They are, to use his phrase, mercenaries.

ba7rainiDXB A woman is being beaten right in the middle of the capital Manama by Bahrain gov mercs.

Mercenaries from Africa had also been recruited to work in countries outside the region, such as Iraq.

Some were killed after being falsely targeted as mercenaries (largely owing to the color of their skin).

Similarly, mercenaries exported from the former Soviet States haunted many parts of Africa and the Middle East.

Whether competent technocrats, or as has happened in the past, party hacks are appointed to the ministries will be a telling sign.

The cap is in place as some fear the army's British character is being diluted, and employing too many could make the army seen as employing mercenaries.

In all these cases, authorities have responded with repression, including the hiring of plain clothes militias to kidnap or beat up people who attempt to publicize problems.

In Zimbabwe, charges had been brought against mercenaries for attempting to procure weapons in breach of the law, as well as lesser charges of entering into a State's territory unlawfully or breaching civil aviation rules.

In 1992, he commanded a military base in an Amazon village where coca leaf was grown and where Sendero Luminoso guerrillas and drug trafficking bands worked together.

Online, many refer to the Bahrain police forces as mercenaries in reference to the foreign security forces and riot police from other countries brought in to crush the unrest in the country.

It was the view of the Special Rapporteur that national legislation needed to be strengthened, and she was working on model legislation, as well as drawing up a code of conduct for bona fide private companies working in areas of conflict who wished to avoid being prosecuted as mercenary companies.

Major factors which had led many Africans to choose to be mercenaries relate to military downsizing, coupled with poor disarmament, demobilization and reintegration (DDR) processes, set against a background of a low level of development and employment opportunities.

The first adds committing an attack against the life, integrity or security of persons or committing terrorist acts the second adds denying of self determination or maintaining racist regimes or foreign occupation

10. Calls upon States to investigate the possibility of mercenary involvement whenever and wherever criminal acts of a terrorist nature occur and to bring to trial those found responsible or to consider their extradition, if so requested, in accordance with domestic law and applicable bilateral or international treaties

Recognizing that mercenary activities continue to increase in many parts of the world and take on new forms, permitting mercenaries to operate in a better organized way, with increased pay, and that their numbers have grown and more persons are prepared to become mercenaries,

Nevertheless, the experts were agreed that all individuals who took part in hostilities were obliged to respect, and at a minimum are protected by the fundamental guarantees of international humanitarian law, irrespective of whether they were considered mercenaries or members of private companies.

They should abstain from any use of force and also from any encouragement of the use of violence by parties to group conflicts in other States, and should take all necessary measures to prevent incursion by any armed group or mercenaries into other States in order to participate in group conflicts.