Welcome to Caribbean Rhythms. It's my great honor to have special surprise guest today, one of the legendary adventurers and condottieri of our time, Simon Mann, one of the founders of Executive Outcomes. Maybe that's one of the best known, call it condottieri, private military contractor companies of the last few decades. Simon, welcome to the show. It's a great honor to have you on. No, the honor is mine, thank you. Let me just ask you, before you were Condottiere and a private military contractor, you had a distinguished service in the British military, the famed SAS. Do you have good memories of that? How was your time in that? You served in some Northern Ireland and some other parts of the world, I think. Yes, I did.

I mean, I did, I think, a total of 12 years in the British Army altogether, of which three of those were with special air service. as a Troop Commander, the whole experience was great. I enjoyed it, you know, I went to Santos, then the Scots Guards, then the SAS. What parts of the world, if it's not classified, if you don't mind me asking, I know you've talked about some of your time in Northern Ireland, this was during the 1980s, how was that? Well, I did I think five tours in Northern Ireland, which is quite a lot. between 1973 and 1980 when it was at its sort of rougher stage, what they call the Troubles. Yes. It's another British euphemism. The Troubles were very good at it. Going back in history, we had the Malayan emergency, the Borneo confrontation, the Kenya uprising,

And then we have the Northern Ireland troubles. And so we're very good at these euphemisms. But yeah, I did that time in Northern Ireland. That was with the Scots Guards, which was my original unit, but one of those tours was with the Special Air Service. Yes, were you sent to other parts of the world, to the Americas or such? Yes, I think I'm just trying to remember what's declared and what's not. Well, let me not probe too much then, because we don't want to be indiscreet. discrete. I don't think it is actually classified at all, but I think that it's quite well known that the essayists were in Belize in Central America when the Guatemalans were threatening to... they didn't acknowledge the existence of Belize, they said Belize was part of Guatemala.

Yes, terrible wars going on in Guatemala for decades during that time, a really horrible post-Spanish war there. Well, we can talk about Spanish colonies in a moment, but after you were finished with the formal military service, then you decided to, how did that, how did you shift into private military contracting? Did you know you would do that for some time or how did that develop? How did that happen? Yeah, no, I'd always sort of thought about it when I was serving and then I left 81, just before the Falklands, before the Falklands war happened, before the Argentinians invaded and I was out by then, but only just out. So then in the 80s somebody called Colonel David Stirling was actually a friend of mine, much older than me,

but a friend of mine. I sort of made him into being my honorary godfather. Now that's Colonel David Stirling, who in fact was the founder of the SAS during the Second World War, and he had a couple of businesses which he ran out of Mayfair, suitably close to the clubs and flesh pots of London, and I basically sort of did work for him. I did quite a lot of work for him, which led me into what would now be called Private Military Contractors, which then was called whatever. And that was very interesting and that then got me into it. I then rejoined the British Army. I've actually joined and left the British Army three times, which I think is probably that's enough. That is enough. And so I rejoined and I was on the personal staff of Sir Peter de la Billière, who was the

British general in the Gulf War. Well, you've had a kind of James Bond life that men dream about today, a life of danger and adventure. You have a biography, an autobiography called Cry Havoc, I believe, from 2011. Audience should get this book. But yes, but please buy it. It's available on Amazon. I think you could buy it for about 50 pennies. Well, your first big assignment, I think, correct me if I'm wrong, was in Angola. Is this true? Your first big true so-called mercenary adventure was in Angola, is that correct? Well, yes and no. Firstly, I had had a somewhat mercenary adventure when I was working for David Sterling in the 80s, which was in Liberia. Yes. Which was an eye-opener and a good lesson to learn.

But then what actually happened was that having rejoined the British Army and then having served again, as I said, on the staff of Peter de la Billia, who was a great general and a great guy. Yes. When he finally left, I had to leave too. Actually, I didn't have to leave, but I wanted to sort of have a change of career and become a civilian and make some money and so on. so on. That was about February 92, 1992 and at that time my great friend Tony Buckingham had finally got his oil and gas company started called Heritage and I had actually helped him get Heritage into Angola which in those days was very difficult because Angola was a Marxist-Leninist state at war pretty much with the West and I helped to get him in there. So at that time when

And when I left the army then, again, for the last time, Tony said, listen, don't carry on being a soldier. Come and work for me. Become an oil and gas man. And I thought, yes, you know, well, this is it. This is great. I'm now going to be an oil and gas man. I started learning all about it, reading about it. And six months later, or seven months later, I was a general in the Angolan army. So, my conversion to Sivi Street went really, really well. It didn't happen. This is amazing and that commission for the Angolan Army was the ruling party, the MPLA, is that correct? That's correct, yes. After, I guess, the Cold War ended, it wasn't the same as before, but did that get you, was the United States at all upset because they were supporting their opponents

during before the fall of Soviet Union? Well, I think they were very upset, but we didn't ask. We just did it. Perhaps I can say what happened, because in November 1992, there was an election in Angola. Prior to that, there had been basically brokered by the Americans, a thing called the Crocker Plan, who was Senator Crocker, whereby basically, because what had happened was that the Angolan nationalistic war of freedom, if you like, that got going in the 50s morphed into the Portuguese fled Angola in 1976 and the war of freedom then morphed into a civil war which was to become the worst proxy war of the entire cold war. So in Angola you had Russian troops, Cuban troops, American troops and South African troops as well as all the Angolans busy fighting one another.

The Crocker Plan had basically been agreed in the late 80s whereby there would be all foreign troops would leave, the entire population would be ID'd and ID cards and there would be a free and fair election. That election happened in November 92. Prior to that I had actually met with Lord Steel, the British politician, the chairman of the world, liberal, blah, blah, blah. Lord Steel and I went and saw General Dr Zevimby, the leader of UNITA, who were the rebels, who were supported by the Americans, by the CIA very strongly on the ground, had been, and the South Africans had been, before the Crocker Plan. And Zevimby They promised us, me and Lord Steel, that whatever happened, whether they won the election or not, they would not go back to war.

They lost the election, and immediately they did go back to war. And the best thing they did was they attacked a place called Soyo, which is on the lower lip of the mouth of the River Congo, and which was our operating base, our oil and gas operating base. Yes. So this is now in sort of February, January, 93. Tony Buckingham said to me in our offices in Belgravia, well, you need another job because they've attacked Soya. We're a one-pony show. That deal, that project in Angola was our only project. So we're screwed. We're screwed. And they'd attacked our men. I mean, we had men in Soya. We had our equipment in Soya. And this was our livelihood. And so Vimy had promised me personally, I sort of felt that he had promised me personally that he wouldn't do this.

And I said to Tony, you know, why? Well, let's fight back. Let's not just sort of roll over. Let's fight back. He said, what do you mean fight back? I said, well, we'll go and retake Sawyer. Yes. That literally is where the whole Executive Outcomes story, as far as we were concerned, began. And pretty nearly where it ended, actually. This is the foundation of Executive Outcomes, you're saying, in 92 or so in Angola. This is very interesting. Angola, of course, huge oil wells now. You hear stories all the time about Rwanda being the most absurdly expensive city in the world, Fridge costing $70,000 and so on. But I don't think it is anymore, Bat. It was like that. But I'm told by my friends who go there now that it is not at all like that. It's a nice place now.

