Government has made a policy decision that any future expenditure in Bougainville, when the problem is brought to a close, will be repaid from the economy of Bougainville and will be repaid by Panguna mine.
16.26 Panguna Mine Tim Spicer strenuously denies any interest in the Panguna mine but in his own words to the PNG Defense Minister he wrote...
Tim Spicer’s Letter ‘We may be able to assist with funding and could come to some arrangement regarding part payment with mineral concessions’.
16.46 Protesters Outside Parliament At Night It’s the early hours of the morning. Protesters and soldiers still besiege the parliament.
16.51 Natsof Angry Protesters ‘Come on Papua New Guineans, wake up. Our leaders are not thinking. Something is wrong.
17.01 Int: Sir Michael Somare Ex Prime Minister, PNG We have been confined to parliament and I think it’s a siege. The military and people surrounding the parliament house. I’ve been in politics for 30 years and in those 30 years this is my first experience of being confined. I cannot move. I cannot go out.
17.28 MPs Inside Besieged Parliament Only a handful of MP’s knew anything of the contract before it was signed. But many now know how Executive Outcomes works.
17.36 Int: John Tekwe PNG Minister They are known for one thing. They just go out there and just shoot at whatever they see. They don’t care. They just achieve their mission and whatever the aftermath - how many people they kill, they hurt, and the ill feelings, that’s our problem. And I don’t want to see this happen in this country.
18.15 ANGOLA, 1994 We’re standing on territory onto which our own people recently fired mortars a short while ago. We surprised the enemy a little I think. There are a couple dead and a couple badly burned.
18.30 Video Diary In 1994 Executive Outcomes spent 9 months fighting in Angola in a top secret and devastating operation.
18.45 Video Diary Mercenary speaks ‘One down plenty to go.’
18.48 LUANDA, ANGOLA, 1992 Following UN sponsored elections in 1992 Angola plunged back into war. Executive Outcomes signed their first Angolan contract soon afterwards.
19.00 Rounding up UNITA supporters When the elections collapsed thousands of UNITA supporters were rounded up and slaughtered. Executive Outcomes was to be employed by one of Africa’s nastiest governments.
19.13 PAPUA NEW GUINEA, 1997 Unlike Angola Papua New Guinea is a poor country with few resources. And there’s never been the political will to really wipe out the BRA rebels. It was rather a case of greedy politicians falling into the grip of determined British salesmen.
19.34 Executive Outcomes Weapons List The equipment list which came with the EO contract included helicopter gunships, rockets, and hi-tech surveillance equipment. But PNG officers also spoke of an ultra secret consignment of even worse munitions.
19.48 Major Walter Enume Major Walter Enume worked with the mercenaries and didn’t like what he saw.
19.52 Int: Walter Enume There was potential for massacres. There was weaponry that is now at our disposal which we never had before. Weapons that can kill people within a radius of 2-3 kms.
20.09 Executive Outcomes Equipment Unloaded at Airport South African intelligence has discovered that EO had purchased 70 air fuel bombs. They are state of the art Russian weapons which suffocate everything in a 2 km circle.
20.20 Int: Nick Van Den Berg, Executive Outcomes Maybe they’ve heard rumours of air fuel bombs and the application thereof. I think, and that’s my personal opinion, that air fuel bombs in that area would not serve any purpose in any case.
20.35 Setup - Bill Skates Sandline are now sueing the PNG government for the $20million they claim to be owed from the deal. The new Prime Minister has vowed he won’t pay.
20.44 Int: Bill Skates, New Prime Minister PNG They may have signed a legitimate contract with a legitimate government, but the question is whether that contract was approved by Parliament and whether it was within the constitution. And if it has been in violation of the constitution it should be dealt with. And so should the government.
21.05 British High Commission From the British High Commission, where Colonel Tim Spicer stayed during his confinement in PNG, he reluctantly gave a press conference.
21.16 Tim Spicer’s Press conference But he refused to be drawn on just who is behind his British organisation. Or why a mercenary was receiving preferential treatment from the UK High Commission. I don’t wish to comment on that.
