Quote:
Originally Posted by Icelander
At the start, most of the senior security people will have the kind of background that mercenaries in Africa from the 1960s to 1970s and security professionals for mineral and petroleum companies have. The first 'recruits' are about 50% from the US and 50% friends of friends* from the older men, but later recruits skew perhaps 60-70% US citizens. Still, the US military influence on the initial curriculum is probably only about a third, just because the most senior people tend to have served elsewhere.
*Which means former Legionnaires, other French soldiers, British and Commonwealth, ex-Rhodesians and South Africans, etc.
The training takes place in Dominica and St. Lucia, with the formal compound being built in St. Lucia.
First head of the training camp in St. Lucia was Ziggy Wagner, former Waffen-SS and French Foreign Legion, who was old, but still spry in the late 1980s. As Ziggy got older, Archibald Stewart-Calthorpe, former SAS officer with a background in legitimate security contracting work since 1970, took command of the camp in 1991.
Their chief NCO, from 1990, was RSM Joseph Khumalo, lately of the Zimbabwean Army, former Selous Scout and Rhodesian African Rifles. In fact, at age 76 in 2018, Khumalo still trains people from his home in Dominica, along with sons, sons-in-law, grandsons and any number of other relatives.
The instructors were a mix of former Legionnaires, Selous Scouts, Vietnam vets and others.
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Well, the good news is that people who can take people apart with clubs and knives are not hard to find in any place with a lot of work in the field or bush and without powerful, trusted police forces. So you have a lot of room to chose something cool (or that you can find sources on), it all depends on who knew whom and what martial arts made the people organizing this course say "hello, I would like to learn more" and what made them say "that is cool but too different from what I do/she just can't make the transition to teaching foreign soldiers who have never handled a cutlass before."
Edit: I would expect some pretty heavy race prejudice (and allergy to learning indigenous languages) in that founding cohort,
but Draeger and Smith were active in that period, and sometimes adventurers become open-minded.
Da'Mon Stith does some research into indigenous African martial arts but that and the one video from Hati are literally as close as I can go.