I have some Portuguese friends who have restarted businesses in recent years. Maybe things are changing in Angola, I don't know. Yes, still one of these places with vast oil wealth, which causes sometimes endless civil wars. But I wanted to ask just, we don't need to talk this, it's a complicated problem and it's water under the bridge, Cold War history. But do you have any opinions on the decolonization process and the fact that the Portuguese left Angola, left Mozambique? I think that was obviously a disaster for Africa, for that whole area. It was not good for Portugal. I think it was bad for the United States also. And yet, although the United States opposed later on the Marxist-Leninist governments in these areas, I think actually very aggressively,

especially in the Portuguese colonies, America helped the anti-colonial forces and even Mondlana in Mozambique is very much a collaboration, creation of America and the Soviet Union. I don't know if you want to comment on this at all, but how do you feel, if I may ask about the decolonization process? think it was just a horrible thing especially in the Portuguese case where the colonies were relatively well run and actually integrated, somewhat integrated socially and so on from what I understand. Yeah I think that's a very interesting question. I mean America, the United States of America, having been a colony itself and having had a successful revolution or rebellion, whichever way you want to call it, has always had a view that another country actually running and

administering another country was wrong. And I think that's quite deep inside the US psyche, and that's fair enough. I also think that America always looked at the British Empire certainly with some degree of envy in the sense that they wanted those markets for business. So there was anti-empire sentiment, there is an anti-empire sentiment with it in the US psyche, totally understandable, but then also I think you're ignoring what you just said, you're ignoring the very natural desire of lots and lots of people to basically want to run their own country. And the reality in Angola is that the Portuguese were losing the war, the national war in in Angola and then had a coup, partly because of that war, in Portugal. There was a military coup in Portugal and they fled Angola.

So it wasn't like they just sort of sat down and said, oh, well, colonialism is over, we're bored with it, or we don't agree with it anymore, we're going. They were pretty much thrown out. Yeah, I think they were thrown out with heavy American help. But that's another topic. I'm not sure that that's quite right, Because I think, I mean, the massive American assistance that went into Angola was to do with UNITA and was a Cold War proxy war. And the Cold War is not the Cold War for nothing. It was a war. It just didn't get hot, thank God. But there were plenty of places where it got very warm. And the warmest of all of those was Angola. Angola was the biggest and most fiercely fought proxy war of the entire Cold War. And that statistic, that's the amount of artillery shells fired,

the amount of aircraft shot down, the amount of tanks deployed, etc. It was the worst proxy war. The Cubans were especially active, yes, I think. And Russians, yeah. No, it's a very colourful conflict. I want to ask you about the other African conflicts you were involved in, which are very famous, of course. Executive outcomes is best known, I think, for stopping extremely bloody civil war in Sierra Leone. But you say you were, prior to that, also involved in Liberia. Would you mind talking for a moment about your experiences in the conflicts in these countries? It's very colorful, but also very bloody from what I hear. Well, the Liberia adventure, as I said, was in the 80s when I was working with Colonel David Sterling.

and there I was hired by Emmanuel Shaw, who was the then Minister of Finance for Liberia, and he owned an iron ore mine. In fact, it was an iron ore mountain. It's a mountain which is so full of iron that if you fly over it in a light aeroplane, the compass literally sort of follows the mountain around as you fly, which is quite amazing. And Liberia at that time was in a civil war and the civil war was being lost and I suddenly found myself in a position where I'd been hired by Emmanuel Shaw to sort of save his iron ore mine. By the time I got there the iron ore mine was gone and it was pretty clear that the rebels Taylor and Prince were sort of closing in on the capital. I came up with a plan, quite a bit of wrecky reconnaissance and I came

up with a plan that I presented to Shaw which he then took to the then president who was a guy called Doe. Yes. And he came back from the meeting with Doe and said look Simon you know I think your plan's very good but the president doesn't want to doesn't want to know about it and actually you and I now need to escape. Yes. I said okay right Sir Emmanuel okay fine. Yes. And why didn't the the president liked the plait. And Emmanuel Shaw looked at me and he said, because the president is only listening to two blacks, he's not listening to me. I said, what do you mean he's listening to two blacks? He said, he's listening to Black Label, Donnie Walker, and Black Magic. Those are the two blacks he's listening to, and he's not going to adopt our plan, and we need to escape.

Which we did, which was a good thing because not long afterwards was when Doe got chainsawed to death on his own beach. So our escape was quite dramatic, but that was that experience. And then the whole Angola thing and executive outcomes came, as I said, much later, February, 93, it really kicked off. And there's a point here I'd really like to make, which is the founding of executive outcomes. What happened was that Tony and I, once we decided that we were gonna try and retake this place, Soyu. We went down to Luanda, we met with the senior Angolans, and they said, right, you're on. And I remember walking back to our hotel and Tony said, okay, smart ass, now what? No problem, because I'm half South African and I knew a lot of the South African special forces

and various people, and in fact, I'd already warned them. And I said, okay, so now we're gonna go down to Johannesburg and we're gonna meet with Eben Barlow, who I know, who's a friend of mine. So we went down, sat down with Eben, and what Tony and I wanted to do at that point was to try and almost be like an oil company contracting a driller, contracting someone who's going to go and drill. We didn't really want to be partaking in this directly. We wanted to organize it. So we told them, okay, so the job is to retake for you. Can you do it? And Eben said, yeah, I think we can. But the money, in those days, Moving money in or out of South Africa was very, very difficult because there were all the old apartheid government restrictions on currency movement and even said, look,

I can do it. Now, if you guys are OK with it, I have a company already formed which is sort of on the shelf. It hasn't really done anything. It doesn't have big assets. It hasn't got borrowings or debts or anything like that. But it does have licenses to do the necessary money movements. it's got all the paperwork already sorted, can we use that company?" And we said, yeah, sure, that's good, that's great, what's it called? He said, well, it's called Executive Outcomes, but it hasn't really done anything. I mean, I think he sold some communications equipment and this kind of thing. And we said, yeah, no, let's use Executive Outcomes. So that was how that happened. And then Tony and I, for obvious reasons, I think, did not want to be contracted to Executive Outcomes in any way.

we didn't want shares, we didn't want to be directors, we didn't want anything to do with it, we wanted simply to control the money and tell them what they had to do and then them go and do it. That did not work very well because of course like all these things we found ourselves involved on the ground as well which we hadn't really set out to be but that's that's actually how and that's that's the story that even Barlow has in his book and it's also the story as it is in Yes. So I think it's reasonably safe to say that is a fair presentation of what happened. Well, there is some contention about that, because in certain circles they say, oh, no, but, you know, Simon Mausch would never claim that he founded Executive Outcomes because actually it existed before

and it was Barlow's company and so on and so forth. And that's exactly what I've just said. Yes. But the key element, of course, is bringing the contract, bringing in the money, which is what Tony and I did. This is very interesting. I don't know the controversy around this and who founded it. I think you and Eben Barlow are known as the founders, whatever that means. But the story you say is very interesting because people think private military contractors or mercenary companies are often just a normal corporate model, but it's usually informal all friends using various shell companies, from what I understand, and so on, and that seems to be broadly what you're describing. It's pretty much what happened.

And I would actually say that the people who really found the executive outcomes would actually be, you know, Eben Barlow, but also there's a guy called Lafras Luting, who was the key man in Angola when we won our first victory, which was the Battle of Soyo, where I was and so was Tony Buckingham and that really is how it all kicked off and it even then basically took on the role of running executive outcomes from South Africa and did a very good job of basically all the relationship with the government, the families, the law, the media and he stayed down in Pretoria and he ran all of that and he did it very well. No, this is very interesting and you You were involved in Liberia earlier, but with executive outcomes, you were involved

in later, or in other capacities in Sierra Leone later in the 1990s. Yes, that's right. What was that like? What was the Sierra Leone thing like? It's one of the bloodiest, ugliest things that happened, no? The enemy were an outfit called the RUF. a guy called Senko was the leader, and they were particularly unpleasant. Yes. Their atrocities, you know, they're right up there at the very top of the Atrocity League. Yes. They were really horrible. And we got involved, Strasser was the then president, Tony and I went and saw him. We went up there backwards and forwards. At that time, we were very engaged in Angola. So we were taking on quite a big thing, but basically we discovered that the RUF were awful and that they were about to overrun the country.

