this is what we do we kill people and break things. we can see something if simple as people playing a soccer game we can see individual players and if you see the ball. i can almost see his facial expression because see is a mouth open and crying out. maybe cursed us or maybe he asked. for forgiveness for. there must be near certainty that no civilians will be killed or in. dramas that can't be ignored to. stories others refuse

to notice. the faces change the world lights now. on the old picture of. my own designs from around the globe. up to. fifty. hello welcome to cynthia and co i'm sophie shevardnadze and into days will attack the world's mercenary business is booming despite their murky legal status cylinders of fortune are in demand and the pay is high but is it all about the money and the loss of five wars for casual care about which side they're on well

i'm in a band and a late british s.a.'s officer turned worker scenary who got paid to fight conflicts in africa but have paid to fight complex thing came his freedom is our guest today . soldiers of fortune dogs of war. knights in shining armor coming to save the day when governments fail for others their blood thirsty for cash ready to kill for the highest bidder. where does the truth lie in mercenaries make the world safer just pools and the power so we have simon mann in a studio exploration military officer also a former mercenary simon it's really great to have you with us today you were serving in elite royal troops who were taking orders from the queen then how hard was it afterwards to sell your services to the higher bidder. well it wasn't really like that because first of all i was never seen you enough for the queen to

actually tell me personally what. i was you know as a captain in the scots guards. the scots guards oversee has the privilege of guarding the queen. and then when i became a month in the you know we actually strongly got involved in this because we were attacked. and. we sided with the government for by so for me that wasn't. that hard a transition to make a tool because i found myself actually in the angolan army i was i was signed up in the other nominee and in fact i had the rank of brigadier general in the i know me so a lot of things were not so different but how much how much of it was about the money though because private military company does imply selling your skills and services for money and you weren't really doing it for pro bono no that's true. but

what i'm saying is that at the beginning when we knew also me how i started i became a mouse and me and not with. we obviously executive outcomes and money became much more of an issue and yes it was primarily for the food for money that we were operating but i'm just trying to imagine for myself i mean how hard is it to justify things you fight for when the war that you are fighting has nothing to do with your family your men your country men. i didn't find it difficult being a professional soldier in the british for twelve years and we were asked to do things expected to do things that were not necessarily how we saw the world in the necessarily what we wanted to do so to then find myself. protecting my old company in the first instance and then making money in one go which was

a country i really liked. with. and then to find myself in sierra leone fighting really gospelly rebels who were committing terrible atrocities was also fine. but. i just wonder why did you leave the british army in the first place i mean you know you guys are paid to to to fight for a good cause is i mean british army certainly positions itself to be at the rescue of democracies in crisis. joe. well i mean i actually joined in fact i was asked to stay on in the british army that time and i was asked to do another job with my regiment which was then a specialist or had been the special. and i was very tempted to do that job but my friend who was the owner and chief executive of heritage oil and gas said come on simon it's time you made some real money you got kids etc etc join my old

company so my new career was as an old man it was accidental that we then became what we did become which was you know the number one private military company in africa so it was a manufacturer the main difference between your work as a mercenary and between being an officer in british special forces. i would actually say no because when you find yourself in war with purely for money or mainly for money then there are a lot of things which become extremely difficult. which which are issues which are problems which you do not have if you are. in a in a normal you know sovereign state military fourth so what issues are those. well for example you might find yourself having to make

a decision as to whether we have three helicopters in an operational theater or two now if it's three the cost of that helicopter and operating it coming straight out of your pocket if you are one of the onus of that company. now you know you could probably get away with two but the lack of that is very likely to lead to. you know quite probably the death of one of you your soldiers say what you would you end up having to do is make. a financial business like decisions. with on the other end of the scale instead of a normal sort of business decision where is it a good idea to invest this money or not it's like people's lives and that is hard and that is not something you have to do in a regular army those decisions of basically being taken for you in a regular army and you just have to make the most of it and get on with the road it

was like just easier to obey orders than to make your own decisions. well make decisions when you're having to make that kind of decision it's tough because obviously you know you are that you make you're making money but you don't say you're you're playing a balance but are we going to be utterly ruthless with the lives of our men and boost the profit or walk. but someone did you actually did you actually fight with a gun in your hand where you in the front lines or what was just a logistical work. i was shot at on a number of occasions i was a moment. but i never actually got into the position where i had to shoot back and i was a fairly senior officer i'm asking because sierra leone a is known to have children soldiers in iraq so they're rebels i was wondering if you've ever come across kids

with the guns what is it like facing your enemy but there are kids with the guns yeah i mean like in sierra leone i never got close to fighting when the world. child soldiers involved. but these child so do is. i mean they're very often on drugs. that were being committed by them were dreadful oh yeah absolutely but i mean i'm just assuming that like it here appear in brad man when he sees a child soldier even if that child soldier is on drugs probably has a moral dilemma whether to shoot at him or not you know i was never a say in that position but i guess some of the guys. what happened there must be pretty tough for them they did you guys ever talk about it did any of your colleagues tell you about this movie you know because in a very often the fight scene is not sort of you don't know in direct sights of the

