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Pretoria - Officials in Ivory Coast have been told to investigate reports that South African mercenaries have been hired by Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo, a foreign ministry spokesperson said on Thursday.
"We have seen reports of this alleged activity by South Africans and have instructed our officials in the Ivory Coast to look into the matter," spokesperson Nomfanelo Kota told journalists.
"Certainly the South African government has not sanctioned any such activity," she added.
ISS
The Pretoria-based Institute for Security Studies said on Tuesday several dozen South African mercenaries had been hired by Gbagbo to help him put down a rebellion that broke out last month.
"Forty of them arrived in Abidjan last Thursday and about 160 are meant to follow," ISS analyst John Tuma said.
"On the face of it they are there to protect the president, but the sheer number suggests that there may be more to it than that."
Kota said the government "had very little information to hand" about the alleged presence of South African fighters in the west African state.
"We are relying on our people there and our people on the (foreign) desk here to inform us," she said.
SA source of soldiers of fortune
During the apartheid era, South Africa was a well-known source of soldiers of fortune, most of them former members of the apartheid military.
They were involved in conflicts including those in Angola and Sierre Leone and were taken on by governments, rebel movements and private companies with financial interests like oil and diamonds, to protect them in the strife-torn countries.
But in 1998 the government approved a law banning all mercenary activity and it forced the country's most famous outfit of "security and military advisors", Executive Outcomes, to shut its doors.
Executive Outcomes
On Thursday the company's former sole shareholder, Nico Palm, denied rumours that it had dispatched men to help Gbagbo.
Palm said Executive Outcomes ceased operations on December 31, 1998, and has not reopened, although a copycat company might be operating under the same name out of Angola.
"Neither the ex-chairman nor myself have activated the company or given permission for Executive Outcomes to be used as a vehicle for any activities," he said in a statement to the local SAPA news agency.
"The name of Executive Outcomes is therefore being used in a totally fraudulent manner," he said. - Sapa-AFP