And we decided that we would try and help Strasser, the president, and then we deployed executive outcomes into Sierra Leone. And really the only reason we could actually do that in the way we did was because we were making a lot of money in Angola and we could afford to sort of launch another adventure, which is a bit wild. Well, I understand you say that the Sierra Leone adventure was a financial loss for you, but simply for me as a spectator, it's a very colorful conflict, a legendary Neil Ellis. I assume maybe you know Neil Ellis, his flights in his hind, helicopter, a Soviet, I think, helicopter who stopped hordes of murderous, yes, MI-24. is legendary and he stopped just hordes of these murderous rebels and so on. Do you have

any special vivid anecdotes about this time? Well yeah, lots. You know, we had a major deployment in Sierra Leone in the end and in fact at one point I think we were nearly up to 2,000 men, 2000 men in executive outcomes of whom the majority were in Angola, but a substantial number were in Sierra Leone. And incidentally, of that 2000, probably 70 or 80% were actually black, not white mercenaries, contrary to what some people believe. And in fact, most of those blacks were actually originally Angolans who'd been recruited by the South African defense force during the war in Angola. So a complicated story for those guys. But anyway, so we had a lot of men deployed and, I mean, it was pretty crazy time, quite honestly.

In Liberia and Sierra Leone, did you encounter yourself or reports of use of black magic which you alluded to. I know in the Congo, in Zaire, Mobutu was believed by everyone, held them in fear because he had gathered all the witch doctors of the country. People believed he could turn into a leopard. And I don't think people outside Africa understand. Maybe magic is still a powerful force there. Did you encounter any such things during these conflicts? Well, I mean, we knew that it was out there and I mean, anyone I think who knows Africa knows that it's a potentially very powerful thing in people's minds because people believe it, you know, and if they believe it it's powerful. And yeah, it's the early on especially, not Angola actually. Angola,

I don't remember any references even to black magic. The Congo is different. When I was in prison, in fact, I was known, they called me a water soldier, and the water soldier is a thing from the Congo, and is very, very dangerous, because you can't kill a water soldier with a bullet. Because he's called the water soldier, because if you fire a bullet at water, the water isn't damaged. It parts, the bullets go through, and then the water comes back again. No, this is very interesting. Actually, I want to ask you about the prison experience in a moment, if you don't mind. But before that, the executive outcomes were disbanded eventually, despite their great success in stopping this very bloody civil war in Sierra Leone.

Let me stop you there. It was disbanded because of its success, not despite its success. That's what I want to ask. Why, I mean who really put pressure? Was it the United States government ultimately who put pressure and was it because of this fear of how it looked? Oh it's some, yes even though you used a lot of black mercenaries but there were some white mercenaries in Africa and it's the how it looks and that is it because of that stupid thing or something something more Yeah, no, but actually, first of all, I'd just to quickly say to your listeners that actually the movie Blood Diamond, which I think is a very good movie, purely taking it as a sort of as an entertainment, I think it's a very good one.

That actually is based on us. But in true Hollywood style, we were the good guys in Syria. And in the movie, we are the bad guys. So why were we, why did we have our contract ended in Angola and then subsequently our contract ended in Sierra Leone? And this was, the Angolan one was the big one obviously because that's where we were making the money and that was by far the most, if you like, I mean all wars are serious but that was a more serious, a bigger scale of war. Yes. And that did happen, that happened in the Oval Office. I think it was Clinton was the president? the president? Yes, so it was America insisting on it then. Yes, and the reason I think and this not only came from Washington but also from London, people in Washington and London had

decided that we were simply too powerful and that this was not, remember this was a strange time because the cold war had just ended, the white government of South Africa had gone, the ANC was in power. So it was a time of great flux and people didn't really know or hadn't thought about how they wanted things to work thereafter in the world. And one of the things they, I think, did think quite strongly was that they did not want the world to be pushed around or run by by private fighters of wars, because obviously that could go very badly wrong, and indeed it had gone wrong in the 60s. So that was the sentiment. And so in the nicest possible way, De Santos was asked, please, by the United States government, please terminate the executive outcomes contract.

And actually we know, because we had a source on each side, one on the American side, one on the Angolan side and they reported exactly the same and that the President of the United States said that Santos had done nothing wrong by hiring us and that we'd done nothing wrong by doing what we'd been hired to do. It was a definite tick in the box but this has got to come to an end. And the same thing happened with Sierra Leone and then in 1998 the South African government, which was by then black, passed the FMA, the Foreign Military Assistance Act, which bound executive outcomes and was aimed very specifically at us and I call it, jokingly I call it my personal piece of legislation. Yes, no this unfortunate thing that happens I think repeatedly

America does self-defeating things like this over many decades that hurt other countries, especially in Africa. But Simon, I wanted to ask you, everyone on interviews and so on brings up, and I mentioned in my book as I did it in a kind of longing way, because what you tried to do in Equatorial Guinea to that coup attempt and what happened after, I didn't want to dwell on this too much because you talk about it in other interviews and so on, but I am curious to hear what happened because to me it was one of the last great possible adventures and it seems to have been stopped by the same people. I don't know, correct me if I'm wrong, but it probably was something like the Americans or the French, who knows, I don't know,

the intelligence services stopped it. Can you tell my audience just briefly what happened with that and thereafter you were imprisoned in some legendary jails in Africa? Well, would you like me to give the very rapid background? Sure, of course. No, I have time if you do. Okay, so basically having had all these adventures with executive outcomes, Those all basically came to an end around 99, the year 99, and I did a couple of things subsequent to that, including trying to make sure that the invasion of Iraq actually did happen, which of course it did. And then in 2003, I was recruited by somebody called Eli Khalil, now dead, to overthrow the president of Ecuador Guinea. We tried twice. On the second occasion, this is in early 2004 now, I was arrested on my way to do the job.

I'd flown from South Africa to Harare, Zimbabwe to collect arms and ammunition. And we were then going to fly on from there to Equatorial Guinea to overthrow the president. While at the same time, the replacement President-designate was due to fly down from Europe at the same time as I was going to land. That all went wrong. I was arrested. I spent four years in prison in a prison called Trichuruby Maximum Security in Harare, otherwise known as the Harare Hilton. and then after four years in there, I was kidnapped out of there by Mugabe's secret police and then smuggled to Ecuador, Guinea, where I thought I would be shot on arrival, but instead I got along quite well with them and after spending 18 months in solitary confinement and having been tried again and having had to plead guilty

to attempted murder, attempted assassination of a head of state and acts of international terrorism, I finally got a pardon and after five and a half years in prison got home. Yes, what went wrong with this plan? It sounds like it could have succeeded but and maybe you leaked in advance and there were delays or something, but who was it? Was it American officials again who stopped it? Well, first of all, I mean, the people who'd recruited me and who were backing me basically failed to back me. And that meant... And they kept on drip-feeding some money but not the promised money, and that meant that we were constantly, go stop, go stop, go stop for a whole year. Now if they had given me the money they promised me

they were about to give me when they said they were going to give it and we just said okay thank you very much go, we would have done it. It would have been successful. They would not have been able to stop us. Instead we had this go stop, go stop, go stop for a year and of course especially in a private military situation that puts you into an impossible position because you're meant to have aircraft, you're meant to have air crew, you've got the troops and it's very difficult to maintain security at the best of times. But when you're saying to people, well can you just be on standby because we think we're going next month, you say that for a year and of course a lot of people know about it. And Mark Thatcher, Margaret Thatcher's son or grandson was involved in these years?

