The full name of EO South Africa is Executive Outcomes, which translates to "execution results". The company was founded in 1989 by Eeben Barlow and closed on January 1, 1999 (also known as December 31, 1998).
Logo of EO Company
EO's logo is the "Paladin" image in chess, although it has been said that this image does not originate from chess itself, but from the 1950s TV series Have Gun Will Travel. However, since some of the buttons on EO's original official website are imaged by other chess pieces, I think that "chess is not necessarily wrong".
Cover of Have Gun Will Travel
Sometimes a search for the EO logo on the Internet will find a dagger scorpion's shield badge, which is said to be the badge on the beret worn by EO ground combatants. However, in the external image officially displayed by the company, this "strong offensive meaning" sign cannot be seen.
Beret badge for EO combatants
EO is famous for its performance in Angola. It became a news flash in just a few years, and in the mid-1990s it was often in the domestic newspapers, to the point of deification (as was the case with the domestic deification of Blackwater after the Iraq War). Even years after the closure of EO, there are still people in China who believe that EO is "currently the world's largest mercenary company".
Words like these often appear in military online articles or military novels — I looked it up when I first wrote this EO article in 2009, and Baidu Encyclopedia also wrote it. However, when I rewrote it a few years ago, I checked it and found that Baidu Encyclopedia had been changed, partially quoting the material I wrote in 2009.
In addition, in the 1990s, many domestic Chinese media referred to EO as the "South African Strategic Resources Company" (including the article "World Military" was also translated in this way). But in fact, EO is just one of 32 subsidiaries of strategic resource corporation (SRC). The business of these SRC subsidiaries covers mining, air transport leasing, security and more.
These subsidiaries are registered in different locations, some in South Africa, some in the Bahamas and some in the Isle of Man (a semi-autonomous region of the Commonwealth).
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Eo's founder, Eeben Barlow, was born into a military family, and his father and several uncles and uncles fought in World War II and, according to him, were equally successful. One of his uncles was personally awarded the Bronze Star medal by General Clark for wounding several enemy troops during a German ambush.
Ibin Barrow joined the South African Defence Force in 1974 and entered Angola with the South African Defence Force as an engineer the following year, where he was promoted to commander of the engineering force after several years of demining and road construction, commanding the formation of an infantry advance platoon specializing in mine warfare and counter-ambush warfare.
He later became the second in command of the South African 32nd Battalion Air Reconnaissance Team (the 32nd Battalion was an infantry battalion with a platoon-sized air reconnaissance detachment, and some sources say that he was the second in command of the 32nd Battalion were wrong). After retiring from the military, Barrow first joined the "Secret Intelligence Collection Office" (DCC) of the Military Intelligence Department, and after getting bored with dcc work, he joined the secret "National Cooperation Bureau (CCB)" in March 1989.
The CCB is a racially repressive body that specifically opposes the ANC, with its main activities including intelligence work and assassinations of ANC members circumventing the UN ban. In his autobiography, Barrow mentions that he was once tasked with assassinating an ANC member in London, but after following him for a while, he found that the target was just an ordinary South African student, so he disobeyed the instructions of his superiors and abandoned the assassination.
When he returned home to await his punishment, the CCB was facing dissolution. Because of South Africa's desegregation policy that year, ANC leader Nelson Mandela demanded that Frederik Willem de Klerk, then president of South Africa, be disarmed and disbanded some of the units that carried out racial oppression tasks, while the secret CCB was exposed.
Seeing that he was about to lose his job, Barrow simply jumped out and started his own business and formed EO Company. At the beginning of the business, the staff were all former comrades and colleagues.
Ibn Barrow, in his prime
In the mid-1990s, CBS TV's current affairs program 60 Minutes had an interview with EO (I forgot exactly which year, attic, attic international in Hong Kong broadcast the show every Sunday, but at that time my video recorder was broken, and it is difficult to find the information at that time, so some of the content is based on memory, which may go wrong), in the interview, Ibin Barrow mentioned that his company employees are not only retired South African Wehrmacht soldiers, but also some former ANC soldiers. According to him at the time, because South Africa ended the apartheid policy, the army that suppressed the blacks and the black armed forces that resisted the repression were unemployed, and he set up the company to provide everyone with a job to support their families.
