In September 2007, four armored vehicles carrying private security contractors from Blackwater opened fire in Nisour Square, Baghdad. By the time the shooting ended, 17 Iraqi civilians were dead. The massacre sparked global outrage, congressional hearings, criminal convictions, and widespread calls for greater accountability for private military companies (PMCs) operating in conflict zones around the world.
Yet nearly two decades after Blackwater became a global symbol of corporate warfare and unaccountable violence, its founder, Erik Prince, has quietly re-emerged on the front lines of one of Africa’s deadliest conflicts. Mercenaries linked to Prince’s latest ventures, operating through entities such as Vectus Global, are now active in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
This development raises deeply troubling questions, not only about the Congolese government’s military strategy, but also about the selective silence of international human rights organizations.
A recipe for disaster in Minembwe
The situation in the South Kivu highlands, particularly on the Minembwe plateau, is especially precarious. For decades, the local Banyamulenge community, a minority Congolese Tutsi population, has endured systemic marginalization and repeated attempts at ethnic cleansing by various armed groups. Today, forces from the DRC and Burundi, reinforced by mercenaries linked to Prince and allied ethnic militias, have placed Banyamulenge communities under siege, restricting access to food and medical supplies.
Recent reports from local observers and community leaders in the highlands describe an escalating humanitarian crisis. Meanwhile, the deployment of advanced military technology, including drone strikes in densely populated rural areas, has resulted in numerous civilian casualties, all amid widespread international indifference.
The double standards of international watchdogs
What makes this situation even more baffling is the muted response from the United Nations and self-proclaimed defenders of human rights around the world.
Organizations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, as well as UN experts, have published extensive reports, issued press releases, and publicly condemned abuses involving Russian mercenaries in other parts of the world. Yet in the DRC, whether in North Kivu, Masisi, or Minembwe in South Kivu, the response has been far more muted. Despite reports of drone strikes carried out by these mercenaries that have killed and wounded civilians and destroyed homes, these organizations are remarkably reluctant to speak out.
The use of mercenaries is also subject to explicit prohibitions under international law, including the African Union’s 1977 Convention for the Elimination of Mercenarism in Africa. Yet there have been no comparable, urgent calls from the UN or these international NGOs to investigate the legality of mercenary operations in Minembwe. Nor has there been a commensurate outcry over potential war crimes arising from the use of drones against vulnerable villages.
The impression is that these organizations have chosen their side in this conflict, leaving civilians who happen to fall on the wrong side of their sympathies to fend for themselves.
Compared with the extensive scrutiny directed at alleged abuses by Russian mercenaries, this selective outrage has eroded the credibility of these institutions. When they choose which abuses to highlight and which to ignore based on political expediency or geopolitical alignments, they abandon the very principles of universality and impartiality they claim to uphold.
Privatized war was never the answer
Kinshasa’s reliance on foreign mercenaries and proxy militias is an admission of institutional failure. So far, outsourcing national defense to private contractors has done little to address the deep-rooted political and social grievances driving the conflict in eastern DRC. If anything, it has helped escalate the fighting, prompting forces opposed to the government to develop their own drone and counter-drone capabilities. This dangerous cycle is likely to continue.
Africa’s experience with private military companies, from Sierra Leone to Angola, is marked by prolonged conflict and immense human suffering. Bringing Erik Prince’s operational apparatus into the Great Lakes region will not deliver peace. It will only make accountability more difficult and deepen the trauma of marginalized communities that already feel abandoned by the rest of the world.
As ordinary African citizens, we must ask difficult questions: If human rights are truly universal, why are the cries of the Banyamulenge ignored when Western mercenaries operate in their own backyard? Why are they allowed to deploy military hardware on African soil under the guise of security agreements, with so little public scrutiny of the consequences?
It is time for the African Union, regional bodies such as the East African Community (EAC), and international human rights organizations to stop looking the other way. The lives of ordinary Africans must never be sacrificed for corporate profit, regardless of the political backing that figures such as Erik Prince may enjoy from their respective governments.
ellenkampire