ABSTRACT
Private security in Africa has a long, complex, and controversial history. Early European expansion on the continent was facilitated by private force, with chartered companies like Cecil Rhodes’s British South African Company recruiting their own armies, and later colonial commercial enterprises like De Beers employing private police to secure their concessions. After independence, and particularly during the height of the Cold War, Africa became the favourite playground for the world’s soldiers of fortune, with mercenaries involved in numerous civil wars, conflicts, and military coups d’état. In the 1990s, the South African mercenary company Executive Outcomes was hired by beleaguered state rulers to intervene in the civil wars of Angola and Sierra Leone, inflicting significant loss of life while banking high profits and lucrative diamond concessions. Today, private security is arguably more pervasive than ever before. A plethora of different private actors, ranging from global private security companies to local vigilantes, now inhabit the security field, raising important questions about the African state, its sovereignty, and its relationship to the security of citizens.
