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Sandline
Sandline International was a private military company (PMC) based in London, established in the early 1990s. It was involved in conflicts in Papua New Guinea in 1997 and had a contract with the government under then-Prime Minister Julius Chan, causing the Sandline affair. In 1998 in Sierra Leone Sandline had a contract with ousted the President, Ahmad Tejan Kabbah and in Liberia in 2003 was involved in a rebel attempt to evict the then-president Charles Taylor near the end of the civil war. Sandline ceased all operations on 16 April 2004. On the company's website, a reason for closure is given: Sandline was founded and managed by retired British Army Lieutenant Colonel Tim Spicer. Sandline billed itself as a PMC and offered military training, "operational support" such as equipment and arms procurement and limited direct military activity, intelligence gathering, and public relations services to governments and corporations. While the mass media often referred to Sandline ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sandline Affair
The Sandline affair was a political scandal that became one of the defining moments in the history of Papua New Guinea, and particularly Bougainville conflict. It brought down the government of Sir Julius Chan, and brought Papua New Guinea to the verge of a military revolt. The event was named after Sandline International, a United Kingdom-based private military company. Background After coming to power in mid-1994, Prime Minister Chan made repeated attempts to resolve the Bougainville conflict by diplomatic means. These attempts were ultimately unsuccessful due to the repeated absence of Bougainvillean leaders Francis Ona, Sam Kauona and Joseph Kabui at scheduled peace talks, arising from a deep mistrust of the PNG government and citing unresolved security concerns. In November 1994, Chan attempted to set up the Bougainville Transitional Government, under a moderate Bougainvillean, Theodore Miriung. However, this too was doomed to failure, as Ona, Kauona, Kabui and others all ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tim Spicer
Timothy Simon Spicer, (born 1952) is a former British Army officer, and former CEO of the private security company Aegis Defence Services. He served in the Falklands War and in Northern Ireland. He founded Sandline International, a private military company which closed in April 2004. He is the author of three books: ''An Unorthodox Soldier: Peace and War and the Sandline Affair'' (2000), ''A Dangerous Enterprise: Secret War at Sea'' (2021) and ''A Suspicion of Spies: Risk, Secrets and Shadows - the Biography of Wilfred ‘Biffy’ Dunderdale'' was published on 12 September 2024. Early life and military career Born in 1952 in Aldershot, England, Spicer was educated at Sherborne School and followed his father into the British Army, attending Sandhurst and then was commissioned in the Scots Guards. He tried to join the Special Air Service (SAS), but failed the selection course. In 1982, his regiment was pulled from guard duty at the Tower of London and sent to the Falklands W ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sandline International Logo 1
Sandline International was a private military company (PMC) based in London, established in the early 1990s. It was involved in conflicts in Papua New Guinea in 1997 and had a contract with the government under then-Prime Minister Julius Chan, causing the Sandline affair. In 1998 in Sierra Leone Sandline had a contract with ousted the President, Ahmad Tejan Kabbah and in Liberia in 2003 was involved in a rebel attempt to evict the then-president Charles Taylor near the end of the civil war. Sandline ceased all operations on 16 April 2004. On the company's website, a reason for closure is given: Sandline was founded and managed by retired British Army Lieutenant Colonel Tim Spicer. Sandline billed itself as a PMC and offered military training, "operational support" such as equipment and arms procurement and limited direct military activity, intelligence gathering, and public relations services to governments and corporations. While the mass media often referred to Sandline ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Simon Mann
Simon Francis Mann (26 June 1952 – 8 May 2025) was a British officer in the Special Air Service (SAS), and later a mercenary. He trained to be an officer at Sandhurst and was commissioned into the Scots Guards. He later became a member of the SAS, and on leaving the military, he co-founded Sandline International with fellow ex-Scots Guards colonel Tim Spicer in 1996. Sandline operated mostly in Angola and Sierra Leone, but public protests against a contract with the government of Papua New Guinea led to the resignation of the Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea, in what became known as the Sandline affair. On 7 March 2004, Mann is alleged to have led the 2004 Equatorial Guinea coup attempt. He was arrested by the Zimbabwe Republic Police at Harare International Airport along with 64 other mercenaries, later describing himself as the "manager, not the architect" of the coup. He eventually served three years of a four-year prison sentence in Zimbabwe before being extradit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1997 In Papua New Guinea
Events January * January 1 – The Emergency Alert System is introduced in the United States. * January 11 – Turkey threatens Cyprus on account of a deal to buy Russian S-300 missiles, prompting the Cypriot Missile Crisis. * January 16 – Murder of Ennis Cosby: Near Interstate 405 (California) on a Los Angeles freeway, Bill Cosby's son Ennis is shot in the head in a failed robbery attempt. * January 17 – A Delta II rocket carrying a military GPS payload explodes, shortly after liftoff from Cape Canaveral. * January 18 – In northwest Rwanda, Hutu militia members kill 6 Spanish aid workers and three soldiers, and seriously wound another. * January 19 – Yasser Arafat returns to Hebron after more than 30 years, and joins celebrations over the handover of the last Israeli-controlled West Bank city. (→ Hebron Agreement) * January 23 – Madeleine Albright becomes the first female Secretary of State of the United States, after confirmation by the United States Senate. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Executive Outcomes
