Extensively used in ancient Rome and in the Middle Ages, mercenarism was understandably more widespread in the age of imperialism.[4] While the principal colonial powers of the last century noticeably institutionalized the employment of mercenaries in parts of Asia and Africa, its later application had to be more covert. While the founding fathers of the United States passed laws to monitor and discourage the recruitment of citizens of a state for service in the armed forces of another one, that country lost sight of its own well-defined regulations and practices when it allowed some American citizens of Jewish origin to be recruited for war by the Israeli Armed Forces. Although a Foreign Enlistment Act (1870) prohibited British subjects from participating in hostilities between two foreign parties in which the United Kingdom was not engaged, its citizens served in the racist army of Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) opposing the legitimate government of the People’s Republic of Angola. Similarly, while French legislation laid down imprisonment and fine as penalties for its citizens of they served for money in foreign armies, many Frenchmen fought in Lebanon for the benefit of some local extremists. Swedish laws considering service in foreign armies as criminal, the Swedish authorities did not allow their nationals to participate either in the civil war in Finland or in Spain, but their nationals took part in the secessionist armed conflict Nigeria. Likewise, the Belgian Penal Code promised imprisonment for those who served in a foreign army without permission. Many offered their services, nevertheless, in foreign forces in Katanga during the Congo crisis in the early 1960s. The first undertaking by mercenaries to undermine the legitimate authority in any African country occurred (1977) in Benin.

This definition makes a distinction between a mercenary and the participation of an individual citizen on a voluntary basis and without any material interest.[5]

Volunteers may be engaged in an armed conflict to promote the cause of a victim of aggression or of colonialism and to support the right of self-determination against foreign occupation. For instance, the Italian and German so-called “volunteers” who joined the insurgents during the Spanish Civil War (1936-39) should be regarded as illegitimate while the volunteers on the side of the Republicans may be judged as rightful and justifiable. Not only the insurgent generals, led by Francisco Franco who revolted in Melilla in Spanish Morocco, had at their disposal large Moorish contingents, but also the Italian Government came out more and more openly in support of Franco and ultimately had about 50-75,000 troops in Spain; in addition, the Germans had some 10,000 men serving there. While Britain and France continued their ban on supplies to the democratically elected government and only a group of bona fide volunteers such as the Lincoln Brigade aided the government forces, German and Italian “volunteers” aided Franco in transporting troops from Morocco and played a major role in later engagements.

Many sessions of the U. N. General Assembly debated a universal international convention to control mercenaries and to outlaw mercenarism in every shape. Nations supported the idea of concluding an international convention and proposed effective steps to ban the recruitment, training and employment of mercenaries. Considering that most of the mercenaries arrived in Africa from other continents, it is not surprising that the ad hoc committee pondered on the Nigerian draft (1981). While Mexico underlined the urgency of getting down to the task of working out a convention on the subject, that country also cited the events in Angola, Namibia, Rhodesia and Zaire.

The Human Rights Commission of the United Nations reaffirmed in its resolutions (1995/5 and 1996/113) that the recruitment, use, financing and training of mercenaries should be considered of gave concern and urged all states to prevent mercenaries from using any part of their territory to destabilize any sovereign state. States which had yet to accede to or ratify the International Convention against the Recruitment, Use, Financing and Training of Mercenaries (4 December 1989) were also urged to take action. To give effect to these resolutions, a special Report[6] emphasized that the stability of governments and international peace and security are seriously impaired by mercenary activities, which should be banned, and the existing international provisions relating to mercenaries must be enforced to ensure that these criminal acts are discontinued. The Special Rapporteur’s analysis shows that this illicit activity takes a variety of forms and that they are recruited by state intelligence authorities or security forces, opposition groups, armed domestic resistance movements or criminal organizations to engage in illegal actions such as forming paramilitary forces for purpose of repression, organizing death squads or providing military protection for arms or drug trafficking. Mercenaries are “not a small number of individuals”; they are “professionals selling their skill in war and violence”; they are paid to “attack and kill” in a conflict alien to their nationality; they work for money although they may claim altruistic, ideological or religious motives “in order to disguise their true motives”; they use legal devices to “conceal the nature of their assignment”; their interest lies “not in peace and reconciliation but in war”. Since that is their business and livelihood, and therefore, the presence of mercenaries in armed conflicts tends to make them longer lasting.

It is only natural that the Organization of African Unity (OAU) should also be active in this issue. The condemnation of the OAU Council of Ministers in response to the mercenary threat to Guinea (1970) was followed by a timely resolution of the OAU Summit (1971) in Addis Ababa. The report of a committee of experts presented to the Council of Ministers in Rabat (1972) referred to the grave threat posed by mercenarism to the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of the member states. The African community of nations also share the view that a mercenary is anyone who, not a national of the state against which his actions are directed, is employed by or inks himself to a group or an organization whose aim is to undermine the territorial integrity of the said state and to overthrow by force of arms or by any other means the government of that state. The trial (1976) of the British and American mercenaries in Luanda, Angola’s capital, showed the criminal nature of their activity even in the wording of the defence of their lawyers who blamed their lack of education, unemployment and alienation for their inhumanity and sadism. That trial was a warning and message for the contemporary and future mercenaries to heed.[7]

Will mercenaries always be with us, or will they one day disappear?[8] Mercenaries must not only be declared outlaws, but should also be actually outlawed. The intruding governments should prevent their own nationals or foreigners living in their territory from committing the kind of offences enumerated in several U.N. decisions and other internationals texts. They should forbid the entry to their organization in, or their passage through their territory of any mercenary or equipment intended for use for such purpose. In the light of international consensus, they should ban the recruitment, training, equipping and financing of mercenaries. Not only should they refrain from interfering in the affairs of another country, but they should also take necessary legislative measures for the implementation of solely legal and legitimate activities. Not only laws in each country should clearly prohibit such acts, but also unequivocal political will should be exhibited to enforce them.[9]

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