Some sources say that there were nearly a thousand soldiers in the heyday of EO, 70% of whom were black, but these blacks were not all members of the ANC – because there were actually many black soldiers in the pro-apartheid forces that suppressed the ANC. Most of Ibin Barrow's men after the start-up are actually retired from the South African army.
Some sources say that EO is the ancestor of modern PMC, and Ibn Barrow himself is proud to say that he pioneered modern PMC. But in fact, EO was founded in 1989, and earlier in other countries, PMC companies were established: MPRI in the United States was established in 1987, while defense systems Ltd (DSL), the predecessor of the British Panzer Group, began operations in 1981.
In fact, DSL and EO are very active in Angola, basically EO knocked down the oil field and then handed over to DSL to guard.
EO's ostensible clients are internationally recognized legitimate governments (EO's PR department has always emphasized this), most notably the Government of Angola and sierra Leone. But in fact, EO's real customers are multinational companies that extract natural resources, such as De Beers, BP, Texaco Oil, Gulf Chevron Oil and other multinational companies mentioned on many foreign websites, including Wikipedia, which are EO customers.
In the case of Sierra Leone, the interim government at the time simply did not have the money to hire EO companies to fight the RUF rebels. But there is a British company called Branch Heritage that guarantees the credit of the Sierra Leonean government, so EO's salary is actually paid by Branch Energy. Whenever EO regains a diamond mine, Branch Energy receives 60% of its mining rights. But instead of transferring money directly from branch energy, it was transferred through a company called Carson Gold, and finally handed over to EO soldiers by another holding company called Diamond Works.
EO's transport aircraft, in addition to transporting people and transporting supplies, I don't know if it can be used to transport some shiny small stones
When EO was first established, its main business was some training business, and it is said that at the beginning it was only to provide special forces training for the South African Defence Force. The first offshore contract EO allegedly received was to train security guards for Debswana (Debswana's joint venture in Botswana) to counter Botswana's illegal diamond trading syndicate.
Later, Ibin Barrow partnered with Heritage Oil and Gas through a retired SAS Simon Mann as an intermediary. Then, in 1993, he was hired by the MPLA government in Angola and took direct part in the fight against the UNITA army.
The real purpose of EO's involvement in the Angolan civil war business was to retake the oil fields occupied by UNITA for traditional oil and gas, but because Angola also produced diamonds, De Beers was actually involved in the game.
That is, in projects in Angola, at least one oil company and one diamond company paid EO on behalf of the Angolan government. Of course, money is not transferred directly from these companies to the accounts of EO companies. However, in De Beers' official profile, they said that when they found out that EO had begun training MPLA's government forces (FAA), they cancelled their contract with EO.
Ironically, when Ibin Barrow served in the army, he helped UNITA deal with MPLA in the border war between South Africa and Angola, but when he founded his own business, he helped the enemy of the year to attack the allies of the year (making money, not chilling).
In the end, it took EO half a year to achieve what the United States, Cuba, the former Soviet Union and the United Nations had not achieved for more than two decades – forcing MPLA to negotiate peace with UNITA, and in November 1994 the two sides formally ceased hostilities. While the United Nations says this is because of the results of their strong operation, it is actually because EO helped the MPLA government forces beat UNITA undesirable.
Why not eliminate the UNITA army once and for all? Maybe it's because the threat of keeping UNITA, an MPLA, is more in the interest of oil companies and diamond companies? So a few years later, when EO was no longer in Angola, civil war broke out again.
EO mercenaries patrol the jungles of Angola
EO mercenaries in Angola, background is their Mi 8 helicopters
EO entered Sierra Leone in May 1995. In an interview with 60 Minutes, Ibin Barrow said that the business they had just started with was military advisers and training, and that only a few dozen advisers and trainers had been sent to Sierra Leone.
At that time, because the Sierra Leone government army was too scummy, it was beaten by the RUF (Revolutionary United Front). The employees of EO Company saw that the indirect financier was about to surrender, so they directly intervened and immediately hit ruf, which was still in full swing just now.
According to other sources, in the original contract, EO only provided 200 mercenaries to Sierra Leone, and the terms of the contract stipulated that they were only responsible for training government troops and providing logistical assistance and combat support (in the form of military advisers). For this reason, the Government of Sierra Leone pays $1.8 million a month in labor costs (according to the roundabout payment method mentioned above, but in fact EO and Branch Energy are cross-controlled).