21.25 Natsof Tim Spicer I’m a British subject. I think the British government have shown me every facility that they’re able to. Sandline happens to have an office in London. There is no association other than that.
21.42 Mercenaries Leave PNG While Spicer stays behind to face an inquiry his fighters are going back to where they come from, South Africa.
21.58 LONDON, UK, 1997 But its become clear this was a very British operation.
22.09 Kings Road, London, Tony Buckingham Headquarters In the posh Kings Road area of London is the headquarters of Spicer’s firm, Sandline. And 535 King’s Road is home to a number of other related companies, mostly mining and oil firms.
22.23 According to a UK intelligence dossier it’s really this man behind it all.
22.28 Tony Buckingham Picture & Intelligence Doc Tony Buckingham is ex British Special Forces and the mastermind behind an empire built on mineral concessions freed by mercenaries.
British Flag in PNG & sunset And at the Papua New Guinea inquiry Spicer admitted that he works for Buckingham but he said,
22.44 PNG Inquiry (Sunset) ‘Executive Outcomes is entirely separate from Sandline, only a subcontractor.’ But then the judge revealed $18m was paid into a joint account controlled by Eeben Barlow and Buckingham. The judge concluded ‘The information provided by Sandline that they are entirely separate from EO cannot be correct.’
23.12 Executive Outcomes Home Video Music - Black Man Hit A home video made by Executive Outcomes shows the worst of the marriage between Western business and the soldiers who for so long propped up the apartheid system.
EO Home Video ...we struck oil and that’s no sin...
23.26 Executive Outcomes Music Video - Oil Rigs & Dollar Signs EO’s home video also backs up claims that the oil industry has played a key role in providing work for the mercenaries.
23.36 Int: Eeben Barlow We went in 1993 to secure the oil fields so that they could recover the equipment… that’s the oil companies… that’s Texaco, Fina, Gulf, Sonangol, everyone… they have been able now to continue with oil production and all the international oil companies have now started investing very heavily into that area. So peace was the condition for investment afterwards? Absolutely. No investor’s going to allow his money to be spent thinking or knowing he’s going to lose it.
Tunnel [pause]
24.11 Mountains Executive Outcomes mercenaries aren’t easy to find. Their contracts demand secrecy with big financial penalties for those who speak out. The mountains of the Eastern Transvaal are a favourite hideaway for fighters who find it difficult to readjust to normal life.
24.28 Setup - David, Executive Outcomes Mercenary 2 In 1993 David was recruited for EO’s first contract in Angola. Four years later he’s still a mercenary. His job in the South African army ended when the ANC came to power. He says Executive Outcomes saved him and many others from the bread queue.
24.48 Int: David, EO Mercenary 2 Is being a mercenary a glamorous job? No. Never ever. It’s a job you do because that is what you’ve been trained to do it all your life - being a soldier. So if you’re going to do it you do it properly.
24.59 Monkeys He says the first contract was in the Angolan oil town of Soyo. Their task was to capture the Soyo oil base while a British team rescued equipment.
25.08 Int: David, EO Mercenary 2 When we were recruited at Soyo the purpose behind it, apart from guarding the oil support base was to recover a fairly technical computerised pumping station or floating pumping station and that was the main thing. Apparently this thing was worth somewhere in the region of $80 million.
Soyo Pictures gunfire
25.36 Unita Dead Executive Outcomes had arrived. They easily captured the oil base. David says two Britons conducted the operation. One was Tony Buckingham, the other Simon Mann, also ex SAS. The international oil community had sent in its own private army.
25.56 Int: David, EO Mercenary 2 At the time I met up with them I was introduced to them as Tony Buckingham and Simon Mann. I was aware that they were involved in the sponsorship of recovering the oil drum and the whole Soyo trip. But they weren’t introduced to me as ‘this is Brigadier General or Major General’ or whatever rank they may have had... just as two businessmen from an oil company.
26.20 Kwando Base & oil company boat photos Their Angolan HQ was Kwando base where oil workers used to stay. Offshore the mercenary team used oil company boats to prepare for their attacks.
