The Third World War

It is hard to figure out what is meant nowadays by the word “mercenary.” It can’t mean just somebody who gets paid for being a soldier, because that would include practically everybody from General Wheeler to Private Schweik. One dictionary suggestion is “soldiers serving in a foreign army,” but what about those UN peacekeepers or the British officers in the Kenya army? Still, whatever the word means, we all realize it applies first to those white monsters hired and paid, if somewhat irregularly, by the Congolese government. Two months ago, shortly after the kidnaping of Tshombe, the mercenaries in the Congo’s Northeast “revolted.” They slaughtered black and white, burned and looted. Defeated by the gallant Congolese army, they fell back into the bush with a couple of hundred whites as hostages. .. . So, at any rate, the story went, and to most readers it sounded plausible enough. The forces of anarchy were arrayed against the forces of law and order—sort of like in our own cities this summer. Soon the image began to change remarkably. The “hostages” turned out to be those, black as well as white, who had sought refuge with the mercenaries to avoid the knives (and forks) of the Congolese army. There had been plenty of murdering and looting, not to speak of drinking and raping, all right: by Mobutu’s battalions. And the defeated remnant rushing desperately to escape the country became an orderly column escorting the persons under its protection to safe refuge. Early in the episode, French-born Bob Denard, who had been the mercenaries’ chief for several years, was wounded and evacuated to a hospital in Rhodesia. Interviewed there by French reporters, Denard explained something of the Congolese reality: “We would prefer to see at least one part of the Congo healthy and viable rather than anarchy established everywhere. For this it would be necessary first of all to dissolve that National Congolese Army, composed of mutineers. It lives on the Congo like an army of occupation, pillaging and ransoming. The Congolese soldiers re-sell all medical supplies to speculators; part of the profits go to the people in power in Léopoldville. As for us, we give our rations to the blacks in the villages. We help them repair the roads. . . .

“Hostages? We never had any hostages. Many Europeans took refuge with us. Those were our hostages. The Simba rebels we fought for two years rallied to us. Why? Because there was nothing left facing them but the men of the Congolese army, who cut up their prisoners with machetes. Without us, the Congo would be the victim of the rebels and of cannibalism.”

JB

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James Burnham

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It is hard to figure out what is meant nowadays by the word “mercenary.” It can’t mean just somebody who gets paid for being a soldier, because that would include practically everybody from General Wheeler to Private Schweik. One dictionary suggestion is “soldiers serving in a foreign army,” but what about those UN peacekeepers or the British officers in the Kenya army? Still, whatever the word means, we all realize it applies first to those white monsters hired and paid, if somewhat irregularly, by the Congolese government. Two months ago, shortly after the kidnaping of Tshombe, the mercenaries in the Congo’s Northeast “revolted.” They slaughtered black and white, burned and looted. Defeated by the gallant Congolese army, they fell back into the bush with a couple of hundred whites as hostages. .. . So, at any rate, the story went, and to most readers it sounded plausible enough. The forces of anarchy were arrayed against the forces of law and order—sort of like in our own cities this summer. Soon the image began to change remarkably. The “hostages” turned out to be those, black as well as white, who had sought refuge with the mercenaries to avoid the knives (and forks) of the Congolese army. There had been plenty of murdering and looting, not to speak of drinking and raping, all right: by Mobutu’s battalions. And the defeated remnant rushing desperately to escape the country became an orderly column escorting the persons under its protection to safe refuge. Early in the episode, French-born Bob Denard, who had been the mercenaries’ chief for several years, was wounded and evacuated to a hospital in Rhodesia. Interviewed there by French reporters, Denard explained something of the Congolese reality: “We would prefer to see at least one part of the Congo healthy and viable rather than anarchy established everywhere. For this it would be necessary first of all to dissolve that National Congolese Army, composed of mutineers. It lives on the Congo like an army of occupation, pillaging and ransoming. The Congolese soldiers re-sell all medical supplies to speculators; part of the profits go to the people in power in Léopoldville. As for us, we give our rations to the blacks in the villages. We help them repair the roads. . . .

“Hostages? We never had any hostages. Many Europeans took refuge with us. Those were our hostages. The Simba rebels we fought for two years rallied to us. Why? Because there was nothing left facing them but the men of the Congolese army, who cut up their prisoners with machetes. Without us, the Congo would be the victim of the rebels and of cannibalism.”