In May 1995, the first number of mercenaries to arrive in Freetown was indeed only 50, and it was not until six months later that another 130 were added, when these 50 were only responsible for the formation and training of government forces. However, because of the original government army war, when the Battle of Freetown (also known as Liberty City, the capital of Sierra Leone) broke out shortly after, EO's mercenaries went straight to the field.
They brought two BMP-2 infantry fighting vehicles and a Mi-24 Doe helicopter gunship, as well as an army they had just trained halfway through, and repulsed the RUF.
EO's mercenaries then led a counterattack, recapturing the Kono and Sierra Rutile mines. At the end of 1995, EO again airlifted 200 mercenaries from South Africa and then began attacking RUF's base camp. The following year, after the EO eliminated a large number of RUF troops and some high-ranking officials, the RUF was forced to take the initiative to cease fire and engage in peace negotiations.
It was also because of EO's ability to fight that Sierra Leone held its first free elections in 1996, and Ahmad Tejan Kabbah was elected president. The newly elected president, Kabbah, is determined to end the civil war. He needed financial assistance from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund to restructure the battered country, but these all strongly demanded a reduction in the huge budget deficit.
The Government of Sierra Leone, like many African countries, has no treasury, and most of the revenue is used by the new Government to subsidize the food of its inefficient army – necessary to prevent more hungry and unemployed young people from joining the rebels. The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund were willing to provide financial assistance, but demanded that the new government cut its large budget deficit. Coupled with the fact that the United Nations had been asking the Government of Sierra Leone to terminate its contract with EO, the Kabbah Government, after negotiations with EO, decided to reduce its monthly payments and end the contract at the end of 1996.
But even though he made less money, EO was still very ethical and in September 1996, completely destroyed a large rebel camp in the southeast. Due to the heavy losses of RUF, it agreed to serious negotiations (the previous negotiations before the co-authoring were not serious?). In November, the Abidjan Peace Accord was signed.
At the strong behest of the United Nations and the International Monetary Fund, the Sierra Leonean government's peace agreement with RUF contained provisions for the withdrawal of EO and all other foreign forces (note that the Nigerian Air Force has been involved in the Sierra Leone civil war and provided air fire support to Sierra Leonean government forces). As a result, EO officially withdrew from the country in January 1997.
Allegedly, the original contract amount was payable of $35.3 million, but only $15.7 million was paid. However, the real revenue of EO is actually on the side of the branch energy company, and the payment of the Cypriot government is just a head start.
Ironically, when the EO withdrew, Sierra Leone fell back into civil war – ruf soon fought back. The 18,000 peacekeepers deployed by the United Nations have been able to do nothing because of policy regulations, and have even been held hostage by RUF, and $1 billion in peacekeeping efforts have been adrift.
There are many similar things, so Ibin Barrow and the United Nations have always looked down on each other (although some of the Tasks of the United Nations are in fact to employ these "security" companies to keep employees and property safe). In the wake of the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda, which killed 800 to 1 million civilians, Ibn Barrow publicly stated that the costly United Nations peacekeepers were doing nothing on the ground. With only half the cost of a U.N. peacekeeping force, EO was able to stop the carnage.
This picture means "UN troops have an egg in Africa."
EO's armed vehicles are equipped, EO may not be as strong as the firepower of peacekeeping forces, but EO is to shoot at work, unlike peacekeepers who go to work to escape from the war zone
For the Group of South African mercenaries in the movie "Blood Diamond", some people say that it is an allusion to EO. In fact, the film is set in 1999, when rufsified the outskirts of the Sierra Leonean capital because of the withdrawal of EO and the incompetence of government forces.
However, the impact of the film is indeed large, and it is rumored that de Beers Group spent 6 million pounds of public relations money to shoot an advertisement claiming that the source of their diamonds is not a war-torn african country. But there is a lot of information that one of De Beers' rough sources is the branch energy company. And in fact, even after the EO company closed, there are still South Africans active in Sierra Leone. So the prototype of the Group of South African mercenaries in the movie can also be regarded as a reference to EO.