No, his son. Her son. And I knew her very well, I knew him. But in fact, Mark only just came on board quite towards the end of the preparation phase because I was running out of money because the people who were meant to be backing the whole thing were not backing it. And I asked Mark for some money. I said, would you like to come on board and put some money in? And he was delighted to do that with the opportunity. He wasn't so delighted once I got arrested, but yeah, that's what happened there. And Equatorial Guinea, also one of the wealthiest countries in Africa, has oil wealth. I assume there was interest in that from your backers. But what were the mechanics, if I may ask, of the coup plan? Once you would have landed, let's say, with soldiers and weapons there,

what would have been the step? I'm just curious about how these, if you don't mind, if it's not indiscreet to say, would you have seized the radio stations, the TV stations? What would have been the steps? Yeah, no, that's a perfectly reasonable question. And you won't be surprised to hear that you can't really expect to turn up with 60 people and overthrow a country because the country, the said country has however many thousand troops, an air force, the navy, police etc etc. So with the best will in the world and it doesn't really matter who you are or how good you think you are that is not going to work and we did not think that was going to work either. So what was the plan. The best coups are done at night when the person who is the target of the coup is fast

asleep and he gets arrested in bed quite possibly by his wife or his son or his closest advisor. That is a palace coup and that way there is no sort of blood on the streets or anything like that. It's all done quietly and the next morning it's a different world. So the idea was that we We would land at roughly the same time as this guy is arrested, and at the same time the new guy comes in. I was expecting to get out of my aircraft wearing a suit and a tie, and I was expecting to be shaking hands with people and say, okay, well, here is the new guy, Sovero Moto, he's called, and where is the president? Because now it's my job to make sure he doesn't get hung from a lamppost. So my job primarily was to give protection to the new guy coming in, who incidentally

was the mayor of Malibu, the elected mayor of Malibu. And make sure, like I say, that there wasn't a kangaroo court and a hanging of the old guy because that's not something we were going to get involved with. So that's the mechanics. That was the desired, sorry, that was the desired mechanics. Well, that's a very clean, you'd have been the praetorian guard essentially of the new government. That's a very interesting model. I want to ask you, because I've heard you say that you felt betrayed after you were arrested by some of your comrades in this venture, that they could have helped but did not. I don't know if you want to comment further on that. I was curious about especially why they wouldn't help. help. I don't know. Would you care to comment on that at all?

Obviously this is very dangerous territory to get into. I don't mean now talking to you, I mean what we did. And I'm reasonably certain that Elie Khalil, who was my backer and he recruited me, had been given what in England we would say the nod and the wink. yes and he had been given the nod and the wink by either America or France or quite possibly both because he was a known player to these intelligence agencies of both those countries yes a real player a bag carrier on every big oil and gas deal and so on and so forth yes now i'm pretty sure that, you know, why were we torpedoed? Why were we, why was I arrested suddenly in Zimbabwe? Because I'm pretty sure that, in fact, I know that Mbeki, the then president

of South Africa, was 100% aware of what we were doing. And in approval of it, three hours before my arrest. Yes. Three hours before. So why did he change his mind? Why did he then ring Mugabe and tell him to arrest me. Now, my information is that he was told to do that by the Angolans, who were acting as a go-between for the Americans. And I think that they decided to torpedo the thing, which led to my arrest, even though I think that they had initially, going back, you know, 18 months, given Elie Khalil, the nod and the wink. Yes. So you can call that betrayal if you like, I wouldn't, because they have their reasons, they're running an intelligence agency, they're not there to be nice, they're there to do a job. And the logic that they would have applied would have been pretty ruthless,

but it basically would have been, look, this is now a fuck up. Simon Mann and his group have tried to do this already two weeks ago and they had to abort which which is true Now it's highly likely to go wrong again But far worse than any of that our fingerprints the United States fingerprints are all over this operation now Yes, so we stand to have a real loss here because if it even if it works We're gonna get a load of shit because our fingerprints are on it if it doesn't work we're going to get bullshit. So, what to do? The solution, what was our original objective? Our original objective was to try and arrange for better governments of Ecuador or Guinea. If we now torpedo this coup attempt, we can go to the president of Ecuador or Guinea

and say, listen, we are your very good friends, we've just torpedoed this attempt on you, but we will not be able to torpedo any more attempts unless you thought yourselves out and you start behaving like a better government. And that actually did happen. If you look at the history, the recent history of Ecuador and Guinea, a lot of things changed at that time. So I think that's where we were torpedoed. Then there was a spy, a guy called Nigel Morgan, now dead, who was spying for the South Africans against me. But I knew he was a spy. I knew he was working for the South African intelligence, I knew that the South African intelligence knew all about what I was doing, I knew that. Yes.

And actually, that was a reason to sort of keep going, we were operating in South Africa, that was our base. Yes. So, yeah, he was a spy. Yes. And then, but when I've been public, what used to, I'm now going to answer your question, where I've been public is, there was a group of people, Ellie Khalil, who I've already mentioned, and a couple of other people here in London, one of them called Gary Harsham, who is a UK London property guy, Mark Thatcher, and a couple of others, who, as far as I was concerned, were my brothers in arms, that I was attempting to do something which obviously was extremely dangerous, and they weren't just investors, because there were a whole load of investors, passive investors, who just put some money in

they're in the back of the bus, they'll make a lot of money if it works, fine. But no, the people I've just named, these were, if you like, officers of the ship. They're on the bridge with me and we are in this together. So when they completely disowned me when I got arrested, that's betrayal. Now, I don't expect them, I mean, in fact, when that happens, happens, any sensible person is going to die for cover. They're going to deny that they've got anything to do with it. Who's Simon Murn? I don't know what you're talking about. Go away. That is the correct, that would be my reaction. But then what, and this is their failure and this is their betrayal, they did not fulfill their promises or their obligations in terms of of supporting me or my family, or most importantly, my men.

Can you imagine being in a prison when you have led 69 other people into that prison? Yes. All their families are now starving. There's no welfare in South Africa. They hadn't received the money they should have received when we were all arrested. And these are men who I've known, some of them since 1992, 1993, and the beginnings of executive outcomes in Angola. Some of the people in prison with me had been with me in Angola and Sierra Leone. And that's why they were there. You know, they trusted me and I'd let them down. So the very least I could expect from the people who were my so-called, my supposed brothers in arms, was support for backup. All they had to do was organise $5,000 to each of the men's families, for example. to completely defuse the animosity that existed.

I mean, we thought we were going to die. We were in this prison. We knew that the Equatorial Ghanaians were desperately trying to extradite us and we knew that they'd shoot us if they got us there at the beginning. And where were the people who were my brothers-in-arms at that point? Nowhere to be seen. And it would have been very easy for them to have put money in the right places without themselves putting their heads over the parapet. Yes. Not hard. They didn't do that. Sounds like rank cowardice of some useless and spineless men, it sounds like. But the story you're saying is nevertheless romantic, Simon. Reminds even of Count of Monte Cristo and so on. And I've been keeping you a while on this segment, so we should go to break soon. But before we do, I want to just quickly ask you,

you, you were in these, yes maybe romantic is the wrong word, but nevertheless you've had this unusual experience, you're in some of the worst jails in the world in Zimbabwe and then in a very notorious one in Equatorial Guinea, what is it called, the Black Perch or Black Beach or something? Well it's called Black Beach. The Black Beach and would you mind quickly just saying or take your time actually, if you want, but I'm very curious. What was that like? What was it like to be in Equatorial Guinea jail in Black Beach? That sounds like a novel from Papillon, legendary novels about legendary jails. What was this like? And what did you eat? Well, you know, Equatorial Guinea, what is Spanish colony? Did they give you Iberico pork cold plate? What did they give you to eat?