26.35 SOYO, ANGOLA, 1993 Once the oil base was captured, EO troops discarded their uniforms, pretended to be ordinary security guards and invited in the press.
26.43 Int: Buks Buys, Executive Outcomes Mercenary We were hired by a legitimate oil company. And they decided to get expert people in like the British SA... - or whoever - to protect the installations against any sabotage. Is that mercenaries? You call that mercenaries.
27.06 LUANDA, ANGOLA, 1997 The Soyo mission was EO’s first Angolan contract and it was the beginning of a lucrative business strategy. Today Buckingham & his portfolio of companies control some of Angola’s most valuable assets.
27.29 Luanda GVs Luanda, Angola’s capital. It’s a devastated city. It should be one of the richest in Africa but a vastly corrupt government has seen to it that ordinary Angolans see none of it.
27.41 Sonangol GVs Cuba once extended the hand of friendship to Angola. Today it’s international business which supports the corrupt officials who control everything here. Buckingham’s second operation in Angola involved not oil but rather diamonds.
27.56 Int: Executive Outcomes Mercenary 1 With Photos We heard about this Buckingham guy in London who was financing the whole story. If ever we needed any equipment, specialised equipment, it was told that they would go back to him and ask for finances, or discuss it… We knew it was either diamonds or oil that was paying for this whole exercise. We knew the government gave us the weapons but the money which paid for the weapons, we were told, it came from London.
28.30 ANGOLA, 1994 We had good success today. We got 80 heads. We had no human loss on our side except one or two who got wounded here and there. I wish you could feel the pressure of the exploding bombs. This morning a big mortar fell just 20 metres away. It’s not nice, it’s not nice.
29.04 Marie Van Tonder looks at Photos of Corpses When Dolf first disappeared Marie was given photos of 3 dead men. She still agonizes whether one of them is her husband.
29.15 Int: Marie Van Tonder I might be wrong I don’t know. When I look at this guys mustache, OK, his face is swollen. He’s got a straight mustache whereas Dolf’s mustache comes right down
29.29 Int: Marie Van Tonder We didn’t even get a letter to say they were sorry. It was like they wanted us to believe that they were dead. So that we could just carry on with our lives and then we wouldn’t be a burden to them.
29.45 EO Lawyer’s When Executive Outcomes did send Marie a letter it was a lawyer’s letter demanding about $1000 for a death certificate for her husband. They even refused to pay out his one year contract.
Executive Outcomes helicopters/ music
30.15 Int Fran Oberall, Fiancee of missing Danie Scheurkogel Sweetheart, I don’t know how to write this letter. After UNITA attacked us it was decided by the powers that be, to teach them, UNITA a lesson they would never forget. To absolutely annihilate everything within a radius of 30kms. The result was that nothing was left and bodies everywhere. It was devastating. The reccies captured a few UNITA soldiers and what they did to them, to extract information from them... If only you can imagine, it was worse! It will give me nightmares for the rest of my life.
31.02 Blacking up (EO video)/ music The day of the key Angolan battle had come. The EO mercenaries blacked up for the final attack on the diamond town of Cafunfo.
ANGOLA, 1994, Mercenary’s Hi 8 video of capture of Angolan diamond town of Cafunfo [pause]
31.33 It was this attack which opened up diamond concessions from which Tony Buckingham is alleged to have made a fortune.
31.55 EO troops looting town
32.01 After capturing Cafunfo town EO’s mercenaries went on a drunken looting spree lasting a day.
32.15 ANGOLA, 1997 On route to Huambo city in Southern Angola - heading into Unita rebel territory. Today Unita remains cut off from the world by self-imposed front lines. And the UN struggles to maintain a fragile peace.
32.34 UN body out ambulance The body of the latest Brazilian peace keeper to be killed is flown back to the Angolan capital. EO’s supporters say private armies are less costly and more effective than the UN.
32.49 Body loaded But EO’ s ‘peace’ does not always last.
33.00 Unita Town Bailundu is the capital of UNITA territory and a town where the people have seen the worst that war can bring. Today UNITA has been beaten into submission and EO are widely regarded as being responsible. Many here have witnessed Executive Outcomes in the battlefield. They say the worst was the EO airforce. They say that once the mercenaries were employed the air war became more fierce and accurate than it had ever been.