Off-topic, in 2000, several British peacekeepers were kidnapped in Sierra Leone by an militant called "West Kid", the United Kingdom sent SAS from the country to rescue, due to the lack of air close support, SAS asked the Sierra Leonean government to provide Mi 24 for air support, when the person driving the Mi 24 was a former EO company employee.
Although EO often says that "only Africans can solve African problems", EO's business is not only in Africa, in 1997 they signed a military contract with Papua New Guinea in the South Pacific, which made a lot of noise.
In fact, this contract was originally signed by another British PMC company, Sandline International (which was later reorganized and renamed "Aegis", the Greek myth of Aegis), but Sindley International has always had a lot of business cooperation with EO, and they subcontracted the business of expelling the rebels who occupied the Bougainville Island mine to EO.
However, EO employees who enter papua new guinea in a low profile were quickly exposed by the Australian media (supposedly because some government employees asked: Why are there so many black people coming?). ）。 The wonderful thing is that because the incompetent senior papua new guinea government generals are worried that these dozens of foreign military advisers are too capable and will highlight their own incompetence, they threaten to launch a military coup and ask the government to terminate the contract with EO.
Eventually they managed to force the resignation of prime minister, Sir Julius Chan, and EO's business was gone. I still vaguely remember the news footage of EO people leaving this copper- and gold-rich country on a passenger plane on the CCTV news network.
In EO's promotional materials, it is always said that they win more with less and have few casualties. In contrast, the number of enemies killed by them is simply disproportionately high.
On the one hand, this is because EO soldiers are indeed well-equipped, they have helicopter gunships, armored vehicles and howitzers, as well as large-scale weapons such as fuel air bombs dropped by transport aircraft, while most of their enemies only have light weapons and not much heavy equipment; on the other hand, because EO soldiers are veterans from South Africa and other countries, who are themselves well-trained and highly military-qualified.
And their opponents, such as RUF, are mostly not trained enough, as depicted in the movie "Blood Diamond" - there are many small children in the captured zhuang ding, firing a rusty AK and a bunch of bullets, and just after learning to shoot, they are sent to the front line. Such a team is fine against the common people, or the Sierra Leonean government army at the same level as the people, but it is far from dealing with well-equipped and well-trained EO mercenaries.
EO playing RUF is pretty much the case
EO's Mi 8 is equipped with its own door machine gun
In an interview with 60 Minutes, Ribaro mentioned that once on a mine, just over 60 EO soldiers withstood the attack of thousands of RUF soldiers for a week (obviously this thousand people came in batches, not a wave of rushing up). During this period, EO's soldiers always adhered to one principle: never enter a combat area without helicopter fire support.
Not only did they have Mi-24 helicopter gunships, but even Mi-8 helicopters also had machine guns installed in portholes, enough to strafe the enemies at the tribal armed level. In fact, the number of EO is not much, and the number of people after the two increases is only more than 400 people, which is indeed unable to form a numerical advantage for RUF.
The "hammer anvil tactic" shown in the movie "Blood Diamond" may indeed refer to the tried and tested old tactic of EO bullying tribal forces with heavy equipment - the ground troops first maneuver to the favorable terrain to establish shooting positions, and then the air fire drives the enemy with only light weapons to the preset position...
In fact, from a legal point of view, the ownership of these Mi-24, Mi-8, BMP2 and other heavy weapons does not belong to EO, but to the legitimate government of Angola or Sierra Leone. EO is only the "operator" of these heavy equipment, but how to use it is entirely up to EO to decide.
The standard operation of the matryoshka doll is that EO company says "I want to have tanks, I want to have military straight", and may also help these government bridges to find arms dealers to place orders, and after buying them back, they will operate and operate. Nicholas · Cage's "King of Arms" has a plot in which a batch of Mi-24s is sold to Sierra Leone under civilian names, which is actually for EO companies. Of course, in history, these "fire helicopters" are not all Mi 24, but also Mi 8.
So after EO left Angola or Sierra Leone, these heavy armed forces also stayed in Sierra Leone (British soldiers were also rescued when they were kidnapped).