I'm just curious about this. Yeah, well obviously it's just very unpleasant really. I was in solitary confinement for 18 months. I was in handcuffs and leg irons. Yes, okay, look, I don't want to remind you of bad memories. That's fine, it's okay. I have novels, I have romantic novels in my head about such things. Well, it's just unpleasant. Well, at the same time, you know, I mean, obviously I've talked about it to a lot of people and thought about it. And I think, you know, to be honest, if I think back to before I was arrested, before I went to prison, I would have, you know, I'd have fainted with fear at what it would be like to be in one of those prisons. Anybody with, you know, the background, I don't know yours, but I mean, certainly mine. We have a fear of prison. Yes.

We fear being homosexually raped. We have a fear of how we would cope with it. We have a fear of how sad it would be because of our families and all of that. And then suddenly, you're there. Suddenly, it's not a fear, it's what you have to deal with. And you deal with it. Because basically you have no choice, so you deal with it. Back with Simon Mann, legendary condottiere of the 20th and now 21st century. Simon, welcome back to Caribbean Rhythms. I wanted to ask you, there is an apparent return this decade, it looks like, of mercenary or private military companies. Everyone talking about efforts in Africa on part of now some Russian and maybe Chinese, I'm not sure if the Chinese have, but the Russian company Wagner. What is your opinion of Wagner activities in Russia?

Are African states happy with their services? Are they forging closer Russian-African ties? Or what's your opinion about what they're doing there? Yeah, it's a difficult one because apart from anything else, I think it's very much our playbook. Yes. East India Company springs to mind. And Wagner are very, very aware of executive outcomes. I don't want to make too much of that. But I mean, they know exactly what we did and what happened. I think Wagner, I mean, they're now called the Afrika Korps, as you probably know. A lot of what was Wagner was kind of sucked into the Russian army. Other parts of what was Wagner have become the Afrika Korps, which is now ostensibly closer to the Kremlin, shall we say, than the old Wagner was.

and then we have there is still a Wagner and that is in Belarus under the command of Prigozin's son but they are primarily involved in things matters Ukraine not Africa now this this whole situation is rather confused by the fact that some of the the guys who are in the Africa core and in Africa like to refatch themselves as being with Wagner because they like the old name. So it's pretty confused, but that is actually the present configuration. And I think when one talks about the Africa Corps and what they are doing in Africa now, I mean, sometimes they're doing a reasonable job for people. The problem is that because they come from that Russian school of how to do things, things, it's very, very rough by our standards. Yes, I see.

Do you have opinions on Prigozhin and his model of doing mercenary work? Because it seems to be more initiative. He wouldn't just take contracts from governments. I think he would choose specific areas to act in that would then involve Ministry of of defense attention and want to essentially rope them in. Is this correct? And he chose, wanted preferred areas in Africa with medium to low level conflict and so on. He would do very, he would take initiative, would tell Putin, Putler would tell Putin, help me recruit by emptying jails and I will take Bakhmut in Ukraine for you and this kind of thing. What do you think about Prigozhin's tactics? He seems to be a man of enterprise. There's no doubt that he was a man of enterprise.

If you go to the period before they got so heavily involved in Ukraine, as I understand it, and I do know them, I mean, because we used to meet Wagner before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, so we bumped into them, we knew some of them. Yes. And as I understand it, the majority of the Africa revenue that was being paid into Wagner, this is pre-Ukraine, was actually coming from Russian individuals who, for example, would have a gold mine, or they'd have a pipeline, or they'd have an oil and gas project, and they wanted it to be guarded. That was their main revenue. C-A-R, Central African Republic, I think slightly different. There, it was more that they were the entrepreneurs, if you like, you know, they were going out and finding gold and diamond opportunities and then exploiting them.

So it was all highly exploitive of natural resources. That was what was driving us there. Yes, I see. And is the Chinese model any different? Are there Chinese military companies acting on behalf of China or something like this now in Africa? How are they doing? The Chinese model is completely different. They are very long-term, and they're very proper as to how they do things, and they think about it hard and long. And as far as I know, there isn't... I mean, there are Chinese PSCs knocking around, yes. Of course there are. But there is nothing like an Africa core or a... a bargainer under the Chinese, on the Chinese side. That's not their style. But then the other thing one has to remember about the Chinese, that there are a lot of Chinese

in Africa who are actually independent of China. Yes. You know, not all Chinese in Africa are acting out the Beijing playbook. Sure. Seems there's more than one belt and one road. Yes. Sorry, that's a terrible joke, but anyway. I've heard some friends say that even Barlow and maybe in another incarnation something like executive outcomes is maybe making a comeback in Africa now and that this is even encouraged by the United States as a way to counter Wagner and Chinese PMC activity there. Is this correct to say? I think the United States are very happy to counter Wagner and the Africa core. They don't like them at all. And so I think that an American PMC or a British or whatever, if they can displace Wagner or something, that would be something that the states would quietly approve of.

Even Barlow, I know, has set up a new executive outcomes, but I don't think it's actually doing anything. He did so because until three years ago, he was the chairman of a company called STEP. Sierra Tango Tango Echo Papa, which is actually the guys who were executive outcomes back in the day. And he was the chairman of it, but he resigned from it because of a misunderstanding or whatever with a contract in Mozambique, which became quite famous. Lionel Byke, DAG, and to dealing with the insurgency in northern Mozambique. And even resigned and then made an announcement he was restarting executive outcomes. And everyone's reaction, I think, including mine, was, well, good luck, you know.

Yes, but I think many people now making the argument, I don't know what you think of this, it just keeps being repeated that warfare is changing. There are changes in tactics with drone technology that can make a small group able to take on maybe even state sized militaries. Some people are saying the Houthis are successfully resisting the major militaries trying to to stop them. They use that as an example. But Houthis or not aside, do you think that's correct? Do you think something in the next decade or two that something like Condottieri or private military companies will be making a comeback and maybe even become this kind of low to mid-level warfare, become the dominant kind of conflict around the world and through whether it's drone technology or other things,

making small groups of men much more powerful than before. Do you see any such changes possible? I think warfare has changed over the years. Of course it does. It's like anything else. It evolves and it develops and it happens very, very quickly, especially in a situation like Ukraine, you know, necessity is the mother of invention. Well, there you are. That's pretty simple. And I think that private military matters and, if you like, private support of military matters has been going on as long as there has been any warfare at all. I mean, the history of people being involved in war fighting who are not technically enrolled in a fight, in an armed force, that's never not happened. I mean, you know, when the Hood set sail to take on the Bismarck,

there were private contractors on board who were working on the gun turrets. You know, having private companies involved with military matters has always happened. In fact, in the late 90s, I sort of said, well, forget it, We're not going to do executive outcomes anymore. We've done Angola, we've done Sierra Leone. This is not a model that's repeatable because of the pressure against mercenaries, et cetera, et cetera. And then I was completely wrong because along came 2003 and suddenly the United States are hiring and creating private companies all over the place to avoid boots on the ground. In Iraq, they want private boots on the ground because it's easier. And there's the flourishing of the PMC. So I was completely wrong, but that was actually a very different animal

to the executive outcome from animal, completely different. Basically, I mean, you had Uncle Sam was responsible for saving 80% of the revenue being earned by the entire sector. Yes. They're being hired by the American government. And what you see now in Gaza, you've got private military contractors on the ground, trying to secure the aid distribution and the movements, et cetera. And I mean, this is not new and it's gonna keep going and it will develop, it will evolve. The United States government recently announced that they might issue private letters of mark against something like the Mexican cartels. And I know that Eric Prince now is also active again around the world. He famously just got a contract in Ecuador. The president there looking to be something like a bukele,

trying to extend the bukele model to another country. This is kind of thing I'm talking about. Yes, of course, private military companies, private mercenaries have always existed, but do you think there could be a shift to this model more than before? governments, large states may be realizing for political or other reasons that they can't really use their big militaries which have maybe come to serve another function now. Yeah I think it's I mean Eric is a friend of mine as you know. Yes. And I love Eric and I love what he does. I think he's really good. You know this is a sort of evolving situation and if the The question is, will there be more private military contractors in the future? Yes, there will be.

