It would not be the first time that an Australian was prosecuted for being involved in mercenary operations. In 1987 an Australian former soldier, attempting to recruit ex-servicemen for a mercenary force to train the West Papuan resistance and to fight Indonesian troops in Irian Jaya, was
prosecuted and jailed under the Act.
In March, before the Sandline International mercenary operation was brought to an abrupt halt, there were reports that four Australians were among the initial contracted military personnel, employed by the South African
firm, Executive Outcomes, in a sub-contract for Sandline.
The "Sandline Document", the contract between the PNG government and Sandline International, shows that these mercenaries were hired not just for training of the PNG military but also to "conduct offensive operations
in Bougainville in conjunction with PNG defence forces to render the BRA military ineffective and repossess the Panguna mine".
The four Australian mercenaries were reported by AAP to be Vietnam veterans who later served with the Rhodesian army, and with apartheid-era South Africa's notorious "Buffalo" Battalion 32 on incursions into Angola.
Canberra-based human rights lawyer and former Attorney-General for the ACT, Bernard Collaery, says there would appear to be grounds for prosecutions to commence against any Australian mercenaries involved.
"He may have been away from Australia, a soldier of fortune for 20 years, but he is still liable," says Collaery.
Collaery points out that it is not just the mercenary soldiers who could be prosecuted, but also Australians or Australian-residents who helped recruit or otherwise supported the hiring of the mercenaries.
Names expected: The Sandline inquiry currently underway in Port Moresby is expected to reveal the involvement of a number of Australian businessmen in negotiations surrounding the recruitment of the mercenaries.
The Australian resident mining entrepreneur, Robert Friedland, a Canadian citizen, has links to the Sandline mercenary company via a mining company, DiamondWorks Ltd, it was revealed this week.
Friedland is associated with DiamondWorks, a Canadian-listed company formed in October last year, via a Friedland family company, Carson Gold Corporation, which acquired the UK company, Branch Energy, according to the ABC's Background Briefing.
It is Branch Energy, now DiamondWorks, which has acquired mining concessions in Angola and Sierra Leone following the Executive Outcomes mercenary operations to capture mining areas from the control of rebel armies. DiamondWorks and Sandline International are also listed at the same office address in London.
The inquiry in Port Moresby has heard that Sandline head and DiamondWorks employee, Tim Spicer, offered to the PNG government to accept part-payment for the mercenary operation by way of "mineral concessions".
A director and major shareholder in DiamondWorks, Tony Buckingham, has admitted his company would have been involved in developing the Panguna mine, if it had been captured from the BRA by the Sandline-hired Executive
Outcomes mercenaries.
Friedland, a part-time Australian resident who recently purchased a $10 million Sydney harbourside mansion, is not the only Australian business connection with the mercenaries.
Ideal outfit: Executive Outcomes were the "ideal" mercenary outfit to call on to reopen the Australian-owned mine closed down by secessionist guerrillas in Bougainville - they had just finished doing the same for another
Australian-owned mining company in Sierra Leone.
After nearly two years in mothballs a rutile mine in Sierra Leone jointly-owned by Brisbane-based mining company Consolidated Rutile, whose parent company is Renison Goldfields Consolidated (RGC), and a US company, Nord Resources, was secured by mercenary soldiers working for Executive Outcomes.
When Executive Outcomes mercenary soldiers left Sierra Leone in February this year they had forced the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels to a ceasefire and to support democratic elections.
The mine, operated by Sierra Rutile Holdings, had been captured and closed down by the RUF in early 1995. As well as the rutile mine, the mercenaries also secured diamond and bauxite mining areas early after their arrival in Sierra Leone.
In a peace accord signed between the Sierra Leone government and the RUF in November, a condition of the rebels was the departure of Executive Outcomes
from the country.
The leader of the RUF, Foday Sankoh, stated: "The presence of the Executive Outcomes in Sierra Leone violates our national dignity and sovereignty as well as hinders our development since they are additionally rewarded with the benefit of mining activities".