33.36 Unita testimony ‘We could see them in the helicopters & they would shoot & laugh. But if it was an airplane it would fly too high and we couldn’t see them - but we would hear the language they were speaking through the FM radios… the language was English.... look at this ... she’s burnt like this all over her body.
Burnt woman It’s clear evidence of phosphorous bombing.
34.15 São Pedro Market And at São Pedro market in Huambo city Migs dropped phosphorous bombs onto this crowded marketplace.
34.24 Anon Phosphorous bomb int: They were bombing these places like São Pedro market where they could see a lot of people. When the bombs were falling they divided into small bombs and the way it looks like when they are now burning, they burn with a big fire and make a noise sssshhhhhhhh like that.
35.04 EO jet and bombing mercenaries film It undoubtedly was the success of the air wing which did do most to turn the tide in this war.
35.11 EO Aircraft (Stills) Executive Outcomes brought in pilots who, though not familiar with the MIG jets, were quick to adapt.
EO Mig bombing pictures [pause]
35.24 The South Africans did bring with them huge experience having spent years here flying at war for the old apartheid government.
35.35 Track through bombed house EO has been given an uncontrolled freedom for destruction. There are no controls to the force they can deploy or how they deploy it.
35.45 Phosphorous Bombs Unexploded phosphorous bombs are all to easy to find in Huambo.
35.51 Jonas Savimbi’s House Jonas Savimbi’s house was hit with pin point accuracy. It’s believed that a key EO task was to kill Savimbi - the rebel leader.
EO Mig with big bomb
36.02 Anonymous int: EO mercenary The BBC told the world that at Xinxi 70 of the enemy died when we attacked the town, mostly innocent women and children… I also know of a few personal incidents where civilians were shot at out of the helicopter by individuals of the company. It was very difficult because the civilians in that area were pro UNITA, pro enemy, some wore enemy battle fatigues, some wore nothing, only civilian clothes. So it was a very difficult war to distinguish between enemy and civilians.
36.49 UNITA take producers to meet soldier In southern Angola the producers asked if UNITA might have captured Marie van Tonder’s husband Dolf. Amongst the demobilising UNITA troops a soldier was found who did know something. And UNITA also handed over
37.06 Photos of missing mercenary photographs never seen before. They said he’s a mercenary captured during battle but don’t know his name.
37.13 Interview: UNITA Captain Martino Bayonette When we captured them I wanted to kill them. Then because the government always denies that they use mercenaries I decided that we have to display them to the world to prove that mercenaries are in Angola.
37.35 Aerial of diamond fields And this is what it’s all about. The diamond fields of Angola. After EO had taken Cafunfo Buckingham’s companies were rewarded with some of the richest diamond concessions in the world. In a 1996 prospectus Buckingham claimed his Angolan concessions hold diamonds worth three and a half billion dollars.
Finding a diamond [pause]
38.00 Security guard & gun Further, huge security budgets are then spent on the same mercenaries, to guard his mines.
38.07 Alfa 5 It a key Buckingham strategy and he’s left behind security firms wherever his mercenaries have fought. Alpha 5 in central Luanda is just one that EO is associated with, now that the Angolan mercenary operations are over.
38.21 Int: Smuts Chata, UNITA Secretary for Mass Mobilisation They are still here in Angola. We understand that there are some special companies who have recruited these people. We think that it is probably a special plan. There are some people still in Luanda, who are mercenaries, who are leading some security companies, private companies. These people are recruited into them. They are still there.
38.50 SOUTH AFRICA, 1997 EO Memorial In the Pretoria garden of the Executive Outcomes logistics centre in South Africa there’s a memorial to the EO mercenaries who’ve died in battle, mostly in Angola.
39.02 EO Personnel Office & Angolan visa forms But Angolan visa forms and South African passports were easy to see in EO’s personnel office. It’s further evidence that Executive Outcomes has never really left Angola.