enemy it's a case of because in coming from. you can't even really tell whether they're children or whether the adults. coming towards you are the way so for those who are actually fighting on the front lines day considered as child rebels to be full fledged soldiers and full fledged enemy right. basically yes. do you know how many civilians have suffered during your operations if any. well i mean there was dreadful suffering going on by a very large number of civilians no question. with two and those who have both of them as quickly as possible but during an operations team throughout the region itself. do you know how many civilians i don't know if you really don't marriage so. how many civilians we months of killed accidentally all of them from the air yeah is that where you mean yes no and in fact one of the one

of the things that executive outcomes is very proud of is that in both of those wars in angola and sierra leone there was never one single charge made against that had been any kind of atrocity. committed by us now that's actually a track record which i think most regular armies would be jealous of but so when you were talking to local people outside the operation did they treat you as liberators our enemies. they treat this is as liberators absolutely no in fact all morning kasia i was at he approached by the men all over town in sierra leone a place called koidu by the men who senior counsel those who had a bag of money that they gave me to try to get me because they had that we were withdrawing from. that particular place on the orders of the government and it

amazes me that here with these extremely tough south african soldiers with a pretty ferocious reputation and here with these local people begging us to stay. we're going to take a short break now and i right after i will be back with the worst marry someone meant to talk about african presidents and how toppling foreign governments helped spread democracy around the world so stay with us.

i'm abby martin the stories we cover here you're not going to hear any right other big story extra headlines and talk there is a reason they don't want to do now about it are important internal phrase that we should all be completely outraged now let's break the set. on marriage in the financial world. tick tock to series to goldman's cannot stop

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to have you with us you're on t.v. today i'm wrong researcher. and we're back with simon mann exploitation s.a.'s officer and also on the former mercenary so sam a did you ever witness anything good like to forget during your time enough for a cop you know. i don't like seeing the results of fighting and i don't think any soldier. it's always. stays with you and you wish

it wasn't happening but what was it exactly was it something particular to those operations or to africa because i mean obviously no one likes to play the war but was it something so dreadful about those operations in africa they you would like to forget. yeah there was a there with a village in. sierra leone where where we got we got that off to the us who were the guerrilla force had pulled up and. do a bit do you were over the or over the village. it wasn't it wasn't a pretty sight. was anyone worse than what you so or experienced in the way african prisons that you were put in for a short period of time. you know what i was as you know i was in prison for five and a half years in total four years in zimbabwe and eighteen months in ecuador guinea

not tarrie it's present in ecuador guinea i mean i was very i mean no one wants to be. seen that was called black beach although actually i think i did i was in solitary confinement in that beach all the time. and so i didn't see a lot of the stuff that was going on outside myself but how did the research internet probably i was in the. well in the end they treated me well managed to help them. i had a long interrogation and a long trial and in the course of that. we got along better and better as time went on but it was it was tough because i was. in solitary confinement and for the three months i was in handcuffs and leg irons all the time and the climate that is pretty vicious i mean it's really really whole

and sticky with a lot of mosquitoes no mosquito net new ventilation eccentric cetera so it was quite it was quite testing what about zimbabwe. with those a very different experience because that i with with general prison and. very overcrowded prison. you know a rough place but how is it for a foreigner to be in an african prison with everyone else did they treat you better or worse because you were a foreigner. well african culture is extremely friendly especially to foreigners and whole instinct is actually to look after you. and i was look. i get i guess you got lucky there at least but now i'm thinking i'm surely you knew that this things you were doing and i mean fighting a mercenary war was illegal. and you were most likely to end up in jail

were you prepared for the consequences. i would yes obviously i had to be i mean and i couldn't possibly have to do what we said try and do which was to overthrow the government by control give me how to not being aware that if things went wrong i would have been thrown into prison i was very aware of it. so far as i was concerned it was just a part of the equation it was a part of the risk that we were running. so the money was really good enough for that risk to be taken. alive he lost a whole lot of money and time in reality i wasn't paid anything to do the quarter of any exercise. how it will be successful then i would have been paid a lot of money but only after a long train of if you know if we'd been successful if the person we

back to ultimately being elected if you cabinet decided to all of the agreements he made etc etc so it was by no means something you're going to take your bank manager but can i ask you something when you sign up or when you when you used to sign up for this kind of things where your interests somehow insured protected or you were just sent out there in an open war failed and whatever happens happens there's no guarantee. you know you have to accept if you do anything like this even if you know or if you suspect that friendly government in favor of the operation you must realize that if it goes wrong you are going to be on your own and if you're flying around africa as a white mercenary and they're going to throw away the key if you're lucky. if you're not lucky they're going to chop you up and eat you mean but i doubt you expressed remorse on your part about wanting to overthrow the president of