EO Company is receiving the Mi 8 purchased in the name of a firefighting helicopter
The Mi 8, which was repainted with green paint and cucumbers, although the property ownership does not belong to EO, is actually the exclusive use of EO
Ride the Mi 8 to prepare for air maneuvers of EO mercenaries, which carries a huge amount indeed
EO in Sierra Mi 24
Of course, those former South African soldiers did not necessarily operate Miri helicopters, so EO also recruited a lot of veterans from Eastern Europe. Many of the Mi-24 pilots were retired pilots from Romania, Poland, the Czech Republic, and the former East Germany. "60 Minutes" also interviewed an Eastern European pilot who retired from the military for the high salary of EO, saying how much he had a stipend when he served, and how much money he had every month after EO, and there were bonuses for missions.
EO has a total of two Mi-24s and two Mi-8s in Sierra Leone, and not a particularly large Number of Mi-24s and Mi-8s in Angola, but EO's close-range air support is more than that. In Angola and Sierra Leone, EO also accepted air support services from another South African company called Ibis Air.
HeronBird Airlines has a small fleet of MiG-23s and Pilatus PC-9s, as well as several transport aircraft. In the Sierra Leone operation, they not only provided close air support with their own fleet of armed aircraft, but also provided a Boeing 727 to provide medical evacuation services for EO, and the company also leased miG-27, Su-25 and other armed aircraft from the Angolan government, piloted by pilots of their own company, to provide close air support to EO.
In fact, Heron Bird Aviation, like EO, is one of the 32 subsidiaries of Strategic Resources Limited, and the aforementioned retired SAS Simon Mann later went to South Africa to operate Heron Bird Airlines for a period of time.
EO "rented" the MiG 23
SU-25K attack aircraft "leased" by EO
I couldn't find the Heron Bird Aviation PC-9, so I got the Irish Air Force PC-9 for everyone to know
EO attracts these experienced foreign veterans, partly because of the high salary and partly because of the good welfare package. Some articles, including "World Military", mention that EO companies have a "full drug protection plan", in fact, if there is a "work-related death accident" during the battle, drugs and medical treatment are free, that is, there are insurance companies that lose money.
Later, PMCs around the world would buy hardware insurance for their employees (combatants). One of the many incidents blackwater was criticized by the public media more than a decade ago was that they did not buy pensions for employees in order to save money. Later Eric Prince defended the matter in his autobiography.
At their peak, there may be 500 military advisers (equivalent to officers) and more than 3,000 military personnel (soldiers and technicians operating heavy equipment). But while EO does recruit foreigners (mostly heavy equipment technicians from Eastern Europe), the majority are South Africans.
Among the foreigners who have participated in EO companies, there may be one or two Chinese. One of the celebrities on the SC forum, under the pseudonym "Li Pu", said that he joined EO after the French Foreign Legion retired, and then joined MPRI after EO graduation. But this person was later exposed as a soldier party, fake. In addition to deceiving the feelings of a group of military fans, I don't know if there has been a KKB incident?
Although EO has always been based in South Africa, the EO head office has moved to the UK since 1993. It is said that this was the registration of a branch in London on the "goodwill" proposal of the South African Reserve Bank, but in fact there were two main reasons: first, London was an international arms trading center and a defense trading center, with first-hand commercial information and trading activities; second, becoming a British company helped to get rid of the intervention of the ANC government in South Africa in their business.
In fact, I think the first one is the most important, in terms of location advantages and historical reasons, London has gathered many resource companies, PMC companies and mercenary intermediary companies. As described in the movie "Wild Goose Death Squad" and "The Fierce Dog of War" by Fossy Forsyth, when resource companies want to control the resources of a volatile country, they can always find "thugs" in London. So EO and the Brits worked together happily.
Digression: Russell Crowe begins in London to report to his employers about his experience of exchanging ransoms to save people, and this kind of service company that provides "one-stop one-stop solutions after the rich are kidnapped" is also real. Such a company is a new type of business sent out of pmc companies, and Naoki Urasawa's manga "Master Keaton" is actually based on this reality, but the Japanese have written the plot a little bit.
For example, Anthony Buckingham, one of the CEOs and shareholders of the aforementioned branch energy company, and former SAS Tim Spicer, CEO of Sindley International, a long-time partner mentioned earlier, often play an intermediary role. EO's contracts in Angola, Sierra Leone and Papua New Guinea were all pulled back for EO.