39.22 Int: Thys Pelser EO Personnel Officer We’re looking for specialised guys. That’s the main criteria. Normally it’s someone that’s trained up to combat team level. We do need pilots now and then. Mostly it’s chopper pilots that we employ.
39.49 Filing cabinet In their personnel files are details of over 2 thousand mercenaries and logistics people. And the details of everyone from the notorious Koevoet police unit also seem to be here. Koevoet was renowned for cruelty and political killings during the apartheid era.
40.08 Nick van den Berg As international concern grows Executive outcomes is changing. This man, Nick Van Den Berg, is now - they say - in charge. He doesn’t have the death squad past that dogged Eeben Barlow.
40.25 Nick van den Berg outside walking Our personnel office is situated here in the out buildings. And we also have my financial people sitting in the out buildings and also the logistical guys.
40.34 Containers Q: So where is all the equipment then? Vd Berg: Our equipment?
40.46 Vd Berg shows flack jackets If you want, have a look at this. Body armour, flack jackets… We don’t want to get involved in anything that’s illegal. So we enter into a legal contract with a legal government, that’s a recognised government. That’s our way of doing things.
41.10 White board On EO’s walls a chart shows a computer network linking the United States, the UK and South Africa. It’s a chilling indication of just how big these people are.
41.22 Executive Outcomes offices show evidence of an intricate global network of companies.
41.30 Files The book shelves give away another link to Britain. It’s the airline, IBIS air, closely associated with Tony Buckingham.
41.41 Int: Nick Van Den Berg Yes, we do have a number of helicopters and planes but the planes are grouped in a specific company. But we do get preferential treatment from that company because we’ve got shares in the company.
41.55 Ibis chopper & Plane Ibis Air is an air company which EO have declared to the South African banking authorities as a company largely owned by them.
Tony Buckingham business card But Tony Buckingham carries Ibis Air business cards describing him as the chief officer of the airline. It’s yet another indication of Buckingham’s key role.
42.11 Gung ho plane Without Ibis Air Executive Outcomes would literally, never have got off the ground.
42.15 Int: Eeben Barlow Executive Outcomes is not a secretive organisation. We’re registered at the registrar of companies as a legitimate company. It has no front companies. That is a figment of someone’s imagination, which in all fairness, we suspect, was something generated by South African military intelligence.
42.37 Petra Burrill & Son Elijah at Kitchen Table Ibis Air moved Petra Burrill and her family to work in their Kenya division. She says they were given bank accounts controlled by the Moi family.
42.48 Showing false aircraft sticker Petra Burrill showed us illegal aircraft registration stickers which she says she was asked to make. She believes Executive Outcomes, Ibis Air and all the others are the same crooked company.
43.03 Int. Petra Burrill He was never told that they were connected to Executive Outcomes. He thought he was working for an airline. We heard a lot about how great things went for them in Sierra Leone and how they’ve virtually enslaved this country by the mining rights, and things like this.
43.29 Burrill’s house Petra Burrill also tells of how IBIS Air arranged for her family’s passports to be confiscated once they started asking questions. Petra’s 16 year old son Elijah now carries a gun. He’s terrified EO mercenaries will come and get them because they’re speaking out against EO.
43.47 Int: Elijah Burill, his Father worked for Ibis My mother’s frightened, I’m frightened. We’re pretty frightened of these people. We carry firearms, different weapons. I inspect the wire every day. Maybe because we’re going to expose their whole operation and they might not be able to get work anymore, as mercenaries.
44.09 Diamond-Works Prospectus And this is Buckingham’s newest company. It’s called DiamondWorks. But on closer inspection it looks like just another Buckingham transformation. The company’s only real assets are the mining concessions freed by EO in Angola and Sierra Leone. The prospectus goes on to reveal that Tony Buckingham is a director. And other key military figures have also been absorbed.
44.35 Planes flying into Lanseria airport From airports like this one at Lanseria, outside Johannesburg, IBIS aircraft full of mercenaries have streamed in and out. Experts suspect that with so many British military figures involved Executive Outcomes has the support of the British secret service.
Wild Coast
44.59 Colonel Jan Breytenbach setup with wife On the wild coast of South Africa Colonel Jan Breytenbach, of the South African army is sure there are UK intelligence links.
