User:Javij-s/Mercenaries in Post Colonial Africa/RQWill Peer Review

General info

 * Whose work are you reviewing?

Javij-s


 * Link to draft you're reviewing

User:Javij-s/Mercenaries in Post Colonial Africa


 * Link to the current version of the article (if it exists)

N/A



Evaluate the drafted changes
(Compose a detailed peer review here, considering each of the key aspects listed above if it is relevant. Consider the guiding questions, and check out the examples of what feedback looks like.)

General Feedback
I thought that this was a really well-written article. I have a few broad suggestions that I think might improve this article. First, I think it would be better to stipulate a specific time frame rather than just "Post-Colonial." I'm not aware of any widely accepted definition of when this period begins/ends (especially since African countries didn't gain independence all at the same time), so I think just going from 1960-present might be easier. Second, I think you should definitely work on finding and including specific accounts of mercenary involvement in Africa. This draft does a good job of providing a qualitative overview of such activities, but is missing the supporting details of specific incidents that would make this a truly great Wikipedia article.

This article definitely addresses an equity gap on Wikipedia, as it does a great job of summarizing unofficial military involvement by (neo-)colonial powers in Africa.

Lead/Summary
As it stands currently, I think your "Summary" section is too long and specific relative to the rest of the article. I would cut it down to a few sentences naming the types of mercenary intervention, their legality, and the timeframe you're working within. Moreover, at present this section contains information not present in the rest of the article, so I would recommend either restating that information later or moving it entirely. Additionally, I noticed that you use phrases like "mainly," "many other," "oftentimes," "mostly," and "most African governments" here and throughout the rest of the draft. From the training modules I understand that we aren't supposed to be using language like this, so I would recommend either dropping those sections entirely or adding specificity (e.g. which African governments have expressed their opposition to foreign mercenary groups operating in their country).

A few smaller changes: I would add as many wikipage links as you can (i.e. for PMCs) - I know I definitely have to do this for my page and I think it would really strengthen yours. It's also unclear what the source is for your claim that most African governments oppose the operation of PMCs. I'm assuming its from the OAU legislation, but if so I would make this more explicit. Additionally, I think you usually want to put the abbreviation of an organization's name in parentheses after the full spelling, not the other way around.

Mercenaries as Actors for Former Colonial Powers
Overall, I think this is a pretty good section. However, I don't think language like "can be considered an extension..." or "were seen as a vital way ..." is appropriate for an encyclopedia-type article. Instead, I would say something like "mercenary groups acted as an extension/in the interests of of __ in ___ (citation)." Moreover, the second half of this section seems to be lacking some citations. Also, I would make "African independence movement" plural or somehow refer to the fact that not all countries got independence at the same time for the same reasons, as this could influence the likelihood of mercenaries operating in a country and their goals there. However, this seems to be a good way to categorize mercenary groups operating in Africa during this period, and overall I think this section provides a good overview of these groups and a good springboard for future editors.

Mercenaries as Cold War Actors
I think that this section could also benefit from some more specificity and a few concrete examples from more current sources. As it stands right now, it seems as though your primary source for this section was written in 1980. While that is certainly current to that time period, I think that this section could benefit from a source that has the benefits of all the subsequent investigations and declassifications that seem to have occurred since the end of the Cold War (the first chapter of this book might be a good source: https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt18fs91v, and also seems to deal with the legality question at length).

Mercenaries and Multinational Corporations
I think this section really needs a concrete example for it to work. While you do a great job of covering the PMCs' business model, there's nothing here that explicitly links this model to Africa during the post-colonial period. This also undermines your claim later in this section about public opinion towards PMCs operating on the continent. Also, I would be careful about making sweeping claims like "this is why public opinion is so negative" without providing specific and current public opinion polls asking similarly-worded questions to back that claim up.

Legality of Mercenary Actions
I thought that this was a really good section to add. A few notes: I would not use language like "important nations," would find a source for the "take the teeth out of the treaty" claim and drop "essentially" from that section, and would definitely find a more current source for the "turning a blind eye" claim.

Tone and Balance
I thought that this article struck a very balanced tone for such a fraught topic. That said, I would suggest adding section dealing with mercenaries operating in Africa that were employed by other African countries specifically (i.e. South Africa). At present, it seems like a big hole in the article and might give readers a skewed perception of the true scope of mercenary activity on the continent. Additionally, I think this article just needs to lower the amount of generalizations its making (most of which I have identified above).

Sources and References
While the sources used here seem to be very reliable and balanced, I would definitely look for more current sources that take advantage of the post-Cold War declassifications and investigations, as I'm not sure that the current list of sources represents all available information on the topic. I would also appreciate links for the Michaud, Washington Post, and Ward sources, and you should move the references section to its own "Heading" section (so that it doesn't show up under the main section in the table of contents).

Organization
I thought that this article was well-organized and will provide a great framework for future editors to work with.

Peer Review Response
Thank you so much for your feedback! I agree with your points about the neutrality of the language, changing my writing style for a typical essay to this has been a challenge that I will continue to work on. I hope to find more sources, your idea to go look at declassified documents is a very good one, and thank you so much for providing an additional possible source. It has been surprisingly difficult to find sources on mercenary actions in general, which has made me think that I should look at individual case studies, as it might be easier to find information that way. I will definitely add a section on the African mercenaries employed by other African nations, as that is a huge aspect of the topic.