Cape Town — The Pretoria government is probing reports that South African mercenaries are training Guinean militia, recruited by the country's military junta on an ethnic basis.
Ayanda Ntsaluba, director-general of South Africa's foreign ministry, told reporters in Pretoria on Tuesday that "some of the information seems to point in that direction, but I don't think we've got the full picture yet."
He said the government's information suggested that those allegedly working for the junta were employed by "companies operating largely through Dubai" but this still had to be verified.
A specialist writer on military affairs working for the South African newspaper, Beeld, reported last month that a group of up to 50 South Africans had been recruited to give armed support to the junta, headed by Captain Moussa Dadis Camara. The writer said an advance party of three had travelled to Conakry on October 13.
The allegations come as Guinea prepares for elections next year. "When the military took over," Ntsaluba said, "there was an understanding… that that the current military leadership will not avail itself to run for those elections, a position that has subsequently changed and [the military] having changed it, we also know that there was a civil society negative reaction to that, which then led to the carnage that we saw [in September]…
"As things stand now, the logic of the argument is that that military leadership indeed is determined to avail itself for the presidential elections and also anticipates that there is going to be a reaction from civil society and therefore it's trying to prepare for that eventuality."
Ntsaluba said the possibility of South African mercenaries operating in Guinea was "a very significant issue" for the government. "We would not like to see our country and its citizens involved in all sorts of nefarious activities and especially where the effect of that… is to strengthen activities that run counter to policies that are advanced by… the African Union."
However, he cautioned that there had been "both true and false leads" on the issue, and the government was trying to establish the veracity of the accusations.