equitorial again here the judges say that to get you out of jail because the man isn't you know what's most benevolent leader right he's a dictator who has been there for the last thirty five years sure sure well like i said before while it while i was in prison again in the course of my interrogation and my trial. we found common ground. basically his enemies by that stage mind because my squirrel colleagues the people who'd set me up in the operation completely completely failed to back me up to they did they made they did nothing to help the men my men or the men's families who were deserted and without support down south africa and of course you know they were desperate and i was in really big trouble because i was in a prison with seventeen guys who i'd lead and when they discovered that nothing was

being done to help their families that didn't make my position in the prison any easier. so i wasn't genuine regret and i can remember i was with that quarter of guinea it was and it still is i mean we shouldn't have done it we you know we're going to do something that was wrong. and. i regretted it. but what was wrong about it to meddle in foreign countries affairs story was wrong because he realized that the dictator guy was a good guy i know is wrong because we we cool so much suffering among a lot of people. and you know we're trying to out into the very arbitrary way and we didn't really know as it turned out what the situation that croak and he was we thought we did it. in reality a quick tour of duty although it still has

a very bad reputation in reality it is heading in the right direction they're working very hard to you know human rights and social system up to you know a better standard so now that you've experienced african politics firsthand how pervasive was the outside influence. interesting question why not go. with the worst war of the sorry let me rephrase it and go with the worst proxy war of the whole cold war there were russian troops there were cuban troops that. on one side and there were american and south african troops on the other. the whole peace plan was all of getting those foreign troops out. and that with the situation that we found

ourselves in when we were attacked. and the foreign influence with massive there's no question. and i would guess if far as to say that when you need to went back to war illegally they were probably pushed back from war by various interests know to be the south africans. sierra leone was a completely completely different animal in the i don't think it was i don't the anyone even really knew or cared what was happening in sierra leone which. is as as bad or worse. but also i know that you were asked to help start the iraq war what was that all about and just how close are governments and intelligence services with mercenary soldiers well i wasn't. i wasn't paid. for that. i would i would argue that that wasn't a mercenary thing it was a it was

a very strange thing and i was involved with a guy who is now actually. called david hall it was a remarkable character it was close to lady thatcher at one time. he was writing papers that were going to straight to tony blair and this was in the. this was in the run up to the iraq invasion so i guess this was in two thousand and two before the decisions had really been made and he needed help to write these papers because he himself had no military. so i said to him well why do you want to have what you want what you want me to help you get it loads of people who can help you he said oh well you are in the s.a.'s and i said to david you know there are one hundred people within a mile of here we were having lunch and in the ritz actually i said there are a hundred people in a mother who were also in the s.s. no better qualified than me and he said ah but they haven't fortune one to private

to private. or in sierra leone. so i did help him. i helped him by writing papers of my own which he then used in his papers as to how . they were fools of the iraq war can i ask you something would you if you were right now offered a contract to topple bashar al assad would you go for it i would absolutely no. no i think that situation is so horrific and so complex no that would be and i must be getting old but also that these are your words toppling foreign governments is what democracy is all about do you still think so. democracy is about changing governments but it's about changing governments in a legal and hopefully no military nonviolent way. we don't see

much of that lately i mean we're. once again the what they're trying to do in syria you know we can also talk about all these countries an arab spring but it's going to take us to a whole new subject but general you know toppling governments for democracy sake doesn't usually bring democracy nowadays because those countries where the governments were changed are really much better off than they were before. yeah i mean a very big subject. i'm on twitter and i have tweeted about this quite a few times and i've actually said if you look at revolutions. the french the british the russian they're almost invariably followed by periods of great rest for a revolution to go straight from being of. to being

a well run democracy is impossible it just won't happen because the acts of the revolution is. off the show a great. thank you so much for this interesting insight in your life and mercenary work we're talking to simon mann. as a former mercenary who is talking about his life experience during its operations as mercenary and that's it for this edition of i will see you next time. thank you.

since the end of the cold war the media environment is transformed almost beyond recognition today there is a global battle for hearts and minds and the west's mainstream media is losing. as a new position. by the. to the best of my ability and judgment. i will prescribe for the good of my patients. i will not give deadly doses to anybody. or advise others to do so. i will never do harm to the. doctors of the docs on onto.

this is what we do we kill people and break things. we can see something if simple as people playing a soccer game we can see individual players and if you see the ball. i can only see is facial expression you can see is a mouth open and crying out. maybe cursed oath or maybe even asked. for forgiveness for. there must be near certainty that no civilians will be killed or in. this immediate leave us so we leave it maybe. five the scene pushes security all your party physical. questions that no one is asking with the guests that you

deserve answers from it's all on politicking only on r t. did you do. a russian cameraman is killed in ukraine after a bus carrying journalists and civilians is shot out it comes one day before a cease fire expires. the u.s. sends its first batch of military aid to help the iraqi government country the sweeping offense of radical fighters as they proclaim islamic order on the lands they captured. on us the block a flag rises over parts of syria and iraq we report on the defense is this minorities left at the mercy of the charges to violence.