Executive Outcomes is a private military company (PMC) founded in South Africa in 1989 by Eeben Barlow, a former lieutenant-colonel of the South African Defence Force. It later became part of the South African-based holding company Strategic Resource Corporation.The Privatisation of Violence: New mercenaries and the state Christopher Wrigley CAAT March 1999 The company was reestablished in 2020. History Background In 1989, following the conclusion of the in |
Julius Chan
Sir Julius Chan (29 August 1939 – 30 January 2025) was a Papua New Guinean politician who served as Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea from 1980 to 1982 and from 1994 to 1997. He was Member of Parliament for New Ireland Province, having won the seat in the 2007 national election. He was also the Governor of New Ireland Province from 2007 until his death in 2025. On 26 May 2019, Prime Minister Peter O'Neill announced he would soon resign and that he wished for Sir Julius to succeed him. An outgoing Prime Minister does not, however, have the power to appoint his successor, and the following day O'Neill delayed his own formal resignation. He was also a leading figure in his country during the years-long Bougainville conflict. Early life Chan was born as the fifth child out of seven children on the Tanga Islands in the Territory of New Guinea, in what is now New Ireland Province, the son of Chan Pak (陳柏), a trader from Taishan, China, and Miriam Tinkoris, a native New Irela ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea, officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is an island country in Oceania that comprises the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and offshore islands in Melanesia, a region of the southwestern Pacific Ocean north of Australia. It has Indonesia–Papua New Guinea border, a land border with Indonesia to the west and neighbours Australia to the south and the Solomon Islands to the east. Its capital, on its southern coast, is Port Moresby. The country is the world's third largest list of island countries, island country, with an area of . The nation was split in the 1880s between German New Guinea in the North and the Territory of Papua, British Territory of Papua in the South, the latter of which was ceded to Australia in 1902. All of present-day Papua New Guinea came under Australian control following World War I, with the legally distinct Territory of New Guinea being established out of the former German colony as a League of Nations mandate. T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aegis Defence Services
Aegis Defence Services is a British private military and private security company with overseas offices in Afghanistan, the United Arab Emirates, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Libya, Somalia and Mozambique. It is part of the Aegis Group of companies, which includes Aegis LLC, which is based in the United States. It was founded in 2002 by Tim Spicer, who was previously CEO of the private military company Sandline International; Jeffrey Day, an entrepreneur; and Mark Bullough and Dominic Armstrong, former investment bankers. It is a founding signatory of the International Code of Conduct for Private Security Providers, inaugurated on 9 November 2010, a 'Swiss government convened, multi-stakeholder initiative that aims to both clarify international standards for the private security industry operating in complex environments, as well as to improve oversight and accountability of these companies.' It was a founding member of the British Association of Private Security Companies (BAPSC), a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
British Army
The British Army is the principal Army, land warfare force of the United Kingdom. the British Army comprises 73,847 regular full-time personnel, 4,127 Brigade of Gurkhas, Gurkhas, 25,742 Army Reserve (United Kingdom), volunteer reserve personnel and 4,697 "other personnel", for a total of 108,413. The British Army traces back to 1707 and the Acts of Union 1707, formation of the united Kingdom of Great Britain which joined the Kingdoms of Kingdom of England, England and Kingdom of Scotland, Scotland into a Political union, single state and, with that, united the English Army and the Scots Army as the British Army. The Parliament of England, English Bill of Rights 1689 and Convention of the Estates, Scottish Claim of Right Act 1689 require parliamentary consent for the Crown to maintain a peacetime standing army. Members of the British Army swear allegiance to the Charles III, monarch as their commander-in-chief. The army is administered by the Ministry of Defence (United Kingd ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mercenary Units And Formations
A mercenary is a private individual who joins an armed conflict for personal profit, is otherwise an outsider to the conflict, and is not a member of any other official military. Mercenaries fight for money or other forms of payment rather than for political interests. Beginning in the 20th century, mercenaries have increasingly come to be seen as less entitled to protection by rules of war than non-mercenaries. The Geneva Conventions declare that mercenaries are not recognized as legitimate combatants and do not have to be granted the same legal protections as captured service personnel of the armed forces. In practice, whether or not a person is a mercenary may be a matter of degree, as financial and political interests may overlap. International and national laws of war Protocol Additional GC 1977 (APGC77) is a 1977 amendment protocol to the Geneva Conventions. Article 47 of the protocol provides the most widely accepted international definition of a mercenary, though ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
