Executive Outcomes: Against All Odds [Paperback]

Eeben Barlow (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 552 pages
• Publisher: Galago Publishing Pty Ltd (February 14, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1919854193
• ISBN-13: 978-1919854199
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.5 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,635,521 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great read, September 6, 2008

By 

Seth J. Frantzman (Jerusalem, Israel) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Executive Outcomes: Against All Odds (Paperback)

Today the role of private defense contractors, private military companies, private security and advisory companies and similar organizations have become well known through the employment of Blackwater in Iraq. Prior to the legitimacy that Blackwater brought to the business in Iraq there was a long period where such organizations, staffed mostly by white ex-military professionals, gained a great deal of bad press as `mercenaries' in Africa and elsewhere doing the dirty work that locals were either incapable of doing or that foreigners wanted done. Executive Outcomes (EO) and its story from 1989/1993 to 1999 represents a mid-way point between the over-professionalization of these types of companies and the more rambo-derring do of a previous era.

This story is intertwined entirely with the life of Eeben Barlow, the author, who was born in Rhodesia and joined the South African Defense Forces in 1974. He rose through the ranks, eventually commanding 32 Battalion's elite reconnaisance unit. Eventually he was recruited by the Civil Cooperation Bureau (CCB) and from there through his operations, made contact with other men who would become integral to EO such as Tony Buckingham and Simon Mann. His first missions involved Angola and the civil war there between MPLA and UNITA. When EO became operational and more involved in 1993 it ended up confronting the very movement, UNITA, that South Africa had actually worked with before.

Barlow details the widening area of operations of EO and its recuritment of ex-SADF personell, especially from elite units such as Koevoet and other people involved wit counter-insurgency. More surprising is that it also received applications from former members of the ANC military wing. Eventually EO was tasked with supporting the Angolan governments attempts to recover territory and natural resources, including diamond mining areas from UNITA and by 1994 it had achieved its objectives of forcing UNITA into a ceasefire. Barlow details many of these operations and provides excellent analysis of the `blood diamonds' question and the resolution of the conflict.

In 1995 as EO's reputation grew it was hired by Sierra Leone to stop the Revolutionary United Front (RUF)'s attempt to take over the country. This successful mission was concluded when the diamond areas, controlled by the RUF, were re-captured. Other missions followed but in general EO's greatest days were behind it. Disinformation, spread by numerous governments and the press, focused negative attention on the `mercenaries' and their supposed attempt to `re-colonize' Africa, an irony considering they were influential in helping African governments that had hired them and that the EO inclucded black Africans in its ranks. In the end Barlow details the duplicity of the UN and the international community and the fact that numerous African countries were allowed to be destroyed by genocide, such as in Rwanda, while governments did nothing and at a time when the EO could have done much.

An excellent book with numerous maps, documents and color photographs. A must read for anyone interested in Africa in the 1990s and also in the role of `mercenaries' in conflict. This is no dry read, but the best in storytelling and furthermore it is all true.

Seth J. Frantzman

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent read, December 3, 2008

By 

Taras Bulba - See all my reviews

This review is from: Executive Outcomes: Against All Odds (Paperback)

Recommend this for anyone interested in Africa, a good primer if you are headed for Angola, Central Africa, that sort of neighbourhood.

Read it along with Shake Hands With the Devil by Lt Gen Romeo Dallaire if interested in the real story behind today's peacekeeping ops, role of the UN and the various "great powers" in unstable regions of the world.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Facinating book, October 25, 2008

By 

Grumpy (El Monte, California United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Executive Outcomes: Against All Odds (Paperback)

Very good reading. I understood why the Aparthied era South African government was opposed to Mr. Barlow's work for the Angolan government and their corporate allies. But I was surprised to learn the post-Aparthied ANC government, with their newfound power and financial resouces, was against them as well. Apparently the Angolan government, which backed them during their struggle for equality in South Africa, was surprised as well.

Even if they did work for profit, I do believe Executive Outcomes saved more innocent lives in Angola and Sierra Leone with AK-47s than the United Nations did with paperwork, sanctions and protests. Too bad Rwanda only had the UN. Same for Darfur.