Lionel Dyck (Edrea du Toit)
- Lionel Dyck, once the epitome of the modern-day mercenary, died at the age of 80 in Cape Town last week, after a cancer battle.
- He fought against Zimbabwean revolutionary armies in the 1970s, and worked with the new government after 1980.
- After retiring from the Zimbabwean army, he founded a demining firm and ventured into private military contract work, most notably in Mozambique.
Zimbabwean-born military contractor Lionel Dyck lost his battle to cancer last week at his farm in Cape Town, South Africa, at the age of 80.
Dyck was deeply embroiled in the bloody independence struggle in Zimbabwe, then in the integration of Zimbabwe's military after independence, and later in armed action in Mozambique.
During peacetime, hisDyck Advisory Group (DAG)was involved in demining, explosive hazard management, specialised security, canine services, and counter-poaching throughout the Southern African region.
Fighting black nationalism
Born in January 1944, Dyck was educated at then all-white Umtali Boys High (now Mutare Boys High) in what is now Zimbabwe's third largest city, Mutare, in Manicaland province, bordering Mozambique.
Accordingtoafamilynotesentuponhisdeath,heexperiencedhisfirsttasteofmilitarylifein1961whenheenlistedinthe Rhodesian LightInfantry.
That's the year Rhodesia formulated a constitution that favoured white minority rule, leading to the rise of black resistance movements that gave birth to Zanu and Zapu in the early 1960s.
Dyck would later be moved to the "internal affairs" group that came to be known as the Central Intelligence Organisation, which spied on black nationalist movements.
In 1976, at the height of the liberation struggle, Dyck moved to the Rhodesian African Rifles (RAR) and fought to defend the government throughout the war, until black majority rule was established in 1980.
Trusted by Mugabe
At independence, Dyck was asked to stay on by then-prime minister Robert Mugabe to help integrate RAR and the two guerilla armies, the Zimbabwe People's Revolutionary Army (ZPRA), trained by the Soviets and Cubans, and the Chinese-trained Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army (Zanla) into a professional military unit.
In one historical account, Dyck is quoted saying:
"I just wanted to be a soldier and do my job well. I did not care about the colour of the government."
There's also a legend shared by those who were in the army with him in the 1980s that Dyck once had a lion for a pet.
In 2015,Major General Bob Hodges, the inaugural commandant of theZimbabweArmy Staff said:
"Dyck was a one off. He was an extrovert. I don't think he was a psychopath but he was going towards it because he was an absolute killing machine on the battlefield."
The early years after independence saw clashes between ZPRA and Zanla, particularly in 1980 and 1981 in Bulawayo, when ZPRA forces were on the brink of pushing Zanla from the city.
Historical accounts included in books such as The Kevin Woods Story: in the Shadow of Mugabe's Gallows holdthat Dyck's RAR stopped the clashes. Some say his preference for Zanla led to his closer ties with Mugabe, as well as his association with current President Emmerson Mnangagwa.
During the four-dayEntumbane battle between ZPRA and ZANLA in 1981, his unit put down an uprising through what was described as "several personal acts of conspicuous gallantry."
Mugabe would later honour Dyck with the Silver Cross of Zimbabwe.
Dyck became a training instructor, and was also integral in the ZNA's response to the Renamo insurgency in Mozambique, before retiring from the army in 1990.
Like many former Rhodesian soldiers before him, Dyck settled in South Africa.
The face of mercenary business
Just a year before leaving the army, he was one of the founders of a United Kingdom-registered firm MineTech International, which expanded to become one of the world's leading providers of explosive ordnance disposal, specialised security dog services, and demining services.
Dyck became more prominent for his Dyck Advisory Group (DAG), founded in 2012, and was at times the face of the modern-day mercenary that functions as a business through deals with governments.
Dyck later returned to Mozambique to fight Islamic extremists in Cabo Delgado.
In interviews in 2021, Dyck called for help in Mozambique where his band of mercenaries were"not counting bodies but focusing on the living".
In his appeal, he pleaded for Mozambique to get sufficient troops.
That was his last mercenary mission.
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