Guns for Hire
The Guns for Hire podcast is a production of the Atlantic Council’s North Africa Initiative. Taking Libya as its starting point, it explores the causes and implications of the growing use of mercenaries in armed conflict. The podcast features guests from many walks of life, from ethicists and historians to former mercenary fighters. It seeks to understand what the normalisation of private warfare tells us about the world as we currently find it, but also about the future of the international system and about what war could look like in the coming decades. Written and hosted by Dr Alia Brahimi.
Guns for Hire
What makes Colombian mercenaries so interesting?
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Season 2
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Episode 2
Host Alia Brahimi speaks with Dr Andrés Macías, a Bogota-based expert on Colombian mercenaries. They begin by discussing the explosive case of 26 Colombian nationals arrested for their part in the 2021 assassination of Haitian president Jovenel Moïse. Andrés goes on to look at the thousands of Colombians who enlist under the banner of the UAE, what’s driving hundreds of Colombians to sign up to fight Russia in Ukraine, and what makes former Colombian soldiers so interesting to the international private security market.
“What is the Colombian government doing with the huge number of veterans that we have had throughout the years? Because actually, we don’t know so much about what they are doing, what activities they are performing, and what is their status.”
The Guns for Hire podcast is written, produced and hosted by Dr Alia Brahimi.