Does it mean that private military contractors are somehow taking over from sovereign armed forces? No, there will be both. Exactly what the proportion between the two is may change between this way, that way, the other way. It may well be that there will be a higher proportion of revenues spent on private military contractors. That's quite possible. No, this is very interesting. in the Iraq war, a lot of the mercenaries were from South Africa. They are of course legendary. You have worked with them, they're your old friends. I've heard that some of them by now, it's 2025, many of the original generation are getting maybe too old to fight. Like me! But still I am very curious, there must have been younger ones too. What happened

to the legendary mercenaries of South Africa, are they still active around the world? Where is the pool of recruitment for such ventures coming from mainly now? Well, the company I just mentioned to you, STEP, Sierra Tango Tango Echo Pearl Papa, they are the true sons of executive outcomes. And they would totally agree with what you just said. And the difficulty is that the reason executive outcomes whereas, I mean remember we had 2,000 men in the field involved in two wars and we did not have one single charge of an atrocity or a rape or a murder or anything. We had nothing, which is a better track record than any army, any regular army could manage. Yes. We didn't have a single incident. Now the quality of the people was a direct result of where these

these guys came from. They came from the South African Defence Force, who had been fighting for the last 10 years, their border wars, and not only that, many of them were Tier 1 Special Forces by the South African Defence Force standards. They were fantastically good and very disciplined. And when they signed up to Executive Outcomes, part of the sign-up process was they signed a bit of paper which said that they understood that Executive Outcomes would work along the same lines and culture and habits as the South African defense force. If a corporal told you to get your hair cut, you got your hair cut. And so it was an exceptional moment, because that force was disbanded by the ANC. They tore up the pension plans, and these guys came to executive outcome.

We had 2,000 people at one point in executive outcomes very nearly, and we had another 3,000 who'd all been vetted, who wanted to join, because the South African Defence Force just basically paid everyone off for their goodbye. Now, obviously, that pool of people doesn't exist anymore. So where would recruitment take place? I'm reading now a book about Wagner, and it says that sometimes they hire people without prior military background. Did you ever do that, or was it strictly just veterans? No, no, it was strictly veterans and on recommendation, and you were tracked out. Yes. So if you said you'd served with a parabat in the South African Defence Force, they'd say, right, well, who with? And they'd ring the person up. You couldn't bluff your way in.

But you would never consider hiring people. I'll tell you why I'm asking this in a moment. You'd never consider hiring people without any military background and training them yourselves. But you can't say that unless you know what it's for. What situation are you hiring for? But if we're talking about war fighting, like our executive outcomes did in Angola. You couldn't possibly have anybody who hadn't done military service because they'd be dangerous. You know, if somebody hasn't had the level of training that is needed, they're actually a danger to the people around them if they have a loaded weapon. You know, the moment they have a loaded weapon, they are actually more dangerous than the enemy probably because they're with you. In a lot of the cases that I read about from 20th century

where, for example, Bob De Nard takes over the Comoros several times and it's always France comes in and takes him, stops him. And you were stopped, I think you are saying, by the CIA or the Americans in some way. It's always America, France, just to a lesser extent France and England who stop these kinds of adventures. And I think without this kind of interference, you'd have a lot more, let's say, colourful recent history in recent decades, I guess I'm asking if the new American administration is giving strong signals that they will take the boot off the neck, that they will not interfere any longer unless, let's say, things get very ugly or very bad, but that they will allow people like Eric Prince, people like Ibn Barlow and like you to, let's say, fix problems in

in much of the third world on paid contract and so on, whether it's by the Americans or local governments. Do you see this as a new opportunity that could lead to flourishing of this model? And sorry to ask two-part question, but the recent cut to U.S. aid, is that having any effect that you're seeing yet or that you anticipate on the third world, the global south? The latter question though, I haven't seen anything and I haven't really heard anything, I think a lot of people would think it was about time because a lot of Africa has become aid dependent in a very unhealthy way, you know, I mean how long is that going to go on for? Yes. And I think that this administration obviously, I mean I'm a big fan of this

administration, and yes, I think a lot of the restraints that were around are not there now. I mean, I can't imagine this administration saying to somebody like President de Santos, as was done in my day, executive outcomes have done a good job for you, but you've got to terminate the contract because we don't like this kind of thing. I don't think this administration are going to say that. So yeah, you're right. But remember that there is a very good US law, which says that if you commit an atrocity or some kind of crime and you're with a PSC or a PMC in the middle of the jungles of Central Africa, doesn't matter, you can be charged in the States and you can go to prison in the States. So something you did there supposedly under your

PSC PMC umbrella. So what I'm saying is, you know, yeah the boots off the neck may be but watch out because at the end of the day you're still going to be responsible for your actions. Yes, I would hope that the trial in the U.S. then would take place under U.S. standards of evidence because, as you know, the media loves to lie about mercenaries this and mercenaries that and evil mercenaries and before this episode I read some articles about you and I've seen these kind of snake journalist tactics, they almost never talk about your military service I've noticed. They always try to paint you as elite bad guy in the holes of power. You know, it's like a cartoon villain elite bad guy. I mean, I'm very familiar with

journalist tactics in this way, especially when it comes to designated enemies. Of course, mercenaries are that for many decades now in the leftist media. That's just part of it really, the job description, because the media are fascinated by the whole thing and so mercenary is a dirty word but also it's a very fascinating world that they love to portray or think that they're portraying and you know how many movies now do you see you know the bad guys oh they're mercenaries oh my goodness oh dear oh dear. The Netflix model is always now Machiavellian, bad guy, survival machine versus the morally indignant, morally righteous, good guys. It's very tedious, but the reason I'm asking you about possible increase in private military contractor and new opportunities in this next decade,

the ferment caused by Wagner's success and now the comeback maybe of something like East India Company. I have many in my audience, they are intelligent young men, many are veterans, some are active duty, some are in special units and such, many are fascinated by the kind of life that you've led, that even Barlow has led, and then I don't know what your opinion of them is, I can ask you later, but then the legendary adventurers of the 20th century like Bob Denard, whatever you may think of him, led a very exciting life. Things are quite boring now in civilized society. People are looking for opportunities for actions. Do you have any advice, general, maybe not life advice, but a path for how to get into this kind of work for intelligent men?

Well, first of all, I'm going to sort of pick you up on what you said because I remember a conversation with Tony Buckingham, my partner, and he was one of the founders of Executive Outcomes with me. And I remember before it all happened, before it kicked off, we were sitting having a drink in London, Tony said, God, you know, Simon, it's so boring. You know, I wish it was the Elizabethan age, and we could just sort of have a ship and we could just sort of sail off around the world and, you know, have adventures and capture Spanish treasure ships and stuff. And I remember, I looked at him, I said, no, no, Tony, you don't understand. The adventure is always out there, but we're not going to put on fancy dress and tights and sail around in a wooden ship.

