The current Penal Code gives a definition of mercenarism.
On Monday, June 28, 1976, under the zodiac sign of Cancer, an Angolan court sentenced four mercenaries to capital punishment: one American and three British. It should not be forgotten that a year earlier the civil war broke out between the FNLA (The National Front for the Liberation of Angola), the MPLA (Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola) and the UNITA (National Union for the Total Independence of Angola), bloody and where human life was worth less than a quarter of a cassava. Nor that, in November 1975, he began Operation Charlotte. In plain English: Cuban soldiers flew from Havana to Luanda on the Bristol Britannia. The other is history, essays and interpretations.
Twelve days later, on Saturday, July 10, and under the same zodiac sign of Cancer, they were shot. Both Law 62, Penal Code, and Law 151, the current Penal Code that expressly repealed Law 62, give a very similar definition of mercenarism. But both legal architectures construct the same subterfuge, barely visible to those who have little understanding of criminal matters: “…they join military formations, or private military companies, wholly or partially made up of individuals who are not citizens of the State in whose territory they intend to act…”.
The underlining indicates the technical advantage. If the person considered hypothetically as a mercenary joins military formations or private military companies made up of citizens of the State in which he intends to act, he is no longer a mercenary, according to the disclaimer of the syntax itself.
History and ideology weigh on the spirit of the Cuban legislator, and the introduction of this article was not a pure narrative exercise. For them, Carlota’s soldiers consider themselves internationalist combatants, motivated by ideals of solidarity and support for the fight against apartheid in Angola, and integrated into the MPLA; ergo, to the Angolan people. For others, and in short, by receiving remuneration and being under military command, they were nothing more than mercenaries.
