Eeben Barlow: Training African armies on the ground

If, as the old saying goes, old soldiers fade away, then Eeben Barlow will be fading into the African jungle or savannah, clad in camouflage fatigues, rifle in hand, training troops or preparing to lead them into battle.

Now in his 60s, Barlow has been called many things in his life-long military career: mercenary, hired gun, dog of war, racist, spook. None of that worries him. It’s enough, he says, lighting up another smoke, that good soldiers – and good people around Africa, both black and white – call him comrade and friend.

Barlow, who began his career as a military engineer then served as a member of the Recce Wing of the former South African Defence Force’s (SADF) 32 Battalion, came into the public eye in the early ’90s when his company, Executive Outcomes (EO), deployed former SADF soldiers, both black and white, into war zones fighting wars African governments couldn’t fight alone.

EO was successful in helping the Angolan government defeat the Unita rebel movement of Dr Jonas Savimbi – whose soldiers, ironically, were trained by, and fought alongside, SADF troops in the Angolan war of the ’70s and ’80s.

EO also helped turn back rebels threatening to overwhelm the government of Sierra Leone. After the dissolution of EO, Barlow was still involved, all over Africa, advising governments on security and socio-political issues, as well as lecturing and training African armies on the ground.

“I still get calls from senior government people around the continent. I was in a country recently, advising them on a certain strategy. They listened, but in the end ignored me and went with advice from the Americans. And they got punished for it…”

Details? No. Loose lips sink ships – and Barlow is a pro. Professional has been the word most often associated with ex-SADF soldiers who have made their living working for private military companies (PMCs) worldwide, from Iraq and Afghanistan to Libya and East and West Africa.

Their training and their experience – in the biggest conflict on the African continent since World War II – set them apart from other “military advisors” assisting African governments.

“We understand the military situation in Africa from a strategic, operational and tactical point of view. But because we are also Africans, we understand the people…”

The success Barlow and his teams have had in turning around African armies hasn’t always sat well with the big players in Africa. In Nigeria, the South Africans helped re-establish a special unit (72 Mobile Strike Force), retrain the country’s special forces, undoing the mistraining of previous advisors.

“We couldn’t believe it when we got to a training camp and found the troops were using blank ammunition. We have never seen blank rounds for an AK rifle … we always use live rounds.”

Apart from anything else, the troops were unable to properly “zero” their weapons for accuracy (an essential preparation for combat deployment) because you need actual bullets to do that. “The foreigners would just fiddle with the sights and tell them ‘You’re good to go, buddy’.” That experience and many others, of foreign trainers, led Barlow to the firm belief that “African armies are being deliberately set up to fail”.

In Nigeria, Barlow and his teams integrated themselves into army units fighting Boko Haram insurgents in the north of the country, because “we need to ensure continuity between training and combat … and to show them we would take the same risks they would”.

Such a strong bond built up that Barlow had to use all his powers of command to stop his Nigerian troops from counter-attacking their own, following a “friendly fire” incident when a Nigerian tank had fired on one of his vehicles, killing two South Africans.

“I will never forget being told, our guys were sitting next to that shot out vehicle crying…” Barlow says the key to the success of the operations has been that he, and his team, “don’t tell a government or army what to do. The Americans, the Brits and the French do that all the time. We advise, we suggest and we assist but the final decisions are not made by us”.

When it works, it works well, proving beyond a doubt to Barlow, “that African problems should be solved by Africans, without outside interference”.

It still does pain him a little that, in Nigeria, in Uganda, in Sudan, he is regarded as an equal; an African with a white skin … but in his home, he is viewed by the political sh*t stirrers as a “settler” who should “get back on the boat and go back to Europe”. It would be easy at his age and rank (he has the rank of major-general) to sit behind a desk and deploy men to points on a map on a wall. That’s not him, though.

“I still go out with the troops if I have to. I still fight if I have to. That’s what a soldier does. I must admit that, sometimes, the young troops offer to carry my kit for me … and I am too proud to accept!” This concern for his welfare is touching, he says.

“Sometimes, though, it worries me. Once, I saw the young troops were positioning themselves in front of me before a contact. I tried to tell them ‘guys, if I fire, I’ll hit you’ and they said their priority was to come between me and the enemy to protect me…”

That’s the kind of bond only an old soldier, and an old African, would appreciate…

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