It's just, it's going to be different, but it's the same thing. And I think it's a mindset. And I think, you know, just, I don't want to be pompous or anything. In fact, when I signed my book, if the guy's young, and quite often the guy's young and and the parents are standing there looking nervous. I write in the book, and don't try any of this at home. You're probably not going to survive. But I think if I had to really, if I wanted to try and preach a bit, it would be opportunities can come very rarely. You live your life and you're a soldier or you're a business person or whatever you are, or a parent even, or a lover, whatever. And certain opportunities come along, quite rarely, and maybe only once or twice, and you've got to grab them. And that can be very destructive,

because you might make a mistake, you might be losing something you really hold dear, and in future you'll regret it terribly. All of that, well, sorry, that's the downside. The upside is the opportunities come and you could very easily let them go. And if you want to be out there, then you've got to be ready to grab the opportunity. And that may come at a great cost, but there you go. The end of pompous advice. Well, no, it's very good advice, but it's general advice. If I was going to ask you, let's say, concrete advice for an American, let's say he's 22 or 25, 26 years old, maybe he's a Marines officer or maybe he's enlisted men, but in, let's say, military intelligence or something like this, very smart guy. I know some people with such profiles

and they are very interested after in, you know, they're thinking maybe the way that you were when you were a soldier, that they'd like to go into this kind of work. What would be a plausible path for them to try to get into this more or less? Yeah, I mean, guys like that, I'm sure don't really need that much advice. I think they kind of pretty much know And what I would say is, you know, you've got to keep qualifying yourself as best as you can. You know, doing the courses, even if you're doing them on your leave, because all those skill sets are useful. And then it's the question of networking, networking contacts. Is it all done through informal channels of friends? Like it sounds much of executive outcomes was founded this way.

but then it sounds like you also had an application process for veterans from the South African Defence Force. We did, we had to. I mean, with that number of men, we had all the normal admin and logistics problems that any big company has. But there were a lot of people who wanted to join. Yes, and these new companies, there's... Well, okay, I don't want to probe too much in case it's discrete, whatever, but I assume there's some type of process to join these new or private military companies that would be active, let's say, whether against Mexican cartels or now in Africa to counter Wagner and so on. But I suppose it's like anything. I mean, if I want to get into a particular group of people who are doing certain things, I will sit down, I'll try and work out what contacts I have

who might know somebody closer to that group. Yes. and then network my way in. I took a slightly different route. I looked up David Sterling in a phone book and I rang him up cold. The founder of the SAS, I said, hi, hi, Simon here. This is like advice that people used to get jobs this way, cold call or walk in, it's a bit more difficult. Very much more difficult. It was difficult then, I was terrified. I've been tiptoeing around this and I want to ask you, well, speaking of life advice, you know, Bob Dennard said that he never had any ambition and he looked down on ambitious men, he saw them as losers, he just went to a new place and raised hell and had fun and that's how he got things and he got opportunities. That way, do you admire any of these legendary mercenaries

of the 20th century, like Bob Dennard or Mike Hoar, or there are certain others also. I recently read about this guy, Fulk, a French veteran of Vietnam who was active in Africa thereafter, an advisor to Tshombe in Katanga. But the other two are much more famous. Do you admire them or what's your opinion of them? No, no, I mean, I sort of read about them like anybody else and I thought, yeah, you know, good, good for you. But in terms of my own horizons, if you like, Colonel David Sterling, who was doing all sorts of interesting things, and he had founded the SAS, to me, he was the guy. And that's why I went for him and basically recruited him as my honorary godfather.

But there were other people in that group, I won't name them because they're still active and they're great friends of mine. But these are the similar, if you like, it's the same peer group that I come from. And those guys were a sort of a role model for me as they progressed through the system. I mean, I'll name a company, there was a company called Defence Systems Limited, which actually then became part of G4S. But back in the day, in the 70s, they were a model as to what could be done by someone coming out of the army, setting up a company and engaging in private security work. Those were my role models, if you like. I want to ask you, if you don't mind, about Papua New Guinea. I know your company Sandline is famously, controversially involved in that.

Would you mind telling the audience just briefly what happened there and what Papua New Guinea was like, what was that experience? Yeah, I actually never went there. I was running diamond works in Africa as I was in Angola and Sierra Leone the whole time. I wanted to go to Papua New Guinea, but by then, you know, we were quite a big organization. I couldn't just do what I wanted and go where I wanted to go. But basically what happened in Papua New Guinea was that the island of Bergenville, which is many miles away from Papua New Guinea, was controversial. There was a copper mine. The locals didn't want to be part of Papua New Guinea. They wanted to rebel and they did rebel to the point where they'd actually killed several policemen and so on and so forth.

And Sandline, stroke executive outcomes, because it was basically the same thing, were asked if we could help Papua New Guinea security forces to basically re-establish law and order on Bergenville, which we were very happy to do. We were paid a deposit, we shipped in equipment, and at some point in the process, the head of the Papua New Guinea armed forces became very jealous of our close relationship with the president and with our obvious ability that we were now going to go and do the job which he had failed to do. So what then happened was his name was Singorock. He's the general in charge of their army. He then started a coup d'etat against his president. Nothing to do with us, except that we were in the way. So all our people were arrested, including Tim Spicer, my friend,

who was basically the guy in charge on the ground. He was mistreated, spent three months in prison, and then sent home. But all the others were sent home straight away. And that was the end of that. Yes, you can't operate without some kind of firm government support, but maybe, again, new administration in the United States is friendly in these regards. But I want to ask you, do you have any predictions, let's say for the near future, the next five years or such, where major conflicts or opportunities would show up. I know the Congo still has problems. Kagame, a leader of Rwanda, who I much admire, I think runs the only well-run or one of the only well-run states in Africa, but he has designs on the Congo now. Well, there's that, but aside from that,

Do you have any predictions for, let's say, major ferment somewhere in the world? Is there something going on new in Africa, in the Americas or such? I think if you look at Africa, I could take you on a guided tour with the map. And I think just about every single country there represents an opportunity of some sort or another. I mean, any country is going to have private security companies, which can morph into private military companies and which can then morph into mercenary bans a la executive outcomes if needed and that those opportunities are all over Africa. The new administration in the States makes a big difference because prior to that, the overwhelming feeling of mercenaries are not the solution. I mean for example,

the American ambassador for I think anti-terrorism or something was in Mozambique a few years ago, and he categorically said to the president, whatever happens here, whatever the solution here is, and this is regarding the insurgency in the north of Mozambique, is not going to be foreign PMC. Not only have you got the United States government broadcasting that, you've certainly got the UK government saying, well, you know, this is not the answer, but also you've got the NGOs and the media and the locals saying, you know, white mercenaries? No. No, no, no, no, no. That is not the way we want Africa to go. Now, okay, the new administration may be taking a different line, but those, if you like, negative factors are still out there. There's a lot of resistance.