45.11 32 Battalion Archive Breytenbach lead the apartheid regime in battle against the Angolans. He says even during South Africa’s darkest and most ostracized days he always had links with the English SAS.
45.24 Photo Breytenbach with SA forces and officers. And it was Colonel Jan Breytenbach who founded South Africa’s elite reconnaissance unit - the reccies. He modeled the unit on the SAS and is seen here with senior SAS officers. He’s one of the few who would know of EO intelligence links.
45.39 Int: Colonel Jan Breytenbach, Founder SA Special Forces After the war Stirling, David Stirling, started an organisation known as Capricorn. Capricorn consisted of former SAS personnel. It was used by the British Foreign office to extend as it were their influence in third world countries. The organisation that Executive Outcomes worked with from Lanseria was known as Capricorn. So that to me was the connection between the British - Capricorn - and Executive Outcomes.
46.16 Capricorn & IBIS Planes Perhaps worried by this link, Executive Outcomes changed the name of its airline to Ibis Air.
46.25 Dialing phone Though Tony Buckingham refused to give an interview for this film his Kings Road HQ was clearly panicking.
46.35 Phonecall to Michael Grunberg, Sandline Executive There is some suggestion that Executive Outcomes are linked, in more than the knowledge of each other, with Mr Tony Buckingham and his businesses. And something about Mr Buckingham’s businesses being linked to British intelligence services somehow. What I’m happy to do is to document to you the facts. If those facts come across I’ll be very happy. If you present another story that presents a different image then it’ll be very unfortunate.
47.13 ANGOLA, 1994 Mercenary’s diary footage It’s morning now! This is the day after we took Cafunfo. We’ve been busy having a bit of a party since last night. These are all the men. Hennie Blau: ‘The men who did the job are the men who are sitting here. And the people who aren’t in our group, it’s true to say - they missed a great deal.’
47.36 Animal Trophies The Angola operation was for many mercenaries an adventure. But some complain of their inability to put their gunhappy times behind them.
47.46 Int: Anonymous Executive Outcomes mercenary 1 If medals were dished out there were quite a few guys who should have got medals in Angola, in a mercenary sense. It was actually a very empty feeling to get acquainted to normal life again. A normal sleeping pattern. My relationships with people, who are dear to me. A man doesn’t talk about this very lightly but it was very very serious. I experienced it very intensively. I feel very sorry for the people around me.
48.20 Marie Van Tonder identifies pictures of husband Dolf captured by Unita & previously thought dead Marie van Tonder was deeply surprised to hear of the new photographs that had emerged during the trip to Angola. After 4 years she’d given up hope.
48.38 Int: Marie Van Tonder That’s him. That’s him .You can see he’s lost weight but that’s him.
Wedding photo Does it mean Dolf might be alive?
49.02 Photos on Marie’s lap
49.08 Beggar Good morning Maam, how are you today?
49.15 Cape Town, South Africa In the new South Africa there’s plenty of revulsion at the country’s apartheid killers now going off and killing for other people. It’s a reminder of a past South Africans are trying hard to forget.
49.28 South African parliament At the South African parliament a new law has now been put forward to put Executive Outcomes out of business. It proposes a ten year jail sentence for anyone caught fighting for money.
49.40 Int: Aziz Pahad, South African Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs There’s sometimes a perception that the South African government is sanctioning the activities of such mercenaries. We have publicly condemned this. We are trying everything to ensure that we convince governments that we don’t have any official connections and that we are taking steps to deal with this problem. It is a matter of tremendous embarrassment and concern to us.
50.05 Int: Eeben Barlow Anyone who understands the term mercenary, whether he is inside the company, or outside the company, will deny that we are mercenaries. For a start, governments all over the world make use of private contractors to train their armies. Our client governments are no exception to that.
Ship and sunset
50.31 Marie walking along beach I think that people who still go and work for them should know better - after what they’ve read and what they’ve known. Know now that if they go and work for them they go with their eyes open.
Music/ Executive Outcomes corporate logo.
CREDITS
51.42 END