Mercenaries in the Congo and Biafra, 1960-1970: Africa’s weapon of choice? - Archive ouverte HAL
Article Dans Une Revue Small Wars and Insurgencies Année : 2021

Mercenaries in the Congo and Biafra, 1960-1970: Africa’s weapon of choice?

Résumé

Often maligned by academics and international organisations alike, mercenaries are perceived as being a contributory factor to the worsening of conflict and as a threat to democracy. This chapter demonstrates that this reputation is not wholly deserved, and that in certain cases mercenaries have made a valuable contribution to creating stability in highly unstable contexts. Also, this chapter questions certain interpretations relating to the role and identity of mercenaries. Far from being cold-blooded avaricious killers, we show that there is a range of different reasons why someone becomes a mercenary and argue that the aforementioned categorisation has been used as a political tool.

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Dates et versions

hal-04629895 , version 1 (01-07-2024)

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Stephen Rookes, Walter Bruyère-Ostells. Mercenaries in the Congo and Biafra, 1960-1970: Africa’s weapon of choice?. Small Wars and Insurgencies, 2021, 33 (1-2), pp.112-129. ⟨10.1080/09592318.2021.1957535⟩. ⟨hal-04629895⟩
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