What is the situation currently, well, somewhere like Zimbabwe, which, you know, I'm a big fan of Rhodesia used to be a well-run country. Everyone has finally turned, in the beginning they had nothing to say when Mugabe was massacring the Matabele tribes soon after Rhodesia became Zimbabwe. But they had a lot to say, but it didn't stop him doing it. The three brigades, they were Korean trained. Yes. But I think, if I may, I'd like to just project a slightly different idea. Yes. So if you look at what Executive Outcomes achieved in Angola, it was amazing. And if you can conceive of the possibility of, let's say, the same thing happening, because basically what we did was we went in there, we trained some people up, and we created

a, if you like, a spearhead brigade, and then another brigade, which basically could defeat UNITA very easily because they were a mix of our people and local troops, but all trained by us, if you see what I mean. Yes. Highly, highly effective. Now, if you look at that model, but you take away from it executive outcomes, that's the model to go with because I insisted that everyone in executive outcomes was enrolled in the FAA, the Angolan Armed Forces, so that legally we were soldiers. Yes. So actually we were not mercenaries at all because if you are legally enrolled you're not a mercenary. Technically. My idea that I've projected and I keep sort of keep going with it and actually in a couple of American magazines, my argument is this. If the French can

have the French Foreign Legion, nobody cries and says oh the French Foreign Legion are a bunch of mercenaries. Nobody says that. We accept the French Foreign Legion. Okay so why should not a country like Nigeria, for example, which has a massive security problem at the moment. Talk about opportunity. There you are. OK, why should Nigeria not have a Nigerian foreign region, which would take their best officers, their best young officers into there, their best people specially selected, different pay bands, and mix that in with a bunch of foreigners, a bunch of outsiders? Who would be people like me or younger versions of me? So you then have, probably on a ratio of one to ten, one outsider to ten locals, you have

a Nigerian Foreign Legion, yes, there are foreigners in it, but it's part of the Nigerian Armed Forces, and it's got very, very good Nigerians in it, and that is made into a crack spearhead brigade or division, depending on how many people you choose to go for. That unit would be able to do what needs to be done in Africa for Boko Haram or Al-Shabab or whatever bunch it is and whatever they're calling themselves that week. That Nigerian Foreign Legion would be able to fight properly. Now, you've got no PMC involved. There isn't a PMC there. They're part of the Nigerian armed forces. Now, yes, there'd be plenty of opportunities for the likes of us because who would who would organize that, who would recruit the outsiders, who would select the locals, who would set up the training

program, who would manage the procurement and the kit and everything else yes but it wouldn't be an executive outcomes in big capital letters it would be a group of little companies and people making sure that this Nigerian Foreign Legion worked properly. I think that's the model that I've discussed this with Eric he likes it too. It's a model that in many ways solves a lot of the problems that we've had to deal with. Because then you are not a mercenary force, you're not going to be told, oh no, no, no, you've done a great job, but actually you're all mercenaries, so you can all fuck off and go home. You know, that won't happen. Anyway, just an idea, I'm projecting it for the purposes of of your excellent show. Well, no, thank you so much.

I do want to follow up on this though and ask you, you mentioned Nigeria as possible location for implement this model. Aside from Nigeria, I mean, first of all, do you think Nigeria would do it? And second, what other parts of Africa might be good, might be good to do this model in now? I think Erik Prince thinks maybe Congo might try something like this. Are there other countries there that you see have this problem and are also likely to adopt this solution? Well, I think if the French can do it, and it's also a model that the British, in fact the Romans used, creating a local force that is auxiliary troops, if you like, mingled with Roman regulars. I mean, this is an old model, and obviously there are different ways to spin it and there

are different ways to present it because you have to deal with the media, you know, that's the world we live in. And I think actually you could apply it to just about any country, you know, however small. If you've got an army, you've got, I don't know, what, 50,000 men or something, you know, maybe you need a Botswana Foreign Legion. Now, I mean, Botswana, for example, actually does have lots of training people from the UK. Some of them are serving, some of them are not. So there's a lot of this stuff going on all the time. In terms of particular countries, the Congo, Eric's right. Of course, they've just had a very bad experience with the 300 Romanians who surrendered. Mozambique would be another one where they need this. Nigeria, definitely.

It's very interesting. I don't want to keep you too much longer, Simon. I want to ask you, toward the end of this episode, if you have any special historical figures, military leaders or adventurers who you admire or are very interested in, this is always interesting to me. I take it you look up to the Condottieri of the Renaissance, the famous Italian mercenary leaders. Anyone in particular, or yes? But the most famous one was English, wasn't he? Yes. What was he called? Hawksmoor, Hawksbust, and the White Company? Yes. These were the go-to guys that if you really, you know, Machiavelli's day, if you really wanted to make sure you won your war, you needed to go and talk to them. Do you, are you especially interested in any, I know, maybe Patton believed he was

reincarnation of a soldier in Alexander the Great's army and often military men have romantic visions of the past in this way. Are you especially inspired by any historical battles or historical military periods this way? I mean I love history, I'm a student of history and I've read a lot about you know the Second World War and the subsequent wars that have been fought. And so I just try and sort of keep an open mind and keep thinking about it all. I love the studying the Royal Navy, which was an unbelievably piratical organisation for much of its life, actually. You know, the prize money system and the letter of mark system, all of that I find very, very interesting and quite inspiring. I think come from students of of modern guerrilla warfare and terrorism.

I'm a great fan of General Frank Dickson, who I actually knew. As you know, he has a sort of wicked reputation with the left, which makes me admire him all the more. But what I do think is quite funny is that the book, he wrote several books, but there's one which has to have the best spoiler title of any book of its sort. Yes. Because the title spoils the book. Because the title is Gangs and Counter-Gangs. Yes. You don't have to read the book. No, this is interesting. Kitson was one of the people active in the Mau Mau rebellion in Kenya, correct? Yes, very much so. The Mau Mau has committed absolutely horrible crime. Look, we shouldn't go, we shouldn't leave on this note. But just very quickly, the Mau Mau has committed, I think when I read accounts from that time,

even very tough people will say, I will not even say the kinds of atrocities that the Mao Maos committed, both against their local black enemies and also against the English in Kenya. To me, it's very dubious things happening around the Mao Maos, because as you know, Obama, ex-president of United States, would never stop whining his whole life about how his family in Kenya was supposedly mistreated during that rebellion by the English. And I think he held a permanent lifelong chip on his shoulder against England because of that. And yes, maybe you disagree with this, but I think there's some evidence actually, although America could not directly support the Maumaus, they did indirectly give them medical aid help and such, which, as you know, for guerrilla forces is very,

without the medical corps, is very important. But I don't know if you have any opinions on American meddling in Africa and Kenya during that time. Well, when we read now about how much American taxpayers' money, because of the previous administration, managed to find its way to Hamas and other such organisations, the fact that they may have been mucking around, giving medical equipment to, or medical aid to the Maumau doesn't surprise me in the slightest. But the Maumau definitely met their match in Kitson. Yes. Because when he wrote Gangs and Counter-Gangs, he wasn't joking. And basically the premise is, well, whatever you're going to do, however down and dirty you're going to do, we're going to get lower down and dirtier and watch out.

And I think that's a pretty good mindset for dealing with terrorism. Well, then, yes, that's very good, actually. That is a hopeful note. Let's leave on that note. That's the gangs and counter-gangs mindset. I like this. It's very romantic. Perhaps, Bap, a little bit more accessible than the Bronze Age, dare I say it. Well, it's the same thing. It's the same thing, though. It's a resurrection of that. And again, I don't mean to flatter you, but there are many in my audience and otherwise who truly look up to you and even Barlow and so on as embodiments of possibility of action in the modern world and excitement of adventure. I know you have, you're maybe jaded or phlegmatic about this, but it's an inspiration to many and it was a great honor to have you on my show.

Well, no, it's an honor to be there. And I just, Eric Prince and I have a lot of laughs about this together and some very, very good chats. And I don't know, onwards, onwards and upwards, we will see. Yes. Yes, very good. Maybe we meet one day in the Congo. Very good. Thank you so much again, Simon. And thank you, Bap. Yes, very good. Until next time. Thank you. Bap out.