Australian security: An Executive Outcomes subsidiary company, security firm Lifeguard, has been reported as providing security at the mine.
A Perth-based RGC spokesperson for Sierra Rutile, did not have knowledge of whether the Australian company had paid for the mine to be liberated. He says the mine needs millions of dollars' rehabilitation but is expected to
reopen later this year.
There is gathering worldwide opposition to the use of mercenaries. In 1995 the US threatened the withdrawal of aid to Angola to secure the removal of Executive Outcomes.
The company had been in Angola since 1992, and had
provided 1,400 personnel to train the Angolan army to defeat rebel UNITA forces and to secure rich oil mining areas.
The South African government is considering legislating to place a ban on the training of mercenaries in South Africa. This may lead to the closure of the Pretoria headquarters of Executive Outcomes, although they already have a London office and there are reports of new offices in Germany and
the Netherlands.
The South African government says it will call on the assistance of the UN and the Organisation of African Unity in its efforts.
UN action:In December 1994 the UN General Assembly adopted Resolution 49/150 urging all nations to "to take the necessary steps and to exercise the utmost vigilance against the menace posed by the activities of mercenaries".
The UN urged legislative measures by all countries to ensure "their territory and other territories under their control, as well as their nationals, were not used for the recruitment, assembly, financing, training and transit of mercenaries or for the planning of activities designed to destabilise or overthrow the Government of any State, threaten the
territorial integrity of sovereign States or to fight the national liberation movements struggling against colonial domination and foreign intervention or occupation".
A 1996 report by the UN Commission on Human Rights drew attention to the operations of Executive Outcomes in Sierra Leone: "It uses them in a variety of situations where, in return for payment, it has carried out all kinds of illegal acts."
The UN International Convention against the Recruitment, Use, Financing and Training of Mercenaries has been signed or ratified by some 21 countries, though neither Australia nor Papua New Guinea have adopted the convention.
Not only has Australian not signed the convention against the use of mercenaries, the federal government in fact took steps to enable the PNG government to hire Australian civilians, mainly former military, to assist the PNG military helicopter operation on Bougainville.
This was done in July 1989 when the then Attorney-General Lionel Bowen signed a declaration to allow the recruitment by PNG of Australian civilians to fly and maintain the Iroquois helicopters donated by Australia to the PNG Defence Force for operations over Bougainville, an action
otherwise punishable by a prison sentence of up to 14 years.
The civilian pilots were provided to fly missions in the military helicopters which had initially been unarmed and provided only for "medical evacuation" and "troop transport" with the PNGDF in Bougainville.
But, as documented by Amnesty International and others, once heavy machine
guns were attached to the helicopters, these flights often became combat missions providing patrol and attack functions that have led to deaths and injury to civilians on Bougainville.
Despite Australian government protests and PNG government assurances, there have been numerous reports, even as late as January, that the helicopters
were used as gunships in Bougainville.
Around a dozen Australian civilians have been working since 1989 for the PNGDF to fly and maintain the Iroquois helicopters. At least two are still employed for maintenance work on the Iroquois.
None of the pilots contacted now would agree to be interviewed on the record, but one person closely
associated with them stated: "Some [pilots] go beyond what they are employed to do".
According to Collaery, despite the legal protection of the
Attorney-General's declaration, those involved in these helicopter operations are open to prosecution for their alleged involvement in the killings and injuring of civilians under the Crimes (Torture) Act 1988.
The Act is an extra-territorial law which allows for the extradition and prosecution from overseas of Australians who may have taken part in degrading and inhuman treatment of people.
Colleary believes there is sufficient information to warrant an investigation of the involvement of Australians in illegal mercenary activities in PNG and elsewhere.
The Australian Federal Police and the Directorate of Public Prosecutions say they have no current plans to prosecute any Australians or Australian-residents for involvement in the mercenary operation in Papua New Guinea.
Peter Cronau is a Sydney-based journalist. This article was first published in the Canberra Times on 14 April 1997.
