From: kwheeler@intellinet.com Date: Wed, 18 Sep 1996 20:08:18 -0500 X-Sender: kwheeler@intellinet.com To: Michelle Thompson <mthompso> Subject: Re: Assassination Politics, is now Mercenarial Stuff
Loosely the term mercenary means one who does a job solely for profit. Technically, as outlined in Article 47 of Protocol I Additional to the Geneva Convention of 1949:
" 2. A mercenary is a person who:
(a) is specially recruited locally or abroad in order to fight in an armed conflict;
(b) does, in fact, take a direct part in the hostilities;
(c) is motivated to take part in the hostilities by the desire for private gain, and, in fact, is promised by or on behalf of a party to the conflict, material compensation substaintially in excess of that promised or paid to combatants of _simliar_ ranks (my added emphasis -KMW) and functions in the armed forces of that party;
(d) is neither a national of a party to the conflict nor a resident of terrritory controlled by a part to the conflict;
(e) is not a memeber of the armed forces of a party to the conflict; "
The foreign legions of France, Spain, and Libya are considered to be part of the armed forces of those nations, and therefore, strictly speaking, personnel enlisted in these forces are _not_ mercenaries.
I had to go dig that info up to see if I had remembered things somewhat correctly...
-K