The acquaintance of Ibn Barrow and Anthony Barkingham was through the aforementioned Simon Mann, who for a time was in charge of the operation of The Heron Airlines in South Africa, and later became a senior executive in the business unit of EO. (It can be seen that a network of relationships woven by former SAS members is a business resource of EO companies.)
In 1996, EO provided training and operational advice for Indonesian special forces to rescue Western hostages. At the time, the operation was considered quite successful, and it was once speculated that SAS had provided help, but it was later confirmed that it was EO's handiwork. The aforementioned interview with EO in 60 Minutes also mentioned an action, and perhaps the Indonesian government and EO were also introduced by the former SAS.
As for the second reason, even if the company's headquarters were moved to London, it would not work. Since the South African government has always looked at EO companies unfavorably (supposedly because many of EO's employees have previously opposed THE ANC), south Africa used this reason to force EO companies to close its doors after it signed into international law against mercenaries in 1998.
After the closure of EO companies, many former EO senior employees established many similar businesses in South Africa or other countries, including private military companies, security companies, and some alone. Simon Mann, for example, was sentenced to seven years in prison in September 2004 for defection in Zimbabwe, allegedly for attempting to smuggle military light weapons from Zimbabwe and for planning a coup d'état in Equatorial Guinea.
In July 2012, for example, a United Nations report alleged that a South African security company called Sterling Corporate Services had formed a "private army" in violation of international agreements to sanction Somalia. The report mentions that the company has a close relationship with former employees of EO.
Other PMC/PSC companies allegedly formed by former EO executives include Alpha 5, Stabilco, Omega Support Ltd., Panasec Corporate Dynamics, Bridge Resources, COIN Security, Corporate Tracking International, Safenet, and Southern Cross Security and so on (these companies translate Chinese names are too troublesome for me to turn over).
Ibn Barrow at the Abu Dhabi Defence Show
EO is very high-profile, not only will they set up booths at some international defense exhibitions, distribute promotional brochures, and even produce a promotional MTV. The song is titled "AND THEY CALL YOU DOG OF WAR", written by South African Lourens Fourie, and the song revolves around the Angolan civil war. In this official MTV, EO is portrayed as a peacemaker, not a broker of war, a diamond dealer, and a thug of oil companies.
EO set up its official website around 1994, but for foreseeable reasons, the site was shut down in 1998. Interestingly, someone kept the image of this website for a few years, when I also downloaded the image of this website to the hard disk, and the following picture is a screenshot of the business profile in the image of this website.
The author myself retains the image document of the EO company website
Ibn Barrow has written several books, one of which is Executive Outcomes: Against All Odds, explaining the ins and outs of EO companies (and washing themselves). Although this book was bought by foreign netizens and sent to me, it was still too difficult for me to chew down more than 600 pages of such a thick english, so I kept throwing it home just by chance. I'm really sorry for the sincerity of people...
Ibin Barrow's book
Someone has compiled a list of EO's known business information – of course, there are unknowns, and this table may be slightly different in detail from the previous description, after all, many of EO's information does not have official declassification, and even Barrow's book will hide or wash itself in some key details.
As for Ibbing Barrow himself, he later worked at a PMC company called STTEP (the full name of the company is "National Professional Tasks, Training, Equipment and Protection", English Specialised Tasks, Training, Equipment and Protection International). The company was allegedly hired to train the Nigerian army, but in January 2015 Barrow's chairmanship was disputed over the Nigerian army's poor performance against the Boko Haram rebellion.
On November 27, 2000, Ibin Barrow announced the reopening of EO on Twitter. And in 2021 set up a new official website - if it were not for my search of information and would not have found this site, and the site did not exist a few months ago, I did further search, only to find that he announced the reopening of EO at the end of last year.
According to reports, Barrow claimed that shortly after he resigned as chairman of STTEP, some African governments asked him to restart pmc business, so he re-established EO under "great expectations".
However, apart from an official website (some pages have not been built as of this writing), the new EO company has not yet recruited employees, Barrow has not issued a statement on the allocation of executive personnel, and there is no information about conducting business. The new official website only re-emphasizes his usual remarks of "providing successful African solutions to African problems for Africans".
Given the current world situation and the small ecology of Africa, the new EO may really be able to make a big show, but it remains to be seen whether BarroBenro can really open up. w