Mercenaries are still a thing

Earlier this week, a Russian court sentenced US citizen Stephen Hubbard to nearly seven years in prison on mercenary charges. 

The court alleges Hubbard signed a contract with a territorial defence unit after moving to Ukraine in 2014, and earned around $1,000/month to fight with Ukrainian troops defending against Russia. He was then detained in April 2022.

Hubbard’s story, coupled with reports North Korea could be sending its citizens to help Russia invade Ukraine, got us thinking about how foreign citizens increasingly end up fighting in conflicts thousands of miles away. 

Why? There are as many reasons as there are combatants, but some of the most common explanations include: 

• Cash – The starting salary for a junior burger in (for example) the French Foreign Legion is around $1700 per month (net), while elite contractors in combat zones can earn upwards of $25k per month.
• Creed – Some foreigners identify so deeply with a cause, they just pack their bags and head on over, though these decisions can sometimes be shaped by propaganda, radicalisation, and even deceit (eg, various folks from Cuba, Nepal, Sierra Leone, and Somalia have been duped into joining Russia’s invasion).
• And citizenship – Countries struggling to hit their military recruitment goals sometimes offer fast-tracked citizenship for folks willing to enlist – we’re talking not only about wartime economies like Ukraine and Russia, but also places like Australia.

Anyway, while we’re on the topic, here are four stories you might not’ve heard before:

1. Simon Mann 🇬🇧

He’s a former officer in Britain’s elite Special Air Service who, after the first Gulf War, tried his luck in the oil and diamond industry before becoming a mercenary for the Angolan government, which was fighting a rival faction in its own civil war at the time.

Mann then went on to co-found his own mercenary company, Sandline International, which rose to infamy after it emerged on the other side of the world in Papua New Guinea, where the government had contracted it to help quell a secessionist movement.

But things somehow got even more intriguing in 2004, when Mann and 66 others were arrested during a stopover in Zimbabwe. Authorities accused them of being en route to overthrow the government of Equatorial Guinea. The son of Margaret Thatcher even pleaded guilty (under a plea deal) to helping finance the operation.

In the end, the Zimbabweans sentenced Mann to prison before extraditing him in 2007 to face charges in Equatorial Guinea, where a court sentenced him to another 34 years behind bars – he got a presidential pardon on humanitarian grounds two years later.

And yes, he obviously went on to write it all down in an autobiography.

2. Duberney Capador 🇨🇴

Capador joined Colombia’s special forces once he turned 18, then spent the next two decades fighting against rebel guerrillas in the country’s south.

But then an intriguing job offer apparently emerged in 2019 to work for a Miami-based security firm known as ‘CTU Security’ – they said they were putting together a 400-man platoon to protect the political elite of an unknown country for $3k each per month.

A couple of years later, Capador and several other compatriots touched down in Haiti where they awaited further details of their assignment. Then on July 7 2021, he and his group attacked the home of President Moise, killing the president and injuring the first lady.

It’s all shrouded in mystery, but leaked WhatsApp messagessuggest Capador and others then became trapped when their plot to install a former judge as president didn’t pan out. Rather, police ended up killing Capador and three others, while arresting another 20 who are still being prosecuted. The former first lady has even been listed as a suspect.

3. Samuel Wesley Hall 🇺🇸

A former Olympic silver medallist diver and member of the Ohio House of Representatives, Sam Hall became a self-described “volunteer counterterrorist”, travelling to foreign countries to back anti-communist groups like the Contras. 

While some of his stories sound a tad far-fetched, he once described parachuting into Angola to rescue captured Canadians, and training Latin American groups in guerrilla warfare, before being apprehended in Nicaragua in 1986 on suspicions of being a spy. 

Hall later claimed he was conducting reconnaissance for a privately financed group called the Phoenix Battalion, which had been battling the Sandinista rebels who ultimately seized power. The then (and current, lol) Nicaraguan leader Daniel Ortega ended up releasing Hall within two months, and Hall passed away decades later in Florida in 2014.

4. Eduardo Rózsa-Flores 🇧🇴/🇭🇺 

Working for Spanish/Catalan newspaper ‘La Vanguardia’ and the Spanish BBC service, Rózsa-Flores was covering the Balkans War in Yugoslavia when he suddenly swapped out his mic for a rifle to fight for Croatian independence.

He then went on to lead the movement’s 300-strong foreign legion, faced allegations of human rights abuses, and a decade later, starred in a movie based on his own life, which ended up winning gold at Hungary’s film festival.

But then in 2009 on the opposite side of the world, Bolivian police conducted a deadly raid on a hotel in the city of Santa Cruz. And who should be found among the fallen? None other than Rózsa-Flores, of course. Authorities claimed he was part of a plot to overthrow President Evo Morales, though this remains contested.

INTRIGUE’S TAKE

As tech blurs borders, we’re seeing more and more local citizens getting captivated by distant causes, then heading off in pursuit of heroism, infamy, or just cold hard cash.

But from the perspective of ex-diplomats like us, these kinds of stories are mostly just nightmare scenarios. Local officials inevitably accuse you and your home government of somehow being involved in the plot. Many then use these captives as a bargaining chip on other issues, or just as an excuse to make life difficult.

And while the sentences, court cases, and negotiations all play out, you’ve still got to afford these compatriots their consular rights, which typically means going and visiting them in some distant jail every 12 weeks to ensure they’ve got adequate access to double-ply toilet paper, organic toothpaste, and the last few editions of Us Weekly. That or making sure they get a meal each day.

Become a diplomat, they said. See the world, they said.

Also worth noting:

• A 1989 UN treaty prohibits states from recruiting, using, financing and training mercenaries.
• Another story now playing out: just last month, a court in Congo DRC handed down the death penalty for 37 defendants involved in an attempted coup in May. Six of them are foreigners from the US, UK, Belgium and Canada.